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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14851 ***
+
+[Transcriber's note: The spelling inconsistencies of the original have
+been retained in this etext.]
+
+
+
+UNCLE SILAS
+
+A Tale of Bartram-Haugh
+
+By J. S. LeFanu
+
+1899
+
+
+
+TO
+THE RIGHT HON.
+THE COUNTESS OF GIFFORD,
+AS A TOKEN OF
+RESPECT, SYMPATHY, AND ADMIRATION
+_This Tale_
+IS INSCRIBED BY
+THE AUTHOR
+
+
+
+
+_A PRELIMINARY WORD_
+
+The writer of this Tale ventures, in his own person, to address a very few
+words, chiefly of explanation, to his readers. A leading situation in this
+'Story of Bartram-Haugh' is repeated, with a slight variation, from a short
+magazine tale of some fifteen pages written by him, and published long ago
+in a periodical under the title of 'A Passage in the Secret History of an
+Irish Countess,' and afterwards, still anonymously, in a small volume under
+an altered title. It is very unlikely that any of his readers should have
+encountered, and still more so that they should remember, this trifle. The
+bare possibility, however, he has ventured to anticipate by this brief
+explanation, lest he should be charged with plagiarism--always a disrespect
+to a reader.
+
+May he be permitted a few words also of remonstrance against the
+promiscuous application of the term 'sensation' to that large school of
+fiction which transgresses no one of those canons of construction and
+morality which, in producing the unapproachable 'Waverley Novels,' their
+great author imposed upon himself? No one, it is assumed, would describe
+Sir Walter Scott's romances as 'sensation novels;' yet in that marvellous
+series there is not a single tale in which death, crime, and, in some form,
+mystery, have not a place.
+
+Passing by those grand romances of 'Ivanhoe,' 'Old Mortality,' and
+'Kenilworth,' with their terrible intricacies of crime and bloodshed,
+constructed with so fine a mastery of the art of exciting suspense and
+horror, let the reader pick out those two exceptional novels in the series
+which profess to paint contemporary manners and the scenes of common life;
+and remembering in the 'Antiquary' the vision in the tapestried chamber,
+the duel, the horrible secret, and the death of old Elspeth, the drowned
+fisherman, and above all the tremendous situation of the tide-bound party
+under the cliffs; and in 'St. Ronan's Well,' the long-drawn mystery, the
+suspicion of insanity, and the catastrophe of suicide;--determine whether
+an epithet which it would be a profanation to apply to the structure of
+any, even the most exciting of Sir Walter Scott's stories, is fairly
+applicable to tales which, though illimitably inferior in execution, yet
+observe the same limitations of incident, and the same moral aims.
+
+The author trusts that the Press, to whose masterly criticism and generous
+encouragement he and other humble labourers in the art owe so much, will
+insist upon the limitation of that degrading term to the peculiar type of
+fiction which it was originally intended to indicate, and prevent, as they
+may, its being made to include the legitimate school of tragic English
+romance, which has been ennobled, and in great measure founded, by the
+genius of Sir Walter Scott.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER
+
+I. AUSTIN RUTHYN, OF KNOWL, AND HIS DAUGHTER
+
+II. UNCLE SILAS
+
+III. A NEW FACE
+
+IV. MADAME DE LA ROUGIERRE
+
+V. SIGHTS AND NOISES
+
+VI. A WALK IN THE WOOD
+
+VII. CHURCH SCARSDALE
+
+VIII. THE SMOKER
+
+IX. MONICA KNOLLYS
+
+X. LADY KNOLLYS REMOVES A COVERLET
+
+XI. LADY KNOLLYS SEES THE FEATURES
+
+XII. A CURIOUS CONVERSATION
+
+XIII. BEFORE AND AFTER BREAKFAST
+
+XIV. ANGRY WORDS
+
+XV. A WARNING
+
+XVI. DOCTOR BRYERLY LOOKS IN
+
+XVII. AN ADVENTURE
+
+XVIII. A MIDNIGHT VISITOR
+
+XIX. AU REVOIR
+
+XX. AUSTIN RUTHYN SETS OUT ON HIS JOURNEY
+
+XXI. ARRIVALS
+
+XXII. SOMEBODY IN THE ROOM WITH THE COFFIN
+
+XXIII. I TALK WITH DOCTOR BRYERLY
+
+XXIV. THE OPENING OF THE WILL
+
+XXV. I HEAR FROM UNCLE SILAS
+
+XXVI. THE STORY OF UNCLE SILAS
+
+XXVII. MORE ABOUT TOM CHARKE'S SUICIDE
+
+XXVIII. I AM PERSUADED
+
+XXIX. HOW THE AMBASSADOR FARED
+
+XXX. ON THE ROAD
+
+XXXI. BARTRAM-HAUGH
+
+XXXII. UNCLE SILAS
+
+XXXIII. THE WINDMILL WOOD
+
+XXXIV. ZAMIEL
+
+XXXV. WE VISIT A ROOM IN THE SECOND STOREY
+
+XXXVI. AN ARRIVAL AT DEAD OF NIGHT
+
+XXXVII. DOCTOR BRYERLY EMERGES
+
+XXXVIII. A MIDNIGHT DEPARTURE
+
+XXXIX. COUSIN MONICA AND UNCLE SILAS MEET
+
+XL. IN WHICH I MAKE ANOTHER COUSIN'S ACQUAINTANCE
+
+XLI. MY COUSIN DUDLEY
+
+XLII. ELVERSTON AND ITS PEOPLE
+
+XLIII. NEWS AT BARTRAM GATE
+
+XLIV. A FRIEND ARISES
+
+XLV. A CHAPTER-FULL OF LOVERS
+
+XLVI. THE RIVALS
+
+XLVII. DOCTOR BRYERLY REAPPEARS
+
+XLVIII. QUESTION AND ANSWER
+
+XLIX. AN APPARITION
+
+L. MILLY'S FAREWELL
+
+LI. SARAH MATILDA COMES TO LIGHT
+
+LII. THE PICTURE OF A WOLF
+
+LIII. AN ODD PROPOSAL
+
+LIV. IN SEARCH OF MR. CHARKE'S SKELETON
+
+LV. THE FOOT OF HERCULES
+
+LVI. I CONSPIRE
+
+LVII. THE LETTER
+
+LVIII. LADY KNOLLYS' CARRIAGE
+
+LIX. A SUDDEN DEPARTURE
+
+LX. THE JOURNEY
+
+LXI. OUR BED-CHAMBER
+
+LXII. A WELL-KNOWN FACE LOOKS IN
+
+LXIII. SPICED CLARET
+
+LXIV. THE HOUR OF DEATH
+
+LXV. IN THE OAK PARLOUR
+
+CONCLUSION
+
+
+
+
+UNCLE SILAS
+
+A Tale of Bartram-Haugh
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+_AUSTIN RUTHYN, OF KNOWL, AND HIS DAUGHTER_
+
+
+It was winter--that is, about the second week in November--and great gusts
+were rattling at the windows, and wailing and thundering among our tall
+trees and ivied chimneys--a very dark night, and a very cheerful fire
+blazing, a pleasant mixture of good round coal and spluttering dry wood, in
+a genuine old fireplace, in a sombre old room. Black wainscoting glimmered
+up to the ceiling, in small ebony panels; a cheerful clump of wax candles
+on the tea-table; many old portraits, some grim and pale, others pretty,
+and some very graceful and charming, hanging from the walls. Few pictures,
+except portraits long and short, were there. On the whole, I think you
+would have taken the room for our parlour. It was not like our modern
+notion of a drawing-room. It was a long room too, and every way capacious,
+but irregularly shaped.
+
+A girl, of a little more than seventeen, looking, I believe, younger still;
+slight and rather tall, with a great deal of golden hair, dark grey-eyed,
+and with a countenance rather sensitive and melancholy, was sitting at the
+tea-table, in a reverie. I was that girl.
+
+The only other person in the room--the only person in the house related to
+me--was my father. He was Mr. Ruthyn, of Knowl, so called in his county,
+but he had many other places, was of a very ancient lineage, who had
+refused a baronetage often, and it was said even a viscounty, being of a
+proud and defiant spirit, and thinking themselves higher in station and
+purer of blood than two-thirds of the nobility into whose ranks, it was
+said, they had been invited to enter. Of all this family lore I knew but
+little and vaguely; only what is to be gathered from the fireside talk of
+old retainers in the nursery.
+
+I am sure my father loved me, and I know I loved him. With the sure
+instinct of childhood I apprehended his tenderness, although it was never
+expressed in common ways. But my father was an oddity. He had been early
+disappointed in Parliament, where it was his ambition to succeed. Though a
+clever man, he failed there, where very inferior men did extremely well.
+Then he went abroad, and became a connoisseur and a collector; took a part,
+on his return, in literary and scientific institutions, and also in the
+foundation and direction of some charities. But he tired of this mimic
+government, and gave himself up to a country life, not that of a sportsman,
+but rather of a student, staying sometimes at one of his places and
+sometimes at another, and living a secluded life.
+
+Rather late in life he married, and his beautiful young wife died, leaving
+me, their only child, to his care. This bereavement, I have been told,
+changed him--made him more odd and taciturn than ever, and his temper also,
+except to me, more severe. There was also some disgrace about his younger
+brother--my uncle Silas--which he felt bitterly.
+
+He was now walking up and down this spacious old room, which, extending
+round an angle at the far end, was very dark in that quarter. It was his
+wont to walk up and down thus, without speaking--an exercise which used to
+remind me of Chateaubriand's father in the great chamber of the Château
+de Combourg. At the far end he nearly disappeared in the gloom, and then
+returning emerged for a few minutes, like a portrait with a background of
+shadow, and then again in silence faded nearly out of view.
+
+This monotony and silence would have been terrifying to a person less
+accustomed to it than I. As it was, it had its effect. I have known my
+father a whole day without once speaking to me. Though I loved him very
+much, I was also much in awe of him.
+
+While my father paced the floor, my thoughts were employed about the events
+of a month before. So few things happened at Knowl out of the accustomed
+routine, that a very trifling occurrence was enough to set people wondering
+and conjecturing in that serene household. My father lived in remarkable
+seclusion; except for a ride, he hardly ever left the grounds of Knowl; and
+I don't think it happened twice in the year that a visitor sojourned among
+us.
+
+There was not even that mild religious bustle which sometimes besets the
+wealthy and moral recluse. My father had left the Church of England for
+some odd sect, I forget its name, and ultimately became, I was told, a
+Swedenborgian. But he did not care to trouble me upon the subject. So the
+old carriage brought my governess, when I had one, the old housekeeper,
+Mrs. Rusk, and myself to the parish church every Sunday. And my father, in
+the view of the honest rector who shook his head over him--'a cloud without
+water, carried about of winds, and a wandering star to whom is reserved the
+blackness of darkness'--corresponded with the 'minister' of his church, and
+was provokingly contented with his own fertility and illumination; and
+Mrs. Rusk, who was a sound and bitter churchwoman, said he fancied he saw
+visions and talked with angels like the rest of that 'rubbitch.'
+
+I don't know that she had any better foundation than analogy and conjecture
+for charging my father with supernatural pretensions; and in all points
+when her orthodoxy was not concerned, she loved her master and was a loyal
+housekeeper.
+
+I found her one morning superintending preparations for the reception of
+a visitor, in the hunting-room it was called, from the pieces of tapestry
+that covered its walls, representing scenes _à la Wouvermans_, of falconry,
+and the chase, dogs, hawks, ladies, gallants, and pages. In the midst of
+whom Mrs. Rusk, in black silk, was rummaging drawers, counting linen, and
+issuing orders.
+
+'Who is coming, Mrs. Rusk?'
+
+Well, she only knew his name. It was a Mr. Bryerly. My papa expected him to
+dinner, and to stay for some days.
+
+'I guess he's one of those creatures, dear, for I mentioned his name just
+to Dr. Clay (the rector), and he says there _is_ a Doctor Bryerly, a great
+conjurer among the Swedenborg sect--and that's him, I do suppose.'
+
+In my hazy notions of these sectaries there was mingled a suspicion of
+necromancy, and a weird freemasonry, that inspired something of awe and
+antipathy.
+
+Mr. Bryerly arrived time enough to dress at his leisure, before dinner. He
+entered the drawing-room--a tall, lean man, all in ungainly black, with a
+white choker, with either a black wig, or black hair dressed in imitation
+of one, a pair of spectacles, and a dark, sharp, short visage, rubbing his
+large hands together, and with a short brisk nod to me, whom he plainly
+regarded merely as a child, he sat down before the fire, crossed his legs,
+and took up a magazine.
+
+This treatment was mortifying, and I remember very well the resentment of
+which _he_ was quite unconscious.
+
+His stay was not very long; not one of us divined the object of his visit,
+and he did not prepossess us favourably. He seemed restless, as men of busy
+habits do in country houses, and took walks, and a drive, and read in the
+library, and wrote half a dozen letters.
+
+His bed-room and dressing-room were at the side of the gallery, directly
+opposite to my father's, which had a sort of ante-room _en suite_, in which
+were some of his theological books.
+
+The day after Mr. Bryerly's arrival, I was about to see whether my father's
+water caraffe and glass had been duly laid on the table in this ante-room,
+and in doubt whether he was there, I knocked at the door.
+
+I suppose they were too intent on other matters to hear, but receiving no
+answer, I entered the room. My father was sitting in his chair, with his
+coat and waistcoat off, Mr. Bryerly kneeling on a stool beside him, rather
+facing him, his black scratch wig leaning close to my father's grizzled
+hair. There was a large tome of their divinity lore, I suppose, open on
+the table close by. The lank black figure of Mr. Bryerly stood up, and he
+concealed something quickly in the breast of his coat.
+
+My father stood up also, looking paler, I think, than I ever saw him till
+then, and he pointed grimly to the door, and said, 'Go.'
+
+Mr. Bryerly pushed me gently back with his hands to my shoulders, and
+smiled down from his dark features with an expression quite unintelligible
+to me.
+
+I had recovered myself in a second, and withdrew without a word. The last
+thing I saw at the door was the tall, slim figure in black, and the dark,
+significant smile following me: and then the door was shut and locked, and
+the two Swedenborgians were left to their mysteries.
+
+I remember so well the kind of shock and disgust I felt in the certainty
+that I had surprised them at some, perhaps, debasing incantation--a
+suspicion of this Mr. Bryerly, of the ill-fitting black coat, and white
+choker--and a sort of fear came upon me, and I fancied he was asserting
+some kind of mastery over my father, which very much alarmed me.
+
+I fancied all sorts of dangers in the enigmatical smile of the lank
+high-priest. The image of my father, as I had seen him, it might be,
+confessing to this man in black, who was I knew not what, haunted me with
+the disagreeable uncertainties of a mind very uninstructed as to the limits
+of the marvellous.
+
+I mentioned it to no one. But I was immensely relieved when the sinister
+visitor took his departure the morning after, and it was upon this
+occurrence that my mind was now employed.
+
+Some one said that Dr. Johnson resembled a ghost, who must be spoken to
+before it will speak. But my father, in whatever else he may have resembled
+a ghost, did not in that particular; for no one but I in his household--and
+I very seldom--dared to address him until first addressed by him. I had no
+notion how singular this was until I began to go out a little among friends
+and relations, and found no such rule in force anywhere else.
+
+As I leaned back in my chair thinking, this phantasm of my father came, and
+turned, and vanished with a solemn regularity. It was a peculiar figure,
+strongly made, thick-set, with a face large, and very stern; he wore a
+loose, black velvet coat and waistcoat. It was, however, the figure of an
+elderly rather than an old man--though he was then past seventy--but firm,
+and with no sign of feebleness.
+
+I remember the start with which, not suspecting that he was close by me, I
+lifted my eyes, and saw that large, rugged countenance looking fixedly on
+me, from less than a yard away.
+
+After I saw him, he continued to regard me for a second or two; and then,
+taking one of the heavy candlesticks in his gnarled hand, he beckoned me to
+follow him; which, in silence and wondering, I accordingly did.
+
+He led me across the hall, where there were lights burning, and into a
+lobby by the foot of the back stairs, and so into his library.
+
+It is a long, narrow room, with two tall, slim windows at the far end, now
+draped in dark curtains. Dusky it was with but one candle; and he paused
+near the door, at the left-hand side of which stood, in those days, an
+old-fashioned press or cabinet of carved oak. In front of this he stopped.
+
+He had odd, absent ways, and talked more to himself, I believe, than to all
+the rest of the world put together.
+
+'She won't understand,' he whispered, looking at me enquiringly. 'No, she
+won't. _Will_ she?'
+
+Then there was a pause, during which he brought forth from his breast
+pocket a small bunch of some half-dozen keys, on one of which he looked
+frowningly, every now and then balancing it a little before his eyes,
+between his finger and thumb, as he deliberated.
+
+I knew him too well, of course, to interpose a word.
+
+'They are easily frightened--ay, they are. I'd better do it another way.'
+
+And pausing, he looked in my face as he might upon a picture.
+
+'They _are_--yes--I had better do it another way--another way; yes--and
+she'll not suspect--she'll not suppose.'
+
+Then he looked steadfastly upon the key, and from it to me, suddenly
+lifting it up, and said abruptly, 'See, child,' and, after a second or two,
+'_Remember_ this key.'
+
+It was oddly shaped, and unlike others.
+
+'Yes, sir.' I always called him 'sir.'
+
+'It opens that,' and he tapped it sharply on the door of the cabinet. 'In
+the daytime it is always here,' at which word he dropped it into his pocket
+again. 'You see?--and at night under my pillow--you hear me?'
+
+'Yes, sir.'
+
+'You won't forget this cabinet--oak--next the door--on your left--you won't
+forget?'
+
+'No, sir.'
+
+'Pity she's a girl, and so young--ay, a girl, and so young--no
+sense--giddy. You say, you'll _remember_?'
+
+'Yes, sir.'
+
+'It behoves you.'
+
+He turned round and looked full upon me, like a man who has taken a sudden
+resolution; and I think for a moment he had made up his mind to tell me a
+great deal more. But if so, he changed it again; and after another pause,
+he said slowly and sternly--'You will tell nobody what I have said, under
+pain of my displeasure.'
+
+'Oh! no, sir!'
+
+'Good child!'
+
+'_Except_,' he resumed, 'under one contingency; that is, in case I should
+be absent, and Dr. Bryerly--you recollect the thin gentleman, in spectacles
+and a black wig, who spent three days here last month--should come and
+enquire for the key, you understand, in my absence.'
+
+'Yes, sir.'
+
+So he kissed me on the forehead, and said--
+
+'Let us return.'
+
+Which, accordingly, we did, in silence; the storm outside, like a dirge on
+a great organ, accompanying our flitting.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+_UNCLE SILAS_
+
+
+When we reached the drawing-room, I resumed my chair, and my father his
+slow and regular walk to and fro, in the great room. Perhaps it was the
+uproar of the wind that disturbed the ordinary tenor of his thoughts; but,
+whatever was the cause, certainly he was unusually talkative that night.
+
+After an interval of nearly half an hour, he drew near again, and sat down
+in a high-backed arm-chair, beside the fire, and nearly opposite to me, and
+looked at me steadfastly for some time, as was his wont, before speaking;
+and said he--
+
+'This won't do--you must have a governess.'
+
+In cases of this kind I merely set down my book or work, as it might be,
+and adjusted myself to listen without speaking.
+
+'Your French is pretty well, and your Italian; but you have no German.
+Your music may be pretty good--I'm no judge--but your drawing might be
+better--yes--yes. I believe there are accomplished ladies--finishing
+governesses, they call them--who undertake more than any one teacher would
+have professed in my time, and do very well. She can prepare you, and
+next winter, then, you shall visit France and Italy, where you may be
+accomplished as highly as you please.'
+
+'Thank you, sir.'
+
+'You shall. It is nearly six months since Miss Ellerton left you--too long
+without a teacher.'
+
+Then followed an interval.
+
+'Dr. Bryerly will ask you about that key, and what it opens; you show all
+that to _him_, and no one else.'
+
+'But,' I said, for I had a great terror of disobeying him in ever so minute
+a matter, 'you will then be absent, sir--how am I to find the key?'
+
+He smiled on me suddenly--a bright but wintry smile--it seldom came, and
+was very transitory, and kindly though mysterious.
+
+'True, child; I'm glad you are so wise; _that_, you will find, I have
+provided for, and you shall know exactly where to look. You have remarked
+how solitarily I live. You fancy, perhaps, I have not got a friend, and
+you are nearly right--_nearly_, but not altogether. I have a very sure
+friend--_one_--a friend whom I once misunderstood, but now appreciate.'
+
+I wondered silently whether it could be Uncle Silas.
+
+'He'll make me a call, some day soon; I'm not quite sure when. I won't tell
+you his name--you'll hear that soon enough, and I don't want it talked of;
+and I must make a little journey with him. You'll not be afraid of being
+left alone for a time?'
+
+'And have you promised, sir?' I answered, with another question, my
+curiosity and anxiety overcoming my awe. He took my questioning very
+good-humouredly.
+
+'Well--_promise_?--no, child; but I'm under condition; he's not to be
+denied. I must make the excursion with him the moment he calls. I have no
+choice; but, on the whole, I rather like it--remember, I say, I rather
+_like_ it.'
+
+And he smiled again, with the same meaning, that was at once stern and sad.
+The exact purport of these sentences remained fixed in my mind, so that
+even at this distance of time I am quite sure of them.
+
+A person quite unacquainted with my father's habitually abrupt and odd way
+of talking, would have fancied that he was possibly a little disordered in
+his mind. But no such suspicion for a moment troubled me. I was quite sure
+that he spoke of a real person who was coming, and that his journey was
+something momentous; and when the visitor of whom he spoke did come, and he
+departed with him upon that mysterious excursion, I perfectly understood
+his language and his reasons for saying so much and yet so little.
+
+You are not to suppose that all my hours were passed in the sort of
+conference and isolation of which I have just given you a specimen; and
+singular and even awful as were sometimes my _tête-a-têtes_ with my father,
+I had grown so accustomed to his strange ways, and had so unbounded a
+confidence in his affection, that they never depressed or agitated me in
+the manner you might have supposed. I had a great deal of quite a different
+sort of chat with good old Mrs. Rusk, and very pleasant talks with Mary
+Quince, my somewhat ancient maid; and besides all this, I had now and then
+a visit of a week or so at the house of some one of our country neighbours,
+and occasionally a visitor--but this, I must own, very rarely--at Knowl.
+
+There had come now a little pause in my father's revelations, and my fancy
+wandered away upon a flight of discovery. Who, I again thought, could this
+intending visitor be, who was to come, armed with the prerogative to make
+my stay-at-home father forthwith leave his household goods--his books and
+his child--to whom he clung, and set forth on an unknown knight-errantry?
+Who but Uncle Silas, I thought--that mysterious relative whom I had
+never seen--who was, it had in old times been very darkly hinted to me,
+unspeakably unfortunate or unspeakably vicious--whom I had seldom heard my
+father mention, and then in a hurried way, and with a pained, thoughtful
+look. Once only he had said anything from which I could gather my father's
+opinion of him, and then it was so slight and enigmatical that I might have
+filled in the character very nearly as I pleased.
+
+It happened thus. One day Mrs. Rusk was in the oak-room, I being then about
+fourteen. She was removing a stain from a tapestry chair, and I watched the
+process with a childish interest. She sat down to rest herself--she had
+been stooping over her work--and threw her head back, for her neck was
+weary, and in this position she fixed her eyes on a portrait that hung
+before her.
+
+It was a full-length, and represented a singularly handsome young man,
+dark, slender, elegant, in a costume then quite obsolete, though I believe
+it was seen at the beginning of this century--white leather pantaloons and
+top-boots, a buff waistcoat, and a chocolate-coloured coat, and the hair
+long and brushed back.
+
+There was a remarkable elegance and a delicacy in the features, but also a
+character of resolution and ability that quite took the portrait out of the
+category of mere fops or fine men. When people looked at it for the first
+time, I have so often heard the exclamation--'What a wonderfully handsome
+man!' and then, 'What a clever face!' An Italian greyhound stood by him,
+and some slender columns and a rich drapery in the background. But though
+the accessories were of the luxurious sort, and the beauty, as I have said,
+refined, there was a masculine force in that slender oval face, and a fire
+in the large, shadowy eyes, which were very peculiar, and quite redeemed it
+from the suspicion of effeminacy.
+
+'Is not that Uncle Silas?' said I.
+
+'Yes, dear,' answered Mrs. Rusk, looking, with her resolute little face,
+quietly on the portrait.
+
+'He must be a very handsome man, Mrs. Rusk. Don't you think so?' I
+continued.
+
+'He _was_, my dear--yes; but it is forty years since that was painted--the
+date is there in the corner, in the shadow that comes from his foot, and
+forty years, I can tell you, makes a change in most of us;' and Mrs. Rusk
+laughed, in cynical good-humour.
+
+There was a little pause, both still looking on the handsome man in
+top-boots, and I said--
+
+'And why, Mrs. Rusk, is papa always so sad about Uncle Silas?'
+
+'What's that, child?' said my father's voice, very near. I looked round,
+with a start, and flushed and faltered, receding a step from him.
+
+'No harm, dear. You have said nothing wrong,' he said gently, observing
+my alarm. 'You said I was always sad, I think, about Uncle Silas. Well,
+I don't know how you gather that; but if I were, I will now tell you, it
+would not be unnatural. Your uncle is a man of great talents, great faults,
+and great wrongs. His talents have not availed him; his faults are long ago
+repented of; and his wrongs I believe he feels less than I do, but they are
+deep. Did she say any more, madam?' he demanded abruptly of Mrs. Rusk.
+
+'Nothing, sir,' with a stiff little courtesy, answered Mrs. Rusk, who stood
+in awe of him.
+
+'And there is no need, child,' he continued, addressing himself to me,
+'that you should think more of him at present. Clear your head of Uncle
+Silas. One day, perhaps, you will know him--yes, very well--and understand
+how villains have injured him.
+
+Then my father retired, and at the door he said--
+
+'Mrs. Rusk, a word, if you please,' beckoning to that lady, who trotted
+after him to the library.
+
+I think he then laid some injunction upon the housekeeper, which was
+transmitted by her to Mary Quince, for from that time forth I could never
+lead either to talk with me about Uncle Silas. They let me talk on, but
+were reserved and silent themselves, and seemed embarrassed, and Mrs. Rusk
+sometimes pettish and angry, when I pressed for information.
+
+Thus curiosity was piqued; and round the slender portrait in the leather
+pantaloons and top-boots gathered many-coloured circles of mystery, and the
+handsome features seemed to smile down upon my baffled curiosity with a
+provoking significance.
+
+Why is it that this form of ambition--curiosity--which entered into the
+temptation of our first parent, is so specially hard to resist? Knowledge
+is power--and power of one sort or another is the secret lust of human
+souls; and here is, beside the sense of exploration, the undefinable
+interest of a story, and above all, something forbidden, to stimulate the
+contumacious appetite.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+_A NEW FACE_
+
+
+I think it was about a fortnight after that conversation in which my father
+had expressed his opinion, and given me the mysterious charge about the
+old oak cabinet in his library, as already detailed, that I was one night
+sitting at the great drawing-room window, lost in the melancholy reveries
+of night, and in admiration of the moonlighted scene. I was the only
+occupant of the room; and the lights near the fire, at its farther end,
+hardly reached to the window at which I sat.
+
+The shorn grass sloped gently downward from the windows till it met the
+broad level on which stood, in clumps, or solitarily scattered, some of the
+noblest timber in England. Hoar in the moonbeams stood those graceful
+trees casting their moveless shadows upon the grass, and in the background
+crowning the undulations of the distance, in masses, were piled those woods
+among which lay the solitary tomb where the remains of my beloved mother
+rested.
+
+The air was still. The silvery vapour hung serenely on the far horizon,
+and the frosty stars blinked brightly. Everyone knows the effect of such a
+scene on a mind already saddened. Fancies and regrets float mistily in
+the dream, and the scene affects us with a strange mixture of memory and
+anticipation, like some sweet old air heard in the distance. As my eyes
+rested on those, to me, funereal but glorious woods, which formed the
+background of the picture, my thoughts recurred to my father's mysterious
+intimations and the image of the approaching visitor; and the thought of
+the unknown journey saddened me.
+
+In all that concerned his religion, from very early association, there was
+to me something of the unearthly and spectral.
+
+When my dear mamma died I was not nine years old; and I remember, two days
+before the funeral, there came to Knowl, where she died, a thin little man,
+with large black eyes, and a very grave, dark face.
+
+He was shut up a good deal with my dear father, who was in deep affliction;
+and Mrs. Rusk used to say, 'It is rather odd to see him praying with that
+little scarecrow from London, and good Mr. Clay ready at call, in the
+village; much good that little black whipper-snapper will do him!'
+
+With that little black man, on the day after the funeral, I was sent out,
+for some reason, for a walk; my governess was ill, I know, and there was
+confusion in the house, and I dare say the maids made as much of a holiday
+as they could.
+
+I remember feeling a sort of awe of this little dark man; but I was not
+afraid of him, for he was gentle, though sad--and seemed kind. He led me
+into the garden--the Dutch garden, we used to call it--with a balustrade,
+and statues at the farther front, laid out in a carpet-pattern of
+brilliantly-coloured flowers. We came down the broad flight of Caen stone
+steps into this, and we walked in silence to the balustrade. The base was
+too high at the spot where we reached it for me to see over; but holding my
+hand, he said, 'Look through that, my child. Well, you can't; but _I_ can
+see beyond it--shall I tell you what? I see ever so much. I see a cottage
+with a steep roof, that looks like gold in the sunlight; there are tall
+trees throwing soft shadows round it, and flowering shrubs, I can't say
+what, only the colours are beautiful, growing by the walls and windows, and
+two little children are playing among the stems of the trees, and we are on
+our way there, and in a few minutes shall be under those trees ourselves,
+and talking to those little children. Yet now to me it is but a picture in
+my brain, and to you but a story told by me, which you believe. Come, dear;
+let us be going.'
+
+So we descended the steps at the right, and side by side walked along the
+grass lane between tall trim walls of evergreens. The way was in deep
+shadow, for the sun was near the horizon; but suddenly we turned to the
+left, and there we stood in rich sunlight, among the many objects he had
+described.
+
+'Is this your house, my little men?' he asked of the children--pretty
+little rosy boys--who assented; and he leaned with his open hand against
+the stem of one of the trees, and with a grave smile he nodded down to me,
+saying--
+
+'You see now, and hear, and _feel_ for yourself that both the vision and
+the story were quite true; but come on, my dear, we have further to go.'
+
+And relapsing into silence we had a long ramble through the wood, the same
+on which I was now looking in the distance. Every now and then he made me
+sit down to rest, and he in a musing solemn sort of way would relate some
+little story, reflecting, even to my childish mind, a strange suspicion
+of a spiritual meaning, but different from what honest Mrs. Rusk used
+to expound to me from the Parables, and, somehow, startling in its very
+vagueness.
+
+Thus entertained, though a little awfully, I accompanied the dark
+mysterious little 'whipper-snapper' through the woodland glades. We came,
+to me quite unexpectedly, in the deep sylvan shadows, upon the grey,
+pillared temple, four-fronted, with a slanting pedestal of lichen-stained
+steps, the lonely sepulchre in which I had the morning before seen poor
+mamma laid. At the sight the fountains of my grief reopened, and I cried
+bitterly, repeating, 'Oh! mamma, mamma, little mamma!' and so went on
+weeping and calling wildly on the deaf and the silent. There was a stone
+bench some ten steps away from the tomb.
+
+'Sit down beside me, my child,' said the grave man with the black eyes,
+very kindly and gently. 'Now, what do you see there?' he asked, pointing
+horizontally with his stick towards the centre of the opposite structure.
+
+'Oh, _that_--that place where poor mamma is?'
+
+'Yes, a stone wall with pillars, too high for either you or me to see over.
+But----'
+
+Here he mentioned a name which I think must have been Swedenborg, from what
+I afterwards learnt of his tenets and revelations; I only know that it
+sounded to me like the name of a magician in a fairy tale; I fancied he
+lived in the wood which surrounded us, and I began to grow frightened as he
+proceeded.
+
+'But Swedenborg sees beyond it, over, and _through_ it, and has told me all
+that concerns us to know. He says your mamma is not there.'
+
+'She is taken away!' I cried, starting up, and with streaming eyes, gazing
+on the building which, though I stamped my feet in my distraction, I was
+afraid to approach. 'Oh, _is_ mamma taken away? Where is she? Where have
+they brought her to?'
+
+I was uttering unconsciously very nearly the question with which Mary,
+in the grey of that wondrous morning on which she stood by the empty
+sepulchre, accosted the figure standing near.
+
+'Your mamma is alive but too far away to see or hear us. Swedenborg,
+standing here, can see and hear her, and tells me all he sees, just as I
+told you in the garden about the little boys and the cottage, and the trees
+and flowers which you could not see, but you believed in when _I_ told you. So
+I can tell you now as I did then; and as we are both, I hope, walking on to
+the same place just as we did to the trees and cottage. You will surely see
+with your own eyes how true the description is which I give you.'
+
+I was very frightened, for I feared that when he had done his narrative we
+were to walk on through the wood into that place of wonders and of shadows
+where the dead were visible.
+
+He leaned his elbow on his knee, and his forehead on his hand, which
+shaded his downcast eyes. In that attitude he described to me a beautiful
+landscape, radiant with a wondrous light, in which, rejoicing, my mother
+moved along an airy path, ascending among mountains of fantastic height,
+and peaks, melting in celestial colouring into the air, and peopled with
+human beings translated into the same image, beauty, and splendour. And
+when he had ended his relation, he rose, took my hand, and smiling gently
+down on my pale, wondering face, he said the same words he had spoken
+before--
+
+'Come, dear, let us go.'
+
+'Oh! no, no, _no_--not now,' I said, resisting, and very much frightened.
+
+'Home, I mean, dear. We cannot walk to the place I have described. We can
+only reach it through the gate of death, to which we are all tending, young
+and old, with sure steps.'
+
+'And where is the gate of death?' I asked in a sort of whisper, as we
+walked together, holding his hand, and looking stealthily. He smiled sadly
+and said--
+
+'When, sooner or later, the time comes, as Hagar's eyes were opened in the
+wilderness, and she beheld the fountain of water, so shall each of us see
+the door open before us, and enter in and be refreshed.'
+
+For a long time following this walk I was very nervous; more so for the
+awful manner in which Mrs. Rusk received my statement--with stern lips and
+upturned hands and eyes, and an angry expostulation: 'I do wonder at
+you, Mary Quince, letting the child walk into the wood with that limb of
+darkness. It is a mercy he did not show her the devil, or frighten her out
+of her senses, in that lonely place!'
+
+Of these Swedenborgians, indeed, I know no more than I might learn from
+good Mrs. Rusk's very inaccurate talk. Two or three of them crossed in the
+course of my early life, like magic-lantern figures, the disk of my very
+circumscribed observation. All outside was and is darkness. I once tried to
+read one of their books upon the future state--heaven and hell; but I grew
+after a day or two so nervous that I laid it aside. It is enough for me
+to know that their founder either saw or fancied he saw amazing visions,
+which, so far from superseding, confirmed and interpreted the language of
+the Bible; and as dear papa accepted their ideas, I am happy in thinking
+that they did not conflict with the supreme authority of holy writ.
+
+Leaning on my hand, I was now looking upon that solemn wood, white and
+shadowy in the moonlight, where, for a long time after that ramble with the
+visionary, I fancied the gate of death, hidden only by a strange glamour,
+and the dazzling land of ghosts, were situate; and I suppose these earlier
+associations gave to my reverie about my father's coming visitor a wilder
+and a sadder tinge.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+_MADAME DE LA ROUGIERRE_
+
+
+On a sudden, on the grass before me, stood an odd figure--a very tall woman
+in grey draperies, nearly white under the moon, courtesying extraordinarily
+low, and rather fantastically.
+
+I stared in something like a horror upon the large and rather hollow
+features which I did not know, smiling very unpleasantly on me; and the
+moment it was plain that I saw her, the grey woman began gobbling
+and cackling shrilly--I could not distinctly hear _what_ through the
+window--and gesticulating oddly with her long hands and arms.
+
+As she drew near the window, I flew to the fireplace, and rang the bell
+frantically, and seeing her still there, and fearing that she might break
+into the room, I flew out of the door, very much frightened, and met
+Branston the butler in the lobby.
+
+'There's a woman at the window!' I gasped; 'turn her away, please.'
+
+If I had said a man, I suppose fat Branston would have summoned and sent
+forward a detachment of footmen. As it was, he bowed gravely, with a--
+
+'Yes, 'm--shall, 'm.'
+
+And with an air of authority approached the window.
+
+I don't think that he was pleasantly impressed himself by the first sight
+of our visitor, for he stopped short some steps of the window, and demanded
+rather sternly--
+
+'What ye doin' there, woman?'
+
+To this summons, her answer, which occupied a little time, was inaudible to
+me. But Branston replied--
+
+'I wasn't aware, ma'am; I heerd nothin'; if you'll go round _that_ way,
+you'll see the hall-door steps, and I'll speak to the master, and do as he
+shall order.'
+
+The figure said something and pointed.
+
+'Yes, that's it, and ye can't miss the door.'
+
+And Mr. Branston returned slowly down the long room, and halted with
+out-turned pumps and a grave inclination before me, and the faintest amount
+of interrogation in the announcement--
+
+'Please, 'm, she says she's the governess.'
+
+'The governess! _What_ governess?'
+
+Branston was too well-bred to smile, and he said thoughtfully--
+
+'P'raps, 'm, I'd best ask the master?'
+
+To which I assented, and away strode the flat pumps of the butler to the
+library.
+
+I stood breathless in the hall. Every girl at my age knows how much is
+involved in such an advent. I also heard Mrs. Rusk, in a minute or two
+more, emerge I suppose from the study. She walked quickly, and muttered
+sharply to herself--an evil trick, in which she indulged when much 'put
+about.' I should have been glad of a word with her; but I fancied she was
+vexed, and would not have talked satisfactorily. She did not, however, come
+my way; merely crossing the hall with her quick, energetic step.
+
+Was it really the arrival of a governess? Was that apparition which had
+impressed me so unpleasantly to take the command of me--to sit alone with
+me, and haunt me perpetually with her sinister looks and shrilly gabble?
+
+I was just making up my mind to go to Mary Quince, and learn something
+definite, when I heard my father's step approaching from the library: so
+I quietly re-entered the drawing-room, but with an anxious and throbbing
+heart.
+
+When he came in, as usual, he patted me on the head gently, with a kind of
+smile, and then began his silent walk up and down the room. I was yearning
+to question him on the point that just then engrossed me so disagreeably;
+but the awe in which I stood of him forbade.
+
+After a time he stopped at the window, the curtain of which I had drawn,
+and the shutter partly opened, and he looked out, perhaps with associations
+of his own, on the scene I had been contemplating.
+
+It was not for nearly an hour after, that my father suddenly, after his
+wont, in a few words, apprised me of the arrival of Madame de la Rougierre
+to be my governess, highly recommended and perfectly qualified. My heart
+sank with a sure presage of ill. I already disliked, distrusted, and feared
+her.
+
+I had more than an apprehension of her temper and fear of possibly abused
+authority. The large-featured, smirking phantom, saluting me so oddly in
+the moonlight, retained ever after its peculiar and unpleasant hold upon my
+nerves.
+
+'Well, Miss Maud, dear, I hope you'll like your new governess--for it's
+more than _I_ do, just at present at least,' said Mrs. Rusk, sharply--she
+was awaiting me in my room. 'I hate them French-women; they're not natural,
+I think. I gave her her supper in my room. She eats like a wolf, she does,
+the great raw-boned hannimal. I wish you saw her in bed as I did. I put her
+next the clock-room--she'll hear the hours betimes, I'm thinking. You never
+saw such a sight. The great long nose and hollow cheeks of her, and oogh!
+such a mouth! I felt a'most like little Red Riding-Hood--I did, Miss.'
+
+Here honest Mary Quince, who enjoyed Mrs. Rusk's satire, a weapon in which
+she was not herself strong, laughed outright.
+
+'Turn down the bed, Mary. She's very agreeable--she is, just now--all
+new-comers is; but she did not get many compliments from me, Miss--no,
+I rayther think not. I wonder why honest English girls won't answer the
+gentry for governesses, instead of them gaping, scheming, wicked furriners?
+Lord forgi' me, I think they're all alike.'
+
+Next morning I made acquaintance with Madame de la Rougierre. She was tall,
+masculine, a little ghastly perhaps, and draped in purple silk, with a
+lace cap, and great bands of black hair, too thick and black, perhaps, to
+correspond quite naturally with her bleached and sallow skin, her hollow
+jaws, and the fine but grim wrinkles traced about her brows and eyelids.
+She smiled, she nodded, and then for a good while she scanned me in silence
+with a steady cunning eye, and a stern smile.
+
+'And how is she named--what is Mademoiselle's name?' said the tall
+stranger.
+
+'_Maud_, Madame.'
+
+'Maud!--what pretty name! Eh bien! I am very sure my dear Maud she will
+be very good little girl--is not so?--and I am sure I shall love you vary
+moche. And what 'av you been learning, Maud, my dear cheaile--music,
+French, German, eh?'
+
+'Yes, a little; and I had just begun the use of the globes when my
+governess went away.'
+
+I nodded towards the globes, which stood near her, as I said this.
+
+'Oh! yes--the globes;' and she spun one of them with her great hand. 'Je
+vous expliquerai tout cela à fond.'
+
+Madame de la Rougierre, I found, was always quite ready to explain
+everything 'à fond;' but somehow her 'explications,' as she termed them,
+were not very intelligible, and when pressed her temper woke up; so that I
+preferred, after a while, accepting the expositions just as they came.
+
+Madame was on an unusually large scale, a circumstance which made some of
+her traits more startling, and altogether rendered her, in her strange way,
+more awful in the eyes of a nervous _child,_ I may say, such as I was. She
+used to look at me for a long time sometimes, with the peculiar smile
+I have mentioned, and a great finger upon her lip, like the Eleusinian
+priestess on the vase.
+
+She would sit, too, sometimes for an hour together, looking into the fire
+or out of the window, plainly seeing nothing, and with an odd, fixed look
+of something like triumph--very nearly a smile--on her cunning face.
+
+She was by no means a pleasant _gouvernante_ for a nervous girl of my
+years. Sometimes she had accesses of a sort of hilarity which frightened me
+still more than her graver moods, and I will describe these by-and-by.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+_SIGHTS AND NOISES_
+
+
+There is not an old house in England of which the servants and young people
+who live in it do not cherish some traditions of the ghostly. Knowl has its
+shadows, noises, and marvellous records. Rachel Ruthyn, the beauty of Queen
+Anne's time, who died of grief for the handsome Colonel Norbrooke, who
+was killed in the Low Countries, walks the house by night, in crisp and
+sounding silks. She is not seen, only heard. The tapping of her high-heeled
+shoes, the sweep and rustle of her brocades, her sighs as she pauses in the
+galleries, near the bed-room doors; and sometimes, on stormy nights, her
+sobs.
+
+There is, beside, the 'link-man', a lank, dark-faced, black-haired man, in
+a sable suit, with a link or torch in his hand. It usually only smoulders,
+with a deep red glow, as he visits his beat. The library is one of the
+rooms he sees to. Unlike 'Lady Rachel,' as the maids called her, he is seen
+only, never heard. His steps fall noiseless as shadows on floor and carpet.
+The lurid glow of his smouldering torch imperfectly lights his figure and
+face, and, except when much perturbed, his link never blazes. On those
+occasions, however, as he goes his rounds, he ever and anon whirls it
+around his head, and it bursts into a dismal flame. This is a fearful omen,
+and always portends some direful crisis or calamity. It occurs, only once
+or twice in a century.
+
+I don't know whether Madame had heard anything of these phenomena; but she
+did report which very much frightened me and Mary Quince. She asked us who
+walked in the gallery on which her bed-room opened, making a rustling with
+her dress, and going down the stairs, and breathing long breaths here and
+there. Twice, she said, she had stood at her door in the dark, listening to
+these sounds, and once she called to know who it was. There was no answer,
+but the person plainly turned back, and hurried towards her with an
+unnatural speed, which made her jump within her door and shut it.
+
+When first such tales are told, they excite the nerves of the young and the
+ignorant intensely. But the special effect, I have found, soon wears out.
+The tale simply takes it's place with the rest. It was with Madame's
+narrative.
+
+About a week after its relation, I had my experience of a similar sort.
+Mary Quince went down-stairs for a night-light, leaving me in bed, a candle
+burning in the room, and being tired, I fell asleep before her return.
+When I awoke the candle had been extinguished. But I heard a step softly
+approaching. I jumped up--quite forgetting the ghost, and thinking only of
+Mary Quince--and opened the door, expecting to see the light of her candle.
+Instead, all was dark, and near me I heard the fall of a bare foot on the
+oak floor. It was as if some one had stumbled. I said, 'Mary,' but no
+answer came, only a rustling of clothes and a breathing at the other side
+of the gallery, which passed off towards the upper staircase. I turned into
+my room, freezing with horror, and clapt my door. The noise wakened Mary
+Quince, who had returned and gone to her bed half an hour before.
+
+About a fortnight after this, Mary Quince, a very veracious spinster,
+reported to me, that having got up to fix the window, which was rattling,
+at about four o'clock in the morning, she saw a light shining from the
+library window. She could swear to its being a strong light, streaming
+through the chinks of the shutter, and moving. No doubt the link was waved
+about his head by the angry 'link-man.'
+
+These strange occurrences helped, I think, just then to make me nervous,
+and prepared the way for the odd sort of ascendency which, through my
+sense of the mysterious and super-natural, that repulsive Frenchwoman was
+gradually, and it seemed without effort, establishing over me.
+
+Some dark points of her character speedily emerged from the prismatic mist
+with which she had enveloped it.
+
+Mrs. Rusk's observation about the agreeability of new-comers I found to be
+true; for as Madame began to lose that character, her good-humour abated
+very perceptibly, and she began to show gleams of another sort of temper,
+that was lurid and dangerous.
+
+Notwithstanding this, she was in the habit of always having her Bible open
+by her, and was austerely attentive at morning and evening services, and
+asked my father, with great humility, to lend her some translations of
+Swedenborg's books, which she laid much to heart.
+
+When we went out for our walk, if the weather were bad we generally made
+our promenade up and down the broad terrace in front of the windows. Sullen
+and malign at times she used to look, and as suddenly she would pat me on
+the shoulder caressingly, and smile with a grotesque benignity, asking
+tenderly, 'Are you fatigue, ma chère?' or 'Are you cold-a, dear Maud?'
+
+At first these abrupt transitions puzzled me, sometimes half frightened
+me, savouring, I fancied, of insanity. The key, however, was accidentally
+supplied, and I found that these accesses of demonstrative affection were
+sure to supervene whenever my father's face was visible through the library
+windows.
+
+I did not know well what to make of this woman, whom I feared with a vein
+of superstitious dread. I hated being alone with her after dusk in the
+school-room. She would sometimes sit for half an hour at a time, with her
+wide mouth drawn down at the corners, and a scowl, looking into the fire.
+If she saw me looking at her, she would change all this on the instant,
+affect a sort of languor, and lean her head upon her hand, and ultimately
+have recourse to her Bible. But I fancied she did not read, but pursued her
+own dark ruminations, for I observed that the open book might often lie for
+half an hour or more under her eyes and yet the leaf never turned.
+
+I should have been glad to be assured that she prayed when on her knees, or
+read when that book was before her; I should have felt that she was more
+canny and human. As it was, those external pieties made a suspicion of a
+hollow contrast with realities that helped to scare me; yet it was but a
+suspicion--I could not be certain.
+
+Our rector and the curate, with whom she was very gracious, and anxious
+about my collects and catechism, had an exalted opinion of her. In public
+places her affection for me was always demonstrative.
+
+In like manner she contrived conferences with my father. She was always
+making excuses to consult him about my reading, and to confide in him her
+sufferings, as I learned, from my contumacy and temper. The fact is, I was
+altogether quiet and submissive. But I think she had a wish to reduce me
+to a state of the most abject bondage. She had designs of domination and
+subversion regarding the entire household, I now believe, worthy of the
+evil spirit I sometimes fancied her.
+
+My father beckoned me into the study one day, and said he--
+
+'You ought not to give poor Madame so much pain. She is one of the few
+persons who take an interest in you; why should she have so often to
+complain of your ill-temper and disobedience?--why should she be compelled
+to ask my permission to punish you? Don't be afraid, I won't concede that.
+But in so kind a person it argues much. Affection I can't command--respect
+and obedience I may--and I insist on your rendering _both_ to Madame.'
+
+'But sir,' I said, roused into courage by the gross injustice of the
+charge, 'I have always done exactly as she bid me, and never said one
+disrespectful word to Madame.'
+
+'I don't think, child, _you_ are the best judge of that. Go, and _amend_.'
+And with a displeased look he pointed to the door. My heart swelled with
+the sense of wrong, and as I reached the door I turned to say another word,
+but I could not, and only burst into tears.
+
+'There--don't cry, little Maud--only let us do better for the future.
+There--there--there has been enough.'
+
+And he kissed my forehead, and gently put me out and closed the door.
+
+In the school-room I took courage, and with some warmth upbraided Madame.
+
+'Wat wicked cheaile!' moaned Madame, demurely. 'Read aloud those
+three--yes, _those_ three chapters of the Bible, my dear Maud.'
+
+There was no special fitness in those particular chapters, and when they
+were ended she said in a sad tone--
+
+'Now, dear, you must commit to memory this pretty priaire for umility of
+art.'
+
+It was a long one, and in a state of profound irritation I got through the
+task.
+
+Mrs. Rusk hated her. She said she stole wine and brandy whenever the
+opportunity offered--that she was always asking her for such stimulants and
+pretending pains in her stomach. Here, perhaps, there was exaggeration; but
+I knew it was true that I had been at different times despatched on that
+errand and pretext for brandy to Mrs. Rusk, who at last came to her bedside
+with pills and a mustard blister only, and was hated irrevocably ever
+after.
+
+I felt all this was done to torture me. But a day is a long time to a
+child, and they forgive quickly. It was always with a sense of danger that
+I heard Madame say she must go and see Monsieur Ruthyn in the library,
+and I think a jealousy of her growing influence was an ingredient in the
+detestation in which honest Mrs. Rusk held her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+_A WALK IN THE WOOD_
+
+
+Two little pieces of by-play in which I detected her confirmed my
+unpleasant suspicion. From the corner of the gallery I one day saw her,
+when she thought I was out and all quiet, with her ear at the keyhole of
+papa's study, as we used to call the sitting-room next his bed-room. Her
+eyes were turned in the direction of the stairs, from which only she
+apprehended surprise. Her great mouth was open, and her eyes absolutely
+goggled with eagerness. She was devouring all that was passing there.
+I drew back into the shadow with a kind of disgust and horror. She was
+transformed into a great gaping reptile. I felt that I could have thrown
+something at her; but a kind of fear made me recede again toward my room.
+Indignation, however, quickly returned, and I came back, treading briskly
+as I did so. When I reached the angle of the gallery again. Madame, I
+suppose, had heard me, for she was half-way down the stairs.
+
+'Ah, my dear Cheaile, I am so glad to find you, and you are dress to come
+out. We shall have so pleasant walk.'
+
+At that moment the door of my father's study opened, and Mrs. Rusk, with
+her dark energetic face very much flushed, stepped out in high excitement.
+
+'The Master says you may have the brandy-bottle, Madame and I'm glad to be
+rid of it--_I_ am.'
+
+Madame courtesied with a great smirk, that was full of intangible hate and
+insult.
+
+'Better your own brandy, if drink you must!' exclaimed Mrs. Rusk. 'You may
+come to the store-room now, or the butler can take it.'
+
+And off whisked Mrs. Rusk for the back staircase.
+
+There had been no common skirmish on this occasion, but a pitched battle.
+
+Madame had made a sort of pet of Anne Wixted, an under-chambermaid, and
+attached her to her interest economically by persuading me to make her
+presents of some old dresses and other things. Anne was such an angel!
+
+But Mrs. Rusk, whose eyes were about her, detected Anne, with a
+brandy-bottle under her apron, stealing up-stairs. Anne, in a panic,
+declared the truth. Madame had commissioned her to buy it in the town, and
+convey it to her bed-room. Upon this, Mrs. Rusk impounded the flask; and,
+with Anne beside her, rather precipitately appeared before 'the Master.' He
+heard and summoned Madame. Madame was cool, frank, and fluent. The brandy
+was purely medicinal. She produced a document in the form of a note. Doctor
+Somebody presented his compliments to Madame de la Rougierre, and ordered
+her a table-spoonful of brandy and some drops of laudanum whenever the pain
+of stomach returned. The flask would last a whole year, perhaps two. She
+claimed her medicine.
+
+Man's estimate of woman is higher than woman's own. Perhaps in their
+relations to men they are generally more trustworthy--perhaps woman's is
+the juster, and the other an appointed illusion. I don't know; but so it is
+ordained.
+
+Mrs. Rusk was recalled, and I saw, as you are aware, Madame's procedure
+during the interview.
+
+It was a great battle--a great victory. Madame was in high spirits. The air
+was sweet--the landscape charming--I, so good--everything so beautiful!
+Where should we go? _this_ way?
+
+I had made a resolution to speak as little as possible to Madame, I was so
+incensed at the treachery I had witnessed; but such resolutions do not last
+long with very young people, and by the time we had reached the skirts of
+the wood we were talking pretty much as usual.
+
+'I don't wish to go into the wood, Madame.'
+
+'And for what?'
+
+'Poor mamma is buried there.'
+
+'Is _there_ the vault?' demanded Madame eagerly.
+
+I assented.
+
+'My faith, curious reason; you say because poor mamma is buried there you
+will not approach! Why, cheaile, what would good Monsieur Ruthyn say if
+he heard such thing? You are surely not so unkain', and I am with you.
+_Allons_. Let us come--even a little part of the way.'
+
+And so I yielded, though still reluctant.
+
+There was a grass-grown road, which we easily reached, leading to the
+sombre building, and we soon arrived before it.
+
+Madame de la Rougierre seemed rather curious. She sat down on the little
+bank opposite, in her most languid pose--her head leaned upon the tips of
+her fingers.
+
+'How very sad--how solemn!' murmured Madame. 'What noble tomb! How triste,
+my dear cheaile, your visit 'ere must it be, remembering a so sweet maman.
+There is new inscription--is it not new?' And so, indeed, it seemed.
+
+'I am fatigue--maybe you will read it aloud to me slowly and solemnly, my
+dearest Maud?'
+
+As I approached, I happened to look, I can't tell why, suddenly, over my
+shoulder; I was startled, for Madame was grimacing after me with a vile
+derisive distortion. She pretended to be seized with a fit of coughing. But
+it would not do: she saw that I had detected her, and she laughed aloud.
+
+'Come here, dear cheaile. I was just reflecting how foolish is all this
+thing--the tomb--the epitaph. I think I would 'av none--no, no epitaph. We
+regard them first for the oracle of the dead, and find them after only the
+folly of the living. So I despise. Do you think your house of Knowl down
+there is what you call haunt, my dear?'
+
+'Why?' said I, flushing and growing pale again. I felt quite afraid of
+Madame, and confounded at the suddenness of all this.
+
+'Because Anne Wixted she says there is ghost. How dark is this place! and
+so many of the Ruthyn family they are buried here--is not so? How high and
+thick are the trees all round! and nobody comes near.'
+
+And Madame rolled her eyes awfully, as if she expected to see something
+unearthly, and, indeed, looked very like it herself.
+
+'Come away, Madame,' I said, growing frightened, and feeling that if I were
+once, by any accident, to give way to the panic that was gathering round
+me, I should instantaneously lose all control of myself. 'Oh, come away!
+do, Madame--I'm frightened.'
+
+'No, on the contrary, sit here by me. It is very odd, you will think, ma
+chêre--un goût bizarre, vraiment!--but I love very much to be near to the
+dead people--in solitary place like this. I am not afraid of the dead
+people, nor of the ghosts. 'Av you ever see a ghost, my dear?'
+
+'Do, Madame, _pray_ speak of something else.'
+
+'Wat little fool! But no, you are not afraid. I 'av seen the ghosts myself.
+I saw one, for example, last night, shape like a monkey, sitting in the
+corner, with his arms round his knees; very wicked, old, old man his face
+was like, and white eyes so large.'
+
+'Come away, Madame! you are trying to frighten me,' I said, in the childish
+anger which accompanies fear. Madame laughed an ugly laugh, and said--
+
+'Eh bien! little fool!--I will not tell the rest if you are really
+frightened; let us change to something else.'
+
+'Yes, yes! oh, do--pray do.'
+
+'Wat good man is your father!'
+
+'Very--the kindest darling. I don't know why it is, Madame, I am so afraid
+of him, and never could tell him how much I love him.'
+
+This confidential talking with Madame, strange to say, implied no
+confidence; it resulted from fear--it was deprecatory. I treated her as if
+she had human sympathies, in the hope that they might be generated somehow.
+
+'Was there not a doctor from London with him a few months ago? Dr. Bryerly,
+I think they call him.'
+
+'Yes, a Doctor Bryerly, who remained a few days. Shall we begin to walk
+towards home, Madame? Do, pray.'
+
+'Immediately, cheaile; and does your father suffer much?'
+
+'No--I think not.'
+
+'And what then is his disease?'
+
+'Disease! he has _no_ disease. Have you heard anything about his health,
+Madame?' I said, anxiously.
+
+'Oh no, ma foi--I have heard nothing; but if the doctor came, it was not
+because he was quite well.'
+
+'But that doctor is a doctor in theology, I fancy. I know he is a
+Swedenborgian; and papa is so well he _could_ not have come as a
+physician.'
+
+'I am very glad, ma chère, to hear; but still you know your father is
+old man to have so young cheaile as you. Oh, yes--he is old man, and so
+uncertain life is. 'As he made his will, my dear? Every man so rich as he,
+especially so old, aught to 'av made his will.'
+
+'There is no need of haste, Madame; it is quite time enough when his health
+begins to fail.'
+
+'But has he really compose no will?'
+
+'I really don't know, Madame.'
+
+'Ah, little rogue! you will not tell--but you are not such fool as you
+feign yourself. No, no; you know everything. Come, tell me all about--it is
+for your advantage, you know. What is in his will, and when he wrote?'
+
+'But, Madame, I really know nothing of it. I can't say whether there is a
+will or not. Let us talk of something else.'
+
+'But, cheaile, it will not kill Monsieur Ruthyn to make his will; he will
+not come to lie here a day sooner by cause of that; but if he make no will,
+you may lose a great deal of the property. Would not that be pity?'
+
+'I really don't know anything of his will. If papa has made one, he has
+never spoken of it to me. I know he loves me--that is enough.'
+
+'Ah! you are not such little goose--you do know everything, of course. Come
+tell me, little obstinate, otherwise I will break your little finger. Tell
+me everything.'
+
+'I know nothing of papa's will. You don't know, Madame, how you hurt me.
+Let us speak of something else.'
+
+'You do know, and you must tell, petite dure-tête, or I will break a your
+little finger.'
+
+With which words she seized that joint, and laughing spitefully, she
+twisted it suddenly back. I screamed while she continued to laugh.
+
+'Will you tell?'
+
+'Yes, yes! let me go,' I shrieked.
+
+She did not release it immediately however, but continued her torture and
+discordant laughter. At last she finally released my finger.
+
+'So she is going to be good cheaile, and tell everything to her
+affectionate gouvernante. What do you cry for, little fool?'
+
+'You've hurt me very much--you have broken my finger,' I sobbed.
+
+'Rub it and blow it and give it a kiss, little fool! What cross girl! I
+will never play with you again--never. Let us go home.'
+
+Madame was silent and morose all the way home. She would not answer my
+questions, and affected to be very lofty and offended.
+
+This did not last very long, however, and she soon resumed her wonted ways.
+And she returned to the question of the will, but not so directly, and with
+more art.
+
+Why should this dreadful woman's thoughts be running so continually upon my
+father's will? How could it concern her?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+_CHURCH SCARSDALE_
+
+
+I think all the females of our household, except Mrs. Rusk, who was at open
+feud with her and had only room for the fiercer emotions, were more or less
+afraid of this inauspicious foreigner.
+
+Mrs. Rusk would say in her confidences in my room--
+
+'Where does she come from?--is she a French or a Swiss one, or is she a
+Canada woman? I remember one of _them_ when I was a girl, and a nice limb
+_she_ was, too! And who did she live with? Where was her last family? Not
+one of us knows nothing about her, no more than a child; except, of course,
+the Master--I do suppose he made enquiry. She's always at hugger-mugger
+with Anne Wixted. I'll pack that _one_ about her business, if she doesn't
+mind. Tattling and whispering eternally. It's not about her own business
+she's a-talking. Madame de la Rougepot, I call her. She _does_ know how to
+paint up to the ninety-nines--she does, the old cat. I beg your pardon,
+Miss, but _that_ she is--a devil, and no mistake. I found her out first by
+her thieving the Master's gin, that the doctor ordered him, and filling the
+decanter up with water--the old villain; but she'll be found out yet, she
+will; and all the maids is afraid on her. She's not right, they think--a
+witch or a ghost--I should not wonder. Catherine Jones found her in her bed
+asleep in the morning after she sulked with you, you know, Miss, with all
+her clothes on, what-ever was the meaning; and I think she has frightened
+_you,_ Miss and has you as nervous as anythink--I do,' and so forth.
+
+It was true. I _was_ nervous, and growing rather more so; and I think this
+cynical woman perceived and intended it, and was pleased. I was always
+afraid of her concealing herself in my room, and emerging at night to scare
+me. She began sometimes to mingle in my dreams, too--always awfully; and
+this nourished, of course, the kind of ambiguous fear in which, in waking
+hours, I held her.
+
+I dreamed one night that she led me, all the time whispering something so
+very fast that I could not understand her, into the library, holding
+a candle in her other hand above her head. We walked on tiptoe, like
+criminals at the dead of night, and stopped before that old oak cabinet
+which my father had indicated in so odd a way to me. I felt that we were
+about some contraband practice. There was a key in the door, which I
+experienced a guilty horror at turning, she whispering in the same
+unintelligible way, all the time, at my ear. I _did_ turn it; the door
+opened quite softly, and within stood my father, his face white and
+malignant, and glaring close in mine. He cried in a terrible voice,
+'Death!' Out went Madame's candle, and at the same moment, with a scream,
+I waked in the dark--still fancying myself in the library; and for an hour
+after I continued in a hysterical state.
+
+Every little incident about Madame furnished a topic of eager discussion
+among the maids. More or less covertly, they nearly all hated and feared
+her. They fancied that she was making good her footing with 'the Master;'
+and that she would then oust Mrs. Rusk--perhaps usurp her place--and so
+make a clean sweep of them all. I fancy the honest little housekeeper did
+not discourage that suspicion.
+
+About this time I recollect a pedlar--an odd, gipsified-looking man--called
+in at Knowl. I and Catherine Jones were in the court when he came, and set
+down his pack on the low balustrade beside the door.
+
+All sorts of commodities he had--ribbons, cottons, silks, stockings,
+lace, and even some bad jewellry; and just as he began his display--an
+interesting matter in a quiet country house--Madame came upon the ground.
+He grinned a recognition, and hoped 'Madamasel' was well, and 'did not look
+to see _her_ here.'
+
+'Madamasel' thanked him. 'Yes, vary well,' and looked for the first time
+decidedly 'put out.'
+
+'Wat a pretty things!' she said. 'Catherine, run and tell Mrs. Rusk. She
+wants scissars, and lace too--I heard her say.'
+
+So Catherine, with a lingering look, departed; and Madame said--
+
+'Will you, dear cheaile, be so kind to bring here my purse, I forgot on the
+table in my room; also, I advise you, bring _your_.'
+
+Catherine returned with Mrs. Rusk. Here was a man who could tell them
+something of the old Frenchwoman, at last! Slyly they dawdled over his
+wares, until Madame had made her market and departed with me. But when the
+coveted opportunity came, the pedlar was quite impenetrable. 'He forgot
+everything; he did not believe as he ever saw the lady before. He called a
+Frenchwoman, all the world over, Madamasel--that wor the name on 'em all.
+He never seed her in partiklar afore, as he could bring to mind. He liked
+to see 'em always, 'cause they makes the young uns buy.'
+
+This reserve and oblivion were very provoking, and neither Mrs. Rusk nor
+Catherine Jones spent sixpence with him;--he was a stupid fellow, or worse.
+
+Of course Madame had tampered with him. But truth, like murder, will out
+some day. Tom Williams, the groom, had seen her, when alone with him, and
+pretending to look at his stock, with her face almost buried in his silks
+and Welsh linseys, talking as fast as she could all the time, and slipping
+_money_, he did suppose, under a piece of stuff in his box.
+
+In the mean time, I and Madame were walking over the wide, peaty
+sheep-walks that lie between Knowl and Church Scarsdale. Since our visit to
+the mausoleum in the wood, she had not worried me so much as before. She
+had been, indeed, more than usually thoughtful, very little talkative, and
+troubled me hardly at all about French and other accomplishments. A walk
+was a part of our daily routine. I now carried a tiny basket in my hand,
+with a few sandwiches, which were to furnish our luncheon when we reached
+the pretty scene, about two miles away, whither we were tending.
+
+We had started a little too late; Madame grew unwontedly fatigued and sat
+down to rest on a stile before we had got half-way; and there she intoned,
+with a dismal nasal cadence, a quaint old Bretagne ballad, about a lady
+with a pig's head:--
+
+  'This lady was neither pig nor maid,
+  And so she was not of human mould;
+  Not of the living nor the dead.
+  Her left hand and foot were warm to touch;
+  Her right as cold as a corpse's flesh!
+  And she would sing like a funeral bell, with a ding-dong tune.
+  The pigs were afraid, and viewed her aloof;
+  And women feared her and stood afar.
+  She could do without sleep for a year and a day;
+  She could sleep like a corpse, for a month and more.
+  No one knew how this lady fed--
+  On acorns or on flesh.
+  Some say that she's one of the swine-possessed,
+  That swam over the sea of Gennesaret.
+  A mongrel body and demon soul.
+  Some say she's the wife of the Wandering Jew,
+  And broke the law for the sake of pork;
+  And a swinish face for a token doth bear,
+  That her shame is now, and her punishment coming.'
+
+And so it went on, in a gingling rigmarole. The more anxious I seemed to go
+on our way, the more likely was she to loiter. I therefore showed no signs
+of impatience, and I saw her consult her watch in the course of her ugly
+minstrelsy, and slyly glance, as if expecting something, in the direction
+of our destination.
+
+When she had sung to her heart's content, up rose Madame, and began to walk
+onward silently. I saw her glance once or twice, as before, toward the
+village of Trillsworth, which lay in front, a little to our left, and
+the smoke of which hung in a film over the brow of the hill. I think she
+observed me, for she enquired--
+
+'Wat is that a smoke there?'
+
+'That is Trillsworth, Madame; there is a railway station there.'
+
+'Oh, le chemin de fer, so near! I did not think. Where it goes?'
+
+I told her, and silence returned.
+
+Church Scarsdale is a very pretty and odd scene. The slightly undulating
+sheep-walk dips suddenly into a wide glen, in the lap of which, by a
+bright, winding rill, rise from the sward the ruins of a small abbey, with
+a few solemn trees scattered round. The crows' nests hung untenanted in the
+trees; the birds were foraging far away from their roosts. The very cattle
+had forsaken the place. It was solitude itself.
+
+Madame drew a long breath and smiled.
+
+'Come down, come down, cheaile--come down to the churchyard.'
+
+As we descended the slope which shut out the surrounding world, and the
+scene grew more sad and lonely, Madame's spirits seemed to rise.
+
+'See 'ow many grave-stones--one, _two_ hundred. Don't you love the dead,
+cheaile? I will teach you to love them. You shall see me die here to-day,
+for half an hour, and be among them. That is what I love.'
+
+We were by this time at the little brook's side, and the low churchyard
+wall with a stile, reached by a couple of stepping-stones, across the
+stream, immediately at the other side.
+
+'Come, now!' cried Madame, raising her face, as if to sniff the air; 'we
+are close to them. You will like them soon as I. You shall see five of
+them. Ah, ça ira, ça ira, ça ira! Come cross quickily! I am Madame la
+Morgue--Mrs. Deadhouse! I will present you my friends, Monsieur Cadavre and
+Monsieur Squelette. Come, come, leetle mortal, let us play. Ouaah!' And
+she uttered a horrid yell from her enormous mouth, and pushing her wig and
+bonnet back, so as to show her great, bald head. She was laughing, and
+really looked quite mad.
+
+'No, Madame, I will not go with you,' I said, disengaging my hand with a
+violent effort, receding two or three steps.
+
+'Not enter the churchyard! Ma foi--wat mauvais goût! But see, we are
+already in shade. The sun he is setting soon--where well you remain,
+cheaile? I will not stay long.'
+
+'I'll stay here,' I said, a little angrily--for I _was_ angry as well as
+nervous; and through my fear was that indignation at her extravagances
+which mimicked lunacy so unpleasantly, and were, I knew, designed to
+frighten me.
+
+Over the stepping-stones, pulling up her dress, she skipped with her long,
+lank legs, like a witch joining a Walpurgis. Over the stile she strode, and
+I saw her head wagging, and heard her sing some of her ill-omened rhymes,
+as she capered solemnly, with many a grin and courtesy, among the graves
+and headstones, towards the ruin.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+_THE SMOKER_
+
+
+Three years later I learned--in a way she probably little expected, and
+then did not much care about--what really occurred there. I learned even
+phrases and looks--for the story was related by one who had heard it
+told--and therefore I venture to narrate what at the moment I neither saw
+nor suspected. While I sat, flushed and nervous, upon a flat stone by the
+bank of the little stream, Madame looked over her shoulder, and perceiving
+that I was out of sight, she abated her pace, and turned sharply towards
+the ruin which lay at her left. It was her first visit, and she was merely
+exploring; but now, with a perfectly shrewd and businesslike air, turning
+the corner of the building, she saw, seated upon the edge of a grave-stone,
+a rather fat and flashily-equipped young man, with large, light whiskers, a
+jerry hat, green cutaway coat with gilt buttons, and waistcoat and trousers
+rather striking than elegant in pattern. He was smoking a short pipe, and
+made a nod to Madame, without either removing it from his lips or rising,
+but with his brown and rather good-looking face turned up, he eyed her with
+something of the impudent and sulky expression that was habitual to it.
+
+'Ha, Deedle, you are there! an' look so well. I am here, too, quite _a_lon;
+but my friend, she wait outside the churchyard, by-side the leetle river,
+for she must not think I know you--so I am come _a_lon.'
+
+'You're a quarter late, and I lost a fight by you, old girl, this morning,'
+said the gay man, and spat on the ground; 'and I wish you would not call me
+Diddle. I'll call you Granny if you do.'
+
+'Eh bien! _Dud,_ then. She is vary nice--wat you like. Slim waist, wite
+teeth, vary nice eyes--dark--wat you say is best--and nice leetle foot and
+ankle.'
+
+Madame smiled leeringly.
+
+Dud smoked on.
+
+'Go on,' said Dud, with a nod of command.
+
+'I am teach her to sing and play--she has such sweet voice!
+
+There was another interval here.
+
+'Well, that isn't much good. I hate women's screechin' about fairies and
+flowers. Hang her! there's a scarecrow as sings at Curl's Divan. Such a
+caterwauling upon a stage! I'd like to put my two barrels into her.'
+
+By this time Dud's pipe was out, and he could afford to converse.
+
+'You shall see her and decide. You will walk down the river, and pass her
+by.'
+
+'That's as may be; howsoever, it would not do, nohow, to buy a pig in a
+poke, you know. And s'pose I shouldn't like her, arter all?'
+
+Madame sneered, with a patois ejaculation of derision.
+
+'Vary good! Then some one else will not be so 'ard to please--as you will
+soon find.'
+
+'Some one's bin a-lookin' arter her, you mean?' said the young man, with a
+shrewd uneasy glance on the cunning face of the French lady.
+
+'I mean precisely--that which I mean,' replied the lady, with a teazing
+pause at the break I have marked.
+
+'Come, old 'un, none of your d---- old chaff, if you want me to stay
+here listening to you. Speak out, can't you? There's any chap as has bin
+a-lookin' arter her--is there?'
+
+'Eh bien! I suppose some.'
+
+'Well, you _suppose,_ and _I_ suppose--we may _all_ suppose, I guess; but
+that does not make a thing be, as wasn't before; and you tell me as how
+the lass is kep' private up there, and will be till you're done educating
+her--a precious good 'un that is!' And he laughed a little lazily, with
+the ivory handle of his cane on his lip, and eyeing Madame with indolent
+derision.
+
+Madame laughed, but looked rather dangerous.
+
+'I'm only chaffin', you know, old girl. _You_'ve bin chaffin'--w'y
+shouldn't _I_? But I don't see why she can't wait a bit; and what's all the
+d----d hurry for? _I_'m in no hurry. I don't want a wife on my back for a
+while. There's no fellow marries till he's took his bit o' fun, and seen
+life--is there! And why should I be driving with her to fairs, or to
+church, or to meeting, by jingo!--for they say she's a Quaker--with a babby
+on each knee, only to please them as will be dead and rotten when _I_'m
+only beginning?'
+
+'Ah, you are such charming fellow; always the same--always sensible. So
+I and my friend we will walk home again, and you go see Maggie Hawkes.
+Good-a-by, Dud--good-a-by.'
+
+'Quiet, you fool!--can't ye?' said the young gentleman, with the sort of
+grin that made his face vicious when a horse vexed him. 'Who ever said I
+wouldn't go look at the girl? Why, you know that's just what I come here
+for--don't you? Only when I think a bit, and a notion comes across me, why
+shouldn't I speak out? I'm not one o' them shilly-shallies. If I like the
+girl, I'll not be mug in and mug out about it. Only mind ye, I'll judge for
+myself. Is that her a-coming?'
+
+'No; it was a distant sound.'
+
+Madame peeped round the corner. No one was approaching.
+
+'Well, you go round that a-way, and you only look at her, you know, for she
+is such fool--so nairvous.'
+
+'Oh, is that the way with her?' said Dud, knocking out the ashes of his
+pipe on a tombstone, and replacing the Turkish utensil in his pocket.
+'Well, then, old lass, good-bye,' and he shook her hand. 'And, do ye see,
+don't ye come up till I pass, for I'm no hand at play-acting; an' if you
+called me "sir," or was coming it dignified and distant, you know, I'd be
+sure to laugh, a'most, and let all out. So good-bye, d'ye see, and if you
+want me again be sharp to time, mind.
+
+From habit he looked about for his dogs, but he had not brought one. He had
+come unostentatiously by rail, travelling in a third-class carriage, for
+the advantage of Jack Briderly's company, and getting a world of useful
+wrinkles about the steeplechase that was coming off next week.
+
+So he strode away, cutting off the heads of the nettles with his cane as he
+went; and Madame walked forth into the open space among the graves, where I
+might have seen her, had I stood up, looking with the absorbed gaze of an
+artist on the ruin.
+
+In a little while, along the path, I heard the clank of a step, and the
+gentleman in the green cutaway coat, sucking his cane, and eyeing me
+with an offensive familiar sort of stare the while, passed me by, rather
+hesitating as he did so. I was glad when he turned the corner in the little
+hollow close by, and disappeared. I stood up at once, and was reassured
+by a sight of Madame, not very many yards away, looking at the ruin, and
+apparently restored to her right mind. The last beams of the sun were by
+this time touching the uplands, and I was longing to recommence our walk
+home. I was hesitating about calling to Madame, because that lady had a
+certain spirit of opposition within her, and to disclose a small wish
+of any sort was generally, if it lay in her power, to prevent its
+accomplishment.
+
+At this moment the gentleman in the green coat returned, approaching me
+with a slow sort of swagger.
+
+'I say, Miss, I dropped a glove close by here. May you have seen it?'
+
+'No, sir,' I said, drawing back a little, and looking, I dare say, both
+frightened and offended.
+
+'I do think I must 'a dropped it close by your foot, Miss.'
+
+'No, sir,' I repeated.
+
+'No offence, Miss, but you're sure you didn't hide it?'
+
+I was beginning to grow seriously uncomfortable.
+
+'Don't be frightened, Miss; it's only a bit o' chaff. I'm not going to
+search.'
+
+I called aloud, 'Madame, Madame!' and he whistled through his fingers, and
+shouted, 'Madame, Madame,' and added, 'She's as deaf as a tombstone, or
+she'll hear that. Gi'e her my compliments, and say I said you're a beauty,
+Miss;' and with a laugh and a leer he strode off.
+
+Altogether this had not been a very pleasant excursion. Madame gobbled up
+our sandwiches, commending them every now and then to me. But I had been
+too much excited to have any appetite left, and very tired I was when we
+reached home.
+
+'So, there is lady coming to-morrow?' said Madame, who knew everything.
+'Wat is her name? I forget.'
+
+'Lady Knollys,' I answered.
+
+'Lady Knollys--wat odd name! She is very young--is she not?'
+
+'Past fifty, I think.'
+
+'Hélas! She's vary old, then. Is she rich?'
+
+'I don't know. She has a place in Derbyshire.'
+
+'Derbyshire--that is one of your English counties, is it not?'
+
+'Oh yes, Madame,' I answered, laughing. 'I have said it to you twice since
+you came;' and I gabbled through the chief towns and rivers as catalogued
+in my geography.
+
+'Bah! to be sure--of course, cheaile. And is she your relation?'
+
+'Papa's first cousin.'
+
+'Won't you present-a me, pray?--I would so like!'
+
+Madame had fallen into the English way of liking people with titles, as
+perhaps foreigners would if titles implied the sort of power they do
+generally with us.
+
+'Certainly, Madame.'
+
+'You will not forget?'
+
+'Oh no.'
+
+Madame reminded me twice, in the course of the evening, of my promise.
+She was very eager on this point. But it is a world of disappointment,
+influenza, and rheumatics; and next morning Madame was prostrate in her
+bed, and careless of all things but flannel and James's powder.
+
+Madame was _désolée_; but she could not raise her head. She only murmured a
+question.
+
+'For 'ow long time, dear, will Lady Knollys remain?'
+
+'A very few days, I believe.'
+
+'Hélas! 'ow onlucky! maybe to-morrow I shall be better Ouah! my ear. The
+laudanum, dear cheaile!'
+
+And so our conversation for that time ended, and Madame buried her head in
+her old red cashmere shawl.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+_MONICA KNOLLYS_
+
+
+Punctually Lady Knollys arrived. She was accompanied by her nephew, Captain
+Oakley.
+
+They arrived a little before dinner; just in time to get to their rooms and
+dress. But Mary Quince enlivened my toilet with eloquent descriptions of
+the youthful Captain whom she had met in the gallery, on his way to his
+room, with the servant, and told me how he stopped to let her pass, and how
+'he smiled so 'ansom.'
+
+I was very young then, you know, and more childish even than my years; but
+this talk of Mary Quince's interested me, I must confess, considerably. I
+was painting all sort of portraits of this heroic soldier, while affecting,
+I am afraid, a hypocritical indifference to her narration, and I know I was
+very nervous and painstaking about my toilet that evening. When I went down
+to the drawing-room, Lady Knollys was there, talking volubly to my father
+as I entered--a woman not really old, but such as very young people fancy
+aged--energetic, bright, saucy, dressed handsomely in purple satin, with a
+good deal of lace, and a rich point--I know not how to call it--not a cap,
+a sort of head-dress--light and simple, but grand withal, over her greyish,
+silken hair.
+
+Rather tall, by no means stout, on the whole a good firm figure, with
+something kindly in her look. She got up, quite like a young person, and
+coming quickly to meet me with a smile--
+
+'My young cousin!' she cried, and kissed me on both cheeks. 'You know who
+I am? Your cousin Monica--Monica Knollys--and very glad, dear, to see you,
+though she has not set eyes on you since you were no longer than that
+paper-knife. Now come here to the lamp, for I must look at you. Who is she
+like? Let me see. Like your poor mother, I think, my dear; but you've the
+Aylmer nose--yes--not a bad nose either, and, come! very good eyes, upon
+my life--yes, certainly something of her poor mother--not a bit like you,
+Austin.'
+
+My father gave her a look as near a smile as I had seen there for a long
+time, shrewd, cynical, but kindly too, and said he--
+
+'So much the better, Monica, eh?'
+
+'It was not for me to say--but you know, Austin, you always were an ugly
+creature. How shocked and indignant the little girl looks! You must not be
+vexed, you loyal little woman, with Cousin Monica for telling the truth.
+Papa was and will be ugly all his days. Come, Austin, dear, tell her--is
+not it so?'
+
+'What! depose against myself! That's not English law, Monica.'
+
+'Well, maybe not; but if the child won't believe her own eyes, how is she
+to believe me? She has long, pretty hands--you have--and very nice feet
+too. How old is she?'
+
+'How old, child?' said my father to me, transferring the question.
+
+She recurred again to my eyes.
+
+'That is the true grey--large, deep, soft--very peculiar. Yes, dear, very
+pretty--long lashes, and such bright tints! You'll be in the Book of
+Beauty, my dear, when you come out, and have all the poet people writing
+verses to the tip of your nose--and a very pretty little nose it is!'
+
+I must mention here how striking was the change in my father's spirit while
+talking and listening to his odd and voluble old Cousin Monica. Reflected
+from bygone associations, there had come a glimmer of something, not
+gaiety, indeed, but like an appreciation of gaiety. The gloom and
+inflexibility were gone, and there was an evident encouragement and
+enjoyment of the incessant sallies of his bustling visitor.
+
+How morbid must have been the tendencies of his habitual solitude, I think,
+appeared from the evident thawing and brightening that accompanied even
+this transient gleam of human society. I was not a companion--more childish
+than most girls of my age, and trained in all his whimsical ways, never to
+interrupt a silence, or force his thoughts by unexpected question or remark
+out of their monotonous or painful channel.
+
+I was as much surprised at the good-humour with which he submitted to
+his cousin's saucy talk; and, indeed, just then those black-panelled and
+pictured walls, and that quaint, misshapen room, seemed to have exchanged
+their stern and awful character for something wonderfully pleasanter to me,
+notwithstanding the unpleasantness of the personal criticism to which the
+plain-spoken lady chose to subject me.
+
+Just at that moment Captain Oakley joined us. He was my first actual vision
+of that awful and distant world of fashion, of whose splendours I had
+already read something in the three-volumed gospel of the circulating
+library.
+
+Handsome, elegant, with features almost feminine, and soft, wavy, black
+hair, whiskers and moustache, he was altogether such a knight as I had
+never beheld, or even fancied, at Knowl--a hero of another species, and
+from the region of the demigods. I did not then perceive that coldness of
+the eye, and cruel curl of the voluptuous lip--only a suspicion, yet enough
+to indicate the profligate man, and savouring of death unto death.
+
+But I was young, and had not yet the direful knowledge of good and evil
+that comes with years; and he was so very handsome, and talked in a way
+that was so new to me, and was so much more charming than the well-bred
+converse of the humdrum county families with whom I had occasionally
+sojourned for a week at a time.
+
+It came out incidentally that his leave of absence was to expire the
+day after to-morrow. A Lilliputian pang of disappointment followed this
+announcement. Already I was sorry to lose him. So soon we begin to make a
+property of what pleases us.
+
+I was shy, but not awkward. I was flattered by the attention of this
+amusing, perhaps rather fascinating, young man of the world; and he plainly
+addressed himself with diligence to amuse and please me. I dare say there
+was more effort than I fancied in bringing his talk down to my humble
+level, and interesting me and making me laugh about people whom I had never
+heard of before, than I then suspected.
+
+Cousin Knollys meanwhile was talking to papa. It was just the conversation
+that suited a man so silent as habit had made him, for her frolic fluency
+left him little to supply. It was totally impossible, indeed, even in our
+taciturn household, that conversation should ever flag while she was among
+us.
+
+Cousin Knollys and I went into the drawing-room together, leaving the
+gentlemen--rather ill-assorted, I fear--to entertain one another for a
+time.
+
+'Come here, my dear, and sit near me,' said Lady Knollys, dropping into an
+easy chair with an energetic little plump, 'and tell me how you and your
+papa get on. I can remember him quite a cheerful man once, and rather
+amusing--yes, indeed--and now you see what a bore he is--all by shutting
+himself up and nursing his whims and fancies. Are those your drawings,
+dear?'
+
+'Yes, very bad, I'm afraid; but there are a few, _better_, I think in the
+portfolio in the cabinet in the hall.'
+
+'They are by _no_ means bad, my dear; and you play, of course?'
+
+'Yes--that is, a little--pretty well, I hope.'
+
+'I dare say. I must hear you by-and-by. And how does your papa amuse you?
+You look bewildered, dear. Well, I dare say, amusement is not a frequent
+word in this house. But you must not turn into a nun, or worse, into a
+puritan. What is he? A Fifth-Monarchy-man, or something--I forget; tell me
+the name, my dear.'
+
+'Papa is a Swedenborgian, I believe.'
+
+'Yes, yes--I forgot the horrid name--a Swedenborgian, that is it. I don't
+know exactly what they think, but everyone knows they are a sort of pagans,
+my dear. He's not making one of _you_, dear--is he?'
+
+'I go to church every Sunday.'
+
+'Well, that's a mercy; Swedenborgian is such an ugly name, and besides,
+they are all likely to be damned, my dear, and that's a serious
+consideration. I really wish poor Austin had hit on something else; I'd
+much rather have no religion, and enjoy life while I'm in it, than choose
+one to worry me here and bedevil me hereafter. But some people, my dear,
+have a taste for being miserable, and provide, like poor Austin, for its
+gratification in the next world as well as here. Ha, ha, ha! how grave the
+little woman looks! Don't you think me very wicked? You know you do; and
+very likely you are right. Who makes your dresses, my dear? You _are_ such
+a figure of fun!'
+
+'Mrs. Rusk, I think, ordered _this_ dress. I and Mary Quince planned it. I
+thought it very nice. We all like it very well.'
+
+There was something, I dare say, very whimsical about it, probably very
+absurd, judged at least by the canons of fashion, and old Cousin Monica
+Knollys, in whose eye the London fashions were always fresh, was palpably
+struck by it as if it had been some enormity against anatomy, for she
+certainly laughed very heartily; indeed, there were tears on her cheeks
+when she had done, and I am sure my aspect of wonder and dignity, as her
+hilarity proceeded, helped to revive her merriment again and again as it
+was subsiding.
+
+'There, you mustn't be vexed with old Cousin Monica,' she cried, jumping
+up, and giving me a little hug, and bestowing a hearty kiss on my forehead,
+and a jolly little slap on my cheek. 'Always remember your cousin Monica is
+an outspoken, wicked old fool, who likes you, and never be offended by her
+nonsense. A council of three--you all sat upon it--Mrs. Rusk, you said, and
+Mary Quince, and your wise self, the weird sisters; and Austin stepped in,
+as Macbeth, and said, 'What is't ye do?' You all made answer together, 'A
+something or other without a name!' Now, seriously, my dear, it is quite
+unpardonable in Austin--your papa, I mean--to hand you over to be robed and
+bedizened according to the whimsies of these wild old women--aren't they
+old? If they know better, it's positively _fiendish._ I'll blow him up--I
+will indeed, my dear. You know you're an heiress, and ought not to appear
+like a jack-pudding.'
+
+'Papa intends sending me to London with Madame and Mary Quince, and going
+with me himself, if Doctor Bryerly says he may make the journey, and then I
+am to have dresses and everything.'
+
+'Well, that is better. And who is Doctor Bryerly--is your papa ill?'
+
+'Ill; oh no; he always seems just the same. You don't think him
+ill--_looking_ ill, I mean?' I asked eagerly and frightened.
+
+'No, my dear, he looks very well for his time of life; but why is Doctor
+What's-his-name here? Is he a physician, or a divine, or a horse-doctor?
+and why is his leave asked?'
+
+'I--I really don't understand.'
+
+'Is he a what d'ye call'em--a Swedenborgian?'
+
+'I believe so.'
+
+'Oh, I see; ha, ha, ha! And so poor Austin must ask leave to go up to town.
+Well, go he shall, whether his doctor likes it or not, for it would not do
+to send you there in charge of your Frenchwoman, my dear. What's her name?'
+
+'Madame de la Rougierre.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+_LADY KNOLLYS REMOVES A COVERLET_
+
+
+Lady Knollys pursued her enquiries.
+
+'And why does not Madame make your dresses, my dear? I wager a guinea the
+woman's a milliner. Did not she engage to make your dresses?'
+
+'I--I really don't know; I rather think not. She is my governess--a
+finishing governess, Mrs. Rusk says.'
+
+'Finishing fiddle! Hoity-toity! and my lady's too grand to cut out your
+dresses and help to sew them? And what _does_ she do? I venture to say
+she's fit to teach nothing but devilment--not that she has taught _you_
+much, my dear--_yet_ at least. I'll see her, my dear; where is she? Come,
+let us visit Madame. I should so like to talk to her a little.'
+
+'But she is ill,' I answered, and all this time I was ready to cry for
+vexation, thinking of my dress, which must be very absurd to elicit so much
+unaffected laughter from my experienced relative, and I was only longing to
+get away and hide myself before that handsome Captain returned.
+
+'Ill! is she? what's the matter?'
+
+'A cold--feverish and rheumatic, she says.'
+
+'Oh, a cold; is she up, or in bed?'
+
+'In her room, but not in bed.'
+
+'I should so like to see her, my dear. It is not mere curiosity, I assure
+you. In fact, curiosity has nothing on earth to do with it. A governess may
+be a very useful or a very useless person; but she may also be about the
+most pernicious inmate imaginable. She may teach you a bad accent, and
+worse manners, and heaven knows what beside. Send the housekeeper, my dear,
+to tell her that I am going to see her.'
+
+'I had better go myself, perhaps,' I said, fearing a collision between Mrs.
+Rusk and the bitter Frenchwoman.
+
+'Very well, dear.'
+
+And away I ran, not sorry somehow to escape before Captain Oakley returned.
+
+As I went along the passage, I was thinking whether my dress could be
+so very ridiculous as my old cousin thought it, and trying in vain to
+recollect any evidence of a similar contemptuous estimate on the part of
+that beautiful and garrulous dandy. I could not--quite the reverse, indeed.
+Still I was uncomfortable and feverish--girls of my then age will easily
+conceive how miserable, under similar circumstances, such a misgiving would
+make them.
+
+It was a long way to Madame's room. I met Mrs. Rusk bustling along the
+passage with a housemaid.
+
+'How is Madame?' I asked.
+
+'Quite well, I believe,' answered the housekeeper, drily. 'Nothing the
+matter that _I_ know of. She eat enough for two to-day. I wish _I_ could
+sit in my room doing nothing.'
+
+Madame was sitting, or rather reclining, in a low arm-chair, when I entered
+the room, close to the fire, as was her wont, her feet extended near to the
+bars, and a little coffee equipage beside her. She stuffed a book hastily
+between her dress and the chair, and received me in a state of langour
+which, had it not been for Mrs. Rusk's comfortable assurances, would have
+frightened me.
+
+'I hope you are better, Madame,' I said, approaching.
+
+'Better than I deserve, my dear cheaile, sufficiently well. The people
+are all so good, trying me with every little thing, like a bird; here is
+café--Mrs. Rusk-a, poor woman, I try to swallow a little to please her.'
+
+'And your cold, is it better?'
+
+She shook her head languidly, her elbow resting on the chair, and three
+finger-tips supporting her forehead, and then she made a little sigh,
+looking down from the corners of her eyes, in an interesting dejection.
+
+'Je sens des lassitudes in all the members--but I am quaite 'appy, and
+though I suffer I am console and oblige des bontés, ma chère, que vous
+avez tous pour moi;' and with these words she turned a languid glance of
+gratitude on me which dropped on the ground.
+
+'Lady Knollys wishes very much to see you, only for a few minutes, if you
+could admit her.'
+
+'Vous savez les malades see _never_ visitors,' she replied with a startled
+sort of tartness, and a momentary energy. 'Besides, I cannot converse; je
+sens de temps en temps des douleurs de tête--of head, and of the ear, the
+right ear, it is parfois agony absolutely, and now it is here.'
+
+And she winced and moaned, with her eyes closed and her hand pressed to the
+organ affected.
+
+Simple as I was, I felt instinctively that Madame was shamming. She was
+over-acting; her transitions were too violent, and beside she forgot that
+I knew how well she could speak English, and must perceive that she was
+heightening the interest of her helplessness by that pretty tessellation
+of foreign idiom. I therefore said with a kind of courage which sometimes
+helped me suddenly--
+
+'Oh, Madame, don't you really think you might, without much inconvenience,
+see Lady Knollys for a very few minutes?'
+
+'Cruel cheaile! you know I have a pain of the ear which makes me 'orribly
+suffer at this moment, and you demand me whether I will not converse
+with strangers. I did not think you would be so unkain, Maud; but it is
+impossible, you must see--quite impossible. I never, you _know_, refuse to
+take trouble when I am able--never--_never_.'
+
+And Madame shed some tears, which always came at call, and with her hand
+pressed to her ear, said very faintly,
+
+'Be so good to tell your friend how you see me, and how I suffer, and leave
+me, Maud, for I wish to lie down for a little, since the pain will not
+allow me to remain longer.'
+
+So with a few words of comfort which could not well be refused, but I dare
+say betraying my suspicion that more was made of her sufferings than need
+be, I returned to the drawing-room.
+
+'Captain Oakley has been here, my dear, and fancying, I suppose, that you
+had left us for the evening, has gone to the billiard-room, I think,' said
+Lady Knollys, as I entered.
+
+That, then, accounted for the rumble and smack of balls which I had heard
+as I passed the door.
+
+'I have been telling Maud how detestably she is got up.'
+
+'Very thoughtful of you, Monica!' said my father.
+
+'Yes, and really, Austin, it is quite clear you ought to marry; you want
+some one to take this girl out, and look after her, and who's to do it?
+She's a dowdy--don't you see? Such a dust! And it _is_ really such a pity;
+for she's a very pretty creature, and a clever woman could make her quite
+charming.'
+
+My father took Cousin Monica's sallies with the most wonderful good-humour.
+She had always, I fancy, been a privileged person, and my father, whom we
+all feared, received her jolly attacks, as I fancy the grim Front-de-Boeufs
+of old accepted the humours and personalities of their jesters.
+
+'Am I to accept this as an overture?' said my father to his voluble cousin.
+
+'Yes, you may, but not for myself, Austin--I'm not worthy. Do you remember
+little Kitty Weadon that I wanted you to marry eight-and-twenty years ago,
+or more, with a hundred and twenty thousand pounds? Well, you know, she
+has got ever so much now, and she is really a most amiable old thing, and
+though _you_ would not have her then, she has had her second husband since,
+I can tell you.'
+
+'I'm glad I was not the first,' said my father.
+
+'Well, they really say her wealth is absolutely immense. Her last husband,
+the Russian merchant, left her everything. She has not a human relation,
+and she is in the best set.'
+
+'You were always a match-maker, Monica,' said my father, stopping, and
+putting his hand kindly on hers. 'But it won't do. No, no, Monica; we must
+take care of little Maud some other way.'
+
+I was relieved. We women have all an instinctive dread of second marriages,
+and think that no widower is quite above or below that danger; and I
+remember, whenever my father, which indeed was but seldom, made a visit to
+town or anywhere else, it was a saying of Mrs. Rusk--
+
+'I shan't wonder, neither need you, my dear, if he brings home a young wife
+with him.'
+
+So my father, with a kind look at her, and a very tender one on me, went
+silently to the library, as he often did about that hour.
+
+I could not help resenting my Cousin Knollys' officious recommendation of
+matrimony. Nothing I dreaded more than a step-mother. Good Mrs. Rusk
+and Mary Quince, in their several ways, used to enhance, by occasional
+anecdotes and frequent reflections, the terrors of such an intrusion. I
+suppose they did not wish a revolution and all its consequences at Knowl,
+and thought it no harm to excite my vigilance.
+
+But it was impossible long to be vexed with Cousin Monica.
+
+'You know, my dear, your father is an oddity,' she said. 'I don't mind
+him--I never did. You must not. Cracky, my dear, cracky--decidedly cracky!'
+
+And she tapped the corner of her forehead, with a look so sly and comical,
+that I think I should have laughed, if the sentiment had not been so
+awfully irreverent.
+
+'Well, dear, how is our friend the milliner?'
+
+'Madame is suffering so much from pain in her ear, that she says it would
+be quite impossible to have the honour--'
+
+'Honour--fiddle! I want to see what the woman's like. Pain in her ear, you
+say? Poor thing! Well, dear, I think I can cure that in five minutes. I
+have it myself, now and then. Come to my room, and we'll get the bottles.'
+
+So she lighted her candle in the lobby, and with a light and agile step
+she scaled the stairs, I following; and having found the remedies, we
+approached Madame's room together.
+
+I think, while we were still at the end of the gallery, Madame heard and
+divined our approach, for her door suddenly shut, and there was a fumbling
+at the handle. But the bolt was out of order.
+
+Lady Knollys tapped at the door, saying--'we'll come in, please, and see
+you. I've some remedies, which I'm sure will do you good.'
+
+There was no answer; so she opened the door, and we both entered. Madame
+had rolled herself in the blue coverlet, and was lying on the bed, with her
+face buried in the pillow, and enveloped in the covering.
+
+'Perhaps she's asleep?' said Lady Knollys, getting round to the side of the
+bed, and stooping over her.
+
+Madame lay still as a mouse. Cousin Monica set down her two little vials
+on the table, and, stooping again over the bed, began very gently with
+her fingers to lift the coverlet that covered her face. Madame uttered
+a slumbering moan, and turned more upon her face, clasping the coverlet
+faster about her.
+
+'Madame, it is Maud and Lady Knollys. We have come to relieve your ear.
+Pray let me see it. She can't be asleep, she's holding the clothes so fast.
+Do, pray, allow me to see it.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+_LADY KNOLLYS SEES THE FEATURES_
+
+
+Perhaps, if Madame had murmured, 'It is quite well--pray permit me to
+sleep,' she would have escaped an awkwardness. But having adopted the rôle
+of the exhausted slumberer, she could not consistently speak at the moment;
+neither would it do by main force, to hold the coverlet about her face, and
+so her presence of mind forsook her. Cousin Monica drew it back and hardly
+beheld the profile of the sufferer, when her good-humoured face was lined
+and shadowed with a dark curiosity and a surprise by no means pleasant. She
+stood erect beside the bed, with her mouth firmly shut and drawn down at
+the corners, in a sort of recoil and perturbation, looking down upon the
+patient.
+
+'So that's Madame de la Rougierre?' at length exclaimed Lady Knollys, with
+a very stately disdain. I think I never saw anyone look more shocked.
+
+Madame sat up, very flushed. No wonder, for she had been wrapped so close
+in the coverlet. She did not look quite at Lady Knollys, but straight
+before her, rather downward, and very luridly.
+
+I was very much frightened and amazed, and felt on the point of bursting
+into tears.
+
+'So, Mademoiselle, you have married, it seems, since I had last the honour
+of seeing you? I did not recognise Mademoiselle under her new name.'
+
+'Yes--I _am_ married, Lady Knollys; I thought everyone who knew me had
+heard of that. Very respectably married, for a person of my rank. I shall
+not need long the life of a governess. There is no harm, I hope?'
+
+'I hope not,' said Lady Knollys, drily, a little pale, and still looking
+with a dark sort of wonder upon the flushed face and forehead of the
+governess, who was looking downward, straight before her, very sulkily and
+disconcerted.
+
+'I suppose you have explained everything satisfactorily to Mr. Ruthyn, in
+whose house I find you?' said Cousin Monica.
+
+'Yes, certainly, everything he requires--in effect there is _nothing_ to
+explain. I am ready to answer to any question. Let _him_ demand me.'
+
+'Very good, Mademoiselle.'
+
+'_Madame_, if you please.'
+
+'I forgot--_Madame_--yes, I shall apprise him of everything.'
+
+Madame turned upon her a peaked and malign look, smiling askance with a
+stealthy scorn.
+
+'For myself, I have nothing to conceal. I have always done my duty. What
+fine scene about nothing absolutely--what charming remedies for a sick
+person! Ma foi! how much oblige I am for these so amiable attentions!'
+
+'So far as I can see, Mademoiselle--Madame, I mean--you don't stand very
+much in need of remedies. Your ear and head don't seem to trouble you just
+now. I fancy these pains may now be dismissed.'
+
+Lady Knollys was now speaking French.
+
+'Mi ladi has diverted my attention for a moment, but that does not prevent
+that I suffer frightfully. I am, of course, only poor governess, and such
+people perhaps ought not to have pain--at least to show when they suffer.
+It is permitted us to die, but not to be sick.'
+
+'Come, Maud, my dear, let us leave the invalid to her repose and to nature.
+I don't think she needs my chloroform and opium at present.'
+
+'Mi ladi is herself a physic which chases many things, and powerfully
+affects the ear. I would wish to sleep, notwithstanding, and can but gain
+that in silence, if it pleases mi ladi.'
+
+'Come, my dear,' said Lady Knollys, without again glancing at the scowling,
+smiling, swarthy face in the bed; 'let us leave your instructress to her
+_concforto_.'
+
+'The room smells all over of brandy, my dear--does she drink?' said Lady
+Knollys, as she closed the door, a little sharply.
+
+I am sure I looked as much amazed as I felt, at an imputation which then
+seemed to me so entirely incredible.
+
+'Good little simpleton!' said Cousin Monica, smiling in my face, and
+bestowing a little kiss on my cheek; 'such a thing as a tipsy lady has
+never been dreamt of in your philosophy. Well, we live and learn. Let us
+have our tea in my room--the gentlemen, I dare say, have retired.'
+
+I assented, of course, and we had tea very cosily by her bedroom fire.
+
+'How long have you had that woman?' she asked suddenly, after, for her, a
+very long rumination.
+
+'She came in the beginning of February--nearly ten months ago--is not it?'
+
+'And who sent her?'
+
+'I really don't know; papa tells me so little--he arranged it all himself,
+I think.'
+
+Cousin Monica made a sound of acquiescence--her lips closed and a nod,
+frowning hard at the bars.
+
+'It _is_ very odd!' she said; 'how people _can_ be such fools!' Here there
+came a little pause. 'And what sort of person is she--do you like her?'
+
+'Very well--that is, _pretty_ well. You won't tell?--but she rather
+frightens me. I'm sure she does not intend it, but somehow I am very much
+afraid of her.'
+
+'She does not beat you?' said Cousin Monica, with an incipient frenzy in
+her face that made me love her.
+
+'Oh no!'
+
+'Nor ill-use you in any way?'
+
+'No.'
+
+'Upon your honour and word, Maud?'
+
+'No, upon my honour.'
+
+'You know I won't tell her anything you say to me; and I only want to know,
+that I may put an end to it, my poor little cousin.'
+
+'Thank you, Cousin Monica very much; but really and truly she does not
+ill-use me.'
+
+'Nor threaten you, child?'
+
+'Well, _no_--no, she does not threaten.'
+
+'And how the plague _does_ she frighten you, child?'
+
+'Well, I really--I'm half ashamed to tell you--you'll laugh at me--and I
+don't know that she wishes to frighten me. But there is something, is not
+there, ghosty, you know, about her?'
+
+'_Ghosty_--is there? well, I'm sure I don't know, but I suspect there's
+something devilish--I mean, she seems roguish--does not she? And I really
+think she has had neither cold nor pain, but has just been shamming
+sickness, to keep out of my way.'
+
+I perceived plainly enough that Cousin Monica's damnatory epithet referred
+to some retrospective knowledge, which she was not going to disclose to me.
+
+'You knew Madame before,' I said. 'Who is she?'
+
+'She assures me she is Madame de la Rougierre, and, I suppose, in French
+phrase she so calls herself,' answered Lady Knollys, with a laugh, but
+uncomfortably, I thought.
+
+'Oh, dear Cousin Monica, do tell me--is she--is she very wicked? I am so
+afraid of her!'
+
+'How should I know, dear Maud? But I do remember her face, and I don't very
+much like her, and you may depend on it, I will speak to your father in the
+morning about her, and don't, darling, ask me any more about her, for I
+really have not very much to tell that you would care to hear, and the fact
+is I _won't_ say any more about her--there!'
+
+And Cousin Monica laughed, and gave me a little slap on the cheek, and then
+a kiss.
+
+'Well, just tell me this----'
+
+'Well, I _won't_ tell you this, nor anything--not a word, curious little
+woman. The fact is, I have little to tell, and I mean to speak to your
+father, and he, I am sure, will do what is right; so don't ask me any more,
+and let us talk of something pleasanter.'
+
+There was something indescribably winning, it seemed to me, in Cousin
+Monica. Old as she was, she seemed to me so girlish, compared with those
+slow, unexceptionable young ladies whom I had met in my few visits at the
+county houses. By this time my shyness was quite gone, and I was on the
+most intimate terms with her.
+
+'You know a great deal about her, Cousin Monica, but you won't tell me.'
+
+'Nothing I should like better, if I were at liberty, little rogue; but you
+know, after all, I don't really say whether I _do_ know anything about
+her or not, or what sort of knowledge it is. But tell me what you mean by
+ghosty, and all about it.'
+
+So I recounted my experiences, to which, so far from laughing at me, she
+listened with very special gravity.
+
+'Does she write and receive many letters?'
+
+I had seen her write letters, and supposed, though I could only recollect
+one or two, that she received in proportion.
+
+'Are _you_ Mary Quince?' asked my lady cousin.
+
+Mary was arranging the window-curtains, and turned, dropping a courtesy
+affirmatively toward her.
+
+'You wait on my little cousin, Miss Ruthyn, don't you?'
+
+'Yes, 'm,' said Mary, in her genteelest way.
+
+'Does anyone sleep in her room?'
+
+'Yes, 'm, _I_--please, my lady.'
+
+'And no one else?'
+
+'No, 'm--please, my lady.'
+
+'Not even the _governess_, sometimes?
+
+'No, please, my lady.'
+
+'Never, you are quite sure, my dear?' said Lady Knollys, transferring the
+question to me.
+
+'Oh, no, never,' I answered.
+
+Cousin Monica mused gravely, I fancied even anxiously, into the grate; then
+stirred her tea and sipped it, still looking into the same point of our
+cheery fire.
+
+'I like your face, Mary Quince; I'm sure you are a good creature,' she
+said, suddenly turning toward her with a pleasant countenance. 'I'm very
+glad you have got her, dear. I wonder whether Austin has gone to his bed
+yet!'
+
+'I think not. I am certain he is either in the library or in his private
+room--papa often reads or prays alone at night, and--and he does not like
+to be interrupted.'
+
+'No, no; of course not--it will do very well in the morning.'
+
+Lady Knollys was thinking deeply, as it seemed to me.
+
+'And so you are afraid of goblins, my dear,' she said at last, with a faded
+sort of smile, turning toward me; 'well, if _I_ were, I know what _I_
+should do--so soon as I, and good Mary Quince here, had got into my
+bed-chamber for the night, I should stir the fire into a good blaze, and
+bolt the door--do you see, Mary Quince?--bolt the door and keep a candle
+lighted all night. You'll be very attentive to her, Mary Quince, for I--I
+don't think she is very strong, and she must not grow nervous: so get to
+bed early, and don't leave her alone--do you see?--and--and remember to
+bolt the door, Mary Quince, and I shall be sending a little Christmas-box
+to my cousin, and I shan't forget you. Good-night.'
+
+And with a pleasant courtesy Mary fluttered out of the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+_A CURIOUS CONVERSATION_
+
+
+We each had another cup of tea, and were silent for awhile.
+
+'We must not talk of ghosts now. You are a superstitious little woman, you
+know, and you shan't be frightened.'
+
+And now Cousin Monica grew silent again, and looking briskly around the
+room, like a lady in search of a subject, her eye rested on a small oval
+portrait, graceful, brightly tinted, in the French style, representing
+a pretty little boy, with rich golden hair, large soft eyes, delicate
+features, and a shy, peculiar expression.
+
+'It is odd; I think I remember that pretty little sketch, very long ago. I
+think I was then myself a child, but that is a much older style of dress,
+and of wearing the hair, too, than I ever saw. I am just forty-nine now. Oh
+dear, yes; that is a good while before I was _born_. What a strange, pretty
+little boy! a mysterious little fellow. Is he quite sincere, I wonder? What
+rich golden hair! It is very clever--a French artist, I dare say--and who
+_is_ that little boy?'
+
+'I never heard. Some one a hundred years ago, I dare say. But there is a
+picture down-stairs I am so anxious to ask you about!'
+
+'Oh!' murmured Lady Knollys, still gazing dreamily on the crayon.
+
+'It is the full-length picture of Uncle Silas--I want to ask you about
+him.'
+
+At mention of his name, my cousin gave me a look so sudden and odd as to
+amount almost to a start.
+
+'Your uncle Silas, dear? It is very odd, I was just thinking of him;' and
+she laughed a little.
+
+'Wondering whether that little boy could be he.'
+
+And up jumped active Cousin Monica, with a candle in her hand, upon a
+chair, and scrutinised the border of the sketch for a name or a date.
+
+'Maybe on the back?' said she.
+
+And so she unhung it, and there, true enough, not on the back of the
+drawing, but of the frame, which was just as good, in pen-and-ink round
+Italian letters, hardly distinguishable now from the discoloured wood, we
+traced--
+
+'_Silas Aylmer Ruthyn, AEtate_ viii. 15 _May_, 1779.'
+
+'It is very odd I should not have been told or remembered who it was.
+I think if I had _ever_ been told I _should_ have remembered it. I do
+recollect this picture, though, I am nearly certain. What a singular
+child's face!'
+
+And my cousin leaned over it with a candle on each side, and her hand
+shading her eyes, as if seeking by aid of these fair and half-formed
+lineaments to read an enigma.
+
+The childish features defied her, I suppose; their secret was unfathomable,
+for after a good while she raised her head, still looking at the portrait,
+and sighed.
+
+'A very singular face,' she said, softly, as a person might who was looking
+into a coffin. 'Had not we better replace it?'
+
+So the pretty oval, containing the fair golden hair and large eyes, the
+pale, unfathomable sphinx, remounted to its nail, and the _funeste_ and
+beautiful child seemed to smile down oracularly on our conjectures.
+
+'So is the face in the large portrait--_very_ singular--more, I think, than
+that--handsomer too. This is a sickly child, I think; but the full-length
+is so manly, though so slender, and so handsome too. I always think him a
+hero and a mystery, and they won't tell me about him, and I can only dream
+and wonder.'
+
+'He has made more people than you dream and wonder, my dear Maud. I don't
+know what to make of him. He is a sort of idol, you know, of your father's,
+and yet I don't think he helps him much. His abilities were singular; so
+has been his misfortune; for the rest, my dear, he is neither a hero nor a
+wonder. So far as I know, there are very few sublime men going about the
+world.'
+
+'You really must tell me all you know about him, Cousin Monica. Now don't
+refuse.'
+
+'But why should you care to hear? There is really nothing pleasant to
+tell.'
+
+'That is just the reason I wish it. If it were at all pleasant, it would be
+quite commonplace. I like to hear of adventures, dangers, and misfortunes;
+and above all, I love a mystery. You know, papa will never tell me, and I
+dare not ask him; not that he is ever unkind, but, somehow, I am afraid;
+and neither Mrs. Rusk nor Mary Quince will tell me anything, although I
+suspect they know a good deal.'
+
+'I don't see any good in telling you, dear, nor, to say the truth, any
+great harm either.'
+
+'No--now that's _quite_ true--no harm. There _can't_ be, for I _must_ know
+it all some day, you know, and better now, and from _you_, than perhaps
+from a stranger, and in a less favourable way.'
+
+'Upon my word, it is a wise little woman; and really, that's not such bad
+sense after all.'
+
+So we poured out another cup of tea each, and sipped it very comfortably by
+the fire, while Lady Knollys talked on, and her animated face helped the
+strange story.
+
+'It is not very much, after all. Your uncle Silas, you know, is living?'
+
+'Oh yes, in Derbyshire.'
+
+'So I see you do know something of him, sly girl! but no matter. You know
+how very rich your father is; but Silas was the younger brother, and had
+little more than a thousand a year. If he had not played, and did not care
+to marry, it would have been quite enough--ever so much more than younger
+sons of dukes often have; but he was--well, a _mauvais sujet_--you know
+what that is. I don't want to say any ill of him--more than I really
+know--but he was fond of his pleasures, I suppose, like other young men,
+and he played, and was always losing, and your father for a long time paid
+great sums for him. I believe he was really a most expensive and vicious
+young man; and I fancy he does not deny that now, for they say he would
+change the past if he could.
+
+I was looking at the pensive little boy in the oval frame--aged eight
+years--who was, a few springs later, 'a most expensive and vicious young
+man,' and was now a suffering and outcast old one, and wondering from what
+a small seed the hemlock or the wallflower grows, and how microscopic are
+the beginnings of the kingdom of God or of the mystery of iniquity in a
+human being's heart.
+
+'Austin--your papa--was very kind to him--_very_; but then, you know,
+he's an oddity, dear--he _is_ an oddity, though no one may have told you
+before--and he never forgave him for his marriage. Your father, I suppose,
+knew more about the lady than I did--I was young then--but there were
+various reports, none of them pleasant, and she was not visited, and for
+some time there was a complete estrangement between your father and your
+uncle Silas; and it was made up, rather oddly, on the very occasion which
+some people said ought to have totally separated them. Did you ever hear
+anything--anything _very_ remarkable--about your uncle?'
+
+'No, never, they would not tell me, though I am sure they know. Pray go
+on.'
+
+'Well, Maud, as I have begun, I'll complete the story, though perhaps it
+might have been better untold. It was something rather shocking--indeed,
+_very_ shocking; in fact, they insisted on suspecting him of having
+committed a murder.'
+
+I stared at my cousin for some time, and then at the little boy, so
+refined, so beautiful, so _funeste_, in the oval frame.
+
+'Yes, dear,' said she, her eyes following mine; 'who'd have supposed he
+could ever have--have fallen under so horrible a suspicion?'
+
+'The wretches! Of course, Uncle Silas--of course, he's innocent?' I said at
+last.
+
+'Of course, my dear,' said Cousin Monica, with an odd look; 'but you know
+there are some things as bad almost to be suspected of as to have done, and
+the country gentlemen chose to suspect him. They did not like him, you
+see. His politics vexed them; and he resented their treatment of his
+wife--though I really think, poor Silas, he did not care a pin about
+her--and he annoyed them whenever he could. Your papa, you know, is very
+proud of his family--_he_ never had the slightest suspicion of your uncle.'
+
+'Oh no!' I cried vehemently.
+
+'That's right, Maud Ruthyn,' said Cousin Monica, with a sad little smile
+and a nod. 'And your papa was, you may suppose, very angry.'
+
+'Of course he was,' I exclaimed.
+
+'You have no idea, my dear, _how_ angry. He directed his attorney to
+prosecute, by wholesale, all who had said a word affecting your uncle's
+character. But the lawyers were against it, and then your uncle tried to
+fight his way through it, but the men would not meet him. He was quite
+slurred. Your father went up and saw the Minister. He wanted to have him a
+Deputy-Lieutenant, or something, in his county. Your papa, you know, had a
+very great influence with the Government. Beside his county influence, he
+had two boroughs then. But the Minister was afraid, the feeling was so very
+strong. They offered him something in the Colonies, but your father would
+not hear of it--that would have been a banishment, you know. They would
+have given your father a peerage to make it up, but he would not accept
+it, and broke with the party. Except in that way--which, you know, was
+connected with the reputation of the family--I don't think, considering his
+great wealth, he has done very much for Silas. To say truth, however, he
+was very liberal before his marriage. Old Mrs. Aylmer says he made a vow
+_then_ that Silas should never have more than five hundred a year, which he
+still allows him, I believe, and he permits him to live in the place. But
+they say it is in a very wild, neglected state.'
+
+'You live in the same county--have you seen it lately, Cousin Monica?'
+
+'No, not very lately,' said Cousin Monica, and began to hum an air
+abstractedly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+_BEFORE AND AFTER BREAKFAST_
+
+
+Next morning early I visited my favourite full-length portrait in the
+chocolate coat and top-boots. Scanty as had been my cousin Monica's notes
+upon this dark and eccentric biography, they were everything to me. A soul
+had entered that enchanted form. Truth had passed by with her torch, and a
+sad light shone for a moment on that enigmatic face.
+
+There stood the _roué_--the duellist--and, with all his faults, the hero
+too! In that dark large eye lurked the profound and fiery enthusiasm of his
+ill-starred passion. In the thin but exquisite lip I read the courage of
+the paladin, who would have 'fought his way,' though single-handed, against
+all the magnates of his county, and by ordeal of battle have purged the
+honour of the Ruthyns. There in that delicate half-sarcastic tracery of the
+nostril I detected the intellectual defiance which had politically isolated
+Silas Ruthyn and opposed him to the landed oligarchy of his county, whose
+retaliation had been a hideous slander. There, too, and on his brows and
+lip, I traced the patience of a cold disdain. I could now see him as he
+was--the prodigal, the hero, and the martyr. I stood gazing on him with a
+girlish interest and admiration. There was indignation, there was pity,
+there was hope. Some day it might come to pass that I, girl as I was, might
+contribute by word or deed towards the vindication of that long-suffering,
+gallant, and romantic prodigal. It was a flicker of the Joan of Arc
+inspiration, common, I fancy, to many girls. I little then imagined how
+profoundly and strangely involved my uncle's fate would one day become with
+mine.
+
+I was interrupted by Captain Oakley's voice at the window. He was leaning
+on the window-sill, and looking in with a smile--the window being open, the
+morning sunny, and his cap lifted in his hand.
+
+'Good-morning, Miss Ruthyn. What a charming old place! quite the setting
+for a romance; such timber, and this really _beautiful_ house. I _do_ so
+like these white and black houses--wonderful old things. By-the-by, you
+treated us very badly last night--you did, indeed; upon my word, now, it
+really was too bad--running away, and drinking tea with Lady Knollys--so
+she says. I really--I should not like to tell you how very savage I felt,
+particularly considering how very short my time is.'
+
+I was a shy, but not a giggling country miss. I knew I was an heiress; I
+knew I was somebody. I was not the least bit in the world conceited, but
+I think this knowledge helped to give me a certain sense of security and
+self-possession, which might have been mistaken for dignity or simplicity.
+I am sure I looked at him with a fearless enquiry, for he answered my
+thoughts.
+
+'I do really assure you, Miss Ruthyn, I am quite serious; you have no idea
+how very much we have missed you.'
+
+There was a little pause, and, like a fool, I lowered my eyes, and blushed.
+
+'I--I was thinking of leaving today; I am so unfortunate--my leave is just
+out--it is so unlucky; but I don't quite know whether my aunt Knollys will
+allow me to go.'
+
+'_I_?--certainly, my dear Charlie, _I_ don't want you at all,' exclaimed a
+voice--Lady Knollys's--briskly, from an open window close by; 'what could
+put that in your head, dear?'
+
+And in went my cousin's head, and the window shut down.
+
+'She is _such_ an oddity, poor dear Aunt Knollys,' murmured the young
+man, ever so little put out, and he laughed. 'I never know quite what she
+wishes, or how to please her; but she's _so_ good-natured; and when she
+goes to town for the season--she does not always, you know--her house is
+really very gay--you can't think----'
+
+Here again he was interrupted, for the door opened, and Lady Knollys
+entered. 'And you know, Charles,' she continued, 'it would not do to forget
+your visit to Snodhurst; you wrote, you know, and you have only to-night
+and to-morrow. You are thinking of nothing but that moor; I heard you
+talking to the gamekeeper; I know he is--is not he, Maud, the brown man
+with great whiskers, and leggings? I'm very sorry, you know, but I really
+must spoil your shooting, for they do expect you at Snodhurst, Charlie; and
+do not you think this window a little too much for Miss Ruthyn? Maud, my
+dear, the air is very sharp; shut it down, Charles, and you'd better tell
+them to get a fly for you from the town after luncheon. Come, dear,' she
+said to me. 'Was not that the breakfast bell? Why does not your papa get a
+gong?--it is so hard to know one bell from another.'
+
+I saw that Captain Oakley lingered for a last look, but I did not give it,
+and went out smiling with Cousin Knollys, and wondering why old ladies are
+so uniformly disagreeable.
+
+In the lobby she said, with an odd, goodnatured look--
+
+'Don't allow any of his love-making, my dear. Charles Oakley has not a
+guinea, and an heiress would be very convenient. Of course he has his eyes
+about him. Charles is not by any means foolish; and I should not be at all
+sorry to see him well married, for I don't think he will do much good
+any other way; but there are degrees, and his ideas are sometimes very
+impertinent.'
+
+I was an admiring reader of the _Albums_, the _Souvenirs_, the _Keepsakes_,
+and all that flood of Christmas-present lore which yearly irrigated
+England, with pretty covers and engravings; and floods of elegant
+twaddle--the milk, not destitute of water, on which the babes of literature
+were then fed. On this, my genius throve. I had a little album, enriched
+with many gems of original thought and observation, which I jotted down in
+suitable language. Lately, turning over these faded leaves of rhyme
+and prose, I lighted, under this day's date, upon the following sage
+reflection, with my name appended:--
+
+'Is there not in the female heart an ineradicable jealousy, which, if it
+sways the passions of the young, rules also the _advice_ of the _aged_? Do
+they not grudge to youth the sentiments (though Heaven knows how _shadowed_
+with sorrow) which they can _no longer inspire_, perhaps even _experience_;
+and does not youth, in turn, sigh over the envy which has _power to
+blight_?
+
+MAUD AYLMER RUTHYN.'
+
+'He has not been making love to me,' I said rather tartly, 'and he does not
+seem to me at all impertinent, and I really don't care the least whether he
+goes or stays.'
+
+Cousin Monica looked in my face with her old waggish smile, and laughed.
+
+'You'll understand those London dandies better some day, dear Maud; they
+are very well, but they like money--not to keep, of course--but still they
+like it and know its value.'
+
+At breakfast my father told Captain Oakley where he might have shooting, or
+if he preferred going to Dilsford, only half an hour's ride, he might have
+his choice of hunters, and find the dogs there that morning.
+
+The Captain smiled archly at me, and looked at his aunt. There was a
+suspense. I hope I did not show how much I was interested--but it would not
+do. Cousin Monica was inexorable.
+
+'Hunting, hawking, fishing, fiddle-de-dee! You know, Charlie, my dear, it
+is quite out of the question. He is going to Snodhurst this afternoon, and
+without quite a rudeness, in which I should be involved too, he really
+can't--you know you can't, Charles! and--and he _must_ go and keep his
+engagement.'
+
+So papa acquiesced with a polite regret, and hoped another time.
+
+'Oh, leave all that to me. When you want him, only write me a note, and
+I'll send him or bring him if you let me. I always know where to find
+him--don't I, Charlie?--and we shall be only too happy.'
+
+Aunt Monica's influence with her nephew was special, for she 'tipped' him
+handsomely every now and then, and he had formed for himself agreeable
+expectations, besides, respecting her will. I felt rather angry at his
+submitting to this sort of tutelage, knowing nothing of its motive; I was
+also disgusted by Cousin Monica's tyranny.
+
+So soon as he had left the room, Lady Knollys, not minding me, said briskly
+to papa, 'Never let that young man into your house again. I found him
+making speeches, this morning, to little Maud here; and he really has not
+two pence in the world--it is amazing impudence--and you know such absurd
+things do happen.'
+
+'Come, Maud, what compliments did he pay you?' asked my father.
+
+I was vexed, and therefore spoke courageously. 'His compliments were not to
+me; they were all to the house,' I said, drily.
+
+'Quite as it should be--the house, of course; it is that he's in love
+with,' said Cousin Knollys.
+
+  ''Twas on a widow's jointure land,
+  The archer, Cupid, took his stand.'
+
+'Hey! I don't quite understand,' said my father, slily.
+
+'Tut! Austin; you forget Charlie is my nephew.'
+
+'So I did,' said my father.
+
+'Therefore the literal widow in this case _can_ have no interest in view
+but one, and that is yours and Maud's. I wish him well, but he shan't put
+my little cousin and her expectations into his empty pocket--_not_ a bit of
+it. And _there's_ another reason, Austin, why you should marry--you have no
+eye for these things, whereas a clever _woman_ would see at a glance and
+prevent mischief.'
+
+'So she would,' acquiesced my father, in his gloomy, amused way. 'Maud, you
+must try to be a clever woman.'
+
+'So she will in her time, but that is not come yet; and I tell you, Austin
+Ruthyn, if you won't look about and marry somebody, somebody may possibly
+marry you.'
+
+'You were always an oracle, Monica; but _here_ I am lost in total
+perplexity,' said my father.
+
+'Yes; sharks sailing round you, with keen eyes and large throats; and you
+have come to the age precisely when men _are_ swallowed up alive like
+Jonah.'
+
+'Thank you for the parallel, but you know that was not a happy union, even
+for the fish, and there was a separation in a few days; not that I mean to
+trust to that; but there's no one to throw me into the jaws of the monster,
+and I've no notion of jumping there; and the fact is, Monica, there's no
+monster at all.'
+
+'I'm not so sure.'
+
+'But I'm quite sure,' said my father, a little drily. 'You forget how old
+I am, and how long I've lived alone--I and little Maud;' and he smiled and
+smoothed my hair, and, I thought, sighed.
+
+'No one is ever too old to do a foolish thing,' began Lady Knollys.
+
+'Nor to say a foolish thing, Monica. This has gone on too long. Don't you
+see that little Maud here is silly enough to be frightened at your fun.'
+
+So I was, but I could not divine how he guessed it.
+
+'And well or ill, wisely or madly, I'll _never_ marry; so put that out of
+your head.'
+
+This was addressed rather to me, I think, than to Lady Knollys, who smiled
+a little waggishly on me, and said--
+
+'To be sure, Maud; maybe you are right; a stepdame is a risk, and I ought
+to have asked you first what you thought of it; and upon my honour,' she
+continued merrily but kindly, observing that my eyes, I know not exactly
+from what feeling, filled with tears, 'I'll never again advise your papa to
+marry, unless you first tell me you wish it.'
+
+This was a great deal from Lady Knollys, who had a taste for advising her
+friends and managing their affairs.
+
+'I've a great respect for instinct. I believe, Austin, it is truer than
+reason, and yours and Maud's are both against me, though I know I have
+reason on my side.'
+
+My father's brief wintry smile answered, and Cousin Monica kissed me, and
+said--
+
+'I've been so long my own mistress that I sometimes forget there are such
+things as fear and jealousy; and are you going to your governess, Maud?'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+_ANGRY WORDS_
+
+
+I was going to my governess, as Lady Knollys said; and so I went. The
+undefinable sense of danger that smote me whenever I beheld that woman had
+deepened since last night's occurrence, and was taken out of the region
+of instinct or prepossession by the strange though slight indications of
+recognition and abhorrence which I had witnessed in Lady Knollys on that
+occasion.
+
+The tone in which Cousin Monica had asked, 'are you going to your
+governess?' and the curious, grave, and anxious look that accompanied the
+question, disturbed me; and there was something odd and cold in the tone as
+if a remembrance had suddenly chilled her. The accent remained in my ear,
+and the sharp brooding look was fixed before me as I glided up the broad
+dark stairs to Madame de la Rougierre's chamber.
+
+She had not come down to the school-room, as the scene of my studies was
+called. She had decided on having a relapse, and accordingly had not made
+her appearance down-stairs that morning. The gallery leading to her room
+was dark and lonely, and I grew more nervous as I approached; I paused at
+the door, making up my mind to knock.
+
+But the door opened suddenly, and, like a magic-lantern figure, presented
+with a snap, appeared close before my eyes the great muffled face, with the
+forbidding smirk, of Madame de la Rougierre.
+
+'Wat you mean, my dear cheaile?' she inquired with a malevolent shrewdness
+in her eyes, and her hollow smile all the time disconcerting me more even
+than the suddenness of her appearance; 'wat for you approach so softly? I
+do not sleep, you see, but you feared, perhaps, to have the misfortune of
+wakening me, and so you came--is it not so?--to leesten, and looke in very
+gentily; you want to know how I was. Vous êtes bien aimable d'avoir pensé
+à moi. Bah!' she cried, suddenly bursting through her irony. 'Wy could not
+Lady Knollys come herself and leesten to the keyhole to make her report?
+Fi donc! wat is there to conceal? Nothing. Enter, if you please. Every one
+they are welcome!' and she flung the door wide, turned her back upon me,
+and, with an ejaculation which I did not understand, strode into the room.
+
+'I did not come with any intention, Madame, to pry or to intrude--you
+don't think so--you _can't_ think so--you can't possibly mean to insinuate
+anything so insulting!'
+
+I was very angry, and my tremors had all vanished now.
+
+'No, not for _you_, dear cheaile; I was thinking to miladi Knollys, who,
+without cause, is my enemy. Every one has enemy; you will learn all that so
+soon as you are little older, and without cause she is mine. Come, Maud,
+speak a the truth--was it not miladi Knollys who sent you here doucement,
+doucement, so quaite to my door--is it not so, little rogue?'
+
+Madame had confronted me again, and we were now standing in the middle of
+her floor.
+
+I indignantly repelled the charge, and searching me for a moment with her
+oddly-shaped, cunning eyes, she said--
+
+'That is good cheaile, you speak a so direct--I like that, and am glad to
+hear; but, my dear Maud, that woman----'
+
+'Lady Knollys is papa's cousin,' I interposed a little gravely.
+
+'She does hate a me so, you av no idea. She as tryed to injure me several
+times, and would employ the most innocent person, unconsciously you know,
+my dear, to assist her malice.'
+
+Here Madame wept a little. I had already discovered that she could shed
+tears whenever she pleased. I have heard of such persons, but I never met
+another before or since.
+
+Madame was unusually frank--no one ever knew better when to be candid. At
+present I suppose she concluded that Lady Knollys would certainly relate
+whatever she knew concerning her before she left Knowl; and so Madame's
+reserves, whatever they might be, were dissolving, and she growing
+childlike and confiding.
+
+'Et comment va monsieur votre père aujourd'hui?'
+
+'Very well,' I thanked her.
+
+'And how long miladi Knollys her visit is likely to be?'
+
+'I could not say exactly, but for some days.'
+
+'Eh bien, my dear cheaile, I find myself better this morning, and we must
+return to our lessons. Je veux m'habiller, ma chère Maud; you will wait me
+in the school-room.'
+
+By this time Madame, who, though lazy, could make an effort, and was
+capable of getting into a sudden hurry, had placed herself before her
+dressing-table, and was ogling her discoloured and bony countenance in the
+glass.
+
+'Wat horror! I am so pale. Quel ennui! wat bore! Ow weak av I grow in two
+three days!'
+
+And she practised some plaintive, invalid glances into the mirror. But on a
+sudden there came a little sharp inquisitive frown as she looked over the
+frame of the glass, upon the terrace beneath. It was only a glance, and she
+sat down languidly in her arm-chair to prepare, I suppose, for the fatigues
+of the toilet.
+
+My curiosity was sufficiently aroused to induce me to ask--
+
+'But why, Madame, do you fancy that Lady Knollys dislikes you?'
+
+''Tis not fancy, my dear Maud. Ah ha, no! Mais c'est toute une
+histoire--too tedious to tell now--some time maybe--and you will learn when
+you are little older, the most violent hatreds often they are the most
+without cause. But, my dear cheaile, the hours they are running from us,
+and I must dress. Vite, vite! so you run away to the school-room, and I
+will come after.'
+
+Madame had her dressing-case and her mysteries, and palpably stood in need
+of repairs; so away I went to my studies. The room which we called the
+school-room was partly beneath the floor of Madame's bed-chamber, and
+commanded the same view; so, remembering my governess's peering glance from
+her windows, I looked out, and saw Cousin Monica making a brisk promenade
+up and down the terrace-walk. Well, that was quite enough to account for
+it. I had grown very curious, and I resolved when our lessons were over to
+join her and make another attempt to discover the mystery.
+
+As I sat over my books, I fancied I heard a movement outside the door. I
+suspected that Madame was listening. I waited for a time, expecting to see
+the door open, but she did not come; so I opened it suddenly myself, but
+Madame was not on the threshold nor on the lobby. I heard a rustling,
+however, and on the staircase over the banister I saw the folds of her silk
+dress as she descended.
+
+She is going, I thought, to seek an interview with Lady Knollys. She
+intends to propitiate that dangerous lady; so I amused some eight or ten
+minutes in watching Cousin Monica's quick march and right-about face upon
+the parade-ground of the terrace. But no one joined her.
+
+'She is certainly talking to papa,' was my next and more probable
+conjecture. Having the profoundest distrust of Madame, I was naturally
+extremely jealous of the confidential interviews in which deceit and malice
+might make their representations plausibly and without answer.
+
+'Yes, I'll run down and see--see _papa_; she shan't tell lies behind my
+back, horrid woman!'
+
+At the study-door I knocked, and forthwith entered. My father was sitting
+near the window, his open book before him, Madame standing at the
+other side of the table, her cunning eyes bathed in tears, and her
+pocket-handkerchief pressed to her mouth. Her eyes glittered stealthily on
+me for an instant: she was sobbing--_désolée_, in fact--that grim grenadier
+lady, and her attitude was exquisitely dejected and timid. But she was,
+notwithstanding, reading closely and craftily my father's face. He was not
+looking at her, but rather upward toward the ceiling, reflectively leaning
+on his hand, with an expression, not angry, but rather surly and annoyed.
+
+'I ought to have heard of this before, Madame,' my father was saying as I
+came in; 'not that it would have made any difference--not the least; mind
+that. But it was the kind of thing that I ought to have heard, and the
+omission was not strictly right.'
+
+Madame, in a shrill and lamentable key, opened her voluble reply, but was
+arrested by a nod from my father, who asked me if I wanted anything.
+
+'Only--only that I was waiting in the school-room for Madame, and did not
+know where she was.'
+
+'Well, she is here, you see, and will join you up-stairs in a few minutes.'
+
+So back I went again, huffed, angry, and curious, and sat back in my chair
+with a clouded countenance, thinking very little about lessons.
+
+When Madame entered, I did not lift my head or eyes.
+
+'Good cheaile! reading,' said she, as she approached briskly and reassured.
+
+'No,' I answered tartly; 'not good, nor a child either; I'm not reading,
+I've been thinking.'
+
+'Très-bien!' she said, with an insufferable smile, 'thinking is very good
+also; but you look unhappy--very, poor cheaile. Take care you are not grow
+jealous for poor Madame talking sometime to your papa; you must not, little
+fool. It is only for a your good, my dear Maud, and I had no objection you
+should stay.'
+
+'_You_! Madame!' I said loftily. I was very angry, and showed it through my
+dignity, to Madame's evident satisfaction.
+
+'No--it was your papa, Mr. Ruthyn, who weesh to speak alone; for me I do
+not care; there was something I weesh to tell him. I don't care who know,
+but Mr. Ruthyn he is deeferent.'
+
+I made no remark.
+
+'Come, leetle Maud, you are not to be so cross; it will be much better you
+and I to be good friends together. Why should a we quarrel?--wat nonsense!
+Do you imagine I would anywhere undertake a the education of a young person
+unless I could speak with her parent?--wat folly! I would like to be your
+friend, however, my poor Maud, if you would allow--you and I together--wat
+you say?'
+
+'People grow to be friends by liking, Madame, and liking comes of itself,
+not by bargain; I like every one who is kind to me.'
+
+'And so I. You are like me in so many things, my dear Maud! Are you quaite
+well to-day? I think you look fateague; so I feel, too, vary tire. I think
+we weel put off the lessons to to-morrow. Eh? and we will come to play la
+grace in the garden.'
+
+Madame was plainly in a high state of exultation. Her audience had
+evidently been satisfactory, and, like other people, when things went well,
+her soul lighted up into a sulphureous good-humour, not very genuine nor
+pleasant, but still it was better than other moods.
+
+I was glad when our calisthenics were ended, and Madame had returned to her
+apartment, so that I had a pleasant little walk with Cousin Monica.
+
+We women are persevering when once our curiosity is roused, but she gaily
+foiled mine, and, I think, had a mischievous pleasure in doing so. As we
+were going in to dress for dinner, however, she said, quite gravely--
+
+'I am sorry, Maud, I allowed you to see that I have any unpleasant
+impressions about that governess lady. I shall be at liberty some day to
+explain all about it, and, indeed, it will be enough to tell your father,
+whom I have not been able to find all day; but really we are, perhaps,
+making too much of the matter, and I cannot say that I know anything
+against Madame that is conclusive, or--or, indeed, at all; but that there
+are reasons, and--you must not ask any more--no, you must not.'
+
+That evening, while I was playing the overture to Cenerentola, for the
+entertainment of my cousin, there arose from the tea-table, where she and
+my father were sitting, a spirited and rather angry harangue from Lady
+Knollys' lips; I turned my eyes from the music towards the speakers; the
+overture swooned away with a little hesitating babble into silence, and I
+listened.
+
+Their conversation had begun under cover of the music which I was making,
+and now they were too much engrossed to perceive its discontinuance. The
+first sentence I heard seized my attention; my father had closed the book
+he was reading, upon his finger, and was leaning back in his chair, as he
+used to do when at all angry; his face was a little flushed, and I knew the
+fierce and glassy stare which expressed pride, surprise, and wrath.
+
+'Yes, Lady Knollys, there's an animus; I know the spirit you speak in--it
+does you no honour,' said my father.
+
+'And I know the spirit _you_ speak in, the spirit of _madness_,' retorted
+Cousin Monica, just as much in earnest. 'I can't conceive how you _can_ be
+so _demented_, Austin. What has perverted you? are you _blind_?'
+
+'_You_ are, Monica; your own unnatural prejudice--_unnatural_ prejudice,
+blinds you. What is it all?--_nothing_. Were I to act as you say, I should
+be a _coward_ and a traitor. I see, I _do_ see, all that's real. I'm no
+Quixote, to draw my sword on illusions.'
+
+'There should be no halting here. How _can_ you--do you ever _think_? I
+wonder if you can breathe. I feel as if the evil one were in the house.'
+
+A stern, momentary frown was my father's only answer, as he looked fixedly
+at her.
+
+'People need not nail up horseshoes and mark their door-stones with charms
+to keep the evil spirit out,' ran on Lady Knollys, who looked pale and
+angry, in her way, 'but you open your door in the dark and invoke unknown
+danger. How can you look at that child that's--she's _not_ playing,' said
+Knollys, abruptly stopping.
+
+My father rose, muttering to himself, and cast a lurid glance at me, as he
+went in high displeasure to the door. Cousin Monica, now flushed a little,
+glanced also silently at me, biting the tip of her slender gold cross, and
+doubtful how much I had heard.
+
+My father opened the door suddenly, which he had just closed, and looking
+in, said, in a calmer tone--
+
+'Perhaps, Monica, you would come for a moment to the study; I'm sure you
+have none but kindly feelings towards me and little Maud, there; and
+I thank you for your good-will; but you must see other things more
+reasonably, and I think you will.'
+
+Cousin Monica got up silently and followed him, only throwing up her eyes
+and hands as she did so, and I was left alone, wondering and curious more
+than ever.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+_A WARNING_
+
+
+I sat still, listening and wondering, and wondering and listening; but
+I ought to have known that no sound could reach me where I was from my
+father's study. Five minutes passed and they did not return. Ten, fifteen.
+I drew near the fire and made myself comfortable in a great arm-chair,
+looking on the embers, but not seeing all the scenery and _dramatis
+personae_ of my past life or future fortunes, in their shifting glow,
+as people in romances usually do; but fanciful castles and caverns in
+blood-red and golden glare, suggestive of dreamy fairy-land, salamanders,
+sunsets, and palaces of fire-kings, and all this partly shaping and partly
+shaped by my fancy, and leading my closing eyes and drowsy senses off into
+dream-land. So I nodded and dozed, and sank into a deep slumber, from which
+I was roused by the voice of my cousin Monica. On opening my eyes, I saw
+nothing but Lady Knollys' face looking steadily into mine, and expanding
+into a good-natured laugh as she watched the vacant and lack-lustre stare
+with which I returned her gaze.
+
+'Come, dear Maud, it is late; you ought to have been in your bed an hour
+ago.'
+
+Up I stood, and so soon as I had begun to hear and see aright, it struck me
+that Cousin Monica was more grave and subdued than I had seen her.
+
+'Come, let us light our candles and go together.'
+
+Holding hands, we ascended, I sleepy, she silent; and not a word was spoken
+until we reached my room. Mary Quince was in waiting, and tea made.
+
+'Tell her to come back in a few minutes; I wish to say a word to you,' said
+Lady Knollys.
+
+The maid accordingly withdrew.
+
+Lady Knollys' eyes followed her till she closed the door behind her.
+
+'I'm going in the morning.'
+
+'So soon!'
+
+'Yes, dear; I could not stay; in fact, I should have gone to-night, but it
+was too late, and I leave instead in the morning.'
+
+'I am so sorry--so _very_ sorry,' I exclaimed, in honest disappointment,
+and the walls seemed to darken round me, and the monotony of the old
+routine loomed more terrible in prospect.
+
+'So am I, dear Maud.'
+
+'But can't you stay a little longer; _won't_ you?'
+
+'No, Maud; I'm vexed with Austin--very much vexed with your father; in
+short, I can't conceive anything so entirely preposterous, and dangerous,
+and insane as his conduct, now that his eyes are quite opened, and I must
+say a word to you before I go, and it is just this:--you must cease to be a
+mere child, you must try and be a woman, Maud: now don't be frightened
+or foolish, but hear me out. That woman--what does she call
+herself--Rougierre? I have reason to believe is--in fact, from
+circumstances, _must_ be your enemy; you will find her very deep, daring,
+and unscrupulous, I venture to say, and you can't be too much on your
+guard. Do you quite understand me, Maud?'
+
+'I do,' said I, with a gasp, and my eyes fixed on her with a terrified
+interest, as if on a warning ghost.
+
+'You must bridle your tongue, mind, and govern your conduct, and command
+even your features. It is hard to practise reserve; but you must--you must
+be secret and vigilant. Try and be in appearance just as usual; don't
+quarrel; tell her nothing, if you do happen to know anything, of your
+father's business; be always on your guard when with her, and keep your eye
+upon her everywhere. Observe everything, disclose nothing--do you see?'
+
+'Yes,' again I whispered.
+
+'You have good, honest servants about you, and, thank God, they don't like
+her. But you must not repeat to them one word I am now saying to you.
+Servants are fond of dropping hints, and letting things ooze out in that
+way, and in their quarrels with her would compromise you--you understand
+me?'
+
+'I do,' I sighed, with a wild stare.
+
+'And--and, Maud, don't let her meddle with your food.'
+
+Cousin Monica gave me a pale little nod, and looked away.
+
+I could only stare at her; and under my breath I uttered an ejaculation of
+terror.
+
+'Don't be so frightened; you must not be foolish; I only wish you to be
+upon your guard. I have my suspicions, but I may be quite wrong; your
+father thinks I am a fool; perhaps I am--perhaps not; maybe he may come to
+think as I do. But you must not speak to him on the subject; he's an
+odd man, and never did and never will act wisely, when his passions and
+prejudices are engaged.'
+
+'Has she ever committed any great crime?' I asked, feeling as if I were on
+the point of fainting.
+
+'No, dear Maud, I never said anything of the kind; don't be so frightened:
+I only said I have formed, from something I know, an ill opinion of her;
+and an unprincipled person, under temptation, is capable of a great deal.
+But no matter how wicked she may be, you may defy her, simply by assuming
+her to be so, and acting with caution; she is cunning and selfish, and
+she'll do nothing desperate. But I would give her no opportunity.'
+
+'Oh, dear! Oh, Cousin Monica, don't leave me.'
+
+'My dear, I _can't_ stay; your papa and I--we've had a quarrel. I know
+I'm right, and he's wrong, and he'll come to see it soon, if he's left to
+himself, and then all will be right. But just now he misunderstands me, and
+we've not been civil to one another. I could not think of staying, and he
+would not allow you to come away with me for a short visit, which I wished.
+It won't last, though; and I do assure you, my dear Maud, I am quite happy
+about you now that you are quite on your guard. Just act respecting that
+person as if she were capable of any treachery, without showing distrust or
+dislike in your manner, and nothing will remain in her power; and write to
+me whenever you wish to hear from me, and if I can be of any real use, I
+don't care, I'll come: so there's a wise little woman; do as I've said, and
+depend upon it everything will go well, and I'll contrive before long to
+get that nasty creature away.'
+
+Except a kiss and a few hurried words in the morning when she was leaving,
+and a pencilled farewell for papa, there was nothing more from Cousin
+Monica for some time.
+
+Knowl was dark again--darker than ever. My father, gentle always to me, was
+now--perhaps it was contrast with his fitful return to something like the
+world's ways, during Lady Knollys' stay--more silent, sad, and isolated
+than before. Of Madame de la Rougierre I had nothing at first particular to
+remark. Only, reader, if you happen to be a rather nervous and very young
+girl, I ask you to conceive my fears and imaginings, and the kind of misery
+which I was suffering. Its intensity I cannot now even myself recall. But
+it overshadowed me perpetually--a care, an alarm. It lay down with me at
+night and got up with me in the morning, tinting and disturbing my dreams,
+and making my daily life terrible. I wonder now that I lived through
+the ordeal. The torment was secret and incessant, and kept my mind in
+unintermitting activity.
+
+Externally things went on at Knowl for some weeks in the usual routine.
+Madame was, so far as her unpleasant ways were concerned, less tormenting
+than before, and constantly reminded me of 'our leetle vow of friendship,
+you remember, dearest Maud!' and she would stand beside me, and looked from
+the window with her bony arm round my waist, and my reluctant hand drawn
+round in hers; and thus she would smile, and talk affectionately and even
+playfully; for at times she would grow quite girlish, and smile with
+her great carious teeth, and begin to quiz and babble about the young
+'faylows,' and tell bragging tales of her lovers, all of which were
+dreadful to me.
+
+She was perpetually recurring, too, to the charming walk we had had
+together to Church Scarsdale, and proposing a repetition of that delightful
+excursion, which, you may be sure, I evaded, having by no means so
+agreeable a recollection of our visit.
+
+One day, as I was dressing to go out for a walk, in came good Mrs. Rusk,
+the housekeeper, to my room.
+
+'Miss Maud, dear, is not that too far for you? It is a long walk to Church
+Scarsdale, and you are not looking very well.'
+
+'To Church Scarsdale?' I repeated; 'I'm not going to Church Scarsdale; who
+said I was going to Church Scarsdale? There is nothing I should so much
+dislike.'
+
+'Well, I never!' exclaimed she. 'Why, there's old Madame's been down-stairs
+with me for fruit and sandwiches, telling me you were longing to go to
+Church Scarsdale----'
+
+'It's quite untrue,' I interrupted. 'She knows I hate it.'
+
+'She does?' said Mrs. Rusk, quietly; 'and you did not tell her nothing
+about the basket? Well--if there isn't a story! Now what may she be
+after--what is it--what _is_ she driving at?'
+
+'I can't tell, but I won't go.'
+
+'No, of course, dear, you won't go. But you may be sure there's some scheme
+in her old head. Tom Fowkes says she's bin two or three times to drink tea
+at Farmer Gray's--now, could it be she's thinking to marry him?' And Mrs.
+Rusk sat down and laughed heartily, ending with a crow of derision.
+
+'To think of a young fellow like that, and his wife, poor thing, not dead a
+year--maybe she's got money?'
+
+'I don't know--I don't care--perhaps, Mrs. Rusk, you mistook Madame. I will
+go down; I am going out.'
+
+Madame had a basket in her hand. She held it quietly by her capacious
+skirt, at the far side, and made no allusion to the preparation, neither to
+the direction in which she proposed walking, and prattling artlessly and
+affectionately she marched by my side.
+
+Thus we reached the stile at the sheep-walk, and then I paused.
+
+'Now, Madame, have not we gone far enough in this direction?--suppose we
+visit the pigeon-house in the park?'
+
+'Wat folly! my dear a Maud--you cannot walk so far.'
+
+'Well, towards home, then.'
+
+'And wy not a this way? We ave not walk enough, and Mr. Ruthyn he will not
+be pleased if you do not take proper exercise. Let us walk on by the path,
+and stop when you like.'
+
+'Where do you wish to go, Madame?'
+
+'Nowhere particular--come along; don't be fool, Maud.'
+
+'This leads to Church Scarsdale.'
+
+'A yes indeed! wat sweet place! bote we need not a walk all the way to
+there.'
+
+'I'd rather not walk outside the grounds to-day, Madame.'
+
+'Come, Maud, you shall not be fool--wat you mean, Mademoiselle?' said the
+stalworth lady, growing yellow and greenish with an angry mottling, and
+accosting me very gruffly.
+
+'I don't care to cross the stile, thank you, Madame. I shall remain at this
+side.'
+
+'You shall do wat I tell you!' exclaimed she.
+
+'Let go my arm, Madame, you hurt me,' I cried.
+
+She had griped my arm very firmly in her great bony hand, and seemed
+preparing to drag me over by main force.
+
+'Let me go,' I repeated shrilly, for the pain increased.
+
+'La!' she cried with a smile of rage and a laugh, letting me go and shoving
+me backward at the same time, so that I had a rather dangerous tumble.
+
+I stood up, a good deal hurt, and very angry, notwithstanding my fear of
+her.
+
+'I'll ask papa if I am to be so ill-used.'
+
+'Wat av I done?' cried Madame, laughing grimly from her hollow jaws; I did
+all I could to help you over--'ow could I prevent you to pull back and
+tumble if you would do so? That is the way wen you petites Mademoiselles
+are naughty and hurt yourself they always try to make blame other people.
+Tell a wat you like--you think I care?'
+
+'Very well, Madame.'
+
+'Are a you coming?'
+
+'No.'
+
+She looked steadily in my face and very wickedly. I gazed at her as with
+dazzled eyes--I suppose as the feathered prey do at the owl that glares on
+them by night. I neither moved back nor forward, but stared at her quite
+helplessly.
+
+'You are nice pupil--charming young person! So polite, so obedient, so
+amiable! I will walk towards Church Scarsdale,' she continued, suddenly
+breaking through the conventionalism of her irony, and accosting me
+in savage accents. 'You weel stay behind if you dare. I tell you to
+accompany--do you hear?'
+
+More than ever resolved against following her, I remained where I was,
+watching her as she marched fiercely away, swinging her basket as though in
+imagination knocking my head off with it.
+
+She soon cooled, however, and looking over her shoulder, and seeing me
+still at the other side of the stile, she paused, and beckoned me grimly
+to follow her. Seeing me resolutely maintain my position, she faced about,
+tossed her head, like an angry beast, and seemed uncertain for a while what
+course to take with me.
+
+She stamped and beckoned furiously again. I stood firm. I was very much
+frightened, and could not tell to what violence she might resort in her
+exasperation. She walked towards me with an inflamed countenance, and a
+slight angry wagging of the head; my heart fluttered, and I awaited the
+crisis in extreme trepidation. She came close, the stile only separating
+us, and stopped short, glaring and grinning at me like a French grenadier
+who has crossed bayonets, but hesitates to close.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+_DOCTOR BRYERLY LOOKS IN_
+
+
+What had I done to excite this ungovernable fury? We had often before had
+such small differences, and she had contented herself with being sarcastic,
+teasing, and impertinent.
+
+'So, for future you are gouvernante and I the cheaile for you to
+command--is not so?--and you must direct where we shall walk. Très-bien!
+we shall see; Monsieur Ruthyn he shall know everything. For me I do not
+care--not at all--I shall be rather pleased, on the contrary. Let him
+decide. If I shall be responsible for the conduct and the health of
+Mademoiselle his daughter, it must be that I shall have authority to direct
+her wat she must do--it must be that she or I shall obey. I ask only witch
+shall command for the future--voilà tout!'
+
+I was frightened, but resolute--I dare say I looked sullen and
+uncomfortable. At all events, she seemed to think she might possibly
+succeed by wheedling; so she tried coaxing and cajoling, and patted my
+cheek, and predicted that I would be 'a good cheaile,' and not 'vex poor
+Madame,' but do for the future 'wat she tell a me.'
+
+She smiled her wide wet grin, smoothed my hand, and patted my cheek, and
+would in the excess of her conciliatory paroxysm have kissed me; but I
+withdrew, and she commented only with a little laugh, and a 'Foolish little
+thing! but you will be quite amiable just now.'
+
+'Why, Madame,' I asked, suddenly raising my head and looking her straight
+in the face, 'do you wish me to walk to Church Scarsdale so particularly
+to-day?'
+
+She answered my steady look with a contracted gaze and an unpleasant frown.
+
+'Wy do I?--I do not understand a you; there is _no_ particular day--wat
+folly! Wy I like Church Scarsdale? Well, it is such pretty place. There is
+all! Wat leetle fool! I suppose you think I want to keel a you and bury you
+in the churchyard?'
+
+And she laughed, and it would not have been a bad laugh for a ghoul.
+
+'Come, my dearest Maud, you are not a such fool to say, if _you_ tell me me
+go thees a way, I weel go that; and if you say, go that a way, I weel go
+thees--you are rasonable leetle girl--come along--_alons donc_--we shall av
+soche agreeable walk--weel a you?'
+
+But I was immovable. It was neither obstinacy nor caprice, but a profound
+fear that governed me. I was then afraid--yes, _afraid_. Afraid of _what_?
+Well, of going with Madame de la Rougierre to Church Scarsdale that day.
+That was all. And I believe that instinct was true.
+
+She turned a bitter glance toward Church Scarsdale, and bit her lip. She
+saw that she must give it up. A shadow hung upon her drab features. A
+little scowl--a little sneer--wide lips compressed with a false smile, and
+a leaden shadow mottling all. Such was the countenance of the lady who only
+a minute or two before had been smiling and murmuring over the stile so
+amiably with her idiomatic 'blarney,' as the Irish call that kind of
+blandishment.
+
+There was no mistaking the malignant disappointment that hooked and warped
+her features--my heart sank--a tremendous fear overpowered me. Had she
+intended poisoning me? What was in that basket? I looked in her dreadful
+face. I felt for a minute quite frantic. A feeling of rage with my father,
+with my Cousin Monica, for abandoning me to this dreadful rogue, took
+possession of me, and I cried, helplessly wringing my hands--
+
+'Oh! it is a shame--it is a shame--it is a shame!'
+
+The countenance of the gouvernante relaxed. I think she in turn was
+frightened at my extreme agitation. It might have worked unfavourably with
+my father.
+
+'Come, Maud, it is time you should try to control your temper. You shall
+not walk to Church Scarsdale if you do not like--I only invite. _There_!
+It is quite as you please, where we shall walk then? Here to the
+peegeon-house? I think you say. Tout bien! Remember I concede you
+everything. Let us go.'
+
+We went, therefore, towards the pigeon-house, through the forest trees; I
+not speaking as the children in the wood did with their sinister conductor,
+but utterly silent and scared; she silent also, meditating, and sometimes
+with a sharp side-glance gauging my progress towards equanimity. Her own
+was rapid; for Madame was a philosopher, and speedily accommodated herself
+to circumstances. We had not walked a quarter of an hour when every trace
+of gloom had left her face, which had assumed its customary brightness, and
+she began to sing with a spiteful hilarity as we walked forward, and indeed
+seemed to be approaching one of her waggish, frolicsome moods. But her fun
+in these moods was solitary. The joke, whatever it was, remained in her
+own keeping. When we approached the ruined brick tower--in old times a
+pigeon-house--she grew quite frisky, and twirled her basket in the air, and
+capered to her own singing.
+
+Under the shadow of the broken wall, and its ivy, she sat down with a
+frolicsome _plump_, and opened her basket, inviting me to partake, which
+I declined. I must do her justice, however, upon the suspicion of poison,
+which she quite disposed of by gobbling up, to her own share, everything
+which the basket contained.
+
+The reader is not to suppose that Madame's cheerful demeanour indicated
+that I was forgiven. Nothing of the kind. One syllable more, on our walk
+home, she addressed not to me. And when we reached the terrace, she said--
+
+'You will please, Maud, remain for two--three minutes in the Dutch garden,
+while I speak with Mr. Ruthyn in the study.'
+
+This was spoken with a high head and an insufferable smile; and I more
+haughtily, but quite gravely, turned without disputing, and descended the
+steps to the quaint little garden she had indicated.
+
+I was surprised and very glad to see my father there. I ran to him, and
+began, 'Oh! papa!' and then stopped short, adding only, 'may I speak to you
+now?'
+
+He smiled kindly and gravely on me.
+
+'Well, Maud, say your say.'
+
+'Oh, sir, it is only this: I entreat that our walks, mine and Madame's may
+be confined to the grounds.'
+
+'And why?'
+
+'I--I'm afraid to go with her.'
+
+'_Afraid!_' he repeated, looking hard at me. 'Have you lately had a letter
+from Lady Knollys?'
+
+'No, papa, not for two months or more.'
+
+There was a pause.
+
+'And why _afraid_, Maud?'
+
+'She brought me one day to Church Scarsdale; you know what a solitary place
+it is, sir; and she frightened me so that I was afraid to go with her into
+the churchyard. But she went and left me alone at the other side of the
+stream, and an impudent man passing by stopped and spoke to me, and seemed
+inclined to laugh at me, and altogether frightened me very much, and he did
+not go till Madame happened to return.'
+
+'What kind of man--young or old?'
+
+'A young man; he looked like a farmer's son, but very impudent, and stood
+there talking to me whether I would or not; and Madame did not care at
+all, and laughed at me for being frightened; and, indeed, I am very
+uncomfortable with her.'
+
+He gave me another shrewd look, and then looked down cloudily and thought.
+
+'You say you are uncomfortable and frightened. How is this--what causes
+these feelings?'
+
+'I don't know, sir; she likes frightening me; I am afraid of her--we are
+all afraid of her, I think. The servants, I mean, as well as I.'
+
+My father nodded his head contemptuously, twice or thrice, and muttered, 'A
+pack of fools!'
+
+'And she was so very angry to-day with me, because I would not walk again
+with her to Church Scarsdale. I am very much afraid of her. I--' and quite
+unpremeditatedly I burst into tears.
+
+'There, there, little Maud, you must not cry. She is here only for your
+good. If you are afraid--even _foolishly_ afraid--it is enough. Be it as
+you say; your walks are henceforward confined to the grounds; I'll tell her
+so.'
+
+I thanked him through my tears very earnestly.
+
+'But, Maud, beware of prejudice; women are unjust and violent in their
+judgments. Your family has suffered in some of its members by such
+injustice. It behoves us to be careful not to practise it.'
+
+That evening in the drawing-room my father said, in his usual abrupt way--
+
+'About my departure, Maud: I've had a letter from London this morning, and
+I think I shall be called away sooner than I at first supposed, and for a
+little time we must manage apart from one another. Do not be alarmed. You
+shall not be in Madame de la Rougierre's charge, but under the care of a
+relation; but even so, little Maud will miss her old father, I think.'
+
+His tone was very tender, so were his looks; he was looking down on me with
+a smile, and tears were in his eyes. This softening was new to me. I felt a
+strange thrill of surprise, delight, and love, and springing up, I threw my
+arms about his neck and wept in silence. He, I think, shed tears also.
+
+'You said a visitor was coming; some one, you mean, to go away with. Ah,
+yes, you love him better than me.'
+
+'No, dear, no; but I _fear_ him; and I am sorry to leave you, little Maud.'
+
+'It won't be very long,' I pleaded.
+
+'No, dear,' he answered with a sigh.
+
+I was tempted almost to question him more closely on the subject, but he
+seemed to divine what was in my mind, for he said--
+
+'Let us speak no more of it, but only bear in mind, Maud, what I told you
+about the oak cabinet, the key of which is here,' and he held it up as
+formerly: 'you remember what you are to do in case Doctor Bryerly should
+come while I am away?'
+
+'Yes, sir.'
+
+His manner had changed, and I had returned to my accustomed formalities.
+
+It was only a few days later that Dr. Bryerly actually did arrive at Knowl,
+quite unexpectedly, except, I suppose, by my father. He was to stay only
+one night.
+
+He was twice closeted in the little study up-stairs with my father, who
+seemed to me, even for him, unusually dejected, and Mrs. Rusk inveighing
+against 'them rubbitch,' as she always termed the Swedenborgians, told me
+'they were making him quite shaky-like, and he would not last no time, if
+that lanky, lean ghost of a fellow in black was to keep prowling in and out
+of his room like a tame cat.'
+
+I lay awake that night, wondering what the mystery might be that connected
+my father and Dr. Bryerly. There was something more than the convictions
+of their strange religion could account for. There was something that
+profoundly agitated my father. It may not be reasonable, but so it is. The
+person whose presence, though we know nothing of the cause of that effect,
+is palpably attended with pain to anyone who is dear to us, grows odious,
+and I began to detest Doctor Bryerly.
+
+It was a grey, dark morning, and in a dark pass in the gallery, near the
+staircase, I came full upon the ungainly Doctor, in his glossy black suit.
+
+I think, if my mind had been less anxiously excited on the subject of
+his visit, or if I had not disliked him so much, I should not have found
+courage to accost him as I did. There was something sly, I thought, in his
+dark, lean face; and he looked so low, so like a Scotch artisan in his
+Sunday clothes, that I felt a sudden pang of indignation, at the thought
+that a great gentleman, like my father, should have suffered under his
+influence, and I stopped suddenly, instead of passing him by with a mere
+salutation, as he expected, 'May I ask a question, Doctor Bryerly?'
+
+'Certainly'
+
+'Are you the friend whom my father expects?'
+
+'I don't quite see.'
+
+'The friend, I mean, with whom he is to make an expedition to some
+distance, I think, and for some little time?'
+
+'No,' said the Doctor, with a shake of his head.
+
+'And who is he?'
+
+'I really have not a notion, Miss.'
+
+'Why, he said that _you knew_,' I replied.
+
+The Doctor looked honestly puzzled.
+
+'Will he stay long away? pray tell me.'
+
+The Doctor looked into my troubled face with inquiring and darkened eyes,
+like one who half reads another's meaning; and then he said a little
+briskly, but not sharply--
+
+'Well, _I_ don't know, I'm sure, Miss; no, indeed, you must have mistaken;
+there's nothing that _I_ know.'
+
+There was a little pause, and he added--
+
+'No. He never mentioned any friend to me.' I fancied that he was made
+uncomfortable by my question, and wanted to hide the truth. Perhaps I was
+partly right.
+
+'Oh! Doctor Bryerly, pray, _pray_ who is the friend, and where is he
+going?'
+
+'I do _assure_ you,' he said, with a strange sort of impatience, 'I don't
+know; it is all nonsense.'
+
+And he turned to go, looking, I think, annoyed and disconcerted.
+
+A terrific suspicion crossed my brain like lightning.
+
+'Doctor, one word,' I said, I believe, quite wildly. 'Do you--do you think
+his mind is at all affected?'
+
+'Insane?' he said, looking at me with a sudden, sharp inquisitiveness, that
+brightened into a smile. 'Pooh, pooh! Heaven forbid! not a saner man in
+England.'
+
+Then with a little nod he walked on, carrying, as I believed,
+notwithstanding his disclaimer, the secret with him. In the afternoon
+Doctor Bryerly went away.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+_AN ADVENTURE_
+
+
+For many days after our quarrel, Madame hardly spoke to me. As for lessons,
+I was not much troubled with them. It was plain, too, that my father had
+spoken to her, for she never after that day proposed our extending our
+walks beyond the precincts of Knowl.
+
+Knowl, however, was a very considerable territory, and it was possible
+for a much better pedestrian than I to tire herself effectually, without
+passing its limits. So we took occasionally long walks.
+
+After some weeks of sullenness, during which for days at a time she hardly
+spoke to me, and seemed lost in dark and evil abstraction, she once more,
+and somewhat suddenly, recovered her spirits, and grew quite friendly. Her
+gaieties and friendliness were not reassuring, and in my mind presaged
+approaching mischief and treachery. The days were shortening to the wintry
+span. The edge of the red sun had already touched the horizon as Madame and
+I, overtaken at the warren by his last beams, were hastening homeward.
+
+A narrow carriage-road traverses this wild region of the park, to which a
+distant gate gives entrance. On descending into this unfrequented road, I
+was surprised to see a carriage standing there. A thin, sly postilion,
+with that pert, turned-up nose which the old caricaturist Woodward used to
+attribute to the gentlemen of Tewkesbury, was leaning on his horses, and
+looked hard at me as I passed. A lady who sat within looked out, with an
+extra-fashionable bonnet on, and also treated us to a stare. Very pink and
+white cheeks she had, very black glossy hair and bright eyes--fat, bold,
+and rather cross, she looked--and in her bold way she examined us curiously
+as we passed.
+
+I mistook the situation. It had once happened before that an intending
+visitor at Knowl had entered the place by that park-road, and lost several
+hours in a vain search for the house.
+
+'Ask him, Madame, whether they want to go to the house; I dare say they
+have missed their way,' whispered I.
+
+'_Eh bien,_ they will find again. I do not choose to talk to post-boys;
+_allons_!'
+
+But I asked the man as we passed, 'Do you want to reach the house?'
+
+By this time he was at the horses' heads, buckling the harness.
+
+'Noa,' he said in a surly tone, smiling oddly on the winkers, but,
+recollecting his politeness, he added, 'Noa, thankee, misses, it's what
+they calls a picnic; we'll be takin' the road now.'
+
+He was smiling now on a little buckle with which he was engaged.
+
+'Come--nonsense!' whispered Madame sharply in my ear, and she whisked me by
+the arm, so we crossed the little stile at the other side.
+
+Our path lay across the warren, which undulates in little hillocks. The sun
+was down by this time, blue shadows were stretching round us, colder in the
+splendid contrast of the burnished sunset sky.
+
+Descending over these hillocks we saw three figures a little in advance of
+us, not far from the path we were tracing. Two were standing smoking and
+chatting at intervals: one tall and slim, with a high chimney-pot, worn a
+little on one side, and a white great-coat buttoned up to the chin; the
+other shorter and stouter, with a dark-coloured wrapper. These gentlemen
+were facing rather our way as we came over the edge of the eminence, but
+turned their backs on perceiving our approach. As they did so, I remember
+so well each lowered his cigar suddenly with the simultaneousness of a
+drill. The third figure sustained the picnic character of the group, for he
+was repacking a hamper. He stood suddenly erect as we drew near, and a very
+ill-looking person he was, low-browed, square-chinned, and with a broad,
+broken nose. He wore gaiters, and was a little bandy, very broad, and had
+a closely-cropped bullet head, and deep-set little eyes. The moment I saw
+him, I beheld the living type of the burglars and bruisers whom I had so
+often beheld with a kind of scepticism in _Punch_. He stood over his hamper
+and scowled sharply at us for a moment; then with the point of his foot he
+jerked a little fur cap that lay on the ground into his hand, drew it tight
+over his lowering brows, and called to his companions, just as we passed
+him--'Hallo! mister. How's this?'
+
+'All right,' said the tall person in the white great-coat, who, as he
+answered, shook his shorter companion by the arm, I thought angrily.
+
+This shorter companion turned about. He had a muffler loose about his neck
+and chin. I thought he seemed shy and irresolute, and the tall man gave him
+a great jolt with his elbow, which made him stagger, and I fancied a little
+angry, for he said, as it seemed, a sulky word or two.
+
+The gentleman in the white surtout, however, standing direct in our way,
+raised his hat with a mock salutation, placing his hand on his breast,
+and forthwith began to advance with an insolent grin and an air of tipsy
+frolic.
+
+'Jist in time, ladies; five minutes more and we'd a bin off. Thankee, Mrs.
+Mouser, ma'am, for the honour of the meetin', and more particular for the
+pleasure of making your young lady's acquaintance--niece, ma'am? daughter,
+ma'am? granddaughter, by Jove, is it? Hallo! there, mild 'n, I say, stop
+packin'.' This was to the ill-favoured person with the broken nose. 'Bring
+us a couple o' glasses and a bottle o' curaçoa; what are you fear'd on, my
+dear? this is Lord Lollipop, here, a reg'lar charmer, wouldn't hurt a fly,
+hey Lolly? Isn't he pretty, Miss? and I'm Sir Simon Sugarstick--so called
+after old Sir Simon, ma'am; and I'm so tall and straight, Miss, and
+slim--ain't I? and ever so sweet, my honey, when you come to know me, just
+like a sugarstick; ain't I, Lolly, boy?'
+
+'I'm Miss Ruthyn, tell them, Madame,' I said, stamping on the ground, and
+very much frightened.
+
+'Be quaite, Maud. If you are angry, they will hurt us; leave me to speak,'
+whispered the gouvernante.
+
+All this time they were approaching from separate points. I glanced back,
+and saw the ruffianly-looking man within a yard or two, with his arm raised
+and one finger up, telegraphing, as it seemed, to the gentlemen in front.
+
+'Be quaite, Maud,' whispered Madame, with an awful adjuration, which I do
+not care to set down. 'They are teepsy; don't seem 'fraid.'
+
+I _was_ afraid--terrified. The circle had now so narrowed that they might
+have placed their hands on my shoulders.
+
+'Pray, gentlemen, wat you want? _weel_ a you 'av the goodness to permit us
+to go on?'
+
+I now observed for the first time, with a kind of shock, that the shorter
+of the two men, who prevented our advance, was the person who had accosted
+me so offensively at Church Scarsdale. I pulled Madame by the arm,
+whispering, 'Let us run.'
+
+'Be quaite, my dear Maud,' was her only reply.
+
+'I tell you what,' said the tall man, who had replaced his high hat more
+jauntily than before on the side of his head, 'We've caught you now, fair
+game, and we'll let you off on conditions. You must not be frightened,
+Miss. Upon my honour and soul, I mean no mischief; do I, Lollipop? I call
+him Lord Lollipop; it's only chaff, though; his name's Smith. Now, Lolly,
+I vote we let the prisoners go, when we just introduce them to Mrs. Smith;
+she's sitting in the carriage, and keeps Mr. S. here in precious good
+order, I promise you. There's easy terms for you, eh, and we'll have a
+glass o' curaçoa round, and so part friends. Is it a bargain? Come!'
+
+'Yes, Maud, we must go--wat matter?' whispered Madame vehemently.
+
+'You shan't,' I said, instinctively terrified.
+
+'You'll go with Ma'am, young 'un, won't you?' said Mr. Smith, as his
+companion called him.
+
+Madame was holding my arm, but I snatched it from her, and would have run;
+the tall man, however, placed his arms round me and held me fast with an
+affectation of playfulness, but his grip was hard enough to hurt me a good
+deal. Being now thoroughly frightened, after an ineffectual struggle,
+during which I heard Madame say, 'You fool, Maud, weel you come with me?
+see wat you are doing,' I began to scream, shriek after shriek, which the
+man attempted to drown with loud hooting, peals of laughter, forcing
+his handkerchief against my mouth, while Madame continued to bawl her
+exhortations to 'be quaite' in my ear.
+
+'I'll lift her, I say!' said a gruff voice behind me.
+
+But at this instant, wild with terror, I distinctly heard other voices
+shouting. The men who surrounded me were instantly silent, and all looked
+in the direction of the sound, now very near, and I screamed with redoubled
+energy. The ruffian behind me thrust his great hand over my mouth.
+
+'It is the gamekeeper,' cried Madame. '_Two_ gamekeepers--we are
+safe--thank Heaven!' and she began to call on Dykes by name.
+
+I only remember, feeling myself at liberty--running a few steps--seeing
+Dykes' white furious face--clinging to his arm, with which he was bringing
+his gun to a level, and saying, 'Don't fire--they'll murder us if you do.'
+
+Madame, screaming lustily, ran up at the same moment.
+
+'Run on to the gate and lock it--I'll be wi' ye in a minute,' cried he to
+the other gamekeeper; who started instantly on this mission, for the three
+ruffians were already in full retreat for the carriage.
+
+Giddy--wild--fainting--still terror carried me on.
+
+'Now, Madame Rogers--s'pose you take young Misses on--I must run and len'
+Bill a hand.'
+
+'No, no; you moste not,' cried Madame. 'I am fainting myself, and more
+villains they may be near to us.'
+
+But at this moment we heard a shot, and, muttering to himself and grasping
+his gun, Dykes ran at his utmost speed in the direction of the sound.
+
+With many exhortations to speed, and ejaculations of alarm, Madame hurried
+me on toward the house, which at length we reached without further
+adventure.
+
+As it happened, my father met us in the hall. He was perfectly transported
+with fury on hearing from Madame what had happened, and set out at once,
+with some of the servants, in the hope of intercepting the party at the
+park-gate.
+
+Here was a new agitation; for my father did not return for nearly three
+hours, and I could not conjecture what might be occurring during the period
+of his absence. My alarm was greatly increased by the arrival in the
+interval of poor Bill, the under-gamekeeper, very much injured.
+
+Seeing that he was determined to intercept their retreat, the three men had
+set upon him, wrested his gun, which exploded in the struggle, from him,
+and beat him savagely. I mention these particulars, because they convinced
+everybody that there was something specially determined and ferocious in
+the spirit of the party, and that the fracas was no mere frolic, but the
+result of a predetermined plan.
+
+My father had not succeeded in overtaking them. He traced them to the
+Lugton Station, where they had taken the railway, and no one could tell him
+in what direction the carriage and posthorses had driven.
+
+Madame was, or affected to be, very much shattered by what had occurred.
+Her recollection and mine, when my father questioned us closely, differed
+very materially respecting many details of the _personnel_ of the
+villanous party. She was obstinate and clear; and although the gamekeeper
+corroborated my description of them, still my father was puzzled. Perhaps
+he was not sorry that some hesitation was forced upon him, because although
+at first he would have gone almost any length to detect the persons, on
+reflection he was pleased that there was not evidence to bring them into
+a court of justice, the publicity and annoyance of which would have been
+inconceivably distressing to me.
+
+Madame was in a strange state--tempestuous in temper, talking
+incessantly--every now and then in floods of tears, and perpetually on
+her knees pouring forth torrents of thanksgiving to Heaven for our joint
+deliverance from the hands of those villains. Notwithstanding our community
+of danger and her thankfulness on my behalf, however, she broke forth into
+wrath and railing whenever we were alone together.
+
+'Wat fool you were! so disobedient and obstinate; if you 'ad done wat _I_
+say, then we should av been quaite safe; those persons they were tipsy, and
+there is nothing so dangerous as to quarrel with tipsy persons; I would
+'av brought you quaite safe--the lady she seem so nice and quaite, and we
+should 'av been safe with her--there would 'av been nothing absolutely; but
+instead you would scream and pooshe, and so they grow quite wild, and all
+the impertinence and violence follow of course; and that a poor Bill--all
+his beating and danger to his life it is cause entairely by you.'
+
+And she spoke with more real virulence than that kind of upbraiding
+generally exhibits.
+
+'The beast!' exclaimed Mrs. Rusk, when she, I, and Mary Quince were in my
+room together, 'with all her crying and praying, I'd like to know as much
+as she does, maybe, about them rascals. There never was sich like about the
+place, long as I remember it, till she came to Knowl, old witch! with them
+unmerciful big bones of hers, and her great bald head, grinning here, and
+crying there, and her nose everywhere. The old French hypocrite!'
+
+Mary Quince threw in an observation, and I believe Mrs. Rusk rejoined, but
+I heard neither. For whether the housekeeper spoke with reflection or not,
+what she said affected me strangely. Through the smallest aperture, for
+a moment, I had had a peep into Pandemonium. Were not peculiarities of
+Madame's demeanour and advice during the adventure partly accounted for by
+the suggestion? Could the proposed excursion to Church Scarsdale have had
+any purpose of the same sort? What was proposed? How was Madame interested
+in it? Were such immeasurable treason and hypocrisy possible? I could not
+explain nor quite believe in the shapeless suspicion that with these light
+and bitter words of the old housekeeper had stolen so horribly into my
+mind.
+
+After Mrs. Rusk was gone I awoke from my dismal abstraction with something
+like a moan and a shudder, with a dreadful sense of danger.
+
+'Oh! Mary Quince,' I cried, 'do you think she really knew?'
+
+'_Who_, Miss Maud?'
+
+'Do you think Madame knew of those dreadful people? Oh, no--say you
+don't--you don't believe it--tell me she did not. I'm distracted, Mary
+Quince, I'm frightened out of my life.'
+
+'There now, Miss Maud, dear--there now, don't take on so--why should
+she?--no sich a thing. Mrs. Rusk, law bless you, she's no more meaning in
+what she says than the child unborn.'
+
+But I was really frightened. I was in a horrible state of uncertainty as to
+Madame de la Rougierre's complicity with the party who had beset us at the
+warren, and afterwards so murderously beat our poor gamekeeper. How was
+I ever to get rid of that horrible woman? How long was she to enjoy her
+continual opportunities of affrighting and injuring me?
+
+'She hates me--she hates me, Mary Quince; and she will never stop until she
+has done me some dreadful injury. Oh! will no one relieve me--will no one
+take her away? Oh, papa, papa, papa! you will be sorry when it is too
+late.'
+
+I was crying and wringing my hands, and turning from side to side, at my
+wits' ends, and honest Mary Quince in vain endevoured to quiet and comfort
+me.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+_A MIDNIGHT VISITOR_
+
+
+The frightful warnings of Lady Knollys haunted me too. Was there no escape
+from the dreadful companion whom fate had assigned me? I made up my mind
+again and again to speak to my father and urge her removal. In other things
+he indulged me; here, however, he met me drily and sternly, and it was
+plain that he fancied I was under my cousin Monica's influence, and also
+that he had secret reasons for persisting in an opposite course. Just then
+I had a gay, odd letter from Lady Knollys, from some country house in
+Shropshire. Not a word about Captain Oakley. My eye skimmed its pages in
+search of that charmed name. With a peevish feeling I tossed the sheet upon
+the table. Inwardly I thought how ill-natured and unwomanly it was.
+
+After a time, however, I read it, and found the letter very good-natured.
+She had received a note from papa. He had 'had the impudence to forgive
+_her_ for _his_ impertinence.' But for my sake she meant, notwithstanding
+this aggravation, really to pardon him; and whenever she had a disengaged
+week, to accept his invitation to Knowl, from whence she was resolved to
+whisk me off to London, where, though I was too young to be presented at
+Court and come out, I might yet--besides having the best masters and a good
+excuse for getting rid of Medusa--see a great deal that would amuse and
+surprise me.
+
+'Great news, I suppose, from Lady Knollys?' said Madame, who always knew
+who in the house received letters by the post, and by an intuition from
+whom they came.
+
+'Two letters--you and your papa. She is quite well, I hope?'
+
+'Quite well, thank you, Madame.'
+
+Some fishing questions, dropped from time to time, fared no better. And
+as usual, when she was foiled even in a trifle, she became sullen and
+malignant.
+
+That night, when my father and I were alone, he suddenly closed the book he
+had been reading, and said--
+
+'I heard from Monica Knollys to-day. I always liked poor Monnie; and though
+she's no witch, and very wrong-headed at times, yet now and then she does
+say a thing that's worth weighing. Did she ever talk to you of a time,
+Maud, when you are to be your own mistress?'
+
+'No,' I answered, a little puzzled, and looking straight in his rugged,
+kindly face.
+
+'Well, I thought she might--she's a rattle, you know--always _was_ a
+rattle, and that sort of people say whatever comes uppermost. But that's a
+subject for me, and more than once, Maud, it has puzzled me.'
+
+He sighed.
+
+'Come with me to the study, little Maud.'
+
+So, he carrying a candle, we crossed the lobby, and marched together
+through the passage, which at night always seemed a little awesome, darkly
+wainscoted, uncheered by the cross-light from the hall, which was lost at
+the turn, leading us away from the frequented parts of the house to that
+misshapen and lonely room about which the traditions of the nursery and the
+servants' hall had had so many fearful stories to recount.
+
+I think my father had intended making some disclosure to me on reaching
+this room. If so, he changed his mind, or at least postponed his intention.
+
+He had paused before the cabinet, respecting the key of which he had given
+me so strict a charge, and I think he was going to explain himself more
+fully than he had done. But he went on, instead, to the table where his
+desk, always jealously locked, was placed, and having lighted the candles
+which stood by it, he glanced at me, and said--
+
+'You must wait a little, Maud; I shall have something to say to you. Take
+this candle and amuse yourself with a book meanwhile.'
+
+I was accustomed to obey in silence. I chose a volume of engravings,
+and ensconced myself in a favourite nook in which I had often passed a
+half-hour similarly. This was a deep recess by the fireplace, fenced on the
+other side by a great old escritoir. Into this I drew a stool, and, with
+candle and book, I placed myself snugly in the narrow chamber. Every now
+and then I raised my eyes and saw my father either writing or ruminating,
+as it seemed to me, very anxiously at his desk.
+
+Time wore on--a longer time than he had intended, and still he continued
+absorbed at his desk. Gradually I grew sleepy, and as I nodded, the book
+and room faded away, and pleasant little dreams began to gather round me,
+and so I went off into a deep slumber.
+
+It must have lasted long, for when I wakened my candle had burnt out; my
+father, having quite forgotten me, was gone, and the room was dark and
+deserted. I felt cold and a little stiff, and for some seconds did not know
+where I was.
+
+I had been wakened, I suppose, by a sound which I now distinctly heard, to
+my great terror, approaching. There was a rustling; there was a breathing.
+I heard a creaking upon the plank that always creaked when walked upon in
+the passage. I held my breath and listened, and coiled myself up in the
+innermost recess of my little chamber.
+
+Sudden and sharp, a light shone in from the nearly-closed study door. It
+shone angularly on the ceiling like a letter L reversed. There was a pause.
+Then some one knocked softly at the door, which after another pause was
+slowly pushed open. I expected, I think, to see the dreaded figure of
+the linkman. I was scarcely less frightened to see that of Madame de la
+Rougierre. She was dressed in a sort of grey silk, which she called her
+Chinese silk--precisely as she had been in the daytime. In fact, I do not
+think she had undressed. She had no shoes on. Otherwise her toilet was
+deficient in nothing. Her wide mouth was grimly closed, and she stood
+scowling into the room with a searching and pallid scrutiny, the candle
+held high above her head at the full stretch of her arm.
+
+Placed as I was in a deep recess, and in a seat hardly raised above the
+level of the floor, I escaped her, although it seemed to me for some
+seconds, as I gazed on this spectre, that our eyes actually met.
+
+I sat without breathing or winking, staring upon the formidable image which
+with upstretched arm, and the sharp lights and hard shadows thrown upon her
+corrugated features, looked like a sorceress watching for the effect of a
+spell.
+
+She was plainly listening intensely. Unconsciously she had drawn her lower
+lip altogether between her teeth, and I well remember what a deathlike and
+idiotic look the contortion gave her. My terror lest she should discover me
+amounted to positive agony. She rolled her eyes stealthily from corner to
+corner of the room, and listened with her neck awry at the door.
+
+Then to my father's desk she went. To my great relief, her back was towards
+me. She stooped over it, with the candle close by; I saw her try a key--it
+could be nothing else--and I heard her blow through the wards to clear
+them.
+
+Then, again, she listened at the door, candle in hand, and then with long
+tiptoe steps came back, and papa's desk in another moment was open, and
+Madame cautiously turning over the papers it contained.
+
+Twice or thrice she paused, glided to the door, and listened again intently
+with her head near the ground, and then returned and continued her search,
+peeping into papers one after another, tolerably methodically, and reading
+some quite through.
+
+While this felonious business was going on, I was freezing with fear lest
+she should accidentally look round and her eyes light on me; for I could
+not say what she might not do rather than have her crime discovered.
+
+Sometimes she would read a paper twice over; sometimes a whisper no louder
+than the ticking of a watch, sometimes a brief chuckle under her breath,
+bespoke the interest with which here and there a letter or a memorandum was
+read.
+
+For about half an hour, I think, this went on; but at the time it seemed to
+me all but interminable. On a sudden she raised her head and listened for a
+moment, replaced the papers deftly, closed the desk without noise, except
+for the tiny click of the lock, extinguished the candle, and rustled
+stealthily out of the room, leaving in the darkness the malign and hag-like
+face on which the candle had just shone still floating filmy in the dark.
+
+Why did I remain silent and motionless while such an outrage was being
+committed? If, instead of being a very nervous girl, preoccupied with
+an undefinable terror of that wicked woman, I had possessed courage and
+presence of mind, I dare say I might have given an alarm, and escaped from
+the room without the slightest risk. But so it was; I could no more stir
+than the bird who, cowering under its ivy, sees the white owl sailing back
+and forward under its predatory cruise.
+
+Not only during her presence, but for more than an hour after, I remained
+cowering in my hiding-place, and afraid to stir, lest she might either be
+lurking in the neighborhood, or return and surprise me.
+
+You will not be astonished, that after a night so passed I was ill and
+feverish in the morning. To my horror, Madame de la Rougierre came to visit
+me at my bedside. Not a trace of guilty consciousness of what had passed
+during the night was legible in her face. She had no sign of late watching,
+and her toilet was exemplary.
+
+As she sat smiling by me, full of anxious and affectionate enquiry,
+and smoothed the coverlet with her great felonious hand, I could quite
+comprehend the dreadful feeling with which the deceived husband in the
+'Arabian Nights' met his ghoul wife, after his nocturnal discovery.
+
+Ill as I was, I got up and found my father in that room which adjoined his
+bedchamber. He perceived, I am sure, by my looks, that something unusual
+had happened. I shut the door, and came close beside his chair.
+
+'Oh, papa, I have such a thing to tell you!' I forgot to call him 'Sir.' 'A
+secret; and you won't say who told you? Will you come down to the study?'
+
+He looked hard at me, got up, and kissing my forehead, said--'Don't be
+frightened, Maud; I venture to say it is a mare's nest; at all events, my
+child, we will take care that no danger reaches you; come, child.'
+
+And by the hand he led me to the study. When the door was shut, and we had
+reached the far end of the room next the window, I said, but in a low tone,
+and holding his arm fast--
+
+'Oh, sir, you don't know what a dreadful person we have living with
+us--Madame de la Rougierre, I mean. Don't let her in if she comes; she
+would guess what I am telling you, and one way or another I am sure she
+would kill me.'
+
+'Tut, tut, child. You _must_ know that's nonsense,' he said, looking pale
+and stern.
+
+'Oh no, papa. I am horribly frightened, and Lady Knollys thinks so too.'
+
+'Ha! I dare say; one fool makes many. We all know what Monica thinks.'
+
+'But I _saw_ it, papa. She stole your key last night, and opened your desk,
+and read all your papers.'
+
+'Stole my key!' said my father, staring at me perplexed, but at the same
+instant producing it. 'Stole it! Why here it is!'
+
+'She unlocked your desk; she read your papers for ever so long. Open it
+now, and see whether they have not been stirred.'
+
+He looked at me this time in silence, with a puzzled air; but he did unlock
+the desk, and lifted the papers curiously and suspiciously. As he did so
+he uttered a few of those inarticulate interjections which are made with
+closed lips, and not always intelligible; but he made no remark.
+
+Then he placed me on a chair beside him, and sitting down himself, told
+me to recollect myself, and tell him distinctly all I had seen. This
+accordingly I did, he listening with deep attention.
+
+'Did she remove any paper?' asked my father, at the same time making a
+little search, I suppose, for that which he fancied might have been stolen.
+
+'No; I did not see her take anything.'
+
+'Well, you are a good girl, Maud. Act discreetly. Say nothing to
+anyone--not even to your cousin Monica.'
+
+Directions which, coming from another person would have had no great
+weight, were spoken by my father with an earnest look and a weight of
+emphasis that made them irresistibly impressive, and I went away with the
+seal of silence upon my lips.
+
+'Sit down, Maud, _there_. You have not been very happy with Madame de la
+Rougierre. It is time you were relieved. This occurrence decides it.'
+
+He rang the bell.
+
+'Tell Madame de la Rougierre that I request the honour of seeing her for a
+few minutes here.'
+
+My father's communications to her were always equally ceremonious. In a
+few minutes there was a knock at the door, and the same figure, smiling,
+courtesying, that had scared me on the threshold last night, like the
+spirit of evil, presented itself.
+
+My father rose, and Madame having at his request taken a chair opposite,
+looking, as usual in his presence, all amiability, he proceeded at once to
+the point.
+
+'Madame de la Rougierre, I have to request you that you will give me the
+key now in your possession, which unlocks this desk of mine.'
+
+With which termination he tapped his gold pencil-case suddenly on it.
+
+Madame, who had expected something very different, became instantly so
+pale, with a dull purplish hue upon her forehead, that, especially when she
+had twice essayed with her white lips, in vain, to answer, I expected to
+see her fall in a fit.
+
+She was not looking in his face; her eyes were fixed lower, and her mouth
+and cheek sucked in, with a strange distortion at one side.
+
+She stood up suddenly, and staring straight in his face, she succeeded in
+saying, after twice clearing her throat--
+
+'I cannot comprehend, Monsieur Ruthyn, unless you intend to insult me.'
+
+'It won't do, Madame; I must have that false key. I give you the
+opportunity of surrendering it quietly here and now.'
+
+'But who dares to say I possess such thing?' demanded Madame, who, having
+rallied from her momentary paralysis, was now fierce and voluble as I had
+often seen her before.
+
+'You know, Madame, that you can rely on what I say, and I tell you that you
+were seen last night visiting this room, and with a key in your possession,
+opening this desk, and reading my letters and papers contained in it.
+Unless you forthwith give me that key, and any other false keys in your
+possession--in which case I shall rest content with dismissing you
+summarily--I will take a different course. You know I am a magistrate;--and
+I shall have you, your boxes, and places up-stairs, searched forthwith,
+and I will prosecute you criminally. The thing is clear; you aggravate by
+denying; you must give me that key, if you please, instantly, otherwise I
+ring this bell, and you shall see that I mean what I say.'
+
+There was a little pause. He rose and extended his hand towards the
+bell-rope. Madame glided round the table, extended her hand to arrest his.
+
+'I will do everything, Monsieur Ruthyn--whatever you wish.'
+
+And with these words Madame de la Rougierre broke down altogether. She
+sobbed, she wept, she gabbled piteously, all manner of incomprehensible
+roulades of lamentation and entreaty; coyly, penitently, in a most
+interesting agitation, she produced the very key from her breast, with a
+string tied to it. My father was little moved by this piteous tempest. He
+coolly took the key and tried it in the desk, which it locked and unlocked
+quite freely, though the wards were complicated. He shook his head and
+looked her in the face.
+
+'Pray, who made this key? It is a new one, and made expressly to pick this
+lock.'
+
+But Madame was not going to tell any more than she had expressly bargained
+for; so she only fell once more into her old paroxysm of sorrow,
+self-reproach, extenuation, and entreaty.
+
+'Well,' said my father,' I promised that on surrendering the key you should
+go. It is enough. I keep my word. You shall have an hour and a half to
+prepare in. You must then be ready to depart. I will send your money to you
+by Mrs. Rusk; and if you look for another situation, you had better not
+refer to me. Now be so good as to leave me.'
+
+Madame seemed to be in a strange perplexity. She bridled up, dried her eyes
+fiercely, and dropped a great courtesy, and then sailed away towards the
+door. Before reaching it she stopped on the way, turning half round, with
+a peaked, pallid glance at my father, and she bit her lip viciously as she
+eyed him. At the door the same repulsive pantomime was repeated, as she
+stood for a moment with her hand upon the handle. But she changed her
+bearing again with a sniff, and with a look of scorn, almost heightened to
+a sneer, she made another very low courtesy and a disdainful toss of her
+head, and so disappeared, shutting the door rather sharply behind her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+_AU REVOIR_
+
+
+Mrs. Rusk was fond of assuring me that Madame 'did not like a bone in my
+skin.' Instinctively I knew that she bore me no good-will, although I
+really believe it was her wish to make me think quite the reverse. At all
+events I had no desire to see Madame again before her departure, especially
+as she had thrown upon me one momentary glance in the study, which seemed
+to me charged with very peculiar feelings.
+
+You may be very sure, therefore, that I had no desire for a formal
+leave-taking at her departure. I took my hat and cloak, therefore, and
+stole out quietly.
+
+My ramble was a sequestered one, and well screened, even at this late
+season, with foliage; the pathway devious among the stems of old trees, and
+its flooring interlaced and groined with their knotted roots. Though near
+the house, it was a sylvan solitude; a little brook ran darkling and
+glimmering through it, wild strawberries and other woodland plants strewed
+the ground, and the sweet notes and flutter of small birds made the shadow
+of the boughs cheery.
+
+I had been fully an hour in this picturesque solitude when I heard in the
+distance the ring of carriage-wheels, announcing to me that Madame de la
+Rougierre had fairly set out upon her travels. I thanked heaven; I could
+have danced and sung with delight; I heaved a great sigh and looked up
+through the branches to the clear blue sky.
+
+But things are oddly timed. Just at this moment I heard Madame's voice
+close at my ear, and her large bony hand was laid on my shoulder. We were
+instantly face to face--I recoiling, and for a moment speechless with
+fright.
+
+In very early youth we do not appreciate the restraints which act upon
+malignity, or know how effectually fear protects us where conscience is
+wanting. Quite alone, in this solitary spot, detected and overtaken with an
+awful instinct by my enemy, what might not be about to happen to me at that
+moment?
+
+'Frightened as usual, Maud,' she said quietly, and eyeing me with a
+sinister smile, 'and with cause you think, no doubt. Wat 'av you done to
+injure poor Madame? Well, I think I know, little girl, and have quite
+discover the cleverness of my sweet little Maud. Eh--is not so? Petite
+carogne--ah, ha, ha!'
+
+I was too much confounded to answer.
+
+'You see, my dear cheaile,' she said, shaking her uplifted finger with a
+hideous archness at me, 'you could not hide what you 'av done from poor
+Madame. You cannot look so innocent but I can see your pretty little
+villany quite plain--you dear little diablesse.
+
+'Wat I 'av done I 'av no reproach of myself for it. If I could explain,
+your papa would say I 'av done right, and you should thank me on your
+knees; but I cannot explain yet.'
+
+She was speaking, as it were, in little paragraphs, with a momentary pause
+between each, to allow its meaning to impress itself.
+
+'If I were to choose to explain, your papa he would implore me to remain.
+But no--I would not--notwithstanding your so cheerful house, your charming
+servants, your papa's amusing society, and your affectionate and sincere
+heart, my sweet little maraude.
+
+'I am to go to London first, where I 'av, oh, so good friends! next I will
+go abroad for some time; but be sure, my sweetest Maud, wherever I may
+'appen to be, I will remember you--ah, ha! Yes; _most certainly_, I will
+remember you.
+
+'And although I shall not be always near, yet I shall know everything
+about my charming little Maud; you will not know how, but I shall indeed,
+_everything_. And be sure, my dearest cheaile, I will some time be able to
+give you the sensible proofs of my gratitude and affection--you understand.
+
+'The carriage is waiting at the yew-tree stile, and I must go on. You did
+not expect to see me--here; I will appear, perhaps, as suddenly another
+time. It is great pleasure to us both--this opportunity to make our adieux.
+Farewell! my dearest little Maud. I will never cease to think of you, and
+of some way to recompense the kindness you 'av shown for poor Madame.'
+
+My hand hung by my side, and she took, not it, but my thumb, and shook
+it, folded in her broad palm, and looking on me as she held it, as if
+meditating mischief. Then suddenly she said--
+
+'You will always remember Madame, I _think_, and I will remind you of me
+beside; and for the present farewell, and I hope you may be as 'appy as you
+deserve.'
+
+The large sinister face looked on me for a second with its latent sneer,
+and then, with a sharp nod and a spasmodic shake of my imprisoned thumb,
+she turned, and holding her dress together, and showing her great bony
+ankles, she strode rapidly away over the gnarled roots into the perspective
+of the trees, and I did not awake, as it were, until she had quite
+disappeared in the distance.
+
+Events of this kind made no difference with my father; but every other face
+in Knowl was gladdened by the removal. My energies had returned, my spirits
+were come again. The sunlight was happy, the flowers innocent, the songs
+and flutter of the birds once more gay, and all nature delightful and
+rejoicing.
+
+After the first elation of relief, now and then a filmy shadow of Madame de
+la Rougierre would glide across the sunlight, and the remembrance of her
+menace return with an unexpected pang of fear.
+
+'Well, if _there_ isn't impittens!' cried Mrs. Rusk. 'But never you trouble
+your head about it, Miss. Them sort's all alike--you never saw a rogue yet
+that was found out and didn't threaten the honest folk as he was leaving
+behind with all sorts; there was Martin the gamekeeper, and Jervis the
+footman, I mind well how hard they swore all they would not do when they
+was a-going, and who ever heard of them since? They always threatens that
+way--them sort always does, and none ever the worse--not but she would if
+she could, mind ye, but there it is; she can't do nothing but bite her
+nails and cuss us--not she--ha, ha, ha!'
+
+So I was comforted. But Madame's evil smile, nevertheless, from time to
+time, would sail across my vision with a silent menace, and my spirits
+sank, and a Fate, draped in black, whose face I could not see, took me by
+the hand, and led me away, in the spirit, silently, on an awful exploration
+from which I would rouse myself with a start, and Madame was gone for a
+while.
+
+She had, however, judged her little parting well. She contrived to leave
+her glamour over me, and in my dreams she troubled me.
+
+I was, however, indescribably relieved. I wrote in high spirits to Cousin
+Monica; and wondered what plans my father might have formed about me, and
+whether we were to stay at home, or go to London, or go abroad. Of the
+last--the pleasantest arrangement, in some respects--I had nevertheless an
+occult horror. A secret conviction haunted me that were we to go abroad, we
+should there meet Madame, which to me was like meeting my evil genius.
+
+I have said more than once that my father was an odd man; and the reader
+will, by this time, have seen that there was much about him not easily
+understood. I often wonder whether, if he had been franker, I should have
+found him less odd than I supposed, or more odd still. Things that moved me
+profoundly did not apparently affect him at all. The departure of Madame,
+under the circumstances which attended it, appeared to my childish mind an
+event of the vastest importance. No one was indifferent to the occurrence
+in the house but its master. He never alluded again to Madame de la
+Rougierre. But whether connected with her exposure and dismissal, I could
+not say, there did appear to be some new care or trouble now at work in my
+father's mind.
+
+'I have been thinking a great deal about you, Maud. I am anxious. I have
+not been so troubled for years. Why has not Monica Knollys a little more
+sense?'
+
+This oracular sentence he spoke, having stopped me in the hall; and then
+saying, 'We shall see,' he left me as abruptly as he appeared.
+
+Did he apprehend any danger to me from the vindictiveness of Madame?
+
+A day or two afterwards, as I was in the Dutch garden, I saw him on the
+terrace steps. He beckoned to me, and came to meet me as I approached.
+
+'You must be very solitary, little Maud; it is not good. I have written to
+Monica: in a matter of detail she is competent to advise; perhaps she will
+come here for a short visit.'
+
+I was very glad to hear this.
+
+'_You_ are more interested than for my time _I_ can be, in vindicating his
+character.'
+
+'Whose character, sir?' I ventured to enquire during the pause that
+followed.
+
+One trick which my father had acquired from his habits of solitude and
+silence was this of assuming that the context of his thoughts was legible
+to others, forgetting that they had not been spoken.
+
+'Whose?--your uncle Silas's. In the course of nature he must survive me. He
+will then represent the family name. Would you make some sacrifice to clear
+that name, Maud?'
+
+I answered briefly; but my face, I believe, showed my enthusiasm.
+
+He turned on me such an approving smile as you might fancy lighting up the
+rugged features of a pale old Rembrandt.
+
+'I can tell you, Maud; if my life could have done it, it should not have
+been undone--_ubi lapsus, quid feci_. But I had almost made up my mind to
+change my plan, and leave all to time--_edax rerum_--to illuminate or
+to _consume_. But I think little Maud would like to contribute to the
+restitution of her family name. It may cost you something--are you willing
+to buy it at a sacrifice? Is there--I don't speak of fortune, that is not
+involved--but is there any other honourable sacrifice you would shrink from
+to dispel the disgrace under which our most ancient and honourable name
+must otherwise continue to languish?'
+
+'Oh, none--none indeed, sir--I am delighted!'
+
+Again I saw the Rembrandt smile.
+
+'Well, Maud, I am sure there is _no_ risk; but you are to suppose there is.
+Are you still willing to accept it?'
+
+Again I assented.
+
+'You are worthy of your blood, Maud Ruthyn. It will come soon, and it won't
+last long. But you must not let people like Monica Knollys frighten you.'
+
+I was lost in wonder.
+
+'If you allow them to possess you with their follies, you had better recede
+in time--they may make the ordeal as terrible as hell itself. You have
+zeal--have you nerve?' I thought in such a cause I had nerve for anything.
+
+'Well, Maud, in the course of a few months--and it may be sooner--there
+must be a change. I have had a letter from London this morning that assures
+me of that. I must then leave you for a time; in my absence be faithful to
+the duties that will arise. To whom much is committed, of him will much be
+required. You shall promise me not to mention this conversation to Monica
+Knollys. If you are a talking girl, and cannot trust yourself, say so, and
+we will not ask her to come. Also, don't invite her to talk about your
+uncle Silas--I have reasons. Do you quite understand my conditions?'
+
+'Yes, sir.'
+
+'Your uncle Silas,' he said, speaking suddenly in loud and fierce tones
+that sounded from so old a man almost terrible, 'lies under an intolerable
+slander. I don't correspond with him; I don't sympathise with him; I never
+quite did. He has grown religious, and that's well; but there are things in
+which even religion should not bring a man to acquiesce; and from what
+I can learn, he, the person primarily affected--the cause, though the
+innocent cause--of this great calamity--bears it with an easy apathy which
+is mistaken, and liable easily to be mistaken, and such as no Ruthyn, under
+the circumstances, ought to exhibit. I told him what he ought to do, and
+offered to open my purse for the purpose; but he would not, or _did_ not;
+indeed, he _never_ took my advice; he followed his own, and a foul and
+dismal shoal he has drifted on. It is not for his sake--why should I?-that
+I have longed and laboured to remove the disgraceful slur under which
+his ill-fortune has thrown us. He troubles himself little about it, I
+believe--he's meek, meeker than I. He cares less about his children than I
+about you, Maud; he is selfishly sunk in futurity--a feeble visionary. I am
+not so. I believe it to be a duty to take care of others beside myself. The
+character and influence of an ancient family is a peculiar heritage--sacred
+but destructible; and woe to him who either destroys or suffers it to
+perish!'
+
+This was the longest speech I ever heard my father speak before or after.
+He abruptly resumed--
+
+'Yes, we will, Maud--you and I--we'll leave one proof on record, which,
+fairly read, will go far to convince the world.'
+
+He looked round, but we were alone. The garden was nearly always solitary,
+and few visitors ever approached the house from that side.
+
+'I have talked too long, I believe; we are children to the last. Leave me,
+Maud. I think I know you better than I did, and I am pleased with you. Go,
+child--I'll sit here.'
+
+If he had acquired new ideas of me, so had I of him from that interview. I
+had no idea till then how much passion still burned in that aged frame, nor
+how full of energy and fire that face, generally so stern and ashen, could
+appear. As I left him seated on the rustic chair, by the steps, the traces
+of that storm were still discernible on his features. His gathered brows,
+glowing eyes, and strangely hectic face, and the grim compression of his
+mouth, still showed the agitation which, somehow, in grey old age, shocks
+and alarms the young.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+_AUSTIN RUTHYN SETS OUT ON HIS JOURNEY_
+
+
+The Rev. William Fairfield, Doctor Clay's somewhat bald curate, a mild,
+thin man, with a high and thin nose, who was preparing me for confirmation,
+came next day; and when our catechetical conference was ended, and before
+lunch was announced, my father sent for him to the study, where he remained
+until the bell rang out its summons.
+
+'We have had some interesting--I may say _very_ interesting--conversation,
+your papa and I, Miss Ruthyn,' said my reverend _vis-à-vis_, so soon as
+nature was refreshed, smiling and shining, as he leaned back in his chair,
+his hand upon the table, and his finger curled gently upon the stem of his
+wine-glass. 'It never was your privilege, I believe, to see your uncle, Mr.
+Silas Ruthyn, of Bartram-Haugh?'
+
+'No--never; he leads so retired--so _very_ retired a life.'
+
+'Oh, no,--of course, no; but I was going to remark a likeness--I mean,
+of course, a _family_ likeness--only _that_ sort of thing--you
+understand--between him and the profile of Lady Margaret in the
+drawing-room--is not it Lady Margaret?--which you were so good as to show
+me on Wednesday last. There certainly _is_ a likeness. I _think_ you would
+agree with me, if you had the pleasure of seeing your uncle.'
+
+'You know him, then? I have never seen him.'
+
+'Oh dear, yes--I am happy to say, I know him very well. I have that
+privilege. I was for three years curate of Feltram, and I had the honour of
+being a pretty constant visitor at Bartram-Haugh during that, I may say,
+protracted period; and I think it really never has been my privilege and
+happiness, I may say, to enjoy the acquaintance and society of so very
+experienced a Christian, as my admirable friend, I may call him, Mr.
+Ruthyn, of Bartram-Haugh. I look upon him, I do assure you, quite in the
+light of a saint; not, of course, in the Popish sense, but in the very
+highest, you will understand me, which _our_ Church allows,--a man built up
+in faith--full of faith--faith and grace--altogether exemplary; and I
+often ventured to regret, Miss Ruthyn, that Providence in its mysterious
+dispensations should have placed him so far apart from his brother, your
+respected father. His influence and opportunities would, no doubt, we may
+venture to hope, at least have been blessed; and, perhaps, we--my valued
+rector and I--might possibly have seen more of him at church, than, I
+deeply regret, we _have_ done.' He shook his head a little, as he smiled
+with a sad complacency on me through his blue steel spectacles, and then
+sipped a little meditative sherry.
+
+'And you saw a good deal of my uncle?'
+
+'Well, a _good_ deal, Miss Ruthyn--I may say a _good_ deal--principally at
+his own house. His health is wretched--miserable health--a sadly afflicted
+man he has been, as, no doubt, you are aware. But afflictions, my dear Miss
+Ruthyn, as you remember Doctor Clay so well remarked on Sunday last, though
+birds of ill omen, yet spiritually resemble the ravens who supplied the
+prophet; and when they visit the faithful, come charged with nourishment
+for the soul.
+
+'He is a good deal embarrassed pecuniarily, I should say,' continued the
+curate, who was rather a good man than a very well-bred one. 'He found a
+difficulty--in fact it was not in his power--to subscribe generally to our
+little funds, and--and objects, and I used to say to him, and I really felt
+it, that it was more gratifying, such were his feeling and his power of
+expression, to be refused by him than assisted by others.'
+
+'Did papa wish you to speak to me about my uncle?' I enquired, as a sudden
+thought struck me; and then I felt half ashamed of my question.
+
+He looked surprised.
+
+'No, Miss Ruthyn, certainly not. Oh dear, no. It was merely a conversation
+between Mr. Ruthyn and me. He never suggested my opening that, or indeed
+any other point in my interview with you, Miss Ruthyn--not the least.'
+
+'I was not aware before that Uncle Silas was so religious.'
+
+He smiled tranquilly, not quite up to the ceiling, but gently upward, and
+shook his head in pity for my previous ignorance, as he lowered his eyes--
+
+'I don't say that there may not be some little matters in a few points of
+doctrine which we could, perhaps, wish otherwise. But these, you know,
+are speculative, and in all essentials he is Church--not in the perverted
+modern sense; far from it--unexceptionably Church, strictly so. Would there
+were more among us of the same mind that is in him! Ay, Miss Ruthyn, even
+in the highest places of the Church herself.'
+
+The Rev. William Fairfield, while fighting against the Dissenters with his
+right hand, was, with his left, hotly engaged with the Tractarians. A good
+man I am sure he was, and I dare say sound in doctrine, though naturally, I
+think, not very wise. This conversation with him gave me new ideas about my
+uncle Silas. It quite agreed with what my father had said. These principles
+and his increasing years would necessarily quiet the turbulence of his
+resistance to injustice, and teach him to acquiesce in his fate.
+
+You would have fancied that one so young as I, born to wealth so vast, and
+living a life of such entire seclusion, would have been exempt from care.
+But you have seen how troubled my life was with fear and anxiety during the
+residence of Madame de la Rougierre, and now there rested upon my mind a
+vague and awful anticipation of the trial which my father had announced,
+without defining it.
+
+An 'ordeal' he called it, requiring not only zeal but nerve, which might
+possibly, were my courage to fail, become frightful, and even intolerable.
+What, and of what nature, could it be? Not designed to vindicate the fair
+fame of the meek and submissive old man--who, it seemed, had ceased to care
+for his bygone wrongs, and was looking to futurity--but the reputation of
+our ancient family.
+
+Sometimes I repented my temerity in having undertaken it. I distrusted my
+courage. Had I not better retreat, while it was yet time? But there was
+shame and even difficulty in the thought. How should I appear before my
+father? Was it not important--had I not deliberately undertaken it--and was
+I not bound in conscience? Perhaps he had already taken steps in the matter
+which committed _him_. Besides, was I sure that, even were I free again, I
+would not once more devote myself to the trial, be it what it might?
+You perceive I had more spirit than courage. I think I had the mental
+attributes of courage; but then I was but a hysterical girl, and in so far
+neither more nor less than a coward.
+
+No wonder I distrusted myself; no wonder also my will stood out against
+my timidity. It was a struggle, then; a proud, wild resolve against
+constitutional cowardice.
+
+Those who have ever had cast upon them more than their strength
+seemed framed to bear--the weak, the aspiring, the adventurous and
+self-sacrificing in will, and the faltering in nerve--will understand the
+kind of agony which I sometimes endured.
+
+But, again, consolation would come, and it seemed to me that I must be
+exaggerating my risk in the coming crisis; and certain at least, if my
+father believed it attended with real peril, he would never have wished
+to see me involved in it. But the silence under which I was bound was
+terrifying--double so when the danger was so shapeless and undivulged.
+
+I was soon to understand it all--soon, too, to know all about my father's
+impending journey, whither, with what visitor, and why guarded from me with
+so awful a mystery.
+
+That day there came a lively and goodnatured letter from Lady Knollys. She
+was to arrive at Knowl in two or three days' time. I thought my father
+would have been pleased, but he seemed apathetic and dejected.
+
+'One does not always feel quite equal to Monica. But for you--yes, thank
+God. I wish she could only stay, Maud, for a month or two; I may be going
+then, and would be glad--provided she talks about suitable things--very
+glad, Maud, to leave her with you for a week or so.'
+
+There was something, I thought, agitating my father secretly that day. He
+had the strange hectic flush I had observed when he grew excited in our
+interview in the garden about Uncle Silas. There was something painful,
+perhaps even terrible, in the circumstances of the journey he was about
+to make, and from my heart I wished the suspense were over, the annoyance
+past, and he returned.
+
+That night my father bid me good-night early and went upstairs. After I
+had been in bed some little time, I heard his hand-bell ring. This was not
+usual. Shortly after I heard his man, Ridley, talking with Mrs. Rusk in
+the gallery. I could not be mistaken in their voices. I knew not why I was
+startled and excited, and had raised myself to listen on my elbow. But they
+were talking quietly, like persons giving or taking an ordinary direction,
+and not in the haste of an unusual emergency.
+
+Then I heard the man bid Mrs. Rusk good-night and walk down the gallery
+to the stairs, so that I concluded he was wanted no more, and all must
+therefore be well. So I laid myself down again, though with a throbbing at
+my heart, and an ominous feeling of expectation, listening and fancying
+footsteps.
+
+I was going to sleep when I heard the bell ring again; and, in a few
+minutes, Mrs. Rusk's energetic step passed along the gallery; and,
+listening intently, I heard, or fancied, my father's voice and hers in
+dialogue. All this was very unusual, and again I was, with a beating heart,
+leaning with my elbow on my pillow.
+
+Mrs. Rusk came along the gallery in a minute or so after, and stopping at
+my door, began to open it gently. I was startled, and challenged my visitor
+with--
+
+'Who's there?'
+
+'It's only Rusk, Miss. Dearie me! and are you awake still?'
+
+'Is papa ill?'
+
+'Ill! not a bit ill, thank God. Only there's a little black book as I took
+for your prayer-book, and brought in here; ay, here it is, sure enough, and
+he wants it. And then I must go down to the study, and look out this one,
+"C, 15;" but I can't read the name, noways; and I was afraid to ask him
+again; if you be so kind to read it, Miss--I suspeck my eyes is a-going.'
+
+I read the name; and Mrs. Rusk was tolerably expert at finding out books,
+as she had often been employed in that way before. So she departed.
+
+I suppose that this particular volume was hard to find, for she must have
+been a long time away, and I had actually fallen into a doze when I was
+roused in an instant by a dreadful crash and a piercing scream from Mrs.
+Rusk. Scream followed scream, wilder and more terror-stricken. I shrieked
+to Mary Quince, who was sleeping in the room with me:--'Mary, do you hear?
+what is it? It is something dreadful.'
+
+The crash was so tremendous that the solid flooring even of my room
+trembled under it, and to me it seemed as if some heavy man had burst
+through the top of the window, and shook the whole house with his descent.
+I found myself standing at my own door, crying, 'Help, help! murder!
+murder!' and Mary Quince, frightened half out of her wits, by my side.
+
+I could not think what was going on. It was plainly something most
+horrible, for Mrs. Rusk's screams pealed one after the other unabated,
+though with a muffled sound, as if the door was shut upon her; and by this
+time the bells of my father's room were ringing madly.
+
+'They are trying to murder him!' I cried, and I ran along the gallery to
+his door, followed by Mary Quince, whose white face I shall never forget,
+though her entreaties only sounded like unmeaning noises in my ears.
+
+'Here! help, help, help!' I cried, trying to force open the door.
+
+'Shove it, shove it, for God's sake! he's across it,' cried Mrs. Rusk's
+voice from within; 'drive it in. I can't move him.'
+
+I strained all I could at the door, but ineffectually. We heard steps
+approaching. The men were running to the spot, and shouting as they did
+so--
+
+'Never mind; hold on a bit; here we are; all right;' and the like.
+
+We drew back, as they came up. We were in no condition to be seen. We
+listened, however, at my open door.
+
+Then came the straining and bumping at the door. Mrs. Rusk's voice subsided
+to a sort of wailing; the men were talking all together, and I suppose the
+door opened, for I heard some of the voices, on a sudden, as if in the
+room; and then came a strange lull, and talking in very low tones, and not
+much even of that.
+
+'What is it, Mary? what _can_ it be?' I ejaculated, not knowing what horror
+to suppose. And now, with a counterpane about my shoulders, I called loudly
+and imploringly, in my horror, to know what had happened.
+
+But I heard only the subdued and eager talk of men engaged in some
+absorbing task, and the dull sounds of some heavy body being moved.
+
+Mrs. Rusk came towards us looking half wild, and pale as a spectre, and
+putting her thin hands to my shoulders, she said--'Now, Miss Maud, darling,
+you must go back again; 'tisn't no place for you; you'll see all, my
+darling, time enough--you will. There now, there, like a dear, do get into
+your room.'
+
+What was that dreadful sound? Who had entered my father's chamber? It was
+the visitor whom we had so long expected, with whom he was to make the
+unknown journey, leaving me alone. The intruder was Death!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+_ARRIVALS_
+
+
+My father was dead--as suddenly as if he had been murdered. One of those
+fearful aneurisms that lie close to the heart, showing no outward sign of
+giving way in a moment, had been detected a good time since by Dr. Bryerly.
+My father knew what must happen, and that it could not be long deferred.
+He feared to tell me that he was soon to die. He hinted it only in the
+allegory of his journey, and left in that sad enigma some words of true
+consolation that remained with me ever after. Under his rugged ways was
+hidden a wonderful tenderness. I could not believe that he was actually
+dead. Most people for a minute or two, in the wild tumult of such a shock,
+have experienced the same skepticism. I insisted that the doctor should be
+instantly sent for from the village.
+
+'Well, Miss Maud, dear, I _will_ send to please you, but it is all to no
+use. If only you saw him yourself you'd know that. Mary Quince, run you
+down and tell Thomas, Miss Maud desires he'll go down this minute to the
+village for Dr. Elweys.'
+
+Every minute of the interval seemed to me like an hour. I don't know what
+I said, but I fancied that if he were not already dead, he would lose his
+life by the delay. I suppose I was speaking very wildly, for Mrs. Rusk
+said--
+
+'My dear child, you ought to come in and see him; indeed but you should,
+Miss Maud. He's quite dead an hour ago. You'd wonder all the blood that's
+come from him--you would indeed; it's soaked through the bed already.'
+
+'Oh, don't, don't, _don't_, Mrs. Rusk.'
+
+'Will you come in and see him, just?
+
+'Oh, no, no, no, no!'
+
+'Well, then, my dear, don't of course, if you don't like; there's no need.
+Would not you like to lie down, Miss Maud? Mary Quince, attend to her. I
+must go into the room for a minute or two.'
+
+I was walking up and down the room in distraction. It was a cool night; but
+I did not feel it. I could only cry:--'Oh, Mary, Mary! what shall I do? Oh,
+Mary Quince! what shall I do?'
+
+It seemed to me it must be near daylight by the time the Doctor arrived. I
+had dressed myself. I dared not go into the room where my beloved father
+lay.
+
+I had gone out of my room to the gallery, where I awaited Dr. Elweys, when
+I saw him walking briskly after the servant, his coat buttoned up to his
+chin, his hat in his hand, and his bald head shining. I felt myself grow
+cold as ice, and colder and colder, and with a sudden sten my heart seemed
+to stand still.
+
+I heard him ask the maid who stood at the door, in that low, decisive,
+mysterious tone which doctors cultivate--
+
+'In _here_?'
+
+And then, with a nod, I saw him enter.
+
+'Would not you like to see the Doctor, Miss Maud?' asked Mary Quince.
+
+The question roused me a little.
+
+'Thank you, Mary; yes, I must see him.'
+
+And so, in a few minutes, I did. He was very respectful, very sad,
+semi-undertakerlike, in air and countenance, but quite explicit. I heard
+that my dear father 'had died palpably from the rupture of some great
+vessel near the heart.' The disease had, no doubt, been 'long established,
+and is in its nature incurable.' It is 'consolatory in these cases that in
+the act of dissolution, which is instantaneous, there can be no suffering.'
+These, and a few more remarks, were all he had to offer; and having had his
+fee from Mrs. Rusk, he, with a respectful melancholy, vanished.
+
+I returned to my room, and broke into paroxysms of grief, and after an hour
+or more grew more tranquil.
+
+From Mrs. Rusk I learned that he had seemed very well--better than usual,
+indeed--that night, and that on her return from the study with the book
+he required, he was noting down, after his wont, some passages which
+illustrated the text on which he was employing himself. He took the book,
+detaining her in the room, and then mounting on a chair to take down
+another book from a shelf, he had fallen, with the dreadful crash I had
+heard, dead upon the floor. He fell across the door, which caused the
+difficulty in opening it. Mrs. Rusk found she had not strength to force it
+open. No wonder she had given way to terror. I think I should have almost
+lost my reason.
+
+Everyone knows the reserved aspect and the taciturn mood of the house, one
+of whose rooms is tenanted by that mysterious guest.
+
+I do not know how those awful days, and more awful nights, passed over. The
+remembrance is repulsive. I hate to think of them. I was soon draped in the
+conventional black, with its heavy folds of crape. Lady Knollys came, and
+was very kind. She undertook the direction of all those details which were
+to me so inexpressibly dreadful. She wrote letters for me beside, and was
+really most kind and useful, and her society supported me indescribably.
+She was odd, but her eccentricity was leavened with strong common sense;
+and I have often thought since with admiration and gratitude of the tact
+with which she managed my grief.
+
+There is no dealing with great sorrow as if it were under the control of
+our wills. It is a terrible phenomenon, whose laws we must study, and to
+whose conditions we must submit, if we would mitigate it. Cousin Monica
+talked a great deal of my father. This was easy to her, for her early
+recollections were full of him.
+
+One of the terrible dislocations of our habits of mind respecting the dead
+is that our earthly future is robbed of them, and we thrown exclusively
+upon retrospect. From the long look forward they are removed, and every
+plan, imagination, and hope henceforth a silent and empty perspective. But
+in the past they are all they ever were. Now let me advise all who would
+comfort people in a new bereavement to talk to them, very freely, all they
+can, in this way of the dead. They will engage in it with interest, they
+will talk of their own recollections of the dead, and listen to yours,
+though they become sometimes pleasant, sometimes even laughable. I found it
+so. It robbed the calamity of something of its supernatural and horrible
+abruptness; it prevented that monotony of object which is to the mind what
+it is to the eye, and prepared the faculty for those mesmeric illusions
+that derange its sense.
+
+Cousin Monica, I am sure, cheered me wonderfully. I grow to love her more
+and more, as I think of all her trouble, care, and kindness.
+
+I had not forgotten my promise to dear papa about the key, concerning which
+he had evinced so great an anxiety. It was found in the pocket where he had
+desired me to remember he always kept it, except when it was placed, while
+he slept, under his pillow.
+
+'And so, my dear, that wicked woman was actually found picking the lock of
+your poor papa's desk. I _wonder_ he did not punish her--you know that is
+_burglary_.'
+
+'Well, Lady Knollys, you know she is gone, and so I care no more about
+her--that is, I mean, I need not fear her.'
+
+'No, my dear, but you must call me Monica--do you mind--I'm your cousin,
+and you call me Monica, unless you wish to vex me. No, of course, you need
+not be afraid of her. And she's gone. But I'm an old thing, you know, and
+not so tender-hearted as you; and I confess I should have been very glad to
+hear that the wicked old witch had been sent to prison and hard labour--I
+should. And what do you suppose she was looking for--what did she want to
+steal? I think I can guess--what do _you_ think?'
+
+'To read the papers; maybe to take bank-notes--I'm not sure,' I answered.
+
+'Well, I think most likely she wanted to get at your poor papa's
+_will_--that's _my_ idea.
+
+'There is nothing surprising in the supposition, dear,' she resumed. 'Did
+not you read the curious trial at York, the other day? There is nothing
+so valuable to steal as a will, when a great deal of property is to be
+disposed of by it. Why, you would have given her ever so much money to get
+it back again. Suppose you go down, dear--I'll go with you, and open the
+cabinet in the study.'
+
+'I don't think I can, for I promised to give the key to Dr. Bryerly, and
+the meaning was that _he_ only should open it.'
+
+Cousin Monica uttered an inarticulate 'H'm!' of surprise or disapprobation.
+
+'Has he been written to?'
+
+'No, I do not know his address.'
+
+'Not know his address! come, that is curious,' said Knollys, a little
+testily.
+
+I could not--no one now living in the house could furnish even a
+conjecture. There was even a dispute as to which train he had gone
+by--north or south--they crossed the station at an interval of five
+minutes. If Dr. Bryerly had been an evil spirit, evoked by a secret
+incantation, there could not have been more complete darkness as to the
+immediate process of his approach.
+
+'And how long do you mean to wait, my dear? No matter; at all events you
+may open the _desk_; you may find papers to direct you--you may find Dr.
+Bryerly's address--you may find, heaven knows what.'
+
+So down we went--I assenting--and we opened the desk. How dreadful the
+desecration seems--all privacy abrogated--the shocking compensation for the
+silence of death!
+
+Henceforward all is circumstantial evidence--all conjectural--except the
+_litera scripta_, and to this evidence every note-book, and every scrap of
+paper and private letter, must contribute--ransacked, bare in the light of
+day--what it can.
+
+At the top of the desk lay two notes sealed, one to Cousin Monica, the
+other to me. Mine was a gentle and loving little farewell--nothing
+more--which opened afresh the fountains of my sorrow, and I cried and
+sobbed over it bitterly and long. The other was for 'Lady Knollys.' I did
+not see how she received it, for I was already absorbed in mine. But in
+awhile she came and kissed me in her girlish, goodnatured way. Her eyes
+used to fill with tears at sight of my paroxysms of grief. Then she would
+begin, 'I remember it was a saying of his,' and so she would repeat
+it--something maybe wise, maybe playful, at all events consolatory--and the
+circumstances in which she had heard him say it, and then would follow the
+recollections suggested by these; and so I was stolen away half by him, and
+half by Cousin Monica, from my despair and lamentation.
+
+Along with these lay a large envelope, inscribed with the words 'Directions
+to be complied with immediately on my death.' One of which was, 'Let the
+event be _forthwith_ published in the _county_ and principal _London_
+papers.' This step had been already taken. We found no record of Dr.
+Bryerly's address.
+
+We made search everywhere, except in the cabinet, which I would on no
+account permit to be opened except, according to his direction, by Dr.
+Bryerly's hand. But nowhere was a will, or any document resembling one, to
+be found. I had now, therefore, no doubt that his will was placed in the
+cabinet.
+
+In the search among my dear father's papers we found two sheafs of letters,
+neatly tied up and labelled--these were from my uncle Silas.
+
+My cousin Monica looked down upon these papers with a strange smile; was it
+satire--was it that indescribable smile with which a mystery which covers a
+long reach of years is sometimes approached?
+
+These were odd letters. If here and there occurred passages that were
+querulous and even abject, there were also long passages of manly and
+altogether noble sentiment, and the strangest rodomontade and maunderings
+about religion. Here and there a letter would gradually transform itself
+into a prayer, and end with a doxology and no signature; and some of them
+expressed such wild and disordered views respecting religion, as I imagine
+he can never have disclosed to good Mr. Fairfield, and which approached
+more nearly to the Swedenborg visions than to anything in the Church of
+England.
+
+I read these with a solemn interest, but my cousin Monica was not similarly
+moved. She read them with the same smile--faint, serenely contemptuous,
+I thought--with which she had first looked down upon them. It was the
+countenance of a person who amusedly traces the working of a character that
+is well understood.
+
+'Uncle Silas is very religious?' I said, not quite liking Lady Knollys'
+looks.
+
+'Very,' she said, without raising her eyes or abating her old bitter smile,
+as she glanced over a passage in one of his letters.
+
+'You don't think he _is_, Cousin Monica?' said I. She raised her head and
+looked straight at me.
+
+'Why do you say that, Maud?'
+
+'Because you smile incredulously, I think, over his letters.'
+
+'Do I?' said she; 'I was not thinking--it was quite an accident. The fact
+is, Maud, your poor papa quite mistook me. I had no prejudice respecting
+him--no theory. I never knew what to think about him. I do not think
+Silas a product of nature, but a child of the Sphinx, and I never could
+understand him--that's all.'
+
+'I always felt so too; but that was because I was left to speculation, and
+to glean conjectures as I might from his portrait, or anywhere. Except what
+you told me, I never heard more than a few sentences; poor papa did not
+like me to ask questions about him, and I think he ordered the servants to
+be silent.'
+
+'And much the same injunction this little note lays upon me--not quite, but
+something like it; and I don't know the meaning of it.'
+
+And she looked enquiringly at me.
+
+'You are not to be _alarmed_ about your uncle Silas, because your being
+afraid would unfit you for an _important service_ which you have undertaken
+for your family, the nature of which I shall soon understand, and which,
+although it is quite _passive_, would be made very sad if _illusory fears_
+were allowed to _steal into your mind_.'
+
+She was looking into the letter in poor papa's handwriting, which she had
+found addressed to her in his desk, and emphasised the words, I suppose,
+which she quoted from it.
+
+'Have you any idea, Maud, darling, what this _service_ may be?' she
+enquired, with a grave and anxious curiosity in her countenance.
+
+'None, Cousin Monica; but I have thought long over my undertaking to do
+it, or submit to it, be it what it may; and I will keep the promise I
+voluntarily made, although I know what a coward I am, and often distrust my
+courage.'
+
+'Well, I am not to frighten you.'
+
+'How could you? Why should I be afraid? _Is_ there anything frightful to be
+disclosed? Do tell me--you _must_ tell me.'
+
+'No, darling, I did not mean _that_--I don't mean that;--I could, if I
+would; I--I don't know exactly what I meant. But your poor papa knew him
+better than I--in fact, I did not know him at all--that is, ever quite
+understood him--which your poor papa, I see, had ample opportunities of
+doing.' And after a little pause, she added--'So you do not know what you
+are expected to do or to undergo.'
+
+'Oh! Cousin Monica, I know you think he committed that murder,' I cried,
+starting up, I don't know why, and I felt that I grew deadly pale.
+
+'I don't believe any such thing, you little fool; you must not say such
+horrible things, Maud,' she said, rising also, and looking both pale and
+angry. 'Shall we go out for a little walk? Come, lock up these papers,
+dear, and get your things on; and if that Dr. Bryerly does not turn up
+to-morrow, you must send for the Rector, good Doctor Clay, and let him make
+search for the will--there may be directions about many things, you know;
+and, my dear Maud, you are to remember that Silas is _my_ cousin as well as
+your uncle. Come, dear, put on your hat.'
+
+So we went out together for a little cloistered walk.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+_SOMEBODY IN THE ROOM WITH THE COFFIN_
+
+
+When we returned, a 'young' gentleman had arrived. We saw him in the
+parlour as we passed the window. It was simply a glance, but such a one
+as suffices to make a photograph, which we can study afterwards, at our
+leisure. I remember him at this moment--a man of six-and-thirty--dressed in
+a grey travelling suit, not over-well made; light-haired, fat-faced,
+and clumsy; and he looked both dull and cunning, and not at all like a
+gentleman.
+
+Branston met us, announced the arrival, and handed me the stranger's
+credentials. My cousin and I stopped in the passage to read them.
+
+'_That's_ your uncle Silas's,' said Lady Knollys, touching one of the two
+letters with the tip of her finger.
+
+'Shall we have lunch, Miss?'
+
+'Certainly.' So Branston departed.
+
+'Read it with me, Cousin Monica,' I said. And a very curious letter it was.
+It spoke as follows:--
+
+'How can I thank my beloved niece for remembering her aged and forlorn
+kinsman at such a moment of anguish?'
+
+I had written a note of a few, I dare say, incoherent words by the next
+post after my dear father's death.
+
+'It is, however, in the hour of bereavement that we most value the ties
+that are broken, and yearn for the sympathy of kindred.'
+
+Here came a little distich of French verse, of which I could only read
+_ciel_ and _l'amour_.
+
+'Our quiet household here is clouded with a new sorrow. How inscrutable are
+the ways of Providence! I--though a few years younger--how much the more
+infirm--how shattered in energy and in mind--how mere a burden--how
+entirely _de trop_--am spared to my sad place in a world where I can be no
+longer useful, where I have but one business--prayer, but one hope--the
+tomb; and he--apparently so robust--the centre of so much good--so
+necessary to you--so necessary, alas! to me--is taken! He is gone to his
+rest--for us, what remains but to bow our heads, and murmur, "His will be
+done"? I trace these lines with a trembling hand, while tears dim my
+old eyes. I did not think that any earthly event could have moved me so
+profoundly. From the world I have long stood aloof. I once led a life of
+pleasure--alas! of wickedness--as I now do one of austerity; but as I never
+was rich, so my worst enemy will allow I never was avaricious. My sins, I
+thank my Maker, have been of a more reducible kind, and have succumbed to
+the discipline which Heaven has provided. To earth and its interests, as
+well as to its pleasures, I have long been dead. For the few remaining
+years of my life I ask but quiet--an exemption from the agitations and
+distractions of struggle and care, and I trust to the Giver of all Good for
+my deliverance--well knowing, at the same time, that whatever befalls will,
+under His direction, prove best. Happy shall I be, my dearest niece, if in
+your most interesting and, in some respects, forlorn situation, I can be
+of any use to you. My present religious adviser--of whom I ventured to ask
+counsel on your behalf--states that I ought to send some one to represent
+me at the melancholy ceremony of reading the will which my beloved and now
+happy brother has, no doubt, left behind; and the idea that the experience
+and professional knowledge possessed by the gentleman whom I have selected
+may possibly be of use to you, my dearest niece, determines me to place
+him at your disposal. He is the junior partner in the firm of Archer and
+Sleigh, who conduct any little business which I may have from time to time;
+may I entreat your hospitality for him during a brief stay at Knowl? I
+write, even for a moment, upon these small matters of business with
+an effort--a painful one, but necessary. Alas! my brother! The cup of
+bitterness is now full. Few and evil must the remainder of my old days be.
+Yet, while they last, I remain always for my beloved niece, that which all
+her wealth and splendour cannot purchase--a loving and faithful kinsman and
+friend,
+
+SILAS RUTHYN.'
+
+'Is not it a kind letter?' I said, while tears stood in my eyes.
+
+'Yes,' answered Lady Knollys, drily.
+
+'But don't you think it so, really?'
+
+'Oh! kind, very kind,' she answered in the same tone, 'and perhaps a little
+cunning.'
+
+'Cunning!--how?'
+
+'Well, you know I'm a peevish old Tabby, and of course I scratch now and
+then, and see in the dark. I dare say Silas is sorry, but I don't think he
+is in sackcloth and ashes. He has reason to be sorry and anxious, and I say
+I think he is both; and you know he pities you very much, and also himself
+a good deal; and he wants money, and you--his beloved niece--have a great
+deal--and altogether it is an affectionate and prudent letter: and he has
+sent his attorney here to make a note of the will; and you are to give the
+gentleman his meals and lodging; and Silas, very thoughtfully, invites you
+to confide your difficulties and troubles to _his_ solicitor. It is very
+kind, but not imprudent.'
+
+'Oh, Cousin Monica, don't you think at such a moment it is hardly natural
+that he should form such petty schemes, even were he capable at other times
+of practising so low? Is it not judging him hardly? and you, you know, so
+little acquainted with him.'
+
+'I told you, dear, I'm a cross old thing--and there's an end; and I really
+don't care two pence about him; and of the two I'd much rather he were no
+relation of ours.'
+
+Now, was not this prejudice? I dare say in part it was. So, too, was
+my vehement predisposition in his favour. I am afraid we women are
+factionists; we always take a side, and nature has formed us for advocates
+rather than judges; and I think the function, if less dignified, is more
+amiable.
+
+I sat alone at the drawing-room window, at nightfall, awaiting my cousin
+Monica's entrance.
+
+Feverish and frightened I felt that night. It was a sympathy, I fancy, with
+the weather. The sun had set stormily. Though the air was still, the sky
+looked wild and storm-swept. The crowding clouds, slanting in the attitude
+of flight, reflected their own sacred aspect upon my spirits. My grief
+darkened with a wild presaging of danger, and a sense of the supernatural
+fell upon me. It was the saddest and most awful evening that had come since
+my beloved father's death.
+
+All kinds of shapeless fears environed me in silence. For the first time,
+dire misgivings about the form of faith affrighted me. Who were these
+Swedenborgians who had got about him--no one could tell how--and held
+him so fast to the close of his life? Who was this bilious, bewigged,
+black-eyed Doctor Bryerly, whom none of us quite liked and all a little
+feared; who seemed to rise out of the ground, and came and went, no one
+knew whence or whither, exercising, as I imagined, a mysterious authority
+over him? Was it all good and true, or a heresy and a witchcraft? Oh, my
+beloved father! was it all well with you?
+
+When Lady Knollys entered, she found me in floods of tears, walking
+distractedly up and down the room. She kissed me in silence; she walked
+back and forward with me, and did her best to console me.
+
+'I think, Cousin Monica, I would wish to see him once more. Shall we go
+up?'
+
+'Unless you really wish it very much, I think, darling, you had better not
+mind it. It is happier to recollect them as they were; there's a change,
+you know, darling, and there is seldom any comfort in the sight.'
+
+'But I do wish it _very_ much. Oh! won't you come with me?'
+
+And so I persuaded her, and up we went hand in hand, in the deepening
+twilight; and we halted at the end of the dark gallery, and I called Mrs.
+Rusk, growing frightened.
+
+'Tell her to let us in, Cousin Monica,' I whispered.
+
+'She wishes to see him, my lady--does she?' enquired Mrs. Rusk, in an
+under-tone, and with a mysterious glance at me, as she softly fitted the
+key to the lock.
+
+'Are you quite sure, Maud, dear?'
+
+'Yes, yes.'
+
+But when Mrs. Rusk entered bearing the candle, whose beam mixed dismally
+with the expiring twilight, disclosing a great black coffin standing upon
+trestles, near the foot of which she took her stand, gazing sternly into
+it, I lost heart again altogether and drew back.
+
+'No, Mrs. Rusk, she won't; and I am very glad, dear,' she added to me.
+'Come, Mrs. Rusk, come away. Yes, darling,' she continued to me, 'it is
+much better for you;' and she hurried me away, and down-stairs again. But
+the awful outlines of that large black coffin remained upon my imagination
+with a new and terrible sense of death.
+
+I had no more any wish to see him. I felt a horror even of the room, and
+for more than an hour after a kind of despair and terror, such as I have
+never experienced before or since at the idea of death.
+
+Cousin Monica had had her bed placed in my room, and Mary Quince's moved to
+the dressing-room adjoining it. For the first time the superstitious awe
+that follows death, but not immediately, visited me. The idea of seeing my
+father enter the room, or open the door and look in, haunted me. After Lady
+Knollys and I were in bed, I could not sleep. The wind sounded mournfully
+outside, and the small sounds, the rattlings, and strainings that responded
+from within, constantly startled me, and simulated the sounds of steps, of
+doors opening, of knockings, and so forth, rousing me with a palpitating
+heart as often as I fell into a doze.
+
+At length the wind subsided, and these ambiguous noises abated, and I,
+fatigued, dropped into a quiet sleep. I was awakened by a sound in the
+gallery--which I could not define. A considerable time had passed, for the
+wind was now quite lulled. I sat up in my bed a good deal scared, listening
+breathlessly for I knew not what.
+
+I heard a step moving stealthily along the gallery. I called my cousin
+Monica softly; and we both heard the door of the room in which my father's
+body lay unlocked, some one furtively enter, and the door shut.
+
+'What can it be? Good Heavens, Cousin Monica, do you hear it?'
+
+'Yes, dear; and it is two o'clock.'
+
+Everyone at Knowl was in bed at eleven. We knew very well that Mrs. Rusk
+was rather nervous, and would not, for worlds, go alone, and at such an
+hour, to the room. We called Mary Quince. We all three listened, but we
+heard no other sound. I set these things down here because they made so
+terrible an impression upon me at the time.
+
+It ended by our peeping out, all three in a body, upon the gallery. Through
+each window in the perspective came its blue sheet of moonshine; but the
+door on which our attention was fixed was in the shade, and we thought we
+could discern the glare of a candle through the key-hole. While in whispers
+we were debating this point together, the door opened, the dusky light of
+a candle emerged, the shadow of a figure crossed it within, and in another
+moment the mysterious Doctor Bryerly--angular, ungainly, in the black cloth
+coat that fitted little better than a coffin--issued from the chamber,
+candle in hand; murmuring, I suppose, a prayer--it sounded like a farewell--
+stepped cautiously upon the gallery floor, shutting and locking the door
+upon the dead; and then having listened for a second, the saturnine figure,
+casting a gigantic and distorted shadow upon the ceiling and side-wall from
+the lowered candle, strode lightly down the long dark passage, away from
+us.
+
+I can only speak for myself, and I can honestly say that I felt as much
+frightened as if I had just seen a sorcerer stealing from his unhallowed
+business. I think Cousin Monica was also affected in the same way, for she
+turned the key on the inside of the door when we entered. I do not think
+one of us believed at the moment that what we had seen was a Doctor Bryerly
+of flesh and blood, and yet the first thing we spoke of in the morning was
+Doctor Bryerly's arrival. The mind is a different organ by night and by
+day.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+_I TALK WITH DOCTOR BRYERLY_
+
+
+Doctor Bryerly had, indeed, arrived at half-past twelve o'clock at night.
+His summons at the hall-door was little heard at our remote side of the old
+house of Knowl; and when the sleepy, half-dressed servant opened the
+door, the lank Doctor, in glossy black clothing, was standing alone, his
+portmanteau on its end upon the steps, and his vehicle disappearing in the
+shadows of the old trees.
+
+In he came, sterner and sharper of aspect than usual.
+
+'I've been expected? I'm Doctor Bryerly. Haven't I? So, let whoever is in
+charge of the body be called. I must visit it forthwith.'
+
+So the Doctor sat in the back drawing-room, with a solitary candle; and
+Mrs. Rusk was called up, and, grumbling much and very peevish, dressed and
+went down, her ill-temper subsiding in a sort of fear as she approached the
+visitor.
+
+'How do you do, Madam? A sad visit this. Is anyone watching in the room
+where the remains of your late master are laid?'
+
+'No.'
+
+'So much the better; it is a foolish custom. Will you please conduct me to
+the room? I must pray where he lies--no longer _he_! And be good enough to
+show me my bedroom, and so no one need wait up, and I shall find my way.'
+
+Accompanied by the man who carried his valise, Mrs. Rusk showed him to his
+apartment; but he only looked in, and then glanced rapidly about to take
+'the bearings' of the door.
+
+'Thank you--yes. Now we'll proceed, here, along here? Let me see. A turn to
+the right and another to the left--yes. He has been dead some days. Is he
+yet in his coffin?'
+
+'Yes, sir; since yesterday afternoon.'
+
+Mrs. Rusk was growing more and more afraid of this lean figure sheathed in
+shining black cloth, whose eyes glittered with a horrible sort of cunning,
+and whose long brown fingers groped before him, as if indicating the way by
+guess.
+
+'But, of course, the lid's not on; you've not screwed him down, hey?'
+
+'No, sir.'
+
+'That's well. I must look on the face as I pray. He is in his place; I here
+on earth. He in the spirit; I in the flesh. The neutral ground lies there.
+So are carried the vibrations, and so the light of earth and heaven
+reflected back and forward--apaugasma, a wonderful though helpless engine,
+the ladder of Jacob, and behold the angels of God ascending and descending
+on it. Thanks, I'll take the key. Mysteries to those who _will_ live
+altogether in houses of clay, no mystery to such as will use their eyes and
+read what is revealed. _This_ candle, it is the longer, please; no--no need
+of a pair, thanks; just this, to hold in my hand. And remember, all depends
+upon the willing mind. Why do you look frightened? Where is your faith?
+Don't you know that spirits are about us at all times? Why should you
+fear to be near the body? The spirit is everything; the flesh profiteth
+nothing.'
+
+'Yes, sir,' said Mrs. Rusk, making him a great courtesy in the threshold.
+
+She was frightened by his eerie talk, which grew, she fancied, more voluble
+and energetic as they approached the corpse.
+
+'Remember, then, that when you fancy yourself alone and wrapt in darkness,
+you stand, in fact, in the centre of a theatre, as wide as the starry floor
+of heaven, with an audience, whom no man can number, beholding you under a
+flood of light. Therefore, though your body be in solitude and your mortal
+sense in darkness, remember to walk as being in the light, surrounded with
+a cloud of witnesses. Thus walk; and when the hour comes, and you pass
+forth unprisoned from the tabernacle of the flesh, although it still has
+its relations and its rights'--and saying this, as he held the solitary
+candle aloft in the doorway, he nodded towards the coffin, whose large
+black form was faintly traceable against the shadows beyond--'you will
+rejoice; and being clothed upon with your house from on high, you will not
+be found naked. On the other hand, he that loveth corruption shall have
+enough thereof. Think upon these things. Good-night.'
+
+And the Swedenborgian Doctor stepped into the room, taking the candle with
+him, and closed the door upon the shadowy still-life there, and on his own
+sharp and swarthy visage, leaving Mrs. Rusk in a sort of panic in the dark
+alone, to find her way to her room the best way she could.
+
+Early in the morning Mrs. Rusk came to my room to tell me that Doctor
+Bryerly was in the parlour, and begged to know whether I had not a message
+for him. I was already dressed, so, though it was dreadful seeing a
+stranger in my then mood, taking the key of the cabinet in my hand, I
+followed Mrs. Rusk downstairs.
+
+Opening the parlour door, she stepped in, and with a little courtesy
+said,--
+
+'Please, sir, the young mistress--Miss Ruthyn.'
+
+Draped in black and very pale, tall and slight, 'the young mistress'
+was; and as I entered I heard a newspaper rustle, and the sound of steps
+approaching to meet me.
+
+Face to face we met, near the door; and, without speaking, I made him a
+deep courtesy.
+
+He took my hand, without the least indication on my part, in his hard lean
+grasp, and shook it kindly, but familiarly, peering with a stern sort of
+curiosity into my face as he continued to hold it. His ill-fitting, glossy
+black cloth, ungainly presence, and sharp, dark, vulpine features had in
+them, as I said before, the vulgarity of a Glasgow artisan in his Sabbath
+suit. I made an instantaneous motion to withdraw my hand, but he held it
+firmly.
+
+Though there was a grim sort of familiarity, there was also decision,
+shrewdness, and, above all, kindness, in his dark face--a gleam on the
+whole of the masterly and the honest--that along with a certain paleness,
+betraying, I thought, restrained emotion, indicated sympathy and invited
+confidence.
+
+'I hope, Miss, you are pretty well?' He pronounced 'pretty' as it is spelt.
+'I have come in consequence of a solemn promise exacted more than a year
+since by your deceased father, the late Mr. Austin Ruthyn of Knowl, for
+whom I cherished a warm esteem, being knit besides with him in spiritual
+bonds. It has been a shock to you, Miss?'
+
+'It has, indeed, sir.'
+
+'I've a doctor's degree, I have--Doctor of Medicine, Miss. Like St. Luke,
+preacher and doctor. I was in business once, but this is better. As one
+footing fails, the Lord provides another. The stream of life is black and
+angry; how so many of us get across without drowning, I often wonder. The
+best way is not to look too far before--just from one stepping-stone to
+another; and though you may wet your feet, He won't let you drown--He has
+not allowed me.'
+
+And Doctor Bryerly held up his head, and wagged it resolutely.
+
+'You are born to this world's wealth; in its way a great blessing, though a
+great trial, Miss, and a great trust; but don't suppose you are destined
+to exemption from trouble on that account, any more than poor Emmanuel
+Bryerly. As the sparks fly upwards, Miss Ruthyn! Your cushioned carriage
+may overturn on the highroad, as I may stumble and fall upon the footpath.
+There are other troubles than debt and privation. Who can tell how
+long health may last, or when an accident may happen the brain; what
+mortifications may await you in your own high sphere; what unknown enemies
+may rise up in your path; or what slanders may asperse your name--ha, ha!
+It is a wonderful equilibrium--a marvellous dispensation--ha, ha!' and he
+laughed with a shake of his head, I thought a little sarcastically, as if
+he was not sorry my money could not avail to buy immunity from the general
+curse.
+
+'But what money can't do, _prayer_ can--bear that in mind, Miss Ruthyn. We
+can all pray; and though thorns and snares, and stones of fire lie strewn
+in our way, we need not fear them. He will give His angels charge over us,
+and in their hands they will bear us up, for He hears and sees everywhere,
+and His angels are innumerable.'
+
+He was now speaking gently and solemnly, and paused. But another vein of
+thought he had unconsciously opened in my mind, and I said--
+
+'And had my dear papa no other medical adviser?'
+
+He looked at me sharply, and flushed a little under his dark tint. His
+medical skill was, perhaps, the point on which his human vanity vaunted
+itself, and I dare say there was something very disparaging in my tone.
+
+'And if he _had_ no other, he might have done worse. I've had many critical
+cases in my hands, Miss Ruthyn. I can't charge myself with any miscarriage
+through ignorance. My diagnosis in Mr. Ruthyn's case has been verified by
+the result. But I was _not_ alone; Sir Clayton Barrow saw him, and took my
+view; a note will reach him in London. But this, excuse me, is not to the
+present purpose. The late Mr. Ruthyn told me I was to receive a key
+from you, which would open a cabinet where he had placed his will--ha!
+thanks,--in his study. And, I think, as there may be directions about
+the funeral, it had better be read forthwith. Is there any gentleman--a
+relative or man of business--near here, whom you would wish sent for?'
+
+'No, none, thank you; I have confidence in you, sir.'
+
+I think I spoke and looked frankly, for he smiled very kindly, though with
+closed lips.
+
+'And you may be sure, Miss Ruthyn, your confidence shall not be
+disappointed.' Here was a long pause. 'But you are very young, and you must
+have some one by in your interest, who has some experience in business. Let
+me see. Is not the Rector, Dr. Clay, at hand? In the town?--very good; and
+Mr. Danvers, who manages the estate, _he_ must come. And get Grimston--you
+see I know all the names--Grimston, the attorney; for though he was not
+employed about this will, he has been Mr. Ruthyn's solicitor a great many
+years: we must have Grimston; for, as I suppose you know, though it is a
+short will, it is a very strange one. I expostulated, but you know he was
+very decided when he took a view. He read it to you, eh?'
+
+'No, sir.'
+
+'Oh, but he told you so much as relates to you and your uncle, Mr. Silas
+Ruthyn, of Bartram-Haugh?'
+
+'No, indeed, sir.'
+
+'Ha! I wish he had.'
+
+And with these words Doctor Bryerly's countenance darkened.
+
+'Mr. Silas Ruthyn is a religious man?'
+
+'Oh, _very_!' said I.
+
+'You've seen a good deal of him?'
+
+'No, I never saw him,' I answered.
+
+'H'm? Odder and odder! But he's a good man, isn't he?'
+
+'Very good, indeed, sir--a very religious man.'
+
+Doctor Bryerly was watching my countenance as I spoke, with a sharp and
+anxious eye; and then he looked down, and read the pattern of the carpet
+like bad news, for a while, and looking again in my face, askance, he
+said--
+
+'He was very near joining _us_--on the point. He got into correspondence
+with Henry Voerst, one of our best men. They call us Swedenborgians, you
+know; but I dare say that won't go much further, now. I suppose, Miss
+Ruthyn, one o'clock would be a good hour, and I am sure, under the
+circumstances, the gentlemen will make a point of attending.'
+
+'Yes, Dr. Bryerly, the notes shall be sent, and my cousin, Lady Knollys,
+would I am sure attend with me while the will is being read--there would be
+no objection to her presence?'
+
+'None in the world. I can't be quite sure who are joined with me as
+executors. I'm almost sorry I did not decline; but it is too late
+regretting. One thing you must believe Miss Ruthyn: in framing the
+provisions of the will I was never consulted--although I expostulated
+against the only very unusual one it contains when I heard it. I did
+so strenuously, but in vain. There was one other against which I
+protested--having a right to do so--with better effect. In no other way
+does the will in any respect owe anything to my advice or dissuasion. You
+will please believe this; also that I am your friend. Yes, indeed, it is my
+duty.'
+
+The latter words he spoke looking down again, as it were in soliloquy; and
+thanking him, I withdrew.
+
+When I reached the hall, I regretted that I had not asked him to state
+distinctly what arrangements the will made so nearly affecting, as it
+seemed, my relations with my uncle Silas, and for a moment I thought of
+returning and requesting an explanation. But then, I bethought me, it was
+not very long to wait till one o'clock--so _he_, at least, would think. I
+went up-stairs, therefore, to the 'school-room,' which we used at present
+as a sitting-room, and there I found Cousin Monica awaiting me.
+
+'Are you quite well, dear?' asked Lady Knollys, as she came to meet and
+kiss me.
+
+'Quite well, Cousin Monica.'
+
+'No nonsense, Maud! you're as white as that handkerchief--what's the
+matter? Are you ill--are you frightened? Yes, you're trembling--you're
+terrified, child.'
+
+'I believe I _am_ afraid. There _is_ something in poor papa's will about
+Uncle Silas--about _me_. I don't know--Doctor Bryerly says, and he seems so
+uncomfortable and frightened himself, I am sure it is something very bad. I
+am _very_ much frightened--I am--I _am_. Oh, Cousin Monica! you won't leave
+me?'
+
+So I threw my arms about her neck, clasping her very close, and we kissed
+one another, I crying like a frightened child--and indeed in experience of
+the world I was no more.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+_THE OPENING OF THE WILL_
+
+
+Perhaps the terror with which I anticipated the hour of one, and the
+disclosure of the unknown undertaking to which I had bound myself, was
+irrational and morbid. But, honestly, I doubt it; my tendency has always
+been that of many other weak characters, to act impetuously, and afterwards
+to reproach myself for consequences which I have, perhaps, in reality, had
+little or no share in producing.
+
+It was Doctor Bryerly's countenance and manner in alluding to a particular
+provision in my father's will that instinctively awed me. I have seen faces
+in a nightmare that haunted me with an indescribable horror, and yet I
+could not say wherein lay the fascination. And so it was with his--an omen,
+a menace, lurked in its sallow and dismal glance.
+
+'You must not be so frightened, darling,' said Cousin Monica. 'It is
+foolish; it _is, really_; they can't cut off your head, you know: they
+can't really harm you in any essential way. If it involved a risk of a
+little money, you would not mind it; but men are such odd creatures--they
+measure all sacrifices by money. Doctor Bryerly would look just as you
+describe, if you were doomed to lose 500_l_., and yet it would not kill
+you.'
+
+A companion like Lady Knollys is reassuring; but I could not take her
+comfort altogether to heart, for I felt that she had no great confidence in
+it herself.
+
+There was a little French clock over the mantelpiece in the school-room,
+which I consulted nearly every minute. It wanted now but ten minutes of
+one.
+
+'Shall we go down to the drawing-room, dear?' said Cousin Knollys, who was
+growing restless like me.
+
+So down-stairs we went, pausing by mutual consent at the great window at
+the stair-head, which looks out on the avenue. Mr. Danvers was riding his
+tall, grey horse at a walk, under the wide branches toward the house, and
+we waited to see him get off at the door. In his turn he loitered there,
+for the good Rector's gig, driven by the Curate, was approaching at a smart
+ecclesiastical trot.
+
+Doctor Clay got down, and shook hands with Mr. Danvers; and after a word
+or two, away drove the Curate with that upward glance at the windows from
+which so few can refrain.
+
+I watched the Rector and Mr. Danvers loitering on the steps as a patient
+might the gathering of surgeons who are to perform some unknown operation.
+They, too, glanced up at the window as they turned to enter the house, and
+I drew back. Cousin Monica looked at her watch.
+
+'Four minutes only. Shall we go to the drawing-room?'
+
+Waiting for a moment to let the gentlemen get by on the way to the study,
+we, accordingly, went down, and I heard the Rector talk of the dangerous
+state of Grindleston bridge, and wondered how he could think of such things
+at a time of sorrow. Everything about those few minutes of suspense remains
+fresh in my recollection. I remember how they loitered and came to a halt
+at the corner of the oak passage leading to the study, and how the Rector
+patted the marble head and smoothed the inflexible tresses of William Pitt,
+as he listened to Mr. Danvers' details about the presentment; and then,
+as they went on, I recollect the boisterous nose-blowing that suddenly
+resounded from the passage, and which I then referred, and still refer,
+intuitively to the Rector.
+
+We had not been five minutes in the drawing-room when Branston entered, to
+say that the gentlemen I had mentioned were all assembled in the study.
+
+'Come, dear,' said Cousin Monica; and leaning on her arm I reached the
+study door. I entered, followed by her. The gentlemen arrested their talk
+and stood up, those who were sitting, and the Rector came forward very
+gravely, and in low tones, and very kindly, greeted me. There was nothing
+emotional in this salutation, for though my father never quarrelled, yet an
+immense distance separated him from all his neighbours, and I do not think
+there lived a human being who knew him at more than perhaps a point or two
+of his character.
+
+Considering how entirely he secluded himself, my father was, as many people
+living remember, wonderfully popular in his county. He was neighbourly
+in everything except in seeing company and mixing in society. He had
+magnificent shooting, of which he was extremely liberal. He kept a pack of
+hounds at Dollerton, with which all his side of the county hunted through
+the season. He never refused any claim upon his purse which had the
+slightest show of reason. He subscribed to every fund, social, charitable,
+sporting, agricultural, no matter what, provided the honest people of
+his county took an interest in it, and always with a princely hand; and
+although he shut himself up, no one could say that he was inaccessible,
+for he devoted hours daily to answering letters, and his checque-book
+contributed largely in those replies. He had taken his turn long ago as
+High Sheriff; so there was an end of that claim before his oddity and
+shyness had quite secluded him. He refused the Lord-Lieutenancy of his
+county; he declined every post of personal distinction connected with it.
+He could write an able as well as a genial letter when he pleased; and his
+appearances at public meetings, dinners, and so forth were made in
+this epistolary fashion, and, when occasion presented, by magnificent
+contributions from his purse.
+
+If my father had been less goodnatured in the sporting relations of his
+vast estates, or less magnificent in dealing with his fortune, or even if
+he had failed to exhibit the intellectual force which always characterised
+his letters on public matters, I dare say that his oddities would have
+condemned him to ridicule, and possibly to dislike. But every one of the
+principal gentlemen of his county, whose judgment was valuable, has told me
+that he was a remarkably able man, and that his failure in public life
+was due to his eccentricities, and in no respect to deficiency in those
+peculiar mental qualities which make men feared and useful in Parliament.
+
+I could not forbear placing on record this testimony to the high mental
+and the kindly qualities of my beloved father, who might have passed for
+a misanthrope or a fool. He was a man of generous nature and powerful
+intellect, but given up to the oddities of a shyness which grew with
+years and indulgence, and became inflexible with his disappointments and
+affliction.
+
+There was something even in the Rector's kind and ceremonious greeting
+which oddly enough reflected the mixed feelings in which awe was not
+without a place, with which his neighbours had regarded my dear father.
+
+Having done the honours--I am sure looking woefully pale--I had time to
+glance quietly at the only figure there with which I was not tolerably
+familiar. This was the junior partner in the firm of Archer and Sleigh who
+represented my uncle Silas--a fat and pallid man of six-and-thirty, with
+a sly and evil countenance, and it has always seemed to me, that ill
+dispositions show more repulsively in a pale fat face than in any other.
+
+Doctor Bryerly, standing near the window, was talking in a low tone to Mr.
+Grimston, our attorney.
+
+I heard good Dr. Clay whisper to Mr. Danvers--
+
+'Is not that Doctor Bryerly--the person with the black--the black--it's a
+wig, I think--in the window, talking to Abel Grimston?'
+
+'Yes; that's he.'
+
+'Odd-looking person--one of the Swedenborg people, is not he?' continued
+the Rector.
+
+'So I am told.'
+
+'Yes,' said the Rector, quietly; and he crossed one gaitered leg over the
+other, and, with fingers interlaced, twiddled his thumbs, as he eyed
+the monstrous sectary under his orthodox old brows with a stern
+inquisitiveness. I thought he was meditating theologic battle.
+
+But Dr. Bryerly and Mr. Grimston, still talking together, began to walk
+slowly from the window, and the former said in his peculiar grim tones--
+
+'I beg pardon, Miss Ruthyn; perhaps you would be so good as to show us
+which of the cabinets in this room your late lamented father pointed out as
+that to which this key belongs.'
+
+I indicated the oak cabinet.
+
+'Very good, ma'am--very good,' said Doctor Bryerly, as he fumbled the key
+into the lock.
+
+Cousin Monica could not forbear murmuring--
+
+'Dear! what a brute!'
+
+The junior partner, with his dumpy hands in his pocket, poked his fat face
+over Mr. Grimston's shoulder, and peered into the cabinet as the door
+opened.
+
+The search was not long. A handsome white paper enclosure, neatly tied up
+in pink tape, and sealed with large red seals, was inscribed in my dear
+father's hand:--'Will of Austin R. Ruthyn, of Knowl.' Then, in smaller
+characters, the date, and in the corner a note--'This will was drawn from
+my instructions by Gaunt, Hogg, and Hatchett, Solicitors, Great Woburn
+Street, London, A.R.R.'
+
+'Let _me_ have a squint at that indorsement, please, gentlemen,' half
+whispered the unpleasant person who represented my uncle Silas.
+
+''_Tisn't_ an indorsement. There, look--a memorandum on an envelope,' said
+Abel Grimston, gruffly.
+
+'Thanks--all right--that will do,' he responded, himself making a
+pencil-note of it, in a long clasp-book which he drew from his coat-pocket.
+
+The tape was carefully cut, and the envelope removed without tearing the
+writing, and forth came the will, at sight of which my heart swelled and
+fluttered up to my lips, and then dropped down dead as it seemed into its
+place.
+
+'Mr. Grimston, you will please to read it,' said Doctor Bryerly, who took
+the direction of the process. 'I will sit beside you, and as we go along
+you will be good enough to help us to understand technicalities, and give
+us a lift where we want it.' 'It's a short will,' said Mr. Grimston,
+turning over the sheets '_very_--considering. Here's a codicil.'
+
+'I did not see that,' said Doctor Bryerly.
+
+'Dated only a month ago.'
+
+'Oh!' said Doctor Bryerly, putting on his spectacles. Uncle Silas's
+ambassador, sitting close behind, had insinuated his face between Doctor
+Bryerly's and the reader's of the will.
+
+'On behalf of the surviving brother of the testator,' interposed the
+delegate, just as Abel Grimston had cleared his voice to begin, 'I take
+leave to apply for a copy of this instrument. It will save a deal of
+trouble, if the young lady as represents the testator here has no
+objection.'
+
+'You can have as many copies as you like when the will is proved,' said Mr.
+Grimston.
+
+'I know that; but supposing as all's right, where's the objection?'
+
+'Just the objection there always is to acting irregular,' replied Mr.
+Grimston.
+
+'You don't object to act disobliging, it seems.'
+
+'You can do as I told you,' replied Mr. Grimston.
+
+'Thank you for nothing,' murmured Mr. Sleigh.
+
+And the reading of the will proceeded, while he made elaborate notes of its
+contents in his capacious pocket-book.
+
+'I, Austin Alymer Ruthyn Ruthyn, being, I thank God, of sound mind and
+perfect recollection,' &c, &c.; and then came a bequest of all his
+estates real, chattels real, copyrights, leases, chattels, money, rights,
+interests, reversions, powers, plate, pictures, and estates and possessions
+whatsoever, to four persons--Lord Ilbury, Mr. Penrose Creswell of Creswell,
+Sir William Aylmer, Bart., and Hans Emmanuel Bryerly, Doctor of Medicine,
+'to have and to hold,' &c. &c. Whereupon my Cousin Monica ejaculated 'Eh?'
+and Doctor Bryerly interposed--
+
+'Four trustees, ma'am. We take little but trouble--you'll see; go on.'
+
+Then it came out that all this multifarious splendour was bequeathed in
+trust for me, subject to a bequest of 15,000_l_. to his only brother, Silas
+Aylmer Ruthyn, and 3,500_l_. each to the two children of his said brother;
+and lest any doubt should arise by reason of his, the testator's decease
+as to the continuance of the arrangement by way of lease under which
+he enjoyed his present habitation and farm, he left him the use of the
+mansion-house and lands of Bartram-Haugh, in the county of Derbyshire, and
+of the lands of so-and-so and so-and-so, adjoining thereto, in the said
+county, for the term of his natural life, on payment of a rent of 5_s_.
+per annum, and subject to the like conditions as to waste, &c., as are
+expressed in the said lease.
+
+'By your leave, may I ask is them dispositions all the devises to my
+client, which is his only brother, as it seems to me you've seen the will
+before?' enquired Mr. Sleigh.
+
+'Nothing more, unless there is something in the codicil,' answered Dr.
+Bryerly.
+
+But there was no mention of him in the codicil.
+
+Mr. Sleigh threw himself back in his chair, and sneered, with the end of
+his pencil between his teeth. I hope his disappointment was altogether for
+his client. Mr. Danvers fancied, he afterwards said, that he had probably
+expected legacies which might have involved litigation, or, at all events,
+law costs, and perhaps a stewardship; but this was very barren; and Mr.
+Danvers also remarked, that the man was a very low practitioner, and
+wondered how my uncle Silas could have commissioned such a person to
+represent him.
+
+So far the will contained nothing of which my most partial friend could
+have complained. The codicil, too, devised only legacies to servants, and
+a sum of 1,000_l_., with a few kind words, to Monica, Lady Knollys, and
+a further sum of 3,000_l_. to Dr. Bryerly, stating that the legatee had
+prevailed upon him to erase from the draft of his will a bequest to him to
+that amount, but that, in consideration of all the trouble devolving
+upon him as trustee, he made that bequest by his codicil; and with these
+arrangements the permanent disposition of his property was completed.
+
+But that direction to which he and Doctor Bryerly had darkly alluded, was
+now to come, and certainly it was a strange one. It appointed my uncle
+Silas my sole guardian, with full parental authority over me until I should
+have reached the age of twenty-one, up to which time I was to reside under
+his care at Bartram-Haugh, and it directed the trustees to pay over to him
+yearly a sum of 2,000_l_. during the continuance of the guardianship for my
+suitable maintenance, education, and expenses.
+
+You have now a sufficient outline of my father's will. The only thing I
+painfully felt in this arrangement was, the break-up--the dismay that
+accompanies the disappearance of home. Otherwise, there was something
+rather pleasurable in the idea. As long as I could remember, I had always
+cherished the same mysterious curiosity about my uncle, and the same
+longing to behold him. This was about to be gratified. Then there was my
+cousin Milicent, about my own age. My life had been so lonely, that I
+had acquired none of those artificial habits that induce the fine-lady
+nature--a second, and not always a very amiable one. She had lived a
+solitary life, like me. What rambles and readings we should have together!
+what confidences and castle-buildings! and then there was a new country
+and a fine old place, and the sense of interest and adventure that always
+accompanies change in our early youth.
+
+There were four letters all alike with large, red seals, addressed
+respectively to each of the trustees named in the will. There was also one
+addressed to Silas Alymer Ruthyn, Esq., Bartram-Haugh Manor, &c. &c., which
+Mr. Sleigh offered to deliver. But Doctor Bryerly thought the post-office
+was the more regular channel. Uncle Silas's representative was questioning
+Doctor Bryerly in an under-tone.
+
+I turned my eyes on my cousin Monica--I felt so inexpressibly
+relieved--expecting to see a corresponding expression in her countenance.
+But I was startled. She looked ghastly and angry. I stared in her face, not
+knowing what to think. Could the will have personally disappointed her?
+Such doubts, though we fancy in after-life they belong to maturity and
+experience only, do sometimes cross our minds in youth. But the suggestion
+wronged Lady Knollys, who neither expected nor wanted anything, being rich,
+childless, generous, and frank. It was the unexpected character of
+her countenance that scared me, and for a moment the shock called up
+corresponding moral images.
+
+Lady Knollys, starting up, raised her head, so as to see over Mr. Sleigh's
+shoulder, and biting her pale lip, she cleared her voice and demanded--
+
+'Doctor Bryerly, pray, sir, is the reading concluded?'
+
+'Concluded? Quite. Yes, nothing more,' he answered with a nod, and
+continued his talk with Mr. Danvers and Abel Grimston.
+
+'And to whom,' said Lady Knollys, with an effort, 'will the property
+belong, in case--in case my little cousin here should die before she comes
+of age?'
+
+'Eh? Well--wouldn't it go to the heir-at-law and next of kin?' said Doctor
+Bryerly, turning to Abel Grimston.
+
+'Ay--to be sure,' said the attorney, thoughtfully.
+
+'And who is that?' pursued my cousin.
+
+'Well, her uncle, Mr. Silas Ruthyn. He's both heir-at-law and next of kin,'
+pursued Abel Grimston.
+
+'Thank you,' said Lady Knollys.
+
+Doctor Clay came forward, bowing very low, in his standing collar and
+single-breasted coat, and graciously folded my hand in his soft wrinkled
+grasp--
+
+'Allow me, my dear Miss Ruthyn, while expressing my regret that we are to
+lose you from among our little flock--though I trust but for a short,
+a very short time--to say how I rejoice at the particular arrangement
+indicated by the will we have just heard read. My curate, William
+Fairfield, resided for some years in the same spiritual capacity in the
+neighbourhood of your, I will say, admirable uncle, with occasional
+intercourse with whom he was favoured--may I not say blessed?--a true
+Christian Churchman--a Christian gentleman. Can I say more? A most happy,
+happy choice.' A very low bow here, with eyes nearly closed, and a shake of
+the head. 'Mrs. Clay will do herself the honour of waiting upon you, to pay
+her respects, before you leave Knowl for your temporary sojourn in another
+sphere.'
+
+So, with another deep bow--for I had become a great personage all at
+once--he let go my hand cautiously and delicately, as if he were setting
+down a curious china tea-cup. And I courtesied low to him, not knowing
+what to say, and then to the assembly generally, who all bowed. And Cousin
+Monica whispered, briskly, 'Come away,' and took my hand with a very cold
+and rather damp one, and led me from the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+_I HEAR FROM UNCLE SILAS_
+
+
+Without saying a word, Cousin Monica accompanied me to the school-room, and
+on entering she shut the door, not with a spirited clang, but quietly and
+determinedly.
+
+'Well, dear,' she said, with the same pale, excited countenance, 'that
+certainly is a sensible and charitable arrangement. I could not have
+believed it possible, had I not heard it with my ears.'
+
+'About my going to Bartram-Haugh?'
+
+'Yes, exactly so, under Silas Ruthyn's guardianship, to spend
+two--_three_--of the most important years of your education and your life
+under that roof. Is _that_, my dear, what was in your mind when you were so
+alarmed about what you were to be called upon to do, or undergo?'
+
+'No, no, indeed. I had no notion what it might be. I was afraid of
+something serious,' I answered.
+
+'And, my dear Maud, did not your poor father speak to you as if it _was_
+something serious?' said she. 'And so it _is_, I can tell you, something
+serious, and _very_ serious; and I think it ought to be prevented, and I
+certainly _will_ prevent it if I possibly can.'
+
+I was puzzled utterly by the intensity of Lady Knollys' protest. I looked
+at her, expecting an explanation of her meaning; but she was silent,
+looking steadfastly on the jewels on her right-hand fingers, with which she
+was drumming a staccato march on the table, very pale, with gleaming eyes,
+evidently thinking deeply. I began to think she _had_ a prejudice against
+my uncle Silas.
+
+'He is not very rich,' I commenced.
+
+'Who?' said Lady Knollys.
+
+'Uncle Silas,' I replied.
+
+'No, certainly; he's in debt,' she answered. 'But then, how very highly
+Doctor Clay spoke of him!' I pursued.
+
+'Don't talk of Doctor Clay. I do think that man is the greatest goose I
+ever heard talk. I have no patience with such men,' she replied.
+
+I tried to remember what particular nonsense Doctor Clay had uttered, and I
+could recollect nothing, unless his eulogy upon my uncle were to be classed
+with that sort of declamation.
+
+'Danvers is a very proper man and a good accountant, I dare say; but he
+is either a very deep person, or a fool--_I_ believe a fool. As for your
+attorney, I suppose he knows his business, and also his interest, and I
+have no doubt he will consult it. I begin to think the best man among them,
+the shrewdest and the most reliable, is that vulgar visionary in the black
+wig. I saw him look at you, Maud, and I liked his face, though it is
+abominably ugly and vulgar, and cunning, too; but I think he's a just man,
+and I dare say with right feelings--I'm _sure_ he has.'
+
+I was quite at a loss to divine the gist of my cousin's criticism.
+
+'I'll have some talk with Dr. Bryerly; I feel convinced he takes my view,
+and we must really think what had best be done.'
+
+'Is there anything in the will, Cousin Monica, that does not appear?' I
+asked, for I was growing very uneasy. 'I wish you would tell me. What view
+do you mean?'
+
+'No view in particular; the view that a desolate old park, and the house of
+a _neglected_ old man, who is very poor, and has been desperately foolish,
+is not the right place for you, particularly at your years. It is quite
+shocking, and I _will_ speak to Doctor Bryerly. May I ring the bell, dear?'
+
+'Certainly;' and I rang it.
+
+'When does he leave Knowl?'
+
+I could not tell. Mrs. Rusk, however, was sent for, and she could tell
+us that he had announced his intention of taking the night train from
+Drackleton, and was to leave Knowl for that station at half-past six
+o'clock.
+
+'May Rusk give or send him a message from me, dear?' asked Lady Knollys.
+
+Of course she might.
+
+'Then please let him know that I request he will be so good as to allow me
+a very few minutes, just to say a word before he goes.'
+
+'You kind cousin!' I said, placing my two hands on her shoulders, and
+looking earnestly in her face; 'you are anxious about me, more than you
+say. Won't you tell me why? I am much more unhappy, really, in ignorance,
+than if I understood the cause.'
+
+'Well, dear, haven't I told you? The two or three years of your life which
+are to form you are destined to be passed in utter loneliness, and, I am
+sure, neglect. You can't estimate the disadvantage of such an arrangement.
+It is full of disadvantages. How it could have entered the head of poor
+Austin--although I should not say that, for I am sure I do understand
+it,--but how he could for any purpose have directed such a measure is quite
+inconceivable. I never heard of anything so foolish and abominable, and I
+will prevent it if I can.'
+
+At that moment Mrs. Rusk announced that Doctor Bryerly would see Lady
+Knollys at any time she pleased before his departure.
+
+'It shall be this moment, then,' said the energetic lady, and up she stood,
+and made that hasty general adjustment before the glass, which, no matter
+under what circumstances, and before what sort of creature one's appearance
+is to be made, is a duty that every woman owes to herself. And I heard her
+a moment after, at the stair-head, directing Branston to let Dr. Bryerly
+know that she awaited him in the drawing-room.
+
+And now she was gone, and I began to wonder and speculate. Why should
+my cousin Monica make all this fuss about, after all, a very natural
+arrangement? My uncle, whatever he might have been, was now a good man--a
+religious man--perhaps a little severe; and with this thought a dark streak
+fell across my sky.
+
+A cruel disciplinarian! had I not read of such characters?--lock and
+key, bread and water, and solitude! To sit locked up all night in a dark
+out-of-the-way room, in a great, ghosty, old-fashioned house, with no one
+nearer than the other wing. What years of horror in one such night! Would
+not this explain my poor father's hesitation, and my cousin Monica's
+apparently disproportioned opposition? When an idea of terror presents
+itself to a young person's mind, it transfixes and fills the vision,
+without respect of probabilities or reason.
+
+My uncle was now a terrible old martinet, with long Bible lessons,
+lectures, pages of catechism, sermons to be conned by rote, and an awful
+catalogue of punishments for idleness, and what would seem to him impiety.
+I was going, then, to a frightful isolated reformatory, where for the first
+time in my life I should be subjected to a rigorous and perhaps barbarous
+discipline.
+
+All this was an exhalation of fancy, but it quite overcame me. I threw
+myself, in my solitude, on the floor, upon my knees, and prayed for
+deliverance--prayed that Cousin Monica might prevail with Doctor Bryerly,
+and both on my behalf with the Lord Chancellor, or the High Sheriff, or
+whoever else my proper deliverer might be; and when my cousin returned, she
+found me quite in an agony.
+
+'Why, you little fool! what fancy has taken possession of you now?' she
+cried.
+
+And when my new terror came to light, she actually laughed a little to
+reassure me, and she said--
+
+'My dear child, your uncle Silas will never put you through your duty to
+your neighbour; all the time you are under his roof you'll have idleness
+and liberty enough, and too much, I fear. It is neglect, my dear, not
+discipline, that I'm afraid of.'
+
+'I think, dear Cousin Monica, you are afraid of something more than
+neglect,' I said, relieved, however.
+
+'I _am_ afraid of more than neglect,' she replied promptly; 'but I hope my
+fears may turn out illusory, and that possibly they may be avoided. And
+now, for a few hours at least, let us think of something else. I rather
+like that Doctor Bryerly. I could not get him to say what I wanted. I don't
+think he's Scotch, but he is very cautious, and I am sure, though he would
+not say so, that he thinks of the matter exactly as I do. He says that
+those fine people, who are named as his co-trustees, won't take any
+trouble, and will leave everything to him, and I am sure he is right. So
+we must not quarrel with him, Maud, nor call him hard names, although
+he certainly is intolerably vulgar and ugly, and at times very nearly
+impertinent--I suppose without knowing, or indeed very much caring.'
+
+We had a good deal to think of, and talked incessantly. There were bursts
+and interruptions of grief, and my kind cousin's consolations. I have
+often since been so lectured for giving way to grief, that I wonder at the
+patience exercised by her during this irksome visit. Then there was some
+reading of that book whose claims are always felt in the terrible days of
+affliction. After that we had a walk in the yew garden, that quaint little
+cloistered quadrangle--the most solemn, sad, and antiquated of gardens.
+
+'And now, my dear, I must really leave you for two or three hours. I have
+ever so many letters to write, and my people must think I'm dead by this
+time.'
+
+So till tea-time I had poor Mary Quince, with her gushes of simple prattle
+and her long fits of vacant silence, for my companion. And such a one, who
+can con over by rote the old friendly gossip about the dead, talk about
+their ways, and looks, and likings, without much psychologic refinement,
+but with a simple admiration and liking that never measured them
+critically, but always with faith and love, is in general about as
+comfortable a companion as one can find for the common moods of grief.
+
+It is not easy to recall in calm and happy hours the sensations of an acute
+sorrow that is past. Nothing, by the merciful ordinance of God, is more
+difficult to remember than pain. One or two great agonies of that time I do
+remember, and they remain to testify of the rest, and convince me, though I
+can see it no more, how terrible all that period was.
+
+Next day was the funeral, that appalling necessity; smuggled away in
+whispers, by black familiars, unresisting, the beloved one leaves home,
+without a farewell, to darken those doors no more; henceforward to lie
+outside, far away, and forsaken, through the drowsy heats of summer,
+through days of snow and nights of tempest, without light or warmth,
+without a voice near. Oh, Death, king of terrors! The body quakes and the
+spirit faints before thee. It is vain, with hands clasped over our eyes, to
+scream our reclamation; the horrible image will not be excluded. We have
+just the word spoken eighteen hundred years ago, and our trembling faith.
+And through the broken vault the gleam of the Star of Bethlehem.
+
+I was glad in a sort of agony when it was over. So long as it remained to
+be done, something of the catastrophe was still suspended. Now it was all
+over.
+
+The house so strangely empty. No owner--no master! I with my strange
+momentary liberty, bereft of that irreplaceable love, never quite prized
+until it is lost. Most people have experienced the dismay that underlies
+sorrow under such circumstances.
+
+The apartment of the poor outcast from life is now dismantled. Beds and
+curtains taken down, and furniture displaced; carpets removed, windows open
+and doors locked; the bedroom and anteroom were henceforward, for many a
+day, uninhabited. Every shocking change smote my heart like a reproach.
+
+I saw that day that Cousin Monica had been crying for the first time, I
+think, since her arrival at Knowl; and I loved her more for it, and felt
+consoled. My tears have often been arrested by the sight of another person
+weeping, and I never could explain why. But I believe that many persons
+experience the same odd reaction.
+
+The funeral was conducted, in obedience to his brief but peremptory
+direction, very privately and with little expense. But of course there was
+an attendance, and the tenants of the Knowl estate also followed the hearse
+to the mausoleum, as it is called, in the park, where he was laid beside my
+dear mother. And so the repulsive ceremonial of that dreadful day was over.
+The grief remained, but there was rest from the fatigue of agitation, and a
+comparative calm supervened.
+
+It was now the stormy equinoctial weather that sounds the wild dirge of
+autumn, and marches the winter in. I love, and always did, that grand
+undefinable music, threatening and bewailing, with its strange soul of
+liberty and desolation.
+
+By this night's mail, as we sat listening to the storm, in the drawing-room
+at Knowl, there reached me a large letter with a great black seal, and a
+wonderfully deep-black border, like a widow's crape. I did not recognise
+the handwriting; but on opening the funereal missive, it proved to be from
+my uncle Silas, and was thus expressed:--
+
+'MY DEAREST NIECE,--This letter will reach you, probably, on the day which
+consigns the mortal remains of my beloved brother, Austin, your dear
+father, to the earth. Sad ceremony, from taking my mournful part in which
+I am excluded by years, distance, and broken health. It will, I trust, at
+this season of desolation, be not unwelcome to remember that a substitute,
+imperfect--unworthy--but most affectionately zealous, for the honoured
+parent whom you have just lost, has been appointed, in me, your uncle, by
+his will. I am aware that you were present during the reading of it, but
+I think it will be for our mutual satisfaction that our new and more
+affectionate relations should be forthwith entered upon. My conscience and
+your safety, and I trust convenience, will thereby be consulted. You will,
+my dear niece, remain at Knowl, until a few simple arrangements shall have
+been completed for your reception at this place. I will then settle
+the details of your little journey to us, which shall be performed as
+comfortably and easily as possible. I humbly pray that this affliction may
+be sanctified to us all, and that in our new duties we may be supported,
+comforted, and directed. I need not remind you that I now stand to you _in
+loco parentis_, which means in the relation of father, and you will not
+forget that you are to remain at Knowl until you hear further from me.
+
+'I remain, my dear niece, your most affectionate uncle and guardian,
+
+SILAS RUTHYN.'
+
+'P.S.--Pray present my respects to Lady Knollys, who, I understand, is
+sojourning at Knowl. I would observe that a lady who cherishes, I have
+reason to fear, unfriendly feelings against your uncle, is not the most
+desirable companion for his ward. But upon the express condition that I am
+not made the subject of your discussions--a distinction which could not
+conduce to your forming a just and respectful estimate of me--I do not
+interpose my authority to bring your intercourse to an immediate close.'
+
+As I read this postscript, my cheek tingled as if I had received a box on
+the ear. Uncle Silas was as yet a stranger. The menace of authority was new
+and sudden, and I felt with a pang of mortification the full force of the
+position in which my dear father's will had placed me.
+
+I was silent, and handed the letter to my cousin, who read it with a
+kind of smile until she came, as I supposed, to the postscript, when her
+countenance, on which my eyes were fixed, changed, and with flushed cheeks
+she knocked the hand that held the letter on the table before her, and
+exclaimed--
+
+'Did I ever hear! Well, if this isn't impertinence! _What_ an old man that
+is!'
+
+There was a pause, during which Lady Knollys held her head high with a
+frown, and sniffed a little.
+
+'I did not intend to talk about him, but now I _will_. I'll talk away just
+whatever I like; and I'll stay here just as long as you let me, Maud, and
+you need not be one atom afraid of him. Our intercourse to an "immediate
+close," indeed! I only wish he were here. He should hear something!'
+
+And Cousin Monica drank off her entire cup of tea at one draught, and then
+she said, more in her own way--
+
+'I'm better!' and drew a long breath, and then she laughed a little in a
+waggish defiance. 'I wish we had him here, Maud, and _would_ not we give
+him a bit of our minds! And this before the poor will is so much as
+proved!'
+
+'I am almost glad he wrote that postscript; for although I don't think he
+has any authority in that matter while I am under my own roof,' I said,
+extemporising a legal opinion, 'and, therefore, shan't obey him, it has
+somehow opened my eyes to my real situation.'
+
+I sighed, I believe, very desolately, for Lady Knollys came over and kissed
+me very gently and affectionately.
+
+'It really seems, Maud, as if he had a supernatural sense, and heard things
+through the air over fifty miles of heath and hill. You remember how, just
+as he was probably writing that very postscript yesterday, I was urging you
+to come and stay with me, and planning to move Dr. Bryerly in our favour.
+And so I will, Maud, and to me you _shall_ come--my guest, mind--I should
+be so delighted; and really if Silas is under a cloud, it has been his own
+doing, and I don't see that it is your business to fight his battle. He
+can't live very long. The suspicion, whatever it is dies with him, and what
+could poor dear Austin prove by his will but what everybody knew quite well
+before--his own strong belief in Silas's innocence? What an awful storm!
+The room trembles. Don't you like the sound? What they used to call
+'wolving' in the old organ at Dorminster!'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+_THE STORY OF UNCLE SILAS_
+
+
+And so it was like the yelling of phantom hounds and hunters, and the
+thunder of their coursers in the air--a furious, grand and supernatural
+music, which in my fancy made a suitable accompaniment to the discussion of
+that enigmatical person--martyr--angel--demon--Uncle Silas--with whom my
+fate was now so strangely linked, and whom I had begun to fear.
+
+'The storm blows from that point,' I said, indicating it with my hand and
+eye, although the window shutters and curtains were closed. 'I saw all the
+trees bend that way this evening. That way stands the great lonely wood,
+where my darling father and mother lie. Oh, how dreadful on nights like
+this, to think of them--a vault!--damp, and dark, and solitary--under the
+storm.'
+
+Cousin Monica looked wistfully in the same direction, and with a short sigh
+she said--
+
+'We think too much of the poor remains, and too little of the spirit which
+lives for ever. I am sure they are happy.' And she sighed again. 'I wish
+I dare hope as confidently for myself. Yes, Maud, it is sad. We are such
+materialists, we can't help feeling so. We forget how well it is for us
+that our present bodies are not to last always. They are constructed for a
+time and place of trouble--plainly mere temporary machines that wear out,
+constantly exhibiting failure and decay, and with such tremendous capacity
+for pain. The body lies alone, and so it ought, for it is plainly its good
+Creator's will; it is only the tabernacle, not the person, who is clothed
+upon after death, Saint Paul says, "with a house which is from heaven." So
+Maud, darling, although the thought will trouble us again and again, there
+is nothing in it; and the poor mortal body is only the cold ruin of a
+habitation which _they_ have forsaken before we do. So this great wind, you
+say, is blowing toward us from the wood there. If so, Maud, it is blowing
+from Bartram-Haugh, too, over the trees and chimneys of that old place, and
+the mysterious old man, who is quite right in thinking I don't like him;
+and I can fancy him an old enchanter in his castle, waving his familiar
+spirits on the wind to fetch and carry tidings of our occupations here.'
+
+I lifted my head and listened to the storm, dying away in the distance
+sometimes--sometimes swelling and pealing around and above us--and through
+the dark and solitude my thoughts sped away to Bartram-Haugh and Uncle
+Silas.
+
+'This letter,' I said at last, 'makes me feel differently. I think he is a
+stern old man--is he?'
+
+'It is twenty years, now, since I saw him,' answered Lady Knollys. 'I did
+not choose to visit at his house.'
+
+'Was that before the dreadful occurrence at Bartram-Haugh?'
+
+'Yes--before, dear. He was not a reformed rake, but only a ruined one then.
+Austin was very good to him. Mr. Danvers says it is quite unaccountable how
+Silas can have made away with the immense sums he got from his brother from
+time to time without benefiting himself in the least. But, my dear, he
+played; and trying to help a man who plays, and is unlucky--and some men
+are, I believe, habitually unlucky--is like trying to fill a vessel that
+has no bottom. I think, by-the-by, my hopeful nephew, Charles Oakley,
+plays. Then Silas went most unjustifiably into all manner of speculations,
+and your poor father had to pay everything. He lost something quite
+astounding in that bank that ruined so many country gentlemen--poor Sir
+Harry Shackleton, in Yorkshire, had to sell half his estate. But your kind
+father went on helping him, up to his marriage--I mean in that extravagant
+way which was really totally useless.'
+
+'Has my aunt been long dead?'
+
+'Twelve or fifteen years--more, indeed--she died before your poor mamma.
+She was very unhappy, and I am sure would have given her right hand she had
+never married Silas.'
+
+'Did you like her?'
+
+'No, dear; she was a coarse, vulgar woman.'
+
+'Coarse and vulgar, and Uncle Silas's wife!' I echoed in extreme surprise,
+for Uncle Silas was a man of fashion--a beau in his day--and might have
+married women of good birth and fortune, I had no doubt, and so I expressed
+myself. 'Yes, dear; so he might, and poor dear Austin was very anxious he
+should, and would have helped him with a handsome settlement, I dare say,
+but he chose to marry the daughter of a Denbigh innkeeper.'
+
+'How utterly incredible!' I exclaimed.
+
+'Not the least incredible, dear--a kind of thing not at all so uncommon as
+you fancy.'
+
+'What!--a gentleman of fashion and refinement marry a person--'
+
+'A barmaid!--just so,' said Lady Knollys. 'I think I could count half a
+dozen men of fashion who, to my knowledge, have ruined themselves just in a
+similar way.'
+
+'Well, at all events, it must be allowed that in this he proved himself
+altogether unworldly.'
+
+'Not a bit unworldly, but very vicious,' replied Cousin Monica, with a
+careless little laugh. 'She was very beautiful, curiously beautiful, for
+a person in her station. She was very like that Lady Hamilton who was
+Nelson's sorceress--elegantly beautiful, but perfectly low and stupid.
+I believe, to do him justice, he only intended to ruin her; but she was
+cunning enough to insist upon marriage. Men who have never in all their
+lives denied themselves the indulgence of a single fancy, cost what it
+may, will not be baulked even by that condition if the _penchant_ be only
+violent enough.'
+
+I did not half understand this piece of worldly psychology, at which Lady
+Knollys seemed to laugh.
+
+'Poor Silas, certainly he struggled honestly against the consequences,
+for he tried after the honeymoon to prove the marriage bad. But the Welsh
+parson and the innkeeper papa were too strong for him, and the young lady
+was able to hold her struggling swain fast in that respectable noose--and a
+pretty prize he proved!'
+
+'And she died, poor thing, broken-hearted, I heard.'
+
+'She died, at all events, about ten years after her marriage; but I really
+can't say about her heart. She certainly had enough ill-usage, I believe,
+to kill her; but I don't know that she had feeling enough to die of it, if
+it had not been that she drank: I am told that Welsh women often do. There
+was jealousy, of course, and brutal quarrelling, and all sorts of horrid
+stories. I visited at Bartram-Haugh for a year or two, though no one else
+would. But when that sort of thing began, of course I gave it up; it was
+out of the question. I don't think poor Austin ever knew how bad it was.
+And then came that odious business about wretched Mr. Charke. You know
+he--he committed suicide at Bartram.'
+
+'I never heard about that,' I said; and we both paused, and she looked
+sternly at the fire, and the storm roared and ha-ha-ed till the old house
+shook again.
+
+'But Uncle Silas could not help that,' I said at last.
+
+'No, he could not help it,' she acquiesced unpleasantly.
+
+'And Uncle Silas was'--I paused in a sort of fear.
+
+'He was suspected by some people of having killed him'--she completed the
+sentence.
+
+There was another long pause here, during which the storm outside bellowed
+and hooted like an angry mob roaring at the windows for a victim. An
+intolerable and sickening sensation overpowered me.
+
+'But _you_ did not suspect him, Cousin Knollys?' I said, trembling very
+much.
+
+'No,' she answered very sharply. 'I told you so before. Of course I did
+not.'
+
+There was another silence.
+
+'I wish, Cousin Monica,' I said, drawing close to her, 'you had not said
+_that_ about Uncle Silas being like a wizard, and sending his spirits
+on the wind to listen. But I'm very glad you never suspected him.' I
+insinuated my cold hand into hers, and looked into her face I know not with
+what expression. She looked down into mine with a hard, haughty stare, I
+thought.
+
+'Of _course_ I never suspected him; and _never_ ask me _that_ question
+again, Maud Ruthyn.'
+
+Was it family pride, or what was it, that gleamed so fiercely from her eyes
+as she said this? I was frightened--I was wounded--I burst into tears.
+
+'What is my darling crying for? I did not mean to be cross. _Was_ I
+cross?' said this momentary phantom of a grim Lady Knollys, in an instant
+translated again into kind, pleasant Cousin Monica, with her arms about my
+neck.
+
+'No, no, indeed--only I thought I had vexed you; and, I believe, thinking
+of Uncle Silas makes me nervous, and I can't help thinking of him nearly
+always.' 'Nor can I, although we might both easily find something better to
+think of. Suppose we try?' said Lady Knollys.
+
+'But, first, I must know a little more about that Mr. Charke, and what
+circumstances enabled Uncle Silas's enemies to found on his death that
+wicked slander, which has done no one any good, and caused some persons so
+much misery. There is Uncle Silas, I may say, ruined by it; and we all know
+how it darkened the life of my dear father.'
+
+'People will talk, my dear. Your uncle Silas had injured himself before
+that in the opinion of the people of his county. He was a black sheep,
+in fact. Very bad stories were told and believed of him. His marriage
+certainly was a disadvantage, you know, and the miserable scenes that went
+on in his disreputable house--all that predisposed people to believe ill of
+him.'
+
+'How long is it since it happened?'
+
+'Oh, a long time; I think before you were born,' answered she.
+
+'And the injustice still lives--they have not forgotten it yet?' said I,
+for such a period appeared to me long enough to have consigned anything in
+its nature perishable to oblivion.
+
+Lady Knollys smiled.
+
+'Tell me, like a darling cousin, the whole story as well as you can
+recollect it. Who was Mr. Charke?'
+
+'Mr. Charke, my dear, was a gentleman on the turf--that is the phrase, I
+think--one of those London men, without birth or breeding, who merely in
+right of their vices and their money are admitted to associate with young
+dandies who like hounds and horses, and all that sort of thing. That set
+knew him very well, but of course no one else. He was at the Matlock
+races, and your uncle asked him to Bartram-Haugh; and the creature, Jew
+or Gentile, whatever he was, fancied there was more honour than, perhaps,
+there really was in a visit to Bartram-Haugh.'
+
+'For the kind of person you describe, it _was_, I think, a rather unusual
+honour to be invited to stay in the house of a man of Uncle Ruthyn's
+birth.'
+
+'Well, so it was perhaps; for though they knew him very well on the course,
+and would ask him to their tavern dinners, they would not, of course, admit
+him to the houses where ladies were. But Silas's wife was not much regarded
+at Bartram-Haugh. Indeed, she was very little seen, for she was every
+evening tipsy in her bedroom, poor woman!'
+
+'How miserable!' I exclaimed.
+
+'I don't think it troubled Silas very much, for she drank gin, they said,
+poor thing, and the expense was not much; and, on the whole, I really think
+he was glad she drank, for it kept her out of his way, and was likely to
+kill her. At this time your poor father, who was thoroughly disgusted at
+his marriage, had stopped the supplies, you know, and Silas was very poor,
+and as hungry as a hawk, and they said he pounced upon this rich London
+gamester, intending to win his money. I am telling you now all that was
+said afterwards. The races lasted I forget how many days, and Mr. Charke
+stayed at Bartram-Haugh all this time and for some days after. It was
+thought that poor Austin would pay all Silas's gambling debts, and so this
+wretched Mr. Charke made heavy wagers with him on the races, and they
+played very deep, besides, at Bartram. He and Silas used to sit up at night
+at cards. All these particulars, as I told you, came out afterwards, for
+there was an inquest, you know, and then Silas published what he called his
+"statement," and there was a great deal of most distressing correspondence
+in the newspapers.'
+
+'And why did Mr. Charke kill himself?' I asked.
+
+'Well, I will tell you first what all are agreed about. The second night
+after the races, your uncle and Mr. Charke sat up till between two and
+three o'clock in the morning, quite by themselves, in the parlour. Mr.
+Charke's servant was at the Stag's Head Inn at Feltram, and therefore could
+throw no light upon what occurred at night at Bartram-Haugh; but he was
+there at six o'clock in the morning, and very early at his master's door by
+his direction. He had locked it, as was his habit, upon the inside, and the
+key was in the lock, which turned out afterwards a very important point.
+On knocking he found that he could not awaken his master, because, as it
+appeared when the door was forced open, his master was lying dead at his
+bedside, not in a pool, but a perfect pond of blood, as they described it,
+with his throat cut.'
+
+'How horrible!' cried I.
+
+'So it was. Your uncle Silas was called up, and greatly shocked of course,
+and he did what I believe was best. He had everything left as nearly as
+possible in the exact state in which it had been found, and he sent his
+own servant forthwith for the coroner, and, being himself a justice of
+the peace, he took the depositions of Mr. Charke's servant while all the
+incidents were still fresh in his memory.'
+
+'Could anything be more straightforward, more right and wise?' I said.
+
+'Oh, nothing of course,' answered Lady Knollys, I thought a little drily.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+_MORE ABOUT TOM CHARKE'S SUICIDE_
+
+
+So the inquest was held, and Mr. Manwaring, of Wail Forest, was the only
+juryman who seemed to entertain the idea during the inquiry that Mr. Charke
+had died by any hand but his own.
+
+'And how _could_ he fancy such a thing?' I exclaimed indignantly.
+
+'Well, you will see the result was quite enough to justify them in saying
+as they did, that he died by his own hand. The window was found fastened
+with a screw on the inside, as it had been when the chambermaid had
+arranged it at nine o'-clock; no one could have entered through it.
+Besides, it was on the third story, and the rooms are lofty, so it stood
+at a great height from the ground, and there was no ladder long enough
+to reach it. The house is built in the form of a hollow square, and Mr.
+Charke's room looked into the narrow court-yard within. There is but one
+door leading into this, and it did not show any sign of having been open
+for years. The door was locked upon the inside, and the key in the lock,
+so that nobody could have made an entrance that way either, for it was
+impossible, you see, to unlock the door from the outside.' 'And how could
+they affect to question anything so clear?' I asked.
+
+'There did come, nevertheless, a kind of mist over the subject, which
+gave those who chose to talk unpleasantly an opportunity of insinuating
+suspicions, though they could not themselves find the clue of the mystery.
+In the first place, it appeared that he had gone to bed very tipsy, and
+that he was heard singing and noisy in his room while getting to bed--not
+the mood in which men make away with themselves. Then, although his own
+razor was found in that dreadful blood (it is shocking to have to hear all
+this) near his right hand, the fingers of his left were cut to the bone.
+Then the memorandum book in which his bets were noted was nowhere to be
+found. That, you know, was very odd. His keys were there attached to a
+chain. He wore a great deal of gold and trinkets. I saw him, wretched
+man, on the course. They had got off their horses. He and your uncle were
+walking on the course.'
+
+'Did he look like a gentleman?' I inquired, as I dare say, other young
+ladies would.
+
+'He looked like a Jew, my dear. He had a horrid brown coat with a velvet
+cape, curling black hair over his collar, and great whiskers, very high
+shoulders, and he was puffing a cigar straight up into the air. I was
+shocked to see Silas in such company.'
+
+'And did his keys discover anything?' I asked.
+
+'On opening his travelling desk and a small japanned box within it a vast
+deal less money was found than was expected--in fact, very little. Your
+uncle said that he had won some of it the night before at play, and
+that Charke complained to him when tipsy of having had severe losses to
+counterbalance his gains on the races. Besides, he had been paid but a
+small part of those gains. About his book it appeared that there were
+little notes of bets on the backs of letters, and it was said that
+he sometimes made no other memorandum of his wagers--but this was
+disputed--and among those notes there was not one referring to Silas. But,
+then, there was an omission of all allusion to his transactions with two
+other well-known gentlemen. So that was not singular.'
+
+'No, certainly; that was quite accounted for,' said I.
+
+'And then came the question,' continued she, 'what motive could Mr. Charke
+possibly have had for making away with himself.'
+
+'But is not that very difficult to make out in many cases?' I interposed.
+
+'It was said that he had some mysterious troubles in London, at which he
+used to hint. Some people said that he really was in a scrape, but others
+that there was no such thing, and that when he talked so he was only
+jesting. There was no suspicion during the inquest that your uncle Silas
+was involved, except those questions of Mr. Manwaring's.'
+
+'What were they?' I asked.
+
+'I really forget; but they greatly offended your uncle, and there was a
+little scene in the room. Mr. Manwaring seemed to think that some one had
+somehow got into the room. Through the door it could not be, nor down the
+chimney, for they found an iron bar across the flue, near the top in the
+masonry. The window looked into a court-yard no bigger than a ball-room.
+They went down and examined it, but, though the ground beneath was moist,
+they could not discover the slightest trace of a footprint. So far as they
+could make out, Mr. Charke had hermetically sealed himself into his room,
+and then cut his throat with his own razor.'
+
+'Yes,' said I, 'for it was all secured--that is, the window and the
+door--upon the inside, and no sign of any attempt to get in.'
+
+'Just so; and when the walls were searched, and, as your uncle Silas
+directed, the wainscoting removed, some months afterwards, when the scandal
+grew loudest, then it was evident that there was no concealed access to the
+room.'
+
+'So the answer to all those calumnies was simply that the crime was
+impossible,' said I. 'How dreadful that such a slander should have required
+an answer at all!'
+
+'It was an unpleasant affair even then, although I cannot say that anyone
+supposed Silas guilty; but you know the whole thing was disreputable, that
+Mr. Charke was a discreditable inmate, the occurrence was horrible, and
+there was a glare of publicity which brought into relief the scandals of
+Bartram-Haugh. But in a little time it became, all on a sudden, a great
+deal worse.'
+
+My cousin paused to recollect exactly.
+
+'There were very disagreeable whispers among the sporting people in London.
+This person, Charke, had written two letters. Yes--two. They were published
+about two months after, by the villain to whom they were written; he wanted
+to extort money. They were first talked of a great deal among that set in
+town; but the moment they were published they produced a sensation in the
+country, and a storm of newspaper commentary. The first of these was of no
+great consequence, but the second was very startling, embarrassing, and
+even alarming.'
+
+'What was it, Cousin Monica?' I whispered.
+
+'I can only tell you in a general way, it is so very long since I read
+it; but both were written in the same kind of slang, and parts as hard to
+understand as a prize fight. I hope you never read those things.'
+
+I satisfied this sudden educational alarm, and Lady Knollys proceeded.
+
+'I am afraid you hardly hear me, the wind makes such an uproar. Well,
+listen. The letter said distinctly, that he, Mr. Charke, had made a very
+profitable visit to Bartram-Haugh, and mentioned in exact figures for how
+much he held your uncle Silas's I.O.U.'s, for he could not pay him. I can't
+say what the sum was. I only remember that it was quite frightful. It took
+away my breath when I read it.'
+
+'Uncle Silas had lost it?' I asked.
+
+'Yes, and owed it; and had given him those papers called I.O.U.'s promising
+to pay, which, of course, Mr. Charke had locked up with his money; and the
+insinuation was that Silas had made away with him, to get rid of this debt,
+and that he had also taken a great deal of his money.
+
+'I just recollect these points which were exactly what made the
+impression,' continued Lady Knollys, after a short pause; 'the letter was
+written in the evening of the last day of the wretched man's life, so that
+there had not been much time for your uncle Silas to win back his money;
+and he stoutly alleged that he did not owe Mr. Charke a guinea. It
+mentioned an enormous sum as being actually owed by Silas; and it cautioned
+the man, an agent, to whom he wrote, not to mention the circumstance, as
+Silas could only pay by getting the money from his wealthy brother, who
+would have the management; and he distinctly said that he had kept the
+matter very close at Silas's request. That, you know, was a very awkward
+letter, and all the worse that it was written in brutally high spirits, and
+not at all like a man meditating an exit from the world. You can't imagine
+what a sensation the publication of these letters produced. In a moment
+the storm was up, and certainly Silas did meet it bravely--yes, with great
+courage and ability. What a pity he did not early enter upon some career of
+ambition! Well, well, it is idle regretting. He suggested that the letters
+were forgeries. He alleged that Charke was in the habit of boasting, and
+telling enormous falsehoods about his gambling transactions, especially in
+his letters. He reminded the world how often men affect high animal spirits
+at the very moment of meditating suicide. He alluded, in a manly and
+graceful way, to his family and their character. He took a high and
+menacing tone with his adversaries, and he insisted that what they dared to
+insinuate against him was physically impossible.'
+
+I asked in what form this vindication appeared.
+
+'It was a letter, printed as a pamphlet; everybody admired its ability,
+ingenuity, and force, and it was written with immense rapidity.'
+
+'Was it at all in the style of his letters?' I innocently asked.
+
+My cousin laughed.
+
+'Oh, dear, no! Ever since he avowed himself a religious character, he had
+written nothing but the most vapid and nerveless twaddle. Your poor dear
+father used to send his letters to me to read, and I sometimes really
+thought that Silas was losing his faculties; but I believe he was only
+trying to write in character.'
+
+'I suppose the general feeling was in his favour?' I said.
+
+'I don't think it was, anywhere; but in his own county it was certainly
+unanimously against him. There is no use in asking why; but so it was, and
+I think it would have been easier for him with his unaided strength to
+uproot the Peak than to change the convictions of the Derbyshire gentlemen.
+They were all against him. Of course there were predisposing causes. Your
+uncle published a very bitter attack upon them, describing himself as the
+victim of a political conspiracy: and I recollect he mentioned that from
+the hour of the shocking catastrophe in his house, he had forsworn the turf
+and all pursuits and amusements connected with it. People sneered, and said
+he might as well go as wait to be kicked out.'
+
+'Were there law-suits about all this?' I asked.
+
+'Everybody expected that there would, for there were very savage things
+printed on both sides, and I think, too, that the persons who thought worst
+of him expected that evidence would yet turn up to convict Silas of the
+crime they chose to impute; and so years have glided away, and many of the
+people who remembered the tragedy of Bartram-Haugh, and took the strongest
+part in the denunciation, and ostracism that followed, are dead, and no new
+light had been thrown upon the occurrence, and your uncle Silas remains an
+outcast. At first he was quite wild with rage, and would have fought the
+whole county, man by man, if they would have met him. But he had since
+changed his habits and, as he says, his aspirations altogether.'
+
+'He has become religious.'
+
+'The only occupation remaining to him. He owes money; he is poor; he is
+isolated; and he says, sick and religious. Your poor father, who was
+very decided and inflexible, never helped him beyond the limit he had
+prescribed, after Silas's _mésalliance_. He wanted to get him into
+Parliament, and would have paid his expenses, and made him an allowance;
+but either Silas had grown lazy, or he understood his position better than
+poor Austin, or he distrusted his powers, or possibly he really is in
+ill-health; but he objected his religious scruples. Your poor papa thought
+self-assertion possible, where an injured man has right to rely upon, but
+he had been very long out of the world, and the theory won't do. Nothing is
+harder than to get a person who has once been effectually slurred, received
+again. Silas, I think, was right. I don't think it was practicable.
+
+'Dear child, how late it is!' exclaimed Lady Knollys suddenly, looking at
+the Louis Quatorze clock, that crowned the mantelpiece.
+
+It was near one o'clock. The storm had a little subsided, and I took a less
+agitated and more confident view of Uncle Silas than I had at an earlier
+hour of that evening.
+
+'And what do you think of him?' I asked.
+
+Lady Knollys drummed on the table with her finger points as she looked into
+the fire.
+
+'I don't understand metaphysics, my dear, nor witchcraft. I sometimes
+believe in the supernatural, and sometimes I don't. Silas Ruthyn is himself
+alone, and I can't define him, because I don't understand him. Perhaps
+other souls than human are sometimes born into the world, and clothed in
+flesh. It is not only about that dreadful occurrence, but nearly always
+throughout his life; early and late he has puzzled me. I have tried in vain
+to understand him. But at one time of his life I am sure he was awfully
+wicked--eccentric indeed in his wickedness--gay, frivolous, secret, and
+dangerous. At one time I think he could have made poor Austin do almost
+anything; but his influence vanished with his marriage, never to return
+again. No; I don't understand him. He always bewildered me, like a shifting
+face, sometimes smiling, but always sinister, in an unpleasant dream.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+_I AM PERSUADED_
+
+
+So now at last I had heard the story of Uncle Silas's mysterious disgrace.
+We sat silent for a while, and I, gazing into vacancy, sent him in a
+chariot of triumph, chapletted, ringed, and robed through the city of
+imagination, crying after him, 'Innocent! innocent! martyr and crowned!'
+All the virtues and honesties, reason and conscience, in myriad
+shapes--tier above tier of human faces--from the crowded pavement, crowded
+windows, crowded roofs, joined in the jubilant acclamation, and trumpeters
+trumpeted, and drums rolled, and great organs and choirs through open
+cathedral gates, rolled anthems of praise and thanksgiving, and the bells
+rang out, and cannons sounded, and the air trembled with the roaring
+harmony; and Silas Ruthyn, the full-length portrait, stood in the burnished
+chariot, with a proud, sad, clouded face, that rejoiced not with the
+rejoicers, and behind him the slave, thin as a ghost, white-faced, and
+sneering something in his ear: while I and all the city went on crying
+'Innocent! innocent! martyr and crowned!' And now the reverie was ended;
+and there were only Lady Knollys' stern, thoughtful face, with the pale
+light of sarcasm on it, and the storm outside thundering and lamenting
+desolately.
+
+It was very good of Cousin Monica to stay with me so long. It must have
+been unspeakably tiresome. And now she began to talk of business at home,
+and plainly to prepare for immediate flight, and my heart sank.
+
+I know that I could not then have defined my feelings and agitations. I am
+not sure that I even now could. Any misgiving about Uncle Silas was, in my
+mind, a questioning the foundations of my faith, and in itself an impiety.
+And yet I am not sure that some such misgiving, faint, perhaps, and
+intermittent, may not have been at the bottom of my tribulation.
+
+I was not very well. Lady Knollys had gone out for a walk. She was not
+easily tired, and sometimes made a long excursion. The sun was setting now,
+when Mary Quince brought me a letter which had just arrived by the post. My
+heart throbbed violently. I was afraid to break the broad black seal. It
+was from Uncle Silas. I ran over in my mind all the unpleasant mandates
+which it might contain, to try and prepare myself for a shock. At last
+I opened the letter. It directed me to hold myself in readiness for the
+journey to Bartram-Haugh. It stated that I might bring two maids with me if
+I wished so many, and that his next letter would give me the details of my
+route, and the day of my departure for Derbyshire; and he said that I ought
+to make arrangements about Knowl during my absence, but that he was hardly
+the person properly to be consulted on that matter. Then came a prayer that
+he might be enabled to acquit himself of his trust to the full satisfaction
+of his conscience, and that I might enter upon my new relations in a spirit
+of prayer.
+
+I looked round my room, so long familiar, and now so endeared by the idea
+of parting and change. The old house--dear, dear Knowl, how could I leave
+you and all your affectionate associations, and kind looks and voices, for
+a strange land!
+
+With a great sigh I took Uncle Silas's letter, and went down stairs to the
+drawing-room. From the lobby window, where I loitered for a few moments,
+I looked out upon the well-known forest-trees. The sun was down. It was
+already twilight, and the white vapours of coming night were already
+filming their thinned and yellow foliage. Everything looked melancholy.
+How little did those who envied the young inheritrex of a princely fortune
+suspect the load that lay at her heart, or, bating the fear of death, how
+gladly at that moment she would have parted with her life!
+
+Lady Knollys had not yet returned, and it was darkening rapidly; a mass of
+black clouds stood piled in the west, through the chasms of which was still
+reflected a pale metallic lustre.
+
+The drawing-room was already very dark; but some streaks of this cold light
+fell upon a black figure, which would otherwise have been unseen, leaning
+beside the curtains against the window frame.
+
+It advanced abruptly, with creaking shoes; it was Doctor Bryerly.
+
+I was startled and surprised, not knowing how he had got there. I stood
+staring at him in the dusk rather awkwardly, I am afraid.
+
+'How do you do, Miss Ruthyn?' said he, extending his hand, long, hard, and
+brown as a mummy's, and stooping a little so as to approach more nearly,
+for it was not easy to see in the imperfect light. 'You're surprised, I
+dare say, to see me here so soon again?'
+
+'I did not know you had arrived. I am glad to see you, Doctor Bryerly.
+Nothing unpleasant, I hope, has happened?'
+
+'No, nothing unpleasant, Miss. The will has been lodged, and we shall have
+probate in due course; but there has been something on my mind, and I'm
+come to ask you two or three questions which you had better answer very
+considerately. Is Miss Knollys still here?'
+
+'Yes, but she is not returned from her walk.'
+
+'I am glad she is here. I think she takes a sound view, and women
+understand one another better. As for me, it is plainly my duty to put it
+before you as it strikes me, and to offer all I can do in accomplishing,
+should you wish it, a different arrangement. You don't know your uncle, you
+said the other day?'
+
+'No, I've never seen him.'
+
+'You understand your late father's intention in making you his ward?'
+
+'I suppose he wished to show his high opinion of my uncle's fitness for
+such a trust.'
+
+'That's quite true; but the nature of the trust in this instance is
+extraordinary.'
+
+'I don't understand.'
+
+'Why, if you die before you come to the age of twenty-one, the entire of
+the property will go to him--do you see?--and he has the custody of your
+person in the meantime; you are to live in his house, under his care and
+authority. You see now, I think, how it is; and I did not like it when your
+father read the will to me, and I said so. Do _you_?'
+
+I hesitated to speak, not sure that I quite comprehended him.
+
+'And the more I think of it, the less I like it, Miss,' said Doctor
+Bryerly, in a calm, stern tone.
+
+'Merciful Heaven! Doctor Bryerly, you can't suppose that I should not be
+as safe in my uncle's house as in the Lord Chancellor's?' I ejaculated,
+looking full in his face.
+
+'But don't you see, Miss, it is not a fair position to put your uncle in,'
+replied he, after a little hesitation.
+
+'But suppose _he_ does not think so. You know, if he does, he may decline
+it.'
+
+'Well that's true--but he won't. Here is his letter'--and he produced
+it--'announcing officially that he means to accept the office; but I think
+he ought to be told it is not _delicate_, under all circumstances.
+You know, Miss, that your uncle, Mr. Silas Ruthyn, was talked about
+unpleasantly once.'
+
+'You mean'--I began.
+
+'I mean about the death of Mr. Charke, at Bartram-Haugh.'
+
+'Yes, I have heard that,' I said; he was speaking with a shocking _aplomb_.
+
+'We assume, of course, _unjustly_; but there are many who think quite
+differently.'
+
+'And possibly, Doctor Bryerly, it was for that very reason that my dear
+papa made him my guardian.'
+
+'There can be no doubt of that, Miss; it was to purge him of that scandal.'
+
+'And when he has acquitted himself honourably of that trust, don't you
+think such a proof of confidence so honourably fulfilled must go far to
+silence his traducers?'
+
+'Why, if all goes well, it may do a little; but a great deal less than you
+fancy. But take it that you happen to _die_, Miss, during your minority. We
+are all mortal, and there are three years and some months to go; how will
+it be then? Don't you see? Just fancy how people will talk.'
+
+'I think you know that my uncle is a religious man?' said I.
+
+'Well, Miss, what of that?' he asked again.
+
+'He is--he has suffered intensely,' I continued. 'He has long retired from
+the world; he is very religious. Ask our curate, Mr. Fairfield, if you
+doubt it.'
+
+'But I am not disputing it, Miss; I'm only supposing what may happen--an
+accident, we'll call it small-pox, diphtheria, _that's_ going very much.
+Three years and three months, you know, is a long time. You proceed to
+Bartram-Haugh, thinking you have much goods laid up for many years; but
+your Creator, you know, may say, "Thou fool, this day is thy soul required
+of thee." You go--and what pray is thought of your uncle, Mr. Silas Ruthyn,
+who walks in for the entire inheritance, and who has long been abused like
+a pickpocket, or worse, in his own county, I'm told?'
+
+'You are a religious man, Doctor Bryerly, according to your lights?' I
+said.
+
+The Swedenborgian smiled.
+
+'Well, knowing that he is so too, and having yourself experienced the power
+of religion, do not you think him deserving of every confidence? Don't you
+think it well that he should have this opportunity of exhibiting both his
+own character and the reliance which my dear papa reposed on it, and that
+we should leave all consequences and contingencies in the hands of Heaven?'
+
+'It appears to have been the will of Heaven hitherto,' said Doctor
+Bryerly--I could not see with what expression of face, but he was looking
+down, and drawing little diagrams with his stick on the dark carpet, and
+spoke in a very low tone--'that your uncle should suffer under this ill
+report. In countervailing the appointment of Providence, we must employ our
+reason, with conscientious diligence, as to the means, and if we find that
+they are as likely to do mischief as good, we have no right to expect a
+special interposition to turn our experiment into an ordeal. I think you
+ought to weigh it well--I am sure there are reasons against it. If you make
+up your mind that you would rather be placed under the care, say of Lady
+Knollys, I will endeavour all I can to effect it.'
+
+'That could not be done without his consent, could it?' said I.
+
+'No, but I don't despair of getting that--on terms, of course,' remarked
+he.
+
+'I don't quite understand,' I said.
+
+'I mean, for instance, if he were allowed to keep the allowance for your
+maintenance--eh?'
+
+'I mistake my uncle Silas very much,' I said, 'if that allowance is any
+object whatever to him compared with the moral value of the position. If he
+were deprived of that, I am sure he would decline the other.'
+
+'We might try him at all events,' said Doctor Bryerly, on whose dark sinewy
+features, even in this imperfect light, I thought I detected a smile.
+
+'Perhaps,' said I, 'I appear very foolish in supposing him actuated by any
+but sordid motives; but he is my near relation, and I can't help it, sir.'
+
+'That is a very serious thing, Miss Ruthyn,' he replied. 'You are very
+young, and cannot see it at present, as you will hereafter. He is very
+religious, you say, and all that, but his house is not a proper place for
+you. It is a solitude--its master an outcast, and it has been the repeated
+scene of all sorts of scandals, and of one great crime; and Lady Knollys
+thinks your having been domesticated there will be an injury to you all the
+days of your life.'
+
+'So I do, Maud,' said Lady Knollys, who had just entered the room
+unperceived,--'How do you do, Doctor Bryerly?--a serious injury. You have
+no idea how entirely that house is condemned and avoided, and the very name
+of its inmates tabooed.'
+
+'How monstrous--how cruel!' I exclaimed.
+
+'Very unpleasant, my dear, but perfectly natural. You are to recollect that
+quite independently of the story of Mr. Charke, the house was talked about,
+and the county people had cut your uncle Silas long before that adventure
+was dreamed of; and as to the circumstance of your being placed in his
+charge by his brother, who took, from strong family feeling, a totally
+one-sided view of the affair from the first, having the slightest effect in
+restoring his position in the county, you must quite give that up. Except
+me, if he will allow me, and the clergyman, not a soul in the country will
+visit at Bartram-Haugh. They may pity you, and think the whole thing the
+climax of folly and cruelty; but they won't visit at Bartram, or know
+Silas, or have anything to do with his household.'
+
+'They will see, at all events, what my dear papa's opinion was.'
+
+'They know that already,' answered she, 'and it has not, and ought not to
+have, the slightest weight with them. There are people there who think
+themselves just as great as the Ruthyns, or greater; and your poor father's
+idea of carrying it by a demonstration was simply the dream of a man who
+had forgotten the world, and learned to exaggerate himself in his long
+seclusion. I know he was beginning himself to hesitate; and I think if he
+had been spared another year that provision of his will would have been
+struck out.'
+
+Doctor Bryerly nodded, and he said--
+
+'And if he had the power to dictate _now_, would he insist on that
+direction? It is a mistake every way, injurious to you, his child; and
+should you happen to die during your sojourn under your uncle's care, it
+would woefully defeat the testator's object, and raise such a storm of
+surmise and inquiry as would awaken all England, and send the old scandal
+on the wing through the world again.'
+
+'Doctor Bryerly will, I have no doubt, arrange it all. In fact, I do not
+think it would be very difficult to bring Silas to terms; and if you do not
+consent to his trying, Maud, mark my words, you will live to repent it.'
+
+Here were two persons viewing the question from totally different points;
+both perfectly disinterested; both in their different ways, I believe,
+shrewd and even wise; and both honourable, urging me against it, and in a
+way that undefinably alarmed my imagination, as well as moved my reason. I
+looked from one to the other--there was a silence. By this time the candles
+had come, and we could see one another.
+
+'I only wait your decision, Miss Ruthyn,' said the trustee, 'to see
+your uncle. If his advantage was the chief object contemplated in this
+arrangement, he will be the best judge whether his interest is really best
+consulted by it or no; and I think he will clearly see that it is _not_ so,
+and will answer accordingly.'
+
+'I cannot answer now--you must allow me to think it over--I will do my
+best. I am very much obliged, my dear Cousin Monica, you are so very good,
+and you too, Doctor Bryerly.'
+
+Doctor Bryerly by this time was looking into his pocket-book, and did not
+acknowledge my thanks even by a nod.
+
+'I must be in London the day after to-morrow. Bartram-Haugh is nearly sixty
+miles from here, and only twenty of that by rail, I find. Forty miles of
+posting over those Derbyshire mountains is slow work; but if you say _try_,
+I'll see him to-morrow morning.'
+
+'You must say try--you _must_, my dear Maud.'
+
+'But how can I decide in a moment? Oh, dear Cousin Monica, I am so
+distracted!'
+
+'But _you_ need not decide at all; the decision rests with _him_. Come; he
+is more competent than you. You _must_ say yes.'
+
+Again I looked from her to Doctor Bryerly, and from him to her again. I
+threw my arms about her neck, and hugging her closely to me, I cried--
+
+'Oh, Cousin Monica, dear Cousin Monica, advise me. I am a wretched
+creature. You must advise me.'
+
+I did not know till now how irresolute a character was mine.
+
+I knew somehow by the tone of her voice that she was smiling as she
+answered--
+
+'Why, dear, I have advised you; I _do_ advise you;' and then she added,
+impetuously, 'I entreat and implore, if you really think I love you, that
+you will _follow_ my advice. It is your duty to leave your uncle Silas,
+whom you believe to be more competent than you are, to decide, after full
+conference with Doctor Bryerly, who knows more of your poor father's views
+and intentions in making that appointment than either you or I.'
+
+'Shall I say, yes?' I cried, drawing her close, and kissing her
+helplessly. 'Oh, tell me--tell me to say, yes.'
+
+'Yes, of course, _yes_. She agrees, Doctor Bryerly, to your kind proposal.'
+
+'I am to understand so?' he asked.
+
+'Very well--yes, Doctor Bryerly,' I replied.
+
+'You have resolved wisely and well,' said he, briskly, like a man who has
+got a care off his mind.
+
+'I forgot to say, Doctor Bryerly--it was very rude--that you must stay here
+to-night.'
+
+'He _can't_, my dear,' interposed Lady Knolly's; 'it is a long way.'
+
+'He will dine. Won't you, Doctor Bryerly?'
+
+'No; he can't. You know you can't, sir,' said my cousin, peremptorily. 'You
+must not worry him, my dear, with civilities he can't accept. He'll bid us
+good-bye this moment. Good-bye, Doctor Bryerly. You'll write immediately;
+don't wait till you reach town. Bid him good-bye, Maud. I'll say a word to
+you in the hall.'
+
+And thus she literally hurried him out of the room, leaving me in a state
+of amazement and confusion, not able to review my decision--unsatisfied,
+but still unable to recall it.
+
+I stood where they had left me, looking after them, I suppose, like a fool.
+
+Lady Knollys returned in a few minutes. If I had been a little cooler I was
+shrewd enough to perceive that she had sent poor Doctor Bryerly away upon
+his travels, to find board and lodging half-way to Bartram, to remove
+him forthwith from my presence, and thus to make my decision--if mine it
+was--irrevocable.
+
+'I applaud you, my dear,' said Cousin Knollys, in her turn embracing me
+heartily. 'You are a sensible little darling, and have done exactly what
+you ought to have done.'
+
+'I hope I have,' I faltered.
+
+'Hope? fiddle! stuff! the thing's as plain as a pikestaff.'
+
+And in came Branston to say that dinner was served.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+_HOW THE AMBASSADOR FARED_
+
+
+Lady Knollys, I could plainly see, when we got into the brighter lights at
+the dinner table, was herself a good deal excited; she was relieved
+and glad, and was garrulous during our meal, and told me all her early
+recollections of dear papa. Most of them I had heard before; but they could
+not be told too often.
+
+Notwithstanding my mind sometimes wandered, _often_ indeed, to the
+conference so unexpected, so suddenly decisive, possibly so momentous; and
+with a dismayed uncertainly, the question--had I done right?--was always
+before me.
+
+I dare say my cousin understood my character better, perhaps, after all my
+honest self-study, then I do even now. Irresolute, suddenly reversing my
+own decisions, impetuous in action as she knew me, she feared, I am sure,
+a revocation of my commission to Doctor Bryerly, and thought of the
+countermand I might send galloping after him.
+
+So, kind creature, she laboured to occupy my thoughts, and when one theme
+was exhausted found another, and had always her parry prepared as often as
+I directed a reflection or an enquiry to the re-opening of the question
+which she had taken so much pains to close.
+
+That night I was troubled. I was already upbraiding myself. I could not
+sleep, and at last sat up in bed, and cried. I lamented my weakness in
+having assented to Doctor Bryerly's and my cousin's advice. Was I not
+departing from my engagement to my dear papa? Was I not consenting that
+my Uncle Silas should be induced to second my breach of faith by a
+corresponding perfidy?
+
+Lady Knollys had done wisely in despatching Doctor Bryerly so promptly;
+for, most assuredly, had he been at Knowl next morning when I came down I
+should have recalled my commission.
+
+That day in the study I found four papers which increased my perturbation.
+They were in dear papa's handwriting, and had an indorsement in these
+words--'Copy of my letter addressed to ----, one of the trustees named in
+my will.' Here, then, were the contents of those four sealed letters which
+had excited mine and Lady Knollys' curiosity on the agitating day on which
+the will was read.
+
+It contained these words:--
+
+'I name my oppressed and unhappy brother, Silas Ruthyn, residing at my
+house of Bartram-Haugh, as guardian of the person of my beloved child, to
+convince the world if possible, and failing that, to satisfy at least all
+future generations of our family, that his brother, who knew him best,
+had implicit confidence in him, and that he deserved it. A cowardly and
+preposterous slander, originating in political malice, and which never have
+been whispered had he not been poor and imprudent, is best silenced by this
+ordeal of purification. All I possess goes to him if my child dies under
+age; and the custody of her person I commit meanwhile to him alone, knowing
+that she is as safe in his as she could have been under my own care. I rely
+upon your remembrance of our early friendship to make this known wherever
+an opportunity occurs, and also to say what your sense of justice may
+warrant.'
+
+The other letters were in the same spirit. My heart sank like lead as I
+read them. I quaked with fear. What had I done? My father's wise and noble
+vindication of our dishonoured name I had presumed to frustrate. I had,
+like a coward, receded from my easy share in the task; and, merciful
+Heaven, I had broken my faith with the dead!
+
+With these letters in my hand, white with fear, I flew like a shadow to the
+drawing-room where Cousin Monica was, and told her to read them. I saw by
+her countenance how much alarmed she was by my looks, but she said nothing,
+only read the letters hurriedly, and then exclaimed--
+
+'Is this all, my dear child? I really fancied you had found a second will,
+and had lost everything. Why, my dearest Maud, we knew all this before.
+We quite understood poor dear Austin's motive. Why are you so easily
+disturbed?'
+
+'Oh, Cousin Monica, I think he was right; it all seems quite reasonable
+now; and I--oh, what a crime!--it must be stopped.'
+
+'My dear Maud, listen to reason. Doctor Bryerly has seen your uncle at
+Bartram at least two hours ago. You _can't_ stop it, and why on earth
+should you if you could? Don't you think your uncle should be consulted?'
+said she.
+
+'But he has _decided_. I have his letter speaking of it as settled; and
+Doctor Bryerly--oh, Cousin Monica, he's gone _to tempt him_.'
+
+'Nonsense, girl! Doctor Bryerly is a good and just man, I do believe, and
+has, beside, no imaginable motive to pervert either his conscience or his
+judgment. He's not gone to tempt him--stuff!--but to unfold the facts and
+invite his consideration; and I say, considering how thoughtlessly such
+duties are often undertaken, and how long Silas has been living in lazy
+solitude, shut out from the world, and unused to discuss anything, I do
+think it only conscientious and honourable that he should have a fair and
+distinct view of the matter in all its bearings submitted to him before he
+indolently incurs what may prove the worst danger he was ever involved in.'
+
+So Lady Knollys argued, with feminine energy, and I must confess, with a
+good deal of the repetition which I have sometimes observed in logicians of
+my own sex, and she puzzled without satisfying me.
+
+'I don't know why I went to that room,' I said, quite frightened; 'or why I
+went to that press; how it happened that these papers, which we never saw
+there before, were the first things to strike my eye to-day.'
+
+'What do you mean, dear?' said Lady Knollys.
+
+'I mean this--I think I was _brought_ there, and that _there_ is poor
+papa's appeal to me, as plain as if his hand came and wrote it upon the
+wall.' I nearly screamed the conclusion of this wild confession.
+
+'You are nervous, my darling; your bad nights have worn you out. Let us go
+out; the air will do you good; and I do assure you that you will very soon
+see that we are quite right, and rejoice conscientiously that you have
+acted as you did.'
+
+But I was not to be satisfied, although my first vehemence was quieted. In
+my prayers that night my conscience upbraided me. When I lay down in bed
+my nervousness returned fourfold. Everybody at all nervously excitable
+has suffered some time or another by the appearance of ghastly features
+presenting themselves in every variety of contortion, one after another,
+the moment the eyes are closed. This night my dear father's face troubled
+me--sometimes white and sharp as ivory, sometimes strangely transparent
+like glass, sometimes all hanging in cadaverous folds, always with the same
+unnatural expression of diabolical fury.
+
+From this dreadful vision I could only escape by sitting up and staring
+at the light. At length, worn out, I dropped asleep, and in a dream I
+distinctly heard papa's voice say sharply outside the bed-curtain:--'Maud,
+we shall be late at Bartram-Haugh.'
+
+And I awoke in a horror, the wall, as it seemed, still ringing with the
+summons, and the speaker, I fancied, standing at the other side of the
+curtain.
+
+A miserable night I passed. In the morning, looking myself like a ghost, I
+stood in my night-dress by Lady Knollys' bed.
+
+'I have had my warning,' I said. 'Oh, Cousin Monica, papa has been with me,
+and ordered me to Bartram-Haugh; and go I will.'
+
+She stared in my face uncomfortably, and then tried to laugh the matter
+off; but I know she was troubled at the strange state to which agitation
+and suspense had reduced me.
+
+'You're taking too much for granted, Maud,' said she; 'Silas Ruthyn,
+most likely, will refuse his consent, and insist on your going to
+Bartram-Haugh.'
+
+'Heaven grant!' I exclaimed; 'but if he doesn't, it is all the same to me,
+go I will. He may turn me out, but I'll go, and try to expiate the breach
+of faith that I fear is so horribly wicked.'
+
+We had several hours still to wait for the arrival of the post. For both of
+us the delay was a suspense; for me an almost agonising one. At length,
+at an unlooked-for moment, Branston did enter the room with the post-bag.
+There was a large letter, with the Feltram post-mark, addressed to Lady
+Knollys--it was Doctor Bryerly's despatch; we read it together. It was
+dated on the day before, and its purport was thus:--
+
+'RESPECTED MADAM,--I this day saw Mr. Silas Ruthyn at Bartram-Haugh, and
+he peremptorily refuses, on any terms, to vacate the guardianship, or to
+consent to Miss Ruthyn's residing anywhere but under his own immediate
+care. As he bases his refusal, first upon a conscientious difficulty,
+declaring that he has no right, through fear of personal contingencies, to
+abdicate an office imposed in so solemn a way, and so naturally devolving
+on him as only brother to the deceased; and secondly upon the effect such a
+withdrawal, at the instance of the acting trustee, would have upon his own
+character, amounting to a public self-condemnation; and as he refused to
+discuss these positions with me, I could make no way whatsoever with him.
+Finding, therefore, that his mind was quite made up, after a short time I
+took my leave. He mentioned that preparations for his niece's reception are
+being completed, and that he will send for her in a few days; so that I
+think it will be advisable that I should go down to Knowl, to assist Miss
+Ruthyn with any advice she may require before her departure, to discharge
+servants, get inventories made, and provide for the care of the place and
+grounds during her minority.
+
+'I am, respected Madam, yours truly,
+
+HANS E. BRYERLY.'
+
+I can't describe to you how chapfallen and angry my cousin looked. She
+sniffed once or twice, and then said, rather bitterly, in a subdued tone:--
+
+'Well, _now_; I hope you are pleased?'
+
+'No, no, no; you _know_ I'm not--grieved to the heart, my only friend, my
+dear Cousin Monica; but my conscience is at rest; you don't know what a
+sacrifice it is; I am a most unhappy creature. I feel an indescribable
+foreboding. I am frightened; but you won't forsake me, Cousin Monica.'
+
+'No, darling, never,' she said, sadly.
+
+'And you'll come and see me, won't you, as often as you can?'
+
+'Yes, dear; that is if Silas allows me; and I'm sure he will,' she added
+hastily, seeing, I suppose, my terror in my face. 'All I can do, you may be
+sure I will, and perhaps he will allow you to come to me, now and then, for
+a short visit. You know I am only six miles away--little more than half an
+hour's drive, and though I hate Bartram, and detest Silas--Yes, I _detest
+Silas_,' she repeated in reply to my surprised gaze--'I _will_ call at
+Bartram--that is, I say, if he allows me; for, you know, I haven't been
+there for a quarter of a century; and though I never understood Silas, I
+fancy he forgives no sins, whether of omission or commission.'
+
+I wondered what old grudge could make my cousin judge Uncle Silas always
+so hardly--I could not suppose it was justice. I had seen my hero indeed
+lately so disrespectfully handled before my eyes, that he had, as idols
+will, lost something of his sacredness. But as an article of faith, I still
+cultivated my trust in his divinity, and dismissed every intruding doubt
+with an exorcism, as a suggestion of the evil one. But I wronged Lady
+Knollys in suspecting her of pique, or malice, or anything more than that
+tendency to take strong views which some persons attribute to my sex.
+
+So, then, the little project of Cousin Monica's guardianship, which, had it
+been poor papa's wish, would have made me so very happy, was quite knocked
+on the head, to revive no more. I comforted myself, however, with her
+promise to re-open communications with Bartram-Haugh, and we grew resigned.
+
+I remember, next morning, as we sat at a very late breakfast, Lady Knollys,
+reading a letter, suddenly made an exclamation and a little laugh, and read
+on with increased interest for a few minutes, and then, with another little
+laugh, she looked up, placing her hand, with the open letter in it, beside
+her tea-cup.
+
+'You'll not guess whom I've been reading about,' said she, with her head
+the least thing on one side, and an arch smile.
+
+I felt myself blushing--cheeks, forehead, even down to the tips of my
+fingers. I anticipated the name I was to hear. She looked very much amused.
+Was it possible that Captain Oakley was married?
+
+'I really have not the least idea,' I replied, with that kind of overdone
+carelessness which betrays us.
+
+'No, I see quite plainly you have not; but you can't think how prettily you
+blush,' answered she, very much diverted.
+
+'I really don't care,' I replied, with some little dignity, and blushing
+deeper and deeper.
+
+'Will you make a guess?' she asked.
+
+'I _can't_ guess.'
+
+'Well, shall I tell you?'
+
+'Just as you please.'
+
+'Well, I will--that is, I'll read a page of my letter, which tells it all.
+Do you know Georgina Fanshawe?' she asked.
+
+'Lady Georgina? No.'
+
+'Well, no matter; she's in Paris now, and this letter is from her, and
+she says--let me see the place--"Yesterday, what do you think?--quite an
+apparition!--you shall hear. My brother Craven yesterday insisted on my
+accompanying him to Le Bas' shop in that odd little antique street near the
+Grève; it is a wonderful old curiosity shop. I forget what they call them
+here. When we went into this place it was very nearly deserted, and there
+were so many curious things to look at all about, that for a minute or two
+I did not observe a tall woman, in a grey silk and a black velvet mantle,
+and quite a nice new Parisian bonnet. You will be _charmed_, by-the-by,
+with the new shape--it is only out three weeks, and is quite
+_indescribably_ elegant, _I_ think, at least. They have them, I am sure, by
+this time at Molnitz's, so I need say no more. And now that I am on this
+subject of dress, I have got your lace; and I think you will be very
+ungrateful if you are not _charmed_ with it." Well, I need not read all
+that--here is the rest;' and she read--
+
+'"But you'll ask about my mysterious _dame_ in the new bonnet and velvet
+mantle; she was sitting on a stool at the counter, not buying, but
+evidently selling a quantity of stones and trinkets which she had in a
+card-box, and the man was picking them up one by one, and, I suppose,
+valuing them. I was near enough to see such a darling little pearl cross,
+with at least half a dozen really good pearls in it, and had begun to covet
+them for my set, when the lady glanced over my shoulder, and she
+knew me--in fact, we knew one another--and who do you think she was?
+Well--you'll not guess in a week, and I can't wait so long; so I may as
+well tell you at once--she was that horrid old Mademoiselle Blassemare whom
+you pointed out to me at Elverston; and I never forgot her face since--nor
+she, it seems, mine, for she turned away very quickly, and when I next saw
+her, her veil was down."'
+
+'Did not you tell me, Maud, that you had lost your pearl cross while that
+dreadful Madame de la Rougierre was here?'
+
+'Yes; but--'
+
+'I know; but what has she to do with Mademoiselle de Blassemare, you were
+going to say--they are one and the same person.'
+
+'Oh, I perceive,' answered I, with that dim sense of danger and dismay with
+which one hears suddenly of an enemy of whom one has lost sight for a time.
+
+'I'll write and tell Georgie to buy that cross. I wager my life it is
+yours,' said Lady Knollys, firmly.
+
+The servants, indeed, made no secret of their opinion of Madame de la
+Rougierre, and frankly charged her with a long list of larcenies. Even Anne
+Wixted, who had enjoyed her barren favour while the gouvernante was here,
+hinted privately that she had bartered a missing piece of lace belonging to
+me with a gipsy pedlar, for French gloves and an Irish poplin.
+
+'And so surely as I find it is yours, I'll set the police in pursuit.'
+
+'But you must not bring me into court,' said I, half amused and half
+alarmed.
+
+'No occasion, my dear; Mary Quince and Mrs. Rusk can prove it perfectly.'
+
+'And why do you dislike her so very much?' I asked.
+
+Cousin Monica leaned back in her chair, and searched the cornice from
+corner to corner with upturned eyes for the reason, and at last laughed a
+little, amused at herself.
+
+'Well, really, it is not easy to define, and, perhaps, it is not quite
+charitable; but I know I hate her, and I know, you little hypocrite, you
+hate her as much as I;' and we both laughed a little.
+
+'But you must tell me all you know of her history.'
+
+'Her history?' echoed she. 'I really know next to nothing about it; only
+that I used to see her sometimes about the place that Georgina mentions,
+and there were some unpleasant things said about her; but you know they may
+be all lies. The worst I _know_ of her is her treatment of you, and her
+robbing the desk'--(Cousin Monica always called it her _robbery_)--'and I
+think that's enough to hang her. Suppose we go out for a walk?'
+
+So together we went, and I resumed about Madame; but no more could I
+extract--perhaps there was not much more to hear.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+_ON THE ROAD_
+
+
+All at Knowl was indicative of the break-up that was so near at hand.
+Doctor Bryerly arrived according to promise. He was in a whirl of business
+all the time. He and Mr. Danvers conferred about the management of the
+estate. It was agreed that the grounds and gardens should be let, but not
+the house, of which Mrs. Rusk was to take the care. The gamekeeper remained
+in office, and some out-door servants. But the rest were to go, except Mary
+Quince, who was to accompany me to Bartram-Haugh as my maid.
+
+'Don't part with Quince,' said Lady Knollys, peremptorily 'they'll want
+you, but _don't_.'
+
+She kept harping on this point, and recurred to it half a dozen times every
+day.
+
+'They'll say, you know, that she is not fit for a lady's maid, as she
+certainly is _not_, if it in the least signified in such a wilderness as
+Bartram-Haugh; but she is attached, trustworthy, and honest; and those are
+qualities valuable everywhere, especially in a solitude. Don't allow them
+to get you a wicked young French milliner in her stead.'
+
+Sometimes she said things that jarred unpleasantly on my nerves, and left
+an undefined sense of danger. Such as:--
+
+'I know she's true to you, and a good creature; but is she shrewd enough?'
+
+Or, with an anxious look:--
+
+'I hope Mary Quince is not easily frightened.'
+
+Or, suddenly:--
+
+'Can Mary Quince write, in case you were ill?'
+
+Or,
+
+'Can she take a message exactly?'
+
+Or,
+
+'Is she a person of any enterprise and resource, and cool in an emergency?'
+
+Now, these questions did not come all in a string, as I write them down
+here, but at long intervals, and were followed quickly by ordinary talk;
+but they generally escaped from my companion after silence and gloomy
+thought; and though I could extract nothing more defined than these
+questions, yet they seemed to me to point at some possible danger
+contemplated in my good cousin's dismal ruminations.
+
+Another topic that occupied my cousin's mind a good deal was obviously the
+larceny of my pearl cross. She made a note of the description furnished by
+the recollection, respectively, of Mary Quince, Mrs. Rusk, and myself. I
+had fancied her little vision of the police was no more than the result of
+a momentary impulse; but really, to judge by her methodical examinations of
+us, I should have fancied that she had taken it up in downright earnest.
+
+Having learned that my departure from Knowl was to be so very soon, she
+resolved not to leave me before the day of my journey to Bartram-Haugh; and
+as day after day passed by, and the hour of our leave-taking approached,
+she became more and more kind and affectionate. A feverish and sorrowful
+interval it was to me.
+
+Of Doctor Bryerly, though staying in the house, we saw almost nothing,
+except for an hour or so at tea-time. He breakfasted very early, and dined
+solitarily, and at uncertain hours, as business permitted.
+
+The second evening of his visit, Cousin Monica took occasion to introduce
+the subject of his visit to Bartram-Haugh.
+
+'You saw him, of course?' said Lady Knollys.
+
+'Yes, he saw me; he was not well. On hearing who I was, he asked me to go
+to his room, where he sat in a silk dressing-gown and slippers.'
+
+'About business principally,' said Cousin Monica, laconically.
+
+'That was despatched in very few words; for he was quite resolved, and
+placed his refusal upon grounds which it was difficult to dispute. But
+difficult or no, mind you, he intimated that he would hear nothing more on
+the subject--so that was closed.'
+
+'Well; and what is his religion now?' inquired she, irreverently.
+
+'We had some interesting conversation on the subject. He leans much to what
+we call the doctrine of correspondents. He is read rather deeply in the
+writings of Swedenborg, and seemed anxious to discuss some points with one
+who professes to be his follower. To say truth, I did not expect to find
+him either so well read or so deeply interested in the subject.'
+
+'Was he angry when it was proposed that he should vacate the guardianship?'
+
+'Not at all. Contrariwise, he said he had at first been so minded himself.
+His years, his habits, and something of the unfitness of the situation, the
+remoteness of Bartram-Haugh from good teachers, and all that, had struck
+him, and nearly determined him against accepting the office. But then came
+the views which I stated in my letter, and they governed him; and nothing
+could shake them, he said, or induce him to re-open the question in his own
+mind.'
+
+All the time Doctor Bryerly was relating his conference with the head of
+the family at Bartram-Haugh my cousin commented on the narrative with a
+variety of little 'pishes' and sneers, which I thought showed more of
+vexation than contempt.
+
+I was glad to hear all that Doctor Bryerly related. It gave me a kind
+of confidence; and I experienced a momentary reaction. After all, could
+Bartram-Haugh be more lonely than I had found Knowl? Was I not sure of the
+society of my Cousin Millicent, who was about my own age? Was it not quite
+possible that my sojourn in Derbyshire might turn out a happy though very
+quiet remembrance through all my after-life? Why should it not? What time
+or place would be happy if we gave ourselves over to dismal imaginations?
+
+So the summons reached me from Uncle Silas. The hours at Knowl were
+numbered.
+
+The evening before I departed I visited the full-length portrait of Uncle
+Silas, and studied it for the last time carefully, with deep interest, for
+many minutes; but with results vaguer than ever.
+
+With a brother so generous and so wealthy, always ready to help him
+forward; with his talents; with his lithe and gorgeous beauty, the shadow
+of which hung on that canvas--what might he not have accomplished? whom
+might he not have captivated? And yet where and what was he? A poor and
+shunned old man, occupying a lonely house and place that did not belong to
+him, married to degradation, with a few years of suspected and solitary
+life before him, and then swift oblivion his best portion.
+
+I gazed on the picture, to fix it well and vividly in my remembrance. I
+might still trace some of its outlines and tints in its living original,
+whom I was next day to see for the first time in my life.
+
+So the morning came--my last for many a day at Knowl--a day of partings, a
+day of novelty and regrets. The travelling carriage and post horses were
+at the door. Cousin Monica's carriage had just carried her away to the
+railway. We had embraced with tears; and her kind face was still before me,
+and her words of comfort and promise in my ears. The early sharpness
+of morning was still in the air; the frosty dew still glistened on the
+window-panes. We had made a hasty breakfast, my share of which was a single
+cup of tea. The aspect of the house how strange! Uncarpeted, uninhabited,
+doors for the most part locked, all the servants but Mrs. Rusk and Branston
+departed. The drawing-room door stood open, and a charwoman was washing the
+bare floor. I was looking my last--for who could say how long?--on the old
+house, and lingered. The luggage was all up. I made Mary Quince get in
+first, for every delay was precious; and now the moment was come. I hugged
+and kissed Mrs. Rusk in the hall.
+
+'God bless you, Miss Maud, darling. You must not fret; mind, the time won't
+be long going over--_no_ time at all; and you'll be bringing back a fine
+young gentleman--who knows? as great as the Duke of Wellington, for your
+husband; and I'll take the best of care of everything, and the birds and
+the dogs, till you come back; and I'll go and see you and Mary, if you'll
+allow, in Derbyshire;' and so forth.
+
+I got into the carriage, and bid Branston, who shut the door, good-bye,
+and kissed hands to Mrs. Rusk, who was smiling and drying her eyes and
+courtesying on the hall-door steps. The dogs, who had started gleefully
+with the carriage, were called back by Branston, and driven home, wondering
+and wistful, looking back with ears oddly cocked and tails dejected. My
+heart thanked them for their kindness, and I felt like a stranger, and very
+desolate.
+
+It was a bright, clear morning. It had been settled that it was not
+worth the trouble changing from the carriage to the railway for sake of
+five-and-twenty miles, and so the entire journey of sixty miles was to be
+made by the post road--the pleasantest travelling, if the mind were free.
+The grander and more distant features of the landscape we may see well
+enough from the window of the railway-carriage; but it is the foreground
+that interests and instructs us, like a pleasant gossiping history; and
+_that_ we had, in old days, from the post-chaise window. It was more
+than travelling picquet. Something of all conditions of life--luxury
+and misery--high spirits and low;--all sorts of costume, livery, rags,
+millinery; faces buxom, faces wrinkled, faces kind, faces wicked;--no end
+of interest and suggestion, passing in a procession silent and vivid, and
+all in their proper scenery. The golden corn-sheafs--the old dark-alleyed
+orchards, and the high streets of antique towns. There were few dreams
+brighter, few books so pleasant.
+
+We drove by the dark wood--it always looked dark to me--where the
+'mausoleum' stands--where my dear parents both lay now. I gazed on its
+sombre masses not with a softened feeling, but a peculiar sense of pain,
+and was glad when it was quite past.
+
+All the morning I had not shed a tear. Good Mary Quince cried at leaving
+Knowl; Lady Knollys' eyes were not dry as she kissed and blessed me,
+and promised an early visit; and the dark, lean, energetic face of the
+housekeeper was quivering, and her cheeks wet, as I drove away. But I,
+whose grief was sorest, never shed a tear. I only looked about from one
+familiar object to another, pale, excited, not quite apprehending my
+departure, and wondering at my own composure.
+
+But when we reached the old bridge, with the tall osiers standing by the
+buttress, and looked back at poor Knowl--the places we love and are leaving
+look so fairy-like and so sad in the clear distance, and this is the finest
+view of the gabled old house, with its slanting meadow-lands and noble
+timber reposing in solemn groups--I gazed at the receding vision, and the
+tears came at last, and I wept in silence long after the fair picture was
+hidden from view by the intervening uplands.
+
+I was relieved, and when we had made our next change of horses, and got
+into a country that was unknown to me, the new scenery and the sense of
+progress worked their accustomed effects on a young traveller who had lived
+a particularly secluded life, and I began to experience, on the whole, a
+not unpleasurable excitement.
+
+Mary Quince and I, with the hopefulness of inexperienced travellers, began
+already to speculate about our proximity to Bartram-Haugh, and were sorely
+disappointed when we heard from the nondescript courier--more like a
+ostler than a servant, who sat behind in charge of us and the luggage, and
+represented my guardian's special care--at nearly one o'clock, that we had
+still forty miles to go, a considerable portion of which was across the
+high Derbyshire mountains, before we reached Bartram-Haugh.
+
+The fact was, we had driven at a pace accommodated rather to the
+convenience of the horses than to our impatience; and finding, at the
+quaint little inn where we now halted, that we must wait for a nail or two
+in a loose shoe of one of our relay, we consulted, and being both hungry,
+agreed to beguile the time with an early dinner, which we enjoyed very
+sociably in a queer little parlour with a bow window, and commanding, with
+a little garden for foreground, a very pretty landscape.
+
+Good Mary Quince, like myself, had quite dried her tears by this time, and
+we were both highly interested, and I a little nervous, too, about our
+arrival and reception at Bartram. Some time, of course, was lost in this
+pleasant little parlour, before we found ourselves once more pursuing our
+way.
+
+The slowest part of our journey was the pull up the long mountain road,
+ascending zig-zag, as sailors make way against a head-wind, by tacking. I
+forget the name of the pretty little group of houses--it did not amount
+to a village--buried in trees, where we got our _four_ horses and two
+postilions, for the work was severe. I can only designate it as the place
+where Mary Quince and I had our tea, very comfortably, and bought some
+gingerbread, very curious to look upon, but quite uneatable.
+
+The greater portion of the ascent, when we were fairly upon the mountain,
+was accomplished at a walk, and at some particularly steep points we had to
+get out and go on foot. But this to me was quite delightful. I had never
+scaled a mountain before, and the ferns and heath, the pure boisterous air,
+and above all the magnificent view of the rich country we were leaving
+behind, now gorgeous and misty in sunset tints, stretching in gentle
+undulations far beneath us, quite enchanted me.
+
+We had just reached the summit when the sun went down. The low grounds at
+the other side were already lying in cold grey shadow, and I got the man
+who sat behind to point out as well as he could the site of Bartram-Haugh.
+But mist was gathering over all by this time. The filmy disk of the moon
+which was to light us on, so soon as twilight faded into night, hung high
+in air. I tried to see the sable mass of wood which he described. But it
+was vain, and to acquire a clear idea of the place, as of its master, I
+must only wait that nearer view which an hour or two more would afford me.
+
+And now we rapidly descended the mountain side. The scenery was wilder
+and bolder than I was accustomed to. Our road skirted the edge of a great
+heathy moor. The silvery light of the moon began to glimmer, and we passed
+a gipsy bivouac with fires alight and caldrons hanging over them. It was
+the first I had seen. Two or three low tents; a couple of dark, withered
+crones, veritable witches; a graceful girl standing behind, gazing after
+us; and men in odd-shaped hats, with gaudy waistcoats and bright-coloured
+neck-handkerchiefs and gaitered legs, stood lazily in front. They had all
+a wild tawdry display of colour; and a group of alders in the rear made a
+background of shade for tents, fires, and figures.
+
+I opened a front window of the chariot, and called to the postboys to stop.
+The groom from behind came to the window.
+
+'Are not those gipsies?' I enquired.
+
+'Yes, please'm, them's gipsies, sure, Miss,' he answered, glancing with
+that odd smile, half contemptuous, half superstitious, with which I have
+since often observed the peasants of Derbyshire eyeing those thievish and
+uncanny neighbours.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+_BARTRAM-HAUGH_
+
+
+In a moment a tall, lithe girl, black-haired, black-eyed, and, as I
+thought, inexpressibly handsome, was smiling, with such beautiful rings of
+pearly teeth, at the window; and in her peculiar accent, with a suspicion
+of something foreign in it, proposing with many courtesies to tell the lady
+her fortune.
+
+I had never seen this wild tribe of the human race before--children of
+mystery and liberty. Such vagabondism and beauty in the figure before me!
+I looked at their hovels and thought of the night, and wondered at their
+independence, and felt my inferiority. I could not resist. She held up her
+slim oriental hand.
+
+'Yes, I'll hear my fortune,' I said, returning the sibyl's smile
+instinctively.
+
+'Give me some money, Mary Quince. No, _not_ that,' I said, rejecting the
+thrifty sixpence she tendered, for I had heard that the revelations of
+this weird sisterhood were bright in proportion to the kindness of their
+clients, and was resolved to approach Bartram with cheerful auguries. 'That
+five-shilling piece,' I insisted; and honest Mary reluctantly surrendered
+the coin.
+
+So the feline beauty took it, with courtesies and 'thankees,' smiling
+still, and hid it away as if she stole it, and looked on my open palm still
+smiling; and told me, to my surprise, that there was _somebody_ I liked
+very much, and I was almost afraid she would name Captain Oakley; that he
+would grow very rich, and that I should marry him; that I should move about
+from place to place a great deal for a good while to come. That I had some
+enemies, who should be sometimes so near as to be in the same room with me,
+and yet they should not be able to hurt me. That I should see blood spilt
+and yet not my own, and finally be very happy and splendid, like the
+heroine of a fairy tale.
+
+Did this strange, girlish charlatan see in my face some signs of shrinking
+when she spoke of enemies, and set me down for a coward whose weakness
+might be profitable? Very likely. At all events she plucked a long brass
+pin, with a round bead for a head, from some part of her dress, and holding
+the point in her fingers, and exhibiting the treasure before my eyes, she
+told me that I must get a charmed pin like that, which her grandmother had
+given to her, and she ran glibly through a story of all the magic expended
+on it, and told me she could not part with it; but its virtue was that you
+were to stick it through the blanket, and while it was there neither rat,
+nor cat, nor snake--and then came two more terms in the catalogue, which I
+suppose belonged to the gipsy dialect, and which she explained to mean, as
+well as I could understand, the first a malevolent spirit, and the second
+'a cove to cut your throat,' could approach or hurt you.
+
+A charm like that, she gave me to understand, I must by hook or by crook
+obtain. She had not a second. None of her people in the camp over there
+possessed one. I am ashamed to confess that I actually paid her a pound for
+this brass pin! The purchase was partly an indication of my temperament,
+which could never let an opportunity pass away irrevocably without a
+struggle, and always apprehended 'Some day or other I'll reproach myself
+for having neglected it!' and partly a record of the trepidations of that
+period of my life. At all events I had her pin, and she my pound, and I
+venture to say I was the gladder of the two.
+
+She stood on the road-side bank courtseying and smiling, the first
+enchantress I had encountered, and I watched the receding picture, with its
+patches of firelight, its dusky groups and donkey carts, white as skeletons
+in the moonlight, as we drove rapidly away.
+
+They, I suppose, had a wild sneer and a merry laugh over my purchase, as
+they sat and ate their supper of stolen poultry, about their fire, and were
+duly proud of belonging to the superior race.
+
+Mary Quince, shocked at my prodigality, hinted a remonstrance.
+
+'It went to my heart, Miss, it did. They're such a lot, young and old, all
+alike thieves and vagabonds, and many a poor body wanting.'
+
+'Tut, Mary, never mind. Everyone has her fortune told some time in her
+life, and you can't have a good one without paying. I think, Mary, we must
+be near Bartram now.'
+
+The road now traversed the side of a steep hill, parallel to which,
+along the opposite side of a winding river, rose the dark steeps of a
+corresponding upland, covered with forest that looked awful and dim in the
+deep shadow, while the moonlight rippled fitfully upon the stream beneath.
+
+'It seems to be a beautiful country,' I said to Mary Quince, who was
+munching a sandwich in the corner, and thus appealed to, adjusted her
+bonnet, and made an inspection from _her_ window, which, however, commanded
+nothing but the heathy slope of the hill whose side we were traversing.
+
+'Well, Miss, I suppose it is; but there's a deal o' mountains--is not
+there?'
+
+And so saying, honest Mary leaned back again, and went on with her
+sandwich.
+
+We were now descending at a great pace. I knew we were coming near. I stood
+up as well as I could in the carriage, to see over the postilions' heads.
+I was eager, but frightened too; agitated as the crisis of the arrival and
+meeting approached. At last, a long stretch of comparatively level
+country below us, with masses of wood as well as I could see irregularly
+overspreading it, became visible as the narrow valley through which we were
+speeding made a sudden bend.
+
+Down we drove, and now I did perceive a change. A great grass-grown
+park-wall, overtopped with mighty trees; but still on and on we came at a
+canter that seemed almost a gallop. The old grey park-wall flanking us at
+one side, and a pretty pastoral hedgerow of ash-trees, irregularly on the
+other.
+
+At last the postilions began to draw bridle, and at a slight angle, the
+moon shining full upon them, we wheeled into a wide semicircle formed by
+the receding park-walls, and halted before a great fantastic iron gate, and
+a pair of tall fluted piers, of white stone, all grass-grown and ivy-bound,
+with great cornices, surmounted with shields and supporters, the Ruthyn
+bearings washed by the rains of Derbyshire for many a generation of
+Ruthyns, almost smooth by this time, and looking bleached and phantasmal,
+like giant sentinels, with each a hand clasped in his comrade's, to bar
+our passage to the enchanted castle--the florid tracery of the iron gate
+showing like the draperies of white robes hanging from their extended arms
+to the earth.
+
+Our courier got down and shoved the great gate open, and we entered,
+between sombre files of magnificent forest trees, one of those very broad
+straight avenues whose width measures the front of the house. This was all
+built of white stone, resembling that of Caen, which parts of Derbyshire
+produce in such abundance.
+
+So this was Bartram, and here was Uncle Silas. I was almost breathless as
+I approached. The bright moon shining full on the white front of the old
+house revealed not only its highly decorated style, its fluted pillars and
+doorway, rich and florid carving, and balustraded summit, but also its
+stained and moss-grown front. Two giant trees, overthrown at last by the
+recent storm, lay with their upturned roots, and their yellow foliage still
+flickering on the sprays that were to bloom no more, where they had fallen,
+at the right side of the court-yard, which, like the avenue, was studded
+with tufted weeds and grass.
+
+All this gave to the aspect of Bartram a forlorn character of desertion and
+decay, contrasting almost awfully with the grandeur of its proportions and
+richness of its architecture.
+
+There was a ruddy glow from a broad window in the second row, and I thought
+I saw some one peep from it and disappear; at the same moment there was a
+furious barking of dogs, some of whom ran scampering into the court-yard
+from a half-closed side door; and amid their uproar, the bawling of the man
+in the back seat, who jumped down to drive them off, and the crack of
+the postilions' whips, who struck at them, we drew up before the lordly
+door-steps of this melancholy mansion.
+
+Just as our attendant had his hand on the knocker the door opened, and we
+saw, by a not very brilliant candle-light, three figures--a shabby little
+old man, thin, and very much stooped, with a white cravat, and looking as
+if his black clothes were too large, and made for some one else, stood with
+his hand upon the door; a young, plump, but very pretty female figure, in
+unusually short petticoats, with fattish legs, and nice ankles, in boots,
+stood in the centre; and a dowdy maid, like an old charwoman, behind her.
+
+The household paraded for welcome was not certainly very brilliant. Amid
+the riot the trunks were deliberately put down by our attendant, who kept
+shouting to the old man at the door, and to the dogs in turn; and the old
+man was talking and pointing stiffly and tremulously, but I could not hear
+what he said.
+
+'Was it possible--could that mean-looking old man be Uncle Silas?'
+
+The idea stunned me; but I almost instantly perceived that he was much too
+small, and I was relieved, and even grateful. It was certainly an odd mode
+of procedure to devote primary attention to the trunks and boxes, leaving
+the travellers still shut up in the carriage, of which they were by this
+time pretty well tired. I was not sorry for the reprieve, however: being
+nervous about first impressions, and willing to defer mine, I sat shyly
+back, peeping at the candle and moonlight picture before me, myself unseen.
+
+'Will you tell--yes or no--is my cousin in the coach?' screamed the plump
+young lady, stamping her stout black boot, in a momentary lull.
+
+Yes, I was there, sure.
+
+'And why the puck don't you let her out, you stupe, you?'
+
+'Run down, Giblets, you never do nout without driving, and let Cousin Maud
+out. You're very welcome to Bartram.' This greeting was screamed at an
+amazing pitch, and repeated before I had time to drop the window, and say
+'thank you.' 'I'd a let you out myself--there's a good dog, you would na'
+bite Cousin' (the parenthesis was to a huge mastiff, who thrust himself
+beside her, by this time quite pacified)--'only I daren't go down the
+steps, for the governor said I shouldn't.'
+
+The venerable person who went by the name of Giblets had by this time
+opened the carriage door, and our courier, or 'boots'--he looked more like
+the latter functionary--had lowered the steps, and in greater trepidation
+than I experienced when in after-days I was presented to my sovereign,
+I glided down, to offer myself to the greeting and inspection of the
+plain-spoken young lady who stood at the top of the steps to receive me.
+
+She welcomed me with a hug and a hearty buss, as she called that
+salutation, on each cheek, and pulled me into the hall, and was evidently
+glad to see me.
+
+'And you're tired a bit, I warrant; and who's the old 'un, who?' she asked
+eagerly, in a stage whisper, which made my ear numb for five minutes after.
+'Oh, oh, the maid! and a precious old 'un--ha, ha, ha! But lawk! how grand
+she is, with her black silk, cloak and crape, and I only in twilled cotton,
+and rotten old Coburg for Sundays. Odds! it's a shame; but you'll be tired,
+you will. It's a smartish pull, they do say, from Knowl. I know a spell of
+it, only so far as the "Cat and Fiddle," near the Lunnon-road. Come up,
+will you? Would you like to come in first and talk a bit wi' the governor?
+Father, you know, he's a bit silly, he is, this while.' I found that
+the phrase meant only _bodily_ infirmity. 'He took a pain o' Friday,
+newralgie--something or other he calls it--rheumatics it is when it takes
+old "Giblets" there; and he's sitting in his own room; or maybe you'd like
+better to come to your bedroom first, for it is dirty work travelling, they
+do say.'
+
+Yes; I preferred the preliminary adjustment. Mary Quince was standing
+behind me; and as my voluble kinswoman talked on, we had each ample time
+and opportunity to observe the personnel of the other; and she made no
+scruple of letting me perceive that she was improving it, for she stared me
+full in the face, taking in evidently feature after feature; and she felt
+the material of my mantle pretty carefully between her finger and thumb,
+and manually examined my chain and trinkets, and picked up my hand as she
+might a glove, to con over my rings.
+
+I can't say, of course, exactly what impression I may have produced on her.
+But in my cousin Milly I saw a girl who looked younger than her years,
+plump, but with a slender waist, with light hair, lighter than mine, and
+very blue eyes, rather round; on the whole very good-looking. She had an
+odd swaggering walk, a toss of her head, and a saucy and imperious, but
+rather good-natured and honest countenance. She talked rather loud, with a
+good ringing voice, and a boisterous laugh when it came.
+
+If _I_ was behind the fashion, what would Cousin Monica have thought of
+her? She was arrayed, as she had stated, in black twilled cotton expressive
+of her affliction; but it was made almost as short in the skirt as that of
+the prints of the Bavarian broom girls. She had white cotton stockings,
+and a pair of black leather boots, with leather buttons, and, for a lady,
+prodigiously thick soles, which reminded me of the navvy boots I had so
+often admired in _Punch_. I must add that the hands with which she assisted
+her scrutiny of my dress, though pretty, were very much sunburnt indeed.
+
+'And what's _her_ name?' she demanded, nodding to Mary Quince, who was
+gazing on her awfully, with round eyes, as an inland spinster might upon a
+whale beheld for the first time.
+
+Mary courtesied, and I answered.
+
+'Mary Quince,' she repeated. 'You're welcome, Quince. What shall I call
+her? I've a name for all o' them. Old Giles there, is Giblets. He did not
+like it first, but he answers quick enough now; and Old Lucy Wyat there,'
+nodding toward the old woman, 'is Lucia de l'Amour.' A slightly erroneous
+reading of Lammermoor, for my cousin sometimes made mistakes, and was not
+much versed in the Italian opera. 'You know it's a play, and I call her
+L'Amour for shortness;' and she laughed hilariously, and I could not
+forbear joining; and, winking at me, she called aloud, 'L'Amour.'
+
+To which the crone, with a high-cauled cap, resembling Mother Hubbard,
+responded with a courtesy and 'Yes, 'm.'
+
+'Are all the trunks and boxes took up?'
+
+They were.
+
+'Well, we'll come now; and what shall I call you, Quince? Let me see.'
+
+'According to your pleasure, Miss,' answered Mary, with dignity, and a dry
+courtesy.
+
+'Why, you're as hoarse as a frog, Quince. We'll call you Quinzy for the
+present. That'll do. Come along, Quinzy.'
+
+So my Cousin Milly took me under the arm, and pulled me forward; but as we
+ascended, she let me go, leaning back to make inspection of my attire from
+a new point of view.
+
+'Hallo, cousin,' she cried, giving my dress a smack with her open hand.
+'What a plague do you want of all that bustle; you'll leave it behind,
+lass, the first bush you jump over.'
+
+I was a good deal astounded. I was also very near laughing, for there was
+a sort of importance in her plump countenance, and an indescribable
+grotesqueness in the fashion of her garments, which heightened the
+outlandishness of her talk, in a way which I cannot at all describe.
+
+What palatial wide stairs those were which we ascended, with their
+prodigious carved banisters of oak, and each huge pillar on the
+landing-place crowned with a shield and carved heraldic supporters; florid
+oak panelling covered the walls. But of the house I could form no estimate,
+for Uncle Silas's housekeeping did not provide light for hall and passages,
+and we were dependent on the glimmer of a single candle; but there would be
+quite enough of this kind of exploration in the daylight.
+
+So along dark oak flooring we advanced to my room, and I had now an
+opportunity of admiring, at my leisure, the lordly proportions of the
+building. Two great windows, with dark and tarnished curtains, rose half as
+high again as the windows of Knowl; and yet Knowl, in its own style, is a
+fine house. The door-frames, like the window-frames, were richly carved;
+the fireplace was in the same massive style, and the mantelpiece projected
+with a mass of very rich carving. On the whole I was surprised. I had never
+slept in so noble a room before.
+
+The furniture, I must confess, was by no means on a par with the
+architectural pretensions of the apartment. A French bed, a piece of carpet
+about three yards square, a small table, two chairs, a toilet table--no
+wardrobe--no chest of drawers. The furniture painted white, and of the
+light and diminutive kind, was particularly ill adapted to the scale and
+style of the apartment, one end only of which it occupied, and that but
+sparsely, leaving the rest of the chamber in the nakedness of a stately
+desolation. My cousin Milly ran away to report progress to 'the Governor,'
+as she termed Uncle Silas.
+
+'Well, Miss Maud, I never did expect to see the like o' that!' exclaimed
+honest Mary Quince, 'Did you ever see such a young lady? She's no more like
+one o' the family than I am. Law bless us! and what's she dressed like?
+Well, well, well!' And Mary, with a rueful shake of her head, clicked her
+tongue pathetically to the back of her teeth, while I could not forbear
+laughing.
+
+'And such a scrap o' furniture! Well, well, well!' and the same ticking of
+the tongue followed.
+
+But, in a few minutes, back came Cousin Milly, and, with a barbarous
+sort of curiosity, assisted in unpacking my trunks, and stowing away the
+treasures, on which she ventured a variety of admiring criticisms, in the
+presses which, like cupboards, filled recesses in the walls, with great oak
+doors, the keys of which were in them.
+
+As I was making my hurried toilet, she entertained me now and then with
+more strictly personal criticisms.
+
+'Your hair's a shade darker than mine--it's none the better o' that
+though--is it? Mine's said to be the right shade. I don't know--what do you
+say?'
+
+I conceded the point with a good grace.
+
+'I wish my hands was as white though--you do lick me there; but it's all
+gloves, and I never could abide 'em. I think I'll try though--they _are_
+very white, sure.'
+
+'I wonder which is the prettiest, you or me? _I_ don't know, _I_'m
+sure--which do _you_ think?'
+
+I laughed outright at this challenge, and she blushed a little, and for the
+first time seemed for a moment a little shy.
+
+'Well, you _are_ a half an inch longer than me, I think--don't you?'
+
+I was fully an inch taller, so I had no difficulty in making the proposed
+admission.
+
+'Well, you do look handsome! doesn't she, Quinzy, lass? but your frock
+comes down almost to your heels--it does.'
+
+And she glanced from mine to hers, and made a little kick up with the heel
+of the navvy boot to assist her in measuring the comparative distance.
+
+'Maybe mine's a thought too short?' she suggested. 'Who's there? Oh! it's
+you, is it?' she cried as Mother Hubbard appeared at the door. 'Come in,
+L'Amour--don't you know, lass, you're always welcome?'
+
+She had come to let us know that Uncle Silas would be happy to see me
+whenever I was ready; and that my cousin Millicent would conduct me to the
+room where he awaited me.
+
+In an instant all the comic sensations awakened by my singular cousin's
+eccentricities vanished, and I was thrilled with awe. I was about to see
+in the flesh--faded, broken, aged, but still identical--that being who had
+been the vision and the problem of so many years of my short life.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+_UNCLE SILAS_
+
+
+I thought my odd cousin was also impressed with a kind of awe, though
+different in degree from mine, for a shade overcast her face, and she was
+silent as we walked side by side along the gallery, accompanied by the
+crone who carried the candle which lighted us to the door of that apartment
+which I may call Uncle Silas's presence chamber.
+
+Milly whispered to me as we approached--
+
+'Mind how you make a noise; the governor's as sharp as a weasel, and
+nothing vexes him like that.'
+
+She was herself toppling along on tiptoe. We paused at a door near the head
+of the great staircase, and L'Amour knocked timidly with her rheumatic
+knuckles.
+
+A voice, clear and penetrating, from within summoned us to enter. The old
+woman opened the door, and the next moment I was in the presence of Uncle
+Silas.
+
+At the far end of a handsome wainscoted room, near the hearth in which a
+low fire was burning, beside a small table on which stood four waxlights,
+in tall silver candlesticks, sat a singular-looking old man.
+
+The dark wainscoting behind him, and the vastness of the room, in the
+remoter parts of which the light which fell strongly upon his face and
+figure expended itself with hardly any effect, exhibited him with the
+forcible and strange relief of a finely painted Dutch portrait. For some
+time I saw nothing but him.
+
+A face like marble, with a fearful monumental look, and, for an old man,
+singularly vivid strange eyes, the singularity of which rather grew upon me
+as I looked; for his eyebrows were still black, though his hair descended
+from his temples in long locks of the purest silver and fine as silk,
+nearly to his shoulders.
+
+He rose, tall and slight, a little stooped, all in black, with an ample
+black velvet tunic, which was rather a gown than a coat, with loose
+sleeves, showing his snowy shirt some way up the arm, and a pair of wrist
+buttons, then quite out of fashion, which glimmered aristocratically with
+diamonds.
+
+I know I can't convey in words an idea of this apparition, drawn as it
+seemed in black and white, venerable, bloodless, fiery-eyed, with its
+singular look of power, and an expression so bewildering--was it derision,
+or anguish, or cruelty, or patience?
+
+The wild eyes of this strange old man were fixed upon me as he rose; an
+habitual contraction, which in certain lights took the character of a
+scowl, did not relax as he advanced toward me with his thin-lipped smile.
+He said something in his clear, gentle, but cold voice, the import of
+which I was too much agitated to catch, and he took both my hands in his,
+welcomed me with a courtly grace which belonged to another age, and led me
+affectionately, with many inquiries which I only half comprehended, to a
+chair near his own.
+
+'I need not introduce my daughter; she has saved me that mortification.
+You'll find her, I believe, good-natured and affectionate; _au reste_, I
+fear a very rustic Miranda, and fitted rather for the society of Caliban
+than of a sick old Prospero. Is it not so, Millicent?'
+
+The old man paused sarcastically for an answer, with his eyes fixed
+severely on my odd cousin, who blushed and looked uneasily to me for a
+hint.
+
+'I don't know who they be--neither one nor t'other.'
+
+'Very good, my dear,' he replied, with a little mocking bow. 'You see, my
+dear Maud, what a Shakespearean you have got for a cousin. It's plain,
+however, she has made acquaintance with some of our dramatists: she has
+studied the rôle of _Miss Hoyden_ so perfectly.'
+
+It was not a reasonable peculiarity of my uncle that he resented, with a
+good deal of playful acrimony, my poor cousin's want of education, for
+which, if he were not to blame, certainly neither was she.
+
+'You see her, poor thing, a result of all the combined disadvantages of
+want of refined education, refined companionship, and, I fear, naturally,
+of refined tastes; but a sojourn at a good French conventual school will
+do wonders, and I hope to manage by-and-by. In the meantime we jest at our
+misfortunes, and love one another, I hope, cordially.'
+
+He extended his thin, white hand with a chilly smile towards Milly, who
+bounced up, and took it with a frightened look; and he repeated, holding
+her hand rather slightly I thought, 'Yes, I hope, very cordially,' and then
+turning again to me, he put it over the arm of his chair, and let it go, as
+a man might drop something he did not want from a carriage window.
+
+Having made this apology for poor Milly, who was plainly bewildered, he
+passed on, to her and my relief, to other topics, every now and then
+expressing his fears that I was fatigued, and his anxiety that I should
+partake of some supper or tea; but these solicitudes somehow seemed to
+escape his remembrance almost as soon as uttered; and he maintained the
+conversation, which soon degenerated into a close, and to me a painful
+examination, respecting my dear father's illness and its symptoms, upon
+which I could give no information, and his habits, upon which I could.
+
+Perhaps he fancied that there might be some family predisposition to the
+organic disease of which his brother died, and that his questions were
+directed rather to the prolonging of his own life than to the better
+understanding of my dear father's death.
+
+How little was there left to this old man to make life desirable, and yet
+how keenly, I afterwards found, he clung to it. Have we not all of us seen
+those to whom life was not only _undesirable_, but positively painful--a
+mere series of bodily torments, yet hold to it with a desperate and
+pitiable tenacity--old children or young, it is all the same.
+
+See how a sleepy child will put off the inevitable departure for bed. The
+little creature's eyes blink and stare, and it needs constant jogging to
+prevent his nodding off into the slumber which nature craves. His waking is
+a pain; he is quite worn out, and peevish, and stupid, and yet he implores
+a respite, and deprecates repose, and vows he is not sleepy, even to the
+moment when his mother takes him in her arms, and carries him, in a sweet
+slumber, to the nursery. So it is with us old children of earth and the
+great sleep of death, and nature our kind mother. Just so reluctantly we
+part with consciousness, the picture is, even to the last, so interesting;
+the bird in the hand, though sick and moulting, so inestimably better than
+all the brilliant tenants of the bush. We sit up, yawning, and blinking,
+and stupid, the whole scene swimming before us, and the stories and music
+humming off into the sound of distant winds and waters. It is not time yet;
+we are not fatigued; we are good for another hour still, and so protesting
+against bed, we falter and drop into the dreamless sleep which nature
+assigns to fatigue and satiety.
+
+He then spoke a little eulogy of his brother, very polished, and,
+indeed, in a kind of way, eloquent. He possessed in a high degree that
+accomplishment, too little cultivated, I think, by the present generation,
+of expressing himself with perfect precision and fluency. There was, too,
+a good deal of slight illustrative quotation, and a sprinkling of French
+flowers, over his conversation, which gave to it a character at once
+elegant and artificial. It was all easy, light, and pointed, and being
+quite new to me, had a wonderful fascination.
+
+He then told me that Bartram was the temple of liberty, that the health of
+a whole life was founded in a few years of youth, air, and exercise, and
+that accomplishments, at least, if not education, should wait upon health.
+Therefore, while at Bartram, I should dispose of my time quite as I
+pleased, and the more I plundered the garden and gipsied in the woodlands,
+the better.
+
+Then he told me what a miserable invalid he was, and how the doctors
+interfered with his frugal tastes. A glass of beer and a mutton chop--his
+ideal of a dinner--he dared not touch. They made him drink light wines,
+which he detested, and live upon those artificial abominations all liking
+for which vanishes with youth.
+
+There stood on a side-table, in its silver coaster, a long-necked Rhenish
+bottle, and beside it a thin pink glass, and he quivered his fingers in a
+peevish way toward them.
+
+But unless he found himself better very soon, he would take his case into
+his own hands, and try the dietary to which nature pointed.
+
+He waved his fingers toward his bookcases, and told me his books were
+altogether at my service during my stay; but this promise ended, I must
+confess, disappointingly. At last, remarking that I must be fatigued, he
+rose, and kissed me with a solemn tenderness, placed his hand upon what I
+now perceived to be a large Bible, with two broad silk markers, red and
+gold, folded in it--the one, I might conjecture, indicating the place in
+the Old, the other in the New Testament. It stood on the small table that
+supported the waxlights, with a handsome cut bottle of eau-de-cologne, his
+gold and jewelled pencil-case, and his chased repeater, chain, and seals,
+beside it. There certainly were no indications of poverty in Uncle Silas's
+room; and he said impressively--
+
+'Remember that book; in it your father placed his trust, in it he found his
+reward, in it lives my only hope; consult it, my beloved niece, day and
+night, as the oracle of life.'
+
+Then he laid his thin hand on my head, and blessed me, and then kissed my
+forehead.
+
+'No--a!' exclaimed Cousin Milly's lusty voice. I had quite forgotten her
+presence, and looked at her with a little start. She was seated on a very
+high old-fashioned chair; she had palpably been asleep; her round eyes were
+blinking and staring glassily at us; and her white legs and navvy boots
+were dangling in the air.
+
+'Have you anything to remark about Noah?' enquired her father, with a
+polite inclination and an ironical interest.
+
+'No--a,' she repeated in the same blunt accents; 'I didn't snore; did I?
+No--a.'
+
+The old man smiled and shrugged a little at me--it was the smile of
+disgust.
+
+'Good night, my dear Maud;' and turning to her, he said, with a peculiar
+gentle sharpness, 'Had not you better wake, my dear, and try whether your
+cousin would like some supper?'
+
+So he accompanied us to the door, outside which we found L'Amour's candle
+awaiting us.
+
+'I'm awful afraid of the Governor, I am. Did I snore that time?'
+
+'No, dear; at least, I did not hear it,' I said, unable to repress a smile.
+
+'Well, if I didn't, I was awful near it,' she said, reflectively.
+
+We found poor Mary Quince dozing over the fire; but we soon had tea and
+other good things, of which Milly partook with a wonderful appetite.
+
+'I _was_ in a qualm about it,' said Milly, who by this time was quite
+herself again. 'When he spies me a-napping, maybe he don't fetch me a prod
+with his pencil-case over the head. Odd! girl, it _is_ sore.'
+
+When I contrasted the refined and fluent old gentleman whom I had just
+left, with this amazing specimen of young ladyhood, I grew sceptical almost
+as to the possibility of her being his child.
+
+I was to learn, however, how little she had, I won't say of his society,
+but even of his presence--that she had no domestic companion of the least
+pretensions to education--that she ran wild about the place--never, except
+in church, so much as saw a person of that rank to which she was born--and
+that the little she knew of reading and writing had been picked up, in
+desultory half-hours, from a person who did not care a pin about her
+manners or decorum, and perhaps rather enjoyed her grotesqueness--and that
+no one who was willing to take the least trouble about her was competent
+to make her a particle more refined than I saw her--the wonder ceased. We
+don't know how little is heritable, and how much simply training, until we
+encounter some-such spectacle as that of my poor cousin Milly.
+
+When I lay down in my bed and reviewed the day, it seemed like a month of
+wonders. Uncle Silas was always before me; the voice so silvery for an old
+man--so preternaturally soft; the manners so sweet, so gentle; the aspect,
+smiling, suffering, spectral. It was no longer a shadow; I had now seen
+him in the flesh. But, after all, was he more than a shadow to me? When I
+closed my eyes I saw him before me still, in necromantic black, ashy with a
+pallor on which I looked with fear and pain, a face so dazzlingly pale,
+and those hollow, fiery, awful eyes! It sometimes seemed as if the curtain
+opened, and I had seen a ghost.
+
+I had seen him; but he was still an enigma and a marvel. The living face
+did not expound the past, any more than the portrait portended the future.
+He was still a mystery and a vision; and thinking of these things I fell
+asleep.
+
+Mary Quince, who slept in the dressing-room, the door of which was close
+to my bed, and lay open to secure me against ghosts, called me up; and the
+moment I knew where I was I jumped up, and peeped eagerly from the window.
+It commanded the avenue and court-yard; but we were many windows removed
+from that over the hall-door, and immediately beneath ours lay the two
+giant lime trees, prostrate and uprooted, which I had observed as we drove
+up the night before.
+
+I saw more clearly in the bright light of morning the signs of neglect and
+almost of dilapidation which had struck me as I approached. The court-yard
+was tufted over with grass, seldom from year to year crushed by the
+carriage-wheels, or trodden by the feet of visitors. This melancholy
+verdure thickened where the area was more remote from the centre; and under
+the windows, and skirting the walls to the left, was reinforced by a thick
+grove of nettles. The avenue was all grass-grown, except in the very
+centre, where a narrow track still showed the roadway. The handsome carved
+balustrade of the court-yard was discoloured with lichens, and in two
+places gapped and broken; and the air of decay was heightened by the fallen
+trees, among whose sprays and yellow leaves the small birds were hopping.
+
+Before my toilet was completed, in marched my cousin Milly. We were to
+breakfast alone that morning, 'and so much the better,' she told me.
+Sometimes the Governor ordered her to breakfast with him, and 'never left
+off chaffing her' till his newspaper came, and 'sometimes he said such
+things he made her cry,' and then he only 'boshed her more,' and packed her
+away to her room; but she was by chalks nicer than him, talk as he might.
+'_Was_ not she nicer? was not she? was not she?' Upon this point she was so
+strong and urgent that I was obliged to reply by a protest against awarding
+the palm of elegance between parent and child, and declaring I liked her
+very much, which I attested by a kiss.
+
+'I know right well which of us you do think's the nicest, and no mistake,
+only you're afraid of him; and he had no business boshing me last night
+before you. I knew he was at it, though I couldn't twig him altogether; but
+wasn't he a sneak, now, wasn't he?'
+
+This was a still more awkward question; so I kissed her again, and said she
+must never ask me to say of my uncle in his absence anything I could not
+say to his face.
+
+At which speech she stared at me for a while, and then treated me to one of
+her hearty laughs, after which she seemed happier, and gradually grew into
+better humour with her father.
+
+'Sometimes, when the curate calls, he has me up--for he's as religious as
+six, he is--and they read Bible and prays, ho--don't they? You'll have
+that, lass, like me, to go through; and maybe I don't hate it; oh, no!'
+
+We breakfasted in a small room, almost a closet, off the great parlour,
+which was evidently quite disused. Nothing could be homelier than our
+equipage, or more shabby than the furniture of the little apartment. Still,
+somehow, I liked it. It was a total change; but one likes 'roughing it' a
+little at first.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+_THE WINDMILL WOOD_
+
+
+I had not time to explore this noble old house as my curiosity prompted;
+for Milly was in such a fuss to set out for the 'blackberry dell' that I
+saw little more than just so much as I necessarily traversed in making my
+way to and from my room.
+
+The actual decay of the house had been prevented by my dear father; and
+the roof, windows, masonry, and carpentry had all been kept in repair.
+But short of indications of actual ruin, there are many manifestations of
+poverty and neglect which impress with a feeling of desolation. It was
+plain that not nearly a tithe of this great house was inhabited; long
+corridors and galleries stretched away in dust and silence, and were
+crossed by others, whose dark arches inspired me in the distance with an
+awful sort of sadness. It was plainly one of those great structures in
+which you might easily lose yourself, and with a pleasing terror it
+reminded me of that delightful old abbey in Mrs. Radcliffe's romance, among
+whose silent staircases, dim passages, and long suites of lordly, but
+forsaken chambers, begirt without by the sombre forest, the family of La
+Mote secured a gloomy asylum.
+
+My cousin Milly and I, however, were bent upon an open-air ramble, and
+traversing several passages, she conducted me to a door which led us out
+upon a terrace overgrown with weeds, and by a broad flight of steps we
+descended to the level of the grounds beneath. Then on, over the short
+grass, under the noble trees, we walked; Milly in high good-humour,
+and talking away volubly, in her short garment, navvy boots, and a
+weather-beaten hat. She carried a stick in her gloveless hand. Her
+conversation was quite new to me, and resembled very much what I would have
+fancied the holiday recollections of a schoolboy; and the language in which
+it was sustained was sometimes so outlandish, that I was forced to laugh
+outright--a demonstration which she plainly did not like.
+
+Her talk was about the great jumps she had made--how she 'snow-balled the
+chaps' in winter--how she could slide twice the length of her stick beyond
+'Briddles, the cow-boy.'
+
+With this and similar conversation she entertained me.
+
+The grounds were delightfully wild and neglected. But we had now passed
+into a vast park beautifully varied with hollows and uplands, and such
+glorious old timber massed and scattered over its slopes and levels. Among
+these, we got at last into a picturesque dingle; the grey rocks peeped from
+among the ferns and wild flowers, and the steps of soft sward along its
+sides were dark in the shadows of silver-stemmed birch, and russet thorn,
+and oak, under which, in the vaporous night, the Erl-king and his daughter
+might glide on their aërial horses.
+
+In the lap of this pleasant dell were the finest blackberry bushes, I
+think, I ever saw, bearing fruit quite fabulous; and plucking these, and
+chatting, we rambled on very pleasantly.
+
+I had first thought of Milly's absurdities, to which, in description, I
+cannot do justice, simply because so many details have, by distance
+of time, escaped my recollection. But her ways and her talk were so
+indescribably grotesque that she made me again and again quiver with
+suppressed laughter.
+
+But there was a pitiable and even a melancholy meaning underlying the
+burlesque.
+
+This creature, with no more education than a dairy-maid, I gradually
+discovered had fine natural aptitudes for accomplishment--a very sweet
+voice, and wonderfully delicate ear, and a talent for drawing which quite
+threw mine into the shade. It was really astonishing.
+
+Poor Milly, in all her life, had never read three books, and hated to
+think of them. One, over which she was wont to yawn and sigh, and stare
+fatiguedly for an hour every Sunday, by command of the Governor, was a
+stout volume of sermons of the earlier school of George III., and a drier
+collection you can't fancy. I don't think she read anything else. But she
+had, notwithstanding, ten times the cleverness of half the circulating
+library misses one meets with. Besides all this, I had a long sojourn
+before me at Bartram-Haugh, and I had learned from Milly, as I had heard
+before, what a perennial solitude it was, with a ludicrous fear of learning
+Milly's preposterous dialect, and turning at last into something like her.
+So I resolved to do all I could for her--teach her whatever I knew, if she
+would allow me--and gradually, if possible, effect some civilising changes
+in her language, and, as they term it in boarding-schools, her demeanour.
+
+But I must pursue at present our first day's ramble in what was called
+Bartram Chase. People can't go on eating blackberries always; so after a
+while we resumed our walk along this pretty dell, which gradually expanded
+into a wooded valley--level beneath and enclosed by irregular uplands,
+receding, as it were, in mimic bays and harbours at some points, and
+running out at others into broken promontories, ending in clumps of forest
+trees.
+
+Just where the glen which we had been traversing expanded into this broad,
+but wooded valley, it was traversed by a high and close paling, which,
+although it looked decayed, was still very strong.
+
+In this there was a wooden gate, rudely but strongly constructed, and at
+the side we were approaching stood a girl, who was leaning against the
+post, with one arm resting on the top of the gate.
+
+This girl was neither tall nor short--taller than she looked at a distance;
+she had not a slight waist; sooty black was her hair, with a broad
+forehead, perpendicular but low; she had a pair of very fine, dark,
+lustrous eyes, and no other good feature--unless I may so call her teeth,
+which were very white and even. Her face was rather short, and swarthy as
+a gipsy's; observant and sullen too; and she did not move, only eyed us
+negligently from under her dark lashes as we drew near. Altogether a not
+unpicturesque figure, with a dusky, red petticoat of drugget, and tattered
+jacket of bottle-green stuff, with short sleeves, which showed her brown
+arms from the elbow.
+
+'That's Pegtop's daughter,' said Milly.
+
+'Who is Pegtop?' I asked.
+
+'He's the miller--see, yonder it is,' and she pointed to a very pretty
+feature in the landscape, a windmill, crowning the summit of a hillock
+which rose suddenly above the level of the treetops, like an island in the
+centre of the valley.
+
+'The mill not going to-day, Beauty?' bawled Milly.
+
+'No--a, Beauty; it baint,' replied the girl, loweringly, and without
+stirring.
+
+'And what's gone with the stile?' demanded Milly, aghast. 'It's tore away
+from the paling!'
+
+'Well, so it be,' replied the wood nymph in the red petticoat, showing her
+fine teeth with a lazy grin.
+
+'Who's a bin and done all that?' demanded Milly.
+
+'Not you nor me, lass,' said the girl.
+
+''Twas old Pegtop, your father, did it,' cried Milly, in rising wrath.
+
+''Appen it wor,' she replied.
+
+'And the gate locked.'
+
+'That's it--the gate locked,' she repeated, sulkily, with a defiant
+side-glance at Milly.
+
+'And where's Pegtop?'
+
+'At t'other side, somewhere; how should I know where he be?' she replied.
+
+'Who's got the key?'
+
+'Here it be, lass,' she answered, striking her hand on her pocket. 'And how
+durst you stay us here? Unlock it, huzzy, this minute!' cried Milly, with a
+stamp.
+
+Her answer was a sullen smile.
+
+'Open the gate this instant!' bawled Milly.
+
+'Well, I _won't._'
+
+I expected that Milly would have flown into a frenzy at this direct
+defiance, but she looked instead puzzled and curious--the girl's unexpected
+audacity bewildered her.
+
+'Why, you fool, I could get over the paling as soon as look at you, but I
+won't. What's come over you? Open the gate, I say, or I'll make you.'
+
+'Do let her alone, dear,' I entreated, fearing a mutual assault. 'She has
+been ordered, may be, not to open it. Is it so, my good girl?'
+
+'Well, thou'rt not the biggest fool o' the two,' she observed,
+commendatively, 'thou'st hit it, lass.'
+
+'And who ordered you?' exclaimed Milly.
+
+'Fayther.'
+
+'Old Pegtop. Well, _that's_ summat to laugh at, it is--our servant
+a-shutting us out of our own grounds.'
+
+'No servant o' yourn!'
+
+'Come, lass, what do you mean?'
+
+'He be old Silas's miller, and what's that to thee?'
+
+With these words the girl made a spring on the hasp of the padlock, and
+then got easily over the gate.
+
+'Can't you do that, cousin?' whispered Milly to me, with an impatient
+nudge. 'I _wish_ you'd try.'
+
+'No, dear--come away, Milly,' and I began to withdraw.
+
+'Lookee, lass, 'twill be an ill day's work for thee when I tell the
+Governor,' said Milly, addressing the girl, who stood on a log of timber at
+the other side, regarding us with a sullen composure.
+
+'We'll be over in spite o' you,' cried Milly.
+
+'You lie!' answered she.
+
+'And why not, huzzy?' demanded my cousin, who was less incensed at the
+affront than I expected. All this time I was urging Milly in vain to come
+away.
+
+'Yon lass is no wild cat, like thee--that's why,' said the sturdy portress.
+
+'If I cross, I'll give you a knock,' said Milly.
+
+'And I'll gi' thee another,' she answered, with a vicious wag of the head.
+
+'Come, Milly, _I'll_ go if _you_ don't,' I said.
+
+'But we must not be beat,' whispered she, vehemently, catching my arm; 'and
+ye _shall_ get over, and _see_ what I will gi' her!'
+
+'I'll _not_ get over.'
+
+'Then I'll break the door, for ye _shall_ come through,' exclaimed Milly,
+kicking the stout paling with her ponderous boot.
+
+'Purr it, purr it, purr it!' cried the lass in the red petticoat with a
+grin.
+
+'Do you know who this lady is?' cried Milly, suddenly.
+
+'She is a prettier lass than thou,' answered Beauty.
+
+'She's _my_ cousin Maud--Miss Ruthyn of Knowl--and she's a deal richer than
+the Queen; and the Governor's taking care of her; and he'll make old Pegtop
+bring you to reason.'
+
+The girl eyed me with a sulky listlessness, a little inquisitively, I
+thought.
+
+'See if he don't,' threatened Milly.
+
+'You positively _must_ come,' I said, drawing her away with me.
+
+'Well, shall we come in?' cried Milly, trying a last summons.
+
+'You'll not come in that much,' she answered, surlily, measuring an
+infinitesimal distance on her finger with her thumb, which she pinched
+against it, the gesture ending with a snap of defiance, and a smile that
+showed her fine teeth.
+
+'I've a mind to shy a stone at you,' shouted Milly.
+
+'Faire away; I'll shy wi' ye as long as ye like, lass; take heed o'
+yerself;' and Beauty picked up a round stone as large as a cricket ball.
+
+With difficulty I got Milly away without an exchange of missiles, and much
+disgusted at my want of zeal and agility.
+
+'Well, come along, cousin, I know an easy way by the river, when it's low,'
+answered Milly. 'She's a brute--is not she?'
+
+As we receded, we saw the girl slowly wending her way towards the old
+thatched cottage, which showed its gable from the side of a little rugged
+eminence embowered in spreading trees, and dangling and twirling from its
+string on the end of her finger the key for which a battle had so nearly
+been fought.
+
+The stream was low enough to make our flank movement round the end of
+the paling next it quite easy, and so we pursued our way, and Milly's
+equanimity returned, and our ramble grew very pleasant again.
+
+Our path lay by the river bank, and as we proceeded, the dwarf timber was
+succeeded by grander trees, which crowded closer and taller, and, at last,
+the scenery deepened into solemn forest, and a sudden sweep in the river
+revealed the beautiful ruin of a steep old bridge, with the fragments of a
+gate-house on the farther side.
+
+'Oh, Milly darling!' I exclaimed, 'what a beautiful drawing this would
+make! I should so like to make a sketch of it.'
+
+'So it would. _Make_ a picture--_do_!--here's a stone that's pure and flat
+to sit upon, and you look very tired. Do make it, and I'll sit by you.'
+
+'Yes, Milly, I _am_ tired, a little, and I _will_ sit down; but we must
+wait for another day to make the picture, for we have neither pencil
+nor paper. But it is much too pretty to be lost; so let us come again
+to-morrow.'
+
+'To-morrow be hanged! you'll do it to-day, bury-me-wick, but you _shall_;
+I'm wearying to see you make a picture, and I'll fetch your conundrums out
+o' your drawer, for do 't you shall.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+_ZAMIEL_
+
+
+It was all vain my remonstrating. She vowed that by crossing the
+stepping-stones close by she could, by a short cut, reach the house, and
+return with my pencils and block-book in a quarter of an hour. Away then,
+with many a jump and fling, scampered Milly's queer white stockings and
+navvy boots across the irregular and precarious stepping-stones, over which
+I dared not follow her; so I was fain to return to the stone so 'pure
+and flat,' on which I sat, enjoying the grand sylvan solitude, the dark
+background and the grey bridge mid-way, so tall and slim, across whose
+ruins a sunbeam glimmered, and the gigantic forest trees that slumbered
+round, opening here and there in dusky vistas, and breaking in front into
+detached and solemn groups. It was the setting of a dream of romance.
+
+It would have been the very spot in which to read a volume of German
+folk-lore, and the darkening colonnades and silent nooks of the forest
+seemed already haunted with the voices and shadows of those charming elves
+and goblins.
+
+As I sat here enjoying the solitude and my fancies among the low branches
+of the wood, at my right I heard a crashing, and saw a squat broad figure
+in a stained and tattered military coat, and loose short trousers, one limb
+of which flapped about a wooden leg. He was forcing himself through. His
+face was rugged and wrinkled, and tanned to the tint of old oak; his eyes
+black, beadlike, and fierce, and a shock of sooty hair escaped from under
+his battered wide-awake nearly to his shoulders. This forbidding-looking
+person came stumping and jerking along toward me, whisking his stick now
+and then viciously in the air, and giving his fell of hair a short shake,
+like a wild bull preparing to attack.
+
+I stood up involuntarily with a sense of fear and surprise, almost fancying
+I saw in that wooden-legged old soldier, the forest demon who haunted Der
+Freischütz.
+
+So he approached shouting--
+
+'Hollo! you--how came you here? Dost 'eer?'
+
+And he drew near panting, and sometimes tugging angrily in his haste at his
+wooden leg, which sunk now and then deeper than was convenient in the sod.
+This exertion helped to anger him, and when he halted before me, his dark
+face smirched with smoke and dust, and the nostrils of his flat drooping
+nose expanded and quivered as he panted, like the gills of a fish; an
+angrier or uglier face it would not be easy to fancy.
+
+'Ye'll all come when ye like, will ye? and do nout but what pleases
+yourselves, won't you? And who'rt thou? Dost 'eer--who _are_ ye, I say; and
+what the deil seek ye in the woods here? Come, bestir thee!'
+
+If his wide mouth and great tobacco-stained teeth, his scowl, and loud
+discordant tones were intimidating, they were also extremely irritating.
+The moment my spirit was roused, my courage came.
+
+'I am Miss Ruthyn of Knowl, and Mr. Silas Ruthyn, your master, is my
+uncle.'
+
+'Hoo!' he exclaimed more gently, 'an' if Silas be thy uncle thou'lt be come
+to live wi' him, and thou'rt she as come overnight--eh?'
+
+I made no answer, but I believe I looked both angrily and disdainfully.
+
+'And what make ye alone here? and how was I to know't, an' Milly not wi'
+ye, nor no one? But Maud or no Maud, I wouldn't let the Dooke hisself set
+foot inside the palin' without Silas said let him. And you may tell Silas
+them's the words o' Dickon Hawkes, and I'll stick to 'm--and what's more
+I'll tell him _myself_--I will; I'll tell him there be no use o' my
+striving and straining hee, day an' night and night and day, watchin' again
+poachers, and thieves, and gipsies, and they robbing lads, if rules won't
+be kep, and folk do jist as they pleases. Dang it, lass, thou'rt in luck I
+didn't heave a brick at thee when I saw thee first.'
+
+'I'll complain of you to my uncle,' I replied.
+
+'So do, and and 'appen thou'lt find thyself in the wrong box, lass; thou
+canst na' say I set the dogs arter thee, nor cau'd thee so much as a wry
+name, nor heave a stone at thee--did I? Well? and where's the complaint
+then?'
+
+I simply answered, rather fiercely,
+
+'Be good enough to leave me.'
+
+'Well, I make no objections, mind. I'm takin' thy word--thou'rt Maud
+Ruthyn--'appen thou be'st and 'appen thou baint. I'm not aweer on't, but I
+takes thy word, and all I want to know's just this, did Meg open the gate
+to thee?'
+
+I made him no answer, and to my great relief I saw Milly striding and
+skipping across the unequal stepping-stones.
+
+'Hallo, Pegtop! what are you after now?' she cried, as she drew near.
+
+'This man has been extremely impertinent. You know him, Milly?' I said.
+
+'Why that's Pegtop Dickon. Dirty old Hawkes that never was washed. I tell
+you, lad, ye'll see what the Governor thinks o't--a-ha! He'll talk to you.'
+
+'I done or said nout--not but I _should_, and there's the fack--she can't
+deny't; she hadn't a hard word from I; and I don't care the top o' that
+thistle what no one says--not I. But I tell thee, Milly, I stopped _some_
+o' thy pranks, and I'll stop more. Ye'll be shying no more stones at the
+cattle.'
+
+'Tell your tales, and welcome,' cried Milly. 'I wish I was here when you
+jawed cousin. If Winny was here she'd catch you by the timber toe and put
+you on your back.'
+
+'Ay, she'll be a good un yet if she takes arter thee,' retorted the old man
+with a fierce sneer.
+
+'Drop it, and get away wi' ye,' cried she, 'or maybe I'd call Winny to
+smash your timber leg for you.'
+
+'A-ha! there's more on't. She's a sweet un. Isn't she?' he replied
+sardonically.
+
+'You did not like it last Easter, when Winny broke it with a kick.'
+
+''Twas a kick o' a horse,' he growled with a glance at me.
+
+''Twas no such thing--'twas Winny did it--and he laid on his back for a
+week while carpenter made him a new one.' And Milly laughed hilariously.
+
+'I'll fool no more wi' ye, losing my time; I won't; but mind ye, I'll speak
+wi' Silas.' And going away he put his hand to his crumpled wide-awake, and
+said to me with a surly difference--
+
+'Good evening, Miss Ruthyn--good evening, ma'am--and ye'll please remember,
+I did not mean nout to vex thee.'
+
+And so he swaggered away, jerking and waddling over the sward, and was soon
+lost in the wood.
+
+'It's well he's a little bit frightened--I never saw him so angry, I think;
+he is awful mad.'
+
+'Perhaps he really is not aware how very rude he is,' I suggested.
+
+'I hate him. We were twice as pleasant with poor Tom Driver--he never
+meddled with any one, and was always in liquor; Old Gin was the name he
+went by. But this brute--I do hate him--he comes from Wigan, I think, and
+he's always spoiling sport--and he whops Meg--that's Beauty, you know, and
+I don't think she'd be half as bad only for him. Listen to him whistlin'.'
+
+'I did hear whistling at some distance among the trees.'
+
+'I declare if he isn't callin' the dogs! Climb up here, I tell ye,' and we
+climbed up the slanting trunk of a great walnut tree, and strained our eyes
+in the direction from which we expected the onset of Pegtop's vicious pack.
+
+But it was a false alarm.
+
+'Well, I don't think he _would_ do that, after all--_hardly_; but he is a
+brute, sure!'
+
+'And that dark girl who would not let us through, is his daughter, is she?'
+
+'Yes, that's Meg--Beauty, I christened her, when I called him Beast; but I
+call him Pegtop now, and she's Beauty still, and that's the way o't.'
+
+'Come, sit down now, an' make your picture,' she resumed so soon as we had
+dismounted from our position of security.
+
+'I'm afraid I'm hardly in the vein. I don't think I could draw a straight
+line. My hand trembles.'
+
+'I wish you could, Maud,' said Milly, with a look so wistful and
+entreating, that considering the excursion she had made for the pencils, I
+could not bear to disappoint her.
+
+'Well, Milly, we must only try; and if we fail we can't help it. Sit you
+down beside me and I'll tell you why I begin with one part and not another,
+and you'll see how I make trees and the river, and--yes, _that_ pencil,
+it is hard and answers for the fine light lines; but we must begin at the
+beginning, and learn to copy drawings before we attempt real views like
+this. And if you wish it, Milly, I'm resolved to teach you everything I
+know, which, after all, is not a great deal, and we shall have such fun
+making sketches of the same landscapes, and then comparing.'
+
+And so on, Milly, quite delighted, and longing to begin her course of
+instruction, sat down beside me in a rapture, and hugged and kissed me so
+heartily that we were very near rolling together off the stone on which we
+were seated. Her boisterous delight and good-nature helped to restore me,
+and both laughing heartily together, I commenced my task.
+
+'Dear me! who's that?' I exclaimed suddenly, as looking up from my
+block-book I saw the figure of a slight man in the careless morning-dress
+of a gentleman, crossing the ruinous bridge in our direction, with
+considerable caution, upon the precarious footing of the battlement, which
+alone offered an unbroken passage.
+
+This was a day of apparitions! Milly recognised him instantly. The
+gentleman was Mr. Carysbroke. He had taken The Grange only for a year. He
+lived quite to himself, and was very good to the poor, and was the only
+gentleman, for ever so long, who had visited at Bartram, and oddly enough
+nowhere else. But he wanted leave to cross through the grounds, and having
+obtained it, had repeated his visit, partly induced, no doubt, by the
+fact that Bartram boasted no hospitalities, and that there was no risk of
+meeting the county folk there.
+
+With a stout walking-stick in his hand, and a short shooting-coat, and a
+wide-awake hat in much better trim than Zamiel's, he emerged from the copse
+that covered the bridge, walking at a quick but easy pace.
+
+'He'll be goin' to see old Snoddles, I guess,' said Milly, looking a little
+frightened and curious; for Milly, I need not say, was a bumpkin, and stood
+in awe of this gentleman's good-breeding, though she was as brave as a
+lion, and would have fought the Philistines at any odds, with the jawbone
+of an ass.
+
+''Appen he won't see us,' whispered Milly, hopefully.
+
+But he did, and raising his hat, with a cheerful smile, that showed very
+white teeth, he paused.
+
+'Charming day, Miss Ruthyn.'
+
+I raised my head suddenly as he spoke, from habit appropriating the
+address; it was so marked that he raised his hat respectfully to me, and
+then continued to Milly--
+
+'Mr. Ruthyn, I hope, quite well? but I need hardly ask, you seem so happy.
+Will you kindly tell him, that I expect the book I mentioned in a day or
+two, and when it comes I'll either send or bring it to him immediately?'
+
+Milly and I were standing, by this time, but she only stared at him,
+tongue-tied, her cheeks rather flushed, and her eyes very round, and to
+facilitate the dialogue, as I suppose, he said again--
+
+'He's quite well, I hope?'
+
+Still no response from Milly, and I, provoked, though myself a little shy,
+made answer--
+
+'My uncle, Mr. Ruthyn, is very well, thank you,' and I felt that I blushed
+as I spoke.
+
+'Ah, pray excuse me, may I take a great liberty? you are Miss Ruthyn,
+of Knowl? Will you think me very impertinent--I'm afraid you will--if I
+venture to introduce myself? My name is Carysbroke, and I had the honour of
+knowing poor Mr. Ruthyn when I was quite a little boy, and he has shown a
+kindness for me since, and I hope you will pardon the liberty I fear I've
+taken. I think my friend, Lady Knollys, too, is a relation of yours; what a
+charming person she is!'
+
+'Oh, is not she? such a darling!' I said, and then blushed at my outspoken
+affection.
+
+But he smiled kindly, as if he liked me for it; and he said--
+
+'You know whatever I think, I dare not quite say that; but frankly I can
+quite understand it. She preserves her youth so wonderfully, and her fun
+and her good-nature are so entirely girlish. What a sweet view you have
+selected,' he continued, changing all at once. 'I've stood just at
+this point so often to look back at that exquisite old bridge. Do you
+observe--you're an artist, I see--something very peculiar in that tint of
+the grey, with those odd cross stains of faded red and yellow?'
+
+'I do, indeed; I was just remarking the peculiar beauty of the
+colouring--was not I, Milly?'
+
+Milly stared at me, and uttered an alarmed 'Yes,' and looked as if she had
+been caught in a robbery.
+
+'Yes, and you have so very peculiar a background,' he resumed. 'It was
+better before the storm though; but it is very good still.'
+
+Then a little pause, and 'Do you know this country at all?' rather
+suddenly.
+
+'No, not in the least--that is, I've only had the drive to this place; but
+what I did see interested me very much.'
+
+'You will be charmed with it when you know it better--the very place for an
+artist. I'm a wretched scribbler myself, and I carry this little book in
+my pocket,' and he laughed deprecatingly while he drew forth a thin
+fishing-book, as it looked. 'They are mere memoranda, you see. I walk so
+much and come unexpectedly on such pretty nooks and studies, I just try
+to make a note of them, but it is really more writing than sketching; my
+sister says it is a cipher which nobody but myself understands. However,
+I'll try and explain just two--because you really ought to go and see the
+places. Oh, no; not that,' he laughed, as accidentally the page blew over,
+'that's the Cat and Fiddle, a curious little pot-house, where they gave me
+some very good ale one day.'
+
+Milly at this exhibited some uneasy tokens of being about to speak, but not
+knowing what might be coming, I hastened to observe on the spirited little
+sketches to which he meant to draw my attention.
+
+'I want to show you only the places within easy reach--a short ride or
+drive.'
+
+So he proceeded to turn over two or three, in addition to the two he had
+at first proposed, and then another; then a little sketch just tinted, and
+really quite a charming little gem, of Cousin Monica's pretty gabled old
+house; and every subject had its little criticism, or its narrative, or
+adventure.
+
+As he was about returning this little sketch-book to his pocket, still
+chatting to me, he suddenly recollected poor Milly, who was looking rather
+lowering; but she brightened a good deal as he presented it to her, with a
+little speech which she palpably misunderstood, for she made one of her odd
+courtesies, and was about, I thought, to put it into her large pocket, and
+accept it as a present.
+
+'Look at the drawings, Milly, and then return it,' I whispered.
+
+At his request I allowed him to look at my unfinished sketch of the bridge,
+and while he was measuring distances and proportions with his eye, Milly
+whispered rather angrily to me.
+
+'And why should I?'
+
+'Because he wants it back, and only meant to lend it to you,' whispered I.
+
+'_Lend_ it to me--and after you! Bury-me-wick if I look at a leaf of it,'
+she retorted in high dudgeon. 'Take it, lass; give it him yourself--I'll
+not,' and she popped it into my hand, and made a sulky step back.
+
+'My cousin is very much obliged,' I said, returning the book, and smiling
+for her, and he took it smiling also and said--
+
+'I think if I had known how very well you draw, Miss Ruthyn, I should have
+hesitated about showing you my poor scrawls. But these are not my best, you
+know; Lady Knollys will tell you that I can really do better--a great deal
+better, I think.'
+
+And then with more apologies for what he called his impertinence, he took
+his leave, and I felt altogether very much pleased and flattered.
+
+He could not be more than twenty-nine or thirty, I thought, and he was
+decidedly handsome--that is, his eyes and teeth, and clear brown complexion
+were--and there was something distinguished and graceful in his figure
+and gesture; and altogether there was the indescribable attraction of
+intelligence; and I fancied--though this, of course, was a secret--that
+from the moment he spoke to us he felt an interest in me. I am not going to
+be vain. It was a _grave_ interest, but still an interest, for I could see
+him studying my features while I was turning over his sketches, and he
+thought I saw nothing else. It was flattering, too, his anxiety that
+I should think well of his drawing, and referring me to Lady Knollys.
+Carysbroke--had I ever heard my dear father mention that name? I could not
+recollect it. But then he was habitually so silent, that his not doing so
+argued nothing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+_WE VISIT A ROOM IN THE SECOND STOREY_
+
+
+Mr. Carysbroke amused my fancy sufficiently to prevent my observing Milly's
+silence, till we had begun our return homeward.
+
+'The Grange must be a pretty house, if that little sketch be true; is it
+far from this?'
+
+''Twill be two mile.'
+
+'Are you vexed, Milly?' I asked, for both her tone and looks were angry.
+
+'Yes, I am vexed; and why not lass?'
+
+'What has happened?'
+
+'Well, now, that is rich! Why, look at that fellow, Carysbroke: he took no
+more notice to me than a dog, and kep' talking to you all the time of his
+pictures, and his walks, and his people. Why, a pig's better manners than
+that.'
+
+'But, Milly dear, you forget, he tried to talk to you, and you would not
+answer him,' I expostulated.
+
+'And is not that just what I say--I can't talk like other folk--ladies, I
+mean. Every one laughs at me; an' I'm dressed like a show, I am. It's a
+shame! I saw Polly Shives--what a lady she is, my eyes!--laughing at me in
+church last Sunday. I was minded to give her a bit of my mind. An' I know
+I'm queer. It's a shame, it is. Why should _I_ be so rum? it is a shame! I
+don't want to be so, nor it isn't my fault.'
+
+And poor Milly broke into a flood of tears, and stamped on the ground, and
+buried her face in her short frock, which she whisked up to her eyes; and
+an odder figure of grief I never beheld.
+
+'And I could not make head or tail of what he was saying,' cried poor Milly
+through her buff cotton, with a stamp; 'and you twigged every word o't. An'
+why am I so? It's a shame--a shame! Oh, ho, ho! it's a shame!'
+
+'But, my dear Milly, we were talking of _drawing_, and you have not learned
+yet, but you shall--I'll teach you; and then you'll understand all about
+it.'
+
+'An' every one laughs at me--even you; though you try, Maud, you can scarce
+keep from laughing sometimes. I don't blame you, for I know I'm queer; but
+I can't help it; and it's a shame.'
+
+'Well, my dear Milly, listen to me: if you allow me, I assure you, I'll
+teach you all the music and drawing I know. You have lived very much
+alone; and, as you say, ladies have a way of speaking of their own that is
+different from the talk of other people.'
+
+'Yes, that they have, an' gentlemen too--like the Governor, and that
+Carysbroke; and a precious lingo it is--dang it--why, the devil himself
+could not understand it; an' I'm like a fool among you. I could 'most drown
+myself. It's a shame! It is--you know it is.--It's a shame!'
+
+'But I'll teach you that lingo too, if you wish it, Milly; and you shall
+know everything that I know; and I'll manage to have your dresses better
+made.'
+
+By this time she was looking very ruefully, but attentively, in my face,
+her round eyes and nose swelled, and her cheeks all wet.
+
+'I think if they were a little longer--yours is longer, you know;' and the
+sentence was interrupted by a sob.
+
+'Now, Milly, you must not be crying; if you choose you may be just as the
+same as any other lady--and you shall; and you will be very much admired, I
+can tell you, if only you will take the trouble to quite unlearn all your
+odd words and ways, and dress yourself like other people; and I will take
+care of that if you let me; and I think you are very clever, Milly; and I
+know you are very pretty.'
+
+Poor Milly's blubbered face expanded into a smile in spite of herself; but
+she shook her head, looking down.
+
+'Noa, noa, Maud, I fear 'twon't be.' And indeed it seemed I had proposed to
+myself a labour of Hercules.
+
+But Milly was really a clever creature, could see quickly, and when her
+ungainly dialect was mastered, describe very pleasantly; and if only she
+would endure the restraint and possessed the industry requisite, I did not
+despair, and was resolved at least to do my part.
+
+Poor Milly! she was really very grateful, and entered into the project of
+her education with great zeal, and with a strange mixture of humility and
+insubordination.
+
+Milly was in favour of again attacking 'Beauty's' position on her return,
+and forcing a passage from this side; but I insisted on following the route
+by which we had arrived, and so we got round the paling by the river, and
+were treated to a provoking grin of defiance by 'Beauty,' who was talking
+across the gate to a slim young man, arrayed in fustian, and with an
+odd-looking cap of rabbit-skin on his head, which, on seeing us, he pulled
+sheepishly to the side of his face next to us, as he lounged, with his arm
+under his chin, on the top bar of the gate.
+
+After our encounter of to-day, indeed, it was Miss 'Beauty's' wont to
+exhibit a kind of jeering disdain in her countenance whenever we passed.
+
+I think Milly would have engaged her again, had I not reminded her of her
+undertaking, and exerted my new authority.
+
+'Look at that sneak, Pegtop, there, going up the path to the mill. He makes
+belief now he does not see us; but he does, though, only he's afraid we'll
+tell the Governor, and he thinks Governor won't give him his way with you.
+I hate that Pegtop: he stopped me o' riding the cows a year ago, he did.'
+
+I thought Pegtop might have done worse. Indeed it was plain that a total
+reformation was needed here; and I was glad to find that poor Milly seemed
+herself conscious of it; and that her resolution to become more like other
+people of her station was not a mere spasm of mortification and jealousy,
+but a genuine and very zealous resolve.
+
+I had not half seen this old house of Bartram-Haugh yet. At first, indeed,
+I had but an imperfect idea of its extent. There was a range of rooms along
+one side of the great gallery, with closed window-shutters, and the doors
+generally locked. Old L'Amour grew cross when we went into them, although
+we could see nothing; and Milly was afraid to open the windows--not that
+any Bluebeard revelations were apprehended, but simply because she knew
+that Uncle Silas's order was that things should be left undisturbed; and
+this boisterous spirit stood in awe of him to a degree which his gentle
+manners and apparent quietude rendered quite surprising.
+
+There were in this house, what certainly did not exist at Knowl, and what
+I have never observed, though they may possibly be found in other old
+houses--I mean, here and there, very high hatches, which we could only
+peep over by jumping in the air. They crossed the long corridors and great
+galleries; and several of them were turned across and locked, so as to
+intercept the passage, and interrupt our explorations.
+
+Milly, however, knew a queer little, very steep and dark back stair, which
+reached the upper floor; so she and I mounted, and made a long ramble
+through rooms much lower and ruder in finish than the lordly chambers we
+had left below. These commanded various views of the beautiful though
+neglected grounds; but on crossing a gallery we entered suddenly a chamber,
+which looked into a small and dismal quadrangle, formed by the inner walls
+of this great house, and of course designed only by the architect to afford
+the needful light and air to portions of the structure.
+
+I rubbed the window-pane with my handkerchief and looked out. The
+surrounding roof was steep and high. The walls looked soiled and dark. The
+windows lined with dust and dirt, and the window-stones were in places
+tufted with moss, and grass, and groundsel. An arched doorway had opened
+from the house into this darkened square, but it was soiled and dusty; and
+the damp weeds that overgrew the quadrangle drooped undisturbed against it.
+It was plain that human footsteps tracked it little, and I gazed into that
+blind and sinister area with a strange thrill and sinking.
+
+'This is the second floor--there is the enclosed court-yard'--I, as it
+were, soliloquised.
+
+'What are you afraid of, Maud? you look as ye'd seen a ghost,' exclaimed
+Milly, who came to the window and peeped over my shoulder.
+
+'It reminded me suddenly, Milly, of that frightful business.'
+
+'What business, Maud?--what a plague are ye thinking on?' demanded Milly,
+rather amused.
+
+'It was in one of these rooms--maybe this--yes, it certainly _was_
+this--for see, the panelling has been pulled off the wall--that Mr. Charke
+killed himself.'
+
+I was staring ruefully round the dim chamber, in whose corners the shadows
+of night were already gathering.
+
+'Charke!--what about him?--who's Charke?' asked Milly.
+
+'Why, you must have heard of him,' said I.
+
+'Not as I'm aware on,' answered she. 'And he killed himself, did he, hanged
+himself, eh, or blowed his brains out?'
+
+'He cut his throat in one of these rooms--_this_ one, I'm sure--for your
+papa had the wainscoting stripped from the wall to ascertain whether there
+was any second door through which a murderer could have come; and you see
+these walls are stripped, and bear the marks of the woodwork that has been
+removed,' I answered.
+
+'Well, that _was_ awful! I don't know how they have pluck to cut their
+throats; if I was doing it, I'd like best to put a pistol to my head and
+fire, like the young gentleman did, they say, in Deadman's Hollow. But the
+fellows that cut their throats, they must be awful game lads, I'm thinkin',
+for it's a long slice, you know.'
+
+'Don't, don't, Milly dear. Suppose we come away,' I said, for the evening
+was deepening rapidly into night.
+
+'Hey and bury-me-wick, but here's the blood; don't you see a big black
+cloud all spread over the floor hereabout, don't ye see?' Milly was
+stooping over the spot, and tracing the outline of this, perhaps, imaginary
+mapping, in the air with her finger.
+
+'No, Milly, you could not see it: the floor is too dark, and it's all in
+shadow. It must be fancy; and perhaps, after all, this is not the room.'
+
+'Well--I think, I'm _sure_ it _is_. Stand--just look.'
+
+'We'll come in the morning, and if you are right we can see it better then.
+Come away,' I said, growing frightened.
+
+And just as we stood up to depart, the white high-cauled cap and large
+sallow features of old L'Amour peeped in at the door.
+
+'Lawk! what brings you here?' cried Milly, nearly as much startled as I at
+the intrusion.
+
+'What brings _you_ here, miss?' whistled L'Amour through her gums.
+
+'We're looking where Charke cut his throat,' replied Milly.
+
+'Charke the devil!' said the old woman, with an odd mixture of scorn and
+fury. ''Tisn't his room; and come ye out of it, please. Master won't like
+when he hears how you keep pulling Miss Maud from one room to another, all
+through the house, up and down.'
+
+She was gabbling sternly enough, but dropped a low courtesy as I passed
+her, and with a peaked and nodding stare round the room, the old woman
+clapped the door sharply, and locked it.
+
+'And who has been a talking about Charke--a pack o lies, I warrant. I
+s'pose you want to frighten Miss Maud here' (another crippled courtesy)
+'wi' ghosts and like nonsense.'
+
+'You're out there: 'twas she told me; and much about it. Ghosts, indeed!
+I don't vally them, not I; if I did, I know who'd frighten me,' and Milly
+laughed.
+
+The old woman stuffed the key in her pocket, and her wrinkled mouth pouted
+and receded with a grim uneasiness.
+
+'A harmless brat, and kind she is; but wild--wild--she will be wild.'
+
+So whispered L'Amour in my ear, during the silence that followed, nodding
+shakily toward Milly over the banister, and she courtesied again as we
+departed, and shuffled off toward Uncle Silas's room.
+
+'The Governor is queerish this evening,' said Milly, when we were seated at
+our tea. 'You never saw him queerish, did you?'
+
+'You must say what you mean, more plainly, Milly. You don't mean ill, I
+hope?'
+
+'Well! I don't know what it is; but he does grow very queer
+sometimes--you'd think he was dead a'most, maybe two or three days and
+nights together. He sits all the time like an old woman in a swound. Well,
+well, it is awful!'
+
+'Is he insensible when in that state?' I asked, a good deal alarmed.
+
+'I don't know; but it never signifies anything. It won't kill him, I do
+believe; but old L'Amour knows all about it. I hardly ever go into the room
+when he's so, only when I'm sent for; and he sometimes wakes up and takes a
+fancy to call for this one or that. One day he sent for Pegtop all the way
+to the mill; and when he came, he only stared at him for a minute or two,
+and ordered him out o' the room. He's like a child a'most, when he's in one
+o' them dazes.'
+
+I always knew when Uncle Silas was 'queerish,' by the injunctions of old
+L'Amour, whistled and spluttered over the banister as we came up-stairs,
+to mind how we made a noise passing master's door; and by the sound of
+mysterious to-ings and fro-ings about his room.
+
+I saw very little of him. He sometimes took a whim to have us breakfast
+with him, which lasted perhaps for a week; and then the order of our living
+would relapse into its old routine.
+
+I must not forget two kind letters from Lady Knollys, who was detained
+away, and delighted to hear that I enjoyed my quiet life; and promised to
+apply, in person, to Uncle Silas, for permission to visit me.
+
+She was to be for the Christmas at Elverston, and that was only six miles
+away from Bartram-Haugh, so I had the excitement of a pleasant look
+forward.
+
+She also said that she would include poor Milly in her invitation; and a
+vision of Captain Oakley rose before me, with his handsome gaze turned in
+wonder on poor Milly, for whom I had begun to feel myself responsible.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+_AN ARRIVAL AT DEAD OF NIGHT_
+
+
+I have sometimes been asked why I wear an odd little turquois ring--which
+to the uninstructed eye appears quite valueless and altogether an unworthy
+companion of those jewels which flash insultingly beside it. It is a little
+keepsake, of which I became possessed about this time.
+
+'Come, lass, what name shall I give you?' cried Milly, one morning,
+bursting into my room in a state of alarming hilarity.
+
+'My own, Milly.'
+
+'No, but you must have a nickname, like every one else.'
+
+'Don't mind it, Milly.'
+
+'Yes, but I will. Shall I call you Mrs. Bustle?'
+
+'You shall do no such thing.'
+
+'But you must have a name.'
+
+'I refuse a name.'
+
+'But I'll give you one, lass.'
+
+'And _I_ won't have it.'
+
+'But you can't help me christening you.'
+
+'I can decline answering.'
+
+'But I'll make you,' said Milly, growing very red.
+
+Perhaps there was something provoking in my tone, for I certainly was very
+much disgusted at Milly's relapse into barbarism.
+
+'You can't,' I retorted quietly.
+
+'See if I don't, and I'll give ye one twice as ugly.'
+
+I smiled, I fear, disdainfully.
+
+'And I think you're a minx, and a slut, and a fool,' she broke out,
+flushing scarlet.
+
+I smiled in the same unchristian way.
+
+'And I'd give ye a smack o' the cheek as soon as look at you.'
+
+And she gave her dress a great slap, and drew near me, in her wrath. I
+really thought she was about tendering the ordeal of single combat.
+
+I made her, however, a paralysing courtesy, and, with immense dignity,
+sailed out of the room, and into Uncle Silas's study, where it happened we
+were to breakfast that morning, and for several subsequent ones.
+
+During the meal we maintained the most dignified reserve; and I don't think
+either so much as looked at the other.
+
+We had no walk together that day.
+
+I was sitting in the evening, quite alone, when Milly entered the room. Her
+eyes were red, and she looked very sullen.
+
+'I want your hand, cousin,' she said, at the same time taking it by the
+wrist, and administering with it a sudden slap on her plump cheek, which
+made the room ring, and my fingers tingle; and before I had recovered from
+my surprise, she had vanished.
+
+I called after her, but no answer; I pursued, but she was running too; and
+I quite lost her at the cross galleries.
+
+I did not see her at tea, nor before going to bed; but after I had fallen
+asleep I was awakened by Milly, in floods of tears.
+
+'Cousin Maud, will ye forgi' me--you'll never like me again, will ye? No--I
+know ye won't--I'm such a brute--I hate it--it's a shame. And here's a
+Banbury cake for you--I sent to the town for it, and some taffy--won't ye
+eat it? and here's a little ring--'tisn't as pretty as your own rings; and
+ye'll wear it, maybe, for my sake--poor Milly's sake, before I was so bad
+to ye--if ye forgi' me; and I'll look at breakfast, and if it's on your
+finger I'll know you're friends wi' me again; and if ye don't, I won't
+trouble you no more; and I think I'll just drown myself out o' the way, and
+you'll never see wicked Milly no more.'
+
+And without waiting a moment, leaving me only half awake, and with the
+sensations of dreaming, she scampered from the room, in her bare feet, with
+a petticoat about her shoulders.
+
+She had left her candle by my bed, and her little offerings on the coverlet
+by me. If I had stood an atom less in terror of goblins than I did, I
+should have followed her, but I was afraid. I stood in my bare feet at my
+bedside, and kissed the poor little ring and put it on my finger, where it
+has remained ever since and always shall. And when I lay down, longing for
+morning, the image of her pale, imploring, penitential face was before me
+for hours; and I repented bitterly of my cool provoking ways, and thought
+myself, I dare say justly, a thousand times more to blame than Milly.
+
+I searched in vain for her before breakfast. At that meal, however, we met,
+but in the presence of Uncle Silas, who, though silent and apathetic, was
+formidable; and we, sitting at a table disproportionably large, under the
+cold, strange gaze of my guardian, talked only what was inevitable, and
+that in low tones; for whenever Milly for a moment raised her voice, Uncle
+Silas would wince, place his thin white fingers quickly over his ear, and
+look as if a pain had pierced his brain, and then shrug and smile piteously
+into vacancy. When Uncle Silas, therefore, was not in the talking vein
+himself--and that was not often--you may suppose there was very little
+spoken in his presence.
+
+When Milly, across the table, saw the ring upon my finger, she, drawing
+in her breath, said, 'Oh!' and, with round eyes and mouth, she looked so
+delighted; and she made a little motion, as if she was on the point of
+jumping up; and then her poor face quivered, and she bit her lip; and
+staring imploringly at me, her eyes filled fast with tears, which rolled
+down her round penitential cheeks.
+
+I am sure I felt more penitent than she. I know I was crying and smiling,
+and longing to kiss her. I suppose we were very absurd; but it is well that
+small matters can stir the affections so profoundly at a time of life when
+great troubles seldom approach us.
+
+When at length the opportunity did come, never was such a hug out of the
+wrestling ring as poor Milly bestowed on me, swaying me this way and that,
+and burying her face in my dress, and blubbering--
+
+'I was so lonely before you came, and you so good to me, and I such a
+devil; and I'll never call you a name, but Maud--my darling Maud.'
+
+'You must, Milly--Mrs. Bustle. I'll be Mrs. Bustle, or anything you like.
+You must.' I was blubbering like Milly, and hugging my best; and, indeed, I
+wonder how we kept our feet.
+
+So Milly and I were better friends than ever.
+
+Meanwhile, the winter deepened, and we had short days and long nights,
+and long fireside gossipings at Bartram-Haugh. I was frightened at the
+frequency of the strange collapses to which Uncle Silas was subject. I
+did not at first mind them much, for I naturally fell into Milly's way of
+talking about them.
+
+But one day, while in one of his 'queerish' states, he called for me, and I
+saw him, and was unspeakably scared.
+
+In a white wrapper, he lay coiled in a great easy chair. I should have
+thought him dead, had I not been accompanied by old L'Amour, who knew every
+gradation and symptom of these strange affections.
+
+She winked and nodded to me with a ghastly significance, and whispered--
+
+'Don't make no noise, miss, till he talks; he'll come to for a bit, anon.'
+
+Except that there was no sign of convulsions, the countenance was like that
+of an epileptic arrested in one of his contortions.
+
+There was a frown and smirk like that of idiotcy, and a strip of white
+eyeball was also disclosed.
+
+Suddenly, with a kind of chilly shudder, he opened his eyes wide, and
+screwed his lips together, and blinked and stared on me with a fatuised
+uncertainty, that gradually broke into a feeble smile.
+
+'Ah! the girl--Austin's child. Well, dear, I'm hardly able--I'll speak
+to-morrow--next day--it is tic--neuralgia, or something--_torture_--tell
+her.'
+
+So, huddling himself together, he lay again in his great chair, with the
+same inexpressible helplessness in his attitude, and gradually his face
+resumed its dreadful cast.
+
+'Come away, miss: he's changed his mind; he'll not be fit to talk to you
+noways all day, maybe,' said the old woman, again in a whisper.
+
+So forth we stole from the room, I unspeakably shocked. In fact, he looked
+as if he were dying, and so, in my agitation, I told the crone, who,
+forgetting the ceremony with which she usually treated me, chuckled out
+derisively,
+
+'A-dying is he? Well, he be like Saint Paul--he's bin a-dying daily this
+many a day.'
+
+I looked at her with a chill of horror. She did not care, I suppose, what
+sort of feelings she might excite, for she went on mumbling sarcastically
+to herself. I had paused, and overcame my reluctance to speak to her again,
+for I was really very much frightened. 'Do you think he is in danger? Shall
+we send for a doctor?' I whispered.
+
+'Law bless ye, the doctor knows all about it, miss.' The old woman's face
+had a gleam of that derision which is so shocking in the features of
+feebleness and age.
+
+'But it is a _fit_, it is paralytic, or something horrible--it can't be
+_safe_ to leave him to chance or nature to get through these terrible
+attacks.'
+
+'There's no fear of him, 'tisn't no fits at all, he's nout the worse o't.
+Jest silly a bit now and again. It's been the same a dozen year and more;
+and the doctor knows all about it,' answered the old woman sturdily. 'And
+ye'll find he'll be as mad as bedlam if ye make any stir about it.'
+
+That night I talked the matter over with Mary Quince.
+
+'They're very dark, miss; but I think he takes a deal too much laudlum,'
+said Mary.
+
+To this hour I cannot say what was the nature of those periodical seizures.
+I have often spoken to medical men about them, since, but never could learn
+that excessive use of opium could altogether account for them. It was,
+I believe, certain, however, that he did use that drug in startling
+quantities. It was, indeed, sometimes a topic of complaint with him that
+his neuralgia imposed this sad necessity upon him.
+
+The image of Uncle Silas, as I had seen him that day, troubled and
+affrighted my imagination, as I lay in my bed; I had slept very well since
+my arrival at Bartram. So much of the day was passed in the open air, and
+in active exercise, that this was but natural. But that night I was nervous
+and wakeful, and it was past two o'clock when I fancied I heard the sound
+of horses and carriage-wheels on the avenue.
+
+Mary Quince was close by, and therefore I was not afraid to get up and peep
+from the window. My heart beat fast as I saw a post-chaise approach the
+court-yard. A front window was let down, and the postilion pulled up for a
+few seconds.
+
+In consequence of some directions received by him, I fancied he resumed his
+route at a walk, and so drew up at the hall-door, on the steps of which a
+figure awaited his arrival. I think it was old L'Amour, but I could not be
+quite certain. There was a lantern on the top of the balustrade, close by
+the door. The chaise-lamps were lighted, for the night was rather dark. A
+bag and valise, as well as I could see, were pulled from the interior by
+the post-boy, and a box from the top of the vehicle, and these were carried
+into the hall.
+
+I was obliged to keep my cheek against the window-pane to command a view
+of the point of debarkation, and my breath upon the glass, which dimmed it
+again almost as fast as I wiped it away, helped to obscure my vision. But
+I saw a tall figure, in a cloak, get down and swiftly enter the house, but
+whether male or female I could not discern.
+
+My heart beat fast. I jumped at once to a conclusion. My uncle was
+worse--was, in fact, dying; and this was the physician, too late summoned
+to his bedside.
+
+I listened for the ascent of the doctor, and his entrance at my uncle's
+door, which, in the stillness of the night, I thought I might easily hear,
+but no sound reached me. I listened so for fully five minutes, but
+without result. I returned to the window, but the carriage and horses had
+disappeared.
+
+I was strongly tempted to wake Mary Quince, and take counsel with her, and
+persuade her to undertake a reconnoissance. The fact is, I was persuaded
+that my uncle was in extremity, and I was quite wild to know the doctor's
+opinion. But, after all, it would be cruel to summon the good soul from her
+refreshing nap. So, as I began to feel very cold, I returned to my bed,
+where I continued to listen and conjecture until I fell asleep.
+
+In the morning, as was usual, before I was dressed, in came Milly.
+
+'How is Uncle Silas?' I eagerly enquired.
+
+'Old L'Amour says he's queerish still; but he's not so dull as yesterday,'
+answered she.
+
+'Was not the doctor sent for?' I asked.
+
+'Was he? Well, that's odd; and she said never a word o't to me,' answered
+she.
+
+'I'm asking only,' said I.
+
+'I don't know whether he came or no,' she replied; 'but what makes you take
+that in your head?'
+
+'A chaise arrived here between two and three o'clock last night.'
+
+'Hey! and who told you?' Milly seemed all on a sudden highly interested.
+
+'I saw it, Milly; and some one, I fancy the doctor, came from it into the
+house.'
+
+'Fudge, lass! who'd send for the doctor? 'Twasn't he, I tell you. What was
+he like?' said Milly.
+
+'I could only see clearly that he, or _she_, was tall, and wore a cloak,' I
+replied.
+
+'Then 'twasn't him nor t'other I was thinking on, neither; and I'll be
+hanged but I think it will be Cormoran,' cried Milly, with a thoughtful rap
+with her knuckle on the table.
+
+Precisely at this juncture a tapping came to the door.
+
+'Come in,' said I.
+
+And old L'Amour entered the room, with a courtesy.
+
+'I came to tell Miss Quince her breakfast's ready,' said the old lady.
+
+'Who came in the chaise, L'Amour?' demanded Milly.
+
+'What chaise?' spluttered the beldame tartly.
+
+'The chaise that came last night, past two o'clock,' said Milly.
+
+'That's a lie, and a damn lie!' cried the beldame. 'There worn't no chaise
+at the door since Miss Maud there come from Knowl.'
+
+I stared at the audacious old menial who could utter such language.
+
+'Yes, there was a chaise, and Cormoran, as I think, be come in it,' said
+Milly, who seemed accustomed to L'Amour's daring address.
+
+'And there's another damn lie, as big as the t'other,' said the crone, her
+haggard and withered face flushing orange all over.
+
+'I beg you will not use such language in my room,' I replied, very angrily.
+'I saw the chaise at the door; your untruth signifies very little, but
+your impertinence here I will not permit. Should it be repeated, I will
+assuredly complain to my uncle.'
+
+The old woman flushed more fiercely as I spoke, and fixed her bleared glare
+on me, with a compression of her mouth that amounted to a wicked grimace.
+She resisted her angry impulse, however, and only chuckled a little
+spitefully, saying,
+
+'No offence, miss: it be a way we has in Derbyshire o' speaking our minds.
+No offence, miss, were meant, and none took, as I hopes,' and she made me
+another courtesy. 'And I forgot to tell you, Miss Milly, the master wants
+you this minute.'
+
+So Milly, in mute haste, withdrew, followed closely by L'Amour.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII
+
+_DOCTOR BRYERLY EMERGES_
+
+
+When Milly joined me at breakfast, her eyes were red and swollen. She was
+still sniffing with that little sobbing hiccough, which betrays, even were
+there no other signs, recent violent weeping. She sat down quite silent.
+
+'Is he worse, Milly?' I enquired, anxiously.
+
+'No, nothing's wrong wi' him; he's right well,' said Milly, fiercely.
+
+'What's the matter then, Milly dear?'
+
+'The poisonous old witch! 'Twas just to tell the Gov'nor how I'd said 'twas
+Cormoran that came by the po'shay last night.'
+
+'And who is Cormoran?' I enquired.
+
+'Ay, there it is; I'd like to tell, and you want to hear--and I just
+daren't, for he'll send me off right to a French school--hang it--hang them
+all!--if I do.'
+
+'And why should Uncle Silas care?' said I, a good deal surprised.
+
+'They're a-tellin' lies.'
+
+'Who?' said I.
+
+'L'Amour--that's who. So soon as she made her complaint of me, the Gov'nor
+asked her, sharp enough, did anyone come last night, or a po'shay; and she
+was ready to swear there was no one. Are ye quite sure, Maud, you really
+did see aught, or 'appen 'twas all a dream?'
+
+'It was no dream, Milly; so sure as you are there, I saw exactly what I
+told you,' I replied.
+
+'Gov'nor won't believe it anyhow; and he's right mad wi' me; and he
+threatens me he'll have me off to France; I wish 'twas under the sea. I
+hate France--I do--like the devil. Don't you? They're always a-threatening
+me wi' France, if I dare say a word more about the po'shay, or--or anyone.'
+
+I really was curious about Cormoran; but Cormoran was not to be defined
+to me by Milly; nor did she, in reality, know more than I respecting the
+arrival of the night before.
+
+One day I was surprised to see Doctor Bryerly on the stairs. I was standing
+in a dark gallery as he walked across the floor of the lobby to my uncle's
+door, his hat on, and some papers in his hand.
+
+He did not see me; and when he had entered Uncle Silas's door, I went down
+and found Milly awaiting me in the hall.
+
+'So Doctor Bryerly is here,' I said.
+
+'That's the thin fellow, wi' the sharp look, and the shiny black coat, that
+went up just now?' asked Milly.
+
+'Yes, he's gone into your papa's room,' said I.
+
+''Appen 'twas he come 'tother night. He may be staying here, though we see
+him seldom, for it's a barrack of a house--it is.'
+
+The same thought had struck me for a moment, but was dismissed immediately.
+It certainly was _not_ Doctor Bryerly's figure which I had seen.
+
+So, without any new light gathered from this apparition, we went on our
+way, and made our little sketch of the ruined bridge. We found the gate
+locked as before; and, as Milly could not persuade me to climb it, we got
+round the paling by the river's bank.
+
+While at our drawing, we saw the swarthy face, sooty locks, and old
+weather-stained red coat of Zamiel, who was glowering malignly at us
+from among the trunks of the forest trees, and standing motionless as a
+monumental figure in the side aisle of a cathedral. When we looked again he
+was gone.
+
+Although it was a fine mild day for the wintry season, we yet, cloaked as
+we were, could not pursue so still an occupation as sketching for more than
+ten or fifteen minutes. As we returned, in passing a clump of trees, we
+heard a sudden outbreak of voices, angry and expostulatory; and saw, under
+the trees, the savage old Zamiel strike his daughter with his stick two
+great blows, one of which was across the head. 'Beauty' ran only a short
+distance away, while the swart old wood-demon stumped lustily after her,
+cursing and brandishing his cudgel.
+
+My blood boiled. I was so shocked that for a moment I could not speak; but
+in a moment more I screamed--
+
+'You brute! How dare you strike the poor girl?'
+
+She had only run a few steps, and turned about confronting him and us, her
+eyes gleaming fire, her features pale and quivering to suppress a burst of
+weeping. Two little rivulets of blood were trickling over her temple.
+
+'I say, fayther, look at that,' she said, with a strange tremulous smile,
+lifting her hand, which was smeared with blood.
+
+Perhaps he was ashamed, and the more enraged on that account, for he
+growled another curse, and started afresh to reach her, whirling his stick
+in the air. Our voices, however, arrested him.
+
+'My uncle shall hear of your brutality. The poor girl!'
+
+'Strike him, Meg, if he does it again; and pitch his leg into the river
+to-night, when he's asleep.'
+
+'I'd serve _you_ the same;' and out came an oath. 'You'd have her lick her
+fayther, would ye? Look out!'
+
+And he wagged his head with a scowl at Milly, and a flourish of his cudgel.
+
+'Be quiet, Milly,' I whispered, for Milly was preparing for battle; and I
+again addressed him with the assurance that, on reaching home, I would tell
+my uncle how he had treated the poor girl.
+
+''Tis you she may thank for't, a wheedling o' her to open that gate,' he
+snarled.
+
+'That's a lie; we went round by the brook,' cried Milly.
+
+I did not think proper to discuss the matter with him; and looking very
+angry, and, I thought, a little put out, he jerked and swayed himself out
+of sight. I merely repeated my promise of informing my uncle as he went, to
+which, over his shoulder, he bawled--
+
+'Silas won't mind ye _that_;' snapping his horny finger and thumb.
+
+The girl remained where she had stood, wiping the blood off roughly with
+the palm of her hand, and looking at it before she rubbed it on her apron.
+'My poor girl,' I said, 'you must not cry. I'll speak to my uncle about
+you.'
+
+But she was not crying. She raised her head, and looked at us a little
+askance, with a sullen contempt, I thought.
+
+'And you must have these apples--won't you?' We had brought in our basket
+two or three of those splendid apples for which Bartram was famous.
+
+I hesitated to go near her, these Hawkeses, Beauty and Pegtop, were such
+savages. So I rolled the apples gently along the ground to her feet.
+
+She continued to look doggedly at us with the same expression, and kicked
+away the apples sullenly that approached her feet. Then, wiping her temple
+and forehead in her apron, without a word, she turned and walked slowly
+away.
+
+'Poor thing! I'm afraid she leads a hard life. What strange, repulsive
+people they are!'
+
+When we reached home, at the head of the great staircase old L'Amour was
+awaiting me; and with a courtesy, and very respectfully, she informed me
+that the Master would be happy to see me.
+
+Could it be about my evidence as to the arrival of the mysterious chaise
+that he summoned me to this interview? Gentle as were his ways, there was
+something undefinable about Uncle Silas which inspired fear; and I should
+have liked few things less than meeting his gaze in the character of a
+culprit.
+
+There was an uncertainty, too, as to the state in which I might find him,
+and a positive horror of beholding him again in the condition in which I
+had last seen him.
+
+I entered the room, then, in some trepidation, but was instantly relieved.
+Uncle Silas was in the same health apparently, and, as nearly as I could
+recollect it, in precisely the same rather handsome though negligent garb
+in which I had first seen him.
+
+Doctor Bryerly--what a marked and vulgar contrast, and yet, somehow, how
+reassuring!--sat at the table near him, and was tying up papers. His eyes
+watched me, I thought, with an anxious scrutiny as I approached; and I
+think it was not until I had saluted him that he recollected suddenly that
+he had not seen me before at Bartram, and stood up and greeted me in his
+usual abrupt and somewhat familiar way. It was vulgar and not cordial, and
+yet it was honest and indefinably kind. Up rose my uncle, that strangely
+venerable, pale portrait, in his loose Rembrandt black velvet. How gentle,
+how benignant, how unearthly, and inscrutable!
+
+'I need not say how she is. Those lilies and roses, Doctor Bryerly, speak
+their own beautiful praises of the air of Bartram. I almost regret that her
+carriage will be home so soon. I only hope it may not abridge her rambles.
+It positively does me good to look at her. It is the glow of flowers in
+winter, and the fragrance of a field which the Lord hath blessed.'
+
+'Country air, Miss Ruthyn, is a right good kitchen to country fare. I like
+to see young women eat heartily. You have had some pounds of beef and
+mutton since I saw you last,' said Dr. Bryerly.
+
+And this sly speech made, he scrutinised my countenance in silence rather
+embarrassingly.
+
+'My system, Doctor Bryerly, as a disciple of Aesculapius you will
+approve--health first, accomplishment afterwards. The Continent is the
+best field for elegant instruction, and we must see the world a little,
+by-and-by, Maud; and to me, if my health be spared, there would be an
+unspeakable though a melancholy charm in the scenes where so many happy,
+though so many wayward and foolish, young days were passed; and I think I
+should return to these picturesque solitudes with, perhaps, an increased
+relish. You remember old Chaulieu's sweet lines--
+
+  Désert, aimable solitude,
+  Séjour du calme et de la paix,
+  Asile où n'entrèrent jamais
+  Le tumulte et l'inquiétude.
+
+I can't say that care and sorrow have not sometimes penetrated these sylvan
+fastnesses; but the tumults of the world, thank Heaven!--never.'
+
+There was a sly scepticism, I thought, in Doctor Bryerly's sharp face; and
+hardly waiting for the impressive 'never,' he said--
+
+'I forgot to ask, who is your banker?'
+
+'Oh! Bartlet and Hall, Lombard Street,' answered Uncle Silas, dryly and
+shortly.
+
+Dr. Bryerly made a note of it, with an expression of face which seemed,
+with a sly resolution, to say, 'You shan't come the anchorite over me.'
+
+I saw Uncle Silas's wild and piercing eye rest suspiciously on me for a
+moment, as if to ascertain whether I felt the spirit of Doctor Bryerly's
+almost interruption; and, nearly at the same moment, stuffing his papers
+into his capacious coat pockets, Doctor Bryerly rose and took his leave.
+
+When he was gone, I bethought me that now was a good opportunity of making
+my complaint of Dickon Hawkes. Uncle Silas having risen, I hesitated, and
+began,
+
+'Uncle, may I mention an occurrence--which I witnessed?'
+
+'Certainly, child,' he answered, fixing his eye sharply on me. I really
+think he fancied that the conversation was about to turn upon the phantom
+chaise.
+
+So I described the scene which had shocked Milly and me, an hour or so ago,
+in the Windmill Wood.
+
+'You see, my dear child, they are rough persons; their ideas are not ours;
+their young people must be chastised, and in a way and to a degree that we
+would look upon in a serious light. I've found it a bad plan interfering in
+strictly domestic misunderstandings, and should rather not.'
+
+'But he struck her violently on the head, uncle, with a heavy cudgel, and
+she was bleeding very fast.'
+
+'Ah?' said my uncle, dryly.
+
+'And only that Milly and I deterred him by saying that we would certainly
+tell you, he would have struck her again; and I really think if he goes on
+treating her with so much violence and cruelty he may injure her seriously,
+or perhaps kill her.'
+
+'Why, you romantic little child, people in that rank of life think
+absolutely nothing of a broken head,' answered Uncle Silas, in the same
+way.
+
+'But is it not horrible brutality, uncle?'
+
+'To be sure it is brutality; but then you must remember they are brutes,
+and it suits them,' said he.
+
+I was disappointed. I had fancied that Uncle Silas's gentle nature would
+have recoiled from such an outrage with horror and indignation; and
+instead, here he was, the apologist of that savage ruffian, Dickon Hawkes.
+
+'And he is always so rude and impertinent to Milly and to me,' I continued.
+'Oh! impertinent to you--that's another matter. I must see to that. Nothing
+more, my dear child?'
+
+'Well, there _was_ nothing more.'
+
+'He's a useful servant, Hawkes; and though his looks are not prepossessing,
+and his ways and language rough, yet he is a very kind father, and a most
+honest man--a thoroughly moral man, though severe--a very rough diamond
+though, and has no idea of the refinements of polite society. I venture to
+say he honestly believes that he has been always unexceptionably polite to
+you, so we must make allowances.'
+
+And Uncle Silas smoothed my hair with his thin aged hand, and kissed my
+forehead.
+
+'Yes, we must make allowances; we must be kind. What says the Book?--"Judge
+not, that ye be not judged." Your dear father acted upon that maxim--so
+noble and so awful--and I strive to do so. Alas! dear Austin, _longo
+intervalle_, far behind! and you are removed--my example and my help; you
+are gone to your rest, and I remain beneath my burden, still marching on by
+bleak and alpine paths, under the awful night.
+
+  O nuit, nuit douloureuse! O toi, tardive aurore!
+  Viens-tu? vas-tu venir? es-tu bien loin encore?
+
+And repeating these lines of Chenier, with upturned eyes, and one hand
+lifted, and an indescribable expression of grief and fatigue, he sank
+stiffly into his chair, and remained mute, with eyes closed for some time.
+Then applying his scented handkerchief to them hastily, and looking very
+kindly at me, he said--
+
+'Anything more, dear child?'
+
+'Nothing, uncle, thank you, very much, only about that man, Hawkes; I dare
+say that he does not mean to be so uncivil as he is, but I am really afraid
+of him, and he makes our walks in that direction quite unpleasant.'
+
+'I understand quite, my dear. I will see to it; and you must remember that
+nothing is to be allowed to vex my beloved niece and ward during her stay
+at Bartram--nothing that her old kinsman, Silas Ruthyn, can remedy.'
+
+So with a tender smile, and a charge to shut the door 'perfectly, but
+without clapping it,' he dismissed me. Doctor Bryerly had not slept at
+Bartram, but at the little inn in Feltram, and he was going direct to
+London, as I afterwards learned.
+
+'Your ugly doctor's gone away in a fly,' said Milly, as we met on the
+stairs, she running up, I down.
+
+On reaching the little apartment which was our sitting-room, however, I
+found that she was mistaken; for Doctor Bryerly, with his hat and a great
+pair of woollen gloves on, and an old Oxford grey surtout that showed his
+lank length to advantage, buttoned all the way up to his chin, had set down
+his black leather bag on the table, and was reading at the window a little
+volume which I had borrowed from my uncle's library.
+
+It was Swedenborg's account of the other worlds, Heaven and Hell.
+
+He closed it on his finger as I entered, and without recollecting to remove
+his hat, he made a step or two towards me with his splay, creaking boots.
+With a quick glance at the door, he said--
+
+'Glad to see you alone for a minute--very glad.'
+
+But his countenance, on the contrary, looked very anxious.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII
+
+_A MIDNIGHT DEPARTURE_
+
+
+'I'm going this minute--I--I want to know'--another glance at the
+door--'are you really quite comfortable here?'
+
+'Quite,' I answered promptly.
+
+'You have only your cousin's company?' he continued, glancing at the table,
+which was laid for two.
+
+'Yes; but Milly and I are very happy together.'
+
+'That's very nice; but I think there are no teachers, you see--painters,
+and singers, and that sort of thing that is usual with young ladies. No
+teachers of that kind--of _any_ kind--are there?' 'No; my uncle thinks it
+better I should lay in a store of health, he says.'
+
+'I know; and the carriage and horses have not come; how soon are they
+expected?'
+
+'I really can't say, and I assure you I don't much care. I think running
+about great fun.'
+
+'You walk to church?'
+
+'Yes; Uncle Silas's carriage wants a new wheel, he told me.'
+
+'Ay, but a young woman of your rank, you know, it is not usual she should
+be without the use of a carriage. Have you horses to ride?'
+
+I shook my head.
+
+'Your uncle, you know, has a very liberal allowance for your maintenance
+and education.'
+
+I remembered something in the will about it, and Mary Quince was constantly
+grumbling that 'he did not spend a pound a week on our board.'
+
+I answered nothing, but looked down.
+
+Another glance at the door from Doctor Bryerly's sharp black eyes.
+
+'Is he kind to you?'
+
+'Very kind--most gentle and affectionate.'
+
+'Why doesn't he keep company with you? Does he ever dine with you, or drink
+tea, or talk to you? Do you see much of him?'
+
+'He is a miserable invalid--his hours and regimen are peculiar. Indeed
+I wish very much you would consider his case; he is, I believe, often
+insensible for a long time, and his mind in a strange feeble state
+sometimes.'
+
+'I dare say--worn out in his young days; and I saw that preparation of
+opium in his bottle--he takes too much.'
+
+'Why do you think so, Doctor Bryerly?'
+
+'It's made on water: the spirit interferes with the use of it beyond a
+certain limit. You have no idea what those fellows can swallow. Read the
+"Opium Eater." I knew two cases in which the quantity exceeded De Quincy's.
+Aha! it's new to you?' and he laughed quietly at my simplicity.
+
+'And what do you think his complaint is?' I asked.
+
+'Pooh! I haven't a notion; but, probably, one way or another, he has been
+all his days working on his nerves and his brain. These men of pleasure,
+who have no other pursuit, use themselves up mostly, and pay a smart price
+for their sins. And so he's kind and affectionate, but hands you over to
+your cousin and the servants. Are his people civil and obliging?'
+
+'Well, I can't say much for them; there is a man named Hawkes, and his
+daughter, who are very rude, and even abusive sometimes, and say they have
+orders from my uncle to shut us out from a portion of the grounds; but I
+don't believe that, for Uncle Silas never alluded to it when I was making
+my complaint of them to-day.'
+
+'From what part of the grounds is that?' asked Doctor Bryerly, sharply.
+
+I described the situation as well as I could.
+
+'Can we see it from this?' he asked, peeping from the window.
+
+'Oh, no.'
+
+Doctor Bryerly made a note in his pocket-book here, and I said--
+
+'But I am really quite sure it was a story of Dickon's, he is such a surly,
+disobliging man.'
+
+'And what sort is that old servant that came in and out of his room?'
+
+'Oh, that is old L'Amour,' I answered, rather indirectly, and forgetting
+that I was using Milly's nickname.
+
+'And is _she_ civil?' he asked.
+
+No, she certainly was not; a most disagreeable old woman, with a vein of
+wickedness. I thought I had heard her swearing.
+
+'They don't seem to be a very engaging lot,' said Doctor Bryerly; 'but
+where there's one, there will be more. See here, I was just reading a
+passage,' and he opened the little volume at the place where his finger
+marked it, and read for me a few sentences, the purport of which I well
+remember, although, of course, the words have escaped me.
+
+It was in that awful portion of the book which assumes to describe the
+condition of the condemned; and it said that, independently of the physical
+causes in that state operating to enforce community of habitation, and an
+isolation from superior spirits, there exist sympathies, aptitudes,
+and necessities which would, of themselves, induce that depraved
+gregariousness, and isolation too. 'And what of the rest of the servants,
+are they better?' he resumed.
+
+We saw little or nothing of the others, except of old 'Giblets,' the
+butler, who went about like a little automaton of dry bones, poking here
+and there, and whispering and smiling to himself as he laid the cloth; and
+seeming otherwise quite unconscious of an external world.
+
+'This room is not got up like Mr. Ruthyn's: does he talk of furnishings and
+making things a little smart? No! Well, I must say, I think he might.'
+
+Here there was a little silence, and Doctor Bryerly, with his accustomed
+simultaneous glance at the door, said in low, cautious tones, very
+distinctly--
+
+'Have you been thinking at all over that matter again, I mean about getting
+your uncle to forego his guardianship? I would not mind his first refusal.
+You could make it worth his while, unless he--that is--unless he's very
+unreasonable indeed; and I think you would consult your interest, Miss
+Ruthyn, by doing so and, if possible, getting out of this place.'
+
+'But I have not thought of it at all; I am much happier here than I had at
+all expected, and I am very fond of my cousin Milly.'
+
+'How long have you been here exactly?'
+
+I told him. It was some two or three months.
+
+'Have you seen your other cousin yet--the young gentleman?'
+
+'No.'
+
+'H'm! Aren't you very lonely?' he enquired.
+
+'We see no visitors here; but that, you know, I was prepared for.'
+
+Doctor Bryerly read the wrinkles on his splay boot intently and peevishly,
+and tapped the sole lightly on the ground.
+
+'Yes, it is very lonely, and the people a bad lot. You'd be pleasanter
+somewhere else--with Lady Knollys, for instance, eh?'
+
+'Well, _there_ certainly. But I am very well here: really the time passes
+very pleasantly; and my uncle is so kind. I have only to mention anything
+that annoys me, and he will see that it is remedied: he is always
+impressing that on me.'
+
+'Yes, it is not a fit place for you,' said Doctor Bryerly. 'Of course,
+about your uncle,' he resumed, observing my surprised look, 'it is all
+right: but he's quite helpless, you know. At all events, _think_ about it.
+Here's my address--Hans Emmanuel Bryerly, M.D., 17 King Street, Covent
+Garden, London--don't lose it, mind,' and he tore the leaf out of his
+note-book.
+
+'Here's my fly at the door, and you must--you must' (he was looking at his
+watch)--'mind you _must_ think of it seriously; and so, you see, don't let
+anyone see that. You'll be sure to leave it throwing about. The best way
+will be just to scratch it on the door of your press, inside, you know; and
+don't put my name--you'll remember that--only the rest of the address; and
+burn this. Quince is with you?'
+
+'Yes,' I answered, glad to have a satisfactory word to say.
+
+'Well, don't let her go; it's a bad sign if they wish it. Don't consent,
+mind; but just tip me a hint and you'll have me down. And any letters you
+get from Lady Knollys, you know, for she's very plain-spoken, you'd better
+burn them off-hand. And I've stayed too long, though; mind what I say,
+scratch it with a pin, and burn that, and not a word to a mortal about it.
+Good-bye; oh, I was taking away your book.'
+
+And so, in a fuss, with a slight shake of the hand, getting up his
+umbrella, his bag, and tin box, he hurried from the room; and in a minute
+more, I heard the sound of his vehicle as it drove away.
+
+I looked after it with a sigh; the uneasy sensations which I had
+experienced respecting my sojourn at Bartram-Haugh were re-awakened.
+
+My ugly, vulgar, true friend was disappearing beyond those gigantic lime
+trees which hid Bartram from the eyes of the outer world. The fly, with the
+doctor's valise on top, vanished, and I sighed an anxious sigh. The shadow
+of the over-arching trees contracted, and I felt helpless and forsaken; and
+glancing down the torn leaf, Doctor Bryerly's address met my eye, between
+my fingers.
+
+I slipt it into my breast, and ran up-stairs stealthily, trembling lest the
+old woman should summon me again, at the head of the stairs, into Uncle
+Silas's room, where under his gaze, I fancied, I should be sure to betray
+myself.
+
+But I glided unseen and safely by, entered my room, and shut my door. So
+listening and working, I, with my scissors' point, scratched the address
+where Doctor Bryerly had advised. Then, in positive terror, lest some one
+should even knock during the operation, I, with a match, consumed to ashes
+the tell-tale bit of paper.
+
+Now, for the first time, I experienced the unpleasant sensations of
+having a secret to keep. I fancy the pain of this solitary liability was
+disproportionately acute in my case, for I was naturally very open and
+very nervous. I was always on the point of betraying it _apropos des
+bottes_--always reproaching myself for my duplicity; and in constant terror
+when honest Mary Quince approached the press, or good-natured Milly made
+her occasional survey of the wonders of my wardrobe. I would have given
+anything to go and point to the tiny inscription, and say:--'This is Doctor
+Bryerly's address in London. I scratched it with my scissors' point, taking
+every precaution lest anyone--you, my good friends, included--should
+surprise me. I have ever since kept this secret to myself, and trembled
+whenever your frank kind faces looked into the press. There--you at last
+know all about it. Can you ever forgive my deceit?'
+
+But I could not make up my mind to reveal it; nor yet to erase the
+inscription, which was my alternative thought. Indeed I am a wavering,
+irresolute creature as ever lived, in my ordinary mood. High excitement or
+passion only can inspire me with decision. Under the inspiration of either,
+however, I am transformed, and often both prompt and brave.
+
+'Some one left here last night, I think, Miss,' said Mary Quince, with a
+mysterious nod, one morning. ''Twas two o'clock, and I was bad with the
+toothache, and went down to get a pinch o' red pepper--leaving the candle
+a-light here lest you should awake. When I was coming up--as I was crossing
+the lobby, at the far end of the long gallery--what should I hear, but a
+horse snorting, and some people a-talking, short and quiet like. So I looks
+out o' the window; and there surely I did see two horses yoked to a shay,
+and a fellah a-pullin' a box up o' top; and out comes a walise and a bag;
+and I think it was old Wyat, please'm, that Miss Milly calls L'Amour, that
+stood in the doorway a-talking to the driver.'
+
+'And who got into the chaise, Mary?' I asked.
+
+'Well, Miss, I waited as long as I could; but the pain was bad, and me so
+awful cold; I gave it up at last, and came back to bed, for I could not say
+how much longer they might wait. And you'll find, Miss,'twill be kep' a
+secret, like the shay as you saw'd, Miss, last week. I hate them dark ways,
+and secrets; and old Wyat--she does tell stories, don't she?--and she as
+ought to be partickler, seein' her time be short now, and she so old. It is
+awful, an old un like that telling such crams as she do.'
+
+Milly was as curious as I, but could throw no light on this. We both
+agreed, however, that the departure was probably that of the person whose
+arrival I had accidentally witnessed. This time the chaise had drawn up
+at the side door, round the corner of the left side of the house; and, no
+doubt, driven away by the back road.
+
+Another accident had revealed this nocturnal move. It was very provoking,
+however, that Mary Quince had not had resolution to wait for the appearance
+of the traveller. We all agreed, however, that we were to observe a strict
+silence, and that even to Wyat--L'Amour I had better continue to call
+her--Mary Quince was not to hint what she had seen. I suspect, however,
+that injured curiosity asserted itself, and that Mary hardly adhered to
+this self-denying resolve.
+
+But cheerful wintry suns and frosty skies, long nights, and brilliant
+starlight, with good homely fires in our snuggery--gossipings, stories,
+short readings now and then, and brisk walks through the always beautiful
+scenery of Bartram-Haugh, and, above all, the unbroken tenor of our life,
+which had fallen into a serene routine, foreign to the idea of danger
+or misadventure, gradually quieted the qualms and misgivings which my
+interview with Doctor Bryerly had so powerfully resuscitated.
+
+My cousin Monica, to my inexpressible joy, had returned to her
+country-house; and an active diplomacy, through the post-office, was
+negotiating the re-opening of friendly relations between the courts of
+Elverston and of Bartram.
+
+At length, one fine day, Cousin Monica, smiling pleasantly, with her cloak
+and bonnet on, and her colour fresh from the shrewd air of the Derbyshire
+hills, stood suddenly before me in our sitting-room. Our meeting was that
+of two school-companions long separated. Cousin Monica was always a girl in
+my eyes.
+
+What a hug it was; what a shower of kisses and ejaculations, enquiries
+and caresses! At last I pressed her down into a chair, and, laughing, she
+said--
+
+'You have no idea what self-denial I have exercised to bring this visit
+about. I, who detest writing, have actually written five letters to Silas;
+and I don't think I said a single impertinent thing in one of them! What a
+wonderful little old thing your butler is! I did not know what to make of
+him on the steps. Is he a struldbrug, or a fairy, or only a ghost? Where on
+earth did your uncle pick him up? I'm sure he came in on All Hallows E'en,
+to answer an incantation--not your future husband, I hope--and he'll vanish
+some night into gray smoke, and whisk sadly up the chimney. He's the most
+venerable little thing I ever beheld in my life. I leaned back in the
+carriage and thought I should absolutely die of laughing. He's gone up to
+prepare your uncle for my visit; and I really am very glad, for I'm sure I
+shall look as young as Hebe after _him_. But who is this? Who are you, my
+dear?'
+
+This was addressed to poor Milly, who stood at the corner of the
+chimney-piece, staring with her round eyes and plump cheeks in fear and
+wonder upon the strange lady.
+
+'How stupid of me,' I exclaimed. 'Milly, dear, this is your cousin, Lady
+Knollys.'
+
+'And so _you_ are Millicent. Well, dear, I am very glad to see you.' And
+Cousin Monica was on her feet again in an instant, with Milly's hand very
+cordially in hers; and she gave her a kiss upon each cheek, and patted her
+head.
+
+Milly, I must mention, was a much more presentable figure than when I first
+encountered her. Her dresses were at least a quarter of a yard longer.
+Though very rustic, therefore, she was not so barbarously grotesque, by any
+means.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX
+
+_COUSIN MONICA AND UNCLE SILAS MEET_
+
+
+Cousin Monica, with her hands upon Milly's shoulders, looked amusedly and
+kindly in her face. 'And,' said she, 'we must be very good friends--you
+funny creature, you and I. I'm allowed to be the most saucy old woman in
+Derbyshire--quite incorrigibly privileged; and nobody is ever affronted
+with me, so I say the most shocking things constantly.'
+
+'I'm a bit that way, myself; and I think,' said poor Milly, making an
+effort, and growing very red; she quite lost her head at that point, and
+was incompetent to finish the sentiment she had prefaced.
+
+'You think? Now, take my advice, and never wait to think my dear; talk
+first, and think afterwards, that is my way; though, indeed, I can't say
+I ever think at all. It is a very cowardly habit. Our cold-blooded cousin
+Maud, there, thinks sometimes; but it is always such a failure that I
+forgive her. I wonder when your little pre-Adamite butler will return. He
+speaks the language of the Picts and Ancient Britons, I dare say, and your
+father requires a little time to translate him. And, Milly dear, I am very
+hungry, so I won't wait for your butler, who would give me, I suppose, one
+of the cakes baked by King Alfred, and some Danish beer in a skull; but
+I'll ask you for a little of that nice bread and butter.'
+
+With which accordingly Lady Knollys was quickly supplied; but it did not at
+all impede her utterance.
+
+'Do you think, girls, you could be ready to come away with me, if Silas
+gives leave, in an hour or two? I should so like to take you both home with
+me to Elverston.'
+
+'How delightful! you darling,' cried I, embracing and kissing her; 'for my
+part, I should be ready in five minutes; what do you say, Milly?'
+
+Poor Milly's wardrobe, I am afraid, was more portable than handsome; and
+she looked horribly affrighted, and whispered in my ear--
+
+'My best petticoat is away at the laundress; say in a week, Maud.'
+
+'What does she say?' asked Lady Knollys.
+
+'She fears she can't be ready,' I answered, dejectedly.
+
+'There's a deal of my slops in the wash,' blurted out poor Milly, staring
+straight at Lady Knollys.
+
+'In the name of wonder, what does my cousin mean?' asked Lady Knollys.
+
+'Her things have not come home yet from the laundress,' I replied; and at
+this moment our wondrous old butler entered to announce to Lady Knollys
+that his master was ready to receive her, whenever she was disposed to
+favour him; and also to make polite apologies for his being compelled, by
+his state of health, to give her the trouble of ascending to his room.
+
+So Cousin Monica was at the door in a moment, over her shoulder calling to
+us, 'Come, girls.'
+
+'Please, not yet, my lady--you alone; and he requests the young ladies will
+be in the way, as he will send for them presently.'
+
+I began to admire poor 'Giblets' as the wreck of a tolerably respectable
+servant.
+
+'Very good; perhaps it is better we should kiss and be friends in private
+first,' said Cousin Knollys, laughing; and away she went under the guidance
+of the mummy.
+
+I had an account of this _tête-à-tête_ afterwards from Lady Knollys.
+
+'When I saw him, my dear,' she said, 'I could hardly believe my eyes; such
+white hair--such a white face--such mad eyes--such a death-like smile.
+When I saw him last, his hair was dark; he dressed himself like a modern
+Englishman; and he really preserved a likeness to the full-length portrait
+at Knowl, that you fell in love with, you know; but, angels and ministers
+of grace! such a spectre! I asked myself, is it necromancy, or is it
+delirium tremens that has reduced him to this? And said he, with that
+odious smile, that made me fancy myself half insane--
+
+'"You see a change, Monica."
+
+'What a sweet, gentle, insufferable voice he has! Somebody once told me
+about the tone of a glass flute that made some people hysterical to listen
+to, and I was thinking of it all the time. There was always a peculiar
+quality in his voice.
+
+'"I do see a change, Silas," I said at last; "and, no doubt, so do you in
+me--a great change."
+
+'"There has been time enough to work a greater than I observe in you since
+you last honoured me with a visit," said he.
+
+'I think he was at his old sarcasms, and meant that I was the same
+impertinent minx he remembered long ago, uncorrected by time; and so I am,
+and he must not expect compliments from old Monica Knollys.
+
+'"It is a long time, Silas; but that, you know, is not my fault," said I.
+
+'"Not your fault, my dear--your instinct. We are all imitative creatures:
+the great people ostracised me, and the small ones followed. We are very
+like turkeys, we have so much good sense and so much generosity. Fortune,
+in a freak, wounded my head, and the whole brood were upon me, pecking and
+gobbling, gobbling and pecking, and you among them, dear Monica. It wasn't
+your fault, only your instinct, so I quite forgive you; but no wonder the
+peckers wear better than the pecked. You are robust; and I, what I am."
+
+'"Now, Silas, I have not come here to quarrel. If we quarrel now, mind, we
+can never make it up--we are too old, so let us forget all we can, and try
+to forgive something; and if we can do neither, at all events let there be
+truce between us while I am here."
+
+'"My personal wrongs I can quite forgive, and I do, Heaven knows, from my
+heart; but there are things which ought not to be forgiven. My children
+have been ruined by it. I may, by the mercy of Providence, be yet set right
+in the world, and so soon as that time comes, I will remember, and I
+will act; but my children--you will see that wretched girl, my
+daughter--education, society, all would come too late--my children have
+been ruined by it."
+
+'"I have not done it; but I know what you mean," I said. "You menace
+litigation whenever you have the means; but you forget that Austin placed
+you under promise, when he gave you the use of this house and place, never
+to disturb my title to Elverston. So there is my answer, if you mean that."
+
+'"I mean what I mean," he replied, with his old smile.
+
+'"You mean then," said I, "that for the pleasure of vexing me with
+litigation, you are willing to forfeit your tenure of this house and
+place."
+
+'"Suppose I _did_ mean precisely that, why should I forfeit anything?
+My beloved brother, by his will, has given me a right to the use of
+Bartram-Haugh for my life, and attached no absurd condition of the kind you
+fancy to his gift."
+
+'Silas was in one of his vicious old moods, and liked to menace me. His
+vindictiveness got the better of his craft; but he knows as well as I do
+that he never could succeed in disturbing the title of my poor dear Harry
+Knollys; and I was not at all alarmed by his threats; and I told him so, as
+coolly as I speak to you now.
+
+'"Well, Monica," he said, "I have weighed you in the balance, and you are
+not found wanting. For a moment the old man possessed me: the thought of
+my children, of past unkindness, and present affliction and disgrace,
+exasperated me, and I was mad. It was but for a moment--the galvanic spasm
+of a corpse. Never was breast more dead than mine to the passions and
+ambitions of the world. They are not for white locks like these, nor for
+a man who, for a week in every month, lies in the gate of death. Will you
+shake hands? _Here_--I _do_ strike a truce; and I _do_ forget and forgive
+_everything_."
+
+'I don't know what he meant by this scene. I have no idea whether he was
+acting, or lost his head, or, in fact, why or how it occurred; but I am
+glad, darling, that, unlike myself, I was calm, and that a quarrel has not
+been forced upon me.'
+
+When our turn came and we were summoned to the presence, Uncle Silas was
+quite as usual; but Cousin Monica's heightened colour, and the flash of her
+eyes, showed plainly that something exciting and angry had occurred.
+
+Uncle Silas commented in his own vein upon the effect of Bartram air and
+liberty, all he had to offer; and called on me to say how I liked them. And
+then he called Milly to him, kissed her tenderly, smiled sadly upon her,
+and turning to Cousin Monica, said--
+
+'This is my daughter Milly--oh! she has been presented to you down-stairs,
+has she? You have, no doubt, been interested by her. As I told her cousin
+Maud, though I am not yet quite a Sir Tunbelly Clumsy, she is a very
+finished Miss Hoyden. Are not you, my poor Milly? You owe your distinction,
+my dear, to that line of circumvallation which has, ever since your birth,
+intercepted all civilisation on its way to Bartram. You are much obliged,
+Milly, to everybody who, whether naturally or _un_-naturally, turned a sod
+in that invisible, but impenetrable, work. For your accomplishments--rather
+singular than fashionable--you are indebted, in part, to your cousin, Lady
+Knollys. Is not she, Monica? _Thank_ her, Milly.'
+
+'This is your _truce_, Silas,' said Lady Knollys, with a quiet sharpness.
+'I think, Silas Ruthyn, you want to provoke me to speak in a way before
+these young creatures which we should all regret.'
+
+'So my badinage excites your temper, Monnie. Think how you _would_ feel,
+then, if I had found you by the highway side, mangled by robbers, and set
+my foot upon your throat, and spat in your face. But--stop this. Why have I
+said this? simply to emphasize my forgiveness. See, girls, Lady Knollys and
+I, cousins long estranged, forget and forgive the past, and join hands over
+its buried injuries.'
+
+'Well, _be_ it so; only let us have done with ironies and covert taunts.'
+
+And with these words their hands were joined; and Uncle Silas, after he had
+released hers, patted and fondled it with his, laughing icily and very low
+all the time.
+
+'I wish so much, dear Monica,' he said, when this piece of silent by-play
+was over, 'that I could ask you to stay to-night; but absolutely I have not
+a bed to offer, and even if I had, I fear my suit would hardly prevail.'
+
+Then came Lady Knollys' invitation for Milly and me. He was very much
+obliged; he smiled over it a great deal, meditating. I thought he was
+puzzled; and amid his smiles, his wild eyes scanned Cousin Monica's frank
+face once or twice suspiciously.
+
+There was a difficulty--an _undefined_ difficulty--about letting us go that
+day; but on a future one--soon--_very_ soon--he would be most happy.
+
+Well, there was an end of that little project, for to-day at least; and
+Cousin Monica was too well-bred to urge it beyond a certain point.
+
+'Milly, my dear, will you put on your hat and show me the grounds about the
+house? May she, Silas? I should like to renew my acquaintance.'
+
+'You'll see them sadly neglected, Monnie. A poor man's pleasure grounds
+must rely on Nature, and trust to her for effects. Where there is fine
+timber, however, and abundance of slope, and rock, and hollow, we sometimes
+gain in picturesqueness what we lose by neglect in luxury.'
+
+Then, as Cousin Monica said she would cross the grounds by a path, and meet
+her carriage at a point to which we would accompany her, and so make her
+way home, she took leave of Uncle Silas; a ceremony whereat--without, I
+thought, much zeal at either side--a kiss took place.
+
+'Now, girls!' said Cousin Knollys, when we were fairly in motion over the
+grass, 'what do you say--will he let you come--yes or no? I can't say, but
+I think, dear,'--this to Milly--'he ought to let you see a little more of
+the world than appears among the glens and bushes of Bartram. Very pretty
+they are, like yourself; but very wild, and very little seen. Where is your
+brother, Milly; is not he older than you?'
+
+'I don't know where; and he is older by six years and a bit.'
+
+By-and-by, when Milly was gesticulating to frighten some herons by the
+river's brink into the air, Cousin Monica said confidentially to me--
+
+'He has run away, I'm told--I wish I could believe it--and enlisted in a
+regiment going to India, perhaps the best thing for him. Did you see him
+here before his judicious self-banishment?'
+
+'No.'
+
+'Well, I suppose you have had no loss. Doctor Bryerly says from all he can
+learn he is a very bad young man. And now tell me, dear, _is_ Silas kind to
+you?'
+
+'Yes, always gentle, just as you saw him to-day; but we don't see a great
+deal of him--very little, in fact.'
+
+'And how do you like your life and the people?' she asked.
+
+'My life, very well; and the people, _pretty_ well. There's an old women we
+don't like, old Wyat, she is cross and mysterious and tells untruths; but I
+don't think she is dishonest--so Mary Quince says--and that, you know, is a
+point; and there is a family, father and daughter, called Hawkes, who live
+in the Windmill Wood, who are perfect savages, though my uncle says they
+don't mean it; but they are very disagreeable, rude people; and except them
+we see very little of the servants or other people. But there has been a
+mysterious visit; some one came late at night, and remained for some days,
+though Milly and I never saw them, and Mary Quince saw a chaise at the
+side-door at two o'clock at night.'
+
+Cousin Monica was so highly interested at this that she arrested her walk
+and stood facing me, with her hand on my arm, questioning and listening,
+and lost, as it seemed, in dismal conjecture.
+
+'It is not pleasant, you know,' I said.
+
+'No, it is not pleasant,' said Lady Knollys, very gloomily.
+
+And just then Milly joined us, shouting to us to look at the herons flying;
+so Cousin Monica did, and smiled and nodded in thanks to Milly, and was
+again silent and thoughtful as we walked on.
+
+'You are to come to me, mind, both of you girls,' she said, abruptly; 'you
+_shall_. I'll manage it.'
+
+When silence returned, and Milly ran away once more to try whether the old
+gray trout was visible in the still water under the bridge, Cousin Monica
+said to me in a low tone, looking hard at me--
+
+'You've not seen anything to frighten you, Maud? Don't look so alarmed,
+dear,' she added with a little laugh, which was not very merry, however. 'I
+don't mean frighten in any awful sense--in fact, I did not mean frighten
+at all. I meant--I can't exactly express it--anything to vex, or make you
+uncomfortable; have you?'
+
+'No, I can't say I have, except that room in which Mr. Charke was found
+dead.'
+
+'Oh! you saw that, did you?--I should like to see it so much. Your bedroom
+is not near it?'
+
+'Oh, no; on the floor beneath, and looking to the front. And Doctor Bryerly
+talked a little to me, and there seemed to be something on his mind more
+than he chose to tell me; so that for some time after I saw him I really
+was, as you say, frightened; but, except that, I really have had no cause.
+And what was in your mind when you asked me?'
+
+'Well, you know, Maud, you are afraid of ghosts, banditti, and
+_every_thing; and I wished to know whether you were uncomfortable, and what
+your particular bogle was just now--that, I assure you, was all; and I
+know,' she continued, suddenly changing her light tone and manner for one
+of pointed entreaty, 'what Doctor Bryerly said; and I _implore_ of you,
+Maud, to think of it seriously; and when you come to me, you shall do so
+with the intention of remaining at Elverston.'
+
+'Now, Cousin Monica, is this fair? You and Doctor Bryerly both talk in the
+same awful way to me; and I assure you, you don't know how nervous I am
+sometimes, and yet you won't, either of you, say what you mean. Now,
+Monica, dear cousin, won't you tell me?'
+
+'You see, dear, it is so lonely; it's a strange place, and he so odd. I
+don't like the place, and I don't like him. I've tried, but I can't, and I
+think I never shall. He may be a very--what was it that good little silly
+curate at Knowl used to call him?--a very advanced Christian--that is it,
+and I hope he is; but if he is only what he used to be, his utter seclusion
+from society removes the only check, except personal fear--and he never had
+much of that--upon a very bad man. And you must know, my dear Maud, what a
+prize you are, and what an immense trust it is.'
+
+Suddenly Cousin Monica stopped short, and looked at me as if she had gone
+too far.
+
+'But, you know, Silas may be very good _now_, although he was wild and
+selfish in his young days. Indeed I don't know what to make of him; but I
+am sure when you have thought it over, you will agree with me and Doctor
+Bryerly, that you must not stay here.'
+
+It was vain trying to induce my cousin to be more explicit.
+
+'I hope to see you at Elverston in a very few days. I will _shame_ Silas
+into letting you come. I don't like his reluctance.'
+
+'But don't you think he must know that Milly would require some little
+outfit before her visit?'
+
+'Well, I can't say. I hope that is all; but be it what it may, I'll
+_make_ him let you come, and _immediately_, too.' After she had gone, I
+experienced a repetition of those undefined doubts which had tortured me
+for some time after my conversation with Dr. Bryerly. I had truly said,
+however, I was well enough contented with my mode of life here, for I had
+been trained at Knowl to a solitude very nearly as profound.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL
+
+_IN WHICH I MAKE ANOTHER COUSIN'S ACQUAINTANCE_
+
+
+My correspondence about this time was not very extensive. About once a
+fortnight a letter from honest Mrs. Rusk conveyed to me how the dogs and
+ponies were, in queer English, oddly spelt; some village gossip, a critique
+upon Doctor Clay's or the Curate's last sermon, and some severities
+generally upon the Dissenters' doings, with loves to Mary Quince, and all
+good wishes to me. Sometimes a welcome letter from cheerful Cousin Monica;
+and now, to vary the series, a copy of complimentary verses, without a
+signature, very adoring--very like Byron, I then fancied, and now, I must
+confess, rather vapid. Could I doubt from whom they came?
+
+I had received, about a month after my arrival, a copy of verses in the
+same hand, in a plaintive ballad style, of the soldierly sort, in which the
+writer said, that as living his sole object was to please me, so dying I
+should be his latest thought; and some more poetic impieties, asking only
+in return that when the storm of battle had swept over, I should 'shed
+a tear' on seeing 'the _oak lie_, where it fell.' Of course, about
+this lugubrious pun, there could be no misconception. The Captain was
+unmistakably indicated; and I was so moved that I could no longer retain
+my secret; but walking with Milly that day, confided the little romance to
+that unsophisticated listener, under the chestnut trees. The lines were so
+amorously dejected, and yet so heroically redolent of blood and gunpowder,
+that Milly and I agreed that the writer must be on the verge of a
+sanguinary campaign.
+
+It was not easy to get at Uncle Silas's 'Times' or 'Morning Post,' which we
+fancied would explain these horrible allusions; but Milly bethought her of
+a sergeant in the militia, resident in Feltram, who knew the destination
+and quarters of every regiment in the service; and circuitously, from
+this authority, we learned, to my infinite relief, that Captain Oakley's
+regiment had still two years to sojourn in England.
+
+I was summoned one evening by old L'Amour, to my uncle's room. I remember
+his appearance that evening so well, as he lay back in his chair; the
+pillow; the white glare of his strange eye; his feeble, painful smile.
+
+'You'll excuse my not rising, dear Maud, I am so miserably ill this
+evening.'
+
+I expressed my respectful condolence.
+
+'Yes; I _am_ to be pitied; but pity is of no use, dear,' he murmured,
+peevishly. 'I sent for you to make you acquainted with your cousin, my son.
+Where are you Dudley?'
+
+A figure seated in a low lounging chair, at the other side of the fire, and
+which till then I had not observed, at these words rose up a little slowly,
+like a man stiff after a day's hunting; and I beheld with a shock that held
+my breath, and fixed my eyes upon him in a stare, the young man whom I had
+encountered at Church Scarsdale, on the day of my unpleasant excursion
+there with Madame, and who, to the best of my belief, was also one of that
+ruffianly party who had so unspeakably terrified me in the warren at Knowl.
+
+I suppose I looked very much affrighted. If I had been looking at a ghost I
+could not have felt much more scared and incredulous.
+
+When I was able to turn my eyes upon my uncle he was not looking at me; but
+with a glimmer of that smile with which a father looks on a son whose youth
+and comeliness he admires, his white face was turned towards the young man,
+in whom I beheld nothing but the image of odious and dreadful associations.
+
+'Come, sir,' said my uncle, we must not be too modest. Here's your cousin
+Maud--what do you say?'
+
+'How are ye, Miss?' he said, with a sheepish grin.
+
+'Miss! Come, come. Miss us, no Misses,' said my uncle; 'she is Maud, and
+you Dudley, or I mistake; or we shall have you calling Milly, madame.
+She'll not refuse you her hand, I venture to think. Come, young gentleman,
+speak for yourself.'
+
+'How are ye, Maud?' he said, doing his best, and drawing near, he extended
+his hand. 'You're welcome to Bartram-Haugh, Miss.'
+
+'Kiss your cousin, sir. Where's your gallantry? On my honour, I disown
+you,' exclaimed my uncle, with more energy than he had shown before.
+
+With a clumsy effort, and a grin that was both sheepish and impudent, he
+grasped my hand and advanced his face. The imminent salute gave me strength
+to spring back a step or two, and he hesitated.
+
+My uncle laughed peevishly.
+
+'Well, well, that will do, I suppose. In my time first-cousins did not meet
+like strangers; but perhaps we were wrong; we are learning modesty from the
+Americans, and old English ways are too gross for us.'
+
+'I have--I've seen him before--that is;' and at this point I stopped.
+
+My uncle turned his strange glare, in a sort of scowl of enquiry, upon me.
+
+'Oh!--hey! why this is news. You never told me. Where have you met--eh,
+Dudley?'
+
+'Never saw her in my days, so far as I'm aweer on,' said the young man.
+
+'No! Well, then, Maud, will _you_ enlighten us?' said Uncle Silas, coldly.
+
+'I _did_ see that young gentleman before,' I faltered.
+
+'Meaning _me_, ma'am?' he asked, coolly.
+
+'Yes--certainly _you_. I _did_, uncle,' answered I.
+
+'And where was it, my dear? Not at Knowl, I fancy. Poor dear Austin did not
+trouble me or mine much with his hospitalities.'
+
+This was not a pleasant tone to take in speaking of his dead brother and
+benefactor; but at the moment I was too much engaged upon the one point to
+observe it.
+
+'I met'--I could not say my cousin--'I met him, uncle--your son--that young
+gentleman--I _saw_ him, I should say, at Church Scarsdale, and afterwards
+with some other persons in the warren at Knowl. It was the night our
+gamekeeper was beaten.'
+
+'Well, Dudley, what do you say to that?' asked Uncle Silas.
+
+'I never _was_ at them places, so help me. I don't know where they be; and
+I never set eyes on the young lady before, as I hope to be saved, in all
+my days,' said he, with a countenance so unchanged and an air so confident
+that I began to think I must be the dupe of one of those strange
+resemblances which have been known to lead to positive identification in
+the witness-box, afterwards proved to be utterly mistaken.
+
+'You look so--so _uncomfortable_, Maud, at the idea of having seen him
+before, that I hardly wonder at the vehemence of his denial. There was
+plainly something disagreeable; but you see as respects him it is a total
+mistake. My boy was always a truth-telling fellow--you may rely implicitly
+on what he says. You were _not_ at those places?'
+
+'I wish I may----,' began the ingenuous youth, with increased vehemence.
+
+'There, there--that will do; your honour and word as a gentleman--and
+_that_ you are, though a poor one--will quite satisfy your cousin Maud. Am
+I right, my dear? I do assure you, as a gentleman, I never knew him to say
+the thing that was not.'
+
+So Mr. Dudley Ruthyn began, not to curse, but to swear, in the prescribed
+form, that he had never seen me before, or the places I had named, 'since I
+was weaned, by----'
+
+'That's enough--now shake hands, if you won't kiss, like cousins,'
+interrupted my uncle.
+
+And very uncomfortably I did lend him my hand to shake.
+
+'You'll want some supper, Dudley, so Maud and I will excuse your going.
+Good-night, my dear boy,' and he smiled and waved him from the room.
+
+'That's as fine a young fellow, I think, as any English father can boast
+for his son--true, brave, and kind, and quite an Apollo. Did you observe
+how finely proportioned he is, and what exquisite features the fellow has?
+He's rustic and rough, as you see; but a year or two in the militia--I've a
+promise of a commission for him--he's too old for the line--will form and
+polish him. He wants nothing but manner; and I protest when he has had a
+little drilling of that kind, I do believe he'll be as pretty a fellow as
+you'd find in England.'
+
+I listened with amazement. I could discover nothing but what was
+disagreeable in the horrid bumpkin, and thought such an instance of the
+blindness of parental partiality was hardly credible.
+
+I looked down, dreading another direct appeal to my judgment; and Uncle
+Silas, I suppose, referred those downcast looks to maiden modesty, for he
+forbore to task mine by any new interrogatory.
+
+Dudley Ruthyn's cool and resolute denial of ever having seen me or the
+places I had named, and the inflexible serenity of his countenance while
+doing so, did very much shake my confidence in my own identification of
+him. I could not be _quite_ certain that the person I had seen at Church
+Scarsdale was the very same whom I afterwards saw at Knowl. And now, in
+this particular instance, after the lapse of a still longer period, could I
+be perfectly certain that my memory, deceived by some accidental points of
+resemblance, had not duped me, and wronged my cousin, Dudley Ruthyn?
+
+I suppose my uncle had expected from me some signs of acquiesence in his
+splendid estimate of his cub, and was nettled at my silence. After a short
+interval he said--
+
+'I've seen something of the world in my day, and I can say without a
+misgiving of partiality, that Dudley is the material of a perfect English
+gentleman. I am not blind, of course--the training must be supplied; a year
+or two of good models, active self-criticism, and good society. I simply
+say that the _material_ is there.'
+
+Here was another interval of silence.
+
+'And now tell me, child, what these recollections of
+Church--Church--_what_?'
+
+'Church Scarsdale,' I replied.
+
+'Yes, thank you--Church Scarsdale and Knowl--are?'
+
+So I related my stories as well as I could.
+
+'Well, dear Maud, the adventure of Church Scarsdale is hardly so terrific
+as I expected,' said Uncle Silas with a cold little laugh; 'and I don't
+see, if he had really been the hero of it, why he should shrink from
+avowing it. I know I should not. And I really can't say that your pic-nic
+party in the grounds of Knowl has frightened me much more. A lady waiting
+in the carriage, and two or three tipsy young men. Her presence seems to
+me a guarantee that no mischief was meant; but champagne is the soul of
+frolic, and a row with the gamekeepers a natural consequence. It happened
+to me once--forty years ago, when I was a wild young buck--one of the worst
+rows I ever was in.'
+
+And Uncle Silas poured some eau-de-cologne over the corner of his
+handkerchief, and touched his temples with it.
+
+'If my boy had been there, I do assure you--and I know him--he would say so
+at once. I fancy he would rather _boast_ of it. I never knew him utter an
+untruth. When you know him a little you'll say so.'
+
+With these words Uncle Silas leaned back exhausted, and languidly poured
+some of his favourite eau-de-cologne over the palms of his hands, nodded a
+farewell, and, in a whisper, wished me good-night.
+
+'Dudley's come,' whispered Milly, taking me under the arm as I entered the
+lobby. 'But I don't care: he never gives me nout; and he gets money from
+Governor, as much as he likes, and I never a sixpence. It's a shame!'
+
+So there was no great love between the only son and only daughter of the
+younger line of the Ruthyns.
+
+I was curious to learn all that Milly could tell me of this new inmate of
+Bartram-Haugh; and Milly was communicative without having a great deal to
+relate, and what I heard from her tended to confirm my own disagreeable
+impressions about him. She was afraid of him. He was a 'woundy ugly
+customer in a wax, she could tell me.' He was the only one 'she ever knowed
+as had pluck to jaw the Governor.' But he was 'afeard on the Governor,
+too.'
+
+His visits to Bartram-Haugh, I heard, were desultory; and this, to my
+relief, would probably not outlast a week or a fortnight. 'He _was_ such a
+fashionable cove:' he was always 'a gadding about, mostly to Liverpool and
+Birmingham, and sometimes to Lunnun, itself.' He was 'keeping company
+one time with Beauty, Governor thought, and he was awfully afraid he'd a
+married her; but that was all bosh and nonsense; and Beauty would have none
+of his chaff and wheedling, for she liked Tom Brice;' and Milly thought
+that Dudley never 'cared a crack of a whip for her.' He used to go to the
+Windmill to have 'a smoke with Pegtop;' and he was a member of the Feltram
+Club, that met at the 'Plume o' Feathers.' He was 'a rare good shot,' she
+heard; and 'he was before the justices for poaching, but they could make
+nothing of it.' And the Governor said 'it was all through spite of him--for
+they hate us for being better blood than they.' And 'all but the squires
+and those upstart folk loves Dudley, he is so handsome and gay--though he
+be a bit cross at home.' And, 'Governor says, he'll be a Parliament man
+yet, spite o' them all.'
+
+Next morning, when our breakfast was nearly ended, Dudley tapped at the
+window with the end of his clay pipe--a 'churchwarden' Milly called
+it--just such a long curved pipe as Joe Willet is made to hold between his
+lips in those charming illustrations of 'Barnaby Rudge'--which we all know
+so well--and lifting his 'wide-awake' with a burlesque salutation, which, I
+suppose, would have charmed the 'Plume of Feathers,' he dropped, kicked and
+caught his 'wide-awake,' with an agility and gravity, as he replaced it, so
+inexpressibly humorous, that Milly went off in a loud fit of laughter, with
+the ejaculation--
+
+'Did you ever?'
+
+It was odd how repulsively my confidence in my original identification
+always revived on unexpectedly seeing Dudley after an interval.
+
+I could perceive that this piece of comic by-play was meant to make a
+suitable impression on me. I received it, however, with a killing gravity;
+and after a word or two to Milly, he lounged away, having first broken his
+pipe, bit by bit, into pieces, which he balanced in turn on his nose and
+on his chin, from which features he jerked them into his mouth, with a
+precision which, along with his excellent pantomime of eating them, highly
+excited Milly's mirth and admiration.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI
+
+_MY COUSIN DUDLEY_
+
+
+Greatly to my satisfaction, this engaging person did not appear again that
+day. But next day Milly told me that my uncle had taken him to task for the
+neglect with which he was treating us.
+
+'He did pitch into him, sharp and short, and not a word from him, only
+sulky like; and I so frightened, I durst not look up almost; and they said
+a lot I could not make head or tail of; and Governor ordered me out o' the
+room, and glad I was to go; and so they had it out between them.'
+
+Milly could throw no light whatsoever upon the adventures at Church
+Scarsdale and Knowl; and I was left still in doubt, which sometimes
+oscillated one way and sometimes another. But, on the whole, I could
+not shake off the misgivings which constantly recurred and pointed very
+obstinately to Dudley as the hero of those odious scenes.
+
+Oddly enough, though, I now felt far less confident upon the point than I
+did at first sight. I had begun to distrust my memory, and to suspect my
+fancy; but of this there could be no question, that between the person so
+unpleasantly linked in my remembrance with those scenes, and Dudley Ruthyn,
+a striking, though possibly only a general resemblance did exist.
+
+Milly was certainly right as to the gist of Uncle Silas's injunction, for
+we saw more of Dudley henceforward.
+
+He was shy; he was impudent; he was awkward; he was conceited;--altogether
+a most intolerable bumpkin. Though he sometimes flushed and stammered, and
+never for a moment was at his ease in my presence, yet, to my inexpressible
+disgust, there was a self-complacency in his manner, and a kind of triumph
+in his leer, which very plainly told me how satisfied he was as to the
+nature of the impression he was making upon me.
+
+I would have given worlds to tell him how odious I thought him. Probably,
+however, he would not have believed me. Perhaps he fancied that 'ladies'
+affected airs of indifference and repulsion to cover their real feelings. I
+never looked at or spoke to him when I could avoid either, and then it was
+as briefly as I could. To do him justice, however, he seemed to have no
+liking for our society, and certainly never seemed altogether comfortable
+in it.
+
+I find it hard to write quite impartially even of Dudley Ruthyn's personal
+appearance; but, with an effort, I confess that his features were good, and
+his figure not amiss, though a little fattish. He had light whiskers, light
+hair, and a pink complexion, and very good blue eyes. So far my uncle was
+right; and if he had been perfectly gentlemanlike, he really might have
+passed for a handsome man in the judgment of some critics.
+
+But there was that odious mixture of _mauvaise honte_ and impudence, a
+clumsiness, a slyness, and a consciousness in his bearing and countenance,
+not distinctly boorish, but _low_, which turned his good looks into an
+ugliness more intolerable than that of feature; and a corresponding
+vulgarity pervading his dress, his demeanour, and his very walk, marred
+whatever good points his figure possessed. If you take all this into
+account, with the ominous and startling misgivings constantly recurring,
+you will understand the mixed feelings of anger and disgust with which I
+received the admiration he favoured me with.
+
+Gradually he grew less constrained in my presence, and certainly his
+manners were not improved by his growing ease and confidence.
+
+He came in while Milly and I were at luncheon, jumped up, with a
+'right-about face' performed in the air, sitting on the sideboard, whence
+grinning slyly and kicking his heels, he leered at us.
+
+'Will you have something, Dudley?' asked Milly.
+
+'No, lass; but I'll look at ye, and maybe drink a drop for company.'
+
+And with these words, he took a sportsman's flask from his pocket; and
+helping himself to a large glass and a decanter, he compounded a glass of
+strong brandy-and-water, as he talked, and refreshed himself with it from
+time to time.
+
+'Curate's up wi' the Governor,' he said, with a grin. 'I wanted a word wi'
+him; but I s'pose I'll hardly git in this hour or more; they're a praying
+and disputing, and a Bible-chopping, as usual. Ha, ha! But 'twon't hold
+much longer, old Wyat says, now that Uncle Austin's dead; there's nout to
+be made o' praying and that work no longer, and it don't pay of itself.'
+
+'O fie! For shame, you sinner!' laughed Milly. 'He wasn't in a church these
+five years, he says, and then only to meet a young lady. Now, isn't he a
+sinner, Maud--isn't he?'
+
+Dudley, grinning, looked with a languishing slyness at me, biting the edge
+of his wide-awake, which he held over his breast.
+
+Dudley Ruthyn probably thought there was a manly and desperate sort of
+fascination in the impiety he professed.
+
+'I wonder, Milly,' said I, 'at your laughing. How _can_ you laugh?'
+
+'You'd have me cry, would ye?' answered Milly.
+
+'I certainly would not have you laugh,' I replied.
+
+'I know I wish _some_ one 'ud cry for me, and I know who,' said Dudley, in
+what he meant for a very engaging way, and he looked at me as if he thought
+I must feel flattered by his caring to have my tears.
+
+Instead of crying, however, I leaned back in my chair, and began quietly to
+turn over the pages of Walter Scott's poems, which I and Milly were then
+reading in the evenings.
+
+The tone in which this odious young man spoke of his father, his coarse
+mention of mine, and his low boasting of his irreligion, disgusted me more
+than ever with him.
+
+'They parsons be slow coaches--awful slow. I'll have a good bit to wait, I
+s'pose. I should be three miles away and more by this time--drat it!' He
+was eyeing the legging of the foot which he held up while he spoke, as if
+calculating how far away that limb should have carried him by this time.
+'Why can't folk do their Bible and prayers o' Sundays, and get it off
+their stomachs? I say, Milly lass, will ye see if Governor be done wi' the
+Curate? Do. I'm a losing the whole day along o' him.'
+
+Milly jumped up, accustomed to obey her brother, and as she passed me,
+whispered, with a wink--
+
+'_Money_.'
+
+And away she went. Dudley whistled a tune, and swung his foot like a
+pendulum, as he followed her with his side-glance.
+
+'I say, it is a hard case, Miss, a lad o' spirit should be kept so tight. I
+haven't a shilling but what comes through his fingers; an' drat the tizzy
+he'll gi' me till he knows the reason why.'
+
+'Perhaps,' I said, 'my uncle thinks you should earn some for yourself.'
+
+'I'd like to know how a fella's to earn money now-a-days. You wouldn't have
+a gentleman to keep a shop, I fancy. But I'll ha' a fistful jist now, and
+no thanks to he. Them executors, you know, owes me a deal o' money. Very
+honest chaps, of course; but they're cursed slow about paying, I know.'
+
+I made no remark upon this elegant allusion to the executors of my dear
+father's will.
+
+'An' I tell ye, Maud, when I git the tin, I know who I'll buy a farin' for.
+I do, lass.'
+
+The odious creature drawled this with a sidelong leer, which, I suppose, he
+fancied quite irresistible.
+
+I am one of those unfortunate persons who always blushed when I most
+wished to look indifferent; and now, to my inexpressible chagrin, with its
+accustomed perversity, I felt the blush mount to my cheeks, and glow even
+on my forehead.
+
+I saw that he perceived this most disconcerting indication of a sentiment
+the very idea of which was so detestable, that, equally enraged with myself
+and with him, I did not know how to exhibit my contempt and indignation.
+
+Mistaking the cause of my discomposure, Mr. Dudley Ruthyn laughed softly,
+with an insufferable suavity.
+
+'And there's some'at, lass, I must have in return. Honour thy father, you
+know; you would not ha' me disobey the Governor? No, you wouldn't--would
+ye?'
+
+I darted at him a look which I hoped would have quelled his impertinence;
+but I blushed most provokingly--more violently than ever.
+
+'I'd back them eyes again' the county, I would,' he exclaimed, with a
+condescending enthusiasm. 'You're awful pretty, you are, Maud. I don't know
+what came over me t'other night when Governor told me to buss ye; but dang
+it, ye shan't deny me now, and I'll have a kiss, lass, in spite o' thy
+blushes.'
+
+He jumped from his elevated seat on the sideboard, and came swaggering
+toward me, with an odious grin, and his arms extended. I started to my
+feet, absolutely transported with fury.
+
+'Drat me, if she baint a-going to fight me!' he chuckled humorously.
+
+'Come, Maud, you would not be ill-natured, sure? Arter all, it's only our
+duty. Governor bid us kiss, didn't he?'
+
+'Don't--_don't_, sir. Stand back, or I'll call the servants.'
+
+And as it was I began to scream for Milly.
+
+'There's how it is wi' all they cattle! You never knows your own mind--ye
+don't,' he said, surlily. 'You make such a row about a bit o' play. Drop
+it, will you? There's no one a-harming you--is there? _I_'m not, for
+sartain.'
+
+And, with an angry chuckle, he turned on his heel, and left the room.
+
+I think I was perfectly right to resist, with all the vehemence of which I
+was capable, this attempt to assume an intimacy which, notwithstanding my
+uncle's opinion to the contrary, seemed to me like an outrage.
+
+Milly found me alone--not frightened, but very angry. I had quite made up
+my mind to complain to my uncle, but the Curate was still with him; and,
+by the time he had gone, I was cooler. My awe of my uncle had returned. I
+fancied that he would treat the whole affair as a mere playful piece of
+gallantry. So, with the comfortable conviction that he had had a lesson,
+and would think twice before repeating his impertinence, I resolved, with
+Milly's approbation, to leave matters as they were.
+
+Dudley, greatly to my comfort, was huffed with me, and hardly appeared, and
+was sulky and silent when he did. I lived then in the pleasant anticipation
+of his departure, which, Milly thought, would be very soon.
+
+My uncle had his Bible and his consolations; but it cannot have been
+pleasant to this old _roué_, converted though he was--this refined man
+of fashion--to see his son grow up an outcast, and a Tony Lumpkin; for
+whatever he may have thought of his natural gifts, he must have known how
+mere a boor he was.
+
+I try to recall my then impressions of my uncle's character. Grizzly and
+chaotic the image rises--silver head, feet of clay. I as yet knew little of
+him.
+
+I began to perceive that he was what Mary Quince used to call 'dreadful
+particular'--I suppose a little selfish and impatient. He used to get cases
+of turtle from Liverpool. He drank claret and hock for his health, and ate
+woodcock and other light and salutary dainties for the same reason; and
+was petulant and vicious about the cooking of these, and the flavour and
+clearness of his coffee.
+
+His conversation was easy, polished, and, with a sentimental glazing, cold;
+but across this artificial talk, with its French rhymes, racy phrases,
+and fluent eloquence, like a streak of angry light, would, at intervals,
+suddenly gleam some dismal thought of religion. I never could quite satisfy
+myself whether they were affectations or genuine, like intermittent thrills
+of pain.
+
+The light of his large eyes was very peculiar. I can liken it to nothing
+but the sheen of intense moonlight on burnished metal. But that cannot
+express it. It glared white and suddenly--almost fatuous. I thought of
+Moore's lines whenever I looked on it:--
+
+  Oh, ye dead! oh, ye dead! whom we know by the light you give
+  From your cold gleaming eyes, though you move like men who live.
+
+I never saw in any other eye the least glimmer of the same baleful
+effulgence. His fits, too--his hoverings between life and death--between
+intellect and insanity--a dubious, marsh-fire existence, horrible to look
+on!
+
+I was puzzled even to comprehend his feelings toward his children.
+Sometimes it seemed to me that he was ready to lay down his soul for them;
+at others, he looked and spoke almost as if he hated them. He talked as if
+the image of death was always before him, yet he took a terrible interest
+in life, while seemingly dozing away the dregs of his days in sight of his
+coffin.
+
+Oh! Uncle Silas, tremendous figure in the past, burning always in memory in
+the same awful lights; the fixed white face of scorn and anguish! It
+seems as if the Woman of Endor had led me to that chamber and showed me a
+spectre.
+
+Dudley had not left Bartram-Haugh when a little note reached me from Lady
+Knollys. It said--
+
+'DEAREST MAUD,--I have written by this post to Silas, beseeching a loan of
+you and my Cousin Milly. I see no reason your uncle can possibly have for
+refusing me; and, therefore, I count confidently on seeing you both at
+Elverston to-morrow, to stay for at least a week. I have hardly a creature
+to meet you. I have been disappointed in several visitors; but another time
+we shall have a gayer house. Tell Milly--with my love--that I will not
+forgive her if she fails to accompany you.
+
+'Believe me ever your affectionate cousin,
+
+'MONICA KNOLLYS.'
+
+Milly and I were both afraid that Uncle Silas would refuse his consent,
+although we could not divine any sound reason for his doing so, and there
+were many in favour of his improving the opportunity of allowing poor Milly
+to see some persons of her own sex above the rank of menials.
+
+At about twelve o'clock my uncle sent for us, and, to our great delight,
+announced his consent, and wished us a very happy excursion.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII
+
+_ELVERSTON AND ITS PEOPLE_
+
+
+So Milly and I drove through the gabled high street of Feltram next day. We
+saw my gracious cousin smoking with a man like a groom, at the door of the
+'Plume of Feathers.' I drew myself back as we passed, and Milly popped her
+head out of the window.
+
+'I'm blessed,' said she, laughing, 'if he hadn't his thumb to his nose, and
+winding up his little finger, the way he does with old Wyat--L'Amour, ye
+know; and you may be sure he said something funny, for Jim Jolliter was
+laughin', with his pipe in his hand.'
+
+'I wish I had not seen him, Milly. I feel as if it were an ill omen. He
+always looks so cross; and I dare say he wished us some ill,' I said.
+
+'No, no, you don't know Dudley: if he were angry, he'd say nothing that's
+funny; no, he's not vexed, only shamming vexed.'
+
+The scenery through which we passed was very pretty. The road brought us
+through a narrow and wooded glen. Such studies of ivied rocks and twisted
+roots! A little stream tinkled lonely through the hollow. Poor Milly! In
+her odd way she made herself companionable. I have sometimes fancied an
+enjoyment of natural scenery not so much a faculty as an acquirement. It is
+so exquisite in the instructed, so strangely absent in uneducated humanity.
+But certainly with Milly it was inborn and hearty; and so she could enter
+into my raptures, and requite them.
+
+Then over one of those beautiful Derbyshire moors we drove, and so into
+a wide wooded hollow, where was our first view of Cousin Monica's pretty
+gabled house, beautified with that indescribable air of shelter and comfort
+which belongs to an old English residence, with old timber grouped round
+it, and something in its aspect of the quaint old times and bygone
+merrymakings, saying sadly, but genially, 'Come in: I bid you welcome.
+For two hundred years, or more, have I been the home of this beloved old
+family, whose generations I have seen in the cradle and in the coffin, and
+whose mirth and sorrows and hospitalities I remember. All their friends,
+like you, were welcome; and you, like them, will here enjoy the warm
+illusions that cheat the sad conditions of mortality; and like them you
+will go your way, and others succeed you, till at last I, too, shall yield
+to the general law of decay, and disappear.'
+
+By this time poor Milly had grown very nervous; a state which she described
+in such very odd phraseology as threw me, in spite of myself--for I
+affected an impressive gravity in lecturing her upon her language--into a
+hearty fit of laughter.
+
+I must mention, however, that in certain important points Milly was very
+essentially reformed. Her dress, though not very fashionable, was no longer
+absurd. And I had drilled her into speaking and laughing quietly; and
+for the rest I trusted to the indulgence which is always, I think, more
+honestly and easily obtained from well-bred than from under-bred people.
+
+Cousin Monica was out when we arrived; but we found that she had arranged a
+double-bedded room for me and Milly, greatly to our content; and good Mary
+Quince was placed in the dressing-room beside us.
+
+We had only just commenced our toilet when our hostess entered, as usual in
+high spirits, welcomed and kissed us both again and again. She was, indeed,
+in extraordinary delight, for she had anticipated some stratagem or evasion
+to prevent our visit; and in her usual way she spoke her mind as frankly
+about Uncle Silas to poor Milly as she used to do of my dear father to me.
+
+'I did not think he would let you come without a battle; and you know if
+he chose to be obstinate it would not have been easy to get you out of the
+enchanted ground, for so it seems to be with that awful old wizard in the
+midst of it. I mean, Silas, your papa, my dear. Honestly, is not he very
+like Michael Scott?'
+
+'I never saw him,' answered poor Milly. 'At least, that I'm aware of,' she
+added, perceiving us smile. 'But I do think he's a thought like old Michael
+Dobbs, that sells the ferrets, maybe you mean him?'
+
+'Why, you told me, Maud, that you and Milly were reading Walter Scott's
+poems. Well, no matter. Michael Scott, my dear, was a dead wizard, with
+ever so much silvery hair, lying in his grave for ever so many years, with
+just life enough to scowl when they took his book; and you'll find him in
+the "Lay of the Last Minstrel," exactly like your papa, my dear. And my
+people tell me that your brother Dudley has been seen drinking and smoking
+about Feltram this week. How long does he remain at home? Not very long,
+eh? And, Maud, dear, he has not been making love to you? Well, I see; of
+course he has. And _apropos_ of love-making, I hope that impudent creature,
+Charles Oakley, has not been teasing you with notes or verses.'
+
+'Indeed but he has though,' interposed Miss Milly; a good deal to my
+chagrin, for I saw no particular reason for placing his verses in Cousin
+Monica's hands. So I confessed the two little copies of verses, with the
+qualification, however, that I did not know from whom they came.
+
+'Well now, dear Maud, have not I told you fifty times over to have nothing
+to say to him? I've found out, my dear, he plays, and he is very much in
+debt. I've made a vow to pay no more for him. I've been such a fool, you
+have no notion; and I'm speaking, you know, against myself; it would be
+such a relief if he were to find a wife to support him; and he has been,
+I'm told, very sweet upon a rich old maid--a button-maker's sister, in
+Manchester.'
+
+This arrow was well shot.
+
+'But don't be frightened: you are richer as well as younger; and, no doubt,
+will have your chance first, my dear; and in the meantime, I dare say,
+those verses, like Falstaff's _billet-doux,_ you know, are doing double
+duty.'
+
+I laughed, but the button-maker was a secret trouble to me; and I would
+have given I know not what that Captain Oakley were one of the company,
+that I might treat him with the refined contempt which his deserts and my
+dignity demanded.
+
+Cousin Monica busied herself about Milly's toilet, and was a very useful
+lady's maid, chatting in her own way all the time; and, at last, tapping
+Milly under the chin with her finger, she said, very complacently--
+
+'I think I have succeeded, Miss Milly; look in the glass. She really is a
+very pretty creature.'
+
+And Milly blushed, and looked with a shy gratification, which made her
+still prettier, on the mirror.
+
+Milly indeed was very pretty. She looked much taller now that her dresses
+were made of the usual length. A little plump she was, beautifully fair,
+with such azure eyes, and rich hair.
+
+'The more you laugh the better, Milly, for you've got very pretty
+teeth--very pretty; and if you were my daughter, or if your father would
+become president of a college of magicians, and give you up to me, I
+venture to say I would place you very well; and even as it is we must try,
+my dear.'
+
+So down to the drawing-room we went; and Cousin Monica entered, leading us
+both by the hands.
+
+By this time the curtains were closed, and the drawing-room dependent on
+the pleasant glow of the fire, and the slight provisional illumination
+usual before dinner.
+
+'Here are my two cousins,' began Lady Knollys: 'this is Miss Ruthyn, of
+Knowl, whom I take the liberty of calling Maud; and this is Miss Millicent
+Ruthyn, Silas's daughter, you know, whom I venture to call Milly; and they
+are very pretty, as you will see, when we get a little more light, and they
+know it very well themselves.'
+
+And as she spoke, a frank-eyed, gentle, prettyish lady, not so tall as I,
+but with a very kind face, rose up from a book of prints, and, smiling,
+took our hands.
+
+She was by no means young, as I then counted youth--past thirty, I
+suppose--and with an air that was very quiet, and friendly, and engaging.
+She had never been a mere fashionable woman plainly; but she had the ease
+and polish of the best society, and seemed to take a kindly interest both
+in Milly and me; and Cousin Monica called her Mary, and sometimes Polly.
+That was all I knew of her for the present.
+
+So very pleasantly the time passed by till the dressing-bell rang, and we
+ran away to our room.
+
+'Did I say anything very bad?' asked poor Milly, standing exactly before
+me, so soon as our door was shut.
+
+'Nothing, Milly; you are doing admirably.'
+
+'And I do look a great fool, don't I?' she demanded.
+
+'You look extremely pretty, Milly; and not a bit like a fool.'
+
+'I watch everything. I think I'll learn it at last; but it comes a little
+troublesome at first; and they do talk different from what I used--you were
+quite right there.'
+
+When we returned to the drawing-room, we found the party already assembled,
+and chatting, evidently with spirit.
+
+The village doctor, whose name I forget, a small man, grey, with shrewd
+grey eyes, sharp and mulberry nose, whose conflagration extended to his
+rugged cheeks, and touched his chin and forehead, was conversing, no doubt
+agreeably, with Mary, as Cousin Monica called her guest.
+
+Over my shoulder, Milly whispered--
+
+'Mr. Carysbroke.'
+
+And Milly was quite right: that gentleman chatting with Lady Knollys, his
+elbow resting on the chimney-piece, was, indeed, our acquaintance of the
+Windmill Wood. He instantly recognised us, and met us with his pleased and
+intelligent smile.
+
+'I was just trying to describe to Lady Knollys the charming scenery of the
+Windmill Wood, among which I was so fortunate as to make your acquaintance,
+Miss Ruthyn. Even in this beautiful county I know of nothing prettier.'
+
+Then he sketched it, as it were, with a few light but glowing words.
+
+'What a sweet scene!' said Cousin Monica: 'only think of her never bringing
+me through it. She reserves it, I fancy, for her romantic adventures; and
+you, I know, are very benevolent, Ilbury, and all that kind of thing; but I
+am not quite certain that you would have walked along that narrow parapet,
+over a river, to visit a sick old woman, if you had not happened to see two
+very pretty demoiselles on the other side.'
+
+'What an ill-natured speech! I must either forfeit my character for
+disinterested benevolence, so justly admired, or disavow a motive that does
+such infinite credit to my taste,' exclaimed Mr. Carysbroke. 'I think a
+charitable person would have said that a philanthropist, in prosecuting his
+virtuous, but perilous vocation, was unexpectedly _rewarded_ by a vision of
+angels.'
+
+'And with these angels loitered away the time which ought to have been
+devoted to good Mother Hubbard, in her fit of lumbago, and returned without
+having set eyes on that afflicted Christian, to amaze his worthy sister
+with poetic babblings about wood-nymphs and such pagan impieties,' rejoined
+Lady Knollys.
+
+'Well, be just,' he replied, laughing; 'did not I go next day and see the
+patient?'
+
+'Yes; next day you went by the same route--in quest of the dryads, I am
+afraid--and were rewarded by the spectacle of Mother Hubbard.'
+
+'Will nobody help a humane man in difficulties?' Mr. Carysbroke appealed.
+
+'I do believe,' said the lady whom as yet I knew only as Mary, 'that every
+word that Monica says is perfectly true.'
+
+'And if it be so, am I not all the more in need of help? Truth is simply
+the most dangerous kind of defamation, and I really think I'm most cruelly
+persecuted.'
+
+At this moment dinner was announced, and a meek and dapper little
+clergyman, with smooth pink cheeks, and tresses parted down the middle,
+whom I had not seen before, emerged from shadow.
+
+This little man was assigned to Milly, Mr. Carysbroke to me, and I know not
+how the remaining ladies divided the doctor between them.
+
+That dinner, the first at Elverston, I remember as a very pleasant repast.
+Everyone talked--it was impossible that conversation should flag where Lady
+Knollys was; and Mr. Carysbroke was very agreeable and amusing. At the
+other side of the table, the little pink curate, I was happy to see, was
+prattling away, with a modest fluency, in an under-tone to Milly, who was
+following my instructions most conscientiously, and speaking in so low a
+key that I could hardly hear at the opposite side one word she was saying.
+
+That night Cousin Monica paid us a visit, as we sat chatting by the fire in
+our room; and I told her--
+
+'I have just been telling Milly what an impression she has made. The pretty
+little clergyman--_il en est épris_--he has evidently quite lost his heart
+to her. I dare say he'll preach next Sunday on some of King Solomon's wise
+sayings about the irresistible strength of women.'
+
+'Yes,' said Lady Knollys, 'or maybe on the sensible text, "Whoso findeth
+a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favour," and so forth. At all
+events, I may say, Milly, whoso findeth a husband such as he, findeth a
+tolerably good thing. He is an exemplary little creature, second son of Sir
+Harry Biddlepen, with a little independent income of his own, beside his
+church revenues of ninety pounds a year; and I don't think a more harmless
+and docile little husband could be found anywhere; and I think, Miss Maud,
+_you_ seemed a good deal interested, too.'
+
+I laughed and blushed, I suppose; and Cousin Monica, skipping after her
+wont to quite another matter, said in her odd frank way--
+
+'And how has Silas been?--not cross, I hope, or very odd. There was a
+rumour that your brother, Dudley, had gone a soldiering to India, Milly, or
+somewhere; but that was all a story, for he has turned up, just as usual.
+And what does he mean to do with himself? He has got some money now--your
+poor father's will, Maud. Surely he doesn't mean to go on lounging and
+smoking away his life among poachers, and prize-fighters, and worse people.
+He ought to go to Australia, like Thomas Swain, who, they say, is making a
+fortune--a great fortune--and coming home again. That's what your brother
+Dudley should do, if he has either sense or spirit; but I suppose he
+won't--too long abandoned to idleness and low company--and he'll not have a
+shilling left in a year or two. Does he know, I wonder, that his father has
+served a notice or something on Dr. Bryerly, telling him to pay sixteen
+hundred pounds of poor Austin's legacy to _him_, and saying that he has
+paid debts of the young man, and holds his acknowledgments to that amount?
+He won't have a guinea in a year if he stays here. I'd give fifty pounds he
+was in Van Diemen's Land--not that I care for the cub, Milly, any more than
+you do; but I really don't see any honest business he has in England.'
+
+Milly gaped in a total puzzle as Lady Knollys rattled on.
+
+'You know, Milly, you must not be talking about this when you go home to
+Bartram, because Silas would prevent your coming to me any more if he
+thought I spoke so freely; but I can't help it: so you must promise to be
+more discreet than I. And I am told that all kinds of claims are about to
+be pressed against him, now that he is thought to have got some money; and
+he has been cutting down oak and selling the bark, Doctor Bryerly has been
+told, in that Windmill Wood; and he has kilns there for burning charcoal,
+and got a man from Lancashire who understands it--Hawk, or something like
+that.'
+
+'Ay, Hawkes--Dickon Hawkes; that's Pegtop, you know, Maud,' said Milly.
+
+'Well, I dare say; but a man of very bad character, Dr. Bryerly says; and
+he has written to Mr. Danvers about it--for that is what they call waste,
+cutting down and selling the timber, and the oakbark, and burning the
+willows, and other trees that are turned into charcoal. It is all _waste_,
+and Dr. Bryerly is about to put a stop to it.'
+
+'Has he got your carriage for you, Maud, and your horses?' asked Cousin
+Monica, suddenly.
+
+'They have not come yet, but in a few weeks, Dudley says, positively--'
+
+Cousin Monica laughed a little and shook her head.
+
+'Yes, Maud, the carriage and horses will always be coming in a few weeks,
+till the time is over; and meanwhile the old travelling chariot and
+post-horses will do very well;' and she laughed a little again.
+
+'That's why the stile's pulled away at the paling, I suppose; and
+Beauty--Meg Hawkes, that is--is put there to stop us going through; for I
+often spied the smoke beyond the windmill,' observed Milly.
+
+Cousin Monica listened with interest, and nodded silently.
+
+I was very much shocked. It seemed to me quite incredible. I think Lady
+Knollys read my amazement and my exalted estimate of the heinousness of the
+procedure in my face, for she said--
+
+'You know we can't quite condemn Silas till we have heard what he has to
+say. He may have done it in ignorance; or, it is just possible, he may have
+the right.'
+
+'Quite true. He may have the right to cut down trees at Bartram-Haugh. At
+all events, I am sure he thinks he has,' I echoed.
+
+The fact was, that I would not avow to myself a suspicion of Uncle Silas.
+Any falsehood there opened an abyss beneath my feet into which I dared not
+look.
+
+'And now, dear girls, good-night. You must be tired. We breakfast at a
+quarter past nine--not too early for you, I know.'
+
+And so saying, she kissed us, smiling, and was gone.
+
+I was so unpleasantly occupied, for some time after her departure, with the
+knaveries said to be practised among the dense cover of the Windmill Wood,
+that I did not immediately recollect that we had omitted to ask her any
+particulars about her guests.
+
+'Who can Mary be?' asked Milly.
+
+'Cousin Monica says she's engaged to be married, and I think I heard the
+Doctor call her _Lady_ Mary, and I intended asking her ever so much about
+her; but what she told us about cutting down the trees, and all that, quite
+put it out of my head. We shall have time enough to-morrow, however, to ask
+questions. I like her very much, I know.'
+
+'And I think,' said Milly, 'it is to Mr. Carysbroke she's to be married.'
+
+'Do you?' said I, remembering that he had sat beside her for more than a
+quarter of an hour after tea in very close and low-toned conversation; 'and
+have you any particular reason?' I asked.
+
+'Well, I heard her once or twice call him "dear," and she called him his
+Christian name, just like Lady Knollys did--Ilbury, I think--and I saw him
+gi' her a sly kiss as she was going up-stairs.'
+
+I laughed.
+
+'Well, Milly,' I said, 'I remarked something myself, I thought, like
+confidential relations; but if you really saw them kiss on the staircase,
+the question is pretty well settled.'
+
+'Ay, lass.'
+
+'You're not to say _lass_.'
+
+'Well, _Maud, then_. I did see them with the corner of my eye, and my back
+turned, when they did not think I could spy anything, as plain as I see you
+now.'
+
+I laughed again; but I felt an odd pang--something of
+mortification--something of regret; but I smiled very gaily, as I stood
+before the glass, un-making my toilet preparatory to bed.
+
+'Maud--Maud--fickle Maud!--What, Captain Oakley already superseded! and Mr.
+Carysbroke--oh! humiliation--engaged.' So I smiled on, very much vexed;
+and being afraid lest I had listened with too apparent an interest to this
+impostor, I sang a verse of a gay little chanson, and tried to think of
+Captain Oakley, who somehow had become rather silly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII
+
+_NEWS AT BARTRAM GATE_
+
+
+Milly and I, thanks to our early Bartram hours, were first down next
+morning; and so soon as Cousin Monica appeared we attacked her.
+
+'So Lady Mary is the _fiancée_ of Mr. Carysbroke,' said I, very cleverly;
+'and I think it was very wicked of you to try and involve me in a
+flirtation with him yesterday.'
+
+'And who told you that, pray?' asked Lady Knollys, with a pleasant little
+laugh.
+
+'Milly and I discovered it, simple as we stand here,' I answered.
+
+'But you did not flirt with Mr. Carysbroke, Maud, did you?' she asked.
+
+'No, certainly not; but that was not your doing, wicked woman, but my
+discretion. And now that we know your secret, you must tell us all about
+her, and all about him; and in the first place, what is her name--Lady Mary
+what?' I demanded.
+
+'Who would have thought you so cunning? Two country misses--two little nuns
+from the cloisters of Bartram! Well, I suppose I must answer. It is vain
+trying to hide anything from you; but how on earth did you find it out?'
+
+'We'll tell you that presently, but you shall first tell us who she is,' I
+persisted.
+
+'Well, that I will, of course, without compulsion. She is Lady Mary
+Carysbroke,' said Lady Knollys.
+
+'A relation of Mr. Carysbroke's,' I asserted.
+
+'Yes, a relation; but who told you he was Mr. Carysbroke?' asked Cousin
+Monica.
+
+'Milly told me, when we saw him in the Windmill Wood.'
+
+'And who told you, Milly?'
+
+'It was L'Amour,' answered Milly, with her blue eyes very wide open.
+
+'What does the child mean? L'Amour! You don't mean _love_?' exclaimed Lady
+Knollys, puzzled in her turn.
+
+'I mean old Wyat; _she_ told me and the Governor.'
+
+'You're _not_ to say that,' I interposed.
+
+'You mean your father?' suggested Lady Knollys.
+
+'Well, yes; father told her, and so I knew him.'
+
+'What could he mean?' exclaimed Lady Knollys, laughing, as it were, in
+soliloquy; 'and I did not mention his name, I recollect now. He recognised
+you, and you him, when you came into the room yesterday; and now you must
+tell me how you discovered that he and Lady Mary were to be married.'
+
+So Milly restated her evidence, and Lady Knollys laughed unaccountably
+heartily; and she said--
+
+'They _will_ be _so_ confounded! but they deserve it; and, remember, _I_
+did not say so.'
+
+'Oh! we acquit you.'
+
+'All I say is, such a deceitful, dangerous pair of girls--all things
+considered--I never heard of before,' exclaimed Lady Knollys. 'There's no
+such thing as conspiring in your presence.'
+
+'Good morning. I hope you slept well.' She was addressing the lady and
+gentleman who were just entering the room from the conservatory. 'You'll
+hardly sleep so well to-night, when you have learned what eyes are upon
+you. Here are two very pretty detectives who have found out your secret,
+and entirely by your imprudence and their own cleverness have discovered
+that you are a pair of betrothed lovers, about to ratify your vows at
+the hymeneal altar. I assure you I did not tell of you; you betrayed
+yourselves. If you will talk in that confidential way on sofas, and call
+one another stealthily by your Christian names, and actually kiss at the
+foot of the stairs, while a clever detective is scaling them, apparently
+with her back toward you, you must only take the consequences, and be known
+prematurely as the hero and heroine of the forthcoming paragraph in the
+"Morning Post."'
+
+Milly and I were horribly confounded, but Cousin Monica was resolved to
+place us all upon the least formal terms possible, and I believe she had
+set about it in the right way.
+
+'And now, girls, I am going to make a counter-discovery, which, I fear, a
+little conflicts with yours. This Mr. Carysbroke is Lord Ilbury, brother
+of this Lady Mary; and it is all my fault for not having done my honours
+better; but you see what clever match-making little creatures they are.'
+
+'You can't think how flattered I am at being made the subject of a theory,
+even a mistaken one, by Miss Ruthyn.'
+
+And so, after our modest fit was over, Milly and I were very merry, like
+the rest, and we all grew a great deal more intimate that morning.
+
+I think altogether those were the pleasantest and happiest days of my
+life: gay, intelligent, and kindly society at home; charming
+excursions--sometimes riding--sometimes by carriage--to distant points of
+beauty in the county. Evenings varied with music, reading, and spirited
+conversation. Now and then a visitor for a day or two, and constantly some
+neighbour from the town, or its dependencies, dropt in. Of these I but
+remember tall old Miss Wintletop, most entertaining of rustic old
+maids, with her nice lace and thick satin, and her small, kindly round
+face--pretty, I dare say, in other days, and now frosty, but kindly--who
+told us such delightful old stories of the county in her father's and
+grandfather's time; who knew the lineage of every family in it, and could
+recount all its duels and elopements; give us illustrative snatches from
+old election squibs, and lines from epitaphs, and tell exactly where all
+the old-world highway robberies had been committed: how it fared with the
+chief delinquents after the assizes; and, above all, where, and of what
+sort, the goblins and elves of the county had made themselves seen, from
+the phantom post-boy, who every third night crossed Windale Moor, by the
+old coach-road, to the fat old ghost, in mulberry velvet, who showed his
+great face, crutch, and ruffles, by moonlight, at the bow window of the old
+court-house that was taken down in 1803.
+
+You cannot imagine what agreeable evenings we passed in this society,
+or how rapidly my good Cousin Milly improved in it. I remember well the
+intense suspense in which she and I awaited the answer from Bartram-Haugh
+to kind Cousin Monica's application for an extension of our leave of
+absence.
+
+It came, and with it a note from Uncle Silas, which was curious, and,
+therefore, is printed here:--
+
+'MY DEAR LADY KNOLLYS,--To your kind letter I say yes (that is, for another
+week, not a fortnight), with all my heart. I am glad to hear that my
+starlings chatter so pleasantly; at all events the refrain is not that of
+Sterne's. They can get out; and do get out; and shall get out as much as
+they please. I am no gaoler, and shut up nobody but myself. I have always
+thought that young people have too little liberty. My principle has been
+to make little free men and women of them from the first. In morals,
+altogether--in intellect, more than we allow--_self_-education is that
+which abides; and _it_ only begins where constraint ends. Such is my
+theory. My practice is consistent. Let them remain for a week longer, as
+you say. The horses shall be at Elverston on Tuesday, the 7th. I shall be
+more than usually sad and solitary till their return; so pray, I selfishly
+entreat, do not extend their absence. You will smile, remembering how
+little my health will allow me to see of them, even when at home; but as
+Chaulieu so prettily says--I stupidly forget the words, but the sentiment
+is this--"although concealed by a sylvan wall of leaves, impenetrable--(he
+is pursuing his favourite nymphs through the alleys and intricacies of a
+rustic labyrinth)--yet, your songs, your prattle, and your laughter, faint
+and far away, inspire my fancy; and, through my ears, I see your unseen
+smiles, your blushes, your floating tresses, and your ivory feet; and so,
+though sad, am happy; though alone, in company;"--and such is my case.
+
+'One only request, and I have done. Pray remind them of a promise made to
+me. The Book of Life--the fountain of life--it must be drunk of, night and
+morning, or their spiritual life expires.
+
+'And now, Heaven bless and keep you, my dear cousin; and with all
+assurances of affection to my beloved niece and my child, believe me ever
+yours affectionately.
+
+'SILAS RUTHYN.'
+
+Said Cousin Monica, with a waggish smile--
+
+'And so, girls, you have Chaulieu and the evangelists; the French rhymester
+in his alley, and Silas in the valley of the shadow of death; perfect
+liberty, and a peremptory order to return in a week;--all illustrating one
+another. Poor Silas! old as he is, I don't think his religion fits him.'
+
+_I_ really rather liked his letter. I was struggling hard to think well of
+him, and Cousin Monica knew it; and I really think if I had not been by,
+she would often have been less severe on him.
+
+As we were all sitting pleasantly about the breakfast table a day or two
+after, the sun shining on the pleasant wintry landscape, Cousin Monica
+suddenly exclaimed--
+
+'I quite forgot to tell you that Charles Oakley has written to say he is
+coming on Wednesday. I really don't want him. Poor Charlie! I wonder how
+they manage those doctors' certificates. I know nothing ails him, and he'd
+be much better with his regiment.'
+
+Wednesday!--how odd. Exactly the day after my departure. I tried to look
+perfectly unconcerned. Lady Knollys had addressed herself more to Lady
+Mary and Milly than to me, and nobody in particular was looking at me.
+Notwithstanding, with my usual perversity, I felt myself blushing with a
+brilliancy that may have been very becoming, but which was so intolerably
+provoking that I would have risen and left the room but that matters would
+have been so infinitely worse. I could have boxed my odious ears. I could
+almost have jumped from the window.
+
+I felt that Lord Ilbury saw it. I saw Lady Mary's eyes for a moment resting
+gravely on my tell-tale--my lying cheeks--for I really had begun to think
+much less celestially of Captain Oakley. I was angry with Cousin Monica,
+who, knowing my blushing infirmity, had mentioned her nephew so suddenly
+while I was strapped by etiquette in my chair, with my face to the window,
+and two pair of most disconcerting eyes, at least, opposite. I was angry
+with myself--generally angry--refused more tea rather dryly, and was
+laconic to Lord Ilbury, all which, of course, was very cross and foolish;
+and afterwards, from my bed-room window, I saw Cousin Monica and Lady
+Mary among the flowers, under the drawing-room window, talking, as I
+instinctively knew, of that little incident. I was standing at the glass.
+
+'My odious, stupid, _perjured_ face' I whispered, furiously, at the same
+time stamping on the floor, and giving myself quite a smart slap on the
+cheek. 'I _can't_ go down--I'm ready to cry--I've a mind to return to
+Bartram to-day; I am _always_ blushing; and I wish that impudent Captain
+Oakley was at the bottom of the sea.'
+
+I was, perhaps, thinking more of Lord Ilbury than I was aware; and I am
+sure if Captain Oakley had arrived that day, I should have treated him with
+most unjustifiable rudeness.
+
+Notwithstanding this unfortunate blush, the remainder of our visit passed
+very happily for me. No one who has not experienced it can have an idea
+how intimate a small party, such as ours, will grow in a short time in a
+country house.
+
+Of course, a young lady of a well-regulated mind cannot possibly care a
+pin about any one of the opposite sex until she is well assured that he is
+beginning, at least, to like her better than all the world beside; but I
+could not deny to myself that I was rather anxious to know more about Lord
+Ilbury than I actually did know.
+
+There was a 'Peerage,' in its bright scarlet and gold uniform, corpulent
+and tempting, upon the little marble table in the drawing-room. I had many
+opportunities of consulting it, but I never could find courage to do so.
+
+For an inexperienced person it would have been a matter of several minutes,
+and during those minutes what awful risk of surprise and detection. One
+day, all being quiet, I did venture, and actually, with a beating heart,
+got so far as to find out the letter 'Il,' when I heard a step outside the
+door, which opened a little bit, and I heard Lady Knollys, luckily arrested
+at the entrance, talk some sentences outside, her hand still upon the
+door-handle. I shut the book, as Mrs. Bluebeard might the door of the
+chamber of horrors at the sound of her husband's step, and skipped to a
+remote part of the room, where Cousin Knollys found me in a mysterious
+state of agitation.
+
+On any other subject I would have questioned Cousin Monica unhesitatingly;
+upon this, somehow, I was dumb. I distrusted myself, and dreaded my odious
+habit of blushing, and knew that I should look so horribly guilty, and
+become so agitated and odd, that she would have reasonably concluded that I
+had quite lost my heart to him.
+
+After the lesson I had received, and my narrow escape of detection in the
+very act, you may be sure I never trusted myself in the vicinity of that
+fat and cruel 'Peerage,' which possessed the secret, but would not disclose
+without compromising me.
+
+In this state of tantalizing darkness and conjecture I should have
+departed, had not Cousin Monica quite spontaneously relieved me.
+
+The night before our departure she sat with us in our room, chatting a
+little farewell gossip.
+
+'And what do you think of Ilbury?' she asked.
+
+'I think him clever and accomplished, and amusing; but he sometimes appears
+to me very melancholy--that is, for a few minutes together--and then, I
+fancy, with an effort, re-engages in our conversation.'
+
+'Yes, poor Ilbury! He lost his brother only about five months since, and
+is only beginning to recover his spirits a little. They were very much
+attached, and people thought that he would have succeeded to the title,
+had he lived, because Ilbury is _difficile_--or a philosopher--or a _Saint
+Kevin_; and, in fact, has begun to be treated as a premature old bachelor.'
+
+'What a charming person his sister, Lady Mary, is. She has made me promise
+to write to her,' I said, I suppose--such hypocrites are we--to prove to
+Cousin Knollys that I did not care particularly to hear anything more about
+him.
+
+'Yes, and so devoted to him. He came down here, and took The Grange, for
+change of scene and solitude--of all things the worst for a man in grief--a
+morbid whim, as he is beginning to find out; for he is very glad to stay
+here, and confesses that he is much better since he came. His letters are
+still addressed to him as Mr. Carysbroke; for he fancied if his rank were
+known, that the county people would have been calling upon him, and so he
+would have found himself soon involved in a tiresome round of dinners, and
+must have gone somewhere else. You saw him, Milly, at Bartram, before Maud
+came?'
+
+Yes, she had, when he called there to see her father.
+
+'He thought, as he had accepted the trusteeship, that he could hardly,
+residing so near, omit to visit Silas. He was very much struck and
+interested by him, and he has a better opinion of him--you are not angry,
+Milly--than some ill-natured people I could name; and he says that the
+cutting down of the trees will turn out to have been a mere slip. But these
+slips don't occur with clever men in other things; and some persons have
+a way of always making them in their own favour. And, to talk of other
+things, I suspect that you and Milly will probably see Ilbury at Bartram;
+for I think he likes you very much.'
+
+_You_; did she mean _both_, or only me?
+
+So our pleasant visit was over. Milly's good little curate had been much
+thrown in her way by our deep and dangerous cousin Monica. He was most
+laudably steady; and his flirtation advanced upon the field of theology,
+where, happily, Milly's little reading had been concentrated. A mild and
+earnest interest in poor, pretty Milly's orthodoxy was the leading feature
+of his case; and I was highly amused at her references to me, when we had
+retired at night, upon the points which she had disputed with him, and
+her anxious reports of their low-toned conferences, carried on upon a
+sequestered ottoman, where he patted and stroked his crossed leg, as he
+smiled tenderly and shook his head at her questionable doctrine. Milly's
+reverence for her instructor, and his admiration, grew daily; and he was
+known among us as Milly's confessor.
+
+He took luncheon with us on the day of our departure, and with an adroit
+privacy, which in a layman would have been sly, presented her, in right of
+his holy calling, with a little book, the binding of which was mediaeval
+and costly, and whose letter-press dealt in a way which he commended,
+with some points on which she was not satisfactory; and she found on the
+fly-leaf this little inscription:--'Presented to Miss Millicent Ruthyn by
+an earnest well-wisher, 1st December 1844.' A text, very neatly penned,
+followed this; and the 'presentation' was made unctiously indeed, but with
+a blush, as well as the accustomed smile, and with eyes that were lowered.
+
+The early crimson sun of December had gone down behind the hills before we
+took our seats in the carriage.
+
+Lord Ilbury leaned with his elbow on the carriage window, looking in, and
+he said to me--
+
+'I really don't know what we shall do, Miss Ruthyn; we shall all feel so
+lonely. For myself, I think I shall run away to Grange.'
+
+This appeared to me as nearly perfect eloquence as human lips could utter.
+
+His hand still rested on the window, and the Rev. Sprigge Biddlepen was
+standing with a saddened smirk on the door steps, when the whip smacked,
+the horses scrambled into motion, and away we rolled down the avenue,
+leaving behind us the pleasantest house and hostess in the world, and
+trotting fleetly into darkness towards Bartram-Haugh.
+
+We were both rather silent. Milly had her book in her lap, and I saw
+her every now and then try to read her 'earnest well-wisher's' little
+inscription, but there was not light to read by.
+
+When we reached the great gate of Bartram-Haugh it was dark. Old Crowl, who
+kept the gate, I heard enjoining the postilion to make no avoidable noise
+at the hall-door, for the odd but startling reason that he believed my
+uncle 'would be dead by this time.'
+
+Very much shocked and frightened, we stopped the carriage, and questioned
+the tremulous old porter.
+
+Uncle Silas, it seemed, had been 'silly-ish' all yesterday, and 'could not
+be woke this morning,' and 'the doctor had been here twice, being now in
+the house.'
+
+'Is he better?' I asked, tremblingly.
+
+'Not as I'm aweer on, Miss; he lay at God's mercy two hours agone; 'appen
+he's in heaven be this time.'
+
+'Drive on--drive fast,' I said to the driver. 'Don't be frightened, Milly;
+please Heaven we shall find all going well.'
+
+After some delay, during which my heart sank, and I quite gave up Uncle
+Silas, the aged little servant-man opened the door, and trotted shakily
+down the steps to the carriage side.
+
+Uncle Silas had been at death's door for hours; the question of life had
+trembled in the scale; but now the doctor said 'he might do.'
+
+'Where was the doctor?'
+
+'In master's room; he blooded him three hours agone.'
+
+I don't think that Milly was so frightened as I. My heart beat, and I was
+trembling so that I could hardly get upstairs.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIV
+
+_A FRIEND ARISES_
+
+
+At the top of the great staircase I was glad to see the friendly face
+of Mary Quince, who stood, candle in hand, greeting us with many little
+courtesies, and a very haggard and pallid smile.
+
+'Very welcome, Miss, hoping you are very well.'
+
+'All well, and you are well, Mary? and oh! tell us quickly how is Uncle
+Silas?'
+
+'We thought he was gone, Miss, this morning, but doing fairly now; doctor
+says in a trance like. I was helping old Wyat most of the day, and was
+there when doctor blooded him, an' he spoke at last; but he must be awful
+weak, he took a deal o' blood from his arm, Miss; I held the basin.'
+
+'And he's better--decidedly better?' I asked.
+
+'Well, he's better, doctor says; he talked some, and doctor says if he goes
+off asleep again, and begins a-snoring like he did before, we're to loose
+the bandage, and let him bleed till he comes to his self again; which, it
+seems to me and Wyat, is the same thing a'most as saying he's to be killed
+off-hand, for I don't believe he has a drop to spare, as you'll say
+likewise, Miss, if you'll please look in the basin.'
+
+This was not an invitation with which I cared to comply. I thought I was
+going to faint. I sat on the stairs and sipped a little water, and Quince
+sprinkled a little in my face, and my strength returned.
+
+Milly must have felt her father's danger more than I, for she was
+affectionate, and loved him from habit and relation, although he was not
+kind to her. But I was more nervous and more impetuous, and my feelings
+both stimulated and overpowered me more easily. The moment I was able to
+stand I said--thinking of nothing but the one idea--
+
+'We must see him--_come_, Milly.'
+
+I entered his sitting-room; a common 'dip' candle hanging like the tower
+of Pisa all to one side, with a dim, long wick, in a greasy candlestick,
+profaned the table of the fastidious invalid. The light was little better
+than darkness, and I crossed the room swiftly, still transfixed by the one
+idea of seeing my uncle.
+
+His bed-room door beside the fireplace stood partly open, and I looked in.
+
+Old Wyat, a white, high-cauled ghost, was pottering in her slippers in the
+shadow at the far side of the bed. The doctor, a stout little bald man,
+with a paunch and a big bunch of seals, stood with his back to the
+fireplace, which corresponded with that in the next room, eyeing his
+patient through the curtains of the bed with a listless sort of importance.
+
+The head of the large four-poster rested against the opposite wall. Its
+foot was presented toward the fireplace; but the curtains at the side,
+which alone I could see from my position, were closed.
+
+The little doctor knew me, and thinking me, I suppose, a person of
+consequence, removed his hands from behind him, suffering the skirts of his
+coat to fall forward, and with great celerity and gravity made me a low but
+important bow; then choosing more particularly to make my acquaintance
+he further advanced, and with another reverence he introduced himself
+as Doctor Jolks, in a murmured diapason. He bowed me back again into my
+uncle's study, and the light of old Wyat's dreadful candle.
+
+Doctor Jolks was suave and pompous. I longed for a fussy practitioner who
+would have got over the ground in half the time.
+
+Coma, madam; coma. Miss Ruthyn, your uncle, I may tell you, has been in a
+very critical state; highly so. Coma of the most obstinate type. He would
+have sunk--he must have gone, in fact, had I not resorted to a very extreme
+remedy, and bled him freely, which happily told precisely as we could have
+wished. A wonderful constitution--a marvellous constitution--prodigious
+nervous fibre; the greatest pity in the world he won't give himself fair
+play. His habits, you know, are quite, I may say, destructive. We do
+our best--we do all we can, but if the patient won't cooperate it can't
+possibly end satisfactorily.'
+
+And Jolks accompanied this with an awful shrug. 'Is there _anything_? Do
+you think change of air? What an awful complaint it is,' I exclaimed.
+
+He smiled, mysteriously looking down, and shook his head undertaker-like.
+
+'Why, we can hardly call it a _complaint_, Miss Ruthyn. I look upon it he
+has been poisoned--he has had, you understand me,' he pursued, observing my
+startled look, 'an overdose of opium; you know he takes opium habitually;
+he takes it in laudanum, he takes it in water, and, most dangerous of all,
+he takes it solid, in lozenges. I've known people take it moderately.
+I've known people take it to excess, _but_ they all were particular as to
+_measure,_ and _that_ is exactly the point I've tried to impress upon him.
+The habit, of course, you understand is formed, there's no uprooting that;
+but he won't _measure_--he goes by the eye and by sensation, which I need
+not tell you, Miss Ruthyn, is going by _chance;_ and opium, as no doubt
+you are aware, is strictly a poison; a poison, no doubt, which habit will
+enable you to partake of, I may say, in considerable quantities, without
+fatal consequences, but still a poison; and to exhibit a poison _so_, is,
+I need scarcely tell you, to trifle with death. He has been so threatened,
+and for a time he changes his haphazard mode of dealing with it, and then
+returns; he may escape--of course, that is possible--but he may any day
+overdo the thing. I don't think the present crisis will result seriously. I
+am very glad, independently of the honour of making your acquaintance, Miss
+Ruthyn, that you and your cousin have returned; for, however zealous, I
+fear the servants are deficient in intelligence; and as in the event of a
+recurrence of the symptoms--which, however, is not probable--I would beg to
+inform you of their nature, and how exactly best to deal with them.'
+
+So upon these points he delivered us a pompous little lecture, and begged
+that either Milly or I would remain in the room with the patient until his
+return at two or three o'clock in the morning; a reappearance of the coma
+'might be very bad indeed.'
+
+Of course Milly and I did as we were directed. We sat by the fire, scarcely
+daring to whisper. Uncle Silas, about whom a new and dreadful suspicion
+began to haunt me, lay still and motionless as if he were actually dead.
+
+'Had he attempted to poison himself?'
+
+If he believed his position to be as desperate as Lady Knollys had
+described it, was this, after all, improbable? There were strange wild
+theories, I had been told, mixed up in his religion.
+
+Sometimes, at an hour's interval, a sign of life would come--a moan from
+that tall sheeted figure in the bed--a moan and a pattering of the lips.
+Was it prayer--_what_ was it? who could guess what thoughts were passing
+behind that white-fillited forehead?
+
+I had peeped at him: a white cloth steeped in vinegar and water was folded
+round his head; his great eyes were closed, so were his marble lips; his
+figure straight, thin, and long, dressed in a white dressing-gown, looked
+like a corpse 'laid out' in the bed; his gaunt bandaged arm lay outside the
+sheet that covered his body.
+
+With this awful image of death we kept our vigil, until poor Milly grew so
+sleepy that old Wyat proposed that she should take her place and watch with
+me.
+
+Little as I liked the crone with the high-cauled cap, she would, at all
+events, keep awake, which Milly could not. And so at one o'clock this new
+arrangement began.
+
+'Mr. Dudley Ruthyn is not at home?' I whispered to old Wyat.
+
+'He went away wi' himself yesternight, to Cloperton, Miss, to see the
+wrestling; it was to come off this morning.'
+
+'Was he sent for?'
+
+'Not he.'
+
+'And why not?'
+
+'He would na' leave the sport for this, I'm thinking,' and the old woman
+grinned uglily.
+
+'When is he to return?'
+
+'When he wants money.'
+
+So we grew silent, and again I thought of suicide, and of the unhappy old
+man, who just then whispered a sentence or two to himself with a sigh.
+
+For the next hour he had been quite silent, and old Wyat informed me that
+she must go down for candles. Ours were already burnt down to the sockets.
+
+'There's a candle in the next room,' I suggested, hating the idea of being
+left alone with the patient.
+
+'Hoot! Miss. I _dare_ na' set a candle but wax in his presence,' whispered
+the old woman, scornfully.
+
+'I think if we were to stir the fire, and put on a little more coal, we
+should have a great deal of light.'
+
+'He'll ha' the candles,' said Dame Wyat, doggedly; and she tottered from
+the chamber, muttering to herself; and I heard her take her candle from the
+next room and depart, shutting the outer door after her.
+
+Here was I then alone, but for this unearthly companion, whom I feared
+inexpressibly, at two o'clock, in the vast old house of Bartram.
+
+I stirred the fire. It was low, and would not blaze. I stood up, and, with
+my hand on the mantelpiece, endeavoured to think of cheerful things. But
+it was a struggle against wind and tide--vain; and so I drifted away into
+haunted regions.
+
+Uncle Silas was perfectly still. I would not suffer myself to think of the
+number of dark rooms and passages which now separated me from the other
+living tenants of the house. I awaited with a false composure the return of
+old Wyat.
+
+Over the mantelpiece was a looking-glass. At another time this might have
+helped to entertain my solitary moments, but now I did not like to venture
+a peep. A small thick Bible lay on the chimneypiece, and leaning its back
+against the mirror, I began to read in it with a mind as attentively
+directed as I could. While so engaged in turning over the leaves, I lighted
+upon two or three odd-looking papers, which had been folded into it. One
+was a broad printed thing, with names and dates written into blank spaces,
+and was about the size of a quarter of a yard of very broad ribbon. The
+others were mere scraps, with 'Dudley Ruthyn' penned in my cousin's vulgar
+round-hand at the foot. While I folded and replaced these, I really don't
+know what caused me to fancy that something was moving behind me, as I
+stood with my back toward the bed. I do not recollect any sound whatever;
+but instinctively I glanced into the mirror, and my eyes were instantly
+fixed by what I saw.
+
+The figure of Uncle Silas rose up, and dressed in a long white morning
+gown, slid over the end of the bed, and with two or three swift
+noiseless steps, stood behind me, with a death-like scowl and a simper.
+Preternaturally tall and thin, he stood for a moment almost touching me,
+with the white bandage pinned across his forehead, his bandaged arm stiffly
+by his side, and diving over my shoulder, with his long thin hand he
+snatched the Bible, and whispered over my head--'The serpent beguiled her
+and she did eat;' and after a momentary pause, he glided to the farthest
+window, and appeared to look out upon the midnight prospect.
+
+It was cold, but he did not seem to feel it. With the same inflexible scowl
+and smile, he continued to look out for several minutes, and then with a
+great sigh, he sat down on the side of his bed, his face immovably turned
+towards me, with the same painful look.
+
+It seemed to me an hour before old Wyat came back; and never was lover made
+happier at sight of his mistress than I to behold that withered crone.
+
+You may be sure I did not prolong my watch. There was now plainly no risk
+of my uncle's relapsing into lethargy. I had a long hysterical fit of
+weeping when I got into my room, with honest Mary Quince by my side.
+
+Whenever I closed my eyes, the face of Uncle Silas was before me, as I had
+seen it reflected in the glass. The sorceries of Bartram were enveloping me
+once more.
+
+Next morning the doctor said he was quite out of danger, but very weak.
+Milly and I saw him; and again in our afternoon walk we saw the doctor
+marching under the trees in the direction of the Windmill Wood.
+
+'Going down to see that poor girl there?' he said, when he had made his
+salutation, prodding with his levelled stick in the direction. 'Hawke, or
+Hawkes, I think.'
+
+'Beauty's sick, Maud,' exclaimed Milly.
+
+'_Hawkes_. She's upon my dispensary list. Yes,' said the doctor, looking
+into his little note-book--'Hawkes.'
+
+'And what is her complaint?'
+
+'Rheumatic fever.'
+
+'Not infectious?'
+
+'Not the least--no more, as we say, Miss Ruthyn, than a broken leg,' and he
+laughed obligingly.
+
+So soon as the doctor had departed, Milly and I agreed to follow to Hawkes'
+cottage and enquire more particularly how she was. To say truth, I am
+afraid it was rather for the sake of giving our walk a purpose and a point
+of termination, than for any very charitable interest we might have felt in
+the patient.
+
+Over the inequalities of the upland slope, clumped with trees, we reached
+the gabled cottage, with its neglected little farm-yard. A rheumatic old
+woman was the only attendant; and, having turned her ear in an attitude of
+attention, which induced us in gradually exalted keys to enquire how Meg
+was, she informed us in very loud tones that she had long lost her hearing
+and was perfectly deaf. And added considerately--
+
+'When the man comes in, 'appen he'll tell ye what ye want.'
+
+Through the door of a small room at the further end of that in which we
+were, we could see a portion of the narrow apartment of the patient, and
+hear her moans and the doctor's voice.
+
+'We'll see him, Milly, when he comes out. Let us wait here.'
+
+So we stood upon the door-stone awaiting him. The sounds of suffering had
+moved my compassion and interested us for the sick girl.
+
+'Blest if here isn't Pegtop,' said Milly.
+
+And the weather-stained red coat, the swarthy forbidding face and sooty
+locks of old Hawkes loomed in sight, as he stumped, steadying himself with
+his stick, over the uneven pavement of the yard. He touched his hat gruffly
+to me, but did not seem half to like our being where we were, for he looked
+surlily, and scratched his head under his wide-awake.
+
+'Your daughter is very ill, I'm afraid,' said I.
+
+'Ay--she'll be costin' me a handful, like her mother did,' said Pegtop.
+
+'I hope her room is comfortable, poor thing.'
+
+'Ay, that's it; she be comfortable enough, I warrant--more nor I. It be all
+Meg, and nout o' Dickon.'
+
+'When did her illness commence?' I asked.
+
+'Day the mare wor shod--_Saturday_. I talked a bit wi' the workus folk, but
+they won't gi'e nout--dang 'em--an' how be _I_ to do't? It be all'ays hard
+bread wi' Silas, an' a deal harder now she' ta'en them pains. I won't stan'
+it much longer. Gammon! If she keeps on that way I'll just cut. See how the
+workus fellahs 'ill like _that_!'
+
+'The Doctor gives his services for nothing,' I said.
+
+'An' _does_ nothin', bless him! ha, ha. No more nor that old deaf gammon
+there that costs me three tizzies a week, and haint worth a h'porth--no
+more nor Meg there, that's making all she can o' them pains. They be all a
+foolin' o' me, an' thinks I don't know't. Hey? _we_'ll see.'
+
+All this time he was cutting a bit of tobacco into shreds on the
+window-stone.
+
+'A workin' man be same as a hoss; if he baint cared, he can't work--'tisn't
+in him:' and with these words, having by this time stuffed his pipe with
+tobacco, he poked the deaf lady, who was pattering about with her back
+toward him, rather viciously with the point of his stick, and signed for a
+light.
+
+'It baint in him, you can't get it out o' 'im, no more nor ye'll draw smoke
+out o' this,' and he raised his pipe an inch or two, with his thumb on the
+bowl, 'without backy and fire. 'Tisn't in it.'
+
+'Maybe I can be of some use?' I said, thinking.
+
+'Maybe,' he rejoined.
+
+By this time he received from the old deaf abigail a flaming roll of brown
+paper, and, touching his hat to me, he withdrew, lighting his pipe and
+sending up little white puffs, like the salute of a departing ship.
+
+So he did not care to hear how his daughter was, and had only come here to
+light his pipe!
+
+Just then the Doctor emerged.
+
+'We have been waiting to hear how your poor patient is to-day?' I said.
+
+'Very ill, indeed, and utterly neglected, I fear. If she were equal
+to it--but she's not--I think she ought to be removed to the hospital
+immediately.'
+
+'That poor old woman is quite deaf, and the man is so surly and selfish!
+Could you recommend a nurse who would stay here till she's better? I will
+pay her with pleasure, and anything you think might be good for the poor
+girl.'
+
+So this was settled on the spot. Doctor Jolks was kind, like most men
+of his calling, and undertook to send the nurse from Feltram with a few
+comforts for the patient; and he called Dickon to the yard-gate, and I
+suppose told him of the arrangement; and Milly and I went to the poor
+girl's door and asked, 'May we come in?'
+
+There was no answer. So, with the conventional construction of silence, we
+entered. Her looks showed how ill she was. We adjusted her bed-clothes, and
+darkened the room, and did what we could for her--noting, beside, what her
+comfort chiefly required. She did not answer any questions. She did not
+thank us. I should almost have fancied that she had not perceived our
+presence, had I not observed her dark, sunken eyes once or twice turned up
+towards my face, with a dismal look of wonder and enquiry.
+
+The girl was very ill, and we went every day to see her. Sometimes she
+would answer our questions--sometimes not. Thoughtful, observant, surly,
+she seemed; and as people like to be thanked, I sometimes wonder that
+we continued to throw our bread upon these ungrateful waters. Milly was
+specially impatient under this treatment, and protested against it, and
+finally refused to accompany me into poor Beauty's bed-room.
+
+'I think, my good Meg,' said I one day, as I stood by her bed--she was now
+recovering with the sure reascent of youth--'that you ought to thank Miss
+Milly.'
+
+'I'll _not_ thank her,' said Beauty, doggedly.
+
+'Very well, Meg; I only thought I'd ask you, for I think you ought.'
+
+As I spoke, she very gently took just the tip of my finger, which hung
+close to her coverlet, in her fingers, and drew it beneath, and before I
+was aware, burying her head in the clothes, she suddenly clasped my hand
+in both hers to her lips, and kissed it passionately, again and again,
+sobbing. I felt her tears.
+
+I tried to withdraw my hand, but she held it with an angry pull, continuing
+to weep and kiss it.
+
+'Do you wish to say anything, my poor Meg?' I asked.
+
+'Nout, Miss,' she sobbed gently; and she continued to kiss my hand and
+weep. But suddenly she said, 'I won't thank Milly, for it's a' _you_; it
+baint her, she hadn't the thought--no, no, it's a' you, Miss. I cried
+hearty in the dark last night, thinkin' o' the apples, and the way I
+knocked them awa' wi' a pur o' my foot, the day father rapped me ower the
+head wi' his stick; it was kind o' you and very bad o' me. I wish you'd
+beat me, Miss; ye're better to me than father or mother--better to me than
+a'; an' I wish I could die for you, Miss, for I'm not fit to look at you.'
+
+I was surprised. I began to cry. I could have hugged poor Meg.
+
+I did not know her history. I have never learned it since. She used to
+talk with the most utter self-abasement before me. It was no religious
+feeling--it was a kind of expression of her love and worship of me--all the
+more strange that she was naturally very proud. There was nothing she
+would not have borne from me except the slightest suspicion of her entire
+devotion, or that she could in the most trifling way wrong or deceive me.
+
+I am not young now. I have had my sorrows, and with them all that wealth,
+virtually unlimited, can command; and through the retrospect a few bright
+and pure lights quiver along my life's dark stream--dark, but for them; and
+these are shed, not by the splendour of a splendid fortune, but by two or
+three of the simplest and kindest remembrances, such as the poorest and
+homeliest life may count up, and beside which, in the quiet hours of
+memory, all artificial triumphs pale, and disappear, for they are never
+quenched by time or distance, being founded on the affections, and so far
+heavenly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLV
+
+_A CHAPTER-FULL OF LOVERS_
+
+
+We had about this time a pleasant and quite unexpected visit from Lord
+Ilbury. He had come to pay his respects, understanding that my uncle Silas
+was sufficiently recovered to see visitors. 'And I think I'll run up-stairs
+first, and see him, if he admits me, and then I have ever so long a message
+from my sister, Mary, for you and Miss Millicent; but I had better dispose
+of my business first--don't you think so?--and I shall return in a few
+minutes.'
+
+And as he spoke our tremulous old butler returned to say that Uncle Silas
+would be happy to see him. So he departed; and you can't think how pleasant
+our homely sitting-room looked with his coat and stick in it--guarantees of
+his return.
+
+'Do you think, Milly, he is going to speak about the timber, you know, that
+Cousin Knollys spoke of? I do hope not.'
+
+'So do I,' said Milly. 'I wish he'd stayed a bit longer with us first, for
+if he does, father will sure to turn him out of doors, and we'll see no
+more of him.'
+
+'Exactly, my dear Milly; and he's so pleasant and good-natured.'
+
+'And he likes you awful well, he does.'
+
+'I'm sure he likes us both equally, Milly; he talked a great deal to you at
+Elverston, and used to ask you so often to sing those two pretty Lancashire
+ballads,' I said; 'but you know when you were at your controversies and
+religious exercises in the window, with that pillar of the church, the Rev.
+Spriggs Biddlepen--'
+
+'Get awa' wi' your nonsense, Maud; how could I help answering when he
+dodged me up and down my Testament and catechism?--an I 'most hate him, I
+tell you, and Cousin Knollys, you're such fools, I do. And whatever you
+say, the lord likes you uncommon, and well you know it, ye hussy.'
+
+'I know no such thing; and you don't think it, _you_ hussy, and I really
+don't care who likes me or who doesn't, except my relations; and I make the
+lord a present to you, if you'll have him.'
+
+In this strain were we talking when he re-entered the room, a little sooner
+than we had expected to see him.
+
+Milly, who, you are to recollect, was only in process of reformation, and
+still retained something of the Derbyshire dairymaid, gave me a little
+clandestine pinch on the arm just as he made his appearance.
+
+'I just refused a present from her,' said odious Milly, in answer to his
+enquiring look, 'because I knew she could not spare it.'
+
+The effect of all this was that I blushed one of my overpowering blushes.
+People told me they became me very much; I hope so, for the misfortune was
+frequent; and I think nature owed me that compensation.
+
+'It places you both in a most becoming light,' said Lord Ilbury, quite
+innocently. 'I really don't know which most to admire--the generosity of
+the offer or of the refusal.'
+
+'Well, it _was_ kind, if you but knew. I'm 'most tempted to tell him,' said
+Milly.
+
+I checked her with a really angry look, and said, 'Perhaps you have not
+observed it; but I really think, for a sensible person, my cousin Milly
+here talks more nonsense than any twenty other girls.'
+
+'A twenty-girl power! That's an immense compliment. I've the greatest
+respect for nonsense, I owe it so much; and I really think if nonsense were
+banished, the earth would grow insupportable.'
+
+'Thank you, Lord Ilbury,' said Milly, who had grown quite easy in his
+company during our long visit at Elverston; 'and I tell you, Miss Maud, if
+you grow saucy, I'll accept your present, and what will you say then?'
+
+'I really don't know; but just now I want to ask Lord Ilbury how he thinks
+my uncle looks; neither I nor Milly have seen him since his illness.'
+
+'Very much weaker, I think; but he may be gaining strength. Still, as my
+business was not quite pleasant, I thought it better to postpone it, and
+if you think it would be right, I'll write to Doctor Bryerly to ask him to
+postpone the discussion for a little time.'
+
+I at once assented, and thanked him; indeed, if I had had my way, the
+subject should never have been mentioned, I felt so hardhearted and
+rapacious; but Lord Ilbury explained that the trustees were constrained by
+the provisions of the will, and that I really had no power to release them;
+and I hoped that Uncle Silas also understood all this.
+
+'And now,' said he, 'we've returned to Grange, my sister and I, and it is
+nearer than Elverston, so that we are really neighbours; and Mary wants
+Lady Knollys to fix a time she owes us a visit, you know--and you really
+must come at the same time; it will be so very pleasant, the same party
+exactly meeting in a new scene; and we have not half explored our
+neighbourhood; and I've got down all those Spanish engravings I told you
+of, and the Venetian missals, and all the rest. I think I remember very
+accurately the things you were most interested by, and they're all there;
+and really you must promise, you and Miss Millicent Ruthyn. And I forgot to
+mention--you know you complained that you were ill supplied with books,
+so Mary thought you would allow her to share her supply--they are the new
+books, you know--and when you have read yours, you and she can exchange.'
+
+What girl was ever quite frank about her likings? I don't think I was more
+of a cheat than others; but I never could tell of myself. It is quite true
+that this duplicity and reserve seldom deceives. Our hypocrisies are forced
+upon some of our sex by the acuteness and vigilance of all in this field of
+enquiry; but if we are sly, we are also lynx-eyed, capital detectives, most
+ingenious in fitting together the bits and dovetails of a cumulative case;
+and in those affairs of love and liking, have a terrible exploratory
+instinct, and so, for the most part, when detected we are found out not
+only to be in love, but to be rogues moreover.
+
+Lady Mary was very kind; but had Lady Mary of her own mere motion taken all
+this trouble? Was there no more energetic influence at the bottom of
+that welcome chest of books, which arrived only half an hour later? The
+circulating library of those days was not the epidemic and ubiquitous
+influence to which it has grown; and there were many places where it could
+not find you out.
+
+Altogether that evening Bartram had acquired a peculiar beauty--a bright
+and mellow glow, in which even its gate-posts and wheelbarrow were
+interesting, and next day came a little cloud--Dudley appeared.
+
+'You may be sure he wants money,' said Milly. 'He and father had words this
+morning.'
+
+He took a chair at our luncheon, found fault with everything in his own
+laconic dialect, ate a good deal notwithstanding, and was sulky, and with
+Milly snappish. To me, on the contrary, when Milly went into the hall, he
+was mild and whimpering, and disposed to be confidential.
+
+'There's the Governor says he hasn't a bob! Danged if I know how an old
+fellah in his bed-room muddles away money at that rate. I don't suppose he
+thinks I can git along without tin, and he knows them trustees won't gi'e
+me a tizzy till they get what they calls an opinion--dang 'em! Bryerly says
+he doubts it must all go under settlement. They'll settle me nicely if
+they do; and Governor knows all about it, and won't gi'e me a danged brass
+farthin', an' me wi' bills to pay, an' lawyers--dang 'em--writing
+letters. He knows summat o' that hisself, does Governor; and he might ha'
+consideration a bit for his own flesh and blood, _I_ say. But he never does
+nout for none but hisself. I'll sell his books and his jewels next fit he
+takes--that's how I'll fit him.'
+
+This amiable young man, glowering, with his elbows on the table and his
+fingers in his great whiskers, followed his homily, where clergymen append
+the blessing, with a muttered variety of very different matter.
+
+'Now, Maud,' said he, pathetically, leaning back suddenly in his chair,
+with all his conscious beauty and misfortunes in his face, 'is not it hard
+lines?'
+
+I thought the appeal was going to shape itself into an application for
+money; but it did not.
+
+'I never know'd a reel beauty--first-chop, of course, I mean--that
+wasn't kind along of it, and I'm a fellah as can't git along without
+sympathy--that's why I say it--an' isn't it hard lines? Now, _say_ it's
+hard lines--_haint_ it, Maud?'
+
+I did not know exactly what hard lines meant, but I said--
+
+'I suppose it is very disagreeable.'
+
+And with this concession, not caring to hear any more in the same vein, I
+rose, intending to take my departure.
+
+'No, that's jest it. I knew ye'd say it, Maud. Ye're a kind lass--ye
+be--'tis in yer pretty face. I like ye awful, I do--there's not a handsomer
+lass in Liverpool nor Lunnon itself--_no_ where.'
+
+He had seized my hand, and trying to place his arm about my waist, essayed
+that salute which I had so narrowly escaped on my first introduction.
+
+'_Don't_, sir,' I exclaimed in high indignation, escaping at the same
+moment from his grasp.
+
+'No offence, lass; no harm, Maud; you must not be so shy--we're cousins,
+you know--an' I wouldn't hurt ye, Maud, no more nor I'd knock my head off.
+I wouldn't.'
+
+I did not wait to hear the rest of his tender protestations, but, without
+showing how nervous I was, I glided out of the room quietly, making
+an orderly retreat, the more meritorious as I heard him call after me
+persuasively--'Come back, Maud. What are ye afeard on, lass? Come back, I
+say--do now; there's a good wench.'
+
+As Milly and I were taking our walk that day, in the direction of the
+Windmill Wood, to which, in consequence perhaps of some secret order, we
+had now free access, we saw Beauty, for the first time since her illness,
+in the little yard, throwing grain to the poultry.
+
+'How do you find yourself to-day, Meg? I am _very_ glad to see you able to
+be about again; but I hope it is not too soon.'
+
+We were standing at the barred gate of the little enclosure, and quite
+close to Meg, who, however, did not choose to raise her head, but,
+continuing to shower her grain and potato-skins among her hens and
+chickens, said in a low tone--
+
+'Father baint in sight? Look jist round a bit and say if ye see him.'
+
+But Dickon's dusky red costume was nowhere visible.
+
+So Meg looked up, pale and thin, and with her old grave, observant eyes,
+and she said quietly--
+
+''Tisn't that I'm not glad to see ye; but if father was to spy me talking
+friendly wi' ye, now that I'm hearty, and you havin' no more call to me,
+he'd be all'ays a watching and thinkin' I was tellin' o' tales, and 'appen
+he'd want me to worrit ye for money, Miss Maud; an' 'tisn't here he'd spend
+it, but in the Feltram pottusses, he would, and we want for nothin' that's
+good for us. But that's how 'twould be, an' he'd all'ays be a jawing and a
+lickin' of I; so don't mind me, Miss Maud, and 'appen I might do ye a good
+turn some day.'
+
+A few days after this little interview with Meg, as Milly and I were
+walking briskly--for it was a clear frosty day--along the pleasant slopes
+of the sheep-walk, we were overtaken by Dudley Ruthyn. It was not a
+pleasant surprise. There was this mitigation, however: we were on foot, and
+he driving in a dog-cart along the track leading to the moor, with his dogs
+and gun. He brought his horse for a moment to a walk, and with a careless
+nod to me, removing his short pipe from his mouth, he said--
+
+'Governor's callin' for ye, Milly; and he told me to send you slick home to
+him if I saw you, and I think he'll gi'e ye some money; but ye better take
+him while he's in the humour, lass, or mayhap ye'll go long without.'
+
+And with those words, apparently intent on his game, he nodded again,
+and, pipe in mouth, drove at a quick trot over the slope of the hill, and
+disappeared.
+
+So I agreed to await Milly's return while she ran home, and rejoined me
+where I was. Away she ran, in high spirits, and I wandered listlessly about
+in search of some convenient spot to sit down upon, for I was a little
+tired.
+
+She had not been gone five minutes, when I heard a step approaching, and
+looking round, saw the dog-cart close by, the horse browsing on the short
+grass, and Dudley Ruthyn within a few paces of me.
+
+'Ye see, Maud, I've bin thinkin' why you're so vexed wi' me, an' I thought
+I'd jest come back an' ask ye what I may a' done to anger ye so; there's no
+sin in that, I think--is there?'
+
+'I'm not angry. I did not say so. I hope that's enough,' I said, startled;
+and, notwithstanding my speech, _very_ angry, for I felt instinctively that
+Milly's despatch homeward was a mere trick, and I the dupe of this coarse
+stratagem.
+
+'Well then, if ye baint angry, so much the better, Maud. I only want to
+know why you're afeard o' me. I never struck a man foul, much less hurt a
+girl, in my days; besides, Maud, I likes ye too well to hurt ye. Dang it,
+lass, you're my cousin, ye know, and cousins is all'ays together and lovin'
+like, an' none says again' it.'
+
+'I've nothing to explain--there _is_ nothing to explain. I've been quite
+friendly,' I said, hurriedly.
+
+'_Friendly!_ Well, if there baint a cram! How can ye think it friendly,
+Maud, when ye won't a'most shake hands wi' me? It's enough to make a fellah
+sware, or cry a'most. Why d'ye like aggravatin' a poor devil? Now baint
+ye an ill-natured little puss, Maud, an' I likin' ye so well? You're the
+prettiest lass in Derbyshire; there's nothin' I wouldn't do for ye.'
+
+And he backed his declaration with an oath.
+
+'Be so good, then, as to re-enter your dog-cart and drive away,' I replied,
+very much incensed.
+
+'Now, there it is again! Ye can't speak me civil. Another fellah'd fly out,
+an' maybe kiss ye for spite; but I baint that sort, I'm all for coaxin' and
+kindness, an' ye won't let me. What _be_ you drivin' at, Maud?'
+
+'I think I've said very plainly, sir, that I wish to be alone. You've
+_nothing_ to say, except utter nonsense, and I've heard quite enough. Once
+for all, I beg, sir, that you will be so good as to leave me.'
+
+'Well, now, look here, Maud; I'll do anything you like--burn me if I
+don't--if you'll only jest be kind to me, like cousins should. What did
+I ever do to vex you? If you think I like any lass better than you--some
+fellah at Elverston's bin talkin', maybe--it's nout but lies an' nonsense.
+Not but there's lots o' wenches likes me well enough, though I be a plain
+lad, and speaks my mind straight out.'
+
+'I can't see that you are so frank, sir, as you describe; you have just
+played a shabby trick to bring about this absurd and most disagreeable
+interview.'
+
+'And supposin' I did send that fool, Milly, out o' the way, to talk a bit
+wi' you here, where's the harm? Dang it, lass, ye mustn't be too hard.
+Didn't I say I'd do whatever ye wished?'
+
+'And you _won't_,' said I.
+
+'Ye mean to get along out o' this? Well, now, I _will_. There! No use, of
+course, askin' you to kiss and be friends, before I go, as cousins should.
+Well, don't be riled, lass, I'm not askin' it; only mind, I do like you
+awful, and 'appen I'll find ye in better humour another time. Good-bye,
+Maud; I'll make ye like me at last.'
+
+And with these words, to my comfort, he addressed himself to his horse and
+pipe, and was soon honestly on his way to the moor.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVI
+
+_THE RIVALS_
+
+
+All the time that Dudley chose to persecute me with his odious society, I
+continued to walk at a brisk pace toward home, so that I had nearly reached
+the house when Milly met me, with a note which had arrived for me by the
+post, in her hand.
+
+'Here, Milly, are more verses. He is a very persevering poet, whoever he
+is.' So I broke the seal; but this time it was prose. And the first words
+were 'Captain Oakley!'
+
+I confess to an odd sensation as these remarkable words met my eye. It
+might possibly be a proposal. I did not wait to speculate, however, but
+read these sentences traced in the identical handwriting which had copied
+the lines with which I had been twice favoured.
+
+'Captain Oakley presents his compliments to Miss Ruthyn, and trusts she
+will excuse his venturing to ask whether, during his short stay in Feltram,
+he might be permitted to pay his respects at Bartram-Haugh. He has been
+making a short visit to his aunt, and could not find himself so near
+without at least attempting to renew an acquaintance which he has never
+ceased to cherish in memory. If Miss Ruthyn would be so very good as to
+favour him with ever so short a reply to the question he ventures most
+respectfully to ask, her decision would reach him at the Hall Hotel,
+Feltram.'
+
+'Well, he's a roundabout fellah, anyhow. Couldn't he come up and see you if
+he wanted to? They poeters, they do love writing long yarns--don't they?'
+And with this reflection, Milly took the note and read it through again.
+
+'It's jolly polite anyhow, isn't it Maud?' said Milly, who had conned it
+over, and accepted it as a model composition.
+
+I must have been, I think, naturally a rather shrewd girl; and considering
+how very little I had seen of the world--nothing in fact--I often wonder
+now at the sage conclusions at which I arrived.
+
+Were I to answer this handsome and cunning fool according to his folly,
+in what position should I find myself? No doubt my reply would induce
+a rejoinder, and that compel another note from me, and that invite yet
+another from him; and however his might improve in warmth, they were sure
+not to abate. Was it his impertinent plan, with this show of respect and
+ceremony, to drag me into a clandestine correspondence? Inexperienced girl
+as I was, I fired at the idea of becoming his dupe, and fancying, perhaps,
+that there was more in merely answering his note than it would have
+amounted to, I said--
+
+'That kind of thing may answer very well with button-makers, but ladies
+don't like it. What would your papa think of it if he found that I had been
+writing to him, and seeing him without his permission? If he wanted to
+see me he could have'--(I really did not know exactly what he could have
+done)--'he could have timed his visit to Lady Knollys differently; at all
+events, he has no right to place me in an embarrassing situation, and I am
+certain Cousin Knollys would say so; and I think his note both shabby and
+impertinent.'
+
+Decision was not with me an intellectual process. When quite cool I was the
+most undecided of mortals, but once my feelings were excited I was prompt
+and bold.
+
+'I'll give the note to Uncle Silas,' I said, quickening my pace toward
+home; 'he'll know what to do.'
+
+But Milly, who, I fancy, had no objection to the little romance which the
+young officer proposed, told me that she could not see her father, that he
+was ill, and not speaking to anyone.
+
+'And arn't ye making a plaguy row about nothin'? I lay a guinea if ye had
+never set eyes on Lord Ilbury you'd a told him to come, and see ye, an'
+welcome.'
+
+'Don't talk like a fool, Milly. You never knew me do anything deceitful.
+Lord Ilbury has no more to do with it, you know very well, than the man in
+the moon.'
+
+I was altogether very indignant. I did not speak another word to Milly. The
+proportions of the house are so great, that it is a much longer walk than
+you would suppose from the hall-door to Uncle Silas's room. But I did not
+cool all that way; and it was not till I had just reached the lobby,
+and saw the sour, jealous face, and high caul of old Wyat, and felt the
+influence of that neighbourhood, that I paused to reconsider. I fancied
+there was a cool consciousness of success behind all the deferential
+phraseology of Captain Oakley, which nettled me extremely. No; there could
+be no doubt. I tapped softly at the door.
+
+'What is it _now_, Miss?' snarled the querulous old woman, with her
+shrivelled fingers on the door-handle.
+
+'Can I see my uncle for a moment?'
+
+'He's tired, and not a word from him all day long.'
+
+'Not ill, though?'
+
+'Awful bad in the night,' said the old crone, with a sudden savage glare in
+my face, as if _I_ had brought it about.
+
+'Oh! I'm very sorry. I had not heard a word of it.'
+
+'No one does but old Wyat. There's Milly there never asks neither--his own
+child!'
+
+'Weakness, or what?'
+
+'One o' them fits. He'll slide awa' in one o' them some day, and no one but
+old Wyat to know nor ask word about it; that's how 'twill be.'
+
+'Will you please hand him this note, if he is well enough to look at it,
+and say I am at the door?'
+
+She took it with a peevish nod and a grunt, closing the door in my face,
+and in a few minutes returned--
+
+'Come in wi' ye,' said Dame Wyat, and I appeared.
+
+Uncle Silas, who, after his nightly horror or vision, lay extended on a
+sofa, with his faded yellow silk dressing-gown about him, his long white
+hair hanging toward the ground, and that wild and feeble smile lighting his
+face--a glimmer I feared to look upon--his long thin arms lay by his sides,
+with hands and fingers that stirred not, except when now and then, with a
+feeble motion, he wet his temples and forehead with eau de Cologne from a
+glass saucer placed beside him.
+
+'Excellent girl! dutiful ward and niece!' murmured the oracle; 'heaven
+reward you--your frank dealing is your own safety and my peace. Sit you
+down, and say who is this Captain Oakley, when you made his acquaintance,
+what his age, fortune, and expectations, and who the aunt he mentions.'
+
+Upon all these points I satisfied him as fully as I was able.
+
+'Wyat--the white drops,' he called, in a thin, stern tone. 'I'll write a
+line presently. I can't see visitors, and, of course, you can't receive
+young captains before you've come out. Farewell! God bless you, dear.'
+
+Wyat was dropping the 'white' restorative into a wine-glass and the room
+was redolent of ether. I was glad to escape. The figures and whole _mise en
+scène_ were unearthly.
+
+'Well, Milly,' I said, as I met her in the hall, 'your papa is going to
+write to him.'
+
+I sometimes wonder whether Milly was right, and how I should have acted a
+few months earlier.
+
+Next day whom should we meet in the Windmill Wood but Captain Oakley. The
+spot where this interesting _rencontre_ occurred was near that ruinous
+bridge on my sketch of which I had received so many compliments. It was
+so great a surprise that I had not time to recollect my indignation, and,
+having received him very affably, I found it impossible, during our brief
+interview, to recover my lost altitude.
+
+After our greetings were over, and some compliments neatly made, he said--
+
+'I had such a curious note from Mr. Silas Ruthyn. I am sure he thinks me a
+very impertinent fellow, for it was really anything but inviting--extremely
+rude, in fact. But I could not quite see that because he does not want
+me to invade his bed-room--an incursion I never dreamed of--I was not to
+present myself to you, who had already honoured me with your acquaintance,
+with the sanction of those who were most interested in your welfare, and
+who were just as well qualified as he, I fancy, to say who were qualified
+for such an honour.'
+
+'My uncle, Mr. Silas Ruthyn, you are aware, is my guardian; and this is my
+cousin, his daughter.'
+
+This was an opportunity of becoming a little lofty, and I improved it. He
+raised his hat and bowed to Milly.
+
+'I'm afraid I've been very rude and stupid. Mr. Ruthyn, of course, has a
+perfect right to--to--in fact, I was not the least aware that I had the
+honour of so near a relation's--a--a--and what exquisite scenery you
+have! I think this country round Feltram particularly fine; and this
+Bartram-Haugh is, I venture to say, about the very most beautiful spot in
+this beautiful region. I do assure you I am tempted beyond measure to make
+Feltram and the Hall Hotel my head-quarters for at least a week. I only
+regret the foliage; but your trees show wonderfully, even in winter, so
+many of them have got that ivy about them. They say it spoils trees, but it
+certainly beautifies them. I have just ten days' leave unexpired; I wish
+I could induce you to advise me how to apply them. What shall I do, Miss
+Ruthyn?'
+
+'I am the worst person in the world to make plans, even for myself, I find
+it so troublesome. What do you say? Suppose you try Wales or Scotland, and
+climb up some of those fine mountains that look so well in winter?'
+
+'I should much prefer Feltram. I so wish you would recommend _it_. What is
+this pretty plant?'
+
+'We call that Maud's myrtle. She planted it, and it's very pretty when it's
+full in blow,' said Milly.
+
+Our visit to Elverston had been of immense use to us both.
+
+'Oh! planted by _you?_' he said, very softly, with a momentary
+corresponding glance. 'May I--ever so little--just a leaf?'
+
+And without waiting for permission, he held a sprig of it next his
+waistcoat.
+
+'Yes, it goes very prettily with those buttons. They are _very_ pretty
+buttons; are not they, Milly? A present, a souvenir, I dare say?'
+
+This was a terrible hit at the button-maker, and I thought he looked a
+little oddly at me, but my countenance was so 'bewitchingly simple' that I
+suppose his suspicions were allayed.
+
+Now, it was very odd of me, I must confess, to talk in this way, and to
+receive all those tender allusions from a gentleman about whom I had spoken
+and felt so sharply only the evening before. But Bartram was abominably
+lonely. A civilised person was a valuable waif or stray in that region of
+the picturesque and the brutal; and to my lady reader especially, because
+she will probably be hardest upon me, I put it--can you not recollect any
+such folly in your own past life? Can you not in as many minutes call to
+mind at least six similar inconsistencies of your own practising? For my
+part, I really can't see the advantage of being the weaker sex if we are
+always to be as strong as our masculine neighbours.
+
+There was, indeed, no revival of the little sentiment which I had once
+experienced. When these things once expire, I do believe they are as hard
+to revive as our dead lap-dogs, guinea-pigs, and parrots. It was my perfect
+coolness which enabled me to chat, I flatter myself, so agreeably with the
+refined Captain, who plainly thought me his captive, and was probably
+now and then thinking what was to be done to utilise that little bit of
+Bartram, or to beautify some other, when he should see fit to become its
+master, as we rambled over these wild but beautiful grounds.
+
+It was just about then that Milly nudged me rather vehemently, and
+whispered 'Look there!'
+
+I followed with mine the direction of her eyes, and saw my odious cousin,
+Dudley, in a flagrant pair of cross-barred peg-tops, and what Milly before
+her reformation used to call other 'slops' of corresponding atrocity,
+approaching our refined little party with great strides. I really think
+that Milly was very nearly ashamed of him. I certainly was. I had no
+apprehension, however, of the scene which was imminent.
+
+The charming Captain mistook him probably for some rustic servant of the
+place, for he continued his agreeable remarks up to the very moment when
+Dudley, whose face was pale with anger, and whose rapid advance had not
+served to cool him, without recollecting to salute either Milly or me,
+accosted our elegant companion as follows:--
+
+'By your leave, master, baint you summat in the wrong box here, don't you
+think?'
+
+He had planted himself directly in his front, and looked unmistakably
+menacing.
+
+'May I speak to him? Will you excuse me?' said the Captain blandly.
+
+'Ow--ay, they'll excuse ye ready enough, I dessay; you're to deal wi' me
+though. Baint ye in the wrong box now?'
+
+'I'm not conscious, sir, of being in a box at all,' replied the Captain,
+with severe disdain. 'It strikes me you are disposed to get up a row. Let
+us, if you please, get a little apart from the ladies if that is your
+purpose.'
+
+'I mean to turn you out o' this the way ye came. If you make a row, so much
+the wuss for you, for I'll lick ye to fits.'
+
+'Tell him not to fight,' whispered Milly; 'he'll a no chance wi' Dudley.'
+
+I saw Dickon Hawkes grinning over the paling on which he leaned.
+
+'Mr. Hawkes,' I said, drawing Milly with me toward that unpromising
+mediator, 'pray prevent unpleasantness and go between them.'
+
+'An' git licked o' both sides? Rather not, Miss, thank ye,' grinned Dickon,
+tranquilly.
+
+'Who are you, sir?' demanded our romantic acquaintance, with military
+sternness.
+
+'I'll tell you who you are--you're Oakley, as stops at the Hall, that
+Governor wrote, over-night, not to dare show your nose inside the grounds.
+You're a half-starved cappen, come down here to look for a wife, and----'
+
+Before Dudley could finish his sentence, Captain Oakley, than whose face no
+regimentals could possibly have been more scarlet, at that moment, struck
+with his switch at Dudley's handsome features.
+
+I don't know how it was done--by some 'devilish cantrip slight.' A smack
+was heard, and the Captain lay on his back on the ground, with his mouth
+full of blood.
+
+'How do ye like the taste o' that?' roared Dickon, from his post of
+observation.
+
+In an instant Captain Oakley was on his feet again, hatless, looking quite
+frantic, and striking out at Dudley, who was ducking and dipping quite
+coolly, and again the same horrid sound, only this time it was double, like
+a quick postman's knock, and Captain Oakley was on the grass again.
+
+'Tapped his smeller, by--!' thundered Dickon, with a roar of laughter.
+
+'Come away, Milly--I'm growing ill,' said I.
+
+'Drop it, Dudley, I tell ye; you'll kill him,' screamed Milly.
+
+But the devoted Captain, whose nose, and mouth, and shirt-front formed now
+but one great patch of blood, and who was bleeding beside over one eye,
+dashed at him again.
+
+I turned away. I felt quite faint, and on the point of crying, with mere
+horror.
+
+'Hammer away at his knocker,' bellowed Dickon, in a frenzy of delight.
+
+'He'll break it now, if it ain't already,' cried Milly, alluding, as I
+afterwards understood, to the Captain's Grecian nose.
+
+'Brayvo, little un!' The Captain was considerably the taller.
+
+Another smack, and, I suppose, Captain Oakley fell once more.
+
+'Hooray! the dinner-service again, by ----,' roared Dickon. 'Stick to that.
+Over the same ground--subsoil, I say. He han't enough yet.'
+
+In a perfect tremor of disgust, I was making as quick a retreat as I could,
+and as I did, I heard Captain Oakley shriek hoarsely--
+
+'You're a d---- prizefighter; I can't box you.'
+
+'I told ye I'd lick ye to fits,' hooted Dudley.
+
+'But you're the son of a gentleman, and by ---- you shall fight me _as_ a
+gentleman.'
+
+A yell of hooting laughter from Dudley and Dickon followed this sally.
+
+'Gi'e my love to the Colonel, and think o' me when ye look in the
+glass--won't ye? An' so you're goin' arter all; well, follow what's left o'
+yer nose. Ye forgot some o' yer ivories, didn't ye, on th' grass?'
+
+These and many similar jibes followed the mangled Captain in his retreat.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVII
+
+_DOCTOR BRYERLY REAPPEARS_
+
+
+No one who has not experienced it can imagine the nervous disgust and
+horror which such a spectacle as we had been forced in part to witness
+leaves upon the mind of a young person of my peculiar temperament.
+
+It affected ever after my involuntary estimate of the principal actors in
+it. An exhibition of such thorough inferiority, accompanied by such a shock
+to the feminine sense of elegance, is not forgotten by any woman. Captain
+Oakley had been severely beaten by a smaller man. It was pitiable, but also
+undignified; and Milly's anxieties about his teeth and nose, though in a
+certain sense horrible, had also a painful suspicion of the absurd.
+
+People say, on the other hand, that superior prowess, even in such
+barbarous contests, inspires in our sex an interest akin to admiration. I
+can positively say in my case it was quite the reverse. Dudley Ruthyn stood
+lower than ever in my estimation; for though I feared him more, it was by
+reason of these brutal and cold-blooded associations.
+
+After this I lived in constant apprehension of being summoned to my uncle's
+room, and being called on for an explanation of my meeting with Captain
+Oakley, which, notwithstanding my perfect innocence, looked suspicious, but
+no such inquisition resulted. Perhaps he did not suspect me; or, perhaps,
+he thought, not in his haste, all women are liars, and did not care to hear
+what I might say. I rather lean to the latter interpretation.
+
+The exchequer just now, I suppose, by some means, was replenished, for next
+morning Dudley set off upon one of his fashionable excursions, as poor
+Milly thought them, to Wolverhampton. And the same day Dr. Bryerly arrived.
+
+Milly and I, from my room window, saw him step from his vehicle to the
+court-yard.
+
+A lean man, with sandy hair and whiskers, was in the chaise with him. Dr.
+Bryerly descended in the unchangeable black suit that always looked new and
+never fitted him.
+
+The Doctor looked careworn, and older, I thought, by several years, than
+when I last saw him. He was not shown up to my uncle's room; on the
+contrary, Milly, who was more actively curious than I, ascertained that our
+tremulous butler informed him that my uncle was not sufficiently well for
+an interview. Whereupon Dr. Bryerly had pencilled a note, the reply to
+which was a message from Uncle Silas, saying that he would be happy to see
+him in five minutes.
+
+As Milly and I were conjecturing what it might mean, and before the five
+minutes had expired, Mary Quince entered.
+
+'Wyat bid me tell you, Miss, your uncle wants you _this minute_.'
+
+When I entered his room, Uncle Silas was seated at the table, with his desk
+before him. He looked up. Could anything be more dignified, suffering, and
+venerable?
+
+'I sent for you, dear,' he said very gently, extending his thin, white
+hand, and taking mine, which he held affectionately while he spoke,
+'because I desire to have no secrets, and wish you thoroughly to know all
+that concerns your own interests while subject to my guardianship; and I am
+happy to think, my beloved niece, that you requite my candour. Oh, here is
+the gentleman. Sit down, dear.'
+
+Doctor Bryerly was advancing, as it seemed, to shake hands with Uncle
+Silas, who, however, rose with a severe and haughty air, not the least
+over-acted, and made him a slow, ceremonious bow. I wondered how the homely
+Doctor could confront so tranquilly that astounding statue of hauteur.
+
+A faint and weary smile, rather sad than comtemptuous, was the only sign he
+showed of feeling his repulse.
+
+'How do _you_ do, Miss?' he said, extending his hand, and greeting me after
+his ungallant fashion, as if it were an afterthought.
+
+'I think I may as well take a chair, sir,' said Doctor Bryerly, sitting
+down serenely, near the table, and crossing his ungainly legs.
+
+My uncle bowed.
+
+'You understand the nature of the business, sir. Do you wish Miss Ruthyn to
+remain?' asked Doctor Bryerly.
+
+'I _sent_ for her, sir,' replied my uncle, in a very gentle and sarcastic
+tone, a smile on his thin lips, and his strangely-contorted eyebrows raised
+for a moment contemptuously. 'This gentleman, my dear Maud, thinks proper
+to insinuate that I am robbing you. It surprises me a little, and, no
+doubt, you--I've nothing to conceal, and wished you to be present while
+he favours me more particularly with his views. I'm right, I think, in
+describing it as _robbery_, sir?'
+
+'Why,' said Doctor Bryerly thoughtfully, for he was treating the matter
+as one of right, and not of feeling, 'it would be, certainly, taking that
+which does not belong to you, and converting it to your own use; but, at
+the worst, it would more resemble _thieving_, I think, than robbery.'
+
+I saw Uncle Silas's lip, eyelid, and thin cheek quiver and shrink, as if
+with a thrill of tic-douloureux, as Doctor Bryerly spoke this unconsciously
+insulting answer. My uncle had, however, the self-command which is learned
+at the gaming-table. He shrugged, with a chilly, sarcastic, little laugh,
+and a glance at me.
+
+'Your note says _waste_, I think, sir?'
+
+'Yes, waste--the felling and sale of timber in the Windmill Wood, the
+selling of oak bark and burning of charcoal, as I'm informed,' said
+Bryerly, as sadly and quietly as a man might relate a piece of intelligence
+from the newspaper.
+
+'Detectives? or private spies of your own--or, perhaps, my servants, bribed
+with my poor brother's money? A very high-minded procedure.'
+
+'Nothing of the kind, sir.'
+
+My uncle sneered.
+
+'I mean, sir, there has been no undue canvass for evidence, and the
+question is simply one of right; and it is our duty to see that this
+inexperienced young lady is not defrauded.'
+
+'By her own uncle?'
+
+'By anyone,' said Doctor Bryerly, with a natural impenetrability that
+excited my admiration.
+
+'Of course you come armed with an opinion?' said my smiling uncle,
+insinuatingly.
+
+'The case is before Mr. Serjeant Grinders. These bigwigs don't return their
+cases sometimes so quickly as we could wish.'
+
+'Then you have _no_ opinion?' smiled my uncle.
+
+'My solicitor is quite clear upon it; and it seems to me there can be no
+question raised, but for form's sake.'
+
+'Yes, for form's sake you take one, and in the meantime, upon a nice
+question of law, the surmises of a thick-headed attorney and of an
+ingenious apoth--I beg pardon, physician--are sufficient warrant for
+telling my niece and ward, in my presence, that I am defrauding her!'
+
+My uncle leaned back in his chair, and smiled with a contemptuous patience
+over Doctor Bryerly's head, as he spoke.
+
+'I don't know whether I used that expression, sir, but I am speaking merely
+in a technical sense. I mean to say, that, whether by mistake or otherwise,
+you are exercising a power which you don't lawfully possess, and that the
+effect of that is to impoverish the estate, and, by so much as it benefits
+you, to wrong this young lady.'
+
+'I'm a technical defrauder, I see, and your manner conveys the rest. I
+thank my God, sir, I am a _very_ different man from what I once was.' Uncle
+Silas was speaking in a low tone, and with extraordinary deliberation. 'I
+remember when I should have certainly knocked you down, sir, or _tried_ it,
+at least, for a great deal less.'
+
+'But seriously, sir, what _do_ you propose?' asked Doctor Bryerly, sternly
+and a little flushed, for I think the old man was stirred within him; and
+though he did not raise his voice, his manner was excited.
+
+'I propose to defend my rights, sir,' murmured Uncle Silas, very grim. 'I'm
+not without an opinion, though you are.'
+
+'You seem to think, sir, that I have a pleasure in annoying you; you are
+quite wrong. I hate annoying anyone--constitutionally--I _hate_ it; but
+don't you see, sir, the position I'm placed in? I wish I could please
+everyone, and do my duty.'
+
+Uncle Silas bowed and smiled.
+
+'I've brought with me the Scotch steward from Tolkingden, _your_ estate,
+Miss, and if you let us we will visit the spot and make a note of what we
+observe, that is, assuming that you admit waste, and merely question our
+law.'
+
+'If you please, sir, you and your Scotchman shall do _no such thing_; and,
+bearing in mind that I neither deny nor admit anything, you will please
+further never more to present yourself, under any pretext whatsoever,
+either in this house or on the grounds of Bartram-Haugh, during my
+lifetime.'
+
+Uncle Silas rose up with the same glassy smile and scowl, in token that the
+interview was ended.
+
+'Good-bye, sir,' said Doctor Bryerly, with a sad and thoughtful air, and
+hesitating for a moment, he said to me, 'Do you think, Miss, you could
+afford me a word in the hall?'
+
+'Not a word, sir,' snarled Uncle Silas, with a white flash from his eyes.
+
+There was a pause.
+
+'Sit where you are, Maud.'
+
+Another pause.
+
+'If you have anything to say to my ward, sir, you will please to say it
+_here_.'
+
+Doctor Bryerly's dark and homely face was turned on me with an expression
+of unspeakable compassion.
+
+'I was going to say, that if you think of any way in which I can be of the
+least service, Miss, I'm ready to act, that's all; mind, _any_ way.'
+
+He hesitated, looking at me with the same expression as if he had something
+more to say; but he only repeated--
+
+'That's all, Miss.'
+
+'Won't you shake hands, Doctor Bryerly, before you go?' I said, eagerly
+approaching him.
+
+Without a smile, with the same sad anxiety in his face, with his mind, as
+it seemed to me, on something else, and irresolute whether to speak it or
+be silent, he took my fingers in a very cold hand, and holding it so, and
+slowly shaking it, his grave and troubled glance unconsciously rested on
+Uncle Silas's face, while in a sad tone and absent way he said--
+
+'Good-bye, Miss.'
+
+From before that sad gaze my uncle averted his strange eyes quickly, and
+looked, oddly, to the window.
+
+In a moment more Doctor Bryerly let my hand go with a sigh, and with an
+abrupt little nod to me, he left the room; and I heard that dismallest of
+sounds, the retreating footsteps of a true friend, _lost_.
+
+'Lead us not into temptation; if we pray so, we must not mock the eternal
+Majesty of Heaven by walking into temptation of our own accord.'
+
+This oracular sentence was not uttered by my uncle until Doctor Bryerly had
+been gone at least five minutes.
+
+'I've forbid him my house, Maud--first, because his perfectly unconscious
+insolence tries my patience nearly beyond endurance; and again, because I
+have heard unfavourable reports of him. On the question of right which he
+disputes, I am perfectly informed. I am your tenant, my dear niece; when
+I am gone you will learn how _scrupulous_ I have been; you will see how,
+under the pressure of the most agonising pecuniary difficulties, the
+terrific penalty of a misspent youth, I have been careful never by a hair's
+breadth to transgress the strict line of my legal privileges; alike, as
+your tenant, Maud, and as your guardian; how, amid frightful agitations,
+I have kept myself, by the miraculous strength and grace vouchsafed
+me--_pure_.
+
+'The world,' he resumed after a short pause, 'has no faith in any man's
+conversion; it never forgets what he was, it never believes him anything
+better, it is an inexorable and stupid judge. What I was I will describe in
+blacker terms, and with more heartfelt detestation, than my traducers--a
+reckless prodigal, a godless profligate. Such I was; what I am, I am. If
+I had no hope beyond this world, of all men most miserable; but with that
+hope, a sinner saved.'
+
+Then he waxed eloquent and mystical. I think his Swedenborgian studies had
+crossed his notions of religion with strange lights. I never could follow
+him quite in these excursions into the region of symbolism. I only
+recollect that he talked of the deluge and the waters of Mara, and said, 'I
+am washed--I am sprinkled,' and then, pausing, bathed his thin temples and
+forehead with eau de Cologne; a process which was, perhaps, suggested by
+his imagery of sprinkling and so forth.
+
+Thus refreshed, he sighed and smiled, and passed to the subject of Doctor
+Bryerly.
+
+'Of Doctor Bryerly, I know that he is sly, that he loves money, was born
+poor, and makes nothing by his profession. But he possesses many thousand
+pounds, under my poor brother's will, of _your money_; and he has glided
+with, of course a modest "nolo episcopari," into the acting trusteeship,
+with all its multitudinous opportunities, of your immense property. That
+is not doing so badly for a visionary Swedenborgian. Such a man _must_
+prosper. But if he expected to make money of me, he is disappointed.
+Money, however, he will make of his trusteeship, as you will see. It is a
+dangerous resolution. But if he will seek the life of Dives, the worst I
+wish him is to find the death of Lazarus. But whether, like Lazarus, he be
+borne of angels into Abraham's bosom, or, like the rich man, only dies
+and is buried, and _the rest_, neither living nor dying do I desire his
+company.'
+
+Uncle Silas here seemed suddenly overtaken by exhaustion. He leaned back
+with a ghastly look, and his lean features glistened with the dew of
+faintness. I screamed for Wyat. But he soon recovered sufficiently to smile
+his odd smile, and with it and his frown, nodded and waved me away.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVIII
+
+_QUESTION AND ANSWER_
+
+
+My uncle, after all, was not ill that day, after the strange fashion of his
+malady, be it what it might. Old Wyat repeated in her sour laconic way that
+there was 'nothing to speak of amiss with him.' But there remained with
+me a sense of pain and fear. Doctor Bryerly, notwithstanding my uncle's
+sarcastic reflections, remained, in my estimation, a true and wise friend.
+I had all my life been accustomed to rely upon others, and here, haunted by
+many unavowed and ill-defined alarms and doubts, the disappearance of an
+active and able friend caused my heart to sink.
+
+Still there remained my dear Cousin Monica, and my pleasant and trusted
+friend, Lord Ilbury; and in less than a week arrived an invitation from
+Lady Mary to the Grange, for me and Milly, to meet Lady Knollys. It
+was accompanied, she told me, by a note from Lord Ilbury to my uncle,
+supporting her request; and in the afternoon I received a message to attend
+my uncle in his room.
+
+'An invitation from Lady Mary Carysbroke for you and Milly to meet Monica
+Knollys; have you received it?' asked my uncle, so soon as I was seated.
+Answered in the affirmative, he continued--
+
+'Now, Maud Ruthyn, I expect the truth from you; I have been frank, so shall
+you. Have you ever heard me spoken ill of by Lady Knollys?'
+
+I was quite taken aback.
+
+I felt my cheeks flushing. I was returning his fierce cold gaze with a
+stupid stare, and remained dumb.
+
+'Yes, Maud, you _have_.'
+
+I looked down in silence.
+
+'I _know_ it; but it is right you should answer; have you or have you not?'
+
+I had to clear my voice twice or thrice. There was a kind of spasm in my
+throat.
+
+'I am trying to recollect,' I said at last.
+
+'_Do_ recollect,' he replied imperiously.
+
+There was a little interval of silence. I would have given the world to be,
+on any conditions, anywhere else in the world.
+
+'Surely, Maud, you don't wish to deceive your guardian? Come, the question
+is a plain one, and I know the truth already. I ask you again--have you
+ever heard me spoken ill of by Lady Knollys?'
+
+'Lady Knollys,' I said, half articulately, 'speaks very freely, and often
+half in jest; but,' I continued, observing something menacing in his face,
+'I have heard her express disapprobation of some things you have done.'
+
+'Come, Maud,' he continued, in a stern, though still a low key, 'did she
+not insinuate that charge--then, I suppose, in a state of incubation,
+the other day presented here full-fledged, with beak and claws, by that
+scheming apothecary--the statement that I was defrauding you by cutting
+down timber upon the grounds?'
+
+'She certainly did mention the circumstance; but she also argued that it
+might have been through ignorance of the extent of your rights.'
+
+'Come, come, Maud, you must not prevaricate, girl. I _will_ have it. Does
+she not habitually speak disparagingly of me, in your presence, and _to_
+you? _Answer_.'
+
+I hung my head.
+
+'Yes or no?'
+
+'Well, perhaps so--yes,' I faltered, and burst into tears.
+
+'There, don't cry; it may well shock you. Did she not, to your knowledge,
+say the same things in presence of my child Millicent? I know it, I
+repeat--there is no use in hesitating; and I command you to answer.'
+
+Sobbing, I told the truth.
+
+'Now sit still, while I write my reply.'
+
+He wrote, with the scowl and smile so painful to witness, as he looked down
+upon the paper, and then he placed the note before me--
+
+'Read that, my dear.'
+
+It began--
+
+'MY DEAR LADY KNOLLYS.--You have favoured me with a note, adding your
+request to that of Lord Ilbury, that I should permit my ward and my
+daughter to avail themselves of Lady Mary's invitation. Being perfectly
+cognisant of the ill-feeling you have always and unaccountably cherished
+toward me, and also of the terms in which you have had the delicacy and the
+conscience to speak of me before and to my child and my ward, I can only
+express my amazement at the modesty of your request, while peremptorily
+refusing it. And I shall conscientiously adopt effectual measures to
+prevent your ever again having an opportunity of endeavouring to destroy my
+influence and authority over my ward and my child, by direct or insinuated
+slander.
+
+'Your defamed and injured kinsman,
+
+SILAS RUTHYN.'
+
+I was stunned; yet what could I plead against the blow that was to isolate
+me? I wept aloud, with my hands clasped, looking on the marble face of the
+old man.
+
+Without seeming to hear, he folded and sealed his note, and then proceeded
+to answer Lord Ilbury.
+
+When that note was written, he placed it likewise before me, and I read it
+also through. It simply referred him to Lady Knollys 'for an explanation
+of the unhappy circumstances which compelled him to decline an invitation
+which it would have made his niece and his daughter so happy to accept.'
+
+'You see, my dear Maud, how frank I am with you,' he said, waving the open
+note, which I had just read, slightly before he folded it. 'I think I may
+ask you to reciprocate my candour.'
+
+Dismissed from this interview, I ran to Milly, who burst into tears from
+sheer disappointment, so we wept and wailed together. But in my grief I
+think there was more reason.
+
+I sat down to the dismal task of writing to my dear Lady Knollys. I
+implored her to make her peace with my uncle. I told her how frank he had
+been with me, and how he had shown me his sad reply to her letter. I told
+her of the interview to which he had himself invited me with Dr. Bryerly;
+how little disturbed he was by the accusation--no sign of guilt; quite the
+contrary, perfect confidence. I implored of her to think the best, and
+remembering my isolation, to accomplish a reconciliation with Uncle Silas.
+'Only think,' I wrote, 'I only nineteen, and two years of solitude before
+me. What a separation!' No broken merchant ever signed the schedule of his
+bankruptcy with a heavier heart than did I this letter.
+
+The griefs of youth are like the wounds of the gods--there is an ichor
+which heals the scars from which it flows: and thus Milly and I consoled
+ourselves, and next day enjoyed our ramble, our talk and readings, with a
+wonderful resignation to the inevitable.
+
+Milly and I stood in the relation of _Lord Duberly_ to _Doctor Pangloss_. I
+was to mend her 'cackleology,' and the occupation amused us both. I think
+at the bottom of our submission to destiny lurked a hope that Uncle Silas,
+the inexorable, would relent, or that Cousin Monica, that siren, would win
+and melt him to her purpose.
+
+Whatever comfort, however, I derived from the absence of Dudley was not to
+be of very long duration; for one morning, as I was amusing myself alone,
+with a piece of worsted work, thinking, and just at that moment not
+unpleasantly, of many things, my cousin Dudley entered the room.
+
+'Back again, like a bad halfpenny, ye see. And how a' ye bin ever since,
+lass? Purely, I warrant, be your looks. I'm jolly glad to see ye, I am; no
+cattle going like ye, Maud.'
+
+'I think I must ask you to let go my hand, as I can't continue my work,' I
+said, very stiffly, hoping to chill his enthusiasm a little.
+
+'Anything to pleasure ye, Maud, 'tain't in my heart to refuse ye nout. I
+a'bin to Wolverhampton, lass--jolly row there--and run over to Leamington;
+a'most broke my neck, faith, wi' a borrowed horse arter the dogs; ye would
+na care, Maud, if I broke my neck, would ye? Well, 'appen, jest a little,'
+he good-naturedly supplied, as I was silent.
+
+'Little over a week since I left here, by George; and to me it's half the
+almanac like; can ye guess the reason, Maud?'
+
+'Have you seen your sister, Milly, or your father, since your return?' I
+asked coldly.
+
+'_They'll_ keep, Maud, never mind 'em; it be you I want to see--it be you
+I wor thinkin' on a' the time. I tell ye, lass, I'm all'ays a thinkin' on
+ye.'
+
+'I think you ought to go and see your father; you have been away, you say,
+some time. I don't think it is respectful,' I said, a little sharply.
+
+'If ye bid me go I'd a'most go, but I could na quite; there's nout on earth
+I would na do for you, Maud, excep' leaving you.'
+
+'And that,' I said, with a petulant flush, 'is the only thing on earth I
+would ask you to do.'
+
+'Blessed if you baint a blushin', Maud,' he drawled, with an odious grin.
+
+His stupidity was proof against everything.
+
+'It is _too_ bad!' I muttered, with an indignant little pat of my foot and
+mimic stamp.
+
+'Well, you lasses be queer cattle; ye're angry wi' me now, cos ye think
+I got into mischief--ye do, Maud; ye know't, ye buxsom little fool, down
+there at Wolverhampton; and jest for that ye're ready to turn me off again
+the minute I come back; 'tisn't fair.'
+
+'I don't _understand_ you, sir; and I _beg_ that you'll leave me.'
+
+'Now, didn't I tell ye about leavin' ye, Maud? 'tis the only thing I can't
+compass for yer sake. I'm jest a child in yere hands, I am, ye know. I can
+lick a big fellah to pot as limp as a rag, by George!'--(his oaths were not
+really so mild)--'ye see summat o' that t'other day. Well, don't be vexed,
+Maud; 'twas all along o' you; ye know, I wor a bit jealous, 'appen; but
+anyhow I can do it; and look at me here, jest a child, I say, in yer
+hands.'
+
+'I wish you'd go away. Have you nothing to do, and no one to see? Why
+_can't_ you leave me alone, sir?'
+
+''Cos I can't, Maud, that's jest why; and I wonder, Maud, how can you be so
+ill-natured, when you see me like this; how can ye?'
+
+'I wish Milly would come,' said I peevishly, looking toward the door.
+
+'Well, I'll tell you how it is, Maud. I may as well have it out. I like
+you better than any lass that ever I saw, a deal; you're nicer by chalks;
+there's none like ye--there isn't; and I wish you'd have me. I ha'n't much
+tin--father's run through a deal, he's pretty well up a tree, ye know; but
+though I baint so rich as some folk, I'm a better man, 'appen; and if ye'd
+take a tidy lad, that likes ye awful, and 'id die for your sake, why here
+he is.'
+
+'What can you mean, sir?' I exclaimed, rising in indignant bewilderment.
+
+'I mean, Maud, if ye'll marry me, you'll never ha' cause to complain; I'll
+never let ye want for nout, nor gi'e ye a wry word.'
+
+'Actually a proposal!' I ejaculated, like a person speaking in a dream.
+
+I stood with my hand on the back of a chair, staring at Dudley; and
+looking, I dare say, as stupefied as I felt.
+
+'There's a good lass, ye would na deny me,' said the odious creature,
+with one knee on the seat of the chair behind which I was standing, and
+attempting to place his arm lovingly round my neck.
+
+This effectually roused me, and starting back, I stamped upon the ground
+with actual fury.
+
+'What has there ever been, sir, in my conduct, words, or looks, to
+warrant this unparalleled audacity? But that you are as stupid as you are
+impertinent, brutal, and ugly, you must, long ago, sir, have seen how I
+dislike you. How dare you, sir? Don't presume to obstruct me; I'm going to
+my uncle.'
+
+I had never spoken so violently to mortal before.
+
+He in turn looked a little confounded; and I passed his extended but
+motionless arm with a quick and angry step.
+
+He followed me a pace or two, however, before I reached the door, looking
+horridly angry, but stopped, and only swore after me some of those 'wry
+words' which I was never to have heard. I was myself, however, too much
+incensed, and moving at too rapid a pace, to catch their import; and I had
+knocked at my uncle's door before I began to collect my thoughts.
+
+'Come in,' replied my uncle's voice, clear, thin, and peevish.
+
+I entered and confronted him.
+
+'Your son, sir, has insulted me.'
+
+He looked at me with a cold curiosity steadly for a few seconds, as I stood
+panting before him with flaming cheeks.
+
+'Insulted you?' repeated he. 'Egad, you surprise me!'
+
+The ejaculation savoured of 'the old man,' to borrow his scriptural phrase,
+more than anything I had heard from him before.
+
+'_How?_' he continued; 'how has Dudley _insulted_ you, my dear child? Come,
+you're excited; sit down; take time, and tell me all about it. I did not
+know that Dudley was here.'
+
+'I--he--it _is_ an insult. He knew very well--he _must_ know I dislike him;
+and he presumed to make a proposal of marriage to me.'
+
+'O--o--oh!' exclaimed my uncle, with a prolonged intonation which plainly
+said, Is that the mighty matter?
+
+He looked at me as he leaned back with the same steady curiosity, this time
+smiling, which somehow frightened me, and his countenance looked to me
+wicked, like the face of a witch, with a guilt I could not understand.
+
+'And that is the amount of your complaint. He made you a formal proposal of
+marriage!'
+
+'Yes; he proposed for me.'
+
+As I cooled, I began to feel just a very little disconcerted, and a
+suspicion was troubling me that possibly an indifferent person might think
+that, having no more to complain of, my language was perhaps a little
+exaggerated, and my demeanour a little too tempestuous.
+
+My uncle, I dare say, saw some symptoms of this misgiving, for, smiling
+still, he said--
+
+'My dear Maud, however just, you appear to me a little cruel; you don't
+seem to remember how much you are yourself to blame; you have one faithful
+friend at least, whom I advise your consulting--I mean your looking-glass.
+The foolish fellow is young, quite ignorant in the world's ways. He is in
+love--desperately enamoured.
+
+  Aimer c'est craindre, et craindre c'est souffrir.
+
+And suffering prompts to desperate remedies. We must not be too hard on a
+rough but romantic young fool, who talks according to his folly and his
+pain.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIX
+
+_AN APPARITION_
+
+
+'But, after all,' he suddenly resumed, as if a new thought had struck him,
+'is it quite such folly, after all? It really strikes me, dear Maud, that
+the subject may be worth a second thought. No, no, you won't refuse to hear
+me,' he said, observing me on the point of protesting. 'I am, of course,
+assuming that you are fancy free. I am assuming, too, that you don't care
+twopence about Dudley, and even that you fancy you dislike him. You know in
+that pleasant play, poor Sheridan--delightful fellow!--all our fine spirits
+are dead--he makes Mrs. Malaprop say there is nothing like beginning with a
+little aversion. Now, though in matrimony, of course, that is only a joke,
+yet in love, believe me, it is no such thing. His own marriage with Miss
+Ogle, I _know_, was a case in point. She expressed a positive horror of him
+at their first acquaintance; and yet, I believe, she would, a few months
+later, have died rather than not have married him.'
+
+I was again about to speak, but with a smile he beckoned me into silence.
+
+'There are two or three points you must bear in mind. One of the happiest
+privileges of your fortune is that you may, without imprudence, marry
+simply for love. There are few men in England who could offer you an estate
+comparable with that you already possess; or, in fact, appreciably increase
+the splendour of your fortune. If, therefore, he were in all other respects
+eligible, I can't see that his poverty would be an objection to weigh for
+one moment. He is quite a rough diamond. He has been, like many young men
+of the highest rank, too much given up to athletic sports--to that society
+which constitutes the aristocracy of the ring and the turf, and all that
+kind of thing. You see, I am putting all the worst points first. But I have
+known so many young men in my day, after a madcap career of a few years
+among prizefighters, wrestlers, and jockeys--learning their slang and
+affecting their manners--take up and cultivate the graces and the
+decencies. There was poor dear Newgate, many degrees lower in that kind of
+frolic, who, when he grew tired of it, became one of the most elegant and
+accomplished men in the House of Peers. Poor Newgate, he's gone, too! I
+could reckon up fifty of my early friends who all began like Dudley, and
+all turned out, more or less, like Newgate.'
+
+At this moment came a knock at the door, and Dudley put in his head most
+inopportunely for the vision of his future graces and accomplishments.
+
+'My good fellow,' said his father, with a sharp sort of playfulness, 'I
+happen to be talking about my son, and should rather not be overheard; you
+will, therefore, choose another time for your visit.'
+
+Dudley hesitated gruffly at the door, but another look from his father
+dismissed him.
+
+'And now, my dear, you are to remember that Dudley has fine qualities--the
+most affectionate son in his rough way that ever father was blessed with;
+most admirable qualities--indomitable courage, and a high sense of honour;
+and lastly, that he has the Ruthyn blood--the purest blood, I maintain it,
+in England.'
+
+My uncle, as he said this, drew himself up a little, unconsciously, his
+thin hand laid lightly over his heart with a little patting motion, and his
+countenance looked so strangely dignified and melancholy, that in admiring
+contemplation of it I lost some sentences which followed next.
+
+'Therefore, dear, naturally anxious that my boy should not be dismissed
+from home--as he must be, should you persevere in rejecting his suit--I beg
+that you will reserve your decision to this day fortnight, when I will with
+much pleasure hear what you may have to say on the subject. But till then,
+observe me, not a word.'
+
+That evening he and Dudley were closeted for a long time. I suspect that he
+lectured him on the psychology of ladies; for a bouquet was laid beside my
+plate every morning at breakfast, which it must have been troublesome to
+get, for the conservatory at Bartram was a desert. In a few days more an
+anonymous green parrot arrived, in a gilt cage, with a little note in a
+clerk's hand, addressed to 'Miss Ruthyn (of Knowl), Bartram-Haugh,' &c. It
+contained only 'Directions for caring green parrot,' at the close of which,
+_underlined_, the words appeared--'The bird's name is Maud.'
+
+The bouquets I invariably left on the table-cloth, where I found them--the
+bird I insisted on Milly's keeping as her property. During the intervening
+fortnight Dudley never appeared, as he used sometimes to do before, at
+luncheon, nor looked in at the window as we were at breakfast. He contented
+himself with one day placing himself in my way in the hall in his shooting
+accoutrements, and, with a clumsy, shuffling kind of respect, and hat in
+hand, he said--
+
+'I think, Miss, I must a spoke uncivil t'other day. I was so awful put
+about, and didn't know no more nor a child what I was saying; and I wanted
+to tell ye I'm sorry for it, and I beg your pardon--very humble, I do.'
+
+I did not know what to say. I therefore said nothing, but made a grave
+inclination, and passed on.
+
+Two or three times Milly and I saw him at a little distance in our walks.
+He never attempted to join us. Once only he passed so near that some
+recognition was inevitable, and he stopped and in silence lifted his hat
+with an awkward respect. But although he did not approach us, he was
+ostentatious with a kind of telegraphic civility in the distance. He opened
+gates, he whistled his dogs to 'heel,' he drove away cattle, and then
+himself withdrew. I really think he watched us occasionally to render these
+services, for in this distant way we encountered him decidedly oftener than
+we used to do before his flattering proposal of marriage.
+
+You may be sure that we discussed, Milly and I, that occurrence pretty
+constantly in all sorts of moods. Limited as had been her experience of
+human society, she very clearly saw _now_ how far below its presentable
+level was her hopeful brother.
+
+The fortnight sped swiftly, as time always does when something we dislike
+and shrink from awaits us at its close. I never saw Uncle Silas during that
+period. It may seem odd to those who merely read the report of our last
+interview, in which his manner had been more playful and his talk more
+trifling than in any other, that from it I had carried away a profounder
+sense of fear and insecurity than from any other. It was with a foreboding
+of evil and an awful dejection that on a very dark day, in Milly's room,
+I awaited the summons which I was sure would reach me from my punctual
+guardian.
+
+As I looked from the window upon the slanting rain and leaden sky, and
+thought of the hated interview that awaited me, I pressed my hand to my
+troubled heart, and murmured, 'O that I had wings like a dove! then would I
+flee away, and be at rest.'
+
+Just then the prattle of the parrot struck my ear. I looked round on the
+wire cage, and remembered the words, 'The bird's name is Maud.'
+
+'Poor bird!' I said. 'I dare say, Milly, it longs to get out. If it were a
+native of this country, would not you like to open the window, and then the
+door of that cruel cage, and let the poor thing fly away?'
+
+'Master wants Miss Maud,' said Wyat's disagreeable tones, at the half-open
+door.
+
+I followed in silence, with the pressure of a near alarm at my heart, like
+a person going to an operation.
+
+When I entered the room, my heart beat so fast that I could hardly speak.
+The tall form of Uncle Silas rose before me, and I made him a faltering
+reverence.
+
+He darted from under his brows a wild, fierce glance at old Wyat, and
+pointed to the door imperiously with his skeleton finger. The door shut,
+and we were alone.
+
+'A chair?' he said, pointing to a seat.
+
+'Thank you, uncle, I prefer standing,' I faltered.
+
+He also stood--his white head bowed forward, the phosphoric glare of his
+strange eyes shone upon me from under his brows--his finger-nails just
+rested on the table.
+
+'You saw the luggage corded and addressed, as it stands ready for removal
+in the hall?' he asked.
+
+I had. Milly and I had read the cards which dangled from the trunk-handles
+and gun-case. The address was--'Mr. Dudley R. Ruthyn, Paris, _viâ_ Dover.'
+
+'I am old--agitated--on the eve of a decision on which much depends. Pray
+relieve my suspense. Is my son to leave Bartram to-day in sorrow, or to
+remain in joy? Pray answer quickly.'
+
+I stammered I know not what. I was incoherent--wild, perhaps; but somehow
+I expressed my meaning--my unalterable decision. I thought his lips grew
+whiter and his eyes shone brighter as I spoke.
+
+When I had quite made an end, he heaved a great sigh, and turning his eyes
+slowly to the right and the left, like a man in a helpless distraction, he
+whispered--
+
+'God's will be done.'
+
+I thought he was upon the point of fainting--a clay tint darkened the white
+of his face; and, seeming to forget my presence, he sat down, looking with
+a despairing scowl on his ashy old hand, as it lay upon the table.
+
+I stood gazing at him, feeling almost as if I had murdered the old man--he
+still gazing askance, with an imbecile scowl, upon his hand.
+
+'Shall I go, sir?' I at length found courage to whisper.
+
+'_Go?_' he said, looking up suddenly; and it seemed to me as if a stream of
+cold sheet-lightning had crossed and enveloped me for a moment.
+
+'Go?--oh!--a--yes--_yes_, Maud--go. I must see poor Dudley before his
+departure,' he added, as it were, in soliloquy.
+
+Trembling lest he should revoke his permission to depart, I glided quickly
+and noiselessly from the room.
+
+Old Wyat was prowling outside, with a cloth in her hand, pretending to dust
+the carved door-case. She frowned a stare of enquiry over her shrunken arm
+on me, as I passed. Milly, who had been on the watch, ran and met me. We
+heard my uncle's voice, as I shut the door, calling Dudley. He had been
+waiting, probably, in the adjoining room. I hurried into my chamber, with
+Milly at my side, and there my agitation found relief in tears, as that of
+girlhood naturally does.
+
+A little while after we saw from the window Dudley, looking, I thought,
+very pale, get into a vehicle, on the top of which his luggage lay, and
+drive away from Bartram.
+
+I began to take comfort. His departure was an inexpressible relief. His
+final departure! a distant journey!
+
+We had tea in Milly's room that night. Firelight and candles are inspiring.
+In that red glow I always felt and feel more safe, as well as more
+comfortable, than in the daylight--quite irrationally, for we know the
+night is the appointed day of such as love the darkness better than light,
+and evil walks thereby. But so it is. Perhaps the very consciousness of
+external danger enhances the enjoyment of the well-lighted interior, just
+as the storm does that roars and hurtles over the roof.
+
+While Milly and I were talking, very cosily, a knock came to the room-door,
+and, without waiting for an invitation to enter, old Wyat came in, and
+glowering at us, with her brown claw upon the door-handle, she said to
+Milly--
+
+'Ye must leave your funnin', Miss Milly, and take your turn in your
+father's room.'
+
+'Is he ill?' I asked.
+
+She answered, addressing not me, but Milly--
+
+'A wrought two hours in a fit arter Master Dudley went. 'Twill be the death
+o' him, I'm thinkin', poor old fellah. I wor sorry myself when I saw Master
+Dudley a going off in the moist to-day, poor fellah. There's trouble enough
+in the family without a' that; but 'twon't be a family long, I'm thinkin'.
+Nout but trouble, nout but trouble, since late changes came.'
+
+Judging by the sour glance she threw on me as she said this, I concluded
+that I represented those 'late changes' to which all the sorrows of the
+house were referred.
+
+I felt unhappy under the ill-will even of this odious old woman, being one
+of those unhappily constructed mortals who cannot be indifferent when
+they reasonably ought, and always yearn after kindness, even that of the
+worthless.
+
+'I must go. I wish you'd come wi' me, Maud, I'm so afraid all alone,' said
+Milly, imploringly.
+
+'Certainly, Milly,' I answered, not liking it, you may be sure; 'you shan't
+sit there alone.'
+
+So together we went, old Wyat cautioning us for our lives to make no noise.
+
+We passed through the old man's sitting-room, where that day had occurred
+his brief but momentous interview with me, and his parting with his only
+son, and entered the bed-room at the farther end.
+
+A low fire burned in the grate. The room was in a sort of twilight. A
+dim lamp near the foot of the bed at the farther side was the only light
+burning there. Old Wyat whispered an injunction not to speak above our
+breaths, nor to leave the fireside unless the sick man called or showed
+signs of weariness. These were the directions of the doctor, who had been
+there.
+
+So Milly and I sat ourselves down near the hearth, and old Wyat left us to
+our resources. We could hear the patient breathe; but he was quite still.
+In whispers we talked; but our conversation flagged. I was, after my wont,
+upbraiding myself for the suffering I had inflicted. After about half an
+hour's desultory whispering, and intervals, growing longer and longer, of
+silence, it was plain that Milly was falling asleep.
+
+She strove against it, and I tried hard to keep her talking; but it would
+not do--sleep overcame her; and I was the only person in that ghastly room
+in a state of perfect consciousness.
+
+There were associations connected with my last vigil there to make my
+situation very nervous and disagreeable. Had I not had so much to occupy my
+mind of a distinctly practical kind--Dudley's audacious suit, my uncle's
+questionable toleration of it, and my own conduct throughout that most
+disagreeable period of my existence,--I should have felt my present
+situation a great deal more.
+
+As it was, I thought of my real troubles, and something of Cousin Knollys,
+and, I confess, a good deal of Lord Ilbury. When looking towards the door,
+I thought I saw a human face, about the most terrible my fancy could have
+called up, looking fixedly into the room. It was only a 'three-quarter,'
+and not the whole figure--the door hid that in a great measure, and I
+fancied I saw, too, a portion of the fingers. The face gazed toward the
+bed, and in the imperfect light looked like a livid mask, with chalky eyes.
+
+I had so often been startled by similar apparitions formed by accidental
+lights and shadows disguising homely objects, that I stooped forward,
+expecting, though tremulously, to see this tremendous one in like manner
+dissolve itself into its harmless elements; and now, to my unspeakable
+terror, I became perfectly certain that I saw the countenance of Madame de
+la Rougierre.
+
+With a cry, I started back, and shook Milly furiously from her trance.
+
+'Look! look!' I cried. But the apparition or illusion was gone.
+
+I clung so fast to Milly's arm, cowering behind her, that she could not
+rise.
+
+'Milly! Milly! Milly! Milly!' I went on crying, like one struck with
+idiotcy, and unable to say anything else.
+
+In a panic, Milly, who had seen nothing, and could conjecture nothing of
+the cause of my terror, jumped up, and clinging to one another, we huddled
+together into the corner of the room, I still crying wildly, 'Milly! Milly!
+_Milly_!' and nothing else.
+
+'What is it--where is it--what do you see?' cried Milly, clinging to me as
+I did to her.
+
+'It will come again; it will come; oh, heaven!'
+
+'What--what is it, Maud?'
+
+'The face! the face!' I cried. 'Oh, Milly! Milly! Milly!'
+
+We heard a step softly approaching the open door, and, in a horrible _sauve
+qui peut_, we rushed and stumbled together toward the light by Uncle
+Silas's bed. But old Wyat's voice and figure reassured us.
+
+'Milly,' I said, so soon as, pale and very faint, I reached my apartment,
+'no power on earth shall ever tempt me to enter that room again after
+dark.'
+
+'Why, Maud dear, what, in Heaven's name, did you see?' said Milly, scarcely
+less terrified.
+
+'Oh, I can't; I can't; I can't, Milly. Never ask me. It is haunted. The
+room is haunted _horribly_.'
+
+'Was it Charke?' whispered Milly, looking over her shoulder, all aghast.
+
+'No, no--don't ask me; a fiend in a worse shape.' I was relieved at last by
+a long fit of weeping; and all night good Mary Quince sat by me, and Milly
+slept by my side. Starting and screaming, and drugged with sal-volatile, I
+got through that night of supernatural terror, and saw the blessed light of
+heaven again.
+
+Doctor Jolks, when he came to see my uncle in the morning, visited me also.
+He pronounced me very hysterical, made minute enquiries respecting my hours
+and diet, asked what I had had for dinner yesterday. There was something
+a little comforting in his cool and confident pooh-poohing of the ghost
+theory. The result was, a regimen which excluded tea, and imposed chocolate
+and porter, earlier hours, and I forget all beside; and he undertook to
+promise that, if I would but observe his directions, I should never see a
+ghost again.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER L
+
+_MILLY'S FAREWELL_
+
+
+A few days' time saw me much better. Doctor Jolks was so contemptuously
+sturdy and positive on the point, that I began to have comfortable doubts
+about the reality of my ghost; and having still a horror indescribable
+of the illusion, if such it were, the room in which it appeared, and
+everything concerning it, I would neither speak, nor, so far as I could,
+think of it.
+
+So, though Bartram-Haugh was gloomy as well as beautiful, and some of its
+associations awful, and the solitude that reigned there sometimes almost
+terrible, yet early hours, bracing exercise, and the fine air that
+predominates that region, soon restored my nerves to a healthier tone.
+
+But it seemed to me that Bartram-Haugh was to be to me a vale of tears; or
+rather, in my sad pilgrimage, that valley of the shadow of death through
+which poor Christian fared alone and in the dark.
+
+One day Milly ran into the parlour, pale, with wet cheeks, and, without
+saying a word, threw her arms about my neck, and burst into a paroxysm of
+weeping.
+
+'What is it, Milly--what's the matter, dear--what is it?' I cried aghast,
+but returning her close embrace heartily.
+
+'Oh! Maud--Maud darling, he's going to send me away.'
+
+'Away, dear! _where_ away? And leave me alone in this dreadful solitude,
+where he knows I shall die of fear and grief without you? Oh! no--no, it
+_must_ be a mistake.'
+
+'I'm going to France, Maud--I'm going away. Mrs. Jolks is going to London,
+day ar'ter to-morrow, and I'm to go wi' her; and an old French lady, he
+says, from the school will meet me there, and bring me the rest o' the
+way.'
+
+'Oh--ho--ho--ho--ho--o--o--o!' cried poor Milly, hugging me closer still,
+with her head buried in my shoulder, and swaying me about like a wrestler,
+in her agony.
+
+'I never wor away from home afore, except that little bit wi' you over
+there at Elverston; and you wor wi' me then, Maud; an' I love ye--better
+than Bartram--better than a'; an' I think I'll die, Maud, if they take me
+away.'
+
+I was just as wild in my woe as poor Milly; and it was not until we had
+wept together for a full hour--sometimes standing--sometimes walking up and
+down the room--sometimes sitting and getting up in turns to fall on one
+another's necks,--that Milly, plucking her handkerchief from her pocket,
+drew a note from it at the same time, which, as it fell upon the floor, she
+at once recollected to be one from Uncle Silas to me.
+
+It was to this effect:--
+
+'I wish to apprise my dear niece and ward of my plans. Milly proceeds to
+an admirable French school, as a pensionnaire, and leaves this on Thursday
+next. If after three months' trial she finds it in any way objectionable,
+she returns to us. If, on the contrary, she finds it in all respects the
+charming residence it has been presented to me, you, on the expiration of
+that period, join her there, until the temporary complication of my affairs
+shall have been so far adjusted as to enable me to receive you once more
+at Bartram. Hoping for happier days, and wishing to assure you that three
+months is the extreme limit of your separation from my poor Milly, I have
+written this, feeling alas! unequal to seeing you at present. 'Bartram,
+Tuesday.
+
+'P.S.--I can have no objection to your apprising Monica Knollys of these
+arrangements. You will understand, of course, not a copy of this letter,
+but its substance.'
+
+Over this document, scanning it as lawyers do a new Act of Parliament, we
+took comfort. After all, it was limited; a separation not to exceed three
+months, possibly much shorter. On the whole, too, I pleased myself with
+thinking Uncle Silas's note, though peremptory, was kind.
+
+Our paroxysms subsided into sadness; a close correspondence was arranged.
+Something of the bustle and excitement of change supervened. If it turned
+out to be, in truth, a 'charming residence,' how very delightful our
+meeting in France, with the interest of foreign scenery, ways, and faces,
+would be!
+
+So Thursday arrived--a new gush of sorrow--a new brightening up--and, amid
+regrets and anticipations, we parted at the gate at the farther end of the
+Windmill Wood. Then, of course, were more good-byes, more embraces, and
+tearful smiles. Good Mrs. Jolks, who met us there, was in a huge fuss; I
+believe it was her first visit to the metropolis, and she was in proportion
+heated and important, and terrified about the train, so we had not many
+last words.
+
+I watched poor Milly, whose head was stretched from the window, her hand
+waving many adieux, until the curve of the road, and the clump of old
+ash-trees, thick with ivy, hid Milly, carriage and all, from view. My eyes
+filled again with tears. I turned towards Bartram. At my side stood honest
+Mary Quince.
+
+'Don't take on so, Miss; 'twon't be no time passing; three months is
+nothing at all,' she said, smiling kindly.
+
+I smiled through my tears and kissed the good creature, and so side by side
+we re-entered the gate.
+
+The lithe young man in fustian, whom I had seen talking with Beauty on the
+morning of our first encounter with that youthful Amazon, was awaiting our
+re-entrance with the key in his hand. He stood half behind the open wicket.
+One lean brown cheek, one shy eye, and his sharp up-turned nose, I saw as
+we passed. He was treating me to a stealthy scrutiny, and seemed to shun my
+glance, for he shut the door quickly, and busied himself locking it, and
+then began stubbing up some thistles which grew close by, with the toe of
+his thick shoe, his back to us all the time.
+
+It struck me that I recognised his features, and I asked Mary Quince.
+
+'Have you seen that young man before, Quince?'
+
+'He brings up game for your uncle, sometimes, Miss, and lends a hand in the
+garden, I believe.'
+
+'Do you know his name, Mary?'
+
+'They call him Tom, I don't know what more, Miss.'
+
+'Tom,' I called; 'please, Tom, come here for a moment.'
+
+Tom turned about, and approached slowly. He was more civil than the Bartram
+people usually were, for he plucked off his shapeless cap of rabbit-skin
+with a clownish respect.
+
+'Tom, what is your other name,--Tom _what_, my good man?' I asked.
+
+'Tom Brice, ma'am.'
+
+'Haven't I seen you before, Tom Brice?' I pursued, for my curiosity was
+excited, and with it much graver feelings; for there certainly _was_ a
+resemblance in Tom's features to those of the postilion who had looked so
+hard at me as I passed the carriage in the warren at Knowl, on the evening
+of the outrage which had scared that quiet place.
+
+''Appen you may have, ma'am,' he answered, quite coolly, looking down the
+buttons of his gaiters.
+
+'Are you a good whip--do you drive well?'
+
+'I'll drive a plough wi' most lads hereabout,' answered Tom.
+
+'Have you ever been to Knowl, Tom?'
+
+Tom gaped very innocently.
+
+'Anan,' he said.
+
+'Here, Tom, is half-a-crown.'
+
+He took it readily enough.
+
+'That be very good,' said Tom, with a nod, having glanced sharply at the
+coin.
+
+I can't say whether he applied that term to the coin, or to his luck, or to
+my generous self.
+
+'Now, Tom, you'll tell me, have you ever been to Knowl?'
+
+'Maught a' bin, ma'am, but I don't mind no sich place--no.'
+
+As Tom spoke this with great deliberation, like a man who loves truth,
+putting a strain upon his memory for its sake, he spun the silver coin two
+or three times into the air and caught it, staring at it the while, with
+all his might.
+
+'Now, Tom, recollect yourself, and tell me the truth, and I'll be a friend
+to you. Did you ride postilion to a carriage having a lady in it, and, I
+think, several gentlemen, which came to the grounds of Knowl, when the
+party had their luncheon on the grass, and there was a--a quarrel with the
+gamekeepers? Try, Tom, to recollect; you shall, upon my honour, have no
+trouble about it, and I'll try to serve you.'
+
+Tom was silent, while with a vacant gape he watched the spin of his
+half-crown twice, and then catching it with a smack in his hand, which he
+thrust into his pocket, he said, still looking in the same direction--
+
+'I never rid postilion in my days, ma'am. I know nout o' sich a place,
+though 'appen I maught a' bin there; Knowl, ye ca't. I was ne'er out o'
+Derbyshire but thrice to Warwick fair wi' horses be rail, an' twice to
+York.'
+
+'You're certain, Tom?'
+
+'Sartin sure, ma'am.'
+
+And Tom made another loutish salute, and cut the conference short by
+turning off the path and beginning to hollo after some trespassing cattle.
+
+I had not felt anything like so nearly sure in this essay at identification
+as I had in that of Dudley. Even of Dudley's identity with the Church
+Scarsdale man, I had daily grown less confident; and, indeed, had it been
+proposed to bring it to the test of a wager, I do not think I should,
+in the language of sporting gentlemen, have cared to 'back' my original
+opinion. There was, however, a sufficient uncertainty to make me
+uncomfortable; and there was another uncertainty to enhance the unpleasant
+sense of ambiguity.
+
+On our way back we passed the bleaching trunks and limbs of several ranks
+of barkless oaks lying side by side, some squared by the hatchet, perhaps
+sold, for there were large letters and Roman numerals traced upon them in
+red chalk. I sighed as I passed them by, not because it was wrongfully
+done, for I really rather leaned to the belief that Uncle Silas was well
+advised in point of law. But, alas! here lay low the grand old family
+decorations of Bartram-Haugh, not to be replaced for centuries to come,
+under whose spreading boughs the Ruthyns of three hundred years ago had
+hawked and hunted!
+
+On the trunk of one of these I sat down to rest, Mary Quince meanwhile
+pattering about in unmeaning explorations. While thus listlessly seated,
+the girl Meg Hawkes, walked by, carrying a basket.
+
+'Hish!' she said quickly, as she passed, without altering a pace or raising
+her eyes; 'don't ye speak nor look--fayther spies us; I'll tell ye next
+turn.'
+
+'Next turn'--when was that? Well, she might be returning; and as she could
+not then say more than she had said, in merely passing without a pause, I
+concluded to wait for a short time and see what would come of it.
+
+After a short time I looked about me a little, and I saw Dickon
+Hawkes--Pegtop, as poor Milly used to call him--with an axe in his hand,
+prowling luridly among the timber.
+
+Observing that I saw him, he touched his hat sulkily, and by-and-by passed
+me, muttering to himself. He plainly could not understand what business I
+could have in that particular part of the Windmill Wood, and let me see it
+in his countenance.
+
+His daughter did pass me again; but this time he was near, and she was
+silent. Her next transit occurred as he was questioning Mary Quince at some
+little distance; and as she passed precisely in the same way, she said--
+
+'Don't you be alone wi' Master Dudley nowhere for the world's worth.'
+
+The injunction was so startling that I was on the point of questioning the
+girl. But I recollected myself, and waited in the hope that in her future
+transits she might be more explicit. But one word more she did not utter,
+and the jealous eye of old Pegtop was so constantly upon us that I
+refrained.
+
+There was vagueness and suggestion enough in the oracle to supply work for
+many an hour of anxious conjecture, and many a horrible vigil by night. Was
+I never to know peace at Bartram-Haugh?
+
+Ten days of poor Milly's absence, and of my solitude, had already passed,
+when my uncle sent for me to his room.
+
+When old Wyat stood at the door, mumbling and snarling her message, my
+heart died within me.
+
+It was late--just that hour when dejected people feel their anxieties
+most--when the cold grey of twilight has deepened to its darkest shade, and
+before the cheerful candles are lighted, and the safe quiet of the night
+sets in.
+
+When I entered my uncle's sitting-room--though his window-shutters were
+open and the wan streaks of sunset visible through them, like narrow lakes
+in the chasms of the dark western clouds--a pair of candles were burning;
+one stood upon the table by his desk, the other on the chimneypiece, before
+which his tall, thin figure stooped. His hand leaned on the mantelpiece,
+and the light from the candle just above his bowed head touched his silvery
+hair. He was looking, as it seemed, into the subsiding embers of the fire,
+and was a very statue of forsaken dejection and decay.
+
+'Uncle!' I ventured to say, having stood for some time unperceived near his
+table.
+
+'Ah, yes, Maud, my dear child--my _dear_ child.'
+
+He turned, and with the candle in his hand, smiling his silvery smile of
+suffering on me. He walked more feebly and stiffly, I thought, than I had
+ever seen him move before.
+
+'Sit down, Maud--pray sit there.'
+
+I took the chair he indicated.
+
+'In my misery and my solitude, Maud, I have invoked you like a spirit, and
+you appear.'
+
+With his two hands leaning on the table, he looked across at me, in a
+stooping attitude; he had not seated himself. I continued silent until it
+should be his pleasure to question or address me.
+
+At last he said, raising himself and looking upward, with a wild
+adoration--his finger-tips elevated and glimmering in the faint mixed
+light--
+
+'No, I thank my Creator, I am not quite forsaken.'
+
+Another silence, during which he looked steadfastly at me, and muttered, as
+if thinking aloud--
+
+'My guardian angel!--my guardian angel! Maud, _you_ have a heart.' He
+addressed me suddenly--'Listen, for a few moments, to the appeal of an old
+and broken-hearted man--your guardian--your uncle--your _suppliant_. I had
+resolved never to speak to you more on this subject. But I was wrong. It
+was pride that inspired me--mere pride.'
+
+I felt myself growing pale and flushed by turns during the pause that
+followed.
+
+'I'm very miserable--very nearly desperate. What remains for me--what
+remains? Fortune has done her worst--thrown in the dust, her wheels rolled
+over me; and the servile world, who follow her chariot like a mob, stamp
+upon the mangled wretch. All this had passed over me, and left me scarred
+and bloodless in this solitude. It was not my fault, Maud--I say it was no
+fault of mine; I have no remorse, though more regrets than I can count,
+and all scored with fire. As people passed by Bartram, and looked upon its
+neglected grounds and smokeless chimneys, they thought my plight, I dare
+say, about the worst a proud man could be reduced to. They could not
+imagine one half its misery. But this old hectic--this old epileptic--this
+old spectre of wrongs, calamities, and follies, had still one hope--my
+manly though untutored son--the last male scion of the Ruthyns. Maud, have
+I lost him? His fate--my fate--I may say _Milly's fate_;--we all await your
+sentence. He loves you, as none but the very young can love, and that once
+only in a life. He loves you desperately--a most affectionate nature--a
+Ruthyn, the best blood in England--the last man of the race; and I--if I
+lose him I lose all; and you will see me in my coffin, Maud, before many
+months. I stand before you in the attitude of a suppliant--shall I kneel?'
+
+His eyes were fixed on me with the light of despair, his knotted hands
+clasped, his whole figure bowed toward me. I was inexpressibly shocked and
+pained.
+
+'Oh, uncle! uncle!' I cried, and from very excitement I burst into tears.
+
+I saw that his eyes were fixed on me with a dismal scrutiny. I think he
+divined the nature of my agitation; but he determined, notwithstanding, to
+press me while my helpless agitation continued.
+
+'You see my suspense--you see my miserable and frightful suspense. You are
+kind, Maud; you love your father's memory; your pity your father's brother;
+you would not say no, and place a pistol at his head?'
+
+'Oh! I must--I must--I _must_ say no. Oh! spare me, uncle, for Heaven's
+sake. Don't question me--don't press me. I could not--I _could_ not do what
+you ask.'
+
+'I yield, Maud--I yield, my dear. I will _not_ press you; you shall have
+time, your _own_ time, to think. I will accept no answer now--no, _none_,
+Maud.'
+
+He said this, raising his thin hand to silence me.
+
+'There, Maud, enough. I have spoken, as I always do to you, frankly,
+perhaps too frankly; but agony and despair will speak out, and plead, even
+with the most obdurate and cruel.'
+
+With these words Uncle Silas entered his bed-chamber, and shut the door,
+not violently, but with a resolute hand, and I thought I heard a cry.
+
+I hastened to my own room. I threw myself on my knees, and thanked Heaven
+for the firmness vouchsafed me; I could not believe it to have been my own.
+
+I was more miserable in consequence of this renewed suit on behalf of
+my odious cousin than I can describe. My uncle had taken such a line of
+importunity that it became a sort of agony to resist. I thought of the
+possibility of my hearing of his having made away with himself, and was
+every morning relieved when I heard that he was still as usual. I have
+often wondered since at my own firmness. In that dreadful interview with my
+uncle I had felt, in the whirl and horror of my mind, on the very point
+of submitting, just as nervous people are said to throw themselves over
+precipices through sheer dread of falling.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LI
+
+_SARAH MATILDA COMES TO LIGHT_
+
+
+Some time after this interview, one day as I sat, sad enough, in my room,
+looking listlessly from the window, with good Mary Quince, whom, whether
+in the house or in my melancholy rambles, I always had by my side, I
+was startled by the sound of a loud and shrill female voice, in violent
+hysterical action, gabbling with great rapidity, sobbing, and very nearly
+screaming in a sort of fury.
+
+I started up, staring at the door.
+
+'Lord bless us!' cried honest Mary Quince, with round eyes and mouth agape,
+staring in the same direction.
+
+'Mary--Mary, what can it be?'
+
+'Are they beating some one down yonder? I don't know where it comes from,'
+gasped Quince.
+
+'I will--I will--I'll see her. It's her I want.
+Oo--hoo--hoo--hoo--oo--o--Miss Maud Ruthyn of Knowl. Miss Ruthyn of Knowl.
+Hoo--hoo--hoo--hoo--oo!'
+
+'What on earth can it be?' I exclaimed, in great bewilderment and terror.
+
+It was now plainly very near indeed, and I heard the voice of our mild and
+shaky butler evidently remonstrating with the distressed damsel.
+
+'I'll see her,' she continued, pouring a torrent of vile abuse upon me,
+which stung me with a sudden sense of anger. What had I done to be afraid
+of anyone? How dared anyone in my uncle's house--in _my_ house--mix my name
+up with her detestable scurrilities?
+
+'For Heaven's sake, Miss, don't ye go out,' cried poor Quince; 'it's some
+drunken creature.'
+
+But I was very angry, and, like a fool as I was, I threw open the door,
+exclaiming in a loud and haughty key--
+
+'Here is Miss Ruthyn of Knowl. Who wants to see her?'
+
+A pink and white young lady, with black tresses, violent, weeping, shrill,
+voluble, was flouncing up the last stair, and shook her dress out on the
+lobby; and poor old Giblets, as Milly used to call him, was following in
+her wake, with many small remonstrances and entreaties, perfectly unheeded.
+
+The moment I looked at this person, it struck me that she was the identical
+lady whom I had seen in the carriage at Knowl Warren. The next moment I was
+in doubt; the next, still more so. She was decidedly thinner, and dressed
+by no means in such lady-like taste. Perhaps she was hardly like her at
+all. I began to distrust all these resemblances, and to fancy, with a
+shudder, that they originated, perhaps, only in my own sick brain.
+
+On seeing me, this young lady--as it seemed to me, a good deal of the
+barmaid or lady's-maid species--dried her eyes fiercely, and, with a
+flaming countenance, called upon me peremptorily to produce her 'lawful
+husband.' Her loud, insolent, outrageous attack had the effect of enhancing
+my indignation, and I quite forget what I said to her, but I well remember
+that her manner became a good deal more decent. She was plainly under the
+impression that I wanted to appropriate her husband, or, at least, that he
+wanted to marry me; and she ran on at such a pace, and her harangue was so
+passionate, incoherent, and unintelligible, that I thought her out of her
+mind: she was far from it, however. I think if she had allowed me even
+a second for reflection, I should have hit upon her meaning. As it was,
+nothing could exceed my perplexity, until, plucking a soiled newspaper from
+her pocket, she indicated a particular paragraph, already sufficiently
+emphasised by double lines of red ink at its sides. It was a Lancashire
+paper, of about six weeks since, and very much worn and soiled for its age.
+I remember in particular a circular stain from the bottom of a vessel,
+either of coffee or brown stout. The paragraph was as follows, recording an
+event a year or more anterior to the date of the paper:--
+
+'MARRIAGE.--On Tuesday, August 7, 18--, at Leatherwig Church, by the Rev.
+Arthur Hughes, Dudley R. Ruthyn, Esq., only son and heir of Silas Ruthyn,
+Esq., of Bartram-Haugh, Derbyshire, to Sarah Matilda, second daughter of
+John Mangles, Esq., of Wiggan, in this county.'
+
+At first I read nothing but amazement in this announcement, but in another
+moment I felt how completely I was relieved; and showing, I believe, my
+intense satisfaction in my countenance--for the young lady eyed me with
+considerable surprise and curiosity--I said--
+
+'This is extremely important. You must see Mr. Silas Ruthyn this moment. I
+am certain he knows nothing of it. I will conduct you to him.'
+
+'No more he does--I know that myself,' she replied, following me with a
+self-asserting swagger, and a great rustling of cheap silk.
+
+As we entered, Uncle Silas looked up from his sofa, and closed his _Revue
+des Deux Mondes_.
+
+'What is all this?' he enquired, drily.
+
+'This lady has brought with her a newspaper containing an extraordinary
+statement which affects our family,' I answered.
+
+Uncle Silas raised himself, and looked with a hard, narrow scrutiny at the
+unknown young lady.
+
+'A libel, I suppose, in the paper?' he said, extending his hand for it.
+
+'No, uncle--no; only a marriage,' I answered.
+
+'Not Monica?' he said, as he took it. 'Pah, it smells all over of tobacco
+and beer,' he added, throwing a little eau de Cologne over it.
+
+He raised it with a mixture of curiosity and disgust, saying again 'pah,'
+as he did so.
+
+He read the paragraph, and as he did his face changed from white, all over,
+to lead colour. He raised his eyes, and looked steadily for some seconds at
+the young lady, who seemed a little awed by his strange presence.
+
+'And you are, I suppose, the young lady, Sarah Matilda _née_ Mangles,
+mentioned in this little paragraph?' he said, in a tone you would have
+called a sneer, were it not that it trembled.
+
+Sarah Matilda assented.
+
+'My son is, I dare say, within reach. It so happens that I wrote to arrest
+his journey, and summon him here, some days since--some days since--some
+days since,' he repeated slowly, like a person whose mind has wandered far
+away from the theme on which he is speaking.
+
+He had rung his bell, and old Wyat, always hovering about his rooms,
+entered.
+
+'I want my son, immediately. If not in the house, send Harry to the
+stables; if not there, let him be followed, instantly. Brice is an active
+fellow, and will know where to find him. If he is in Feltram, or at a
+distance, let Brice take a horse, and Master Dudley can ride it back. He
+must be here without the loss of one moment.'
+
+There intervened nearly a quarter of an hour, during which whenever he
+recollected her, Uncle Silas treated the young lady with a hyper-refined
+and ceremonious politeness, which appeared to make her uneasy, and even a
+little shy, and certainly prevented a renewal of those lamentations and
+invectives which he had heard faintly from the stair-head.
+
+But for the most part Uncle Silas seemed to forget us and his book, and all
+that surrounded him, lying back in the corner of his sofa, his chin upon
+his breast, and such a fearful shade and carving on his features as made me
+prefer looking in any direction but his.
+
+At length we heard the tread of Dudley's thick boots on the oak boards,
+and faint and muffled the sound of his voice as he cross-examined old Wyat
+before entering the chamber of audience.
+
+I think he suspected quite another visitor, and had no expectation of
+seeing the particular young lady, who rose from her chair as he entered, in
+an opportune flood of tears, crying--
+
+'Oh, Dudley, Dudley!--oh, Dudley, could you? Oh, Dudley, your own poor Sal!
+You could not--you would not--your lawful wife!'
+
+This and a good deal more, with cheeks that streamed like a window-pane in
+a thunder-shower, spoke Sarah Matilda with all her oratory, working his
+arm, which she clung to, up and down all the time, like the handle of a
+pump. But Dudley was, manifestly, confounded and dumbfoundered. He stood
+for a long time gaping at his father, and stole just one sheepish glance
+at me; and, with red face and forehead, looked down at his boots, and then
+again at his father, who remained just in the attitude I have described,
+and with the same forbidding and dreary intensity in his strange face.
+
+Like a quarrelsome man worried in his sleep by a noise, Dudley suddenly
+woke up, as it were, with a start, in a half-suppressed exasperation,
+and shook her off with a jerk and a muttered curse, as she whisked
+involuntarily into a chair, with more violence than could have been
+pleasant.
+
+'Judging by your looks and demeanour, sir, I can almost anticipate your
+answers,' said my uncle, addressing him suddenly. 'Will you be good
+enough--pray, madame (parenthetically to our visitor), command yourself for
+a few moments. Is this young person the daughter of a Mr. Mangles, and is
+her name Sarah Matilda?'
+
+'I dessay,' answered Dudley, hurriedly.
+
+'Is she your wife?'
+
+'Is she my wife?' repeated Dudley, ill at ease.
+
+'Yes, sir; it is a plain question.'
+
+All this time Sarah Matilda was perpetually breaking into talk, and with
+difficulty silenced by my uncle.
+
+'Well, 'appen she says I am--does she?' replied Dudley.
+
+'Is she your wife, sir?'
+
+'Mayhap she so considers it, after a fashion,' he replied, with an impudent
+swagger, seating himself as he did so.
+
+'What do _you_ think, sir?' persisted Uncle Silas.
+
+'I don't think nout about it,' replied Dudley, surlily.
+
+'Is that account true?' said my uncle, handing him the paper.
+
+'They wishes us to believe so, at any rate.'
+
+'Answer directly, sir. We have our thoughts upon it. If it be true, it is
+capable of _every_ proof. For expedition's sake I ask you. There is no use
+in prevaricating.'
+
+'Who wants to deny it? It _is_ true--there!'
+
+'_There!_ I knew he would,' screamed the young woman, hysterically, with a
+laugh of strange joy.
+
+'Shut up, will ye?' growled Dudley, savagely.
+
+'Oh, Dudley, Dudley, darling! what have I done?'
+
+'Bin and ruined me, jest--that's all.'
+
+'Oh! no, no, no, Dudley. Ye know I wouldn't. I could not--_could_ not hurt
+ye, Dudley. No, no, no!'
+
+He grinned at her, and, with a sharp side-nod, said--
+
+'Wait a bit.'
+
+'Oh, Dudley, don't be vexed, dear. I did not mean it. I would not hurt ye
+for all the world. Never.'
+
+'Well, never mind. You and yours tricked me finely; and now you've got
+me--that's all.'
+
+My uncle laughed a very odd laugh.
+
+'I knew it, of course; and upon my word, madame, you and he make a very
+pretty couple,' sneered Uncle Silas.
+
+Dudley made no answer, looking, however, very savage.
+
+And with this poor young wife, so recently wedded, the low villain had
+actually solicited me to marry him!
+
+I am quite certain that my uncle was as entirely ignorant as I of Dudley's
+connection, and had, therefore, no participation in this appalling
+wickedness.
+
+'And I have to congratulate you, my good fellow, on having secured the
+affections of a very suitable and vulgar young woman.'
+
+'I baint the first o' the family as a' done the same,' retorted Dudley.
+
+At this taunt the old man's fury for a moment overpowered him. In an
+instant he was on his feet, quivering from head to foot. I never saw such
+a countenance--like one of those demon-grotesques we see in the Gothic
+side-aisles and groinings--a dreadful grimace, monkey-like and insane--and
+his thin hand caught up his ebony stick, and shook it paralytically in the
+air.
+
+'If ye touch me wi' that, I'll smash ye, by ----!' shouted Dudley, furious,
+raising his hands and hitching his shoulder, just as I had seen him when he
+fought Captain Oakley.
+
+For a moment this picture was suspended before me, and I screamed, I know
+not what, in my terror. But the old man, the veteran of many a scene of
+excitement, where men disguise their ferocity in calm tones, and varnish
+their fury with smiles, had not quite lost his self-command. He turned
+toward me and said--
+
+'Does he know what he's saying?'
+
+And with an icy laugh of contempt, his high, thin forehead still flushed,
+he sat down trembling.
+
+'If you want to say aught, I'll hear ye. Ye may jaw me all ye like, and
+I'll stan' it.'
+
+'Oh, I may speak? Thank you,' sneered Uncle Silas, glancing slowly round at
+me, and breaking into a cold laugh.
+
+'Ay, I don't mind cheek, not I; but you must not go for to do that, ye
+know. Gammon. I won't stand a blow--I won't fro _no_ one.'
+
+'Well, sir, availing myself of your permission to speak, I may remark,
+without offence to the young lady, that I don't happen to recollect the
+name Mangles among the old families of England. I presume you have chosen
+her chiefly for her virtues and her graces.'
+
+Mrs. Sarah Matilda, not apprehending this compliment quite as Uncle Silas
+meant it, dropped a courtesy, notwithstanding her agitation, and, wiping
+her eyes, said, with a blubbered smile--
+
+'You're very kind, sure.'
+
+'I hope, for both your sakes, she has got a little money. I don't see how
+you are to live else. You're too lazy for a game-keeper; and I don't
+think you could keep a pot-house, you are so addicted to drinking and
+quarrelling. The only thing I am quite clear upon is, that you and your
+wife must find some other abode than this. You shall depart this evening:
+and now, Mr. and Mrs. Dudley Ruthyn, you may quit this room, if you
+please.'
+
+Uncle Silas had risen, and made them one of his old courtly bows, smiling a
+death-like sneer, and pointing to the door with his trembling fingers.
+
+'Come, will ye?' said Dudley, grinding his teeth. 'You're pretty well done
+here.'
+
+Not half understanding the situation, but looking woefully bewildered, she
+dropped a farewell courtesy at the door.
+
+'Will ye _cut_?' barked Dudley, in a tone that made her jump; and suddenly,
+without looking about, he strode after her from the room.
+
+'Maud, how shall I recover this? The vulgar _villain_--the _fool_! What an
+abyss were we approaching! and for me the last hope gone--and for me utter,
+utter, irretrievable ruin.'
+
+He was passing his fingers tremulously back and forward along the top of
+the mantelpiece, like a man in search of something, and continued so,
+looking along it, feebly and vacantly, although there was nothing there.
+
+'I wish, uncle--you do not know how much I wish--I could be of any use to
+you. Maybe I can?'
+
+He turned, and looked at me sharply.
+
+'Maybe you can,' he echoed slowly. 'Yes, maybe you can,' he repeated more
+briskly. 'Let us--let us see--let us think--that d---- fellow!--my head!'
+
+'You're not well, uncle?'
+
+'Oh! yes, very well. We'll talk in the evening--I'll send for you.'
+
+I found Wyat in the next room, and told her to hasten, as I thought he was
+ill. I hope it was not very selfish, but such had grown to be my horror of
+seeing him in one of his strange seizures, that I hastened from the room
+precipitately--partly to escape the risk of being asked to remain.
+
+The walls of Bartram House are thick, and the recess at the doorway deep.
+As I closed my uncle's door, I heard Dudley's voice on the stairs. I did
+not wish to be seen by him or by his 'lady', as his poor wife called
+herself, who was engaged in vehement dialogue with him as I emerged, and
+not caring either to re-enter my uncle's room, I remained quietly ensconced
+within the heavy door-case, in which position I overheard Dudley say with a
+savage snarl--
+
+'You'll jest go back the way ye came. I'm not goin' wi' ye, if that's what
+ye be drivin' at--dang your impitins!'
+
+'Oh! Dudley, dear, what have I done--what _have_ I done--ye hate me so?'
+
+'What a' ye done? Ye vicious little beast, ye! You've got us turned out an'
+disinherited wi' yer d----d bosh, that's all; don't ye think it's enough?'
+
+I could only hear her sobs and shrill tones in reply, for they were
+descending the stairs; and Mary Quince reported to me, in a horrified sort
+of way, that she saw him bundle her into the fly at the door, like a truss
+of hay into a hay-loft. And he stood with his head in at the window,
+scolding her, till it drove away.
+
+'I knew he wor jawing her, poor thing! By the way he kep' waggin' his
+head--an' he had his fist inside, a shakin' in her face I'm sure he looked
+wicked enough for anything; an' she a crying like a babby, an' lookin'
+back, an' wavin' her wet hankicher to him--poor thing!--and she so young!
+'Tis a pity. Dear me! I often think, Miss, 'tis well for me I never was
+married. And see how we all would like to get husbands for all that, though
+so few is happy together. 'Tis a queer world, and them that's single is
+maybe the best off after all.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LII
+
+_THE PICTURE OF A WOLF_
+
+
+I went down that evening to the sitting-room which had been assigned to
+Milly and me, in search of a book--my good Mary Quince always attending me.
+The door was a little open, and I was startled by the light of a candle
+proceeding from the fireside, together with a considerable aroma of tobacco
+and brandy.
+
+On my little work-table, which he had drawn beside the hearth, lay Dudley's
+pipe, his brandy-flask, and an empty tumbler; and he was sitting with one
+foot on the fender, his elbow on his knee, and his head resting in his
+hand, weeping. His back being a little toward the door, he did not perceive
+us; and we saw him rub his knuckles in his eyes, and heard the sounds of
+his selfish lamentation.
+
+Mary and I stole away quietly, leaving him in possession, wondering when
+he was to leave the house, according to the sentence which I had heard
+pronounced upon him.
+
+I was delighted to see old 'Giblets' quietly strapping his luggage in the
+hall, and heard from him in a whisper that he was to leave that evening by
+rail--he did not know whither.
+
+About half an hour afterwards, Mary Quince, going out to reconnoitre, heard
+from old Wyat in the lobby that he had just started to meet the train.
+
+Blessed be heaven for that deliverance! An evil spirit had been cast out,
+and the house looked lighter and happier. It was not until I sat down in
+the quiet of my room that the scenes and images of that agitating day began
+to move before my memory in orderly procession, and for the first time
+I appreciated, with a stunning sense of horror and a perfect rapture of
+thanksgiving, the value of my escape and the immensity of the danger which
+had threatened me. It may have been miserable weakness--I think it was. But
+I was young, nervous, and afflicted with a troublesome sort of conscience,
+which occasionally went mad, and insisted, in small things as well as
+great, upon sacrifices which my reason now assures me were absurd. Of
+Dudley I had a perfect horror; and yet had that system of solicitation,
+that dreadful and direct appeal to my compassion, that placing of my feeble
+girlhood in the seat of the arbiter of my aged uncle's hope or despair,
+been long persisted in, my resistance might have been worn out--who can
+tell?--and I self-sacrificed! Just as criminals in Germany are teased, and
+watched, and cross-examined, year after year, incessantly, into a sort of
+madness; and worn out with the suspense, the iteration, the self-restraint,
+and insupportable fatigue, they at last cut all short, accuse themselves,
+and go infinitely relieved to the scaffold--you may guess, then, for me,
+nervous, self-diffident, and alone, how intense was the comfort of knowing
+that Dudley was actually married, and the harrowing importunity which had
+just commenced for ever silenced.
+
+That night I saw my uncle. I pitied him, though I feared him. I was longing
+to tell him how anxious I was to help him, if only he could point out the
+way. It was in substance what I had already said, but now strongly urged.
+He brightened; he sat up perpendicularly in his chair with a countenance,
+not weak or fatuous now, but resolute and searching, and which contracted
+into dark thought or calculation as I talked.
+
+I dare say I spoke confusedly enough. I was always nervous in his presence;
+there was, I fancy, something mesmeric in the odd sort of influence which,
+without effort, he exercised over my imagination.
+
+Sometimes this grew into a dismal panic, and Uncle Silas--polished,
+mild--seemed unaccountably horrible to me. Then it was no longer an
+accidental fascination of electro-biology. It was something more. His
+nature was incomprehensible by me. He was without the nobleness, without
+the freshness, without the softness, without the frivolities of such human
+nature as I had experienced, either within myself or in other persons. I
+instinctively felt that appeals to sympathies or feelings could no
+more affect him than a marble monument. He seemed to accommodate his
+conversation to the moral structure of others, just as spirits are said to
+assume the shape of mortals. There were the sensualities of the gourmet for
+his body, and there ended his human nature, as it seemed to me. Through
+that semi-transparent structure I thought I could now and then discern the
+light or the glare of his inner life. But I understood it not.
+
+He never scoffed at what was good or noble--his hardest critic could not
+nail him to one such sentence; and yet, it seemed somehow to me that his
+unknown nature was a systematic blasphemy against it all. If fiend he was,
+he was yet something higher than the garrulous, and withal feeble, demon of
+Goethe. He assumed the limbs and features of our mortal nature. He shrouded
+his own, and was a profoundly reticent Mephistopheles. Gentle he had been
+to me--kindly he had nearly always spoken; but it seemed like the mild talk
+of one of those goblins of the desert, whom Asiatic superstition tells of,
+who appear in friendly shapes to stragglers from the caravan, beckon to
+them from afar, call them by their names, and lead them where they are
+found no more. Was, then, all his kindness but a phosphoric radiance
+covering something colder and more awful than the grave?
+
+'It is very noble of you, Maud--it is angelic; your sympathy with a ruined
+and despairing old man. But I fear you will recoil. I tell you frankly that
+less than twenty thousand pounds will not extricate me from the quag of
+ruin in which I am entangled--lost!'
+
+'Recoil! Far from it. I'll do it. There must be some way.'
+
+'Enough, my fair young protectress--celestial enthusiast, enough. Though
+you do not, yet I recoil. I could not bring myself to accept this
+sacrifice. What signifies, even to me, my extrication? I lie a mangled
+wretch, with fifty mortal wounds on my crown; what avails the healing of
+one wound, when there are so many beyond all cure? Better to let me perish
+where I fall; and reserve your money for the worthier objects whom,
+perhaps, hereafter may avail to save.'
+
+'But I _will_ do this. I must. I cannot see you suffer with the power in my
+hands unemployed to help you,' I exclaimed.
+
+'Enough, dear Maud; the will is here--enough: there is balm in your
+compassion and good-will. Leave me, ministering angel; for the present I
+cannot. If you _will_, we can talk of it again. Good-night.'
+
+And so we parted.
+
+The attorney from Feltram, I afterwards heard, was with him nearly all that
+night, trying in vain to devise by their joint ingenuity any means by which
+I might tie myself up. But there were none. I could not bind myself.
+
+I was myself full of the hope of helping him. What was this sum to me,
+great as it seemed? Truly nothing. I could have spared it, and never felt
+the loss.
+
+I took up a large quarto with coloured prints, one of the few books I had
+brought with me from dear old Knowl. Too much excited to hope for sleep in
+bed, I opened it, and turned over the leaves, my mind still full of Uncle
+Silas and the sum I hoped to help him with.
+
+Unaccountably one of those coloured engravings arrested my attention.
+It represented the solemn solitude of a lofty forest; a girl, in Swiss
+costume, was flying in terror, and as she fled flinging a piece of meat
+behind her which she had taken from a little market-basket hanging upon her
+arm. Through the glade a pack of wolves were pursuing her.
+
+The narrative told, that on her return homeward with her marketing, she had
+been chased by wolves, and barely escaped by flying at her utmost speed,
+from time to time retarding, as she did so, the pursuit, by throwing, piece
+by piece, the contents of her basket, in her wake, to be devoured and
+fought for by the famished beasts of prey.
+
+This print had seized my imagination. I looked with a curious interest on
+the print: something in the disposition of the trees, their great height,
+and rude boughs, interlacing, and the awful shadow beneath, reminded me of
+a portion of the Windmill Wood where Milly and I had often rambled. Then I
+looked at the figure of the poor girl, flying for her life, and glancing
+terrified over her shoulder. Then I gazed on the gaping, murderous pack,
+and the hoary brute that led the van; and then I leaned back in my chair,
+and I thought--perhaps some latent association suggested what seemed a
+thing so unlikely--of a fine print in my portfolio from Vandyke's noble
+picture of Belisarius. Idly I traced with my pencil, as I leaned back, on
+an envelope that lay upon the table, this little inscription. It was mere
+fiddling; and, absurd as it looked, there was nothing but an honest meaning
+in it:--'20,000_l_. Date Obolum Belisario!' My dear father had translated
+the little Latin inscription for me, and I had written it down as a sort
+of exercise of memory; and also, perhaps, as expressive of that sort of
+compassion which my uncle's fall and miserable fate excited invariably in
+me. So I threw this queer little memorandum upon the open leaf of the book,
+and again the flight, the pursuit, and the bait to stay it, engaged my eye.
+And I heard a voice near the hearthstone, as I thought, say, in a stern
+whisper, 'Fly the fangs of Belisarius!'
+
+'What's that?' said I, turning sharply to Mary Quince.
+
+Mary rose from her work at the fireside, staring at me with that odd sort
+of frown that accompanies fear and curiosity.
+
+'You spoke? Did you speak?' I said, catching her by the arm, very much
+frightened myself.
+
+'No, Miss; no, dear!' answered she, plainly thinking that I was a little
+wrong in my head.
+
+There could be no doubt it was a trick of the imagination, and yet to this
+hour I could recognise that clear stern voice among a thousand, were it to
+speak again.
+
+Jaded after a night of broken sleep and much agitation, I was summoned next
+morning to my uncle's room.
+
+He received me _oddly_, I thought. His manner had changed, and made an
+uncomfortable impression upon me. He was gentle, kind, smiling, submissive,
+as usual; but it seemed to me that he experienced henceforth toward me the
+same half-superstitous repulsion which I had always felt from him. Dream,
+or voice, or vision--which had done it? There seemed to be an unconscious
+antipathy and fear. When he thought I was not looking, his eyes were
+sometimes grimly fixed for a moment upon me. When I looked at him, his eyes
+were upon the book before him; and when he spoke, a person not heeding what
+he uttered would have fancied that he was reading aloud from it.
+
+There was nothing tangible but this shrinking from the encounter of our
+eyes. I said he was kind as usual. He was even more so. But there was this
+new sign of our silently repellant natures. Dislike it could not be. He
+knew I longed to serve him. Was it shame? Was there not a shade of horror
+in it?
+
+'I have not slept,' said he. 'For me the night has passed in thought, and
+the fruit of it is this--I _cannot_, Maud, accept your noble offer.'
+
+'I am _very_ sorry,' exclaimed I, in all honesty.
+
+'I know it, my dear niece, and appreciate your goodness; but there are
+many reasons--none of them, I trust, ignoble--and which together render
+it impossible. No. It would be misunderstood--my honour shall not be
+impugned.'
+
+'But, sir, that could not be; you have never proposed it. It would be all,
+from first to last, _my_ doing.'
+
+'True, dear Maud, but I know, alas! more of this evil and slanderous world
+than your happy inexperience can do. Who will receive our testimony?
+None--no, not one. The difficulty--the insuperable moral difficulty is
+this--that I should expose myself to the plausible imputation of having
+worked upon you, unduly, for this end; and more, that I could not hold
+myself quite free from blame. It is your voluntary goodness, Maud. But you
+are young, inexperienced; and it is, I hold it, my duty to stand between
+you and any dealing with your property at so unripe an age. Some people may
+call this Quixotic. In my mind it is an imperious mandate of conscience;
+and I peremptorily refuse to disobey it, although within three weeks an
+execution will be in this house!'
+
+I did not quite know what an execution meant; but from two harrowing
+novels, with whose distresses I was familiar, I knew that it indicated some
+direful process of legal torture and spoliation.
+
+'Oh, uncle I--oh, sir!--you cannot allow this to happen. What will people
+say of me? And--and there is poor Milly--and _everything_! Think what it
+will be.'
+
+'It cannot be helped--_you_ cannot help it, Maud. Listen to me. There will
+be an execution here, I cannot say exactly how soon, but, I think, in a
+little more than a fortnight. I must provide for your comfort. You must
+leave. I have arranged that you shall join Milly, for the present, in
+France, till I have time to look about me. You had better, I think, write
+to your cousin, Lady Knollys. She, with all her oddities, has a heart. Can
+you say, Maud, that I have been kind?'
+
+'You have never been anything but kind,' I exclaimed.
+
+'That I've been self-denying when you made me a generous offer?' he
+continued. 'That I now act to spare you pain? You may tell her, not as a
+message from me, but as a fact, that I am seriously thinking of vacating my
+guardianship--that I feel I have done her an injustice, and that, so
+soon as my mind is a little less tortured, I shall endeavour to effect a
+reconciliation with her, and would wish ultimately to transfer the care
+of your person and education to _her_. You may say I have no longer an
+interest even in vindicating my name. My son has wrecked himself by a
+marriage. I forgot to tell you he stopped at Feltram, and this morning
+wrote to pray a parting interview. If I grant it, it shall be the last. I
+shall never see him or correspond with him more.'
+
+The old man seemed much overcome, and held his hankerchief to his eyes.
+
+'He and his wife are, I understand, about to emigrate; the sooner the
+better,' he resumed, bitterly. 'Deeply, Maud, I regret having tolerated his
+suit to you, even for a moment. Had I thought it over, as I did the whole
+case last night, nothing could have induced me to permit it. But I have
+lived for so long like a monk in his cell, my wants and observation limited
+to the narrow compass of this chamber, that my knowledge of the world has
+died out with my youth and my hopes: and I did not, as I ought to have
+done, consider many objections. Therefore, dear Maud, on this one subject,
+I entreat, be silent; its discussion can effect nothing now. I was wrong,
+and frankly ask you to forget my mistake.'
+
+I had been on the point of writing to Lady Knollys on this odious subject,
+when, happily, it was set at rest by the disclosure of yesterday; and being
+so, I could have no difficulty in acceding to my uncle's request. He was
+conceding so much that I could not withhold so trifling a concession in
+return.
+
+'I hope Monica will continue to be kind to poor Milly after I am gone.'
+
+Here there were a few seconds of meditation.
+
+'Maud, you will not, I think, refuse to convey the substance of what I
+have just said in a letter to Lady Knollys, and perhaps you would have
+no objection to let me see it when it is written. It will prevent the
+possibility of its containing any misconception of what I have just spoken:
+and, Maud, you won't forget to say whether I have been kind. It would be
+a satisfaction to me to know that Monica was assured that I never either
+teased or bullied my young ward.'
+
+With these words he dismissed me; and forthwith I completed such a letter
+as would quite embody what he had said; and in my own glowing terms,
+being in high good-humour with Uncle Silas, recorded my estimate of his
+gentleness and good-nature; and when I submitted it to him, he expressed
+his admiration of what he was pleased to call my cleverness in so exactly
+conveying what he wished, and his gratitude for the handsome terms in which
+I had spoken of my old guardian.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIII
+
+_AN ODD PROPOSAL_
+
+
+As I and Mary Quince returned from our walk that day, and had entered the
+hall, I was surprised most disagreeably by Dudley's emerging from the
+vestibule at the foot of the great staircase. He was, I suppose, in his
+travelling costume--a rather soiled white surtout, a great coloured muffler
+in folds about his throat, his 'chimney-pot' on, and his fur cap sticking
+out from his pocket. He had just descended, I suppose, from my uncle's
+room. On seeing me he stepped back, and stood with his shoulders to the
+wall, like a mummy in a museum.
+
+I pretended to have a few words to say to Mary before leaving the hall,
+in the hope that, as he seemed to wish to escape me, he would take the
+opportunity of getting quickly off the scene.
+
+But he had changed his mind, it would seem, in the interval; for when I
+glanced in that direction again he had moved toward us, and stood in the
+hall with his hat in his hand. I must do him the justice to say he looked
+horribly dismal, sulky, and frightened.
+
+'Ye'll gi'e me a word, Miss--only a thing I ought to say--for your good; by
+----, mind, it's for _your_ good, Miss.'
+
+Dudley stood a little way off, viewing me, with his hat in both hands and a
+'glooming' countenance.
+
+I detested the idea of either hearing or speaking to him; but I had no
+resolution to refuse, and only saying 'I can't imagine what you can wish to
+speak to me about,' I approached him. 'Wait there at the banister, Quince.'
+
+There was a fragrance of alcohol about the flushed face and gaudy muffler
+of this odious cousin, which heightened the effect of his horribly dismal
+features. He was speaking, besides, a little thickly; but his manner was
+dejected, and he was treating me with an elaborate and discomfited respect
+which reassured me.
+
+'I'm a bit up a tree, Miss,' he said shuffling his feet on the oak floor.
+'I behaved a d---- fool; but I baint one o' they sort. I'm a fellah as 'ill
+fight his man, an' stan' up to 'm fair, don't ye see? An' _baint_ one o'
+they sort--no, _dang_ it, I baint.'
+
+Dudley delivered his puzzling harangue with a good deal of undertoned
+vehemence, and was strangely agitated. He, too, had got an unpleasant way
+of avoiding my eye, and glancing along the floor from corner to corner as
+he spoke, which gave him a very hang-dog air.
+
+He was twisting his fingers in his great sandy whisker, and pulling it
+roughly enough to drag his cheek about by that savage purchase; and with
+his other hand he was crushing and rubbing his hat against his knee.
+
+'The old boy above there be half crazed, I think; he don't mean half as he
+says thof, not he. But I'm in a bad fix anyhow--a regular sell it's been,
+and I can't get a tizzy out of him. So, ye see, I'm up a tree, Miss; and he
+sich a one, he'll make it a wuss mull if I let him. He's as sharp wi' me as
+one o' them lawyer chaps, dang 'em, and he's a lot of I O's and rubbitch o'
+mine; and Bryerly writes to me he can't gi'e me my legacy, 'cause he's got
+a notice from Archer and Sleigh a warnin' him not to gi'e me as much as a
+bob; for I signed it away to governor, he says--which I believe's a lie. I
+may a' signed some writing--'appen I did--when I was a bit cut one night.
+But that's no way to catch a gentleman, and 'twon't stand. There's justice
+to be had, and 'twon't _stand_, I say; and I'm not in 'is hands that way.
+Thof I may be a bit up the spout, too, I don't deny; only I baint agoin'
+the whole hog all at once. I'm none o' they sort. He'll find I baint.'
+
+Here Mary Quince coughed demurely from the foot of the stair, to remind me
+that the conversation was protracted.
+
+'I don't very well understand,' I said gravely; 'and I am now going
+upstairs.'
+
+'Don't jest a minute, Miss; it's only a word, ye see. We'll be goin' t'
+Australia, Sary Mangles, an' me, aboard the _Seamew_, on the 5th. I'm
+for Liverpool to-night, and she'll meet me there, an'--an', please God
+Almighty, ye'll never see me more; an I'd rather gi'e ye a lift, Maud,
+before I go: an' I tell ye what, if ye'll just gi'e me your written promise
+ye'll gi'e me that twenty thousand ye were offering to gi'e the Governor,
+I'll take ye cleverly out o' Bartram, and put ye wi' your cousin Knollys,
+or anywhere ye like best.'
+
+'Take me from Bartram--for twenty thousand pounds! Take me away from my
+guardian! You seem to forget, sir,' my indignation rising as I spoke, 'that
+I can visit my cousin, Lady Knollys, whenever I please.'
+
+'Well, that is as it may be,' he said, with a sulky deliberation, scraping
+about a little bit of paper that lay on the floor with the toe of his boot.
+
+'It _is_ as it may be, and that is as I say, sir; and considering how you
+have treated me--your mean, treacherous, and infamous suit, and your cruel
+treason to your poor wife, I am amazed at your effrontery.'
+
+I turned to leave him, being, in truth, in one of my passions.
+
+'Don't ye be a flying out,' he said peremptorily, and catching me roughly
+by the wrist, 'I baint a-going to vex ye. What a mouth you be, as can't see
+your way! Can't ye speak wi' common sense, like a woman--dang it--for once,
+and not keep brawling like a brat--can't ye see what I'm saying? I'll take
+ye out o' all this, and put ye wi' your cousin, or wheresoever you list, if
+ye'll gi'e me what I say.'
+
+He was, for the first time, looking me in the face, but with contracted
+eyes, and a countenance very much agitated.
+
+'Money?' said I, with a prompt disdain.
+
+'Ay, money--twenty thousand pounds--_there_. On or off?' he replied, with
+an unpleasant sort of effort.
+
+'You ask my promise for twenty thousand pounds, and you shan't have it.'
+
+My cheeks were flaming, and I stamped on the ground as I spoke.
+
+If he had known how to appeal to my better feelings, I am sure I should
+have done, perhaps not quite that, all at once at least, but something
+handsome, to assist him. But this application was so shabby and insolent!
+What could he take me for? That I should suppose his placing me with Cousin
+Monica constituted her my guardian? Why, he must fancy me the merest baby.
+There was a kind of stupid cunning in this that disgusted my good-nature
+and outraged my self-importance.
+
+'You won't gi'e me that, then?' he said, looking down again, with a frown,
+and working his mouth and cheeks about as I could fancy a man rolling a
+piece of tobacco in his jaw.
+
+'Certainly _not_, sir,' I replied.
+
+'_Take_ it, then,' he replied, still looking down, very black and
+discontented.
+
+I joined Mary Quince, extremely angry. As I passed under the carved oak
+arch of the vestibule, I saw his figure in the deepening twilight. The
+picture remains in its murky halo fixed in memory. Standing where he last
+spoke in the centre of the hall, not looking after me, but downward, and,
+as well as I could see, with the countenance of a man who has lost a game,
+and a ruinous wager too--that is black and desperate. I did not utter a
+syllable on the way up. When I reached my room, I began to reconsider the
+interview more at my leisure. I was, such were my ruminations, to have
+agreed at once to his preposterous offer, and to have been driven, while he
+smirked and grimaced behind my back at his acquaintances, through Feltram
+in his dog-cart to Elverston; and then, to the just indignation of my
+uncle, to have been delivered up to Lady Knolly's guardianship, and to
+have handed my driver, as I alighted, the handsome fare of 20.000_l_. It
+required the impudence of Tony Lumpkin, without either his fun or his
+shrewdness, to have conceived such a prodigious practical joke.
+
+'Maybe you'd like a little tea, Miss?' insinuated Mary Quince.
+
+'What impertinence!' I exclaimed, with one of my angry stamps on the floor.
+'Not you, dear old Quince,' I added. 'No--no tea just now.'
+
+And I resumed my ruminations, which soon led me to this train of
+thought--'Stupid and insulting as Dudley's proposition was, it yet involved
+a great treason against my uncle. Should I be weak enough to be silent, may
+he not, wishing to forestall me, misrepresent all that has passed, so as to
+throw the blame altogether upon me?'
+
+This idea seized upon me with a force which I could not withstand; and on
+the impulse of the moment I obtained admission to my uncle, and related
+exactly what had passed. When I had finished my narrative, which he
+listened to without once raising his eyes, my uncle cleared his throat once
+or twice, as if to speak. He was smiling--I thought with an effort, and
+with elevated brows. When I concluded, he hummed one of those sliding
+notes, which a less refined man might have expressed by a whistle of
+surprise and contempt, and again he essayed to speak, but continued silent.
+The fact is, he seemed to me very much disconcerted. He rose from his seat,
+and shuffled about the room in his slippers, I believe affecting only to
+be in search of something, opening and shutting two or three drawers, and
+turning over some books and papers; and at length, taking up some loose
+sheets of manuscript, he appeared to have found what he was looking for,
+and began to read them carelessly, with his back towards me, and with
+another effort to clear his voice, he said at last--
+
+'And pray, what could the fool mean by all that?'
+
+'I think he must have taken me for an idiot, sir,' I answered.
+
+'Not unlikely. He has lived in a stable, among horses and ostlers; he has
+always seemed to me something like a centaur--that is a centaur composed
+not of man and horse, but of an ape and an ass.'
+
+And upon this jibe he laughed, not coldly and sarcastically, as was his
+wont, but, I thought, flurriedly. And, continuing to look into his papers,
+he said, his back still toward me as he read--
+
+'And he did not favour you with an exposition of his meaning, which, except
+in so far as it estimated his deserts at the modest sum you have
+named, appears to me too oracular to be interpreted without a kindred
+inspiration?'
+
+And again he laughed. He was growing more like himself.
+
+'As to your visiting your cousin, Lady Knollys, the stupid rogue had only
+five minutes before heard me express my wish that you should do so before
+leaving this. I am quite resolved you shall--that is, unless, dear Maud,
+you should yourself object; but, of course, we must wait for an invitation,
+which, I conjecture, will not be long in coming. In fact, your letter
+will naturally bring it about, and, I trust, open the way to a permanent
+residence with her. The more I think it over, the more am I convinced, dear
+niece, that as things are likely to turn out, my roof would be no desirable
+shelter for you; and that, under all circumstances, hers would. Such were
+my motives, Maud, in opening, through your letter, a door of reconciliation
+between us.'
+
+I felt that I ought to have kissed his hand--that he had indicated
+precisely the future that I most desired; and yet there was within me a
+vague feeling, akin to suspicion--akin to dismay which chilled and overcast
+my soul.
+
+'But, Maud,' he said, 'I am disquieted to think of that stupid jackanapes
+presuming to make you such an offer! A creditable situation truly--arriving
+in the dark at Elverston, under the solitary escort of that wild young man,
+with whom you would have fled from my guardianship; and, Maud, I tremble as
+I ask myself the question, would he have conducted you to Elverston at all?
+When you have lived as long in the world as I, you will appreciate its
+wickedness more justly.' Here there was a little pause.
+
+'I know, my dear, that were he convinced of his legal marriage with that
+young woman,' he resumed, perceiving how startled I looked, 'such an idea,
+of course, would not have entered his head; but he does not believe any
+such thing. Contrary to fact and logic, he does honestly think that his
+hand is still at his disposal; and I certainly do suspect that he would
+have employed that excursion in endeavouring to persuade you to think as he
+does. Be that how it may, however, it is satisfactory to me to know that
+you shall never more be troubled by one word from that ill-regulated young
+man. I made him my adieux, such as they were, this evening; and never more
+shall he enter the walls of Bartram-Haugh while we two live.'
+
+Uncle Silas replaced the papers which had ostensibly interested him so
+much, and returned. There was a vein which was visible near the angle
+of his lofty temple, and in moments of agitation stood out against the
+surrounding pallor in a knotted blue cord; and as he came back smiling
+askance, I saw this sign of inward tumult.
+
+'We can, however, afford to despise the follies and knaveries of the world,
+Maud, as long as we act, as we have hitherto done, with perfect confidence
+in each other. Heaven bless you, dear Maud! Your report troubled me, I
+believe, more than it need--troubled me a good deal; but reflection assures
+me it is nothing. He is gone. In a few days' time he will be on the sea. I
+will issue my orders to-morrow morning, and he will never more, during his
+brief stay in England, gain admission to Bartram-Haugh. Good-night, my good
+niece; I thank you.'
+
+And so I returned to Mary Quince, on the whole happier than I had left
+her, but still with the confused and jarring vision I could not interpret
+perpetually rising before me; and as, from time to time, shapeless
+anxieties agitated me, relieving them by appeals to Him who alone is wise
+and strong.
+
+Next day brought me a goodnatured gossiping letter from dear Milly,
+written in compulsory French, which was, in some places, very difficult
+to interpret. She gave me a very pleasant account of the place, and her
+opinion of the girls who were inmates, and mentioned some of the nuns with
+high commendation. The language plainly cramped poor Milly's genius; but
+although there was by no means so much fun as an honest English letter
+would have brought me, there could be no mistake about her liking the
+place, and she expressed her honest longing to see me in the most
+affectionate terms.
+
+This letter came enclosed in one to my uncle, from the proper authority
+in the convent; and as there was neither address within, nor post-mark
+without, I was as much in the dark as ever as to poor Milly's whereabouts.
+
+Pencilled across the envelope of this letter, in my uncle's hand, were the
+words, 'Let me have your answer when sealed, and I will transmit it.--S.R.'
+
+When, accordingly, some days later, I did place my letter to Milly in my
+uncle's hands, he told me the reason of his reserves on the subject.
+
+'I thought it best, dear Maud, not to plague you with a secret, and Milly's
+present address is one. It will in a few weeks become the rallying-point of
+our diverse routes, when you shall meet her, and I join you both. Nobody,
+until the storm shall have blown over, must know where I am to be found,
+except my lawyer; and I think you would prefer ignorance to the trouble of
+keeping a secret on which so much may depend.'
+
+This being reasonable, and even considerate, I acquiesced.
+
+In that interval there reached me such a charming, gay, and affectionate
+letter--a very _long_ letter, too--though the writer was scarcely seven
+miles away, from dear Cousin Monica, full of pleasant gossip, and
+rose-coloured and golden castles in the air, and the kindest interest in
+poor Milly, and the warmest affection for me.
+
+One other incident varied that interval, if possible more pleasantly than
+those. It was the announcement, in a Liverpool paper, of the departure of
+the _Seamew_, bound for Melbourne; and among the passengers were reported
+'Dudley Ruthyn, Esquire, of Bartram-H., and Mrs. D. Ruthyn.'
+
+And now I began to breathe freely, I plainly saw the end of my probation
+approaching: a short excursion to France, a happy meeting with Milly, and
+then a delightful residence with Cousin Monica for the remainder of my
+nonage.
+
+You will say then that my spirits and my serenity were quite restored. Not
+quite. How marvellously lie our anxieties, in filmy layers, one over the
+other! Take away that which has lain on the upper surface for so long--the
+care of cares--the only one, as it seemed to you, between your soul and the
+radiance of Heaven--and straight you find a new stratum there. As physical
+science tells us no fluid is without its skin, so does it seem with this
+fine medium of the soul, and these successive films of care that form upon
+its surface on mere contact with the upper air and light.
+
+What was my new trouble? A very fantastic one, you will say--the illusion
+of a self-tormentor. It was the face of Uncle Silas which haunted me.
+Notwithstanding the old pale smile, there was a shrinking grimness, and the
+always-averted look.
+
+Sometimes I fancied his mind was disordered. I could not account for the
+eerie lights and shadows that flickered on his face, except so. There was
+a look of shame and fear of me, amazing as that seems, in the sheen of his
+peaked smile.
+
+I thought, 'Perhaps he blames himself for having tolerated Dudley's
+suit--for having urged it on grounds of personal distress--for having
+altogether lowered, though under sore temptation, both himself and his
+office; and he thinks that he has forfeited my respect.'
+
+Such was my analysis; but in the _coup-d'oeil_ of that white face that
+dazzled me in darkness, and haunted my daily reveries with a faded light,
+there was an intangible character of the insidious and the terrible.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIV
+
+_IN SEARCH OF MR. CHARKE'S SKELETON_
+
+
+On the whole, however, I was unspeakably relieved. Dudley Ruthyn, Esq.,
+and Mrs. D. Ruthyn, were now skimming the blue waves on the wings of the
+_Seamew_, and every morning widened the distance between us, which was to
+go on increasing until it measured a point on the antipodes. The Liverpool
+paper containing this golden line was carefully preserved in my room; and
+like the gentleman who, when much tried by the shrewish heiress whom he
+had married, used to retire to his closet and read over his marriage
+settlement, I used, when blue devils haunted me, to unfold my newspaper and
+read the paragraph concerning the _Seamew_.
+
+The day I now speak of was a dismal one of sleety snow. My own room seemed
+to me cheerier than the lonely parlour, where I could not have had good
+Mary Quince so decorously.
+
+A good fire, that kind and trusty face, the peep I had just indulged in at
+my favourite paragraph, and the certainty of soon seeing my dear cousin
+Monica, and afterwards affectionate Milly, raised my spirits.
+
+'So,' said I, 'as old Wyat, you say, is laid up with rheumatism, and can't
+turn up to scold me, I think I'll run up stairs and make an exploration,
+and find poor Mr. Charke's skeleton in a closet.'
+
+'Oh, law, Miss Maud, how can you say such things!' exclaimed good old
+Quince, lifting up her honest grey head and round eyes from her knitting.
+
+I had grown so familiar with the frightful tradition of Mr. Charke and his
+suicide, that I could now afford to frighten old Quince with him.
+
+'I am quite serious. I am going to have a ramble up-stairs and down-stairs,
+like goosey-goosey-gander; and if I do light upon his chamber, it is all
+the more interesting. I feel so like Adelaide, in the "Romance of the
+Forest," the book I was reading to you last night, when she commenced her
+delightful rambles through the interminable ruined abbey in the forest.'
+
+'Shall I go with you, Miss?'
+
+'No, Quince; stay there; keep a good fire, and make some tea. I suspect I
+shall lose heart and return very soon;' and with a shawl about me, cowl
+fashion, over my head, I stole up-stairs.
+
+I shall not recount with the particularity of the conscientious heroine of
+Mrs. Ann Radcliffe, all the suites of apartments, corridors, and lobbies,
+which I threaded in my ramble. It will be enough to mention that I lighted
+upon a door at the end of a long gallery, which, I think, ran parallel with
+the front of the house; it interested me because it had the air of having
+been very long undisturbed. There were two rusty bolts, which did not
+evidently belong to its original securities, and had been, though very long
+ago, somewhat clumsily superadded. Dusty and rusty they were, but I had no
+difficulty in drawing them back. There was a rusty key, I remember it well,
+with a crooked handle in the lock; I tried to turn it, but could not.
+My curiosity was piqued. I was thinking of going back and getting Mary
+Quince's assistance. It struck me, however, that possibly it was not
+locked, so I pulled the door and it opened quite easily. I did not find
+myself in a strangely-furnished suite of apartments, but at the entrance
+of a gallery, which diverged at right angles from that through which I had
+just passed; it was very imperfectly lighted, and ended in total darkness.
+
+I began to think how far I had already come, and to consider whether I
+could retrace my steps with accuracy in case of a panic, and I had serious
+thoughts of returning.
+
+The idea of Mr. Charke was growing unpleasantly sharp and menacing; and
+as I looked down the long space before me, losing itself among ambiguous
+shadows, lulled in a sinister silence, and as it were inviting my entrance
+like a trap, I was very near yielding to the cowardly impulse.
+
+But I took heart of grace and determined to see a little more. I opened a
+side-door, and entered a large room, where were, in a corner, some rusty
+and cobwebbed bird-cages, but nothing more. It was a wainscoted room, but
+a white mildew stained the panels. I looked from the window: it commanded
+that dismal, weed-choked quadrangle into which I had once looked from
+another window. I opened a door at its farther end, and entered another
+chamber, not quite so large, but equally dismal, with the same prison-like
+look-out, not very easily discerned through the grimy panes and the sleet
+that was falling thickly outside. The door through which I had entered made
+a little accidental creak, and, with my heart at my lips, I gazed at it,
+expecting to see Charke, or the skeleton of which I had talked so lightly,
+stalk in at the half-open aperture. But I had an odd sort of courage which
+was always fighting against my cowardly nerves, and I walked to the door,
+and looking up and down the dismal passage, was reassured.
+
+Well, one room more--just that whose deep-set door fronted me, with a
+melancholy frown, at the opposite end of the chamber. So to it I glided,
+shoved it open, advancing one step, and the great bony figure of Madame de
+la Rougierre was before me.
+
+I could see nothing else.
+
+The drowsy traveller who opens his sheets to slip into bed, and sees a
+scorpion coiled between them, may have experienced a shock the same in
+kind, but immeasurably less in degree.
+
+She sat in a clumsy old arm-chair, with an ancient shawl about her, and
+her bare feet in a delft tub. She looked a thought more withered. Her wig
+shoved back disclosed her bald wrinkled forehead, and enhanced the ugly
+effect of her exaggerated features and the gaunt hollows of her face. With
+a sense of incredulity and terror I gazed, freezing, at this evil phantom,
+who returned my stare for a few seconds with a shrinking scowl, dismal and
+grim, as of an evil spirit detected.
+
+The meeting, at least then and there, was as complete a surprise for her as
+for me. She could not tell how I might take it; but she quickly rallied,
+burst into a loud screeching laugh, and, with her old Walpurgis gaiety,
+danced some fantastic steps in her bare wet feet, tracking the floor with
+water, and holding out with finger and thumb, in dainty caricature, her
+slammakin old skirt, while she sang some of her nasal patois with an
+abominable hilarity and emphasis.
+
+With a gasp, I too recovered from the fascination of the surprise. I could
+not speak though for some seconds, and Madame was first.
+
+'Ah, dear Maud, what surprise! Are we not overjoy, dearest, and cannot
+speak? I am full of joy--quite charmed--_ravie_--of seeing you. So are you
+of me, your face betray. Ah! yes, thou dear little baboon! here is poor
+Madame once more! Who could have imagine?'
+
+'I thought you were in France, Madame,' I said, with a dismal effort.
+
+'And so I was, dear Maud; I 'av just arrive. Your uncle Silas he wrote to
+the superioress for gouvernante to accompany a young lady--that is you,
+Maud--on her journey, and she send me; and so, ma chère, here is poor
+Madame arrive to charge herself of that affair.'
+
+'How soon do we leave for France, Madame?' I asked.
+
+'I do not know, but the old women--wat is her name?'
+
+'Wyat,' I suggested.
+
+'Oh! oui, Waiatt;--she says two, three week. And who conduct you to poor
+Madame's apartment, my dear Maud?' She inquired insinuatingly.
+
+'No one, I answered promptly: 'I reached it quite accidentally, and I
+can't imagine why you should conceal yourself.' Something like indignation
+kindled in my mind as I began to wonder at the sly strategy which had been
+practised upon me.
+
+'I 'av not conceal myself, Mademoiselle,' retorted the governness. 'I 'av
+act precisally as I 'av been ordered. Your uncle, Mr. Silas Ruthyn, he is
+afraid, Waiatt says, to be interrupted by his creditors, and everything
+must be done very quaitly. I have been commanded to avoid _me faire voir_,
+you know, and I must obey my employer--voilà tout!'
+
+'And for how long have you been residing here?' I persisted, in the same
+resentful vein.
+
+''Bout a week. It is soche triste place! I am so glad to see you, Maud!
+I've been so isolée, you dear leetle fool!'
+
+'You are _not_ glad, Madame; you don't love me--you never did,' I exclaimed
+with sudden vehemence.
+
+'Yes, I am _very_ glad; you know not, chère petite _niaise_, how I 'av
+desire to educate you a leetle more. Let us understand one another. You
+think I do not love you, Mademoiselle, because you have mentioned to your
+poor papa that little _dérèglement_ in his library. I have repent very
+often that so great indiscretion of my life. I thought to find some letters
+of Dr. Braierly. I think that man was trying to get your property, my dear
+Maud, and if I had found something I would tell you all about. But it was
+very great _sottise_, and you were very right to denounce me to Monsieur.
+Je n'ai point de rancune contre vous. No, no, none at all. On the contrary,
+I shall be your _gardienne tutelaire_--wat you call?--guardian angel--ah,
+yes, that is it. You think I speak _par dérision_; not at all. No, my dear
+cheaile, I do not speak _par moquerie_, unless perhaps the very least
+degree in the world.'
+
+And with these words Madame laughed unpleasantly, showing the black caverns
+at the side of her mouth, and with a cold, steady malignity in her gaze.
+
+'Yes,' I said; 'I know what you mean, Madame--you _hate_ me.'
+
+'Oh! wat great ogly word! I am shock! _vous me faites honte_. Poor Madame,
+she never hate any one; she loves all her friends, and her enemies she
+leaves to Heaven; while I am, as you see, more gay, more _joyeuse_ than
+ever, they have not been 'appy--no, they have not been fortunate these
+others. Wen I return, I find always some of my enemy they 'av die, and some
+they have put themselves into embarrassment, or there has arrived to them
+some misfortune;' and Madame shrugged and laughed a little scornfully.
+
+A kind of horror chilled my rising anger, and I was silent.
+
+'You see, my dear Maud, it is very natural you should think I hate you.
+When I was with Mr. Austin Ruthyn, at Knowl, you know you did not like a
+me--never. But in consequence of our intimacy I confide you that which I
+'av of most dear in the world, my reputation. It is always so. The pupil
+can _calomniate_, without been discover, the gouvernante. 'Av I not been
+always kind to you, Maud? Which 'av I use of violence or of sweetness the
+most? I am, like other persons, _jalouse de ma réputation_; and it was
+difficult to suffer with patience the banishment which was invoked by you,
+because chiefly for your good, and for an indiscretion to which I was
+excited by motives the most pure and laudable. It was you who spied so
+cleverly--eh! and denounce me to Monsieur Ruthyn? Helas! wat bad world it
+is!'
+
+'I do not mean to speak at all about that occurrence, Madame; I will not
+discuss it. I dare say what you tell me of the cause of your engagement
+here is true, and I suppose we must travel, as you say, in company; but
+you must know that the less we see of each other while in this house the
+better.'
+
+'I am not so sure of that, my sweet little _béte_; your education has been
+neglected, or rather entirely abandoned, since you 'av arrive at this
+place, I am told. You must not be a _bestiole_. We must do, you and I, as
+we are ordered. Mr. Silas Ruthyn he will tell us.'
+
+All this time Madame was pulling on her stockings, getting her boots on,
+and otherwise proceeding with her dowdy toilet. I do not know why I stood
+there talking to her. We often act very differently from what we would
+have done upon reflection. I had involved myself in a dialogue, as wiser
+generals than I have entangled themselves in a general action when they
+meant only an affair of outposts. I had grown a little angry, and would
+not betray the least symptom of fear, although I felt that sensation
+profoundly.
+
+'My beloved father thought you so unfit a companion for me that he
+dismissed you at an hour's notice, and I am very sure that my uncle will
+think as he did; you are _not_ a fit companion for me, and had my
+uncle known what had passed he would never have admitted you to this
+house--never!'
+
+'Helas! _Quelle disgrace_! And you really think so, my dear Maud,'
+exclaimed Madame, adjusting her wig before her glass, in the corner of
+which I could see half of her sly, grinning face, as she ogled herself in
+it.
+
+'I do, and so do you, Madame,' I replied, growing more frightened.
+
+'It may be--we shall see; but everyone is not so cruel as you, _ma chère
+petite calomniatrice_.'
+
+'You shan't call me those names,' I said, in an angry tremor.
+
+'What name, dearest cheaile?'
+
+'_Calomniatrice_--that is an insult.'
+
+'Why, my most foolish little Maud, we may say rogue, and a thousand other
+little words in play which we do not say seriously.'
+
+'You are not playing--you never play--you are angry, and you hate me,' I
+exclaimed, vehemently.
+
+'Oh, fie!--wat shame! Do you not perceive, dearest cheaile, how much
+education you still need? You are proud, little demoiselle; you must
+become, on the contrary, quaite humble. Je ferai baiser le babouin à
+vous--ha, ha, ha! I weel make a you to kees the monkey. You are too proud,
+my dear cheaile.'
+
+'I am not such a fool as I was at Knowl,' I said; 'you shall not terrify me
+here. I will tell my uncle the whole truth,' I said.
+
+'Well, it may be that is the best,' she replied, with provoking coolness.
+
+'You think I don't mean it?'
+
+'Of course you _do_,' she replied.
+
+'And we shall see what my uncle thinks of it.'
+
+'We shall see, my dear,' she replied, with an air of mock contrition.
+
+'Adieu, Madame!'
+
+'You are going to Monsieur Ruthyn?--very good!'
+
+I made her no answer, but more agitated than I cared to show her, I left
+the room. I hurried along the twilight passage, and turned into the long
+gallery that opened from it at right angles. I had not gone half-a-dozen
+steps on my return when I heard a heavy tread and a rustling behind me.
+
+'I am ready, my dear; I weel accompany you,' said the smirking phantom,
+hurrying after me.
+
+'Very well,' was my reply; and threading our way, with a few hesitations
+and mistakes, we reached and descended the stairs, and in a minute more
+stood at my uncle's door.
+
+My uncle looked hard and strangely at us as we entered. He looked, indeed,
+as if his temper was violently excited, and glared and muttered to himself
+for a few seconds; and treating Madame to a stare of disgust, he asked
+peevishly--
+
+'Why am I disturbed, pray?'
+
+'Miss Maud a Ruthyn, she weel explain,' replied Madame, with a great
+courtesy, like a boat going down in a ground swell.
+
+'_Will_ you explain, my dear?' he asked, in his coldest and most sarcastic
+tone.
+
+I was agitated, and I am sure my statement was confused. I succeeded,
+however, in saying what I wanted.
+
+'Why, Madame, this is a grave charge! Do you admit it, pray?'
+
+Madame, with the coolest possible effrontery, denied it all; with the most
+solemn asseverations, and with streaming eyes and clasped hands, conjured
+me melodramatically to withdraw that intolerable story, and to do her
+justice. I stared at her for a while astounded, and turning suddenly to my
+uncle, as vehemently asserted the truth of every syllable I had related.
+
+'You hear, my dear child, you hear her deny everything; what am I to think?
+You must excuse the bewilderment of my old head. Madame de la--that lady
+has arrived excellently recommended by the superioress of the place where
+dear Milly awaits you, and such persons are particular. It strikes me, my
+dear niece, that you must have made a mistake.'
+
+I protested here. But he went on without seeming to hear the parenthesis--
+
+'I know, my dear Maud, that you are quite incapable of wilfully deceiving
+anyone; but you are liable to be deceived like other young people. You
+were, no doubt, very nervous, and but half awake when you fancied you saw
+the occurrence you describe; and Madame de--de--'
+
+'De la Rougierre,' I supplied.
+
+'Yes, thank you--Madame de la Rougierre, who has arrived with excellent
+testimonials, strenuously denies the whole thing. Here is a conflict, my
+dear--in my mind a presumption of mistake. I confess I should prefer that
+theory to a peremptory assumption of guilt.'
+
+I felt incredulous and amazed; it seemed as if a dream were being enacted
+before me. A transaction of the most serious import, which I had witnessed
+with my own eyes, and described with unexceptionable minuteness and
+consistency, is discredited by that strange and suspicious old man with
+an imbecile coolness. It was quite in vain my reiterating my statement,
+backing it with the most earnest asseverations. I was beating the air. It
+did not seem to reach his mind. It was all received with a simper of feeble
+incredulity.
+
+He patted and smoothed my head--he laughed gently, and shook his while
+I insisted; and Madame protested her purity in now tranquil floods
+of innocent tears, and murmured mild and melancholy prayers for my
+enlightenment and reformation. I felt as if I should lose my reason.
+
+'There now, dear Maud, we have heard enough; it is, I do believe, a
+delusion. Madame de la Rougierre will be your companion, at the utmost, for
+three or four weeks. Do exercise a little of your self-command and
+good sense--you know how I am tortured. Do not, I entreat, add to my
+perplexities. You may make yourself very happy with Madame if you will, I
+have no doubt.'
+
+'I propose to Mademoiselle,' said Madame, drying her eyes with a gentle
+alacrity, 'to profit of my visit for her education. But she does not seem
+to weesh wat I think is so useful.'
+
+'She threatened me with some horrid French vulgarism--_de faire baiser le
+babouin à moi_, whatever that means; and I know she hates me,' I replied,
+impetuously.
+
+'Doucement--doucement!' said my uncle, with a smile at once amused and
+compassionate. 'Doucement! ma chère.'
+
+With great hands and cunning eyes uplifted, Madame tearfully--for her tears
+came on short notice--again protested her absolute innocence. She had never
+in all her life so much as heard one so villain phrase.
+
+'You see, my dear, you have misheard; young people never attend. You will
+do well to take advantage of Madame's short residence to get up your French
+a little, and the more you are with her the better.'
+
+'I understand then, Mr. Ruthyn, you weesh I should resume my instructions?'
+asked Madame.
+
+'Certainly; and converse all you can in French with Mademoiselle Maud. You
+will be glad, my dear, that I've insisted on it,' he said, turning to me,
+'when you have reached France, where you will find they speak nothing else.
+And now, dear Maud--no, not a word more--you must leave me. Farewell,
+Madame!'
+
+And he waved us out a little impatiently; and I, without one look toward
+Madame de la Rougierre, stunned and incensed, walked into my room and shut
+the door.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LV
+
+_THE FOOT OF HERCULES_
+
+
+I stood at the window--still the same leaden sky and feathery sleet before
+me--trying to estimate the magnitude of the discovery I had just made.
+Gradually a kind of despair seized me, and I threw myself passionately on
+my bed, weeping aloud.
+
+Good Mary Quince was, of course, beside me in a moment, with her pale,
+concerned face.
+
+'Oh, Mary, Mary, she's come--that dreadful woman, Madame de la Rougierre,
+has come to be my governess again; and Uncle Silas won't hear or believe
+anything about her. It is vain talking; he is prepossessed. Was ever so
+unfortunate a creature as I? Who could have fancied or feared such a thing?
+Oh, Mary, Mary, what am I to do? what is to become of me? Am I never to
+shake off that vindictive, terrible woman?'
+
+Mary said all she could to console me. I was making too much of her. What
+was she, after all, more than a governess?--she could not hurt me. I was
+not a child no longer--she could not bully me now; and my uncle, though he
+might be deceived for a while, would not be long finding her out.
+
+Thus and soforth did good Mary Quince declaim, and at last she did impress
+me a little, and I began to think that I had, perhaps, been making too much
+of Madame's visit. But still imagination, that instrument and mirror
+of prophecy, showed her formidable image always on its surface, with a
+terrible moving background of shadows.
+
+In a few minutes there was a knock at my door, and Madame herself entered.
+She was in walking costume. There had been a brief clearing of the weather,
+and she proposed our making a promenade together.
+
+On seeing Mary Quince she broke into a rapture of compliment and greeting,
+and took what Mr. Richardson would have called her passive hand, and
+pressed it with wonderful tenderness.
+
+Honest Mary suffered all this somewhat reluctantly, never smiling, and, on
+the contrary, looking rather ruefully at her feet.
+
+'Weel you make a some tea? When I come back, dear Mary Quince, I 'av so
+much to tell you and dear Miss Maud of all my adventures while I 'av been
+away; it will make a you laugh ever so much. I was--what you theenk?--near,
+ever so near to be married!' And upon this she broke into a screeching
+laugh, and shook Mary Quince merrily by the shoulder.
+
+I sullenly declined going out, or rising; and when she had gone away, I
+told Mary that I should confine myself to my room while Madame stayed.
+
+But self-denying ordinances self-imposed are not always long observed by
+youth. Madame de la Rougierre laid herself out to be agreeable; she had no
+end of stories--more than half, no doubt, pure fictions--to tell, but all,
+in that triste place, amusing. Mary Quince began to entertain a better
+opinion of her. She actually helped to make beds, and tried to be in
+every way of use, and seemed to have quite turned over a new leaf; and so
+gradually she moved me, first to listen, and at last to talk.
+
+On the whole, these terms were better than a perpetual skirmish; but,
+notwithstanding all her gossip and friendliness, I continued to have a
+profound distrust and even terror of her.
+
+She seemed curious about the Bartram-Haugh family, and all their ways, and
+listened darkly when I spoke. I told her, bit by bit, the whole story of
+Dudley, and she used, whenever there was news of the Seamew, to read the
+paragraph for my benefit; and in poor Milly's battered little Atlas she
+used to trace the ship's course with a pencil, writing in, from point to
+point, the date at which the vessel was 'spoken' at sea. She seemed amused
+at the irrepressible satisfaction with which I received these minutes of
+his progress; and she used to calculate the distance;--on such a day he was
+two hundred and sixty miles, on such another five hundred; the last point
+was more than eight hundred--good, better, best--best of all would be those
+'deleecious antipode, w'ere he would so soon promener on his head twelve
+thousand mile away;' and at the conceit she would fall into screams of
+laughter.
+
+Laugh as she might, however, there was substantial comfort in thinking
+of the boundless stretch of blue wave that rolled between me and that
+villainous cousin.
+
+I was now on very odd terms with Madame. She had not relapsed into her
+favourite vein of oracular sarcasm and menace; she had, on the contrary,
+affected her good-humoured and genial vein. But I was not to be deceived
+by this. I carried in my heart that deep-seated fear of her which her
+unpleasant good-humour and gaiety never disturbed for a moment. I was very
+glad, therefore, when she went to Todcaster by rail, to make some purchases
+for the journey which we were daily expecting to commence; and happy in the
+opportunity of a walk, good old Mary Quince and I set forth for a little
+ramble.
+
+As I wished to make some purchases in Feltram, I set out, with Mary Quince
+for my companion. On reaching the great gate we found it locked. The key,
+however, was in it, and as it required more than the strength of my hand to
+turn, Mary tried it. At the same moment old Crowle came out of the sombre
+lodge by its side, swallowing down a mouthful of his dinner in haste. No
+one, I believe, liked the long suspicious face of the old man, seldom shorn
+or washed, and furrowed with great, grimy perpendicular wrinkles. Leering
+fiercely at Mary, not pretending to see me, he wiped his mouth hurriedly
+with the back of his hand, and growled--
+
+'Drop it.'
+
+'Open it, please, Mr. Crowle,' said Mary, renouncing the task.
+
+Crowle wiped his mouth as before, looking inauspicious; shuffling to the
+spot, and muttering to himself, he first satisfied himself that the lock
+was fast, and then lodged the key in his coat-pocket, and still muttering,
+retraced his steps.
+
+'We want the gate open, please,' said Mary.
+
+No answer.
+
+'Miss Maud wants to go into the town,' she insisted.
+
+'We wants many a thing we can't get,' he growled, stepping into his
+habitation.
+
+'Please open the gate,' I said, advancing.
+
+He half turned on his threshold, and made a dumb show of touching his hat,
+although he had none on.
+
+'Can't, ma'am; without an order from master, no one goes out here.'
+
+'You won't allow me and my maid to pass the gate?' I said.
+
+''Tisn't _me_, ma'am,' said he; 'but I can't break orders, and no one goes
+out without the master allows.'
+
+And without awaiting further parley, he entered, shutting his hatch behind
+him.
+
+So Mary and I stood, looking very foolish at one another. This was the
+first restraint I had experienced since Milly and I had been refused a
+passage through the Windmill paling. The rule, however, on which Crowle
+insisted I felt confident could not have been intended to apply to me. A
+word to Uncle Silas would set all right; and in the meantime I proposed to
+Mary that we should take a walk--my favourite ramble--into the Windmill
+Wood.
+
+I looked toward Dickon's farmstead as we passed, thinking that Beauty might
+have been there. I did see the girl, who was plainly watching us. She stood
+in the doorway of the cottage, withdrawn into the shade, and, I fancied,
+anxious to escape observation. When we had passed on a little, I was
+confirmed in that belief by seeing her run down the footpath which led from
+the rear of the farm-yard in the direction contrary to that in which we
+were moving.
+
+'So,' I thought, 'poor Meg falls from me!'
+
+Mary Quince and I rambled on through the wood, till we reached the windmill
+itself, and seeing its low arched door open, we entered the chiaro-oscuro
+of its circular basement. As we did so I heard a rush and the creak of a
+plank, and looking up, I saw just a foot--no more--disappearing through the
+trap-door.
+
+In the case of one we love or fear intensely, what feats of comparative
+anatomy will not the mind unconsciously perform? Constructing the whole
+living animal from the turn of an elbow, the curl of a whisker, a segment
+of a hand. How instantaneous and unerring is the instinct!
+
+'Oh, Mary, what have I seen!' I whispered, recovering from the fascination
+that held my gaze fast to the topmost rounds of the ladder, that
+disappeared in the darkness above the open door in the loft. 'Come,
+Mary--come away.'
+
+At the same instant appeared the swarthy, sullen face of Dickon Hawkes in
+the shadow of the aperture. Having but one serviceable leg, his descent
+was slow and awkward, and having got his head to the level of the loft he
+stopped to touch his hat to me, and to hasp and lock the trap-door.
+
+When this was done, the man again touched his hat, and looked steadily and
+searchingly at me for a second or so, while he got the key into his pocket.
+
+'These fellahs stores their flour too long 'ere, ma'am. There's a deal o'
+trouble a-looking arter it. I'll talk wi' Silas, and settle that.'
+
+By this time he had got upon the worn-tiled floor, and touching his hat
+again, he said--
+
+'I'm a-goin' to lock the door, ma'am!'
+
+So with a start, and again whispering--
+
+'Come, Mary--come away'--
+
+With my arm fast in hers, we made a swift departure.
+
+'I feel very faint, Mary,' said I. 'Come quickly. There's nobody following
+us?'
+
+'No, Miss, dear. That man with the wooden leg is putting a padlock on the
+door.'
+
+'Come _very_ fast,' I said; and when we had got a little farther, I said,
+'Look again, and see whether anyone is following.'
+
+'No one, Miss,' answered Mary, plainly surprised. 'He's putting the key in
+his pocket, and standin' there a-lookin' after us.'
+
+'Oh, Mary, did not you see it?'
+
+'What, Miss?' asked Mary, almost stopping.
+
+'Come on, Mary. Don't pause. They will observe us,' I whispered, hurrying
+her forward.
+
+'What did you see, Miss?' repeated Mary.
+
+'_Mr. Dudley_,' I whispered, with a terrified emphasis, not daring to turn
+my head as I spoke.
+
+'Lawk, Miss!' remonstrated honest Quince, with a protracted intonation
+of wonder and incredulity, which plainly implied a suspicion that I was
+dreaming.
+
+'Yes, Mary. When we went into that dreadful room--that dark, round place--I
+saw his foot on the ladder. _His_ foot, Mary I can't be mistaken. _I won't
+be questioned_. You'll _find_ I'm right. He's _here_. He never went in
+that ship at all. A fraud has been practised on me--it is infamous--it
+is terrible. I'm frightened out of my life. For heaven's sake, look back
+again, and tell me what you see.'
+
+'_Nothing_, Miss,' answered Mary, in contagious whispers, 'but that
+wooden-legged chap, standin' hard by the door.'
+
+'And no one with him?'
+
+'No one, Miss.'
+
+We got without pursuit through the gate in the paling. I drew breath so
+soon as we had reached the cover of the thicket near the chestnut hollow,
+and I began to reflect that whoever the owner of the foot might be--and
+I was still instinctively certain that it was no other than
+Dudley--concealment was plainly his object. I need not, then, be at all
+uneasy lest he should pursue us.
+
+As we walked slowly and in silence along the grassy footpath, I heard a
+voice calling my name from behind. Mary Quince had not heard it at all, but
+I was quite certain.
+
+It was repeated twice or thrice, and, looking in considerable doubt and
+trepidation under the hanging boughs, I saw Beauty, not ten yards away,
+standing among the underwood.
+
+I remember how white the eyes and teeth of the swarthy girl looked, as with
+hand uplifted toward her ear, she watched us while, as it seemed, listening
+for more distant sounds.
+
+Beauty beckoned eagerly to me, advancing, with looks of great fear and
+anxiety, two or three short steps toward me.
+
+'_She_ baint to come,' said Beauty, under her breath, so soon as I had
+nearly reached her, pointing without raising her hand at Mary Quince.
+
+'Tell her to sit on the ash-tree stump down yonder, and call ye as loud as
+she can if she sees any fellah a-comin' this way, an' rin ye back to me;'
+and she impatiently beckoned me away on her errand.
+
+When I returned, having made this dispositions, I perceived how pale the
+girl was.
+
+'Are you ill, Meg?' I asked.
+
+'Never ye mind. Well enough. Listen, Miss; I must tell it all in a crack,
+an' if she calls, rin awa' to her, and le' me to myself, for if fayther or
+t'other un wor to kotch me here, I think they'd kill me a'most. Hish!'
+
+She paused a second, looking askance, in the direction where she fancied
+Mary Quince was. Then she resumed in a whisper--
+
+'Now, lass, mind ye, ye'll keep what I say to yourself. You're not to tell
+that un nor any other for your life, mind, a word o' what I'm goin' to tell
+ye.'
+
+'I'll not say a word. Go on.'
+
+'Did ye see Dudley?'
+
+'I think I saw him getting up the ladder.'
+
+'In the mill? Ha! that's him. He never went beyond Todcaster. He staid in
+Feltram after.'
+
+It was my turn to look pale now. My worst conjecture was established.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVI
+
+_I CONSPIRE_
+
+
+'That's a bad un, he is--oh, Miss, Miss Maud! It's nout that's good as
+keeps him an' fayther--(mind, lass, ye promised you would not tell no
+one)--as keeps them two a-talkin' and a-smokin' secret-like together in the
+mill. An' fayther don't know I found him out. They don't let me into the
+town, but Brice tells me, and he knows it's Dudley; and it's nout that's
+good, but summat very bad. An' I reckon, Miss, it's all about you. Be ye
+frightened, Miss Maud?'
+
+I felt on the point of fainting, but I rallied.
+
+'Not much, Meg. Go on, for Heaven's sake. Does Uncle Silas know he is
+here?'
+
+'Well, Miss, they were with him, Brice told me, from eleven o'clock to nigh
+one o' Tuesday night, an' went in and come out like thieves, 'feard ye'd
+see 'em.'
+
+'And how does Brice know anything bad?' I asked, with a strange freezing
+sensation creeping from my heels to my head and down again--I am sure
+deadly pale, but speaking very collectedly.
+
+'Brice said, Miss, he saw Dudley a-cryin' and lookin' awful black, and says
+he to fayther, "'Tisn't in my line nohow, an' I can't;" and says fayther
+to he, "No one likes they soart o' things, but how can ye help it? The old
+boy's behind ye wi' his pitchfork, and ye canna stop." An' wi' that he
+bethought him o' Brice, and says he, "What be ye a-doin' there? Get ye down
+wi' the nags to blacksmith, do ye." An' oop gits Dudley, pullin' his hat
+ower his brows, an' says he, "I wish I was in the _Seamew_. I'm good for
+nout wi' this thing a-hangin' ower me." An' that's all as Brice heard. An'
+he's afeard o' fayther and Dudley awful. Dudley could lick him to pot if
+he crossed him, and he and fayther 'ud think nout o' havin' him afore the
+justices for poachin', and swearin' him into gaol.'
+
+'But why does he think it's about _me_?'
+
+'Hish!' said Meg, who fancied she heard a sound, but all was quiet. 'I
+can't say--we're in danger, lass. I don't know why--but _he_ does, an' so
+do I, an', for that matter, so do _ye_.'
+
+'Meg, I'll leave Bartram.'
+
+'Ye can't.'
+
+'Can't. What do you mean, girl?'
+
+'They won't let ye oot. The gates is all locked. They've dogs--they've
+bloodhounds, Brice says. Ye _can't_ git oot, mind; put that oot o' your
+head.
+
+'I tell ye what ye'll do. Write a bit o' a note to the lady yonder at
+Elverston; an' though Brice be a wild fellah, and 'appen not ower good
+sometimes, he likes me, an' I'll make him take it. Fayther will be grindin'
+at mill to-morrow. Coom ye here about one o'clock--that's if ye see the
+mill-sails a-turnin'--and me and Brice will meet ye here. Bring that old
+lass wi' ye. There's an old French un, though, that talks wi' Dudley. Mind
+ye, that un knows nout o' the matter. Brice be a kind lad to me, whatsoe'er
+he be wi' others, and I think he won't split. Now, lass, I must go. God
+help ye; God bless ye; an', for the world's wealth, don't ye let one o'
+them see ye've got ought in your head, not even that un.'
+
+Before I could say another word, the girl had glided from me, with a wild
+gesture of silence, and a shake of her head.
+
+I can't at all account for the state in which I was. There are resources
+both of energy and endurance in human nature which we never suspect until
+the tremendous voice of necessity summons them into play. Petrified with a
+totally new horror, but with something of the coldness and impassiveness of
+the transformation, I stood, spoke, and acted--a wonder, almost a terror,
+to myself.
+
+I met Madame on my return as if nothing had happened. I heard her ugly
+gabble, and looked at the fruits of her hour's shopping, as I might hear,
+and see, and talk, and smile, in a dream.
+
+But the night was dreadful. When Mary Quince and I were alone, I locked
+the door. I continued walking up and down the room, with my hands clasped,
+looking at the inexorable floor, the walls, the ceiling, with a sort
+of imploring despair. I was afraid to tell my dear old Mary. The least
+indiscretion would be failure, and failure destruction.
+
+I answered her perplexed solicitudes by telling her that I was not very
+well--that I was uneasy; but I did not fail to extract from her a promise
+that she would not hint to mortal, either my suspicions about Dudley, or
+our rencontre with Meg Hawkes.
+
+I remember how, when, after we had got, late at night, into bed, I sat up,
+shivering with horror, in mine, while honest Mary's tranquil breathing told
+how soundly she slept. I got up, and looked from the window, expecting to
+see some of those wolfish dogs which they had brought to the place prowling
+about the court-yard. Sometimes I prayed, and felt tranquillised, and
+fancied that I was perhaps to have a short interval of sleep. But the
+serenity was delusive, and all the time my nerves were strung hysterically.
+Sometimes I felt quite wild, and on the point of screaming. At length that
+dreadful night passed away. Morning came, and a less morbid, though hardly
+a less terrible state of mind. Madame paid me an early visit. A thought
+struck me. I knew that she loved shopping, and I said, quite carelessly--
+
+'Your yesterday's shopping tempts me, Madame, and I must get a few things
+before we leave for France. Suppose we go into Feltram to-day, and make my
+purchases, you and I?'
+
+She looked from the corner of her cunning eye in my face without answering.
+I did not blench, and she said--
+
+'Vary good. I would be vary 'appy,' and again she looked oddly at me.
+
+'Wat hour, my dear Maud? One o'clock? I think that weel de very well, eh?'
+
+I assented, and she grew silent.
+
+I wonder whether I did look as careless as I tried. I do not know. Through
+the whole of this awful period I was, I think, supernatural; and I even now
+look back with wonder upon my strange self-command.
+
+Madame, I hoped, had heard nothing of the order which prohibited my exit
+from the place. She would herself conduct me to Feltram, and secure, by
+accompanying me, my free egress.
+
+Once in Feltram, I would assert my freedom, and manage to reach my dear
+cousin Knollys. Back to Bartram no power should convey me. My heart swelled
+and fluttered in the awful suspense of that hour.
+
+Oh, Bartram-Haugh! how came you by those lofty walls? Which of my ancestors
+had begirt me with an impassable barrier in this horrible strait?
+
+Suddenly I remembered my letter to Lady Knollys. If I were disappointed in
+effecting my escape through Feltram, all would depend upon it.
+
+Having locked my door, I wrote as follows:--
+
+'Oh, my beloved cousin, as you hope for comfort in _your_ hour of fear, aid
+me now. Dudley has returned, and is secreted somewhere about the grounds.
+It is a _fraud_. They all pretend to me that he is gone away in the
+_Seamew_; and he or they had his name published as one of the passengers.
+Madame de la Rougierre has appeared! She is here, and my uncle insists on
+making her my close companion. I am at my wits' ends. I cannot escape--the
+walls are a prison; and I believe the eyes of my gaolers are always upon
+me. Dogs are kept for pursuit--yes, _dogs_! and the gates are locked
+against my escape. God help me! I don't know where to look, or whom to
+trust. I fear my uncle more than all. I think I could bear this better if I
+knew what their plans are, even the worst. If ever you loved or pitied me,
+dear cousin, I conjure you, help me in this extremity. Take me away from
+this. Oh, darling, for God's sake take me away!
+
+'Your distracted and terrified cousin,
+
+MAUD'
+
+'Bartram-Haugh.'
+
+I sealed this letter jealously, as if the inanimate missive would burst its
+cerements, and proclaim my desperate appeal through all the chambers and
+passages of silent Bartram.
+
+Old Quince, greatly to cousin Monica's amusement, persisted in furnishing
+me with those capacious pockets which belonged to a former generation. I
+was glad of this old-world eccentricity now, and placed my guilty letter,
+that, amidst all my hypocrisies, spoke out with terrible frankness, deep
+in this receptacle, and having hid away the pen and ink, my accomplices, I
+opened the door, and resumed my careless looks, awaiting Madame's return.
+
+'I was to demand to Mr. Ruthyn the permission to go to Feltram, and I think
+he will allow. He want to speak to you.'
+
+With Madame I entered my uncle's room. He was reclining on a sofa, his back
+towards us, and his long white hair, as fine as spun glass, hung over the
+back of the couch.
+
+'I was going to ask you, dear Maud, to execute two or three little
+commissions for me in Feltram.'
+
+My dreadful letter felt lighter in my pocket, and my heart beat violently.
+
+'But I have just recollected that this is a market-day, and Feltram will
+be full of doubtful characters and tipsy persons, so we must wait till
+to-morrow; and Madame says, very kindly, that she will, as she does not
+so much mind, make any little purchases to-day which cannot conveniently
+wait.'
+
+Madame assented with a courtesy to Uncle Silas, and a great hollow smile to
+me.
+
+By this time Uncle Silas had raised himself from his reclining posture, and
+was sitting, gaunt and white, upon the sofa.
+
+'News of my prodigal to-day,' he said, with a peevish smile, drawing the
+newspaper towards him. 'The vessel has been spoken again. How many miles
+away, do you suppose?'
+
+He spoke in a plaintive key, looking at me, with hungry eyes, and a
+horribly smiling countenance.
+
+'How far do you suppose Dudley is to-day?' and he laid the palm of his hand
+on the paragraph as he spoke. _Guess_!'
+
+For a moment I fancied this was a theatric preparation to give point to the
+disclosure of Dudley's real whereabouts.
+
+'It was a very long way. Guess!' he repeated.
+
+So, stammering a little and pale, I performed the required hypocrisy, after
+which my uncle read aloud for my benefit the line or two in which were
+recorded the event, and the latitude and longitude of the vessel at the
+time, of which Madame made a note in her memory, for the purpose of making
+her usual tracing in poor Milly's Atlas.
+
+I cannot say how it really was, but I fancied that Uncle Silas was all
+the time reading my countenance, with a grim and practised scrutiny; but
+nothing came of it, and we were dismissed.
+
+Madame loved shopping, even for its own sake, but shopping with
+opportunities of peculation still more. She had had her luncheon,
+and was dressed for the excursion, she did precisely what I now most
+desired--she proposed to take charge of my commissions and my money; and
+thus entrusted, left me at liberty to keep tryst at the Chestnut Hollow.
+
+So soon as I had seen Madame fairly off, I hurried Mary Quince, and got my
+things on quickly. We left the house by the side entrance, which I knew my
+uncle's windows did not command. Glad was I to feel a slight breeze, enough
+to make the mill-sails revolve; and as we got further into the grounds,
+and obtained a distant view of the picturesque old windmill, I felt
+inexpressibly relieved on seeing that it was actually working.
+
+We were now in the Chestnut Hollow, and I sent Mary Quince to her old point
+of observation, which commanded a view of the path in the direction of the
+Windmill Wood, with her former order to call 'I've found it,' as loudly as
+she could, in case she should see anyone approaching.
+
+I stopped at the point of our yesterday's meeting. I peered under the
+branches, and my heart beat fast as I saw Meg Hawkes awaiting me.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVII
+
+_THE LETTER_
+
+
+'Come away, lass,' whispered Beauty, very pale; 'he's here--Tom Brice.'
+
+And she led the way, shoving aside the leafless underwood, and we reached
+Tom. The slender youth, groom or poacher--he might answer for either--with
+his short coat and gaitered legs, was sitting on a low horizontal bough,
+with his shoulder against the trunk.
+
+'_Don't_ ye mind; sit ye still, lad,' said Meg, observing that he was
+preparing to rise, and had entangled his hat in the boughs. 'Sit ye still,
+and hark to the lady. He'll take it, Miss Maud, if he can; wi' na ye, lad?'
+
+'E'es, I'll take it,' he replied, holding out his hand.
+
+'Tom Brice, you won't deceive me?'
+
+'Noa, sure,' said Tom and Meg nearly in the same breath.
+
+'You are an honest English lad, Tom--you would not betray me?' I was
+speaking imploringly.
+
+'Noa, sure,' repeated Tom.
+
+There was something a little unsatisfactory in the countenance of this
+light-haired youth, with the sharpish up-turned nose. Throughout our
+interview he said next to nothing, and smiled lazily to himself, like a man
+listening to a child's solemn nonsense, and leading it on, with an amused
+irony, from one wise sally to another.
+
+Thus it seemed to me that this young clown, without in the least intending
+to be offensive, was listening to me with a profound and lazy mockery.
+
+I could not choose, however; and, such as he was, I must employ him or
+none.
+
+'Now, Tom Brice, a great deal depends on this.'
+
+'That's true for her, Tom Brice,' said Meg, who now and then confirmed my
+asseverations.
+
+'I'll give you a pound _now_, Tom,' and I placed the coin and the letter
+together in his hand. 'And you are to give this letter to Lady Knollys, at
+Elverston; you know Elverston, don't you?'
+
+'He does, Miss. Don't ye, lad?'
+
+'E'es.'
+
+'Well, do so, Tom, and I'll be good to you so long as I live.'
+
+'D'ye hear, lad?'
+
+'E'es,' said Tom; 'it's very good.'
+
+'You'll take the letter, Tom?' I said, in much greater trepidation as to
+his answer than I showed.
+
+'E'es, I'll take the letter,' said he, rising, and turning it about in his
+fingers under his eye, like a curiosity.
+
+'Tom Brice,' I said, 'If you can't be true to me, say so; but don't take
+the letter except to give it to Lady Knollys, at Elverston. If you won't
+promise that, let me have the note back. Keep the pound; but tell me that
+you won't mention my having asked you to carry a letter to Elverston to
+anyone.'
+
+For the first time Tom looked perfectly serious. He twiddled the corner of
+my letter between his finger and thumb, and wore very much the countenance
+of a poacher about to be committed.
+
+'I don't want to chouce ye, Miss; but I must take care o' myself, ye see.
+The letters goes all through Silas's fingers to the post, and he'd know
+damn well this worn't among 'em. They do say he opens 'em, and reads 'em
+before they go; an' that's his diversion. I don't know; but I do believe
+that's how it be; an' if this one turned up, they'd all know it went be
+hand, and I'd be spotted for't.'
+
+'But you know who I am, Tom, and I'd save you,' said I, eagerly.
+
+'Ye'd want savin' yerself, I'm thinkin', if that feel oot,' said Tom,
+cynically. 'I don't say, though, I'll not take it--only this--I won't run
+my head again a wall for no one.'
+
+'Tom,' I said, with a sudden inspiration, 'give me back the letter,
+and take me out of Bartram; take me to Elverston; it will be the best
+thing--for _you_, Tom, I mean--it will indeed--that ever befell you.'
+
+With this clown I was pleading, as for my life; my hand was on his sleeve.
+I was gazing imploringly in his face.
+
+But it would not do; Tom Brice looked amused again, swung his head a little
+on one side, grinning sheepishly over his shoulder on the roots of the
+trees beside him, as if he were striving to keep himself from an uncivil
+fit of laughter.
+
+'I'll do what a wise lad may, Miss; but ye don't know they lads; they
+bain't that easy come over; and I won't get knocked on the head, nor sent
+to gaol 'appen, for no good to thee nor me. There's Meg there, she knows
+well enough I could na' manage that; so I won't try it, Miss, by no chance;
+no offence, Miss; but I'd rayther not, an' I'll just try what I can make
+o'this; that's all I can do for ye.'
+
+Tom Brice, with these words, stood up, and looked uneasily in the direction
+of the Windmill Wood.
+
+'Mind ye, Miss, coom what will, ye'll not tell o' me?'
+
+'Whar 'ill ye go now, Tom?' inquired Meg, uneasily.
+
+'Never ye mind, lass,' answered he, breaking his way through the thicket,
+and soon disappearing.
+
+'E'es that 'ill be it--he'll git into the sheepwalk behind the mound.
+They're all down yonder; git ye back, Miss, to the hoose--be the side-door;
+mind ye, don't go round the corner; and I'll jest sit awhile among the
+bushes, and wait a good time for a start. And good-bye, Miss; and don't ye
+show like as if there was aught out o' common on your mind. Hish!'
+
+There was a distant hallooing.
+
+'That be fayther!' she whispered, with a very blank countenance, and
+listened with her sunburnt hand to her ear.
+
+'Tisn't me, only Davy he'll be callin',' she said, with a great sigh, and a
+joyless smile. 'Now git ye away i' God's name.'
+
+So running lightly along the path, under cover of this thick wood, I
+recalled Mary Quince, and together we hastened back again to the house, and
+entered, as directed, by the side-door, which did not expose us to be
+seen from the Windmill Wood, and, like two criminals, we stole up by the
+backstairs, and so through the side-gallery to my room; and there sat down
+to collect my wits, and try to estimate the exact effect of what had just
+occurred.
+
+Madame had not returned. That was well; she always visited my room first,
+and everything was precisely as I had left it--a certain sign that her
+prying eyes and busy fingers had not been at work during my absence.
+
+When she did appear, strange to say, it was to bring me unexpected comfort.
+She had in her hand a letter from my dear Lady Knollys--a gleam of sunlight
+from the free and happy outer world entered with it. The moment Madame left
+me to myself, I opened it and read as follows:--
+
+'I am so happy, my dearest Maud, in the immediate prospect of seeing you. I
+have had a really kind letter from poor Silas--_poor_ I say, for I really
+compassionate his situation, about which he has been, I do believe, quite
+frank--at least Ilbury says so, and somehow he happens to know. I have had
+quite an affecting, changed letter. I will tell you all when I see you.
+He wants me ultimately to undertake that which would afford me the most
+unmixed happiness--I mean the care of you, my dear girl. I only fear lest
+my too eager acceptance of the trust should excite that vein of opposition
+which is in most human beings, and induce him to think over his offer less
+favourably again. He says I must come to Bartram, and stay a night, and
+promises to lodge me comfortably; about which last I honestly do not care a
+pin, when the chance of a comfortable evening's gossip with you is in view.
+Silas explains his sad situation, and must hold himself in readiness for
+early flight, if he would avoid the risk of losing his personal liberty. It
+is a sad thing that he should have so irretrievably ruined himself,
+that poor Austin's liberality seems to have positively precipitated his
+extremity. His great anxiety is that I should see you before you leave for
+your short stay in France. He thinks you must leave before a fortnight. I
+am thinking of asking you to come over here; I know you would be just as
+well at Elverston as in France; but perhaps, as he seems disposed to do
+what we all wish, it may be safer to let him set about it in his own way.
+The truth is, I have so set my heart upon it that I fear to risk it by
+crossing him even in a trifle. He says I must fix an early day next week,
+and talks as if he meant to urge me to make a longer visit than he defined.
+I shall be only too happy. I begin, my dear Maud, to think that there is no
+use in trying to control events, and that things often turn out best, and
+most exactly to our wishes, by being left quite to themselves. I think
+it was Talleyrand who praised the talent of _waiting_ so much. In high
+spirits, and with my head brimful of plans, I remain, dearest Maud, ever
+your affectionate cousin,
+
+MONICA.'
+
+Here was an inexplicable puzzle! A faint radiance of hope, however, began
+to overspread a landscape only a few minutes before darkened by total
+eclipse; but construct what theory I might, all were inconsistent with many
+well-established and awful incongruities, and their wrecks lay strown over
+the troubled waters of the gulf into which I gazed.
+
+Why was Madame here? Why was Dudley concealed about the place? Why was I a
+prisoner within the walls? What were those dangers which Meg Hawkes seemed
+to think so great and so imminent as to induce her to risk her lover's
+safety for my deliverance? All these menacing facts stood grouped together
+against the dark certainty that never were men more deeply interested in
+making away with one human being, than were Uncle Silas and Dudley in
+removing me.
+
+Sometimes to these dreadful evidences I abandoned my soul. Sometimes,
+reading Cousin Monica's sunny letter, the sky would clear, and my terrors
+melt away like nightmares in the morning. I never repented, however, that
+I had sent my letter by Tom Brice. Escape from Bartram-Haugh was my hourly
+longing.
+
+That evening Madame invited herself to tea with me. I did not object.
+It was better just then to be on friendly relations with everybody, if
+possible, even on their own terms. She was in one of her boisterous and
+hilarious moods, and there was a perfume of brandy.
+
+She narrated some compliments paid her that morning in Feltram by that
+'good crayature' Mrs. Litheways, the silk-mercer, and what ''ansom faylow'
+was her new foreman--(she intended plainly that I should 'queez' her)--and
+how 'he follow' her with his eyes wherever she went. I thought, perhaps, he
+fancied she might pocket some of his lace or gloves. And all the time her
+great wicked eyes were rolling and glancing according to her ideas of
+fascination, and her bony face grinning and flaming with the 'strong drink'
+in which she delighted. She sang twaddling chansons, and being, as was her
+wont under such exhilarating influences, in a vapouring mood, she vowed
+that I should have my carriage and horses immediately.
+
+'I weel try what I can do weeth your Uncle Silas. We are very good
+old friends, Mr. Ruthyn and I,' she said with a leer which I did not
+understand, and which yet frightened me.
+
+I never could quite understand why these Jezebels like to insinuate the
+dreadful truth against themselves; but they do. Is it the spirit of
+feminine triumph overcoming feminine shame, and making them vaunt their
+fall as an evidence of bygone fascination and existing power? Need we
+wonder? Have not women preferred hatred to indifference, and the reputation
+of witchcraft, with all its penalties, to absolute insignificance? Thus, as
+they enjoyed the fear inspired among simple neighbours by their imagined
+traffic with the father of ill, did Madame, I think, relish with a cynical
+vainglory the suspicion of her satanic superiority.
+
+Next morning Uncle Silas sent for me. He was seated at his table, and spoke
+his little French greeting, smiling as usual, pointing to a chair opposite.
+
+'How far, I forget,' he said, carelessly laying his newspaper on the table,
+'did you yesterday guess Dudley to be?'
+
+'Eleven hundred miles I thought it was.'
+
+'Oh yes, so it was;' and then there was an abstracted pause. 'I have been
+writing to Lord Ilbury, your trustee,' he resumed. 'I ventured to say, my
+dear Maud--(for having thoughts of a different arrangement for you, more
+suitable under my distressing circumstances, I do not wish to vacate
+without some expression of your estimate of my treatment of you while
+under my roof)--I ventured to say that you thought me kind, considerate,
+indulgent,--may I say so?'
+
+I assented. What could I say?
+
+'I said you had enjoyed our poor way of living here--our rough ways and
+liberty. Was I right?'
+
+Again I assented.
+
+'And, in fact, that you had nothing to object against your poor old uncle,
+except indeed his poverty, which you forgave. I think I said truth. Did I,
+dear Maud?'
+
+Again I acquiesced.
+
+All this time he was fumbling among the papers in his coatpocket.
+
+'That is satisfactory. So I expected you to say,' he murmured. 'I expected
+no less.'
+
+On a sudden a frightful change spread across his face. He rose like a
+spectre with a white scowl.
+
+'Then how do you account for that?' he shrieked in a voice of thunder, and
+smiting my open letter to Lady Knollys, face upward, upon the table.
+
+I stared at my uncle, unable to speak, until I seemed to lose sight of him;
+but his voice, like a bell, still yelled in my ears.
+
+'There! young hypocrite and liar! explain that farrago of slander which you
+bribed my servant to place in the hands of my kinswoman, Lady Knollys.'
+
+And so on and on it went, I gazing into darkness, until the voice itself
+became indistinct, grew into a buzz, and hummed away into silence.
+
+I think I must have had a fit.
+
+When I came to myself I was drenched with water, my hair, face, neck, and
+dress. I did not in the least know where I was. I thought my father was
+ill, and spoke to him. Uncle Silas was standing near the window, looking
+unspeakably grim. Madame was seated beside me, and an open bottle of ether,
+one of Uncle Silas's restoratives, on the table before me.
+
+'Who's that--who's ill--is anyone dead?' I cried.
+
+At last I was relieved by long paroxysms of weeping. When I was
+sufficiently recovered, I was conveyed into my own room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVIII
+
+_LADY KNOLLYS' CARRIAGE_
+
+
+Next morning--it was Sunday--I lay on my bed in my dressing-gown, dull,
+apathetic, with all my limbs sore, and, as I thought, rheumatic,
+and feeling so ill that I did not care to speak or lift my head. My
+recollection of what had passed in Uncle Silas's room was utterly confused,
+and it seemed to me as if my poor father had been there and taken a
+share--I could not remember how--in the conference.
+
+I was too exhausted and stupid to clear up this horrible muddle, and merely
+lay with my face toward the wall, motionless and silent, except for a great
+sigh every now and then.
+
+Good Mary Quince was in the room--there was some comfort in that; but I
+felt quite worn out, and had rather she did not speak to me; and indeed for
+the time I felt absolutely indifferent as to whether I lived or died.
+
+Cousin Monica this morning, at pleasant Elverston, all-unconscious of my
+sad plight, proposed to Lady Mary Carysbroke and Lord Ilbury, her
+guests, to drive over to church at Feltram, and then pay us a visit at
+Bartram-Haugh, to which they readily agreed.
+
+Accordingly, at about two o'clock, this pleasant party of three arrived at
+Bartram. They walked, having left the carriage to follow when the horses
+were fed; and Madame de la Rougierre, who was in my uncle's room when
+little Giblets arrived to say that the party were in the parlour, whispered
+for a little with my uncle, who then said--
+
+'Miss Maud Ruthyn has gone out to drive, but I shall be happy to see Lady
+Knollys here, if she will do me the favour to come upstairs and see me for
+a few moments; and you can mention that I am very far from well.'
+
+Madame followed him out upon the lobby, and added, holding him by the
+collar, and whispering earnestly in his ear--
+
+'Bring hair ladysheep up by the backstairs--mind, the _back_stairs.'
+
+And the next moment Madame entered my room, with long tiptoe steps, and
+looking, Mary Quince said, as if she were going to be hanged.
+
+On entering she looked sharply round, and being satisfied of Mary Quince's
+presence, she turned the key in the door, and made some affectionate
+enquiries about me in a whisper; and then she stole to the window and
+peeped out, standing back some way; after which she came to my bedside,
+murmured some tender sentences, drew the curtain a little, and making some
+little fidgety adjustments about the room; among the rest she took the key
+from the lock, quietly, and put it into her pocket.
+
+This was so odd a procedure that honest Mary Quince rose stoutly from her
+chair, pointing to the lock, with her frank little blue eyes fixed on
+Madame, and she whispered--'Won't you put the key in the lock, please?'
+
+'Oh, certainly, Mary Queence; but it is better it shall be locked, for I
+think her uncle he is coming to see her, and I am sure she would be very
+much frightened, for he is very much displease, don't you see? and we can
+tell him she is not well enough, or asleep, and so he weel go away again,
+without any trouble.'
+
+I heard nothing of this, which was conducted in close whispers; and Mary,
+although she did not give Madame credit for caring whether I was frightened
+or not, and suspected her motives in everything, acquiesced grudgingly,
+fearing lest her alleged reason might possibly be the true one.
+
+So Madame hovered about the door, uneasily; and of what went on elsewhere
+during that period Lady Knollys afterwards gave me the following account:--
+
+'We were very much disappointed; but of course I was glad to see Silas, and
+your little hobgoblin butler led me upstairs to his room a different way, I
+think, from that I came before; but I don't know the house of Bartram well
+enough to speak positively. I only know that I was conducted quite across
+his bedroom, which I had not seen on my former visit, and so into his
+sitting-room, where I found him.
+
+'He seemed very glad to see me, came forward smiling--I disliked his smile
+always--with both hands out, and shook mine with more warmth than I ever
+remembered in his greeting before, and said--
+
+'"My dear, _dear_ Monica, how _very_ good of you--the very person I longed
+to see! I have been miserably ill, the sad consequence of still more
+miserable anxiety. Sit down, pray, for a moment."
+
+'And he paid me some nice little French compliment in verse.
+
+'"And where is Maud?" said I.
+
+'"I think Maud is by this time about halfway to Elverston," said the old
+gentleman. "I persuaded her to take a drive, and advised a call there,
+which seemed to please her, so I conjecture she obeyed."
+
+'"How _very_ provoking!" cried I.
+
+'"My poor Maud will be sadly disappointed, but you will console her by a
+visit--you have promised to come, and I shall try to make you comfortable.
+I shall be happier, Monica, with this proof of our perfect reconciliation.
+You won't deny me?"
+
+'"Certainly not. I am only too glad to come," said I; "and I want to thank
+you, Silas."
+
+'"For what?" said he.
+
+'"For wishing to place Maud in my care. I am very much obliged to you."
+
+'"I did not suggest it, I must say, Monica, with the least intention of
+obliging _you_," said Silas.
+
+'I thought he was going to break into one of his ungracious moods.
+
+'"But I _am_ obliged to you--very much obliged to you, Silas; and you
+sha'n't refuse my thanks."
+
+'"I am happy, at all events, Monica, in having won your good-will; we learn
+at last that in the affections only are our capacities for happiness; and
+how true is St. Paul's preference of love--the principle that abideth! The
+affections, dear Monica, are eternal; and being so, celestial, divine, and
+consequently happy, deriving happiness, and bestowing it."
+
+'I was always impatient of his or anybody else's metaphysics; but I
+controlled myself, and only said, with my customary impudence--
+
+'"Well, dear Silas, and when do you wish me to come?"
+
+'"The earlier the better," said he.
+
+'"Lady Mary and Ilbury will be leaving me on Tuesday morning. I can come to
+you in the afternoon, if you think Tuesday a good day."
+
+'"Thank you, dear Monica. I shall be, I trust, enlightened by that day as
+to my enemies' plans. It is a humiliating confession, Monica, but I am past
+feeling that. It is quite possible that an execution may be sent into
+this house to-morrow, and an end of all my schemes. It is not likely,
+however--hardly possible--before three weeks, my attorney tells me. I shall
+hear from him to-morrow morning, and then I shall ask you to name a very
+early day. If we are to have an unmolested fortnight certain, you shall
+hear, and name your own day."
+
+'Then he asked me who had accompanied me, and lamented ever so much his not
+being able to go down to receive them; and he offered luncheon, with a sort
+of Ravenswood smile, and a shrug, and I declined, telling him that we had
+but a few minutes, and that my companions were walking in the grounds near
+the house.
+
+'I asked whether Maud was likely to return soon?
+
+'"Certainly not before five o'clock." He thought we should probably meet
+her on our way back to Elverston; but could not be certain, as she might
+have changed her plans.
+
+'So then came--no more remaining to be said--a very affectionate parting. I
+believe all about his legal dangers was strictly true. How he could, unless
+that horrid woman had deceived him, with so serene a countenance tell me
+all those gross untruths about Maud, I can only admire.'
+
+In the meantime, as I lay in my bed, Madame, gliding hither and thither,
+whispering sometimes, listening at others, I suddenly startled them both by
+saying--
+
+'Whose carriage?'
+
+'What carriage, dear?' inquired Quince, whose ears were not so sharp as
+mine.
+
+Madame peeped from the window.
+
+''Tis the physician, Doctor Jolks. He is come to see your uncle, my dear,'
+said Madame.
+
+'But I hear a female voice,' I said, sitting up.
+
+'No, my dear; there is only the doctor,' said Madame. 'He is come to your
+uncle. I tell you he is getting out of his carriage,' and she affected to
+watch the doctor's descent.
+
+'The carriage is driving away!' I cried.
+
+'Yes, it is draiving away,' she echoed.
+
+But I had sprung from my bed, and was looking over her shoulder, before she
+perceived me.
+
+'It is Lady Knollys!' I screamed, seizing the window-frame to force it up,
+and, vainly struggling to open it, I cried--
+
+'I'm here, Cousin Monica. For God's sake, Cousin Monica--Cousin Monica!'
+
+'You are mad, Meess--go back,' screamed Madame, exerting her superior
+strength to force me back.
+
+But I saw deliverance and escape gliding away from my reach, and, strung
+to unnatural force by desperation, I pushed past her, and beat the window
+wildly with my hands, screaming--
+
+'Save me--save me! Here, here, Monica, here! Cousin, cousin, oh! save me!'
+
+Madame had seized my wrists, and a wild struggle was going on. A
+window-pane was broken, and I was shrieking to stop the carriage. The
+Frenchwoman looked black and haggard as a fury, as if she could have
+murdered me.
+
+Nothing daunted--frantic--I screamed in my despair, seeing the carriage
+drive swiftly away--seeing Cousin Monica's bonnet, as she sat chatting with
+her _vis-à-vis_.
+
+'Oh, oh, oh!' I shrieked, in vain and prolonged agony, as Madame, exerting
+her strength and matching her fury against my despair, forced me back in
+spite of my wild struggles, and pushed me sitting on the bed, where she
+held me fast, glaring in my face, and chuckling and panting over me.
+
+I think I felt something of the despair of a lost spirit.
+
+I remember the face of poor Mary Quince--its horror, its wonder--as she
+stood gaping into my face, over Madame's shoulder, and crying--
+
+'What is it, Miss Maud? What is it, dear?' And turning fiercely on Madame,
+and striving to force her grasp from my wrists, 'Are you hurting the child?
+Let her go--let her go.'
+
+'I _weel_ let her go. Wat old fool are you, Mary Queence! She is mad, I
+think. She 'as lost hair head.'
+
+'Oh, Mary, cry from the window. Stop the carriage!' I cried.
+
+Mary looked out, but there was by this time, of course, nothing in sight.
+
+'Why don't a you stop the carriage?' sneered Madame. 'Call a the coachman
+and the postilion. W'ere is the footman? Bah! _elle a le cerveau mal
+timbré_.'
+
+'Oh, Mary, Mary, is it gone--is it gone? Is there nothing there?' cried I,
+rushing to the window; and turning to Madame, after a vain straining of my
+eyes, my face against the glass--
+
+'Oh, cruel, cruel, wicked woman! why have you done this? What was it to
+you? Why do you persecute me? What good _can_ you gain by my ruin?'
+
+'Rueen! Par bleu! ma chère, you talk too fast. Did not a you see it, Mary
+Queence? It was the doctor's carriage, and Mrs. Jolks, and that eempudent
+faylow, young Jolks, staring up to the window, and Mademoiselle she come in
+soche shocking déshabille to show herself knocking at the window. 'Twould
+be very nice thing, Mary Queence, don't you think?'
+
+I was sitting now on the bedside, crying in mere despair. I did not care to
+dispute or to resist. Oh! why had rescue come so near, only to prove that
+it could not reach me? So I went on crying, with a clasping of my hands and
+turning up of my eyes, in incoherent prayer. I was not thinking of Madame,
+or of Mary Quince, or any other person, only babbling my anguish and
+despair helplessly in the ear of heaven.
+
+'I did not think there was soche fool. Wat _enfant gaté_! My dear cheaile,
+wat a can you _mean_ by soche strange language and conduct? Wat for should
+a you weesh to display yourself in the window in soche 'orrible déshabille
+to the people in the doctor's coach?'
+
+'It was _Cousin Knollys_--Cousin Knollys. Oh, Cousin Knollys! You're
+gone--you're gone--you're _gone_!'
+
+'And if it was Lady Knollys' coach, there was certainly a coachman and a
+footman; and whoever has the coach there was young gentlemen in it. If it
+was Lady Knollys' carriage it would 'av been _worse_ than the doctor.'
+
+'It is no matter--it is all over. Oh, Cousin Monica, your poor Maud--where
+is she to turn? Is there no help?'
+
+That evening Madame visited me again, in one of her sedate and moral moods.
+She found me dejected and passive, as she had left me.
+
+'I think, Maud, there is news; but I am not certain.'
+
+I raised my head and looked at her wistfully.
+
+'I think there is letter of _bad_ news from the attorney in London.'
+
+'Oh!' I said, in a tone which I am sure implied the absolute indifference
+of dejection.
+
+'But, my dear Maud, if't be so, we shall go at once, you and me, to join
+Meess Millicent in France. La belle France! You weel like so moche! We
+shall be so gay. You cannot imagine there are such naice girl there. They
+all love a me so moche, you will be delight.'
+
+'How soon do we go?' I asked.
+
+'I do not know. Bote I was to bring in a case of eau de cologne that came
+this evening, and he laid down a letter and say:--"The blow has descended,
+Madame! My niece must hold herself in readiness." I said, "For what,
+Monsieur?" _twice_; bote he did not answer. I am sure it is _un procès_.
+They 'av ruin him. Eh bien, my dear. I suppose we shall leave this triste
+place immediately. I am so rejoice. It appears to me _un cimetière_!'
+
+'Yes, I should like to leave it,' I said, sitting up, with a great sigh and
+sunken eyes. It seemed to me that I had quite lost all sense of resentment
+towards Madame. A debility of feeling had supervened--the fatigue, I
+suppose, and prostration of the passions.
+
+'I weel make excuse to go into his room again,' said Madame; 'and I weel
+endeavor to learn something more from him, and I weel come back again to
+you in half an hour.'
+
+She departed. But in half an hour did not return. I had a dull longing to
+leave Bartram-Haugh. For me, since the departure of poor Milly, it had
+grown like the haunt of evil spirits, and to escape on any terms from it
+was a blessing unspeakable.
+
+Another half-hour passed, and another, and I grew insufferably feverish.
+I sent Mary Quince to the lobby to try and see Madame, who, I feared, was
+probably to-ing and fro-ing in and out of Uncle Silas's room.
+
+Mary returned to tell me that she had seen old Wyat, who told her that she
+thought Madame had gone to her bed half an hour before.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIX
+
+_A SUDDEN DEPARTURE_
+
+
+'Mary,' said I, 'I am miserably anxious to hear what Madame may have to
+tell; she knows the state I am in, and she would not like so much trouble
+as to look in at my door to say a word. Did you hear what she told me?'
+
+'No, Miss Maud,' she answered, rising and drawing near.
+
+'She thinks we are going to France immediately, and to leave this place
+perhaps for ever.'
+
+'Heaven be praised for that, if it be so, Miss!' said Mary, with more
+energy than was common with her, 'for there is no luck about it, and I
+don't expect to see you ever well or happy in it.'
+
+'You must take your candle, Mary, and make out her room, upstairs; I found
+it accidentally myself one evening.'
+
+'But Wyat won't let us upstairs.'
+
+'Don't mind her, Mary; I tell you to go. You must try. I can't sleep till
+we hear.'
+
+'What direction is her room in, Miss?' asked Mary.
+
+'Somewhere in _that_ direction, Mary,' I answered, pointing. 'I cannot
+describe the turns; but I think you will find it if you go along the great
+passage to your left, on getting to the top of the stairs, till you come to
+the cross-galleries, and then turn to your left; and when you have passed
+four or perhaps five doors, you must be very near it, and I am sure she
+will hear if you call.'
+
+'But will she tell me--she _is_ such a rum un, Miss?' suggested Mary.
+
+'Tell her exactly what I have said to you, and when she learns that you
+already know as much as I do, she may--unless, indeed, she wishes to
+torture me. If she won't, perhaps at least you can persuade her to come to
+me for a moment. Try, dear Mary; we can but fail.'
+
+'Will you be very lonely, Miss, while I am away?' asked Mary, uneasily, as
+she lighted her candle.
+
+'I can't help it, Mary. Go. I think if I heard we were going, I could
+almost get up and dance and sing. I can't bear this dreadful uncertainty
+any longer.'
+
+'If old Wyat is outside, I'll come back and wait here a bit, till she's out
+o' the way,' said Mary; 'and, anyhow, I'll make all the haste I can. The
+drops and the sal-volatile is here, Miss, by your hand.'
+
+And with an anxious look at me, she made her exit, softly, and did not
+immediately return, by which I concluded that she had found the way clear,
+and had gained the upper story without interruption.
+
+This little anxiety ended, its subsidence was followed by a sense of
+loneliness, and with it, of vague insecurity, which increased at last to
+such a pitch, that I wondered at my own madness in sending my companion
+away; and at last my terrors so grew, that I drew back into the farthest
+corner of the bed, with my shoulders to the wall, and my bed-clothes
+huddled about me, with only a point open to peep at.
+
+At last the door opened gently.
+
+'Who's there?' I cried, in extremity of horror, expecting I knew not whom.
+
+'Me, Miss,' whispered Mary Quince, to my unutterable relief; and with her
+candle flared, and a wild and pallid face, Mary Quince glided into the
+room, locking the door as she entered.
+
+I do not know how it was, but I found myself holding Mary fast with both my
+hands as we stood side by side on the floor.
+
+'Mary, you are terrified; for God's sake, what is the matter?' I cried.
+
+'No, Miss,' said Mary, faintly, 'not much.'
+
+'I see it in your face. What is it?'
+
+'Let me sit down, Miss. I'll tell you what I saw; only I'm just a bit
+queerish.'
+
+Mary sat down by my bed.
+
+'Get in, Miss; you'll take cold. Get into bed, and I'll tell you. It is not
+much.'
+
+I did get into bed, and gazing on Mary's frightened face, I felt a
+corresponding horror.
+
+'For mercy's sake, Mary, say what it is?'
+
+So again assuring me 'it was not much,' she gave me in a somewhat diffuse
+and tangled narrative the following facts:--
+
+On closing my door, she raised her candle above her head and surveyed the
+lobby, and seeing no one there she ascended the stairs swiftly. She passed
+along the great gallery to the left, and paused a moment at the cross
+gallery, and then recollected my directions clearly, and followed the
+passage to the right.
+
+There are doors at each side, and she had forgotten to ask me at which
+Madame's was. She opened several. In one room she was frightened by a bat,
+which had very nearly put her candle out. She went on a little, paused, and
+began to lose heart in the dismal solitude, when on a sudden, a few doors
+farther on, she thought she heard Madame's voice.
+
+She said that she knocked at the door, but receiving no answer, and hearing
+Madame still talking within, she opened it.
+
+There was a candle on the chimneypiece, and another in a stable lantern
+near the window. Madame was conversing volubly on the hearth, with her face
+toward the window, the entire frame of which had been taken from its place:
+Dickon Hawkes, the Zamiel of the wooden leg, was supporting it with one
+hand, as it leaned imperfectly against the angle of the recess. There was
+a third figure standing, buttoned up in a surtout, with a bundle of tools
+under his arm, like a glazier, and, with a silent thrill of fear, she
+distinctly recognised the features as those of Dudley Ruthyn.
+
+''Twas him, Miss, so sure as I sit here! Well, like that, they were as mute
+as mice; three pairs of eyes were on me. I don't know what made me so study
+like, but som'at told me I should not make as though I knew any but Madame;
+and so I made a courtesy, as well as I could, and I said, "Might I speak a
+word wi' ye, please, on the lobby?"
+
+'Mr. Dudley was making belief be this time to look out at window, wi' his
+back to me, and I kept looking straight on Madame, and she said, "They're
+mendin' my broken glass, Mary," walking between them and me, and coming
+close up to me very quick; and so she marched me backward out o' the door,
+prating all the time.
+
+'When we were on the lobby, she took my candle from my hand, shutting the
+door behind her, and she held the light a bit behind her ear; so'twas full
+on my face, as she looked sharp into it; and, after a bit, she said again,
+in her queer lingo--there was two panes broke in her room, and men sent for
+to mend it.
+
+'I was awful frightened when I saw Mr. Dudley, for I could not believe any
+such thing before, and I don't know how I could look her in the face as I
+did and not show it. I was as smooth and cool as yonder chimneypiece, and
+she has an awful evil eye to stan' against; but I never flinched, and I
+think she's puzzled, for as cunning as she is, whether I believe all she
+said, or knowed 'twas a pack o' stories. So I told her your message, and
+she said she had not heard another word since; but she did believe we had
+not many more days here, and would tell you if she heard to-night, when she
+brought his soup to your uncle, in half an hour's time.'
+
+I asked her, as soon as I could speak, whether she was perfectly certain as
+to the fact that the man in the surtout was Dudley, and she made answer--
+
+'I'd swear to him on that Bible, Miss.'
+
+So far from any longer wishing Madame's return that night, I trembled at
+the idea of it. Who could tell who might enter the room with her when the
+door opened to admit her?
+
+Dudley, so soon as he recovered the surprise, had turned about, evidently
+anxious to prevent recognition; Dickon Hawkes stood glowering at her. Both
+might have hope of escaping recognition in the imperfect light, for the
+candle on the chimneypiece was flaring in the air, and the light from the
+lantern fell in spots, and was confusing.
+
+What could that ruffian, Hawkes, be doing in the house? Why was Dudley
+there? Could a more ominous combination be imagined? I puzzled my
+distracted head over all Mary Quince's details, but could make nothing of
+their occupation. I know of nothing so terrifying as this kind of perpetual
+puzzling over ominous problems.
+
+You may imagine how the long hours of that night passed, and how my heart
+beat at every fancied sound outside my door.
+
+But morning came, and with its light some reassurance. Early, Madame de la
+Rougierre made her appearance; she searched my eyes darkly and shrewdly,
+but made no allusion to Mary Quince's visit. Perhaps she expected some
+question from me, and, hearing none, thought it as well to leave the
+subject at rest.
+
+She had merely come in to say that she had heard nothing since, but was now
+going to make my uncle's chocolate; and that so soon as her interview was
+ended she would see me again, and let me hear anything she should have
+gleaned.
+
+In a little while a knock came to my door, and Mary Quince was ordered by
+old Wyat into my uncle's room. She returned flushed, in a huge fuss, to say
+that I was to be up and dressed for a journey in half an hour, and to go
+straight, when dressed, to my uncle's room.
+
+It was good news; at the same time it was a shock. I was glad. I was
+stunned. I jumped out of bed, and set about my toilet with an energy quite
+new to me. Good Mary Quince was busily packing my boxes, and consulting as
+to what I should take with me, and what not.
+
+Was Mary Quince to accompany me? He had not said a word on that point; and
+I feared from his silence she was to remain. There was comfort, however, in
+this--that the separation would not be for long; I felt confident of that;
+and I was about to join Milly, whom I loved better than I could have
+believed before our separation; but whatsoever the conditions might be,
+it was an indescribable relief to have done with Bartram-Haugh, and leave
+behind me its sinister lines of circumvallation, its haunted recesses, and
+the awful spectres that had lately appeared within its walls.
+
+I stood too much in awe of my uncle to fail in presenting myself punctually
+at the close of the half-hour. I entered his sitting-room under the shadow
+of sour old Wyat's high-cauled cap; she closed the door behind me, and the
+conference commenced.
+
+Madame de la Rougierre sat there, dressed and draped for a journey, and
+with a thick black lace veil on. My uncle rose, gaunt and venerable, and
+with a harsh and severe countenance. He did not offer his hand; he made me
+a kind of bow, more of repulsion than of respect. He remained in a standing
+position, supporting his crooked frame by his hand, which he leaned on a
+despatch-box; he glared on me steadily with his wild phosphoric eyes, from
+under the dark brows I have described to you, now corrugated in lines
+indescribably stern.
+
+'You shall join my daughter at the Pension, in France; Madame de la
+Rougierre shall accompany you,' said my uncle, delivering his directions
+with the stern monotony and the measured pauses of a person dictating an
+important despatch to a secretary.' Old Mrs. Quince shall follow with me,
+or, if alone, in a week. You shall pass to-night in London; to-morrow night
+you proceed thence to Dover, and cross by the mail-packet. You shall now
+sit down and write a letter to your cousin Monica Knollys, which I will
+first read and then despatch. Tomorrow you shall write a note to Lady
+Knollys, from _London_, telling her how you have got over so much of your
+journey, and that you cannot write from Dover, as you must instantly start
+by the packet on reaching it; and that until my affairs are a little
+settled, you cannot write to her from France, as it is of high importance
+to my safety that no clue should exist as to our address. Intelligence,
+however, shall reach her through my attorneys, Archer and Sleigh, and I
+trust we shall soon return. You will, please, submit that latter note to
+Madame de la Rougierre, who has my directions to see that it contains no
+_libels_ upon my character. Now, sit down.'
+
+So, with those unpleasant words tingling in my ears, I obeyed.
+
+'_Write_,' said he, when I was duly placed. 'You shall convey the substance
+of what I say in your own language. The immiment danger this morning
+announced of an execution--remember the word,' and he spelled it for
+me--'being put into this house either this afternoon or to-morrow, compels
+me to anticipate my plans, and despatch you for France this day. That you
+are starting with an attendant.' Here an uneasy movement from Madame,
+whose dignity was perhaps excited. 'An _attendant_,' he repeated, with a
+discordant emphasis; 'and you can, if you please--but I don't _solicit_
+that justice--say that you have been as kindly treated here as my
+unfortunate circumstances would permit. That is all. You have just fifteen
+minutes to write. Begin.'
+
+I wrote accordingly. My hysterical state had made me far less combative
+than I might have proved some months since, for there was much that was
+insulting as well as formidable in his manner. I completed my letter,
+however, to his satisfaction in the prescribed time; and he said, as he
+laid it and its envelope on the table--
+
+'Please to remember that this lady is not your attendant only, but that she
+has authority to direct every detail respecting your journey, and will make
+all the necessary payments on the way. You will please, then, implicitly to
+comply with her directions. The carriage awaits you at the hall-door.'
+
+Having thus spoken, with another grim bow, and 'I wish you a safe and
+pleasant journey,' he receded a step or two, and I, with an undefinable
+kind of melancholy, though also with a sense of relief, withdrew.
+
+My letter, I afterwards found, reached Lady Knollys, accompanied by one
+from Uncle Silas, who said--'Dear Maud apprises me that she has written
+to tell you something of our movements. A sudden crisis in my miserable
+affairs compels a break-up as sudden here. Maud joins my daughter at the
+Pension, in France. I purposely omit the address, because I mean to
+reside in its vicinity until this storm shall have blown over; and as the
+consequences of some of my unhappy entanglements might pursue me even
+there, I must only for the present spare you the pain and trouble of
+keeping a secret. I am sure that for some little time you will excuse
+the girl's silence; in the meantime you shall hear of them, and perhaps
+circuitously, from me. Our dear Maud started this morning _en route_ for
+her destination, very sorry, as am I, that she could not enjoy first a
+flying visit to Elverston, but in high spirits, notwithstanding, at the new
+life and sights before her.'
+
+At the door my beloved old friend, Mary Quince, awaited me.
+
+'Am I going with you, Miss Maud?'
+
+I burst into tears and clasped her in my arms.
+
+'I'm not,' said Mary, very sorrowfully; 'and I never was from you yet,
+Miss, since you wasn't the length of my arm.'
+
+And kind old Mary began to cry with me.
+
+'Bote you are coming in a few days, Mary Quince,' expostulated Madame. 'I
+wonder you are soche fool. What is two, three days? Bah! nonsense, girl.'
+
+Another farewell to poor Mary Quince, quite bewildered at the suddenness of
+her bereavement. A serious and tremulous bow from our little old butler on
+the steps. Madame bawling through the open window to the driver to make
+good speed, and remember that we had but nineteen minutes to reach the
+station. Away we went. Old Crowle's iron _grille_ rolled back before us.
+I looked on the receding landscape, the giant trees--the palatial,
+time-stained mansion. A strange conflict of feelings, sweet and bitter,
+rose and mingled in the reverie. Had I been too hard and suspicious with
+the inhabitants of that old house of my family? Was my uncle _justly_
+indignant? Was I ever again to know such pleasant rambles as some of those
+I had enjoyed with dear Millicent through the wild and beautiful woodlands
+I was leaving behind me? And there, with my latest glimpse of the front
+of Bartram-Haugh, I beheld dear old Mary Quince gazing after us. Again
+my tears flowed. I waved my handkerchief from the window; and now the
+park-wall hid all from view, and at a great pace, through the steep wooded
+glen, with the rocky and precipitous character of a ravine, we glided; and
+when the road next emerged, Bartram-Haugh was a misty mass of forest and
+chimneys, slope and hollow, and we within a few minutes of the station.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LX
+
+_THE JOURNEY_
+
+
+Waiting for the train, as we stood upon the platform, I looked back again
+toward the wooded uplands of Bartram; and far behind, the fine range of
+mountains, azure and soft in the distance, beyond which lay beloved old
+Knowl, and my lost father and mother, and the scenes of my childhood, never
+embittered except by the sibyl who sat beside me.
+
+Under happier circumstances I should have been, at my then early age, quite
+wild with pleasurable excitement on entering London for the first time.
+But black Care sat by me, with her pale hand in mine: a voice of fear and
+warning, whose words I could not catch, was always in my ear. We drove
+through London, amid the glare of lamps, toward the West-end, and for a
+little while the sense of novelty and curiosity overcame my despondency,
+and I peeped eagerly from the window; while Madame, who was in high
+good-humour, spite of the fatigues of our long railway flight, screeched
+scraps of topographic information in my ear; for London was a picture-book
+in which she was well read.
+
+'That is Euston Square, my dear--Russell Square. Here is Oxford
+Street--Haymarket. See, there is the Opera House--Hair Majesty's Theatre.
+See all the carriages waiting;' and so on, till we reached at length a
+little narrow street, which she told me was off Piccadilly, where we drew
+up before a private house, as it seemed to me--a family hotel--and I was
+glad to be at rest for the night.
+
+Fatigued with the peculiar fatigue of railway travelling, dusty, a little
+chilly, with eyes aching and wearied, I ascended the stairs silently, our
+garrulous and bustling landlady leading the way, and telling her oft-told
+story of the house, its noble owner in old time, and how those fine
+drawing-rooms were taken every year during the Session by the Bishop of
+Rochet-on-Copeley, and at last into our double-bedded room.
+
+I would fain have been alone, but I was too tired and dejected to care very
+much for anything.
+
+At tea, Madame expanded in spirit, like a giant refreshed, and chattered
+and sang; and at last, seeing that I was nodding, advised my going to bed,
+while she ran across the street to see 'her dear old friend, Mademoiselle
+St. Eloi, who was sure to be up, and would be offended if she failed to
+make her ever so short a call.'
+
+I cared little what she said, and was glad to be rid of her even for a
+short time, and was soon fast asleep.
+
+I saw her, I know not how much later, poking about the room, like a figure
+in a dream, and taking off her things.
+
+She had her breakfast in bed next morning, and I was, to my comfort, left
+to take mine in solitary possession of our sitting-room; where I began to
+wonder how little annoyance I had as yet suffered from her company, and
+began to speculate upon the chances of my making the journey with tolerable
+comfort.
+
+Our hostess gave me five minutes of her valuable time. Her talk ran chiefly
+upon nuns and convents, and her old acquaintance with Madame; and it seemed
+to me that she had at one time driven a kind of trade, no doubt profitable
+enough, in escorting young ladies to establishments on the Continent; and
+although I did not then quite understand the tone in which she spoke to me,
+I often thought afterwards that Madame had represented me as a young person
+destined for the holy vocation of the veil.
+
+When she was gone, I sat listlessly looking out of the window, and saw some
+chance equipages drive by, and now and then a fashionable pedestrian; and
+wondered if this quiet thoroughfare could really be one of the arteries so
+near the heart of the tumultuous capital.
+
+I think my nervous vitality must have burnt very low just then, for I felt
+perfectly indifferent about all the novelty and world of wonders beyond,
+and should have hated to leave the dull tranquillity of my window for an
+excursion through the splendours of the unseen streets and palaces that
+surrounded me.
+
+It was one o'clock before Madame joined me; and finding me in this dull
+mood, she did not press me to accompany her in her drive, no doubt well
+pleased to be rid of me.
+
+After tea that evening, as we sat alone in our room, she entertained me
+with some very odd conversation--at the time unintelligible--but which
+acquired a tolerably distinct meaning from the events that followed.
+
+Two or three times that day Madame appeared to me on the point of saying
+something of grave import, as she scanned me with her bleak wicked stare.
+
+It was a peculiarity of hers, that whenever she was pressed upon by an
+anxiety that really troubled her, her countenance did not look sad or
+solicitous, as other people's would, but simply wicked. Her great gaunt
+mouth was compressed and drawn down firmly at the corners, and her eyes
+glared with a dismal scowl.
+
+At last she said suddenly--
+
+'Are you ever grateful, Maud?'
+
+'I hope so, Madame,' I answered.
+
+'And how do you show your gratitude? For instance, would a you do great
+deal for a person who would run _risque_ for your sake?'
+
+It struck me all at once that she was sounding me about poor Meg Hawkes,
+whose fidelity, notwithstanding the treason or cowardice of her lover, Tom
+Brice, I never doubted; and I grew at once wary and reserved.
+
+'I know of no opportunity, thank Heaven, for any such service, Madame. How
+can anyone serve me at present, by themselves incurring danger? What do you
+mean?'
+
+'Do you like, for example, to go to that French Pension? Would you not like
+better some other arrangement?'
+
+'Of course there are other arrangements I should like better; but I see no
+use in talking of them; they are not to be,' I answered.
+
+'What other arrangements do you mean, my dear cheaile?' enquired Madame.
+'You mean, I suppose, you would like better to go to Lady Knollys?'
+
+'My uncle does not choose it at present; and except with his consent
+nothing can be done!'
+
+'He weel never consent, dear cheaile.'
+
+'But he _has_ consented--not immediately indeed, but in a short time, when
+his affairs are settled.'
+
+'_Lanternes_! They will never be settle,' said Madame.
+
+'At all events, for the present I am to go to France. Milly seems very
+happy, and I dare say I shall like it too. I am very glad to leave
+Bartram-Haugh, at all events.'
+
+'But your uncle weel bring you back there,' said Madame, drily.
+
+'It is doubtful whether he will ever return to Bartram himself,' I said.
+
+'Ah!' said Madame, with a long-drawn nasal intonation, 'you theenk I hate
+you. You are quaite wrong, my dear Maud. I am, on the contrary, very much
+interested for you--I am, I assure you, dear a cheaile.'
+
+And she laid her great hand, with joints misshapen by old chilblains, upon
+the back of mine. I looked up in her face. She was not smiling. On the
+contrary, her wide mouth was drawn down at the corners ruefully, as before,
+and she gazed on my face with a scowl from her abysmal eyes.
+
+I used to think the flare of that irony which lighted her face so often
+immeasurably worse than any other expression she could assume; but this
+lack-lustre stare and dismal collapse of feature was more wicked still.
+
+'Suppose I should bring you to Lady Knollys, and place you in her charge,
+what would a you do then for poor Madame?' said this dark spectre.
+
+I was inwardly startled at these words. I looked into her unsearchable
+face, but could draw thence nothing but fear. Had she made the same
+overture only two days since, I think I would have offered her half my
+fortune. But circumstances were altered. I was no longer in the panic of
+despair. The lesson I had received from Tom Brice was fresh in my mind, and
+my profound distrust of her was uppermost. I saw before me only a tempter
+and betrayer, and said--
+
+'Do you mean to imply, Madame, that my guardian is not to be trusted, and
+that I ought to make my escape from him, and that you are really willing to
+aid me in doing so?'
+
+This, you see, was turning the tables upon her. I looked her steadily in
+the face as I spoke. She returned my gaze with a strange stare and a gape,
+which haunted me long after; and it seemed as we sat in utter silence that
+each was rather horribly fascinated by the other's gaze.
+
+At last she shut her mouth sternly, and eyes me with a more determined and
+meaning scowl, and then said in a low tone--
+
+'I believe, Maud, that you are a cunning and wicked little thing.'
+
+'Wisdom is not cunning, Madame; nor is it wicked to ask your meaning in
+explicit language,' I replied.
+
+'And so, you clever cheaile, we two sit here, playing at a game of chess,
+over this little table, to decide which shall destroy the other--is it not
+so?'
+
+'I will not allow you to destroy me,' I retorted, with a sudden flash.
+
+Madame stood up, and rubbed her mouth with her open hand. She looked to me
+like some evil being seen in a dream. I was frightened.
+
+'You are going to hurt me!' I ejaculated, scarce knowing what I said.
+
+'If I were, you deserve it. You are very _malicious_, ma chère: or, it may
+be, only very stupid.'
+
+A knock came to the door.
+
+'Come in,' I cried, with a glad sense of relief.
+
+A maid entered.
+
+'A letter, please, 'm,' she said, handing it to me.
+
+'For _me_,' snarled Madame, snatching it.
+
+I had seen my uncle's hand, and the Feltram post-mark.
+
+Madame broke the seal, and read. It seemed but a word, for she turned it
+about after the first momentary glance, and examined the interior of the
+envelope, and then returned to the line she had already read.
+
+She folded the letter again, drawing her nails in a sharp pinch along the
+creases, as she stared in a blank, hesitating way at me.
+
+'You are stupid little ingrate, I am employ by Monsieur Ruthyn, and of
+course I am faithful to my employer. I do not want to talk to you. _There_,
+you may read that.'
+
+She jerked the letter before me on the table. It contained but these
+words:--
+
+Bartram-Haugh:
+
+'_30th January, 1845_.
+
+'MY DEAR MADAME,
+
+'Be so good as to take the half-past eight o'clock train to _Dover_
+to-night. Beds are prepared.--Yours very truly,
+
+SILAS RUTHYN.'
+
+I cannot say what it was in this short advice that struck me with fear. Was
+it the thick line beneath the word 'Dover,' that was so uncalled for, and
+gave me a faint but terrible sense of something preconcerted?
+
+I said to Madame--
+
+'Why is "Dover" underlined?'
+
+'I do not know, little fool, no more than you. How can I tell what is
+passing in your oncle's head when he make that a mark?'
+
+'Has it not a meaning, Madame?'
+
+'How can you talk like that?' she answered, more in her old way. 'You are
+either mocking of me, or you are becoming truly a fool!'
+
+She rang the bell, called for our bill, saw our hostess; while I made a few
+hasty prepartions in my room.
+
+'You need not look after the trunks--they will follow us all right. Let us
+go, cheaile--we 'av half an hour only to reach the train.'
+
+No one ever fussed like Madame when occasion offered. There was a cab at
+the door, into which she hurried me. I assumed that she would give all
+needful directions, and leaned back, very weary and sleepy already, though
+it was so early, listening to her farewell screamed from the cab-step, and
+seeing her black cloak flitting and flapping this way and that, like the
+wings of a raven disturbed over its prey.
+
+In she got, and away we drove through a glare of lamps, and shop-windows,
+still open; gas everywhere, and cabs, busses, and carriages, still
+thundering through the streets. I was too tired and too depressed to look
+at those things. Madame, on the contrary, had her head out of the window
+till we reached the station.
+
+'Where are the rest of the boxes?' I asked, as Madame placed me in charge
+of her box and my bag in the office of the terminus.
+
+'They will follow with Boots in another cab, and will come safe with us in
+this train. Mind those two, we weel bring in the carriage with us.'
+
+So into a carriage we got; in came Madame's box and my bag; Madame stood at
+the door, and, I think, frightened away intending passengers, by her size
+and shrillness.
+
+At last the bell rang her into her place, the door clapt, the whistle
+sounded, and we were off.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXI
+
+_OUR BED-CHAMBER_
+
+
+I had passed a miserable night, and, indeed, for many nights had not had my
+due proportion of sleep. Still I sometimes fancy that I may have swallowed
+something in my tea that helped to make me so irresistibly drowsy. It was a
+very dark night--no moon, and the stars soon hid by the gathering clouds.
+Madame sat silent, and ruminating in her place, with her rugs about her.
+I, in my corner similarly enveloped, tried to keep awake. Madame plainly
+thought I was asleep already, for she stole a leather flask from her
+pocket, and applied it to her lips, causing an aroma of brandy.
+
+But it was vain struggling against the influence that was stealing over me,
+and I was soon in a profound and dreamless slumber.
+
+Madame awoke me at last, in a huge fuss. She had got out all our things and
+hurried them away to a close carriage which was awaiting us. It was still
+dark and starless. We got along the platform, I half asleep, the porter
+carrying our rugs, by the glare of a pair of gas-jets in the wall, and out
+by a small door at the end.
+
+I remember that Madame, contrary to her wont, gave the man some money. By
+the puzzling light of the carriage-lamps we got in and took our seats.
+
+'Go on,' screamed Madame, and drew up the window with a great chuck; and we
+were enclosed in darkness and silence, the most favourable conditions for
+thought.
+
+My sleep had not restored me as it might; I felt feverish, fatigued, and
+still very drowsy, though unable to sleep as I had done.
+
+I dozed by fits and starts, and lay awake, or half-awake, sometimes, not
+thinking but in a way imagining what kind of a place Dover would be; but
+too tired and listless to ask Madame any questions, and merely seeing the
+hedges, grey in the lamplight, glide backward into darkness, as I leaned
+back.
+
+We turned off the main road, at right angles, and drew up.
+
+'Get down and poosh it, it is open,' screamed Madame from the window.
+
+A gate, I suppose, was thus passed; for when we resumed our brisk trot,
+Madame bawled across the carriage--
+
+'We are now in the 'otel grounds.'
+
+And so all again was darkness and silence, and I fell into another doze,
+from which, on waking, I found that we had come to a standstill, and Madame
+was standing on the low step of an open door, paying the driver. She,
+herself, pulled her box and the bag in. I was too tired to care what had
+become of the rest of our luggage.
+
+I descended, glancing to the right and left, but there was nothing visible
+but a patch of light from the lamps on a paved ground and on the wall.
+
+We stepped into the hall or vestibule, and Madame shut the door, and I
+thought I heard the key turn in it. We were in total darkness.
+
+'Where are the lights, Madame--where are the people?' I asked, more awake
+than I had been.
+
+''Tis pass three o'clock, cheaile, bote there is always light here.' She
+was groping at the side; and in a moment more lighted a lucifer match, and
+so a bedroom candle.
+
+We were in a flagged lobby, under an archway at the right, and at the left
+of which opened long flagged passages, lost in darkness; a winding stair,
+barely wide enough to admit Madame, dragging her box, led upward under a
+doorway, in a corner at the right.
+
+'Come, dear cheaile, take your bag; don't mind the rugs, they are safe
+enough.'
+
+'But where are we to go? There is no one!' I said, looking round in wonder.
+It certainly was a strange reception at an hotel.
+
+'Never mind, my dear cheaile. They know me here, and I have always the same
+room ready when I write for it. Follow me quaitely.'
+
+So she mounted, carrying the candle. The stair was steep, and the march
+long. We halted at the second landing, and entered a gaunt, grimy passage.
+All the way up we had not heard a single sound of life, nor seen a human
+being, nor so much as passed a gaslight.
+
+'Voila! here 'tis, my dear old room. Enter, dearest Maud.'
+
+And so I did. The room was large and lofty, but shabby and dismal. There
+was a tall four-post bed, with its foot beside the window, hung with
+dark-green curtains, of some plush or velvet texture, that looked like
+a dusty pall. The remaining furniture was scant and old, and a ravelled
+square of threadbare carpet covered a patch of floor at the bedside. The
+room was grim and large, and had a cold, vault-like atmosphere, as if
+long uninhabited; but there were cinders in the grate and under it. The
+imperfect light of our mutton-fat candle made all this look still more
+comfortless.
+
+Madame placed the candle on the chimneypiece, locked the door, and put the
+key in her pocket.
+
+'I always do so in '_otel_' said she, with a wink at me.
+
+And, then with a long 'ha!' expressive of fatigue and relief, she threw
+herself into a chair.
+
+'So 'ere we are at last!' said she; 'I'm glad. _There's_ your bed, Maud.
+_Mine_ is in the dressing-room.'
+
+She took the candle, and I went in with her. A shabby press bed, a
+chair, and table were all its furniture; it was rather a closet than a
+dressing-room, and had no door except that through which we had entered. So
+we returned, and very tired, wondering, I sat down on the side of my bed
+and yawned.
+
+'I hope they will call us in time for the packet,' I said.
+
+'Oh yes, they never fail,' she answered, looking steadfastly on her box,
+which she was diligently uncording.
+
+Uninviting as was my bed, I was longing to lie down in it; and having made
+those ablutions which our journey rendered necessary, I at length lay
+down, having first religiously stuck my talismanic pin, with the head of
+sealing-wax, into the bolster.
+
+Nothing escaped the restless eye of Madame.
+
+'Wat is that, dear cheaile?' she enquired, drawing near and scrutinising
+the head of the gipsy charm, which showed like a little ladybird newly
+lighted on the sheet.
+
+'Nothing--a charm--folly. Pray, Madame, allow me to go to sleep.'
+
+So, with another look and a little twiddle between her finger and thumb,
+she seemed satisfied; but, unhappily for me, she did not seem at all
+sleepy. She busied herself in unpacking and displaying over the back of the
+chair a whole series of London purchases--silk dresses, a shawl, a sort of
+lace demi-coiffure then in vogue, and a variety of other articles.
+
+The vainest and most slammakin of women--the merest slut at home,
+a milliner's lay figure out of doors--she had one square foot of
+looking-glass upon the chimneypiece, and therein tried effects, and
+conjured up grotesque simpers upon her sinister and weary face.
+
+I knew that the sure way to prolong this worry was to express my uneasiness
+under it, so I bore it as quietly as I could; and at last fell fast asleep
+with the gaunt image of Madame, with a festoon of grey silk with a cerise
+stripe, pinched up in her finger and thumb, and smiling over her shoulder
+across it into the little shaving-glass that stood on the chimney.
+
+I awoke suddenly in the morning, and sat up in my bed, having for a moment
+forgotten all about our travelling. A moment more, however, brought all
+back again.
+
+'Are we in time, Madame?'
+
+'For the packet?' she enquired, with one of her charming smiles, and
+cutting a caper on the floor. 'To be sure; you don't suppose they would
+forget. We have two hours yet to wait.'
+
+'Can we see the sea from the window?'
+
+'No, dearest cheaile; you will see't time enough.'
+
+'I'd like to get up,' I said.
+
+'Time enough, my dear Maud; you are fatigued; are you sure you feel quite
+well?'
+
+'Well enough to get up; I should be better, I think, out of bed.'
+
+'There is no hurry, you know; you need not even go by the next packet. Your
+uncle, he tell me, I may use my discretion.'
+
+'Is there any water?'
+
+'They will bring some.'
+
+'Please, Madame, ring the bell.'
+
+She pulled it with alacrity. I afterwards learnt that it did not ring.
+
+'What has become of my gipsy pin?' I demanded, with an unaccountable
+sinking of the heart.
+
+'Oh! the little pin with the red top? maybe it 'as fall on the ground; we
+weel find when you get up.'
+
+I suspected that she had taken it merely to spite me. It would have been
+quite the thing she would have liked. I cannot describe to you how the loss
+of this little 'charm' depressed and excited me. I searched the bed; I
+turned over all the bed-clothes; I searched in and outside; at last I gave
+up.
+
+'How odious!' I cried; 'somebody has stolen it merely to vex me.'
+
+And, like a fool as I was, I threw myself on my face on the bed and wept,
+partly in anger, partly in dismay.
+
+After a time, however, this blew over. I had a hope of recovering it.
+If Madame had stolen it, it would turn up yet. But in the meantime its
+disappearance troubled me like an omen.
+
+'I am afraid, my dear cheaile, you are not very well. It is really very odd
+you should make such fuss about a pin! Nobody would believe! Do you not
+theenk it would be a good plan to take a your breakfast in your bed?'
+
+She continued to urge this point for some time. At last, however, having
+by this time quite recovered my self-command, and resolved to preserve
+ostensibly fair terms with Madame, who could contribute so essentially to
+make me wretched during the rest of my journey, and possibly to prejudice
+me very seriously on my arrival, I said quietly--
+
+'Well, Madame, I know it is very silly; but I had kept that foolish little
+pin so long and so carefully, that I had grown quite fond of it; but I
+suppose it is lost, and I must content myself, though I cannot laugh as you
+do. So I will get up now, and dress.'
+
+'I think you will do well to get all the repose you can,' answered Madame;
+'but as you please,' she added, observing that I was getting up.
+
+So soon as I had got some of my things on, I said--
+
+'Is there a pretty view from the window?'
+
+'No,' said Madame.
+
+I looked out and saw a dreary quadrangle of cut stone, in one side of which
+my window was placed. As I looked a dream rose up before me.
+
+'This hotel,' I said, in a puzzled way. '_Is_ it a hotel? Why this is just
+like--it _is_ the inner court of Bartram-Haugh!'
+
+Madame clapped her large hands together, made a fantastic _chassé_ on the
+floor, burst into a great nasal laugh like the scream of a parrot, and then
+said--
+
+'Well, dearest Maud, is not clever trick?'
+
+I was so utterly confounded that I could only stare about me in stupid
+silence, a spectacle which renewed Madame's peals of laughter.
+
+'We are at Bartram-Haugh!' I repeated, in utter consternation. 'How was
+this done?'
+
+I had no reply but shrieks of laughter, and one of those Walpurgis dances
+in which she excelled.
+
+'It is a mistake--is it? _What_ is it?'
+
+'All a mistake, of course. Bartram-Haugh, it is so like Dover, as all
+philosophers know.'
+
+I sat down in total silence, looking out into the deep and dark enclosure,
+and trying to comprehend the reality and the meaning of all this.
+
+'Well, Madame, I suppose you will be able to satisfy my uncle of your
+fidelity and intelligence. But to me it seems that his money has been
+ill-spent, and his directions anything but well observed.'
+
+'Ah, ha! Never mind; I think he will forgive me,' laughed Madame.
+
+Her tone frightened me. I began to think, with a vague but overpowering
+sense of danger, that she had acted under the Machiavellian directions of
+her superior.
+
+'You have brought me back, then, by my uncle's orders?'
+
+'Did I say so?'
+
+'No; but what you have said can have no other meaning, though I can't
+believe it. And why have I been brought here? What is the object of all
+this duplicity and trick. I _will_ know. It is not possible that my uncle,
+a gentleman and a kinsman, can be privy to so disreputable a manouvre.'
+
+'First you will eat your breakfast, dear Maud; next you can tell your story
+to your uncle, Monsieur Ruthyn; and then you shall hear what he thinks of
+my so terrible misconduct. What nonsense, cheaile! Can you not think how
+many things may 'appen to change a your uncle's plans? Is he not in danger
+to be arrest? Bah! You are cheaile still; you cannot have intelligence more
+than a cheaile. Dress yourself, and I will order breakfast.'
+
+I could not comprehend the strategy which had been practised on me. Why had
+I been so shamelessly deceived? If it were decided that I should remain
+here, for what imaginable reason had I been sent so far on my journey to
+France? Why had I been conveyed back with such mystery? Why was I removed
+to this uncomfortable and desolate room, on the same floor with the
+apartment in which Charke had met his death, and with no window commanding
+the front of the house, and no view but the deep and weed-choked court,
+that looked like a deserted churchyard in a city?
+
+'I suppose I may go to my own room?' I said.
+
+'Not to-day, my dear cheaile, for it was all disarrange when we go 'way;
+'twill be ready again in two three days.'
+
+'Where is Mary Quince?' I asked.
+
+'Mary Quince!--she has follow us to France,' said Madame, making what in
+Ireland they call a bull.
+
+'They are not sure where they will go or what will do for day or two more.
+I will go and get breakfast. Adieu for a moment.'
+
+Madame was out of the door as she said this, and I thought I heard the key
+turn in the lock.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXII
+
+_A WELL-KNOWN FACE LOOKS IN_
+
+
+You who have never experienced it can have no idea how angry and frightened
+you become under the sinister insult of being locked into a room, as on
+trying the door I found I was.
+
+The key was in the lock; I could see it through the hole. I called after
+Madame, I shook at the solid oak-door, beat upon it with my hands, kicked
+it--but all to no purpose.
+
+I rushed into the next room, forgetting--if indeed I had observed it, that
+there was no door from it upon the gallery. I turned round in an angry and
+dismayed perplexity, and, like prisoners in romances, examined the windows.
+
+I was shocked and affrighted on discovering in reality what they
+occasionally find--a series of iron bars crossing the window! They were
+firmly secured in the oak woodwork of the window-frame, and each window
+was, besides, so compactly screwed down that it could not open. This
+bedroom was converted into a prison. A momentary hope flashed on
+me--perhaps all the windows were secured alike! But it was no such thing:
+these gaol-like precautions were confined to the windows to which I had
+access.
+
+For a few minutes I felt quite distracted; but I bethought me that I must
+now, if ever, control my terrors and exert whatever faculties I possessed.
+
+I stood upon a chair and examined the oak-work. I thought I detected marks
+of new chiselling here and there. The screws, too, looked new; and they
+and the scars on the woodwork were freshly smeared over with some coloured
+stuff by way of disguise.
+
+While I was making these observations, I heard the key stealthily stirred.
+I suspect that Madame wished to surprise me. Her approaching step, indeed,
+was seldom audible; she had the soft tread of the feline tribe.
+
+I was standing in the centre of the room confronting her when she entered.
+
+'Why did you lock the door, Madame?' I demanded.
+
+She slipped in suddenly with an insidious smirk, and locked the door
+hastily.
+
+'Hish!' whispered Madame, raising her broad palm; and then screwing in her
+cheeks, she made an ogle over her shoulder in the direction of the passage.
+
+'Hish! be quiate, cheaile, weel you, and I weel tale you everything
+presently.'
+
+She paused, with her ear laid to the door.
+
+'Now I can speak, ma chère; I weel tale a you there is bailiff in the
+house, two, three, four soche impertinent fallows! They have another as bad
+as themselve to make a leest of the furniture: we most keep them out of
+these rooms, dear Maud.'
+
+'You left the key in the door on the outside,' I retorted; 'that was not to
+keep them out, but me in, Madame.'
+
+'_Deed_ I leave the key in the door?' ejaculated Madame, with both hands
+raised, and such a genuine look of consternation as for a moment shook me.
+
+It was the nature of this woman's deceptions that they often puzzled though
+they seldom convinced me.
+
+'I re-ally think, Maud, all those so frequent changes and excite-ments they
+weel overturn my poor head.'
+
+'And the windows are secured with iron bars--what are they for?' I
+whispered sternly, pointing with my finger at these grim securities.
+
+'That is for more a than forty years, when Sir Phileep Aylmer was to reside
+here, and had this room for his children's nursery, and was afraid they
+should fall out.'
+
+'But if you look you will find these bars have been put here very recently:
+the screws and marks are quite new.'
+
+'_Eendeed!_' ejaculated Madame, with prolonged emphasis, in precisely the
+same consternation. 'Why, my dear, they told a me down stair what I have
+tell a you, when I ask the reason! Late a me see.'
+
+And Madame mounted on a chair, and made her scrutiny with much curiosity,
+but could not agree with me as to the very recent date of the carpentry.
+
+There is nothing, I think, so exasperating as that sort of falsehood which
+affects not to see what is quite palpable.
+
+'Do you mean to say, Madame, that you really think those chisellings and
+screws are forty years old?'
+
+'How can I tell, cheaile? What does signify whether it is forty or only
+fourteen years? Bah! we av other theeng to theenk about. Those villain men!
+I am glad to see bar and bolt, and lock and key, at least, to our room, to
+keep soche faylows out!'
+
+At that moment a knock came to the door, and Madame's nasal 'in moment'
+answered promptly, and she opened the door, stealthily popping out her
+head.
+
+'Oh, that is all right; go you long, no ting more, go way.'
+
+'Who's there?' I cried.
+
+'Hold a your tongue,' said Madame imperiously to the visitor, whose voice I
+fancied I recognised--'_go_ way.'
+
+Out slipped Madame again, locking the door; but this time she returned
+immediately, bearing a tray with breakfast.
+
+I think she fancied that I would perhaps attempt to break away and escape;
+but I had no such thought at that moment. She hastily set down the tray on
+the floor at the threshold, locking the door as before.
+
+My share of breakfast was a little tea; but Madame's digestion was seldom
+disturbed by her sympathies, and she ate voraciously. During this process
+there was a silence unusual in her company; but when her meal was ended she
+proposed a reconnaissance, professing much uncertainty as to whether my
+Uncle had been arrested or not.
+
+'And in case the poor old gentleman be poot in what you call stone jug,
+where are _we_ to go my dear Maud--to Knowl or to Elverston? You must
+direct.'
+
+And so she disappeared, turning the key in the door as before. It was an
+old custom of hers, locking herself in her room, and leaving the key in the
+lock; and the habit prevailed, for she left it there again.
+
+With a heavy heart I completed my simple toilet, wondering all the while
+how much of Madame's story might be false and how much, if any, true. Then
+I looked out upon the dingy courtyard below, in its deep damp shadow, and
+thought, 'How could an assassin have scaled that height in safety, and
+entered so noiselessly as not to awaken the slumbering gamester?' Then
+there were the iron bars across my window. What a fool had I been to object
+to that security!
+
+I was labouring hard to reassure myself, and keep all ghastly suspicions at
+arm's length. But I wished that my room had been to the front of the house,
+with some view less dismal.
+
+Lost in these ruminations of fear, as I stood at the window I was startled
+by the sound of a sharp tread on the lobby, and by the key turning in the
+lock of my door.
+
+In a panic I sprang back into the corner, and stood with my eyes fixed
+upon the door. It opened a little, and the black head of Meg Hawkes was
+introduced.
+
+'Oh, Meg!' I cried; 'thank God!'
+
+'I guessed'twas you, Miss Maud. I am feared, Miss.'
+
+The miller's daughter was pale, and her eyes, I thought, were red and
+swollen.
+
+'Oh, Meg! for God's sake, what is it all?'
+
+'I darn't come in. The old un's gone down, and locked the cross-door, and
+left me to watch. They think I care nout about ye, no more nor themselves.
+I donna know all, but summat more nor her. They tell her nout, she's so
+gi'n to drink; they say she's not safe, an' awful quarrelsome. I hear a
+deal when fayther and Master Dudley be a-talkin' in the mill. They think,
+comin' in an' out, I don't mind; but I put one think an' t'other together.
+An' don't ye eat nor drink nout here, Miss; hide away this; it's black
+enough, but wholesome anyhow!' and she slipt a piece of a coarse loaf from
+under her apron. '_Hide_ it mind. Drink nout but the water in the jug
+there--it's clean spring.'
+
+'Oh, Meg! Oh, Meg! I know what you mean,' said I, faintly.
+
+'Ay, Miss, I'm feared they'll try it; they'll try to make away wi' ye
+somehow. I'm goin' to your friends arter dark; I darn't try it no sooner.
+I'll git awa to Ellerston, to your lady-cousin, and I'll bring 'em back wi'
+me in a rin; so keep a good hairt, lass. Meg Hawkes will stan' to ye. Ye
+were better to me than fayther and mother, and a';' and she clasped me
+round the waist, and buried her head in my dress; 'an I'll gie my life for
+ye, darling, and if they hurt ye I'll kill myself.'
+
+She recovered her sterner mood quickly--
+
+'Not a word, lass,' she said, in her old tone. 'Don't ye try to git
+away--they'll _kill_ ye--ye _can't_ do't. Leave a' to me. It won't be,
+whatever it is, till two or three o'clock in the morning. I'll ha'e them a'
+here long afore; so keep a brave heart--there's a darling.'
+
+I suppose she heard, or fancied she heard, a step approaching, for she
+said--
+
+'Hish!'
+
+Her pale wild face vanished, the door shut quickly and softly, and the key
+turned again in the lock.
+
+Meg, in her rude way, had spoken softly--almost under her breath; but no
+prophecy shrieked by the Pythoness ever thundered so madly in the ears of
+the hearer. I dare say that Meg fancied I was marvellously little moved by
+her words. I felt my gaze grow intense, and my flesh and bones literally
+freeze. She did not know that every word she spoke seemed to burst like a
+blaze in my brain. She had delivered her frightful warning, and told
+her story coarsely and bluntly, which, in effect, means distinctly and
+concisely; and, I dare say, the announcement so made, like a quick bold
+incision in surgery, was more tolerable than the slow imperfect mangling,
+which falters and recedes and equivocates with torture. Madame was long
+away. I sat down at the window, and tried to appreciate my dreadful
+situation. I was stupid--the imagery was all frightful; but I beheld it as
+we sometimes see horrors--heads cut off and houses burnt--in a dream, and
+without the corresponding emotions. It did not seem as if all this were
+really happening to me. I remember sitting at the window, and looking and
+blinking at the opposite side of the building, like a person unable but
+striving to see an object distinctly, and every minute pressing my hand to
+the side of my head and saying--
+
+'Oh, it won't be--it won't be--Oh no!--never!--it could not be!' And in
+this stunned state Madame found me on her return.
+
+But the valley of the shadow of death has its varieties of dread. The
+'horror of great darkness' is disturbed by voices and illumed by sights.
+There are periods of incapacity and collapse, followed by paroxysms
+of active terror. Thus in my journey during those long hours I found
+it--agonies subsiding into lethargies, and these breaking again into
+frenzy. I sometimes wonder how I carried my reason safely through the
+ordeal.
+
+Madame locked the door, and amused herself with her own business, without
+minding me, humming little nasal snatches of French airs, as she smirked on
+her silken purchases displayed in the daylight. Suddenly it struck me that
+it was very dark, considering how early it was. I looked at my watch;
+it seemed to me a great effort of concentration to understand it. Four
+o'clock, it said. Four o'clock! It would be dark at five--_night_ in one
+hour!
+
+'Madame, what o'clock is it? Is it evening?' I cried with my hand to my
+forehead, like a person puzzled.
+
+'Two three minutes past four. It had five minutes to four when I came
+upstairs,' answered she, without interrupting her examination of a piece of
+darned lace which she was holding close to her eyes at the window.
+
+'Oh, Madame! _Madame!_ I'm frightened,' cried I, with a wild and piteous
+voice, grasping her arm, and looking up, as shipwrecked people may their
+last to heaven, into her inexorable eyes. Madame looked frightened too, I
+thought, as she stared into my face. At last she said, rather angrily, and
+shaking her arm loose--
+
+'What you mean, cheaile?'
+
+'Oh save me, Madame!--oh save me!--oh save me, Madame!' I pleaded, with the
+wild monotony of perfect terror, grasping and clinging to her dress, and
+looking up, with an agonised face, into the eyes of that shadowy Atropos.
+
+'Save a you, indeed! Save! What _niaiserie_!'
+
+'Oh, Madame! Oh, _dear_ Madame! for God's sake, only get me away--get me
+from this, and I'll do everything you ask me all my life--I will--_indeed_,
+Madame, I will! Oh save me! save me! _save_ me!'
+
+I was clinging to Madame as to my guardian angel in my agony.
+
+'And who told you, cheaile, you are in any danger?' demanded Madame,
+looking down on me with a black and witchlike stare.
+
+'I am, Madame--I am--in great danger! Oh, Madame, think of me--take pity on
+me! I have none to help me--there is no one but God and you!'
+
+Madame all this time viewed me with the same dismal stare, like a sorceress
+reading futurity in my face.
+
+'Well, maybe you are--how can I tell? Maybe your uncle is mad--maybe you
+are mad. You have been my enemy always--why should I care?'
+
+Again I burst into wild entreaty, and, clasping her fast, poured forth my
+supplications with the bitterness of death.
+
+'I have no confidence in you, little Maud; you are little rogue--petite
+traîtresse! Reflect, if you can, how you 'av always treat Madame. You 'av
+attempt to ruin me--you conspire with the bad domestics at Knowl to destroy
+me--and you expect me here to take a your part! You would never listen to
+me--you 'ad no mercy for me--you join to hunt me away from your house like
+wolf. Well, what you expect to find me now? _Bah_!'
+
+This terrific 'Bah!' with a long nasal yell of scorn, rang in my ears like
+a clap of thunder.
+
+'I say you are mad, petite insolente, to suppose I should care for you more
+than the poor hare it will care for the hound--more than the bird who has
+escape will love the oiseleur. I do not care--I ought not care. It is your
+turn to suffer. Lie down on your bed there, and suffer quaitely.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXIII
+
+_SPICED CLARET_
+
+
+I did not lie down; but I despaired. I walked round and round the room,
+wringing my hands in utter distraction. I threw myself at the bedside on my
+knees. I could not pray; I could only shiver and moan, with hands clasped,
+and eyes of horror turned up to heaven. I think Madame was, in her
+malignant way, perplexed. That some evil was intended me I am sure she was
+persuaded; but I dare say Meg Hawkes had said rightly in telling me that
+she was not fully in their secrets.
+
+The first paroxysm of despair subsided into another state. All at once my
+mind was filled with the idea of Meg Hawkes, her enterprise, and my chances
+of escape. There is one point at which the road to Elverston makes a short
+ascent: there is a sudden curve there, two great ash-trees, with a roadside
+stile between, at the right side, covered with ivy. Driving back and
+forward, I did not recollect having particularly remarked this point in
+the highway; but now it was before me, in the thin light of the thinnest
+segment of moon, and the figure of Meg Hawkes, her back toward me, always
+ascending towards Elverston. It was constantly the same picture--the same
+motion without progress--the same dreadful suspense and impatience.
+
+I was now sitting on the side of the bed, looking wistfully across the
+room. When I did not see Meg Hawkes, I beheld Madame darkly eyeing first
+one then another point of the chamber, evidently puzzling over some
+problem, and in one of her most savage moods--sometimes muttering to
+herself, sometimes protruding, and sometimes screwing up her great mouth.
+
+She went into her own room, where she remained, I think, nearly ten
+minutes, and on her return there was that in the flash of her eyes, the
+glow of her face, and the peculiar fragrance that surrounded her, that
+showed she had been partaking of her favourite restorative.
+
+I had not moved since she left my room.
+
+She paused about the middle of the floor, and looked at me with what I can
+only describe as her wild-beast stare.
+
+'You are a very secrete family, you Ruthyns--you are so coning. I hate the
+coning people. By my faith, I weel see Mr. Silas Ruthyn, and ask wat he
+mean. I heard him tell old Wyat that Mr. Dudley is gone away to-night. He
+shall tell me everything, or else I weel make echec et mat aussi vrai que
+je vis.'
+
+Madame's words had hardly ceased, when I was again watching Meg Hawkes on
+the steep road, mounting, but never reaching, the top of the acclivity, on
+the way to Elverston, and mentally praying that she might be brought
+safely there. Vain prayer of an agonised heart! Meg's journey was already
+frustrated: she was not to reach Elverston in time.
+
+Madame revisited her apartment, and returned, not, I think, improved in
+temper. She walked about the room, hustling the scanty furniture hither and
+thither as she encountered it. She kicked her empty box out of her way,
+with a horrid crash, and a curse in French. She strode and swaggered round
+the room, muttering all the way, and turning the corners of her course with
+a furious whisk. At last, out of the door she went. I think she fancied she
+had not been sufficiently taken into confidence as to what was intended for
+me.
+
+It was now growing late, and yet no succour! I was seized, I remember, with
+a dreadful icy shivering.
+
+I was listening for signals of deliverance. At every distant sound, half
+stifled with a palpitation, these sounds piercing my ear with a horrible
+and exaggerated distinctness--'Oh Meg!--Oh cousin Monica!--Oh come! Oh
+Heaven, have mercy!--Lord, have mercy!' I thought I heard a roaring and
+jangle of voices. Perhaps it came from Uncle Silas's room. It might be the
+tipsy violence of Madame. It might--merciful Heaven!--be the arrival of
+friends. I started to my feet; I listened, quivering with attention. Was
+it in my brain?--was it real? I was at the door, and it seemed to open of
+itself. Madame had forgotten to lock it; she was losing her head a little
+by this time. The key stood in the gallery door beyond; it too, was open.
+I fled wildly. There was a subsiding sound of voices in my uncle's room.
+I was, I know not how, on the lobby at the great stair-head outside my
+uncle's apartment. My hand was on the banisters, my foot on the first step,
+when below me and against the faint light that glimmered through the great
+window on the landing I saw a bulky human form ascending, and a voice said
+'Hush!' I staggered back, and at that instant fancied, with a thrill of
+conviction, I heard Lady Knollys's voice in Uncle Silas' room.
+
+I don't know how I entered the room; I was there like a ghost. I was
+frightened at my own state.
+
+Lady Knollys was not there--no one but Madame and my guardian.
+
+I can never forget the look that Uncle Silas fixed on me as he cowered,
+seemingly as appalled as I.
+
+I think I must have looked like a phantom newly risen from the grave.
+
+'What's that?--where do you come from?' whispered he.
+
+'Death! death!' was my whispered answer, as I froze with terror where I
+stood.
+
+'What does she mean?--what does all this mean?' said Uncle Silas,
+recovering wonderfully, and turning with a withering sneer on Madame. 'Do
+you think it right to disobey my plain directions, and let her run about
+the house at this hour?'
+
+'Death! death! Oh, pray to God for you and me!' I whispered in the same
+dreadful tones.
+
+My uncle stared strangely at me again; and after several horrible seconds,
+in which he seemed to have recovered himself, he said, sternly and coolly--
+
+'You give too much place to your imagination, niece. Your spirits are in an
+odd state--you ought to have advice.'
+
+'Oh, uncle, pity me! Oh, uncle, you are good! you're kind; you're kind
+when you think. You could not--you could not--could not! Oh, think of your
+brother that was always so good to you! He sees me here. He sees us both.
+Oh, save me, uncle--save me!--and I'll give up everything to you. I'll pray
+to God to bless you--I'll never forget your goodness and mercy. But don't
+keep me in doubt. If I'm to go, oh, for God's sake, shoot me now!'
+
+'You were always odd, niece; I begin to fear you are insane,' he replied,
+in the same stern icy tone.
+
+'Oh, uncle--oh!--am I? Am I _mad_?'
+
+'I hope not; but you'll conduct yourself like a sane person if you wish to
+enjoy the privileges of one.'
+
+Then, with his finger pointing at me, he turned to Madame, and said, in a
+tone of suppressed ferocity--
+
+'What's the meaning of this?--why is she here?'
+
+Madame was gabbling volubly, but to me it was only a shrilly noise. My
+whole soul was concentrated in my uncle, the arbiter of my life, before
+whom I stood in the wildest agony of supplication.
+
+That night was dreadful. The people I saw dizzily, made of smoke or shining
+vapour, smiling or frowning, I could have passed my hand through them. They
+were evil spirits.
+
+'There's no ill intended you; by ---- there's none,' said my uncle, for
+the first time violently agitated. 'Madame told you why we've changed your
+room. You told her about the bailiffs, did not you?' with a stamp of fury
+he demanded of Madame, whose nasal roullades of talk were running on like an
+accompaniment all the time. She had told me indeed only a few hours since,
+and now it sounded to me like the echo of something heard a month ago or
+more.
+
+'You can't go about the house, d--n it, with bailiffs in occupation. There
+now--there's the whole thing. Get to your room, Maud, and don't vex me.
+There's a good girl.'
+
+He was trying to smile as he spoke these last words, and, with quavering
+soft tones, to quiet me; but the old scowl was there, the smile was
+corpse-like and contorted, and the softness of his tones was more dreadful
+than another man's ferocity.
+
+'There, Madame, she'll go quite gently, and you can call if you want help.
+Don't let it happen again.'
+
+'Come, Maud,' said Madame, encircling but not hurting my arm with her grip;
+'let us go, my friend.'
+
+I did go, you will wonder, as well you may--as you may wonder at the
+docility with which strong men walk through the press-room to the drop,
+and thank the people of the prison for their civility when they bid them
+good-bye, and facilitate the fixing of the rope and adjusting of the cap.
+Have you never wondered that they don't make a last battle for life with
+the unscrupulous energy of terror, instead of surrendering it so gently in
+cold blood, on a silent calculation, the arithmetic of despair?
+
+I went upstairs with Madame like a somnambulist. I rather quickened my
+step as I drew near my room. I went in, and stood a phantom at the window,
+looking into the dark quadrangle. A thin glimmering crescent hung in the
+frosty sky, and all heaven was strewn with stars. Over the steep roof at
+the other side spread on the dark azure of the night this glorious blazonry
+of the unfathomable Creator. To me a dreadful scroll--inexorable eyes--the
+cloud of cruel witnesses looking down in freezing brightness on my prayers
+and agonies.
+
+I turned about and sat down, leaning my head upon my arms. Then suddenly I
+sat up, as for the first time the picture of Uncle Silas's littered
+room, and the travelling bags and black boxes plied on the floor by his
+table--the desk, hat-case, umbrella, coats, rugs, and mufflers, all ready
+for a journey--reached my brain and suggested thought. The _mise en
+scène_ had remained in every detail fixed upon my retina; and how I
+wondered--'When is he going--how soon? Is he going to carry me away and
+place me in a madhouse?'
+
+'Am I--am I mad?' I began to think. 'Is this all a dream, or is it real?'
+
+I remembered how a thin polite gentleman, with a tall grizzled head and a
+black velvet waistcoat, came into the carriage on our journey, and said a
+few words to me; how Madame whispered him something, and he murmured 'Oh!'
+very gently, with raised eyebrows, and a glance at me, and thenceforward
+spoke no more to me, only to Madame, and at the next station carried his
+hat and other travelling chattels into another carriage. Had she told him I
+was mad?
+
+These horrid bars! Madame always with me! The direful hints that dropt from
+my uncle! My own terrific sensations!--All these evidences revolved in my
+brain, and presented themselves in turn like writings on a wheel of fire.
+
+There came a knock to the door--
+
+Oh, Meg! Was it she? No; old Wyat whispered Madame something about her
+room.
+
+So Madame re-entered, with a little silver tray and flagon in her hands,
+and a glass. Nothing came from Uncle Silas in ungentlemanlike fashion.
+
+'Drink, Maud,' said Madame, raising the cover, and evidently enjoying the
+fragrant steam.
+
+I could not. I might have done so had I been able to swallow anything--for
+I was too distracted to think of Meg's warning.
+
+Madame suddenly recollected her mistake of that evening, and tried the
+door; but it was duly locked. She took the key from her pocket and placed
+it in her breast.
+
+'You weel 'av these rooms to yourself, ma chère. I shall sleep downstairs
+to-night.'
+
+She poured out some of the hot claret into the glass abstractedly, and
+drank it off.
+
+''Tis very good--I drank without theenk. Bote 'tis very good. Why don't you
+drink some?'
+
+'I could not', I repeated. And Madame boldly helped herself.
+
+'Vary polite, certally, to Madame was it to send nothing at all for _hair_'
+(so she pronounced 'her'); 'bote is all same thing.' And so she ran on in
+her tipsy vein, which was loud and sarcastic, with a fierce laugh now and
+then.
+
+Afterwards I heard that they were afraid of Madame, who was given to cross
+purposes, and violent in her cups. She had been noisy and quarrelsome
+downstairs. She was under the delusion that I was to be conveyed away that
+night to a remote and safe place, and she was to be handsomely compensated
+for services and evidence to be afterwards given. She was not to be
+trusted, however, with the truth. That was to be known but to three people
+on earth.
+
+I never knew, but I believe that the spiced claret which Madame drank was
+drugged. She was a person who could, I have been told, drink a great deal
+without exhibiting any change from it but an inflamed colour and furious
+temper. I can only state for certain what I saw, and that was, that shortly
+after she had finished the claret she laid down upon my bed, and, I now
+know, fell asleep. I then thought she was _feigning_ sleep only, and that
+she was really watching me.
+
+About an hour after this I suddenly heard a little _clink_ in the
+yard beneath. I peeped out, but saw nothing. The sound was repeated,
+however--sometimes more frequently, sometimes at long intervals. At last,
+in the deep shadow next the farther wall, I thought I could discover a
+figure, sometimes erect, sometimes stooping and bowing toward the earth. I
+could see this figure only in the rudest outline mingling with the dark.
+
+Like a thunderbolt it smote my brain. 'They are making my grave!'
+
+After the first dreadful stun I grew quite wild, and ran up and down the
+room wringing my hands and gasping prayers to heaven. Then a calm stole
+over me--such a dreadful calm as I could fancy glide over one who floated
+in a boat under the shadow of the 'Traitor's Gate,' leaving life and hope
+and trouble behind.
+
+Shortly after there came a very low tap at my door; then another, like a
+tiny post-knock. I could never understand why it was I made no answer. Had
+I done so, and thus shown that I was awake, it might have sealed my fate.
+I was standing in the middle of the floor staring at the door, which I
+expected to see open, and admit I knew not what troop of spectres.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXIV
+
+_THE HOUR OF DEATH_
+
+
+It was a very still night and frosty. My candle had long burnt out. There
+was still a faint moonlight, which fell in a square of yellow on the floor
+near the window, leaving the rest of the room in what to an eye less
+accustomed than mine had become to that faint light would have been total
+darkness. Now, I am sure, I heard a soft whispering outside my door. I knew
+that I was in a state of siege! The crisis was come, and strange to say,
+I felt myself grow all at once resolute and self-possessed. It was not a
+subsidence, however, of the dreadful excitement, but a sudden screwing-up
+of my nerves to a pitch such as I cannot describe.
+
+I suppose the people outside moved with great caution; and the perfect
+solidity of the floor, which had not anywhere a creaking board in it,
+favoured their noiseless movements. It was well for me that there were
+in the house three persons whom it was part of their plan to mystify
+respecting my fate. This alone compelled the extreme caution of their
+proceedings. They suspected that I had placed furniture against the door,
+and were afraid to force it, lest a crash, a scream, perhaps a long and
+shrilly struggle, might follow.
+
+I remained for a space which I cannot pretend to estimate in the same
+posture, afraid to stir--afraid to move my eye from the door.
+
+A very peculiar grating sound above my head startled me from my
+watch--something of the character of sawing, only more crunching, and with
+a faint continued rumble in it--utterly inexplicable. It sounded over that
+portion of the roof which was farthest from the door, toward which I now
+glided; and as I took my stand under cover of the projecting angle of a
+clumsy old press that stood close by it, I perceived the room a little
+darkened, and I saw a man descend and take his stand upon the window-stone.
+He let go a rope, which, however, was still fast round his body, and
+employed both his hands, with apparently some exertion, about something at
+the side of the window, which in a moment more, in one mass, bars and all,
+swung noiselessly open, admitting the frosty night-air; and the man, whom
+I now distinctly saw to be Dudley Ruthyn, kneeled on the sill, and stept,
+after a moment's listening, into the room. His foot made no sound upon the
+floor; his head was bare, and he wore his usual short shooting-jacket.
+
+I cowered to the ground in my post of observation. He stood, as it
+seemed to me irresolutely for a moment, and then drew from his pocket an
+instrument which I distinctly saw against the faint moonlight. Imagine a
+hammer, one end of which had been beaten out into a longish tapering spike,
+with a handle something longer than usual. He drew stealthily to the
+window, and seemed to examine this hurriedly, and tested its strength with
+a twist or two of his hand. And then he adjusted it very carefully in his
+grasp, and made two or three little experimental picks with it in the air.
+
+I remained perfectly still, with a terrible composure, crouched in my
+hiding-place, my teeth clenched, and prepared to struggle like a tigress
+for my life when discovered. I thought his next measure would be to light a
+match. I saw a lantern, I fancied, on the window-sill. But this was not his
+plan. He stole, in a groping way, which seemed strange to me, who could
+distinguish objects in this light, to the side of my bed, the exact
+position of which he evidently knew; he stooped over it. Madame was
+breathing in the deep respiration of heavy sleep. Suddenly but softly he
+laid, as it seemed to me, his left hand over her face, and nearly at the
+same instant there came a scrunching blow; an unnatural shriek, beginning
+small and swelling for two or three seconds into a yell such as are
+imagined in haunted houses, accompanied by a convulsive sound, as of the
+motion of running, and the arms drumming on the bed; and then another
+blow--and with a horrid gasp he recoiled a step or two, and stood perfectly
+still. I heard a horrible tremor quivering through the joints and curtains
+of the bedstead--the convulsions of the murdered woman. It was a dreadful
+sound, like the shaking of a tree and rustling of leaves. Then once more
+he steps to the side of the bed, and I heard another of those horrid
+blows--and silence--and another--and more silence--and the diabolical
+surgery was ended. For a few seconds, I think, I was on the point of
+fainting; but a gentle stir outside the door, close to my ear, startled me,
+and proved that there had been a watcher posted outside. There was a little
+tapping at the door.
+
+'Who's that?' whispered Dudley, hoarsely.
+
+'A friend,' answered a sweet voice.
+
+And a key was introduced, the door quickly unlocked, and Uncle Silas
+entered. I saw that frail, tall, white figure, the venerable silver locks
+that resembled those upon the honoured head of John Wesley, and his thin
+white hand, the back of which hung so close to my face that I feared to
+breathe. I could see his fingers twitching nervously. The smell of perfumes
+and of ether entered the room with him.
+
+Dudley was trembling now like a man in an ague-fit.
+
+'Look what you made me do!' he said, maniacally.
+
+'Steady, sir!' said the old man, close beside me.
+
+'Yes, you damned old murderer! I've a mind to do for you.'
+
+'There, Dudley, like a dear boy, don't give way; it's done. Right or wrong,
+we can't help it. You must be quiet,' said the old man, with a stern
+gentleness.
+
+Dudley groaned.
+
+'Whoever advised it, you're a gainer, Dudley,' said Uncle Silas.
+
+Then there was a pause.
+
+'I hope that was not heard,' said Uncle Silas.
+
+Dudley walked to the window and stood there.
+
+'Come, Dudley, you and Hawkes must use expedition. You know you must get
+that out of the way.'
+
+'I've done too much. I won't do nout; I'll not touch it. I wish my hand was
+off first; I wish I was a soger. Do as ye like, you an' Hawkes. I won't go
+nigh it; damn ye both--and _that_!' and he hurled the hammer with all his
+force upon the floor.
+
+'Come, come, be reasonable, Dudley, dear boy. There's nothing to fear but
+your own folly. You won't make a noise?'
+
+'Oh, oh, my God!' said Dudley, hoarsely, and wiped his forehead with his
+open hand.
+
+'There now, you'll be all well in a minute,' continued the old man.
+
+'You said 'twouldn't hurt her. If I'd a known she'd a screeched like that
+I'd never a done it. 'Twas a damn lie. You're the damndest villain on
+earth.'
+
+'Come, Dudley!' said the old man under his breath, but very sternly, 'make
+up your mind. If you don't choose to go on, it can't be helped; only it's
+a pity you began. For _you_ it is a good deal--it does not much matter for
+_me_.'
+
+'Ay, for _you_!' echoed Dudley, through his set teeth. 'The old talk!'
+
+'Well, sir,' snarled the old man, in the same low tones, 'you should have
+thought of all this before. It's only taking leave of the world a year or
+two sooner, but a year or two's something. I'll leave you to do as you
+please.'
+
+'Stop, will you? Stop here. I know it's a fixt thing now. If a fella does
+a thing he's damned for, you might let him talk a bit anyhow. I don't care
+much if I was shot.'
+
+'There now--_there_--just stick to that, and don't run off again. There's a
+box and a bag here; we must change the direction, and take them away. The
+box has some jewels. Can you see them? I wish we had a light.'
+
+'No, I'd rayther not; I can see well enough. I wish we were out o' this.
+_Here's_ the box.'
+
+'Pull it to the window,' said the old man, to my inexpressible relief
+advancing at last a few steps.
+
+Coolness was given me in that dreadful moment, and I knew that all depended
+on my being prompt and resolute. I stood up swiftly. I often thought if I
+had happened to wear silk instead of the cachmere I had on that night, its
+rustle would have betrayed me.
+
+I distinctly saw the tall stooping figure of my uncle, and the outline of
+his venerable tresses, as he stood between me and the dull light of the
+window, like a shape cut in card.
+
+He was saying 'just to _there_,' and pointing with his long arm at that
+contracting patch of moonlight which lay squared upon the floor. The door
+was about a quarter open, and just as Dudley began to drag Madame's heavy
+box, with my jewel-case in it, across the floor from her room, inhaling a
+great breath--with a mental prayer for help--I glided on tiptoe from the
+room and found myself on the gallery floor.
+
+I turned to my right, simply by chance, and followed a long gallery in the
+dark, not running--I was too fearful of making the least noise--but walking
+with the tiptoe-swiftness of terror. At the termination of this was a
+cross-gallery, one end of which--that to my left--terminated in a great
+window, through which the dusky night-view was visible. With the instinct
+of terror I chose the darker, and turned again to my right; hurrying
+through this long and nearly dark passage, I was terrified by a light,
+about thirty feet before me, emerging from the ceiling. In spotted patches
+this light fell through the door and sides of a stable lantern, and showed
+me a ladder, down which, from an open skylight I suppose for the cool
+night-air floated in my face, came Dickon Hawkes notwithstanding his
+maimed condition, with so much celerity as to leave me hardly a moment for
+consideration.
+
+He sat on the last round of the ladder, and tightened the strap of his
+wooden leg.
+
+At my left was a door-case open, but no door. I entered; it was a short
+passage about six feet long, leading perhaps to a backstair, but the door
+at the end was locked.
+
+I was forced to stand in this recess, then, which afforded no shelter,
+while Pegtop stumped by with his lantern in his hand. I fancy he had some
+idea of listening to his master unperceived, for he stopped close to my
+hiding-place, blew out the candle, and pinched the long snuff with his
+horny finger and thumb.
+
+Having listened for a few seconds, he stumped stealthily along the gallery
+which I had just traversed, and turned the corner in the direction of the
+chamber where the crime had just been committed, and the discovery was
+impending. I could see him against the broad window which in the daytime
+lighted this long passage, and the moment he had passed the corner I
+resumed my flight.
+
+I descended a stair corresponding with that backstair, as I am told, up
+which Madame had led me only the night before. I tried the outer door. To
+my wild surprise it was open. In a moment I was upon the step, in the free
+air, and as instantaneously was seized by the arm in the gripe of a man.
+
+It was Tom Brice, who had already betrayed me, and who was now, in surtout
+and hat, waiting to drive the carriage with the guilty father and son from
+the scene of their abhorred outrage.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXV
+
+_IN THE OAK PARLOUR_
+
+
+So it was vain: I was trapped, and all was over.
+
+I stood before him on the step, the white moon shining on my face. I was
+trembling so that I wonder I could stand, my helpless hands raised towards
+him, and I looked up in his face. A long shuddering moan--'Oh--oh--oh!' was
+all I uttered.
+
+The man, still holding my arm, looked, I thought frightened, into my white
+dumb face.
+
+Suddenly he said, in a wild, fierce whisper--
+
+'Never say another word' (I had not uttered one). 'They shan't hurt ye,
+Miss; git ye in; I don't care a damn!'
+
+It was an uncouth speech. To me it was the voice of an angel. With a burst
+of gratitude that sounded in my own ears like a laugh, I thanked God for
+those blessed words.
+
+In a moment more he had placed me in the carriage, and almost instantly we
+were in motion--very cautiously while crossing the court, until he had got
+the wheels upon the grass, and then at a rapid pace, improving his speed as
+the distance increased. He drove along the side of the back-approach to the
+house, keeping on the grass; so that our progress, though swaying like that
+of a ship in a swell, was very nearly as noiseless.
+
+The gate had been left unlocked--he swung it open, and remounted the box.
+And we were now beyond the spell of Bartram-Haugh, thundering--Heaven be
+praised!--along the Queen's highway, right in the route to Elverston. It
+was literally a gallop. Through the chariot windows I saw Tom stand as he
+drove, and every now and then throw an awful glance over his shoulder. Were
+we pursued? Never was agony of prayer like mine, as with clasped hands and
+wild stare I gazed through the windows on the road, whose trees and hedges
+and gabled cottages were chasing one another backward at so giddy a speed.
+
+We were now ascending that identical steep, with the giant ash-trees at the
+right and the stile between, which my vision of Meg Hawkes had presented
+all that night, when my excited eye detected a running figure within the
+hedge. I saw the head of some one crossing the stile in pursuit, and I
+heard Brice's name shrieked.
+
+'Drive on--on--on!' I screamed.
+
+But Brice pulled up. I was on my knees on the floor of the carriage, with
+clasped hands, expecting capture, when the door opened, and Meg Hawkes,
+pale as death, her cloak drawn over her black tresses, looked in.
+
+'Oh!--ho!--ho!--thank God!' she screamed. 'Shake hands, lass. Tom, yer a
+good un! He's a good lad, Tom.'
+
+'Come in, Meg--you must sit by me,' I said, recovering all at once.
+
+Meg made no demur. 'Take my hand,' I said offering mine to her disengaged
+one.
+
+'I can't, Miss--my arm's broke.'
+
+And so it was, poor thing! She had been espied and overtaken in her errand
+of mercy for me, and her ruffian father had felled her with his cudgel, and
+then locked her into the cottage, whence, however, she had contrived to
+escape, and was now flying to Elverston, having tried in vain to get a
+hearing in Feltram, whose people had been for hours in bed.
+
+The door being shut upon Meg, the steaming horses were instantly at a
+gallop again.
+
+Tom was still watching as before, with many an anxious glance to rearward,
+for pursuit. Again he pulled up, and came to the window.
+
+'Oh, what is it?' cried I.
+
+''Bout that letter, Miss; I couldn't help. 'Twas Dickon, he found it in my
+pocket. That's a'.'
+
+'Oh yes!--no matter--thank you--thank Heaven! Are we near Elverston?'
+
+''Twill be a mile, Miss: and please'm to mind I had no finger in't.'
+
+'Thanks--thank you--you're very good--I shall _always_ thank you, Tom, as
+long as I live!'
+
+At length we entered Elverston. I think I was half wild. I don't know how I
+got into the hall. I was in the oak-parlour, I believe, when I saw cousin
+Monica. I was standing, my arms extended. I could not speak; but I ran with
+a loud long scream into her arms. I forget a great deal after that.
+
+
+
+
+CONCLUSION
+
+
+Oh, my beloved cousin Monica! Thank Heaven, you are living still, and
+younger, I think, than I in all things but in years.
+
+And Milly, my dear companion, she is now the happy wife of that good little
+clergyman, Sprigge Biddlepen. It has been in my power to be of use to them,
+and he shall have the next presentation to Dawling.
+
+Meg Hawkes, proud and wayward, and the most affectionate creature on earth,
+was married to Tom Brice a few months after these events; and, as both
+wished to emigrate, I furnished them with the capital, and I am told they
+are likely to be rich. I hear from my kind Meg often, and she seems very
+happy.
+
+My dear old friends, Mary Quince and Mrs. Rusk, are, alas! growing old, but
+living with me, and very happy. And after long solicitation, I persuaded
+Doctor Bryerly, the best and truest of ministers, with my dearest friend's
+concurrence, to undertake the management of the Derbyshire estates. In this
+I have been most fortunate. He is the very person for such a charge--so
+punctual, so laborious, so kind, and so shrewd.
+
+In compliance with medical advice, cousin Monica hurried me away to the
+Continent, where she would never permit me to allude to the terrific scenes
+which remain branded so awfully on my brain. It needed no constraint. It is
+a sort of agony to me even now to think of them.
+
+The plan was craftily devised. Neither old Wyat nor Giles, the butler, had
+a suspicion that I had returned to Bartram. Had I been put to death, the
+secret of my fate would have been deposited in the keeping of four persons
+only--the two Ruthyns, Hawkes, and ultimately Madame. My dear cousin Monica
+had been artfully led to believe in my departure for France, and prepared
+for my silence. Suspicion might not have been excited for a year after my
+death, and then would never, in all probability, have pointed to Bartram as
+the scene of the crime. The weeds would have grown over me, and I should
+have lain in that deep grave where the corpse of Madame de la Rougierre was
+unearthed in the darksome quadrangle of Bartram-Haugh.
+
+It was more than two years after that I heard what had befallen at Bartram
+after my flight. Old Wyat, who went early to Uncle Silas's room, to her
+surprise--for he had told her that he was that night to accompany his son,
+who had to meet the mailtrain to Derby at five o'clock in the morning--saw
+her old master lying on the sofa, much in his usual position.
+
+'There was nout much strange about him,' old Wyat said, 'but that his
+scent-bottle was spilt on its side over on the table, and he dead.'
+
+She thought he was not quite cold when she found him, and she sent the old
+butler for Doctor Jolks, who said he died of too much 'loddlum.'
+
+Of my wretched uncle's religion what am I to say? Was it utter hypocrisy,
+or had it at any time a vein of sincerity in it? I cannot say. I don't
+believe that he had any heart left for religion, which is the highest form
+of affection, to take hold of. Perhaps he was a sceptic with misgivings
+about the future, but past the time for finding anything reliable in it.
+The devil approached the citadel of his heart by stealth, with many zigzags
+and parallels. The idea of marrying me to his son by fair means, then by
+foul, and, when that wicked chance was gone, then the design of seizing all
+by murder, supervened. I dare say that Uncle Silas thought for a while that
+he was a righteous man. He wished to have heaven and to escape hell, if
+there were such places. But there were other things whose existence was
+not speculative, of which some he coveted, and some he dreaded more, and
+temptation came. 'Now if any man build upon this foundation, gold, silver,
+precious stones, wood, hay, stubble, every man's work shall be made
+manifest; for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by
+fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is.' There
+comes with old age a time when the heart is no longer fusible or malleable,
+and must retain the form in which it has cooled down. 'He that is unjust,
+let him be unjust still; he which is filthy, let him be filthy still.'
+
+Dudley had disappeared; but in one of her letters, Meg, writing from her
+Australian farm, says: 'There's a fella in toon as calls hisself Colbroke,
+wi' a good hoose o' wood, 15 foot length, and as by 'bout as silling o' the
+pearler o' Bartram--only lots o' rats, they do say, my lady--a bying and
+sellin' of goold back and forred wi' the diggin foke and the marchants. His
+chick and mouth be wry wi' scar o' burns or vitterel, an' no wiskers, bless
+you; but my Tom ee toll him he knowed him for Master Doodley. I ant seed
+him; but he sade ad shute Tom soon is look at 'im, an' denide it, wi'
+mouthful o' curses and oaf. Tom baint right shure; if I seed un wons i'd no
+for sartin; but 'appen,'twil best be let be.' This was all.
+
+Old Hawkes stood his ground, relying on the profound cunning with which
+their actual proceedings had been concealed, even from the suspicions of
+the two inmates of the house, and on the mystery that habitually shrouded
+Bartram-Haugh and all its belongings from the eyes of the outer world.
+
+Strangely enough, he fancied that I had made my escape long before the room
+was entered; and, even if he were arrested, there was no evidence, he was
+certain, to connect _him_ with the murder, all knowledge of which he would
+stoutly deny.
+
+There was an inquest on the body of my uncle, and Dr. Jolks was the chief
+witness. They found that his death was caused by 'an excessive dose of
+laudanum, accidentally administered by himself.'
+
+It was not until nearly a year after the dreadful occurrences at Bartram
+that Dickon Hawkes was arrested on a very awful charge, and placed in gaol.
+It was an old crime, committed in Lancashire, that had found him out.
+After his conviction, as a last chance, he tried a disclosure of all the
+circumstances of the unsuspected death of the Frenchwoman. Her body was
+discovered buried where he indicated, in the inner court of Bartram-Haugh,
+and, after due legal enquiry, was interred in the churchyard of Feltram.
+
+Thus I escaped the horrors of the witness-box, or the far worse torture of
+a dreadful secret.
+
+Doctor Bryerly, shortly after Lady Knollys had described to him the manner
+in which Dudley entered my room, visited the house of Bartram-Haugh, and
+minutely examined the windows of the room in which Mr. Charke had slept on
+the night of his murder. One of these he found provided with powerful steel
+hinges, very craftily sunk and concealed in the timber of the window-frame,
+which was secured by an iron pin outside, and swung open on its removal.
+This was the room in which they had placed me, and this the contrivance
+by means of which the room had been entered. The problem of Mr. Charke's
+murder was solved.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I have penned it. I sit for a moment breathless. My hands are cold and
+damp. I rise with a great sigh, and look out on the sweet green landscape
+and pastoral hills, and see the flowers and birds and the waving boughs of
+glorious trees--all images of liberty and safety; and as the tremendous
+nightmare of my youth melts into air, I lift my eyes in boundless gratitude
+to the God of all comfort, whose mighty hand and outstretched arm delivered
+me. When I lower my eyes and unclasp my hands, my cheeks are wet with
+tears. A tiny voice is calling me 'Mamma!' and a beloved smiling face, with
+his dear father's silken brown tresses, peeps in.
+
+'Yes, darling, our walk. Come away!'
+
+I am Lady Ilbury, happy in the affection of a beloved and noblehearted
+husband. The shy useless girl you have known is now a mother--trying to be
+a good one; and this, the last pledge, has lived.
+
+I am not going to tell of sorrows--how brief has been my pride of early
+maternity, or how beloved were those whom the Lord gave and the Lord has
+taken away. But sometimes as, smiling on my little boy, the tears gather
+in my eyes, and he wonders, I can see, why they come, I am thinking--and
+trembling while I smile--to think, how strong is love, how frail is life;
+and rejoicing while I tremble that, in the deathless love of those who
+mourn, the Lord of Life, who never gave a pang in vain, conveys the sweet
+and ennobling promise of a compensation by eternal reunion. So, through
+my sorrows, I have heard a voice from heaven say, 'Write, from hencefore
+blessed are the dead that die in the Lord!'
+
+This world is a parable--the habitation of symbols--the phantoms of
+spiritual things immortal shown in material shape. May the blessed
+second-sight be mine--to recognise under these beautiful forms of earth the
+ANGELS who wear them; for I am sure we may walk with them if we will, and
+hear them speak!
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Uncle Silas, by J. S. LeFanu
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14851 ***
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Uncle Silas, by J. S. LeFanu
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Uncle Silas
+       A Tale of Bartram-Haugh
+
+Author: J. S. LeFanu
+
+Release Date: January 31, 2005 [EBook #14851]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UNCLE SILAS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Shell, Bob McKillip and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+[Transcriber's note: The spelling inconsistencies of the original have
+been retained in this etext.]
+
+
+
+UNCLE SILAS
+
+A Tale of Bartram-Haugh
+
+By J. S. LeFanu
+
+1899
+
+
+
+TO
+THE RIGHT HON.
+THE COUNTESS OF GIFFORD,
+AS A TOKEN OF
+RESPECT, SYMPATHY, AND ADMIRATION
+_This Tale_
+IS INSCRIBED BY
+THE AUTHOR
+
+
+
+
+_A PRELIMINARY WORD_
+
+The writer of this Tale ventures, in his own person, to address a very few
+words, chiefly of explanation, to his readers. A leading situation in this
+'Story of Bartram-Haugh' is repeated, with a slight variation, from a short
+magazine tale of some fifteen pages written by him, and published long ago
+in a periodical under the title of 'A Passage in the Secret History of an
+Irish Countess,' and afterwards, still anonymously, in a small volume under
+an altered title. It is very unlikely that any of his readers should have
+encountered, and still more so that they should remember, this trifle. The
+bare possibility, however, he has ventured to anticipate by this brief
+explanation, lest he should be charged with plagiarism--always a disrespect
+to a reader.
+
+May he be permitted a few words also of remonstrance against the
+promiscuous application of the term 'sensation' to that large school of
+fiction which transgresses no one of those canons of construction and
+morality which, in producing the unapproachable 'Waverley Novels,' their
+great author imposed upon himself? No one, it is assumed, would describe
+Sir Walter Scott's romances as 'sensation novels;' yet in that marvellous
+series there is not a single tale in which death, crime, and, in some form,
+mystery, have not a place.
+
+Passing by those grand romances of 'Ivanhoe,' 'Old Mortality,' and
+'Kenilworth,' with their terrible intricacies of crime and bloodshed,
+constructed with so fine a mastery of the art of exciting suspense and
+horror, let the reader pick out those two exceptional novels in the series
+which profess to paint contemporary manners and the scenes of common life;
+and remembering in the 'Antiquary' the vision in the tapestried chamber,
+the duel, the horrible secret, and the death of old Elspeth, the drowned
+fisherman, and above all the tremendous situation of the tide-bound party
+under the cliffs; and in 'St. Ronan's Well,' the long-drawn mystery, the
+suspicion of insanity, and the catastrophe of suicide;--determine whether
+an epithet which it would be a profanation to apply to the structure of
+any, even the most exciting of Sir Walter Scott's stories, is fairly
+applicable to tales which, though illimitably inferior in execution, yet
+observe the same limitations of incident, and the same moral aims.
+
+The author trusts that the Press, to whose masterly criticism and generous
+encouragement he and other humble labourers in the art owe so much, will
+insist upon the limitation of that degrading term to the peculiar type of
+fiction which it was originally intended to indicate, and prevent, as they
+may, its being made to include the legitimate school of tragic English
+romance, which has been ennobled, and in great measure founded, by the
+genius of Sir Walter Scott.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER
+
+I. AUSTIN RUTHYN, OF KNOWL, AND HIS DAUGHTER
+
+II. UNCLE SILAS
+
+III. A NEW FACE
+
+IV. MADAME DE LA ROUGIERRE
+
+V. SIGHTS AND NOISES
+
+VI. A WALK IN THE WOOD
+
+VII. CHURCH SCARSDALE
+
+VIII. THE SMOKER
+
+IX. MONICA KNOLLYS
+
+X. LADY KNOLLYS REMOVES A COVERLET
+
+XI. LADY KNOLLYS SEES THE FEATURES
+
+XII. A CURIOUS CONVERSATION
+
+XIII. BEFORE AND AFTER BREAKFAST
+
+XIV. ANGRY WORDS
+
+XV. A WARNING
+
+XVI. DOCTOR BRYERLY LOOKS IN
+
+XVII. AN ADVENTURE
+
+XVIII. A MIDNIGHT VISITOR
+
+XIX. AU REVOIR
+
+XX. AUSTIN RUTHYN SETS OUT ON HIS JOURNEY
+
+XXI. ARRIVALS
+
+XXII. SOMEBODY IN THE ROOM WITH THE COFFIN
+
+XXIII. I TALK WITH DOCTOR BRYERLY
+
+XXIV. THE OPENING OF THE WILL
+
+XXV. I HEAR FROM UNCLE SILAS
+
+XXVI. THE STORY OF UNCLE SILAS
+
+XXVII. MORE ABOUT TOM CHARKE'S SUICIDE
+
+XXVIII. I AM PERSUADED
+
+XXIX. HOW THE AMBASSADOR FARED
+
+XXX. ON THE ROAD
+
+XXXI. BARTRAM-HAUGH
+
+XXXII. UNCLE SILAS
+
+XXXIII. THE WINDMILL WOOD
+
+XXXIV. ZAMIEL
+
+XXXV. WE VISIT A ROOM IN THE SECOND STOREY
+
+XXXVI. AN ARRIVAL AT DEAD OF NIGHT
+
+XXXVII. DOCTOR BRYERLY EMERGES
+
+XXXVIII. A MIDNIGHT DEPARTURE
+
+XXXIX. COUSIN MONICA AND UNCLE SILAS MEET
+
+XL. IN WHICH I MAKE ANOTHER COUSIN'S ACQUAINTANCE
+
+XLI. MY COUSIN DUDLEY
+
+XLII. ELVERSTON AND ITS PEOPLE
+
+XLIII. NEWS AT BARTRAM GATE
+
+XLIV. A FRIEND ARISES
+
+XLV. A CHAPTER-FULL OF LOVERS
+
+XLVI. THE RIVALS
+
+XLVII. DOCTOR BRYERLY REAPPEARS
+
+XLVIII. QUESTION AND ANSWER
+
+XLIX. AN APPARITION
+
+L. MILLY'S FAREWELL
+
+LI. SARAH MATILDA COMES TO LIGHT
+
+LII. THE PICTURE OF A WOLF
+
+LIII. AN ODD PROPOSAL
+
+LIV. IN SEARCH OF MR. CHARKE'S SKELETON
+
+LV. THE FOOT OF HERCULES
+
+LVI. I CONSPIRE
+
+LVII. THE LETTER
+
+LVIII. LADY KNOLLYS' CARRIAGE
+
+LIX. A SUDDEN DEPARTURE
+
+LX. THE JOURNEY
+
+LXI. OUR BED-CHAMBER
+
+LXII. A WELL-KNOWN FACE LOOKS IN
+
+LXIII. SPICED CLARET
+
+LXIV. THE HOUR OF DEATH
+
+LXV. IN THE OAK PARLOUR
+
+CONCLUSION
+
+
+
+
+UNCLE SILAS
+
+A Tale of Bartram-Haugh
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+_AUSTIN RUTHYN, OF KNOWL, AND HIS DAUGHTER_
+
+
+It was winter--that is, about the second week in November--and great gusts
+were rattling at the windows, and wailing and thundering among our tall
+trees and ivied chimneys--a very dark night, and a very cheerful fire
+blazing, a pleasant mixture of good round coal and spluttering dry wood, in
+a genuine old fireplace, in a sombre old room. Black wainscoting glimmered
+up to the ceiling, in small ebony panels; a cheerful clump of wax candles
+on the tea-table; many old portraits, some grim and pale, others pretty,
+and some very graceful and charming, hanging from the walls. Few pictures,
+except portraits long and short, were there. On the whole, I think you
+would have taken the room for our parlour. It was not like our modern
+notion of a drawing-room. It was a long room too, and every way capacious,
+but irregularly shaped.
+
+A girl, of a little more than seventeen, looking, I believe, younger still;
+slight and rather tall, with a great deal of golden hair, dark grey-eyed,
+and with a countenance rather sensitive and melancholy, was sitting at the
+tea-table, in a reverie. I was that girl.
+
+The only other person in the room--the only person in the house related to
+me--was my father. He was Mr. Ruthyn, of Knowl, so called in his county,
+but he had many other places, was of a very ancient lineage, who had
+refused a baronetage often, and it was said even a viscounty, being of a
+proud and defiant spirit, and thinking themselves higher in station and
+purer of blood than two-thirds of the nobility into whose ranks, it was
+said, they had been invited to enter. Of all this family lore I knew but
+little and vaguely; only what is to be gathered from the fireside talk of
+old retainers in the nursery.
+
+I am sure my father loved me, and I know I loved him. With the sure
+instinct of childhood I apprehended his tenderness, although it was never
+expressed in common ways. But my father was an oddity. He had been early
+disappointed in Parliament, where it was his ambition to succeed. Though a
+clever man, he failed there, where very inferior men did extremely well.
+Then he went abroad, and became a connoisseur and a collector; took a part,
+on his return, in literary and scientific institutions, and also in the
+foundation and direction of some charities. But he tired of this mimic
+government, and gave himself up to a country life, not that of a sportsman,
+but rather of a student, staying sometimes at one of his places and
+sometimes at another, and living a secluded life.
+
+Rather late in life he married, and his beautiful young wife died, leaving
+me, their only child, to his care. This bereavement, I have been told,
+changed him--made him more odd and taciturn than ever, and his temper also,
+except to me, more severe. There was also some disgrace about his younger
+brother--my uncle Silas--which he felt bitterly.
+
+He was now walking up and down this spacious old room, which, extending
+round an angle at the far end, was very dark in that quarter. It was his
+wont to walk up and down thus, without speaking--an exercise which used to
+remind me of Chateaubriand's father in the great chamber of the Château
+de Combourg. At the far end he nearly disappeared in the gloom, and then
+returning emerged for a few minutes, like a portrait with a background of
+shadow, and then again in silence faded nearly out of view.
+
+This monotony and silence would have been terrifying to a person less
+accustomed to it than I. As it was, it had its effect. I have known my
+father a whole day without once speaking to me. Though I loved him very
+much, I was also much in awe of him.
+
+While my father paced the floor, my thoughts were employed about the events
+of a month before. So few things happened at Knowl out of the accustomed
+routine, that a very trifling occurrence was enough to set people wondering
+and conjecturing in that serene household. My father lived in remarkable
+seclusion; except for a ride, he hardly ever left the grounds of Knowl; and
+I don't think it happened twice in the year that a visitor sojourned among
+us.
+
+There was not even that mild religious bustle which sometimes besets the
+wealthy and moral recluse. My father had left the Church of England for
+some odd sect, I forget its name, and ultimately became, I was told, a
+Swedenborgian. But he did not care to trouble me upon the subject. So the
+old carriage brought my governess, when I had one, the old housekeeper,
+Mrs. Rusk, and myself to the parish church every Sunday. And my father, in
+the view of the honest rector who shook his head over him--'a cloud without
+water, carried about of winds, and a wandering star to whom is reserved the
+blackness of darkness'--corresponded with the 'minister' of his church, and
+was provokingly contented with his own fertility and illumination; and
+Mrs. Rusk, who was a sound and bitter churchwoman, said he fancied he saw
+visions and talked with angels like the rest of that 'rubbitch.'
+
+I don't know that she had any better foundation than analogy and conjecture
+for charging my father with supernatural pretensions; and in all points
+when her orthodoxy was not concerned, she loved her master and was a loyal
+housekeeper.
+
+I found her one morning superintending preparations for the reception of
+a visitor, in the hunting-room it was called, from the pieces of tapestry
+that covered its walls, representing scenes _à la Wouvermans_, of falconry,
+and the chase, dogs, hawks, ladies, gallants, and pages. In the midst of
+whom Mrs. Rusk, in black silk, was rummaging drawers, counting linen, and
+issuing orders.
+
+'Who is coming, Mrs. Rusk?'
+
+Well, she only knew his name. It was a Mr. Bryerly. My papa expected him to
+dinner, and to stay for some days.
+
+'I guess he's one of those creatures, dear, for I mentioned his name just
+to Dr. Clay (the rector), and he says there _is_ a Doctor Bryerly, a great
+conjurer among the Swedenborg sect--and that's him, I do suppose.'
+
+In my hazy notions of these sectaries there was mingled a suspicion of
+necromancy, and a weird freemasonry, that inspired something of awe and
+antipathy.
+
+Mr. Bryerly arrived time enough to dress at his leisure, before dinner. He
+entered the drawing-room--a tall, lean man, all in ungainly black, with a
+white choker, with either a black wig, or black hair dressed in imitation
+of one, a pair of spectacles, and a dark, sharp, short visage, rubbing his
+large hands together, and with a short brisk nod to me, whom he plainly
+regarded merely as a child, he sat down before the fire, crossed his legs,
+and took up a magazine.
+
+This treatment was mortifying, and I remember very well the resentment of
+which _he_ was quite unconscious.
+
+His stay was not very long; not one of us divined the object of his visit,
+and he did not prepossess us favourably. He seemed restless, as men of busy
+habits do in country houses, and took walks, and a drive, and read in the
+library, and wrote half a dozen letters.
+
+His bed-room and dressing-room were at the side of the gallery, directly
+opposite to my father's, which had a sort of ante-room _en suite_, in which
+were some of his theological books.
+
+The day after Mr. Bryerly's arrival, I was about to see whether my father's
+water caraffe and glass had been duly laid on the table in this ante-room,
+and in doubt whether he was there, I knocked at the door.
+
+I suppose they were too intent on other matters to hear, but receiving no
+answer, I entered the room. My father was sitting in his chair, with his
+coat and waistcoat off, Mr. Bryerly kneeling on a stool beside him, rather
+facing him, his black scratch wig leaning close to my father's grizzled
+hair. There was a large tome of their divinity lore, I suppose, open on
+the table close by. The lank black figure of Mr. Bryerly stood up, and he
+concealed something quickly in the breast of his coat.
+
+My father stood up also, looking paler, I think, than I ever saw him till
+then, and he pointed grimly to the door, and said, 'Go.'
+
+Mr. Bryerly pushed me gently back with his hands to my shoulders, and
+smiled down from his dark features with an expression quite unintelligible
+to me.
+
+I had recovered myself in a second, and withdrew without a word. The last
+thing I saw at the door was the tall, slim figure in black, and the dark,
+significant smile following me: and then the door was shut and locked, and
+the two Swedenborgians were left to their mysteries.
+
+I remember so well the kind of shock and disgust I felt in the certainty
+that I had surprised them at some, perhaps, debasing incantation--a
+suspicion of this Mr. Bryerly, of the ill-fitting black coat, and white
+choker--and a sort of fear came upon me, and I fancied he was asserting
+some kind of mastery over my father, which very much alarmed me.
+
+I fancied all sorts of dangers in the enigmatical smile of the lank
+high-priest. The image of my father, as I had seen him, it might be,
+confessing to this man in black, who was I knew not what, haunted me with
+the disagreeable uncertainties of a mind very uninstructed as to the limits
+of the marvellous.
+
+I mentioned it to no one. But I was immensely relieved when the sinister
+visitor took his departure the morning after, and it was upon this
+occurrence that my mind was now employed.
+
+Some one said that Dr. Johnson resembled a ghost, who must be spoken to
+before it will speak. But my father, in whatever else he may have resembled
+a ghost, did not in that particular; for no one but I in his household--and
+I very seldom--dared to address him until first addressed by him. I had no
+notion how singular this was until I began to go out a little among friends
+and relations, and found no such rule in force anywhere else.
+
+As I leaned back in my chair thinking, this phantasm of my father came, and
+turned, and vanished with a solemn regularity. It was a peculiar figure,
+strongly made, thick-set, with a face large, and very stern; he wore a
+loose, black velvet coat and waistcoat. It was, however, the figure of an
+elderly rather than an old man--though he was then past seventy--but firm,
+and with no sign of feebleness.
+
+I remember the start with which, not suspecting that he was close by me, I
+lifted my eyes, and saw that large, rugged countenance looking fixedly on
+me, from less than a yard away.
+
+After I saw him, he continued to regard me for a second or two; and then,
+taking one of the heavy candlesticks in his gnarled hand, he beckoned me to
+follow him; which, in silence and wondering, I accordingly did.
+
+He led me across the hall, where there were lights burning, and into a
+lobby by the foot of the back stairs, and so into his library.
+
+It is a long, narrow room, with two tall, slim windows at the far end, now
+draped in dark curtains. Dusky it was with but one candle; and he paused
+near the door, at the left-hand side of which stood, in those days, an
+old-fashioned press or cabinet of carved oak. In front of this he stopped.
+
+He had odd, absent ways, and talked more to himself, I believe, than to all
+the rest of the world put together.
+
+'She won't understand,' he whispered, looking at me enquiringly. 'No, she
+won't. _Will_ she?'
+
+Then there was a pause, during which he brought forth from his breast
+pocket a small bunch of some half-dozen keys, on one of which he looked
+frowningly, every now and then balancing it a little before his eyes,
+between his finger and thumb, as he deliberated.
+
+I knew him too well, of course, to interpose a word.
+
+'They are easily frightened--ay, they are. I'd better do it another way.'
+
+And pausing, he looked in my face as he might upon a picture.
+
+'They _are_--yes--I had better do it another way--another way; yes--and
+she'll not suspect--she'll not suppose.'
+
+Then he looked steadfastly upon the key, and from it to me, suddenly
+lifting it up, and said abruptly, 'See, child,' and, after a second or two,
+'_Remember_ this key.'
+
+It was oddly shaped, and unlike others.
+
+'Yes, sir.' I always called him 'sir.'
+
+'It opens that,' and he tapped it sharply on the door of the cabinet. 'In
+the daytime it is always here,' at which word he dropped it into his pocket
+again. 'You see?--and at night under my pillow--you hear me?'
+
+'Yes, sir.'
+
+'You won't forget this cabinet--oak--next the door--on your left--you won't
+forget?'
+
+'No, sir.'
+
+'Pity she's a girl, and so young--ay, a girl, and so young--no
+sense--giddy. You say, you'll _remember_?'
+
+'Yes, sir.'
+
+'It behoves you.'
+
+He turned round and looked full upon me, like a man who has taken a sudden
+resolution; and I think for a moment he had made up his mind to tell me a
+great deal more. But if so, he changed it again; and after another pause,
+he said slowly and sternly--'You will tell nobody what I have said, under
+pain of my displeasure.'
+
+'Oh! no, sir!'
+
+'Good child!'
+
+'_Except_,' he resumed, 'under one contingency; that is, in case I should
+be absent, and Dr. Bryerly--you recollect the thin gentleman, in spectacles
+and a black wig, who spent three days here last month--should come and
+enquire for the key, you understand, in my absence.'
+
+'Yes, sir.'
+
+So he kissed me on the forehead, and said--
+
+'Let us return.'
+
+Which, accordingly, we did, in silence; the storm outside, like a dirge on
+a great organ, accompanying our flitting.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+_UNCLE SILAS_
+
+
+When we reached the drawing-room, I resumed my chair, and my father his
+slow and regular walk to and fro, in the great room. Perhaps it was the
+uproar of the wind that disturbed the ordinary tenor of his thoughts; but,
+whatever was the cause, certainly he was unusually talkative that night.
+
+After an interval of nearly half an hour, he drew near again, and sat down
+in a high-backed arm-chair, beside the fire, and nearly opposite to me, and
+looked at me steadfastly for some time, as was his wont, before speaking;
+and said he--
+
+'This won't do--you must have a governess.'
+
+In cases of this kind I merely set down my book or work, as it might be,
+and adjusted myself to listen without speaking.
+
+'Your French is pretty well, and your Italian; but you have no German.
+Your music may be pretty good--I'm no judge--but your drawing might be
+better--yes--yes. I believe there are accomplished ladies--finishing
+governesses, they call them--who undertake more than any one teacher would
+have professed in my time, and do very well. She can prepare you, and
+next winter, then, you shall visit France and Italy, where you may be
+accomplished as highly as you please.'
+
+'Thank you, sir.'
+
+'You shall. It is nearly six months since Miss Ellerton left you--too long
+without a teacher.'
+
+Then followed an interval.
+
+'Dr. Bryerly will ask you about that key, and what it opens; you show all
+that to _him_, and no one else.'
+
+'But,' I said, for I had a great terror of disobeying him in ever so minute
+a matter, 'you will then be absent, sir--how am I to find the key?'
+
+He smiled on me suddenly--a bright but wintry smile--it seldom came, and
+was very transitory, and kindly though mysterious.
+
+'True, child; I'm glad you are so wise; _that_, you will find, I have
+provided for, and you shall know exactly where to look. You have remarked
+how solitarily I live. You fancy, perhaps, I have not got a friend, and
+you are nearly right--_nearly_, but not altogether. I have a very sure
+friend--_one_--a friend whom I once misunderstood, but now appreciate.'
+
+I wondered silently whether it could be Uncle Silas.
+
+'He'll make me a call, some day soon; I'm not quite sure when. I won't tell
+you his name--you'll hear that soon enough, and I don't want it talked of;
+and I must make a little journey with him. You'll not be afraid of being
+left alone for a time?'
+
+'And have you promised, sir?' I answered, with another question, my
+curiosity and anxiety overcoming my awe. He took my questioning very
+good-humouredly.
+
+'Well--_promise_?--no, child; but I'm under condition; he's not to be
+denied. I must make the excursion with him the moment he calls. I have no
+choice; but, on the whole, I rather like it--remember, I say, I rather
+_like_ it.'
+
+And he smiled again, with the same meaning, that was at once stern and sad.
+The exact purport of these sentences remained fixed in my mind, so that
+even at this distance of time I am quite sure of them.
+
+A person quite unacquainted with my father's habitually abrupt and odd way
+of talking, would have fancied that he was possibly a little disordered in
+his mind. But no such suspicion for a moment troubled me. I was quite sure
+that he spoke of a real person who was coming, and that his journey was
+something momentous; and when the visitor of whom he spoke did come, and he
+departed with him upon that mysterious excursion, I perfectly understood
+his language and his reasons for saying so much and yet so little.
+
+You are not to suppose that all my hours were passed in the sort of
+conference and isolation of which I have just given you a specimen; and
+singular and even awful as were sometimes my _tête-a-têtes_ with my father,
+I had grown so accustomed to his strange ways, and had so unbounded a
+confidence in his affection, that they never depressed or agitated me in
+the manner you might have supposed. I had a great deal of quite a different
+sort of chat with good old Mrs. Rusk, and very pleasant talks with Mary
+Quince, my somewhat ancient maid; and besides all this, I had now and then
+a visit of a week or so at the house of some one of our country neighbours,
+and occasionally a visitor--but this, I must own, very rarely--at Knowl.
+
+There had come now a little pause in my father's revelations, and my fancy
+wandered away upon a flight of discovery. Who, I again thought, could this
+intending visitor be, who was to come, armed with the prerogative to make
+my stay-at-home father forthwith leave his household goods--his books and
+his child--to whom he clung, and set forth on an unknown knight-errantry?
+Who but Uncle Silas, I thought--that mysterious relative whom I had
+never seen--who was, it had in old times been very darkly hinted to me,
+unspeakably unfortunate or unspeakably vicious--whom I had seldom heard my
+father mention, and then in a hurried way, and with a pained, thoughtful
+look. Once only he had said anything from which I could gather my father's
+opinion of him, and then it was so slight and enigmatical that I might have
+filled in the character very nearly as I pleased.
+
+It happened thus. One day Mrs. Rusk was in the oak-room, I being then about
+fourteen. She was removing a stain from a tapestry chair, and I watched the
+process with a childish interest. She sat down to rest herself--she had
+been stooping over her work--and threw her head back, for her neck was
+weary, and in this position she fixed her eyes on a portrait that hung
+before her.
+
+It was a full-length, and represented a singularly handsome young man,
+dark, slender, elegant, in a costume then quite obsolete, though I believe
+it was seen at the beginning of this century--white leather pantaloons and
+top-boots, a buff waistcoat, and a chocolate-coloured coat, and the hair
+long and brushed back.
+
+There was a remarkable elegance and a delicacy in the features, but also a
+character of resolution and ability that quite took the portrait out of the
+category of mere fops or fine men. When people looked at it for the first
+time, I have so often heard the exclamation--'What a wonderfully handsome
+man!' and then, 'What a clever face!' An Italian greyhound stood by him,
+and some slender columns and a rich drapery in the background. But though
+the accessories were of the luxurious sort, and the beauty, as I have said,
+refined, there was a masculine force in that slender oval face, and a fire
+in the large, shadowy eyes, which were very peculiar, and quite redeemed it
+from the suspicion of effeminacy.
+
+'Is not that Uncle Silas?' said I.
+
+'Yes, dear,' answered Mrs. Rusk, looking, with her resolute little face,
+quietly on the portrait.
+
+'He must be a very handsome man, Mrs. Rusk. Don't you think so?' I
+continued.
+
+'He _was_, my dear--yes; but it is forty years since that was painted--the
+date is there in the corner, in the shadow that comes from his foot, and
+forty years, I can tell you, makes a change in most of us;' and Mrs. Rusk
+laughed, in cynical good-humour.
+
+There was a little pause, both still looking on the handsome man in
+top-boots, and I said--
+
+'And why, Mrs. Rusk, is papa always so sad about Uncle Silas?'
+
+'What's that, child?' said my father's voice, very near. I looked round,
+with a start, and flushed and faltered, receding a step from him.
+
+'No harm, dear. You have said nothing wrong,' he said gently, observing
+my alarm. 'You said I was always sad, I think, about Uncle Silas. Well,
+I don't know how you gather that; but if I were, I will now tell you, it
+would not be unnatural. Your uncle is a man of great talents, great faults,
+and great wrongs. His talents have not availed him; his faults are long ago
+repented of; and his wrongs I believe he feels less than I do, but they are
+deep. Did she say any more, madam?' he demanded abruptly of Mrs. Rusk.
+
+'Nothing, sir,' with a stiff little courtesy, answered Mrs. Rusk, who stood
+in awe of him.
+
+'And there is no need, child,' he continued, addressing himself to me,
+'that you should think more of him at present. Clear your head of Uncle
+Silas. One day, perhaps, you will know him--yes, very well--and understand
+how villains have injured him.
+
+Then my father retired, and at the door he said--
+
+'Mrs. Rusk, a word, if you please,' beckoning to that lady, who trotted
+after him to the library.
+
+I think he then laid some injunction upon the housekeeper, which was
+transmitted by her to Mary Quince, for from that time forth I could never
+lead either to talk with me about Uncle Silas. They let me talk on, but
+were reserved and silent themselves, and seemed embarrassed, and Mrs. Rusk
+sometimes pettish and angry, when I pressed for information.
+
+Thus curiosity was piqued; and round the slender portrait in the leather
+pantaloons and top-boots gathered many-coloured circles of mystery, and the
+handsome features seemed to smile down upon my baffled curiosity with a
+provoking significance.
+
+Why is it that this form of ambition--curiosity--which entered into the
+temptation of our first parent, is so specially hard to resist? Knowledge
+is power--and power of one sort or another is the secret lust of human
+souls; and here is, beside the sense of exploration, the undefinable
+interest of a story, and above all, something forbidden, to stimulate the
+contumacious appetite.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+_A NEW FACE_
+
+
+I think it was about a fortnight after that conversation in which my father
+had expressed his opinion, and given me the mysterious charge about the
+old oak cabinet in his library, as already detailed, that I was one night
+sitting at the great drawing-room window, lost in the melancholy reveries
+of night, and in admiration of the moonlighted scene. I was the only
+occupant of the room; and the lights near the fire, at its farther end,
+hardly reached to the window at which I sat.
+
+The shorn grass sloped gently downward from the windows till it met the
+broad level on which stood, in clumps, or solitarily scattered, some of the
+noblest timber in England. Hoar in the moonbeams stood those graceful
+trees casting their moveless shadows upon the grass, and in the background
+crowning the undulations of the distance, in masses, were piled those woods
+among which lay the solitary tomb where the remains of my beloved mother
+rested.
+
+The air was still. The silvery vapour hung serenely on the far horizon,
+and the frosty stars blinked brightly. Everyone knows the effect of such a
+scene on a mind already saddened. Fancies and regrets float mistily in
+the dream, and the scene affects us with a strange mixture of memory and
+anticipation, like some sweet old air heard in the distance. As my eyes
+rested on those, to me, funereal but glorious woods, which formed the
+background of the picture, my thoughts recurred to my father's mysterious
+intimations and the image of the approaching visitor; and the thought of
+the unknown journey saddened me.
+
+In all that concerned his religion, from very early association, there was
+to me something of the unearthly and spectral.
+
+When my dear mamma died I was not nine years old; and I remember, two days
+before the funeral, there came to Knowl, where she died, a thin little man,
+with large black eyes, and a very grave, dark face.
+
+He was shut up a good deal with my dear father, who was in deep affliction;
+and Mrs. Rusk used to say, 'It is rather odd to see him praying with that
+little scarecrow from London, and good Mr. Clay ready at call, in the
+village; much good that little black whipper-snapper will do him!'
+
+With that little black man, on the day after the funeral, I was sent out,
+for some reason, for a walk; my governess was ill, I know, and there was
+confusion in the house, and I dare say the maids made as much of a holiday
+as they could.
+
+I remember feeling a sort of awe of this little dark man; but I was not
+afraid of him, for he was gentle, though sad--and seemed kind. He led me
+into the garden--the Dutch garden, we used to call it--with a balustrade,
+and statues at the farther front, laid out in a carpet-pattern of
+brilliantly-coloured flowers. We came down the broad flight of Caen stone
+steps into this, and we walked in silence to the balustrade. The base was
+too high at the spot where we reached it for me to see over; but holding my
+hand, he said, 'Look through that, my child. Well, you can't; but _I_ can
+see beyond it--shall I tell you what? I see ever so much. I see a cottage
+with a steep roof, that looks like gold in the sunlight; there are tall
+trees throwing soft shadows round it, and flowering shrubs, I can't say
+what, only the colours are beautiful, growing by the walls and windows, and
+two little children are playing among the stems of the trees, and we are on
+our way there, and in a few minutes shall be under those trees ourselves,
+and talking to those little children. Yet now to me it is but a picture in
+my brain, and to you but a story told by me, which you believe. Come, dear;
+let us be going.'
+
+So we descended the steps at the right, and side by side walked along the
+grass lane between tall trim walls of evergreens. The way was in deep
+shadow, for the sun was near the horizon; but suddenly we turned to the
+left, and there we stood in rich sunlight, among the many objects he had
+described.
+
+'Is this your house, my little men?' he asked of the children--pretty
+little rosy boys--who assented; and he leaned with his open hand against
+the stem of one of the trees, and with a grave smile he nodded down to me,
+saying--
+
+'You see now, and hear, and _feel_ for yourself that both the vision and
+the story were quite true; but come on, my dear, we have further to go.'
+
+And relapsing into silence we had a long ramble through the wood, the same
+on which I was now looking in the distance. Every now and then he made me
+sit down to rest, and he in a musing solemn sort of way would relate some
+little story, reflecting, even to my childish mind, a strange suspicion
+of a spiritual meaning, but different from what honest Mrs. Rusk used
+to expound to me from the Parables, and, somehow, startling in its very
+vagueness.
+
+Thus entertained, though a little awfully, I accompanied the dark
+mysterious little 'whipper-snapper' through the woodland glades. We came,
+to me quite unexpectedly, in the deep sylvan shadows, upon the grey,
+pillared temple, four-fronted, with a slanting pedestal of lichen-stained
+steps, the lonely sepulchre in which I had the morning before seen poor
+mamma laid. At the sight the fountains of my grief reopened, and I cried
+bitterly, repeating, 'Oh! mamma, mamma, little mamma!' and so went on
+weeping and calling wildly on the deaf and the silent. There was a stone
+bench some ten steps away from the tomb.
+
+'Sit down beside me, my child,' said the grave man with the black eyes,
+very kindly and gently. 'Now, what do you see there?' he asked, pointing
+horizontally with his stick towards the centre of the opposite structure.
+
+'Oh, _that_--that place where poor mamma is?'
+
+'Yes, a stone wall with pillars, too high for either you or me to see over.
+But----'
+
+Here he mentioned a name which I think must have been Swedenborg, from what
+I afterwards learnt of his tenets and revelations; I only know that it
+sounded to me like the name of a magician in a fairy tale; I fancied he
+lived in the wood which surrounded us, and I began to grow frightened as he
+proceeded.
+
+'But Swedenborg sees beyond it, over, and _through_ it, and has told me all
+that concerns us to know. He says your mamma is not there.'
+
+'She is taken away!' I cried, starting up, and with streaming eyes, gazing
+on the building which, though I stamped my feet in my distraction, I was
+afraid to approach. 'Oh, _is_ mamma taken away? Where is she? Where have
+they brought her to?'
+
+I was uttering unconsciously very nearly the question with which Mary,
+in the grey of that wondrous morning on which she stood by the empty
+sepulchre, accosted the figure standing near.
+
+'Your mamma is alive but too far away to see or hear us. Swedenborg,
+standing here, can see and hear her, and tells me all he sees, just as I
+told you in the garden about the little boys and the cottage, and the trees
+and flowers which you could not see, but you believed in when _I_ told you. So
+I can tell you now as I did then; and as we are both, I hope, walking on to
+the same place just as we did to the trees and cottage. You will surely see
+with your own eyes how true the description is which I give you.'
+
+I was very frightened, for I feared that when he had done his narrative we
+were to walk on through the wood into that place of wonders and of shadows
+where the dead were visible.
+
+He leaned his elbow on his knee, and his forehead on his hand, which
+shaded his downcast eyes. In that attitude he described to me a beautiful
+landscape, radiant with a wondrous light, in which, rejoicing, my mother
+moved along an airy path, ascending among mountains of fantastic height,
+and peaks, melting in celestial colouring into the air, and peopled with
+human beings translated into the same image, beauty, and splendour. And
+when he had ended his relation, he rose, took my hand, and smiling gently
+down on my pale, wondering face, he said the same words he had spoken
+before--
+
+'Come, dear, let us go.'
+
+'Oh! no, no, _no_--not now,' I said, resisting, and very much frightened.
+
+'Home, I mean, dear. We cannot walk to the place I have described. We can
+only reach it through the gate of death, to which we are all tending, young
+and old, with sure steps.'
+
+'And where is the gate of death?' I asked in a sort of whisper, as we
+walked together, holding his hand, and looking stealthily. He smiled sadly
+and said--
+
+'When, sooner or later, the time comes, as Hagar's eyes were opened in the
+wilderness, and she beheld the fountain of water, so shall each of us see
+the door open before us, and enter in and be refreshed.'
+
+For a long time following this walk I was very nervous; more so for the
+awful manner in which Mrs. Rusk received my statement--with stern lips and
+upturned hands and eyes, and an angry expostulation: 'I do wonder at
+you, Mary Quince, letting the child walk into the wood with that limb of
+darkness. It is a mercy he did not show her the devil, or frighten her out
+of her senses, in that lonely place!'
+
+Of these Swedenborgians, indeed, I know no more than I might learn from
+good Mrs. Rusk's very inaccurate talk. Two or three of them crossed in the
+course of my early life, like magic-lantern figures, the disk of my very
+circumscribed observation. All outside was and is darkness. I once tried to
+read one of their books upon the future state--heaven and hell; but I grew
+after a day or two so nervous that I laid it aside. It is enough for me
+to know that their founder either saw or fancied he saw amazing visions,
+which, so far from superseding, confirmed and interpreted the language of
+the Bible; and as dear papa accepted their ideas, I am happy in thinking
+that they did not conflict with the supreme authority of holy writ.
+
+Leaning on my hand, I was now looking upon that solemn wood, white and
+shadowy in the moonlight, where, for a long time after that ramble with the
+visionary, I fancied the gate of death, hidden only by a strange glamour,
+and the dazzling land of ghosts, were situate; and I suppose these earlier
+associations gave to my reverie about my father's coming visitor a wilder
+and a sadder tinge.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+_MADAME DE LA ROUGIERRE_
+
+
+On a sudden, on the grass before me, stood an odd figure--a very tall woman
+in grey draperies, nearly white under the moon, courtesying extraordinarily
+low, and rather fantastically.
+
+I stared in something like a horror upon the large and rather hollow
+features which I did not know, smiling very unpleasantly on me; and the
+moment it was plain that I saw her, the grey woman began gobbling
+and cackling shrilly--I could not distinctly hear _what_ through the
+window--and gesticulating oddly with her long hands and arms.
+
+As she drew near the window, I flew to the fireplace, and rang the bell
+frantically, and seeing her still there, and fearing that she might break
+into the room, I flew out of the door, very much frightened, and met
+Branston the butler in the lobby.
+
+'There's a woman at the window!' I gasped; 'turn her away, please.'
+
+If I had said a man, I suppose fat Branston would have summoned and sent
+forward a detachment of footmen. As it was, he bowed gravely, with a--
+
+'Yes, 'm--shall, 'm.'
+
+And with an air of authority approached the window.
+
+I don't think that he was pleasantly impressed himself by the first sight
+of our visitor, for he stopped short some steps of the window, and demanded
+rather sternly--
+
+'What ye doin' there, woman?'
+
+To this summons, her answer, which occupied a little time, was inaudible to
+me. But Branston replied--
+
+'I wasn't aware, ma'am; I heerd nothin'; if you'll go round _that_ way,
+you'll see the hall-door steps, and I'll speak to the master, and do as he
+shall order.'
+
+The figure said something and pointed.
+
+'Yes, that's it, and ye can't miss the door.'
+
+And Mr. Branston returned slowly down the long room, and halted with
+out-turned pumps and a grave inclination before me, and the faintest amount
+of interrogation in the announcement--
+
+'Please, 'm, she says she's the governess.'
+
+'The governess! _What_ governess?'
+
+Branston was too well-bred to smile, and he said thoughtfully--
+
+'P'raps, 'm, I'd best ask the master?'
+
+To which I assented, and away strode the flat pumps of the butler to the
+library.
+
+I stood breathless in the hall. Every girl at my age knows how much is
+involved in such an advent. I also heard Mrs. Rusk, in a minute or two
+more, emerge I suppose from the study. She walked quickly, and muttered
+sharply to herself--an evil trick, in which she indulged when much 'put
+about.' I should have been glad of a word with her; but I fancied she was
+vexed, and would not have talked satisfactorily. She did not, however, come
+my way; merely crossing the hall with her quick, energetic step.
+
+Was it really the arrival of a governess? Was that apparition which had
+impressed me so unpleasantly to take the command of me--to sit alone with
+me, and haunt me perpetually with her sinister looks and shrilly gabble?
+
+I was just making up my mind to go to Mary Quince, and learn something
+definite, when I heard my father's step approaching from the library: so
+I quietly re-entered the drawing-room, but with an anxious and throbbing
+heart.
+
+When he came in, as usual, he patted me on the head gently, with a kind of
+smile, and then began his silent walk up and down the room. I was yearning
+to question him on the point that just then engrossed me so disagreeably;
+but the awe in which I stood of him forbade.
+
+After a time he stopped at the window, the curtain of which I had drawn,
+and the shutter partly opened, and he looked out, perhaps with associations
+of his own, on the scene I had been contemplating.
+
+It was not for nearly an hour after, that my father suddenly, after his
+wont, in a few words, apprised me of the arrival of Madame de la Rougierre
+to be my governess, highly recommended and perfectly qualified. My heart
+sank with a sure presage of ill. I already disliked, distrusted, and feared
+her.
+
+I had more than an apprehension of her temper and fear of possibly abused
+authority. The large-featured, smirking phantom, saluting me so oddly in
+the moonlight, retained ever after its peculiar and unpleasant hold upon my
+nerves.
+
+'Well, Miss Maud, dear, I hope you'll like your new governess--for it's
+more than _I_ do, just at present at least,' said Mrs. Rusk, sharply--she
+was awaiting me in my room. 'I hate them French-women; they're not natural,
+I think. I gave her her supper in my room. She eats like a wolf, she does,
+the great raw-boned hannimal. I wish you saw her in bed as I did. I put her
+next the clock-room--she'll hear the hours betimes, I'm thinking. You never
+saw such a sight. The great long nose and hollow cheeks of her, and oogh!
+such a mouth! I felt a'most like little Red Riding-Hood--I did, Miss.'
+
+Here honest Mary Quince, who enjoyed Mrs. Rusk's satire, a weapon in which
+she was not herself strong, laughed outright.
+
+'Turn down the bed, Mary. She's very agreeable--she is, just now--all
+new-comers is; but she did not get many compliments from me, Miss--no,
+I rayther think not. I wonder why honest English girls won't answer the
+gentry for governesses, instead of them gaping, scheming, wicked furriners?
+Lord forgi' me, I think they're all alike.'
+
+Next morning I made acquaintance with Madame de la Rougierre. She was tall,
+masculine, a little ghastly perhaps, and draped in purple silk, with a
+lace cap, and great bands of black hair, too thick and black, perhaps, to
+correspond quite naturally with her bleached and sallow skin, her hollow
+jaws, and the fine but grim wrinkles traced about her brows and eyelids.
+She smiled, she nodded, and then for a good while she scanned me in silence
+with a steady cunning eye, and a stern smile.
+
+'And how is she named--what is Mademoiselle's name?' said the tall
+stranger.
+
+'_Maud_, Madame.'
+
+'Maud!--what pretty name! Eh bien! I am very sure my dear Maud she will
+be very good little girl--is not so?--and I am sure I shall love you vary
+moche. And what 'av you been learning, Maud, my dear cheaile--music,
+French, German, eh?'
+
+'Yes, a little; and I had just begun the use of the globes when my
+governess went away.'
+
+I nodded towards the globes, which stood near her, as I said this.
+
+'Oh! yes--the globes;' and she spun one of them with her great hand. 'Je
+vous expliquerai tout cela à fond.'
+
+Madame de la Rougierre, I found, was always quite ready to explain
+everything 'à fond;' but somehow her 'explications,' as she termed them,
+were not very intelligible, and when pressed her temper woke up; so that I
+preferred, after a while, accepting the expositions just as they came.
+
+Madame was on an unusually large scale, a circumstance which made some of
+her traits more startling, and altogether rendered her, in her strange way,
+more awful in the eyes of a nervous _child,_ I may say, such as I was. She
+used to look at me for a long time sometimes, with the peculiar smile
+I have mentioned, and a great finger upon her lip, like the Eleusinian
+priestess on the vase.
+
+She would sit, too, sometimes for an hour together, looking into the fire
+or out of the window, plainly seeing nothing, and with an odd, fixed look
+of something like triumph--very nearly a smile--on her cunning face.
+
+She was by no means a pleasant _gouvernante_ for a nervous girl of my
+years. Sometimes she had accesses of a sort of hilarity which frightened me
+still more than her graver moods, and I will describe these by-and-by.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+_SIGHTS AND NOISES_
+
+
+There is not an old house in England of which the servants and young people
+who live in it do not cherish some traditions of the ghostly. Knowl has its
+shadows, noises, and marvellous records. Rachel Ruthyn, the beauty of Queen
+Anne's time, who died of grief for the handsome Colonel Norbrooke, who
+was killed in the Low Countries, walks the house by night, in crisp and
+sounding silks. She is not seen, only heard. The tapping of her high-heeled
+shoes, the sweep and rustle of her brocades, her sighs as she pauses in the
+galleries, near the bed-room doors; and sometimes, on stormy nights, her
+sobs.
+
+There is, beside, the 'link-man', a lank, dark-faced, black-haired man, in
+a sable suit, with a link or torch in his hand. It usually only smoulders,
+with a deep red glow, as he visits his beat. The library is one of the
+rooms he sees to. Unlike 'Lady Rachel,' as the maids called her, he is seen
+only, never heard. His steps fall noiseless as shadows on floor and carpet.
+The lurid glow of his smouldering torch imperfectly lights his figure and
+face, and, except when much perturbed, his link never blazes. On those
+occasions, however, as he goes his rounds, he ever and anon whirls it
+around his head, and it bursts into a dismal flame. This is a fearful omen,
+and always portends some direful crisis or calamity. It occurs, only once
+or twice in a century.
+
+I don't know whether Madame had heard anything of these phenomena; but she
+did report which very much frightened me and Mary Quince. She asked us who
+walked in the gallery on which her bed-room opened, making a rustling with
+her dress, and going down the stairs, and breathing long breaths here and
+there. Twice, she said, she had stood at her door in the dark, listening to
+these sounds, and once she called to know who it was. There was no answer,
+but the person plainly turned back, and hurried towards her with an
+unnatural speed, which made her jump within her door and shut it.
+
+When first such tales are told, they excite the nerves of the young and the
+ignorant intensely. But the special effect, I have found, soon wears out
+The tale simply takes it's place with the rest. It was with Madame's
+narrative.
+
+About a week after its relation, I had my experience of a similar sort.
+Mary Quince went down-stairs for a night-light, leaving me in bed, a candle
+burning in the room, and being tired, I fell asleep before her return.
+When I awoke the candle had been extinguished. But I heard a step softly
+approaching. I jumped up--quite forgetting the ghost, and thinking only of
+Mary Quince--and opened the door, expecting to see the light of her candle.
+Instead, all was dark, and near me I heard the fall of a bare foot on the
+oak floor. It was as if some one had stumbled. I said, 'Mary,' but no
+answer came, only a rustling of clothes and a breathing at the other side
+of the gallery, which passed off towards the upper staircase. I turned into
+my room, freezing with horror, and clapt my door. The noise wakened Mary
+Quince, who had returned and gone to her bed half an hour before.
+
+About a fortnight after this, Mary Quince, a very veracious spinster,
+reported to me, that having got up to fix the window, which was rattling,
+at about four o'clock in the morning, she saw a light shining from the
+library window. She could swear to its being a strong light, streaming
+through the chinks of the shutter, and moving. No doubt the link was waved
+about his head by the angry 'link-man.'
+
+These strange occurrences helped, I think, just then to make me nervous,
+and prepared the way for the odd sort of ascendency which, through my
+sense of the mysterious and super-natural, that repulsive Frenchwoman was
+gradually, and it seemed without effort, establishing over me.
+
+Some dark points of her character speedily emerged from the prismatic mist
+with which she had enveloped it.
+
+Mrs. Rusk's observation about the agreeability of new-comers I found to be
+true; for as Madame began to lose that character, her good-humour abated
+very perceptibly, and she began to show gleams of another sort of temper,
+that was lurid and dangerous.
+
+Notwithstanding this, she was in the habit of always having her Bible open
+by her, and was austerely attentive at morning and evening services, and
+asked my father, with great humility, to lend her some translations of
+Swedenborg's books, which she laid much to heart.
+
+When we went out for our walk, if the weather were bad we generally made
+our promenade up and down the broad terrace in front of the windows. Sullen
+and malign at times she used to look, and as suddenly she would pat me on
+the shoulder caressingly, and smile with a grotesque benignity, asking
+tenderly, 'Are you fatigue, ma chère?' or 'Are you cold-a, dear Maud?'
+
+At first these abrupt transitions puzzled me, sometimes half frightened
+me, savouring, I fancied, of insanity. The key, however, was accidentally
+supplied, and I found that these accesses of demonstrative affection were
+sure to supervene whenever my father's face was visible through the library
+windows.
+
+I did not know well what to make of this woman, whom I feared with a vein
+of superstitious dread. I hated being alone with her after dusk in the
+school-room. She would sometimes sit for half an hour at a time, with her
+wide mouth drawn down at the corners, and a scowl, looking into the fire.
+If she saw me looking at her, she would change all this on the instant,
+affect a sort of languor, and lean her head upon her hand, and ultimately
+have recourse to her Bible. But I fancied she did not read, but pursued her
+own dark ruminations, for I observed that the open book might often lie for
+half an hour or more under her eyes and yet the leaf never turned.
+
+I should have been glad to be assured that she prayed when on her knees, or
+read when that book was before her; I should have felt that she was more
+canny and human. As it was, those external pieties made a suspicion of a
+hollow contrast with realities that helped to scare me; yet it was but a
+suspicion--I could not be certain.
+
+Our rector and the curate, with whom she was very gracious, and anxious
+about my collects and catechism, had an exalted opinion of her. In public
+places her affection for me was always demonstrative.
+
+In like manner she contrived conferences with my father. She was always
+making excuses to consult him about my reading, and to confide in him her
+sufferings, as I learned, from my contumacy and temper. The fact is, I was
+altogether quiet and submissive. But I think she had a wish to reduce me
+to a state of the most abject bondage. She had designs of domination and
+subversion regarding the entire household, I now believe, worthy of the
+evil spirit I sometimes fancied her.
+
+My father beckoned me into the study one day, and said he--
+
+'You ought not to give poor Madame so much pain. She is one of the few
+persons who take an interest in you; why should she have so often to
+complain of your ill-temper and disobedience?--why should she be compelled
+to ask my permission to punish you? Don't be afraid, I won't concede that.
+But in so kind a person it argues much. Affection I can't command--respect
+and obedience I may--and I insist on your rendering _both_ to Madame.'
+
+'But sir,' I said, roused into courage by the gross injustice of the
+charge, 'I have always done exactly as she bid me, and never said one
+disrespectful word to Madame.'
+
+'I don't think, child, _you_ are the best judge of that. Go, and _amend_.'
+And with a displeased look he pointed to the door. My heart swelled with
+the sense of wrong, and as I reached the door I turned to say another word,
+but I could not, and only burst into tears.
+
+'There--don't cry, little Maud--only let us do better for the future.
+There--there--there has been enough.'
+
+And he kissed my forehead, and gently put me out and closed the door.
+
+In the school-room I took courage, and with some warmth upbraided Madame.
+
+'Wat wicked cheaile!' moaned Madame, demurely. 'Read aloud those
+three--yes, _those_ three chapters of the Bible, my dear Maud.'
+
+There was no special fitness in those particular chapters, and when they
+were ended she said in a sad tone--
+
+'Now, dear, you must commit to memory this pretty priaire for umility of
+art.'
+
+It was a long one, and in a state of profound irritation I got through the
+task.
+
+Mrs. Rusk hated her. She said she stole wine and brandy whenever the
+opportunity offered--that she was always asking her for such stimulants and
+pretending pains in her stomach. Here, perhaps, there was exaggeration; but
+I knew it was true that I had been at different times despatched on that
+errand and pretext for brandy to Mrs. Rusk, who at last came to her bedside
+with pills and a mustard blister only, and was hated irrevocably ever
+after.
+
+I felt all this was done to torture me. But a day is a long time to a
+child, and they forgive quickly. It was always with a sense of danger that
+I heard Madame say she must go and see Monsieur Ruthyn in the library,
+and I think a jealousy of her growing influence was an ingredient in the
+detestation in which honest Mrs. Rusk held her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+_A WALK IN THE WOOD_
+
+
+Two little pieces of by-play in which I detected her confirmed my
+unpleasant suspicion. From the corner of the gallery I one day saw her,
+when she thought I was out and all quiet, with her ear at the keyhole of
+papa's study, as we used to call the sitting-room next his bed-room. Her
+eyes were turned in the direction of the stairs, from which only she
+apprehended surprise. Her great mouth was open, and her eyes absolutely
+goggled with eagerness. She was devouring all that was passing there.
+I drew back into the shadow with a kind of disgust and horror. She was
+transformed into a great gaping reptile. I felt that I could have thrown
+something at her; but a kind of fear made me recede again toward my room.
+Indignation, however, quickly returned, and I came back, treading briskly
+as I did so. When I reached the angle of the gallery again. Madame, I
+suppose, had heard me, for she was half-way down the stairs.
+
+'Ah, my dear Cheaile, I am so glad to find you, and you are dress to come
+out. We shall have so pleasant walk.'
+
+At that moment the door of my father's study opened, and Mrs. Rusk, with
+her dark energetic face very much flushed, stepped out in high excitement.
+
+'The Master says you may have the brandy-bottle, Madame and I'm glad to be
+rid of it--_I_ am.'
+
+Madame courtesied with a great smirk, that was full of intangible hate and
+insult.
+
+'Better your own brandy, if drink you must!' exclaimed Mrs. Rusk. 'You may
+come to the store-room now, or the butler can take it.'
+
+And off whisked Mrs. Rusk for the back staircase.
+
+There had been no common skirmish on this occasion, but a pitched battle.
+
+Madame had made a sort of pet of Anne Wixted, an under-chambermaid, and
+attached her to her interest economically by persuading me to make her
+presents of some old dresses and other things. Anne was such an angel!
+
+But Mrs. Rusk, whose eyes were about her, detected Anne, with a
+brandy-bottle under her apron, stealing up-stairs. Anne, in a panic,
+declared the truth. Madame had commissioned her to buy it in the town, and
+convey it to her bed-room. Upon this, Mrs. Rusk impounded the flask; and,
+with Anne beside her, rather precipitately appeared before 'the Master.' He
+heard and summoned Madame. Madame was cool, frank, and fluent. The brandy
+was purely medicinal. She produced a document in the form of a note. Doctor
+Somebody presented his compliments to Madame de la Rougierre, and ordered
+her a table-spoonful of brandy and some drops of laudanum whenever the pain
+of stomach returned. The flask would last a whole year, perhaps two. She
+claimed her medicine.
+
+Man's estimate of woman is higher than woman's own. Perhaps in their
+relations to men they are generally more trustworthy--perhaps woman's is
+the juster, and the other an appointed illusion. I don't know; but so it is
+ordained.
+
+Mrs. Rusk was recalled, and I saw, as you are aware, Madame's procedure
+during the interview.
+
+It was a great battle--a great victory. Madame was in high spirits. The air
+was sweet--the landscape charming--I, so good--everything so beautiful!
+Where should we go? _this_ way?
+
+I had made a resolution to speak as little as possible to Madame, I was so
+incensed at the treachery I had witnessed; but such resolutions do not last
+long with very young people, and by the time we had reached the skirts of
+the wood we were talking pretty much as usual.
+
+'I don't wish to go into the wood, Madame.
+
+'And for what?'
+
+'Poor mamma is buried there.'
+
+'Is _there_ the vault?' demanded Madame eagerly.
+
+I assented.
+
+'My faith, curious reason; you say because poor mamma is buried there you
+will not approach! Why, cheaile, what would good Monsieur Ruthyn say if
+he heard such thing? You are surely not so unkain', and I am with you.
+_Allons_. Let us come--even a little part of the way.'
+
+And so I yielded, though still reluctant.
+
+There was a grass-grown road, which we easily reached, leading to the
+sombre building, and we soon arrived before it.
+
+Madame de la Rougierre seemed rather curious. She sat down on the little
+bank opposite, in her most languid pose--her head leaned upon the tips of
+her fingers.
+
+'How very sad--how solemn!' murmured Madame. 'What noble tomb! How triste,
+my dear cheaile, your visit 'ere must it be, remembering a so sweet maman.
+There is new inscription--is it not new?' And so, indeed, it seemed.
+
+'I am fatigue--maybe you will read it aloud to me slowly and solemnly, my
+dearest Maud?'
+
+As I approached, I happened to look, I can't tell why, suddenly, over my
+shoulder; I was startled, for Madame was grimacing after me with a vile
+derisive distortion. She pretended to be seized with a fit of coughing. But
+it would not do: she saw that I had detected her, and she laughed aloud.
+
+'Come here, dear cheaile. I was just reflecting how foolish is all this
+thing--the tomb--the epitaph. I think I would 'av none--no, no epitaph. We
+regard them first for the oracle of the dead, and find them after only the
+folly of the living. So I despise. Do you think your house of Knowl down
+there is what you call haunt, my dear?'
+
+'Why?' said I, flushing and growing pale again. I felt quite afraid of
+Madame, and confounded at the suddenness of all this.
+
+'Because Anne Wixted she says there is ghost. How dark is this place! and
+so many of the Ruthyn family they are buried here--is not so? How high and
+thick are the trees all round! and nobody comes near.'
+
+And Madame rolled her eyes awfully, as if she expected to see something
+unearthly, and, indeed, looked very like it herself.
+
+'Come away, Madame,' I said, growing frightened, and feeling that if I were
+once, by any accident, to give way to the panic that was gathering round
+me, I should instantaneously lose all control of myself. 'Oh, come away!
+do, Madame--I'm frightened.'
+
+'No, on the contrary, sit here by me. It is very odd, you will think, ma
+chêre--un goût bizarre, vraiment!--but I love very much to be near to the
+dead people--in solitary place like this. I am not afraid of the dead
+people, nor of the ghosts. 'Av you ever see a ghost, my dear?'
+
+'Do, Madame, _pray_ speak of something else.'
+
+'Wat little fool! But no, you are not afraid. I 'av seen the ghosts myself.
+I saw one, for example, last night, shape like a monkey, sitting in the
+corner, with his arms round his knees; very wicked, old, old man his face
+was like, and white eyes so large.'
+
+'Come away, Madame! you are trying to frighten me,' I said, in the childish
+anger which accompanies fear. Madame laughed an ugly laugh, and said--
+
+'Eh bien! little fool!--I will not tell the rest if you are really
+frightened; let us change to something else.'
+
+'Yes, yes! oh, do--pray do.'
+
+'Wat good man is your father!'
+
+'Very--the kindest darling. I don't know why it is, Madame, I am so afraid
+of him, and never could tell him how much I love him.'
+
+This confidential talking with Madame, strange to say, implied no
+confidence; it resulted from fear--it was deprecatory. I treated her as if
+she had human sympathies, in the hope that they might be generated somehow.
+
+'Was there not a doctor from London with him a few months ago? Dr. Bryerly,
+I think they call him.'
+
+'Yes, a Doctor Bryerly, who remained a few days. Shall we begin to walk
+towards home, Madame? Do, pray.'
+
+'Immediately, cheaile; and does your father suffer much?'
+
+'No--I think not.'
+
+'And what then is his disease?'
+
+'Disease! he has _no_ disease. Have you heard anything about his health,
+Madame?' I said, anxiously.
+
+'Oh no, ma foi--I have heard nothing; but if the doctor came, it was not
+because he was quite well.'
+
+'But that doctor is a doctor in theology, I fancy. I know he is a
+Swedenborgian; and papa is so well he _could_ not have come as a
+physician.'
+
+'I am very glad, ma chère, to hear; but still you know your father is
+old man to have so young cheaile as you. Oh, yes--he is old man, and so
+uncertain life is. 'As he made his will, my dear? Every man so rich as he,
+especially so old, aught to 'av made his will.'
+
+'There is no need of haste, Madame; it is quite time enough when his health
+begins to fail.'
+
+'But has he really compose no will?'
+
+'I really don't know, Madame.'
+
+'Ah, little rogue! you will not tell--but you are not such fool as you
+feign yourself. No, no; you know everything. Come, tell me all about--it is
+for your advantage, you know. What is in his will, and when he wrote?'
+
+'But, Madame, I really know nothing of it. I can't say whether there is a
+will or not. Let us talk of something else.'
+
+'But, cheaile, it will not kill Monsieur Ruthyn to make his will; he will
+not come to lie here a day sooner by cause of that; but if he make no will,
+you may lose a great deal of the property. Would not that be pity?'
+
+'I really don't know anything of his will. If papa has made one, he has
+never spoken of it to me. I know he loves me--that is enough.'
+
+'Ah! you are not such little goose--you do know everything, of course. Come
+tell me, little obstinate, otherwise I will break your little finger. Tell
+me everything.'
+
+'I know nothing of papa's will. You don't know, Madame, how you hurt me.
+Let us speak of something else.'
+
+'You do know, and you must tell, petite dure-tête, or I will break a your
+little finger.'
+
+With which words she seized that joint, and laughing spitefully, she
+twisted it suddenly back. I screamed while she continued to laugh.
+
+'Will you tell?'
+
+'Yes, yes! let me go,' I shrieked.
+
+She did not release it immediately however, but continued her torture and
+discordant laughter. At last she finally released my finger.
+
+'So she is going to be good cheaile, and tell everything to her
+affectionate gouvernante. What do you cry for, little fool?'
+
+'You've hurt me very much--you have broken my finger,' I sobbed.
+
+'Rub it and blow it and give it a kiss, little fool! What cross girl! I
+will never play with you again--never. Let us go home.'
+
+Madame was silent and morose all the way home. She would not answer my
+questions, and affected to be very lofty and offended.
+
+This did not last very long, however, and she soon resumed her wonted ways.
+And she returned to the question of the will, but not so directly, and with
+more art.
+
+Why should this dreadful woman's thoughts be running so continually upon my
+father's will? How could it concern her?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+_CHURCH SCARSDALE_
+
+
+I think all the females of our household, except Mrs. Rusk, who was at open
+feud with her and had only room for the fiercer emotions, were more or less
+afraid of this inauspicious foreigner.
+
+Mrs. Rusk would say in her confidences in my room--
+
+'Where does she come from?--is she a French or a Swiss one, or is she a
+Canada woman? I remember one of _them_ when I was a girl, and a nice limb
+_she_ was, too! And who did she live with? Where was her last family? Not
+one of us knows nothing about her, no more than a child; except, of course,
+the Master--I do suppose he made enquiry. She's always at hugger-mugger
+with Anne Wixted. I'll pack that _one_ about her business, if she doesn't
+mind. Tattling and whispering eternally. It's not about her own business
+she's a-talking. Madame de la Rougepot, I call her. She _does_ know how to
+paint up to the ninety-nines--she does, the old cat. I beg your pardon,
+Miss, but _that_ she is--a devil, and no mistake. I found her out first by
+her thieving the Master's gin, that the doctor ordered him, and filling the
+decanter up with water--the old villain; but she'll be found out yet, she
+will; and all the maids is afraid on her. She's not right, they think--a
+witch or a ghost--I should not wonder. Catherine Jones found her in her bed
+asleep in the morning after she sulked with you, you know, Miss, with all
+her clothes on, what-ever was the meaning; and I think she has frightened
+_you,_ Miss and has you as nervous as anythink--I do,' and so forth.
+
+It was true. I _was_ nervous, and growing rather more so; and I think this
+cynical woman perceived and intended it, and was pleased. I was always
+afraid of her concealing herself in my room, and emerging at night to scare
+me. She began sometimes to mingle in my dreams, too--always awfully; and
+this nourished, of course, the kind of ambiguous fear in which, in waking
+hours, I held her.
+
+I dreamed one night that she led me, all the time whispering something so
+very fast that I could not understand her, into the library, holding
+a candle in her other hand above her head. We walked on tiptoe, like
+criminals at the dead of night, and stopped before that old oak cabinet
+which my father had indicated in so odd a way to me. I felt that we were
+about some contraband practice. There was a key in the door, which I
+experienced a guilty horror at turning, she whispering in the same
+unintelligible way, all the time, at my ear. I _did_ turn it; the door
+opened quite softly, and within stood my father, his face white and
+malignant, and glaring close in mine. He cried in a terrible voice,
+'Death!' Out went Madame's candle, and at the same moment, with a scream,
+I waked in the dark--still fancying myself in the library; and for an hour
+after I continued in a hysterical state.
+
+Every little incident about Madame furnished a topic of eager discussion
+among the maids. More or less covertly, they nearly all hated and feared
+her. They fancied that she was making good her footing with 'the Master;'
+and that she would then oust Mrs. Rusk--perhaps usurp her place--and so
+make a clean sweep of them all. I fancy the honest little housekeeper did
+not discourage that suspicion.
+
+About this time I recollect a pedlar--an odd, gipsified-looking man--called
+in at Knowl. I and Catherine Jones were in the court when he came, and set
+down his pack on the low balustrade beside the door.
+
+All sorts of commodities he had--ribbons, cottons, silks, stockings,
+lace, and even some bad jewellry; and just as he began his display--an
+interesting matter in a quiet country house--Madame came upon the ground.
+He grinned a recognition, and hoped 'Madamasel' was well, and 'did not look
+to see _her_ here.'
+
+'Madamasel' thanked him. 'Yes, vary well,' and looked for the first time
+decidedly 'put out.'
+
+'Wat a pretty things!' she said. 'Catherine, run and tell Mrs. Rusk. She
+wants scissars, and lace too--I heard her say.'
+
+So Catherine, with a lingering look, departed; and Madame said--
+
+'Will you, dear cheaile, be so kind to bring here my purse, I forgot on the
+table in my room; also, I advise you, bring _your_.'
+
+Catherine returned with Mrs. Rusk. Here was a man who could tell them
+something of the old Frenchwoman, at last! Slyly they dawdled over his
+wares, until Madame had made her market and departed with me. But when the
+coveted opportunity came, the pedlar was quite impenetrable. 'He forgot
+everything; he did not believe as he ever saw the lady before. He called a
+Frenchwoman, all the world over, Madamasel--that wor the name on 'em all.
+He never seed her in partiklar afore, as he could bring to mind. He liked
+to see 'em always, 'cause they makes the young uns buy.'
+
+This reserve and oblivion were very provoking, and neither Mrs. Rusk nor
+Catherine Jones spent sixpence with him;--he was a stupid fellow, or worse.
+
+Of course Madame had tampered with him. But truth, like murder, will out
+some day. Tom Williams, the groom, had seen her, when alone with him, and
+pretending to look at his stock, with her face almost buried in his silks
+and Welsh linseys, talking as fast as she could all the time, and slipping
+_money_, he did suppose, under a piece of stuff in his box.
+
+In the mean time, I and Madame were walking over the wide, peaty
+sheep-walks that lie between Knowl and Church Scarsdale. Since our visit to
+the mausoleum in the wood, she had not worried me so much as before. She
+had been, indeed, more than usually thoughtful, very little talkative, and
+troubled me hardly at all about French and other accomplishments. A walk
+was a part of our daily routine. I now carried a tiny basket in my hand,
+with a few sandwiches, which were to furnish our luncheon when we reached
+the pretty scene, about two miles away, whither we were tending.
+
+We had started a little too late; Madame grew unwontedly fatigued and sat
+down to rest on a stile before we had got half-way; and there she intoned,
+with a dismal nasal cadence, a quaint old Bretagne ballad, about a lady
+with a pig's head:--
+
+  'This lady was neither pig nor maid,
+  And so she was not of human mould;
+  Not of the living nor the dead.
+  Her left hand and foot were warm to touch;
+  Her right as cold as a corpse's flesh!
+  And she would sing like a funeral bell, with a ding-dong tune.
+  The pigs were afraid, and viewed her aloof;
+  And women feared her and stood afar.
+  She could do without sleep for a year and a day;
+  She could sleep like a corpse, for a month and more.
+  No one knew how this lady fed--
+  On acorns or on flesh.
+  Some say that she's one of the swine-possessed,
+  That swam over the sea of Gennesaret.
+  A mongrel body and demon soul.
+  Some say she's the wife of the Wandering Jew,
+  And broke the law for the sake of pork;
+  And a swinish face for a token doth bear,
+  That her shame is now, and her punishment coming.'
+
+And so it went on, in a gingling rigmarole. The more anxious I seemed to go
+on our way, the more likely was she to loiter. I therefore showed no signs
+of impatience, and I saw her consult her watch in the course of her ugly
+minstrelsy, and slyly glance, as if expecting something, in the direction
+of our destination.
+
+When she had sung to her heart's content, up rose Madame, and began to walk
+onward silently. I saw her glance once or twice, as before, toward the
+village of Trillsworth, which lay in front, a little to our left, and
+the smoke of which hung in a film over the brow of the hill. I think she
+observed me, for she enquired--
+
+'Wat is that a smoke there?'
+
+'That is Trillsworth, Madame; there is a railway station there.'
+
+'Oh, le chemin de fer, so near! I did not think. Where it goes?'
+
+I told her, and silence returned.
+
+Church Scarsdale is a very pretty and odd scene. The slightly undulating
+sheep-walk dips suddenly into a wide glen, in the lap of which, by a
+bright, winding rill, rise from the sward the ruins of a small abbey, with
+a few solemn trees scattered round. The crows' nests hung untenanted in the
+trees; the birds were foraging far away from their roosts. The very cattle
+had forsaken the place. It was solitude itself.
+
+Madame drew a long breath and smiled.
+
+'Come down, come down, cheaile--come down to the churchyard.'
+
+As we descended the slope which shut out the surrounding world, and the
+scene grew more sad and lonely. Madame's spirits seemed to rise.
+
+'See 'ow many grave-stones--one, _two_ hundred. Don't you love the dead,
+cheaile? I will teach you to love them. You shall see me die here to-day,
+for half an hour, and be among them. That is what I love.'
+
+We were by this time at the little brook's side, and the low churchyard
+wall with a stile, reached by a couple of stepping-stones, across the
+stream, immediately at the other side.
+
+'Come, now!' cried Madame, raising her face, as if to sniff the air; 'we
+are close to them. You will like them soon as I. You shall see five of
+them. Ah, ça ira, ça ira, ça ira! Come cross quickily! I am Madame la
+Morgue--Mrs. Deadhouse! I will present you my friends, Monsieur Cadavre and
+Monsieur Squelette. Come, come, leetle mortal, let us play. Ouaah!' And
+she uttered a horrid yell from her enormous mouth, and pushing her wig and
+bonnet back, so as to show her great, bald head. She was laughing, and
+really looked quite mad.
+
+'No, Madame, I will not go with you,' I said, disengaging my hand with a
+violent effort, receding two or three steps.
+
+'Not enter the churchyard! Ma foi--wat mauvais goût! But see, we are
+already in shade. The sun he is setting soon--where well you remain,
+cheaile? I will not stay long.'
+
+'I'll stay here,' I said, a little angrily--for I _was_ angry as well as
+nervous; and through my fear was that indignation at her extravagances
+which mimicked lunacy so unpleasantly, and were, I knew, designed to
+frighten me.
+
+Over the stepping-stones, pulling up her dress, she skipped with her long,
+lank legs, like a witch joining a Walpurgis. Over the stile she strode, and
+I saw her head wagging, and heard her sing some of her ill-omened rhymes,
+as she capered solemnly, with many a grin and courtesy, among the graves
+and headstones, towards the ruin.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+_THE SMOKER_
+
+
+Three years later I learned--in a way she probably little expected, and
+then did not much care about--what really occurred there. I learned even
+phrases and looks--for the story was related by one who had heard it
+told--and therefore I venture to narrate what at the moment I neither saw
+nor suspected. While I sat, flushed and nervous, upon a flat stone by the
+bank of the little stream, Madame looked over her shoulder, and perceiving
+that I was out of sight, she abated her pace, and turned sharply towards
+the ruin which lay at her left. It was her first visit, and she was merely
+exploring; but now, with a perfectly shrewd and businesslike air, turning
+the corner of the building, she saw, seated upon the edge of a grave-stone,
+a rather fat and flashily-equipped young man, with large, light whiskers, a
+jerry hat, green cutaway coat with gilt buttons, and waistcoat and trousers
+rather striking than elegant in pattern. He was smoking a short pipe, and
+made a nod to Madame, without either removing it from his lips or rising,
+but with his brown and rather good-looking face turned up, he eyed her with
+something of the impudent and sulky expression that was habitual to it.
+
+'Ha, Deedle, you are there! an' look so well. I am here, too, quite _a_lon;
+but my friend, she wait outside the churchyard, by-side the leetle river,
+for she must not think I know you--so I am come _a_lon.'
+
+'You're a quarter late, and I lost a fight by you, old girl, this morning,'
+said the gay man, and spat on the ground; 'and I wish you would not call me
+Diddle. I'll call you Granny if you do.'
+
+'Eh bien! _Dud,_ then. She is vary nice--wat you like. Slim waist, wite
+teeth, vary nice eyes--dark--wat you say is best--and nice leetle foot and
+ankle.'
+
+Madame smiled leeringly.
+
+Dud smoked on.
+
+'Go on,' said Dud, with a nod of command.
+
+'I am teach her to sing and play--she has such sweet voice!
+
+There was another interval here.
+
+'Well, that isn't much good. I hate women's screechin' about fairies and
+flowers. Hang her! there's a scarecrow as sings at Curl's Divan. Such a
+caterwauling upon a stage! I'd like to put my two barrels into her.'
+
+By this time Dud's pipe was out, and he could afford to converse.
+
+'You shall see her and decide. You will walk down the river, and pass her
+by.'
+
+'That's as may be; howsoever, it would not do, nohow, to buy a pig in a
+poke, you know. And s'pose I shouldn't like her, arter all?'
+
+Madame sneered, with a patois ejaculation of derision.
+
+'Vary good! Then some one else will not be so 'ard to please--as you will
+soon find.'
+
+'Some one's bin a-lookin' arter her, you mean?' said the young man, with a
+shrewd uneasy glance on the cunning face of the French lady.
+
+'I mean precisely--that which I mean,' replied the lady, with a teazing
+pause at the break I have marked.
+
+'Come, old 'un, none of your d---- old chaff, if you want me to stay
+here listening to you. Speak out, can't you? There's any chap as has bin
+a-lookin' arter her--is there?'
+
+'Eh bien! I suppose some.'
+
+'Well, you _suppose,_ and _I_ suppose--we may _all_ suppose, I guess; but
+that does not make a thing be, as wasn't before; and you tell me as how
+the lass is kep' private up there, and will be till you're done educating
+her--a precious good 'un that is!' And he laughed a little lazily, with
+the ivory handle of his cane on his lip, and eyeing Madame with indolent
+derision.
+
+Madame laughed, but looked rather dangerous.
+
+'I'm only chaffin', you know, old girl. _You_'ve bin chaffin'--w'y
+shouldn't _I_? But I don't see why she can't wait a bit; and what's all the
+d----d hurry for? _I_'m in no hurry. I don't want a wife on my back for a
+while. There's no fellow marries till he's took his bit o' fun, and seen
+life--is there! And why should I be driving with her to fairs, or to
+church, or to meeting, by jingo!--for they say she's a Quaker--with a babby
+on each knee, only to please them as will be dead and rotten when _I_'m
+only beginning?'
+
+'Ah, you are such charming fellow; always the same--always sensible. So
+I and my friend we will walk home again, and you go see Maggie Hawkes.
+Good-a-by, Dud--good-a-by.'
+
+'Quiet, you fool!--can't ye?' said the young gentleman, with the sort of
+grin that made his face vicious when a horse vexed him. 'Who ever said I
+wouldn't go look at the girl? Why, you know that's just what I come here
+for--don't you? Only when I think a bit, and a notion comes across me, why
+shouldn't I speak out? I'm not one o' them shilly-shallies. If I like the
+girl, I'll not be mug in and mug out about it. Only mind ye, I'll judge for
+myself. Is that her a-coming?'
+
+'No; it was a distant sound.'
+
+Madame peeped round the corner. No one was approaching.
+
+'Well, you go round that a-way, and you only look at her, you know, for she
+is such fool--so nairvous.'
+
+'Oh, is that the way with her?' said Dud, knocking out the ashes of his
+pipe on a tombstone, and replacing the Turkish utensil in his pocket.
+'Well, then, old lass, good-bye,' and he shook her hand. 'And, do ye see,
+don't ye come up till I pass, for I'm no hand at play-acting; an' if you
+called me "sir," or was coming it dignified and distant, you know, I'd be
+sure to laugh, a'most, and let all out. So good-bye, d'ye see, and if you
+want me again be sharp to time, mind.
+
+From habit he looked about for his dogs, but he had not brought one. He had
+come unostentatiously by rail, travelling in a third-class carriage, for
+the advantage of Jack Briderly's company, and getting a world of useful
+wrinkles about the steeplechase that was coming off next week.
+
+So he strode away, cutting off the heads of the nettles with his cane as he
+went; and Madame walked forth into the open space among the graves, where I
+might have seen her, had I stood up, looking with the absorbed gaze of an
+artist on the ruin.
+
+In a little while, along the path, I heard the clank of a step, and the
+gentleman in the green cutaway coat, sucking his cane, and eyeing me
+with an offensive familiar sort of stare the while, passed me by, rather
+hesitating as he did so. I was glad when he turned the corner in the little
+hollow close by, and disappeared. I stood up at once, and was reassured
+by a sight of Madame, not very many yards away, looking at the ruin, and
+apparently restored to her right mind. The last beams of the sun were by
+this time touching the uplands, and I was longing to recommence our walk
+home. I was hesitating about calling to Madame, because that lady had a
+certain spirit of opposition within her, and to disclose a small wish
+of any sort was generally, if it lay in her power, to prevent its
+accomplishment.
+
+At this moment the gentleman in the green coat returned, approaching me
+with a slow sort of swagger.
+
+'I say, Miss, I dropped a glove close by here. May you have seen it?'
+
+'No, sir,' I said, drawing back a little, and looking, I dare say, both
+frightened and offended.
+
+'I do think I must 'a dropped it close by your foot, Miss.'
+
+'No, sir,' I repeated.
+
+'No offence, Miss, but you're sure you didn't hide it?'
+
+I was beginning to grow seriously uncomfortable.
+
+'Don't be frightened, Miss; it's only a bit o' chaff. I'm not going to
+search.'
+
+I called aloud, 'Madame, Madame!' and he whistled through his fingers, and
+shouted, 'Madame, Madame,' and added, 'She's as deaf as a tombstone, or
+she'll hear that. Gi'e her my compliments, and say I said you're a beauty,
+Miss;' and with a laugh and a leer he strode off.
+
+Altogether this had not been a very pleasant excursion. Madame gobbled up
+our sandwiches, commending them every now and then to me. But I had been
+too much excited to have any appetite left, and very tired I was when we
+reached home.
+
+'So, there is lady coming to-morrow?' said Madame, who knew everything.
+'Wat is her name? I forget.'
+
+'Lady Knollys,' I answered.
+
+'Lady Knollys--wat odd name! She is very young--is she not?'
+
+'Past fifty, I think.'
+
+'Hélas! She's vary old, then. Is she rich?'
+
+'I don't know. She has a place in Derbyshire.'
+
+'Derbyshire--that is one of your English counties, is it not?'
+
+'Oh yes, Madame,' I answered, laughing. 'I have said it to you twice since
+you came;' and I gabbled through the chief towns and rivers as catalogued
+in my geography.
+
+'Bah! to be sure--of course, cheaile. And is she your relation?'
+
+'Papa's first cousin.'
+
+'Won't you present-a me, pray?--I would so like!'
+
+Madame had fallen into the English way of liking people with titles, as
+perhaps foreigners would if titles implied the sort of power they do
+generally with us.
+
+'Certainly, Madame.'
+
+'You will not forget?'
+
+'Oh no.'
+
+Madame reminded me twice, in the course of the evening, of my promise.
+She was very eager on this point. But it is a world of disappointment,
+influenza, and rheumatics; and next morning Madame was prostrate in her
+bed, and careless of all things but flannel and James's powder.
+
+Madame was _désolée_; but she could not raise her head. She only murmured a
+question.
+
+'For 'ow long time, dear, will Lady Knollys remain?'
+
+'A very few days, I believe.'
+
+'Hélas! 'ow onlucky! maybe to-morrow I shall be better Ouah! my ear. The
+laudanum, dear cheaile!'
+
+And so our conversation for that time ended, and Madame buried her head in
+her old red cashmere shawl.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+_MONICA KNOLLYS_
+
+
+Punctually Lady Knollys arrived. She was accompanied by her nephew, Captain
+Oakley.
+
+They arrived a little before dinner; just in time to get to their rooms and
+dress. But Mary Quince enlivened my toilet with eloquent descriptions of
+the youthful Captain whom she had met in the gallery, on his way to his
+room, with the servant, and told me how he stopped to let her pass, and how
+'he smiled so 'ansom.'
+
+I was very young then, you know, and more childish even than my years; but
+this talk of Mary Quince's interested me, I must confess, considerably. I
+was painting all sort of portraits of this heroic soldier, while affecting,
+I am afraid, a hypocritical indifference to her narration, and I know I was
+very nervous and painstaking about my toilet that evening. When I went down
+to the drawing-room, Lady Knollys was there, talking volubly to my father
+as I entered--a woman not really old, but such as very young people fancy
+aged--energetic, bright, saucy, dressed handsomely in purple satin, with a
+good deal of lace, and a rich point--I know not how to call it--not a cap,
+a sort of head-dress--light and simple, but grand withal, over her greyish,
+silken hair.
+
+Rather tall, by no means stout, on the whole a good firm figure, with
+something kindly in her look. She got up, quite like a young person, and
+coming quickly to meet me with a smile--
+
+'My young cousin!' she cried, and kissed me on both cheeks. 'You know who
+I am? Your cousin Monica--Monica Knollys--and very glad, dear, to see you,
+though she has not set eyes on you since you were no longer than that
+paper-knife. Now come here to the lamp, for I must look at you. Who is she
+like? Let me see. Like your poor mother, I think, my dear; but you've the
+Aylmer nose--yes--not a bad nose either, and, come! very good eyes, upon
+my life--yes, certainly something of her poor mother--not a bit like you,
+Austin.'
+
+My father gave her a look as near a smile as I had seen there for a long
+time, shrewd, cynical, but kindly too, and said he--
+
+'So much the better, Monica, eh?'
+
+'It was not for me to say--but you know, Austin, you always were an ugly
+creature. How shocked and indignant the little girl looks! You must not be
+vexed, you loyal little woman, with Cousin Monica for telling the truth.
+Papa was and will be ugly all his days. Come, Austin, dear, tell her--is
+not it so?'
+
+'What! depose against myself! That's not English law, Monica.'
+
+'Well, maybe not; but if the child won't believe her own eyes, how is she
+to believe me? She has long, pretty hands--you have--and very nice feet
+too. How old is she?'
+
+'How old, child?' said my father to me, transferring the question.
+
+She recurred again to my eyes.
+
+'That is the true grey--large, deep, soft--very peculiar. Yes, dear, very
+pretty--long lashes, and such bright tints! You'll be in the Book of
+Beauty, my dear, when you come out, and have all the poet people writing
+verses to the tip of your nose--and a very pretty little nose it is!'
+
+I must mention here how striking was the change in my father's spirit while
+talking and listening to his odd and voluble old Cousin Monica. Reflected
+from bygone associations, there had come a glimmer of something, not
+gaiety, indeed, but like an appreciation of gaiety. The gloom and
+inflexibility were gone, and there was an evident encouragement and
+enjoyment of the incessant sallies of his bustling visitor.
+
+How morbid must have been the tendencies of his habitual solitude, I think,
+appeared from the evident thawing and brightening that accompanied even
+this transient gleam of human society. I was not a companion--more childish
+than most girls of my age, and trained in all his whimsical ways, never to
+interrupt a silence, or force his thoughts by unexpected question or remark
+out of their monotonous or painful channel.
+
+I was as much surprised at the good-humour with which he submitted to
+his cousin's saucy talk; and, indeed, just then those black-panelled and
+pictured walls, and that quaint, misshapen room, seemed to have exchanged
+their stern and awful character for something wonderfully pleasanter to me,
+notwithstanding the unpleasantness of the personal criticism to which the
+plain-spoken lady chose to subject me.
+
+Just at that moment Captain Oakley joined us. He was my first actual vision
+of that awful and distant world of fashion, of whose splendours I had
+already read something in the three-volumed gospel of the circulating
+library.
+
+Handsome, elegant, with features almost feminine, and soft, wavy, black
+hair, whiskers and moustache, he was altogether such a knight as I had
+never beheld, or even fancied, at Knowl--a hero of another species, and
+from the region of the demigods. I did not then perceive that coldness of
+the eye, and cruel curl of the voluptuous lip--only a suspicion, yet enough
+to indicate the profligate man, and savouring of death unto death.
+
+But I was young, and had not yet the direful knowledge of good and evil
+that comes with years; and he was so very handsome, and talked in a way
+that was so new to me, and was so much more charming than the well-bred
+converse of the humdrum county families with whom I had occasionally
+sojourned for a week at a time.
+
+It came out incidentally that his leave of absence was to expire the
+day after to-morrow. A Lilliputian pang of disappointment followed this
+announcement. Already I was sorry to lose him. So soon we begin to make a
+property of what pleases us.
+
+I was shy, but not awkward. I was flattered by the attention of this
+amusing, perhaps rather fascinating, young man of the world; and he plainly
+addressed himself with diligence to amuse and please me. I dare say there
+was more effort than I fancied in bringing his talk down to my humble
+level, and interesting me and making me laugh about people whom I had never
+heard of before, than I then suspected.
+
+Cousin Knollys meanwhile was talking to papa. It was just the conversation
+that suited a man so silent as habit had made him, for her frolic fluency
+left him little to supply. It was totally impossible, indeed, even in our
+taciturn household, that conversation should ever flag while she was among
+us.
+
+Cousin Knollys and I went into the drawing-room together, leaving the
+gentlemen--rather ill-assorted, I fear--to entertain one another for a
+time.
+
+'Come here, my dear, and sit near me,' said Lady Knollys, dropping into an
+easy chair with an energetic little plump, 'and tell me how you and your
+papa get on. I can remember him quite a cheerful man once, and rather
+amusing--yes, indeed--and now you see what a bore he is--all by shutting
+himself up and nursing his whims and fancies. Are those your drawings,
+dear?'
+
+'Yes, very bad, I'm afraid; but there are a few, _better_, I think in the
+portfolio in the cabinet in the hall.'
+
+'They are by _no_ means bad, my dear; and you play, of course?'
+
+'Yes--that is, a little--pretty well, I hope.'
+
+'I dare say. I must hear you by-and-by. And how does your papa amuse you?
+You look bewildered, dear. Well, I dare say, amusement is not a frequent
+word in this house. But you must not turn into a nun, or worse, into a
+puritan. What is he? A Fifth-Monarchy-man, or something--I forget; tell me
+the name, my dear.'
+
+'Papa is a Swedenborgian, I believe.'
+
+'Yes, yes--I forgot the horrid name--a Swedenborgian, that is it. I don't
+know exactly what they think, but everyone knows they are a sort of pagans,
+my dear. He's not making one of _you_, dear--is he?'
+
+'I go to church every Sunday.'
+
+'Well, that's a mercy; Swedenborgian is such an ugly name, and besides,
+they are all likely to be damned, my dear, and that's a serious
+consideration. I really wish poor Austin had hit on something else; I'd
+much rather have no religion, and enjoy life while I'm in it, than choose
+one to worry me here and bedevil me hereafter. But some people, my dear,
+have a taste for being miserable, and provide, like poor Austin, for its
+gratification in the next world as well as here. Ha, ha, ha! how grave the
+little woman looks! Don't you think me very wicked? You know you do; and
+very likely you are right. Who makes your dresses, my dear? You _are_ such
+a figure of fun!'
+
+'Mrs. Rusk, I think, ordered _this_ dress. I and Mary Quince planned it. I
+thought it very nice. We all like it very well.'
+
+There was something, I dare say, very whimsical about it, probably very
+absurd, judged at least by the canons of fashion, and old Cousin Monica
+Knollys, in whose eye the London fashions were always fresh, was palpably
+struck by it as if it had been some enormity against anatomy, for she
+certainly laughed very heartily; indeed, there were tears on her cheeks
+when she had done, and I am sure my aspect of wonder and dignity, as her
+hilarity proceeded, helped to revive her merriment again and again as it
+was subsiding.
+
+'There, you mustn't be vexed with old Cousin Monica,' she cried, jumping
+up, and giving me a little hug, and bestowing a hearty kiss on my forehead,
+and a jolly little slap on my cheek. 'Always remember your cousin Monica is
+an outspoken, wicked old fool, who likes you, and never be offended by her
+nonsense. A council of three--you all sat upon it--Mrs. Rusk, you said, and
+Mary Quince, and your wise self, the weird sisters; and Austin stepped in,
+as Macbeth, and said, 'What is't ye do?' you all made answer together, 'A
+something or other without a name!' Now, seriously, my dear, it is quite
+unpardonable in Austin--your papa, I mean--to hand you over to be robed and
+bedizened according to the whimsies of these wild old women--aren't they
+old? If they know better, it's positively _fiendish._ I'll blow him up--I
+will indeed, my dear. You know you're an heiress, and ought not to appear
+like a jack-pudding.'
+
+'Papa intends sending me to London with Madame and Mary Quince, and going
+with me himself, if Doctor Bryerly says he may make the journey, and then I
+am to have dresses and everything.'
+
+'Well, that is better. And who is Doctor Bryerly--is your papa ill?'
+
+'Ill; oh no; he always seems just the same. You don't think him
+ill--_looking_ ill, I mean?' I asked eagerly and frightened.
+
+'No, my dear, he looks very well for his time of life; but why is Doctor
+What's-his-name here? Is he a physician, or a divine, or a horse-doctor?
+and why is his leave asked?'
+
+'I--I really don't understand.'
+
+'Is he a what d'ye call'em--a Swedenborgian?'
+
+'I believe so.'
+
+'Oh, I see; ha, ha, ha! And so poor Austin must ask leave to go up to town.
+Well, go he shall, whether his doctor likes it or not, for it would not do
+to send you there in charge of your Frenchwoman, my dear. What's her name?'
+
+'Madame de la Rougierre.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+_LADY KNOLLYS REMOVES A COVERLET_
+
+
+Lady Knollys pursued her enquiries.
+
+'And why does not Madame make your dresses, my dear? I wager a guinea the
+woman's a milliner. Did not she engage to make your dresses?'
+
+'I--I really don't know; I rather think not. She is my governess--a
+finishing governess, Mrs. Rusk says.'
+
+'Finishing fiddle! Hoity-toity! and my lady's too grand to cut out your
+dresses and help to sew them? And what _does_ she do? I venture to say
+she's fit to teach nothing but devilment--not that she has taught _you_
+much, my dear--_yet_ at least. I'll see her, my dear; where is she? Come,
+let us visit Madame. I should so like to talk to her a little.'
+
+'But she is ill,' I answered, and all this time I was ready to cry for
+vexation, thinking of my dress, which must be very absurd to elicit so much
+unaffected laughter from my experienced relative, and I was only longing to
+get away and hide myself before that handsome Captain returned.
+
+'Ill! is she? what's the matter?'
+
+'A cold--feverish and rheumatic, she says.'
+
+'Oh, a cold; is she up, or in bed?'
+
+'In her room, but not in bed.'
+
+'I should so like to see her, my dear. It is not mere curiosity, I assure
+you. In fact, curiosity has nothing on earth to do with it. A governess may
+be a very useful or a very useless person; but she may also be about the
+most pernicious inmate imaginable. She may teach you a bad accent, and
+worse manners, and heaven knows what beside. Send the housekeeper, my dear,
+to tell her that I am going to see her.'
+
+'I had better go myself, perhaps,' I said, fearing a collision between Mrs.
+Rusk and the bitter Frenchwoman.
+
+'Very well, dear.'
+
+And away I ran, not sorry somehow to escape before Captain Oakley returned.
+
+As I went along the passage, I was thinking whether my dress could be
+so very ridiculous as my old cousin thought it, and trying in vain to
+recollect any evidence of a similar contemptuous estimate on the part of
+that beautiful and garrulous dandy. I could not--quite the reverse, indeed.
+Still I was uncomfortable and feverish--girls of my then age will easily
+conceive how miserable, under similar circumstances, such a misgiving would
+make them.
+
+It was a long way to Madame's room. I met Mrs. Rusk bustling along the
+passage with a housemaid.
+
+'How is Madame?' I asked.
+
+'Quite well, I believe,' answered the housekeeper, drily. 'Nothing the
+matter that _I_ know of. She eat enough for two to-day. I wish _I_ could
+sit in my room doing nothing.'
+
+Madame was sitting, or rather reclining, in a low arm-chair, when I entered
+the room, close to the fire, as was her wont, her feet extended near to the
+bars, and a little coffee equipage beside her. She stuffed a book hastily
+between her dress and the chair, and received me in a state of langour
+which, had it not been for Mrs. Rusk's comfortable assurances, would have
+frightened me.
+
+'I hope you are better, Madame,' I said, approaching.
+
+'Better than I deserve, my dear cheaile, sufficiently well. The people
+are all so good, trying me with every little thing, like a bird; here is
+café--Mrs. Rusk-a, poor woman, I try to swallow a little to please her.'
+
+'And your cold, is it better?'
+
+She shook her head languidly, her elbow resting on the chair, and three
+finger-tips supporting her forehead, and then she made a little sigh,
+looking down from the corners of her eyes, in an interesting dejection.
+
+'Je sens des lassitudes in all the members--but I am quaite 'appy, and
+though I suffer I am console and oblige des bontés, ma chère, que vous
+avez tous pour moi;' and with these words she turned a languid glance of
+gratitude on me which dropped on the ground.
+
+'Lady Knollys wishes very much to see you, only for a few minutes, if you
+could admit her.'
+
+'Vous savez les malades see _never_ visitors,' she replied with a startled
+sort of tartness, and a momentary energy. 'Besides, I cannot converse; je
+sens de temps en temps des douleurs de tête--of head, and of the ear, the
+right ear, it is parfois agony absolutely, and now it is here.'
+
+And she winced and moaned, with her eyes closed and her hand pressed to the
+organ affected.
+
+Simple as I was, I felt instinctively that Madame was shamming. She was
+over-acting; her transitions were too violent, and beside she forgot that
+I knew how well she could speak English, and must perceive that she was
+heightening the interest of her helplessness by that pretty tessellation
+of foreign idiom. I therefore said with a kind of courage which sometimes
+helped me suddenly--
+
+'Oh, Madame, don't you really think you might, without much inconvenience,
+see Lady Knollys for a very few minutes?'
+
+'Cruel cheaile! you know I have a pain of the ear which makes me 'orribly
+suffer at this moment, and you demand me whether I will not converse
+with strangers. I did not think you would be so unkain, Maud; but it is
+impossible, you must see--quite impossible. I never, you _know_, refuse to
+take trouble when I am able--never--_never_.'
+
+And Madame shed some tears, which always came at call, and with her hand
+pressed to her ear, said very faintly,
+
+'Be so good to tell your friend how you see me, and how I suffer, and leave
+me, Maud, for I wish to lie down for a little, since the pain will not
+allow me to remain longer.'
+
+So with a few words of comfort which could not well be refused, but I dare
+say betraying my suspicion that more was made of her sufferings than need
+be, I returned to the drawing-room.
+
+'Captain Oakley has been here, my dear, and fancying, I suppose, that you
+had left us for the evening, has gone to the billiard-room, I think,' said
+Lady Knollys, as I entered.
+
+That, then, accounted for the rumble and smack of balls which I had heard
+as I passed the door.
+
+'I have been telling Maud how detestably she is got up.'
+
+'Very thoughtful of you, Monica!' said my father.
+
+'Yes, and really, Austin, it is quite clear you ought to marry; you want
+some one to take this girl out, and look after her, and who's to do it?
+She's a dowdy--don't you see? Such a dust! And it _is_ really such a pity;
+for she's a very pretty creature, and a clever woman could make her quite
+charming.'
+
+My father took Cousin Monica's sallies with the most wonderful good-humour.
+She had always, I fancy, been a privileged person, and my father, whom we
+all feared, received her jolly attacks, as I fancy the grim Front-de-Boeufs
+of old accepted the humours and personalities of their jesters.
+
+'Am I to accept this as an overture?' said my father to his voluble cousin.
+
+'Yes, you may, but not for myself, Austin--I'm not worthy. Do you remember
+little Kitty Weadon that I wanted you to marry eight-and-twenty years ago,
+or more, with a hundred and twenty thousand pounds? Well, you know, she
+has got ever so much now, and she is really a most amiable old thing, and
+though _you_ would not have her then, she has had her second husband since,
+I can tell you.'
+
+'I'm glad I was not the first,' said my father.
+
+'Well, they really say her wealth is absolutely immense. Her last husband,
+the Russian merchant, left her everything. She has not a human relation,
+and she is in the best set.'
+
+'You were always a match-maker, Monica,' said my father, stopping, and
+putting his hand kindly on hers. 'But it won't do. No, no, Monica; we must
+take care of little Maud some other way.'
+
+I was relieved. We women have all an instinctive dread of second marriages,
+and think that no widower is quite above or below that danger; and I
+remember, whenever my father, which indeed was but seldom, made a visit to
+town or anywhere else, it was a saying of Mrs. Rusk--
+
+'I shan't wonder, neither need you, my dear, if he brings home a young wife
+with him.'
+
+So my father, with a kind look at her, and a very tender one on me, went
+silently to the library, as he often did about that hour.
+
+I could not help resenting my Cousin Knollys' officious recommendation of
+matrimony. Nothing I dreaded more than a step-mother. Good Mrs. Rusk
+and Mary Quince, in their several ways, used to enhance, by occasional
+anecdotes and frequent reflections, the terrors of such an intrusion. I
+suppose they did not wish a revolution and all its consequences at Knowl,
+and thought it no harm to excite my vigilance.
+
+But it was impossible long to be vexed with Cousin Monica.
+
+'You know, my dear, your father is an oddity,' she said. 'I don't mind
+him--I never did. You must not. Cracky, my dear, cracky--decidedly cracky!'
+
+And she tapped the corner of her forehead, with a look so sly and comical,
+that I think I should have laughed, if the sentiment had not been so
+awfully irreverent.
+
+'Well, dear, how is our friend the milliner?'
+
+'Madame is suffering so much from pain in her ear, that she says it would
+be quite impossible to have the honour--'
+
+'Honour--fiddle! I want to see what the woman's like. Pain in her ear, you
+say? Poor thing! Well, dear, I think I can cure that in five minutes. I
+have it myself, now and then. Come to my room, and we'll get the bottles.
+
+So she lighted her candle in the lobby, and with a light and agile step
+she scaled the stairs, I following; and having found the remedies, we
+approached Madame's room together.
+
+I think, while we were still at the end of the gallery, Madame heard and
+divined our approach, for her door suddenly shut, and there was a fumbling
+at the handle. But the bolt was out of order.
+
+Lady Knollys tapped at the door, saying--'we'll come in, please, and see
+you. I've some remedies, which I'm sure will do you good.'
+
+There was no answer; so she opened the door, and we both entered. Madame
+had rolled herself in the blue coverlet, and was lying on the bed, with her
+face buried in the pillow, and enveloped in the covering.
+
+'Perhaps she's asleep?' said Lady Knollys, getting round to the side of the
+bed, and stooping over her.
+
+Madame lay still as a mouse. Cousin Monica set down her two little vials
+on the table, and, stooping again over the bed, began very gently with
+her fingers to lift the coverlet that covered her face. Madame uttered
+a slumbering moan, and turned more upon her face, clasping the coverlet
+faster about her.
+
+'Madame, it is Maud and Lady Knollys. We have come to relieve your ear.
+Pray let me see it. She can't be asleep, she's holding the clothes so fast.
+Do, pray, allow me to see it.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+_LADY KNOLLYS SEES THE FEATURES_
+
+
+Perhaps, if Madame had murmured, 'It is quite well--pray permit me to
+sleep,' she would have escaped an awkwardness. But having adopted the rôle
+of the exhausted slumberer, she could not consistently speak at the moment;
+neither would it do by main force, to hold the coverlet about her face, and
+so her presence of mind forsook her. Cousin Monica drew it back and hardly
+beheld the profile of the sufferer, when her good-humoured face was lined
+and shadowed with a dark curiosity and a surprise by no means pleasant. She
+stood erect beside the bed, with her mouth firmly shut and drawn down at
+the corners, in a sort of recoil and perturbation, looking down upon the
+patient.
+
+'So that's Madame de la Rougierre?' at length exclaimed Lady Knollys, with
+a very stately disdain. I think I never saw anyone look more shocked.
+
+Madame sat up, very flushed. No wonder, for she had been wrapped so close
+in the coverlet. She did not look quite at Lady Knollys, but straight
+before her, rather downward, and very luridly.
+
+I was very much frightened and amazed, and felt on the point of bursting
+into tears.
+
+'So, Mademoiselle, you have married, it seems, since I had last the honour
+of seeing you? I did not recognise Mademoiselle under her new name.'
+
+'Yes--I _am_ married, Lady Knollys; I thought everyone who knew me had
+heard of that. Very respectably married, for a person of my rank. I shall
+not need long the life of a governess. There is no harm, I hope?'
+
+'I hope not,' said Lady Knollys, drily, a little pale, and still looking
+with a dark sort of wonder upon the flushed face and forehead of the
+governess, who was looking downward, straight before her, very sulkily and
+disconcerted.
+
+'I suppose you have explained everything satisfactorily to Mr. Ruthyn, in
+whose house I find you?' said Cousin Monica.
+
+'Yes, certainly, everything he requires--in effect there is _nothing_ to
+explain. I am ready to answer to any question. Let _him_ demand me.'
+
+'Very good, Mademoiselle.'
+
+'_Madame_, if you please.'
+
+'I forgot--_Madame_--yes, I shall apprise him of everything.'
+
+Madame turned upon her a peaked and malign look, smiling askance with a
+stealthy scorn.
+
+'For myself, I have nothing to conceal. I have always done my duty. What
+fine scene about nothing absolutely--what charming remedies for a sick
+person! Ma foi! how much oblige I am for these so amiable attentions!'
+
+'So far as I can see, Mademoiselle--Madame, I mean--you don't stand very
+much in need of remedies. Your ear and head don't seem to trouble you just
+now. I fancy these pains may now be dismissed.'
+
+Lady Knollys was now speaking French.
+
+'Mi ladi has diverted my attention for a moment, but that does not prevent
+that I suffer frightfully. I am, of course, only poor governess, and such
+people perhaps ought not to have pain--at least to show when they suffer.
+It is permitted us to die, but not to be sick.'
+
+'Come, Maud, my dear, let us leave the invalid to her repose and to nature.
+I don't think she needs my chloroform and opium at present.'
+
+'Mi ladi is herself a physic which chases many things, and powerfully
+affects the ear. I would wish to sleep, notwithstanding, and can but gain
+that in silence, if it pleases mi ladi.'
+
+'Come, my dear,' said Lady Knollys, without again glancing at the scowling,
+smiling, swarthy face in the bed; 'let us leave your instructress to her
+_concforto_.'
+
+'The room smells all over of brandy, my dear--does she drink?' said Lady
+Knollys, as she closed the door, a little sharply.
+
+I am sure I looked as much amazed as I felt, at an imputation which then
+seemed to me so entirely incredible.
+
+'Good little simpleton!' said Cousin Monica, smiling in my face, and
+bestowing a little kiss on my cheek; 'such a thing as a tipsy lady has
+never been dreamt of in your philosophy. Well, we live and learn. Let us
+have our tea in my room--the gentlemen, I dare say, have retired.'
+
+I assented, of course, and we had tea very cosily by her bedroom fire.
+
+'How long have you had that woman?' she asked suddenly, after, for her, a
+very long rumination.
+
+'She came in the beginning of February--nearly ten months ago--is not it?'
+
+'And who sent her?'
+
+'I really don't know; papa tells me so little--he arranged it all himself,
+I think.'
+
+Cousin Monica made a sound of acquiescence--her lips closed and a nod,
+frowning hard at the bars.
+
+'It _is_ very odd!' she said; 'how people _can_ be such fools!' Here there
+came a little pause. 'And what sort of person is she--do you like her?'
+
+'Very well--that is, _pretty_ well. You won't tell?--but she rather
+frightens me. I'm sure she does not intend it, but somehow I am very much
+afraid of her.'
+
+'She does not beat you?' said Cousin Monica, with an incipient frenzy in
+her face that made me love her.
+
+'Oh no!'
+
+'Nor ill-use you in any way?'
+
+'No.'
+
+'Upon your honour and word, Maud?'
+
+'No, upon my honour.'
+
+'You know I won't tell her anything you say to me; and I only want to know,
+that I may put an end to it, my poor little cousin.'
+
+'Thank you, Cousin Monica very much; but really and truly she does not
+ill-use me.'
+
+'Nor threaten you, child?'
+
+'Well, _no_--no, she does not threaten.'
+
+'And how the plague _does_ she frighten you, child?'
+
+'Well, I really--I'm half ashamed to tell you--you'll laugh at me--and I
+don't know that she wishes to frighten me. But there is something, is not
+there, ghosty, you know, about her?'
+
+'_Ghosty_--is there? well, I'm sure I don't know, but I suspect there's
+something devilish--I mean, she seems roguish--does not she? And I really
+think she has had neither cold nor pain, but has just been shamming
+sickness, to keep out of my way.'
+
+I perceived plainly enough that Cousin Monica's damnatory epithet referred
+to some retrospective knowledge, which she was not going to disclose to me.
+
+'You knew Madame before,' I said. 'Who is she?'
+
+'She assures me she is Madame de la Rougierre, and, I suppose, in French
+phrase she so calls herself,' answered Lady Knollys, with a laugh, but
+uncomfortably, I thought.
+
+'Oh, dear Cousin Monica, do tell me--is she--is she very wicked? I am so
+afraid of her!'
+
+'How should I know, dear Maud? But I do remember her face, and I don't very
+much like her, and you may depend on it. I will speak to your father in the
+morning about her, and don't, darling, ask me any more about her, for I
+really have not very much to tell that you would care to hear, and the fact
+is I _won't_ say any more about her--there!'
+
+And Cousin Monica laughed, and gave me a little slap on the cheek, and then
+a kiss.
+
+'Well, just tell me this----'
+
+'Well, I _won't_ tell you this, nor anything--not a word, curious little
+woman. The fact is, I have little to tell, and I mean to speak to your
+father, and he, I am sure, will do what is right; so don't ask me any more,
+and let us talk of something pleasanter.'
+
+There was something indescribably winning, it seemed to me, in Cousin
+Monica. Old as she was, she seemed to me so girlish, compared with those
+slow, unexceptionable young ladies whom I had met in my few visits at the
+county houses. By this time my shyness was quite gone, and I was on the
+most intimate terms with her.
+
+'You know a great deal about her, Cousin Monica, but you won't tell me.'
+
+'Nothing I should like better, if I were at liberty, little rogue; but you
+know, after all, I don't really say whether I _do_ know anything about
+her or not, or what sort of knowledge it is. But tell me what you mean by
+ghosty, and all about it.'
+
+So I recounted my experiences, to which, so far from laughing at me, she
+listened with very special gravity.
+
+'Does she write and receive many letters?'
+
+I had seen her write letters, and supposed, though I could only recollect
+one or two, that she received in proportion.
+
+'Are _you_ Mary Quince?' asked my lady cousin.
+
+Mary was arranging the window-curtains, and turned, dropping a courtesy
+affirmatively toward her.
+
+'You wait on my little cousin, Miss Ruthyn, don't you?'
+
+'Yes, 'm,' said Mary, in her genteelest way.
+
+'Does anyone sleep in her room?'
+
+'Yes, 'm, _I_--please, my lady.'
+
+'And no one else?'
+
+'No, 'm--please, my lady.'
+
+'Not even the _governess_, sometimes?
+
+'No, please, my lady.'
+
+'Never, you are quite sure, my dear?' said Lady Knollys, transferring the
+question to me.
+
+'Oh, no, never,' I answered.
+
+Cousin Monica mused gravely, I fancied even anxiously, into the grate; then
+stirred her tea and sipped it, still looking into the same point of our
+cheery fire.
+
+'I like your face, Mary Quince; I'm sure you are a good creature,' she
+said, suddenly turning toward her with a pleasant countenance. 'I'm very
+glad you have got her, dear. I wonder whether Austin has gone to his bed
+yet!'
+
+'I think not. I am certain he is either in the library or in his private
+room--papa often reads or prays alone at night, and--and he does not like
+to be interrupted.'
+
+'No, no; of course not--it will do very well in the morning.'
+
+Lady Knollys was thinking deeply, as it seemed to me.
+
+'And so you are afraid of goblins, my dear,' she said at last, with a faded
+sort of smile, turning toward me; 'well, if _I_ were, I know what _I_
+should do--so soon as I, and good Mary Quince here, had got into my
+bed-chamber for the night, I should stir the fire into a good blaze, and
+bolt the door--do you see, Mary Quince?--bolt the door and keep a candle
+lighted all night. You'll be very attentive to her, Mary Quince, for I--I
+don't think she is very strong, and she must not grow nervous: so get to
+bed early, and don't leave her alone--do you see?--and--and remember to
+bolt the door, Mary Quince, and I shall be sending a little Christmas-box
+to my cousin, and I shan't forget you. Good-night.'
+
+And with a pleasant courtesy Mary fluttered out of the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+_A CURIOUS CONVERSATION_
+
+
+We each had another cup of tea, and were silent for awhile.
+
+'We must not talk of ghosts now. You are a superstitious little woman, you
+know, and you shan't be frightened.'
+
+And now Cousin Monica grew silent again, and looking briskly around the
+room, like a lady in search of a subject, her eye rested on a small oval
+portrait, graceful, brightly tinted, in the French style, representing
+a pretty little boy, with rich golden hair, large soft eyes, delicate
+features, and a shy, peculiar expression.
+
+'It is odd; I think I remember that pretty little sketch, very long ago. I
+think I was then myself a child, but that is a much older style of dress,
+and of wearing the hair, too, than I ever saw. I am just forty-nine now. Oh
+dear, yes; that is a good while before I was _born_. What a strange, pretty
+little boy! a mysterious little fellow. Is he quite sincere, I wonder? What
+rich golden hair! It is very clever--a French artist, I dare say--and who
+_is_ that little boy?'
+
+'I never heard. Some one a hundred years ago, I dare say. But there is a
+picture down-stairs I am so anxious to ask you about!'
+
+'Oh!' murmured Lady Knollys, still gazing dreamily on the crayon.
+
+'It is the full-length picture of Uncle Silas--I want to ask you about
+him.'
+
+At mention of his name, my cousin gave me a look so sudden and odd as to
+amount almost to a start.
+
+'Your uncle Silas, dear? It is very odd, I was just thinking of him;' and
+she laughed a little.
+
+'Wondering whether that little boy could be he.'
+
+And up jumped active Cousin Monica, with a candle in her hand, upon a
+chair, and scrutinised the border of the sketch for a name or a date.
+
+'Maybe on the back?' said she.
+
+And so she unhung it, and there, true enough, not on the back of the
+drawing, but of the frame, which was just as good, in pen-and-ink round
+Italian letters, hardly distinguishable now from the discoloured wood, we
+traced--
+
+'_Silas Aylmer Ruthyn, AEtate_ viii. 15 _May_, 1779.'
+
+'It is very odd I should not have been told or remembered who it was.
+I think if I had _ever_ been told I _should_ have remembered it. I do
+recollect this picture, though, I am nearly certain. What a singular
+child's face!'
+
+And my cousin leaned over it with a candle on each side, and her hand
+shading her eyes, as if seeking by aid of these fair and half-formed
+lineaments to read an enigma.
+
+The childish features defied her, I suppose; their secret was unfathomable,
+for after a good while she raised her head, still looking at the portrait,
+and sighed.
+
+'A very singular face,' she said, softly, as a person might who was looking
+into a coffin. 'Had not we better replace it?'
+
+So the pretty oval, containing the fair golden hair and large eyes, the
+pale, unfathomable sphinx, remounted to its nail, and the _funeste_ and
+beautiful child seemed to smile down oracularly on our conjectures.
+
+'So is the face in the large portrait--_very_ singular--more, I think, than
+that--handsomer too. This is a sickly child, I think; but the full-length
+is so manly, though so slender, and so handsome too. I always think him a
+hero and a mystery, and they won't tell me about him, and I can only dream
+and wonder.'
+
+'He has made more people than you dream and wonder, my dear Maud. I don't
+know what to make of him. He is a sort of idol, you know, of your father's,
+and yet I don't think he helps him much. His abilities were singular; so
+has been his misfortune; for the rest, my dear, he is neither a hero nor a
+wonder. So far as I know, there are very few sublime men going about the
+world.'
+
+'You really must tell me all you know about him, Cousin Monica. Now don't
+refuse.'
+
+'But why should you care to hear? There is really nothing pleasant to
+tell.'
+
+'That is just the reason I wish it. If it were at all pleasant, it would be
+quite commonplace. I like to hear of adventures, dangers, and misfortunes;
+and above all, I love a mystery. You know, papa will never tell me, and I
+dare not ask him; not that he is ever unkind, but, somehow, I am afraid;
+and neither Mrs. Rusk nor Mary Quince will tell me anything, although I
+suspect they know a good deal.'
+
+'I don't see any good in telling you, dear, nor, to say the truth, any
+great harm either.'
+
+'No--now that's _quite_ true--no harm. There _can't_ be, for I _must_ know
+it all some day, you know, and better now, and from _you_, than perhaps
+from a stranger, and in a less favourable way.'
+
+'Upon my word, it is a wise little woman; and really, that's not such bad
+sense after all.'
+
+So we poured out another cup of tea each, and sipped it very comfortably by
+the fire, while Lady Knollys talked on, and her animated face helped the
+strange story.
+
+'It is not very much, after all. Your uncle Silas, you know, is living?'
+
+'Oh yes, in Derbyshire.'
+
+'So I see you do know something of him, sly girl! but no matter. You know
+how very rich your father is; but Silas was the younger brother, and had
+little more than a thousand a year. If he had not played, and did not care
+to marry, it would have been quite enough--ever so much more than younger
+sons of dukes often have; but he was--well, a _mauvais sujet_--you know
+what that is. I don't want to say any ill of him--more than I really
+know--but he was fond of his pleasures, I suppose, like other young men,
+and he played, and was always losing, and your father for a long time paid
+great sums for him. I believe he was really a most expensive and vicious
+young man; and I fancy he does not deny that now, for they say he would
+change the past if he could.
+
+I was looking at the pensive little boy in the oval frame--aged eight
+years--who was, a few springs later, 'a most expensive and vicious young
+man,' and was now a suffering and outcast old one, and wondering from what
+a small seed the hemlock or the wallflower grows, and how microscopic are
+the beginnings of the kingdom of God or of the mystery of iniquity in a
+human being's heart.
+
+'Austin--your papa--was very kind to him--_very_; but then, you know,
+he's an oddity, dear--he _is_ an oddity, though no one may have told you
+before--and he never forgave him for his marriage. Your father, I suppose,
+knew more about the lady than I did--I was young then--but there were
+various reports, none of them pleasant, and she was not visited, and for
+some time there was a complete estrangement between your father and your
+uncle Silas; and it was made up, rather oddly, on the very occasion which
+some people said ought to have totally separated them. Did you ever hear
+anything--anything _very_ remarkable--about your uncle?'
+
+'No, never, they would not tell me, though I am sure they know. Pray go
+on.'
+
+'Well, Maud, as I have begun, I'll complete the story, though perhaps it
+might have been better untold. It was something rather shocking--indeed,
+_very_ shocking; in fact, they insisted on suspecting him of having
+committed a murder.'
+
+I stared at my cousin for some time, and then at the little boy, so
+refined, so beautiful, so _funeste_, in the oval frame.
+
+'Yes, dear,' said she, her eyes following mine; 'who'd have supposed he
+could ever have--have fallen under so horrible a suspicion?'
+
+'The wretches! Of course, Uncle Silas--of course, he's innocent?' I said at
+last.
+
+'Of course, my dear,' said Cousin Monica, with an odd look; 'but you know
+there are some things as bad almost to be suspected of as to have done, and
+the country gentlemen chose to suspect him. They did not like him, you
+see. His politics vexed them; and he resented their treatment of his
+wife--though I really think, poor Silas, he did not care a pin about
+her--and he annoyed them whenever he could. Your papa, you know, is very
+proud of his family--_he_ never had the slightest suspicion of your uncle.'
+
+'Oh no!' I cried vehemently.
+
+'That's right, Maud Ruthyn,' said Cousin Monica, with a sad little smile
+and a nod. 'And your papa was, you may suppose, very angry.'
+
+'Of course he was,' I exclaimed.
+
+'You have no idea, my dear, _how_ angry. He directed his attorney to
+prosecute, by wholesale, all who had said a word affecting your uncle's
+character. But the lawyers were against it, and then your uncle tried to
+fight his way through it, but the men would not meet him. He was quite
+slurred. Your father went up and saw the Minister. He wanted to have him a
+Deputy-Lieutenant, or something, in his county. Your papa, you know, had a
+very great influence with the Government. Beside his county influence, he
+had two boroughs then. But the Minister was afraid, the feeling was so very
+strong. They offered him something in the Colonies, but your father would
+not hear of it--that would have been a banishment, you know. They would
+have given your father a peerage to make it up, but he would not accept
+it, and broke with the party. Except in that way--which, you know, was
+connected with the reputation of the family--I don't think, considering his
+great wealth, he has done very much for Silas. To say truth, however, he
+was very liberal before his marriage. Old Mrs. Aylmer says he made a vow
+_then_ that Silas should never have more than five hundred a year, which he
+still allows him, I believe, and he permits him to live in the place. But
+they say it is in a very wild, neglected state.'
+
+'You live in the same county--have you seen it lately, Cousin Monica?'
+
+'No, not very lately,' said Cousin Monica, and began to hum an air
+abstractedly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+_BEFORE AND AFTER BREAKFAST_
+
+
+Next morning early I visited my favourite full-length portrait in the
+chocolate coat and top-boots. Scanty as had been my cousin Monica's notes
+upon this dark and eccentric biography, they were everything to me. A soul
+had entered that enchanted form. Truth had passed by with her torch, and a
+sad light shone for a moment on that enigmatic face.
+
+There stood the _roué_--the duellist--and, with all his faults, the hero
+too! In that dark large eye lurked the profound and fiery enthusiasm of his
+ill-starred passion. In the thin but exquisite lip I read the courage of
+the paladin, who would have 'fought his way,' though single-handed, against
+all the magnates of his county, and by ordeal of battle have purged the
+honour of the Ruthyns. There in that delicate half-sarcastic tracery of the
+nostril I detected the intellectual defiance which had politically isolated
+Silas Ruthyn and opposed him to the landed oligarchy of his county, whose
+retaliation had been a hideous slander. There, too, and on his brows and
+lip, I traced the patience of a cold disdain. I could now see him as he
+was--the prodigal, the hero, and the martyr. I stood gazing on him with a
+girlish interest and admiration. There was indignation, there was pity,
+there was hope. Some day it might come to pass that I, girl as I was, might
+contribute by word or deed towards the vindication of that long-suffering,
+gallant, and romantic prodigal. It was a flicker of the Joan of Arc
+inspiration, common, I fancy, to many girls. I little then imagined how
+profoundly and strangely involved my uncle's fate would one day become with
+mine.
+
+I was interrupted by Captain Oakley's voice at the window. He was leaning
+on the window-sill, and looking in with a smile--the window being open, the
+morning sunny, and his cap lifted in his hand.
+
+'Good-morning, Miss Ruthyn. What a charming old place! quite the setting
+for a romance; such timber, and this really _beautiful_ house. I _do_ so
+like these white and black houses--wonderful old things. By-the-by, you
+treated us very badly last night--you did, indeed; upon my word, now, it
+really was too bad--running away, and drinking tea with Lady Knollys--so
+she says. I really--I should not like to tell you how very savage I felt,
+particularly considering how very short my time is.'
+
+I was a shy, but not a giggling country miss. I knew I was an heiress; I
+knew I was somebody. I was not the least bit in the world conceited, but
+I think this knowledge helped to give me a certain sense of security and
+self-possession, which might have been mistaken for dignity or simplicity.
+I am sure I looked at him with a fearless enquiry, for he answered my
+thoughts.
+
+'I do really assure you, Miss Ruthyn, I am quite serious; you have no idea
+how very much we have missed you.'
+
+There was a little pause, and, like a fool, I lowered my eyes, and blushed.
+
+'I--I was thinking of leaving today; I am so unfortunate--my leave is just
+out--it is so unlucky; but I don't quite know whether my aunt Knollys will
+allow me to go.'
+
+'_I_?--certainly, my dear Charlie, _I_ don't want you at all,' exclaimed a
+voice--Lady Knollys's--briskly, from an open window close by; 'what could
+put that in your head, dear?'
+
+And in went my cousin's head, and the window shut down.
+
+'She is _such_ an oddity, poor dear Aunt Knollys,' murmured the young
+man, ever so little put out, and he laughed. 'I never know quite what she
+wishes, or how to please her; but she's _so_ good-natured; and when she
+goes to town for the season--she does not always, you know--her house is
+really very gay--you can't think----'
+
+Here again he was interrupted, for the door opened, and Lady Knollys
+entered. 'And you know, Charles,' she continued, 'it would not do to forget
+your visit to Snodhurst; you wrote, you know, and you have only to-night
+and to-morrow. You are thinking of nothing but that moor; I heard you
+talking to the gamekeeper; I know he is--is not he, Maud, the brown man
+with great whiskers, and leggings? I'm very sorry, you know, but I really
+must spoil your shooting, for they do expect you at Snodhurst, Charlie; and
+do not you think this window a little too much for Miss Ruthyn? Maud, my
+dear, the air is very sharp; shut it down, Charles, and you'd better tell
+them to get a fly for you from the town after luncheon. Come, dear,' she
+said to me. 'Was not that the breakfast bell? Why does not your papa get a
+gong?--it is so hard to know one bell from another.'
+
+I saw that Captain Oakley lingered for a last look, but I did not give it,
+and went out smiling with Cousin Knollys, and wondering why old ladies are
+so uniformly disagreeable.
+
+In the lobby she said, with an odd, goodnatured look--
+
+'Don't allow any of his love-making, my dear. Charles Oakley has not a
+guinea, and an heiress would be very convenient. Of course he has his eyes
+about him. Charles is not by any means foolish; and I should not be at all
+sorry to see him well married, for I don't think he will do much good
+any other way; but there are degrees, and his ideas are sometimes very
+impertinent.'
+
+I was an admiring reader of the _Albums_, the _Souvenirs_, the _Keepsakes_,
+and all that flood of Christmas-present lore which yearly irrigated
+England, with pretty covers and engravings; and floods of elegant
+twaddle--the milk, not destitute of water, on which the babes of literature
+were then fed. On this, my genius throve. I had a little album, enriched
+with many gems of original thought and observation, which I jotted down in
+suitable language. Lately, turning over these faded leaves of rhyme
+and prose, I lighted, under this day's date, upon the following sage
+reflection, with my name appended:--
+
+'Is there not in the female heart an ineradicable jealousy, which, if it
+sways the passions of the young, rules also the _advice_ of the _aged_? Do
+they not grudge to youth the sentiments (though Heaven knows how _shadowed_
+with sorrow) which they can _no longer inspire_, perhaps even _experience_;
+and does not youth, in turn, sigh over the envy which has _power to
+blight_?
+
+MAUD AYLMER RUTHYN.'
+
+'He has not been making love to me,' I said rather tartly, 'and he does not
+seem to me at all impertinent, and I really don't care the least whether he
+goes or stays.'
+
+Cousin Monica looked in my face with her old waggish smile, and laughed.
+
+'You'll understand those London dandies better some day, dear Maud; they
+are very well, but they like money--not to keep, of course--but still they
+like it and know its value.'
+
+At breakfast my father told Captain Oakley where he might have shooting, or
+if he preferred going to Dilsford, only half an hour's ride, he might have
+his choice of hunters, and find the dogs there that morning.
+
+The Captain smiled archly at me, and looked at his aunt. There was a
+suspense. I hope I did not show how much I was interested--but it would not
+do. Cousin Monica was inexorable.
+
+'Hunting, hawking, fishing, fiddle-de-dee! You know, Charlie, my dear, it
+is quite out of the question. He is going to Snodhurst this afternoon, and
+without quite a rudeness, in which I should be involved too, he really
+can't--you know you can't, Charles! and--and he _must_ go and keep his
+engagement.'
+
+So papa acquiesced with a polite regret, and hoped another time.
+
+'Oh, leave all that to me. When you want him, only write me a note, and
+I'll send him or bring him if you let me. I always know where to find
+him--don't I, Charlie?--and we shall be only too happy.'
+
+Aunt Monica's influence with her nephew was special, for she 'tipped' him
+handsomely every now and then, and he had formed for himself agreeable
+expectations, besides, respecting her will. I felt rather angry at his
+submitting to this sort of tutelage, knowing nothing of its motive; I was
+also disgusted by Cousin Monica's tyranny.
+
+So soon as he had left the room, Lady Knollys, not minding me, said briskly
+to papa, 'Never let that young man into your house again. I found him
+making speeches, this morning, to little Maud here; and he really has not
+two pence in the world--it is amazing impudence--and you know such absurd
+things do happen.'
+
+'Come, Maud, what compliments did he pay you?' asked my father.
+
+I was vexed, and therefore spoke courageously. 'His compliments were not to
+me; they were all to the house,' I said, drily.
+
+'Quite as it should be--the house, of course; it is that he's in love
+with,' said Cousin Knollys.
+
+  ''Twas on a widow's jointure land,
+  The archer, Cupid, took his stand.'
+
+'Hey! I don't quite understand,' said my father, slily.
+
+'Tut! Austin; you forget Charlie is my nephew.'
+
+'So I did,' said my father.
+
+'Therefore the literal widow in this case _can_ have no interest in view
+but one, and that is yours and Maud's. I wish him well, but he shan't put
+my little cousin and her expectations into his empty pocket--_not_ a bit of
+it. And _there's_ another reason, Austin, why you should marry--you have no
+eye for these things, whereas a clever _woman_ would see at a glance and
+prevent mischief.'
+
+'So she would,' acquiesced my father, in his gloomy, amused way. 'Maud, you
+must try to be a clever woman.'
+
+'So she will in her time, but that is not come yet; and I tell you, Austin
+Ruthyn, if you won't look about and marry somebody, somebody may possibly
+marry you.'
+
+'You were always an oracle, Monica; but _here_ I am lost in total
+perplexity,' said my father.
+
+'Yes; sharks sailing round you, with keen eyes and large throats; and you
+have come to the age precisely when men _are_ swallowed up alive like
+Jonah.'
+
+'Thank you for the parallel, but you know that was not a happy union, even
+for the fish, and there was a separation in a few days; not that I mean to
+trust to that; but there's no one to throw me into the jaws of the monster,
+and I've no notion of jumping there; and the fact is, Monica, there's no
+monster at all.'
+
+'I'm not so sure.'
+
+'But I'm quite sure,' said my father, a little drily. 'You forget how old
+I am, and how long I've lived alone--I and little Maud;' and he smiled and
+smoothed my hair, and, I thought, sighed.
+
+'No one is ever too old to do a foolish thing,' began Lady Knollys.
+
+'Nor to say a foolish thing, Monica. This has gone on too long. Don't you
+see that little Maud here is silly enough to be frightened at your fun.'
+
+So I was, but I could not divine how he guessed it.
+
+'And well or ill, wisely or madly, I'll _never_ marry; so put that out of
+your head.'
+
+This was addressed rather to me, I think, than to Lady Knollys, who smiled
+a little waggishly on me, and said--
+
+'To be sure, Maud; maybe you are right; a stepdame is a risk, and I ought
+to have asked you first what you thought of it; and upon my honour,' she
+continued merrily but kindly, observing that my eyes, I know not exactly
+from what feeling, filled with tears, 'I'll never again advise your papa to
+marry, unless you first tell me you wish it.'
+
+This was a great deal from Lady Knollys, who had a taste for advising her
+friends and managing their affairs.
+
+'I've a great respect for instinct. I believe, Austin, it is truer than
+reason, and yours and Maud's are both against me, though I know I have
+reason on my side.'
+
+My father's brief wintry smile answered, and Cousin Monica kissed me, and
+said--
+
+'I've been so long my own mistress that I sometimes forget there are such
+things as fear and jealousy; and are you going to your governess, Maud?'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+_ANGRY WORDS_
+
+
+I was going to my governess, as Lady Knollys said; and so I went. The
+undefinable sense of danger that smote me whenever I beheld that woman had
+deepened since last night's occurrence, and was taken out of the region
+of instinct or prepossession by the strange though slight indications of
+recognition and abhorrence which I had witnessed in Lady Knollys on that
+occasion.
+
+The tone in which Cousin Monica had asked, 'are you going to your
+governess?' and the curious, grave, and anxious look that accompanied the
+question, disturbed me; and there was something odd and cold in the tone as
+if a remembrance had suddenly chilled her. The accent remained in my ear,
+and the sharp brooding look was fixed before me as I glided up the broad
+dark stairs to Madame de la Rougierre's chamber.
+
+She had not come down to the school-room, as the scene of my studies was
+called. She had decided on having a relapse, and accordingly had not made
+her appearance down-stairs that morning. The gallery leading to her room
+was dark and lonely, and I grew more nervous as I approached; I paused at
+the door, making up my mind to knock.
+
+But the door opened suddenly, and, like a magic-lantern figure, presented
+with a snap, appeared close before my eyes the great muffled face, with the
+forbidding smirk, of Madame de la Rougierre.
+
+'Wat you mean, my dear cheaile?' she inquired with a malevolent shrewdness
+in her eyes, and her hollow smile all the time disconcerting me more even
+than the suddenness of her appearance; 'wat for you approach so softly? I
+do not sleep, you see, but you feared, perhaps, to have the misfortune of
+wakening me, and so you came--is it not so?--to leesten, and looke in very
+gentily; you want to know how I was. Vous êtes bien aimable d'avoir pensé
+à moi. Bah!' she cried, suddenly bursting through her irony. 'Wy could not
+Lady Knollys come herself and leesten to the keyhole to make her report?
+Fi donc! wat is there to conceal? Nothing. Enter, if you please. Every one
+they are welcome!' and she flung the door wide, turned her back upon me,
+and, with an ejaculation which I did not understand, strode into the room.
+
+'I did not come with any intention, Madame, to pry or to intrude--you
+don't think so--you _can't_ think so--you can't possibly mean to insinuate
+anything so insulting!'
+
+I was very angry, and my tremors had all vanished now.
+
+'No, not for _you_, dear cheaile; I was thinking to miladi Knollys, who,
+without cause, is my enemy. Every one has enemy; you will learn all that so
+soon as you are little older, and without cause she is mine. Come, Maud,
+speak a the truth--was it not miladi Knollys who sent you here doucement,
+doucement, so quaite to my door--is it not so, little rogue?'
+
+Madame had confronted me again, and we were now standing in the middle of
+her floor.
+
+I indignantly repelled the charge, and searching me for a moment with her
+oddly-shaped, cunning eyes, she said--
+
+'That is good cheaile, you speak a so direct--I like that, and am glad to
+hear; but, my dear Maud, that woman----'
+
+'Lady Knollys is papa's cousin,' I interposed a little gravely.
+
+'She does hate a me so, you av no idea. She as tryed to injure me several
+times, and would employ the most innocent person, unconsciously you know,
+my dear, to assist her malice.'
+
+Here Madame wept a little. I had already discovered that she could shed
+tears whenever she pleased. I have heard of such persons, but I never met
+another before or since.
+
+Madame was unusually frank--no one ever knew better when to be candid. At
+present I suppose she concluded that Lady Knollys would certainly relate
+whatever she knew concerning her before she left Knowl; and so Madame's
+reserves, whatever they might be, were dissolving, and she growing
+childlike and confiding.
+
+'Et comment va monsieur votre père aujourd'hui?'
+
+'Very well,' I thanked her.
+
+'And how long miladi Knollys her visit is likely to be?'
+
+'I could not say exactly, but for some days.'
+
+'Eh bien, my dear cheaile, I find myself better this morning, and we must
+return to our lessons. Je veux m'habiller, ma chère Maud; you will wait me
+in the school-room.'
+
+By this time Madame, who, though lazy, could make an effort, and was
+capable of getting into a sudden hurry, had placed herself before her
+dressing-table, and was ogling her discoloured and bony countenance in the
+glass.
+
+'Wat horror! I am so pale. Quel ennui! wat bore! Ow weak av I grow in two
+three days!'
+
+And she practised some plaintive, invalid glances into the mirror. But on a
+sudden there came a little sharp inquisitive frown as she looked over the
+frame of the glass, upon the terrace beneath. It was only a glance, and she
+sat down languidly in her arm-chair to prepare, I suppose, for the fatigues
+of the toilet.
+
+My curiosity was sufficiently aroused to induce me to ask--
+
+'But why, Madame, do you fancy that Lady Knollys dislikes you?'
+
+''Tis not fancy, my dear Maud. Ah ha, no! Mais c'est toute une
+histoire--too tedious to tell now--some time maybe--and you will learn when
+you are little older, the most violent hatreds often they are the most
+without cause. But, my dear cheaile, the hours they are running from us,
+and I must dress. Vite, vite! so you run away to the school-room, and I
+will come after.'
+
+Madame had her dressing-case and her mysteries, and palpably stood in need
+of repairs; so away I went to my studies. The room which we called the
+school-room was partly beneath the floor of Madame's bed-chamber, and
+commanded the same view; so, remembering my governess's peering glance from
+her windows, I looked out, and saw Cousin Monica making a brisk promenade
+up and down the terrace-walk. Well, that was quite enough to account for
+it. I had grown very curious, and I resolved when our lessons were over to
+join her and make another attempt to discover the mystery.
+
+As I sat over my books, I fancied I heard a movement outside the door. I
+suspected that Madame was listening. I waited for a time, expecting to see
+the door open, but she did not come; so I opened it suddenly myself, but
+Madame was not on the threshold nor on the lobby. I heard a rustling,
+however, and on the staircase over the banister I saw the folds of her silk
+dress as she descended.
+
+She is going, I thought, to seek an interview with Lady Knollys. She
+intends to propitiate that dangerous lady; so I amused some eight or ten
+minutes in watching Cousin Monica's quick march and right-about face upon
+the parade-ground of the terrace. But no one joined her.
+
+'She is certainly talking to papa,' was my next and more probable
+conjecture. Having the profoundest distrust of Madame, I was naturally
+extremely jealous of the confidential interviews in which deceit and malice
+might make their representations plausibly and without answer.
+
+'Yes, I'll run down and see--see _papa_; she shan't tell lies behind my
+back, horrid woman!'
+
+At the study-door I knocked, and forthwith entered. My father was sitting
+near the window, his open book before him, Madame standing at the
+other side of the table, her cunning eyes bathed in tears, and her
+pocket-handkerchief pressed to her mouth. Her eyes glittered stealthily on
+me for an instant: she was sobbing--_désolée_, in fact--that grim grenadier
+lady, and her attitude was exquisitely dejected and timid. But she was,
+notwithstanding, reading closely and craftily my father's face. He was not
+looking at her, but rather upward toward the ceiling, reflectively leaning
+on his hand, with an expression, not angry, but rather surly and annoyed.
+
+'I ought to have heard of this before, Madame,' my father was saying as I
+came in; 'not that it would have made any difference--not the least; mind
+that. But it was the kind of thing that I ought to have heard, and the
+omission was not strictly right.'
+
+Madame, in a shrill and lamentable key, opened her voluble reply, but was
+arrested by a nod from my father, who asked me if I wanted anything.
+
+'Only--only that I was waiting in the school-room for Madame, and did not
+know where she was.'
+
+'Well, she is here, you see, and will join you up-stairs in a few minutes.'
+
+So back I went again, huffed, angry, and curious, and sat back in my chair
+with a clouded countenance, thinking very little about lessons.
+
+When Madame entered, I did not lift my head or eyes.
+
+'Good cheaile! reading,' said she, as she approached briskly and reassured.
+
+'No,' I answered tartly; 'not good, nor a child either; I'm not reading,
+I've been thinking.'
+
+'Très-bien!' she said, with an insufferable smile, 'thinking is very good
+also; but you look unhappy--very, poor cheaile. Take care you are not grow
+jealous for poor Madame talking sometime to your papa; you must not, little
+fool. It is only for a your good, my dear Maud, and I had no objection you
+should stay.'
+
+'_You_! Madame!' I said loftily. I was very angry, and showed it through my
+dignity, to Madame's evident satisfaction.
+
+'No--it was your papa, Mr. Ruthyn, who weesh to speak alone; for me I do
+not care; there was something I weesh to tell him. I don't care who know,
+but Mr. Ruthyn he is deeferent.'
+
+I made no remark.
+
+'Come, leetle Maud, you are not to be so cross; it will be much better you
+and I to be good friends together. Why should a we quarrel?--wat nonsense!
+Do you imagine I would anywhere undertake a the education of a young person
+unless I could speak with her parent?--wat folly! I would like to be your
+friend, however, my poor Maud, if you would allow--you and I together--wat
+you say?'
+
+'People grow to be friends by liking, Madame, and liking comes of itself,
+not by bargain; I like every one who is kind to me.'
+
+'And so I. You are like me in so many things, my dear Maud! Are you quaite
+well to-day? I think you look fateague; so I feel, too, vary tire. I think
+we weel put off the lessons to to-morrow. Eh? and we will come to play la
+grace in the garden.'
+
+Madame was plainly in a high state of exultation. Her audience had
+evidently been satisfactory, and, like other people, when things went well,
+her soul lighted up into a sulphureous good-humour, not very genuine nor
+pleasant, but still it was better than other moods.
+
+I was glad when our calisthenics were ended, and Madame had returned to her
+apartment, so that I had a pleasant little walk with Cousin Monica.
+
+We women are persevering when once our curiosity is roused, but she gaily
+foiled mine, and, I think, had a mischievous pleasure in doing so. As we
+were going in to dress for dinner, however, she said, quite gravely--
+
+'I am sorry, Maud, I allowed you to see that I have any unpleasant
+impressions about that governess lady. I shall be at liberty some day to
+explain all about it, and, indeed, it will be enough to tell your father,
+whom I have not been able to find all day; but really we are, perhaps,
+making too much of the matter, and I cannot say that I know anything
+against Madame that is conclusive, or--or, indeed, at all; but that there
+are reasons, and--you must not ask any more--no, you must not.'
+
+That evening, while I was playing the overture to Cenerentola, for the
+entertainment of my cousin, there arose from the tea-table, where she and
+my father were sitting, a spirited and rather angry harangue from Lady
+Knollys' lips; I turned my eyes from the music towards the speakers; the
+overture swooned away with a little hesitating babble into silence, and I
+listened.
+
+Their conversation had begun under cover of the music which I was making,
+and now they were too much engrossed to perceive its discontinuance. The
+first sentence I heard seized my attention; my father had closed the book
+he was reading, upon his finger, and was leaning back in his chair, as he
+used to do when at all angry; his face was a little flushed, and I knew the
+fierce and glassy stare which expressed pride, surprise, and wrath.
+
+'Yes, Lady Knollys, there's an animus; I know the spirit you speak in--it
+does you no honour,' said my father.
+
+'And I know the spirit _you_ speak in, the spirit of _madness_,' retorted
+Cousin Monica, just as much in earnest. 'I can't conceive how you _can_ be
+so _demented_, Austin. What has perverted you? are you _blind_?'
+
+'_You_ are, Monica; your own unnatural prejudice--_unnatural_ prejudice,
+blinds you. What is it all?--_nothing_. Were I to act as you say, I should
+be a _coward_ and a traitor. I see, I _do_ see, all that's real. I'm no
+Quixote, to draw my sword on illusions.'
+
+'There should be no halting here. How _can_ you--do you ever _think_? I
+wonder if you can breathe. I feel as if the evil one were in the house.'
+
+A stern, momentary frown was my father's only answer, as he looked fixedly
+at her.
+
+'People need not nail up horseshoes and mark their door-stones with charms
+to keep the evil spirit out,' ran on Lady Knollys, who looked pale and
+angry, in her way, 'but you open your door in the dark and invoke unknown
+danger. How can you look at that child that's--she's _not_ playing,' said
+Knollys, abruptly stopping.
+
+My father rose, muttering to himself, and cast a lurid glance at me, as he
+went in high displeasure to the door. Cousin Monica, now flushed a little,
+glanced also silently at me, biting the tip of her slender gold cross, and
+doubtful how much I had heard.
+
+My father opened the door suddenly, which he had just closed, and looking
+in, said, in a calmer tone--
+
+'Perhaps, Monica, you would come for a moment to the study; I'm sure you
+have none but kindly feelings towards me and little Maud, there; and
+I thank you for your good-will; but you must see other things more
+reasonably, and I think you will.'
+
+Cousin Monica got up silently and followed him, only throwing up her eyes
+and hands as she did so, and I was left alone, wondering and curious more
+than ever.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+_A WARNING_
+
+
+I sat still, listening and wondering, and wondering and listening; but
+I ought to have known that no sound could reach me where I was from my
+father's study. Five minutes passed and they did not return. Ten, fifteen.
+I drew near the fire and made myself comfortable in a great arm-chair,
+looking on the embers, but not seeing all the scenery and _dramatis
+personae_ of my past life or future fortunes, in their shifting glow,
+as people in romances usually do; but fanciful castles and caverns in
+blood-red and golden glare, suggestive of dreamy fairy-land, salamanders,
+sunsets, and palaces of fire-kings, and all this partly shaping and partly
+shaped by my fancy, and leading my closing eyes and drowsy senses off into
+dream-land. So I nodded and dozed, and sank into a deep slumber, from which
+I was roused by the voice of my cousin Monica. On opening my eyes, I saw
+nothing but Lady Knollys' face looking steadily into mine, and expanding
+into a good-natured laugh as she watched the vacant and lack-lustre stare
+with which I returned her gaze.
+
+'Come, dear Maud, it is late; you ought to have been in your bed an hour
+ago.'
+
+Up I stood, and so soon as I had begun to hear and see aright, it struck me
+that Cousin Monica was more grave and subdued than I had seen her.
+
+'Come, let us light our candles and go together.'
+
+Holding hands, we ascended, I sleepy, she silent; and not a word was spoken
+until we reached my room. Mary Quince was in waiting, and tea made.
+
+'Tell her to come back in a few minutes; I wish to say a word to you,' said
+Lady Knollys.
+
+The maid accordingly withdrew.
+
+Lady Knollys' eyes followed her till she closed the door behind her.
+
+'I'm going in the morning.'
+
+'So soon!'
+
+'Yes, dear; I could not stay; in fact, I should have gone to-night, but it
+was too late, and I leave instead in the morning.'
+
+'I am so sorry--so _very_ sorry,' I exclaimed, in honest disappointment,
+and the walls seemed to darken round me, and the monotony of the old
+routine loomed more terrible in prospect.
+
+'So am I, dear Maud.'
+
+'But can't you stay a little longer; _won't_ you?'
+
+'No, Maud; I'm vexed with Austin--very much vexed with your father; in
+short, I can't conceive anything so entirely preposterous, and dangerous,
+and insane as his conduct, now that his eyes are quite opened, and I must
+say a word to you before I go, and it is just this:--you must cease to be a
+mere child, you must try and be a woman, Maud: now don't be frightened
+or foolish, but hear me out. That woman--what does she call
+herself--Rougierre? I have reason to believe is--in fact, from
+circumstances, _must_ be your enemy; you will find her very deep, daring,
+and unscrupulous, I venture to say, and you can't be too much on your
+guard. Do you quite understand me, Maud?'
+
+'I do,' said I, with a gasp, and my eyes fixed on her with a terrified
+interest, as if on a warning ghost.
+
+'You must bridle your tongue, mind, and govern your conduct, and command
+even your features. It is hard to practise reserve; but you must--you must
+be secret and vigilant. Try and be in appearance just as usual; don't
+quarrel; tell her nothing, if you do happen to know anything, of your
+father's business; be always on your guard when with her, and keep your eye
+upon her everywhere. Observe everything, disclose nothing--do you see?'
+
+'Yes,' again I whispered.
+
+'You have good, honest servants about you, and, thank God, they don't like
+her. But you must not repeat to them one word I am now saying to you.
+Servants are fond of dropping hints, and letting things ooze out in that
+way, and in their quarrels with her would compromise you--you understand
+me?'
+
+'I do,' I sighed, with a wild stare.
+
+'And--and, Maud, don't let her meddle with your food.'
+
+Cousin Monica gave me a pale little nod, and looked away.
+
+I could only stare at her; and under my breath I uttered an ejaculation of
+terror.
+
+'Don't be so frightened; you must not be foolish; I only wish you to be
+upon your guard. I have my suspicions, but I may be quite wrong; your
+father thinks I am a fool; perhaps I am--perhaps not; maybe he may come to
+think as I do. But you must not speak to him on the subject; he's an
+odd man, and never did and never will act wisely, when his passions and
+prejudices are engaged.'
+
+'Has she ever committed any great crime?' I asked, feeling as if I were on
+the point of fainting.
+
+'No, dear Maud, I never said anything of the kind; don't be so frightened:
+I only said I have formed, from something I know, an ill opinion of her;
+and an unprincipled person, under temptation, is capable of a great deal.
+But no matter how wicked she may be, you may defy her, simply by assuming
+her to be so, and acting with caution; she is cunning and selfish, and
+she'll do nothing desperate. But I would give her no opportunity.'
+
+'Oh, dear! Oh, Cousin Monica, don't leave me.'
+
+'My dear, I _can't_ stay; your papa and I--we've had a quarrel. I know
+I'm right, and he's wrong, and he'll come to see it soon, if he's left to
+himself, and then all will be right. But just now he misunderstands me, and
+we've not been civil to one another. I could not think of staying, and he
+would not allow you to come away with me for a short visit, which I wished.
+It won't last, though; and I do assure you, my dear Maud, I am quite happy
+about you now that you are quite on your guard. Just act respecting that
+person as if she were capable of any treachery, without showing distrust or
+dislike in your manner, and nothing will remain in her power; and write to
+me whenever you wish to hear from me, and if I can be of any real use, I
+don't care, I'll come: so there's a wise little woman; do as I've said, and
+depend upon it everything will go well, and I'll contrive before long to
+get that nasty creature away.'
+
+Except a kiss and a few hurried words in the morning when she was leaving,
+and a pencilled farewell for papa, there was nothing more from Cousin
+Monica for some time.
+
+Knowl was dark again--darker than ever. My father, gentle always to me, was
+now--perhaps it was contrast with his fitful return to something like the
+world's ways, during Lady Knollys' stay--more silent, sad, and isolated
+than before. Of Madame de la Rougierre I had nothing at first particular to
+remark. Only, reader, if you happen to be a rather nervous and very young
+girl, I ask you to conceive my fears and imaginings, and the kind of misery
+which I was suffering. Its intensity I cannot now even myself recall. But
+it overshadowed me perpetually--a care, an alarm. It lay down with me at
+night and got up with me in the morning, tinting and disturbing my dreams,
+and making my daily life terrible. I wonder now that I lived through
+the ordeal. The torment was secret and incessant, and kept my mind in
+unintermitting activity.
+
+Externally things went on at Knowl for some weeks in the usual routine.
+Madame was, so far as her unpleasant ways were concerned, less tormenting
+than before, and constantly reminded me of 'our leetle vow of friendship,
+you remember, dearest Maud!' and she would stand beside me, and looked from
+the window with her bony arm round my waist, and my reluctant hand drawn
+round in hers; and thus she would smile, and talk affectionately and even
+playfully; for at times she would grow quite girlish, and smile with
+her great carious teeth, and begin to quiz and babble about the young
+'faylows,' and tell bragging tales of her lovers, all of which were
+dreadful to me.
+
+She was perpetually recurring, too, to the charming walk we had had
+together to Church Scarsdale, and proposing a repetition of that delightful
+excursion, which, you may be sure, I evaded, having by no means so
+agreeable a recollection of our visit.
+
+One day, as I was dressing to go out for a walk, in came good Mrs. Rusk,
+the housekeeper, to my room.
+
+'Miss Maud, dear, is not that too far for you? It is a long walk to Church
+Scarsdale, and you are not looking very well.'
+
+'To Church Scarsdale?' I repeated; 'I'm not going to Church Scarsdale; who
+said I was going to Church Scarsdale? There is nothing I should so much
+dislike.'
+
+'Well, I never!' exclaimed she. 'Why, there's old Madame's been down-stairs
+with me for fruit and sandwiches, telling me you were longing to go to
+Church Scarsdale----'
+
+'It's quite untrue,' I interrupted. 'She knows I hate it.'
+
+'She does?' said Mrs. Rusk, quietly; 'and you did not tell her nothing
+about the basket? Well--if there isn't a story! Now what may she be
+after--what is it--what _is_ she driving at?'
+
+'I can't tell, but I won't go.'
+
+'No, of course, dear, you won't go. But you may be sure there's some scheme
+in her old head. Tom Fowkes says she's bin two or three times to drink tea
+at Farmer Gray's--now, could it be she's thinking to marry him?' And Mrs.
+Rusk sat down and laughed heartily, ending with a crow of derision.
+
+'To think of a young fellow like that, and his wife, poor thing, not dead a
+year--maybe she's got money?'
+
+'I don't know--I don't care--perhaps, Mrs. Rusk, you mistook Madame. I will
+go down; I am going out.'
+
+Madame had a basket in her hand. She held it quietly by her capacious
+skirt, at the far side, and made no allusion to the preparation, neither to
+the direction in which she proposed walking, and prattling artlessly and
+affectionately she marched by my side.
+
+Thus we reached the stile at the sheep-walk, and then I paused.
+
+'Now, Madame, have not we gone far enough in this direction?--suppose we
+visit the pigeon-house in the park?'
+
+'Wat folly! my dear a Maud--you cannot walk so far.'
+
+'Well, towards home, then.'
+
+'And wy not a this way? We ave not walk enough, and Mr. Ruthyn he will not
+be pleased if you do not take proper exercise. Let us walk on by the path,
+and stop when you like.'
+
+'Where do you wish to go, Madame?'
+
+'Nowhere particular--come along; don't be fool, Maud.'
+
+'This leads to Church Scarsdale.'
+
+'A yes indeed! wat sweet place! bote we need not a walk all the way to
+there.'
+
+'I'd rather not walk outside the grounds to-day, Madame.'
+
+'Come, Maud, you shall not be fool--wat you mean, Mademoiselle?' said the
+stalworth lady, growing yellow and greenish with an angry mottling, and
+accosting me very gruffly.
+
+'I don't care to cross the stile, thank you, Madame. I shall remain at this
+side.'
+
+'You shall do wat I tell you!' exclaimed she.
+
+'Let go my arm, Madame, you hurt me,' I cried.
+
+She had griped my arm very firmly in her great bony hand, and seemed
+preparing to drag me over by main force.
+
+'Let me go,' I repeated shrilly, for the pain increased.
+
+'La!' she cried with a smile of rage and a laugh, letting me go and shoving
+me backward at the same time, so that I had a rather dangerous tumble.
+
+I stood up, a good deal hurt, and very angry, notwithstanding my fear of
+her.
+
+'I'll ask papa if I am to be so ill-used.'
+
+'Wat av I done?' cried Madame, laughing grimly from her hollow jaws; I did
+all I could to help you over--'ow could I prevent you to pull back and
+tumble if you would do so? That is the way wen you petites Mademoiselles
+are naughty and hurt yourself they always try to make blame other people.
+Tell a wat you like--you think I care?'
+
+'Very well, Madame.'
+
+'Are a you coming?'
+
+'No.'
+
+She looked steadily in my face and very wickedly. I gazed at her as with
+dazzled eyes--I suppose as the feathered prey do at the owl that glares on
+them by night. I neither moved back nor forward, but stared at her quite
+helplessly.
+
+'You are nice pupil--charming young person! So polite, so obedient, so
+amiable! I will walk towards Church Scarsdale,' she continued, suddenly
+breaking through the conventionalism of her irony, and accosting me
+in savage accents. 'You weel stay behind if you dare. I tell you to
+accompany--do you hear?'
+
+More than ever resolved against following her, I remained where I was,
+watching her as she marched fiercely away, swinging her basket as though in
+imagination knocking my head off with it.
+
+She soon cooled, however, and looking over her shoulder, and seeing me
+still at the other side of the stile, she paused, and beckoned me grimly
+to follow her. Seeing me resolutely maintain my position, she faced about,
+tossed her head, like an angry beast, and seemed uncertain for a while what
+course to take with me.
+
+She stamped and beckoned furiously again. I stood firm. I was very much
+frightened, and could not tell to what violence she might resort in her
+exasperation. She walked towards me with an inflamed countenance, and a
+slight angry wagging of the head; my heart fluttered, and I awaited the
+crisis in extreme trepidation. She came close, the stile only separating
+us, and stopped short, glaring and grinning at me like a French grenadier
+who has crossed bayonets, but hesitates to close.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+_DOCTOR BRYERLY LOOKS IN_
+
+
+What had I done to excite this ungovernable fury? We had often before had
+such small differences, and she had contented herself with being sarcastic,
+teasing, and impertinent.
+
+'So, for future you are gouvernante and I the cheaile for you to
+command--is not so?--and you must direct where we shall walk. Très-bien!
+we shall see; Monsieur Ruthyn he shall know everything. For me I do not
+care--not at all--I shall be rather pleased, on the contrary. Let him
+decide. If I shall be responsible for the conduct and the health of
+Mademoiselle his daughter, it must be that I shall have authority to direct
+her wat she must do--it must be that she or I shall obey. I ask only witch
+shall command for the future--voilà tout!'
+
+I was frightened, but resolute--I dare say I looked sullen and
+uncomfortable. At all events, she seemed to think she might possibly
+succeed by wheedling; so she tried coaxing and cajoling, and patted my
+cheek, and predicted that I would be 'a good cheaile,' and not 'vex poor
+Madame,' but do for the future 'wat she tell a me.'
+
+She smiled her wide wet grin, smoothed my hand, and patted my cheek, and
+would in the excess of her conciliatory paroxysm have kissed me; but I
+withdrew, and she commented only with a little laugh, and a 'Foolish little
+thing! but you will be quite amiable just now.'
+
+'Why, Madame,' I asked, suddenly raising my head and looking her straight
+in the face, 'do you wish me to walk to Church Scarsdale so particularly
+to-day?'
+
+She answered my steady look with a contracted gaze and an unpleasant frown.
+
+'Wy do I?--I do not understand a you; there is _no_ particular day--wat
+folly! Wy I like Church Scarsdale? Well, it is such pretty place. There is
+all! Wat leetle fool! I suppose you think I want to keel a you and bury you
+in the churchyard?'
+
+And she laughed, and it would not have been a bad laugh for a ghoul.
+
+'Come, my dearest Maud, you are not a such fool to say, if _you_ tell me me
+go thees a way, I weel go that; and if you say, go that a way, I weel go
+thees--you are rasonable leetle girl--come along--_alons donc_--we shall av
+soche agreeable walk--weel a you?'
+
+But I was immovable. It was neither obstinacy nor caprice, but a profound
+fear that governed me. I was then afraid--yes, _afraid_. Afraid of _what_?
+Well, of going with Madame de la Rougierre to Church Scarsdale that day.
+That was all. And I believe that instinct was true.
+
+She turned a bitter glance toward Church Scarsdale, and bit her lip. She
+saw that she must give it up. A shadow hung upon her drab features. A
+little scowl--a little sneer--wide lips compressed with a false smile, and
+a leaden shadow mottling all. Such was the countenance of the lady who only
+a minute or two before had been smiling and murmuring over the stile so
+amiably with her idiomatic 'blarney,' as the Irish call that kind of
+blandishment.
+
+There was no mistaking the malignant disappointment that hooked and warped
+her features--my heart sank--a tremendous fear overpowered me. Had she
+intended poisoning me? What was in that basket? I looked in her dreadful
+face. I felt for a minute quite frantic. A feeling of rage with my father,
+with my Cousin Monica, for abandoning me to this dreadful rogue, took
+possession of me, and I cried, helplessly wringing my hands--
+
+'Oh! it is a shame--it is a shame--it is a shame!'
+
+The countenance of the gouvernante relaxed. I think she in turn was
+frightened at my extreme agitation. It might have worked unfavourably with
+my father.
+
+'Come, Maud, it is time you should try to control your temper. You shall
+not walk to Church Scarsdale if you do not like--I only invite. _There_!
+It is quite as you please, where we shall walk then? Here to the
+peegeon-house? I think you say. Tout bien! Remember I concede you
+everything. Let us go.'
+
+We went, therefore, towards the pigeon-house, through the forest trees; I
+not speaking as the children in the wood did with their sinister conductor,
+but utterly silent and scared; she silent also, meditating, and sometimes
+with a sharp side-glance gauging my progress towards equanimity. Her own
+was rapid; for Madame was a philosopher, and speedily accommodated herself
+to circumstances. We had not walked a quarter of an hour when every trace
+of gloom had left her face, which had assumed its customary brightness, and
+she began to sing with a spiteful hilarity as we walked forward, and indeed
+seemed to be approaching one of her waggish, frolicsome moods. But her fun
+in these moods was solitary. The joke, whatever it was, remained in her
+own keeping. When we approached the ruined brick tower--in old times a
+pigeon-house--she grew quite frisky, and twirled her basket in the air, and
+capered to her own singing.
+
+Under the shadow of the broken wall, and its ivy, she sat down with a
+frolicsome _plump_, and opened her basket, inviting me to partake, which
+I declined. I must do her justice, however, upon the suspicion of poison,
+which she quite disposed of by gobbling up, to her own share, everything
+which the basket contained.
+
+The reader is not to suppose that Madame's cheerful demeanour indicated
+that I was forgiven. Nothing of the kind. One syllable more, on our walk
+home, she addressed not to me. And when we reached the terrace, she said--
+
+'You will please, Maud, remain for two--three minutes in the Dutch garden,
+while I speak with Mr. Ruthyn in the study.'
+
+This was spoken with a high head and an insufferable smile; and I more
+haughtily, but quite gravely, turned without disputing, and descended the
+steps to the quaint little garden she had indicated.
+
+I was surprised and very glad to see my father there. I ran to him, and
+began, 'Oh! papa!' and then stopped short, adding only, 'may I speak to you
+now?'
+
+He smiled kindly and gravely on me.
+
+'Well, Maud, say your say.'
+
+'Oh, sir, it is only this: I entreat that our walks, mine and Madame's may
+be confined to the grounds.'
+
+'And why?'
+
+'I--I'm afraid to go with her.'
+
+'_Afraid!_' he repeated, looking hard at me. 'Have you lately had a letter
+from Lady Knollys?'
+
+'No, papa, not for two months or more.'
+
+There was a pause.
+
+'And why _afraid_, Maud?'
+
+'She brought me one day to Church Scarsdale; you know what a solitary place
+it is, sir; and she frightened me so that I was afraid to go with her into
+the churchyard. But she went and left me alone at the other side of the
+stream, and an impudent man passing by stopped and spoke to me, and seemed
+inclined to laugh at me, and altogether frightened me very much, and he did
+not go till Madame happened to return.'
+
+'What kind of man--young or old?'
+
+'A young man; he looked like a farmer's son, but very impudent, and stood
+there talking to me whether I would or not; and Madame did not care at
+all, and laughed at me for being frightened; and, indeed, I am very
+uncomfortable with her.'
+
+He gave me another shrewd look, and then looked down cloudily and thought.
+
+'You say you are uncomfortable and frightened. How is this--what causes
+these feelings?'
+
+'I don't know, sir; she likes frightening me; I am afraid of her--we are
+all afraid of her, I think. The servants, I mean, as well as I.'
+
+My father nodded his head contemptuously, twice or thrice, and muttered, 'A
+pack of fools!'
+
+'And she was so very angry to-day with me, because I would not walk again
+with her to Church Scarsdale. I am very much afraid of her. I--' and quite
+unpremeditatedly I burst into tears.
+
+'There, there, little Maud, you must not cry. She is here only for your
+good. If you are afraid--even _foolishly_ afraid--it is enough. Be it as
+you say; your walks are henceforward confined to the grounds; I'll tell her
+so.'
+
+I thanked him through my tears very earnestly.
+
+'But, Maud, beware of prejudice; women are unjust and violent in their
+judgments. Your family has suffered in some of its members by such
+injustice. It behoves us to be careful not to practise it.'
+
+That evening in the drawing-room my father said, in his usual abrupt way--
+
+'About my departure, Maud: I've had a letter from London this morning, and
+I think I shall be called away sooner than I at first supposed, and for a
+little time we must manage apart from one another. Do not be alarmed. You
+shall not be in Madame de la Rougierre's charge, but under the care of a
+relation; but even so, little Maud will miss her old father, I think.'
+
+His tone was very tender, so were his looks; he was looking down on me with
+a smile, and tears were in his eyes. This softening was new to me. I felt a
+strange thrill of surprise, delight, and love, and springing up, I threw my
+arms about his neck and wept in silence. He, I think, shed tears also.
+
+'You said a visitor was coming; some one, you mean, to go away with. Ah,
+yes, you love him better than me.'
+
+'No, dear, no; but I _fear_ him; and I am sorry to leave you, little Maud.'
+
+'It won't be very long,' I pleaded.
+
+'No, dear,' he answered with a sigh.
+
+I was tempted almost to question him more closely on the subject, but he
+seemed to divine what was in my mind, for he said--
+
+'Let us speak no more of it, but only bear in mind, Maud, what I told you
+about the oak cabinet, the key of which is here,' and he held it up as
+formerly: 'you remember what you are to do in case Doctor Bryerly should
+come while I am away?'
+
+'Yes, sir.'
+
+His manner had changed, and I had returned to my accustomed formalities.
+
+It was only a few days later that Dr. Bryerly actually did arrive at Knowl,
+quite unexpectedly, except, I suppose, by my father. He was to stay only
+one night.
+
+He was twice closeted in the little study up-stairs with my father, who
+seemed to me, even for him, unusually dejected, and Mrs. Rusk inveighing
+against 'them rubbitch,' as she always termed the Swedenborgians, told me
+'they were making him quite shaky-like, and he would not last no time, if
+that lanky, lean ghost of a fellow in black was to keep prowling in and out
+of his room like a tame cat.'
+
+I lay awake that night, wondering what the mystery might be that connected
+my father and Dr. Bryerly. There was something more than the convictions
+of their strange religion could account for. There was something that
+profoundly agitated my father. It may not be reasonable, but so it is. The
+person whose presence, though we know nothing of the cause of that effect,
+is palpably attended with pain to anyone who is dear to us, grows odious,
+and I began to detest Doctor Bryerly.
+
+It was a grey, dark morning, and in a dark pass in the gallery, near the
+staircase, I came full upon the ungainly Doctor, in his glossy black suit.
+
+I think, if my mind had been less anxiously excited on the subject of
+his visit, or if I had not disliked him so much, I should not have found
+courage to accost him as I did. There was something sly, I thought, in his
+dark, lean face; and he looked so low, so like a Scotch artisan in his
+Sunday clothes, that I felt a sudden pang of indignation, at the thought
+that a great gentleman, like my father, should have suffered under his
+influence, and I stopped suddenly, instead of passing him by with a mere
+salutation, as he expected, 'May I ask a question, Doctor Bryerly?'
+
+'Certainly'
+
+'Are you the friend whom my father expects?'
+
+'I don't quite see.'
+
+'The friend, I mean, with whom he is to make an expedition to some
+distance, I think, and for some little time?'
+
+'No,' said the Doctor, with a shake of his head.
+
+'And who is he?'
+
+'I really have not a notion, Miss.'
+
+'Why, he said that _you knew_,' I replied.
+
+The Doctor looked honestly puzzled.
+
+'Will he stay long away? pray tell me.'
+
+The Doctor looked into my troubled face with inquiring and darkened eyes,
+like one who half reads another's meaning; and then he said a little
+briskly, but not sharply--
+
+'Well, _I_ don't know, I'm sure, Miss; no, indeed, you must have mistaken;
+there's nothing that _I_ know.'
+
+There was a little pause, and he added--
+
+'No. He never mentioned any friend to me.' I fancied that he was made
+uncomfortable by my question, and wanted to hide the truth. Perhaps I was
+partly right.
+
+'Oh! Doctor Bryerly, pray, _pray_ who is the friend, and where is he
+going?'
+
+'I do _assure_ you,' he said, with a strange sort of impatience, 'I don't
+know; it is all nonsense.'
+
+And he turned to go, looking, I think, annoyed and disconcerted.
+
+A terrific suspicion crossed my brain like lightning.
+
+'Doctor, one word,' I said, I believe, quite wildly. 'Do you--do you think
+his mind is at all affected?'
+
+'Insane?' he said, looking at me with a sudden, sharp inquisitiveness, that
+brightened into a smile. 'Pooh, pooh! Heaven forbid! not a saner man in
+England.'
+
+Then with a little nod he walked on, carrying, as I believed,
+notwithstanding his disclaimer, the secret with him. In the afternoon
+Doctor Bryerly went away.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+_AN ADVENTURE_
+
+
+For many days after our quarrel, Madame hardly spoke to me. As for lessons,
+I was not much troubled with them. It was plain, too, that my father had
+spoken to her, for she never after that day proposed our extending our
+walks beyond the precincts of Knowl.
+
+Knowl, however, was a very considerable territory, and it was possible
+for a much better pedestrian than I to tire herself effectually, without
+passing its limits. So we took occasionally long walks.
+
+After some weeks of sullenness, during which for days at a time she hardly
+spoke to me, and seemed lost in dark and evil abstraction, she once more,
+and somewhat suddenly, recovered her spirits, and grew quite friendly. Her
+gaieties and friendliness were not reassuring, and in my mind presaged
+approaching mischief and treachery. The days were shortening to the wintry
+span. The edge of the red sun had already touched the horizon as Madame and
+I, overtaken at the warren by his last beams, were hastening homeward.
+
+A narrow carriage-road traverses this wild region of the park, to which a
+distant gate gives entrance. On descending into this unfrequented road, I
+was surprised to see a carriage standing there. A thin, sly postilion,
+with that pert, turned-up nose which the old caricaturist Woodward used to
+attribute to the gentlemen of Tewkesbury, was leaning on his horses, and
+looked hard at me as I passed. A lady who sat within looked out, with an
+extra-fashionable bonnet on, and also treated us to a stare. Very pink and
+white cheeks she had, very black glossy hair and bright eyes--fat, bold,
+and rather cross, she looked--and in her bold way she examined us curiously
+as we passed.
+
+I mistook the situation. It had once happened before that an intending
+visitor at Knowl had entered the place by that park-road, and lost several
+hours in a vain search for the house.
+
+'Ask him, Madame, whether they want to go to the house; I dare say they
+have missed their way,' whispered I.
+
+'_Eh bien,_ they will find again. I do not choose to talk to post-boys;
+_allons_!'
+
+But I asked the man as we passed, 'Do you want to reach the house?'
+
+By this time he was at the horses' heads, buckling the harness.
+
+'Noa,' he said in a surly tone, smiling oddly on the winkers, but,
+recollecting his politeness, he added, 'Noa, thankee, misses, it's what
+they calls a picnic; we'll be takin' the road now.'
+
+He was smiling now on a little buckle with which he was engaged.
+
+'Come--nonsense!' whispered Madame sharply in my ear, and she whisked me by
+the arm, so we crossed the little stile at the other side.
+
+Our path lay across the warren, which undulates in little hillocks. The sun
+was down by this time, blue shadows were stretching round us, colder in the
+splendid contrast of the burnished sunset sky.
+
+Descending over these hillocks we saw three figures a little in advance of
+us, not far from the path we were tracing. Two were standing smoking and
+chatting at intervals: one tall and slim, with a high chimney-pot, worn a
+little on one side, and a white great-coat buttoned up to the chin; the
+other shorter and stouter, with a dark-coloured wrapper. These gentlemen
+were facing rather our way as we came over the edge of the eminence, but
+turned their backs on perceiving our approach. As they did so, I remember
+so well each lowered his cigar suddenly with the simultaneousness of a
+drill. The third figure sustained the picnic character of the group, for he
+was repacking a hamper. He stood suddenly erect as we drew near, and a very
+ill-looking person he was, low-browed, square-chinned, and with a broad,
+broken nose. He wore gaiters, and was a little bandy, very broad, and had
+a closely-cropped bullet head, and deep-set little eyes. The moment I saw
+him, I beheld the living type of the burglars and bruisers whom I had so
+often beheld with a kind of scepticism in _Punch_. He stood over his hamper
+and scowled sharply at us for a moment; then with the point of his foot he
+jerked a little fur cap that lay on the ground into his hand, drew it tight
+over his lowering brows, and called to his companions, just as we passed
+him--'Hallo! mister. How's this?'
+
+'All right,' said the tall person in the white great-coat, who, as he
+answered, shook his shorter companion by the arm, I thought angrily.
+
+This shorter companion turned about. He had a muffler loose about his neck
+and chin. I thought he seemed shy and irresolute, and the tall man gave him
+a great jolt with his elbow, which made him stagger, and I fancied a little
+angry, for he said, as it seemed, a sulky word or two.
+
+The gentleman in the white surtout, however, standing direct in our way,
+raised his hat with a mock salutation, placing his hand on his breast,
+and forthwith began to advance with an insolent grin and an air of tipsy
+frolic.
+
+'Jist in time, ladies; five minutes more and we'd a bin off. Thankee, Mrs.
+Mouser, ma'am, for the honour of the meetin', and more particular for the
+pleasure of making your young lady's acquaintance--niece, ma'am? daughter,
+ma'am? granddaughter, by Jove, is it? Hallo! there, mild 'n, I say, stop
+packin'.' This was to the ill-favoured person with the broken nose. 'Bring
+us a couple o' glasses and a bottle o' curaçoa; what are you fear'd on, my
+dear? this is Lord Lollipop, here, a reg'lar charmer, wouldn't hurt a fly,
+hey Lolly? Isn't he pretty, Miss? and I'm Sir Simon Sugarstick--so called
+after old Sir Simon, ma'am; and I'm so tall and straight, Miss, and
+slim--ain't I? and ever so sweet, my honey, when you come to know me, just
+like a sugarstick; ain't I, Lolly, boy?'
+
+'I'm Miss Ruthyn, tell them, Madame,' I said, stamping on the ground, and
+very much frightened.
+
+'Be quaite, Maud. If you are angry, they will hurt us; leave me to speak,'
+whispered the gouvernante.
+
+All this time they were approaching from separate points. I glanced back,
+and saw the ruffianly-looking man within a yard or two, with his arm raised
+and one finger up, telegraphing, as it seemed, to the gentlemen in front.
+
+'Be quaite, Maud,' whispered Madame, with an awful adjuration, which I do
+not care to set down. 'They are teepsy; don't seem 'fraid.'
+
+I _was_ afraid--terrified. The circle had now so narrowed that they might
+have placed their hands on my shoulders.
+
+'Pray, gentlemen, wat you want? _weel_ a you 'av the goodness to permit us
+to go on?'
+
+I now observed for the first time, with a kind of shock, that the shorter
+of the two men, who prevented our advance, was the person who had accosted
+me so offensively at Church Scarsdale. I pulled Madame by the arm,
+whispering, 'Let us run.'
+
+'Be quaite, my dear Maud,' was her only reply.
+
+'I tell you what,' said the tall man, who had replaced his high hat more
+jauntily than before on the side of his head, 'We've caught you now, fair
+game, and we'll let you off on conditions. You must not be frightened,
+Miss. Upon my honour and soul, I mean no mischief; do I, Lollipop? I call
+him Lord Lollipop; it's only chaff, though; his name's Smith. Now, Lolly,
+I vote we let the prisoners go, when we just introduce them to Mrs. Smith;
+she's sitting in the carriage, and keeps Mr. S. here in precious good
+order, I promise you. There's easy terms for you, eh, and we'll have a
+glass o' curaçoa round, and so part friends. Is it a bargain? Come!'
+
+'Yes, Maud, we must go--wat matter?' whispered Madame vehemently.
+
+'You shan't,' I said, instinctively terrified.
+
+'You'll go with Ma'am, young 'un, won't you?' said Mr. Smith, as his
+companion called him.
+
+Madame was holding my arm, but I snatched it from her, and would have run;
+the tall man, however, placed his arms round me and held me fast with an
+affectation of playfulness, but his grip was hard enough to hurt me a good
+deal. Being now thoroughly frightened, after an ineffectual struggle,
+during which I heard Madame say, 'You fool, Maud, weel you come with me?
+see wat you are doing,' I began to scream, shriek after shriek, which the
+man attempted to drown with loud hooting, peals of laughter, forcing
+his handkerchief against my mouth, while Madame continued to bawl her
+exhortations to 'be quaite' in my ear.
+
+'I'll lift her, I say!' said a gruff voice behind me.
+
+But at this instant, wild with terror, I distinctly heard other voices
+shouting. The men who surrounded me were instantly silent, and all looked
+in the direction of the sound, now very near, and I screamed with redoubled
+energy. The ruffian behind me thrust his great hand over my mouth.
+
+'It is the gamekeeper,' cried Madame. '_Two_ gamekeepers--we are
+safe--thank Heaven!' and she began to call on Dykes by name.
+
+I only remember, feeling myself at liberty--running a few steps--seeing
+Dykes' white furious face--clinging to his arm, with which he was bringing
+his gun to a level, and saying, 'Don't fire--they'll murder us if you do.'
+
+Madame, screaming lustily, ran up at the same moment.
+
+'Run on to the gate and lock it--I'll be wi' ye in a minute,' cried he to
+the other gamekeeper; who started instantly on this mission, for the three
+ruffians were already in full retreat for the carriage.
+
+Giddy--wild--fainting--still terror carried me on.
+
+'Now, Madame Rogers--s'pose you take young Misses on--I must run and len'
+Bill a hand.'
+
+'No, no; you moste not,' cried Madame. 'I am fainting myself, and more
+villains they may be near to us.'
+
+But at this moment we heard a shot, and, muttering to himself and grasping
+his gun, Dykes ran at his utmost speed in the direction of the sound.
+
+With many exhortations to speed, and ejaculations of alarm, Madame hurried
+me on toward the house, which at length we reached without further
+adventure.
+
+As it happened, my father met us in the hall. He was perfectly transported
+with fury on hearing from Madame what had happened, and set out at once,
+with some of the servants, in the hope of intercepting the party at the
+park-gate.
+
+Here was a new agitation; for my father did not return for nearly three
+hours, and I could not conjecture what might be occurring during the period
+of his absence. My alarm was greatly increased by the arrival in the
+interval of poor Bill, the under-gamekeeper, very much injured.
+
+Seeing that he was determined to intercept their retreat, the three men had
+set upon him, wrested his gun, which exploded in the struggle, from him,
+and beat him savagely. I mention these particulars, because they convinced
+everybody that there was something specially determined and ferocious in
+the spirit of the party, and that the fracas was no mere frolic, but the
+result of a predetermined plan.
+
+My father had not succeeded in overtaking them. He traced them to the
+Lugton Station, where they had taken the railway, and no one could tell him
+in what direction the carriage and posthorses had driven.
+
+Madame was, or affected to be, very much shattered by what had occurred.
+Her recollection and mine, when my father questioned us closely, differed
+very materially respecting many details of the _personnel_ of the
+villanous party. She was obstinate and clear; and although the gamekeeper
+corroborated my description of them, still my father was puzzled. Perhaps
+he was not sorry that some hesitation was forced upon him, because although
+at first he would have gone almost any length to detect the persons, on
+reflection he was pleased that there was not evidence to bring them into
+a court of justice, the publicity and annoyance of which would have been
+inconceivably distressing to me.
+
+Madame was in a strange state--tempestuous in temper, talking
+incessantly--every now and then in floods of tears, and perpetually on
+her knees pouring forth torrents of thanksgiving to Heaven for our joint
+deliverance from the hands of those villains. Notwithstanding our community
+of danger and her thankfulness on my behalf, however, she broke forth into
+wrath and railing whenever we were alone together.
+
+'Wat fool you were! so disobedient and obstinate; if you 'ad done wat _I_
+say, then we should av been quaite safe; those persons they were tipsy, and
+there is nothing so dangerous as to quarrel with tipsy persons; I would
+'av brought you quaite safe--the lady she seem so nice and quaite, and we
+should 'av been safe with her--there would 'av been nothing absolutely; but
+instead you would scream and pooshe, and so they grow quite wild, and all
+the impertinence and violence follow of course; and that a poor Bill--all
+his beating and danger to his life it is cause entairely by you.'
+
+And she spoke with more real virulence than that kind of upbraiding
+generally exhibits.
+
+'The beast!' exclaimed Mrs. Rusk, when she, I, and Mary Quince were in my
+room together, 'with all her crying and praying, I'd like to know as much
+as she does, maybe, about them rascals. There never was sich like about the
+place, long as I remember it, till she came to Knowl, old witch! with them
+unmerciful big bones of hers, and her great bald head, grinning here, and
+crying there, and her nose everywhere. The old French hypocrite!'
+
+Mary Quince threw in an observation, and I believe Mrs. Rusk rejoined, but
+I heard neither. For whether the housekeeper spoke with reflection or not,
+what she said affected me strangely. Through the smallest aperture, for
+a moment, I had had a peep into Pandemonium. Were not peculiarities of
+Madame's demeanour and advice during the adventure partly accounted for by
+the suggestion? Could the proposed excursion to Church Scarsdale have had
+any purpose of the same sort? What was proposed? How was Madame interested
+in it? Were such immeasurable treason and hypocrisy possible? I could not
+explain nor quite believe in the shapeless suspicion that with these light
+and bitter words of the old housekeeper had stolen so horribly into my
+mind.
+
+After Mrs. Rusk was gone I awoke from my dismal abstraction with something
+like a moan and a shudder, with a dreadful sense of danger.
+
+'Oh! Mary Quince,' I cried, 'do you think she really knew?'
+
+'_Who_, Miss Maud?'
+
+'Do you think Madame knew of those dreadful people? Oh, no--say you
+don't--you don't believe it--tell me she did not. I'm distracted, Mary
+Quince, I'm frightened out of my life.'
+
+'There now, Miss Maud, dear--there now, don't take on so--why should
+she?--no sich a thing. Mrs. Rusk, law bless you, she's no more meaning in
+what she says than the child unborn.'
+
+But I was really frightened. I was in a horrible state of uncertainty as to
+Madame de la Rougierre's complicity with the party who had beset us at the
+warren, and afterwards so murderously beat our poor gamekeeper. How was
+I ever to get rid of that horrible woman? How long was she to enjoy her
+continual opportunities of affrighting and injuring me?
+
+'She hates me--she hates me, Mary Quince; and she will never stop until she
+has done me some dreadful injury. Oh! will no one relieve me--will no one
+take her away? Oh, papa, papa, papa! you will be sorry when it is too
+late.'
+
+I was crying and wringing my hands, and turning from side to side, at my
+wits' ends, and honest Mary Quince in vain endevoured to quiet and comfort
+me.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+_A MIDNIGHT VISITOR_
+
+
+The frightful warnings of Lady Knollys haunted me too. Was there no escape
+from the dreadful companion whom fate had assigned me? I made up my mind
+again and again to speak to my father and urge her removal. In other things
+he indulged me; here, however, he met me drily and sternly, and it was
+plain that he fancied I was under my cousin Monica's influence, and also
+that he had secret reasons for persisting in an opposite course. Just then
+I had a gay, odd letter from Lady Knollys, from some country house in
+Shropshire. Not a word about Captain Oakley. My eye skimmed its pages in
+search of that charmed name. With a peevish feeling I tossed the sheet upon
+the table. Inwardly I thought how ill-natured and unwomanly it was.
+
+After a time, however, I read it, and found the letter very good-natured.
+She had received a note from papa. He had 'had the impudence to forgive
+_her_ for _his_ impertinence.' But for my sake she meant, notwithstanding
+this aggravation, really to pardon him; and whenever she had a disengaged
+week, to accept his invitation to Knowl, from whence she was resolved to
+whisk me off to London, where, though I was too young to be presented at
+Court and come out, I might yet--besides having the best masters and a good
+excuse for getting rid of Medusa--see a great deal that would amuse and
+surprise me.
+
+'Great news, I suppose, from Lady Knollys?' said Madame, who always knew
+who in the house received letters by the post, and by an intuition from
+whom they came.
+
+'Two letters--you and your papa. She is quite well, I hope?'
+
+'Quite well, thank you, Madame.'
+
+Some fishing questions, dropped from time to time, fared no better. And
+as usual, when she was foiled even in a trifle, she became sullen and
+malignant.
+
+That night, when my father and I were alone, he suddenly closed the book he
+had been reading, and said--
+
+'I heard from Monica Knollys to-day. I always liked poor Monnie; and though
+she's no witch, and very wrong-headed at times, yet now and then she does
+say a thing that's worth weighing. Did she ever talk to you of a time,
+Maud, when you are to be your own mistress?'
+
+'No,' I answered, a little puzzled, and looking straight in his rugged,
+kindly face.
+
+'Well, I thought she might--she's a rattle, you know--always _was_ a
+rattle, and that sort of people say whatever comes uppermost. But that's a
+subject for me, and more than once, Maud, it has puzzled me.'
+
+He sighed.
+
+'Come with me to the study, little Maud.'
+
+So, he carrying a candle, we crossed the lobby, and marched together
+through the passage, which at night always seemed a little awesome, darkly
+wainscoted, uncheered by the cross-light from the hall, which was lost at
+the turn, leading us away from the frequented parts of the house to that
+misshapen and lonely room about which the traditions of the nursery and the
+servants' hall had had so many fearful stories to recount.
+
+I think my father had intended making some disclosure to me on reaching
+this room. If so, he changed his mind, or at least postponed his intention.
+
+He had paused before the cabinet, respecting the key of which he had given
+me so strict a charge, and I think he was going to explain himself more
+fully than he had done. But he went on, instead, to the table where his
+desk, always jealously locked, was placed, and having lighted the candles
+which stood by it, he glanced at me, and said--
+
+'You must wait a little, Maud; I shall have something to say to you. Take
+this candle and amuse yourself with a book meanwhile.'
+
+I was accustomed to obey in silence. I chose a volume of engravings,
+and ensconced myself in a favourite nook in which I had often passed a
+half-hour similarly. This was a deep recess by the fireplace, fenced on the
+other side by a great old escritoir. Into this I drew a stool, and, with
+candle and book, I placed myself snugly in the narrow chamber. Every now
+and then I raised my eyes and saw my father either writing or ruminating,
+as it seemed to me, very anxiously at his desk.
+
+Time wore on--a longer time than he had intended, and still he continued
+absorbed at his desk. Gradually I grew sleepy, and as I nodded, the book
+and room faded away, and pleasant little dreams began to gather round me,
+and so I went off into a deep slumber.
+
+It must have lasted long, for when I wakened my candle had burnt out; my
+father, having quite forgotten me, was gone, and the room was dark and
+deserted. I felt cold and a little stiff, and for some seconds did not know
+where I was.
+
+I had been wakened, I suppose, by a sound which I now distinctly heard, to
+my great terror, approaching. There was a rustling; there was a breathing.
+I heard a creaking upon the plank that always creaked when walked upon in
+the passage. I held my breath and listened, and coiled myself up in the
+innermost recess of my little chamber.
+
+Sudden and sharp, a light shone in from the nearly-closed study door. It
+shone angularly on the ceiling like a letter L reversed. There was a pause.
+Then some one knocked softly at the door, which after another pause was
+slowly pushed open. I expected, I think, to see the dreaded figure of
+the linkman. I was scarcely less frightened to see that of Madame de la
+Rougierre. She was dressed in a sort of grey silk, which she called her
+Chinese silk--precisely as she had been in the daytime. In fact, I do not
+think she had undressed. She had no shoes on. Otherwise her toilet was
+deficient in nothing. Her wide mouth was grimly closed, and she stood
+scowling into the room with a searching and pallid scrutiny, the candle
+held high above her head at the full stretch of her arm.
+
+Placed as I was in a deep recess, and in a seat hardly raised above the
+level of the floor, I escaped her, although it seemed to me for some
+seconds, as I gazed on this spectre, that our eyes actually met.
+
+I sat without breathing or winking, staring upon the formidable image which
+with upstretched arm, and the sharp lights and hard shadows thrown upon her
+corrugated features, looked like a sorceress watching for the effect of a
+spell.
+
+She was plainly listening intensely. Unconsciously she had drawn her lower
+lip altogether between her teeth, and I well remember what a deathlike and
+idiotic look the contortion gave her. My terror lest she should discover me
+amounted to positive agony. She rolled her eyes stealthily from corner to
+corner of the room, and listened with her neck awry at the door.
+
+Then to my father's desk she went. To my great relief, her back was towards
+me. She stooped over it, with the candle close by; I saw her try a key--it
+could be nothing else--and I heard her blow through the wards to clear
+them.
+
+Then, again, she listened at the door, candle in hand, and then with long
+tiptoe steps came back, and papa's desk in another moment was open, and
+Madame cautiously turning over the papers it contained.
+
+Twice or thrice she paused, glided to the door, and listened again intently
+with her head near the ground, and then returned and continued her search,
+peeping into papers one after another, tolerably methodically, and reading
+some quite through.
+
+While this felonious business was going on, I was freezing with fear lest
+she should accidentally look round and her eyes light on me; for I could
+not say what she might not do rather than have her crime discovered.
+
+Sometimes she would read a paper twice over; sometimes a whisper no louder
+than the ticking of a watch, sometimes a brief chuckle under her breath,
+bespoke the interest with which here and there a letter or a memorandum was
+read.
+
+For about half an hour, I think, this went on; but at the time it seemed to
+me all but interminable. On a sudden she raised her head and listened for a
+moment, replaced the papers deftly, closed the desk without noise, except
+for the tiny click of the lock, extinguished the candle, and rustled
+stealthily out of the room, leaving in the darkness the malign and hag-like
+face on which the candle had just shone still floating filmy in the dark.
+
+Why did I remain silent and motionless while such an outrage was being
+committed? If, instead of being a very nervous girl, preoccupied with
+an undefinable terror of that wicked woman, I had possessed courage and
+presence of mind, I dare say I might have given an alarm, and escaped from
+the room without the slightest risk. But so it was; I could no more stir
+than the bird who, cowering under its ivy, sees the white owl sailing back
+and forward under its predatory cruise.
+
+Not only during her presence, but for more than an hour after, I remained
+cowering in my hiding-place, and afraid to stir, lest she might either be
+lurking in the neighborhood, or return and surprise me.
+
+You will not be astonished, that after a night so passed I was ill and
+feverish in the morning. To my horror, Madame de la Rougierre came to visit
+me at my bedside. Not a trace of guilty consciousness of what had passed
+during the night was legible in her face. She had no sign of late watching,
+and her toilet was exemplary.
+
+As she sat smiling by me, full of anxious and affectionate enquiry,
+and smoothed the coverlet with her great felonious hand, I could quite
+comprehend the dreadful feeling with which the deceived husband in the
+'Arabian Nights' met his ghoul wife, after his nocturnal discovery.
+
+Ill as I was, I got up and found my father in that room which adjoined his
+bedchamber. He perceived, I am sure, by my looks, that something unusual
+had happened. I shut the door, and came close beside his chair.
+
+'Oh, papa, I have such a thing to tell you!' I forgot to call him 'Sir.' 'A
+secret; and you won't say who told you? Will you come down to the study?'
+
+He looked hard at me, got up, and kissing my forehead, said--'Don't be
+frightened, Maud; I venture to say it is a mare's nest; at all events, my
+child, we will take care that no danger reaches you; come, child.'
+
+And by the hand he led me to the study. When the door was shut, and we had
+reached the far end of the room next the window, I said, but in a low tone,
+and holding his arm fast--
+
+'Oh, sir, you don't know what a dreadful person we have living with
+us--Madame de la Rougierre, I mean. Don't let her in if she comes; she
+would guess what I am telling you, and one way or another I am sure she
+would kill me.'
+
+'Tut, tut, child. You _must_ know that's nonsense,' he said, looking pale
+and stern.
+
+'Oh no, papa. I am horribly frightened, and Lady Knollys thinks so too.'
+
+'Ha! I dare say; one fool makes many. We all know what Monica thinks.'
+
+'But I _saw_ it, papa. She stole your key last night, and opened your desk,
+and read all your papers.'
+
+'Stole my key!' said my father, staring at me perplexed, but at the same
+instant producing it. 'Stole it! Why here it is!'
+
+'She unlocked your desk; she read your papers for ever so long. Open it
+now, and see whether they have not been stirred.'
+
+He looked at me this time in silence, with a puzzled air; but he did unlock
+the desk, and lifted the papers curiously and suspiciously. As he did so
+he uttered a few of those inarticulate interjections which are made with
+closed lips, and not always intelligible; but he made no remark.
+
+Then he placed me on a chair beside him, and sitting down himself, told
+me to recollect myself, and tell him distinctly all I had seen. This
+accordingly I did, he listening with deep attention.
+
+'Did she remove any paper?' asked my father, at the same time making a
+little search, I suppose, for that which he fancied might have been stolen.
+
+'No; I did not see her take anything.'
+
+'Well, you are a good girl, Maud. Act discreetly. Say nothing to
+anyone--not even to your cousin Monica.'
+
+Directions which, coming from another person would have had no great
+weight, were spoken by my father with an earnest look and a weight of
+emphasis that made them irresistibly impressive, and I went away with the
+seal of silence upon my lips.
+
+'Sit down, Maud, _there_. You have not been very happy with Madame de la
+Rougierre. It is time you were relieved. This occurrence decides it.'
+
+He rang the bell.
+
+'Tell Madame de la Rougierre that I request the honour of seeing her for a
+few minutes here.'
+
+My father's communications to her were always equally ceremonious. In a
+few minutes there was a knock at the door, and the same figure, smiling,
+courtesying, that had scared me on the threshold last night, like the
+spirit of evil, presented itself.
+
+My father rose, and Madame having at his request taken a chair opposite,
+looking, as usual in his presence, all amiability, he proceeded at once to
+the point.
+
+'Madame de la Rougierre, I have to request you that you will give me the
+key now in your possession, which unlocks this desk of mine.'
+
+With which termination he tapped his gold pencil-case suddenly on it.
+
+Madame, who had expected something very different, became instantly so
+pale, with a dull purplish hue upon her forehead, that, especially when she
+had twice essayed with her white lips, in vain, to answer, I expected to
+see her fall in a fit.
+
+She was not looking in his face; her eyes were fixed lower, and her mouth
+and cheek sucked in, with a strange distortion at one side.
+
+She stood up suddenly, and staring straight in his face, she succeeded in
+saying, after twice clearing her throat--
+
+'I cannot comprehend, Monsieur Ruthyn, unless you intend to insult me.'
+
+'It won't do, Madame; I must have that false key. I give you the
+opportunity of surrendering it quietly here and now.'
+
+'But who dares to say I possess such thing?' demanded Madame, who, having
+rallied from her momentary paralysis, was now fierce and voluble as I had
+often seen her before.
+
+'You know, Madame, that you can rely on what I say, and I tell you that you
+were seen last night visiting this room, and with a key in your possession,
+opening this desk, and reading my letters and papers contained in it.
+Unless you forthwith give me that key, and any other false keys in your
+possession--in which case I shall rest content with dismissing you
+summarily--I will take a different course. You know I am a magistrate;--and
+I shall have you, your boxes, and places up-stairs, searched forthwith,
+and I will prosecute you criminally. The thing is clear; you aggravate by
+denying; you must give me that key, if you please, instantly, otherwise I
+ring this bell, and you shall see that I mean what I say.'
+
+There was a little pause. He rose and extended his hand towards the
+bell-rope. Madame glided round the table, extended her hand to arrest his.
+
+'I will do everything, Monsieur Ruthyn--whatever you wish.'
+
+And with these words Madame de la Rougierre broke down altogether. She
+sobbed, she wept, she gabbled piteously, all manner of incomprehensible
+roulades of lamentation and entreaty; coyly, penitently, in a most
+interesting agitation, she produced the very key from her breast, with a
+string tied to it. My father was little moved by this piteous tempest. He
+coolly took the key and tried it in the desk, which it locked and unlocked
+quite freely, though the wards were complicated. He shook his head and
+looked her in the face.
+
+'Pray, who made this key? It is a new one, and made expressly to pick this
+lock.'
+
+But Madame was not going to tell any more than she had expressly bargained
+for; so she only fell once more into her old paroxysm of sorrow,
+self-reproach, extenuation, and entreaty.
+
+'Well,' said my father,' I promised that on surrendering the key you should
+go. It is enough. I keep my word. You shall have an hour and a half to
+prepare in. You must then be ready to depart. I will send your money to you
+by Mrs. Rusk; and if you look for another situation, you had better not
+refer to me. Now be so good as to leave me.'
+
+Madame seemed to be in a strange perplexity. She bridled up, dried her eyes
+fiercely, and dropped a great courtesy, and then sailed away towards the
+door. Before reaching it she stopped on the way, turning half round, with
+a peaked, pallid glance at my father, and she bit her lip viciously as she
+eyed him. At the door the same repulsive pantomime was repeated, as she
+stood for a moment with her hand upon the handle. But she changed her
+bearing again with a sniff, and with a look of scorn, almost heightened to
+a sneer, she made another very low courtesy and a disdainful toss of her
+head, and so disappeared, shutting the door rather sharply behind her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+_AU REVOIR_
+
+
+Mrs. Rusk was fond of assuring me that Madame 'did not like a bone in my
+skin.' Instinctively I knew that she bore me no good-will, although I
+really believe it was her wish to make me think quite the reverse. At all
+events I had no desire to see Madame again before her departure, especially
+as she had thrown upon me one momentary glance in the study, which seemed
+to me charged with very peculiar feelings.
+
+You may be very sure, therefore, that I had no desire for a formal
+leave-taking at her departure. I took my hat and cloak, therefore, and
+stole out quietly.
+
+My ramble was a sequestered one, and well screened, even at this late
+season, with foliage; the pathway devious among the stems of old trees, and
+its flooring interlaced and groined with their knotted roots. Though near
+the house, it was a sylvan solitude; a little brook ran darkling and
+glimmering through it, wild strawberries and other woodland plants strewed
+the ground, and the sweet notes and flutter of small birds made the shadow
+of the boughs cheery.
+
+I had been fully an hour in this picturesque solitude when I heard in the
+distance the ring of carriage-wheels, announcing to me that Madame de la
+Rougierre had fairly set out upon her travels. I thanked heaven; I could
+have danced and sung with delight; I heaved a great sigh and looked up
+through the branches to the clear blue sky.
+
+But things are oddly timed. Just at this moment I heard Madame's voice
+close at my ear, and her large bony hand was laid on my shoulder. We were
+instantly face to face--I recoiling, and for a moment speechless with
+fright.
+
+In very early youth we do not appreciate the restraints which act upon
+malignity, or know how effectually fear protects us where conscience is
+wanting. Quite alone, in this solitary spot, detected and overtaken with an
+awful instinct by my enemy, what might not be about to happen to me at that
+moment?
+
+'Frightened as usual, Maud,' she said quietly, and eyeing me with a
+sinister smile, 'and with cause you think, no doubt. Wat 'av you done to
+injure poor Madame? Well, I think I know, little girl, and have quite
+discover the cleverness of my sweet little Maud. Eh--is not so? Petite
+carogne--ah, ha, ha!'
+
+I was too much confounded to answer.
+
+'You see, my dear cheaile,' she said, shaking her uplifted finger with a
+hideous archness at me, 'you could not hide what you 'av done from poor
+Madame. You cannot look so innocent but I can see your pretty little
+villany quite plain--you dear little diablesse.
+
+'Wat I 'av done I 'av no reproach of myself for it. If I could explain,
+your papa would say I 'av done right, and you should thank me on your
+knees; but I cannot explain yet.'
+
+She was speaking, as it were, in little paragraphs, with a momentary pause
+between each, to allow its meaning to impress itself.
+
+'If I were to choose to explain, your papa he would implore me to remain.
+But no--I would not--notwithstanding your so cheerful house, your charming
+servants, your papa's amusing society, and your affectionate and sincere
+heart, my sweet little maraude.
+
+'I am to go to London first, where I 'av, oh, so good friends! next I will
+go abroad for some time; but be sure, my sweetest Maud, wherever I may
+'appen to be, I will remember you--ah, ha! Yes; _most certainly_, I will
+remember you.
+
+'And although I shall not be always near, yet I shall know everything
+about my charming little Maud; you will not know how, but I shall indeed,
+_everything_. And be sure, my dearest cheaile, I will some time be able to
+give you the sensible proofs of my gratitude and affection--you understand.
+
+'The carriage is waiting at the yew-tree stile, and I must go on. You did
+not expect to see me--here; I will appear, perhaps, as suddenly another
+time. It is great pleasure to us both--this opportunity to make our adieux.
+Farewell! my dearest little Maud. I will never cease to think of you, and
+of some way to recompense the kindness you 'av shown for poor Madame.'
+
+My hand hung by my side, and she took, not it, but my thumb, and shook
+it, folded in her broad palm, and looking on me as she held it, as if
+meditating mischief. Then suddenly she said--
+
+'You will always remember Madame, I _think_, and I will remind you of me
+beside; and for the present farewell, and I hope you may be as 'appy as you
+deserve.'
+
+The large sinister face looked on me for a second with its latent sneer,
+and then, with a sharp nod and a spasmodic shake of my imprisoned thumb,
+she turned, and holding her dress together, and showing her great bony
+ankles, she strode rapidly away over the gnarled roots into the perspective
+of the trees, and I did not awake, as it were, until she had quite
+disappeared in the distance.
+
+Events of this kind made no difference with my father; but every other face
+in Knowl was gladdened by the removal. My energies had returned, my spirits
+were come again. The sunlight was happy, the flowers innocent, the songs
+and flutter of the birds once more gay, and all nature delightful and
+rejoicing.
+
+After the first elation of relief, now and then a filmy shadow of Madame de
+la Rougierre would glide across the sunlight, and the remembrance of her
+menace return with an unexpected pang of fear.
+
+'Well, if _there_ isn't impittens!' cried Mrs. Rusk. 'But never you trouble
+your head about it, Miss. Them sort's all alike--you never saw a rogue yet
+that was found out and didn't threaten the honest folk as he was leaving
+behind with all sorts; there was Martin the gamekeeper, and Jervis the
+footman, I mind well how hard they swore all they would not do when they
+was a-going, and who ever heard of them since? They always threatens that
+way--them sort always does, and none ever the worse--not but she would if
+she could, mind ye, but there it is; she can't do nothing but bite her
+nails and cuss us--not she--ha, ha, ha!'
+
+So I was comforted. But Madame's evil smile, nevertheless, from time to
+time, would sail across my vision with a silent menace, and my spirits
+sank, and a Fate, draped in black, whose face I could not see, took me by
+the hand, and led me away, in the spirit, silently, on an awful exploration
+from which I would rouse myself with a start, and Madame was gone for a
+while.
+
+She had, however, judged her little parting well. She contrived to leave
+her glamour over me, and in my dreams she troubled me.
+
+I was, however, indescribably relieved. I wrote in high spirits to Cousin
+Monica; and wondered what plans my father might have formed about me, and
+whether we were to stay at home, or go to London, or go abroad. Of the
+last--the pleasantest arrangement, in some respects--I had nevertheless an
+occult horror. A secret conviction haunted me that were we to go abroad, we
+should there meet Madame, which to me was like meeting my evil genius.
+
+I have said more than once that my father was an odd man; and the reader
+will, by this time, have seen that there was much about him not easily
+understood. I often wonder whether, if he had been franker, I should have
+found him less odd than I supposed, or more odd still. Things that moved me
+profoundly did not apparently affect him at all. The departure of Madame,
+under the circumstances which attended it, appeared to my childish mind an
+event of the vastest importance. No one was indifferent to the occurrence
+in the house but its master. He never alluded again to Madame de la
+Rougierre. But whether connected with her exposure and dismissal, I could
+not say, there did appear to be some new care or trouble now at work in my
+father's mind.
+
+'I have been thinking a great deal about you, Maud. I am anxious. I have
+not been so troubled for years. Why has not Monica Knollys a little more
+sense?'
+
+This oracular sentence he spoke, having stopped me in the hall; and then
+saying, 'We shall see,' he left me as abruptly as he appeared.
+
+Did he apprehend any danger to me from the vindictiveness of Madame?
+
+A day or two afterwards, as I was in the Dutch garden, I saw him on the
+terrace steps. He beckoned to me, and came to meet me as I approached.
+
+'You must be very solitary, little Maud; it is not good. I have written to
+Monica: in a matter of detail she is competent to advise; perhaps she will
+come here for a short visit.'
+
+I was very glad to hear this.
+
+'_You_ are more interested than for my time _I_ can be, in vindicating his
+character.'
+
+'Whose character, sir?' I ventured to enquire during the pause that
+followed.
+
+One trick which my father had acquired from his habits of solitude and
+silence was this of assuming that the context of his thoughts was legible
+to others, forgetting that they had not been spoken.
+
+'Whose?--your uncle Silas's. In the course of nature he must survive me. He
+will then represent the family name. Would you make some sacrifice to clear
+that name, Maud?'
+
+I answered briefly; but my face, I believe, showed my enthusiasm.
+
+He turned on me such an approving smile as you might fancy lighting up the
+rugged features of a pale old Rembrandt.
+
+'I can tell you, Maud; if my life could have done it, it should not have
+been undone--_ubi lapsus, quid feci_. But I had almost made up my mind to
+change my plan, and leave all to time--_edax rerum_--to illuminate or
+to _consume_. But I think little Maud would like to contribute to the
+restitution of her family name. It may cost you something--are you willing
+to buy it at a sacrifice? Is there--I don't speak of fortune, that is not
+involved--but is there any other honourable sacrifice you would shrink from
+to dispel the disgrace under which our most ancient and honourable name
+must otherwise continue to languish?'
+
+'Oh, none--none indeed, sir--I am delighted!'
+
+Again I saw the Rembrandt smile.
+
+'Well, Maud, I am sure there is _no_ risk; but you are to suppose there is.
+Are you still willing to accept it?'
+
+Again I assented.
+
+'You are worthy of your blood, Maud Ruthyn. It will come soon, and it won't
+last long. But you must not let people like Monica Knollys frighten you.'
+
+I was lost in wonder.
+
+'If you allow them to possess you with their follies, you had better recede
+in time--they may make the ordeal as terrible as hell itself. You have
+zeal--have you nerve?' I thought in such a cause I had nerve for anything.
+
+'Well, Maud, in the course of a few months--and it may be sooner--there
+must be a change. I have had a letter from London this morning that assures
+me of that. I must then leave you for a time; in my absence be faithful to
+the duties that will arise. To whom much is committed, of him will much be
+required. You shall promise me not to mention this conversation to Monica
+Knollys. If you are a talking girl, and cannot trust yourself, say so, and
+we will not ask her to come. Also, don't invite her to talk about your
+uncle Silas--I have reasons. Do you quite understand my conditions?'
+
+'Yes, sir.'
+
+'Your uncle Silas,' he said, speaking suddenly in loud and fierce tones
+that sounded from so old a man almost terrible, 'lies under an intolerable
+slander. I don't correspond with him; I don't sympathise with him; I never
+quite did. He has grown religious, and that's well; but there are things in
+which even religion should not bring a man to acquiesce; and from what
+I can learn, he, the person primarily affected--the cause, though the
+innocent cause--of this great calamity--bears it with an easy apathy which
+is mistaken, and liable easily to be mistaken, and such as no Ruthyn, under
+the circumstances, ought to exhibit. I told him what he ought to do, and
+offered to open my purse for the purpose; but he would not, or _did_ not;
+indeed, he _never_ took my advice; he followed his own, and a foul and
+dismal shoal he has drifted on. It is not for his sake--why should I?-that
+I have longed and laboured to remove the disgraceful slur under which
+his ill-fortune has thrown us. He troubles himself little about it, I
+believe--he's meek, meeker than I. He cares less about his children than I
+about you, Maud; he is selfishly sunk in futurity--a feeble visionary. I am
+not so. I believe it to be a duty to take care of others beside myself. The
+character and influence of an ancient family is a peculiar heritage--sacred
+but destructible; and woe to him who either destroys or suffers it to
+perish!'
+
+This was the longest speech I ever heard my father speak before or after.
+He abruptly resumed--
+
+'Yes, we will, Maud--you and I--we'll leave one proof on record, which,
+fairly read, will go far to convince the world.'
+
+He looked round, but we were alone. The garden was nearly always solitary,
+and few visitors ever approached the house from that side.
+
+'I have talked too long, I believe; we are children to the last. Leave me,
+Maud. I think I know you better than I did, and I am pleased with you. Go,
+child--I'll sit here.'
+
+If he had acquired new ideas of me, so had I of him from that interview. I
+had no idea till then how much passion still burned in that aged frame, nor
+how full of energy and fire that face, generally so stern and ashen, could
+appear. As I left him seated on the rustic chair, by the steps, the traces
+of that storm were still discernible on his features. His gathered brows,
+glowing eyes, and strangely hectic face, and the grim compression of his
+mouth, still showed the agitation which, somehow, in grey old age, shocks
+and alarms the young.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+_AUSTIN RUTHYN SETS OUT ON HIS JOURNEY_
+
+
+The Rev. William Fairfield, Doctor Clay's somewhat bald curate, a mild,
+thin man, with a high and thin nose, who was preparing me for confirmation,
+came next day; and when our catechetical conference was ended, and before
+lunch was announced, my father sent for him to the study, where he remained
+until the bell rang out its summons.
+
+'We have had some interesting--I may say _very_ interesting--conversation,
+your papa and I, Miss Ruthyn,' said my reverend _vis-à-vis_, so soon as
+nature was refreshed, smiling and shining, as he leaned back in his chair,
+his hand upon the table, and his finger curled gently upon the stem of his
+wine-glass. 'It never was your privilege, I believe, to see your uncle, Mr.
+Silas Ruthyn, of Bartram-Haugh?'
+
+'No--never; he leads so retired--so _very_ retired a life.'
+
+'Oh, no,--of course, no; but I was going to remark a likeness--I mean,
+of course, a _family_ likeness--only _that_ sort of thing--you
+understand--between him and the profile of Lady Margaret in the
+drawing-room--is not it Lady Margaret?--which you were so good as to show
+me on Wednesday last. There certainly _is_ a likeness. I _think_ you would
+agree with me, if you had the pleasure of seeing your uncle.'
+
+'You know him, then? I have never seen him.'
+
+'Oh dear, yes--I am happy to say, I know him very well. I have that
+privilege. I was for three years curate of Feltram, and I had the honour of
+being a pretty constant visitor at Bartram-Haugh during that, I may say,
+protracted period; and I think it really never has been my privilege and
+happiness, I may say, to enjoy the acquaintance and society of so very
+experienced a Christian, as my admirable friend, I may call him, Mr.
+Ruthyn, of Bartram-Haugh. I look upon him, I do assure you, quite in the
+light of a saint; not, of course, in the Popish sense, but in the very
+highest, you will understand me, which _our_ Church allows,--a man built up
+in faith--full of faith--faith and grace--altogether exemplary; and I
+often ventured to regret, Miss Ruthyn, that Providence in its mysterious
+dispensations should have placed him so far apart from his brother, your
+respected father. His influence and opportunities would, no doubt, we may
+venture to hope, at least have been blessed; and, perhaps, we--my valued
+rector and I--might possibly have seen more of him at church, than, I
+deeply regret, we _have_ done.' He shook his head a little, as he smiled
+with a sad complacency on me through his blue steel spectacles, and then
+sipped a little meditative sherry.
+
+'And you saw a good deal of my uncle?'
+
+'Well, a _good_ deal, Miss Ruthyn--I may say a _good_ deal--principally at
+his own house. His health is wretched--miserable health--a sadly afflicted
+man he has been, as, no doubt, you are aware. But afflictions, my dear Miss
+Ruthyn, as you remember Doctor Clay so well remarked on Sunday last, though
+birds of ill omen, yet spiritually resemble the ravens who supplied the
+prophet; and when they visit the faithful, come charged with nourishment
+for the soul.
+
+'He is a good deal embarrassed pecuniarily, I should say,' continued the
+curate, who was rather a good man than a very well-bred one. 'He found a
+difficulty--in fact it was not in his power--to subscribe generally to our
+little funds, and--and objects, and I used to say to him, and I really felt
+it, that it was more gratifying, such were his feeling and his power of
+expression, to be refused by him than assisted by others.'
+
+'Did papa wish you to speak to me about my uncle?' I enquired, as a sudden
+thought struck me; and then I felt half ashamed of my question.
+
+He looked surprised.
+
+'No, Miss Ruthyn, certainly not. Oh dear, no. It was merely a conversation
+between Mr. Ruthyn and me. He never suggested my opening that, or indeed
+any other point in my interview with you, Miss Ruthyn--not the least.'
+
+'I was not aware before that Uncle Silas was so religious.'
+
+He smiled tranquilly, not quite up to the ceiling, but gently upward, and
+shook his head in pity for my previous ignorance, as he lowered his eyes--
+
+'I don't say that there may not be some little matters in a few points of
+doctrine which we could, perhaps, wish otherwise. But these, you know,
+are speculative, and in all essentials he is Church--not in the perverted
+modern sense; far from it--unexceptionably Church, strictly so. Would there
+were more among us of the same mind that is in him! Ay, Miss Ruthyn, even
+in the highest places of the Church herself.'
+
+The Rev. William Fairfield, while fighting against the Dissenters with his
+right hand, was, with his left, hotly engaged with the Tractarians. A good
+man I am sure he was, and I dare say sound in doctrine, though naturally, I
+think, not very wise. This conversation with him gave me new ideas about my
+uncle Silas. It quite agreed with what my father had said. These principles
+and his increasing years would necessarily quiet the turbulence of his
+resistance to injustice, and teach him to acquiesce in his fate.
+
+You would have fancied that one so young as I, born to wealth so vast, and
+living a life of such entire seclusion, would have been exempt from care.
+But you have seen how troubled my life was with fear and anxiety during the
+residence of Madame de la Rougierre, and now there rested upon my mind a
+vague and awful anticipation of the trial which my father had announced,
+without defining it.
+
+An 'ordeal' he called it, requiring not only zeal but nerve, which might
+possibly, were my courage to fail, become frightful, and even intolerable.
+What, and of what nature, could it be? Not designed to vindicate the fair
+fame of the meek and submissive old man--who, it seemed, had ceased to care
+for his bygone wrongs, and was looking to futurity--but the reputation of
+our ancient family.
+
+Sometimes I repented my temerity in having undertaken it. I distrusted my
+courage. Had I not better retreat, while it was yet time? But there was
+shame and even difficulty in the thought. How should I appear before my
+father? Was it not important--had I not deliberately undertaken it--and was
+I not bound in conscience? Perhaps he had already taken steps in the matter
+which committed _him_. Besides, was I sure that, even were I free again, I
+would not once more devote myself to the trial, be it what it might?
+You perceive I had more spirit than courage. I think I had the mental
+attributes of courage; but then I was but a hysterical girl, and in so far
+neither more nor less than a coward.
+
+No wonder I distrusted myself; no wonder also my will stood out against
+my timidity. It was a struggle, then; a proud, wild resolve against
+constitutional cowardice.
+
+Those who have ever had cast upon them more than their strength
+seemed framed to bear--the weak, the aspiring, the adventurous and
+self-sacrificing in will, and the faltering in nerve--will understand the
+kind of agony which I sometimes endured.
+
+But, again, consolation would come, and it seemed to me that I must be
+exaggerating my risk in the coming crisis; and certain at least, if my
+father believed it attended with real peril, he would never have wished
+to see me involved in it. But the silence under which I was bound was
+terrifying--double so when the danger was so shapeless and undivulged.
+
+I was soon to understand it all--soon, too, to know all about my father's
+impending journey, whither, with what visitor, and why guarded from me with
+so awful a mystery.
+
+That day there came a lively and goodnatured letter from Lady Knollys. She
+was to arrive at Knowl in two or three days' time. I thought my father
+would have been pleased, but he seemed apathetic and dejected.
+
+'One does not always feel quite equal to Monica. But for you--yes, thank
+God. I wish she could only stay, Maud, for a month or two; I may be going
+then, and would be glad--provided she talks about suitable things--very
+glad, Maud, to leave her with you for a week or so.'
+
+There was something, I thought, agitating my father secretly that day. He
+had the strange hectic flush I had observed when he grew excited in our
+interview in the garden about Uncle Silas. There was something painful,
+perhaps even terrible, in the circumstances of the journey he was about
+to make, and from my heart I wished the suspense were over, the annoyance
+past, and he returned.
+
+That night my father bid me good-night early and went upstairs. After I
+had been in bed some little time, I heard his hand-bell ring. This was not
+usual. Shortly after I heard his man, Ridley, talking with Mrs. Rusk in
+the gallery. I could not be mistaken in their voices. I knew not why I was
+startled and excited, and had raised myself to listen on my elbow. But they
+were talking quietly, like persons giving or taking an ordinary direction,
+and not in the haste of an unusual emergency.
+
+Then I heard the man bid Mrs. Rusk good-night and walk down the gallery
+to the stairs, so that I concluded he was wanted no more, and all must
+therefore be well. So I laid myself down again, though with a throbbing at
+my heart, and an ominous feeling of expectation, listening and fancying
+footsteps.
+
+I was going to sleep when I heard the bell ring again; and, in a few
+minutes, Mrs. Rusk's energetic step passed along the gallery; and,
+listening intently, I heard, or fancied, my father's voice and hers in
+dialogue. All this was very unusual, and again I was, with a beating heart,
+leaning with my elbow on my pillow.
+
+Mrs. Rusk came along the gallery in a minute or so after, and stopping at
+my door, began to open it gently. I was startled, and challenged my visitor
+with--
+
+'Who's there?'
+
+'It's only Rusk, Miss. Dearie me! and are you awake still?'
+
+'Is papa ill?'
+
+'Ill! not a bit ill, thank God. Only there's a little black book as I took
+for your prayer-book, and brought in here; ay, here it is, sure enough, and
+he wants it. And then I must go down to the study, and look out this one,
+"C, 15;" but I can't read the name, noways; and I was afraid to ask him
+again; if you be so kind to read it, Miss--I suspeck my eyes is a-going.'
+
+I read the name; and Mrs. Rusk was tolerably expert at finding out books,
+as she had often been employed in that way before. So she departed.
+
+I suppose that this particular volume was hard to find, for she must have
+been a long time away, and I had actually fallen into a doze when I was
+roused in an instant by a dreadful crash and a piercing scream from Mrs.
+Rusk. Scream followed scream, wilder and more terror-stricken. I shrieked
+to Mary Quince, who was sleeping in the room with me:--'Mary, do you hear?
+what is it? It is something dreadful.'
+
+The crash was so tremendous that the solid flooring even of my room
+trembled under it, and to me it seemed as if some heavy man had burst
+through the top of the window, and shook the whole house with his descent.
+I found myself standing at my own door, crying, 'Help, help! murder!
+murder!' and Mary Quince, frightened half out of her wits, by my side.
+
+I could not think what was going on. It was plainly something most
+horrible, for Mrs. Rusk's screams pealed one after the other unabated,
+though with a muffled sound, as if the door was shut upon her; and by this
+time the bells of my father's room were ringing madly.
+
+'They are trying to murder him!' I cried, and I ran along the gallery to
+his door, followed by Mary Quince, whose white face I shall never forget,
+though her entreaties only sounded like unmeaning noises in my ears.
+
+'Here! help, help, help!' I cried, trying to force open the door.
+
+'Shove it, shove it, for God's sake! he's across it,' cried Mrs. Rusk's
+voice from within; 'drive it in. I can't move him.'
+
+I strained all I could at the door, but ineffectually. We heard steps
+approaching. The men were running to the spot, and shouting as they did
+so--
+
+'Never mind; hold on a bit; here we are; all right;' and the like.
+
+We drew back, as they came up. We were in no condition to be seen. We
+listened, however, at my open door.
+
+Then came the straining and bumping at the door. Mrs. Rusk's voice subsided
+to a sort of wailing; the men were talking all together, and I suppose the
+door opened, for I heard some of the voices, on a sudden, as if in the
+room; and then came a strange lull, and talking in very low tones, and not
+much even of that.
+
+'What is it, Mary? what _can_ it be?' I ejaculated, not knowing what horror
+to suppose. And now, with a counterpane about my shoulders, I called loudly
+and imploringly, in my horror, to know what had happened.
+
+But I heard only the subdued and eager talk of men engaged in some
+absorbing task, and the dull sounds of some heavy body being moved.
+
+Mrs. Rusk came towards us looking half wild, and pale as a spectre, and
+putting her thin hands to my shoulders, she said--'Now, Miss Maud, darling,
+you must go back again; 'tisn't no place for you; you'll see all, my
+darling, time enough--you will. There now, there, like a dear, do get into
+your room.'
+
+What was that dreadful sound? Who had entered my father's chamber? It was
+the visitor whom we had so long expected, with whom he was to make the
+unknown journey, leaving me alone. The intruder was Death!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+_ARRIVALS_
+
+
+My father was dead--as suddenly as if he had been murdered. One of those
+fearful aneurisms that lie close to the heart, showing no outward sign of
+giving way in a moment, had been detected a good time since by Dr. Bryerly.
+My father knew what must happen, and that it could not be long deferred.
+He feared to tell me that he was soon to die. He hinted it only in the
+allegory of his journey, and left in that sad enigma some words of true
+consolation that remained with me ever after. Under his rugged ways was
+hidden a wonderful tenderness. I could not believe that he was actually
+dead. Most people for a minute or two, in the wild tumult of such a shock,
+have experienced the same skepticism. I insisted that the doctor should be
+instantly sent for from the village.
+
+'Well, Miss Maud, dear, I _will_ send to please you, but it is all to no
+use. If only you saw him yourself you'd know that. Mary Quince, run you
+down and tell Thomas, Miss Maud desires he'll go down this minute to the
+village for Dr. Elweys.'
+
+Every minute of the interval seemed to me like an hour. I don't know what
+I said, but I fancied that if he were not already dead, he would lose his
+life by the delay. I suppose I was speaking very wildly, for Mrs. Rusk
+said--
+
+'My dear child, you ought to come in and see him; indeed but you should,
+Miss Maud. He's quite dead an hour ago. You'd wonder all the blood that's
+come from him--you would indeed; it's soaked through the bed already.'
+
+'Oh, don't, don't, _don't_, Mrs. Rusk.'
+
+'Will you come in and see him, just?
+
+'Oh, no, no, no, no!'
+
+'Well, then, my dear, don't of course, if you don't like; there's no need.
+Would not you like to lie down, Miss Maud? Mary Quince, attend to her. I
+must go into the room for a minute or two.'
+
+I was walking up and down the room in distraction. It was a cool night; but
+I did not feel it. I could only cry:--'Oh, Mary, Mary! what shall I do? Oh,
+Mary Quince! what shall I do?'
+
+It seemed to me it must be near daylight by the time the Doctor arrived. I
+had dressed myself. I dared not go into the room where my beloved father
+lay.
+
+I had gone out of my room to the gallery, where I awaited Dr. Elweys, when
+I saw him walking briskly after the servant, his coat buttoned up to his
+chin, his hat in his hand, and his bald head shining. I felt myself grow
+cold as ice, and colder and colder, and with a sudden sten my heart seemed
+to stand still.
+
+I heard him ask the maid who stood at the door, in that low, decisive,
+mysterious tone which doctors cultivate--
+
+'In _here_?'
+
+And then, with a nod, I saw him enter.
+
+'Would not you like to see the Doctor, Miss Maud?' asked Mary Quince.
+
+The question roused me a little.
+
+'Thank you, Mary; yes, I must see him.'
+
+And so, in a few minutes, I did. He was very respectful, very sad,
+semi-undertakerlike, in air and countenance, but quite explicit. I heard
+that my dear father 'had died palpably from the rupture of some great
+vessel near the heart.' The disease had, no doubt, been 'long established,
+and is in its nature incurable.' It is 'consolatory in these cases that in
+the act of dissolution, which is instantaneous, there can be no suffering.'
+These, and a few more remarks, were all he had to offer; and having had his
+fee from Mrs. Rusk, he, with a respectful melancholy, vanished.
+
+I returned to my room, and broke into paroxysms of grief, and after an hour
+or more grew more tranquil.
+
+From Mrs. Rusk I learned that he had seemed very well--better than usual,
+indeed--that night, and that on her return from the study with the book
+he required, he was noting down, after his wont, some passages which
+illustrated the text on which he was employing himself. He took the book,
+detaining her in the room, and then mounting on a chair to take down
+another book from a shelf, he had fallen, with the dreadful crash I had
+heard, dead upon the floor. He fell across the door, which caused the
+difficulty in opening it. Mrs. Rusk found she had not strength to force it
+open. No wonder she had given way to terror. I think I should have almost
+lost my reason.
+
+Everyone knows the reserved aspect and the taciturn mood of the house, one
+of whose rooms is tenanted by that mysterious guest.
+
+I do not know how those awful days, and more awful nights, passed over. The
+remembrance is repulsive. I hate to think of them. I was soon draped in the
+conventional black, with its heavy folds of crape. Lady Knollys came, and
+was very kind. She undertook the direction of all those details which were
+to me so inexpressibly dreadful. She wrote letters for me beside, and was
+really most kind and useful, and her society supported me indescribably.
+She was odd, but her eccentricity was leavened with strong common sense;
+and I have often thought since with admiration and gratitude of the tact
+with which she managed my grief.
+
+There is no dealing with great sorrow as if it were under the control of
+our wills. It is a terrible phenomenon, whose laws we must study, and to
+whose conditions we must submit, if we would mitigate it. Cousin Monica
+talked a great deal of my father. This was easy to her, for her early
+recollections were full of him.
+
+One of the terrible dislocations of our habits of mind respecting the dead
+is that our earthly future is robbed of them, and we thrown exclusively
+upon retrospect. From the long look forward they are removed, and every
+plan, imagination, and hope henceforth a silent and empty perspective. But
+in the past they are all they ever were. Now let me advise all who would
+comfort people in a new bereavement to talk to them, very freely, all they
+can, in this way of the dead. They will engage in it with interest, they
+will talk of their own recollections of the dead, and listen to yours,
+though they become sometimes pleasant, sometimes even laughable. I found it
+so. It robbed the calamity of something of its supernatural and horrible
+abruptness; it prevented that monotony of object which is to the mind what
+it is to the eye, and prepared the faculty for those mesmeric illusions
+that derange its sense.
+
+Cousin Monica, I am sure, cheered me wonderfully. I grow to love her more
+and more, as I think of all her trouble, care, and kindness.
+
+I had not forgotten my promise to dear papa about the key, concerning which
+he had evinced so great an anxiety. It was found in the pocket where he had
+desired me to remember he always kept it, except when it was placed, while
+he slept, under his pillow.
+
+'And so, my dear, that wicked woman was actually found picking the lock of
+your poor papa's desk. I _wonder_ he did not punish her--you know that is
+_burglary_.'
+
+'Well, Lady Knollys, you know she is gone, and so I care no more about
+her--that is, I mean, I need not fear her.'
+
+'No, my dear, but you must call me Monica--do you mind--I'm your cousin,
+and you call me Monica, unless you wish to vex me. No, of course, you need
+not be afraid of her. And she's gone. But I'm an old thing, you know, and
+not so tender-hearted as you; and I confess I should have been very glad to
+hear that the wicked old witch had been sent to prison and hard labour--I
+should. And what do you suppose she was looking for--what did she want to
+steal? I think I can guess--what do _you_ think?'
+
+'To read the papers; maybe to take bank-notes--I'm not sure,' I answered.
+
+'Well, I think most likely she wanted to get at your poor papa's
+_will_--that's _my_ idea.
+
+'There is nothing surprising in the supposition, dear,' she resumed. 'Did
+not you read the curious trial at York, the other day? There is nothing
+so valuable to steal as a will, when a great deal of property is to be
+disposed of by it. Why, you would have given her ever so much money to get
+it back again. Suppose you go down, dear--I'll go with you, and open the
+cabinet in the study.'
+
+'I don't think I can, for I promised to give the key to Dr. Bryerly, and
+the meaning was that _he_ only should open it.'
+
+Cousin Monica uttered an inarticulate 'H'm!' of surprise or disapprobation.
+
+'Has he been written to?'
+
+'No, I do not know his address.'
+
+'Not know his address! come, that is curious,' said Knollys, a little
+testily.
+
+I could not--no one now living in the house could furnish even a
+conjecture. There was even a dispute as to which train he had gone
+by--north or south--they crossed the station at an interval of five
+minutes. If Dr. Bryerly had been an evil spirit, evoked by a secret
+incantation, there could not have been more complete darkness as to the
+immediate process of his approach.
+
+'And how long do you mean to wait, my dear? No matter; at all events you
+may open the _desk_; you may find papers to direct you--you may find Dr.
+Bryerly's address--you may find, heaven knows what.'
+
+So down we went--I assenting--and we opened the desk. How dreadful the
+desecration seems--all privacy abrogated--the shocking compensation for the
+silence of death!
+
+Henceforward all is circumstantial evidence--all conjectural--except the
+_litera scripta_, and to this evidence every note-book, and every scrap of
+paper and private letter, must contribute--ransacked, bare in the light of
+day--what it can.
+
+At the top of the desk lay two notes sealed, one to Cousin Monica, the
+other to me. Mine was a gentle and loving little farewell--nothing
+more--which opened afresh the fountains of my sorrow, and I cried and
+sobbed over it bitterly and long. The other was for 'Lady Knollys.' I did
+not see how she received it, for I was already absorbed in mine. But in
+awhile she came and kissed me in her girlish, goodnatured way. Her eyes
+used to fill with tears at sight of my paroxysms of grief. Then she would
+begin, 'I remember it was a saying of his,' and so she would repeat
+it--something maybe wise, maybe playful, at all events consolatory--and the
+circumstances in which she had heard him say it, and then would follow the
+recollections suggested by these; and so I was stolen away half by him, and
+half by Cousin Monica, from my despair and lamentation.
+
+Along with these lay a large envelope, inscribed with the words 'Directions
+to be complied with immediately on my death.' One of which was, 'Let the
+event be _forthwith_ published in the _county_ and principal _London_
+papers.' This step had been already taken. We found no record of Dr.
+Bryerly's address.
+
+We made search everywhere, except in the cabinet, which I would on no
+account permit to be opened except, according to his direction, by Dr.
+Bryerly's hand. But nowhere was a will, or any document resembling one, to
+be found. I had now, therefore, no doubt that his will was placed in the
+cabinet.
+
+In the search among my dear father's papers we found two sheafs of letters,
+neatly tied up and labelled--these were from my uncle Silas.
+
+My cousin Monica looked down upon these papers with a strange smile; was it
+satire--was it that indescribable smile with which a mystery which covers a
+long reach of years is sometimes approached?
+
+These were odd letters. If here and there occurred passages that were
+querulous and even abject, there were also long passages of manly and
+altogether noble sentiment, and the strangest rodomontade and maunderings
+about religion. Here and there a letter would gradually transform itself
+into a prayer, and end with a doxology and no signature; and some of them
+expressed such wild and disordered views respecting religion, as I imagine
+he can never have disclosed to good Mr. Fairfield, and which approached
+more nearly to the Swedenborg visions than to anything in the Church of
+England.
+
+I read these with a solemn interest, but my cousin Monica was not similarly
+moved. She read them with the same smile--faint, serenely contemptuous,
+I thought--with which she had first looked down upon them. It was the
+countenance of a person who amusedly traces the working of a character that
+is well understood.
+
+'Uncle Silas is very religious?' I said, not quite liking Lady Knollys'
+looks.
+
+'Very,' she said, without raising her eyes or abating her old bitter smile,
+as she glanced over a passage in one of his letters.
+
+'You don't think he _is_, Cousin Monica?' said I. She raised her head and
+looked straight at me.
+
+'Why do you say that, Maud?'
+
+'Because you smile incredulously, I think, over his letters.'
+
+'Do I?' said she; 'I was not thinking--it was quite an accident. The fact
+is, Maud, your poor papa quite mistook me. I had no prejudice respecting
+him--no theory. I never knew what to think about him. I do not think
+Silas a product of nature, but a child of the Sphinx, and I never could
+understand him--that's all.'
+
+'I always felt so too; but that was because I was left to speculation, and
+to glean conjectures as I might from his portrait, or anywhere. Except what
+you told me, I never heard more than a few sentences; poor papa did not
+like me to ask questions about him, and I think he ordered the servants to
+be silent.'
+
+'And much the same injunction this little note lays upon me--not quite, but
+something like it; and I don't know the meaning of it.'
+
+And she looked enquiringly at me.
+
+'You are not to be _alarmed_ about your uncle Silas, because your being
+afraid would unfit you for an _important service_ which you have undertaken
+for your family, the nature of which I shall soon understand, and which,
+although it is quite _passive_, would be made very sad if _illusory fears_
+were allowed to _steal into your mind_.'
+
+She was looking into the letter in poor papa's handwriting, which she had
+found addressed to her in his desk, and emphasised the words, I suppose,
+which she quoted from it.
+
+'Have you any idea, Maud, darling, what this _service_ may be?' she
+enquired, with a grave and anxious curiosity in her countenance.
+
+'None, Cousin Monica; but I have thought long over my undertaking to do
+it, or submit to it, be it what it may; and I will keep the promise I
+voluntarily made, although I know what a coward I am, and often distrust my
+courage.'
+
+'Well, I am not to frighten you.'
+
+'How could you? Why should I be afraid? _Is_ there anything frightful to be
+disclosed? Do tell me--you _must_ tell me.'
+
+'No, darling, I did not mean _that_--I don't mean that;--I could, if I
+would; I--I don't know exactly what I meant. But your poor papa knew him
+better than I--in fact, I did not know him at all--that is, ever quite
+understood him--which your poor papa, I see, had ample opportunities of
+doing.' And after a little pause, she added--'So you do not know what you
+are expected to do or to undergo.'
+
+'Oh! Cousin Monica, I know you think he committed that murder,' I cried,
+starting up, I don't know why, and I felt that I grew deadly pale.
+
+'I don't believe any such thing, you little fool; you must not say such
+horrible things, Maud,' she said, rising also, and looking both pale and
+angry. 'Shall we go out for a little walk? Come, lock up these papers,
+dear, and get your things on; and if that Dr. Bryerly does not turn up
+to-morrow, you must send for the Rector, good Doctor Clay, and let him make
+search for the will--there may be directions about many things, you know;
+and, my dear Maud, you are to remember that Silas is _my_ cousin as well as
+your uncle. Come, dear, put on your hat.'
+
+So we went out together for a little cloistered walk.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+_SOMEBODY IN THE ROOM WITH THE COFFIN_
+
+
+When we returned, a 'young' gentleman had arrived. We saw him in the
+parlour as we passed the window. It was simply a glance, but such a one
+as suffices to make a photograph, which we can study afterwards, at our
+leisure. I remember him at this moment--a man of six-and-thirty--dressed in
+a grey travelling suit, not over-well made; light-haired, fat-faced,
+and clumsy; and he looked both dull and cunning, and not at all like a
+gentleman.
+
+Branston met us, announced the arrival, and handed me the stranger's
+credentials. My cousin and I stopped in the passage to read them.
+
+'_That's_ your uncle Silas's,' said Lady Knollys, touching one of the two
+letters with the tip of her finger.
+
+'Shall we have lunch, Miss?'
+
+'Certainly.' So Branston departed.
+
+'Read it with me, Cousin Monica,' I said. And a very curious letter it was.
+It spoke as follows:--
+
+'How can I thank my beloved niece for remembering her aged and forlorn
+kinsman at such a moment of anguish?'
+
+I had written a note of a few, I dare say, incoherent words by the next
+post after my dear father's death.
+
+'It is, however, in the hour of bereavement that we most value the ties
+that are broken, and yearn for the sympathy of kindred.'
+
+Here came a little distich of French verse, of which I could only read
+_ciel_ and _l'amour_.
+
+'Our quiet household here is clouded with a new sorrow. How inscrutable are
+the ways of Providence! I--though a few years younger--how much the more
+infirm--how shattered in energy and in mind--how mere a burden--how
+entirely _de trop_--am spared to my sad place in a world where I can be no
+longer useful, where I have but one business--prayer, but one hope--the
+tomb; and he--apparently so robust--the centre of so much good--so
+necessary to you--so necessary, alas! to me--is taken! He is gone to his
+rest--for us, what remains but to bow our heads, and murmur, "His will be
+done"? I trace these lines with a trembling hand, while tears dim my
+old eyes. I did not think that any earthly event could have moved me so
+profoundly. From the world I have long stood aloof. I once led a life of
+pleasure--alas! of wickedness--as I now do one of austerity; but as I never
+was rich, so my worst enemy will allow I never was avaricious. My sins, I
+thank my Maker, have been of a more reducible kind, and have succumbed to
+the discipline which Heaven has provided. To earth and its interests, as
+well as to its pleasures, I have long been dead. For the few remaining
+years of my life I ask but quiet--an exemption from the agitations and
+distractions of struggle and care, and I trust to the Giver of all Good for
+my deliverance--well knowing, at the same time, that whatever befalls will,
+under His direction, prove best. Happy shall I be, my dearest niece, if in
+your most interesting and, in some respects, forlorn situation, I can be
+of any use to you. My present religious adviser--of whom I ventured to ask
+counsel on your behalf--states that I ought to send some one to represent
+me at the melancholy ceremony of reading the will which my beloved and now
+happy brother has, no doubt, left behind; and the idea that the experience
+and professional knowledge possessed by the gentleman whom I have selected
+may possibly be of use to you, my dearest niece, determines me to place
+him at your disposal. He is the junior partner in the firm of Archer and
+Sleigh, who conduct any little business which I may have from time to time;
+may I entreat your hospitality for him during a brief stay at Knowl? I
+write, even for a moment, upon these small matters of business with
+an effort--a painful one, but necessary. Alas! my brother! The cup of
+bitterness is now full. Few and evil must the remainder of my old days be.
+Yet, while they last, I remain always for my beloved niece, that which all
+her wealth and splendour cannot purchase--a loving and faithful kinsman and
+friend,
+
+SILAS RUTHYN.'
+
+'Is not it a kind letter?' I said, while tears stood in my eyes.
+
+'Yes,' answered Lady Knollys, drily.
+
+'But don't you think it so, really?'
+
+'Oh! kind, very kind,' she answered in the same tone, 'and perhaps a little
+cunning.'
+
+'Cunning!--how?'
+
+'Well, you know I'm a peevish old Tabby, and of course I scratch now and
+then, and see in the dark. I dare say Silas is sorry, but I don't think he
+is in sackcloth and ashes. He has reason to be sorry and anxious, and I say
+I think he is both; and you know he pities you very much, and also himself
+a good deal; and he wants money, and you--his beloved niece--have a great
+deal--and altogether it is an affectionate and prudent letter: and he has
+sent his attorney here to make a note of the will; and you are to give the
+gentleman his meals and lodging; and Silas, very thoughtfully, invites you
+to confide your difficulties and troubles to _his_ solicitor. It is very
+kind, but not imprudent.'
+
+'Oh, Cousin Monica, don't you think at such a moment it is hardly natural
+that he should form such petty schemes, even were he capable at other times
+of practising so low? Is it not judging him hardly? and you, you know, so
+little acquainted with him.'
+
+'I told you, dear, I'm a cross old thing--and there's an end; and I really
+don't care two pence about him; and of the two I'd much rather he were no
+relation of ours.'
+
+Now, was not this prejudice? I dare say in part it was. So, too, was
+my vehement predisposition in his favour. I am afraid we women are
+factionists; we always take a side, and nature has formed us for advocates
+rather than judges; and I think the function, if less dignified, is more
+amiable.
+
+I sat alone at the drawing-room window, at nightfall, awaiting my cousin
+Monica's entrance.
+
+Feverish and frightened I felt that night. It was a sympathy, I fancy, with
+the weather. The sun had set stormily. Though the air was still, the sky
+looked wild and storm-swept. The crowding clouds, slanting in the attitude
+of flight, reflected their own sacred aspect upon my spirits. My grief
+darkened with a wild presaging of danger, and a sense of the supernatural
+fell upon me. It was the saddest and most awful evening that had come since
+my beloved father's death.
+
+All kinds of shapeless fears environed me in silence. For the first time,
+dire misgivings about the form of faith affrighted me. Who were these
+Swedenborgians who had got about him--no one could tell how--and held
+him so fast to the close of his life? Who was this bilious, bewigged,
+black-eyed Doctor Bryerly, whom none of us quite liked and all a little
+feared; who seemed to rise out of the ground, and came and went, no one
+knew whence or whither, exercising, as I imagined, a mysterious authority
+over him? Was it all good and true, or a heresy and a witchcraft? Oh, my
+beloved father! was it all well with you?
+
+When Lady Knollys entered, she found me in floods of tears, walking
+distractedly up and down the room. She kissed me in silence; she walked
+back and forward with me, and did her best to console me.
+
+'I think, Cousin Monica, I would wish to see him once more. Shall we go
+up?'
+
+'Unless you really wish it very much, I think, darling, you had better not
+mind it. It is happier to recollect them as they were; there's a change,
+you know, darling, and there is seldom any comfort in the sight.'
+
+'But I do wish it _very_ much. Oh! won't you come with me?'
+
+And so I persuaded her, and up we went hand in hand, in the deepening
+twilight; and we halted at the end of the dark gallery, and I called Mrs.
+Rusk, growing frightened.
+
+'Tell her to let us in, Cousin Monica,' I whispered.
+
+'She wishes to see him, my lady--does she?' enquired Mrs. Rusk, in an
+under-tone, and with a mysterious glance at me, as she softly fitted the
+key to the lock.
+
+'Are you quite sure, Maud, dear?'
+
+'Yes, yes.'
+
+But when Mrs. Rusk entered bearing the candle, whose beam mixed dismally
+with the expiring twilight, disclosing a great black coffin standing upon
+trestles, near the foot of which she took her stand, gazing sternly into
+it, I lost heart again altogether and drew back.
+
+'No, Mrs. Rusk, she won't; and I am very glad, dear,' she added to me.
+'Come, Mrs. Rusk, come away. Yes, darling,' she continued to me, 'it is
+much better for you;' and she hurried me away, and down-stairs again. But
+the awful outlines of that large black coffin remained upon my imagination
+with a new and terrible sense of death.
+
+I had no more any wish to see him. I felt a horror even of the room, and
+for more than an hour after a kind of despair and terror, such as I have
+never experienced before or since at the idea of death.
+
+Cousin Monica had had her bed placed in my room, and Mary Quince's moved to
+the dressing-room adjoining it. For the first time the superstitious awe
+that follows death, but not immediately, visited me. The idea of seeing my
+father enter the room, or open the door and look in, haunted me. After Lady
+Knollys and I were in bed, I could not sleep. The wind sounded mournfully
+outside, and the small sounds, the rattlings, and strainings that responded
+from within, constantly startled me, and simulated the sounds of steps, of
+doors opening, of knockings, and so forth, rousing me with a palpitating
+heart as often as I fell into a doze.
+
+At length the wind subsided, and these ambiguous noises abated, and I,
+fatigued, dropped into a quiet sleep. I was awakened by a sound in the
+gallery--which I could not define. A considerable time had passed, for the
+wind was now quite lulled. I sat up in my bed a good deal scared, listening
+breathlessly for I knew not what.
+
+I heard a step moving stealthily along the gallery. I called my cousin
+Monica softly; and we both heard the door of the room in which my father's
+body lay unlocked, some one furtively enter, and the door shut.
+
+'What can it be? Good Heavens, Cousin Monica, do you hear it?'
+
+'Yes, dear; and it is two o'clock.'
+
+Everyone at Knowl was in bed at eleven. We knew very well that Mrs. Rusk
+was rather nervous, and would not, for worlds, go alone, and at such an
+hour, to the room. We called Mary Quince. We all three listened, but we
+heard no other sound. I set these things down here because they made so
+terrible an impression upon me at the time.
+
+It ended by our peeping out, all three in a body, upon the gallery. Through
+each window in the perspective came its blue sheet of moonshine; but the
+door on which our attention was fixed was in the shade, and we thought we
+could discern the glare of a candle through the key-hole. While in whispers
+we were debating this point together, the door opened, the dusky light of
+a candle emerged, the shadow of a figure crossed it within, and in another
+moment the mysterious Doctor Bryerly--angular, ungainly, in the black cloth
+coat that fitted little better than a coffin--issued from the chamber,
+candle in hand; murmuring, I suppose, a prayer--it sounded like a
+farewell--as much frightened as if I had just seen a sorcerer stealing
+stepped cautiously upon the gallery floor, shutting and locking the door
+upon the dead; and then having listened for a second, the saturnine figure,
+casting a gigantic and distorted shadow upon the ceiling and side-wall from
+the lowered candle, strode lightly down the long dark passage, away from
+us.
+
+I can only speak for myself, and I can honestly say that I felt as much
+frightened as if I had just seen a sorcerer stealing from his unhallowed
+business. I think Cousin Monica was also affected in the same way, for she
+turned the key on the inside of the door when we entered. I do not think
+one of us believed at the moment that what we had seen was a Doctor Bryerly
+of flesh and blood, and yet the first thing we spoke of in the morning was
+Doctor Bryerly's arrival. The mind is a different organ by night and by
+day.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+_I TALK WITH DOCTOR BRYERLY_
+
+
+Doctor Bryerly had, indeed, arrived at half-past twelve o'clock at night.
+His summons at the hall-door was little heard at our remote side of the old
+house of Knowl; and when the sleepy, half-dressed servant opened the
+door, the lank Doctor, in glossy black clothing, was standing alone, his
+portmanteau on its end upon the steps, and his vehicle disappearing in the
+shadows of the old trees.
+
+In he came, sterner and sharper of aspect than usual.
+
+'I've been expected? I'm Doctor Bryerly. Haven't I? So, let whoever is in
+charge of the body be called. I must visit it forthwith.'
+
+So the Doctor sat in the back drawing-room, with a solitary candle; and
+Mrs. Rusk was called up, and, grumbling much and very peevish, dressed and
+went down, her ill-temper subsiding in a sort of fear as she approached the
+visitor.
+
+'How do you do, Madam? A sad visit this. Is anyone watching in the room
+where the remains of your late master are laid?'
+
+'No.'
+
+'So much the better; it is a foolish custom. Will you please conduct me to
+the room? I must pray where he lies--no longer _he_! And be good enough to
+show me my bedroom, and so no one need wait up, and I shall find my way.'
+
+Accompanied by the man who carried his valise, Mrs. Rusk showed him to his
+apartment; but he only looked in, and then glanced rapidly about to take
+'the bearings' of the door.
+
+'Thank you--yes. Now we'll proceed, here, along here? Let me see. A turn to
+the right and another to the left--yes. He has been dead some days. Is he
+yet in his coffin?'
+
+'Yes, sir; since yesterday afternoon.'
+
+Mrs. Rusk was growing more and more afraid of this lean figure sheathed in
+shining black cloth, whose eyes glittered with a horrible sort of cunning,
+and whose long brown fingers groped before him, as if indicating the way by
+guess.
+
+'But, of course, the lid's not on; you've not screwed him down, hey?'
+
+'No, sir.'
+
+'That's well. I must look on the face as I pray. He is in his place; I here
+on earth. He in the spirit; I in the flesh. The neutral ground lies there.
+So are carried the vibrations, and so the light of earth and heaven
+reflected back and forward--apaugasma, a wonderful though helpless engine,
+the ladder of Jacob, and behold the angels of God ascending and descending
+on it. Thanks, I'll take the key. Mysteries to those who _will_ live
+altogether in houses of clay, no mystery to such as will use their eyes and
+read what is revealed. _This_ candle, it is the longer, please; no--no need
+of a pair, thanks; just this, to hold in my hand. And remember, all depends
+upon the willing mind. Why do you look frightened? Where is your faith?
+Don't you know that spirits are about us at all times? Why should you
+fear to be near the body? The spirit is everything; the flesh profiteth
+nothing.'
+
+'Yes, sir,' said Mrs. Rusk, making him a great courtesy in the threshold.
+
+She was frightened by his eerie talk, which grew, she fancied, more voluble
+and energetic as they approached the corpse.
+
+'Remember, then, that when you fancy yourself alone and wrapt in darkness,
+you stand, in fact, in the centre of a theatre, as wide as the starry floor
+of heaven, with an audience, whom no man can number, beholding you under a
+flood of light. Therefore, though your body be in solitude and your mortal
+sense in darkness, remember to walk as being in the light, surrounded with
+a cloud of witnesses. Thus walk; and when the hour comes, and you pass
+forth unprisoned from the tabernacle of the flesh, although it still has
+its relations and its rights'--and saying this, as he held the solitary
+candle aloft in the doorway, he nodded towards the coffin, whose large
+black form was faintly traceable against the shadows beyond--'you will
+rejoice; and being clothed upon with your house from on high, you will not
+be found naked. On the other hand, he that loveth corruption shall have
+enough thereof. Think upon these things. Good-night.'
+
+And the Swedenborgian Doctor stepped into the room, taking the candle with
+him, and closed the door upon the shadowy still-life there, and on his own
+sharp and swarthy visage, leaving Mrs. Rusk in a sort of panic in the dark
+alone, to find her way to her room the best way she could.
+
+Early in the morning Mrs. Rusk came to my room to tell me that Doctor
+Bryerly was in the parlour, and begged to know whether I had not a message
+for him. I was already dressed, so, though it was dreadful seeing a
+stranger in my then mood, taking the key of the cabinet in my hand, I
+followed Mrs. Rusk downstairs.
+
+Opening the parlour door, she stepped in, and with a little courtesy
+said,--
+
+'Please, sir, the young mistress--Miss Ruthyn.'
+
+Draped in black and very pale, tall and slight, 'the young mistress'
+was; and as I entered I heard a newspaper rustle, and the sound of steps
+approaching to meet me.
+
+Face to face we met, near the door; and, without speaking, I made him a
+deep courtesy.
+
+He took my hand, without the least indication on my part, in his hard lean
+grasp, and shook it kindly, but familiarly, peering with a stern sort of
+curiosity into my face as he continued to hold it. His ill-fitting, glossy
+black cloth, ungainly presence, and sharp, dark, vulpine features had in
+them, as I said before, the vulgarity of a Glasgow artisan in his Sabbath
+suit. I made an instantaneous motion to withdraw my hand, but he held it
+firmly.
+
+Though there was a grim sort of familiarity, there was also decision,
+shrewdness, and, above all, kindness, in his dark face--a gleam on the
+whole of the masterly and the honest--that along with a certain paleness,
+betraying, I thought, restrained emotion, indicated sympathy and invited
+confidence.
+
+'I hope, Miss, you are pretty well?' He pronounced 'pretty' as it is spelt.
+'I have come in consequence of a solemn promise exacted more than a year
+since by your deceased father, the late Mr. Austin Ruthyn of Knowl, for
+whom I cherished a warm esteem, being knit besides with him in spiritual
+bonds. It has been a shock to you, Miss?'
+
+'It has, indeed, sir.'
+
+'I've a doctor's degree, I have--Doctor of Medicine, Miss. Like St. Luke,
+preacher and doctor. I was in business once, but this is better. As one
+footing fails, the Lord provides another. The stream of life is black and
+angry; how so many of us get across without drowning, I often wonder. The
+best way is not to look too far before--just from one stepping-stone to
+another; and though you may wet your feet, He won't let you drown--He has
+not allowed me.'
+
+And Doctor Bryerly held up his head, and wagged it resolutely.
+
+'You are born to this world's wealth; in its way a great blessing, though a
+great trial, Miss, and a great trust; but don't suppose you are destined
+to exemption from trouble on that account, any more than poor Emmanuel
+Bryerly. As the sparks fly upwards, Miss Ruthyn! Your cushioned carriage
+may overturn on the highroad, as I may stumble and fall upon the footpath.
+There are other troubles than debt and privation. Who can tell how
+long health may last, or when an accident may happen the brain; what
+mortifications may await you in your own high sphere; what unknown enemies
+may rise up in your path; or what slanders may asperse your name--ha, ha!
+It is a wonderful equilibrium--a marvellous dispensation--ha, ha!' and he
+laughed with a shake of his head, I thought a little sarcastically, as if
+he was not sorry my money could not avail to buy immunity from the general
+curse.
+
+'But what money can't do, _prayer_ can--bear that in mind, Miss Ruthyn. We
+can all pray; and though thorns and snares, and stones of fire lie strewn
+in our way, we need not fear them. He will give His angels charge over us,
+and in their hands they will bear us up, for He hears and sees everywhere,
+and His angels are innumerable.'
+
+He was now speaking gently and solemnly, and paused. But another vein of
+thought he had unconsciously opened in my mind, and I said--
+
+'And had my dear papa no other medical adviser?'
+
+He looked at me sharply, and flushed a little under his dark tint. His
+medical skill was, perhaps, the point on which his human vanity vaunted
+itself, and I dare say there was something very disparaging in my tone.
+
+'And if he _had_ no other, he might have done worse. I've had many critical
+cases in my hands, Miss Ruthyn. I can't charge myself with any miscarriage
+through ignorance. My diagnosis in Mr. Ruthyn's case has been verified by
+the result. But I was _not_ alone; Sir Clayton Barrow saw him, and took my
+view; a note will reach him in London. But this, excuse me, is not to the
+present purpose. The late Mr. Ruthyn told me I was to receive a key
+from you, which would open a cabinet where he had placed his will--ha!
+thanks,--in his study. And, I think, as there may be directions about
+the funeral, it had better be read forthwith. Is there any gentleman--a
+relative or man of business--near here, whom you would wish sent for?'
+
+'No, none, thank you; I have confidence in you, sir.'
+
+I think I spoke and looked frankly, for he smiled very kindly, though with
+closed lips.
+
+'And you may be sure, Miss Ruthyn, your confidence shall not be
+disappointed.' Here was a long pause. 'But you are very young, and you must
+have some one by in your interest, who has some experience in business. Let
+me see. Is not the Rector, Dr. Clay, at hand? In the town?--very good; and
+Mr. Danvers, who manages the estate, _he_ must come. And get Grimston--you
+see I know all the names--Grimston, the attorney; for though he was not
+employed about this will, he has been Mr. Ruthyn's solicitor a great many
+years: we must have Grimston; for, as I suppose you know, though it is a
+short will, it is a very strange one. I expostulated, but you know he was
+very decided when he took a view. He read it to you, eh?'
+
+'No, sir.'
+
+'Oh, but he told you so much as relates to you and your uncle, Mr. Silas
+Ruthyn, of Bartram-Haugh?'
+
+'No, indeed, sir.'
+
+'Ha! I wish he had.'
+
+And with these words Doctor Bryerly's countenance darkened.
+
+'Mr. Silas Ruthyn is a religious man?'
+
+'Oh, _very_!' said I.
+
+'You've seen a good deal of him?'
+
+'No, I never saw him,' I answered.
+
+'H'm? Odder and odder! But he's a good man, isn't he?'
+
+'Very good, indeed, sir--a very religious man.'
+
+Doctor Bryerly was watching my countenance as I spoke, with a sharp and
+anxious eye; and then he looked down, and read the pattern of the carpet
+like bad news, for a while, and looking again in my face, askance, he
+said--
+
+'He was very near joining _us_--on the point. He got into correspondence
+with Henry Voerst, one of our best men. They call us Swedenborgians, you
+know; but I dare say that won't go much further, now. I suppose, Miss
+Ruthyn, one o'clock would be a good hour, and I am sure, under the
+circumstances, the gentlemen will make a point of attending.'
+
+'Yes, Dr. Bryerly, the notes shall be sent, and my cousin, Lady Knollys,
+would I am sure attend with me while the will is being read--there would be
+no objection to her presence?'
+
+'None in the world. I can't be quite sure who are joined with me as
+executors. I'm almost sorry I did not decline; but it is too late
+regretting. One thing you must believe Miss Ruthyn: in framing the
+provisions of the will I was never consulted--although I expostulated
+against the only very unusual one it contains when I heard it. I did
+so strenuously, but in vain. There was one other against which I
+protested--having a right to do so--with better effect. In no other way
+does the will in any respect owe anything to my advice or dissuasion. You
+will please believe this; also that I am your friend. Yes, indeed, it is my
+duty.'
+
+The latter words he spoke looking down again, as it were in soliloquy; and
+thanking him, I withdrew.
+
+When I reached the hall, I regretted that I had not asked him to state
+distinctly what arrangements the will made so nearly affecting, as it
+seemed, my relations with my uncle Silas, and for a moment I thought of
+returning and requesting an explanation. But then, I bethought me, it was
+not very long to wait till one o'clock--so _he_, at least, would think. I
+went up-stairs, therefore, to the 'school-room,' which we used at present
+as a sitting-room, and there I found Cousin Monica awaiting me.
+
+'Are you quite well, dear?' asked Lady Knollys, as she came to meet and
+kiss me.
+
+'Quite well, Cousin Monica.'
+
+'No nonsense, Maud! you're as white as that handkerchief--what's the
+matter? Are you ill--are you frightened? Yes, you're trembling--you're
+terrified, child.'
+
+'I believe I _am_ afraid. There _is_ something in poor papa's will about
+Uncle Silas--about _me_. I don't know--Doctor Bryerly says, and he seems so
+uncomfortable and frightened himself, I am sure it is something very bad. I
+am _very_ much frightened--I am--I _am_. Oh, Cousin Monica! you won't leave
+me?'
+
+So I threw my arms about her neck, clasping her very close, and we kissed
+one another, I crying like a frightened child--and indeed in experience of
+the world I was no more.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+_THE OPENING OF THE WILL_
+
+
+Perhaps the terror with which I anticipated the hour of one, and the
+disclosure of the unknown undertaking to which I had bound myself, was
+irrational and morbid. But, honestly, I doubt it; my tendency has always
+been that of many other weak characters, to act impetuously, and afterwards
+to reproach myself for consequences which I have, perhaps, in reality, had
+little or no share in producing.
+
+It was Doctor Bryerly's countenance and manner in alluding to a particular
+provision in my father's will that instinctively awed me. I have seen faces
+in a nightmare that haunted me with an indescribable horror, and yet I
+could not say wherein lay the fascination. And so it was with his--an omen,
+a menace, lurked in its sallow and dismal glance.
+
+'You must not be so frightened, darling,' said Cousin Monica. 'It is
+foolish; it _is, really_; they can't cut off your head, you know: they
+can't really harm you in any essential way. If it involved a risk of a
+little money, you would not mind it; but men are such odd creatures--they
+measure all sacrifices by money. Doctor Bryerly would look just as you
+describe, if you were doomed to lose 500_l_., and yet it would not kill
+you.'
+
+A companion like Lady Knollys is reassuring; but I could not take her
+comfort altogether to heart, for I felt that she had no great confidence in
+it herself.
+
+There was a little French clock over the mantelpiece in the school-room,
+which I consulted nearly every minute. It wanted now but ten minutes of
+one.
+
+'Shall we go down to the drawing-room, dear?' said Cousin Knollys, who was
+growing restless like me.
+
+So down-stairs we went, pausing by mutual consent at the great window at
+the stair-head, which looks out on the avenue. Mr. Danvers was riding his
+tall, grey horse at a walk, under the wide branches toward the house, and
+we waited to see him get off at the door. In his turn he loitered there,
+for the good Rector's gig, driven by the Curate, was approaching at a smart
+ecclesiastical trot.
+
+Doctor Clay got down, and shook hands with Mr. Danvers; and after a word
+or two, away drove the Curate with that upward glance at the windows from
+which so few can refrain.
+
+I watched the Rector and Mr. Danvers loitering on the steps as a patient
+might the gathering of surgeons who are to perform some unknown operation.
+They, too, glanced up at the window as they turned to enter the house, and
+I drew back. Cousin Monica looked at her watch.
+
+'Four minutes only. Shall we go to the drawing-room?'
+
+Waiting for a moment to let the gentlemen get by on the way to the study,
+we, accordingly, went down, and I heard the Rector talk of the dangerous
+state of Grindleston bridge, and wondered how he could think of such things
+at a time of sorrow. Everything about those few minutes of suspense remains
+fresh in my recollection. I remember how they loitered and came to a halt
+at the corner of the oak passage leading to the study, and how the Rector
+patted the marble head and smoothed the inflexible tresses of William Pitt,
+as he listened to Mr. Danvers' details about the presentment; and then,
+as they went on, I recollect the boisterous nose-blowing that suddenly
+resounded from the passage, and which I then referred, and still refer,
+intuitively to the Rector.
+
+We had not been five minutes in the drawing-room when Branston entered, to
+say that the gentlemen I had mentioned were all assembled in the study.
+
+'Come, dear,' said Cousin Monica; and leaning on her arm I reached the
+study door. I entered, followed by her. The gentlemen arrested their talk
+and stood up, those who were sitting, and the Rector came forward very
+gravely, and in low tones, and very kindly, greeted me. There was nothing
+emotional in this salutation, for though my father never quarrelled, yet an
+immense distance separated him from all his neighbours, and I do not think
+there lived a human being who knew him at more than perhaps a point or two
+of his character.
+
+Considering how entirely he secluded himself, my father was, as many people
+living remember, wonderfully popular in his county. He was neighbourly
+in everything except in seeing company and mixing in society. He had
+magnificent shooting, of which he was extremely liberal. He kept a pack of
+hounds at Dollerton, with which all his side of the county hunted through
+the season. He never refused any claim upon his purse which had the
+slightest show of reason. He subscribed to every fund, social, charitable,
+sporting, agricultural, no matter what, provided the honest people of
+his county took an interest in it, and always with a princely hand; and
+although he shut himself up, no one could say that he was inaccessible,
+for he devoted hours daily to answering letters, and his checque-book
+contributed largely in those replies. He had taken his turn long ago as
+High Sheriff; so there was an end of that claim before his oddity and
+shyness had quite secluded him. He refused the Lord-Lieutenancy of his
+county; he declined every post of personal distinction connected with it.
+He could write an able as well as a genial letter when he pleased; and his
+appearances at public meetings, dinners, and so forth were made in
+this epistolary fashion, and, when occasion presented, by magnificent
+contributions from his purse.
+
+If my father had been less goodnatured in the sporting relations of his
+vast estates, or less magnificent in dealing with his fortune, or even if
+he had failed to exhibit the intellectual force which always characterised
+his letters on public matters, I dare say that his oddities would have
+condemned him to ridicule, and possibly to dislike. But every one of the
+principal gentlemen of his county, whose judgment was valuable, has told me
+that he was a remarkably able man, and that his failure in public life
+was due to his eccentricities, and in no respect to deficiency in those
+peculiar mental qualities which make men feared and useful in Parliament.
+
+I could not forbear placing on record this testimony to the high mental
+and the kindly qualities of my beloved father, who might have passed for
+a misanthrope or a fool. He was a man of generous nature and powerful
+intellect, but given up to the oddities of a shyness which grew with
+years and indulgence, and became inflexible with his disappointments and
+affliction.
+
+There was something even in the Rector's kind and ceremonious greeting
+which oddly enough reflected the mixed feelings in which awe was not
+without a place, with which his neighbours had regarded my dear father.
+
+Having done the honours--I am sure looking woefully pale--I had time to
+glance quietly at the only figure there with which I was not tolerably
+familiar. This was the junior partner in the firm of Archer and Sleigh who
+represented my uncle Silas--a fat and pallid man of six-and-thirty, with
+a sly and evil countenance, and it has always seemed to me, that ill
+dispositions show more repulsively in a pale fat face than in any other.
+
+Doctor Bryerly, standing near the window, was talking in a low tone to Mr.
+Grimston, our attorney.
+
+I heard good Dr. Clay whisper to Mr. Danvers--
+
+'Is not that Doctor Bryerly--the person with the black--the black--it's a
+wig, I think--in the window, talking to Abel Grimston?'
+
+'Yes; that's he.'
+
+'Odd-looking person--one of the Swedenborg people, is not he?' continued
+the Rector.
+
+'So I am told.'
+
+'Yes,' said the Rector, quietly; and he crossed one gaitered leg over the
+other, and, with fingers interlaced, twiddled his thumbs, as he eyed
+the monstrous sectary under his orthodox old brows with a stern
+inquisitiveness. I thought he was meditating theologic battle.
+
+But Dr. Bryerly and Mr. Grimston, still talking together, began to walk
+slowly from the window, and the former said in his peculiar grim tones--
+
+'I beg pardon, Miss Ruthyn; perhaps you would be so good as to show us
+which of the cabinets in this room your late lamented father pointed out as
+that to which this key belongs.'
+
+I indicated the oak cabinet.
+
+'Very good, ma'am--very good,' said Doctor Bryerly, as he fumbled the key
+into the lock.
+
+Cousin Monica could not forbear murmuring--
+
+'Dear! what a brute!'
+
+The junior partner, with his dumpy hands in his pocket, poked his fat face
+over Mr. Grimston's shoulder, and peered into the cabinet as the door
+opened.
+
+The search was not long. A handsome white paper enclosure, neatly tied up
+in pink tape, and sealed with large red seals, was inscribed in my dear
+father's hand:--'Will of Austin R. Ruthyn, of Knowl.' Then, in smaller
+characters, the date, and in the corner a note--'This will was drawn from
+my instructions by Gaunt, Hogg, and Hatchett, Solicitors, Great Woburn
+Street, London, A.R.R.'
+
+'Let _me_ have a squint at that indorsement, please, gentlemen,' half
+whispered the unpleasant person who represented my uncle Silas.
+
+''_Tisn't_ an indorsement. There, look--a memorandum on an envelope,' said
+Abel Grimston, gruffly.
+
+'Thanks--all right--that will do,' he responded, himself making a
+pencil-note of it, in a long clasp-book which he drew from his coat-pocket.
+
+The tape was carefully cut, and the envelope removed without tearing the
+writing, and forth came the will, at sight of which my heart swelled and
+fluttered up to my lips, and then dropped down dead as it seemed into its
+place.
+
+'Mr. Grimston, you will please to read it,' said Doctor Bryerly, who took
+the direction of the process. 'I will sit beside you, and as we go along
+you will be good enough to help us to understand technicalities, and give
+us a lift where we want it.' 'It's a short will,' said Mr. Grimston,
+turning over the sheets '_very_--considering. Here's a codicil.'
+
+'I did not see that,' said Doctor Bryerly.
+
+'Dated only a month ago.'
+
+'Oh!' said Doctor Bryerly, putting on his spectacles. Uncle Silas's
+ambassador, sitting close behind, had insinuated his face between Doctor
+Bryerly's and the reader's of the will.
+
+'On behalf of the surviving brother of the testator,' interposed the
+delegate, just as Abel Grimston had cleared his voice to begin, 'I take
+leave to apply for a copy of this instrument. It will save a deal of
+trouble, if the young lady as represents the testator here has no
+objection.'
+
+'You can have as many copies as you like when the will is proved,' said Mr.
+Grimston.
+
+'I know that; but supposing as all's right, where's the objection?'
+
+'Just the objection there always is to acting irregular,' replied Mr.
+Grimston.
+
+'You don't object to act disobliging, it seems.'
+
+'You can do as I told you,' replied Mr. Grimston.
+
+'Thank you for nothing,' murmured Mr. Sleigh.
+
+And the reading of the will proceeded, while he made elaborate notes of its
+contents in his capacious pocket-book.
+
+'I, Austin Alymer Ruthyn Ruthyn, being, I thank God, of sound mind and
+perfect recollection,' &c, &c.; and then came a bequest of all his
+estates real, chattels real, copyrights, leases, chattels, money, rights,
+interests, reversions, powers, plate, pictures, and estates and possessions
+whatsoever, to four persons--Lord Ilbury, Mr. Penrose Creswell of Creswell,
+Sir William Aylmer, Bart., and Hans Emmanuel Bryerly, Doctor of Medicine,
+'to have and to hold,' &c. &c. Whereupon my Cousin Monica ejaculated 'Eh?'
+and Doctor Bryerly interposed--
+
+'Four trustees, ma'am. We take little but trouble--you'll see; go on.'
+
+Then it came out that all this multifarious splendour was bequeathed in
+trust for me, subject to a bequest of 15,000_l_. to his only brother, Silas
+Aylmer Ruthyn, and 3,500_l_. each to the two children of his said brother;
+and lest any doubt should arise by reason of his, the testator's decease
+as to the continuance of the arrangement by way of lease under which
+he enjoyed his present habitation and farm, he left him the use of the
+mansion-house and lands of Bartram-Haugh, in the county of Derbyshire, and
+of the lands of so-and-so and so-and-so, adjoining thereto, in the said
+county, for the term of his natural life, on payment of a rent of 5_s_.
+per annum, and subject to the like conditions as to waste, &c., as are
+expressed in the said lease.
+
+'By your leave, may I ask is them dispositions all the devises to my
+client, which is his only brother, as it seems to me you've seen the will
+before?' enquired Mr. Sleigh.
+
+'Nothing more, unless there is something in the codicil,' answered Dr.
+Bryerly.
+
+But there was no mention of him in the codicil.
+
+Mr. Sleigh threw himself back in his chair, and sneered, with the end of
+his pencil between his teeth. I hope his disappointment was altogether for
+his client. Mr. Danvers fancied, he afterwards said, that he had probably
+expected legacies which might have involved litigation, or, at all events,
+law costs, and perhaps a stewardship; but this was very barren; and Mr.
+Danvers also remarked, that the man was a very low practitioner, and
+wondered how my uncle Silas could have commissioned such a person to
+represent him.
+
+So far the will contained nothing of which my most partial friend could
+have complained. The codicil, too, devised only legacies to servants, and
+a sum of 1,000_l_., with a few kind words, to Monica, Lady Knollys, and
+a further sum of 3,000_l_. to Dr. Bryerly, stating that the legatee had
+prevailed upon him to erase from the draft of his will a bequest to him to
+that amount, but that, in consideration of all the trouble devolving
+upon him as trustee, he made that bequest by his codicil; and with these
+arrangements the permanent disposition of his property was completed.
+
+But that direction to which he and Doctor Bryerly had darkly alluded, was
+now to come, and certainly it was a strange one. It appointed my uncle
+Silas my sole guardian, with full parental authority over me until I should
+have reached the age of twenty-one, up to which time I was to reside under
+his care at Bartram-Haugh, and it directed the trustees to pay over to him
+yearly a sum of 2,000_l_. during the continuance of the guardianship for my
+suitable maintenance, education, and expenses.
+
+You have now a sufficient outline of my father's will. The only thing I
+painfully felt in this arrangement was, the break-up--the dismay that
+accompanies the disappearance of home. Otherwise, there was something
+rather pleasurable in the idea. As long as I could remember, I had always
+cherished the same mysterious curiosity about my uncle, and the same
+longing to behold him. This was about to be gratified. Then there was my
+cousin Milicent, about my own age. My life had been so lonely, that I
+had acquired none of those artificial habits that induce the fine-lady
+nature--a second, and not always a very amiable one. She had lived a
+solitary life, like me. What rambles and readings we should have together!
+what confidences and castle-buildings! and then there was a new country
+and a fine old place, and the sense of interest and adventure that always
+accompanies change in our early youth.
+
+There were four letters all alike with large, red seals, addressed
+respectively to each of the trustees named in the will. There was also one
+addressed to Silas Alymer Ruthyn, Esq., Bartram-Haugh Manor, &c. &c., which
+Mr. Sleigh offered to deliver. But Doctor Bryerly thought the post-office
+was the more regular channel. Uncle Silas's representative was questioning
+Doctor Bryerly in an under-tone.
+
+I turned my eyes on my cousin Monica--I felt so inexpressibly
+relieved--expecting to see a corresponding expression in her countenance.
+But I was startled. She looked ghastly and angry. I stared in her face, not
+knowing what to think. Could the will have personally disappointed her?
+Such doubts, though we fancy in after-life they belong to maturity and
+experience only, do sometimes cross our minds in youth. But the suggestion
+wronged Lady Knollys, who neither expected nor wanted anything, being rich,
+childless, generous, and frank. It was the unexpected character of
+her countenance that scared me, and for a moment the shock called up
+corresponding moral images.
+
+Lady Knollys, starting up, raised her head, so as to see over Mr. Sleigh's
+shoulder, and biting her pale lip, she cleared her voice and demanded--
+
+'Doctor Bryerly, pray, sir, is the reading concluded?'
+
+'Concluded? Quite. Yes, nothing more,' he answered with a nod, and
+continued his talk with Mr. Danvers and Abel Grimston.
+
+'And to whom,' said Lady Knollys, with an effort, 'will the property
+belong, in case--in case my little cousin here should die before she comes
+of age?'
+
+'Eh? Well--wouldn't it go to the heir-at-law and next of kin?' said Doctor
+Bryerly, turning to Abel Grimston.
+
+'Ay--to be sure,' said the attorney, thoughtfully.
+
+'And who is that?' pursued my cousin.
+
+'Well, her uncle, Mr. Silas Ruthyn. He's both heir-at-law and next of kin,'
+pursued Abel Grimston.
+
+'Thank you,' said Lady Knollys.
+
+Doctor Clay came forward, bowing very low, in his standing collar and
+single-breasted coat, and graciously folded my hand in his soft wrinkled
+grasp--
+
+'Allow me, my dear Miss Ruthyn, while expressing my regret that we are to
+lose you from among our little flock--though I trust but for a short,
+a very short time--to say how I rejoice at the particular arrangement
+indicated by the will we have just heard read. My curate, William
+Fairfield, resided for some years in the same spiritual capacity in the
+neighbourhood of your, I will say, admirable uncle, with occasional
+intercourse with whom he was favoured--may I not say blessed?--a true
+Christian Churchman--a Christian gentleman. Can I say more? A most happy,
+happy choice.' A very low bow here, with eyes nearly closed, and a shake of
+the head. 'Mrs. Clay will do herself the honour of waiting upon you, to pay
+her respects, before you leave Knowl for your temporary sojourn in another
+sphere.'
+
+So, with another deep bow--for I had become a great personage all at
+once--he let go my hand cautiously and delicately, as if he were setting
+down a curious china tea-cup. And I courtesied low to him, not knowing
+what to say, and then to the assembly generally, who all bowed. And Cousin
+Monica whispered, briskly, 'Come away,' and took my hand with a very cold
+and rather damp one, and led me from the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+_I HEAR FROM UNCLE SILAS_
+
+
+Without saying a word, Cousin Monica accompanied me to the school-room, and
+on entering she shut the door, not with a spirited clang, but quietly and
+determinedly.
+
+'Well, dear,' she said, with the same pale, excited countenance, 'that
+certainly is a sensible and charitable arrangement. I could not have
+believed it possible, had I not heard it with my ears.'
+
+'About my going to Bartram-Haugh?'
+
+'Yes, exactly so, under Silas Ruthyn's guardianship, to spend
+two--_three_--of the most important years of your education and your life
+under that roof. Is _that_, my dear, what was in your mind when you were so
+alarmed about what you were to be called upon to do, or undergo?'
+
+'No, no, indeed. I had no notion what it might be. I was afraid of
+something serious,' I answered.
+
+'And, my dear Maud, did not your poor father speak to you as if it _was_
+something serious?' said she. 'And so it _is_, I can tell you, something
+serious, and _very_ serious; and I think it ought to be prevented, and I
+certainly _will_ prevent it if I possibly can.'
+
+I was puzzled utterly by the intensity of Lady Knollys' protest. I looked
+at her, expecting an explanation of her meaning; but she was silent,
+looking steadfastly on the jewels on her right-hand fingers, with which she
+was drumming a staccato march on the table, very pale, with gleaming eyes,
+evidently thinking deeply. I began to think she _had_ a prejudice against
+my uncle Silas.
+
+'He is not very rich,' I commenced.
+
+'Who?' said Lady Knollys.
+
+'Uncle Silas,' I replied.
+
+'No, certainly; he's in debt,' she answered. 'But then, how very highly
+Doctor Clay spoke of him!' I pursued.
+
+'Don't talk of Doctor Clay. I do think that man is the greatest goose I
+ever heard talk. I have no patience with such men,' she replied.
+
+I tried to remember what particular nonsense Doctor Clay had uttered, and I
+could recollect nothing, unless his eulogy upon my uncle were to be classed
+with that sort of declamation.
+
+'Danvers is a very proper man and a good accountant, I dare say; but he
+is either a very deep person, or a fool--_I_ believe a fool. As for your
+attorney, I suppose he knows his business, and also his interest, and I
+have no doubt he will consult it. I begin to think he best man among them,
+the shrewdest and the most reliable, is that vulgar visionary in the black
+wig. I saw him look at you, Maud, and I liked his face, though it is
+abominably ugly and vulgar, and cunning, too; but I think he's a just man,
+and I dare say with right feelings--I'm _sure_ he has.'
+
+I was quite at a loss to divine the gist of my cousin's criticism.
+
+'I'll have some talk with Dr. Bryerly; I feel convinced he takes my view,
+and we must really think what had best be done.'
+
+'Is there anything in the will, Cousin Monica, that does not appear?' I
+asked, for I was growing very uneasy. 'I wish you would tell me. What view
+do you mean?'
+
+'No view in particular; the view that a desolate old park, and the house of
+a _neglected_ old man, who is very poor, and has been desperately foolish,
+is not the right place for you, particularly at your years. It is quite
+shocking, and I _will_ speak to Doctor Bryerly. May I ring the bell, dear?'
+
+'Certainly;' and I rang it.
+
+'When does he leave Knowl?'
+
+I could not tell. Mrs. Rusk, however, was sent for, and she could tell
+us that he had announced his intention of taking the night train from
+Drackleton, and was to leave Knowl for that station at half-past six
+o'clock.
+
+'May Rusk give or send him a message from me, dear?' asked Lady Knollys.
+
+Of course she might.
+
+'Then please let him know that I request he will be so good as to allow me
+a very few minutes, just to say a word before he goes.'
+
+'You kind cousin!' I said, placing my two hands on her shoulders, and
+looking earnestly in her face; 'you are anxious about me, more than you
+say. Won't you tell me why? I am much more unhappy, really, in ignorance,
+than if I understood the cause.'
+
+'Well, dear, haven't I told you? The two or three years of your life which
+are to form you are destined to be passed in utter loneliness, and, I am
+sure, neglect. You can't estimate the disadvantage of such an arrangement.
+It is full of disadvantages. How it could have entered the head of poor
+Austin--although I should not say that, for I am sure I do understand
+it,--but how he could for any purpose have directed such a measure is quite
+inconceivable. I never heard of anything so foolish and abominable, and I
+will prevent it if I can.'
+
+At that moment Mrs. Rusk announced that Doctor Bryerly would see Lady
+Knollys at any time she pleased before his departure.
+
+'It shall be this moment, then,' said the energetic lady, and up she stood,
+and made that hasty general adjustment before the glass, which, no matter
+under what circumstances, and before what sort of creature one's appearance
+is to be made, is a duty that every woman owes to herself. And I heard her
+a moment after, at the stair-head, directing Branston to let Dr. Bryerly
+know that she awaited him in the drawing-room.
+
+And now she was gone, and I began to wonder and speculate. Why should
+my cousin Monica make all this fuss about, after all, a very natural
+arrangement? My uncle, whatever he might have been, was now a good man--a
+religious man--perhaps a little severe; and with this thought a dark streak
+fell across my sky.
+
+A cruel disciplinarian! had I not read of such characters?--lock and
+key, bread and water, and solitude! To sit locked up all night in a dark
+out-of-the-way room, in a great, ghosty, old-fashioned house, with no one
+nearer than the other wing. What years of horror in one such night! Would
+not this explain my poor father's hesitation, and my cousin Monica's
+apparently disproportioned opposition? When an idea of terror presents
+itself to a young person's mind, it transfixes and fills the vision,
+without respect of probabilities or reason.
+
+My uncle was now a terrible old martinet, with long Bible lessons,
+lectures, pages of catechism, sermons to be conned by rote, and an awful
+catalogue of punishments for idleness, and what would seem to him impiety.
+I was going, then, to a frightful isolated reformatory, where for the first
+time in my life I should be subjected to a rigorous and perhaps barbarous
+discipline.
+
+All this was an exhalation of fancy, but it quite overcame me. I threw
+myself, in my solitude, on the floor, upon my knees, and prayed for
+deliverance--prayed that Cousin Monica might prevail with Doctor Bryerly,
+and both on my behalf with the Lord Chancellor, or the High Sheriff, or
+whoever else my proper deliverer might be; and when my cousin returned, she
+found me quite in an agony.
+
+'Why, you little fool! what fancy has taken possession of you now?' she
+cried.
+
+And when my new terror came to light, she actually laughed a little to
+reassure me, and she said--
+
+'My dear child, your uncle Silas will never put you through your duty to
+your neighbour; all the time you are under his roof you'll have idleness
+and liberty enough, and too much, I fear. It is neglect, my dear, not
+discipline, that I'm afraid of.'
+
+'I think, dear Cousin Monica, you are afraid of something more than
+neglect,' I said, relieved, however.
+
+'I _am_ afraid of more than neglect,' she replied promptly; 'but I hope my
+fears may turn out illusory, and that possibly they may be avoided. And
+now, for a few hours at least, let us think of something else. I rather
+like that Doctor Bryerly. I could not get him to say what I wanted. I don't
+think he's Scotch, but he is very cautious, and I am sure, though he would
+not say so, that he thinks of the matter exactly as I do. He says that
+those fine people, who are named as his co-trustees, won't take any
+trouble, and will leave everything to him, and I am sure he is right. So
+we must not quarrel with him, Maud, nor call him hard names, although
+he certainly is intolerably vulgar and ugly, and at times very nearly
+impertinent--I suppose without knowing, or indeed very much caring.'
+
+We had a good deal to think of, and talked incessantly. There were bursts
+and interruptions of grief, and my kind cousin's consolations. I have
+often since been so lectured for giving way to grief, that I wonder at the
+patience exercised by her during this irksome visit. Then there was some
+reading of that book whose claims are always felt in the terrible days of
+affliction. After that we had a walk in the yew garden, that quaint little
+cloistered quadrangle--the most solemn, sad, and antiquated of gardens.
+
+'And now, my dear, I must really leave you for two or three hours. I have
+ever so many letters to write, and my people must think I'm dead by this
+time.'
+
+So till tea-time I had poor Mary Quince, with her gushes of simple prattle
+and her long fits of vacant silence, for my companion. And such a one, who
+can con over by rote the old friendly gossip about the dead, talk about
+their ways, and looks, and likings, without much psychologic refinement,
+but with a simple admiration and liking that never measured them
+critically, but always with faith and love, is in general about as
+comfortable a companion as one can find for the common moods of grief.
+
+It is not easy to recall in calm and happy hours the sensations of an acute
+sorrow that is past. Nothing, by the merciful ordinance of God, is more
+difficult to remember than pain. One or two great agonies of that time I do
+remember, and they remain to testify of the rest, and convince me, though I
+can see it no more, how terrible all that period was.
+
+Next day was the funeral, that appalling necessity; smuggled away in
+whispers, by black familiars, unresisting, the beloved one leaves home,
+without a farewell, to darken those doors no more; henceforward to lie
+outside, far away, and forsaken, through the drowsy heats of summer,
+through days of snow and nights of tempest, without light or warmth,
+without a voice near. Oh, Death, king of terrors! The body quakes and the
+spirit faints before thee. It is vain, with hands clasped over our eyes, to
+scream our reclamation; the horrible image will not be excluded. We have
+just the word spoken eighteen hundred years ago, and our trembling faith.
+And through the broken vault the gleam of the Star of Bethlehem.
+
+I was glad in a sort of agony when it was over. So long as it remained to
+be done, something of the catastrophe was still suspended. Now it was all
+over.
+
+The house so strangely empty. No owner--no master! I with my strange
+momentary liberty, bereft of that irreplaceable love, never quite prized
+until it is lost. Most people have experienced the dismay that underlies
+sorrow under such circumstances.
+
+The apartment of the poor outcast from life is now dismantled. Beds and
+curtains taken down, and furniture displaced; carpets removed, windows open
+and doors locked; the bedroom and anteroom were henceforward, for many a
+day, uninhabited. Every shocking change smote my heart like a reproach.
+
+I saw that day that Cousin Monica had been crying for the first time, I
+think, since her arrival at Knowl; and I loved her more for it, and felt
+consoled. My tears have often been arrested by the sight of another person
+weeping, and I never could explain why. But I believe that many persons
+experience the same odd reaction.
+
+The funeral was conducted, in obedience to his brief but peremptory
+direction, very privately and with little expense. But of course there was
+an attendance, and the tenants of the Knowl estate also followed the hearse
+to the mausoleum, as it is called, in the park, where he was laid beside my
+dear mother. And so the repulsive ceremonial of that dreadful day was over.
+The grief remained, but there was rest from the fatigue of agitation, and a
+comparative calm supervened.
+
+It was now the stormy equinoctial weather that sounds the wild dirge of
+autumn, and marches the winter in. I love, and always did, that grand
+undefinable music, threatening and bewailing, with its strange soul of
+liberty and desolation.
+
+By this night's mail, as we sat listening to the storm, in the drawing-room
+at Knowl, there reached me a large letter with a great black seal, and a
+wonderfully deep-black border, like a widow's crape. I did not recognise
+the handwriting; but on opening the funereal missive, it proved to be from
+my uncle Silas, and was thus expressed:--
+
+'MY DEAREST NIECE,--This letter will reach you, probably, on the day which
+consigns the mortal remains of my beloved brother, Austin, your dear
+father, to the earth. Sad ceremony, from taking my mournful part in which
+I am excluded by years, distance, and broken health. It will, I trust, at
+this season of desolation, be not unwelcome to remember that a substitute,
+imperfect--unworthy--but most affectionately zealous, for the honoured
+parent whom you have just lost, has been appointed, in me, your uncle, by
+his will. I am aware that you were present during the reading of it, but
+I think it will be for our mutual satisfaction that our new and more
+affectionate relations should be forthwith entered upon. My conscience and
+your safety, and I trust convenience, will thereby be consulted. You will,
+my dear niece, remain at Knowl, until a few simple arrangements shall have
+been completed for your reception at this place. I will then settle
+the details of your little journey to us, which shall be performed as
+comfortably and easily as possible. I humbly pray that this affliction may
+be sanctified to us all, and that in our new duties we may be supported,
+comforted, and directed. I need not remind you that I now stand to you _in
+loco parentis_, which means in the relation of father, and you will not
+forget that you are to remain at Knowl until you hear further from me.
+
+'I remain, my dear niece, your most affectionate uncle and guardian,
+
+SILAS RUTHYN.'
+
+'P.S.--Pray present my respects to Lady Knollys, who, I understand, is
+sojourning at Knowl. I would observe that a lady who cherishes, I have
+reason to fear, unfriendly feelings against your uncle, is not the most
+desirable companion for his ward. But upon the express condition that I am
+not made the subject of your discussions--a distinction which could not
+conduce to your forming a just and respectful estimate of me--I do not
+interpose my authority to bring your intercourse to an immediate close.'
+
+As I read this postscript, my cheek tingled as if I had received a box on
+the ear. Uncle Silas was as yet a stranger. The menace of authority was new
+and sudden, and I felt with a pang of mortification the full force of the
+position in which my dear father's will had placed me.
+
+I was silent, and handed the letter to my cousin, who read it with a
+kind of smile until she came, as I supposed, to the postscript, when her
+countenance, on which my eyes were fixed, changed, and with flushed cheeks
+she knocked the hand that held the letter on the table before her, and
+exclaimed--
+
+'Did I ever hear! Well, if this isn't impertinence! _What_ an old man that
+is!'
+
+There was a pause, during which Lady Knollys held her head high with a
+frown, and sniffed a little.
+
+'I did not intend to talk about him, but now I _will_. I'll talk away just
+whatever I like; and I'll stay here just as long as you let me, Maud, and
+you need not be one atom afraid of him. Our intercourse to an "immediate
+close," indeed! I only wish he were here. He should hear something!'
+
+And Cousin Monica drank off her entire cup of tea at one draught, and then
+she said, more in her own way--
+
+'I'm better!' and drew a long breath, and then she laughed a little in a
+waggish defiance. 'I wish we had him here, Maud, and _would_ not we give
+him a bit of our minds! And this before the poor will is so much as
+proved!'
+
+'I am almost glad he wrote that postscript; for although I don't think he
+has any authority in that matter while I am under my own roof,' I said,
+extemporising a legal opinion, 'and, therefore, shan't obey him, it has
+somehow opened my eyes to my real situation.'
+
+I sighed, I believe, very desolately, for Lady Knollys came over and kissed
+me very gently and affectionately.
+
+'It really seems, Maud, as if he had a supernatural sense, and heard things
+through the air over fifty miles of heath and hill. You remember how, just
+as he was probably writing that very postscript yesterday, I was urging you
+to come and stay with me, and planning to move Dr. Bryerly in our favour.
+And so I will, Maud, and to me you _shall_ come--my guest, mind--I should
+be so delighted; and really if Silas is under a cloud, it has been his own
+doing, and I don't see that it is your business to fight his battle. He
+can't live very long. The suspicion, whatever it is dies with him, and what
+could poor dear Austin prove by his will but what everybody knew quite well
+before--his own strong belief in Silas's innocence? What an awful storm!
+The room trembles. Don't you like the sound? What they used to call
+'wolving' in the old organ at Dorminster!'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+_THE STORY OF UNCLE SILAS_
+
+
+And so it was like the yelling of phantom hounds and hunters, and the
+thunder of their coursers in the air--a furious, grand and supernatural
+music, which in my fancy made a suitable accompaniment to the discussion of
+that enigmatical person--martyr--angel--demon--Uncle Silas--with whom my
+fate was now so strangely linked, and whom I had begun to fear.
+
+'The storm blows from that point,' I said, indicating it with my hand and
+eye, although the window shutters and curtains were closed. 'I saw all the
+trees bend that way this evening. That way stands the great lonely wood,
+where my darling father and mother lie. Oh, how dreadful on nights like
+this, to think of them--a vault!--damp, and dark, and solitary--under the
+storm.'
+
+Cousin Monica looked wistfully in the same direction, and with a short sigh
+she said--
+
+'We think too much of the poor remains, and too little of the spirit which
+lives for ever. I am sure they are happy.' And she sighed again. 'I wish
+I dare hope as confidently for myself. Yes, Maud, it is sad. We are such
+materialists, we can't help feeling so. We forget how well it is for us
+that our present bodies are not to last always. They are constructed for a
+time and place of trouble--plainly mere temporary machines that wear out,
+constantly exhibiting failure and decay, and with such tremendous capacity
+for pain. The body lies alone, and so it ought, for it is plainly its good
+Creator's will; it is only the tabernacle, not the person, who is clothed
+upon after death, Saint Paul says, "with a house which is from heaven." So
+Maud, darling, although the thought will trouble us again and again, there
+is nothing in it; and the poor mortal body is only the cold ruin of a
+habitation which _they_ have forsaken before we do. So this great wind, you
+say, is blowing toward us from the wood there. If so, Maud, it is blowing
+from Bartram-Haugh, too, over the trees and chimneys of that old place, and
+the mysterious old man, who is quite right in thinking I don't like him;
+and I can fancy him an old enchanter in his castle, waving his familiar
+spirits on the wind to fetch and carry tidings of our occupations here.'
+
+I lifted my head and listened to the storm, dying away in the distance
+sometimes--sometimes swelling and pealing around and above us--and through
+the dark and solitude my thoughts sped away to Bartram-Haugh and Uncle
+Silas.
+
+'This letter,' I said at last, 'makes me feel differently. I think he is a
+stern old man--is he?'
+
+'It is twenty years, now, since I saw him,' answered Lady Knollys. 'I did
+not choose to visit at his house.'
+
+'Was that before the dreadful occurrence at Bartram-Haugh?'
+
+'Yes--before, dear. He was not a reformed rake, but only a ruined one then.
+Austin was very good to him. Mr. Danvers says it is quite unaccountable how
+Silas can have made away with the immense sums he got from his brother from
+time to time without benefiting himself in the least. But, my dear, he
+played; and trying to help a man who plays, and is unlucky--and some men
+are, I believe, habitually unlucky--is like trying to fill a vessel that
+has no bottom. I think, by-the-by, my hopeful nephew, Charles Oakley,
+plays. Then Silas went most unjustifiably into all manner of speculations,
+and your poor father had to pay everything. He lost something quite
+astounding in that bank that ruined so many country gentlemen--poor Sir
+Harry Shackleton, in Yorkshire, had to sell half his estate. But your kind
+father went on helping him, up to his marriage--I mean in that extravagant
+way which was really totally useless.'
+
+'Has my aunt been long dead?'
+
+'Twelve or fifteen years--more, indeed--she died before your poor mamma.
+She was very unhappy, and I am sure would have given her right hand she had
+never married Silas.'
+
+'Did you like her?'
+
+'No, dear; she was a coarse, vulgar woman.'
+
+'Coarse and vulgar, and Uncle Silas's wife!' I echoed in extreme surprise,
+for Uncle Silas was a man of fashion--a beau in his day--and might have
+married women of good birth and fortune, I had no doubt, and so I expressed
+myself. 'Yes, dear; so he might, and poor dear Austin was very anxious he
+should, and would have helped him with a handsome settlement, I dare say,
+but he chose to marry the daughter of a Denbigh innkeeper.'
+
+'How utterly incredible!' I exclaimed.
+
+'Not the least incredible, dear--a kind of thing not at all so uncommon as
+you fancy.'
+
+'What!--a gentleman of fashion and refinement marry a person--'
+
+'A barmaid!--just so,' said Lady Knollys. 'I think I could count half a
+dozen men of fashion who, to my knowledge, have ruined themselves just in a
+similar way.'
+
+'Well, at all events, it must be allowed that in this he proved himself
+altogether unworldly.'
+
+'Not a bit unworldly, but very vicious,' replied Cousin Monica, with a
+careless little laugh. 'She was very beautiful, curiously beautiful, for
+a person in her station. She was very like that Lady Hamilton who was
+Nelson's sorceress--elegantly beautiful, but perfectly low and stupid.
+I believe, to do him justice, he only intended to ruin her; but she was
+cunning enough to insist upon marriage. Men who have never in all their
+lives denied themselves the indulgence of a single fancy, cost what it
+may, will not be baulked even by that condition if the _penchant_ be only
+violent enough.'
+
+I did not half understand this piece of worldly psychology, at which Lady
+Knollys seemed to laugh.
+
+'Poor Silas, certainly he struggled honestly against the consequences,
+for he tried after the honeymoon to prove the marriage bad. But the Welsh
+parson and the innkeeper papa were too strong for him, and the young lady
+was able to hold her struggling swain fast in that respectable noose--and a
+pretty prize he proved!'
+
+'And she died, poor thing, broken-hearted, I heard.'
+
+'She died, at all events, about ten years after her marriage; but I really
+can't say about her heart. She certainly had enough ill-usage, I believe,
+to kill her; but I don't know that she had feeling enough to die of it, if
+it had not been that she drank: I am told that Welsh women often do. There
+was jealousy, of course, and brutal quarrelling, and all sorts of horrid
+stories. I visited at Bartram-Haugh for a year or two, though no one else
+would. But when that sort of thing began, of course I gave it up; it was
+out of the question. I don't think poor Austin ever knew how bad it was.
+And then came that odious business about wretched Mr. Charke. You know
+he--he committed suicide at Bartram.'
+
+'I never heard about that,' I said; and we both paused, and she looked
+sternly at the fire, and the storm roared and ha-ha-ed till the old house
+shook again.
+
+'But Uncle Silas could not help that,' I said at last.
+
+'No, he could not help it,' she acquiesced unpleasantly.
+
+'And Uncle Silas was'--I paused in a sort of fear.
+
+'He was suspected by some people of having killed him'--she completed the
+sentence.
+
+There was another long pause here, during which the storm outside bellowed
+and hooted like an angry mob roaring at the windows for a victim. An
+intolerable and sickening sensation overpowered me.
+
+'But _you_ did not suspect him, Cousin Knollys?' I said, trembling very
+much.
+
+'No,' she answered very sharply. 'I told you so before. Of course I did
+not.'
+
+There was another silence.
+
+'I wish, Cousin Monica,' I said, drawing close to her, 'you had not said
+_that_ about Uncle Silas being like a wizard, and sending his spirits
+on the wind to listen. But I'm very glad you never suspected him.' I
+insinuated my cold hand into hers, and looked into her face I know not with
+what expression. She looked down into mine with a hard, haughty stare, I
+thought.
+
+'Of _course_ I never suspected him; and _never_ ask me _that_ question
+again, Maud Ruthyn.'
+
+Was it family pride, or what was it, that gleamed so fiercely from her eyes
+as she said this? I was frightened--I was wounded--I burst into tears.
+
+'What is my darling crying for? I did not mean to be cross. _Was_ I
+cross?' said this momentary phantom of a grim Lady Knollys, in an instant
+translated again into kind, pleasant Cousin Monica, with her arms about my
+neck.
+
+'No, no, indeed--only I thought I had vexed you; and, I believe, thinking
+of Uncle Silas makes me nervous, and I can't help thinking of him nearly
+always.' 'Nor can I, although we might both easily find something better to
+think of. Suppose we try?' said Lady Knollys.
+
+'But, first, I must know a little more about that Mr. Charke, and what
+circumstances enabled Uncle Silas's enemies to found on his death that
+wicked slander, which has done no one any good, and caused some persons so
+much misery. There is Uncle Silas, I may say, ruined by it; and we all know
+how it darkened the life of my dear father.'
+
+'People will talk, my dear. Your uncle Silas had injured himself before
+that in the opinion of the people of his county. He was a black sheep,
+in fact. Very bad stories were told and believed of him. His marriage
+certainly was a disadvantage, you know, and the miserable scenes that went
+on in his disreputable house--all that predisposed people to believe ill of
+him.'
+
+'How long is it since it happened?'
+
+'Oh, a long time; I think before you were born,' answered she.
+
+'And the injustice still lives--they have not forgotten it yet?' said I,
+for such a period appeared to me long enough to have consigned anything in
+its nature perishable to oblivion.
+
+Lady Knollys smiled.
+
+'Tell me, like a darling cousin, the whole story as well as you can
+recollect it. Who was Mr. Charke?'
+
+'Mr. Charke, my dear, was a gentleman on the turf--that is the phrase, I
+think--one of those London men, without birth or breeding, who merely in
+right of their vices and their money are admitted to associate with young
+dandies who like hounds and horses, and all that sort of thing. That set
+knew him very well, but of course no one else. He was at the Matlock
+races, and your uncle asked him to Bartram-Haugh; and the creature, Jew
+or Gentile, whatever he was, fancied there was more honour than, perhaps,
+there really was in a visit to Bartram-Haugh.'
+
+'For the kind of person you describe, it _was_, I think, a rather unusual
+honour to be invited to stay in the house of a man of Uncle Ruthyn's
+birth.'
+
+'Well, so it was perhaps; for though they knew him very well on the course,
+and would ask him to their tavern dinners, they would not, of course, admit
+him to the houses where ladies were. But Silas's wife was not much regarded
+at Bartram-Haugh. Indeed, she was very little seen, for she was every
+evening tipsy in her bedroom, poor woman!'
+
+'How miserable!' I exclaimed.
+
+'I don't think it troubled Silas very much, for she drank gin, they said,
+poor thing, and the expense was not much; and, on the whole, I really think
+he was glad she drank, for it kept her out of his way, and was likely to
+kill her. At this time your poor father, who was thoroughly disgusted at
+his marriage, had stopped the supplies, you know, and Silas was very poor,
+and as hungry as a hawk, and they said he pounced upon this rich London
+gamester, intending to win his money. I am telling you now all that was
+said afterwards. The races lasted I forget how many days, and Mr. Charke
+stayed at Bartram-Haugh all this time and for some days after. It was
+thought that poor Austin would pay all Silas's gambling debts, and so this
+wretched Mr. Charke made heavy wagers with him on the races, and they
+played very deep, besides, at Bartram. He and Silas used to sit up at night
+at cards. All these particulars, as I told you, came out afterwards, for
+there was an inquest, you know, and then Silas published what he called his
+"statement," and there was a great deal of most distressing correspondence
+in the newspapers.'
+
+'And why did Mr. Charke kill himself?' I asked.
+
+'Well, I will tell you first what all are agreed about. The second night
+after the races, your uncle and Mr. Charke sat up till between two and
+three o'clock in the morning, quite by themselves, in the parlour. Mr.
+Charke's servant was at the Stag's Head Inn at Feltram, and therefore could
+throw no light upon what occurred at night at Bartram-Haugh; but he was
+there at six o'clock in the morning, and very early at his master's door by
+his direction. He had locked it, as was his habit, upon the inside, and the
+key was in the lock, which turned out afterwards a very important point.
+On knocking he found that he could not awaken his master, because, as it
+appeared when the door was forced open, his master was lying dead at his
+bedside, not in a pool, but a perfect pond of blood, as they described it,
+with his throat cut.'
+
+'How horrible!' cried I.
+
+'So it was. Your uncle Silas was called up, and greatly shocked of course,
+and he did what I believe was best. He had everything left as nearly as
+possible in the exact state in which it had been found, and he sent his
+own servant forthwith for the coroner, and, being himself a justice of
+the peace, he took the depositions of Mr. Charke's servant while all the
+incidents were still fresh in his memory.'
+
+'Could anything be more straightforward, more right and wise?' I said.
+
+'Oh, nothing of course,' answered Lady Knollys, I thought a little drily.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+_MORE ABOUT TOM CHARKE'S SUICIDE_
+
+
+So the inquest was held, and Mr. Manwaring, of Wail Forest, was the only
+juryman who seemed to entertain the idea during the inquiry that Mr. Charke
+had died by any hand but his own.
+
+'And how _could_ he fancy such a thing?' I exclaimed indignantly.
+
+'Well, you will see the result was quite enough to justify them in saying
+as they did, that he died by his own hand. The window was found fastened
+with a screw on the inside, as it had been when the chambermaid had
+arranged it at nine o'-clock; no one could have entered through it.
+Besides, it was on the third story, and the rooms are lofty, so it stood
+at a great height from the ground, and there was no ladder long enough
+to reach it. The house is built in the form of a hollow square, and Mr.
+Charke's room looked into the narrow court-yard within. There is but one
+door leading into this, and it did not show any sign of having been open
+for years. The door was locked upon the inside, and the key in the lock,
+so that nobody could have made an entrance that way either, for it was
+impossible, you see, to unlock the door from the outside.' 'And how could
+they affect to question anything so clear?' I asked.
+
+'There did come, nevertheless, a kind of mist over the subject, which
+gave those who chose to talk unpleasantly an opportunity of insinuating
+suspicions, though they could not themselves find the clue of the mystery.
+In the first place, it appeared that he had gone to bed very tipsy, and
+that he was heard singing and noisy in his room while getting to bed--not
+the mood in which men make away with themselves. Then, although his own
+razor was found in that dreadful blood (it is shocking to have to hear all
+this) near his right hand, the fingers of his left were cut to the bone.
+Then the memorandum book in which his bets were noted was nowhere to be
+found. That, you know, was very odd. His keys were there attached to a
+chain. He wore a great deal of gold and trinkets. I saw him, wretched
+man, on the course. They had got off their horses. He and your uncle were
+walking on the course.'
+
+'Did he look like a gentleman?' I inquired, as I dare say, other young
+ladies would.
+
+'He looked like a Jew, my dear. He had a horrid brown coat with a velvet
+cape, curling black hair over his collar, and great whiskers, very high
+shoulders, and he was puffing a cigar straight up into the air. I was
+shocked to see Silas in such company.'
+
+'And did his keys discover anything?' I asked.
+
+'On opening his travelling desk and a small japanned box within it a vast
+deal less money was found than was expected--in fact, very little. Your
+uncle said that he had won some of it the night before at play, and
+that Charke complained to him when tipsy of having had severe losses to
+counterbalance his gains on the races. Besides, he had been paid but a
+small part of those gains. About his book it appeared that there were
+little notes of bets on the backs of letters, and it was said that
+he sometimes made no other memorandum of his wagers--but this was
+disputed--and among those notes there was not one referring to Silas. But,
+then, there was an omission of all allusion to his transactions with two
+other well-known gentlemen. So that was not singular.'
+
+'No, certainly; that was quite accounted for,' said I.
+
+'And then came the question,' continued she, 'what motive could Mr. Charke
+possibly have had for making away with himself.'
+
+'But is not that very difficult to make out in many cases?' I interposed.
+
+'It was said that he had some mysterious troubles in London, at which he
+used to hint. Some people said that he really was in a scrape, but others
+that there was no such thing, and that when he talked so he was only
+jesting. There was no suspicion during the inquest that your uncle Silas
+was involved, except those questions of Mr. Manwaring's.'
+
+'What were they?' I asked.
+
+'I really forget; but they greatly offended your uncle, and there was a
+little scene in the room. Mr. Manwaring seemed to think that some one had
+somehow got into the room. Through the door it could not be, nor down the
+chimney, for they found an iron bar across the flue, near the top in the
+masonry. The window looked into a court-yard no bigger than a ball-room.
+They went down and examined it, but, though the ground beneath was moist,
+they could not discover the slightest trace of a footprint. So far as they
+could make out, Mr. Charke had hermetically sealed himself into his room,
+and then cut his throat with his own razor.'
+
+'Yes,' said I, 'for it was all secured--that is, the window and the
+door--upon the inside, and no sign of any attempt to get in.'
+
+'Just so; and when the walls were searched, and, as your uncle Silas
+directed, the wainscoting removed, some months afterwards, when the scandal
+grew loudest, then it was evident that there was no concealed access to the
+room.'
+
+'So the answer to all those calumnies was simply that the crime was
+impossible,' said I. 'How dreadful that such a slander should have required
+an answer at all!'
+
+'It was an unpleasant affair even then, although I cannot say that anyone
+supposed Silas guilty; but you know the whole thing was disreputable, that
+Mr. Charke was a discreditable inmate, the occurrence was horrible, and
+there was a glare of publicity which brought into relief the scandals of
+Bartram-Haugh. But in a little time it became, all on a sudden, a great
+deal worse.'
+
+My cousin paused to recollect exactly.
+
+'There were very disagreeable whispers among the sporting people in London.
+This person, Charke, had written two letters. Yes--two. They were published
+about two months after, by the villain to whom they were written; he wanted
+to extort money. They were first talked of a great deal among that set in
+town; but the moment they were published they produced a sensation in the
+country, and a storm of newspaper commentary. The first of these was of no
+great consequence, but the second was very startling, embarrassing, and
+even alarming.'
+
+'What was it, Cousin Monica?' I whispered.
+
+'I can only tell you in a general way, it is so very long since I read
+it; but both were written in the same kind of slang, and parts as hard to
+understand as a prize fight. I hope you never read those things.'
+
+I satisfied this sudden educational alarm, and Lady Knollys proceeded.
+
+'I am afraid you hardly hear me, the wind makes such an uproar. Well,
+listen. The letter said distinctly, that he, Mr. Charke, had made a very
+profitable visit to Bartram-Haugh, and mentioned in exact figures for how
+much he held your uncle Silas's I.O.U.'s, for he could not pay him. I can't
+say what the sum was. I only remember that it was quite frightful. It took
+away my breath when I read it.'
+
+'Uncle Silas had lost it?' I asked.
+
+'Yes, and owed it; and had given him those papers called I.O.U.'s promising
+to pay, which, of course, Mr. Charke had locked up with his money; and the
+insinuation was that Silas had made away with him, to get rid of this debt,
+and that he had also taken a great deal of his money.
+
+'I just recollect these points which were exactly what made the
+impression,' continued Lady Knollys, after a short pause; 'the letter was
+written in the evening of the last day of the wretched man's life, so that
+there had not been much time for your uncle Silas to win back his money;
+and he stoutly alleged that he did not owe Mr. Charke a guinea. It
+mentioned an enormous sum as being actually owed by Silas; and it cautioned
+the man, an agent, to whom he wrote, not to mention the circumstance, as
+Silas could only pay by getting the money from his wealthy brother, who
+would have the management; and he distinctly said that he had kept the
+matter very close at Silas's request. That, you know, was a very awkward
+letter, and all the worse that it was written in brutally high spirits, and
+not at all like a man meditating an exit from the world. You can't imagine
+what a sensation the publication of these letters produced. In a moment
+the storm was up, and certainly Silas did meet it bravely--yes, with great
+courage and ability. What a pity he did not early enter upon some career of
+ambition! Well, well, it is idle regretting. He suggested that the letters
+were forgeries. He alleged that Charke was in the habit of boasting, and
+telling enormous falsehoods about his gambling transactions, especially in
+his letters. He reminded the world how often men affect high animal spirits
+at the very moment of meditating suicide. He alluded, in a manly and
+graceful way, to his family and their character. He took a high and
+menacing tone with his adversaries, and he insisted that what they dared to
+insinuate against him was physically impossible.'
+
+I asked in what form this vindication appeared.
+
+'It was a letter, printed as a pamphlet; everybody admired its ability,
+ingenuity, and force, and it was written with immense rapidity.'
+
+'Was it at all in the style of his letters?' I innocently asked.
+
+My cousin laughed.
+
+'Oh, dear, no! Ever since he avowed himself a religious character, he had
+written nothing but the most vapid and nerveless twaddle. Your poor dear
+father used to send his letters to me to read, and I sometimes really
+thought that Silas was losing his faculties; but I believe he was only
+trying to write in character.'
+
+'I suppose the general feeling was in his favour?' I said.
+
+'I don't think it was, anywhere; but in his own county it was certainly
+unanimously against him. There is no use in asking why; but so it was, and
+I think it would have been easier for him with his unaided strength to
+uproot the Peak than to change the convictions of the Derbyshire gentlemen.
+They were all against him. Of course there were predisposing causes. Your
+uncle published a very bitter attack upon them, describing himself as the
+victim of a political conspiracy: and I recollect he mentioned that from
+the hour of the shocking catastrophe in his house, he had forsworn the turf
+and all pursuits and amusements connected with it. People sneered, and said
+he might as well go as wait to be kicked out.'
+
+'Were there law-suits about all this?' I asked.
+
+'Everybody expected that there would, for there were very savage things
+printed on both sides, and I think, too, that the persons who thought worst
+of him expected that evidence would yet turn up to convict Silas of the
+crime they chose to impute; and so years have glided away, and many of the
+people who remembered the tragedy of Bartram-Haugh, and took the strongest
+part in the denunciation, and ostracism that followed, are dead, and no new
+light had been thrown upon the occurrence, and your uncle Silas remains an
+outcast. At first he was quite wild with rage, and would have fought the
+whole county, man by man, if they would have met him. But he had since
+changed his habits and, as he says, his aspirations altogether.'
+
+'He has become religious.'
+
+'The only occupation remaining to him. He owes money; he is poor; he is
+isolated; and he says, sick and religious. Your poor father, who was
+very decided and inflexible, never helped him beyond the limit he had
+prescribed, after Silas's _mésalliance_. He wanted to get him into
+Parliament, and would have paid his expenses, and made him an allowance;
+but either Silas had grown lazy, or he understood his position better than
+poor Austin, or he distrusted his powers, or possibly he really is in
+ill-health; but he objected his religious scruples. Your poor papa thought
+self-assertion possible, where an injured man has right to rely upon, but
+he had been very long out of the world, and the theory won't do. Nothing is
+harder than to get a person who has once been effectually slurred, received
+again. Silas, I think, was right. I don't think it was practicable.
+
+'Dear child, how late it is!' exclaimed Lady Knollys suddenly, looking at
+the Louis Quatorze clock, that crowned the mantelpiece.
+
+It was near one o'clock. The storm had a little subsided, and I took a less
+agitated and more confident view of Uncle Silas than I had at an earlier
+hour of that evening.
+
+'And what do you think of him?' I asked.
+
+Lady Knollys drummed on the table with her finger points as she looked into
+the fire.
+
+'I don't understand metaphysics, my dear, nor witchcraft. I sometimes
+believe in the supernatural, and sometimes I don't. Silas Ruthyn is himself
+alone, and I can't define him, because I don't understand him. Perhaps
+other souls than human are sometimes born into the world, and clothed in
+flesh. It is not only about that dreadful occurrence, but nearly always
+throughout his life; early and late he has puzzled me. I have tried in vain
+to understand him. But at one time of his life I am sure he was awfully
+wicked--eccentric indeed in his wickedness--gay, frivolous, secret, and
+dangerous. At one time I think he could have made poor Austin do almost
+anything; but his influence vanished with his marriage, never to return
+again. No; I don't understand him. He always bewildered me, like a shifting
+face, sometimes smiling, but always sinister, in an unpleasant dream.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+_I AM PERSUADED_
+
+
+So now at last I had heard the story of Uncle Silas's mysterious disgrace.
+We sat silent for a while, and I, gazing into vacancy, sent him in a
+chariot of triumph, chapletted, ringed, and robed through the city of
+imagination, crying after him, 'Innocent! innocent! martyr and crowned!'
+All the virtues and honesties, reason and conscience, in myriad
+shapes--tier above tier of human faces--from the crowded pavement, crowded
+windows, crowded roofs, joined in the jubilant acclamation, and trumpeters
+trumpeted, and drums rolled, and great organs and choirs through open
+cathedral gates, rolled anthems of praise and thanksgiving, and the bells
+rang out, and cannons sounded, and the air trembled with the roaring
+harmony; and Silas Ruthyn, the full-length portrait, stood in the burnished
+chariot, with a proud, sad, clouded face, that rejoiced not with the
+rejoicers, and behind him the slave, thin as a ghost, white-faced, and
+sneering something in his ear: while I and all the city went on crying
+'Innocent! innocent! martyr and crowned!' And now the reverie was ended;
+and there were only Lady Knollys' stern, thoughtful face, with the pale
+light of sarcasm on it, and the storm outside thundering and lamenting
+desolately.
+
+It was very good of Cousin Monica to stay with me so long. It must have
+been unspeakably tiresome. And now she began to talk of business at home,
+and plainly to prepare for immediate flight, and my heart sank.
+
+I know that I could not then have defined my feelings and agitations. I am
+not sure that I even now could. Any misgiving about Uncle Silas was, in my
+mind, a questioning the foundations of my faith, and in itself an impiety.
+And yet I am not sure that some such misgiving, faint, perhaps, and
+intermittent, may not have been at the bottom of my tribulation.
+
+I was not very well. Lady Knollys had gone out for a walk. She was not
+easily tired, and sometimes made a long excursion. The sun was setting now,
+when Mary Quince brought me a letter which had just arrived by the post. My
+heart throbbed violently. I was afraid to break the broad black seal. It
+was from Uncle Silas. I ran over in my mind all the unpleasant mandates
+which it might contain, to try and prepare myself for a shock. At last
+I opened the letter. It directed me to hold myself in readiness for the
+journey to Bartram-Haugh. It stated that I might bring two maids with me if
+I wished so many, and that his next letter would give me the details of my
+route, and the day of my departure for Derbyshire; and he said that I ought
+to make arrangements about Knowl during my absence, but that he was hardly
+the person properly to be consulted on that matter. Then came a prayer that
+he might be enabled to acquit himself of his trust to the full satisfaction
+of his conscience, and that I might enter upon my new relations in a spirit
+of prayer.
+
+I looked round my room, so long familiar, and now so endeared by the idea
+of parting and change. The old house--dear, dear Knowl, how could I leave
+you and all your affectionate associations, and kind looks and voices, for
+a strange land!
+
+With a great sigh I took Uncle Silas's letter, and went down stairs to the
+drawing-room. From the lobby window, where I loitered for a few moments,
+I looked out upon the well-known forest-trees. The sun was down. It was
+already twilight, and the white vapours of coming night were already
+filming their thinned and yellow foliage. Everything looked melancholy.
+How little did those who envied the young inheritrex of a princely fortune
+suspect the load that lay at her heart, or, bating the fear of death, how
+gladly at that moment she would have parted with her life!
+
+Lady Knollys had not yet returned, and it was darkening rapidly; a mass of
+black clouds stood piled in the west, through the chasms of which was still
+reflected a pale metallic lustre.
+
+The drawing-room was already very dark; but some streaks of this cold light
+fell upon a black figure, which would otherwise have been unseen, leaning
+beside the curtains against the window frame.
+
+It advanced abruptly, with creaking shoes; it was Doctor Bryerly.
+
+I was startled and surprised, not knowing how he had got there. I stood
+staring at him in the dusk rather awkwardly, I am afraid.
+
+'How do you do, Miss Ruthyn?' said he, extending his hand, long, hard, and
+brown as a mummy's, and stooping a little so as to approach more nearly,
+for it was not easy to see in the imperfect light. 'You're surprised, I
+dare say, to see me here so soon again?'
+
+'I did not know you had arrived. I am glad to see you, Doctor Bryerly.
+Nothing unpleasant, I hope, has happened?'
+
+'No, nothing unpleasant, Miss. The will has been lodged, and we shall have
+probate in due course; but there has been something on my mind, and I'm
+come to ask you two or three questions which you had better answer very
+considerately. Is Miss Knollys still here?'
+
+'Yes, but she is not returned from her walk.'
+
+'I am glad she is here. I think she takes a sound view, and women
+understand one another better. As for me, it is plainly my duty to put it
+before you as it strikes me, and to offer all I can do in accomplishing,
+should you wish it, a different arrangement. You don't know your uncle, you
+said the other day?'
+
+'No, I've never seen him.'
+
+'You understand your late father's intention in making you his ward?'
+
+'I suppose he wished to show his high opinion of my uncle's fitness for
+such a trust.'
+
+'That's quite true; but the nature of the trust in this instance is
+extraordinary.'
+
+'I don't understand.'
+
+'Why, if you die before you come to the age of twenty-one, the entire of
+the property will go to him--do you see?--and he has the custody of your
+person in the meantime; you are to live in his house, under his care and
+authority. You see now, I think, how it is; and I did not like it when your
+father read the will to me, and I said so. Do _you_?'
+
+I hesitated to speak, not sure that I quite comprehended him.
+
+'And the more I think of it, the less I like it, Miss,' said Doctor
+Bryerly, in a calm, stern tone.
+
+'Merciful Heaven! Doctor Bryerly, you can't suppose that I should not be
+as safe in my uncle's house as in the Lord Chancellor's?' I ejaculated,
+looking full in his face.
+
+'But don't you see, Miss, it is not a fair position to put your uncle in,'
+replied he, after a little hesitation.
+
+'But suppose _he_ does not think so. You know, if he does, he may decline
+it.'
+
+'Well that's true--but he won't. Here is his letter'--and he produced
+it--'announcing officially that he means to accept the office; but I think
+he ought to be told it is not _delicate_, under all circumstances.
+You know, Miss, that your uncle, Mr. Silas Ruthyn, was talked about
+unpleasantly once.'
+
+'You mean'--I began.
+
+'I mean about the death of Mr. Charke, at Bartram-Haugh.'
+
+'Yes, I have heard that,' I said; he was speaking with a shocking _aplomb_.
+
+'We assume, of course, _unjustly_; but there are many who think quite
+differently.'
+
+'And possibly, Doctor Bryerly, it was for that very reason that my dear
+papa made him my guardian.'
+
+'There can be no doubt of that, Miss; it was to purge him of that scandal.'
+
+'And when he has acquitted himself honourably of that trust, don't you
+think such a proof of confidence so honourably fulfilled must go far to
+silence his traducers?'
+
+'Why, if all goes well, it may do a little; but a great deal less than you
+fancy. But take it that you happen to _die_, Miss, during your minority. We
+are all mortal, and there are three years and some months to go; how will
+it be then? Don't you see? Just fancy how people will talk.'
+
+'I think you know that my uncle is a religious man?' said I.
+
+'Well, Miss, what of that?' he asked again.
+
+'He is--he has suffered intensely,' I continued. 'He has long retired from
+the world; he is very religious. Ask our curate, Mr. Fairfield, if you
+doubt it.'
+
+'But I am not disputing it, Miss; I'm only supposing what may happen--an
+accident, we'll call it small-pox, diphtheria, _that's_ going very much.
+Three years and three months, you know, is a long time. You proceed to
+Bartram-Haugh, thinking you have much goods laid up for many years; but
+your Creator, you know, may say, "Thou fool, this day is thy soul required
+of thee." You go--and what pray is thought of your uncle, Mr. Silas Ruthyn,
+who walks in for the entire inheritance, and who has long been abused like
+a pickpocket, or worse, in his own county, I'm told?'
+
+'You are a religious man, Doctor Bryerly, according to your lights?' I
+said.
+
+The Swedenborgian smiled.
+
+'Well, knowing that he is so too, and having yourself experienced the power
+of religion, do not you think him deserving of every confidence? Don't you
+think it well that he should have this opportunity of exhibiting both his
+own character and the reliance which my dear papa reposed on it, and that
+we should leave all consequences and contingencies in the hands of Heaven?'
+
+'It appears to have been the will of Heaven hitherto,' said Doctor
+Bryerly--I could not see with what expression of face, but he was looking
+down, and drawing little diagrams with his stick on the dark carpet, and
+spoke in a very low tone--'that your uncle should suffer under this ill
+report. In countervailing the appointment of Providence, we must employ our
+reason, with conscientious diligence, as to the means, and if we find that
+they are as likely to do mischief as good, we have no right to expect a
+special interposition to turn our experiment into an ordeal. I think you
+ought to weigh it well--I am sure there are reasons against it. If you make
+up your mind that you would rather be placed under the care, say of Lady
+Knollys, I will endeavour all I can to effect it.'
+
+'That could not be done without his consent, could it?' said I.
+
+'No, but I don't despair of getting that--on terms, of course,' remarked
+he.
+
+'I don't quite understand,' I said.
+
+'I mean, for instance, if he were allowed to keep the allowance for your
+maintenance--eh?'
+
+'I mistake my uncle Silas very much,' I said, 'if that allowance is any
+object whatever to him compared with the moral value of the position. If he
+were deprived of that, I am sure he would decline the other.'
+
+'We might try him at all events,' said Doctor Bryerly, on whose dark sinewy
+features, even in this imperfect light, I thought I detected a smile.
+
+'Perhaps,' said I, 'I appear very foolish in supposing him actuated by any
+but sordid motives; but he is my near relation, and I can't help it, sir.'
+
+'That is a very serious thing, Miss Ruthyn,' he replied. 'You are very
+young, and cannot see it at present, as you will hereafter. He is very
+religious, you say, and all that, but his house is not a proper place for
+you. It is a solitude--its master an outcast, and it has been the repeated
+scene of all sorts of scandals, and of one great crime; and Lady Knollys
+thinks your having been domesticated there will be an injury to you all the
+days of your life.'
+
+'So I do, Maud,' said Lady Knollys, who had just entered the room
+unperceived,--'How do you do, Doctor Bryerly?--a serious injury. You have
+no idea how entirely that house is condemned and avoided, and the very name
+of its inmates tabooed.'
+
+'How monstrous--how cruel!' I exclaimed.
+
+'Very unpleasant, my dear, but perfectly natural. You are to recollect that
+quite independently of the story of Mr. Charke, the house was talked about,
+and the county people had cut your uncle Silas long before that adventure
+was dreamed of; and as to the circumstance of your being placed in his
+charge by his brother, who took, from strong family feeling, a totally
+one-sided view of the affair from the first, having the slightest effect in
+restoring his position in the county, you must quite give that up. Except
+me, if he will allow me, and the clergyman, not a soul in the country will
+visit at Bartram-Haugh. They may pity you, and think the whole thing the
+climax of folly and cruelty; but they won't visit at Bartram, or know
+Silas, or have anything to do with his household.'
+
+'They will see, at all events, what my dear papa's opinion was.'
+
+'They know that already,' answered she, 'and it has not, and ought not to
+have, the slightest weight with them. There are people there who think
+themselves just as great as the Ruthyns, or greater; and your poor father's
+idea of carrying it by a demonstration was simply the dream of a man who
+had forgotten the world, and learned to exaggerate himself in his long
+seclusion. I know he was beginning himself to hesitate; and I think if he
+had been spared another year that provision of his will would have been
+struck out.'
+
+Doctor Bryerly nodded, and he said--
+
+'And if he had the power to dictate _now_, would he insist on that
+direction? It is a mistake every way, injurious to you, his child; and
+should you happen to die during your sojourn under your uncle's care, it
+would woefully defeat the testator's object, and raise such a storm of
+surmise and inquiry as would awaken all England, and send the old scandal
+on the wing through the world again.'
+
+'Doctor Bryerly will, I have no doubt, arrange it all. In fact, I do not
+think it would be very difficult to bring Silas to terms; and if you do not
+consent to his trying, Maud, mark my words, you will live to repent it.'
+
+Here were two persons viewing the question from totally different points;
+both perfectly disinterested; both in their different ways, I believe,
+shrewd and even wise; and both honourable, urging me against it, and in a
+way that undefinably alarmed my imagination, as well as moved my reason. I
+looked from one to the other--there was a silence. By this time the candles
+had come, and we could see one another.
+
+'I only wait your decision, Miss Ruthyn,' said the trustee, 'to see
+your uncle. If his advantage was the chief object contemplated in this
+arrangement, he will be the best judge whether his interest is really best
+consulted by it or no; and I think he will clearly see that it is _not_ so,
+and will answer accordingly.'
+
+'I cannot answer now--you must allow me to think it over--I will do my
+best. I am very much obliged, my dear Cousin Monica, you are so very good,
+and you too, Doctor Bryerly.'
+
+Doctor Bryerly by this time was looking into his pocket-book, and did not
+acknowledge my thanks even by a nod.
+
+'I must be in London the day after to-morrow. Bartram-Haugh is nearly sixty
+miles from here, and only twenty of that by rail, I find. Forty miles of
+posting over those Derbyshire mountains is slow work; but if you say _try_,
+I'll see him to-morrow morning.'
+
+'You must say try--you _must_, my dear Maud.'
+
+'But how can I decide in a moment? Oh, dear Cousin Monica, I am so
+distracted!'
+
+'But _you_ need not decide at all; the decision rests with _him_. Come; he
+is more competent than you. You _must_ say yes.'
+
+Again I looked from her to Doctor Bryerly, and from him to her again. I
+threw my arms about her neck, and hugging her closely to me, I cried--
+
+'Oh, Cousin Monica, dear Cousin Monica, advise me. I am a wretched
+creature. You must advise me.'
+
+I did not know till now how irresolute a character was mine.
+
+I knew somehow by the tone of her voice that she was smiling as she
+answered--
+
+'Why, dear, I have advised you; I _do_ advise you;' and then she added,
+impetuously, 'I entreat and implore, if you really think I love you, that
+you will _follow_ my advice. It is your duty to leave your uncle Silas,
+whom you believe to be more competent than you are, to decide, after full
+conference with Doctor Bryerly, who knows more of your poor father's views
+and intentions in making that appointment than either you or I.'
+
+'Shall I say, yes?' I cried, drawing her close, and kissing her
+helplessly.' Oh, tell me--tell me to say, yes.'
+
+'Yes, of course, _yes_. She agrees, Doctor Bryerly, to your kind proposal.'
+
+'I am to understand so?' he asked.
+
+'Very well--yes, Doctor Bryerly,' I replied.
+
+'You have resolved wisely and well,' said he, briskly, like a man who has
+got a care off his mind.
+
+'I forgot to say, Doctor Bryerly--it was very rude--that you must stay here
+to-night.'
+
+'He _can't_, my dear,' interposed Lady Knolly's; 'it is a long way.'
+
+'He will dine. Won't you, Doctor Bryerly?'
+
+'No; he can't. You know you can't, sir,' said my cousin, peremptorily. 'You
+must not worry him, my dear, with civilities he can't accept. He'll bid us
+good-bye this moment. Good-bye, Doctor Bryerly. You'll write immediately;
+don't wait till you reach town. Bid him good-bye, Maud. I'll say a word to
+you in the hall.'
+
+And thus she literally hurried him out of the room, leaving me in a state
+of amazement and confusion, not able to review my decision--unsatisfied,
+but still unable to recall it.
+
+I stood where they had left me, looking after them, I suppose, like a fool.
+
+Lady Knollys returned in a few minutes. If I had been a little cooler I was
+shrewd enough to perceive that she had sent poor Doctor Bryerly away upon
+his travels, to find board and lodging half-way to Bartram, to remove
+him forthwith from my presence, and thus to make my decision--if mine it
+was--irrevocable.
+
+'I applaud you, my dear,' said Cousin Knollys, in her turn embracing me
+heartily. 'You are a sensible little darling, and have done exactly what
+you ought to have done.'
+
+'I hope I have,' I faltered.
+
+'Hope? fiddle! stuff! the thing's as plain as a pikestaff.'
+
+And in came Branston to say that dinner was served.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+_HOW THE AMBASSADOR FARED_
+
+
+Lady Knollys, I could plainly see, when we got into the brighter lights at
+the dinner table, was herself a good deal excited; she was relieved
+and glad, and was garrulous during our meal, and told me all her early
+recollections of dear papa. Most of them I had heard before; but they could
+not be told too often.
+
+Notwithstanding my mind sometimes wandered, _often_ indeed, to the
+conference so unexpected, so suddenly decisive, possibly so momentous; and
+with a dismayed uncertainly, the question--had I done right?--was always
+before me.
+
+I dare say my cousin understood my character better, perhaps, after all my
+honest self-study, then I do even now. Irresolute, suddenly reversing my
+own decisions, impetuous in action as she knew me, she feared, I am sure,
+a revocation of my commission to Doctor Bryerly, and thought of the
+countermand I might send galloping after him.
+
+So, kind creature, she laboured to occupy my thoughts, and when one theme
+was exhausted found another, and had always her parry prepared as often as
+I directed a reflection or an enquiry to the re-opening of the question
+which she had taken so much pains to close.
+
+That night I was troubled. I was already upbraiding myself. I could not
+sleep, and at last sat up in bed, and cried. I lamented my weakness in
+having assented to Doctor Bryerly's and my cousin's advice. Was I not
+departing from my engagement to my dear papa? Was I not consenting that
+my Uncle Silas should be induced to second my breach of faith by a
+corresponding perfidy?
+
+Lady Knollys had done wisely in despatching Doctor Bryerly so promptly;
+for, most assuredly, had he been at Knowl next morning when I came down I
+should have recalled my commission.
+
+That day in the study I found four papers which increased my perturbation.
+They were in dear papa's handwriting, and had an indorsement in these
+words--'Copy of my letter addressed to ----, one of the trustees named in
+my will.' Here, then, were the contents of those four sealed letters which
+had excited mine and Lady Knollys' curiosity on the agitating day on which
+the will was read.
+
+It contained these words:--
+
+'I name my oppressed and unhappy brother, Silas Ruthyn, residing at my
+house of Bartram-Haugh, as guardian of the person of my beloved child, to
+convince the world if possible, and failing that, to satisfy at least all
+future generations of our family, that his brother, who knew him best,
+had implicit confidence in him, and that he deserved it. A cowardly and
+preposterous slander, originating in political malice, and which never have
+been whispered had he not been poor and imprudent, is best silenced by this
+ordeal of purification. All I possess goes to him if my child dies under
+age; and the custody of her person I commit meanwhile to him alone, knowing
+that she is as safe in his as she could have been under my own care. I rely
+upon your remembrance of our early friendship to make this known wherever
+an opportunity occurs, and also to say what your sense of justice may
+warrant.'
+
+The other letters were in the same spirit. My heart sank like lead as I
+read them. I quaked with fear. What had I done? My father's wise and noble
+vindication of our dishonoured name I had presumed to frustrate. I had,
+like a coward, receded from my easy share in the task; and, merciful
+Heaven, I had broken my faith with the dead!
+
+With these letters in my hand, white with fear, I flew like a shadow to the
+drawing-room where Cousin Monica was, and told her to read them. I saw by
+her countenance how much alarmed she was by my looks, but she said nothing,
+only read the letters hurriedly, and then exclaimed--
+
+'Is this all, my dear child? I really fancied you had found a second will,
+and had lost everything. Why, my dearest Maud, we knew all this before.
+We quite understood poor dear Austin's motive. Why are you so easily
+disturbed?'
+
+'Oh, Cousin Monica, I think he was right; it all seems quite reasonable
+now; and I--oh, what a crime!--it must be stopped.'
+
+'My dear Maud, listen to reason. Doctor Bryerly has seen your uncle at
+Bartram at least two hours ago. You _can't_ stop it, and why on earth
+should you if you could? Don't you think your uncle should be consulted?'
+said she.
+
+'But he has _decided_. I have his letter speaking of it as settled; and
+Doctor Bryerly--oh, Cousin Monica, he's gone _to tempt him_.'
+
+'Nonsense, girl! Doctor Bryerly is a good and just man, I do believe, and
+has, beside, no imaginable motive to pervert either his conscience or his
+judgment. He's not gone to tempt him--stuff!--but to unfold the facts and
+invite his consideration; and I say, considering how thoughtlessly such
+duties are often undertaken, and how long Silas has been living in lazy
+solitude, shut out from the world, and unused to discuss anything, I do
+think it only conscientious and honourable that he should have a fair and
+distinct view of the matter in all its bearings submitted to him before he
+indolently incurs what may prove the worst danger he was ever involved in.'
+
+So Lady Knollys argued, with feminine energy, and I must confess, with a
+good deal of the repetition which I have sometimes observed in logicians of
+my own sex, and she puzzled without satisfying me.
+
+'I don't know why I went to that room,' I said, quite frightened; 'or why I
+went to that press; how it happened that these papers, which we never saw
+there before, were the first things to strike my eye to-day.'
+
+'What do you mean, dear?' said Lady Knollys.
+
+'I mean this--I think I was _brought_ there, and that _there_ is poor
+papa's appeal to me, as plain as if his hand came and wrote it upon the
+wall.' I nearly screamed the conclusion of this wild confession.
+
+'You are nervous, my darling; your bad nights have worn you out. Let us go
+out; the air will do you good; and I do assure you that you will very soon
+see that we are quite right, and rejoice conscientiously that you have
+acted as you did.'
+
+But I was not to be satisfied, although my first vehemence was quieted. In
+my prayers that night my conscience upbraided me. When I lay down in bed
+my nervousness returned fourfold. Everybody at all nervously excitable
+has suffered some time or another by the appearance of ghastly features
+presenting themselves in every variety of contortion, one after another,
+the moment the eyes are closed. This night my dear father's face troubled
+me--sometimes white and sharp as ivory, sometimes strangely transparent
+like glass, sometimes all hanging in cadaverous folds, always with the same
+unnatural expression of diabolical fury.
+
+From this dreadful vision I could only escape by sitting up and staring
+at the light. At length, worn out, I dropped asleep, and in a dream I
+distinctly heard papa's voice say sharply outside the bed-curtain:--'Maud,
+we shall be late at Bartram-Haugh.'
+
+And I awoke in a horror, the wall, as it seemed, still ringing with the
+summons, and the speaker, I fancied, standing at the other side of the
+curtain.
+
+A miserable night I passed. In the morning, looking myself like a ghost, I
+stood in my night-dress by Lady Knollys' bed.
+
+'I have had my warning,' I said. 'Oh, Cousin Monica, papa has been with me,
+and ordered me to Bartram-Haugh; and go I will.'
+
+She stared in my face uncomfortably, and then tried to laugh the matter
+off; but I know she was troubled at the strange state to which agitation
+and suspense had reduced me.
+
+'You're taking too much for granted, Maud,' said she; 'Silas Ruthyn,
+most likely, will refuse his consent, and insist on your going to
+Bartram-Haugh.'
+
+'Heaven grant!' I exclaimed; 'but if he doesn't, it is all the same to me,
+go I will. He may turn me out, but I'll go, and try to expiate the breach
+of faith that I fear is so horribly wicked.'
+
+We had several hours still to wait for the arrival of the post. For both of
+us the delay was a suspense; for me an almost agonising one. At length,
+at an unlooked-for moment, Branston did enter the room with the post-bag.
+There was a large letter, with the Feltram post-mark, addressed to Lady
+Knollys--it was Doctor Bryerly's despatch; we read it together. It was
+dated on the day before, and its purport was thus:--
+
+'RESPECTED MADAM,--I this day saw Mr. Silas Ruthyn at Bartram-Haugh, and
+he peremptorily refuses, on any terms, to vacate the guardianship, or to
+consent to Miss Ruthyn's residing anywhere but under his own immediate
+care. As he bases his refusal, first upon a conscientious difficulty,
+declaring that he has no right, through fear of personal contingencies, to
+abdicate an office imposed in so solemn a way, and so naturally devolving
+on him as only brother to the deceased; and secondly upon the effect such a
+withdrawal, at the instance of the acting trustee, would have upon his own
+character, amounting to a public self-condemnation; and as he refused to
+discuss these positions with me, I could make no way whatsoever with him.
+Finding, therefore, that his mind was quite made up, after a short time I
+took my leave. He mentioned that preparations for his niece's reception are
+being completed, and that he will send for her in a few days; so that I
+think it will be advisable that I should go down to Knowl, to assist Miss
+Ruthyn with any advice she may require before her departure, to discharge
+servants, get inventories made, and provide for the care of the place and
+grounds during her minority.
+
+'I am, respected Madam, yours truly,
+
+HANS E. BRYERLY.'
+
+I can't describe to you how chapfallen and angry my cousin looked. She
+sniffed once or twice, and then said, rather bitterly, in a subdued tone:--
+
+'Well, _now_; I hope you are pleased?'
+
+'No, no, no; you _know_ I'm not--grieved to the heart, my only friend, my
+dear Cousin Monica; but my conscience is at rest; you don't know what a
+sacrifice it is; I am a most unhappy creature. I feel an indescribable
+foreboding. I am frightened; but you won't forsake me, Cousin Monica.'
+
+'No, darling, never,' she said, sadly.
+
+'And you'll come and see me, won't you, as often as you can?'
+
+'Yes, dear; that is if Silas allows me; and I'm sure he will,' she added
+hastily, seeing, I suppose, my terror in my face. 'All I can do, you may be
+sure I will, and perhaps he will allow you to come to me, now and then, for
+a short visit. You know I am only six miles away--little more than half an
+hour's drive, and though I hate Bartram, and detest Silas--Yes, I _detest
+Silas_,' she repeated in reply to my surprised gaze--'I _will_ call at
+Bartram--that is, I say, if he allows me; for, you know, I haven't been
+there for a quarter of a century; and though I never understood Silas, I
+fancy he forgives no sins, whether of omission or commission.'
+
+I wondered what old grudge could make my cousin judge Uncle Silas always
+so hardly--I could not suppose it was justice. I had seen my hero indeed
+lately so disrespectfully handled before my eyes, that he had, as idols
+will, lost something of his sacredness. But as an article of faith, I still
+cultivated my trust in his divinity, and dismissed every intruding doubt
+with an exorcism, as a suggestion of the evil one. But I wronged Lady
+Knollys in suspecting her of pique, or malice, or anything more than that
+tendency to take strong views which some persons attribute to my sex.
+
+So, then, the little project of Cousin Monica's guardianship, which, had it
+been poor papa's wish, would have made me so very happy, was quite knocked
+on the head, to revive no more. I comforted myself, however, with her
+promise to re-open communications with Bartram-Haugh, and we grew resigned.
+
+I remember, next morning, as we sat at a very late breakfast, Lady Knollys,
+reading a letter, suddenly made an exclamation and a little laugh, and read
+on with increased interest for a few minutes, and then, with another little
+laugh, she looked up, placing her hand, with the open letter in it, beside
+her tea-cup.
+
+'You'll not guess whom I've been reading about,' said she, with her head
+the least thing on one side, and an arch smile.
+
+I felt myself blushing--cheeks, forehead, even down to the tips of my
+fingers. I anticipated the name I was to hear. She looked very much amused.
+Was it possible that Captain Oakley was married?
+
+'I really have not the least idea,' I replied, with that kind of overdone
+carelessness which betrays us.
+
+'No, I see quite plainly you have not; but you can't think how prettily you
+blush,' answered she, very much diverted.
+
+'I really don't care,' I replied, with some little dignity, and blushing
+deeper and deeper.
+
+'Will you make a guess?' she asked.
+
+'I _can't_ guess.'
+
+'Well, shall I tell you?'
+
+'Just as you please.'
+
+'Well, I will--that is, I'll read a page of my letter, which tells it all.
+Do you know Georgina Fanshawe?' she asked.
+
+'Lady Georgina? No.'
+
+'Well, no matter; she's in Paris now, and this letter is from her, and
+she says--let me see the place--"Yesterday, what do you think?--quite an
+apparition!--you shall hear. My brother Craven yesterday insisted on my
+accompanying him to Le Bas' shop in that odd little antique street near the
+Grève; it is a wonderful old curiosity shop. I forget what they call them
+here. When we went into this place it was very nearly deserted, and there
+were so many curious things to look at all about, that for a minute or two
+I did not observe a tall woman, in a grey silk and a black velvet mantle,
+and quite a nice new Parisian bonnet. You will be _charmed_, by-the-by,
+with the new shape--it is only out three weeks, and is quite
+_indescribably_ elegant, _I_ think, at least. They have them, I am sure, by
+this time at Molnitz's, so I need say no more. And now that I am on this
+subject of dress, I have got your lace; and I think you will be very
+ungrateful if you are not _charmed_ with it." Well, I need not read all
+that--here is the rest;' and she read--
+
+'"But you'll ask about my mysterious _dame_ in the new bonnet and velvet
+mantle; she was sitting on a stool at the counter, not buying, but
+evidently selling a quantity of stones and trinkets which she had in a
+card-box, and the man was picking them up one by one, and, I suppose,
+valuing them. I was near enough to see such a darling little pearl cross,
+with at least half a dozen really good pearls in it, and had begun to covet
+them for my set, when the lady glanced over my shoulder, and she
+knew me--in fact, we knew one another--and who do you think she was?
+Well--you'll not guess in a week, and I can't wait so long; so I may as
+well tell you at once--she was that horrid old Mademoiselle Blassemare whom
+you pointed out to me at Elverston; and I never forgot her face since--nor
+she, it seems, mine, for she turned away very quickly, and when I next saw
+her, her veil was down."'
+
+'Did not you tell me, Maud, that you had lost your pearl cross while that
+dreadful Madame de la Rougierre was here?'
+
+'Yes; but--'
+
+'I know; but what has she to do with Mademoiselle de Blassemare, you were
+going to say--they are one and the same person.'
+
+'Oh, I perceive,' answered I, with that dim sense of danger and dismay with
+which one hears suddenly of an enemy of whom one has lost sight for a time.
+
+'I'll write and tell Georgie to buy that cross. I wager my life it is
+yours,' said Lady Knollys, firmly.
+
+The servants, indeed, made no secret of their opinion of Madame de la
+Rougierre, and frankly charged her with a long list of larcenies. Even Anne
+Wixted, who had enjoyed her barren favour while the gouvernante was here,
+hinted privately that she had bartered a missing piece of lace belonging to
+me with a gipsy pedlar, for French gloves and an Irish poplin.
+
+'And so surely as I find it is yours, I'll set the police in pursuit.'
+
+'But you must not bring me into court,' said I, half amused and half
+alarmed.
+
+'No occasion, my dear; Mary Quince and Mrs. Rusk can prove it perfectly.'
+
+'And why do you dislike her so very much?' I asked.
+
+Cousin Monica leaned back in her chair, and searched the cornice from
+corner to corner with upturned eyes for the reason, and at last laughed a
+little, amused at herself.
+
+'Well, really, it is not easy to define, and, perhaps, it is not quite
+charitable; but I know I hate her, and I know, you little hypocrite, you
+hate her as much as I;' and we both laughed a little.
+
+'But you must tell me all you know of her history.'
+
+'Her history?' echoed she. 'I really know next to nothing about it; only
+that I used to see her sometimes about the place that Georgina mentions,
+and there were some unpleasant things said about her; but you know they may
+be all lies. The worst I _know_ of her is her treatment of you, and her
+robbing the desk'--(Cousin Monica always called it her _robbery_)--'and I
+think that's enough to hang her. Suppose we go out for a walk?'
+
+So together we went, and I resumed about Madame; but no more could I
+extract--perhaps there was not much more to hear.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+_ON THE ROAD_
+
+
+All at Knowl was indicative of the break-up that was so near at hand.
+Doctor Bryerly arrived according to promise. He was in a whirl of business
+all the time. He and Mr. Danvers conferred about the management of the
+estate. It was agreed that the grounds and gardens should be let, but not
+the house, of which Mrs. Rusk was to take the care. The gamekeeper remained
+in office, and some out-door servants. But the rest were to go, except Mary
+Quince, who was to accompany me to Bartram-Haugh as my maid.
+
+'Don't part with Quince,' said Lady Knollys, peremptorily 'they'll want
+you, but _don't_.'
+
+She kept harping on this point, and recurred to it half a dozen times every
+day.
+
+'They'll say, you know, that she is not fit for a lady's maid, as she
+certainly is _not_, if it in the least signified in such a wilderness as
+Bartram-Haugh; but she is attached, trustworthy, and honest; and those are
+qualities valuable everywhere, especially in a solitude. Don't allow them
+to get you a wicked young French milliner in her stead.'
+
+Sometimes she said things that jarred unpleasantly on my nerves, and left
+an undefined sense of danger. Such as:--
+
+'I know she's true to you, and a good creature; but is she shrewd enough?'
+
+Or, with an anxious look:--
+
+'I hope Mary Quince is not easily frightened.'
+
+Or, suddenly:--
+
+'Can Mary Quince write, in case you were ill?'
+
+Or,
+
+'Can she take a message exactly?'
+
+Or,
+
+'Is she a person of any enterprise and resource, and cool in an emergency?'
+
+Now, these questions did not come all in a string, as I write them down
+here, but at long intervals, and were followed quickly by ordinary talk;
+but they generally escaped from my companion after silence and gloomy
+thought; and though I could extract nothing more defined than these
+questions, yet they seemed to me to point at some possible danger
+contemplated in my good cousin's dismal ruminations.
+
+Another topic that occupied my cousin's mind a good deal was obviously the
+larceny of my pearl cross. She made a note of the description furnished by
+the recollection, respectively, of Mary Quince, Mrs. Rusk, and myself. I
+had fancied her little vision of the police was no more than the result of
+a momentary impulse; but really, to judge by her methodical examinations of
+us, I should have fancied that she had taken it up in downright earnest.
+
+Having learned that my departure from Knowl was to be so very soon, she
+resolved not to leave me before the day of my journey to Bartram-Haugh; and
+as day after day passed by, and the hour of our leave-taking approached,
+she became more and more kind and affectionate. A feverish and sorrowful
+interval it was to me.
+
+Of Doctor Bryerly, though staying in the house, we saw almost nothing,
+except for an hour or so at tea-time. He breakfasted very early, and dined
+solitarily, and at uncertain hours, as business permitted.
+
+The second evening of his visit, Cousin Monica took occasion to introduce
+the subject of his visit to Bartram-Haugh.
+
+'You saw him, of course?' said Lady Knollys.
+
+'Yes, he saw me; he was not well. On hearing who I was, he asked me to go
+to his room, where he sat in a silk dressing-gown and slippers.'
+
+'About business principally,' said Cousin Monica, laconically.
+
+'That was despatched in very few words; for he was quite resolved, and
+placed his refusal upon grounds which it was difficult to dispute. But
+difficult or no, mind you, he intimated that he would hear nothing more on
+the subject--so that was closed.'
+
+'Well; and what is his religion now?' inquired she, irreverently.
+
+'We had some interesting conversation on the subject. He leans much to what
+we call the doctrine of correspondents. He is read rather deeply in the
+writings of Swedenborg, and seemed anxious to discuss some points with one
+who professes to be his follower. To say truth, I did not expect to find
+him either so well read or so deeply interested in the subject.'
+
+'Was he angry when it was proposed that he should vacate the guardianship?'
+
+'Not at all. Contrariwise, he said he had at first been so minded himself.
+His years, his habits, and something of the unfitness of the situation, the
+remoteness of Bartram-Haugh from good teachers, and all that, had struck
+him, and nearly determined him against accepting the office. But then came
+the views which I stated in my letter, and they governed him; and nothing
+could shake them, he said, or induce him to re-open the question in his own
+mind.'
+
+All the time Doctor Bryerly was relating his conference with the head of
+the family at Bartram-Haugh my cousin commented on the narrative with a
+variety of little 'pishes' and sneers, which I thought showed more of
+vexation than contempt.
+
+I was glad to hear all that Doctor Bryerly related. It gave me a kind
+of confidence; and I experienced a momentary reaction. After all, could
+Bartram-Haugh be more lonely than I had found Knowl? Was I not sure of the
+society of my Cousin Millicent, who was about my own age? Was it not quite
+possible that my sojourn in Derbyshire might turn out a happy though very
+quiet remembrance through all my after-life? Why should it not? What time
+or place would be happy if we gave ourselves over to dismal imaginations?
+
+So the summons reached me from Uncle Silas. The hours at Knowl were
+numbered.
+
+The evening before I departed I visited the full-length portrait of Uncle
+Silas, and studied it for the last time carefully, with deep interest, for
+many minutes; but with results vaguer than ever.
+
+With a brother so generous and so wealthy, always ready to help him
+forward; with his talents; with his lithe and gorgeous beauty, the shadow
+of which hung on that canvas--what might he not have accomplished? whom
+might he not have captivated? And yet where and what was he? A poor and
+shunned old man, occupying a lonely house and place that did not belong to
+him, married to degradation, with a few years of suspected and solitary
+life before him, and then swift oblivion his best portion.
+
+I gazed on the picture, to fix it well and vividly in my remembrance. I
+might still trace some of its outlines and tints in its living original,
+whom I was next day to see for the first time in my life.
+
+So the morning came--my last for many a day at Knowl--a day of partings, a
+day of novelty and regrets. The travelling carriage and post horses were
+at the door. Cousin Monica's carriage had just carried her away to the
+railway. We had embraced with tears; and her kind face was still before me,
+and her words of comfort and promise in my ears. The early sharpness
+of morning was still in the air; the frosty dew still glistened on the
+window-panes. We had made a hasty breakfast, my share of which was a single
+cup of tea. The aspect of the house how strange! Uncarpeted, uninhabited,
+doors for the most part locked, all the servants but Mrs. Rusk and Branston
+departed. The drawing-room door stood open, and a charwoman was washing the
+bare floor. I was looking my last--for who could say how long?--on the old
+house, and lingered. The luggage was all up. I made Mary Quince get in
+first, for every delay was precious; and now the moment was come. I hugged
+and kissed Mrs. Rusk in the hall.
+
+'God bless you, Miss Maud, darling. You must not fret; mind, the time won't
+be long going over--_no_ time at all; and you'll be bringing back a fine
+young gentleman--who knows? as great as the Duke of Wellington, for your
+husband; and I'll take the best of care of everything, and the birds and
+the dogs, till you come back; and I'll go and see you and Mary, if you'll
+allow, in Derbyshire;' and so forth.
+
+I got into the carriage, and bid Branston, who shut the door, good-bye,
+and kissed hands to Mrs. Rusk, who was smiling and drying her eyes and
+courtesying on the hall-door steps. The dogs, who had started gleefully
+with the carriage, were called back by Branston, and driven home, wondering
+and wistful, looking back with ears oddly cocked and tails dejected. My
+heart thanked them for their kindness, and I felt like a stranger, and very
+desolate.
+
+It was a bright, clear morning. It had been settled that it was not
+worth the trouble changing from the carriage to the railway for sake of
+five-and-twenty miles, and so the entire journey of sixty miles was to be
+made by the post road--the pleasantest travelling, if the mind were free.
+The grander and more distant features of the landscape we may see well
+enough from the window of the railway-carriage; but it is the foreground
+that interests and instructs us, like a pleasant gossiping history; and
+_that_ we had, in old days, from the post-chaise window. It was more
+than travelling picquet. Something of all conditions of life--luxury
+and misery--high spirits and low;--all sorts of costume, livery, rags,
+millinery; faces buxom, faces wrinkled, faces kind, faces wicked;--no end
+of interest and suggestion, passing in a procession silent and vivid, and
+all in their proper scenery. The golden corn-sheafs--the old dark-alleyed
+orchards, and the high streets of antique towns. There were few dreams
+brighter, few books so pleasant.
+
+We drove by the dark wood--it always looked dark to me--where the
+'mausoleum' stands--where my dear parents both lay now. I gazed on its
+sombre masses not with a softened feeling, but a peculiar sense of pain,
+and was glad when it was quite past.
+
+All the morning I had not shed a tear. Good Mary Quince cried at leaving
+Knowl; Lady Knollys' eyes were not dry as she kissed and blessed me,
+and promised an early visit; and the dark, lean, energetic face of the
+housekeeper was quivering, and her cheeks wet, as I drove away. But I,
+whose grief was sorest, never shed a tear. I only looked about from one
+familiar object to another, pale, excited, not quite apprehending my
+departure, and wondering at my own composure.
+
+But when we reached the old bridge, with the tall osiers standing by the
+buttress, and looked back at poor Knowl--the places we love and are leaving
+look so fairy-like and so sad in the clear distance, and this is the finest
+view of the gabled old house, with its slanting meadow-lands and noble
+timber reposing in solemn groups--I gazed at the receding vision, and the
+tears came at last, and I wept in silence long after the fair picture was
+hidden from view by the intervening uplands.
+
+I was relieved, and when we had made our next change of horses, and got
+into a country that was unknown to me, the new scenery and the sense of
+progress worked their accustomed effects on a young traveller who had lived
+a particularly secluded life, and I began to experience, on the whole, a
+not unpleasurable excitement.
+
+Mary Quince and I, with the hopefulness of inexperienced travellers, began
+already to speculate about our proximity to Bartram-Haugh, and were sorely
+disappointed when we heard from the nondescript courier--more like a
+ostler than a servant, who sat behind in charge of us and the luggage, and
+represented my guardian's special care--at nearly one o'clock, that we had
+still forty miles to go, a considerable portion of which was across the
+high Derbyshire mountains, before we reached Bartram-Haugh.
+
+The fact was, we had driven at a pace accommodated rather to the
+convenience of the horses than to our impatience; and finding, at the
+quaint little inn where we now halted, that we must wait for a nail or two
+in a loose shoe of one of our relay, we consulted, and being both hungry,
+agreed to beguile the time with an early dinner, which we enjoyed very
+sociably in a queer little parlour with a bow window, and commanding, with
+a little garden for foreground, a very pretty landscape.
+
+Good Mary Quince, like myself, had quite dried her tears by this time, and
+we were both highly interested, and I a little nervous, too, about our
+arrival and reception at Bartram. Some time, of course, was lost in this
+pleasant little parlour, before we found ourselves once more pursuing our
+way.
+
+The slowest part of our journey was the pull up the long mountain road,
+ascending zig-zag, as sailors make way against a head-wind, by tacking. I
+forget the name of the pretty little group of houses--it did not amount
+to a village--buried in trees, where we got our _four_ horses and two
+postilions, for the work was severe. I can only designate it as the place
+where Mary Quince and I had our tea, very comfortably, and bought some
+gingerbread, very curious to look upon, but quite uneatable.
+
+The greater portion of the ascent, when we were fairly upon the mountain,
+was accomplished at a walk, and at some particularly steep points we had to
+get out and go on foot. But this to me was quite delightful. I had never
+scaled a mountain before, and the ferns and heath, the pure boisterous air,
+and above all the magnificent view of the rich country we were leaving
+behind, now gorgeous and misty in sunset tints, stretching in gentle
+undulations far beneath us, quite enchanted me.
+
+We had just reached the summit when the sun went down. The low grounds at
+the other side were already lying in cold grey shadow, and I got the man
+who sat behind to point out as well as he could the site of Bartram-Haugh.
+But mist was gathering over all by this time. The filmy disk of the moon
+which was to light us on, so soon as twilight faded into night, hung high
+in air. I tried to see the sable mass of wood which he described. But it
+was vain, and to acquire a clear idea of the place, as of its master, I
+must only wait that nearer view which an hour or two more would afford me.
+
+And now we rapidly descended the mountain side. The scenery was wilder
+and bolder than I was accustomed to. Our road skirted the edge of a great
+heathy moor. The silvery light of the moon began to glimmer, and we passed
+a gipsy bivouac with fires alight and caldrons hanging over them. It was
+the first I had seen. Two or three low tents; a couple of dark, withered
+crones, veritable witches; a graceful girl standing behind, gazing after
+us; and men in odd-shaped hats, with gaudy waistcoats and bright-coloured
+neck-handkerchiefs and gaitered legs, stood lazily in front. They had all
+a wild tawdry display of colour; and a group of alders in the rear made a
+background of shade for tents, fires, and figures.
+
+I opened a front window of the chariot, and called to the postboys to stop.
+The groom from behind came to the window.
+
+'Are not those gipsies?' I enquired.
+
+'Yes, please'm, them's gipsies, sure, Miss,' he answered, glancing with
+that odd smile, half contemptuous, half superstitious, with which I have
+since often observed the peasants of Derbyshire eyeing those thievish and
+uncanny neighbours.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+_BARTRAM-HAUGH_
+
+
+In a moment a tall, lithe girl, black-haired, black-eyed, and, as I
+thought, inexpressibly handsome, was smiling, with such beautiful rings of
+pearly teeth, at the window; and in her peculiar accent, with a suspicion
+of something foreign in it, proposing with many courtesies to tell the lady
+her fortune.
+
+I had never seen this wild tribe of the human race before--children of
+mystery and liberty. Such vagabondism and beauty in the figure before me!
+I looked at their hovels and thought of the night, and wondered at their
+independence, and felt my inferiority. I could not resist. She held up her
+slim oriental hand.
+
+'Yes, I'll hear my fortune,' I said, returning the sibyl's smile
+instinctively.
+
+'Give me some money, Mary Quince. No, _not_ that,' I said, rejecting the
+thrifty sixpence she tendered, for I had heard that the revelations of
+this weird sisterhood were bright in proportion to the kindness of their
+clients, and was resolved to approach Bartram with cheerful auguries. 'That
+five-shilling piece,' I insisted; and honest Mary reluctantly surrendered
+the coin.
+
+So the feline beauty took it, with courtesies and 'thankees,' smiling
+still, and hid it away as if she stole it, and looked on my open palm still
+smiling; and told me, to my surprise, that there was _somebody_ I liked
+very much, and I was almost afraid she would name Captain Oakley; that he
+would grow very rich, and that I should marry him; that I should move about
+from place to place a great deal for a good while to come. That I had some
+enemies, who should be sometimes so near as to be in the same room with me,
+and yet they should not be able to hurt me. That I should see blood spilt
+and yet not my own, and finally be very happy and splendid, like the
+heroine of a fairy tale.
+
+Did this strange, girlish charlatan see in my face some signs of shrinking
+when she spoke of enemies, and set me down for a coward whose weakness
+might be profitable? Very likely. At all events she plucked a long brass
+pin, with a round bead for a head, from some part of her dress, and holding
+the point in her fingers, and exhibiting the treasure before my eyes, she
+told me that I must get a charmed pin like that, which her grandmother had
+given to her, and she ran glibly through a story of all the magic expended
+on it, and told me she could not part with it; but its virtue was that you
+were to stick it through the blanket, and while it was there neither rat,
+nor cat, nor snake--and then came two more terms in the catalogue, which I
+suppose belonged to the gipsy dialect, and which she explained to mean, as
+well as I could understand, the first a malevolent spirit, and the second
+'a cove to cut your throat,' could approach or hurt you.
+
+A charm like that, she gave me to understand, I must by hook or by crook
+obtain. She had not a second. None of her people in the camp over there
+possessed one. I am ashamed to confess that I actually paid her a pound for
+this brass pin! The purchase was partly an indication of my temperament,
+which could never let an opportunity pass away irrevocably without a
+struggle, and always apprehended 'Some day or other I'll reproach myself
+for having neglected it!' and partly a record of the trepidations of that
+period of my life. At all events I had her pin, and she my pound, and I
+venture to say I was the gladder of the two.
+
+She stood on the road-side bank courtseying and smiling, the first
+enchantress I had encountered, and I watched the receding picture, with its
+patches of firelight, its dusky groups and donkey carts, white as skeletons
+in the moonlight, as we drove rapidly away.
+
+They, I suppose, had a wild sneer and a merry laugh over my purchase, as
+they sat and ate their supper of stolen poultry, about their fire, and were
+duly proud of belonging to the superior race.
+
+Mary Quince, shocked at my prodigality, hinted a remonstrance.
+
+'It went to my heart, Miss, it did. They're such a lot, young and old, all
+alike thieves and vagabonds, and many a poor body wanting.'
+
+'Tut, Mary, never mind. Everyone has her fortune told some time in her
+life, and you can't have a good one without paying. I think, Mary, we must
+be near Bartram now.'
+
+The road now traversed the side of a steep hill, parallel to which,
+along the opposite side of a winding river, rose the dark steeps of a
+corresponding upland, covered with forest that looked awful and dim in the
+deep shadow, while the moonlight rippled fitfully upon the stream beneath.
+
+'It seems to be a beautiful country,' I said to Mary Quince, who was
+munching a sandwich in the corner, and thus appealed to, adjusted her
+bonnet, and made an inspection from _her_ window, which, however, commanded
+nothing but the heathy slope of the hill whose side we were traversing.
+
+'Well, Miss, I suppose it is; but there's a deal o' mountains--is not
+there?'
+
+And so saying, honest Mary leaned back again, and went on with her
+sandwich.
+
+We were now descending at a great pace. I knew we were coming near. I stood
+up as well as I could in the carriage, to see over the postilions' heads.
+I was eager, but frightened too; agitated as the crisis of the arrival and
+meeting approached. At last, a long stretch of comparatively level
+country below us, with masses of wood as well as I could see irregularly
+overspreading it, became visible as the narrow valley through which we were
+speeding made a sudden bend.
+
+Down we drove, and now I did perceive a change. A great grass-grown
+park-wall, overtopped with mighty trees; but still on and on we came at a
+canter that seemed almost a gallop. The old grey park-wall flanking us at
+one side, and a pretty pastoral hedgerow of ash-trees, irregularly on the
+other.
+
+At last the postilions began to draw bridle, and at a slight angle, the
+moon shining full upon them, we wheeled into a wide semicircle formed by
+the receding park-walls, and halted before a great fantastic iron gate, and
+a pair of tall fluted piers, of white stone, all grass-grown and ivy-bound,
+with great cornices, surmounted with shields and supporters, the Ruthyn
+bearings washed by the rains of Derbyshire for many a generation of
+Ruthyns, almost smooth by this time, and looking bleached and phantasmal,
+like giant sentinels, with each a hand clasped in his comrade's, to bar
+our passage to the enchanted castle--the florid tracery of the iron gate
+showing like the draperies of white robes hanging from their extended arms
+to the earth.
+
+Our courier got down and shoved the great gate open, and we entered,
+between sombre files of magnificent forest trees, one of those very broad
+straight avenues whose width measures the front of the house. This was all
+built of white stone, resembling that of Caen, which parts of Derbyshire
+produce in such abundance.
+
+So this was Bartram, and here was Uncle Silas. I was almost breathless as
+I approached. The bright moon shining full on the white front of the old
+house revealed not only its highly decorated style, its fluted pillars and
+doorway, rich and florid carving, and balustraded summit, but also its
+stained and moss-grown front. Two giant trees, overthrown at last by the
+recent storm, lay with their upturned roots, and their yellow foliage still
+flickering on the sprays that were to bloom no more, where they had fallen,
+at the right side of the court-yard, which, like the avenue, was studded
+with tufted weeds and grass.
+
+All this gave to the aspect of Bartram a forlorn character of desertion and
+decay, contrasting almost awfully with the grandeur of its proportions and
+richness of its architecture.
+
+There was a ruddy glow from a broad window in the second row, and I thought
+I saw some one peep from it and disappear; at the same moment there was a
+furious barking of dogs, some of whom ran scampering into the court-yard
+from a half-closed side door; and amid their uproar, the bawling of the man
+in the back seat, who jumped down to drive them off, and the crack of
+the postilions' whips, who struck at them, we drew up before the lordly
+door-steps of this melancholy mansion.
+
+Just as our attendant had his hand on the knocker the door opened, and we
+saw, by a not very brilliant candle-light, three figures--a shabby little
+old man, thin, and very much stooped, with a white cravat, and looking as
+if his black clothes were too large, and made for some one else, stood with
+his hand upon the door; a young, plump, but very pretty female figure, in
+unusually short petticoats, with fattish legs, and nice ankles, in boots,
+stood in the centre; and a dowdy maid, like an old charwoman, behind her.
+
+The household paraded for welcome was not certainly very brilliant. Amid
+the riot the trunks were deliberately put down by our attendant, who kept
+shouting to the old man at the door, and to the dogs in turn; and the old
+man was talking and pointing stiffly and tremulously, but I could not hear
+what he said.
+
+'Was it possible--could that mean-looking old man be Uncle Silas?'
+
+The idea stunned me; but I almost instantly perceived that he was much too
+small, and I was relieved, and even grateful. It was certainly an odd mode
+of procedure to devote primary attention to the trunks and boxes, leaving
+the travellers still shut up in the carriage, of which they were by this
+time pretty well tired. I was not sorry for the reprieve, however: being
+nervous about first impressions, and willing to defer mine, I sat shyly
+back, peeping at the candle and moonlight picture before me, myself unseen.
+
+'Will you tell--yes or no--is my cousin in the coach?' screamed the plump
+young lady, stamping her stout black boot, in a momentary lull.
+
+Yes, I was there, sure.
+
+'And why the puck don't you let her out, you stupe, you?'
+
+'Run down, Giblets, you never do nout without driving, and let Cousin Maud
+out. You're very welcome to Bartram.' This greeting was screamed at an
+amazing pitch, and repeated before I had time to drop the window, and say
+'thank you.' 'I'd a let you out myself--there's a good dog, you would na'
+bite Cousin' (the parenthesis was to a huge mastiff, who thrust himself
+beside her, by this time quite pacified)--'only I daren't go down the
+steps, for the governor said I shouldn't.'
+
+The venerable person who went by the name of Giblets had by this time
+opened the carriage door, and our courier, or 'boots'--he looked more like
+the latter functionary--had lowered the steps, and in greater trepidation
+than I experienced when in after-days I was presented to my sovereign,
+I glided down, to offer myself to the greeting and inspection of the
+plain-spoken young lady who stood at the top of the steps to receive me.
+
+She welcomed me with a hug and a hearty buss, as she called that
+salutation, on each cheek, and pulled me into the hall, and was evidently
+glad to see me.
+
+'And you're tired a bit, I warrant; and who's the old 'un, who?' she asked
+eagerly, in a stage whisper, which made my ear numb for five minutes after.
+'Oh, oh, the maid! and a precious old 'un--ha, ha, ha! But lawk! how grand
+she is, with her black silk, cloak and crape, and I only in twilled cotton,
+and rotten old Coburg for Sundays. Odds! it's a shame; but you'll be tired,
+you will. It's a smartish pull, they do say, from Knowl. I know a spell of
+it, only so far as the "Cat and Fiddle," near the Lunnon-road. Come up,
+will you? Would you like to come in first and talk a bit wi' the governor?
+Father, you know, he's a bit silly, he is, this while.' I found that
+the phrase meant only _bodily_ infirmity. 'He took a pain o' Friday,
+newralgie--something or other he calls it--rheumatics it is when it takes
+old "Giblets" there; and he's sitting in his own room; or maybe you'd like
+better to come to your bedroom first, for it is dirty work travelling, they
+do say.'
+
+Yes; I preferred the preliminary adjustment. Mary Quince was standing
+behind me; and as my voluble kinswoman talked on, we had each ample time
+and opportunity to observe the personnel of the other; and she made no
+scruple of letting me perceive that she was improving it, for she stared me
+full in the face, taking in evidently feature after feature; and she felt
+the material of my mantle pretty carefully between her finger and thumb,
+and manually examined my chain and trinkets, and picked up my hand as she
+might a glove, to con over my rings.
+
+I can't say, of course, exactly what impression I may have produced on her.
+But in my cousin Milly I saw a girl who looked younger than her years,
+plump, but with a slender waist, with light hair, lighter than mine, and
+very blue eyes, rather round; on the whole very good-looking. She had an
+odd swaggering walk, a toss of her head, and a saucy and imperious, but
+rather good-natured and honest countenance. She talked rather loud, with a
+good ringing voice, and a boisterous laugh when it came.
+
+If _I_ was behind the fashion, what would Cousin Monica have thought of
+her? She was arrayed, as she had stated, in black twilled cotton expressive
+of her affliction; but it was made almost as short in the skirt as that of
+the prints of the Bavarian broom girls. She had white cotton stockings,
+and a pair of black leather boots, with leather buttons, and, for a lady,
+prodigiously thick soles, which reminded me of the navvy boots I had so
+often admired in _Punch_. I must add that the hands with which she assisted
+her scrutiny of my dress, though pretty, were very much sunburnt indeed.
+
+'And what's _her_ name?' she demanded, nodding to Mary Quince, who was
+gazing on her awfully, with round eyes, as an inland spinster might upon a
+whale beheld for the first time.
+
+Mary courtesied, and I answered.
+
+'Mary Quince,' she repeated. 'You're welcome, Quince. What shall I call
+her? I've a name for all o' them. Old Giles there, is Giblets. He did not
+like it first, but he answers quick enough now; and Old Lucy Wyat there,'
+nodding toward the old woman, 'is Lucia de l'Amour.' A slightly erroneous
+reading of Lammermoor, for my cousin sometimes made mistakes, and was not
+much versed in the Italian opera. 'You know it's a play, and I call her
+L'Amour for shortness;' and she laughed hilariously, and I could not
+forbear joining; and, winking at me, she called aloud, 'L'Amour.'
+
+To which the crone, with a high-cauled cap, resembling Mother Hubbard,
+responded with a courtesy and 'Yes, 'm.'
+
+'Are all the trunks and boxes took up?'
+
+They were.
+
+'Well, we'll come now; and what shall I call you, Quince? Let me see.'
+
+'According to your pleasure, Miss,' answered Mary, with dignity, and a dry
+courtesy.
+
+'Why, you're as hoarse as a frog, Quince. We'll call you Quinzy for the
+present. That'll do. Come along, Quinzy.'
+
+So my Cousin Milly took me under the arm, and pulled me forward; but as we
+ascended, she let me go, leaning back to make inspection of my attire from
+a new point of view.
+
+'Hallo, cousin,' she cried, giving my dress a smack with her open hand.
+'What a plague do you want of all that bustle; you'll leave it behind,
+lass, the first bush you jump over.'
+
+I was a good deal astounded. I was also very near laughing, for there was
+a sort of importance in her plump countenance, and an indescribable
+grotesqueness in the fashion of her garments, which heightened the
+outlandishness of her talk, in a way which I cannot at all describe.
+
+What palatial wide stairs those were which we ascended, with their
+prodigious carved banisters of oak, and each huge pillar on the
+landing-place crowned with a shield and carved heraldic supporters; florid
+oak panelling covered the walls. But of the house I could form no estimate,
+for Uncle Silas's housekeeping did not provide light for hall and passages,
+and we were dependent on the glimmer of a single candle; but there would be
+quite enough of this kind of exploration in the daylight.
+
+So along dark oak flooring we advanced to my room, and I had now an
+opportunity of admiring, at my leisure, the lordly proportions of the
+building. Two great windows, with dark and tarnished curtains, rose half as
+high again as the windows of Knowl; and yet Knowl, in its own style, is a
+fine house. The door-frames, like the window-frames, were richly carved;
+the fireplace was in the same massive style, and the mantelpiece projected
+with a mass of very rich carving. On the whole I was surprised. I had never
+slept in so noble a room before.
+
+The furniture, I must confess, was by no means on a par with the
+architectural pretensions of the apartment. A French bed, a piece of carpet
+about three yards square, a small table, two chairs, a toilet table--no
+wardrobe--no chest of drawers. The furniture painted white, and of the
+light and diminutive kind, was particularly ill adapted to the scale and
+style of the apartment, one end only of which it occupied, and that but
+sparsely, leaving the rest of the chamber in the nakedness of a stately
+desolation. My cousin Milly ran away to report progress to 'the Governor,'
+as she termed Uncle Silas.
+
+'Well, Miss Maud, I never did expect to see the like o' that!' exclaimed
+honest Mary Quince, 'Did you ever see such a young lady? She's no more like
+one o' the family than I am. Law bless us! and what's she dressed like?
+Well, well, well!' And Mary, with a rueful shake of her head, clicked her
+tongue pathetically to the back of her teeth, while I could not forbear
+laughing.
+
+'And such a scrap o' furniture! Well, well, well!' and the same ticking of
+the tongue followed.
+
+But, in a few minutes, back came Cousin Milly, and, with a barbarous
+sort of curiosity, assisted in unpacking my trunks, and stowing away the
+treasures, on which she ventured a variety of admiring criticisms, in the
+presses which, like cupboards, filled recesses in the walls, with great oak
+doors, the keys of which were in them.
+
+As I was making my hurried toilet, she entertained me now and then with
+more strictly personal criticisms.
+
+'Your hair's a shade darker than mine--it's none the better o' that
+though--is it? Mine's said to be the right shade. I don't know--what do you
+say?'
+
+I conceded the point with a good grace.
+
+'I wish my hands was as white though--you do lick me there; but it's all
+gloves, and I never could abide 'em. I think I'll try though--they _are_
+very white, sure.'
+
+'I wonder which is the prettiest, you or me? _I_ don't know, _I_'m
+sure--which do _you_ think?'
+
+I laughed outright at this challenge, and she blushed a little, and for the
+first time seemed for a moment a little shy.
+
+'Well, you _are_ a half an inch longer than me, I think--don't you?'
+
+I was fully an inch taller, so I had no difficulty in making the proposed
+admission.
+
+'Well, you do look handsome! doesn't she, Quinzy, lass? but your frock
+comes down almost to your heels--it does.'
+
+And she glanced from mine to hers, and made a little kick up with the heel
+of the navvy boot to assist her in measuring the comparative distance.
+
+'Maybe mine's a thought too short?' she suggested. 'Who's there? Oh! it's
+you, is it?' she cried as Mother Hubbard appeared at the door. 'Come in,
+L'Amour--don't you know, lass, you're always welcome?'
+
+She had come to let us know that Uncle Silas would be happy to see me
+whenever I was ready; and that my cousin Millicent would conduct me to the
+room where he awaited me.
+
+In an instant all the comic sensations awakened by my singular cousin's
+eccentricities vanished, and I was thrilled with awe. I was about to see
+in the flesh--faded, broken, aged, but still identical--that being who had
+been the vision and the problem of so many years of my short life.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+_UNCLE SILAS_
+
+
+I thought my odd cousin was also impressed with a kind of awe, though
+different in degree from mine, for a shade overcast her face, and she was
+silent as we walked side by side along the gallery, accompanied by the
+crone who carried the candle which lighted us to the door of that apartment
+which I may call Uncle Silas's presence chamber.
+
+Milly whispered to me as we approached--
+
+'Mind how you make a noise; the governor's as sharp as a weasel, and
+nothing vexes him like that.'
+
+She was herself toppling along on tiptoe. We paused at a door near the head
+of the great staircase, and L'Amour knocked timidly with her rheumatic
+knuckles.
+
+A voice, clear and penetrating, from within summoned us to enter. The old
+woman opened the door, and the next moment I was in the presence of Uncle
+Silas.
+
+At the far end of a handsome wainscoted room, near the hearth in which a
+low fire was burning, beside a small table on which stood four waxlights,
+in tall silver candlesticks, sat a singular-looking old man.
+
+The dark wainscoting behind him, and the vastness of the room, in the
+remoter parts of which the light which fell strongly upon his face and
+figure expended itself with hardly any effect, exhibited him with the
+forcible and strange relief of a finely painted Dutch portrait. For some
+time I saw nothing but him.
+
+A face like marble, with a fearful monumental look, and, for an old man,
+singularly vivid strange eyes, the singularity of which rather grew upon me
+as I looked; for his eyebrows were still black, though his hair descended
+from his temples in long locks of the purest silver and fine as silk,
+nearly to his shoulders.
+
+He rose, tall and slight, a little stooped, all in black, with an ample
+black velvet tunic, which was rather a gown than a coat, with loose
+sleeves, showing his snowy shirt some way up the arm, and a pair of wrist
+buttons, then quite out of fashion, which glimmered aristocratically with
+diamonds.
+
+I know I can't convey in words an idea of this apparition, drawn as it
+seemed in black and white, venerable, bloodless, fiery-eyed, with its
+singular look of power, and an expression so bewildering--was it derision,
+or anguish, or cruelty, or patience?
+
+The wild eyes of this strange old man were fixed upon me as he rose; an
+habitual contraction, which in certain lights took the character of a
+scowl, did not relax as he advanced toward me with his thin-lipped smile.
+He said something in his clear, gentle, but cold voice, the import of
+which I was too much agitated to catch, and he took both my hands in his,
+welcomed me with a courtly grace which belonged to another age, and led me
+affectionately, with many inquiries which I only half comprehended, to a
+chair near his own.
+
+'I need not introduce my daughter; she has saved me that mortification.
+You'll find her, I believe, good-natured and affectionate; _au reste_, I
+fear a very rustic Miranda, and fitted rather for the society of Caliban
+than of a sick old Prospero. Is it not so, Millicent?'
+
+The old man paused sarcastically for an answer, with his eyes fixed
+severely on my odd cousin, who blushed and looked uneasily to me for a
+hint.
+
+'I don't know who they be--neither one nor t'other.'
+
+'Very good, my dear,' he replied, with a little mocking bow. 'You see, my
+dear Maud, what a Shakespearean you have got for a cousin. It's plain,
+however, she has made acquaintance with some of our dramatists: she has
+studied the rôle of _Miss Hoyden_ so perfectly.'
+
+It was not a reasonable peculiarity of my uncle that he resented, with a
+good deal of playful acrimony, my poor cousin's want of education, for
+which, if he were not to blame, certainly neither was she.
+
+'You see her, poor thing, a result of all the combined disadvantages of
+want of refined education, refined companionship, and, I fear, naturally,
+of refined tastes; but a sojourn at a good French conventual school will
+do wonders, and I hope to manage by-and-by. In the meantime we jest at our
+misfortunes, and love one another, I hope, cordially.'
+
+He extended his thin, white hand with a chilly smile towards Milly, who
+bounced up, and took it with a frightened look; and he repeated, holding
+her hand rather slightly I thought, 'Yes, I hope, very cordially,' and then
+turning again to me, he put it over the arm of his chair, and let it go, as
+a man might drop something he did not want from a carriage window.
+
+Having made this apology for poor Milly, who was plainly bewildered, he
+passed on, to her and my relief, to other topics, every now and then
+expressing his fears that I was fatigued, and his anxiety that I should
+partake of some supper or tea; but these solicitudes somehow seemed to
+escape his remembrance almost as soon as uttered; and he maintained the
+conversation, which soon degenerated into a close, and to me a painful
+examination, respecting my dear father's illness and its symptoms, upon
+which I could give no information, and his habits, upon which I could.
+
+Perhaps he fancied that there might be some family predisposition to the
+organic disease of which his brother died, and that his questions were
+directed rather to the prolonging of his own life than to the better
+understanding of my dear father's death.
+
+How little was there left to this old man to make life desirable, and yet
+how keenly, I afterwards found, he clung to it. Have we not all of us seen
+those to whom life was not only _undesirable_, but positively painful--a
+mere series of bodily torments, yet hold to it with a desperate and
+pitiable tenacity--old children or young, it is all the same.
+
+See how a sleepy child will put off the inevitable departure for bed. The
+little creature's eyes blink and stare, and it needs constant jogging to
+prevent his nodding off into the slumber which nature craves. His waking is
+a pain; he is quite worn out, and peevish, and stupid, and yet he implores
+a respite, and deprecates repose, and vows he is not sleepy, even to the
+moment when his mother takes him in her arms, and carries him, in a sweet
+slumber, to the nursery. So it is with us old children of earth and the
+great sleep of death, and nature our kind mother. Just so reluctantly we
+part with consciousness, the picture is, even to the last, so interesting;
+the bird in the hand, though sick and moulting, so inestimably better than
+all the brilliant tenants of the bush. We sit up, yawning, and blinking,
+and stupid, the whole scene swimming before us, and the stories and music
+humming off into the sound of distant winds and waters. It is not time yet;
+we are not fatigued; we are good for another hour still, and so protesting
+against bed, we falter and drop into the dreamless sleep which nature
+assigns to fatigue and satiety.
+
+He then spoke a little eulogy of his brother, very polished, and,
+indeed, in a kind of way, eloquent. He possessed in a high degree that
+accomplishment, too little cultivated, I think, by the present generation,
+of expressing himself with perfect precision and fluency. There was, too,
+a good deal of slight illustrative quotation, and a sprinkling of French
+flowers, over his conversation, which gave to it a character at once
+elegant and artificial. It was all easy, light, and pointed, and being
+quite new to me, had a wonderful fascination.
+
+He then told me that Bartram was the temple of liberty, that the health of
+a whole life was founded in a few years of youth, air, and exercise, and
+that accomplishments, at least, if not education, should wait upon health.
+Therefore, while at Bartram, I should dispose of my time quite as I
+pleased, and the more I plundered the garden and gipsied in the woodlands,
+the better.
+
+Then he told me what a miserable invalid he was, and how the doctors
+interfered with his frugal tastes. A glass of beer and a mutton chop--his
+ideal of a dinner--he dared not touch. They made him drink light wines,
+which he detested, and live upon those artificial abominations all liking
+for which vanishes with youth.
+
+There stood on a side-table, in its silver coaster, a long-necked Rhenish
+bottle, and beside it a thin pink glass, and he quivered his fingers in a
+peevish way toward them.
+
+But unless he found himself better very soon, he would take his case into
+his own hands, and try the dietary to which nature pointed.
+
+He waved his fingers toward his bookcases, and told me his books were
+altogether at my service during my stay; but this promise ended, I must
+confess, disappointingly. At last, remarking that I must be fatigued, he
+rose, and kissed me with a solemn tenderness, placed his hand upon what I
+now perceived to be a large Bible, with two broad silk markers, red and
+gold, folded in it--the one, I might conjecture, indicating the place in
+the Old, the other in the New Testament. It stood on the small table that
+supported the waxlights, with a handsome cut bottle of eau-de-cologne, his
+gold and jewelled pencil-case, and his chased repeater, chain, and seals,
+beside it. There certainly were no indications of poverty in Uncle Silas's
+room; and he said impressively--
+
+'Remember that book; in it your father placed his trust, in it he found his
+reward, in it lives my only hope; consult it, my beloved niece, day and
+night, as the oracle of life.'
+
+Then he laid his thin hand on my head, and blessed me, and then kissed my
+forehead.
+
+'No--a!' exclaimed Cousin Milly's lusty voice. I had quite forgotten her
+presence, and looked at her with a little start. She was seated on a very
+high old-fashioned chair; she had palpably been asleep; her round eyes were
+blinking and staring glassily at us; and her white legs and navvy boots
+were dangling in the air.
+
+'Have you anything to remark about Noah?' enquired her father, with a
+polite inclination and an ironical interest.
+
+'No--a,' she repeated in the same blunt accents; 'I didn't snore; did I?
+No--a.'
+
+The old man smiled and shrugged a little at me--it was the smile of
+disgust.
+
+'Good night, my dear Maud;' and turning to her, he said, with a peculiar
+gentle sharpness, 'Had not you better wake, my dear, and try whether your
+cousin would like some supper?'
+
+So he accompanied us to the door, outside which we found L'Amour's candle
+awaiting us.
+
+'I'm awful afraid of the Governor, I am. Did I snore that time?'
+
+'No, dear; at least, I did not hear it,' I said, unable to repress a smile.
+
+'Well, if I didn't, I was awful near it,' she said, reflectively.
+
+We found poor Mary Quince dozing over the fire; but we soon had tea and
+other good things, of which Milly partook with a wonderful appetite.
+
+'I _was_ in a qualm about it,' said Milly, who by this time was quite
+herself again. 'When he spies me a-napping, maybe he don't fetch me a prod
+with his pencil-case over the head. Odd! girl, it _is_ sore.'
+
+When I contrasted the refined and fluent old gentleman whom I had just
+left, with this amazing specimen of young ladyhood, I grew sceptical almost
+as to the possibility of her being his child.
+
+I was to learn, however, how little she had, I won't say of his society,
+but even of his presence--that she had no domestic companion of the least
+pretensions to education--that she ran wild about the place--never, except
+in church, so much as saw a person of that rank to which she was born--and
+that the little she knew of reading and writing had been picked up, in
+desultory half-hours, from a person who did not care a pin about her
+manners or decorum, and perhaps rather enjoyed her grotesqueness--and that
+no one who was willing to take the least trouble about her was competent
+to make her a particle more refined than I saw her--the wonder ceased. We
+don't know how little is heritable, and how much simply training, until we
+encounter some-such spectacle as that of my poor cousin Milly.
+
+When I lay down in my bed and reviewed the day, it seemed like a month of
+wonders. Uncle Silas was always before me; the voice so silvery for an old
+man--so preternaturally soft; the manners so sweet, so gentle; the aspect,
+smiling, suffering, spectral. It was no longer a shadow; I had now seen
+him in the flesh. But, after all, was he more than a shadow to me? When I
+closed my eyes I saw him before me still, in necromantic black, ashy with a
+pallor on which I looked with fear and pain, a face so dazzlingly pale,
+and those hollow, fiery, awful eyes! It sometimes seemed as if the curtain
+opened, and I had seen a ghost.
+
+I had seen him; but he was still an enigma and a marvel. The living face
+did not expound the past, any more than the portrait portended the future.
+He was still a mystery and a vision; and thinking of these things I fell
+asleep.
+
+Mary Quince, who slept in the dressing-room, the door of which was close
+to my bed, and lay open to secure me against ghosts, called me up; and the
+moment I knew where I was I jumped up, and peeped eagerly from the window.
+It commanded the avenue and court-yard; but we were many windows removed
+from that over the hall-door, and immediately beneath ours lay the two
+giant lime trees, prostrate and uprooted, which I had observed as we drove
+up the night before.
+
+I saw more clearly in the bright light of morning the signs of neglect and
+almost of dilapidation which had struck me as I approached. The court-yard
+was tufted over with grass, seldom from year to year crushed by the
+carriage-wheels, or trodden by the feet of visitors. This melancholy
+verdure thickened where the area was more remote from the centre; and under
+the windows, and skirting the walls to the left, was reinforced by a thick
+grove of nettles. The avenue was all grass-grown, except in the very
+centre, where a narrow track still showed the roadway. The handsome carved
+balustrade of the court-yard was discoloured with lichens, and in two
+places gapped and broken; and the air of decay was heightened by the fallen
+trees, among whose sprays and yellow leaves the small birds were hopping.
+
+Before my toilet was completed, in marched my cousin Milly. We were to
+breakfast alone that morning, 'and so much the better,' she told me.
+Sometimes the Governor ordered her to breakfast with him, and 'never left
+off chaffing her' till his newspaper came, and 'sometimes he said such
+things he made her cry,' and then he only 'boshed her more,' and packed her
+away to her room; but she was by chalks nicer than him, talk as he might.
+'_Was_ not she nicer? was not she? was not she?' Upon this point she was so
+strong and urgent that I was obliged to reply by a protest against awarding
+the palm of elegance between parent and child, and declaring I liked her
+very much, which I attested by a kiss.
+
+'I know right well which of us you do think's the nicest, and no mistake,
+only you're afraid of him; and he had no business boshing me last night
+before you. I knew he was at it, though I couldn't twig him altogether; but
+wasn't he a sneak, now, wasn't he?'
+
+This was a still more awkward question; so I kissed her again, and said she
+must never ask me to say of my uncle in his absence anything I could not
+say to his face.
+
+At which speech she stared at me for a while, and then treated me to one of
+her hearty laughs, after which she seemed happier, and gradually grew into
+better humour with her father.
+
+'Sometimes, when the curate calls, he has me up--for he's as religious as
+six, he is--and they read Bible and prays, ho--don't they? You'll have
+that, lass, like me, to go through; and maybe I don't hate it; oh, no!'
+
+We breakfasted in a small room, almost a closet, off the great parlour,
+which was evidently quite disused. Nothing could be homelier than our
+equipage, or more shabby than the furniture of the little apartment. Still,
+somehow, I liked it. It was a total change; but one likes 'roughing it' a
+little at first.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+_THE WINDMILL WOOD_
+
+
+I had not time to explore this noble old house as my curiosity prompted;
+for Milly was in such a fuss to set out for the 'blackberry dell' that I
+saw little more than just so much as I necessarily traversed in making my
+way to and from my room.
+
+The actual decay of the house had been prevented by my dear father; and
+the roof, windows, masonry, and carpentry had all been kept in repair.
+But short of indications of actual ruin, there are many manifestations of
+poverty and neglect which impress with a feeling of desolation. It was
+plain that not nearly a tithe of this great house was inhabited; long
+corridors and galleries stretched away in dust and silence, and were
+crossed by others, whose dark arches inspired me in the distance with an
+awful sort of sadness. It was plainly one of those great structures in
+which you might easily lose yourself, and with a pleasing terror it
+reminded me of that delightful old abbey in Mrs. Radcliffe's romance, among
+whose silent staircases, dim passages, and long suites of lordly, but
+forsaken chambers, begirt without by the sombre forest, the family of La
+Mote secured a gloomy asylum.
+
+My cousin Milly and I, however, were bent upon an open-air ramble, and
+traversing several passages, she conducted me to a door which led us out
+upon a terrace overgrown with weeds, and by a broad flight of steps we
+descended to the level of the grounds beneath. Then on, over the short
+grass, under the noble trees, we walked; Milly in high good-humour,
+and talking away volubly, in her short garment, navvy boots, and a
+weather-beaten hat. She carried a stick in her gloveless hand. Her
+conversation was quite new to me, and resembled very much what I would have
+fancied the holiday recollections of a schoolboy; and the language in which
+it was sustained was sometimes so outlandish, that I was forced to laugh
+outright--a demonstration which she plainly did not like.
+
+Her talk was about the great jumps she had made--how she snow-balled the
+chaps' in winter--how she could slide twice the length of her stick beyond
+'Briddles, the cow-boy.'
+
+With this and similar conversation she entertained me.
+
+The grounds were delightfully wild and neglected. But we had now passed
+into a vast park beautifully varied with hollows and uplands, and such
+glorious old timber massed and scattered over its slopes and levels. Among
+these, we got at last into a picturesque dingle; the grey rocks peeped from
+among the ferns and wild flowers, and the steps of soft sward along its
+sides were dark in the shadows of silver-stemmed birch, and russet thorn,
+and oak, under which, in the vaporous night, the Erl-king and his daughter
+might glide on their aërial horses.
+
+In the lap of this pleasant dell were the finest blackberry bushes, I
+think, I ever saw, bearing fruit quite fabulous; and plucking these, and
+chatting, we rambled on very pleasantly.
+
+I had first thought of Milly's absurdities, to which, in description, I
+cannot do justice, simply because so many details have, by distance
+of time, escaped my recollection. But her ways and her talk were so
+indescribably grotesque that she made me again and again quiver with
+suppressed laughter.
+
+But there was a pitiable and even a melancholy meaning underlying the
+burlesque.
+
+This creature, with no more education than a dairy-maid, I gradually
+discovered had fine natural aptitudes for accomplishment--a very sweet
+voice, and wonderfully delicate ear, and a talent for drawing which quite
+threw mine into the shade. It was really astonishing.
+
+Poor Milly, in all her life, had never read three books, and hated to
+think of them. One, over which she was wont to yawn and sigh, and stare
+fatiguedly for an hour every Sunday, by command of the Governor, was a
+stout volume of sermons of the earlier school of George III., and a drier
+collection you can't fancy. I don't think she read anything else. But she
+had, notwithstanding, ten times the cleverness of half the circulating
+library misses one meets with. Besides all this, I had a long sojourn
+before me at Bartram-Haugh, and I had learned from Milly, as I had heard
+before, what a perennial solitude it was, with a ludicrous fear of learning
+Milly's preposterous dialect, and turning at last into something like her.
+So I resolved to do all I could for her--teach her whatever I knew, if she
+would allow me--and gradually, if possible, effect some civilising changes
+in her language, and, as they term it in boarding-schools, her demeanour.
+
+But I must pursue at present our first day's ramble in what was called
+Bartram Chase. People can't go on eating blackberries always; so after a
+while we resumed our walk along this pretty dell, which gradually expanded
+into a wooded valley--level beneath and enclosed by irregular uplands,
+receding, as it were, in mimic bays and harbours at some points, and
+running out at others into broken promontories, ending in clumps of forest
+trees.
+
+Just where the glen which we had been traversing expanded into this broad,
+but wooded valley, it was traversed by a high and close paling, which,
+although it looked decayed, was still very strong.
+
+In this there was a wooden gate, rudely but strongly constructed, and at
+the side we were approaching stood a girl, who was leaning against the
+post, with one arm resting on the top of the gate.
+
+This girl was neither tall nor short--taller than she looked at a distance;
+she had not a slight waist; sooty black was her hair, with a broad
+forehead, perpendicular but low; she had a pair of very fine, dark,
+lustrous eyes, and no other good feature--unless I may so call her teeth,
+which were very white and even. Her face was rather short, and swarthy as
+a gipsy's; observant and sullen too; and she did not move, only eyed us
+negligently from under her dark lashes as we drew near. Altogether a not
+unpicturesque figure, with a dusky, red petticoat of drugget, and tattered
+jacket of bottle-green stuff, with short sleeves, which showed her brown
+arms from the elbow.
+
+'That's Pegtop's daughter,' said Milly.
+
+'Who is Pegtop?' I asked.
+
+'He's the miller--see, yonder it is,' and she pointed to a very pretty
+feature in the landscape, a windmill, crowning the summit of a hillock
+which rose suddenly above the level of the treetops, like an island in the
+centre of the valley.
+
+'The mill not going to-day, Beauty?' bawled Milly.
+
+'No--a, Beauty; it baint,' replied the girl, loweringly, and without
+stirring.
+
+'And what's gone with the stile?' demanded Milly, aghast. 'It's tore away
+from the paling!'
+
+'Well, so it be,' replied the wood nymph in the red petticoat, showing her
+fine teeth with a lazy grin.
+
+'Who's a bin and done all that?' demanded Milly.
+
+'Not you nor me, lass,' said the girl.
+
+''Twas old Pegtop, your father, did it,' cried Milly, in rising wrath.
+
+''Appen it wor,' she replied.
+
+'And the gate locked.'
+
+'That's it--the gate locked,' she repeated, sulkily, with a defiant
+side-glance at Milly.
+
+'And where's Pegtop?'
+
+'At t'other side, somewhere; how should I know where he be?' she replied.
+
+'Who's got the key?'
+
+'Here it be, lass,' she answered, striking her hand on her pocket. 'And how
+durst you stay us here? Unlock it, huzzy, this minute!' cried Milly, with a
+stamp.
+
+Her answer was a sullen smile.
+
+'Open the gate this instant!' bawled Milly.
+
+'Well, I _won't._'
+
+I expected that Milly would have flown into a frenzy at this direct
+defiance, but she looked instead puzzled and curious--the girl's unexpected
+audacity bewildered her.
+
+'Why, you fool, I could get over the paling as soon as look at you, but I
+won't. What's come over you? Open the gate, I say, or I'll make you.'
+
+'Do let her alone, dear,' I entreated, fearing a mutual assault. 'She has
+been ordered, may be, not to open it. Is it so, my good girl?'
+
+'Well, thou'rt not the biggest fool o' the two,' she observed,
+commendatively, 'thou'st hit it, lass.'
+
+'And who ordered you?' exclaimed Milly.
+
+'Fayther.'
+
+'Old Pegtop. Well, _that's_ summat to laugh at, it is--our servant
+a-shutting us out of our own grounds.'
+
+'No servant o' yourn!'
+
+'Come, lass, what do you mean?'
+
+'He be old Silas's miller, and what's that to thee?'
+
+With these words the girl made a spring on the hasp of the padlock, and
+then got easily over the gate.
+
+'Can't you do that, cousin?' whispered Milly to me, with an impatient
+nudge. 'I _wish_ you'd try.'
+
+'No, dear--come away, Milly,' and I began to withdraw.
+
+'Lookee, lass, 'twill be an ill day's work for thee when I tell the
+Governor,' said Milly, addressing the girl, who stood on a log of timber at
+the other side, regarding us with a sullen composure.
+
+'We'll be over in spite o' you,' cried Milly.
+
+'You lie!' answered she.
+
+'And why not, huzzy?' demanded my cousin, who was less incensed at the
+affront than I expected. All this time I was urging Milly in vain to come
+away.
+
+'Yon lass is no wild cat, like thee--that's why,' said the sturdy portress.
+
+'If I cross, I'll give you a knock,' said Milly.
+
+'And I'll gi' thee another,' she answered, with a vicious wag of the head.
+
+'Come, Milly, _I'll_ go if _you_ don't,' I said.
+
+'But we must not be beat,' whispered she, vehemently, catching my arm; 'and
+ye _shall_ get over, and _see_ what I will gi' her!'
+
+'I'll _not_ get over.'
+
+'Then I'll break the door, for ye _shall_ come through,' exclaimed Milly,
+kicking the stout paling with her ponderous boot.
+
+'Purr it, purr it, purr it!' cried the lass in the red petticoat with a
+grin.
+
+'Do you know who this lady is?' cried Milly, suddenly.
+
+'She is a prettier lass than thou,' answered Beauty.
+
+'She's _my_ cousin Maud--Miss Ruthyn of Knowl--and she's a deal richer than
+the Queen; and the Governor's taking care of her; and he'll make old Pegtop
+bring you to reason.'
+
+The girl eyed me with a sulky listlessness, a little inquisitively, I
+thought.
+
+'See if he don't,' threatened Milly.
+
+'You positively _must_ come,' I said, drawing her away with me.
+
+'Well, shall we come in?' cried Milly, trying a last summons.
+
+'You'll not come in that much,' she answered, surlily, measuring an
+infinitesimal distance on her finger with her thumb, which she pinched
+against it, the gesture ending with a snap of defiance, and a smile that
+showed her fine teeth.
+
+'I've a mind to shy a stone at you,' shouted Milly.
+
+'Faire away; I'll shy wi' ye as long as ye like, lass; take heed o'
+yerself;' and Beauty picked up a round stone as large as a cricket ball.
+
+With difficulty I got Milly away without an exchange of missiles, and much
+disgusted at my want of zeal and agility.
+
+'Well, come along, cousin, I know an easy way by the river, when it's low,'
+answered Milly. 'She's a brute--is not she?'
+
+As we receded, we saw the girl slowly wending her way towards the old
+thatched cottage, which showed its gable from the side of a little rugged
+eminence embowered in spreading trees, and dangling and twirling from its
+string on the end of her finger the key for which a battle had so nearly
+been fought.
+
+The stream was low enough to make our flank movement round the end of
+the paling next it quite easy, and so we pursued our way, and Milly's
+equanimity returned, and our ramble grew very pleasant again.
+
+Our path lay by the river bank, and as we proceeded, the dwarf timber was
+succeeded by grander trees, which crowded closer and taller, and, at last,
+the scenery deepened into solemn forest, and a sudden sweep in the river
+revealed the beautiful ruin of a steep old bridge, with the fragments of a
+gate-house on the farther side.
+
+'Oh, Milly darling!' I exclaimed, 'what a beautiful drawing this would
+make! I should so like to make a sketch of it.'
+
+'So it would. _Make_ a picture--_do_!--here's a stone that's pure and flat
+to sit upon, and you look very tired. Do make it, and I'll sit by you.'
+
+'Yes, Milly, I _am_ tired, a little, and I _will_ sit down; but we must
+wait for another day to make the picture, for we have neither pencil
+nor paper. But it is much too pretty to be lost; so let us come again
+to-morrow.'
+
+'To-morrow be hanged! you'll do it to-day, bury-me-wick, but you _shall_;
+I'm wearying to see you make a picture, and I'll fetch your conundrums out
+o' your drawer, for do 't you shall.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+_ZAMIEL_
+
+
+It was all vain my remonstrating. She vowed that by crossing the
+stepping-stones close by she could, by a short cut, reach the house, and
+return with my pencils and block-book in a quarter of an hour. Away then,
+with many a jump and fling, scampered Milly's queer white stockings and
+navvy boots across the irregular and precarious stepping-stones, over which
+I dared not follow her; so I was fain to return to the stone so 'pure
+and flat,' on which I sat, enjoying the grand sylvan solitude, the dark
+background and the grey bridge mid-way, so tall and slim, across whose
+ruins a sunbeam glimmered, and the gigantic forest trees that slumbered
+round, opening here and there in dusky vistas, and breaking in front into
+detached and solemn groups. It was the setting of a dream of romance.
+
+It would have been the very spot in which to read a volume of German
+folk-lore, and the darkening colonnades and silent nooks of the forest
+seemed already haunted with the voices and shadows of those charming elves
+and goblins.
+
+As I sat here enjoying the solitude and my fancies among the low branches
+of the wood, at my right I heard a crashing, and saw a squat broad figure
+in a stained and tattered military coat, and loose short trousers, one limb
+of which flapped about a wooden leg. He was forcing himself through. His
+face was rugged and wrinkled, and tanned to the tint of old oak; his eyes
+black, beadlike, and fierce, and a shock of sooty hair escaped from under
+his battered wide-awake nearly to his shoulders. This forbidding-looking
+person came stumping and jerking along toward me, whisking his stick now
+and then viciously in the air, and giving his fell of hair a short shake,
+like a wild bull preparing to attack.
+
+I stood up involuntarily with a sense of fear and surprise, almost fancying
+I saw in that wooden-legged old soldier, the forest demon who haunted Der
+Freischütz.
+
+So he approached shouting--
+
+'Hollo! you--how came you here? Dost 'eer?'
+
+And he drew near panting, and sometimes tugging angrily in his haste at his
+wooden leg, which sunk now and then deeper than was convenient in the sod.
+This exertion helped to anger him, and when he halted before me, his dark
+face smirched with smoke and dust, and the nostrils of his flat drooping
+nose expanded and quivered as he panted, like the gills of a fish; an
+angrier or uglier face it would not be easy to fancy.
+
+'Ye'll all come when ye like, will ye? and do nout but what pleases
+yourselves, won't you? And who'rt thou? Dost 'eer--who _are_ ye, I say; and
+what the deil seek ye in the woods here? Come, bestir thee!'
+
+If his wide mouth and great tobacco-stained teeth, his scowl, and loud
+discordant tones were intimidating, they were also extremely irritating.
+The moment my spirit was roused, my courage came.
+
+'I am Miss Ruthyn of Knowl, and Mr. Silas Ruthyn, your master, is my
+uncle.'
+
+'Hoo!' he exclaimed more gently, 'an' if Silas be thy uncle thou'lt be come
+to live wi' him, and thou'rt she as come overnight--eh?'
+
+I made no answer, but I believe I looked both angrily and disdainfully.
+
+'And what make ye alone here? and how was I to know't, an' Milly not wi'
+ye, nor no one? But Maud or no Maud, I wouldn't let the Dooke hisself set
+foot inside the palin' without Silas said let him. And you may tell Silas
+them's the words o' Dickon Hawkes, and I'll stick to 'm--and what's more
+I'll tell him _myself_--I will; I'll tell him there be no use o' my
+striving and straining hee, day an' night and night and day, watchin' again
+poachers, and thieves, and gipsies, and they robbing lads, if rules won't
+be kep, and folk do jist as they pleases. Dang it, lass, thou'rt in luck I
+didn't heave a brick at thee when I saw thee first.'
+
+'I'll complain of you to my uncle,' I replied.
+
+'So do, and and 'appen thou'lt find thyself in the wrong box, lass; thou
+canst na' say I set the dogs arter thee, nor cau'd thee so much as a wry
+name, nor heave a stone at thee--did I? Well? and where's the complaint
+then?'
+
+I simply answered, rather fiercely,
+
+'Be good enough to leave me.'
+
+'Well, I make no objections, mind. I'm takin' thy word--thou'rt Maud
+Ruthyn--'appen thou be'st and 'appen thou baint. I'm not aweer on't, but I
+takes thy word, and all I want to know's just this, did Meg open the gate
+to thee?'
+
+I made him no answer, and to my great relief I saw Milly striding and
+skipping across the unequal stepping-stones.
+
+'Hallo, Pegtop! what are you after now?' she cried, as she drew near.
+
+'This man has been extremely impertinent. You know him, Milly?' I said.
+
+'Why that's Pegtop Dickon. Dirty old Hawkes that never was washed. I tell
+you, lad, ye'll see what the Governor thinks o't--a-ha! He'll talk to you.'
+
+'I done or said nout--not but I _should_, and there's the fack--she can't
+deny't; she hadn't a hard word from I; and I don't care the top o' that
+thistle what no one says--not I. But I tell thee, Milly, I stopped _some_
+o' thy pranks, and I'll stop more. Ye'll be shying no more stones at the
+cattle.'
+
+'Tell your tales, and welcome, cried Milly. 'I wish I was here when you
+jawed cousin. If Winny was here she'd catch you by the timber toe and put
+you on your back.'
+
+'Ay, she'll be a good un yet if she takes arter thee,' retorted the old man
+with a fierce sneer.
+
+'Drop it, and get away wi' ye,' cried she, 'or maybe I'd call Winny to
+smash your timber leg for you.'
+
+'A-ha! there's more on't. She's a sweet un. Isn't she?' he replied
+sardonically.
+
+'You did not like it last Easter, when Winny broke it with a kick.'
+
+''Twas a kick o' a horse,' he growled with a glance at me.
+
+''Twas no such thing--'twas Winny did it--and he laid on his back for a
+week while carpenter made him a new one.' And Milly laughed hilariously.
+
+'I'll fool no more wi' ye, losing my time; I won't; but mind ye, I'll speak
+wi' Silas.' And going away he put his hand to his crumpled wide-awake, and
+said to me with a surly difference--
+
+'Good evening, Miss Ruthyn--good evening, ma'am--and ye'll please remember,
+I did not mean nout to vex thee.'
+
+And so he swaggered away, jerking and waddling over the sward, and was soon
+lost in the wood.
+
+'It's well he's a little bit frightened--I never saw him so angry, I think;
+he is awful mad.'
+
+'Perhaps he really is not aware how very rude he is,' I suggested.
+
+'I hate him. We were twice as pleasant with poor Tom Driver--he never
+meddled with any one, and was always in liquor; Old Gin was the name he
+went by. But this brute--I do hate him--he comes from Wigan, I think, and
+he's always spoiling sport--and he whops Meg--that's Beauty, you know, and
+I don't think she'd be half as bad only for him. Listen to him whistlin'.'
+
+'I did hear whistling at some distance among the trees.'
+
+'I declare if he isn't callin' the dogs! Climb up here, I tell ye,' and we
+climbed up the slanting trunk of a great walnut tree, and strained our eyes
+in the direction from which we expected the onset of Pegtop's vicious pack.
+
+But it was a false alarm.
+
+'Well, I don't think he _would_ do that, after all--_hardly_; but he is a
+brute, sure!'
+
+'And that dark girl who would not let us through, is his daughter, is she?'
+
+'Yes, that's Meg--Beauty, I christened her, when I called him Beast; but I
+call him Pegtop now, and she's Beauty still, and that's the way o't.'
+
+'Come, sit down now, an' make your picture,' she resumed so soon as we had
+dismounted from our position of security.
+
+'I'm afraid I'm hardly in the vein. I don't think I could draw a straight
+line. My hand trembles.'
+
+'I wish you could, Maud,' said Milly, with a look so wistful and
+entreating, that considering the excursion she had made for the pencils, I
+could not bear to disappoint her.
+
+'Well, Milly, we must only try; and if we fail we can't help it. Sit you
+down beside me and I'll tell you why I begin with one part and not another,
+and you'll see how I make trees and the river, and--yes, _that_ pencil,
+it is hard and answers for the fine light lines; but we must begin at the
+beginning, and learn to copy drawings before we attempt real views like
+this. And if you wish it, Milly, I'm resolved to teach you everything I
+know, which, after all, is not a great deal, and we shall have such fun
+making sketches of the same landscapes, and then comparing.'
+
+And so on, Milly, quite delighted, and longing to begin her course of
+instruction, sat down beside me in a rapture, and hugged and kissed me so
+heartily that we were very near rolling together off the stone on which we
+were seated. Her boisterous delight and good-nature helped to restore me,
+and both laughing heartily together, I commenced my task.
+
+'Dear me! who's that?' I exclaimed suddenly, as looking up from my
+block-book I saw the figure of a slight man in the careless morning-dress
+of a gentleman, crossing the ruinous bridge in our direction, with
+considerable caution, upon the precarious footing of the battlement, which
+alone offered an unbroken passage.
+
+This was a day of apparitions! Milly recognised him instantly. The
+gentleman was Mr. Carysbroke. He had taken The Grange only for a year. He
+lived quite to himself, and was very good to the poor, and was the only
+gentleman, for ever so long, who had visited at Bartram, and oddly enough
+nowhere else. But he wanted leave to cross through the grounds, and having
+obtained it, had repeated his visit, partly induced, no doubt, by the
+fact that Bartram boasted no hospitalities, and that there was no risk of
+meeting the county folk there.
+
+With a stout walking-stick in his hand, and a short shooting-coat, and a
+wide-awake hat in much better trim than Zamiel's, he emerged from the copse
+that covered the bridge, walking at a quick but easy pace.
+
+'He'll be goin' to see old Snoddles, I guess,' said Milly, looking a little
+frightened and curious; for Milly, I need not say, was a bumpkin, and stood
+in awe of this gentleman's good-breeding, though she was as brave as a
+lion, and would have fought the Philistines at any odds, with the jawbone
+of an ass.
+
+''Appen he won't see us,' whispered Milly, hopefully.
+
+But he did, and raising his hat, with a cheerful smile, that showed very
+white teeth, he paused.
+
+'Charming day, Miss Ruthyn.'
+
+I raised my head suddenly as he spoke, from habit appropriating the
+address; it was so marked that he raised his hat respectfully to me, and
+then continued to Milly--
+
+'Mr. Ruthyn, I hope, quite well? but I need hardly ask, you seem so happy.
+Will you kindly tell him, that I expect the book I mentioned in a day or
+two, and when it comes I'll either send or bring it to him immediately?'
+
+Milly and I were standing, by this time, but she only stared at him,
+tongue-tied, her cheeks rather flushed, and her eyes very round, and to
+facilitate the dialogue, as I suppose, he said again--
+
+'He's quite well, I hope?'
+
+Still no response from Milly, and I, provoked, though myself a little shy,
+made answer--
+
+'My uncle, Mr. Ruthyn, is very well, thank you,' and I felt that I blushed
+as I spoke.
+
+'Ah, pray excuse me, may I take a great liberty? you are Miss Ruthyn,
+of Knowl? Will you think me very impertinent--I'm afraid you will--if I
+venture to introduce myself? My name is Carysbroke, and I had the honour of
+knowing poor Mr. Ruthyn when I was quite a little boy, and he has shown a
+kindness for me since, and I hope you will pardon the liberty I fear I've
+taken. I think my friend, Lady Knollys, too, is a relation of yours; what a
+charming person she is!'
+
+'Oh, is not she? such a darling!' I said, and then blushed at my outspoken
+affection.
+
+But he smiled kindly, as if he liked me for it; and he said--
+
+'You know whatever I think, I dare not quite say that; but frankly I can
+quite understand it. She preserves her youth so wonderfully, and her fun
+and her good-nature are so entirely girlish. What a sweet view you have
+selected,' he continued, changing all at once. 'I've stood just at
+this point so often to look back at that exquisite old bridge. Do you
+observe--you're an artist, I see--something very peculiar in that tint of
+the grey, with those odd cross stains of faded red and yellow?'
+
+'I do, indeed; I was just remarking the peculiar beauty of the
+colouring--was not I, Milly?'
+
+Milly stared at me, and uttered an alarmed 'Yes,' and looked as if she had
+been caught in a robbery.
+
+'Yes, and you have so very peculiar a background,' he resumed. 'It was
+better before the storm though; but it is very good still.'
+
+Then a little pause, and 'Do you know this country at all?' rather
+suddenly.
+
+'No, not in the least--that is, I've only had the drive to this place; but
+what I did see interested me very much.'
+
+'You will be charmed with it when you know it better--the very place for an
+artist. I'm a wretched scribbler myself, and I carry this little book in
+my pocket,' and he laughed deprecatingly while he drew forth a thin
+fishing-book, as it looked. 'They are mere memoranda, you see. I walk so
+much and come unexpectedly on such pretty nooks and studies, I just try
+to make a note of them, but it is really more writing than sketching; my
+sister says it is a cipher which nobody but myself understands. However,
+I'll try and explain just two--because you really ought to go and see the
+places. Oh, no; not that,' he laughed, as accidentally the page blew over,
+'that's the Cat and Fiddle, a curious little pot-house, where they gave me
+some very good ale one day.'
+
+Milly at this exhibited some uneasy tokens of being about to speak, but not
+knowing what might be coming, I hastened to observe on the spirited little
+sketches to which he meant to draw my attention.
+
+'I want to show you only the places within easy reach--a short ride or
+drive.'
+
+So he proceeded to turn over two or three, in addition to the two he had
+at first proposed, and then another; then a little sketch just tinted, and
+really quite a charming little gem, of Cousin Monica's pretty gabled old
+house; and every subject had its little criticism, or its narrative, or
+adventure.
+
+As he was about returning this little sketch-book to his pocket, still
+chatting to me, he suddenly recollected poor Milly, who was looking rather
+lowering; but she brightened a good deal as he presented it to her, with a
+little speech which she palpably misunderstood, for she made one of her odd
+courtesies, and was about, I thought, to put it into her large pocket, and
+accept it as a present.
+
+'Look at the drawings, Milly, and then return it,' I whispered.
+
+At his request I allowed him to look at my unfinished sketch of the bridge,
+and while he was measuring distances and proportions with his eye, Milly
+whispered rather angrily to me.
+
+'And why should I?'
+
+'Because he wants it back, and only meant to lend it to you,' whispered I.
+
+'_Lend_ it to me--and after you! Bury-me-wick if I look at a leaf of it,'
+she retorted in high dudgeon. 'Take it, lass; give it him yourself--I'll
+not,' and she popped it into my hand, and made a sulky step back.
+
+'My cousin is very much obliged,' I said, returning the book, and smiling
+for her, and he took it smiling also and said--
+
+'I think if I had known how very well you draw, Miss Ruthyn, I should have
+hesitated about showing you my poor scrawls. But these are not my best, you
+know; Lady Knollys will tell you that I can really do better--a great deal
+better, I think.'
+
+And then with more apologies for what he called his impertinence, he took
+his leave, and I felt altogether very much pleased and flattered.
+
+He could not be more than twenty-nine or thirty, I thought, and he was
+decidedly handsome--that is, his eyes and teeth, and clear brown complexion
+were--and there was something distinguished and graceful in his figure
+and gesture; and altogether there was the indescribable attraction of
+intelligence; and I fancied--though this, of course, was a secret--that
+from the moment he spoke to us he felt an interest in me. I am not going to
+be vain. It was a _grave_ interest, but still an interest, for I could see
+him studying my features while I was turning over his sketches, and he
+thought I saw nothing else. It was flattering, too, his anxiety that
+I should think well of his drawing, and referring me to Lady Knollys.
+Carysbroke--had I ever heard my dear father mention that name? I could not
+recollect it. But then he was habitually so silent, that his not doing so
+argued nothing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+_WE VISIT A ROOM IN THE SECOND STOREY_
+
+
+Mr. Carysbroke amused my fancy sufficiently to prevent my observing Milly's
+silence, till we had begun our return homeward.
+
+'The Grange must be a pretty house, if that little sketch be true; is it
+far from this?'
+
+''Twill be two mile.'
+
+'Are you vexed, Milly?' I asked, for both her tone and looks were angry.
+
+'Yes, I am vexed; and why not lass?'
+
+'What has happened?'
+
+'Well, now, that is rich! Why, look at that fellow, Carysbroke: he took no
+more notice to me than a dog, and kep' talking to you all the time of his
+pictures, and his walks, and his people. Why, a pig's better manners than
+that.'
+
+'But, Milly dear, you forget, he tried to talk to you, and you would not
+answer him,' I expostulated.
+
+'And is not that just what I say--I can't talk like other folk--ladies, I
+mean. Every one laughs at me; an' I'm dressed like a show, I am. It's a
+shame! I saw Polly Shives--what a lady she is, my eyes!--laughing at me in
+church last Sunday. I was minded to give her a bit of my mind. An' I know
+I'm queer. It's a shame, it is. Why should _I_ be so rum? it is a shame! I
+don't want to be so, nor it isn't my fault.'
+
+And poor Milly broke into a flood of tears, and stamped on the ground, and
+buried her face in her short frock, which she whisked up to her eyes; and
+an odder figure of grief I never beheld.
+
+'And I could not make head or tail of what he was saying,' cried poor Milly
+through her buff cotton, with a stamp; 'and you twigged every word o't. An'
+why am I so? It's a shame--a shame! Oh, ho, ho! it's a shame!'
+
+'But, my dear Milly, we were talking of _drawing_, and you have not learned
+yet, but you shall--I'll teach you; and then you'll understand all about
+it.'
+
+'An' every one laughs at me--even you; though you try, Maud, you can scarce
+keep from laughing sometimes. I don't blame you, for I know I'm queer; but
+I can't help it; and it's a shame.'
+
+'Well, my dear Milly, listen to me: if you allow me, I assure you, I'll
+teach you all the music and drawing I know. You have lived very much
+alone; and, as you say, ladies have a way of speaking of their own that is
+different from the talk of other people.'
+
+'Yes, that they have, an' gentlemen too--like the Governor, and that
+Carysbroke; and a precious lingo it is--dang it--why, the devil himself
+could not understand it; an' I'm like a fool among you. I could 'most drown
+myself. It's a shame! It is--you know it is.--It's a shame!'
+
+'But I'll teach you that lingo too, if you wish it, Milly; and you shall
+know everything that I know; and I'll manage to have your dresses better
+made.'
+
+By this time she was looking very ruefully, but attentively, in my face,
+her round eyes and nose swelled, and her cheeks all wet.
+
+'I think if they were a little longer--yours is longer, you know;' and the
+sentence was interrupted by a sob.
+
+'Now, Milly, you must not be crying; if you choose you may be just as the
+same as any other lady--and you shall; and you will be very much admired, I
+can tell you, if only you will take the trouble to quite unlearn all your
+odd words and ways, and dress yourself like other people; and I will take
+care of that if you let me; and I think you are very clever, Milly; and I
+know you are very pretty.'
+
+Poor Milly's blubbered face expanded into a smile in spite of herself; but
+she shook her head, looking down.
+
+'Noa, noa, Maud, I fear 'twon't be.' And indeed it seemed I had proposed to
+myself a labour of Hercules.
+
+But Milly was really a clever creature, could see quickly, and when her
+ungainly dialect was mastered, describe very pleasantly; and if only she
+would endure the restraint and possessed the industry requisite, I did not
+despair, and was resolved at least to do my part.
+
+Poor Milly! she was really very grateful, and entered into the project of
+her education with great zeal, and with a strange mixture of humility and
+insubordination.
+
+Milly was in favour of again attacking 'Beauty's' position on her return,
+and forcing a passage from this side; but I insisted on following the route
+by which we had arrived, and so we got round the paling by the river, and
+were treated to a provoking grin of defiance by 'Beauty,' who was talking
+across the gate to a slim young man, arrayed in fustian, and with an
+odd-looking cap of rabbit-skin on his head, which, on seeing us, he pulled
+sheepishly to the side of his face next to us, as he lounged, with his arm
+under his chin, on the top bar of the gate.
+
+After our encounter of to-day, indeed, it was Miss 'Beauty's' wont to
+exhibit a kind of jeering disdain in her countenance whenever we passed.
+
+I think Milly would have engaged her again, had I not reminded her of her
+undertaking, and exerted my new authority.
+
+'Look at that sneak, Pegtop, there, going up the path to the mill. He makes
+belief now he does not see us; but he does, though, only he's afraid we'll
+tell the Governor, and he thinks Governor won't give him his way with you.
+I hate that Pegtop: he stopped me o' riding the cows a year ago, he did.'
+
+I thought Pegtop might have done worse. Indeed it was plain that a total
+reformation was needed here; and I was glad to find that poor Milly seemed
+herself conscious of it; and that her resolution to become more like other
+people of her station was not a mere spasm of mortification and jealousy,
+but a genuine and very zealous resolve.
+
+I had not half seen this old house of Bartram-Haugh yet. At first, indeed,
+I had but an imperfect idea of its extent. There was a range of rooms along
+one side of the great gallery, with closed window-shutters, and the doors
+generally locked. Old L'Amour grew cross when we went into them, although
+we could see nothing; and Milly was afraid to open the windows--not that
+any Bluebeard revelations were apprehended, but simply because she knew
+that Uncle Silas's order was that things should be left undisturbed; and
+this boisterous spirit stood in awe of him to a degree which his gentle
+manners and apparent quietude rendered quite surprising.
+
+There were in this house, what certainly did not exist at Knowl, and what
+I have never observed, thought they may possibly be found in other old
+houses--I mean, here and there, very high hatches, which we could only
+peep over by jumping in the air. They crossed the long corridors and great
+galleries; and several of them were turned across and locked, so as to
+intercept the passage, and interrupt our explorations.
+
+Milly, however, knew a queer little, very steep and dark back stair, which
+reached the upper floor; so she and I mounted, and made a long ramble
+through rooms much lower and ruder in finish than the lordly chambers we
+had left below. These commanded various views of the beautiful though
+neglected grounds; but on crossing a gallery we entered suddenly a chamber,
+which looked into a small and dismal quadrangle, formed by the inner walls
+of this great house, and of course designed only by the architect to afford
+the needful light and air to portions of the structure.
+
+I rubbed the window-pane with my handkerchief and looked out. The
+surrounding roof was steep and high. The walls looked soiled and dark. The
+windows lined with dust and dirt, and the window-stones were in places
+tufted with moss, and grass, and groundsel. An arched doorway had opened
+from the house into this darkened square, but it was soiled and dusty; and
+the damp weeds that overgrew the quadrangle drooped undisturbed against it.
+It was plain that human footsteps tracked it little, and I gazed into that
+blind and sinister area with a strange thrill and sinking.
+
+'This is the second floor--there is the enclosed court-yard'--I, as it
+were, soliloquised.
+
+'What are you afraid of, Maud? you look as ye'd seen a ghost,' exclaimed
+Milly, who came to the window and peeped over my shoulder.
+
+'It reminded me suddenly, Milly, of that frightful business.'
+
+'What business, Maud?--what a plague are ye thinking on?' demanded Milly,
+rather amused.
+
+'It was in one of these rooms--maybe this--yes, it certainly _was_
+this--for see, the panelling has been pulled off the wall--that Mr. Charke
+killed himself.'
+
+I was staring ruefully round the dim chamber, in whose corners the shadows
+of night were already gathering.
+
+'Charke!--what about him?--who's Charke?' asked Milly.
+
+'Why, you must have heard of him,' said I.
+
+'Not as I'm aware on,' answered she. 'And he killed himself, did he, hanged
+himself, eh, or blowed his brains out?'
+
+'He cut his throat in one of these rooms--_this_ one, I'm sure--for your
+papa had the wainscoting stripped from the wall to ascertain whether there
+was any second door through which a murderer could have come; and you see
+these walls are stripped, and bear the marks of the woodwork that has been
+removed,' I answered.
+
+'Well, that _was_ awful! I don't know how they have pluck to cut their
+throats; if I was doing it, I'd like best to put a pistol to my head and
+fire, like the young gentleman did, they say, in Deadman's Hollow. But the
+fellows that cut their throats, they must be awful game lads, I'm thinkin',
+for it's a long slice, you know.'
+
+'Don't, don't, Milly dear. Suppose we come away,' I said, for the evening
+was deepening rapidly into night.
+
+'Hey and bury-me-wick, but here's the blood; don't you see a big black
+cloud all spread over the floor hereabout, don't ye see?' Milly was
+stooping over the spot, and tracing the outline of this, perhaps, imaginary
+mapping, in the air with her finger.
+
+'No, Milly, you could not see it: the floor is too dark, and it's all in
+shadow. It must be fancy; and perhaps, after all, this is not the room.'
+
+'Well--I think, I'm _sure_ it _is_. Stand--just look.'
+
+'We'll come in the morning, and if you are right we can see it better then.
+Come away,' I said, growing frightened.
+
+And just as we stood up to depart, the white high-cauled cap and large
+sallow features of old L'Amour peeped in at the door.
+
+'Lawk! what brings you here?' cried Milly, nearly as much startled as I at
+the intrusion.
+
+'What brings _you_ here, miss?' whistled L'Amour through her gums.
+
+'We're looking where Charke cut his throat,' replied Milly.
+
+'Charke the devil!' said the old woman, with an odd mixture of scorn and
+fury. ''Tisn't his room; and come ye out of it, please. Master won't like
+when he hears how you keep pulling Miss Maud from one room to another, all
+through the house, up and down.'
+
+She was gabbling sternly enough, but dropped a low courtesy as I passed
+her, and with a peaked and nodding stare round the room, the old woman
+clapped the door sharply, and locked it.
+
+'And who has been a talking about Charke--a pack o lies, I warrant. I
+s'pose you want to frighten Miss Maud here' (another crippled courtesy)
+'wi' ghosts and like nonsense.'
+
+'You're out there: 'twas she told me; and much about it. Ghosts, indeed!
+I don't vally them, not I; if I did, I know who'd frighten me,' and Milly
+laughed.
+
+The old woman stuffed the key in her pocket, and her wrinkled mouth pouted
+and receded with a grim uneasiness.
+
+'A harmless brat, and kind she is; but wild--wild--she will be wild.'
+
+So whispered L'Amour in my ear, during the silence that followed, nodding
+shakily toward Milly over the banister, and she courtesied again as we
+departed, and shuffled off toward Uncle Silas's room.
+
+The Governor is queerish this evening,' said Milly, when we were seated at
+our tea. 'You never saw him queerish, did you?'
+
+'You must say what you mean, more plainly, Milly. You don't mean ill, I
+hope?'
+
+'Well! I don't know what it is; but he does grow very queer
+sometimes--you'd think he was dead a'most, maybe two or three days and
+nights together. He sits all the time like an old woman in a swound. Well,
+well, it is awful!'
+
+'Is he insensible when in that state?' I asked, a good deal alarmed.
+
+'I don't know; but it never signifies anything. It won't kill him, I do
+believe; but old L'Amour knows all about it. I hardly ever go into the room
+when he's so, only when I'm sent for; and he sometimes wakes up and takes a
+fancy to call for this one or that. One day he sent for Pegtop all the way
+to the mill; and when he came, he only stared at him for a minute or two,
+and ordered him out o' the room. He's like a child a'most, when he's in one
+o' them dazes.'
+
+I always knew when Uncle Silas was 'queerish,' by the injunctions of old
+L'Amour, whistled and spluttered over the banister as we came up-stairs,
+to mind how we made a noise passing master's door; and by the sound of
+mysterious to-ings and fro-ings about his room.
+
+I saw very little of him. He sometimes took a whim to have us breakfast
+with him, which lasted perhaps for a week; and then the order of our living
+would relapse into its old routine.
+
+I must not forget two kind letters from Lady Knollys, who was detained
+away, and delighted to hear that I enjoyed my quiet life; and promised to
+apply, in person, to Uncle Silas, for permission to visit me.
+
+She was to be for the Christmas at Elverston, and that was only six miles
+away from Bartram-Haugh, so I had the excitement of a pleasant look
+forward.
+
+She also said that she would include poor Milly in her invitation; and a
+vision of Captain Oakley rose before me, with his handsome gaze turned in
+wonder on poor Milly, for whom I had begun to feel myself responsible.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+_AN ARRIVAL AT DEAD OF NIGHT_
+
+
+I have sometimes been asked why I wear an odd little turquois ring--which
+to the uninstructed eye appears quite valueless and altogether an unworthy
+companion of those jewels which flash insultingly beside it. It is a little
+keepsake, of which I became possessed about this time.
+
+'Come, lass, what name shall I give you?' cried Milly, one morning,
+bursting into my room in a state of alarming hilarity.
+
+'My own, Milly.'
+
+'No, but you must have a nickname, like every one else.'
+
+'Don't mind it, Milly.'
+
+'Yes, but I will. Shall I call you Mrs. Bustle?'
+
+'You shall do no such thing.'
+
+'But you must have a name.'
+
+'I refuse a name.'
+
+'But I'll give you one, lass.'
+
+'And _I_ won't have it.'
+
+'But you can't help me christening you.'
+
+'I can decline answering.'
+
+'But I'll make you,' said Milly, growing very red.
+
+Perhaps there was something provoking in my tone, for I certainly was very
+much disgusted at Milly's relapse into barbarism.
+
+'You can't,' I retorted quietly.
+
+'See if I don't, and I'll give ye one twice as ugly.'
+
+I smiled, I fear, disdainfully.
+
+'And I think you're a minx, and a slut, and a fool,' she broke out,
+flushing scarlet.
+
+I smiled in the same unchristian way.
+
+'And I'd give ye a smack o' the cheek as soon as look at you.'
+
+And she gave her dress a great slap, and drew near me, in her wrath. I
+really thought she was about tendering the ordeal of single combat.
+
+I made her, however, a paralysing courtesy, and, with immense dignity,
+sailed out of the room, and into Uncle Silas's study, where it happened we
+were to breakfast that morning, and for several subsequent ones.
+
+During the meal we maintained the most dignified reserve; and I don't think
+either so much as looked at the other.
+
+We had no walk together that day.
+
+I was sitting in the evening, quite alone, when Milly entered the room. Her
+eyes were red, and she looked very sullen.
+
+'I want your hand, cousin,' she said, at the same time taking it by the
+wrist, and administering with it a sudden slap on her plump cheek, which
+made the room ring, and my fingers tingle; and before I had recovered from
+my surprise, she had vanished.
+
+I called after her, but no answer; I pursued, but she was running too; and
+I quite lost her at the cross galleries.
+
+I did not see her at tea, nor before going to bed; but after I had fallen
+asleep I was awakened by Milly, in floods of tears.
+
+'Cousin Maud, will ye forgi' me--you'll never like me again, will ye? No--I
+know ye won't--I'm such a brute--I hate it--it's a shame. And here's a
+Banbury cake for you--I sent to the town for it, and some taffy--won't ye
+eat it? and here's a little ring--'tisn't as pretty as your own rings; and
+ye'll wear it, maybe, for my sake--poor Milly's sake, before I was so bad
+to ye--if ye forgi' me; and I'll look at breakfast, and if it's on your
+finger I'll know you're friends wi' me again; and if ye don't, I won't
+trouble you no more; and I think I'll just drown myself out o' the way, and
+you'll never see wicked Milly no more.'
+
+And without waiting a moment, leaving me only half awake, and with the
+sensations of dreaming, she scampered from the room, in her bare feet, with
+a petticoat about her shoulders.
+
+She had left her candle by my bed, and her little offerings on the coverlet
+by me. If I had stood an atom less in terror of goblins than I did, I
+should have followed her, but I was afraid. I stood in my bare feet at my
+bedside, and kissed the poor little ring and put it on my finger, where it
+has remained ever since and always shall. And when I lay down, longing for
+morning, the image of her pale, imploring, penitential face was before me
+for hours; and I repented bitterly of my cool provoking ways, and thought
+myself, I dare say justly, a thousand times more to blame than Milly.
+
+I searched in vain for her before breakfast. At that meal, however, we met,
+but in the presence of Uncle Silas, who, though silent and apathetic, was
+formidable; and we, sitting at a table disproportionably large, under the
+cold, strange gaze of my guardian, talked only what was inevitable, and
+that in low tones; for whenever Milly for a moment raised her voice, Uncle
+Silas would wince, place his thin white fingers quickly over his ear, and
+look as if a pain had pierced his brain, and then shrug and smile piteously
+into vacancy. When Uncle Silas, therefore, was not in the talking vein
+himself--and that was not often--you may suppose there was very little
+spoken in his presence.
+
+When Milly, across the table, saw the ring upon my finger, she, drawing
+in her breath, said, 'Oh!' and, with round eyes and mouth, she looked so
+delighted; and she made a little motion, as if she was on the point of
+jumping up; and then her poor face quivered, and she bit her lip; and
+staring imploringly at me, her eyes filled fast with tears, which rolled
+down her round penitential cheeks.
+
+I am sure I felt more penitent than she. I know I was crying and smiling,
+and longing to kiss her. I suppose we were very absurd; but it is well that
+small matters can stir the affections so profoundly at a time of life when
+great troubles seldom approach us.
+
+When at length the opportunity did come, never was such a hug out of the
+wrestling ring as poor Milly bestowed on me, swaying me this way and that,
+and burying her face in my dress, and blubbering--
+
+'I was so lonely before you came, and you so good to me, and I such a
+devil; and I'll never call you a name, but Maud--my darling Maud.'
+
+'You must, Milly--Mrs. Bustle. I'll be Mrs. Bustle, or anything you like.
+You must.' I was blubbering like Milly, and hugging my best; and, indeed, I
+wonder how we kept our feet.
+
+So Milly and I were better friends than ever.
+
+Meanwhile, the winter deepened, and we had short days and long nights,
+and long fireside gossipings at Bartram-Haugh. I was frightened at the
+frequency of the strange collapses to which Uncle Silas was subject. I
+did not at first mind them much, for I naturally fell into Milly's way of
+talking about them.
+
+But one day, while in one of his 'queerish' states, he called for me, and I
+saw him, and was unspeakably scared.
+
+In a white wrapper, he lay coiled in a great easy chair. I should have
+thought him dead, had I not been accompanied by old L'Amour, who knew every
+gradation and symptom of these strange affections.
+
+She winked and nodded to me with a ghastly significance, and whispered--
+
+'Don't make no noise, miss, till he talks; he'll come to for a bit, anon.'
+
+Except that there was no sign of convulsions, the countenance was like that
+of an epileptic arrested in one of his contortions.
+
+There was a frown and smirk like that of idiotcy, and a strip of white
+eyeball was also disclosed.
+
+Suddenly, with a kind of chilly shudder, he opened his eyes wide, and
+screwed his lips together, and blinked and stared on me with a fatuised
+uncertainty, that gradually broke into a feeble smile.
+
+'Ah! the girl--Austin's child. Well, dear, I'm hardly able--I'll speak
+to-morrow--next day--it is tic--neuralgia, or something--_torture_--tell
+her.'
+
+So, huddling himself together, he lay again in his great chair, with the
+same inexpressible helplessness in his attitude, and gradually his face
+resumed its dreadful cast.
+
+'Come away, miss: he's changed his mind; he'll not be fit to talk to you
+noways all day, maybe,' said the old woman, again in a whisper.
+
+So forth we stole from the room, I unspeakably shocked. In fact, he looked
+as if he were dying, and so, in my agitation, I told the crone, who,
+forgetting the ceremony with which she usually treated me, chuckled out
+derisively,
+
+'A-dying is he? Well, he be like Saint Paul--he's bin a-dying daily this
+many a day.'
+
+I looked at her with a chill of horror. She did not care, I suppose, what
+sort of feelings she might excite, for she went on mumbling sarcastically
+to herself. I had paused, and overcame my reluctance to speak to her again,
+for I was really very much frightened. 'Do you think he is in danger? Shall
+we send for a doctor?' I whispered.
+
+'Law bless ye, the doctor knows all about it, miss.' The old woman's face
+had a gleam of that derision which is so shocking in the features of
+feebleness and age.
+
+'But it is a _fit_, it is paralytic, or something horrible--it can't be
+_safe_ to leave him to chance or nature to get through these terrible
+attacks.'
+
+'There's no fear of him, 'tisn't no fits at all, he's nout the worse o't.
+Jest silly a bit now and again. It's been the same a dozen year and more;
+and the doctor knows all about it,' answered the old woman sturdily. 'And
+ye'll find he'll be as mad as bedlam if ye make any stir about it.'
+
+That night I talked the matter over with Mary Quince.
+
+'They're very dark, miss; but I think he takes a deal too much laudlum,'
+said Mary.
+
+To this hour I cannot say what was the nature of those periodical seizures.
+I have often spoken to medical men about them, since, but never could learn
+that excessive use of opium could altogether account for them. It was,
+I believe, certain, however, that he did use that drug in startling
+quantities. It was, indeed, sometimes a topic of complaint with him that
+his neuralgia imposed this sad necessity upon him.
+
+The image of Uncle Silas, as I had seen him that day, troubled and
+affrighted my imagination, as I lay in my bed; I had slept very well since
+my arrival at Bartram. So much of the day was passed in the open air, and
+in active exercise, that this was but natural. But that night I was nervous
+and wakeful, and it was past two o'clock when I fancied I heard the sound
+of horses and carriage-wheels on the avenue.
+
+Mary Quince was close by, and therefore I was not afraid to get up and peep
+from the window. My heart beat fast as I saw a post-chaise approach the
+court-yard. A front window was let down, and the postilion pulled up for a
+few seconds.
+
+In consequence of some directions received by him, I fancied he resumed his
+route at a walk, and so drew up at the hall-door, on the steps of which a
+figure awaited his arrival. I think it was old L'Amour, but I could not be
+quite certain. There was a lantern on the top of the balustrade, close by
+the door. The chaise-lamps were lighted, for the night was rather dark. A
+bag and valise, as well as I could see, were pulled from the interior by
+the post-boy, and a box from the top of the vehicle, and these were carried
+into the hall.
+
+I was obliged to keep my cheek against the window-pane to command a view
+of the point of debarkation, and my breath upon the glass, which dimmed it
+again almost as fast as I wiped it away, helped to obscure my vision. But
+I saw a tall figure, in a cloak, get down and swiftly enter the house, but
+whether male or female I could not discern.
+
+My heart beat fast. I jumped at once to a conclusion. My uncle was
+worse--was, in fact, dying; and this was the physician, too late summoned
+to his bedside.
+
+I listened for the ascent of the doctor, and his entrance at my uncle's
+door, which, in the stillness of the night, I thought I might easily hear,
+but no sound reached me. I listened so for fully five minutes, but
+without result. I returned to the window, but the carriage and horses had
+disappeared.
+
+I was strongly tempted to wake Mary Quince, and take counsel with her, and
+persuade her to undertake a reconnoissance. The fact is, I was persuaded
+that my uncle was in extremity, and I was quite wild to know the doctor's
+opinion. But, after all, it would be cruel to summon the good soul from her
+refreshing nap. So, as I began to feel very cold, I returned to my bed,
+where I continued to listen and conjecture until I fell asleep.
+
+In the morning, as was usual, before I was dressed, in came Milly.
+
+'How is Uncle Silas?' I eagerly enquired.
+
+'Old L'Amour says he's queerish still; but he's not so dull as yesterday,'
+answered she.
+
+'Was not the doctor sent for?' I asked.
+
+'Was he? Well, that's odd; and she said never a word o't to me,' answered
+she.
+
+'I'm asking only,' said I.
+
+'I don't know whether he came or no,' she replied; 'but what makes you take
+that in your head?'
+
+'A chaise arrived here between two and three o'clock last night.'
+
+'Hey! and who told you?' Milly seemed all on a sudden highly interested.
+
+'I saw it, Milly; and some one, I fancy the doctor, came from it into the
+house.'
+
+'Fudge, lass! who'd send for the doctor? 'Twasn't he, I tell you. What was
+he like?' said Milly.
+
+'I could only see clearly that he, or _she_, was tall, and wore a cloak,' I
+replied.
+
+'Then 'twasn't him nor t'other I was thinking on, neither; and I'll be
+hanged but I think it will be Cormoran,' cried Milly, with a thoughtful rap
+with her knuckle on the table.
+
+Precisely at this juncture a tapping came to the door.
+
+'Come in,' said I.
+
+And old L'Amour entered the room, with a courtesy.
+
+'I came to tell Miss Quince her breakfast's ready,' said the old lady.
+
+'Who came in the chaise, L'Amour?' demanded Milly.
+
+'What chaise?' spluttered the beldame tartly.
+
+'The chaise that came last night, past two o'clock,' said Milly.
+
+'That's a lie, and a damn lie!' cried the beldame. 'There worn't no chaise
+at the door since Miss Maud there come from Knowl.'
+
+I stared at the audacious old menial who could utter such language.
+
+'Yes, there was a chaise, and Cormoran, as I think, be come in it,' said
+Milly, who seemed accustomed to L'Amour's daring address.
+
+'And there's another damn lie, as big as the t'other,' said the crone, her
+haggard and withered face flushing orange all over.
+
+'I beg you will not use such language in my room,' I replied, very angrily.
+'I saw the chaise at the door; your untruth signifies very little, but
+your impertinence here I will not permit. Should it be repeated, I will
+assuredly complain to my uncle.'
+
+The old woman flushed more fiercely as I spoke, and fixed her bleared glare
+on me, with a compression of her mouth that amounted to a wicked grimace.
+She resisted her angry impulse, however, and only chuckled a little
+spitefully, saying,
+
+'No offence, miss: it be a way we has in Derbyshire o' speaking our minds.
+No offence, miss, were meant, and none took, as I hopes,' and she made me
+another courtesy. 'And I forgot to tell you, Miss Milly, the master wants
+you this minute.'
+
+So Milly, in mute haste, withdrew, followed closely by L'Amour.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII
+
+_DOCTOR BRYERLY EMERGES_
+
+
+When Milly joined me at breakfast, her eyes were red and swollen. She was
+still sniffing with that little sobbing hiccough, which betrays, even were
+there no other signs, recent violent weeping. She sat down quite silent.
+
+'Is he worse, Milly?' I enquired, anxiously.
+
+'No, nothing's wrong wi' him; he's right well,' said Milly, fiercely.
+
+'What's the matter then, Milly dear?'
+
+'The poisonous old witch! 'Twas just to tell the Gov'nor how I'd said 'twas
+Cormoran that came by the po'shay last night.'
+
+'And who is Cormoran?' I enquired.
+
+'Ay, there it is; I'd like to tell, and you want to hear--and I just
+daren't, for he'll send me off right to a French school--hang it--hang them
+all!--if I do.'
+
+'And why should Uncle Silas care?' said I, a good deal surprised.
+
+'They're a-tellin' lies.'
+
+'Who?' said I.
+
+'L'Amour--that's who. So soon as she made her complaint of me, the Gov'nor
+asked her, sharp enough, did anyone come last night, or a po'shay; and she
+was ready to swear there was no one. Are ye quite sure, Maud, you really
+did see aught, or 'appen 'twas all a dream?'
+
+'It was no dream, Milly; so sure as you are there, I saw exactly what I
+told you,' I replied.
+
+'Gov'nor won't believe it anyhow; and he's right mad wi' me; and he
+threatens me he'll have me off to France; I wish 'twas under the sea. I
+hate France--I do--like the devil. Don't you? They're always a-threatening
+me wi' France, if I dare say a word more about the po'shay, or--or anyone.'
+
+I really was curious about Cormoran; but Cormoran was not to be defined
+to me by Milly; nor did she, in reality, know more than I respecting the
+arrival of the night before.
+
+One day I was surprised to see Doctor Bryerly on the stairs. I was standing
+in a dark gallery as he walked across the floor of the lobby to my uncle's
+door, his hat on, and some papers in his hand.
+
+He did not see me; and when he had entered Uncle Silas's door, I went down
+and found Milly awaiting me in the hall.
+
+'So Doctor Bryerly is here,' I said.
+
+'That's the thin fellow, wi' the sharp look, and the shiny black coat, that
+went up just now?' asked Milly.
+
+'Yes, he's gone into your papa's room,' said I.
+
+''Appen 'twas he come 'tother night. He may be staying here, though we see
+him seldom, for it's a barrack of a house--it is.'
+
+The same thought had struck me for a moment, but was dismissed immediately.
+It certainly was _not_ Doctor Bryerly's figure which I had seen.
+
+So, without any new light gathered from this apparition, we went on our
+way, and made our little sketch of the ruined bridge. We found the gate
+locked as before; and, as Milly could not persuade me to climb it, we got
+round the paling by the river's bank.
+
+While at our drawing, we saw the swarthy face, sooty locks, and old
+weather-stained red coat of Zamiel, who was glowering malignly at us
+from among the trunks of the forest trees, and standing motionless as a
+monumental figure in the side aisle of a cathedral. When we looked again he
+was gone.
+
+Although it was a fine mild day for the wintry season, we yet, cloaked as
+we were, could not pursue so still an occupation as sketching for more than
+ten or fifteen minutes. As we returned, in passing a clump of trees, we
+heard a sudden outbreak of voices, angry and expostulatory; and saw, under
+the trees, the savage old Zamiel strike his daughter with his stick two
+great blows, one of which was across the head. 'Beauty' ran only a short
+distance away, while the swart old wood-demon stumped lustily after her,
+cursing and brandishing his cudgel.
+
+My blood boiled. I was so shocked that for a moment I could not speak; but
+in a moment more I screamed--
+
+'You brute! How dare you strike the poor girl?'
+
+She had only run a few steps, and turned about confronting him and us, her
+eyes gleaming fire, her features pale and quivering to suppress a burst of
+weeping. Two little rivulets of blood were trickling over her temple.
+
+'I say, fayther, look at that,' she said, with a strange tremulous smile,
+lifting her hand, which was smeared with blood.
+
+Perhaps he was ashamed, and the more enraged on that account, for he
+growled another curse, and started afresh to reach her, whirling his stick
+in the air. Our voices, however, arrested him.
+
+'My uncle shall hear of your brutality. The poor girl!'
+
+'Strike him, Meg, if he does it again; and pitch his leg into the river
+to-night, when he's asleep.'
+
+'I'd serve _you_ the same;' and out came an oath. 'You'd have her lick her
+fayther, would ye? Look out!'
+
+And he wagged his head with a scowl at Milly, and a flourish of his cudgel.
+
+'Be quiet, Milly,' I whispered, for Milly was preparing for battle; and I
+again addressed him with the assurance that, on reaching home, I would tell
+my uncle how he had treated the poor girl.
+
+''Tis you she may thank for't, a wheedling o' her to open that gate,' he
+snarled.
+
+'That's a lie; we went round by the brook,' cried Milly.
+
+I did not think proper to discuss the matter with him; and looking very
+angry, and, I thought, a little put out, he jerked and swayed himself out
+of sight. I merely repeated my promise of informing my uncle as he went, to
+which, over his shoulder, he bawled--
+
+'Silas won't mind ye _that_;' snapping his horny finger and thumb.
+
+The girl remained where she had stood, wiping the blood off roughly with
+the palm of her hand, and looking at it before she rubbed it on her apron.
+'My poor girl,' I said, 'you must not cry. I'll speak to my uncle about
+you.'
+
+But she was not crying. She raised her head, and looked at us a little
+askance, with a sullen contempt, I thought.
+
+'And you must have these apples--won't you?' We had brought in our basket
+two or three of those splendid apples for which Bartram was famous.
+
+I hesitated to go near her, these Hawkeses, Beauty and Pegtop, were such
+savages. So I rolled the apples gently along the ground to her feet.
+
+She continued to look doggedly at us with the same expression, and kicked
+away the apples sullenly that approached her feet. Then, wiping her temple
+and forehead in her apron, without a word, she turned and walked slowly
+away.
+
+'Poor thing! I'm afraid she leads a hard life. What strange, repulsive
+people they are!'
+
+When we reached home, at the head of the great staircase old L'Amour was
+awaiting me; and with a courtesy, and very respectfully, she informed me
+that the Master would be happy to see me.
+
+Could it be about my evidence as to the arrival of the mysterious chaise
+that he summoned me to this interview? Gentle as were his ways, there was
+something undefinable about Uncle Silas which inspired fear; and I should
+have liked few things less than meeting his gaze in the character of a
+culprit.
+
+There was an uncertainty, too, as to the state in which I might find him,
+and a positive horror of beholding him again in the condition in which I
+had last seen him.
+
+I entered the room, then, in some trepidation, but was instantly relieved.
+Uncle Silas was in the same health apparently, and, as nearly as I could
+recollect it, in precisely the same rather handsome though negligent garb
+in which I had first seen him.
+
+Doctor Bryerly--what a marked and vulgar contrast, and yet, somehow, how
+reassuring!--sat at the table near him, and was tying up papers. His eyes
+watched me, I thought, with an anxious scrutiny as I approached; and I
+think it was not until I had saluted him that he recollected suddenly that
+he had not seen me before at Bartram, and stood up and greeted me in his
+usual abrupt and somewhat familiar way. It was vulgar and not cordial, and
+yet it was honest and indefinably kind. Up rose my uncle, that strangely
+venerable, pale portrait, in his loose Rembrandt black velvet. How gentle,
+how benignant, how unearthly, and inscrutable!
+
+'I need not say how she is. Those lilies and roses, Doctor Bryerly, speak
+their own beautiful praises of the air of Bartram. I almost regret that her
+carriage will be home so soon. I only hope it may not abridge her rambles.
+It positively does me good to look at her. It is the glow of flowers in
+winter, and the fragrance of a field which the Lord hath blessed.'
+
+'Country air, Miss Ruthyn, is a right good kitchen to country fare. I like
+to see young women eat heartily. You have had some pounds of beef and
+mutton since I saw you last,' said Dr. Bryerly.
+
+And this sly speech made, he scrutinised my countenance in silence rather
+embarrassingly.
+
+'My system, Doctor Bryerly, as a disciple of Aesculapius you will
+approve--health first, accomplishment afterwards. The Continent is the
+best field for elegant instruction, and we must see the world a little,
+by-and-by, Maud; and to me, if my health be spared, there would be an
+unspeakable though a melancholy charm in the scenes where so many happy,
+though so many wayward and foolish, young days were passed; and I think I
+should return to these picturesque solitudes with, perhaps, an increased
+relish. You remember old Chaulieu's sweet lines--
+
+  Désert, aimable solitude,
+  Séjour du calme et de la paix,
+  Asile où n'entrèrent jamais
+  Le tumulte et l'inquiétude.
+
+I can't say that care and sorrow have not sometimes penetrated these sylvan
+fastnesses; but the tumults of the world, thank Heaven!--never.'
+
+There was a sly scepticism, I thought, in Doctor Bryerly's sharp face; and
+hardly waiting for the impressive 'never,' he said--
+
+'I forgot to ask, who is your banker?'
+
+'Oh! Bartlet and Hall, Lombard Street,' answered Uncle Silas, dryly and
+shortly.
+
+Dr. Bryerly made a note of it, with an expression of face which seemed,
+with a sly resolution, to say, 'You shan't come the anchorite over me.'
+
+I saw Uncle Silas's wild and piercing eye rest suspiciously on me for a
+moment, as if to ascertain whether I felt the spirit of Doctor Bryerly's
+almost interruption; and, nearly at the same moment, stuffing his papers
+into his capacious coat pockets, Doctor Bryerly rose and took his leave.
+
+When he was gone, I bethought me that now was a good opportunity of making
+my complaint of Dickon Hawkes. Uncle Silas having risen, I hesitated, and
+began,
+
+'Uncle, may I mention an occurrence--which I witnessed?'
+
+'Certainly, child,' he answered, fixing his eye sharply on me. I really
+think he fancied that the conversation was about to turn upon the phantom
+chaise.
+
+So I described the scene which had shocked Milly and me, an hour or so ago,
+in the Windmill Wood.
+
+'You see, my dear child, they are rough persons; their ideas are not ours;
+their young people must be chastised, and in a way and to a degree that we
+would look upon in a serious light. I've found it a bad plan interfering in
+strictly domestic misunderstandings, and should rather not.'
+
+'But he struck her violently on the head, uncle, with a heavy cudgel, and
+she was bleeding very fast.'
+
+'Ah?' said my uncle, dryly.
+
+'And only that Milly and I deterred him by saying that we would certainly
+tell you, he would have struck her again; and I really think if he goes on
+treating her with so much violence and cruelty he may injure her seriously,
+or perhaps kill her.'
+
+'Why, you romantic little child, people in that rank of life think
+absolutely nothing of a broken head,' answered Uncle Silas, in the same
+way.
+
+'But is it not horrible brutality, uncle?'
+
+'To be sure it is brutality; but then you must remember they are brutes,
+and it suits them,' said he.
+
+I was disappointed. I had fancied that Uncle Silas's gentle nature would
+have recoiled from such an outrage with horror and indignation; and
+instead, here he was, the apologist of that savage ruffian, Dickon Hawkes.
+
+'And he is always so rude and impertinent to Milly and to me,' I continued.
+'Oh! impertinent to you--that's another matter. I must see to that. Nothing
+more, my dear child?'
+
+'Well, there _was_ nothing more.'
+
+'He's a useful servant, Hawkes; and though his looks are not prepossessing,
+and his ways and language rough, yet he is a very kind father, and a most
+honest man--a thoroughly moral man, though severe--a very rough diamond
+though, and has no idea of the refinements of polite society. I venture to
+say he honestly believes that he has been always unexceptionably polite to
+you, so we must make allowances.'
+
+And Uncle Silas smoothed my hair with his thin aged hand, and kissed my
+forehead.
+
+'Yes, we must make allowances; we must be kind. What says the Book?--"Judge
+not, that ye be not judged." Your dear father acted upon that maxim--so
+noble and so awful--and I strive to do so. Alas! dear Austin, _longo
+intervalle_, far behind! and you are removed--my example and my help; you
+are gone to your rest, and I remain beneath my burden, still marching on by
+bleak and alpine paths, under the awful night.
+
+  O nuit, nuit douloureuse! O toi, tardive aurore!
+  Viens-tu? vas-tu venir? es-tu bien loin encore?
+
+And repeating these lines of Chenier, with upturned eyes, and one hand
+lifted, and an indescribable expression of grief and fatigue, he sank
+stiffly into his chair, and remained mute, with eyes closed for some time.
+Then applying his scented handkerchief to them hastily, and looking very
+kindly at me, he said--
+
+'Anything more, dear child?'
+
+'Nothing, uncle, thank you, very much, only about that man, Hawkes; I dare
+say that he does not mean to be so uncivil as he is, but I am really afraid
+of him, and he makes our walks in that direction quite unpleasant.'
+
+'I understand quite, my dear. I will see to it; and you must remember that
+nothing is to be allowed to vex my beloved niece and ward during her stay
+at Bartram--nothing that her old kinsman, Silas Ruthyn, can remedy.'
+
+So with a tender smile, and a charge to shut the door 'perfectly, but
+without clapping it,' he dismissed me. Doctor Bryerly had not slept at
+Bartram, but at the little inn in Feltram, and he was going direct to
+London, as I afterwards learned.
+
+'Your ugly doctor's gone away in a fly,' said Milly, as we met on the
+stairs, she running up, I down.
+
+On reaching the little apartment which was our sitting-room, however, I
+found that she was mistaken; for Doctor Bryerly, with his hat and a great
+pair of woollen gloves on, and an old Oxford grey surtout that showed his
+lank length to advantage, buttoned all the way up to his chin, had set down
+his black leather bag on the table, and was reading at the window a little
+volume which I had borrowed from my uncle's library.
+
+It was Swedenborg's account of the other worlds, Heaven and Hell.
+
+He closed it on his finger as I entered, and without recollecting to remove
+his hat, he made a step or two towards me with his splay, creaking boots.
+With a quick glance at the door, he said--
+
+'Glad to see you alone for a minute--very glad.'
+
+But his countenance, on the contrary, looked very anxious.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII
+
+_A MIDNIGHT DEPARTURE_
+
+
+'I'm going this minute--I--I want to know'--another glance at the
+door--'are you really quite comfortable here?'
+
+'Quite,' I answered promptly.
+
+'You have only your cousin's company?' he continued, glancing at the table,
+which was laid for two.
+
+'Yes; but Milly and I are very happy together.'
+
+'That's very nice; but I think there are no teachers, you see--painters,
+and singers, and that sort of thing that is usual with young ladies. No
+teachers of that kind--of _any_ kind--are there?' 'No; my uncle thinks it
+better I should lay in a store of health, he says.'
+
+'I know; and the carriage and horses have not come; how soon are they
+expected?'
+
+'I really can't say, and I assure you I don't much care. I think running
+about great fun.'
+
+'You walk to church?'
+
+'Yes; Uncle Silas's carriage wants a new wheel, he told me.'
+
+'Ay, but a young woman of your rank, you know, it is not usual she should
+be without the use of a carriage. Have you horses to ride?'
+
+I shook my head.
+
+'Your uncle, you know, has a very liberal allowance for your maintenance
+and education.'
+
+I remembered something in the will about it, and Mary Quince was constantly
+grumbling that 'he did not spend a pound a week on our board.'
+
+I answered nothing, but looked down.
+
+Another glance at the door from Doctor Bryerly's sharp black eyes.
+
+'Is he kind to you?'
+
+'Very kind--most gentle and affectionate.'
+
+'Why doesn't he keep company with you? Does he ever dine with you, or drink
+tea, or talk to you? Do you see much of him?'
+
+'He is a miserable invalid--his hours and regimen are peculiar. Indeed
+I wish very much you would consider his case; he is, I believe, often
+insensible for a long time, and his mind in a strange feeble state
+sometimes.'
+
+'I dare say--worn out in his young days; and I saw that preparation of
+opium in his bottle--he takes too much.'
+
+'Why do you think so, Doctor Bryerly?'
+
+'It's made on water: the spirit interferes with the use of it beyond a
+certain limit. You have no idea what those fellows can swallow. Read the
+"Opium Eater." I knew two cases in which the quantity exceeded De Quincy's.
+Aha! it's new to you?' and he laughed quietly at my simplicity.
+
+'And what do you think his complaint is?' I asked.
+
+'Pooh! I haven't a notion; but, probably, one way or another, he has been
+all his days working on his nerves and his brain. These men of pleasure,
+who have no other pursuit, use themselves up mostly, and pay a smart price
+for their sins. And so he's kind and affectionate, but hands you over to
+your cousin and the servants. Are his people civil and obliging?'
+
+'Well, I can't say much for them; there is a man named Hawkes, and his
+daughter, who are very rude, and even abusive sometimes, and say they have
+orders from my uncle to shut us out from a portion of the grounds; but I
+don't believe that, for Uncle Silas never alluded to it when I was making
+my complaint of them to-day.'
+
+'From what part of the grounds is that?' asked Doctor Bryerly, sharply.
+
+I described the situation as well as I could.
+
+'Can we see it from this?' he asked, peeping from the window.
+
+'Oh, no.'
+
+Doctor Bryerly made a note in his pocket-book here, and I said--
+
+'But I am really quite sure it was a story of Dickon's, he is such a surly,
+disobliging man.'
+
+'And what sort is that old servant that came in and out of his room?'
+
+'Oh, that is old L'Amour,' I answered, rather indirectly, and forgetting
+that I was using Milly's nickname.
+
+'And is _she_ civil?' he asked.
+
+No, she certainly was not; a most disagreeable old woman, with a vein of
+wickedness. I thought I had heard her swearing.
+
+'They don't seem to be a very engaging lot,' said Doctor Bryerly;' but
+where there's one, there will be more. See here, I was just reading a
+passage,' and he opened the little volume at the place where his finger
+marked it, and read for me a few sentences, the purport of which I well
+remember, although, of course, the words have escaped me.
+
+It was in that awful portion of the book which assumes to describe the
+condition of the condemned; and it said that, independently of the physical
+causes in that state operating to enforce community of habitation, and an
+isolation from superior spirits, there exist sympathies, aptitudes,
+and necessities which would, of themselves, induce that depraved
+gregariousness, and isolation too. 'And what of the rest of the servants,
+are they better?' he resumed.
+
+We saw little or nothing of the others, except of old 'Giblets,' the
+butler, who went about like a little automaton of dry bones, poking here
+and there, and whispering and smiling to himself as he laid the cloth; and
+seeming otherwise quite unconscious of an external world.
+
+'This room is not got up like Mr. Ruthyn's: does he talk of furnishings and
+making things a little smart? No! Well, I must say, I think he might.'
+
+Here there was a little silence, and Doctor Bryerly, with his accustomed
+simultaneous glance at the door, said in low, cautious tones, very
+distinctly--
+
+'Have you been thinking at all over that matter again, I mean about getting
+your uncle to forego his guardianship? I would not mind his first refusal.
+You could make it worth his while, unless he--that is--unless he's very
+unreasonable indeed; and I think you would consult your interest, Miss
+Ruthyn, by doing so and, if possible, getting out of this place.'
+
+'But I have not thought of it at all; I am much happier here than I had at
+all expected, and I am very fond of my cousin Milly.'
+
+'How long have you been here exactly?'
+
+I told him. It was some two or three months.
+
+'Have you seen your other cousin yet--the young gentleman?'
+
+'No.'
+
+'H'm! Aren't you very lonely?' he enquired.
+
+'We see no visitors here; but that, you know, I was prepared for.'
+
+Doctor Bryerly read the wrinkles on his splay boot intently and peevishly,
+and tapped the sole lightly on the ground.
+
+'Yes, it is very lonely, and the people a bad lot. You'd be pleasanter
+somewhere else--with Lady Knollys, for instance, eh?'
+
+'Well, _there_ certainly. But I am very well here: really the time passes
+very pleasantly; and my uncle is so kind. I have only to mention anything
+that annoys me, and he will see that it is remedied: he is always
+impressing that on me.'
+
+'Yes, it is not a fit place for you,' said Doctor Bryerly. 'Of course,
+about your uncle,' he resumed, observing my surprised look, 'it is all
+right: but he's quite helpless, you know. At all events, _think_ about it.
+Here's my address--Hans Emmanuel Bryerly, M.D., 17 King Street, Covent
+Garden, London--don't lose it, mind,' and he tore the leaf out of his
+note-book.
+
+'Here's my fly at the door, and you must--you must' (he was looking at his
+watch)--'mind you _must_ think of it seriously; and so, you see, don't let
+anyone see that. You'll be sure to leave it throwing about. The best way
+will be just to scratch it on the door of your press, inside, you know; and
+don't put my name--you'll remember that--only the rest of the address; and
+burn this. Quince is with you?'
+
+'Yes,' I answered, glad to have a satisfactory word to say.
+
+'Well, don't let her go; it's a bad sign if they wish it. Don't consent,
+mind; but just tip me a hint and you'll have me down. And any letters you
+get from Lady Knollys, you know, for she's very plain-spoken, you'd better
+burn them off-hand. And I've stayed too long, though; mind what I say,
+scratch it with a pin, and burn that, and not a word to a mortal about it.
+Good-bye; oh, I was taking away your book.'
+
+And so, in a fuss, with a slight shake of the hand, getting up his
+umbrella, his bag, and tin box, he hurried from the room; and in a minute
+more, I heard the sound of his vehicle as it drove away.
+
+I looked after it with a sigh; the uneasy sensations which I had
+experienced respecting my sojourn at Bartram-Haugh were re-awakened.
+
+My ugly, vulgar, true friend was disappearing beyond those gigantic lime
+trees which hid Bartram from the eyes of the outer world. The fly, with the
+doctor's valise on top, vanished, and I sighed an anxious sigh. The shadow
+of the over-arching trees contracted, and I felt helpless and forsaken; and
+glancing down the torn leaf, Doctor Bryerly's address met my eye, between
+my fingers.
+
+I slipt it into my breast, and ran up-stairs stealthily, trembling lest the
+old woman should summon me again, at the head of the stairs, into Uncle
+Silas's room, where under his gaze, I fancied, I should be sure to betray
+myself.
+
+But I glided unseen and safely by, entered my room, and shut my door. So
+listening and working, I, with my scissors' point, scratched the address
+where Doctor Bryerly had advised. Then, in positive terror, lest some one
+should even knock during the operation, I, with a match, consumed to ashes
+the tell-tale bit of paper.
+
+Now, for the first time, I experienced the unpleasant sensations of
+having a secret to keep. I fancy the pain of this solitary liability was
+disproportionately acute in my case, for I was naturally very open and
+very nervous. I was always on the point of betraying it _apropos des
+bottes_--always reproaching myself for my duplicity; and in constant terror
+when honest Mary Quince approached the press, or good-natured Milly made
+her occasional survey of the wonders of my wardrobe. I would have given
+anything to go and point to the tiny inscription, and say:--'This is Doctor
+Bryerly's address in London. I scratched it with my scissors' point, taking
+every precaution lest anyone--you, my good friends, included--should
+surprise me. I have ever since kept this secret to myself, and trembled
+whenever your frank kind faces looked into the press. There--you at last
+know all about it. Can you ever forgive my deceit?'
+
+But I could not make up my mind to reveal it; nor yet to erase the
+inscription, which was my alternative thought. Indeed I am a wavering,
+irresolute creature as ever lived, in my ordinary mood. High excitement or
+passion only can inspire me with decision. Under the inspiration of either,
+however, I am transformed, and often both prompt and brave.
+
+'Some one left here last night, I think, Miss,' said Mary Quince, with a
+mysterious nod, one morning. ''Twas two o'clock, and I was bad with the
+toothache, and went down to get a pinch o' red pepper--leaving the candle
+a-light here lest you should awake. When I was coming up--as I was crossing
+the lobby, at the far end of the long gallery--what should I hear, but a
+horse snorting, and some people a-talking, short and quiet like. So I looks
+out o' the window; and there surely I did see two horses yoked to a shay,
+and a fellah a-pullin' a box up o' top; and out comes a walise and a bag;
+and I think it was old Wyat, please'm, that Miss Milly calls L'Amour, that
+stood in the doorway a-talking to the driver.'
+
+'And who got into the chaise, Mary?' I asked.
+
+'Well, Miss, I waited as long as I could; but the pain was bad, and me so
+awful cold; I gave it up at last, and came back to bed, for I could not say
+how much longer they might wait. And you'll find, Miss,'twill be kep' a
+secret, like the shay as you saw'd, Miss, last week. I hate them dark ways,
+and secrets; and old Wyat--she does tell stories, don't she?--and she as
+ought to be partickler, seein' her time be short now, and she so old. It is
+awful, an old un like that telling such crams as she do.'
+
+Milly was as curious as I, but could throw no light on this. We both
+agreed, however, that the departure was probably that of the person whose
+arrival I had accidentally witnessed. This time the chaise had drawn up
+at the side door, round the corner of the left side of the house; and, no
+doubt, driven away by the back road.
+
+Another accident had revealed this nocturnal move. It was very provoking,
+however, that Mary Quince had not had resolution to wait for the appearance
+of the traveller. We all agreed, however, that we were to observe a strict
+silence, and that even to Wyat--L'Amour I had better continue to call
+her--Mary Quince was not to hint what she had seen. I suspect, however,
+that injured curiosity asserted itself, and that Mary hardly adhered to
+this self-denying resolve.
+
+But cheerful wintry suns and frosty skies, long nights, and brilliant
+starlight, with good homely fires in our snuggery--gossipings, stories,
+short readings now and then, and brisk walks through the always beautiful
+scenery of Bartram-Haugh, and, above all, the unbroken tenor of our life,
+which had fallen into a serene routine, foreign to the idea of danger
+or misadventure, gradually quieted the qualms and misgivings which my
+interview with Doctor Bryerly had so powerfully resuscitated.
+
+My cousin Monica, to my inexpressible joy, had returned to her
+country-house; and an active diplomacy, through the post-office, was
+negotiating the re-opening of friendly relations between the courts of
+Elverston and of Bartram.
+
+At length, one fine day, Cousin Monica, smiling pleasantly, with her cloak
+and bonnet on, and her colour fresh from the shrewd air of the Derbyshire
+hills, stood suddenly before me in our sitting-room. Our meeting was that
+of two school-companions long separated. Cousin Monica was always a girl in
+my eyes.
+
+What a hug it was; what a shower of kisses and ejaculations, enquiries
+and caresses! At last I pressed her down into a chair, and, laughing, she
+said--
+
+'You have no idea what self-denial I have exercised to bring this visit
+about. I, who detest writing, have actually written five letters to Silas;
+and I don't think I said a single impertinent thing in one of them! What a
+wonderful little old thing your butler is! I did not know what to make of
+him on the steps. Is he a struldbrug, or a fairy, or only a ghost? Where on
+earth did your uncle pick him up? I'm sure he came in on All Hallows E'en,
+to answer an incantation--not your future husband, I hope--and he'll vanish
+some night into gray smoke, and whisk sadly up the chimney. He's the most
+venerable little thing I ever beheld in my life. I leaned back in the
+carriage and thought I should absolutely die of laughing. He's gone up to
+prepare your uncle for my visit; and I really am very glad, for I'm sure I
+shall look as young as Hebe after _him_. But who is this? Who are you, my
+dear?'
+
+This was addressed to poor Milly, who stood at the corner of the
+chimney-piece, staring with her round eyes and plump cheeks in fear and
+wonder upon the strange lady.
+
+'How stupid of me,' I exclaimed. 'Milly, dear, this is your cousin, Lady
+Knollys.'
+
+'And so _you_ are Millicent. Well, dear, I am very glad to see you.' And
+Cousin Monica was on her feet again in an instant, with Milly's hand very
+cordially in hers; and she gave her a kiss upon each cheek, and patted her
+head.
+
+Milly, I must mention, was a much more presentable figure than when I first
+encountered her. Her dresses were at least a quarter of a yard longer.
+Though very rustic, therefore, she was not so barbarously grotesque, by any
+means.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX
+
+_COUSIN MONICA AND UNCLE SILAS MEET_
+
+
+Cousin Monica, with her hands upon Milly's shoulders, looked amusedly and
+kindly in her face. 'And,' said she, 'we must be very good friends--you
+funny creature, you and I. I'm allowed to be the most saucy old woman in
+Derbyshire--quite incorrigibly privileged; and nobody is ever affronted
+with me, so I say the most shocking things constantly.'
+
+'I'm a bit that way, myself; and I think,' said poor Milly, making an
+effort, and growing very red; she quite lost her head at that point, and
+was incompetent to finish the sentiment she had prefaced.
+
+'You think? Now, take my advice, and never wait to think my dear; talk
+first, and think afterwards, that is my way; though, indeed, I can't say
+I ever think at all. It is a very cowardly habit. Our cold-blooded cousin
+Maud, there, thinks sometimes; but it is always such a failure that I
+forgive her. I wonder when your little pre-Adamite butler will return. He
+speaks the language of the Picts and Ancient Britons, I dare say, and your
+father requires a little time to translate him. And, Milly dear, I am very
+hungry, so I won't wait for your butler, who would give me, I suppose, one
+of the cakes baked by King Alfred, and some Danish beer in a skull; but
+I'll ask you for a little of that nice bread and butter.'
+
+With which accordingly Lady Knollys was quickly supplied; but it did not at
+all impede her utterance.
+
+'Do you think, girls, you could be ready to come away with me, if Silas
+gives leave, in an hour or two? I should so like to take you both home with
+me to Elverston.'
+
+'How delightful! you darling,' cried I, embracing and kissing her; 'for my
+part, I should be ready in five minutes; what do you say, Milly?'
+
+Poor Milly's wardrobe, I am afraid, was more portable than handsome; and
+she looked horribly affrighted, and whispered in my ear--
+
+'My best petticoat is away at the laundress; say in a week, Maud.'
+
+'What does she say?' asked Lady Knollys.
+
+'She fears she can't be ready,' I answered, dejectedly.
+
+'There's a deal of my slops in the wash,' blurted out poor Milly, staring
+straight at Lady Knollys.
+
+'In the name of wonder, what does my cousin mean?' asked Lady Knollys.
+
+'Her things have not come home yet from the laundress,' I replied; and at
+this moment our wondrous old butler entered to announce to Lady Knollys
+that his master was ready to receive her, whenever she was disposed to
+favour him; and also to make polite apologies for his being compelled, by
+his state of health, to give her the trouble of ascending to his room.
+
+So Cousin Monica was at the door in a moment, over her shoulder calling to
+us, 'Come, girls.'
+
+'Please, not yet, my lady--you alone; and he requests the young ladies will
+be in the way, as he will send for them presently.'
+
+I began to admire poor 'Giblets' as the wreck of a tolerably respectable
+servant.
+
+'Very good; perhaps it is better we should kiss and be friends in private
+first,' said Cousin Knollys, laughing; and away she went under the guidance
+of the mummy.
+
+I had an account of this _tête-à-tête_ afterwards from Lady Knollys.
+
+'When I saw him, my dear,' she said, 'I could hardly believe my eyes; such
+white hair--such a white face--such mad eyes--such a death-like smile.
+When I saw him last, his hair was dark; he dressed himself like a modern
+Englishman; and he really preserved a likeness to the full-length portrait
+at Knowl, that you fell in love with, you know; but, angels and ministers
+of grace! such a spectre! I asked myself, is it necromancy, or is it
+delirium tremens that has reduced him to this? And said he, with that
+odious smile, that made me fancy myself half insane--
+
+'"You see a change, Monica."
+
+'What a sweet, gentle, insufferable voice he has! Somebody once told me
+about the tone of a glass flute that made some people hysterical to listen
+to, and I was thinking of it all the time. There was always a peculiar
+quality in his voice.
+
+'"I do see a change, Silas," I said at last; "and, no doubt, so do you in
+me--a great change."
+
+'"There has been time enough to work a greater than I observe in you since
+you last honoured me with a visit," said he.
+
+'I think he was at his old sarcasms, and meant that I was the same
+impertinent minx he remembered long ago, uncorrected by time; and so I am,
+and he must not expect compliments from old Monica Knollys.
+
+'"It is a long time, Silas; but that, you know, is not my fault," said I.
+
+'"Not your fault, my dear--your instinct. We are all imitative creatures:
+the great people ostracised me, and the small ones followed. We are very
+like turkeys, we have so much good sense and so much generosity. Fortune,
+in a freak, wounded my head, and the whole brood were upon me, pecking and
+gobbling, gobbling and pecking, and you among them, dear Monica. It wasn't
+your fault, only your instinct, so I quite forgive you; but no wonder the
+peckers wear better than the pecked. You are robust; and I, what I am."
+
+'"Now, Silas, I have not come here to quarrel. If we quarrel now, mind, we
+can never make it up--we are too old, so let us forget all we can, and try
+to forgive something; and if we can do neither, at all events let there be
+truce between us while I am here."
+
+'"My personal wrongs I can quite forgive, and I do, Heaven knows, from my
+heart; but there are things which ought not to be forgiven. My children
+have been ruined by it. I may, by the mercy of Providence, be yet set right
+in the world, and so soon as that time comes, I will remember, and I
+will act; but my children--you will see that wretched girl, my
+daughter--education, society, all would come too late--my children have
+been ruined by it."
+
+'"I have not done it; but I know what you mean," I said. "You menace
+litigation whenever you have the means; but you forget that Austin placed
+you under promise, when he gave you the use of this house and place, never
+to disturb my title to Elverston. So there is my answer, if you mean that."
+
+'"I mean what I mean," he replied, with his old smile.
+
+'"You mean then," said I, "that for the pleasure of vexing me with
+litigation, you are willing to forfeit your tenure of this house and
+place."
+
+'"Suppose I _did_ mean precisely that, why should I forfeit anything?
+My beloved brother, by his will, has given me a right to the use of
+Bartram-Haugh for my life, and attached no absurd condition of the kind you
+fancy to his gift."
+
+'Silas was in one of his vicious old moods, and liked to menace me. His
+vindictiveness got the better of his craft; but he knows as well as I do
+that he never could succeed in disturbing the title of my poor dear Harry
+Knollys; and I was not at all alarmed by his threats; and I told him so, as
+coolly as I speak to you now.
+
+'"Well, Monica," he said, "I have weighed you in the balance, and you are
+not found wanting. For a moment the old man possessed me: the thought of
+my children, of past unkindness, and present affliction and disgrace,
+exasperated me, and I was mad. It was but for a moment--the galvanic spasm
+of a corpse. Never was breast more dead than mine to the passions and
+ambitions of the world. They are not for white locks like these, nor for
+a man who, for a week in every month, lies in the gate of death. Will you
+shake hands? _Here_--I _do_ strike a truce; and I _do_ forget and forgive
+_everything_."
+
+'I don't know what he meant by this scene. I have no idea whether he was
+acting, or lost his head, or, in fact, why or how it occurred; but I am
+glad, darling, that, unlike myself, I was calm, and that a quarrel has not
+been forced upon me.'
+
+When our turn came and we were summoned to the presence, Uncle Silas was
+quite as usual; but Cousin Monica's heightened colour, and the flash of her
+eyes, showed plainly that something exciting and angry had occurred.
+
+Uncle Silas commented in his own vein upon the effect of Bartram air and
+liberty, all he had to offer; and called on me to say how I liked them. And
+then he called Milly to him, kissed her tenderly, smiled sadly upon her,
+and turning to Cousin Monica, said--
+
+'This is my daughter Milly--oh! she has been presented to you down-stairs,
+has she? You have, no doubt, been interested by her. As I told her cousin
+Maud, though I am not yet quite a Sir Tunbelly Clumsy, she is a very
+finished Miss Hoyden. Are not you, my poor Milly? You owe your distinction,
+my dear, to that line of circumvallation which has, ever since your birth,
+intercepted all civilisation on its way to Bartram. You are much obliged,
+Milly, to everybody who, whether naturally or _un_-naturally, turned a sod
+in that invisible, but impenetrable, work. For your accomplishments--rather
+singular than fashionable--you are indebted, in part, to your cousin, Lady
+Knollys. Is not she, Monica? _Thank_ her, Milly.'
+
+'This is your _truce_, Silas,' said Lady Knollys, with a quiet sharpness.
+'I think, Silas Ruthyn, you want to provoke me to speak in a way before
+these young creatures which we should all regret.'
+
+'So my badinage excites your temper, Monnie. Think how you _would_ feel,
+then, if I had found you by the highway side, mangled by robbers, and set
+my foot upon your throat, and spat in your face. But--stop this. Why have I
+said this? simply to emphasize my forgiveness. See, girls, Lady Knollys and
+I, cousins long estranged, forget and forgive the past, and join hands over
+its buried injuries.'
+
+'Well, _be_ it so; only let us have done with ironies and covert taunts.'
+
+And with these words their hands were joined; and Uncle Silas, after he had
+released hers, patted and fondled it with his, laughing icily and very low
+all the time.
+
+'I wish so much, dear Monica,' he said, when this piece of silent by-play
+was over, 'that I could ask you to stay to-night; but absolutely I have not
+a bed to offer, and even if I had, I fear my suit would hardly prevail.'
+
+Then came Lady Knollys' invitation for Milly and me. He was very much
+obliged; he smiled over it a great deal, meditating. I thought he was
+puzzled; and amid his smiles, his wild eyes scanned Cousin Monica's frank
+face once or twice suspiciously.
+
+There was a difficulty--an _undefined_ difficulty--about letting us go that
+day; but on a future one--soon--_very_ soon--he would be most happy.
+
+Well, there was an end of that little project, for to-day at least; and
+Cousin Monica was too well-bred to urge it beyond a certain point.
+
+'Milly, my dear, will you put on your hat and show me the grounds about the
+house? May she, Silas? I should like to renew my acquaintance.'
+
+'You'll see them sadly neglected, Monnie. A poor man's pleasure grounds
+must rely on Nature, and trust to her for effects. Where there is fine
+timber, however, and abundance of slope, and rock, and hollow, we sometimes
+gain in picturesqueness what we lose by neglect in luxury.'
+
+Then, as Cousin Monica said she would cross the grounds by a path, and meet
+her carriage at a point to which we would accompany her, and so make her
+way home, she took leave of Uncle Silas; a ceremony whereat--without, I
+thought, much zeal at either side--a kiss took place.
+
+'Now, girls!' said Cousin Knollys, when we were fairly in motion over the
+grass, 'what do you say--will he let you come--yes or no? I can't say, but
+I think, dear,'--this to Milly--' he ought to let you see a little more of
+the world than appears among the glens and bushes of Bartram. Very pretty
+they are, like yourself; but very wild, and very little seen. Where is your
+brother, Milly; is not he older than you?'
+
+'I don't know where; and he is older by six years and a bit.'
+
+By-and-by, when Milly was gesticulating to frighten some herons by the
+river's brink into the air, Cousin Monica said confidentially to me--
+
+'He has run away, I'm told--I wish I could believe it--and enlisted in a
+regiment going to India, perhaps the best thing for him. Did you see him
+here before his judicious self-banishment?'
+
+'No.'
+
+'Well, I suppose you have had no loss. Doctor Bryerly says from all he can
+learn he is a very bad young man. And now tell me, dear, _is_ Silas kind to
+you?'
+
+'Yes, always gentle, just as you saw him to-day; but we don't see a great
+deal of him--very little, in fact.'
+
+'And how do you like your life and the people?' she asked.
+
+'My life, very well; and the people, _pretty_ well. There's an old women we
+don't like, old Wyat, she is cross and mysterious and tells untruths; but I
+don't think she is dishonest--so Mary Quince says--and that, you know, is a
+point; and there is a family, father and daughter, called Hawkes, who live
+in the Windmill Wood, who are perfect savages, though my uncle says they
+don't mean it; but they are very disagreeable, rude people; and except them
+we see very little of the servants or other people. But there has been a
+mysterious visit; some one came late at night, and remained for some days,
+though Milly and I never saw them, and Mary Quince saw a chaise at the
+side-door at two o'clock at night.'
+
+Cousin Monica was so highly interested at this that she arrested her walk
+and stood facing me, with her hand on my arm, questioning and listening,
+and lost, as it seemed, in dismal conjecture.
+
+'It is not pleasant, you know,' I said.
+
+'No, it is not pleasant,' said Lady Knollys, very gloomily.
+
+And just then Milly joined us, shouting to us to look at the herons flying;
+so Cousin Monica did, and smiled and nodded in thanks to Milly, and was
+again silent and thoughtful as we walked on.
+
+'You are to come to me, mind, both of you girls,' she said, abruptly;' you
+_shall_. I'll manage it.'
+
+When silence returned, and Milly ran away once more to try whether the old
+gray trout was visible in the still water under the bridge, Cousin Monica
+said to me in a low tone, looking hard at me--
+
+'You've not seen anything to frighten you, Maud? Don't look so alarmed,
+dear,' she added with a little laugh, which was not very merry, however. 'I
+don't mean frighten in any awful sense--in fact, I did not mean frighten
+at all. I meant--I can't exactly express it--anything to vex, or make you
+uncomfortable; have you?'
+
+'No, I can't say I have, except that room in which Mr. Charke was found
+dead.'
+
+'Oh! you saw that, did you?--I should like to see it so much. Your bedroom
+is not near it?'
+
+'Oh, no; on the floor beneath, and looking to the front. And Doctor Bryerly
+talked a little to me, and there seemed to be something on his mind more
+than he chose to tell me; so that for some time after I saw him I really
+was, as you say, frightened; but, except that, I really have had no cause.
+And what was in your mind when you asked me?'
+
+'Well, you know, Maud, you are afraid of ghosts, banditti, and
+_every_thing; and I wished to know whether you were uncomfortable, and what
+your particular bogle was just now--that, I assure you, was all; and I
+know,' she continued, suddenly changing her light tone and manner for one
+of pointed entreaty, 'what Doctor Bryerly said; and I _implore_ of you,
+Maud, to think of it seriously; and when you come to me, you shall do so
+with the intention of remaining at Elverston.'
+
+'Now, Cousin Monica, is this fair? You and Doctor Bryerly both talk in the
+same awful way to me; and I assure you, you don't know how nervous I am
+sometimes, and yet you won't, either of you, say what you mean. Now,
+Monica, dear cousin, won't you tell me?'
+
+'You see, dear, it is so lonely; it's a strange place, and he so odd. I
+don't like the place, and I don't like him. I've tried, but I can't, and I
+think I never shall. He may be a very--what was it that good little silly
+curate at Knowl used to call him?--a very advanced Christian--that is it,
+and I hope he is; but if he is only what he used to be, his utter seclusion
+from society removes the only check, except personal fear--and he never had
+much of that--upon a very bad man. And you must know, my dear Maud, what a
+prize you are, and what an immense trust it is.'
+
+Suddenly Cousin Monica stopped short, and looked at me as if she had gone
+too far.
+
+'But, you know, Silas may be very good _now_, although he was wild and
+selfish in his young days. Indeed I don't know what to make of him; but I
+am sure when you have thought it over, you will agree with me and Doctor
+Bryerly, that you must not stay here.'
+
+It was vain trying to induce my cousin to be more explicit.
+
+'I hope to see you at Elverston in a very few days. I will _shame_ Silas
+into letting you come. I don't like his reluctance.'
+
+'But don't you think he must know that Milly would require some little
+outfit before her visit?'
+
+'Well, I can't say. I hope that is all; but be it what it may, I'll
+_make_ him let you come, and _immediately_, too.' After she had gone, I
+experienced a repetition of those undefined doubts which had tortured me
+for some time after my conversation with Dr. Bryerly. I had truly said,
+however, I was well enough contented with my mode of life here, for I had
+been trained at Knowl to a solitude very nearly as profound.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL
+
+_IN WHICH I MAKE ANOTHER COUSIN'S ACQUAINTANCE_
+
+
+My correspondence about this time was not very extensive. About once a
+fortnight a letter from honest Mrs. Rusk conveyed to me how the dogs and
+ponies were, in queer English, oddly spelt; some village gossip, a critique
+upon Doctor Clay's or the Curate's last sermon, and some severities
+generally upon the Dissenters' doings, with loves to Mary Quince, and all
+good wishes to me. Sometimes a welcome letter from cheerful Cousin Monica;
+and now, to vary the series, a copy of complimentary verses, without a
+signature, very adoring--very like Byron, I then fancied, and now, I must
+confess, rather vapid. Could I doubt from whom they came?
+
+I had received, about a month after my arrival, a copy of verses in the
+same hand, in a plaintive ballad style, of the soldierly sort, in which the
+writer said, that as living his sole object was to please me, so dying I
+should be his latest thought; and some more poetic impieties, asking only
+in return that when the storm of battle had swept over, I should 'shed
+a tear' on seeing 'the _oak lie_, where it fell.' Of course, about
+this lugubrious pun, there could be no misconception. The Captain was
+unmistakably indicated; and I was so moved that I could no longer retain
+my secret; but walking with Milly that day, confided the little romance to
+that unsophisticated listener, under the chestnut trees. The lines were so
+amorously dejected, and yet so heroically redolent of blood and gunpowder,
+that Milly and I agreed that the writer must be on the verge of a
+sanguinary campaign.
+
+It was not easy to get at Uncle Silas's 'Times' or 'Morning Post,' which we
+fancied would explain these horrible allusions; but Milly bethought her of
+a sergeant in the militia, resident in Feltram, who knew the destination
+and quarters of every regiment in the service; and circuitously, from
+this authority, we learned, to my infinite relief, that Captain Oakley's
+regiment had still two years to sojourn in England.
+
+I was summoned one evening by old L'Amour, to my uncle's room. I remember
+his appearance that evening so well, as he lay back in his chair; the
+pillow; the white glare of his strange eye; his feeble, painful smile.
+
+'You'll excuse my not rising, dear Maud, I am so miserably ill this
+evening.'
+
+I expressed my respectful condolence.
+
+'Yes; I _am_ to be pitied; but pity is of no use, dear,' he murmured,
+peevishly. 'I sent for you to make you acquainted with your cousin, my son.
+Where are you Dudley?'
+
+A figure seated in a low lounging chair, at the other side of the fire, and
+which till then I had not observed, at these words rose up a little slowly,
+like a man stiff after a day's hunting; and I beheld with a shock that held
+my breath, and fixed my eyes upon him in a stare, the young man whom I had
+encountered at Church Scarsdale, on the day of my unpleasant excursion
+there with Madame, and who, to the best of my belief, was also one of that
+ruffianly party who had so unspeakably terrified me in the warren at Knowl.
+
+I suppose I looked very much affrighted. If I had been looking at a ghost I
+could not have felt much more scared and incredulous.
+
+When I was able to turn my eyes upon my uncle he was not looking at me; but
+with a glimmer of that smile with which a father looks on a son whose youth
+and comeliness he admires, his white face was turned towards the young man,
+in whom I beheld nothing but the image of odious and dreadful associations.
+
+'Come, sir,' said my uncle, we must not be too modest. Here's your cousin
+Maud--what do you say?'
+
+'How are ye, Miss?' he said, with a sheepish grin.
+
+'Miss! Come, come. Miss us, no Misses,' said my uncle; 'she is Maud, and
+you Dudley, or I mistake; or we shall have you calling Milly, madame.
+She'll not refuse you her hand, I venture to think. Come, young gentleman,
+speak for yourself.'
+
+'How are ye, Maud?' he said, doing his best, and drawing near, he extended
+his hand.' You're welcome to Bartram-Haugh, Miss.'
+
+'Kiss your cousin, sir. Where's your gallantry? On my honour, I disown
+you,' exclaimed my uncle, with more energy than he had shown before.
+
+With a clumsy effort, and a grin that was both sheepish and impudent, he
+grasped my hand and advanced his face. The imminent salute gave me strength
+to spring back a step or two, and he hesitated.
+
+My uncle laughed peevishly.
+
+'Well, well, that will do, I suppose. In my time first-cousins did not meet
+like strangers; but perhaps we were wrong; we are learning modesty from the
+Americans, and old English ways are too gross for us.'
+
+'I have--I've seen him before--that is;' and at this point I stopped.
+
+My uncle turned his strange glare, in a sort of scowl of enquiry, upon me.
+
+'Oh!--hey! why this is news. You never told me. Where have you met--eh,
+Dudley?'
+
+'Never saw her in my days, so far as I'm aweer on,' said the young man.
+
+'No! Well, then, Maud, will _you_ enlighten us?' said Uncle Silas, coldly.
+
+'I _did_ see that young gentleman before,' I faltered.
+
+'Meaning _me_, ma'am?' he asked, coolly.
+
+'Yes--certainly _you_. I _did_, uncle,' answered I.
+
+'And where was it, my dear? Not at Knowl, I fancy. Poor dear Austin did not
+trouble me or mine much with his hospitalities.'
+
+This was not a pleasant tone to take in speaking of his dead brother and
+benefactor; but at the moment I was too much engaged upon the one point to
+observe it.
+
+'I met'--I could not say my cousin--'I met him, uncle--your son--that young
+gentleman--I _saw_ him, I should say, at Church Scarsdale, and afterwards
+with some other persons in the warren at Knowl. It was the night our
+gamekeeper was beaten.'
+
+'Well, Dudley, what do you say to that?' asked Uncle Silas.
+
+'I never _was_ at them places, so help me. I don't know where they be; and
+I never set eyes on the young lady before, as I hope to be saved, in all
+my days,' said he, with a countenance so unchanged and an air so confident
+that I began to think I must be the dupe of one of those strange
+resemblances which have been known to lead to positive identification in
+the witness-box, afterwards proved to be utterly mistaken.
+
+'You look so--so _uncomfortable_, Maud, at the idea of having seen him
+before, that I hardly wonder at the vehemence of his denial. There was
+plainly something disagreeable; but you see as respects him it is a total
+mistake. My boy was always a truth-telling fellow--you may rely implicitly
+on what he says. You were _not_ at those places?'
+
+'I wish I may----,' began the ingenuous youth, with increased vehemence.
+
+'There, there--that will do; your honour and word as a gentleman--and
+_that_ you are, though a poor one--will quite satisfy your cousin Maud. Am
+I right, my dear? I do assure you, as a gentleman, I never knew him to say
+the thing that was not.'
+
+So Mr. Dudley Ruthyn began, not to curse, but to swear, in the prescribed
+form, that he had never seen me before, or the places I had named, 'since I
+was weaned, by----'
+
+'That's enough--now shake hands, if you won't kiss, like cousins,'
+interrupted my uncle.
+
+And very uncomfortably I did lend him my hand to shake.
+
+'You'll want some supper, Dudley, so Maud and I will excuse your going.
+Good-night, my dear boy,' and he smiled and waved him from the room.
+
+'That's as fine a young fellow, I think, as any English father can boast
+for his son--true, brave, and kind, and quite an Apollo. Did you observe
+how finely proportioned he is, and what exquisite features the fellow has?
+He's rustic and rough, as you see; but a year or two in the militia--I've a
+promise of a commission for him--he's too old for the line--will form and
+polish him. He wants nothing but manner; and I protest when he has had a
+little drilling of that kind, I do believe he'll be as pretty a fellow as
+you'd find in England.'
+
+I listened with amazement. I could discover nothing but what was
+disagreeable in the horrid bumpkin, and thought such an instance of the
+blindness of parental partiality was hardly credible.
+
+I looked down, dreading another direct appeal to my judgment; and Uncle
+Silas, I suppose, referred those downcast looks to maiden modesty, for he
+forbore to task mine by any new interrogatory.
+
+Dudley Ruthyn's cool and resolute denial of ever having seen me or the
+places I had named, and the inflexible serenity of his countenance while
+doing so, did very much shake my confidence in my own identification of
+him. I could not be _quite_ certain that the person I had seen at Church
+Scarsdale was the very same whom I afterwards saw at Knowl. And now, in
+this particular instance, after the lapse of a still longer period, could I
+be perfectly certain that my memory, deceived by some accidental points of
+resemblance, had not duped me, and wronged my cousin, Dudley Ruthyn?
+
+I suppose my uncle had expected from me some signs of acquiesence in his
+splendid estimate of his cub, and was nettled at my silence. After a short
+interval he said--
+
+'I've seen something of the world in my day, and I can say without a
+misgiving of partiality, that Dudley is the material of a perfect English
+gentleman. I am not blind, of course--the training must be supplied; a year
+or two of good models, active self-criticism, and good society. I simply
+say that the _material_ is there.'
+
+Here was another interval of silence.
+
+'And now tell me, child, what these recollections of
+Church--Church--_what_?'
+
+'Church Scarsdale,' I replied.
+
+'Yes, thank you--Church Scarsdale and Knowl--are?'
+
+So I related my stories as well as I could.
+
+'Well, dear Maud, the adventure of Church Scarsdale is hardly so terrific
+as I expected,' said Uncle Silas with a cold little laugh; 'and I don't
+see, if he had really been the hero of it, why he should shrink from
+avowing it. I know I should not. And I really can't say that your pic-nic
+party in the grounds of Knowl has frightened me much more. A lady waiting
+in the carriage, and two or three tipsy young men. Her presence seems to
+me a guarantee that no mischief was meant; but champagne is the soul of
+frolic, and a row with the gamekeepers a natural consequence. It happened
+to me once--forty years ago, when I was a wild young buck--one of the worst
+rows I ever was in.'
+
+And Uncle Silas poured some eau-de-cologne over the corner of his
+handkerchief, and touched his temples with it.
+
+'If my boy had been there, I do assure you--and I know him--he would say so
+at once. I fancy he would rather _boast_ of it. I never knew him utter an
+untruth. When you know him a little you'll say so.'
+
+With these words Uncle Silas leaned back exhausted, and languidly poured
+some of his favourite eau-de-cologne over the palms of his hands, nodded a
+farewell, and, in a whisper, wished me good-night.
+
+'Dudley's come,' whispered Milly, taking me under the arm as I entered the
+lobby. 'But I don't care: he never gives me nout; and he gets money from
+Governor, as much as he likes, and I never a sixpence. It's a shame!'
+
+So there was no great love between the only son and only daughter of the
+younger line of the Ruthyns.
+
+I was curious to learn all that Milly could tell me of this new inmate of
+Bartram-Haugh; and Milly was communicative without having a great deal to
+relate, and what I heard from her tended to confirm my own disagreeable
+impressions about him. She was afraid of him. He was a 'woundy ugly
+customer in a wax, she could tell me.' He was the only one 'she ever knowed
+as had pluck to jaw the Governor.' But he was 'afeard on the Governor,
+too.'
+
+His visits to Bartram-Haugh, I heard, were desultory; and this, to my
+relief, would probably not outlast a week or a fortnight. 'He _was_ such a
+fashionable cove:' he was always 'a gadding about, mostly to Liverpool and
+Birmingham, and sometimes to Lunnun, itself.' He was 'keeping company
+one time with Beauty, Governor thought, and he was awfully afraid he'd a
+married her; but that was all bosh and nonsense; and Beauty would have none
+of his chaff and wheedling, for she liked Tom Brice;' and Milly thought
+that Dudley never 'cared a crack of a whip for her.' He used to go to the
+Windmill to have 'a smoke with Pegtop;' and he was a member of the Feltram
+Club, that met at the 'Plume o' Feathers.' He was 'a rare good shot,' she
+heard; and 'he was before the justices for poaching, but they could make
+nothing of it.' And the Governor said 'it was all through spite of him--for
+they hate us for being better blood than they.' And 'all but the squires
+and those upstart folk loves Dudley, he is so handsome and gay--though he
+be a bit cross at home.' And, 'Governor says, he'll be a Parliament man
+yet, spite o' them all.'
+
+Next morning, when our breakfast was nearly ended, Dudley tapped at the
+window with the end of his clay pipe--a 'churchwarden' Milly called
+it--just such a long curved pipe as Joe Willet is made to hold between his
+lips in those charming illustrations of 'Barnaby Rudge'--which we all know
+so well--and lifting his 'wide-awake' with a burlesque salutation, which, I
+suppose, would have charmed the 'Plume of Feathers,' he dropped, kicked and
+caught his 'wide-awake,' with an agility and gravity, as he replaced it, so
+inexpressibly humorous, that Milly went off in a loud fit of laughter, with
+the ejaculation--
+
+'Did you ever?'
+
+It was odd how repulsively my confidence in my original identification
+always revived on unexpectedly seeing Dudley after an interval.
+
+I could perceive that this piece of comic by-play was meant to make a
+suitable impression on me. I received it, however, with a killing gravity;
+and after a word or two to Milly, he lounged away, having first broken his
+pipe, bit by bit, into pieces, which he balanced in turn on his nose and
+on his chin, from which features he jerked them into his mouth, with a
+precision which, along with his excellent pantomime of eating them, highly
+excited Milly's mirth and admiration.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI
+
+_MY COUSIN DUDLEY_
+
+
+Greatly to my satisfaction, this engaging person did not appear again that
+day. But next day Milly told me that my uncle had taken him to task for the
+neglect with which he was treating us.
+
+'He did pitch into him, sharp and short, and not a word from him, only
+sulky like; and I so frightened, I durst not look up almost; and they said
+a lot I could not make head or tail of; and Governor ordered me out o' the
+room, and glad I was to go; and so they had it out between them.'
+
+Milly could throw no light whatsoever upon the adventures at Church
+Scarsdale and Knowl; and I was left still in doubt, which sometimes
+oscillated one way and sometimes another. But, on the whole, I could
+not shake off the misgivings which constantly recurred and pointed very
+obstinately to Dudley as the hero of those odious scenes.
+
+Oddly enough, though, I now felt far less confident upon the point than I
+did at first sight. I had begun to distrust my memory, and to suspect my
+fancy; but of this there could be no question, that between the person so
+unpleasantly linked in my remembrance with those scenes, and Dudley Ruthyn,
+a striking, though possibly only a general resemblance did exist.
+
+Milly was certainly right as to the gist of Uncle Silas's injunction, for
+we saw more of Dudley henceforward.
+
+He was shy; he was impudent; he was awkward; he was conceited;--altogether
+a most intolerable bumpkin. Though he sometimes flushed and stammered, and
+never for a moment was at his ease in my presence, yet, to my inexpressible
+disgust, there was a self-complacency in his manner, and a kind of triumph
+in his leer, which very plainly told me how satisfied he was as to the
+nature of the impression he was making upon me.
+
+I would have given worlds to tell him how odious I thought him. Probably,
+however, he would not have believed me. Perhaps he fancied that 'ladies'
+affected airs of indifference and repulsion to cover their real feelings. I
+never looked at or spoke to him when I could avoid either, and then it was
+as briefly as I could. To do him justice, however, he seemed to have no
+liking for our society, and certainly never seemed altogether comfortable
+in it.
+
+I find it hard to write quite impartially even of Dudley Ruthyn's personal
+appearance; but, with an effort, I confess that his features were good, and
+his figure not amiss, though a little fattish. He had light whiskers, light
+hair, and a pink complexion, and very good blue eyes. So far my uncle was
+right; and if he had been perfectly gentlemanlike, he really might have
+passed for a handsome man in the judgment of some critics.
+
+But there was that odious mixture of _mauvaise honte_ and impudence, a
+clumsiness, a slyness, and a consciousness in his bearing and countenance,
+not distinctly boorish, but _low_, which turned his good looks into an
+ugliness more intolerable than that of feature; and a corresponding
+vulgarity pervading his dress, his demeanour, and his very walk, marred
+whatever good points his figure possessed. If you take all this into
+account, with the ominous and startling misgivings constantly recurring,
+you will understand the mixed feelings of anger and disgust with which I
+received the admiration he favoured me with.
+
+Gradually he grew less constrained in my presence, and certainly his
+manners were not improved by his growing ease and confidence.
+
+He came in while Milly and I were at luncheon, jumped up, with a
+'right-about face' performed in the air, sitting on the sideboard, whence
+grinning slyly and kicking his heels, he leered at us.
+
+'Will you have something, Dudley?' asked Milly.
+
+'No, lass; but I'll look at ye, and maybe drink a drop for company.'
+
+And with these words, he took a sportsman's flask from his pocket; and
+helping himself to a large glass and a decanter, he compounded a glass of
+strong brandy-and-water, as he talked, and refreshed himself with it from
+time to time.
+
+'Curate's up wi' the Governor,' he said, with a grin. 'I wanted a word wi'
+him; but I s'pose I'll hardly git in this hour or more; they're a praying
+and disputing, and a Bible-chopping, as usual. Ha, ha! But 'twon't hold
+much longer, old Wyat says, now that Uncle Austin's dead; there's nout to
+be made o' praying and that work no longer, and it don't pay of itself.'
+
+'O fie! For shame, you sinner!' laughed Milly. 'He wasn't in a church these
+five years, he says, and then only to meet a young lady. Now, isn't he a
+sinner, Maud--isn't he?'
+
+Dudley, grinning, looked with a languishing slyness at me, biting the edge
+of his wide-awake, which he held over his breast.
+
+Dudley Ruthyn probably thought there was a manly and desperate sort of
+fascination in the impiety he professed.
+
+'I wonder, Milly,' said I, 'at your laughing. How _can_ you laugh?'
+
+'You'd have me cry, would ye?' answered Milly.
+
+'I certainly would not have you laugh,' I replied.
+
+'I know I wish _some_ one 'ud cry for me, and I know who,' said Dudley, in
+what he meant for a very engaging way, and he looked at me as if he thought
+I must feel flattered by his caring to have my tears.
+
+Instead of crying, however, I leaned back in my chair, and began quietly to
+turn over the pages of Walter Scott's poems, which I and Milly were then
+reading in the evenings.
+
+The tone in which this odious young man spoke of his father, his coarse
+mention of mine, and his low boasting of his irreligion, disgusted me more
+than ever with him.
+
+'They parsons be slow coaches--awful slow. I'll have a good bit to wait, I
+s'pose. I should be three miles away and more by this time--drat it!' He
+was eyeing the legging of the foot which he held up while he spoke, as if
+calculating how far away that limb should have carried him by this time.
+'Why can't folk do their Bible and prayers o' Sundays, and get it off
+their stomachs? I say, Milly lass, will ye see if Governor be done wi' the
+Curate? Do. I'm a losing the whole day along o' him.'
+
+Milly jumped up, accustomed to obey her brother, and as she passed me,
+whispered, with a wink--
+
+'_Money_.'
+
+And away she went. Dudley whistled a tune, and swung his foot like a
+pendulum, as he followed her with his side-glance.
+
+'I say, it is a hard case, Miss, a lad o' spirit should be kept so tight. I
+haven't a shilling but what comes through his fingers; an' drat the tizzy
+he'll gi' me till he knows the reason why.'
+
+'Perhaps,' I said, 'my uncle thinks you should earn some for yourself.'
+
+'I'd like to know how a fella's to earn money now-a-days. You wouldn't have
+a gentleman to keep a shop, I fancy. But I'll ha' a fistful jist now, and
+no thanks to he. Them executors, you know, owes me a deal o' money. Very
+honest chaps, of course; but they're cursed slow about paying, I know.'
+
+I made no remark upon this elegant allusion to the executors of my dear
+father's will.
+
+'An' I tell ye, Maud, when I git the tin, I know who I'll buy a farin' for.
+I do, lass.'
+
+The odious creature drawled this with a sidelong leer, which, I suppose, he
+fancied quite irresistible.
+
+I am one of those unfortunate persons who always blushed when I most
+wished to look indifferent; and now, to my inexpressible chagrin, with its
+accustomed perversity, I felt the blush mount to my cheeks, and glow even
+on my forehead.
+
+I saw that he perceived this most disconcerting indication of a sentiment
+the very idea of which was so detestable, that, equally enraged with myself
+and with him, I did not know how to exhibit my contempt and indignation.
+
+Mistaking the cause of my discomposure, Mr. Dudley Ruthyn laughed softly,
+with an insufferable suavity.
+
+'And there's some'at, lass, I must have in return. Honour thy father, you
+know; you would not ha' me disobey the Governor? No, you wouldn't--would
+ye?'
+
+I darted at him a look which I hoped would have quelled his impertinence;
+but I blushed most provokingly--more violently than ever.
+
+'I'd back them eyes again' the county, I would,' he exclaimed, with a
+condescending enthusiasm. 'You're awful pretty, you are, Maud. I don't know
+what came over me t'other night when Governor told me to buss ye; but dang
+it, ye shan't deny me now, and I'll have a kiss, lass, in spite o' thy
+blushes.'
+
+He jumped from his elevated seat on the sideboard, and came swaggering
+toward me, with an odious grin, and his arms extended. I started to my
+feet, absolutely transported with fury.
+
+'Drat me, if she baint a-going to fight me!' he chuckled humorously.
+
+'Come, Maud, you would not be ill-natured, sure? Arter all, it's only our
+duty. Governor bid us kiss, didn't he?'
+
+'Don't--_don't_, sir. Stand back, or I'll call the servants.'
+
+And as it was I began to scream for Milly.
+
+'There's how it is wi' all they cattle! You never knows your own mind--ye
+don't,' he said, surlily. 'You make such a row about a bit o' play. Drop
+it, will you? There's no one a-harming you--is there? _I_'m not, for
+sartain.'
+
+And, with an angry chuckle, he turned on his heel, and left the room.
+
+I think I was perfectly right to resist, with all the vehemence of which I
+was capable, this attempt to assume an intimacy which, notwithstanding my
+uncle's opinion to the contrary, seemed to me like an outrage.
+
+Milly found me alone--not frightened, but very angry. I had quite made up
+my mind to complain to my uncle, but the Curate was still with him; and,
+by the time he had gone, I was cooler. My awe of my uncle had returned. I
+fancied that he would treat the whole affair as a mere playful piece of
+gallantry. So, with the comfortable conviction that he had had a lesson,
+and would think twice before repeating his impertinence, I resolved, with
+Milly's approbation, to leave matters as they were.
+
+Dudley, greatly to my comfort, was huffed with me, and hardly appeared, and
+was sulky and silent when he did. I lived then in the pleasant anticipation
+of his departure, which, Milly thought, would be very soon.
+
+My uncle had his Bible and his consolations; but it cannot have been
+pleasant to this old _roué_, converted though he was--this refined man
+of fashion--to see his son grow up an outcast, and a Tony Lumpkin; for
+whatever he may have thought of his natural gifts, he must have known how
+mere a boor he was.
+
+I try to recall my then impressions of my uncle's character. Grizzly and
+chaotic the image rises--silver head, feet of clay. I as yet knew little of
+him.
+
+I began to perceive that he was what Mary Quince used to call 'dreadful
+particular'--I suppose a little selfish and impatient. He used to get cases
+of turtle from Liverpool. He drank claret and hock for his health, and ate
+woodcock and other light and salutary dainties for the same reason; and
+was petulant and vicious about the cooking of these, and the flavour and
+clearness of his coffee.
+
+His conversation was easy, polished, and, with a sentimental glazing, cold;
+but across this artificial talk, with its French rhymes, racy phrases,
+and fluent eloquence, like a streak of angry light, would, at intervals,
+suddenly gleam some dismal thought of religion. I never could quite satisfy
+myself whether they were affectations or genuine, like intermittent thrills
+of pain.
+
+The light of his large eyes was very peculiar. I can liken it to nothing
+but the sheen of intense moonlight on burnished metal. But that cannot
+express it. It glared white and suddenly--almost fatuous. I thought of
+Moore's lines whenever I looked on it:--
+
+  Oh, ye dead! oh, ye dead! whom we know by the light you give
+  From your cold gleaming eyes, though you move like men who live.
+
+I never saw in any other eye the least glimmer of the same baleful
+effulgence. His fits, too--his hoverings between life and death--between
+intellect and insanity--a dubious, marsh-fire existence, horrible to look
+on!
+
+I was puzzled even to comprehend his feelings toward his children.
+Sometimes it seemed to me that he was ready to lay down his soul for them;
+at others, he looked and spoke almost as if he hated them. He talked as if
+the image of death was always before him, yet he took a terrible interest
+in life, while seemingly dozing away the dregs of his days in sight of his
+coffin.
+
+Oh! Uncle Silas, tremendous figure in the past, burning always in memory in
+the same awful lights; the fixed white face of scorn and anguish! It
+seems as if the Woman of Endor had led me to that chamber and showed me a
+spectre.
+
+Dudley had not left Bartram-Haugh when a little note reached me from Lady
+Knollys. It said--
+
+'DEAREST MAUD,--I have written by this post to Silas, beseeching a loan of
+you and my Cousin Milly. I see no reason your uncle can possibly have for
+refusing me; and, therefore, I count confidently on seeing you both at
+Elverston to-morrow, to stay for at least a week. I have hardly a creature
+to meet you. I have been disappointed in several visitors; but another time
+we shall have a gayer house. Tell Milly--with my love--that I will not
+forgive her if she fails to accompany you.
+
+'Believe me ever your affectionate cousin,
+
+'MONICA KNOLLYS.'
+
+Milly and I were both afraid that Uncle Silas would refuse his consent,
+although we could not divine any sound reason for his doing so, and there
+were many in favour of his improving the opportunity of allowing poor Milly
+to see some persons of her own sex above the rank of menials.
+
+At about twelve o'clock my uncle sent for us, and, to our great delight,
+announced his consent, and wished us a very happy excursion.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII
+
+_ELVERSTON AND ITS PEOPLE_
+
+
+So Milly and I drove through the gabled high street of Feltram next day. We
+saw my gracious cousin smoking with a man like a groom, at the door of the
+'Plume of Feathers.' I drew myself back as we passed, and Milly popped her
+head out of the window.
+
+'I'm blessed,' said she, laughing, 'if he hadn't his thumb to his nose, and
+winding up his little finger, the way he does with old Wyat--L'Amour, ye
+know; and you may be sure he said something funny, for Jim Jolliter was
+laughin', with his pipe in his hand.'
+
+'I wish I had not seen him, Milly. I feel as if it were an ill omen. He
+always looks so cross; and I dare say he wished us some ill,' I said.
+
+'No, no, you don't know Dudley: if he were angry, he'd say nothing that's
+funny; no, he's not vexed, only shamming vexed.'
+
+The scenery through which we passed was very pretty. The road brought us
+through a narrow and wooded glen. Such studies of ivied rocks and twisted
+roots! A little stream tinkled lonely through the hollow. Poor Milly! In
+her odd way she made herself companionable. I have sometimes fancied an
+enjoyment of natural scenery not so much a faculty as an acquirement. It is
+so exquisite in the instructed, so strangely absent in uneducated humanity.
+But certainly with Milly it was inborn and hearty; and so she could enter
+into my raptures, and requite them.
+
+Then over one of those beautiful Derbyshire moors we drove, and so into
+a wide wooded hollow, where was our first view of Cousin Monica's pretty
+gabled house, beautified with that indescribable air of shelter and comfort
+which belongs to an old English residence, with old timber grouped round
+it, and something in its aspect of the quaint old times and bygone
+merrymakings, saying sadly, but genially, 'Come in: I bid you welcome.
+For two hundred years, or more, have I been the home of this beloved old
+family, whose generations I have seen in the cradle and in the coffin, and
+whose mirth and sorrows and hospitalities I remember. All their friends,
+like you, were welcome; and you, like them, will here enjoy the warm
+illusions that cheat the sad conditions of mortality; and like them you
+will go your way, and others succeed you, till at last I, too, shall yield
+to the general law of decay, and disappear.'
+
+By this time poor Milly had grown very nervous; a state which she described
+in such very odd phraseology as threw me, in spite of myself--for I
+affected an impressive gravity in lecturing her upon her language--into a
+hearty fit of laughter.
+
+I must mention, however, that in certain important points Milly was very
+essentially reformed. Her dress, though not very fashionable, was no longer
+absurd. And I had drilled her into speaking and laughing quietly; and
+for the rest I trusted to the indulgence which is always, I think, more
+honestly and easily obtained from well-bred than from under-bred people.
+
+Cousin Monica was out when we arrived; but we found that she had arranged a
+double-bedded room for me and Milly, greatly to our content; and good Mary
+Quince was placed in the dressing-room beside us.
+
+We had only just commenced our toilet when our hostess entered, as usual in
+high spirits, welcomed and kissed us both again and again. She was, indeed,
+in extraordinary delight, for she had anticipated some stratagem or evasion
+to prevent our visit; and in her usual way she spoke her mind as frankly
+about Uncle Silas to poor Milly as she used to do of my dear father to me.
+
+'I did not think he would let you come without a battle; and you know if
+he chose to be obstinate it would not have been easy to get you out of the
+enchanted ground, for so it seems to be with that awful old wizard in the
+midst of it. I mean, Silas, your papa, my dear. Honestly, is not he very
+like Michael Scott?'
+
+'I never saw him,' answered poor Milly. 'At least, that I'm aware of,' she
+added, perceiving us smile. 'But I do think he's a thought like old Michael
+Dobbs, that sells the ferrets, maybe you mean him?'
+
+'Why, you told me, Maud, that you and Milly were reading Walter Scott's
+poems. Well, no matter. Michael Scott, my dear, was a dead wizard, with
+ever so much silvery hair, lying in his grave for ever so many years, with
+just life enough to scowl when they took his book; and you'll find him in
+the "Lay of the Last Minstrel," exactly like your papa, my dear. And my
+people tell me that your brother Dudley has been seen drinking and smoking
+about Feltram this week. How long does he remain at home? Not very long,
+eh? And, Maud, dear, he has not been making love to you? Well, I see; of
+course he has. And _apropos_ of love-making, I hope that impudent creature,
+Charles Oakley, has not been teasing you with notes or verses.'
+
+'Indeed but he has though,' interposed Miss Milly; a good deal to my
+chagrin, for I saw no particular reason for placing his verses in Cousin
+Monica's hands. So I confessed the two little copies of verses, with the
+qualification, however, that I did not know from whom they came.
+
+'Well now, dear Maud, have not I told you fifty times over to have nothing
+to say to him? I've found out, my dear, he plays, and he is very much in
+debt. I've made a vow to pay no more for him. I've been such a fool, you
+have no notion; and I'm speaking, you know, against myself; it would be
+such a relief if he were to find a wife to support him; and he has been,
+I'm told, very sweet upon a rich old maid--a button-maker's sister, in
+Manchester.'
+
+This arrow was well shot.
+
+'But don't be frightened: you are richer as well as younger; and, no doubt,
+will have your chance first, my dear; and in the meantime, I dare say,
+those verses, like Falstaff's _billet-doux,_ you know, are doing double
+duty.'
+
+I laughed, but the button-maker was a secret trouble to me; and I would
+have given I know not what that Captain Oakley were one of the company,
+that I might treat him with the refined contempt which his deserts and my
+dignity demanded.
+
+Cousin Monica busied herself about Milly's toilet, and was a very useful
+lady's maid, chatting in her own way all the time; and, at last, tapping
+Milly under the chin with her finger, she said, very complacently--
+
+'I think I have succeeded, Miss Milly; look in the glass. She really is a
+very pretty creature.'
+
+And Milly blushed, and looked with a shy gratification, which made her
+still prettier, on the mirror.
+
+Milly indeed was very pretty. She looked much taller now that her dresses
+were made of the usual length. A little plump she was, beautifully fair,
+with such azure eyes, and rich hair.
+
+'The more you laugh the better, Milly, for you've got very pretty
+teeth--very pretty; and if you were my daughter, or if your father would
+become president of a college of magicians, and give you up to me, I
+venture to say I would place you very well; and even as it is we must try,
+my dear.'
+
+So down to the drawing-room we went; and Cousin Monica entered, leading us
+both by the hands.
+
+By this time the curtains were closed, and the drawing-room dependent on
+the pleasant glow of the fire, and the slight provisional illumination
+usual before dinner.
+
+'Here are my two cousins,' began Lady Knollys: 'this is Miss Ruthyn, of
+Knowl, whom I take the liberty of calling Maud; and this is Miss Millicent
+Ruthyn, Silas's daughter, you know, whom I venture to call Milly; and they
+are very pretty, as you will see, when we get a little more light, and they
+know it very well themselves.'
+
+And as she spoke, a frank-eyed, gentle, prettyish lady, not so tall as I,
+but with a very kind face, rose up from a book of prints, and, smiling,
+took our hands.
+
+She was by no means young, as I then counted youth--past thirty, I
+suppose--and with an air that was very quiet, and friendly, and engaging.
+She had never been a mere fashionable woman plainly; but she had the ease
+and polish of the best society, and seemed to take a kindly interest both
+in Milly and me; and Cousin Monica called her Mary, and sometimes Polly.
+That was all I knew of her for the present.
+
+So very pleasantly the time passed by till the dressing-bell rang, and we
+ran away to our room.
+
+'Did I say anything very bad?' asked poor Milly, standing exactly before
+me, so soon as our door was shut.
+
+'Nothing, Milly; you are doing admirably.'
+
+'And I do look a great fool, don't I?' she demanded.
+
+'You look extremely pretty, Milly; and not a bit like a fool.'
+
+'I watch everything. I think I'll learn it at last; but it comes a little
+troublesome at first; and they do talk different from what I used--you were
+quite right there.'
+
+When we returned to the drawing-room, we found the party already assembled,
+and chatting, evidently with spirit.
+
+The village doctor, whose name I forget, a small man, grey, with shrewd
+grey eyes, sharp and mulberry nose, whose conflagration extended to his
+rugged cheeks, and touched his chin and forehead, was conversing, no doubt
+agreeably, with Mary, as Cousin Monica called her guest.
+
+Over my shoulder, Milly whispered--
+
+'Mr. Carysbroke.'
+
+And Milly was quite right: that gentleman chatting with Lady Knollys, his
+elbow resting on the chimney-piece, was, indeed, our acquaintance of the
+Windmill Wood. He instantly recognised us, and met us with his pleased and
+intelligent smile.
+
+'I was just trying to describe to Lady Knollys the charming scenery of the
+Windmill Wood, among which I was so fortunate as to make your acquaintance,
+Miss Ruthyn. Even in this beautiful county I know of nothing prettier.'
+
+Then he sketched it, as it were, with a few light but glowing words.
+
+'What a sweet scene!' said Cousin Monica: 'only think of her never bringing
+me through it. She reserves it, I fancy, for her romantic adventures; and
+you, I know, are very benevolent, Ilbury, and all that kind of thing; but I
+am not quite certain that you would have walked along that narrow parapet,
+over a river, to visit a sick old woman, if you had not happened to see two
+very pretty demoiselles on the other side.'
+
+'What an ill-natured speech! I must either forfeit my character for
+disinterested benevolence, so justly admired, or disavow a motive that does
+such infinite credit to my taste,' exclaimed Mr. Carysbroke. 'I think a
+charitable person would have said that a philanthropist, in prosecuting his
+virtuous, but perilous vocation, was unexpectedly _rewarded_ by a vision of
+angels.'
+
+'And with these angels loitered away the time which ought to have been
+devoted to good Mother Hubbard, in her fit of lumbago, and returned without
+having set eyes on that afflicted Christian, to amaze his worthy sister
+with poetic babblings about wood-nymphs and such pagan impieties,' rejoined
+Lady Knollys.
+
+'Well, be just,' he replied, laughing; 'did not I go next day and see the
+patient?'
+
+'Yes; next day you went by the same route--in quest of the dryads, I am
+afraid--and were rewarded by the spectacle of Mother Hubbard.'
+
+'Will nobody help a humane man in difficulties?' Mr. Carysbroke appealed.
+
+'I do believe,' said the lady whom as yet I knew only as Mary, 'that every
+word that Monica says is perfectly true.'
+
+'And if it be so, am I not all the more in need of help? Truth is simply
+the most dangerous kind of defamation, and I really think I'm most cruelly
+persecuted.'
+
+At this moment dinner was announced, and a meek and dapper little
+clergyman, with smooth pink cheeks, and tresses parted down the middle,
+whom I had not seen before, emerged from shadow.
+
+This little man was assigned to Milly, Mr. Carysbroke to me, and I know not
+how the remaining ladies divided the doctor between them.
+
+That dinner, the first at Elverston, I remember as a very pleasant repast.
+Everyone talked--it was impossible that conversation should flag where Lady
+Knollys was; and Mr. Carysbroke was very agreeable and amusing. At the
+other side of the table, the little pink curate, I was happy to see, was
+prattling away, with a modest fluency, in an under-tone to Milly, who was
+following my instructions most conscientiously, and speaking in so low a
+key that I could hardly hear at the opposite side one word she was saying.
+
+That night Cousin Monica paid us a visit, as we sat chatting by the fire in
+our room; and I told her--
+
+'I have just been telling Milly what an impression she has made. The pretty
+little clergyman--_il en est épris_--he has evidently quite lost his heart
+to her. I dare say he'll preach next Sunday on some of King Solomon's wise
+sayings about the irresistible strength of women.'
+
+'Yes,' said Lady Knollys,' or maybe on the sensible text, "Whoso findeth
+a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favour," and so forth. At all
+events, I may say, Milly, whoso findeth a husband such as he, findeth a
+tolerably good thing. He is an exemplary little creature, second son of Sir
+Harry Biddlepen, with a little independent income of his own, beside his
+church revenues of ninety pounds a year; and I don't think a more harmless
+and docile little husband could be found anywhere; and I think, Miss Maud,
+_you_ seemed a good deal interested, too.'
+
+I laughed and blushed, I suppose; and Cousin Monica, skipping after her
+wont to quite another matter, said in her odd frank way--
+
+'And how has Silas been?--not cross, I hope, or very odd. There was a
+rumour that your brother, Dudley, had gone a soldiering to India, Milly, or
+somewhere; but that was all a story, for he has turned up, just as usual.
+And what does he mean to do with himself? He has got some money now--your
+poor father's will, Maud. Surely he doesn't mean to go on lounging and
+smoking away his life among poachers, and prize-fighters, and worse people.
+He ought to go to Australia, like Thomas Swain, who, they say, is making a
+fortune--a great fortune--and coming home again. That's what your brother
+Dudley should do, if he has either sense or spirit; but I suppose he
+won't--too long abandoned to idleness and low company--and he'll not have a
+shilling left in a year or two. Does he know, I wonder, that his father has
+served a notice or something on Dr. Bryerly, telling him to pay sixteen
+hundred pounds of poor Austin's legacy to _him_, and saying that he has
+paid debts of the young man, and holds his acknowledgments to that amount?
+He won't have a guinea in a year if he stays here. I'd give fifty pounds he
+was in Van Diemen's Land--not that I care for the cub, Milly, any more than
+you do; but I really don't see any honest business he has in England.'
+
+Milly gaped in a total puzzle as Lady Knollys rattled on.
+
+'You know, Milly, you must not be talking about this when you go home to
+Bartram, because Silas would prevent your coming to me any more if he
+thought I spoke so freely; but I can't help it: so you must promise to be
+more discreet than I. And I am told that all kinds of claims are about to
+be pressed against him, now that he is thought to have got some money; and
+he has been cutting down oak and selling the bark, Doctor Bryerly has been
+told, in that Windmill Wood; and he has kilns there for burning charcoal,
+and got a man from Lancashire who understands it--Hawk, or something like
+that.'
+
+'Ay, Hawkes--Dickon Hawkes; that's Pegtop, you know, Maud,' said Milly.
+
+'Well, I dare say; but a man of very bad character, Dr. Bryerly says; and
+he has written to Mr. Danvers about it--for that is what they call waste,
+cutting down and selling the timber, and the oakbark, and burning the
+willows, and other trees that are turned into charcoal. It is all _waste_,
+and Dr. Bryerly is about to put a stop to it.'
+
+'Has he got your carriage for you, Maud, and your horses?' asked Cousin
+Monica, suddenly.
+
+'They have not come yet, but in a few weeks, Dudley says, positively--'
+
+Cousin Monica laughed a little and shook her head.
+
+'Yes, Maud, the carriage and horses will always be coming in a few weeks,
+till the time is over; and meanwhile the old travelling chariot and
+post-horses will do very well;' and she laughed a little again.
+
+'That's why the stile's pulled away at the paling, I suppose; and
+Beauty--Meg Hawkes, that is--is put there to stop us going through; for I
+often spied the smoke beyond the windmill,' observed Milly.
+
+Cousin Monica listened with interest, and nodded silently.
+
+I was very much shocked. It seemed to me quite incredible. I think Lady
+Knollys read my amazement and my exalted estimate of the heinousness of the
+procedure in my face, for she said--
+
+'You know we can't quite condemn Silas till we have heard what he has to
+say. He may have done it in ignorance; or, it is just possible, he may have
+the right.'
+
+'Quite true. He may have the right to cut down trees at Bartram-Haugh. At
+all events, I am sure he thinks he has,' I echoed.
+
+The fact was, that I would not avow to myself a suspicion of Uncle Silas.
+Any falsehood there opened an abyss beneath my feet into which I dared not
+look.
+
+'And now, dear girls, good-night. You must be tired. We breakfast at a
+quarter past nine--not too early for you, I know.'
+
+And so saying, she kissed us, smiling, and was gone.
+
+I was so unpleasantly occupied, for some time after her departure, with the
+knaveries said to be practised among the dense cover of the Windmill Wood,
+that I did not immediately recollect that we had omitted to ask her any
+particulars about her guests.
+
+'Who can Mary be?' asked Milly.
+
+'Cousin Monica says she's engaged to be married, and I think I heard the
+Doctor call her _Lady_ Mary, and I intended asking her ever so much about
+her; but what she told us about cutting down the trees, and all that, quite
+put it out of my head. We shall have time enough to-morrow, however, to ask
+questions. I like her very much, I know.'
+
+'And I think,' said Milly, 'it is to Mr. Carysbroke she's to be married.'
+
+'Do you?' said I, remembering that he had sat beside her for more than a
+quarter of an hour after tea in very close and low-toned conversation; 'and
+have you any particular reason?' I asked.
+
+'Well, I heard her once or twice call him "dear," and she called him his
+Christian name, just like Lady Knollys did--Ilbury, I think--and I saw him
+gi' her a sly kiss as she was going up-stairs.'
+
+I laughed.
+
+'Well, Milly,' I said, 'I remarked something myself, I thought, like
+confidential relations; but if you really saw them kiss on the staircase,
+the question is pretty well settled.'
+
+'Ay, lass.'
+
+'You're not to say _lass_.'
+
+'Well, _Maud, then_. I did see them with the corner of my eye, and my back
+turned, when they did not think I could spy anything, as plain as I see you
+now.'
+
+I laughed again; but I felt an odd pang--something of
+mortification--something of regret; but I smiled very gaily, as I stood
+before the glass, un-making my toilet preparatory to bed.
+
+'Maud--Maud--fickle Maud!--What, Captain Oakley already superseded! and Mr.
+Carysbroke--oh! humiliation--engaged.' So I smiled on, very much vexed;
+and being afraid lest I had listened with too apparent an interest to this
+impostor, I sang a verse of a gay little chanson, and tried to think of
+Captain Oakley, who somehow had become rather silly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII
+
+_NEWS AT BARTRAM GATE_
+
+
+Milly and I, thanks to our early Bartram hours, were first down next
+morning; and so soon as Cousin Monica appeared we attacked her.
+
+'So Lady Mary is the _fiancée_ of Mr. Carysbroke,' said I, very cleverly;
+'and I think it was very wicked of you to try and involve me in a
+flirtation with him yesterday.'
+
+'And who told you that, pray?' asked Lady Knollys, with a pleasant little
+laugh.
+
+'Milly and I discovered it, simple as we stand here,' I answered.
+
+'But you did not flirt with Mr. Carysbroke, Maud, did you?' she asked.
+
+'No, certainly not; but that was not your doing, wicked woman, but my
+discretion. And now that we know your secret, you must tell us all about
+her, and all about him; and in the first place, what is her name--Lady Mary
+what?' I demanded.
+
+'Who would have thought you so cunning? Two country misses--two little nuns
+from the cloisters of Bartram! Well, I suppose I must answer. It is vain
+trying to hide anything from you; but how on earth did you find it out?'
+
+'We'll tell you that presently, but you shall first tell us who she is,' I
+persisted.
+
+'Well, that I will, of course, without compulsion. She is Lady Mary
+Carysbroke,' said Lady Knollys.
+
+'A relation of Mr. Carysbroke's,' I asserted.
+
+'Yes, a relation; but who told you he was Mr. Carysbroke?' asked Cousin
+Monica.
+
+'Milly told me, when we saw him in the Windmill Wood.'
+
+'And who told you, Milly?'
+
+'It was L'Amour,' answered Milly, with her blue eyes very wide open.
+
+'What does the child mean? L'Amour! You don't mean _love_?' exclaimed Lady
+Knollys, puzzled in her turn.
+
+'I mean old Wyat; _she_ told me and the Governor.'
+
+'You're _not_ to say that,' I interposed.
+
+'You mean your father?' suggested Lady Knollys.
+
+'Well, yes; father told her, and so I knew him.'
+
+'What could he mean?' exclaimed Lady Knollys, laughing, as it were, in
+soliloquy; 'and I did not mention his name, I recollect now. He recognised
+you, and you him, when you came into the room yesterday; and now you must
+tell me how you discovered that he and Lady Mary were to be married.'
+
+So Milly restated her evidence, and Lady Knollys laughed unaccountably
+heartily; and she said--
+
+'They _will_ be _so_ confounded! but they deserve it; and, remember, _I_
+did not say so.'
+
+'Oh! we acquit you.'
+
+'All I say is, such a deceitful, dangerous pair of girls--all things
+considered--I never heard of before,' exclaimed Lady Knollys. 'There's no
+such thing as conspiring in your presence.'
+
+'Good morning. I hope you slept well.' She was addressing the lady and
+gentleman who were just entering the room from the conservatory. 'You'll
+hardly sleep so well to-night, when you have learned what eyes are upon
+you. Here are two very pretty detectives who have found out your secret,
+and entirely by your imprudence and their own cleverness have discovered
+that you are a pair of betrothed lovers, about to ratify your vows at
+the hymeneal altar. I assure you I did not tell of you; you betrayed
+yourselves. If you will talk in that confidential way on sofas, and call
+one another stealthily by your Christian names, and actually kiss at the
+foot of the stairs, while a clever detective is scaling them, apparently
+with her back toward you, you must only take the consequences, and be known
+prematurely as the hero and heroine of the forthcoming paragraph in the
+"Morning Post."'
+
+Milly and I were horribly confounded, but Cousin Monica was resolved to
+place us all upon the least formal terms possible, and I believe she had
+set about it in the right way.
+
+'And now, girls, I am going to make a counter-discovery, which, I fear, a
+little conflicts with yours. This Mr. Carysbroke is Lord Ilbury, brother
+of this Lady Mary; and it is all my fault for not having done my honours
+better; but you see what clever match-making little creatures they are.'
+
+'You can't think how flattered I am at being made the subject of a theory,
+even a mistaken one, by Miss Ruthyn.'
+
+And so, after our modest fit was over, Milly and I were very merry, like
+the rest, and we all grew a great deal more intimate that morning.
+
+I think altogether those were the pleasantest and happiest days of my
+life: gay, intelligent, and kindly society at home; charming
+excursions--sometimes riding--sometimes by carriage--to distant points of
+beauty in the county. Evenings varied with music, reading, and spirited
+conversation. Now and then a visitor for a day or two, and constantly some
+neighbour from the town, or its dependencies, dropt in. Of these I but
+remember tall old Miss Wintletop, most entertaining of rustic old
+maids, with her nice lace and thick satin, and her small, kindly round
+face--pretty, I dare say, in other days, and now frosty, but kindly--who
+told us such delightful old stories of the county in her father's and
+grandfather's time; who knew the lineage of every family in it, and could
+recount all its duels and elopements; give us illustrative snatches from
+old election squibs, and lines from epitaphs, and tell exactly where all
+the old-world highway robberies had been committed: how it fared with the
+chief delinquents after the assizes; and, above all, where, and of what
+sort, the goblins and elves of the county had made themselves seen, from
+the phantom post-boy, who every third night crossed Windale Moor, by the
+old coach-road, to the fat old ghost, in mulberry velvet, who showed his
+great face, crutch, and ruffles, by moonlight, at the bow window of the old
+court-house that was taken down in 1803.
+
+You cannot imagine what agreeable evenings we passed in this society,
+or how rapidly my good Cousin Milly improved in it. I remember well the
+intense suspense in which she and I awaited the answer from Bartram-Haugh
+to kind Cousin Monica's application for an extension of our leave of
+absence.
+
+It came, and with it a note from Uncle Silas, which was curious, and,
+therefore, is printed here:--
+
+'MY DEAR LADY KNOLLYS,--To your kind letter I say yes (that is, for another
+week, not a fortnight), with all my heart. I am glad to hear that my
+starlings chatter so pleasantly; at all events the refrain is not that of
+Sterne's. They can get out; and do get out; and shall get out as much as
+they please. I am no gaoler, and shut up nobody but myself. I have always
+thought that young people have too little liberty. My principle has been
+to make little free men and women of them from the first. In morals,
+altogether--in intellect, more than we allow--_self_-education is that
+which abides; and _it_ only begins where constraint ends. Such is my
+theory. My practice is consistent. Let them remain for a week longer, as
+you say. The horses shall be at Elverston on Tuesday, the 7th. I shall be
+more than usually sad and solitary till their return; so pray, I selfishly
+entreat, do not extend their absence. You will smile, remembering how
+little my health will allow me to see of them, even when at home; but as
+Chaulieu so prettily says--I stupidly forget the words, but the sentiment
+is this--"although concealed by a sylvan wall of leaves, impenetrable--(he
+is pursuing his favourite nymphs through the alleys and intricacies of a
+rustic labyrinth)--yet, your songs, your prattle, and your laughter, faint
+and far away, inspire my fancy; and, through my ears, I see your unseen
+smiles, your blushes, your floating tresses, and your ivory feet; and so,
+though sad, am happy; though alone, in company;"--and such is my case.
+
+'One only request, and I have done. Pray remind them of a promise made to
+me. The Book of Life--the fountain of life--it must be drunk of, night and
+morning, or their spiritual life expires.
+
+'And now, Heaven bless and keep you, my dear cousin; and with all
+assurances of affection to my beloved niece and my child, believe me ever
+yours affectionately.
+
+'SILAS RUTHYN.'
+
+Said Cousin Monica, with a waggish smile--
+
+'And so, girls, you have Chaulieu and the evangelists; the French rhymester
+in his alley, and Silas in the valley of the shadow of death; perfect
+liberty, and a peremptory order to return in a week;--all illustrating one
+another. Poor Silas! old as he is, I don't think his religion fits him.'
+
+_I_ really rather liked his letter. I was struggling hard to think well of
+him, and Cousin Monica knew it; and I really think if I had not been by,
+she would often have been less severe on him.
+
+As we were all sitting pleasantly about the breakfast table a day or two
+after, the sun shining on the pleasant wintry landscape, Cousin Monica
+suddenly exclaimed--
+
+'I quite forgot to tell you that Charles Oakley has written to say he is
+coming on Wednesday. I really don't want him. Poor Charlie! I wonder how
+they manage those doctors' certificates. I know nothing ails him, and he'd
+be much better with his regiment.'
+
+Wednesday!--how odd. Exactly the day after my departure. I tried to look
+perfectly unconcerned. Lady Knollys had addressed herself more to Lady
+Mary and Milly than to me, and nobody in particular was looking at me.
+Notwithstanding, with my usual perversity, I felt myself blushing with a
+brilliancy that may have been very becoming, but which was so intolerably
+provoking that I would have risen and left the room but that matters would
+have been so infinitely worse. I could have boxed my odious ears. I could
+almost have jumped from the window.
+
+I felt that Lord Ilbury saw it. I saw Lady Mary's eyes for a moment resting
+gravely on my tell-tale--my lying cheeks--for I really had begun to think
+much less celestially of Captain Oakley. I was angry with Cousin Monica,
+who, knowing my blushing infirmity, had mentioned her nephew so suddenly
+while I was strapped by etiquette in my chair, with my face to the window,
+and two pair of most disconcerting eyes, at least, opposite. I was angry
+with myself--generally angry--refused more tea rather dryly, and was
+laconic to Lord Ilbury, all which, of course, was very cross and foolish;
+and afterwards, from my bed-room window, I saw Cousin Monica and Lady
+Mary among the flowers, under the drawing-room window, talking, as I
+instinctively knew, of that little incident. I was standing at the glass.
+
+'My odious, stupid, _perjured_ face' I whispered, furiously, at the same
+time stamping on the floor, and giving myself quite a smart slap on the
+cheek. 'I _can't_ go down--I'm ready to cry--I've a mind to return to
+Bartram to-day; I am _always_ blushing; and I wish that impudent Captain
+Oakley was at the bottom of the sea.'
+
+I was, perhaps, thinking more of Lord Ilbury than I was aware; and I am
+sure if Captain Oakley had arrived that day, I should have treated him with
+most unjustifiable rudeness.
+
+Notwithstanding this unfortunate blush, the remainder of our visit passed
+very happily for me. No one who has not experienced it can have an idea
+how intimate a small party, such as ours, will grow in a short time in a
+country house.
+
+Of course, a young lady of a well-regulated mind cannot possibly care a
+pin about any one of the opposite sex until she is well assured that he is
+beginning, at least, to like her better than all the world beside; but I
+could not deny to myself that I was rather anxious to know more about Lord
+Ilbury than I actually did know.
+
+There was a 'Peerage,' in its bright scarlet and gold uniform, corpulent
+and tempting, upon the little marble table in the drawing-room. I had many
+opportunities of consulting it, but I never could find courage to do so.
+
+For an inexperienced person it would have been a matter of several minutes,
+and during those minutes what awful risk of surprise and detection. One
+day, all being quiet, I did venture, and actually, with a beating heart,
+got so far as to find out the letter 'Il,' when I heard a step outside the
+door, which opened a little bit, and I heard Lady Knollys, luckily arrested
+at the entrance, talk some sentences outside, her hand still upon the
+door-handle. I shut the book, as Mrs. Bluebeard might the door of the
+chamber of horrors at the sound of her husband's step, and skipped to a
+remote part of the room, where Cousin Knollys found me in a mysterious
+state of agitation.
+
+On any other subject I would have questioned Cousin Monica unhesitatingly;
+upon this, somehow, I was dumb. I distrusted myself, and dreaded my odious
+habit of blushing, and knew that I should look so horribly guilty, and
+become so agitated and odd, that she would have reasonably concluded that I
+had quite lost my heart to him.
+
+After the lesson I had received, and my narrow escape of detection in the
+very act, you may be sure I never trusted myself in the vicinity of that
+fat and cruel 'Peerage,' which possessed the secret, but would not disclose
+without compromising me.
+
+In this state of tantalizing darkness and conjecture I should have
+departed, had not Cousin Monica quite spontaneously relieved me.
+
+The night before our departure she sat with us in our room, chatting a
+little farewell gossip.
+
+'And what do you think of Ilbury?' she asked.
+
+'I think him clever and accomplished, and amusing; but he sometimes appears
+to me very melancholy--that is, for a few minutes together--and then, I
+fancy, with an effort, re-engages in our conversation.'
+
+'Yes, poor Ilbury! He lost his brother only about five months since, and
+is only beginning to recover his spirits a little. They were very much
+attached, and people thought that he would have succeeded to the title,
+had he lived, because Ilbury is _difficile_--or a philosopher--or a _Saint
+Kevin_; and, in fact, has begun to be treated as a premature old bachelor.'
+
+'What a charming person his sister, Lady Mary, is. She has made me promise
+to write to her,' I said, I suppose--such hypocrites are we--to prove to
+Cousin Knollys that I did not care particularly to hear anything more about
+him.
+
+'Yes, and so devoted to him. He came down here, and took The Grange, for
+change of scene and solitude--of all things the worst for a man in grief--a
+morbid whim, as he is beginning to find out; for he is very glad to stay
+here, and confesses that he is much better since he came. His letters are
+still addressed to him as Mr. Carysbroke; for he fancied if his rank were
+known, that the county people would have been calling upon him, and so he
+would have found himself soon involved in a tiresome round of dinners, and
+must have gone somewhere else. You saw him, Milly, at Bartram, before Maud
+came?'
+
+Yes, she had, when he called there to see her father.
+
+'He thought, as he had accepted the trusteeship, that he could hardly,
+residing so near, omit to visit Silas. He was very much struck and
+interested by him, and he has a better opinion of him--you are not angry,
+Milly--than some ill-natured people I could name; and he says that the
+cutting down of the trees will turn out to have been a mere slip. But these
+slips don't occur with clever men in other things; and some persons have
+a way of always making them in their own favour. And, to talk of other
+things, I suspect that you and Milly will probably see Ilbury at Bartram;
+for I think he likes you very much.'
+
+_You_; did she mean _both_, or only me?
+
+So our pleasant visit was over. Milly's good little curate had been much
+thrown in her way by our deep and dangerous cousin Monica. He was most
+laudably steady; and his flirtation advanced upon the field of theology,
+where, happily, Milly's little reading had been concentrated. A mild and
+earnest interest in poor, pretty Milly's orthodoxy was the leading feature
+of his case; and I was highly amused at her references to me, when we had
+retired at night, upon the points which she had disputed with him, and
+her anxious reports of their low-toned conferences, carried on upon a
+sequestered ottoman, where he patted and stroked his crossed leg, as he
+smiled tenderly and shook his head at her questionable doctrine. Milly's
+reverence for her instructor, and his admiration, grew daily; and he was
+known among us as Milly's confessor.
+
+He took luncheon with us on the day of our departure, and with an adroit
+privacy, which in a layman would have been sly, presented her, in right of
+his holy calling, with a little book, the binding of which was mediaeval
+and costly, and whose letter-press dealt in a way which he commended,
+with some points on which she was not satisfactory; and she found on the
+fly-leaf this little inscription:--'Presented to Miss Millicent Ruthyn by
+an earnest well-wisher, 1st December 1844.' A text, very neatly penned,
+followed this; and the 'presentation' was made unctiously indeed, but with
+a blush, as well as the accustomed smile, and with eyes that were lowered.
+
+The early crimson sun of December had gone down behind the hills before we
+took our seats in the carriage.
+
+Lord Ilbury leaned with his elbow on the carriage window, looking in, and
+he said to me--
+
+'I really don't know what we shall do, Miss Ruthyn; we shall all feel so
+lonely. For myself, I think I shall run away to Grange.'
+
+This appeared to me as nearly perfect eloquence as human lips could utter.
+
+His hand still rested on the window, and the Rev. Sprigge Biddlepen was
+standing with a saddened smirk on the door steps, when the whip smacked,
+the horses scrambled into motion, and away we rolled down the avenue,
+leaving behind us the pleasantest house and hostess in the world, and
+trotting fleetly into darkness towards Bartram-Haugh.
+
+We were both rather silent. Milly had her book in her lap, and I saw
+her every now and then try to read her 'earnest well-wisher's' little
+inscription, but there was not light to read by.
+
+When we reached the great gate of Bartram-Haugh it was dark. Old Crowl, who
+kept the gate, I heard enjoining the postilion to make no avoidable noise
+at the hall-door, for the odd but startling reason that he believed my
+uncle 'would be dead by this time.'
+
+Very much shocked and frightened, we stopped the carriage, and questioned
+the tremulous old porter.
+
+Uncle Silas, it seemed, had been 'silly-ish' all yesterday, and 'could not
+be woke this morning,' and 'the doctor had been here twice, being now in
+the house.'
+
+'Is he better?' I asked, tremblingly.
+
+'Not as I'm aweer on, Miss; he lay at God's mercy two hours agone; 'appen
+he's in heaven be this time.'
+
+'Drive on--drive fast,' I said to the driver. 'Don't be frightened, Milly;
+please Heaven we shall find all going well.'
+
+After some delay, during which my heart sank, and I quite gave up Uncle
+Silas, the aged little servant-man opened the door, and trotted shakily
+down the steps to the carriage side.
+
+Uncle Silas had been at death's door for hours; the question of life had
+trembled in the scale; but now the doctor said 'he might do.'
+
+'Where was the doctor?'
+
+'In master's room; he blooded him three hours agone.'
+
+I don't think that Milly was so frightened as I. My heart beat, and I was
+trembling so that I could hardly get upstairs.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIV
+
+_A FRIEND ARISES_
+
+
+At the top of the great staircase I was glad to see the friendly face
+of Mary Quince, who stood, candle in hand, greeting us with many little
+courtesies, and a very haggard and pallid smile.
+
+'Very welcome, Miss, hoping you are very well.'
+
+'All well, and you are well, Mary? and oh! tell us quickly how is Uncle
+Silas?'
+
+'We thought he was gone, Miss, this morning, but doing fairly now; doctor
+says in a trance like. I was helping old Wyat most of the day, and was
+there when doctor blooded him, an' he spoke at last; but he must be awful
+weak, he took a deal o' blood from his arm, Miss; I held the basin.'
+
+'And he's better--decidedly better?' I asked.
+
+'Well, he's better, doctor says; he talked some, and doctor says if he goes
+off asleep again, and begins a-snoring like he did before, we're to loose
+the bandage, and let him bleed till he comes to his self again; which, it
+seems to me and Wyat, is the same thing a'most as saying he's to be killed
+off-hand, for I don't believe he has a drop to spare, as you'll say
+likewise, Miss, if you'll please look in the basin.'
+
+This was not an invitation with which I cared to comply. I thought I was
+going to faint. I sat on the stairs and sipped a little water, and Quince
+sprinkled a little in my face, and my strength returned.
+
+Milly must have felt her father's danger more than I, for she was
+affectionate, and loved him from habit and relation, although he was not
+kind to her. But I was more nervous and more impetuous, and my feelings
+both stimulated and overpowered me more easily. The moment I was able to
+stand I said--thinking of nothing but the one idea--
+
+'We must see him--_come_, Milly.'
+
+I entered his sitting-room; a common 'dip' candle hanging like the tower
+of Pisa all to one side, with a dim, long wick, in a greasy candlestick,
+profaned the table of the fastidious invalid. The light was little better
+than darkness, and I crossed the room swiftly, still transfixed by the one
+idea of seeing my uncle.
+
+His bed-room door beside the fireplace stood partly open, and I looked in.
+
+Old Wyat, a white, high-cauled ghost, was pottering in her slippers in the
+shadow at the far side of the bed. The doctor, a stout little bald man,
+with a paunch and a big bunch of seals, stood with his back to the
+fireplace, which corresponded with that in the next room, eyeing his
+patient through the curtains of the bed with a listless sort of importance.
+
+The head of the large four-poster rested against the opposite wall. Its
+foot was presented toward the fireplace; but the curtains at the side,
+which alone I could see from my position, were closed.
+
+The little doctor knew me, and thinking me, I suppose, a person of
+consequence, removed his hands from behind him, suffering the skirts of his
+coat to fall forward, and with great celerity and gravity made me a low but
+important bow; then choosing more particularly to make my acquaintance
+he further advanced, and with another reverence he introduced himself
+as Doctor Jolks, in a murmured diapason. He bowed me back again into my
+uncle's study, and the light of old Wyat's dreadful candle.
+
+Doctor Jolks was suave and pompous. I longed for a fussy practitioner who
+would have got over the ground in half the time.
+
+Coma, madam; coma. Miss Ruthyn, your uncle, I may tell you, has been in a
+very critical state; highly so. Coma of the most obstinate type. He would
+have sunk--he must have gone, in fact, had I not resorted to a very extreme
+remedy, and bled him freely, which happily told precisely as we could have
+wished. A wonderful constitution--a marvellous constitution--prodigious
+nervous fibre; the greatest pity in the world he won't give himself fair
+play. His habits, you know, are quite, I may say, destructive. We do
+our best--we do all we can, but if the patient won't cooperate it can't
+possibly end satisfactorily.'
+
+And Jolks accompanied this with an awful shrug. 'Is there _anything_? Do
+you think change of air? What an awful complaint it is,' I exclaimed.
+
+He smiled, mysteriously looking down, and shook his head undertaker-like.
+
+'Why, we can hardly call it a _complaint_, Miss Ruthyn. I look upon it he
+has been poisoned--he has had, you understand me,' he pursued, observing my
+startled look, 'an overdose of opium; you know he takes opium habitually;
+he takes it in laudanum, he takes it in water, and, most dangerous of all,
+he takes it solid, in lozenges. I've known people take it moderately.
+I've known people take it to excess, _but_ they all were particular as to
+_measure,_ and _that_ is exactly the point I've tried to impress upon him.
+The habit, of course, you understand is formed, there's no uprooting that;
+but he won't _measure_--he goes by the eye and by sensation, which I need
+not tell you, Miss Ruthyn, is going by _chance;_ and opium, as no doubt
+you are aware, is strictly a poison; a poison, no doubt, which habit will
+enable you to partake of, I may say, in considerable quantities, without
+fatal consequences, but still a poison; and to exhibit a poison _so_, is,
+I need scarcely tell you, to trifle with death. He has been so threatened,
+and for a time he changes his haphazard mode of dealing with it, and then
+returns; he may escape--of course, that is possible--but he may any day
+overdo the thing. I don't think the present crisis will result seriously. I
+am very glad, independently of the honour of making your acquaintance, Miss
+Ruthyn, that you and your cousin have returned; for, however zealous, I
+fear the servants are deficient in intelligence; and as in the event of a
+recurrence of the symptoms--which, however, is not probable--I would beg to
+inform you of their nature, and how exactly best to deal with them.'
+
+So upon these points he delivered us a pompous little lecture, and begged
+that either Milly or I would remain in the room with the patient until his
+return at two or three o'clock in the morning; a reappearance of the coma
+'might be very bad indeed.'
+
+Of course Milly and I did as we were directed. We sat by the fire, scarcely
+daring to whisper. Uncle Silas, about whom a new and dreadful suspicion
+began to haunt me, lay still and motionless as if he were actually dead.
+
+'Had he attempted to poison himself?'
+
+If he believed his position to be as desperate as Lady Knollys had
+described it, was this, after all, improbable? There were strange wild
+theories, I had been told, mixed up in his religion.
+
+Sometimes, at an hour's interval, a sign of life would come--a moan from
+that tall sheeted figure in the bed--a moan and a pattering of the lips.
+Was it prayer--_what_ was it? who could guess what thoughts were passing
+behind that white-fillited forehead?
+
+I had peeped at him: a white cloth steeped in vinegar and water was folded
+round his head; his great eyes were closed, so were his marble lips; his
+figure straight, thin, and long, dressed in a white dressing-gown, looked
+like a corpse 'laid out' in the bed; his gaunt bandaged arm lay outside the
+sheet that covered his body.
+
+With this awful image of death we kept our vigil, until poor Milly grew so
+sleepy that old Wyat proposed that she should take her place and watch with
+me.
+
+Little as I liked the crone with the high-cauled cap, she would, at all
+events, keep awake, which Milly could not. And so at one o'clock this new
+arrangement began.
+
+'Mr. Dudley Ruthyn is not at home?' I whispered to old Wyat.
+
+'He went away wi' himself yesternight, to Cloperton, Miss, to see the
+wrestling; it was to come off this morning.'
+
+'Was he sent for?'
+
+'Not he.'
+
+'And why not?'
+
+'He would na' leave the sport for this, I'm thinking,' and the old woman
+grinned uglily.
+
+'When is he to return?'
+
+'When he wants money.'
+
+So we grew silent, and again I thought of suicide, and of the unhappy old
+man, who just then whispered a sentence or two to himself with a sigh.
+
+For the next hour he had been quite silent, and old Wyat informed me that
+she must go down for candles. Ours were already burnt down to the sockets.
+
+'There's a candle in the next room,' I suggested, hating the idea of being
+left alone with the patient.
+
+'Hoot! Miss. I _dare_ na' set a candle but wax in his presence,' whispered
+the old woman, scornfully.
+
+'I think if we were to stir the fire, and put on a little more coal, we
+should have a great deal of light.'
+
+'He'll ha' the candles,' said Dame Wyat, doggedly; and she tottered from
+the chamber, muttering to herself; and I heard her take her candle from the
+next room and depart, shutting the outer door after her.
+
+Here was I then alone, but for this unearthly companion, whom I feared
+inexpressibly, at two o'clock, in the vast old house of Bartram.
+
+I stirred the fire. It was low, and would not blaze. I stood up, and, with
+my hand on the mantelpiece, endeavoured to think of cheerful things. But
+it was a struggle against wind and tide--vain; and so I drifted away into
+haunted regions.
+
+Uncle Silas was perfectly still. I would not suffer myself to think of the
+number of dark rooms and passages which now separated me from the other
+living tenants of the house. I awaited with a false composure the return of
+old Wyat.
+
+Over the mantelpiece was a looking-glass. At another time this might have
+helped to entertain my solitary moments, but now I did not like to venture
+a peep. A small thick Bible lay on the chimneypiece, and leaning its back
+against the mirror, I began to read in it with a mind as attentively
+directed as I could. While so engaged in turning over the leaves, I lighted
+upon two or three odd-looking papers, which had been folded into it. One
+was a broad printed thing, with names and dates written into blank spaces,
+and was about the size of a quarter of a yard of very broad ribbon. The
+others were mere scraps, with 'Dudley Ruthyn' penned in my cousin's vulgar
+round-hand at the foot. While I folded and replaced these, I really don't
+know what caused me to fancy that something was moving behind me, as I
+stood with my back toward the bed. I do not recollect any sound whatever;
+but instinctively I glanced into the mirror, and my eyes were instantly
+fixed by what I saw.
+
+The figure of Uncle Silas rose up, and dressed in a long white morning
+gown, slid over the end of the bed, and with two or three swift
+noiseless steps, stood behind me, with a death-like scowl and a simper.
+Preternaturally tall and thin, he stood for a moment almost touching me,
+with the white bandage pinned across his forehead, his bandaged arm stiffly
+by his side, and diving over my shoulder, with his long thin hand he
+snatched the Bible, and whispered over my head--'The serpent beguiled her
+and she did eat;' and after a momentary pause, he glided to the farthest
+window, and appeared to look out upon the midnight prospect.
+
+It was cold, but he did not seem to feel it. With the same inflexible scowl
+and smile, he continued to look out for several minutes, and then with a
+great sigh, he sat down on the side of his bed, his face immovably turned
+towards me, with the same painful look.
+
+It seemed to me an hour before old Wyat came back; and never was lover made
+happier at sight of his mistress than I to behold that withered crone.
+
+You may be sure I did not prolong my watch. There was now plainly no risk
+of my uncle's relapsing into lethargy. I had a long hysterical fit of
+weeping when I got into my room, with honest Mary Quince by my side.
+
+Whenever I closed my eyes, the face of Uncle Silas was before me, as I had
+seen it reflected in the glass. The sorceries of Bartram were enveloping me
+once more.
+
+Next morning the doctor said he was quite out of danger, but very weak.
+Milly and I saw him; and again in our afternoon walk we saw the doctor
+marching under the trees in the direction of the Windmill Wood.
+
+'Going down to see that poor girl there?' he said, when he had made his
+salutation, prodding with his levelled stick in the direction. 'Hawke, or
+Hawkes, I think.'
+
+'Beauty's sick, Maud,' exclaimed Milly.
+
+'_Hawkes_. She's upon my dispensary list. Yes,' said the doctor, looking
+into his little note-book--'Hawkes.'
+
+'And what is her complaint?'
+
+'Rheumatic fever.'
+
+'Not infectious?'
+
+'Not the least--no more, as we say, Miss Ruthyn, than a broken leg,' and he
+laughed obligingly.
+
+So soon as the doctor had departed, Milly and I agreed to follow to Hawkes'
+cottage and enquire more particularly how she was. To say truth, I am
+afraid it was rather for the sake of giving our walk a purpose and a point
+of termination, than for any very charitable interest we might have felt in
+the patient.
+
+Over the inequalities of the upland slope, clumped with trees, we reached
+the gabled cottage, with its neglected little farm-yard. A rheumatic old
+woman was the only attendant; and, having turned her ear in an attitude of
+attention, which induced us in gradually exalted keys to enquire how Meg
+was, she informed us in very loud tones that she had long lost her hearing
+and was perfectly deaf. And added considerately--
+
+'When the man comes in, 'appen he'll tell ye what ye want.'
+
+Through the door of a small room at the further end of that in which we
+were, we could see a portion of the narrow apartment of the patient, and
+hear her moans and the doctor's voice.
+
+'We'll see him, Milly, when he comes out. Let us wait here.'
+
+So we stood upon the door-stone awaiting him. The sounds of suffering had
+moved my compassion and interested us for the sick girl.
+
+'Blest if here isn't Pegtop,' said Milly.
+
+And the weather-stained red coat, the swarthy forbidding face and sooty
+locks of old Hawkes loomed in sight, as he stumped, steadying himself with
+his stick, over the uneven pavement of the yard. He touched his hat gruffly
+to me, but did not seem half to like our being where we were, for he looked
+surlily, and scratched his head under his wide-awake.
+
+'Your daughter is very ill, I'm afraid,' said I.
+
+'Ay--she'll be costin' me a handful, like her mother did,' said Pegtop.
+
+'I hope her room is comfortable, poor thing.'
+
+'Ay, that's it; she be comfortable enough, I warrant--more nor I. It be all
+Meg, and nout o' Dickon.'
+
+'When did her illness commence?' I asked.
+
+'Day the mare wor shod--_Saturday_. I talked a bit wi' the workus folk, but
+they won't gi'e nout--dang 'em--an' how be _I_ to do't? It be all'ays hard
+bread wi' Silas, an' a deal harder now she' ta'en them pains. I won't stan'
+it much longer. Gammon! If she keeps on that way I'll just cut. See how the
+workus fellahs 'ill like _that_!'
+
+'The Doctor gives his services for nothing,' I said.
+
+'An' _does_ nothin', bless him! ha, ha. No more nor that old deaf gammon
+there that costs me three tizzies a week, and haint worth a h'porth--no
+more nor Meg there, that's making all she can o' them pains. They be all a
+foolin' o' me, an' thinks I don't know't. Hey? _we_'ll see.'
+
+All this time he was cutting a bit of tobacco into shreds on the
+window-stone.
+
+'A workin' man be same as a hoss; if he baint cared, he can't work--'tisn't
+in him:' and with these words, having by this time stuffed his pipe with
+tobacco, he poked the deaf lady, who was pattering about with her back
+toward him, rather viciously with the point of his stick, and signed for a
+light.
+
+'It baint in him, you can't get it out o' 'im, no more nor ye'll draw smoke
+out o' this,' and he raised his pipe an inch or two, with his thumb on the
+bowl, 'without backy and fire. 'Tisn't in it.'
+
+'Maybe I can be of some use?' I said, thinking.
+
+'Maybe,' he rejoined.
+
+By this time he received from the old deaf abigail a flaming roll of brown
+paper, and, touching his hat to me, he withdrew, lighting his pipe and
+sending up little white puffs, like the salute of a departing ship.
+
+So he did not care to hear how his daughter was, and had only come here to
+light his pipe!
+
+Just then the Doctor emerged.
+
+'We have been waiting to hear how your poor patient is to-day?' I said.
+
+'Very ill, indeed, and utterly neglected, I fear. If she were equal
+to it--but she's not--I think she ought to be removed to the hospital
+immediately.'
+
+'That poor old woman is quite deaf, and the man is so surly and selfish!
+Could you recommend a nurse who would stay here till she's better? I will
+pay her with pleasure, and anything you think might be good for the poor
+girl.'
+
+So this was settled on the spot. Doctor Jolks was kind, like most men
+of his calling, and undertook to send the nurse from Feltram with a few
+comforts for the patient; and he called Dickon to the yard-gate, and I
+suppose told him of the arrangement; and Milly and I went to the poor
+girl's door and asked, 'May we come in?'
+
+There was no answer. So, with the conventional construction of silence, we
+entered. Her looks showed how ill she was. We adjusted her bed-clothes, and
+darkened the room, and did what we could for her--noting, beside, what her
+comfort chiefly required. She did not answer any questions. She did not
+thank us. I should almost have fancied that she had not perceived our
+presence, had I not observed her dark, sunken eyes once or twice turned up
+towards my face, with a dismal look of wonder and enquiry.
+
+The girl was very ill, and we went every day to see her. Sometimes she
+would answer our questions--sometimes not. Thoughtful, observant, surly,
+she seemed; and as people like to be thanked, I sometimes wonder that
+we continued to throw our bread upon these ungrateful waters. Milly was
+specially impatient under this treatment, and protested against it, and
+finally refused to accompany me into poor Beauty's bed-room.
+
+'I think, my good Meg,' said I one day, as I stood by her bed--she was now
+recovering with the sure reascent of youth--'that you ought to thank Miss
+Milly.'
+
+'I'll _not_ thank her,' said Beauty, doggedly.
+
+'Very well, Meg; I only thought I'd ask you, for I think you ought.'
+
+As I spoke, she very gently took just the tip of my finger, which hung
+close to her coverlet, in her fingers, and drew it beneath, and before I
+was aware, burying her head in the clothes, she suddenly clasped my hand
+in both hers to her lips, and kissed it passionately, again and again,
+sobbing. I felt her tears.
+
+I tried to withdraw my hand, but she held it with an angry pull, continuing
+to weep and kiss it.
+
+'Do you wish to say anything, my poor Meg?' I asked.
+
+'Nout, Miss,' she sobbed gently; and she continued to kiss my hand and
+weep. But suddenly she said, 'I won't thank Milly, for it's a' _you_; it
+baint her, she hadn't the thought--no, no, it's a' you, Miss. I cried
+hearty in the dark last night, thinkin' o' the apples, and the way I
+knocked them awa' wi' a pur o' my foot, the day father rapped me ower the
+head wi' his stick; it was kind o' you and very bad o' me. I wish you'd
+beat me, Miss; ye're better to me than father or mother--better to me than
+a'; an' I wish I could die for you, Miss, for I'm not fit to look at you.'
+
+I was surprised. I began to cry. I could have hugged poor Meg.
+
+I did not know her history. I have never learned it since. She used to
+talk with the most utter self-abasement before me. It was no religious
+feeling--it was a kind of expression of her love and worship of me--all the
+more strange that she was naturally very proud. There was nothing she
+would not have borne from me except the slightest suspicion of her entire
+devotion, or that she could in the most trifling way wrong or deceive me.
+
+I am not young now. I have had my sorrows, and with them all that wealth,
+virtually unlimited, can command; and through the retrospect a few bright
+and pure lights quiver along my life's dark stream--dark, but for them; and
+these are shed, not by the splendour of a splendid fortune, but by two or
+three of the simplest and kindest remembrances, such as the poorest and
+homeliest life may count up, and beside which, in the quiet hours of
+memory, all artificial triumphs pale, and disappear, for they are never
+quenched by time or distance, being founded on the affections, and so far
+heavenly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLV
+
+_A CHAPTER-FULL OF LOVERS_
+
+
+We had about this time a pleasant and quite unexpected visit from Lord
+Ilbury. He had come to pay his respects, understanding that my uncle Silas
+was sufficiently recovered to see visitors. 'And I think I'll run up-stairs
+first, and see him, if he admits me, and then I have ever so long a message
+from my sister, Mary, for you and Miss Millicent; but I had better dispose
+of my business first--don't you think so?--and I shall return in a few
+minutes.'
+
+And as he spoke our tremulous old butler returned to say that Uncle Silas
+would be happy to see him. So he departed; and you can't think how pleasant
+our homely sitting-room looked with his coat and stick in it--guarantees of
+his return.
+
+'Do you think, Milly, he is going to speak about the timber, you know, that
+Cousin Knollys spoke of? I do hope not.'
+
+'So do I,' said Milly. 'I wish he'd stayed a bit longer with us first, for
+if he does, father will sure to turn him out of doors, and we'll see no
+more of him.'
+
+'Exactly, my dear Milly; and he's so pleasant and good-natured.'
+
+'And he likes you awful well, he does.'
+
+'I'm sure he likes us both equally, Milly; he talked a great deal to you at
+Elverston, and used to ask you so often to sing those two pretty Lancashire
+ballads,' I said; 'but you know when you were at your controversies and
+religious exercises in the window, with that pillar of the church, the Rev.
+Spriggs Biddlepen--'
+
+'Get awa' wi' your nonsense, Maud; how could I help answering when he
+dodged me up and down my Testament and catechism?--an I 'most hate him, I
+tell you, and Cousin Knollys, you're such fools, I do. And whatever you
+say, the lord likes you uncommon, and well you know it, ye hussy.'
+
+'I know no such thing; and you don't think it, _you_ hussy, and I really
+don't care who likes me or who doesn't, except my relations; and I make the
+lord a present to you, if you'll have him.'
+
+In this strain were we talking when he re-entered the room, a little sooner
+than we had expected to see him.
+
+Milly, who, you are to recollect, was only in process of reformation, and
+still retained something of the Derbyshire dairymaid, gave me a little
+clandestine pinch on the arm just as he made his appearance.
+
+'I just refused a present from her,' said odious Milly, in answer to his
+enquiring look, 'because I knew she could not spare it.'
+
+The effect of all this was that I blushed one of my overpowering blushes.
+People told me they became me very much; I hope so, for the misfortune was
+frequent; and I think nature owed me that compensation.
+
+'It places you both in a most becoming light,' said Lord Ilbury, quite
+innocently. 'I really don't know which most to admire--the generosity of
+the offer or of the refusal.'
+
+'Well, it _was_ kind, if you but knew. I'm 'most tempted to tell him,' said
+Milly.
+
+I checked her with a really angry look, and said, 'Perhaps you have not
+observed it; but I really think, for a sensible person, my cousin Milly
+here talks more nonsense than any twenty other girls.'
+
+'A twenty-girl power! That's an immense compliment. I've the greatest
+respect for nonsense, I owe it so much; and I really think if nonsense were
+banished, the earth would grow insupportable.'
+
+'Thank you, Lord Ilbury,' said Milly, who had grown quite easy in his
+company during our long visit at Elverston; 'and I tell you, Miss Maud, if
+you grow saucy, I'll accept your present, and what will you say then?'
+
+'I really don't know; but just now I want to ask Lord Ilbury how he thinks
+my uncle looks; neither I nor Milly have seen him since his illness.'
+
+'Very much weaker, I think; but he may be gaining strength. Still, as my
+business was not quite pleasant, I thought it better to postpone it, and
+if you think it would be right, I'll write to Doctor Bryerly to ask him to
+postpone the discussion for a little time.'
+
+I at once assented, and thanked him; indeed, if I had had my way, the
+subject should never have been mentioned, I felt so hardhearted and
+rapacious; but Lord Ilbury explained that the trustees were constrained by
+the provisions of the will, and that I really had no power to release them;
+and I hoped that Uncle Silas also understood all this.
+
+'And now,' said he, 'we've returned to Grange, my sister and I, and it is
+nearer than Elverston, so that we are really neighbours; and Mary wants
+Lady Knollys to fix a time she owes us a visit, you know--and you really
+must come at the same time; it will be so very pleasant, the same party
+exactly meeting in a new scene; and we have not half explored our
+neighbourhood; and I've got down all those Spanish engravings I told you
+of, and the Venetian missals, and all the rest. I think I remember very
+accurately the things you were most interested by, and they're all there;
+and really you must promise, you and Miss Millicent Ruthyn. And I forgot to
+mention--you know you complained that you were ill supplied with books,
+so Mary thought you would allow her to share her supply--they are the new
+books, you know--and when you have read yours, you and she can exchange.'
+
+What girl was ever quite frank about her likings? I don't think I was more
+of a cheat than others; but I never could tell of myself. It is quite true
+that this duplicity and reserve seldom deceives. Our hypocrisies are forced
+upon some of our sex by the acuteness and vigilance of all in this field of
+enquiry; but if we are sly, we are also lynx-eyed, capital detectives, most
+ingenious in fitting together the bits and dovetails of a cumulative case;
+and in those affairs of love and liking, have a terrible exploratory
+instinct, and so, for the most part, when detected we are found out not
+only to be in love, but to be rogues moreover.
+
+Lady Mary was very kind; but had Lady Mary of her own mere motion taken all
+this trouble? Was there no more energetic influence at the bottom of
+that welcome chest of books, which arrived only half an hour later? The
+circulating library of those days was not the epidemic and ubiquitous
+influence to which it has grown; and there were many places where it could
+not find you out.
+
+Altogether that evening Bartram had acquired a peculiar beauty--a bright
+and mellow glow, in which even its gate-posts and wheelbarrow were
+interesting, and next day came a little cloud--Dudley appeared.
+
+'You may be sure he wants money,' said Milly. 'He and father had words this
+morning.'
+
+He took a chair at our luncheon, found fault with everything in his own
+laconic dialect, ate a good deal notwithstanding, and was sulky, and with
+Milly snappish. To me, on the contrary, when Milly went into the hall, he
+was mild and whimpering, and disposed to be confidential.
+
+'There's the Governor says he hasn't a bob! Danged if I know how an old
+fellah in his bed-room muddles away money at that rate. I don't suppose he
+thinks I can git along without tin, and he knows them trustees won't gi'e
+me a tizzy till they get what they calls an opinion--dang 'em! Bryerly says
+he doubts it must all go under settlement. They'll settle me nicely if
+they do; and Governor knows all about it, and won't gi'e me a danged brass
+farthin', an' me wi' bills to pay, an' lawyers--dang 'em--writing
+letters. He knows summat o' that hisself, does Governor; and he might ha'
+consideration a bit for his own flesh and blood, _I_ say. But he never does
+nout for none but hisself. I'll sell his books and his jewels next fit he
+takes--that's how I'll fit him.'
+
+This amiable young man, glowering, with his elbows on the table and his
+fingers in his great whiskers, followed his homily, where clergymen append
+the blessing, with a muttered variety of very different matter.
+
+'Now, Maud,' said he, pathetically, leaning back suddenly in his chair,
+with all his conscious beauty and misfortunes in his face, 'is not it hard
+lines?'
+
+I thought the appeal was going to shape itself into an application for
+money; but it did not.
+
+'I never know'd a reel beauty--first-chop, of course, I mean--that
+wasn't kind along of it, and I'm a fellah as can't git along without
+sympathy--that's why I say it--an' isn't it hard lines? Now, _say_ it's
+hard lines--_haint_ it, Maud?'
+
+I did not know exactly what hard lines meant, but I said--
+
+'I suppose it is very disagreeable.'
+
+And with this concession, not caring to hear any more in the same vein, I
+rose, intending to take my departure.
+
+'No, that's jest it. I knew ye'd say it, Maud. Ye're a kind lass--ye
+be--'tis in yer pretty face. I like ye awful, I do--there's not a handsomer
+lass in Liverpool nor Lunnon itself--_no_ where.'
+
+He had seized my hand, and trying to place his arm about my waist, essayed
+that salute which I had so narrowly escaped on my first introduction.
+
+'_Don't_, sir,' I exclaimed in high indignation, escaping at the same
+moment from his grasp.
+
+'No offence, lass; no harm, Maud; you must not be so shy--we're cousins,
+you know--an' I wouldn't hurt ye, Maud, no more nor I'd knock my head off.
+I wouldn't.'
+
+I did not wait to hear the rest of his tender protestations, but, without
+showing how nervous I was, I glided out of the room quietly, making
+an orderly retreat, the more meritorious as I heard him call after me
+persuasively--'Come back, Maud. What are ye afeard on, lass? Come back, I
+say--do now; there's a good wench.'
+
+As Milly and I were taking our walk that day, in the direction of the
+Windmill Wood, to which, in consequence perhaps of some secret order, we
+had now free access, we saw Beauty, for the first time since her illness,
+in the little yard, throwing grain to the poultry.
+
+'How do you find yourself to-day, Meg? I am _very_ glad to see you able to
+be about again; but I hope it is not too soon.'
+
+We were standing at the barred gate of the little enclosure, and quite
+close to Meg, who, however, did not choose to raise her head, but,
+continuing to shower her grain and potato-skins among her hens and
+chickens, said in a low tone--
+
+'Father baint in sight? Look jist round a bit and say if ye see him.'
+
+But Dickon's dusky red costume was nowhere visible.
+
+So Meg looked up, pale and thin, and with her old grave, observant eyes,
+and she said quietly--
+
+''Tisn't that I'm not glad to see ye; but if father was to spy me talking
+friendly wi' ye, now that I'm hearty, and you havin' no more call to me,
+he'd be all'ays a watching and thinkin' I was tellin' o' tales, and 'appen
+he'd want me to worrit ye for money, Miss Maud; an' 'tisn't here he'd spend
+it, but in the Feltram pottusses, he would, and we want for nothin' that's
+good for us. But that's how 'twould be, an' he'd all'ays be a jawing and a
+lickin' of I; so don't mind me, Miss Maud, and 'appen I might do ye a good
+turn some day.'
+
+A few days after this little interview with Meg, as Milly and I were
+walking briskly--for it was a clear frosty day--along the pleasant slopes
+of the sheep-walk, we were overtaken by Dudley Ruthyn. It was not a
+pleasant surprise. There was this mitigation, however: we were on foot, and
+he driving in a dog-cart along the track leading to the moor, with his dogs
+and gun. He brought his horse for a moment to a walk, and with a careless
+nod to me, removing his short pipe from his mouth, he said--
+
+'Governor's callin' for ye, Milly; and he told me to send you slick home to
+him if I saw you, and I think he'll gi'e ye some money; but ye better take
+him while he's in the humour, lass, or mayhap ye'll go long without.'
+
+And with those words, apparently intent on his game, he nodded again,
+and, pipe in mouth, drove at a quick trot over the slope of the hill, and
+disappeared.
+
+So I agreed to await Milly's return while she ran home, and rejoined me
+where I was. Away she ran, in high spirits, and I wandered listlessly about
+in search of some convenient spot to sit down upon, for I was a little
+tired.
+
+She had not been gone five minutes, when I heard a step approaching, and
+looking round, saw the dog-cart close by, the horse browsing on the short
+grass, and Dudley Ruthyn within a few paces of me.
+
+'Ye see, Maud, I've bin thinkin' why you're so vexed wi' me, an' I thought
+I'd jest come back an' ask ye what I may a' done to anger ye so; there's no
+sin in that, I think--is there?'
+
+'I'm not angry. I did not say so. I hope that's enough,' I said, startled;
+and, notwithstanding my speech, _very_ angry, for I felt instinctively that
+Milly's despatch homeward was a mere trick, and I the dupe of this coarse
+stratagem.
+
+'Well then, if ye baint angry, so much the better, Maud. I only want to
+know why you're afeard o' me. I never struck a man foul, much less hurt a
+girl, in my days; besides, Maud, I likes ye too well to hurt ye. Dang it,
+lass, you're my cousin, ye know, and cousins is all'ays together and lovin'
+like, an' none says again' it.'
+
+'I've nothing to explain--there _is_ nothing to explain. I've been quite
+friendly,' I said, hurriedly.
+
+'_Friendly!_ Well, if there baint a cram! How can ye think it friendly,
+Maud, when ye won't a'most shake hands wi' me? It's enough to make a fellah
+sware, or cry a'most. Why d'ye like aggravatin' a poor devil? Now baint
+ye an ill-natured little puss, Maud, an' I likin' ye so well? You're the
+prettiest lass in Derbyshire; there's nothin' I wouldn't do for ye.'
+
+And he backed his declaration with an oath.
+
+'Be so good, then, as to re-enter your dog-cart and drive away,' I replied,
+very much incensed.
+
+'Now, there it is again! Ye can't speak me civil. Another fellah'd fly out,
+an' maybe kiss ye for spite; but I baint that sort, I'm all for coaxin' and
+kindness, an' ye won't let me. What _be_ you drivin' at, Maud?'
+
+'I think I've said very plainly, sir, that I wish to be alone. You've
+_nothing_ to say, except utter nonsense, and I've heard quite enough. Once
+for all, I beg, sir, that you will be so good as to leave me.'
+
+'Well, now, look here, Maud; I'll do anything you like--burn me if I
+don't--if you'll only jest be kind to me, like cousins should. What did
+I ever do to vex you? If you think I like any lass better than you--some
+fellah at Elverston's bin talkin', maybe--it's nout but lies an' nonsense.
+Not but there's lots o' wenches likes me well enough, though I be a plain
+lad, and speaks my mind straight out.'
+
+'I can't see that you are so frank, sir, as you describe; you have just
+played a shabby trick to bring about this absurd and most disagreeable
+interview.'
+
+'And supposin' I did send that fool, Milly, out o' the way, to talk a bit
+wi' you here, where's the harm? Dang it, lass, ye mustn't be too hard.
+Didn't I say I'd do whatever ye wished?'
+
+'And you _won't_,' said I.
+
+'Ye mean to get along out o' this? Well, now, I _will_. There! No use, of
+course, askin' you to kiss and be friends, before I go, as cousins should.
+Well, don't be riled, lass, I'm not askin' it; only mind, I do like you
+awful, and 'appen I'll find ye in better humour another time. Good-bye,
+Maud; I'll make ye like me at last.'
+
+And with these words, to my comfort, he addressed himself to his horse and
+pipe, and was soon honestly on his way to the moor.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVI
+
+_THE RIVALS_
+
+
+All the time that Dudley chose to persecute me with his odious society, I
+continued to walk at a brisk pace toward home, so that I had nearly reached
+the house when Milly met me, with a note which had arrived for me by the
+post, in her hand.
+
+'Here, Milly, are more verses. He is a very persevering poet, whoever he
+is.' So I broke the seal; but this time it was prose. And the first words
+were 'Captain Oakley!'
+
+I confess to an odd sensation as these remarkable words met my eye. It
+might possibly be a proposal. I did not wait to speculate, however, but
+read these sentences traced in the identical handwriting which had copied
+the lines with which I had been twice favoured.
+
+'Captain Oakley presents his compliments to Miss Ruthyn, and trusts she
+will excuse his venturing to ask whether, during his short stay in Feltram,
+he might be permitted to pay his respects at Bartram-Haugh. He has been
+making a short visit to his aunt, and could not find himself so near
+without at least attempting to renew an acquaintance which he has never
+ceased to cherish in memory. If Miss Ruthyn would be so very good as to
+favour him with ever so short a reply to the question he ventures most
+respectfully to ask, her decision would reach him at the Hall Hotel,
+Feltram.'
+
+'Well, he's a roundabout fellah, anyhow. Couldn't he come up and see you if
+he wanted to? They poeters, they do love writing long yarns--don't they?'
+And with this reflection, Milly took the note and read it through again.
+
+'It's jolly polite anyhow, isn't it Maud?' said Milly, who had conned it
+over, and accepted it as a model composition.
+
+I must have been, I think, naturally a rather shrewd girl; and considering
+how very little I had seen of the world--nothing in fact--I often wonder
+now at the sage conclusions at which I arrived.
+
+Were I to answer this handsome and cunning fool according to his folly,
+in what position should I find myself? No doubt my reply would induce
+a rejoinder, and that compel another note from me, and that invite yet
+another from him; and however his might improve in warmth, they were sure
+not to abate. Was it his impertinent plan, with this show of respect and
+ceremony, to drag me into a clandestine correspondence? Inexperienced girl
+as I was, I fired at the idea of becoming his dupe, and fancying, perhaps,
+that there was more in merely answering his note than it would have
+amounted to, I said--
+
+'That kind of thing may answer very well with button-makers, but ladies
+don't like it. What would your papa think of it if he found that I had been
+writing to him, and seeing him without his permission? If he wanted to
+see me he could have'--(I really did not know exactly what he could have
+done)--'he could have timed his visit to Lady Knollys differently; at all
+events, he has no right to place me in an embarrassing situation, and I am
+certain Cousin Knollys would say so; and I think his note both shabby and
+impertinent.'
+
+Decision was not with me an intellectual process. When quite cool I was the
+most undecided of mortals, but once my feelings were excited I was prompt
+and bold.
+
+'I'll give the note to Uncle Silas,' I said, quickening my pace toward
+home; 'he'll know what to do.'
+
+But Milly, who, I fancy, had no objection to the little romance which the
+young officer proposed, told me that she could not see her father, that he
+was ill, and not speaking to anyone.
+
+'And arn't ye making a plaguy row about nothin'? I lay a guinea if ye had
+never set eyes on Lord Ilbury you'd a told him to come, and see ye, an'
+welcome.'
+
+'Don't talk like a fool, Milly. You never knew me do anything deceitful.
+Lord Ilbury has no more to do with it, you know very well, than the man in
+the moon.'
+
+I was altogether very indignant. I did not speak another word to Milly. The
+proportions of the house are so great, that it is a much longer walk than
+you would suppose from the hall-door to Uncle Silas's room. But I did not
+cool all that way; and it was not till I had just reached the lobby,
+and saw the sour, jealous face, and high caul of old Wyat, and felt the
+influence of that neighbourhood, that I paused to reconsider. I fancied
+there was a cool consciousness of success behind all the deferential
+phraseology of Captain Oakley, which nettled me extremely. No; there could
+be no doubt. I tapped softly at the door.
+
+'What is it _now_, Miss?' snarled the querulous old woman, with her
+shrivelled fingers on the door-handle.
+
+'Can I see my uncle for a moment?'
+
+'He's tired, and not a word from him all day long.'
+
+'Not ill, though?'
+
+'Awful bad in the night,' said the old crone, with a sudden savage glare in
+my face, as if _I_ had brought it about.
+
+'Oh! I'm very sorry. I had not heard a word of it.'
+
+'No one does but old Wyat. There's Milly there never asks neither--his own
+child!'
+
+'Weakness, or what?'
+
+'One o' them fits. He'll slide awa' in one o' them some day, and no one but
+old Wyat to know nor ask word about it; that's how 'twill be.'
+
+'Will you please hand him this note, if he is well enough to look at it,
+and say I am at the door?'
+
+She took it with a peevish nod and a grunt, closing the door in my face,
+and in a few minutes returned--
+
+'Come in wi' ye,' said Dame Wyat, and I appeared.
+
+Uncle Silas, who, after his nightly horror or vision, lay extended on a
+sofa, with his faded yellow silk dressing-gown about him, his long white
+hair hanging toward the ground, and that wild and feeble smile lighting his
+face--a glimmer I feared to look upon--his long thin arms lay by his sides,
+with hands and fingers that stirred not, except when now and then, with a
+feeble motion, he wet his temples and forehead with eau de Cologne from a
+glass saucer placed beside him.
+
+'Excellent girl! dutiful ward and niece!' murmured the oracle; 'heaven
+reward you--your frank dealing is your own safety and my peace. Sit you
+down, and say who is this Captain Oakley, when you made his acquaintance,
+what his age, fortune, and expectations, and who the aunt he mentions.'
+
+Upon all these points I satisfied him as fully as I was able.
+
+'Wyat--the white drops,' he called, in a thin, stern tone. 'I'll write a
+line presently. I can't see visitors, and, of course, you can't receive
+young captains before you've come out. Farewell! God bless you, dear.'
+
+Wyat was dropping the 'white' restorative into a wine-glass and the room
+was redolent of ether. I was glad to escape. The figures and whole _mise en
+scène_ were unearthly.
+
+'Well, Milly,' I said, as I met her in the hall, 'your papa is going to
+write to him.'
+
+I sometimes wonder whether Milly was right, and how I should have acted a
+few months earlier.
+
+Next day whom should we meet in the Windmill Wood but Captain Oakley. The
+spot where this interesting _rencontre_ occurred was near that ruinous
+bridge on my sketch of which I had received so many compliments. It was
+so great a surprise that I had not time to recollect my indignation, and,
+having received him very affably, I found it impossible, during our brief
+interview, to recover my lost altitude.
+
+After our greetings were over, and some compliments neatly made, he said--
+
+'I had such a curious note from Mr. Silas Ruthyn. I am sure he thinks me a
+very impertinent fellow, for it was really anything but inviting--extremely
+rude, in fact. But I could not quite see that because he does not want
+me to invade his bed-room--an incursion I never dreamed of--I was not to
+present myself to you, who had already honoured me with your acquaintance,
+with the sanction of those who were most interested in your welfare, and
+who were just as well qualified as he, I fancy, to say who were qualified
+for such an honour.'
+
+'My uncle, Mr. Silas Ruthyn, you are aware, is my guardian; and this is my
+cousin, his daughter.'
+
+This was an opportunity of becoming a little lofty, and I improved it. He
+raised his hat and bowed to Milly.
+
+'I'm afraid I've been very rude and stupid. Mr. Ruthyn, of course, has a
+perfect right to--to--in fact, I was not the least aware that I had the
+honour of so near a relation's--a--a--and what exquisite scenery you
+have! I think this country round Feltram particularly fine; and this
+Bartram-Haugh is, I venture to say, about the very most beautiful spot in
+this beautiful region. I do assure you I am tempted beyond measure to make
+Feltram and the Hall Hotel my head-quarters for at least a week. I only
+regret the foliage; but your trees show wonderfully, even in winter, so
+many of them have got that ivy about them. They say it spoils trees, but it
+certainly beautifies them. I have just ten days' leave unexpired; I wish
+I could induce you to advise me how to apply them. What shall I do, Miss
+Ruthyn?'
+
+'I am the worst person in the world to make plans, even for myself, I find
+it so troublesome. What do you say? Suppose you try Wales or Scotland, and
+climb up some of those fine mountains that look so well in winter?'
+
+'I should much prefer Feltram. I so wish you would recommend _it_. What is
+this pretty plant?'
+
+'We call that Maud's myrtle. She planted it, and it's very pretty when it's
+full in blow,' said Milly.
+
+Our visit to Elverston had been of immense use to us both.
+
+'Oh! planted by _you?_' he said, very softly, with a momentary
+corresponding glance. 'May I--ever so little--just a leaf?'
+
+And without waiting for permission, he held a sprig of it next his
+waistcoat.
+
+'Yes, it goes very prettily with those buttons. They are _very_ pretty
+buttons; are not they, Milly? A present, a souvenir, I dare say?'
+
+This was a terrible hit at the button-maker, and I thought he looked a
+little oddly at me, but my countenance was so 'bewitchingly simple' that I
+suppose his suspicions were allayed.
+
+Now, it was very odd of me, I must confess, to talk in this way, and to
+receive all those tender allusions from a gentleman about whom I had spoken
+and felt so sharply only the evening before. But Bartram was abominably
+lonely. A civilised person was a valuable waif or stray in that region of
+the picturesque and the brutal; and to my lady reader especially, because
+she will probably be hardest upon me, I put it--can you not recollect any
+such folly in your own past life? Can you not in as many minutes call to
+mind at least six similar inconsistencies of your own practising? For my
+part, I really can't see the advantage of being the weaker sex if we are
+always to be as strong as our masculine neighbours.
+
+There was, indeed, no revival of the little sentiment which I had once
+experienced. When these things once expire, I do believe they are as hard
+to revive as our dead lap-dogs, guinea-pigs, and parrots. It was my perfect
+coolness which enabled me to chat, I flatter myself, so agreeably with the
+refined Captain, who plainly thought me his captive, and was probably
+now and then thinking what was to be done to utilise that little bit of
+Bartram, or to beautify some other, when he should see fit to become its
+master, as we rambled over these wild but beautiful grounds.
+
+It was just about then that Milly nudged me rather vehemently, and
+whispered 'Look there!'
+
+I followed with mine the direction of her eyes, and saw my odious cousin,
+Dudley, in a flagrant pair of cross-barred peg-tops, and what Milly before
+her reformation used to call other 'slops' of corresponding atrocity,
+approaching our refined little party with great strides. I really think
+that Milly was very nearly ashamed of him. I certainly was. I had no
+apprehension, however, of the scene which was imminent.
+
+The charming Captain mistook him probably for some rustic servant of the
+place, for he continued his agreeable remarks up to the very moment when
+Dudley, whose face was pale with anger, and whose rapid advance had not
+served to cool him, without recollecting to salute either Milly or me,
+accosted our elegant companion as follows:--
+
+'By your leave, master, baint you summat in the wrong box here, don't you
+think?'
+
+He had planted himself directly in his front, and looked unmistakably
+menacing.
+
+'May I speak to him? Will you excuse me?' said the Captain blandly.
+
+'Ow--ay, they'll excuse ye ready enough, I dessay; you're to deal wi' me
+though. Baint ye in the wrong box now?'
+
+'I'm not conscious, sir, of being in a box at all,' replied the Captain,
+with severe disdain. 'It strikes me you are disposed to get up a row. Let
+us, if you please, get a little apart from the ladies if that is your
+purpose.'
+
+'I mean to turn you out o' this the way ye came. If you make a row, so much
+the wuss for you, for I'll lick ye to fits.'
+
+'Tell him not to fight,' whispered Milly; 'he'll a no chance wi' Dudley.'
+
+I saw Dickon Hawkes grinning over the paling on which he leaned.
+
+'Mr. Hawkes,' I said, drawing Milly with me toward that unpromising
+mediator, 'pray prevent unpleasantness and go between them.'
+
+'An' git licked o' both sides? Rather not, Miss, thank ye,' grinned Dickon,
+tranquilly.
+
+'Who are you, sir?' demanded our romantic acquaintance, with military
+sternness.
+
+'I'll tell you who you are--you're Oakley, as stops at the Hall, that
+Governor wrote, over-night, not to dare show your nose inside the grounds.
+You're a half-starved cappen, come down here to look for a wife, and----'
+
+Before Dudley could finish his sentence, Captain Oakley, than whose face no
+regimentals could possibly have been more scarlet, at that moment, struck
+with his switch at Dudley's handsome features.
+
+I don't know how it was done--by some 'devilish cantrip slight.' A smack
+was heard, and the Captain lay on his back on the ground, with his mouth
+full of blood.
+
+'How do ye like the taste o' that?' roared Dickon, from his post of
+observation.
+
+In an instant Captain Oakley was on his feet again, hatless, looking quite
+frantic, and striking out at Dudley, who was ducking and dipping quite
+coolly, and again the same horrid sound, only this time it was double, like
+a quick postman's knock, and Captain Oakley was on the grass again.
+
+'Tapped his smeller, by--!' thundered Dickon, with a roar of laughter.
+
+'Come away, Milly--I'm growing ill,' said I.
+
+'Drop it, Dudley, I tell ye; you'll kill him,' screamed Milly.
+
+But the devoted Captain, whose nose, and mouth, and shirt-front formed now
+but one great patch of blood, and who was bleeding beside over one eye,
+dashed at him again.
+
+I turned away. I felt quite faint, and on the point of crying, with mere
+horror.
+
+'Hammer away at his knocker,' bellowed Dickon, in a frenzy of delight.
+
+'He'll break it now, if it ain't already,' cried Milly, alluding, as I
+afterwards understood, to the Captain's Grecian nose.
+
+'Brayvo, little un!' The Captain was considerably the taller.
+
+Another smack, and, I suppose, Captain Oakley fell once more.
+
+'Hooray! the dinner-service again, by ----,' roared Dickon. 'Stick to that.
+Over the same ground--subsoil, I say. He han't enough yet.'
+
+In a perfect tremor of disgust, I was making as quick a retreat as I could,
+and as I did, I heard Captain Oakley shriek hoarsely--
+
+'You're a d---- prizefighter; I can't box you.'
+
+'I told ye I'd lick ye to fits,' hooted Dudley.
+
+'But you're the son of a gentleman, and by ---- you shall fight me _as_ a
+gentleman.'
+
+A yell of hooting laughter from Dudley and Dickon followed this sally.
+
+'Gi'e my love to the Colonel, and think o' me when ye look in the
+glass--won't ye? An' so you're goin' arter all; well, follow what's left o'
+yer nose. Ye forgot some o' yer ivories, didn't ye, on th' grass?'
+
+These and many similar jibes followed the mangled Captain in his retreat.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVII
+
+_DOCTOR BRYERLY REAPPEARS_
+
+
+No one who has not experienced it can imagine the nervous disgust and
+horror which such a spectacle as we had been forced in part to witness
+leaves upon the mind of a young person of my peculiar temperament.
+
+It affected ever after my involuntary estimate of the principal actors in
+it. An exhibition of such thorough inferiority, accompanied by such a shock
+to the feminine sense of elegance, is not forgotten by any woman. Captain
+Oakley had been severely beaten by a smaller man. It was pitiable, but also
+undignified; and Milly's anxieties about his teeth and nose, though in a
+certain sense horrible, had also a painful suspicion of the absurd.
+
+People say, on the other hand, that superior prowess, even in such
+barbarous contests, inspires in our sex an interest akin to admiration. I
+can positively say in my case it was quite the reverse. Dudley Ruthyn stood
+lower than ever in my estimation; for though I feared him more, it was by
+reason of these brutal and cold-blooded associations.
+
+After this I lived in constant apprehension of being summoned to my uncle's
+room, and being called on for an explanation of my meeting with Captain
+Oakley, which, notwithstanding my perfect innocence, looked suspicious, but
+no such inquisition resulted. Perhaps he did not suspect me; or, perhaps,
+he thought, not in his haste, all women are liars, and did not care to hear
+what I might say. I rather lean to the latter interpretation.
+
+The exchequer just now, I suppose, by some means, was replenished, for next
+morning Dudley set off upon one of his fashionable excursions, as poor
+Milly thought them, to Wolverhampton. And the same day Dr. Bryerly arrived.
+
+Milly and I, from my room window, saw him step from his vehicle to the
+court-yard.
+
+A lean man, with sandy hair and whiskers, was in the chaise with him. Dr.
+Bryerly descended in the unchangeable black suit that always looked new and
+never fitted him.
+
+The Doctor looked careworn, and older, I thought, by several years, than
+when I last saw him. He was not shown up to my uncle's room; on the
+contrary, Milly, who was more actively curious than I, ascertained that our
+tremulous butler informed him that my uncle was not sufficiently well for
+an interview. Whereupon Dr. Bryerly had pencilled a note, the reply to
+which was a message from Uncle Silas, saying that he would be happy to see
+him in five minutes.
+
+As Milly and I were conjecturing what it might mean, and before the five
+minutes had expired, Mary Quince entered.
+
+'Wyat bid me tell you, Miss, your uncle wants you _this minute_.'
+
+When I entered his room, Uncle Silas was seated at the table, with his desk
+before him. He looked up. Could anything be more dignified, suffering, and
+venerable?
+
+'I sent for you, dear,' he said very gently, extending his thin, white
+hand, and taking mine, which he held affectionately while he spoke,
+'because I desire to have no secrets, and wish you thoroughly to know all
+that concerns your own interests while subject to my guardianship; and I am
+happy to think, my beloved niece, that you requite my candour. Oh, here is
+the gentleman. Sit down, dear.'
+
+Doctor Bryerly was advancing, as it seemed, to shake hands with Uncle
+Silas, who, however, rose with a severe and haughty air, not the least
+over-acted, and made him a slow, ceremonious bow. I wondered how the homely
+Doctor could confront so tranquilly that astounding statue of hauteur.
+
+A faint and weary smile, rather sad than comtemptuous, was the only sign he
+showed of feeling his repulse.
+
+'How do _you_ do, Miss?' he said, extending his hand, and greeting me after
+his ungallant fashion, as if it were an afterthought.
+
+'I think I may as well take a chair, sir,' said Doctor Bryerly, sitting
+down serenely, near the table, and crossing his ungainly legs.
+
+My uncle bowed.
+
+'You understand the nature of the business, sir. Do you wish Miss Ruthyn to
+remain?' asked Doctor Bryerly.
+
+'I _sent_ for her, sir,' replied my uncle, in a very gentle and sarcastic
+tone, a smile on his thin lips, and his strangely-contorted eyebrows raised
+for a moment contemptuously. 'This gentleman, my dear Maud, thinks proper
+to insinuate that I am robbing you. It surprises me a little, and, no
+doubt, you--I've nothing to conceal, and wished you to be present while
+he favours me more particularly with his views. I'm right, I think, in
+describing it as _robbery_, sir?'
+
+'Why,' said Doctor Bryerly thoughtfully, for he was treating the matter
+as one of right, and not of feeling, 'it would be, certainly, taking that
+which does not belong to you, and converting it to your own use; but, at
+the worst, it would more resemble _thieving_, I think, than robbery.'
+
+I saw Uncle Silas's lip, eyelid, and thin cheek quiver and shrink, as if
+with a thrill of tic-douloureux, as Doctor Bryerly spoke this unconsciously
+insulting answer. My uncle had, however, the self-command which is learned
+at the gaming-table. He shrugged, with a chilly, sarcastic, little laugh,
+and a glance at me.
+
+'Your note says _waste_, I think, sir?'
+
+'Yes, waste--the felling and sale of timber in the Windmill Wood, the
+selling of oak bark and burning of charcoal, as I'm informed,' said
+Bryerly, as sadly and quietly as a man might relate a piece of intelligence
+from the newspaper.
+
+'Detectives? or private spies of your own--or, perhaps, my servants, bribed
+with my poor brother's money? A very high-minded procedure.'
+
+'Nothing of the kind, sir.'
+
+My uncle sneered.
+
+'I mean, sir, there has been no undue canvass for evidence, and the
+question is simply one of right; and it is our duty to see that this
+inexperienced young lady is not defrauded.'
+
+'By her own uncle?'
+
+'By anyone,' said Doctor Bryerly, with a natural impenetrability that
+excited my admiration.
+
+'Of course you come armed with an opinion?' said my smiling uncle,
+insinuatingly.
+
+'The case is before Mr. Serjeant Grinders. These bigwigs don't return their
+cases sometimes so quickly as we could wish.'
+
+'Then you have _no_ opinion?' smiled my uncle.
+
+'My solicitor is quite clear upon it; and it seems to me there can be no
+question raised, but for form's sake.'
+
+'Yes, for form's sake you take one, and in the meantime, upon a nice
+question of law, the surmises of a thick-headed attorney and of an
+ingenious apoth--I beg pardon, physician--are sufficient warrant for
+telling my niece and ward, in my presence, that I am defrauding her!'
+
+My uncle leaned back in his chair, and smiled with a contemptuous patience
+over Doctor Bryerly's head, as he spoke.
+
+'I don't know whether I used that expression, sir, but I am speaking merely
+in a technical sense. I mean to say, that, whether by mistake or otherwise,
+you are exercising a power which you don't lawfully possess, and that the
+effect of that is to impoverish the estate, and, by so much as it benefits
+you, to wrong this young lady.'
+
+'I'm a technical defrauder, I see, and your manner conveys the rest. I
+thank my God, sir, I am a _very_ different man from what I once was.' Uncle
+Silas was speaking in a low tone, and with extraordinary deliberation. 'I
+remember when I should have certainly knocked you down, sir, or _tried_ it,
+at least, for a great deal less.'
+
+'But seriously, sir, what _do_ you propose?' asked Doctor Bryerly, sternly
+and a little flushed, for I think the old man was stirred within him; and
+though he did not raise his voice, his manner was excited.
+
+'I propose to defend my rights, sir,' murmured Uncle Silas, very grim. 'I'm
+not without an opinion, though you are.'
+
+You seem to think, sir, that I have a pleasure in annoying you; you are
+quite wrong. I hate annoying anyone--constitutionally--I _hate_ it; but
+don't you see, sir, the position I'm placed in? I wish I could please
+everyone, and do my duty.'
+
+Uncle Silas bowed and smiled.
+
+'I've brought with me the Scotch steward from Tolkingden, _your_ estate,
+Miss, and if you let us we will visit the spot and make a note of what we
+observe, that is, assuming that you admit waste, and merely question our
+law.'
+
+'If you please, sir, you and your Scotchman shall do _no such thing_; and,
+bearing in mind that I neither deny nor admit anything, you will please
+further never more to present yourself, under any pretext whatsoever,
+either in this house or on the grounds of Bartram-Haugh, during my
+lifetime.'
+
+Uncle Silas rose up with the same glassy smile and scowl, in token that the
+interview was ended.
+
+'Good-bye, sir,' said Doctor Bryerly, with a sad and thoughtful air, and
+hesitating for a moment, he said to me, 'Do you think, Miss, you could
+afford me a word in the hall?'
+
+'Not a word, sir,' snarled Uncle Silas, with a white flash from his eyes.
+
+There was a pause.
+
+'Sit where you are, Maud.'
+
+Another pause.
+
+'If you have anything to say to my ward, sir, you will please to say it
+_here_.'
+
+Doctor Bryerly's dark and homely face was turned on me with an expression
+of unspeakable compassion.
+
+'I was going to say, that if you think of any way in which I can be of the
+least service, Miss, I'm ready to act, that's all; mind, _any_ way.'
+
+He hesitated, looking at me with the same expression as if he had something
+more to say; but he only repeated--
+
+'That's all, Miss.'
+
+'Won't you shake hands, Doctor Bryerly, before you go?' I said, eagerly
+approaching him.
+
+Without a smile, with the same sad anxiety in his face, with his mind, as
+it seemed to me, on something else, and irresolute whether to speak it or
+be silent, he took my fingers in a very cold hand, and holding it so, and
+slowly shaking it, his grave and troubled glance unconsciously rested on
+Uncle Silas's face, while in a sad tone and absent way he said--
+
+'Good-bye, Miss.'
+
+From before that sad gaze my uncle averted his strange eyes quickly, and
+looked, oddly, to the window.
+
+In a moment more Doctor Bryerly let my hand go with a sigh, and with an
+abrupt little nod to me, he left the room; and I heard that dismallest of
+sounds, the retreating footsteps of a true friend, _lost_.
+
+'Lead us not into temptation; if we pray so, we must not mock the eternal
+Majesty of Heaven by walking into temptation of our own accord.'
+
+This oracular sentence was not uttered by my uncle until Doctor Bryerly had
+been gone at least five minutes.
+
+'I've forbid him my house, Maud--first, because his perfectly unconscious
+insolence tries my patience nearly beyond endurance; and again, because I
+have heard unfavourable reports of him. On the question of right which he
+disputes, I am perfectly informed. I am your tenant, my dear niece; when
+I am gone you will learn how _scrupulous_ I have been; you will see how,
+under the pressure of the most agonising pecuniary difficulties, the
+terrific penalty of a misspent youth, I have been careful never by a hair's
+breadth to transgress the strict line of my legal privileges; alike, as
+your tenant, Maud, and as your guardian; how, amid frightful agitations,
+I have kept myself, by the miraculous strength and grace vouchsafed
+me--_pure_.
+
+'The world,' he resumed after a short pause, 'has no faith in any man's
+conversion; it never forgets what he was, it never believes him anything
+better, it is an inexorable and stupid judge. What I was I will describe in
+blacker terms, and with more heartfelt detestation, than my traducers--a
+reckless prodigal, a godless profligate. Such I was; what I am, I am. If
+I had no hope beyond this world, of all men most miserable; but with that
+hope, a sinner saved.'
+
+Then he waxed eloquent and mystical. I think his Swedenborgian studies had
+crossed his notions of religion with strange lights. I never could follow
+him quite in these excursions into the region of symbolism. I only
+recollect that he talked of the deluge and the waters of Mara, and said, 'I
+am washed--I am sprinkled,' and then, pausing, bathed his thin temples and
+forehead with eau de Cologne; a process which was, perhaps, suggested by
+his imagery of sprinkling and so forth.
+
+Thus refreshed, he sighed and smiled, and passed to the subject of Doctor
+Bryerly.
+
+'Of Doctor Bryerly, I know that he is sly, that he loves money, was born
+poor, and makes nothing by his profession. But he possesses many thousand
+pounds, under my poor brother's will, of _your money_; and he has glided
+with, of course a modest "nolo episcopari," into the acting trusteeship,
+with all its multitudinous opportunities, of your immense property. That
+is not doing so badly for a visionary Swedenborgian. Such a man _must_
+prosper. But if he expected to make money of me, he is disappointed.
+Money, however, he will make of his trusteeship, as you will see. It is a
+dangerous resolution. But if he will seek the life of Dives, the worst I
+wish him is to find the death of Lazarus. But whether, like Lazarus, he be
+borne of angels into Abraham's bosom, or, like the rich man, only dies
+and is buried, and _the rest_, neither living nor dying do I desire his
+company.'
+
+Uncle Silas here seemed suddenly overtaken by exhaustion. He leaned back
+with a ghastly look, and his lean features glistened with the dew of
+faintness. I screamed for Wyat. But he soon recovered sufficiently to smile
+his odd smile, and with it and his frown, nodded and waved me away.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVIII
+
+_QUESTION AND ANSWER_
+
+
+My uncle, after all, was not ill that day, after the strange fashion of his
+malady, be it what it might. Old Wyat repeated in her sour laconic way that
+there was 'nothing to speak of amiss with him.' But there remained with
+me a sense of pain and fear. Doctor Bryerly, notwithstanding my uncle's
+sarcastic reflections, remained, in my estimation, a true and wise friend.
+I had all my life been accustomed to rely upon others, and here, haunted by
+many unavowed and ill-defined alarms and doubts, the disappearance of an
+active and able friend caused my heart to sink.
+
+Still there remained my dear Cousin Monica, and my pleasant and trusted
+friend, Lord Ilbury; and in less than a week arrived an invitation from
+Lady Mary to the Grange, for me and Milly, to meet Lady Knollys. It
+was accompanied, she told me, by a note from Lord Ilbury to my uncle,
+supporting her request; and in the afternoon I received a message to attend
+my uncle in his room.
+
+'An invitation from Lady Mary Carysbroke for you and Milly to meet Monica
+Knollys; have you received it?' asked my uncle, so soon as I was seated.
+Answered in the affirmative, he continued--
+
+'Now, Maud Ruthyn, I expect the truth from you; I have been frank, so shall
+you. Have you ever heard me spoken ill of by Lady Knollys?'
+
+I was quite taken aback.
+
+I felt my cheeks flushing. I was returning his fierce cold gaze with a
+stupid stare, and remained dumb.
+
+'Yes, Maud, you _have_.'
+
+I looked down in silence.
+
+'I _know_ it; but it is right you should answer; have you or have you not?'
+
+I had to clear my voice twice or thrice. There was a kind of spasm in my
+throat.
+
+'I am trying to recollect,' I said at last.
+
+'_Do_ recollect,' he replied imperiously.
+
+There was a little interval of silence. I would have given the world to be,
+on any conditions, anywhere else in the world.
+
+'Surely, Maud, you don't wish to deceive your guardian? Come, the question
+is a plain one, and I know the truth already. I ask you again--have you
+ever heard me spoken ill of by Lady Knollys?'
+
+'Lady Knollys,' I said, half articulately,' speaks very freely, and often
+half in jest; but,' I continued, observing something menacing in his face,
+'I have heard her express disapprobation of some things you have done.'
+
+'Come, Maud,' he continued, in a stern, though still a low key, 'did she
+not insinuate that charge--then, I suppose, in a state of incubation,
+the other day presented here full-fledged, with beak and claws, by that
+scheming apothecary--the statement that I was defrauding you by cutting
+down timber upon the grounds?'
+
+'She certainly did mention the circumstance; but she also argued that it
+might have been through ignorance of the extent of your rights.'
+
+'Come, come, Maud, you must not prevaricate, girl. I _will_ have it. Does
+she not habitually speak disparagingly of me, in your presence, and _to_
+you? _Answer_.'
+
+I hung my head.
+
+'Yes or no?'
+
+'Well, perhaps so--yes,' I faltered, and burst into tears.
+
+'There, don't cry; it may well shock you. Did she not, to your knowledge,
+say the same things in presence of my child Millicent? I know it, I
+repeat--there is no use in hesitating; and I command you to answer.'
+
+Sobbing, I told the truth.
+
+'Now sit still, while I write my reply.'
+
+He wrote, with the scowl and smile so painful to witness, as he looked down
+upon the paper, and then he placed the note before me--
+
+'Read that, my dear.'
+
+It began--
+
+'MY DEAR LADY KNOLLYS.--You have favoured me with a note, adding your
+request to that of Lord Ilbury, that I should permit my ward and my
+daughter to avail themselves of Lady Mary's invitation. Being perfectly
+cognisant of the ill-feeling you have always and unaccountably cherished
+toward me, and also of the terms in which you have had the delicacy and the
+conscience to speak of me before and to my child and my ward, I can only
+express my amazement at the modesty of your request, while peremptorily
+refusing it. And I shall conscientiously adopt effectual measures to
+prevent your ever again having an opportunity of endeavouring to destroy my
+influence and authority over my ward and my child, by direct or insinuated
+slander.
+
+'Your defamed and injured kinsman,
+
+SILAS RUTHYN.'
+
+I was stunned; yet what could I plead against the blow that was to isolate
+me? I wept aloud, with my hands clasped, looking on the marble face of the
+old man.
+
+Without seeming to hear, he folded and sealed his note, and then proceeded
+to answer Lord Ilbury.
+
+When that note was written, he placed it likewise before me, and I read it
+also through. It simply referred him to Lady Knollys 'for an explanation
+of the unhappy circumstances which compelled him to decline an invitation
+which it would have made his niece and his daughter so happy to accept.'
+
+'You see, my dear Maud, how frank I am with you,' he said, waving the open
+note, which I had just read, slightly before he folded it. 'I think I may
+ask you to reciprocate my candour.'
+
+Dismissed from this interview, I ran to Milly, who burst into tears from
+sheer disappointment, so we wept and wailed together. But in my grief I
+think there was more reason.
+
+I sat down to the dismal task of writing to my dear Lady Knollys. I
+implored her to make her peace with my uncle. I told her how frank he had
+been with me, and how he had shown me his sad reply to her letter. I told
+her of the interview to which he had himself invited me with Dr. Bryerly;
+how little disturbed he was by the accusation--no sign of guilt; quite the
+contrary, perfect confidence. I implored of her to think the best, and
+remembering my isolation, to accomplish a reconciliation with Uncle Silas.
+'Only think,' I wrote, 'I only nineteen, and two years of solitude before
+me. What a separation!' No broken merchant ever signed the schedule of his
+bankruptcy with a heavier heart than did I this letter.
+
+The griefs of youth are like the wounds of the gods--there is an ichor
+which heals the scars from which it flows: and thus Milly and I consoled
+ourselves, and next day enjoyed our ramble, our talk and readings, with a
+wonderful resignation to the inevitable.
+
+Milly and I stood in the relation of _Lord Duberly_ to _Doctor Pangloss_. I
+was to mend her 'cackleology,' and the occupation amused us both. I think
+at the bottom of our submission to destiny lurked a hope that Uncle Silas,
+the inexorable, would relent, or that Cousin Monica, that siren, would win
+and melt him to her purpose.
+
+Whatever comfort, however, I derived from the absence of Dudley was not to
+be of very long duration; for one morning, as I was amusing myself alone,
+with a piece of worsted work, thinking, and just at that moment not
+unpleasantly, of many things, my cousin Dudley entered the room.
+
+'Back again, like a bad halfpenny, ye see. And how a' ye bin ever since,
+lass? Purely, I warrant, be your looks. I'm jolly glad to see ye, I am; no
+cattle going like ye, Maud.'
+
+'I think I must ask you to let go my hand, as I can't continue my work,' I
+said, very stiffly, hoping to chill his enthusiasm a little.
+
+'Anything to pleasure ye, Maud, 'tain't in my heart to refuse ye nout. I
+a'bin to Wolverhampton, lass--jolly row there--and run over to Leamington;
+a'most broke my neck, faith, wi' a borrowed horse arter the dogs; ye would
+na care, Maud, if I broke my neck, would ye? Well, 'appen, jest a little,'
+he good-naturedly supplied, as I was silent.
+
+'Little over a week since I left here, by George; and to me it's half the
+almanac like; can ye guess the reason, Maud?'
+
+'Have you seen your sister, Milly, or your father, since your return?' I
+asked coldly.
+
+'_They'll_ keep, Maud, never mind 'em; it be you I want to see--it be you
+I wor thinkin' on a' the time. I tell ye, lass, I'm all'ays a thinkin' on
+ye.'
+
+'I think you ought to go and see your father; you have been away, you say,
+some time. I don't think it is respectful,' I said, a little sharply.
+
+'If ye bid me go I'd a'most go, but I could na quite; there's nout on earth
+I would na do for you, Maud, excep' leaving you.'
+
+'And that,' I said, with a petulant flush, 'is the only thing on earth I
+would ask you to do.'
+
+'Blessed if you baint a blushin', Maud,' he drawled, with an odious grin.
+
+His stupidity was proof against everything.
+
+'It is _too_ bad!' I muttered, with an indignant little pat of my foot and
+mimic stamp.
+
+'Well, you lasses be queer cattle; ye're angry wi' me now, cos ye think
+I got into mischief--ye do, Maud; ye know't, ye buxsom little fool, down
+there at Wolverhampton; and jest for that ye're ready to turn me off again
+the minute I come back; 'tisn't fair.'
+
+'I don't _understand_ you, sir; and I _beg_ that you'll leave me.'
+
+'Now, didn't I tell ye about leavin' ye, Maud? 'tis the only thing I can't
+compass for yer sake. I'm jest a child in yere hands, I am, ye know. I can
+lick a big fellah to pot as limp as a rag, by George!'--(his oaths were not
+really so mild)--'ye see summat o' that t'other day. Well, don't be vexed,
+Maud; 'twas all along o' you; ye know, I wor a bit jealous, 'appen; but
+anyhow I can do it; and look at me here, jest a child, I say, in yer
+hands.'
+
+'I wish you'd go away. Have you nothing to do, and no one to see? Why
+_can't_ you leave me alone, sir?'
+
+''Cos I can't, Maud, that's jest why; and I wonder, Maud, how can you be so
+ill-natured, when you see me like this; how can ye?'
+
+'I wish Milly would come,' said I peevishly, looking toward the door.
+
+'Well, I'll tell you how it is, Maud. I may as well have it out. I like
+you better than any lass that ever I saw, a deal; you're nicer by chalks;
+there's none like ye--there isn't; and I wish you'd have me. I ha'n't much
+tin--father's run through a deal, he's pretty well up a tree, ye know; but
+though I baint so rich as some folk, I'm a better man, 'appen; and if ye'd
+take a tidy lad, that likes ye awful, and 'id die for your sake, why here
+he is.'
+
+'What can you mean, sir?' I exclaimed, rising in indignant bewilderment.
+
+'I mean, Maud, if ye'll marry me, you'll never ha' cause to complain; I'll
+never let ye want for nout, nor gi'e ye a wry word.'
+
+'Actually a proposal!' I ejaculated, like a person speaking in a dream.
+
+I stood with my hand on the back of a chair, staring at Dudley; and
+looking, I dare say, as stupefied as I felt.
+
+'There's a good lass, ye would na deny me,' said the odious creature,
+with one knee on the seat of the chair behind which I was standing, and
+attempting to place his arm lovingly round my neck.
+
+This effectually roused me, and starting back, I stamped upon the ground
+with actual fury.
+
+'What has there ever been, sir, in my conduct, words, or looks, to
+warrant this unparalleled audacity? But that you are as stupid as you are
+impertinent, brutal, and ugly, you must, long ago, sir, have seen how I
+dislike you. How dare you, sir? Don't presume to obstruct me; I'm going to
+my uncle.'
+
+I had never spoken so violently to mortal before.
+
+He in turn looked a little confounded; and I passed his extended but
+motionless arm with a quick and angry step.
+
+He followed me a pace or two, however, before I reached the door, looking
+horridly angry, but stopped, and only swore after me some of those 'wry
+words' which I was never to have heard. I was myself, however, too much
+incensed, and moving at too rapid a pace, to catch their import; and I had
+knocked at my uncle's door before I began to collect my thoughts.
+
+'Come in,' replied my uncle's voice, clear, thin, and peevish.
+
+I entered and confronted him.
+
+'Your son, sir, has insulted me.'
+
+He looked at me with a cold curiosity steadly for a few seconds, as I stood
+panting before him with flaming cheeks.
+
+'Insulted you?' repeated he. 'Egad, you surprise me!'
+
+The ejaculation savoured of 'the old man,' to borrow his scriptural phrase,
+more than anything I had heard from him before.
+
+'_How?_' he continued; 'how has Dudley _insulted_ you, my dear child? Come,
+you're excited; sit down; take time, and tell me all about it. I did not
+know that Dudley was here.'
+
+'I--he--it _is_ an insult. He knew very well--he _must_ know I dislike him;
+and he presumed to make a proposal of marriage to me.'
+
+'O--o--oh!' exclaimed my uncle, with a prolonged intonation which plainly
+said, Is that the mighty matter?
+
+He looked at me as he leaned back with the same steady curiosity, this time
+smiling, which somehow frightened me, and his countenance looked to me
+wicked, like the face of a witch, with a guilt I could not understand.
+
+'And that is the amount of your complaint. He made you a formal proposal of
+marriage!'
+
+'Yes; he proposed for me.'
+
+As I cooled, I began to feel just a very little disconcerted, and a
+suspicion was troubling me that possibly an indifferent person might think
+that, having no more to complain of, my language was perhaps a little
+exaggerated, and my demeanour a little too tempestuous.
+
+My uncle, I dare say, saw some symptoms of this misgiving, for, smiling
+still, he said--
+
+'My dear Maud, however just, you appear to me a little cruel; you don't
+seem to remember how much you are yourself to blame; you have one faithful
+friend at least, whom I advise your consulting--I mean your looking-glass.
+The foolish fellow is young, quite ignorant in the world's ways. He is in
+love--desperately enamoured.
+
+  Aimer c'est craindre, et craindre c'est souffrir.
+
+And suffering prompts to desperate remedies. We must not be too hard on a
+rough but romantic young fool, who talks according to his folly and his
+pain.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIX
+
+_AN APPARITION_
+
+
+'But, after all,' he suddenly resumed, as if a new thought had struck him,
+'is it quite such folly, after all? It really strikes me, dear Maud, that
+the subject may be worth a second thought. No, no, you won't refuse to hear
+me,' he said, observing me on the point of protesting. 'I am, of course,
+assuming that you are fancy free. I am assuming, too, that you don't care
+twopence about Dudley, and even that you fancy you dislike him. You know in
+that pleasant play, poor Sheridan--delightful fellow!--all our fine spirits
+are dead--he makes Mrs. Malaprop say there is nothing like beginning with a
+little aversion. Now, though in matrimony, of course, that is only a joke,
+yet in love, believe me, it is no such thing. His own marriage with Miss
+Ogle, I _know_, was a case in point. She expressed a positive horror of him
+at their first acquaintance; and yet, I believe, she would, a few months
+later, have died rather than not have married him.'
+
+I was again about to speak, but with a smile he beckoned me into silence.
+
+'There are two or three points you must bear in mind. One of the happiest
+privileges of your fortune is that you may, without imprudence, marry
+simply for love. There are few men in England who could offer you an estate
+comparable with that you already possess; or, in fact, appreciably increase
+the splendour of your fortune. If, therefore, he were in all other respects
+eligible, I can't see that his poverty would be an objection to weigh for
+one moment. He is quite a rough diamond. He has been, like many young men
+of the highest rank, too much given up to athletic sports--to that society
+which constitutes the aristocracy of the ring and the turf, and all that
+kind of thing. You see, I am putting all the worst points first. But I have
+known so many young men in my day, after a madcap career of a few years
+among prizefighters, wrestlers, and jockeys--learning their slang and
+affecting their manners--take up and cultivate the graces and the
+decencies. There was poor dear Newgate, many degrees lower in that kind of
+frolic, who, when he grew tired of it, became one of the most elegant and
+accomplished men in the House of Peers. Poor Newgate, he's gone, too! I
+could reckon up fifty of my early friends who all began like Dudley, and
+all turned out, more or less, like Newgate.'
+
+At this moment came a knock at the door, and Dudley put in his head most
+inopportunely for the vision of his future graces and accomplishments.
+
+'My good fellow,' said his father, with a sharp sort of playfulness, 'I
+happen to be talking about my son, and should rather not be overheard; you
+will, therefore, choose another time for your visit.'
+
+Dudley hesitated gruffly at the door, but another look from his father
+dismissed him.
+
+'And now, my dear, you are to remember that Dudley has fine qualities--the
+most affectionate son in his rough way that ever father was blessed with;
+most admirable qualities--indomitable courage, and a high sense of honour;
+and lastly, that he has the Ruthyn blood--the purest blood, I maintain it,
+in England.'
+
+My uncle, as he said this, drew himself up a little, unconsciously, his
+thin hand laid lightly over his heart with a little patting motion, and his
+countenance looked so strangely dignified and melancholy, that in admiring
+contemplation of it I lost some sentences which followed next.
+
+'Therefore, dear, naturally anxious that my boy should not be dismissed
+from home--as he must be, should you persevere in rejecting his suit--I beg
+that you will reserve your decision to this day fortnight, when I will with
+much pleasure hear what you may have to say on the subject. But till then,
+observe me, not a word.'
+
+That evening he and Dudley were closeted for a long time. I suspect that he
+lectured him on the psychology of ladies; for a bouquet was laid beside my
+plate every morning at breakfast, which it must have been troublesome to
+get, for the conservatory at Bartram was a desert. In a few days more an
+anonymous green parrot arrived, in a gilt cage, with a little note in a
+clerk's hand, addressed to 'Miss Ruthyn (of Knowl), Bartram-Haugh,' &c. It
+contained only 'Directions for caring green parrot,' at the close of which,
+_underlined_, the words appeared--'The bird's name is Maud.'
+
+The bouquets I invariably left on the table-cloth, where I found them--the
+bird I insisted on Milly's keeping as her property. During the intervening
+fortnight Dudley never appeared, as he used sometimes to do before, at
+luncheon, nor looked in at the window as we were at breakfast. He contented
+himself with one day placing himself in my way in the hall in his shooting
+accoutrements, and, with a clumsy, shuffling kind of respect, and hat in
+hand, he said--
+
+'I think, Miss, I must a spoke uncivil t'other day. I was so awful put
+about, and didn't know no more nor a child what I was saying; and I wanted
+to tell ye I'm sorry for it, and I beg your pardon--very humble, I do.'
+
+I did not know what to say. I therefore said nothing, but made a grave
+inclination, and passed on.
+
+Two or three times Milly and I saw him at a little distance in our walks.
+He never attempted to join us. Once only he passed so near that some
+recognition was inevitable, and he stopped and in silence lifted his hat
+with an awkward respect. But although he did not approach us, he was
+ostentatious with a kind of telegraphic civility in the distance. He opened
+gates, he whistled his dogs to 'heel,' he drove away cattle, and then
+himself withdrew. I really think he watched us occasionally to render these
+services, for in this distant way we encountered him decidedly oftener than
+we used to do before his flattering proposal of marriage.
+
+You may be sure that we discussed, Milly and I, that occurrence pretty
+constantly in all sorts of moods. Limited as had been her experience of
+human society, she very clearly saw _now_ how far below its presentable
+level was her hopeful brother.
+
+The fortnight sped swiftly, as time always does when something we dislike
+and shrink from awaits us at its close. I never saw Uncle Silas during that
+period. It may seem odd to those who merely read the report of our last
+interview, in which his manner had been more playful and his talk more
+trifling than in any other, that from it I had carried away a profounder
+sense of fear and insecurity than from any other. It was with a foreboding
+of evil and an awful dejection that on a very dark day, in Milly's room,
+I awaited the summons which I was sure would reach me from my punctual
+guardian.
+
+As I looked from the window upon the slanting rain and leaden sky, and
+thought of the hated interview that awaited me, I pressed my hand to my
+troubled heart, and murmured, 'O that I had wings like a dove! then would I
+flee away, and be at rest.'
+
+Just then the prattle of the parrot struck my ear. I looked round on the
+wire cage, and remembered the words, 'The bird's name is Maud.'
+
+'Poor bird!' I said. 'I dare say, Milly, it longs to get out. If it were a
+native of this country, would not you like to open the window, and then the
+door of that cruel cage, and let the poor thing fly away?'
+
+'Master wants Miss Maud,' said Wyat's disagreeable tones, at the half-open
+door.
+
+I followed in silence, with the pressure of a near alarm at my heart, like
+a person going to an operation.
+
+When I entered the room, my heart beat so fast that I could hardly speak.
+The tall form of Uncle Silas rose before me, and I made him a faltering
+reverence.
+
+He darted from under his brows a wild, fierce glance at old Wyat, and
+pointed to the door imperiously with his skeleton finger. The door shut,
+and we were alone.
+
+'A chair?' he said, pointing to a seat.
+
+'Thank you, uncle, I prefer standing,' I faltered.
+
+He also stood--his white head bowed forward, the phosphoric glare of his
+strange eyes shone upon me from under his brows--his finger-nails just
+rested on the table.
+
+'You saw the luggage corded and addressed, as it stands ready for removal
+in the hall?' he asked.
+
+I had. Milly and I had read the cards which dangled from the trunk-handles
+and gun-case. The address was--'Mr. Dudley R. Ruthyn, Paris, _viâ_ Dover.'
+
+'I am old--agitated--on the eve of a decision on which much depends. Pray
+relieve my suspense. Is my son to leave Bartram to-day in sorrow, or to
+remain in joy? Pray answer quickly.'
+
+I stammered I know not what. I was incoherent--wild, perhaps; but somehow
+I expressed my meaning--my unalterable decision. I thought his lips grew
+whiter and his eyes shone brighter as I spoke.
+
+When I had quite made an end, he heaved a great sigh, and turning his eyes
+slowly to the right and the left, like a man in a helpless distraction, he
+whispered--
+
+'God's will be done.'
+
+I thought he was upon the point of fainting--a clay tint darkened the white
+of his face; and, seeming to forget my presence, he sat down, looking with
+a despairing scowl on his ashy old hand, as it lay upon the table.
+
+I stood gazing at him, feeling almost as if I had murdered the old man--he
+still gazing askance, with an imbecile scowl, upon his hand.
+
+'Shall I go, sir?' I at length found courage to whisper.
+
+'_Go?_' he said, looking up suddenly; and it seemed to me as if a stream of
+cold sheet-lightning had crossed and enveloped me for a moment.
+
+'Go?--oh!--a--yes--_yes_, Maud--go. I must see poor Dudley before his
+departure,' he added, as it were, in soliloquy.
+
+Trembling lest he should revoke his permission to depart, I glided quickly
+and noiselessly from the room.
+
+Old Wyat was prowling outside, with a cloth in her hand, pretending to dust
+the carved door-case. She frowned a stare of enquiry over her shrunken arm
+on me, as I passed. Milly, who had been on the watch, ran and met me. We
+heard my uncle's voice, as I shut the door, calling Dudley. He had been
+waiting, probably, in the adjoining room. I hurried into my chamber, with
+Milly at my side, and there my agitation found relief in tears, as that of
+girlhood naturally does.
+
+A little while after we saw from the window Dudley, looking, I thought,
+very pale, get into a vehicle, on the top of which his luggage lay, and
+drive away from Bartram.
+
+I began to take comfort. His departure was an inexpressible relief. His
+final departure! a distant journey!
+
+We had tea in Milly's room that night. Firelight and candles are inspiring.
+In that red glow I always felt and feel more safe, as well as more
+comfortable, than in the daylight--quite irrationally, for we know the
+night is the appointed day of such as love the darkness better than light,
+and evil walks thereby. But so it is. Perhaps the very consciousness of
+external danger enhances the enjoyment of the well-lighted interior, just
+as the storm does that roars and hurtles over the roof.
+
+While Milly and I were talking, very cosily, a knock came to the room-door,
+and, without waiting for an invitation to enter, old Wyat came in, and
+glowering at us, with her brown claw upon the door-handle, she said to
+Milly--
+
+'Ye must leave your funnin', Miss Milly, and take your turn in your
+father's room.'
+
+'Is he ill?' I asked.
+
+She answered, addressing not me, but Milly--
+
+'A wrought two hours in a fit arter Master Dudley went. 'Twill be the death
+o' him, I'm thinkin', poor old fellah. I wor sorry myself when I saw Master
+Dudley a going off in the moist to-day, poor fellah. There's trouble enough
+in the family without a' that; but 'twon't be a family long, I'm thinkin'.
+Nout but trouble, nout but trouble, since late changes came.'
+
+Judging by the sour glance she threw on me as she said this, I concluded
+that I represented those 'late changes' to which all the sorrows of the
+house were referred.
+
+I felt unhappy under the ill-will even of this odious old woman, being one
+of those unhappily constructed mortals who cannot be indifferent when
+they reasonably ought, and always yearn after kindness, even that of the
+worthless.
+
+'I must go. I wish you'd come wi' me, Maud, I'm so afraid all alone,' said
+Milly, imploringly.
+
+'Certainly, Milly,' I answered, not liking it, you may be sure; 'you shan't
+sit there alone.'
+
+So together we went, old Wyat cautioning us for our lives to make no noise.
+
+We passed through the old man's sitting-room, where that day had occurred
+his brief but momentous interview with me, and his parting with his only
+son, and entered the bed-room at the farther end.
+
+A low fire burned in the grate. The room was in a sort of twilight. A
+dim lamp near the foot of the bed at the farther side was the only light
+burning there. Old Wyat whispered an injunction not to speak above our
+breaths, nor to leave the fireside unless the sick man called or showed
+signs of weariness. These were the directions of the doctor, who had been
+there.
+
+So Milly and I sat ourselves down near the hearth, and old Wyat left us to
+our resources. We could hear the patient breathe; but he was quite still.
+In whispers we talked; but our conversation flagged. I was, after my wont,
+upbraiding myself for the suffering I had inflicted. After about half an
+hour's desultory whispering, and intervals, growing longer and longer, of
+silence, it was plain that Milly was falling asleep.
+
+She strove against it, and I tried hard to keep her talking; but it would
+not do--sleep overcame her; and I was the only person in that ghastly room
+in a state of perfect consciousness.
+
+There were associations connected with my last vigil there to make my
+situation very nervous and disagreeable. Had I not had so much to occupy my
+mind of a distinctly practical kind--Dudley's audacious suit, my uncle's
+questionable toleration of it, and my own conduct throughout that most
+disagreeable period of my existence,--I should have felt my present
+situation a great deal more.
+
+As it was, I thought of my real troubles, and something of Cousin Knollys,
+and, I confess, a good deal of Lord Ilbury. When looking towards the door,
+I thought I saw a human face, about the most terrible my fancy could have
+called up, looking fixedly into the room. It was only a 'three-quarter,'
+and not the whole figure--the door hid that in a great measure, and I
+fancied I saw, too, a portion of the fingers. The face gazed toward the
+bed, and in the imperfect light looked like a livid mask, with chalky eyes.
+
+I had so often been startled by similar apparitions formed by accidental
+lights and shadows disguising homely objects, that I stooped forward,
+expecting, though tremulously, to see this tremendous one in like manner
+dissolve itself into its harmless elements; and now, to my unspeakable
+terror, I became perfectly certain that I saw the countenance of Madame de
+la Rougierre.
+
+With a cry, I started back, and shook Milly furiously from her trance.
+
+'Look! look!' I cried. But the apparition or illusion was gone.
+
+I clung so fast to Milly's arm, cowering behind her, that she could not
+rise.
+
+'Milly! Milly! Milly! Milly!' I went on crying, like one struck with
+idiotcy, and unable to say anything else.
+
+In a panic, Milly, who had seen nothing, and could conjecture nothing of
+the cause of my terror, jumped up, and clinging to one another, we huddled
+together into the corner of the room, I still crying wildly, 'Milly! Milly!
+_Milly_!' and nothing else.
+
+'What is it--where is it--what do you see?' cried Milly, clinging to me as
+I did to her.
+
+'It will come again; it will come; oh, heaven!'
+
+'What--what is it, Maud?'
+
+'The face! the face!' I cried. 'Oh, Milly! Milly! Milly!'
+
+We heard a step softly approaching the open door, and, in a horrible _sauve
+qui peut_, we rushed and stumbled together toward the light by Uncle
+Silas's bed. But old Wyat's voice and figure reassured us.
+
+'Milly,' I said, so soon as, pale and very faint, I reached my apartment,
+'no power on earth shall ever tempt me to enter that room again after
+dark.'
+
+'Why, Maud dear, what, in Heaven's name, did you see?' said Milly, scarcely
+less terrified.
+
+'Oh, I can't; I can't; I can't, Milly. Never ask me. It is haunted. The
+room is haunted _horribly_.'
+
+'Was it Charke?' whispered Milly, looking over her shoulder, all aghast.
+
+'No, no--don't ask me; a fiend in a worse shape.' I was relieved at last by
+a long fit of weeping; and all night good Mary Quince sat by me, and Milly
+slept by my side. Starting and screaming, and drugged with sal-volatile, I
+got through that night of supernatural terror, and saw the blessed light of
+heaven again.
+
+Doctor Jolks, when he came to see my uncle in the morning, visited me also.
+He pronounced me very hysterical, made minute enquiries respecting my hours
+and diet, asked what I had had for dinner yesterday. There was something
+a little comforting in his cool and confident pooh-poohing of the ghost
+theory. The result was, a regimen which excluded tea, and imposed chocolate
+and porter, earlier hours, and I forget all beside; and he undertook to
+promise that, if I would but observe his directions, I should never see a
+ghost again.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER L
+
+_MILLY'S FAREWELL_
+
+
+A few days' time saw me much better. Doctor Jolks was so contemptuously
+sturdy and positive on the point, that I began to have comfortable doubts
+about the reality of my ghost; and having still a horror indescribable
+of the illusion, if such it were, the room in which it appeared, and
+everything concerning it, I would neither speak, nor, so far as I could,
+think of it.
+
+So, though Bartram-Haugh was gloomy as well as beautiful, and some of its
+associations awful, and the solitude that reigned there sometimes almost
+terrible, yet early hours, bracing exercise, and the fine air that
+predominates that region, soon restored my nerves to a healthier tone.
+
+But it seemed to me that Bartram-Haugh was to be to me a vale of tears; or
+rather, in my sad pilgrimage, that valley of the shadow of death through
+which poor Christian fared alone and in the dark.
+
+One day Milly ran into the parlour, pale, with wet cheeks, and, without
+saying a word, threw her arms about my neck, and burst into a paroxysm of
+weeping.
+
+'What is it, Milly--what's the matter, dear--what is it?' I cried aghast,
+but returning her close embrace heartily.
+
+'Oh! Maud--Maud darling, he's going to send me away.'
+
+'Away, dear! _where_ away? And leave me alone in this dreadful solitude,
+where he knows I shall die of fear and grief without you? Oh! no--no, it
+_must_ be a mistake.'
+
+'I'm going to France, Maud--I'm going away. Mrs. Jolks is going to London,
+day ar'ter to-morrow, and I'm to go wi' her; and an old French lady, he
+says, from the school will meet me there, and bring me the rest o' the
+way.'
+
+'Oh--ho--ho--ho--ho--o--o--o!' cried poor Milly, hugging me closer still,
+with her head buried in my shoulder, and swaying me about like a wrestler,
+in her agony.
+
+'I never wor away from home afore, except that little bit wi' you over
+there at Elverston; and you wor wi' me then, Maud; an' I love ye--better
+than Bartram--better than a'; an' I think I'll die, Maud, if they take me
+away.'
+
+I was just as wild in my woe as poor Milly; and it was not until we had
+wept together for a full hour--sometimes standing--sometimes walking up and
+down the room--sometimes sitting and getting up in turns to fall on one
+another's necks,--that Milly, plucking her handkerchief from her pocket,
+drew a note from it at the same time, which, as it fell upon the floor, she
+at once recollected to be one from Uncle Silas to me.
+
+It was to this effect:--
+
+'I wish to apprise my dear niece and ward of my plans. Milly proceeds to
+an admirable French school, as a pensionnaire, and leaves this on Thursday
+next. If after three months' trial she finds it in any way objectionable,
+she returns to us. If, on the contrary, she finds it in all respects the
+charming residence it has been presented to me, you, on the expiration of
+that period, join her there, until the temporary complication of my affairs
+shall have been so far adjusted as to enable me to receive you once more
+at Bartram. Hoping for happier days, and wishing to assure you that three
+months is the extreme limit of your separation from my poor Milly, I have
+written this, feeling alas! unequal to seeing you at present. 'Bartram,
+Tuesday.
+
+'P.S.--I can have no objection to your apprising Monica Knollys of these
+arrangements. You will understand, of course, not a copy of this letter,
+but its substance.'
+
+Over this document, scanning it as lawyers do a new Act of Parliament, we
+took comfort. After all, it was limited; a separation not to exceed three
+months, possibly much shorter. On the whole, too, I pleased myself with
+thinking Uncle Silas's note, though peremptory, was kind.
+
+Our paroxysms subsided into sadness; a close correspondence was arranged.
+Something of the bustle and excitement of change supervened. If it turned
+out to be, in truth, a 'charming residence,' how very delightful our
+meeting in France, with the interest of foreign scenery, ways, and faces,
+would be!
+
+So Thursday arrived--a new gush of sorrow--a new brightening up--and, amid
+regrets and anticipations, we parted at the gate at the farther end of the
+Windmill Wood. Then, of course, were more good-byes, more embraces, and
+tearful smiles. Good Mrs. Jolks, who met us there, was in a huge fuss; I
+believe it was her first visit to the metropolis, and she was in proportion
+heated and important, and terrified about the train, so we had not many
+last words.
+
+I watched poor Milly, whose head was stretched from the window, her hand
+waving many adieux, until the curve of the road, and the clump of old
+ash-trees, thick with ivy, hid Milly, carriage and all, from view. My eyes
+filled again with tears. I turned towards Bartram. At my side stood honest
+Mary Quince.
+
+'Don't take on so, Miss; 'twon't be no time passing; three months is
+nothing at all,' she said, smiling kindly.
+
+I smiled through my tears and kissed the good creature, and so side by side
+we re-entered the gate.
+
+The lithe young man in fustian, whom I had seen talking with Beauty on the
+morning of our first encounter with that youthful Amazon, was awaiting our
+re-entrance with the key in his hand. He stood half behind the open wicket.
+One lean brown cheek, one shy eye, and his sharp up-turned nose, I saw as
+we passed. He was treating me to a stealthy scrutiny, and seemed to shun my
+glance, for he shut the door quickly, and busied himself locking it, and
+then began stubbing up some thistles which grew close by, with the toe of
+his thick shoe, his back to us all the time.
+
+It struck me that I recognised his features, and I asked Mary Quince.
+
+'Have you seen that young man before, Quince?'
+
+'He brings up game for your uncle, sometimes, Miss, and lends a hand in the
+garden, I believe.'
+
+'Do you know his name, Mary?'
+
+'They call him Tom, I don't know what more, Miss.'
+
+'Tom,' I called; 'please, Tom, come here for a moment.'
+
+Tom turned about, and approached slowly. He was more civil than the Bartram
+people usually were, for he plucked off his shapeless cap of rabbit-skin
+with a clownish respect.
+
+'Tom, what is your other name,--Tom _what_, my good man?' I asked.
+
+'Tom Brice, ma'am.'
+
+'Haven't I seen you before, Tom Brice?' I pursued, for my curiosity was
+excited, and with it much graver feelings; for there certainly _was_ a
+resemblance in Tom's features to those of the postilion who had looked so
+hard at me as I passed the carriage in the warren at Knowl, on the evening
+of the outrage which had scared that quiet place.
+
+''Appen you may have, ma'am,' he answered, quite coolly, looking down the
+buttons of his gaiters.
+
+'Are you a good whip--do you drive well?'
+
+'I'll drive a plough wi' most lads hereabout,' answered Tom.
+
+'Have you ever been to Knowl, Tom?'
+
+Tom gaped very innocently.
+
+'Anan,' he said.
+
+'Here, Tom, is half-a-crown.'
+
+He took it readily enough.
+
+'That be very good,' said Tom, with a nod, having glanced sharply at the
+coin.
+
+I can't say whether he applied that term to the coin, or to his luck, or to
+my generous self.
+
+'Now, Tom, you'll tell me, have you ever been to Knowl?'
+
+'Maught a' bin, ma'am, but I don't mind no sich place--no.'
+
+As Tom spoke this with great deliberation, like a man who loves truth,
+putting a strain upon his memory for its sake, he spun the silver coin two
+or three times into the air and caught it, staring at it the while, with
+all his might.
+
+'Now, Tom, recollect yourself, and tell me the truth, and I'll be a friend
+to you. Did you ride postilion to a carriage having a lady in it, and, I
+think, several gentlemen, which came to the grounds of Knowl, when the
+party had their luncheon on the grass, and there was a--a quarrel with the
+gamekeepers? Try, Tom, to recollect; you shall, upon my honour, have no
+trouble about it, and I'll try to serve you.'
+
+Tom was silent, while with a vacant gape he watched the spin of his
+half-crown twice, and then catching it with a smack in his hand, which he
+thrust into his pocket, he said, still looking in the same direction--
+
+'I never rid postilion in my days, ma'am. I know nout o' sich a place,
+though 'appen I maught a' bin there; Knowl, ye ca't. I was ne'er out o'
+Derbyshire but thrice to Warwick fair wi' horses be rail, an' twice to
+York.'
+
+'You're certain, Tom?'
+
+'Sartin sure, ma'am.'
+
+And Tom made another loutish salute, and cut the conference short by
+turning off the path and beginning to hollo after some trespassing cattle.
+
+I had not felt anything like so nearly sure in this essay at identification
+as I had in that of Dudley. Even of Dudley's identity with the Church
+Scarsdale man, I had daily grown less confident; and, indeed, had it been
+proposed to bring it to the test of a wager, I do not think I should,
+in the language of sporting gentlemen, have cared to 'back' my original
+opinion. There was, however, a sufficient uncertainty to make me
+uncomfortable; and there was another uncertainty to enhance the unpleasant
+sense of ambiguity.
+
+On our way back we passed the bleaching trunks and limbs of several ranks
+of barkless oaks lying side by side, some squared by the hatchet, perhaps
+sold, for there were large letters and Roman numerals traced upon them in
+red chalk. I sighed as I passed them by, not because it was wrongfully
+done, for I really rather leaned to the belief that Uncle Silas was well
+advised in point of law. But, alas! here lay low the grand old family
+decorations of Bartram-Haugh, not to be replaced for centuries to come,
+under whose spreading boughs the Ruthyns of three hundred years ago had
+hawked and hunted!
+
+On the trunk of one of these I sat down to rest, Mary Quince meanwhile
+pattering about in unmeaning explorations. While thus listlessly seated,
+the girl Meg Hawkes, walked by, carrying a basket.
+
+'Hish!' she said quickly, as she passed, without altering a pace or raising
+her eyes; 'don't ye speak nor look--fayther spies us; I'll tell ye next
+turn.'
+
+'Next turn'--when was that? Well, she might be returning; and as she could
+not then say more than she had said, in merely passing without a pause, I
+concluded to wait for a short time and see what would come of it.
+
+After a short time I looked about me a little, and I saw Dickon
+Hawkes--Pegtop, as poor Milly used to call him--with an axe in his hand,
+prowling luridly among the timber.
+
+Observing that I saw him, he touched his hat sulkily, and by-and-by passed
+me, muttering to himself. He plainly could not understand what business I
+could have in that particular part of the Windmill Wood, and let me see it
+in his countenance.
+
+His daughter did pass me again; but this time he was near, and she was
+silent. Her next transit occurred as he was questioning Mary Quince at some
+little distance; and as she passed precisely in the same way, she said--
+
+'Don't you be alone wi' Master Dudley nowhere for the world's worth.'
+
+The injunction was so startling that I was on the point of questioning the
+girl. But I recollected myself, and waited in the hope that in her future
+transits she might be more explicit. But one word more she did not utter,
+and the jealous eye of old Pegtop was so constantly upon us that I
+refrained.
+
+There was vagueness and suggestion enough in the oracle to supply work for
+many an hour of anxious conjecture, and many a horrible vigil by night. Was
+I never to know peace at Bartram-Haugh?
+
+Ten days of poor Milly's absence, and of my solitude, had already passed,
+when my uncle sent for me to his room.
+
+When old Wyat stood at the door, mumbling and snarling her message, my
+heart died within me.
+
+It was late--just that hour when dejected people feel their anxieties
+most--when the cold grey of twilight has deepened to its darkest shade, and
+before the cheerful candles are lighted, and the safe quiet of the night
+sets in.
+
+When I entered my uncle's sitting-room--though his window-shutters were
+open and the wan streaks of sunset visible through them, like narrow lakes
+in the chasms of the dark western clouds--a pair of candles were burning;
+one stood upon the table by his desk, the other on the chimneypiece, before
+which his tall, thin figure stooped. His hand leaned on the mantelpiece,
+and the light from the candle just above his bowed head touched his silvery
+hair. He was looking, as it seemed, into the subsiding embers of the fire,
+and was a very statue of forsaken dejection and decay.
+
+'Uncle!' I ventured to say, having stood for some time unperceived near his
+table.
+
+'Ah, yes, Maud, my dear child--my _dear_ child.'
+
+He turned, and with the candle in his hand, smiling his silvery smile of
+suffering on me. He walked more feebly and stiffly, I thought, than I had
+ever seen him move before.
+
+'Sit down, Maud--pray sit there.'
+
+I took the chair he indicated.
+
+'In my misery and my solitude, Maud, I have invoked you like a spirit, and
+you appear.'
+
+With his two hands leaning on the table, he looked across at me, in a
+stooping attitude; he had not seated himself. I continued silent until it
+should be his pleasure to question or address me.
+
+At last he said, raising himself and looking upward, with a wild
+adoration--his finger-tips elevated and glimmering in the faint mixed
+light--
+
+'No, I thank my Creator, I am not quite forsaken.'
+
+Another silence, during which he looked steadfastly at me, and muttered, as
+if thinking aloud--
+
+'My guardian angel!--my guardian angel! Maud, _you_ have a heart.' He
+addressed me suddenly--'Listen, for a few moments, to the appeal of an old
+and broken-hearted man--your guardian--your uncle--your _suppliant_. I had
+resolved never to speak to you more on this subject. But I was wrong. It
+was pride that inspired me--mere pride.'
+
+I felt myself growing pale and flushed by turns during the pause that
+followed.
+
+'I'm very miserable--very nearly desperate. What remains for me--what
+remains? Fortune has done her worst--thrown in the dust, her wheels rolled
+over me; and the servile world, who follow her chariot like a mob, stamp
+upon the mangled wretch. All this had passed over me, and left me scarred
+and bloodless in this solitude. It was not my fault, Maud--I say it was no
+fault of mine; I have no remorse, though more regrets than I can count,
+and all scored with fire. As people passed by Bartram, and looked upon its
+neglected grounds and smokeless chimneys, they thought my plight, I dare
+say, about the worst a proud man could be reduced to. They could not
+imagine one half its misery. But this old hectic--this old epileptic--this
+old spectre of wrongs, calamities, and follies, had still one hope--my
+manly though untutored son--the last male scion of the Ruthyns. Maud, have
+I lost him? His fate--my fate--I may say _Milly's fate_;--we all await your
+sentence. He loves you, as none but the very young can love, and that once
+only in a life. He loves you desperately--a most affectionate nature--a
+Ruthyn, the best blood in England--the last man of the race; and I--if I
+lose him I lose all; and you will see me in my coffin, Maud, before many
+months. I stand before you in the attitude of a suppliant--shall I kneel?'
+
+His eyes were fixed on me with the light of despair, his knotted hands
+clasped, his whole figure bowed toward me. I was inexpressibly shocked and
+pained.
+
+'Oh, uncle! uncle!' I cried, and from very excitement I burst into tears.
+
+I saw that his eyes were fixed on me with a dismal scrutiny. I think he
+divined the nature of my agitation; but he determined, notwithstanding, to
+press me while my helpless agitation continued.
+
+'You see my suspense--you see my miserable and frightful suspense. You are
+kind, Maud; you love your father's memory; your pity your father's brother;
+you would not say no, and place a pistol at his head?'
+
+'Oh! I must--I must--I _must_ say no. Oh! spare me, uncle, for Heaven's
+sake. Don't question me--don't press me. I could not--I _could_ not do what
+you ask.'
+
+'I yield, Maud--I yield, my dear. I will _not_ press you; you shall have
+time, your _own_ time, to think. I will accept no answer now--no, _none_,
+Maud.'
+
+He said this, raising his thin hand to silence me.
+
+'There, Maud, enough. I have spoken, as I always do to you, frankly,
+perhaps too frankly; but agony and despair will speak out, and plead, even
+with the most obdurate and cruel.'
+
+With these words Uncle Silas entered his bed-chamber, and shut the door,
+not violently, but with a resolute hand, and I thought I heard a cry.
+
+I hastened to my own room. I threw myself on my knees, and thanked Heaven
+for the firmness vouchsafed me; I could not believe it to have been my own.
+
+I was more miserable in consequence of this renewed suit on behalf of
+my odious cousin than I can describe. My uncle had taken such a line of
+importunity that it became a sort of agony to resist. I thought of the
+possibility of my hearing of his having made away with himself, and was
+every morning relieved when I heard that he was still as usual. I have
+often wondered since at my own firmness. In that dreadful interview with my
+uncle I had felt, in the whirl and horror of my mind, on the very point
+of submitting, just as nervous people are said to throw themselves over
+precipices through sheer dread of falling.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LI
+
+_SARAH MATILDA COMES TO LIGHT_
+
+
+Some time after this interview, one day as I sat, sad enough, in my room,
+looking listlessly from the window, with good Mary Quince, whom, whether
+in the house or in my melancholy rambles, I always had by my side, I
+was startled by the sound of a loud and shrill female voice, in violent
+hysterical action, gabbling with great rapidity, sobbing, and very nearly
+screaming in a sort of fury.
+
+I started up, staring at the door.
+
+'Lord bless us!' cried honest Mary Quince, with round eyes and mouth agape,
+staring in the same direction.
+
+'Mary--Mary, what can it be?'
+
+'Are they beating some one down yonder? I don't know where it comes from,'
+gasped Quince.
+
+'I will--I will--I'll see her. It's her I want.
+Oo--hoo--hoo--hoo--oo--o--Miss Maud Ruthyn of Knowl. Miss Ruthyn of Knowl.
+Hoo--hoo--hoo--hoo--oo!'
+
+'What on earth can it be?' I exclaimed, in great bewilderment and terror.
+
+It was now plainly very near indeed, and I heard the voice of our mild and
+shaky butler evidently remonstrating with the distressed damsel.
+
+'I'll see her,' she continued, pouring a torrent of vile abuse upon me,
+which stung me with a sudden sense of anger. What had I done to be afraid
+of anyone? How dared anyone in my uncle's house--in _my_ house--mix my name
+up with her detestable scurrilities?
+
+'For Heaven's sake, Miss, don't ye go out,' cried poor Quince; 'it's some
+drunken creature.'
+
+But I was very angry, and, like a fool as I was, I threw open the door,
+exclaiming in a loud and haughty key--
+
+'Here is Miss Ruthyn of Knowl. Who wants to see her?'
+
+A pink and white young lady, with black tresses, violent, weeping, shrill,
+voluble, was flouncing up the last stair, and shook her dress out on the
+lobby; and poor old Giblets, as Milly used to call him, was following in
+her wake, with many small remonstrances and entreaties, perfectly unheeded.
+
+The moment I looked at this person, it struck me that she was the identical
+lady whom I had seen in the carriage at Knowl Warren. The next moment I was
+in doubt; the next, still more so. She was decidedly thinner, and dressed
+by no means in such lady-like taste. Perhaps she was hardly like her at
+all. I began to distrust all these resemblances, and to fancy, with a
+shudder, that they originated, perhaps, only in my own sick brain.
+
+On seeing me, this young lady--as it seemed to me, a good deal of the
+barmaid or lady's-maid species--dried her eyes fiercely, and, with a
+flaming countenance, called upon me peremptorily to produce her 'lawful
+husband.' Her loud, insolent, outrageous attack had the effect of enhancing
+my indignation, and I quite forget what I said to her, but I well remember
+that her manner became a good deal more decent. She was plainly under the
+impression that I wanted to appropriate her husband, or, at least, that he
+wanted to marry me; and she ran on at such a pace, and her harangue was so
+passionate, incoherent, and unintelligible, that I thought her out of her
+mind: she was far from it, however. I think if she had allowed me even
+a second for reflection, I should have hit upon her meaning. As it was,
+nothing could exceed my perplexity, until, plucking a soiled newspaper from
+her pocket, she indicated a particular paragraph, already sufficiently
+emphasised by double lines of red ink at its sides. It was a Lancashire
+paper, of about six weeks since, and very much worn and soiled for its age.
+I remember in particular a circular stain from the bottom of a vessel,
+either of coffee or brown stout. The paragraph was as follows, recording an
+event a year or more anterior to the date of the paper:--
+
+'MARRIAGE.--On Tuesday, August 7, 18--, at Leatherwig Church, by the Rev.
+Arthur Hughes, Dudley R. Ruthyn, Esq., only son and heir of Silas Ruthyn,
+Esq., of Bartram-Haugh, Derbyshire, to Sarah Matilda, second daughter of
+John Mangles, Esq., of Wiggan, in this county.'
+
+At first I read nothing but amazement in this announcement, but in another
+moment I felt how completely I was relieved; and showing, I believe, my
+intense satisfaction in my countenance--for the young lady eyed me with
+considerable surprise and curiosity--I said--
+
+'This is extremely important. You must see Mr. Silas Ruthyn this moment. I
+am certain he knows nothing of it. I will conduct you to him.'
+
+'No more he does--I know that myself,' she replied, following me with a
+self-asserting swagger, and a great rustling of cheap silk.
+
+As we entered, Uncle Silas looked up from his sofa, and closed his _Revue
+des Deux Mondes_.
+
+'What is all this?' he enquired, drily.
+
+'This lady has brought with her a newspaper containing an extraordinary
+statement which affects our family,' I answered.
+
+Uncle Silas raised himself, and looked with a hard, narrow scrutiny at the
+unknown young lady.
+
+'A libel, I suppose, in the paper?' he said, extending his hand for it.
+
+'No, uncle--no; only a marriage,' I answered.
+
+'Not Monica?' he said, as he took it. 'Pah, it smells all over of tobacco
+and beer,' he added, throwing a little eau de Cologne over it.
+
+He raised it with a mixture of curiosity and disgust, saying again 'pah,'
+as he did so.
+
+He read the paragraph, and as he did his face changed from white, all over,
+to lead colour. He raised his eyes, and looked steadily for some seconds at
+the young lady, who seemed a little awed by his strange presence.
+
+'And you are, I suppose, the young lady, Sarah Matilda _née_ Mangles,
+mentioned in this little paragraph?' he said, in a tone you would have
+called a sneer, were it not that it trembled.
+
+Sarah Matilda assented.
+
+'My son is, I dare say, within reach. It so happens that I wrote to arrest
+his journey, and summon him here, some days since--some days since--some
+days since,' he repeated slowly, like a person whose mind has wandered far
+away from the theme on which he is speaking.
+
+He had rung his bell, and old Wyat, always hovering about his rooms,
+entered.
+
+'I want my son, immediately. If not in the house, send Harry to the
+stables; if not there, let him be followed, instantly. Brice is an active
+fellow, and will know where to find him. If he is in Feltram, or at a
+distance, let Brice take a horse, and Master Dudley can ride it back. He
+must be here without the loss of one moment.'
+
+There intervened nearly a quarter of an hour, during which whenever he
+recollected her, Uncle Silas treated the young lady with a hyper-refined
+and ceremonious politeness, which appeared to make her uneasy, and even a
+little shy, and certainly prevented a renewal of those lamentations and
+invectives which he had heard faintly from the stair-head.
+
+But for the most part Uncle Silas seemed to forget us and his book, and all
+that surrounded him, lying back in the corner of his sofa, his chin upon
+his breast, and such a fearful shade and carving on his features as made me
+prefer looking in any direction but his.
+
+At length we heard the tread of Dudley's thick boots on the oak boards,
+and faint and muffled the sound of his voice as he cross-examined old Wyat
+before entering the chamber of audience.
+
+I think he suspected quite another visitor, and had no expectation of
+seeing the particular young lady, who rose from her chair as he entered, in
+an opportune flood of tears, crying--
+
+'Oh, Dudley, Dudley!--oh, Dudley, could you? Oh, Dudley, your own poor Sal!
+You could not--you would not--your lawful wife!'
+
+This and a good deal more, with cheeks that streamed like a window-pane in
+a thunder-shower, spoke Sarah Matilda with all her oratory, working his
+arm, which she clung to, up and down all the time, like the handle of a
+pump. But Dudley was, manifestly, confounded and dumbfoundered. He stood
+for a long time gaping at his father, and stole just one sheepish glance
+at me; and, with red face and forehead, looked down at his boots, and then
+again at his father, who remained just in the attitude I have described,
+and with the same forbidding and dreary intensity in his strange face.
+
+Like a quarrelsome man worried in his sleep by a noise, Dudley suddenly
+woke up, as it were, with a start, in a half-suppressed exasperation,
+and shook her off with a jerk and a muttered curse, as she whisked
+involuntarily into a chair, with more violence than could have been
+pleasant.
+
+'Judging by your looks and demeanour, sir, I can almost anticipate your
+answers,' said my uncle, addressing him suddenly. 'Will you be good
+enough--pray, madame (parenthetically to our visitor), command yourself for
+a few moments. Is this young person the daughter of a Mr. Mangles, and is
+her name Sarah Matilda?'
+
+'I dessay,' answered Dudley, hurriedly.
+
+'Is she your wife?'
+
+'Is she my wife?' repeated Dudley, ill at ease.
+
+'Yes, sir; it is a plain question.'
+
+All this time Sarah Matilda was perpetually breaking into talk, and with
+difficulty silenced by my uncle.
+
+'Well, 'appen she says I am--does she?' replied Dudley.
+
+'Is she your wife, sir?'
+
+'Mayhap she so considers it, after a fashion,' he replied, with an impudent
+swagger, seating himself as he did so.
+
+'What do _you_ think, sir?' persisted Uncle Silas.
+
+'I don't think nout about it,' replied Dudley, surlily.
+
+'Is that account true?' said my uncle, handing him the paper.
+
+'They wishes us to believe so, at any rate.'
+
+'Answer directly, sir. We have our thoughts upon it. If it be true, it is
+capable of _every_ proof. For expedition's sake I ask you. There is no use
+in prevaricating.'
+
+'Who wants to deny it? It _is_ true--there!'
+
+'_There!_ I knew he would,' screamed the young woman, hysterically, with a
+laugh of strange joy.
+
+'Shut up, will ye?' growled Dudley, savagely.
+
+'Oh, Dudley, Dudley, darling! what have I done?'
+
+'Bin and ruined me, jest--that's all.'
+
+'Oh! no, no, no, Dudley. Ye know I wouldn't. I could not--_could_ not hurt
+ye, Dudley. No, no, no!'
+
+He grinned at her, and, with a sharp side-nod, said--
+
+'Wait a bit.'
+
+'Oh, Dudley, don't be vexed, dear. I did not mean it. I would not hurt ye
+for all the world. Never.'
+
+'Well, never mind. You and yours tricked me finely; and now you've got
+me--that's all.'
+
+My uncle laughed a very odd laugh.
+
+'I knew it, of course; and upon my word, madame, you and he make a very
+pretty couple,' sneered Uncle Silas.
+
+Dudley made no answer, looking, however, very savage.
+
+And with this poor young wife, so recently wedded, the low villain had
+actually solicited me to marry him!
+
+I am quite certain that my uncle was as entirely ignorant as I of Dudley's
+connection, and had, therefore, no participation in this appalling
+wickedness.
+
+'And I have to congratulate you, my good fellow, on having secured the
+affections of a very suitable and vulgar young woman.'
+
+'I baint the first o' the family as a' done the same,' retorted Dudley.
+
+At this taunt the old man's fury for a moment overpowered him. In an
+instant he was on his feet, quivering from head to foot. I never saw such
+a countenance--like one of those demon-grotesques we see in the Gothic
+side-aisles and groinings--a dreadful grimace, monkey-like and insane--and
+his thin hand caught up his ebony stick, and shook it paralytically in the
+air.
+
+'If ye touch me wi' that, I'll smash ye, by ----!' shouted Dudley, furious,
+raising his hands and hitching his shoulder, just as I had seen him when he
+fought Captain Oakley.
+
+For a moment this picture was suspended before me, and I screamed, I know
+not what, in my terror. But the old man, the veteran of many a scene of
+excitement, where men disguise their ferocity in calm tones, and varnish
+their fury with smiles, had not quite lost his self-command. He turned
+toward me and said--
+
+'Does he know what he's saying?'
+
+And with an icy laugh of contempt, his high, thin forehead still flushed,
+he sat down trembling.
+
+'If you want to say aught, I'll hear ye. Ye may jaw me all ye like, and
+I'll stan' it.'
+
+'Oh, I may speak? Thank you,' sneered Uncle Silas, glancing slowly round at
+me, and breaking into a cold laugh.
+
+'Ay, I don't mind cheek, not I; but you must not go for to do that, ye
+know. Gammon. I won't stand a blow--I won't fro _no_ one.
+
+'Well, sir, availing myself of your permission to speak, I may remark,
+without offence to the young lady, that I don't happen to recollect the
+name Mangles among the old families of England. I presume you have chosen
+her chiefly for her virtues and her graces.'
+
+Mrs. Sarah Matilda, not apprehending this compliment quite as Uncle Silas
+meant it, dropped a courtesy, notwithstanding her agitation, and, wiping
+her eyes, said, with a blubbered smile--
+
+'You're very kind, sure.'
+
+'I hope, for both your sakes, she has got a little money. I don't see how
+you are to live else. You're too lazy for a game-keeper; and I don't
+think you could keep a pot-house, you are so addicted to drinking and
+quarrelling. The only thing I am quite clear upon is, that you and your
+wife must find some other abode than this. You shall depart this evening:
+and now, Mr. and Mrs. Dudley Ruthyn, you may quit this room, if you
+please.'
+
+Uncle Silas had risen, and made them one of his old courtly bows, smiling a
+death-like sneer, and pointing to the door with his trembling fingers.
+
+'Come, will ye?' said Dudley, grinding his teeth. 'You're pretty well done
+here.'
+
+Not half understanding the situation, but looking woefully bewildered, she
+dropped a farewell courtesy at the door.
+
+'Will ye _cut_?' barked Dudley, in a tone that made her jump; and suddenly,
+without looking about, he strode after her from the room.
+
+'Maud, how shall I recover this? The vulgar _villain_--the _fool_! What an
+abyss were we approaching! and for me the last hope gone--and for me utter,
+utter, irretrievable ruin.'
+
+He was passing his fingers tremulously back and forward along the top of
+the mantelpiece, like a man in search of something, and continued so,
+looking along it, feebly and vacantly, although there was nothing there.
+
+'I wish, uncle--you do not know how much I wish--I could be of any use to
+you. Maybe I can?'
+
+He turned, and looked at me sharply.
+
+'Maybe you can,' he echoed slowly. 'Yes, maybe you can,' he repeated more
+briskly.' Let us--let us see--let us think--that d---- fellow!--my head!'
+
+'You're not well, uncle?'
+
+'Oh! yes, very well. We'll talk in the evening--I'll send for you.'
+
+I found Wyat in the next room, and told her to hasten, as I thought he was
+ill. I hope it was not very selfish, but such had grown to be my horror of
+seeing him in one of his strange seizures, that I hastened from the room
+precipitately--partly to escape the risk of being asked to remain.
+
+The walls of Bartram House are thick, and the recess at the doorway deep.
+As I closed my uncle's door, I heard Dudley's voice on the stairs. I did
+not wish to be seen by him or by his 'lady', as his poor wife called
+herself, who was engaged in vehement dialogue with him as I emerged, and
+not caring either to re-enter my uncle's room, I remained quietly ensconced
+within the heavy door-case, in which position I overheard Dudley say with a
+savage snarl--
+
+'You'll jest go back the way ye came. I'm not goin' wi' ye, if that's what
+ye be drivin' at--dang your impitins!'
+
+'Oh! Dudley, dear, what have I done--what _have_ I done--ye hate me so?'
+
+'What a' ye done? Ye vicious little beast, ye! You've got us turned out an'
+disinherited wi' yer d----d bosh, that's all; don't ye think it's enough?'
+
+I could only hear her sobs and shrill tones in reply, for they were
+descending the stairs; and Mary Quince reported to me, in a horrified sort
+of way, that she saw him bundle her into the fly at the door, like a truss
+of hay into a hay-loft. And he stood with his head in at the window,
+scolding her, till it drove away.
+
+'I knew he wor jawing her, poor thing! By the way he kep' waggin' his
+head--an' he had his fist inside, a shakin' in her face I'm sure he looked
+wicked enough for anything; an' she a crying like a babby, an' lookin'
+back, an' wavin' her wet hankicher to him--poor thing!--and she so young!
+'Tis a pity. Dear me! I often think, Miss, 'tis well for me I never was
+married. And see how we all would like to get husbands for all that, though
+so few is happy together. 'Tis a queer world, and them that's single is
+maybe the best off after all.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LII
+
+_THE PICTURE OF A WOLF_
+
+
+I went down that evening to the sitting-room which had been assigned to
+Milly and me, in search of a book--my good Mary Quince always attending me.
+The door was a little open, and I was startled by the light of a candle
+proceeding from the fireside, together with a considerable aroma of tobacco
+and brandy.
+
+On my little work-table, which he had drawn beside the hearth, lay Dudley's
+pipe, his brandy-flask, and an empty tumbler; and he was sitting with one
+foot on the fender, his elbow on his knee, and his head resting in his
+hand, weeping. His back being a little toward the door, he did not perceive
+us; and we saw him rub his knuckles in his eyes, and heard the sounds of
+his selfish lamentation.
+
+Mary and I stole away quietly, leaving him in possession, wondering when
+he was to leave the house, according to the sentence which I had heard
+pronounced upon him.
+
+I was delighted to see old 'Giblets' quietly strapping his luggage in the
+hall, and heard from him in a whisper that he was to leave that evening by
+rail--he did not know whither.
+
+About half an hour afterwards, Mary Quince, going out to reconnoitre, heard
+from old Wyat in the lobby that he had just started to meet the train.
+
+Blessed be heaven for that deliverance! An evil spirit had been cast out,
+and the house looked lighter and happier. It was not until I sat down in
+the quiet of my room that the scenes and images of that agitating day began
+to move before my memory in orderly procession, and for the first time
+I appreciated, with a stunning sense of horror and a perfect rapture of
+thanksgiving, the value of my escape and the immensity of the danger which
+had threatened me. It may have been miserable weakness--I think it was. But
+I was young, nervous, and afflicted with a troublesome sort of conscience,
+which occasionally went mad, and insisted, in small things as well as
+great, upon sacrifices which my reason now assures me were absurd. Of
+Dudley I had a perfect horror; and yet had that system of solicitation,
+that dreadful and direct appeal to my compassion, that placing of my feeble
+girlhood in the seat of the arbiter of my aged uncle's hope or despair,
+been long persisted in, my resistance might have been worn out--who can
+tell?--and I self-sacrificed! Just as criminals in Germany are teased, and
+watched, and cross-examined, year after year, incessantly, into a sort of
+madness; and worn out with the suspense, the iteration, the self-restraint,
+and insupportable fatigue, they at last cut all short, accuse themselves,
+and go infinitely relieved to the scaffold--you may guess, then, for me,
+nervous, self-diffident, and alone, how intense was the comfort of knowing
+that Dudley was actually married, and the harrowing importunity which had
+just commenced for ever silenced.
+
+That night I saw my uncle. I pitied him, though I feared him. I was longing
+to tell him how anxious I was to help him, if only he could point out the
+way. It was in substance what I had already said, but now strongly urged.
+He brightened; he sat up perpendicularly in his chair with a countenance,
+not weak or fatuous now, but resolute and searching, and which contracted
+into dark thought or calculation as I talked.
+
+I dare say I spoke confusedly enough. I was always nervous in his presence;
+there was, I fancy, something mesmeric in the odd sort of influence which,
+without effort, he exercised over my imagination.
+
+Sometimes this grew into a dismal panic, and Uncle Silas--polished,
+mild--seemed unaccountably horrible to me. Then it was no longer an
+accidental fascination of electro-biology. It was something more. His
+nature was incomprehensible by me. He was without the nobleness, without
+the freshness, without the softness, without the frivolities of such human
+nature as I had experienced, either within myself or in other persons. I
+instinctively felt that appeals to sympathies or feelings could no
+more affect him than a marble monument. He seemed to accommodate his
+conversation to the moral structure of others, just as spirits are said to
+assume the shape of mortals. There were the sensualities of the gourmet for
+his body, and there ended his human nature, as it seemed to me. Through
+that semi-transparent structure I thought I could now and then discern the
+light or the glare of his inner life. But I understood it not.
+
+He never scoffed at what was good or noble--his hardest critic could not
+nail him to one such sentence; and yet, it seemed somehow to me that his
+unknown nature was a systematic blasphemy against it all. If fiend he was,
+he was yet something higher than the garrulous, and withal feeble, demon of
+Goethe. He assumed the limbs and features of our mortal nature. He shrouded
+his own, and was a profoundly reticent Mephistopheles. Gentle he had been
+to me--kindly he had nearly always spoken; but it seemed like the mild talk
+of one of those goblins of the desert, whom Asiatic superstition tells of,
+who appear in friendly shapes to stragglers from the caravan, beckon to
+them from afar, call them by their names, and lead them where they are
+found no more. Was, then, all his kindness but a phosphoric radiance
+covering something colder and more awful than the grave?
+
+'It is very noble of you, Maud--it is angelic; your sympathy with a ruined
+and despairing old man. But I fear you will recoil. I tell you frankly that
+less than twenty thousand pounds will not extricate me from the quag of
+ruin in which I am entangled--lost!'
+
+'Recoil! Far from it. I'll do it. There must be some way.'
+
+'Enough, my fair young protectress--celestial enthusiast, enough. Though
+you do not, yet I recoil. I could not bring myself to accept this
+sacrifice. What signifies, even to me, my extrication? I lie a mangled
+wretch, with fifty mortal wounds on my crown; what avails the healing of
+one wound, when there are so many beyond all cure? Better to let me perish
+where I fall; and reserve your money for the worthier objects whom,
+perhaps, hereafter may avail to save.'
+
+'But I _will_ do this. I must. I cannot see you suffer with the power in my
+hands unemployed to help you,' I exclaimed.
+
+'Enough, dear Maud; the will is here--enough: there is balm in your
+compassion and good-will. Leave me, ministering angel; for the present I
+cannot. If you _will_, we can talk of it again. Good-night.'
+
+And so we parted.
+
+The attorney from Feltram, I afterwards heard, was with him nearly all that
+night, trying in vain to devise by their joint ingenuity any means by which
+I might tie myself up. But there were none. I could not bind myself.
+
+I was myself full of the hope of helping him. What was this sum to me,
+great as it seemed? Truly nothing. I could have spared it, and never felt
+the loss.
+
+I took up a large quarto with coloured prints, one of the few books I had
+brought with me from dear old Knowl. Too much excited to hope for sleep in
+bed, I opened it, and turned over the leaves, my mind still full of Uncle
+Silas and the sum I hoped to help him with.
+
+Unaccountably one of those coloured engravings arrested my attention.
+It represented the solemn solitude of a lofty forest; a girl, in Swiss
+costume, was flying in terror, and as she fled flinging a piece of meat
+behind her which she had taken from a little market-basket hanging upon her
+arm. Through the glade a pack of wolves were pursuing her.
+
+The narrative told, that on her return homeward with her marketing, she had
+been chased by wolves, and barely escaped by flying at her utmost speed,
+from time to time retarding, as she did so, the pursuit, by throwing, piece
+by piece, the contents of her basket, in her wake, to be devoured and
+fought for by the famished beasts of prey.
+
+This print had seized my imagination. I looked with a curious interest on
+the print: something in the disposition of the trees, their great height,
+and rude boughs, interlacing, and the awful shadow beneath, reminded me of
+a portion of the Windmill Wood where Milly and I had often rambled. Then I
+looked at the figure of the poor girl, flying for her life, and glancing
+terrified over her shoulder. Then I gazed on the gaping, murderous pack,
+and the hoary brute that led the van; and then I leaned back in my chair,
+and I thought--perhaps some latent association suggested what seemed a
+thing so unlikely--of a fine print in my portfolio from Vandyke's noble
+picture of Belisarius. Idly I traced with my pencil, as I leaned back, on
+an envelope that lay upon the table, this little inscription. It was mere
+fiddling; and, absurd as it looked, there was nothing but an honest meaning
+in it:--'20,000_l_. Date Obolum Belisario!' My dear father had translated
+the little Latin inscription for me, and I had written it down as a sort
+of exercise of memory; and also, perhaps, as expressive of that sort of
+compassion which my uncle's fall and miserable fate excited invariably in
+me. So I threw this queer little memorandum upon the open leaf of the book,
+and again the flight, the pursuit, and the bait to stay it, engaged my eye.
+And I heard a voice near the hearthstone, as I thought, say, in a stern
+whisper, 'Fly the fangs of Belisarius!'
+
+'What's that?' said I, turning sharply to Mary Quince.
+
+Mary rose from her work at the fireside, staring at me with that odd sort
+of frown that accompanies fear and curiosity.
+
+'You spoke? Did you speak?' I said, catching her by the arm, very much
+frightened myself.
+
+'No, Miss; no, dear!' answered she, plainly thinking that I was a little
+wrong in my head.
+
+There could be no doubt it was a trick of the imagination, and yet to this
+hour I could recognise that clear stern voice among a thousand, were it to
+speak again.
+
+Jaded after a night of broken sleep and much agitation, I was summoned next
+morning to my uncle's room.
+
+He received me _oddly_, I thought. His manner had changed, and made an
+uncomfortable impression upon me. He was gentle, kind, smiling, submissive,
+as usual; but it seemed to me that he experienced henceforth toward me the
+same half-superstitous repulsion which I had always felt from him. Dream,
+or voice, or vision--which had done it? There seemed to be an unconscious
+antipathy and fear. When he thought I was not looking, his eyes were
+sometimes grimly fixed for a moment upon me. When I looked at him, his eyes
+were upon the book before him; and when he spoke, a person not heeding what
+he uttered would have fancied that he was reading aloud from it.
+
+There was nothing tangible but this shrinking from the encounter of our
+eyes. I said he was kind as usual. He was even more so. But there was this
+new sign of our silently repellant natures. Dislike it could not be. He
+knew I longed to serve him. Was it shame? Was there not a shade of horror
+in it?
+
+'I have not slept,' said he. 'For me the night has passed in thought, and
+the fruit of it is this--I _cannot_, Maud, accept your noble offer.'
+
+'I am _very_ sorry,' exclaimed I, in all honesty.
+
+'I know it, my dear niece, and appreciate your goodness; but there are
+many reasons--none of them, I trust, ignoble--and which together render
+it impossible. No. It would be misunderstood--my honour shall not be
+impugned.'
+
+'But, sir, that could not be; you have never proposed it. It would be all,
+from first to last, _my_ doing.'
+
+'True, dear Maud, but I know, alas! more of this evil and slanderous world
+than your happy inexperience can do. Who will receive our testimony?
+None--no, not one. The difficulty--the insuperable moral difficulty is
+this--that I should expose myself to the plausible imputation of having
+worked upon you, unduly, for this end; and more, that I could not hold
+myself quite free from blame. It is your voluntary goodness, Maud. But you
+are young, inexperienced; and it is, I hold it, my duty to stand between
+you and any dealing with your property at so unripe an age. Some people may
+call this Quixotic. In my mind it is an imperious mandate of conscience;
+and I peremptorily refuse to disobey it, although within three weeks an
+execution will be in this house!'
+
+I did not quite know what an execution meant; but from two harrowing
+novels, with whose distresses I was familiar, I knew that it indicated some
+direful process of legal torture and spoliation.
+
+'Oh, uncle I--oh, sir!--you cannot allow this to happen. What will people
+say of me? And--and there is poor Milly--and _everything_! Think what it
+will be.'
+
+'It cannot be helped--_you_ cannot help it, Maud. Listen to me. There will
+be an execution here, I cannot say exactly how soon, but, I think, in a
+little more than a fortnight. I must provide for your comfort. You must
+leave. I have arranged that you shall join Milly, for the present, in
+France, till I have time to look about me. You had better, I think, write
+to your cousin, Lady Knollys. She, with all her oddities, has a heart. Can
+you say, Maud, that I have been kind?'
+
+'You have never been anything but kind,' I exclaimed.
+
+'That I've been self-denying when you made me a generous offer?' he
+continued. 'That I now act to spare you pain? You may tell her, not as a
+message from me, but as a fact, that I am seriously thinking of vacating my
+guardianship--that I feel I have done her an injustice, and that, so
+soon as my mind is a little less tortured, I shall endeavour to effect a
+reconciliation with her, and would wish ultimately to transfer the care
+of your person and education to _her_. You may say I have no longer an
+interest even in vindicating my name. My son has wrecked himself by a
+marriage. I forgot to tell you he stopped at Feltram, and this morning
+wrote to pray a parting interview. If I grant it, it shall be the last. I
+shall never see him or correspond with him more.'
+
+The old man seemed much overcome, and held his hankerchief to his eyes.
+
+'He and his wife are, I understand, about to emigrate; the sooner the
+better,' he resumed, bitterly. 'Deeply, Maud, I regret having tolerated his
+suit to you, even for a moment. Had I thought it over, as I did the whole
+case last night, nothing could have induced me to permit it. But I have
+lived for so long like a monk in his cell, my wants and observation limited
+to the narrow compass of this chamber, that my knowledge of the world has
+died out with my youth and my hopes: and I did not, as I ought to have
+done, consider many objections. Therefore, dear Maud, on this one subject,
+I entreat, be silent; its discussion can effect nothing now. I was wrong,
+and frankly ask you to forget my mistake.'
+
+I had been on the point of writing to Lady Knollys on this odious subject,
+when, happily, it was set at rest by the disclosure of yesterday; and being
+so, I could have no difficulty in acceding to my uncle's request. He was
+conceding so much that I could not withhold so trifling a concession in
+return.
+
+'I hope Monica will continue to be kind to poor Milly after I am gone.'
+
+Here there were a few seconds of meditation.
+
+'Maud, you will not, I think, refuse to convey the substance of what I
+have just said in a letter to Lady Knollys, and perhaps you would have
+no objection to let me see it when it is written. It will prevent the
+possibility of its containing any misconception of what I have just spoken:
+and, Maud, you won't forget to say whether I have been kind. It would be
+a satisfaction to me to know that Monica was assured that I never either
+teased or bullied my young ward.'
+
+With these words he dismissed me; and forthwith I completed such a letter
+as would quite embody what he had said; and in my own glowing terms,
+being in high good-humour with Uncle Silas, recorded my estimate of his
+gentleness and good-nature; and when I submitted it to him, he expressed
+his admiration of what he was pleased to call my cleverness in so exactly
+conveying what he wished, and his gratitude for the handsome terms in which
+I had spoken of my old guardian.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIII
+
+_AN ODD PROPOSAL_
+
+
+As I and Mary Quince returned from our walk that day, and had entered the
+hall, I was surprised most disagreeably by Dudley's emerging from the
+vestibule at the foot of the great staircase. He was, I suppose, in his
+travelling costume--a rather soiled white surtout, a great coloured muffler
+in folds about his throat, his 'chimney-pot' on, and his fur cap sticking
+out from his pocket. He had just descended, I suppose, from my uncle's
+room. On seeing me he stepped back, and stood with his shoulders to the
+wall, like a mummy in a museum.
+
+I pretended to have a few words to say to Mary before leaving the hall,
+in the hope that, as he seemed to wish to escape me, he would take the
+opportunity of getting quickly off the scene.
+
+But he had changed his mind, it would seem, in the interval; for when I
+glanced in that direction again he had moved toward us, and stood in the
+hall with his hat in his hand. I must do him the justice to say he looked
+horribly dismal, sulky, and frightened.
+
+'Ye'll gi'e me a word, Miss--only a thing I ought to say--for your good; by
+----, mind, it's for _your_ good, Miss.'
+
+Dudley stood a little way off, viewing me, with his hat in both hands and a
+'glooming' countenance.
+
+I detested the idea of either hearing or speaking to him; but I had no
+resolution to refuse, and only saying 'I can't imagine what you can wish to
+speak to me about,' I approached him. 'Wait there at the banister, Quince.'
+
+There was a fragrance of alcohol about the flushed face and gaudy muffler
+of this odious cousin, which heightened the effect of his horribly dismal
+features. He was speaking, besides, a little thickly; but his manner was
+dejected, and he was treating me with an elaborate and discomfited respect
+which reassured me.
+
+'I'm a bit up a tree, Miss,' he said shuffling his feet on the oak floor.
+'I behaved a d---- fool; but I baint one o' they sort. I'm a fellah as 'ill
+fight his man, an' stan' up to 'm fair, don't ye see? An' _baint_ one o'
+they sort--no, _dang_ it, I baint.'
+
+Dudley delivered his puzzling harangue with a good deal of undertoned
+vehemence, and was strangely agitated. He, too, had got an unpleasant way
+of avoiding my eye, and glancing along the floor from corner to corner as
+he spoke, which gave him a very hang-dog air.
+
+He was twisting his fingers in his great sandy whisker, and pulling it
+roughly enough to drag his cheek about by that savage purchase; and with
+his other hand he was crushing and rubbing his hat against his knee.
+
+'The old boy above there be half crazed, I think; he don't mean half as he
+says thof, not he. But I'm in a bad fix anyhow--a regular sell it's been,
+and I can't get a tizzy out of him. So, ye see, I'm up a tree, Miss; and he
+sich a one, he'll make it a wuss mull if I let him. He's as sharp wi' me as
+one o' them lawyer chaps, dang 'em, and he's a lot of I O's and rubbitch o'
+mine; and Bryerly writes to me he can't gi'e me my legacy, 'cause he's got
+a notice from Archer and Sleigh a warnin' him not to gi'e me as much as a
+bob; for I signed it away to governor, he says--which I believe's a lie. I
+may a' signed some writing--'appen I did--when I was a bit cut one night.
+But that's no way to catch a gentleman, and 'twon't stand. There's justice
+to be had, and 'twon't _stand_, I say; and I'm not in 'is hands that way.
+Thof I may be a bit up the spout, too, I don't deny; only I baint agoin'
+the whole hog all at once. I'm none o' they sort. He'll find I baint.'
+
+Here Mary Quince coughed demurely from the foot of the stair, to remind me
+that the conversation was protracted.
+
+'I don't very well understand,' I said gravely; 'and I am now going
+upstairs.'
+
+'Don't jest a minute, Miss; it's only a word, ye see. We'll be goin' t'
+Australia, Sary Mangles, an' me, aboard the _Seamew_, on the 5th. I'm
+for Liverpool to-night, and she'll meet me there, an'--an', please God
+Almighty, ye'll never see me more; an I'd rather gi'e ye a lift, Maud,
+before I go: an' I tell ye what, if ye'll just gi'e me your written promise
+ye'll gi'e me that twenty thousand ye were offering to gi'e the Governor,
+I'll take ye cleverly out o' Bartram, and put ye wi' your cousin Knollys,
+or anywhere ye like best.'
+
+'Take me from Bartram--for twenty thousand pounds! Take me away from my
+guardian! You seem to forget, sir,' my indignation rising as I spoke, 'that
+I can visit my cousin, Lady Knollys, whenever I please.'
+
+'Well, that is as it may be,' he said, with a sulky deliberation, scraping
+about a little bit of paper that lay on the floor with the toe of his boot.
+
+'It _is_ as it may be, and that is as I say, sir; and considering how you
+have treated me--your mean, treacherous, and infamous suit, and your cruel
+treason to your poor wife, I am amazed at your effrontery.'
+
+I turned to leave him, being, in truth, in one of my passions.
+
+'Don't ye be a flying' out,' he said peremptorily, and catching me roughly
+by the wrist,' I baint a-going to vex ye. What a mouth you be, as can't see
+your way! Can't ye speak wi' common sense, like a woman--dang it--for once,
+and not keep brawling like a brat--can't ye see what I'm saying? I'll take
+ye out o' all this, and put ye wi' your cousin, or wheresoever you list, if
+ye'll gi'e me what I say.'
+
+He was, for the first time, looking me in the face, but with contracted
+eyes, and a countenance very much agitated.
+
+'Money?' said I, with a prompt disdain.
+
+'Ay, money--twenty thousand pounds--_there_. On or off?' he replied, with
+an unpleasant sort of effort.
+
+'You ask my promise for twenty thousand pounds, and you shan't have it.'
+
+My cheeks were flaming, and I stamped on the ground as I spoke.
+
+If he had known how to appeal to my better feelings, I am sure I should
+have done, perhaps not quite that, all at once at least, but something
+handsome, to assist him. But this application was so shabby and insolent!
+What could he take me for? That I should suppose his placing me with Cousin
+Monica constituted her my guardian? Why, he must fancy me the merest baby.
+There was a kind of stupid cunning in this that disgusted my good-nature
+and outraged my self-importance.
+
+'You won't gi'e me that, then?' he said, looking down again, with a frown,
+and working his mouth and cheeks about as I could fancy a man rolling a
+piece of tobacco in his jaw.
+
+'Certainly _not_, sir,' I replied.
+
+'_Take_ it, then,' he replied, still looking down, very black and
+discontented.
+
+I joined Mary Quince, extremely angry. As I passed under the carved oak
+arch of the vestibule, I saw his figure in the deepening twilight. The
+picture remains in its murky halo fixed in memory. Standing where he last
+spoke in the centre of the hall, not looking after me, but downward, and,
+as well as I could see, with the countenance of a man who has lost a game,
+and a ruinous wager too--that is black and desperate. I did not utter a
+syllable on the way up. When I reached my room, I began to reconsider the
+interview more at my leisure. I was, such were my ruminations, to have
+agreed at once to his preposterous offer, and to have been driven, while he
+smirked and grimaced behind my back at his acquaintances, through Feltram
+in his dog-cart to Elverston; and then, to the just indignation of my
+uncle, to have been delivered up to Lady Knolly's guardianship, and to
+have handed my driver, as I alighted, the handsome fare of 20.000_l_. It
+required the impudence of Tony Lumpkin, without either his fun or his
+shrewdness, to have conceived such a prodigious practical joke.
+
+'Maybe you'd like a little tea, Miss?' insinuated Mary Quince.
+
+'What impertinence!' I exclaimed, with one of my angry stamps on the floor.
+'Not you, dear old Quince,' I added. 'No--no tea just now.'
+
+And I resumed my ruminations, which soon led me to this train of
+thought--'Stupid and insulting as Dudley's proposition was, it yet involved
+a great treason against my uncle. Should I be weak enough to be silent, may
+he not, wishing to forestall me, misrepresent all that has passed, so as to
+throw the blame altogether upon me?'
+
+This idea seized upon me with a force which I could not withstand; and on
+the impulse of the moment I obtained admission to my uncle, and related
+exactly what had passed. When I had finished my narrative, which he
+listened to without once raising his eyes, my uncle cleared his throat once
+or twice, as if to speak. He was smiling--I thought with an effort, and
+with elevated brows. When I concluded, he hummed one of those sliding
+notes, which a less refined man might have expressed by a whistle of
+surprise and contempt, and again he essayed to speak, but continued silent.
+The fact is, he seemed to me very much disconcerted. He rose from his seat,
+and shuffled about the room in his slippers, I believe affecting only to
+be in search of something, opening and shutting two or three drawers, and
+turning over some books and papers; and at length, taking up some loose
+sheets of manuscript, he appeared to have found what he was looking for,
+and began to read them carelessly, with his back towards me, and with
+another effort to clear his voice, he said at last--
+
+'And pray, what could the fool mean by all that?'
+
+'I think he must have taken me for an idiot, sir,' I answered.
+
+'Not unlikely. He has lived in a stable, among horses and ostlers; he has
+always seemed to me something like a centaur--that is a centaur composed
+not of man and horse, but of an ape and an ass.'
+
+And upon this jibe he laughed, not coldly and sarcastically, as was his
+wont, but, I thought, flurriedly. And, continuing to look into his papers,
+he said, his back still toward me as he read--
+
+'And he did not favour you with an exposition of his meaning, which, except
+in so far as it estimated his deserts at the modest sum you have
+named, appears to me too oracular to be interpreted without a kindred
+inspiration?'
+
+And again he laughed. He was growing more like himself.
+
+'As to your visiting your cousin, Lady Knollys, the stupid rogue had only
+five minutes before heard me express my wish that you should do so before
+leaving this. I am quite resolved you shall--that is, unless, dear Maud,
+you should yourself object; but, of course, we must wait for an invitation,
+which, I conjecture, will not be long in coming. In fact, your letter
+will naturally bring it about, and, I trust, open the way to a permanent
+residence with her. The more I think it over, the more am I convinced, dear
+niece, that as things are likely to turn out, my roof would be no desirable
+shelter for you; and that, under all circumstances, hers would. Such were
+my motives, Maud, in opening, through your letter, a door of reconciliation
+between us.'
+
+I felt that I ought to have kissed his hand--that he had indicated
+precisely the future that I most desired; and yet there was within me a
+vague feeling, akin to suspicion--akin to dismay which chilled and overcast
+my soul.
+
+'But, Maud,' he said, 'I am disquieted to think of that stupid jackanapes
+presuming to make you such an offer! A creditable situation truly--arriving
+in the dark at Elverston, under the solitary escort of that wild young man,
+with whom you would have fled from my guardianship; and, Maud, I tremble as
+I ask myself the question, would he have conducted you to Elverston at all?
+When you have lived as long in the world as I, you will appreciate its
+wickedness more justly.' Here there was a little pause.
+
+'I know, my dear, that were he convinced of his legal marriage with that
+young woman,' he resumed, perceiving how startled I looked, 'such an idea,
+of course, would not have entered his head; but he does not believe any
+such thing. Contrary to fact and logic, he does honestly think that his
+hand is still at his disposal; and I certainly do suspect that he would
+have employed that excursion in endeavouring to persuade you to think as he
+does. Be that how it may, however, it is satisfactory to me to know that
+you shall never more be troubled by one word from that ill-regulated young
+man. I made him my adieux, such as they were, this evening; and never more
+shall he enter the walls of Bartram-Haugh while we two live.'
+
+Uncle Silas replaced the papers which had ostensibly interested him so
+much, and returned. There was a vein which was visible near the angle
+of his lofty temple, and in moments of agitation stood out against the
+surrounding pallor in a knotted blue cord; and as he came back smiling
+askance, I saw this sign of inward tumult.
+
+'We can, however, afford to despise the follies and knaveries of the world,
+Maud, as long as we act, as we have hitherto done, with perfect confidence
+in each other. Heaven bless you, dear Maud! Your report troubled me, I
+believe, more than it need--troubled me a good deal; but reflection assures
+me it is nothing. He is gone. In a few days' time he will be on the sea. I
+will issue my orders to-morrow morning, and he will never more, during his
+brief stay in England, gain admission to Bartram-Haugh. Good-night, my good
+niece; I thank you.'
+
+And so I returned to Mary Quince, on the whole happier than I had left
+her, but still with the confused and jarring vision I could not interpret
+perpetually rising before me; and as, from time to time, shapeless
+anxieties agitated me, relieving them by appeals to Him who alone is wise
+and strong.
+
+Next day brought me a goodnatured gossiping letter from dear Milly,
+written in compulsory French, which was, in some places, very difficult
+to interpret. She gave me a very pleasant account of the place, and her
+opinion of the girls who were inmates, and mentioned some of the nuns with
+high commendation. The language plainly cramped poor Milly's genius; but
+although there was by no means so much fun as an honest English letter
+would have brought me, there could be no mistake about her liking the
+place, and she expressed her honest longing to see me in the most
+affectionate terms.
+
+This letter came enclosed in one to my uncle, from the proper authority
+in the convent; and as there was neither address within, nor post-mark
+without, I was as much in the dark as ever as to poor Milly's whereabouts.
+
+Pencilled across the envelope of this letter, in my uncle's hand, were the
+words, 'Let me have your answer when sealed, and I will transmit it.--S.R.'
+
+When, accordingly, some days later, I did place my letter to Milly in my
+uncle's hands, he told me the reason of his reserves on the subject.
+
+'I thought it best, dear Maud, not to plague you with a secret, and Milly's
+present address is one. It will in a few weeks become the rallying-point of
+our diverse routes, when you shall meet her, and I join you both. Nobody,
+until the storm shall have blown over, must know where I am to be found,
+except my lawyer; and I think you would prefer ignorance to the trouble of
+keeping a secret on which so much may depend.'
+
+This being reasonable, and even considerate, I acquiesced.
+
+In that interval there reached me such a charming, gay, and affectionate
+letter--a very _long_ letter, too--though the writer was scarcely seven
+miles away, from dear Cousin Monica, full of pleasant gossip, and
+rose-coloured and golden castles in the air, and the kindest interest in
+poor Milly, and the warmest affection for me.
+
+One other incident varied that interval, if possible more pleasantly than
+those. It was the announcement, in a Liverpool paper, of the departure of
+the _Seamew_, bound for Melbourne; and among the passengers were reported
+'Dudley Ruthyn, Esquire, of Bartram-H., and Mrs. D. Ruthyn.'
+
+And now I began to breathe freely, I plainly saw the end of my probation
+approaching: a short excursion to France, a happy meeting with Milly, and
+then a delightful residence with Cousin Monica for the remainder of my
+nonage.
+
+You will say then that my spirits and my serenity were quite restored. Not
+quite. How marvellously lie our anxieties, in filmy layers, one over the
+other! Take away that which has lain on the upper surface for so long--the
+care of cares--the only one, as it seemed to you, between your soul and the
+radiance of Heaven--and straight you find a new stratum there. As physical
+science tells us no fluid is without its skin, so does it seem with this
+fine medium of the soul, and these successive films of care that form upon
+its surface on mere contact with the upper air and light.
+
+What was my new trouble? A very fantastic one, you will say--the illusion
+of a self-tormentor. It was the face of Uncle Silas which haunted me.
+Notwithstanding the old pale smile, there was a shrinking grimness, and the
+always-averted look.
+
+Sometimes I fancied his mind was disordered. I could not account for the
+eerie lights and shadows that flickered on his face, except so. There was
+a look of shame and fear of me, amazing as that seems, in the sheen of his
+peaked smile.
+
+I thought, 'Perhaps he blames himself for having tolerated Dudley's
+suit--for having urged it on grounds of personal distress--for having
+altogether lowered, though under sore temptation, both himself and his
+office; and he thinks that he has forfeited my respect.'
+
+Such was my analysis; but in the _coup-d'oeil_ of that white face that
+dazzled me in darkness, and haunted my daily reveries with a faded light,
+there was an intangible character of the insidious and the terrible.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIV
+
+_IN SEARCH OF MR. CHARKE'S SKELETON_
+
+
+On the whole, however, I was unspeakably relieved. Dudley Ruthyn, Esq.,
+and Mrs. D. Ruthyn, were now skimming the blue waves on the wings of the
+_Seamew_, and every morning widened the distance between us, which was to
+go on increasing until it measured a point on the antipodes. The Liverpool
+paper containing this golden line was carefully preserved in my room; and
+like the gentleman who, when much tried by the shrewish heiress whom he
+had married, used to retire to his closet and read over his marriage
+settlement, I used, when blue devils haunted me, to unfold my newspaper and
+read the paragraph concerning the _Seamew_.
+
+The day I now speak of was a dismal one of sleety snow. My own room seemed
+to me cheerier than the lonely parlour, where I could not have had good
+Mary Quince so decorously.
+
+A good fire, that kind and trusty face, the peep I had just indulged in at
+my favourite paragraph, and the certainty of soon seeing my dear cousin
+Monica, and afterwards affectionate Milly, raised my spirits.
+
+'So,' said I, 'as old Wyat, you say, is laid up with rheumatism, and can't
+turn up to scold me, I think I'll run up stairs and make an exploration,
+and find poor Mr. Charke's skeleton in a closet.'
+
+'Oh, law, Miss Maud, how can you say such things!' exclaimed good old
+Quince, lifting up her honest grey head and round eyes from her knitting.
+
+I had grown so familiar with the frightful tradition of Mr. Charke and his
+suicide, that I could now afford to frighten old Quince with him.
+
+'I am quite serious. I am going to have a ramble up-stairs and down-stairs,
+like goosey-goosey-gander; and if I do light upon his chamber, it is all
+the more interesting. I feel so like Adelaide, in the "Romance of the
+Forest," the book I was reading to you last night, when she commenced her
+delightful rambles through the interminable ruined abbey in the forest.'
+
+'Shall I go with you, Miss?'
+
+'No, Quince; stay there; keep a good fire, and make some tea. I suspect I
+shall lose heart and return very soon;' and with a shawl about me, cowl
+fashion, over my head, I stole up-stairs.
+
+I shall not recount with the particularity of the conscientious heroine of
+Mrs. Ann Radcliffe, all the suites of apartments, corridors, and lobbies,
+which I threaded in my ramble. It will be enough to mention that I lighted
+upon a door at the end of a long gallery, which, I think, ran parallel with
+the front of the house; it interested me because it had the air of having
+been very long undisturbed. There were two rusty bolts, which did not
+evidently belong to its original securities, and had been, though very long
+ago, somewhat clumsily superadded. Dusty and rusty they were, but I had no
+difficulty in drawing them back. There was a rusty key, I remember it well,
+with a crooked handle in the lock; I tried to turn it, but could not.
+My curiosity was piqued. I was thinking of going back and getting Mary
+Quince's assistance. It struck me, however, that possibly it was not
+locked, so I pulled the door and it opened quite easily. I did not find
+myself in a strangely-furnished suite of apartments, but at the entrance
+of a gallery, which diverged at right angles from that through which I had
+just passed; it was very imperfectly lighted, and ended in total darkness.
+
+I began to think how far I had already come, and to consider whether I
+could retrace my steps with accuracy in case of a panic, and I had serious
+thoughts of returning.
+
+The idea of Mr. Charke was growing unpleasantly sharp and menacing; and
+as I looked down the long space before me, losing itself among ambiguous
+shadows, lulled in a sinister silence, and as it were inviting my entrance
+like a trap, I was very near yielding to the cowardly impulse.
+
+But I took heart of grace and determined to see a little more. I opened a
+side-door, and entered a large room, where were, in a corner, some rusty
+and cobwebbed bird-cages, but nothing more. It was a wainscoted room, but
+a white mildew stained the panels. I looked from the window: it commanded
+that dismal, weed-choked quadrangle into which I had once looked from
+another window. I opened a door at its farther end, and entered another
+chamber, not quite so large, but equally dismal, with the same prison-like
+look-out, not very easily discerned through the grimy panes and the sleet
+that was falling thickly outside. The door through which I had entered made
+a little accidental creak, and, with my heart at my lips, I gazed at it,
+expecting to see Charke, or the skeleton of which I had talked so lightly,
+stalk in at the half-open aperture. But I had an odd sort of courage which
+was always fighting against my cowardly nerves, and I walked to the door,
+and looking up and down the dismal passage, was reassured.
+
+Well, one room more--just that whose deep-set door fronted me, with a
+melancholy frown, at the opposite end of the chamber. So to it I glided,
+shoved it open, advancing one step, and the great bony figure of Madame de
+la Rougierre was before me.
+
+I could see nothing else.
+
+The drowsy traveller who opens his sheets to slip into bed, and sees a
+scorpion coiled between them, may have experienced a shock the same in
+kind, but immeasurably less in degree.
+
+She sat in a clumsy old arm-chair, with an ancient shawl about her, and
+her bare feet in a delft tub. She looked a thought more withered. Her wig
+shoved back disclosed her bald wrinkled forehead, and enhanced the ugly
+effect of her exaggerated features and the gaunt hollows of her face. With
+a sense of incredulity and terror I gazed, freezing, at this evil phantom,
+who returned my stare for a few seconds with a shrinking scowl, dismal and
+grim, as of an evil spirit detected.
+
+The meeting, at least then and there, was as complete a surprise for her as
+for me. She could not tell how I might take it; but she quickly rallied,
+burst into a loud screeching laugh, and, with her old Walpurgis gaiety,
+danced some fantastic steps in her bare wet feet, tracking the floor with
+water, and holding out with finger and thumb, in dainty caricature, her
+slammakin old skirt, while she sang some of her nasal patois with an
+abominable hilarity and emphasis.
+
+With a gasp, I too recovered from the fascination of the surprise. I could
+not speak though for some seconds, and Madame was first.
+
+'Ah, dear Maud, what surprise! Are we not overjoy, dearest, and cannot
+speak? I am full of joy--quite charmed--_ravie_--of seeing you. So are you
+of me, your face betray. Ah! yes, thou dear little baboon! here is poor
+Madame once more! Who could have imagine?'
+
+'I thought you were in France, Madame,' I said, with a dismal effort.
+
+'And so I was, dear Maud; I 'av just arrive. Your uncle Silas he wrote to
+the superioress for gouvernante to accompany a young lady--that is you,
+Maud--on her journey, and she send me; and so, ma chère, here is poor
+Madame arrive to charge herself of that affair.'
+
+'How soon do we leave for France, Madame?' I asked.
+
+'I do not know, but the old women--wat is her name?'
+
+'Wyat,' I suggested.
+
+'Oh! oui, Waiatt;--she says two, three week. And who conduct you to poor
+Madame's apartment, my dear Maud?' She inquired insinuatingly.
+
+'No one, I answered promptly: 'I reached it quite accidentally, and I
+can't imagine why you should conceal yourself.' Something like indignation
+kindled in my mind as I began to wonder at the sly strategy which had been
+practised upon me.
+
+'I 'av not conceal myself, Mademoiselle,' retorted the governness. 'I 'av
+act precisally as I 'av been ordered. Your uncle, Mr. Silas Ruthyn, he is
+afraid, Waiatt says, to be interrupted by his creditors, and everything
+must be done very quaitly. I have been commanded to avoid _me faire voir_,
+you know, and I must obey my employer--voilà tout!'
+
+'And for how long have you been residing here?' I persisted, in the same
+resentful vein.
+
+''Bout a week. It is soche triste place! I am so glad to see you, Maud!
+I've been so isolée, you dear leetle fool!'
+
+'You are _not_ glad, Madame; you don't love me--you never did,' I exclaimed
+with sudden vehemence.
+
+'Yes, I am _very_ glad; you know not, chère petite _niaise_, how I 'av
+desire to educate you a leetle more. Let us understand one another. You
+think I do not love you, Mademoiselle, because you have mentioned to your
+poor papa that little _dérèglement_ in his library. I have repent very
+often that so great indiscretion of my life. I thought to find some letters
+of Dr. Braierly. I think that man was trying to get your property, my dear
+Maud, and if I had found something I would tell you all about. But it was
+very great _sottise_, and you were very right to denounce me to Monsieur.
+Je n'ai point de rancune contre vous. No, no, none at all. On the contrary,
+I shall be your _gardienne tutelaire_--wat you call?--guardian angel--ah,
+yes, that is it. You think I speak _par dérision_; not at all. No, my dear
+cheaile, I do not speak _par moquerie_, unless perhaps the very least
+degree in the world.'
+
+And with these words Madame laughed unpleasantly, showing the black caverns
+at the side of her mouth, and with a cold, steady malignity in her gaze.
+
+'Yes,' I said; 'I know what you mean, Madame--you _hate_ me.'
+
+'Oh! wat great ogly word! I am shock! _vous me faites honte_. Poor Madame,
+she never hate any one; she loves all her friends, and her enemies she
+leaves to Heaven; while I am, as you see, more gay, more _joyeuse_ than
+ever, they have not been 'appy--no, they have not been fortunate these
+others. Wen I return, I find always some of my enemy they 'av die, and some
+they have put themselves into embarrassment, or there has arrived to them
+some misfortune;' and Madame shrugged and laughed a little scornfully.
+
+A kind of horror chilled my rising anger, and I was silent.
+
+'You see, my dear Maud, it is very natural you should think I hate you.
+When I was with Mr. Austin Ruthyn, at Knowl, you know you did not like a
+me--never. But in consequence of our intimacy I confide you that which I
+'av of most dear in the world, my reputation. It is always so. The pupil
+can _calomniate_, without been discover, the gouvernante. 'Av I not been
+always kind to you, Maud? Which 'av I use of violence or of sweetness the
+most? I am, like other persons, _jalouse de ma réputation_; and it was
+difficult to suffer with patience the banishment which was invoked by you,
+because chiefly for your good, and for an indiscretion to which I was
+excited by motives the most pure and laudable. It was you who spied so
+cleverly--eh! and denounce me to Monsieur Ruthyn? Helas! wat bad world it
+is!'
+
+'I do not mean to speak at all about that occurrence, Madame; I will not
+discuss it. I dare say what you tell me of the cause of your engagement
+here is true, and I suppose we must travel, as you say, in company; but
+you must know that the less we see of each other while in this house the
+better.'
+
+'I am not so sure of that, my sweet little _béte_; your education has been
+neglected, or rather entirely abandoned, since you 'av arrive at this
+place, I am told. You must not be a _bestiole_. We must do, you and I, as
+we are ordered. Mr. Silas Ruthyn he will tell us.'
+
+All this time Madame was pulling on her stockings, getting her boots on,
+and otherwise proceeding with her dowdy toilet. I do not know why I stood
+there talking to her. We often act very differently from what we would
+have done upon reflection. I had involved myself in a dialogue, as wiser
+generals than I have entangled themselves in a general action when they
+meant only an affair of outposts. I had grown a little angry, and would
+not betray the least symptom of fear, although I felt that sensation
+profoundly.
+
+'My beloved father thought you so unfit a companion for me that he
+dismissed you at an hour's notice, and I am very sure that my uncle will
+think as he did; you are _not_ a fit companion for me, and had my
+uncle known what had passed he would never have admitted you to this
+house--never!'
+
+'Helas! _Quelle disgrace_! And you really think so, my dear Maud,'
+exclaimed Madame, adjusting her wig before her glass, in the corner of
+which I could see half of her sly, grinning face, as she ogled herself in
+it.
+
+'I do, and so do you, Madame,' I replied, growing more frightened.
+
+'It may be--we shall see; but everyone is not so cruel as you, _ma chère
+petite calomniatrice_.'
+
+'You shan't call me those names,' I said, in an angry tremor.
+
+'What name, dearest cheaile?'
+
+'_Calomniatrice_--that is an insult.'
+
+'Why, my most foolish little Maud, we may say rogue, and a thousand other
+little words in play which we do not say seriously.
+
+'You are not playing--you never play--you are angry, and you hate me,' I
+exclaimed, vehemently.
+
+'Oh, fie!--wat shame! Do you not perceive, dearest cheaile, how much
+education you still need? You are proud, little demoiselle; you must
+become, on the contrary, quaite humble. Je ferai baiser le babouin à
+vous--ha, ha, ha! I weel make a you to kees the monkey. You are too proud,
+my dear cheaile.'
+
+'I am not such a fool as I was at Knowl,' I said; 'you shall not terrify me
+here. I will tell my uncle the whole truth,' I said.
+
+'Well, it may be that is the best,' she replied, with provoking coolness.
+
+'You think I don't mean it?'
+
+'Of course you _do_,' she replied.
+
+'And we shall see what my uncle thinks of it.'
+
+'We shall see, my dear,' she replied, with an air of mock contrition.
+
+'Adieu, Madame!'
+
+'You are going to Monsieur Ruthyn?--very good!'
+
+I made her no answer, but more agitated than I cared to show her, I left
+the room. I hurried along the twilight passage, and turned into the long
+gallery that opened from it at right angles. I had not gone half-a-dozen
+steps on my return when I heard a heavy tread and a rustling behind me.
+
+'I am ready, my dear; I weel accompany you,' said the smirking phantom,
+hurrying after me.
+
+'Very well,' was my reply; and threading our way, with a few hesitations
+and mistakes, we reached and descended the stairs, and in a minute more
+stood at my uncle's door.
+
+My uncle looked hard and strangely at us as we entered. He looked, indeed,
+as if his temper was violently excited, and glared and muttered to himself
+for a few seconds; and treating Madame to a stare of disgust, he asked
+peevishly--
+
+'Why am I disturbed, pray?'
+
+'Miss Maud a Ruthyn, she weel explain,' replied Madame, with a great
+courtesy, like a boat going down in a ground swell.
+
+'_Will_ you explain, my dear?' he asked, in his coldest and most sarcastic
+tone.
+
+I was agitated, and I am sure my statement was confused. I succeeded,
+however, in saying what I wanted.
+
+'Why, Madame, this is a grave charge! Do you admit it, pray?'
+
+Madame, with the coolest possible effrontery, denied it all; with the most
+solemn asseverations, and with streaming eyes and clasped hands, conjured
+me melodramatically to withdraw that intolerable story, and to do her
+justice. I stared at her for a while astounded, and turning suddenly to my
+uncle, as vehemently asserted the truth of every syllable I had related.
+
+'You hear, my dear child, you hear her deny everything; what am I to think?
+You must excuse the bewilderment of my old head. Madame de la--that lady
+has arrived excellently recommended by the superioress of the place where
+dear Milly awaits you, and such persons are particular. It strikes me, my
+dear niece, that you must have made a mistake.'
+
+I protested here. But he went on without seeming to hear the parenthesis--
+
+'I know, my dear Maud, that you are quite incapable of wilfully deceiving
+anyone; but you are liable to be deceived like other young people. You
+were, no doubt, very nervous, and but half awake when you fancied you saw
+the occurrence you describe; and Madame de--de--'
+
+'De la Rougierre,' I supplied.
+
+'Yes, thank you--Madame de la Rougierre, who has arrived with excellent
+testimonials, strenuously denies the whole thing. Here is a conflict, my
+dear--in my mind a presumption of mistake. I confess I should prefer that
+theory to a peremptory assumption of guilt.'
+
+I felt incredulous and amazed; it seemed as if a dream were being enacted
+before me. A transaction of the most serious import, which I had witnessed
+with my own eyes, and described with unexceptionable minuteness and
+consistency, is discredited by that strange and suspicious old man with
+an imbecile coolness. It was quite in vain my reiterating my statement,
+backing it with the most earnest asseverations. I was beating the air. It
+did not seem to reach his mind. It was all received with a simper of feeble
+incredulity.
+
+He patted and smoothed my head--he laughed gently, and shook his while
+I insisted; and Madame protested her purity in now tranquil floods
+of innocent tears, and murmured mild and melancholy prayers for my
+enlightenment and reformation. I felt as if I should lose my reason.
+
+'There now, dear Maud, we have heard enough; it is, I do believe, a
+delusion. Madame de la Rougierre will be your companion, at the utmost, for
+three or four weeks. Do exercise a little of your self-command and
+good sense--you know how I am tortured. Do not, I entreat, add to my
+perplexities. You may make yourself very happy with Madame if you will, I
+have no doubt.'
+
+'I propose to Mademoiselle,' said Madame, drying her eyes with a gentle
+alacrity, 'to profit of my visit for her education. But she does not seem
+to weesh wat I think is so useful.'
+
+'She threatened me with some horrid French vulgarism--_de faire baiser le
+babouin à moi_, whatever that means; and I know she hates me,' I replied,
+impetuously.
+
+'Doucement--doucement!' said my uncle, with a smile at once amused and
+compassionate. 'Doucement! ma chère.'
+
+With great hands and cunning eyes uplifted, Madame tearfully--for her tears
+came on short notice--again protested her absolute innocence. She had never
+in all her life so much as heard one so villain phrase.
+
+'You see, my dear, you have misheard; young people never attend. You will
+do well to take advantage of Madame's short residence to get up your French
+a little, and the more you are with her the better.'
+
+'I understand then, Mr. Ruthyn, you weesh I should resume my instructions?'
+asked Madame.
+
+'Certainly; and converse all you can in French with Mademoiselle Maud. You
+will be glad, my dear, that I've insisted on it,' he said, turning to me,
+'when you have reached France, where you will find they speak nothing else.
+And now, dear Maud--no, not a word more--you must leave me. Farewell,
+Madame!'
+
+And he waved us out a little impatiently; and I, without one look toward
+Madame de la Rougierre, stunned and incensed, walked into my room and shut
+the door.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LV
+
+_THE FOOT OF HERCULES_
+
+
+I stood at the window--still the same leaden sky and feathery sleet before
+me--trying to estimate the magnitude of the discovery I had just made.
+Gradually a kind of despair seized me, and I threw myself passionately on
+my bed, weeping aloud.
+
+Good Mary Quince was, of course, beside me in a moment, with her pale,
+concerned face.
+
+'Oh, Mary, Mary, she's come--that dreadful woman, Madame de la Rougierre,
+has come to be my governess again; and Uncle Silas won't hear or believe
+anything about her. It is vain talking; he is prepossessed. Was ever so
+unfortunate a creature as I? Who could have fancied or feared such a thing?
+Oh, Mary, Mary, what am I to do? what is to become of me? Am I never to
+shake off that vindictive, terrible woman?'
+
+Mary said all she could to console me. I was making too much of her. What
+was she, after all, more than a governess?--she could not hurt me. I was
+not a child no longer--she could not bully me now; and my uncle, though he
+might be deceived for a while, would not be long finding her out.
+
+Thus and soforth did good Mary Quince declaim, and at last she did impress
+me a little, and I began to think that I had, perhaps, been making too much
+of Madame's visit. But still imagination, that instrument and mirror
+of prophecy, showed her formidable image always on its surface, with a
+terrible moving background of shadows.
+
+In a few minutes there was a knock at my door, and Madame herself entered.
+She was in walking costume. There had been a brief clearing of the weather,
+and she proposed our making a promenade together.
+
+On seeing Mary Quince she broke into a rapture of compliment and greeting,
+and took what Mr. Richardson would have called her passive hand, and
+pressed it with wonderful tenderness.
+
+Honest Mary suffered all this somewhat reluctantly, never smiling, and, on
+the contrary, looking rather ruefully at her feet.
+
+'Weel you make a some tea? When I come back, dear Mary Quince, I 'av so
+much to tell you and dear Miss Maud of all my adventures while I 'av been
+away; it will make a you laugh ever so much. I was--what you theenk?--near,
+ever so near to be married!' And upon this she broke into a screeching
+laugh, and shook Mary Quince merrily by the shoulder.
+
+I sullenly declined going out, or rising; and when she had gone away, I
+told Mary that I should confine myself to my room while Madame stayed.
+
+But self-denying ordinances self-imposed are not always long observed by
+youth. Madame de la Rougierre laid herself out to be agreeable; she had no
+end of stories--more than half, no doubt, pure fictions--to tell, but all,
+in that triste place, amusing. Mary Quince began to entertain a better
+opinion of her. She actually helped to make beds, and tried to be in
+every way of use, and seemed to have quite turned over a new leaf; and so
+gradually she moved me, first to listen, and at last to talk.
+
+On the whole, these terms were better than a perpetual skirmish; but,
+notwithstanding all her gossip and friendliness, I continued to have a
+profound distrust and even terror of her.
+
+She seemed curious about the Bartram-Haugh family, and all their ways, and
+listened darkly when I spoke. I told her, bit by bit, the whole story of
+Dudley, and she used, whenever there was news of the Seamew, to read the
+paragraph for my benefit; and in poor Milly's battered little Atlas she
+used to trace the ship's course with a pencil, writing in, from point to
+point, the date at which the vessel was 'spoken' at sea. She seemed amused
+at the irrepressible satisfaction with which I received these minutes of
+his progress; and she used to calculate the distance;--on such a day he was
+two hundred and sixty miles, on such another five hundred; the last point
+was more than eight hundred--good, better, best--best of all would be those
+'deleecious antipode, w'ere he would so soon promener on his head twelve
+thousand mile away;' and at the conceit she would fall into screams of
+laughter.
+
+Laugh as she might, however, there was substantial comfort in thinking
+of the boundless stretch of blue wave that rolled between me and that
+villainous cousin.
+
+I was now on very odd terms with Madame. She had not relapsed into her
+favourite vein of oracular sarcasm and menace; she had, on the contrary,
+affected her good-humoured and genial vein. But I was not to be deceived
+by this. I carried in my heart that deep-seated fear of her which her
+unpleasant good-humour and gaiety never disturbed for a moment. I was very
+glad, therefore, when she went to Todcaster by rail, to make some purchases
+for the journey which we were daily expecting to commence; and happy in the
+opportunity of a walk, good old Mary Quince and I set forth for a little
+ramble.
+
+As I wished to make some purchases in Feltram, I set out, with Mary Quince
+for my companion. On reaching the great gate we found it locked. The key,
+however, was in it, and as it required more than the strength of my hand to
+turn, Mary tried it. At the same moment old Crowle came out of the sombre
+lodge by its side, swallowing down a mouthful of his dinner in haste. No
+one, I believe, liked the long suspicious face of the old man, seldom shorn
+or washed, and furrowed with great, grimy perpendicular wrinkles. Leering
+fiercely at Mary, not pretending to see me, he wiped his mouth hurriedly
+with the back of his hand, and growled--
+
+'Drop it.'
+
+'Open it, please, Mr. Crowle,' said Mary, renouncing the task.
+
+Crowle wiped his mouth as before, looking inauspicious; shuffling to the
+spot, and muttering to himself, he first satisfied himself that the lock
+was fast, and then lodged the key in his coat-pocket, and still muttering,
+retraced his steps.
+
+'We want the gate open, please,' said Mary.
+
+No answer.
+
+'Miss Maud wants to go into the town,' she insisted.
+
+'We wants many a thing we can't get,' he growled, stepping into his
+habitation.
+
+'Please open the gate,' I said, advancing.
+
+He half turned on his threshold, and made a dumb show of touching his hat,
+although he had none on.
+
+'Can't, ma'am; without an order from master, no one goes out here.'
+
+'You won't allow me and my maid to pass the gate?' I said.
+
+''Tisn't _me_, ma'am,' said he; 'but I can't break orders, and no one goes
+out without the master allows.'
+
+And without awaiting further parley, he entered, shutting his hatch behind
+him.
+
+So Mary and I stood, looking very foolish at one another. This was the
+first restraint I had experienced since Milly and I had been refused a
+passage through the Windmill paling. The rule, however, on which Crowle
+insisted I felt confident could not have been intended to apply to me. A
+word to Uncle Silas would set all right; and in the meantime I proposed to
+Mary that we should take a walk--my favourite ramble--into the Windmill
+Wood.
+
+I looked toward Dickon's farmstead as we passed, thinking that Beauty might
+have been there. I did see the girl, who was plainly watching us. She stood
+in the doorway of the cottage, withdrawn into the shade, and, I fancied,
+anxious to escape observation. When we had passed on a little, I was
+confirmed in that belief by seeing her run down the footpath which led from
+the rear of the farm-yard in the direction contrary to that in which we
+were moving.
+
+'So,' I thought, 'poor Meg falls from me!'
+
+Mary Quince and I rambled on through the wood, till we reached the windmill
+itself, and seeing its low arched door open, we entered the chiaro-oscuro
+of its circular basement. As we did so I heard a rush and the creak of a
+plank, and looking up, I saw just a foot--no more--disappearing through the
+trap-door.
+
+In the case of one we love or fear intensely, what feats of comparative
+anatomy will not the mind unconsciously perform? Constructing the whole
+living animal from the turn of an elbow, the curl of a whisker, a segment
+of a hand. How instantaneous and unerring is the instinct!
+
+'Oh, Mary, what have I seen!' I whispered, recovering from the fascination
+that held my gaze fast to the topmost rounds of the ladder, that
+disappeared in the darkness above the open door in the loft. 'Come,
+Mary--come away.'
+
+At the same instant appeared the swarthy, sullen face of Dickon Hawkes in
+the shadow of the aperture. Having but one serviceable leg, his descent
+was slow and awkward, and having got his head to the level of the loft he
+stopped to touch his hat to me, and to hasp and lock the trap-door.
+
+When this was done, the man again touched his hat, and looked steadily and
+searchingly at me for a second or so, while he got the key into his pocket.
+
+'These fellahs stores their flour too long 'ere, ma'am. There's a deal o'
+trouble a-looking arter it. I'll talk wi' Silas, and settle that.'
+
+By this time he had got upon the worn-tiled floor, and touching his hat
+again, he said--
+
+'I'm a-goin' to lock the door, ma'am!'
+
+So with a start, and again whispering--
+
+'Come, Mary--come away'--
+
+With my arm fast in hers, we made a swift departure.
+
+'I feel very faint, Mary,' said I. 'Come quickly. There's nobody following
+us?'
+
+'No, Miss, dear. That man with the wooden leg is putting a padlock on the
+door.'
+
+'Come _very_ fast,' I said; and when we had got a little farther, I said,
+'Look again, and see whether anyone is following.'
+
+'No one, Miss,' answered Mary, plainly surprised. 'He's putting the key in
+his pocket, and standin' there a-lookin' after us.'
+
+'Oh, Mary, did not you see it?'
+
+'What, Miss?' asked Mary, almost stopping.
+
+'Come on, Mary. Don't pause. They will observe us,' I whispered, hurrying
+her forward.
+
+'What did you see, Miss?' repeated Mary.
+
+'_Mr. Dudley_,' I whispered, with a terrified emphasis, not daring to turn
+my head as I spoke.
+
+'Lawk, Miss!' remonstrated honest Quince, with a protracted intonation
+of wonder and incredulity, which plainly implied a suspicion that I was
+dreaming.
+
+'Yes, Mary. When we went into that dreadful room--that dark, round place--I
+saw his foot on the ladder. _His_ foot, Mary I can't be mistaken. _I won't
+be questioned_. You'll _find_ I'm right. He's _here_. He never went in
+that ship at all. A fraud has been practised on me--it is infamous--it
+is terrible. I'm frightened out of my life. For heaven's sake, look back
+again, and tell me what you see.'
+
+'_Nothing_, Miss,' answered Mary, in contagious whispers, 'but that
+wooden-legged chap, standin' hard by the door.'
+
+'And no one with him?'
+
+'No one, Miss.'
+
+We got without pursuit through the gate in the paling. I drew breath so
+soon as we had reached the cover of the thicket near the chestnut hollow,
+and I began to reflect that whoever the owner of the foot might be--and
+I was still instinctively certain that it was no other than
+Dudley--concealment was plainly his object. I need not, then, be at all
+uneasy lest he should pursue us.
+
+As we walked slowly and in silence along the grassy footpath, I heard a
+voice calling my name from behind. Mary Quince had not heard it at all, but
+I was quite certain.
+
+It was repeated twice or thrice, and, looking in considerable doubt and
+trepidation under the hanging boughs, I saw Beauty, not ten yards away,
+standing among the underwood.
+
+I remember how white the eyes and teeth of the swarthy girl looked, as with
+hand uplifted toward her ear, she watched us while, as it seemed, listening
+for more distant sounds.
+
+Beauty beckoned eagerly to me, advancing, with looks of great fear and
+anxiety, two or three short steps toward me.
+
+'_She_ baint to come,' said Beauty, under her breath, so soon as I had
+nearly reached her, pointing without raising her hand at Mary Quince.
+
+'Tell her to sit on the ash-tree stump down yonder, and call ye as loud as
+she can if she sees any fellah a-comin' this way, an' rin ye back to me;'
+and she impatiently beckoned me away on her errand.
+
+When I returned, having made this dispositions, I perceived how pale the
+girl was.
+
+'Are you ill, Meg?' I asked.
+
+'Never ye mind. Well enough. Listen, Miss; I must tell it all in a crack,
+an' if she calls, rin awa' to her, and le' me to myself, for if fayther or
+t'other un wor to kotch me here, I think they'd kill me a'most. Hish!'
+
+She paused a second, looking askance, in the direction where she fancied
+Mary Quince was. Then she resumed in a whisper--
+
+'Now, lass, mind ye, ye'll keep what I say to yourself. You're not to tell
+that un nor any other for your life, mind, a word o' what I'm goin' to tell
+ye.'
+
+'I'll not say a word. Go on.'
+
+'Did ye see Dudley?'
+
+'I think I saw him getting up the ladder.'
+
+'In the mill? Ha! that's him. He never went beyond Todcaster. He staid in
+Feltram after.'
+
+It was my turn to look pale now. My worst conjecture was established.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVI
+
+_I CONSPIRE_
+
+
+'That's a bad un, he is--oh, Miss, Miss Maud! It's nout that's good as
+keeps him an' fayther--(mind, lass, ye promised you would not tell no
+one)--as keeps them two a-talkin' and a-smokin' secret-like together in the
+mill. An' fayther don't know I found him out. They don't let me into the
+town, but Brice tells me, and he knows it's Dudley; and it's nout that's
+good, but summat very bad. An' I reckon, Miss, it's all about you. Be ye
+frightened, Miss Maud?'
+
+I felt on the point of fainting, but I rallied.
+
+'Not much, Meg. Go on, for Heaven's sake. Does Uncle Silas know he is
+here?'
+
+'Well, Miss, they were with him, Brice told me, from eleven o'clock to nigh
+one o' Tuesday night, an' went in and come out like thieves, 'feard ye'd
+see 'em.'
+
+'And how does Brice know anything bad?' I asked, with a strange freezing
+sensation creeping from my heels to my head and down again--I am sure
+deadly pale, but speaking very collectedly.
+
+'Brice said, Miss, he saw Dudley a-cryin' and lookin' awful black, and says
+he to fayther, "'Tisn't in my line nohow, an' I can't;" and says fayther
+to he, "No one likes they soart o' things, but how can ye help it? The old
+boy's behind ye wi' his pitchfork, and ye canna stop." An' wi' that he
+bethought him o' Brice, and says he, "What be ye a-doin' there? Get ye down
+wi' the nags to blacksmith, do ye." An' oop gits Dudley, pullin' his hat
+ower his brows, an' says he, "I wish I was in the _Seamew_. I'm good for
+nout wi' this thing a-hangin' ower me." An' that's all as Brice heard. An'
+he's afeard o' fayther and Dudley awful. Dudley could lick him to pot if
+he crossed him, and he and fayther 'ud think nout o' havin' him afore the
+justices for poachin', and swearin' him into gaol.'
+
+'But why does he think it's about _me_?'
+
+'Hish!' said Meg, who fancied she heard a sound, but all was quiet. 'I
+can't say--we're in danger, lass. I don't know why--but _he_ does, an' so
+do I, an', for that matter, so do _ye_.'
+
+'Meg, I'll leave Bartram.'
+
+'Ye can't.'
+
+'Can't. What do you mean, girl?'
+
+'They won't let ye oot. The gates is all locked. They've dogs--they've
+bloodhounds, Brice says. Ye _can't_ git oot, mind; put that oot o' your
+head.
+
+'I tell ye what ye'll do. Write a bit o' a note to the lady yonder at
+Elverston; an' though Brice be a wild fellah, and 'appen not ower good
+sometimes, he likes me, an' I'll make him take it. Fayther will be grindin'
+at mill to-morrow. Coom ye here about one o'clock--that's if ye see the
+mill-sails a-turnin'--and me and Brice will meet ye here. Bring that old
+lass wi' ye. There's an old French un, though, that talks wi' Dudley. Mind
+ye, that un knows nout o' the matter. Brice be a kind lad to me, whatsoe'er
+he be wi' others, and I think he won't split. Now, lass, I must go. God
+help ye; God bless ye; an', for the world's wealth, don't ye let one o'
+them see ye've got ought in your head, not even that un.'
+
+Before I could say another word, the girl had glided from me, with a wild
+gesture of silence, and a shake of her head.
+
+I can't at all account for the state in which I was. There are resources
+both of energy and endurance in human nature which we never suspect until
+the tremendous voice of necessity summons them into play. Petrified with a
+totally new horror, but with something of the coldness and impassiveness of
+the transformation, I stood, spoke, and acted--a wonder, almost a terror,
+to myself.
+
+I met Madame on my return as if nothing had happened. I heard her ugly
+gabble, and looked at the fruits of her hour's shopping, as I might hear,
+and see, and talk, and smile, in a dream.
+
+But the night was dreadful. When Mary Quince and I were alone, I locked
+the door. I continued walking up and down the room, with my hands clasped,
+looking at the inexorable floor, the walls, the ceiling, with a sort
+of imploring despair. I was afraid to tell my dear old Mary. The least
+indiscretion would be failure, and failure destruction.
+
+I answered her perplexed solicitudes by telling her that I was not very
+well--that I was uneasy; but I did not fail to extract from her a promise
+that she would not hint to mortal, either my suspicions about Dudley, or
+our rencontre with Meg Hawkes.
+
+I remember how, when, after we had got, late at night, into bed, I sat up,
+shivering with horror, in mine, while honest Mary's tranquil breathing told
+how soundly she slept. I got up, and looked from the window, expecting to
+see some of those wolfish dogs which they had brought to the place prowling
+about the court-yard. Sometimes I prayed, and felt tranquillised, and
+fancied that I was perhaps to have a short interval of sleep. But the
+serenity was delusive, and all the time my nerves were strung hysterically.
+Sometimes I felt quite wild, and on the point of screaming. At length that
+dreadful night passed away. Morning came, and a less morbid, though hardly
+a less terrible state of mind. Madame paid me an early visit. A thought
+struck me. I knew that she loved shopping, and I said, quite carelessly--
+
+'Your yesterday's shopping tempts me, Madame, and I must get a few things
+before we leave for France. Suppose we go into Feltram to-day, and make my
+purchases, you and I?'
+
+She looked from the corner of her cunning eye in my face without answering.
+I did not blench, and she said--
+
+'Vary good. I would be vary 'appy,' and again she looked oddly at me.
+
+'Wat hour, my dear Maud? One o'clock? I think that weel de very well, eh?'
+
+I assented, and she grew silent.
+
+I wonder whether I did look as careless as I tried. I do not know. Through
+the whole of this awful period I was, I think, supernatural; and I even now
+look back with wonder upon my strange self-command.
+
+Madame, I hoped, had heard nothing of the order which prohibited my exit
+from the place. She would herself conduct me to Feltram, and secure, by
+accompanying me, my free egress.
+
+Once in Feltram, I would assert my freedom, and manage to reach my dear
+cousin Knollys. Back to Bartram no power should convey me. My heart swelled
+and fluttered in the awful suspense of that hour.
+
+Oh, Bartram-Haugh! how came you by those lofty walls? Which of my ancestors
+had begirt me with an impassable barrier in this horrible strait?
+
+Suddenly I remembered my letter to Lady Knollys. If I were disappointed in
+effecting my escape through Feltram, all would depend upon it.
+
+Having locked my door, I wrote as follows:--
+
+'Oh, my beloved cousin, as you hope for comfort in _your_ hour of fear, aid
+me now. Dudley has returned, and is secreted somewhere about the grounds.
+It is a _fraud_. They all pretend to me that he is gone away in the
+_Seamew_; and he or they had his name published as one of the passengers.
+Madame de la Rougierre has appeared! She is here, and my uncle insists on
+making her my close companion. I am at my wits' ends. I cannot escape--the
+walls are a prison; and I believe the eyes of my gaolers are always upon
+me. Dogs are kept for pursuit--yes, _dogs_! and the gates are locked
+against my escape. God help me! I don't know where to look, or whom to
+trust. I fear my uncle more than all. I think I could bear this better if I
+knew what their plans are, even the worst. If ever you loved or pitied me,
+dear cousin, I conjure you, help me in this extremity. Take me away from
+this. Oh, darling, for God's sake take me away!
+
+'Your distracted and terrified cousin,
+
+MAUD'
+
+'Bartram-Haugh.'
+
+I sealed this letter jealously, as if the inanimate missive would burst its
+cerements, and proclaim my desperate appeal through all the chambers and
+passages of silent Bartram.
+
+Old Quince, greatly to cousin Monica's amusement, persisted in furnishing
+me with those capacious pockets which belonged to a former generation. I
+was glad of this old-world eccentricity now, and placed my guilty letter,
+that, amidst all my hypocrisies, spoke out with terrible frankness, deep
+in this receptacle, and having hid away the pen and ink, my accomplices, I
+opened the door, and resumed my careless looks, awaiting Madame's return.
+
+'I was to demand to Mr. Ruthyn the permission to go to Feltram, and I think
+he will allow. He want to speak to you.'
+
+With Madame I entered my uncle's room. He was reclining on a sofa, his back
+towards us, and his long white hair, as fine as spun glass, hung over the
+back of the couch.
+
+'I was going to ask you, dear Maud, to execute two or three little
+commissions for me in Feltram.'
+
+My dreadful letter felt lighter in my pocket, and my heart beat violently.
+
+'But I have just recollected that this is a market-day, and Feltram will
+be full of doubtful characters and tipsy persons, so we must wait till
+to-morrow; and Madame says, very kindly, that she will, as she does not
+so much mind, make any little purchases to-day which cannot conveniently
+wait.'
+
+Madame assented with a courtesy to Uncle Silas, and a great hollow smile to
+me.
+
+By this time Uncle Silas had raised himself from his reclining posture, and
+was sitting, gaunt and white, upon the sofa.
+
+'News of my prodigal to-day,' he said, with a peevish smile, drawing the
+newspaper towards him. 'The vessel has been spoken again. How many miles
+away, do you suppose?'
+
+He spoke in a plaintive key, looking at me, with hungry eyes, and a
+horribly smiling countenance.
+
+'How far do you suppose Dudley is to-day?' and he laid the palm of his hand
+on the paragraph as he spoke. _Guess_!'
+
+For a moment I fancied this was a theatric preparation to give point to the
+disclosure of Dudley's real whereabouts.
+
+'It was a very long way. Guess!' he repeated.
+
+So, stammering a little and pale, I performed the required hypocrisy, after
+which my uncle read aloud for my benefit the line or two in which were
+recorded the event, and the latitude and longitude of the vessel at the
+time, of which Madame made a note in her memory, for the purpose of making
+her usual tracing in poor Milly's Atlas.
+
+I cannot say how it really was, but I fancied that Uncle Silas was all
+the time reading my countenance, with a grim and practised scrutiny; but
+nothing came of it, and we were dismissed.
+
+Madame loved shopping, even for its own sake, but shopping with
+opportunities of peculation still more. She she had had her luncheon,
+and was dressed for the excursion, she did precisely what I now most
+desired--she proposed to take charge of my commissions and my money; and
+thus entrusted, left me at liberty to keep tryst at the Chestnut Hollow.
+
+So soon as I had seen Madame fairly off, I hurried Mary Quince, and got my
+things on quickly. We left the house by the side entrance, which I knew my
+uncle's windows did not command. Glad was I to feel a slight breeze, enough
+to make the mill-sails revolve; and as we got further into the grounds,
+and obtained a distant view of the picturesque old windmill, I felt
+inexpressibly relieved on seeing that it was actually working.
+
+We were now in the Chestnut Hollow, and I sent Mary Quince to her old point
+of observation, which commanded a view of the path in the direction of the
+Windmill Wood, with her former order to call 'I've found it,' as loudly as
+she could, in case she should see anyone approaching.
+
+I stopped at the point of our yesterday's meeting. I peered under the
+branches, and my heart beat fast as I saw Meg Hawkes awaiting me.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVII
+
+_THE LETTER_
+
+
+'Come away, lass,' whispered Beauty, very pale; 'he's here--Tom Brice.'
+
+And she led the way, shoving aside the leafless underwood, and we reached
+Tom. The slender youth, groom or poacher--he might answer for either--with
+his short coat and gaitered legs, was sitting on a low horizontal bough,
+with his shoulder against the trunk.
+
+'_Don't_ ye mind; sit ye still, lad,' said Meg, observing that he was
+preparing to rise, and had entangled his hat in the boughs. 'Sit ye still,
+and hark to the lady. He'll take it, Miss Maud, if he can; wi' na ye, lad?'
+
+'E'es, I'll take it,' he replied, holding out his hand.
+
+'Tom Brice, you won't deceive me?'
+
+'Noa, sure,' said Tom and Meg nearly in the same breath.
+
+'You are an honest English lad, Tom--you would not betray me?' I was
+speaking imploringly.
+
+'Noa, sure,' repeated Tom.
+
+There was something a little unsatisfactory in the countenance of this
+light-haired youth, with the sharpish up-turned nose. Throughout our
+interview he said next to nothing, and smiled lazily to himself, like a man
+listening to a child's solemn nonsense, and leading it on, with an amused
+irony, from one wise sally to another.
+
+Thus it seemed to me that this young clown, without in the least intending
+to be offensive, was listening to me with a profound and lazy mockery.
+
+I could not choose, however; and, such as he was, I must employ him or
+none.
+
+'Now, Tom Brice, a great deal depends on this.'
+
+'That's true for her, Tom Brice,' said Meg, who now and then confirmed my
+asseverations.
+
+'I'll give you a pound _now_, Tom,' and I placed the coin and the letter
+together in his hand. 'And you are to give this letter to Lady Knollys, at
+Elverston; you know Elverston, don't you?'
+
+'He does, Miss. Don't ye, lad?'
+
+'E'es.'
+
+'Well, do so, Tom, and I'll be good to you so long as I live.'
+
+'D'ye hear, lad?'
+
+'E'es,' said Tom; 'it's very good.'
+
+'You'll take the letter, Tom? 'I said, in much greater trepidation as to
+his answer than I showed.
+
+'E'es, I'll take the letter,' said he, rising, and turning it about in his
+fingers under his eye, like a curiosity.
+
+'Tom Brice,' I said, 'If you can't be true to me, say so; but don't take
+the letter except to give it to Lady Knollys, at Elverston. If you won't
+promise that, let me have the note back. Keep the pound; but tell me that
+you won't mention my having asked you to carry a letter to Elverston to
+anyone.'
+
+For the first time Tom looked perfectly serious. He twiddled the corner of
+my letter between his finger and thumb, and wore very much the countenance
+of a poacher about to be committed.
+
+'I don't want to chouce ye, Miss; but I must take care o' myself, ye see.
+The letters goes all through Silas's fingers to the post, and he'd know
+damn well this worn't among 'em. They do say he opens 'em, and reads 'em
+before they go; an' that's his diversion. I don't know; but I do believe
+that's how it be; an' if this one turned up, they'd all know it went be
+hand, and I'd be spotted for't.'
+
+'But you know who I am, Tom, and I'd save you,' said I, eagerly.
+
+'Ye'd want savin' yerself, I'm thinkin', if that feel oot,' said Tom,
+cynically. 'I don't say, though, I'll not take it--only this--I won't run
+my head again a wall for no one.'
+
+'Tom,' I said, with a sudden inspiration, 'give me back the letter,
+and take me out of Bartram; take me to Elverston; it will be the best
+thing--for _you_, Tom, I mean--it will indeed--that ever befell you.'
+
+With this clown I was pleading, as for my life; my hand was on his sleeve.
+I was gazing imploringly in his face.
+
+But it would not do; Tom Brice looked amused again, swung his head a little
+on one side, grinning sheepishly over his shoulder on the roots of the
+trees beside him, as if he were striving to keep himself from an uncivil
+fit of laughter.
+
+'I'll do what a wise lad may, Miss; but ye don't know they lads; they
+bain't that easy come over; and I won't get knocked on the head, nor sent
+to gaol 'appen, for no good to thee nor me. There's Meg there, she knows
+well enough I could na' manage that; so I won't try it, Miss, by no chance;
+no offence, Miss; but I'd rayther not, an' I'll just try what I can make
+o'this; that's all I can do for ye.'
+
+Tom Brice, with these words, stood up, and looked uneasily in the direction
+of the Windmill Wood.
+
+'Mind ye, Miss, coom what will, ye'll not tell o' me?'
+
+'Whar 'ill ye go now, Tom?' inquired Meg, uneasily.
+
+'Never ye mind, lass,' answered he, breaking his way through the thicket,
+and soon disappearing.
+
+'E'es that 'ill be it--he'll git into the sheepwalk behind the mound.
+They're all down yonder; git ye back, Miss, to the hoose--be the side-door;
+mind ye, don't go round the corner; and I'll jest sit awhile among the
+bushes, and wait a good time for a start. And good-bye, Miss; and don't ye
+show like as if there was aught out o' common on your mind. Hish!'
+
+There was a distant hallooing.
+
+'That be fayther!' she whispered, with a very blank countenance, and
+listened with her sunburnt hand to her ear.
+
+'Tisn't me, only Davy he'll be callin',' she said, with a great sigh, and a
+joyless smile. 'Now git ye away i' God's name.'
+
+So running lightly along the path, under cover of this thick wood, I
+recalled Mary Quince, and together we hastened back again to the house, and
+entered, as directed, by the side-door, which did not expose us to be
+seen from the Windmill Wood, and, like two criminals, we stole up by the
+backstairs, and so through the side-gallery to my room; and there sat down
+to collect my wits, and try to estimate the exact effect of what had just
+occurred.
+
+Madame had not returned. That was well; she always visited my room first,
+and everything was precisely as I had left it--a certain sign that her
+prying eyes and busy fingers had not been at work during my absence.
+
+When she did appear, strange to say, it was to bring me unexpected comfort.
+She had in her hand a letter from my dear Lady Knollys--a gleam of sunlight
+from the free and happy outer world entered with it. The moment Madame left
+me to myself, I opened it and read as follows:--
+
+'I am so happy, my dearest Maud, in the immediate prospect of seeing you. I
+have had a really kind letter from poor Silas--_poor_ I say, for I really
+compassionate his situation, about which he has been, I do believe, quite
+frank--at least Ilbury says so, and somehow he happens to know. I have had
+quite an affecting, changed letter. I will tell you all when I see you.
+He wants me ultimately to undertake that which would afford me the most
+unmixed happiness--I mean the care of you, my dear girl. I only fear lest
+my too eager acceptance of the trust should excite that vein of opposition
+which is in most human beings, and induce him to think over his offer less
+favourably again. He says I must come to Bartram, and stay a night, and
+promises to lodge me comfortably; about which last I honestly do not care a
+pin, when the chance of a comfortable evening's gossip with you is in view.
+Silas explains his sad situation, and must hold himself in readiness for
+early flight, if he would avoid the risk of losing his personal liberty. It
+is a sad thing that he should have so irretrievably ruined himself,
+that poor Austin's liberality seems to have positively precipitated his
+extremity. His great anxiety is that I should see you before you leave for
+your short stay in France. He thinks you must leave before a fortnight. I
+am thinking of asking you to come over here; I know you would be just as
+well at Elverston as in France; but perhaps, as he seems disposed to do
+what we all wish, it may be safer to let him set about it in his own way.
+The truth is, I have so set my heart upon it that I fear to risk it by
+crossing him even in a trifle. He says I must fix an early day next week,
+and talks as if he meant to urge me to make a longer visit than he defined.
+I shall be only too happy. I begin, my dear Maud, to think that there is no
+use in trying to control events, and that things often turn out best, and
+most exactly to our wishes, by being left quite to themselves. I think
+it was Talleyrand who praised the talent of _waiting_ so much. In high
+spirits, and with my head brimful of plans, I remain, dearest Maud, ever
+your affectionate cousin,
+
+MONICA.'
+
+Here was an inexplicable puzzle! A faint radiance of hope, however, began
+to overspread a landscape only a few minutes before darkened by total
+eclipse; but construct what theory I might, all were inconsistent with many
+well-established and awful incongruities, and their wrecks lay strown over
+the troubled waters of the gulf into which I gazed.
+
+Why was Madame here? Why was Dudley concealed about the place? Why was I a
+prisoner within the walls? What were those dangers which Meg Hawkes seemed
+to think so great and so imminent as to induce her to risk her lover's
+safety for my deliverance? All these menacing facts stood grouped together
+against the dark certainty that never were men more deeply interested in
+making away with one human being, than were Uncle Silas and Dudley in
+removing me.
+
+Sometimes to these dreadful evidences I abandoned my soul. Sometimes,
+reading Cousin Monica's sunny letter, the sky would clear, and my terrors
+melt away like nightmares in the morning. I never repented, however, that
+I had sent my letter by Tom Brice. Escape from Bartram-Haugh was my hourly
+longing.
+
+That evening Madame invited herself to tea with me. I did not object.
+It was better just then to be on friendly relations with everybody, if
+possible, even on their own terms. She was in one of her boisterous and
+hilarious moods, and there was a perfume of brandy.
+
+She narrated some compliments paid her that morning in Feltram by that
+'good crayature' Mrs. Litheways, the silk-mercer, and what ''ansom faylow'
+was her new foreman--(she intended plainly that I should 'queez' her)--and
+how 'he follow' her with his eyes wherever she went. I thought, perhaps, he
+fancied she might pocket some of his lace or gloves. And all the time her
+great wicked eyes were rolling and glancing according to her ideas of
+fascination, and her bony face grinning and flaming with the 'strong drink'
+in which she delighted. She sang twaddling chansons, and being, as was her
+wont under such exhilarating influences, in a vapouring mood, she vowed
+that I should have my carriage and horses immediately.
+
+'I weel try what I can do weeth your Uncle Silas. We are very good
+old friends, Mr. Ruthyn and I,' she said with a leer which I did not
+understand, and which yet frightened me.
+
+I never could quite understand why these Jezebels like to insinuate the
+dreadful truth against themselves; but they do. Is it the spirit of
+feminine triumph overcoming feminine shame, and making them vaunt their
+fall as an evidence of bygone fascination and existing power? Need we
+wonder? Have not women preferred hatred to indifference, and the reputation
+of witchcraft, with all its penalties, to absolute insignificance? Thus, as
+they enjoyed the fear inspired among simple neighbours by their imagined
+traffic with the father of ill, did Madame, I think, relish with a cynical
+vainglory the suspicion of her satanic superiority.
+
+Next morning Uncle Silas sent for me. He was seated at his table, and spoke
+his little French greeting, smiling as usual, pointing to a chair opposite.
+
+'How far, I forget,' he said, carelessly laying his newspaper on the table,
+'did you yesterday guess Dudley to be?'
+
+'Eleven hundred miles I thought it was.'
+
+'Oh yes, so it was;' and then there was an abstracted pause. 'I have been
+writing to Lord Ilbury, your trustee,' he resumed. I ventured to say, my
+dear Maud--(for having thoughts of a different arrangement for you, more
+suitable under my distressing circumstances, I do not wish to vacate
+without some expression of your estimate of my treatment of you while
+under my roof)--I ventured to say that you thought me kind, considerate,
+indulgent,--may I say so?'
+
+I assented. What could I say?
+
+'I said you had enjoyed our poor way of living here--our rough ways and
+liberty. Was I right?'
+
+Again I assented.
+
+'And, in fact, that you had nothing to object against your poor old uncle,
+except indeed his poverty, which you forgave. I think I said truth. Did I,
+dear Maud?'
+
+Again I acquiesced.
+
+All this time he was fumbling among the papers in his coatpocket.
+
+'That is satisfactory. So I expected you to say,' he murmured. 'I expected
+no less.'
+
+On a sudden a frightful change spread across his face. He rose like a
+spectre with a white scowl.
+
+'Then how do you account for that?' he shrieked in a voice of thunder, and
+smiting my open letter to Lady Knollys, face upward, upon the table.
+
+I stared at my uncle, unable to speak, until I seemed to lose sight of him;
+but his voice, like a bell, still yelled in my ears.
+
+'There! young hypocrite and liar! explain that farrago of slander which you
+bribed my servant to place in the hands of my kinswoman, Lady Knollys.'
+
+And so on and on it went, I gazing into darkness, until the voice itself
+became indistinct, grew into a buzz, and hummed away into silence.
+
+I think I must have had a fit.
+
+When I came to myself I was drenched with water, my hair, face, neck, and
+dress. I did not in the least know where I was. I thought my father was
+ill, and spoke to him. Uncle Silas was standing near the window, looking
+unspeakably grim. Madame was seated beside me, and an open bottle of ether,
+one of Uncle Silas's restoratives, on the table before me.
+
+'Who's that--who's ill--is anyone dead?' I cried.
+
+At last I was relieved by long paroxysms of weeping. When I was
+sufficiently recovered, I was conveyed into my own room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVIII
+
+_LADY KNOLLYS' CARRIAGE_
+
+
+Next morning--it was Sunday--I lay on my bed in my dressing-gown, dull,
+apathetic, with all my limbs sore, and, as I thought, rheumatic,
+and feeling so ill that I did not care to speak or lift my head. My
+recollection of what had passed in Uncle Silas's room was utterly confused,
+and it seemed to me as if my poor father had been there and taken a
+share--I could not remember how--in the conference.
+
+I was too exhausted and stupid to clear up this horrible muddle, and merely
+lay with my face toward the wall, motionless and silent, except for a great
+sigh every now and then.
+
+Good Mary Quince was in the room--there was some comfort in that; but I
+felt quite worn out, and had rather she did not speak to me; and indeed for
+the time I felt absolutely indifferent as to whether I lived or died.
+
+Cousin Monica this morning, at pleasant Elverston, all-unconscious of my
+sad plight, proposed to Lady Mary Carysbroke and Lord Ilbury, her
+guests, to drive over to church at Feltram, and then pay us a visit at
+Bartram-Haugh, to which they readily agreed.
+
+Accordingly, at about two o'clock, this pleasant party of three arrived at
+Bartram. They walked, having left the carriage to follow when the horses
+were fed; and Madame de la Rougierre, who was in my uncle's room when
+little Giblets arrived to say that the party were in the parlour, whispered
+for a little with my uncle, who then said--
+
+'Miss Maud Ruthyn has gone out to drive, but I shall be happy to see Lady
+Knollys here, if she will do me the favour to come upstairs and see me for
+a few moments; and you can mention that I am very far from well.'
+
+Madame followed him out upon the lobby, and added, holding him by the
+collar, and whispering earnestly in his ear--
+
+'Bring hair ladysheep up by the backstairs--mind, the _back_stairs.'
+
+And the next moment Madame entered my room, with long tiptoe steps, and
+looking, Mary Quince said, as if she were going to be hanged.
+
+On entering she looked sharply round, and being satisfied of Mary Quince's
+presence, she turned the key in the door, and made some affectionate
+enquiries about me in a whisper; and then she stole to the window and
+peeped out, standing back some way; after which she came to my bedside,
+murmured some tender sentences, drew the curtain a little, and making some
+little fidgety adjustments about the room; among the rest she took the key
+from the lock, quietly, and put it into her pocket.
+
+This was so odd a procedure that honest Mary Quince rose stoutly from her
+chair, pointing to the lock, with her frank little blue eyes fixed on
+Madame, and she whispered--'Won't you put the key in the lock, please?'
+
+'Oh, certainly, Mary Queence; but it is better it shall be locked, for I
+think her uncle he is coming to see her, and I am sure she would be very
+much frightened, for he is very much displease, don't you see? and we can
+tell him she is not well enough, or asleep, and so he weel go away again,
+without any trouble.'
+
+I heard nothing of this, which was conducted in close whispers; and Mary,
+although she did not give Madame credit for caring whether I was frightened
+or not, and suspected her motives in everything, acquiesced grudgingly,
+fearing lest her alleged reason might possibly be the true one.
+
+So Madame hovered about the door, uneasily; and of what went on elsewhere
+during that period Lady Knollys afterwards gave me the following account:--
+
+'We were very much disappointed; but of course I was glad to see Silas, and
+your little hobgoblin butler led me upstairs to his room a different way, I
+think, from that I came before; but I don't know the house of Bartram well
+enough to speak positively. I only know that I was conducted quite across
+his bedroom, which I had not seen on my former visit, and so into his
+sitting-room, where I found him.
+
+'He seemed very glad to see me, came forward smiling--I disliked his smile
+always--with both hands out, and shook mine with more warmth than I ever
+remembered in his greeting before, and said--
+
+'"My dear, _dear_ Monica, how _very_ good of you--the very person I longed
+to see! I have been miserably ill, the sad consequence of still more
+miserable anxiety. Sit down, pray, for a moment."
+
+'And he paid me some nice little French compliment in verse.
+
+'"And where is Maud?" said I.
+
+'"I think Maud is by this time about halfway to Elverston," said the old
+gentleman. "I persuaded her to take a drive, and advised a call there,
+which seemed to please her, so I conjecture she obeyed."
+
+'"How _very_ provoking!" cried I.
+
+'"My poor Maud will be sadly disappointed, but you will console her by a
+visit--you have promised to come, and I shall try to make you comfortable.
+I shall be happier, Monica, with this proof of our perfect reconciliation.
+You won't deny me?"
+
+'"Certainly not. I am only too glad to come," said I; "and I want to thank
+you, Silas."
+
+'"For what?" said he.
+
+'"For wishing to place Maud in my care. I am very much obliged to you."
+
+'"I did not suggest it, I must say, Monica, with the least intention of
+obliging _you_," said Silas.
+
+'I thought he was going to break into one of his ungracious moods.
+
+'"But I _am_ obliged to you--very much obliged to you, Silas; and you
+sha'n't refuse my thanks."
+
+'"I am happy, at all events, Monica, in having won your good-will; we learn
+at last that in the affections only are our capacities for happiness; and
+how true is St. Paul's preference of love--the principle that abideth! The
+affections, dear Monica, are eternal; and being so, celestial, divine, and
+consequently happy, deriving happiness, and bestowing it."
+
+'I was always impatient of his or anybody else's metaphysics; but I
+controlled myself, and only said, with my customary impudence--
+
+'"Well, dear Silas, and when do you wish me to come?"
+
+'"The earlier the better," said he.
+
+'"Lady Mary and Ilbury will be leaving me on Tuesday morning. I can come to
+you in the afternoon, if you think Tuesday a good day."
+
+'"Thank you, dear Monica. I shall be, I trust, enlightened by that day as
+to my enemies' plans. It is a humiliating confession, Monica, but I am past
+feeling that. It is quite possible that an execution may be sent into
+this house to-morrow, and an end of all my schemes. It is not likely,
+however--hardly possible--before three weeks, my attorney tells me. I shall
+hear from him to-morrow morning, and then I shall ask you to name a very
+early day. If we are to have an unmolested fortnight certain, you shall
+hear, and name your own day."
+
+'Then he asked me who had accompanied me, and lamented ever so much his not
+being able to go down to receive them; and he offered luncheon, with a sort
+of Ravenswood smile, and a shrug, and I declined, telling him that we had
+but a few minutes, and that my companions were walking in the grounds near
+the house.
+
+'I asked whether Maud was likely to return soon?
+
+'"Certainly not before five o'clock." He thought we should probably meet
+her on our way back to Elverston; but could not be certain, as she might
+have changed her plans.
+
+'So then came--no more remaining to be said--a very affectionate parting. I
+believe all about his legal dangers was strictly true. How he could, unless
+that horrid woman had deceived him, with so serene a countenance tell me
+all those gross untruths about Maud, I can only admire.'
+
+In the meantime, as I lay in my bed, Madame, gliding hither and thither,
+whispering sometimes, listening at others, I suddenly startled them both by
+saying--
+
+'Whose carriage?'
+
+'What carriage, dear?' inquired Quince, whose ears were not so sharp as
+mine.
+
+Madame peeped from the window.
+
+''Tis the physician, Doctor Jolks. He is come to see your uncle, my dear,'
+said Madame.
+
+'But I hear a female voice,' I said, sitting up.
+
+'No, my dear; there is only the doctor,' said Madame. 'He is come to your
+uncle. I tell you he is getting out of his carriage,' and she affected to
+watch the doctor's descent.
+
+'The carriage is driving away!' I cried.
+
+'Yes, it is draiving away,' she echoed.
+
+But I had sprung from my bed, and was looking over her shoulder, before she
+perceived me.
+
+'It is Lady Knollys!' I screamed, seizing the window-frame to force it up,
+and, vainly struggling to open it, I cried--
+
+'I'm here, Cousin Monica. For God's sake, Cousin Monica--Cousin Monica!'
+
+'You are mad, Meess--go back,' screamed Madame, exerting her superior
+strength to force me back.
+
+But I saw deliverance and escape gliding away from my reach, and, strung
+to unnatural force by desperation, I pushed past her, and beat the window
+wildly with my hands, screaming--
+
+'Save me--save me! Here, here, Monica, here! Cousin, cousin, oh! save me!'
+
+Madame had seized my wrists, and a wild struggle was going on. A
+window-pane was broken, and I was shrieking to stop the carriage. The
+Frenchwoman looked black and haggard as a fury, as if she could have
+murdered me.
+
+Nothing daunted--frantic--I screamed in my despair, seeing the carriage
+drive swiftly away--seeing Cousin Monica's bonnet, as she sat chatting with
+her _vis-à-vis_.
+
+'Oh, oh, oh!' I shrieked, in vain and prolonged agony, as Madame, exerting
+her strength and matching her fury against my despair, forced me back in
+spite of my wild struggles, and pushed me sitting on the bed, where she
+held me fast, glaring in my face, and chuckling and panting over me.
+
+I think I felt something of the despair of a lost spirit.
+
+I remember the face of poor Mary Quince--its horror, its wonder--as she
+stood gaping into my face, over Madame's shoulder, and crying--
+
+'What is it, Miss Maud? What is it, dear?' And turning fiercely on Madame,
+and striving to force her grasp from my wrists, 'Are you hurting the child?
+Let her go--let her go.'
+
+'I _weel_ let her go. Wat old fool are you, Mary Queence! She is mad, I
+think. She 'as lost hair head.'
+
+'Oh, Mary, cry from the window. Stop the carriage!' I cried.
+
+Mary looked out, but there was by this time, of course, nothing in sight.
+
+'Why don't a you stop the carriage?' sneered Madame. 'Call a the coachman
+and the postilion. W'ere is the footman? Bah! _elle a le cerveau mal
+timbré_.'
+
+'Oh, Mary, Mary, is it gone--is it gone? Is there nothing there?' cried I,
+rushing to the window; and turning to Madame, after a vain straining of my
+eyes, my face against the glass--
+
+'Oh, cruel, cruel, wicked woman! why have you done this? What was it to
+you? Why do you persecute me? What good _can_ you gain by my ruin?'
+
+'Rueen! Par bleu! ma chère, you talk too fast. Did not a you see it, Mary
+Queence? It was the doctor's carriage, and Mrs. Jolks, and that eempudent
+faylow, young Jolks, staring up to the window, and Mademoiselle she come in
+soche shocking déshabille to show herself knocking at the window. 'Twould
+be very nice thing, Mary Queence, don't you think?'
+
+I was sitting now on the bedside, crying in mere despair. I did not care to
+dispute or to resist. Oh! why had rescue come so near, only to prove that
+it could not reach me? So I went on crying, with a clasping of my hands and
+turning up of my eyes, in incoherent prayer. I was not thinking of Madame,
+or of Mary Quince, or any other person, only babbling my anguish and
+despair helplessly in the ear of heaven.
+
+'I did not think there was soche fool. Wat _enfant gaté_! My dear cheaile,
+wat a can you _mean_ by soche strange language and conduct? Wat for should
+a you weesh to display yourself in the window in soche 'orrible déshabille
+to the people in the doctor's coach?'
+
+'It was _Cousin Knollys_--Cousin Knollys. Oh, Cousin Knollys! You're
+gone--you're gone--you're _gone_!'
+
+'And if it was Lady Knollys' coach, there was certainly a coachman and a
+footman; and whoever has the coach there was young gentlemen in it. If it
+was Lady Knollys' carriage it would 'av been _worse_ than the doctor.'
+
+'It is no matter--it is all over. Oh, Cousin Monica, your poor Maud--where
+is she to turn? Is there no help?'
+
+That evening Madame visited me again, in one of her sedate and moral moods.
+She found me dejected and passive, as she had left me.
+
+'I think, Maud, there is news; but I am not certain.'
+
+I raised my head and looked at her wistfully.
+
+'I think there is letter of _bad_ news from the attorney in London.'
+
+'Oh!' I said, in a tone which I am sure implied the absolute indifference
+of dejection.
+
+'But, my dear Maud, if't be so, we shall go at once, you and me, to join
+Meess Millicent in France. La belle France! You weel like so moche! We
+shall be so gay. You cannot imagine there are such naice girl there. They
+all love a me so moche, you will be delight.'
+
+'How soon do we go?' I asked.
+
+'I do not know. Bote I was to bring in a case of eau de cologne that came
+this evening, and he laid down a letter and say:--"The blow has descended,
+Madame! My niece must hold herself in readiness." I said, "For what,
+Monsieur?" _twice_; bote he did not answer. I am sure it is _un procès_.
+They 'av ruin him. Eh bien, my dear. I suppose we shall leave this triste
+place immediately. I am so rejoice. It appears to me _un cimetière_!'
+
+'Yes, I should like to leave it,' I said, sitting up, with a great sigh and
+sunken eyes. It seemed to me that I had quite lost all sense of resentment
+towards Madame. A debility of feeling had supervened--the fatigue, I
+suppose, and prostration of the passions.
+
+'I weel make excuse to go into his room again,' said Madame; 'and I weel
+endeavor to learn something more from him, and I weel come back again to
+you in half an hour.'
+
+She departed. But in half an hour did not return. I had a dull longing to
+leave Bartram-Haugh. For me, since the departure of poor Milly, it had
+grown like the haunt of evil spirits, and to escape on any terms from it
+was a blessing unspeakable.
+
+Another half-hour passed, and another, and I grew insufferably feverish.
+I sent Mary Quince to the lobby to try and see Madame, who, I feared, was
+probably to-ing and fro-ing in and out of Uncle Silas's room.
+
+Mary returned to tell me that she had seen old Wyat, who told her that she
+thought Madame had gone to her bed half an hour before.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIX
+
+_A SUDDEN DEPARTURE_
+
+
+'Mary,' said I, 'I am miserably anxious to hear what Madame may have to
+tell; she knows the state I am in, and she would not like so much trouble
+as to look in at my door to say a word. Did you hear what she told me?'
+
+'No, Miss Maud,' she answered, rising and drawing near.
+
+'She thinks we are going to France immediately, and to leave this place
+perhaps for ever.'
+
+'Heaven be praised for that, if it be so, Miss!' said Mary, with more
+energy than was common with her, 'for there is no luck about it, and I
+don't expect to see you ever well or happy in it.'
+
+'You must take your candle, Mary, and make out her room, upstairs; I found
+it accidentally myself one evening.'
+
+'But Wyat won't let us upstairs.'
+
+'Don't mind her, Mary; I tell you to go. You must try. I can't sleep till
+we hear.'
+
+'What direction is her room in, Miss?' asked Mary.
+
+'Somewhere in _that_ direction, Mary,' I answered, pointing. 'I cannot
+describe the turns; but I think you will find it if you go along the great
+passage to your left, on getting to the top of the stairs, till you come to
+the cross-galleries, and then turn to your left; and when you have passed
+four or perhaps five doors, you must be very near it, and I am sure she
+will hear if you call.'
+
+'But will she tell me--she _is_ such a rum un, Miss?' suggested Mary.
+
+'Tell her exactly what I have said to you, and when she learns that you
+already know as much as I do, she may--unless, indeed, she wishes to
+torture me. If she won't, perhaps at least you can persuade her to come to
+me for a moment. Try, dear Mary; we can but fail.'
+
+'Will you be very lonely, Miss, while I am away?' asked Mary, uneasily, as
+she lighted her candle.
+
+'I can't help it, Mary. Go. I think if I heard we were going, I could
+almost get up and dance and sing. I can't bear this dreadful uncertainty
+any longer.'
+
+'If old Wyat is outside, I'll come back and wait here a bit, till she's out
+o' the way,' said Mary; 'and, anyhow, I'll make all the haste I can. The
+drops and the sal-volatile is here, Miss, by your hand.'
+
+And with an anxious look at me, she made her exit, softly, and did not
+immediately return, by which I concluded that she had found the way clear,
+and had gained the upper story without interruption.
+
+This little anxiety ended, its subsidence was followed by a sense of
+loneliness, and with it, of vague insecurity, which increased at last to
+such a pitch, that I wondered at my own madness in sending my companion
+away; and at last my terrors so grew, that I drew back into the farthest
+corner of the bed, with my shoulders to the wall, and my bed-clothes
+huddled about me, with only a point open to peep at.
+
+At last the door opened gently.
+
+'Who's there?' I cried, in extremity of horror, expecting I knew not whom.
+
+'Me, Miss,' whispered Mary Quince, to my unutterable relief; and with her
+candle flared, and a wild and pallid face, Mary Quince glided into the
+room, locking the door as she entered.
+
+I do not know how it was, but I found myself holding Mary fast with both my
+hands as we stood side by side on the floor.
+
+'Mary, you are terrified; for God's sake, what is the matter?' I cried.
+
+'No, Miss,' said Mary, faintly, 'not much.'
+
+'I see it in your face. What is it?'
+
+'Let me sit down, Miss. I'll tell you what I saw; only I'm just a bit
+queerish.'
+
+Mary sat down by my bed.
+
+'Get in, Miss; you'll take cold. Get into bed, and I'll tell you. It is not
+much.'
+
+I did get into bed, and gazing on Mary's frightened face, I felt a
+corresponding horror.
+
+'For mercy's sake, Mary, say what it is?'
+
+So again assuring me 'it was not much,' she gave me in a somewhat diffuse
+and tangled narrative the following facts:--
+
+On closing my door, she raised her candle above her head and surveyed the
+lobby, and seeing no one there she ascended the stairs swiftly. She passed
+along the great gallery to the left, and paused a moment at the cross
+gallery, and then recollected my directions clearly, and followed the
+passage to the right.
+
+There are doors at each side, and she had forgotten to ask me at which
+Madame's was. She opened several. In one room she was frightened by a bat,
+which had very nearly put her candle out. She went on a little, paused, and
+began to lose heart in the dismal solitude, when on a sudden, a few doors
+farther on, she thought she heard Madame's voice.
+
+She said that she knocked at the door, but receiving no answer, and hearing
+Madame still talking within, she opened it.
+
+There was a candle on the chimneypiece, and another in a stable lantern
+near the window. Madame was conversing volubly on the hearth, with her face
+toward the window, the entire frame of which had been taken from its place:
+Dickon Hawkes, the Zamiel of the wooden leg, was supporting it with one
+hand, as it leaned imperfectly against the angle of the recess. There was
+a third figure standing, buttoned up in a surtout, with a bundle of tools
+under his arm, like a glazier, and, with a silent thrill of fear, she
+distinctly recognised the features as those of Dudley Ruthyn.
+
+''Twas him, Miss, so sure as I sit here! Well, like that, they were as mute
+as mice; three pairs of eyes were on me. I don't know what made me so study
+like, but som'at told me I should not make as though I knew any but Madame;
+and so I made a courtesy, as well as I could, and I said, "Might I speak a
+word wi' ye, please, on the lobby?"
+
+'Mr. Dudley was making belief be this time to look out at window, wi' his
+back to me, and I kept looking straight on Madame, and she said, "They're
+mendin' my broken glass, Mary," walking between them and me, and coming
+close up to me very quick; and so she marched me backward out o' the door,
+prating all the time.
+
+'When we were on the lobby, she took my candle from my hand, shutting the
+door behind her, and she held the light a bit behind her ear; so'twas full
+on my face, as she looked sharp into it; and, after a bit, she said again,
+in her queer lingo--there was two panes broke in her room, and men sent for
+to mend it.
+
+'I was awful frightened when I saw Mr. Dudley, for I could not believe any
+such thing before, and I don't know how I could look her in the face as I
+did and not show it. I was as smooth and cool as yonder chimneypiece, and
+she has an awful evil eye to stan' against; but I never flinched, and I
+think she's puzzled, for as cunning as she is, whether I believe all she
+said, or knowed 'twas a pack o' stories. So I told her your message, and
+she said she had not heard another word since; but she did believe we had
+not many more days here, and would tell you if she heard to-night, when she
+brought his soup to your uncle, in half an hour's time.'
+
+I asked her, as soon as I could speak, whether she was perfectly certain as
+to the fact that the man in the surtout was Dudley, and she made answer--
+
+'I'd swear to him on that Bible, Miss.'
+
+So far from any longer wishing Madame's return that night, I trembled at
+the idea of it. Who could tell who might enter the room with her when the
+door opened to admit her?
+
+Dudley, so soon as he recovered the surprise, had turned about, evidently
+anxious to prevent recognition; Dickon Hawkes stood glowering at her. Both
+might have hope of escaping recognition in the imperfect light, for the
+candle on the chimneypiece was flaring in the air, and the light from the
+lantern fell in spots, and was confusing.
+
+What could that ruffian, Hawkes, be doing in the house? Why was Dudley
+there? Could a more ominous combination be imagined? I puzzled my
+distracted head over all Mary Quince's details, but could make nothing of
+their occupation. I know of nothing so terrifying as this kind of perpetual
+puzzling over ominous problems.
+
+You may imagine how the long hours of that night passed, and how my heart
+beat at every fancied sound outside my door.
+
+But morning came, and with its light some reassurance. Early, Madame de la
+Rougierre made her appearance; she searched my eyes darkly and shrewdly,
+but made no allusion to Mary Quince's visit. Perhaps she expected some
+question from me, and, hearing none, thought it as well to leave the
+subject at rest.
+
+She had merely come in to say that she had heard nothing since, but was now
+going to make my uncle's chocolate; and that so soon as her interview was
+ended she would see me again, and let me hear anything she should have
+gleaned.
+
+In a little while a knock came to my door, and Mary Quince was ordered by
+old Wyat into my uncle's room. She returned flushed, in a huge fuss, to say
+that I was to be up and dressed for a journey in half an hour, and to go
+straight, when dressed, to my uncle's room.
+
+It was good news; at the same time it was a shock. I was glad. I was
+stunned. I jumped out of bed, and set about my toilet with an energy quite
+new to me. Good Mary Quince was busily packing my boxes, and consulting as
+to what I should take with me, and what not.
+
+Was Mary Quince to accompany me? He had not said a word on that point; and
+I feared from his silence she was to remain. There was comfort, however, in
+this--that the separation would not be for long; I felt confident of that;
+and I was about to join Milly, whom I loved better than I could have
+believed before our separation; but whatsoever the conditions might be,
+it was an indescribable relief to have done with Bartram-Haugh, and leave
+behind me its sinister lines of circumvallation, its haunted recesses, and
+the awful spectres that had lately appeared within its walls.
+
+I stood too much in awe of my uncle to fail in presenting myself punctually
+at the close of the half-hour. I entered his sitting-room under the shadow
+of sour old Wyat's high-cauled cap; she closed the door behind me, and the
+conference commenced.
+
+Madame de la Rougierre sat there, dressed and draped for a journey, and
+with a thick black lace veil on. My uncle rose, gaunt and venerable, and
+with a harsh and severe countenance. He did not offer his hand; he made me
+a kind of bow, more of repulsion than of respect. He remained in a standing
+position, supporting his crooked frame by his hand, which he leaned on a
+despatch-box; he glared on me steadily with his wild phosphoric eyes, from
+under the dark brows I have described to you, now corrugated in lines
+indescribably stern.
+
+'You shall join my daughter at the Pension, in France; Madame de la
+Rougierre shall accompany you,' said my uncle, delivering his directions
+with the stern monotony and the measured pauses of a person dictating an
+important despatch to a secretary.' Old Mrs. Quince shall follow with me,
+or, if alone, in a week. You shall pass to-night in London; to-morrow night
+you proceed thence to Dover, and cross by the mail-packet. You shall now
+sit down and write a letter to your cousin Monica Knollys, which I will
+first read and then despatch. Tomorrow you shall write a note to Lady
+Knollys, from _London_, telling her how you have got over so much of your
+journey, and that you cannot write from Dover, as you must instantly start
+by the packet on reaching it; and that until my affairs are a little
+settled, you cannot write to her from France, as it is of high importance
+to my safety that no clue should exist as to our address. Intelligence,
+however, shall reach her through my attorneys, Archer and Sleigh, and I
+trust we shall soon return. You will, please, submit that latter note to
+Madame de la Rougierre, who has my directions to see that it contains no
+_libels_ upon my character. Now, sit down.'
+
+So, with those unpleasant words tingling in my ears, I obeyed.
+
+'_Write_,' said he, when I was duly placed. 'You shall convey the substance
+of what I say in your own language. The immiment danger this morning
+announced of an execution--remember the word,' and he spelled it for
+me--'being put into this house either this afternoon or to-morrow, compels
+me to anticipate my plans, and despatch you for France this day. That you
+are starting with an attendant.' Here an uneasy movement from Madame,
+whose dignity was perhaps excited. 'An _attendant_,' he repeated, with a
+discordant emphasis; 'and you can, if you please--but I don't _solicit_
+that justice--say that you have been as kindly treated here as my
+unfortunate circumstances would permit. That is all. You have just fifteen
+minutes to write. Begin.'
+
+I wrote accordingly. My hysterical state had made me far less combative
+than I might have proved some months since, for there was much that was
+insulting as well as formidable in his manner. I completed my letter,
+however, to his satisfaction in the prescribed time; and he said, as he
+laid it and its envelope on the table--
+
+'Please to remember that this lady is not your attendant only, but that she
+has authority to direct every detail respecting your journey, and will make
+all the necessary payments on the way. You will please, then, implicitly to
+comply with her directions. The carriage awaits you at the hall-door.'
+
+Having thus spoken, with another grim bow, and 'I wish you a safe and
+pleasant journey,' he receded a step or two, and I, with an undefinable
+kind of melancholy, though also with a sense of relief, withdrew.
+
+My letter, I afterwards found, reached Lady Knollys, accompanied by one
+from Uncle Silas, who said--'Dear Maud apprises me that she has written
+to tell you something of our movements. A sudden crisis in my miserable
+affairs compels a break-up as sudden here. Maud joins my daughter at the
+Pension, in France. I purposely omit the address, because I mean to
+reside in its vicinity until this storm shall have blown over; and as the
+consequences of some of my unhappy entanglements might pursue me even
+there, I must only for the present spare you the pain and trouble of
+keeping a secret. I am sure that for some little time you will excuse
+the girl's silence; in the meantime you shall hear of them, and perhaps
+circuitously, from me. Our dear Maud started this morning _en route_ for
+her destination, very sorry, as am I, that she could not enjoy first a
+flying visit to Elverston, but in high spirits, notwithstanding, at the new
+life and sights before her.'
+
+At the door my beloved old friend, Mary Quince, awaited me.
+
+'Am I going with you, Miss Maud?'
+
+I burst into tears and clasped her in my arms.
+
+'I'm not,' said Mary, very sorrowfully; 'and I never was from you yet,
+Miss, since you wasn't the length of my arm.'
+
+And kind old Mary began to cry with me.
+
+'Bote you are coming in a few days, Mary Quince,' expostulated Madame. 'I
+wonder you are soche fool. What is two, three days? Bah! nonsense, girl.'
+
+Another farewell to poor Mary Quince, quite bewildered at the suddenness of
+her bereavement. A serious and tremulous bow from our little old butler on
+the steps. Madame bawling through the open window to the driver to make
+good speed, and remember that we had but nineteen minutes to reach the
+station. Away we went. Old Crowle's iron _grille_ rolled back before us.
+I looked on the receding landscape, the giant trees--the palatial,
+time-stained mansion. A strange conflict of feelings, sweet and bitter,
+rose and mingled in the reverie. Had I been too hard and suspicious with
+the inhabitants of that old house of my family? Was my uncle _justly_
+indignant? Was I ever again to know such pleasant rambles as some of those
+I had enjoyed with dear Millicent through the wild and beautiful woodlands
+I was leaving behind me? And there, with my latest glimpse of the front
+of Bartram-Haugh, I beheld dear old Mary Quince gazing after us. Again
+my tears flowed. I waved my handkerchief from the window; and now the
+park-wall hid all from view, and at a great pace, throught the steep wooded
+glen, with the rocky and precipitous character of a ravine, we glided; and
+when the road next emerged, Bartram-Haugh was a misty mass of forest and
+chimneys, slope and hollow, and we within a few minutes of the station.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LX
+
+_THE JOURNEY_
+
+
+Waiting for the train, as we stood upon the platform, I looked back again
+toward the wooded uplands of Bartram; and far behind, the fine range of
+mountains, azure and soft in the distance, beyond which lay beloved old
+Knowl, and my lost father and mother, and the scenes of my childhood, never
+embittered except by the sibyl who sat beside me.
+
+Under happier circumstances I should have been, at my then early age, quite
+wild with pleasurable excitement on entering London for the first time.
+But black Care sat by me, with her pale hand in mine: a voice of fear and
+warning, whose words I could not catch, was always in my ear. We drove
+through London, amid the glare of lamps, toward the West-end, and for a
+little while the sense of novelty and curiosity overcame my despondency,
+and I peeped eagerly from the window; while Madame, who was in high
+good-humour, spite of the fatigues of our long railway flight, screeched
+scraps of topographic information in my ear; for London was a picture-book
+in which she was well read.
+
+'That is Euston Square, my dear--Russell Square. Here is Oxford
+Street--Haymarket. See, there is the Opera House--Hair Majesty's Theatre.
+See all the carriages waiting;' and so on, till we reached at length a
+little narrow street, which she told me was off Piccadilly, where we drew
+up before a private house, as it seemed to me--a family hotel--and I was
+glad to be at rest for the night.
+
+Fatigued with the peculiar fatigue of railway travelling, dusty, a little
+chilly, with eyes aching and wearied, I ascended the stairs silently, our
+garrulous and bustling landlady leading the way, and telling her oft-told
+story of the house, its noble owner in old time, and how those fine
+drawing-rooms were taken every year during the Session by the Bishop of
+Rochet-on-Copeley, and at last into our double-bedded room.
+
+I would fain have been alone, but I was too tired and dejected to care very
+much for anything.
+
+At tea, Madame expanded in spirit, like a giant refreshed, and chattered
+and sang; and at last, seeing that I was nodding, advised my going to bed,
+while she ran across the street to see 'her dear old friend, Mademoiselle
+St. Eloi, who was sure to be up, and would be offended if she failed to
+make her ever so short a call.'
+
+I cared little what she said, and was glad to be rid of her even for a
+short time, and was soon fast asleep.
+
+I saw her, I know not how much later, poking about the room, like a figure
+in a dream, and taking off her things.
+
+She had her breakfast in bed next morning, and I was, to my comfort, left
+to take mine in solitary possession of our sitting-room; where I began to
+wonder how little annoyance I had as yet suffered from her company, and
+began to speculate upon the chances of my making the journey with tolerable
+comfort.
+
+Our hostess gave me five minutes of her valuable time. Her talk ran chiefly
+upon nuns and convents, and her old acquaintance with Madame; and it seemed
+to me that she had at one time driven a kind of trade, no doubt profitable
+enough, in escorting young ladies to establishments on the Continent; and
+although I did not then quite understand the tone in which she spoke to me,
+I often thought afterwards that Madame had represented me as a young person
+destined for the holy vocation of the veil.
+
+When she was gone, I sat listlessly looking out of the window, and saw some
+chance equipages drive by, and now and then a fashionable pedestrian; and
+wondered if this quiet thoroughfare could really be one of the arteries so
+near the heart of the tumultuous capital.
+
+I think my nervous vitality must have burnt very low just then, for I felt
+perfectly indifferent about all the novelty and world of wonders beyond,
+and should have hated to leave the dull tranquillity of my window for an
+excursion through the splendours of the unseen streets and palaces that
+surrounded me.
+
+It was one o'clock before Madame joined me; and finding me in this dull
+mood, she did not press me to accompany her in her drive, no doubt well
+pleased to be rid of me.
+
+After tea that evening, as we sat alone in our room, she entertained me
+with some very odd conversation--at the time unintelligible--but which
+acquired a tolerably distinct meaning from the events that followed.
+
+Two or three times that day Madame appeared to me on the point of saying
+something of grave import, as she scanned me with her bleak wicked stare.
+
+It was a peculiarity of hers, that whenever she was pressed upon by an
+anxiety that really troubled her, her countenance did not look sad or
+solicitous, as other people's would, but simply wicked. Her great gaunt
+mouth was compressed and drawn down firmly at the corners, and her eyes
+glared with a dismal scowl.
+
+At last she said suddenly--
+
+'Are you ever grateful, Maud?'
+
+'I hope so, Madame,' I answered.
+
+'And how do you show your gratitude? For instance, would a you do great
+deal for a person who would run _risque_ for your sake?'
+
+It struck me all at once that she was sounding me about poor Meg Hawkes,
+whose fidelity, notwithstanding the treason or cowardice of her lover, Tom
+Brice, I never doubted; and I grew at once wary and reserved.
+
+'I know of no opportunity, thank Heaven, for any such service, Madame. How
+can anyone serve me at present, by themselves incurring danger? What do you
+mean?'
+
+'Do you like, for example, to go to that French Pension? Would you not like
+better some other arrangement?'
+
+'Of course there are other arrangements I should like better; but I see no
+use in talking of them; they are not to be,' I answered.
+
+'What other arrangements do you mean, my dear cheaile?' enquired Madame.
+'You mean, I suppose, you would like better to go to Lady Knollys?'
+
+'My uncle does not choose it at present; and except with his consent
+nothing can be done!'
+
+'He weel never consent, dear cheaile.'
+
+'But he _has_ consented--not immediately indeed, but in a short time, when
+his affairs are settled.'
+
+'_Lanternes_! They will never be settle,' said Madame.
+
+'At all events, for the present I am to go to France. Milly seems very
+happy, and I dare say I shall like it too. I am very glad to leave
+Bartram-Haugh, at all events.'
+
+'But your uncle weel bring you back there,' said Madame, drily.
+
+'It is doubtful whether he will ever return to Bartram himself,' I said.
+
+'Ah!' said Madame, with a long-drawn nasal intonation, 'you theenk I hate
+you. You are quaite wrong, my dear Maud. I am, on the contrary, very much
+interested for you--I am, I assure you, dear a cheaile.'
+
+And she laid her great hand, with joints misshapen by old chilblains, upon
+the back of mine. I looked up in her face. She was not smiling. On the
+contrary, her wide mouth was drawn down at the corners ruefully, as before,
+and she gazed on my face with a scowl from her abysmal eyes.
+
+I used to think the flare of that irony which lighted her face so often
+immeasurably worse than any other expression she could assume; but this
+lack-lustre stare and dismal collapse of feature was more wicked still.
+
+'Suppose I should bring you to Lady Knollys, and place you in her charge,
+what would a you do then for poor Madame?' said this dark spectre.
+
+I was inwardly startled at these words. I looked into her unsearchable
+face, but could draw thence nothing but fear. Had she made the same
+overture only two days since, I think I would have offered her half my
+fortune. But circumstances were altered. I was no longer in the panic of
+despair. The lesson I had received from Tom Brice was fresh in my mind, and
+my profound distrust of her was uppermost. I saw before me only a tempter
+and betrayer, and said--
+
+'Do you mean to imply, Madame, that my guardian is not to be trusted, and
+that I ought to make my escape from him, and that you are really willing to
+aid me in doing so?'
+
+This, you see, was turning the tables upon her. I looked her steadily in
+the face as I spoke. She returned my gaze with a strange stare and a gape,
+which haunted me long after; and it seemed as we sat in utter silence that
+each was rather horribly fascinated by the other's gaze.
+
+At last she shut her mouth sternly, and eyes me with a more determined and
+meaning scowl, and then said in a low tone--
+
+'I believe, Maud, that you are a cunning and wicked little thing.'
+
+'Wisdom is not cunning, Madame; nor is it wicked to ask your meaning in
+explicit language,' I replied.
+
+'And so, you clever cheaile, we two sit here, playing at a game of chess,
+over this little table, to decide which shall destroy the other--is it not
+so?'
+
+'I will not allow you to destroy me,' I retorted, with a sudden flash.
+
+Madame stood up, and rubbed her mouth with her open hand. She looked to me
+like some evil being seen in a dream. I was frightened.
+
+'You are going to hurt me!' I ejaculated, scarce knowing what I said.
+
+'If I were, you deserve it. You are very _malicious_, ma chère: or, it may
+be, only very stupid.'
+
+A knock came to the door.
+
+'Come in,' I cried, with a glad sense of relief.
+
+A maid entered.
+
+'A letter, please, 'm,' she said, handing it to me.
+
+'For _me_,' snarled Madame, snatching it.
+
+I had seen my uncle's hand, and the Feltram post-mark.
+
+Madame broke the seal, and read. It seemed but a word, for she turned it
+about after the first momentary glance, and examined the interior of the
+envelope, and then returned to the line she had already read.
+
+She folded the letter again, drawing her nails in a sharp pinch along the
+creases, as she stared in a blank, hesitating way at me.
+
+'You are stupid little ingrate, I am employ by Monsieur Ruthyn, and of
+course I am faithful to my employer. I do not want to talk to you. _There_,
+you may read that.'
+
+She jerked the letter before me on the table. It contained but these
+words:--
+
+Bartram-Haugh:
+
+'_30th January, 1845_.
+
+'MY DEAR MADAME,
+
+'Be so good as to take the half-past eight o'clock train to _Dover_
+to-night. Beds are prepared.--Yours very truly,
+
+SILAS RUTHYN.'
+
+I cannot say what it was in this short advice that struck me with fear. Was
+it the thick line beneath the word 'Dover,' that was so uncalled for, and
+gave me a faint but terrible sense of something preconcerted?
+
+I said to Madame--
+
+'Why is "Dover" underlined?'
+
+'I do not know, little fool, no more than you. How can I tell what is
+passing in your oncle's head when he make that a mark?'
+
+'Has it not a meaning, Madame?'
+
+'How can you talk like that?' she answered, more in her old way. 'You are
+either mocking of me, or you are becoming truly a fool!'
+
+She rang the bell, called for our bill, saw our hostess; while I made a few
+hasty prepartions in my room.
+
+'You need not look after the trunks--they will follow us all right. Let us
+go, cheaile--we 'av half an hour only to reach the train.'
+
+No one ever fussed like Madame when occasion offered. There was a cab at
+the door, into which she hurried me. I assumed that she would give all
+needful directions, and leaned back, very weary and sleepy already, though
+it was so early, listening to her farewell screamed from the cab-step, and
+seeing her black cloak flitting and flapping this way and that, like the
+wings of a raven disturbed over its prey.
+
+In she got, and away we drove through a glare of lamps, and shop-windows,
+still open; gas everywhere, and cabs, busses, and carriages, still
+thundering through the streets. I was too tired and too depressed to look
+at those things. Madame, on the contrary, had her head out of the window
+till we reached the station.
+
+'Where are the rest of the boxes?' I asked, as Madame placed me in charge
+of her box and my bag in the office of the terminus.
+
+'They will follow with Boots in another cab, and will come safe with us in
+this train. Mind those two, we weel bring in the carriage with us.'
+
+So into a carriage we got; in came Madame's box and my bag; Madame stood at
+the door, and, I think, frightened away intending passengers, by her size
+and shrillness.
+
+At last the bell rang her into her place, the door clapt, the whistle
+sounded, and we were off.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXI
+
+_OUR BED-CHAMBER_
+
+
+I had passed a miserable night, and, indeed, for many nights had not had my
+due proportion of sleep. Still I sometimes fancy that I may have swallowed
+something in my tea that helped to make me so irresistibly drowsy. It was a
+very dark night--no moon, and the stars soon hid by the gathering clouds.
+Madame sat silent, and ruminating in her place, with her rugs about her.
+I, in my corner similarly enveloped, tried to keep awake. Madame plainly
+thought I was asleep already, for she stole a leather flask from her
+pocket, and applied it to her lips, causing an aroma of brandy.
+
+But it was vain struggling against the influence that was stealing over me,
+and I was soon in a profound and dreamless slumber.
+
+Madame awoke me at last, in a huge fuss. She had got out all our things and
+hurried them away to a close carriage which was awaiting us. It was still
+dark and starless. We got along the platform, I half asleep, the porter
+carrying our rugs, by the glare of a pair of gas-jets in the wall, and out
+by a small door at the end.
+
+I remember that Madame, contrary to her wont, gave the man some money. By
+the puzzling light of the carriage-lamps we got in and took our seats.
+
+'Go on,' screamed Madame, and drew up the window with a great chuck; and we
+were enclosed in darkness and silence, the most favourable conditions for
+thought.
+
+My sleep had not restored me as it might; I felt feverish, fatigued, and
+still very drowsy, though unable to sleep as I had done.
+
+I dozed by fits and starts, and lay awake, or half-awake, sometimes, not
+thinking but in a way imagining what kind of a place Dover would be; but
+too tired and listless to ask Madame any questions, and merely seeing the
+hedges, grey in the lamplight, glide backward into darkness, as I leaned
+back.
+
+We turned off the main road, at right angles, and drew up.
+
+'Get down and poosh it, it is open,' screamed Madame from the window.
+
+A gate, I suppose, was thus passed; for when we resumed our brisk trot,
+Madame bawled across the carriage--
+
+'We are now in the 'otel grounds.'
+
+And so all again was darkness and silence, and I fell into another doze,
+from which, on waking, I found that we had come to a standstill, and Madame
+was standing on the low step of an open door, paying the driver. She,
+herself, pulled her box and the bag in. I was too tired to care what had
+become of the rest of our luggage.
+
+I descended, glancing to the right and left, but there was nothing visible
+but a patch of light from the lamps on a paved ground and on the wall.
+
+We stepped into the hall or vestibule, and Madame shut the door, and I
+thought I heard the key turn in it. We were in total darkness.
+
+'Where are the lights, Madame--where are the people?' I asked, more awake
+than I had been.
+
+''Tis pass three o'clock, cheaile, bote there is always light here.' She
+was groping at the side; and in a moment more lighted a lucifer match, and
+so a bedroom candle.
+
+We were in a flagged lobby, under an archway at the right, and at the left
+of which opened long flagged passages, lost in darkness; a winding stair,
+barely wide enough to admit Madame, dragging her box, led upward under a
+doorway, in a corner at the right.
+
+'Come, dear cheaile, take your bag; don't mind the rugs, they are safe
+enough.'
+
+'But where are we to go? There is no one!' I said, looking round in wonder.
+It certainly was a strange reception at an hotel.
+
+'Never mind, my dear cheaile. They know me here, and I have always the same
+room ready when I write for it. Follow me quaitely.'
+
+So she mounted, carrying the candle. The stair was steep, and the march
+long. We halted at the second landing, and entered a gaunt, grimy passage.
+All the way up we had not heard a single sound of life, nor seen a human
+being, nor so much as passed a gaslight.
+
+'Viola! here 'tis, my dear old room. Enter, dearest Maud.'
+
+And so I did. The room was large and lofty, but shabby and dismal. There
+was a tall four-post bed, with its foot beside the window, hung with
+dark-green curtains, of some plush or velvet texture, that looked like
+a dusty pall. The remaining furniture was scant and old, and a ravelled
+square of threadbare carpet covered a patch of floor at the bedside. The
+room was grim and large, and had a cold, vault-like atmosphere, as if
+long uninhabited; but there were cinders in the grate and under it. The
+imperfect light of our mutton-fat candle made all this look still more
+comfortless.
+
+Madame placed the candle on the chimneypiece, locked the door, and put the
+key in her pocket.
+
+'I always do so in '_otel_' said she, with a wink at me.
+
+And, then with a long 'ha!' expressive of fatigue and relief, she threw
+herself into a chair.
+
+'So 'ere we are at last!' said she; 'I'm glad. _There's_ your bed, Maud.
+_Mine_ is in the dressing-room.'
+
+She took the candle, and I went in with her. A shabby press bed, a
+chair, and table were all its furniture; it was rather a closet than a
+dressing-room, and had no door except that through which we had entered. So
+we returned, and very tired, wondering, I sat down on the side of my bed
+and yawned.
+
+'I hope they will call us in time for the packet,' I said.
+
+'Oh yes, they never fail,' she answered, looking steadfastly on her box,
+which she was diligently uncording.
+
+Uninviting as was my bed, I was longing to lie down in it; and having made
+those ablutions which our journey rendered necessary, I at length lay
+down, having first religiously stuck my talismanic pin, with the head of
+sealing-wax, into the bolster.
+
+Nothing escaped the restless eye of Madame.
+
+'Wat is that, dear cheaile?' she enquired, drawing near and scrutinising
+the head of the gipsy charm, which showed like a little ladybird newly
+lighted on the sheet.
+
+'Nothing--a charm--folly. Pray, Madame, allow me to go to sleep.'
+
+So, with another look and a little twiddle between her finger and thumb,
+she seemed satisfied; but, unhappily for me, she did not seem at all
+sleepy. She busied herself in unpacking and displaying over the back of the
+chair a whole series of London purchases--silk dresses, a shawl, a sort of
+lace demi-coiffure then in vogue, and a variety of other articles.
+
+The vainest and most slammakin of women--the merest slut at home,
+a milliner's lay figure out of doors--she had one square foot of
+looking-glass upon the chimneypiece, and therein tried effects, and
+conjured up grotesque simpers upon her sinister and weary face.
+
+I knew that the sure way to prolong this worry was to express my uneasiness
+under it, so I bore it as quietly as I could; and at last fell fast asleep
+with the gaunt image of Madame, with a festoon of grey silk with a cerise
+stripe, pinched up in her finger and thumb, and smiling over her shoulder
+across it into the little shaving-glass that stood on the chimney.
+
+I awoke suddenly in the morning, and sat up in my bed, having for a moment
+forgotten all about our travelling. A moment more, however, brought all
+back again.
+
+'Are we in time, Madame?'
+
+'For the packet?' she enquired, with one of her charming smiles, and
+cutting a caper on the floor. 'To be sure; you don't suppose they would
+forget. We have two hours yet to wait.'
+
+'Can we see the sea from the window?'
+
+'No, dearest cheaile; you will see't time enough.
+
+'I'd like to get up,' I said.
+
+'Time enough, my dear Maud; you are fatigued; are you sure you feel quite
+well?'
+
+'Well enough to get up; I should be better, I think, out of bed.'
+
+'There is no hurry, you know; you need not even go by the next packet. Your
+uncle, he tell me, I may use my discretion.'
+
+'Is there any water?'
+
+'They will bring some.'
+
+'Please, Madame, ring the bell.'
+
+She pulled it with alacrity. I afterwards learnt that it did not ring.
+
+'What has become of my gipsy pin?' I demanded, with an unaccountable
+sinking of the heart.
+
+'Oh! the little pin with the red top? maybe it 'as fall on the ground; we
+weel find when you get up.'
+
+I suspected that she had taken it merely to spite me. It would have been
+quite the thing she would have liked. I cannot describe to you how the loss
+of this little 'charm' depressed and excited me. I searched the bed; I
+turned over all the bed-clothes; I searched in and outside; at last I gave
+up.
+
+'How odious!' I cried; 'somebody has stolen it merely to vex me.'
+
+And, like a fool as I was, I threw myself on my face on the bed and wept,
+partly in anger, partly in dismay.
+
+After a time, however, this blew over. I had a hope of recovering it.
+If Madame had stolen it, it would turn up yet. But in the meantime its
+disappearance troubled me like an omen.
+
+'I am afraid, my dear cheaile, you are not very well. It is really very odd
+you should make such fuss about a pin! Nobody would believe! Do you not
+theenk it would be a good plan to take a your breakfast in your bed?
+
+She continued to urge this point for some time. At last, however, having
+by this time quite recovered my self-command, and resolved to preserve
+ostensibly fair terms with Madame, who could contribute so essentially to
+make me wretched during the rest of my journey, and possibly to prejudice
+me very seriously on my arrival, I said quietly--
+
+'Well, Madame, I know it is very silly; but I had kept that foolish little
+pin so long and so carefully, that I had grown quite fond of it; but I
+suppose it is lost, and I must content myself, though I cannot laugh as you
+do. So I will get up now, and dress.'
+
+'I think you will do well to get all the repose you can,' answered Madame;
+'but as you please,' she added, observing that I was getting up.
+
+So soon as I had got some of my things on, I said--
+
+'Is there a pretty view from the window?'
+
+'No,' said Madame.
+
+I looked out and saw a dreary quadrangle of cut stone, in one side of which
+my window was placed. As I looked a dream rose up before me.
+
+'This hotel,' I said, in a puzzled way. '_Is_ it a hotel? Why this is just
+like--it _is_ the inner court of Bartram-Haugh!'
+
+Madame clapped her large hands together, made a fantastic _chassé_ on the
+floor, burst into a great nasal laugh like the scream of a parrot, and then
+said--
+
+'Well, dearest Maud, is not clever trick?'
+
+I was so utterly confounded that I could only stare about me in stupid
+silence, a spectacle which renewed Madame's peals of laughter.
+
+'We are at Bartram-Haugh!' I repeated, in utter consternation. 'How was
+this done?'
+
+I had no reply but shrieks of laughter, and one of those Walpurgis dances
+in which she excelled.
+
+'It is a mistake--is it? _What_ is it?'
+
+'All a mistake, of course. Bartram-Haugh, it is so like Dover, as all
+philosophers know.'
+
+I sat down in total silence, looking out into the deep and dark enclosure,
+and trying to comprehend the reality and the meaning of all this.
+
+'Well, Madame, I suppose you will be able to satisfy my uncle of your
+fidelity and intelligence. But to me it seems that his money has been
+ill-spent, and his directions anything but well observed.'
+
+'Ah, ha! Never mind; I think he will forgive me,' laughed Madame.
+
+Her tone frightened me. I began to think, with a vague but overpowering
+sense of danger, that she had acted under the Machiavellian directions of
+her superior.
+
+'You have brought me back, then, by my uncle's orders?'
+
+'Did I say so?'
+
+'No; but what you have said can have no other meaning, though I can't
+believe it. And why have I been brought here? What is the object of all
+this duplicity and trick. I _will_ know. It is not possible that my uncle,
+a gentleman and a kinsman, can be privy to so disreputable a manouvre.'
+
+'First you will eat your breakfast, dear Maud; next you can tell your story
+to your uncle, Monsieur Ruthyn; and then you shall hear what he thinks of
+my so terrible misconduct. What nonsense, cheaile! Can you not think how
+many things may 'appen to change a your uncle's plans? Is he not in danger
+to be arrest? Bah! You are cheaile still; you cannot have intelligence more
+than a cheaile. Dress yourself, and I will order breakfast.'
+
+I could not comprehend the strategy which had been practised on me. Why had
+I been so shamelessly deceived? If it were decided that I should remain
+here, for what imaginable reason had I been sent so far on my journey to
+France? Why had I been conveyed back with such mystery? Why was I removed
+to this uncomfortable and desolate room, on the same floor with the
+apartment in which Charke had met his death, and with no window commanding
+the front of the house, and no view but the deep and weed-choked court,
+that looked like a deserted churchyard in a city?
+
+'I suppose I may go to my own room?' I said.
+
+'Not to-day, my dear cheaile, for it was all disarrange when we go 'way;
+'twill be ready again in two three days.'
+
+'Where is Mary Quince?' I asked.
+
+'Mary Quince!--she has follow us to France,' said Madame, making what in
+Ireland they call a bull.
+
+'They are not sure where they will go or what will do for day or two more.
+I will go and get breakfast. Adieu for a moment.'
+
+Madame was out of the door as she said this, and I thought I heard the key
+turn in the lock.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXII
+
+_A WELL-KNOWN FACE LOOKS IN_
+
+
+You who have never experienced it can have no idea how angry and frightened
+you become under the sinister insult of being locked into a room, as on
+trying the door I found I was.
+
+The key was in the lock; I could see it through the hole. I called after
+Madame, I shook at the solid oak-door, beat upon it with my hands, kicked
+it--but all to no purpose.
+
+I rushed into the next room, forgetting--if indeed I had observed it, that
+there was no door from it upon the gallery. I turned round in an angry and
+dismayed perplexity, and, like prisoners in romances, examined the windows.
+
+I was shocked and affrighted on discovering in reality what they
+occasionally find--a series of iron bars crossing the window! They were
+firmly secured in the oak woodwork of the window-frame, and each window
+was, besides, so compactly screwed down that it could not open. This
+bedroom was converted into a prison. A momentary hope flashed on
+me--perhaps all the windows were secured alike! But it was no such thing:
+these gaol-like precautions were confined to the windows to which I had
+access.
+
+For a few minutes I felt quite distracted; but I bethought me that I must
+now, if ever, control my terrors and exert whatever faculties I possessed.
+
+I stood upon a chair and examined the oak-work. I thought I detected marks
+of new chiselling here and there. The screws, too, looked new; and they
+and the scars on the woodwork were freshly smeared over with some coloured
+stuff by way of disguise.
+
+While I was making these observations, I heard the key stealthily stirred.
+I suspect that Madame wished to surprise me. Her approaching step, indeed,
+was seldom audible; she had the soft tread of the feline tribe.
+
+I was standing in the centre of the room confronting her when she entered.
+
+'Why did you lock the door, Madame?' I demanded.
+
+She slipped in suddenly with an insidious smirk, and locked the door
+hastily.
+
+'Hish!' whispered Madame, raising her broad palm; and then screwing in her
+cheeks, she made an ogle over her shoulder in the direction of the passage.
+
+'Hish! be quiate, cheaile, weel you, and I weel tale you everything
+presently.'
+
+She paused, with her ear laid to the door.
+
+'Now I can speak, ma chère; I weel tale a you there is bailiff in the
+house, two, three, four soche impertinent fallows! They have another as bad
+as themselve to make a leest of the furniture: we most keep them out of
+these rooms, dear Maud.'
+
+'You left the key in the door on the outside,' I retorted; 'that was not to
+keep them out, but me in, Madame.'
+
+'_Deed_ I leave the key in the door?' ejaculated Madame, with both hands
+raised, and such a genuine look of consternation as for a moment shook me.
+
+It was the nature of this woman's deceptions that they often puzzled though
+they seldom convinced me.
+
+'I re-ally think, Maud, all those so frequent changes and excite-ments they
+weel overturn my poor head.'
+
+'And the windows are secured with iron bars--what are they for?' I
+whispered sternly, pointing with my finger at these grim securities.
+
+'That is for more a than forty years, when Sir Phileep Aylmer was to reside
+here, and had this room for his children's nursery, and was afraid they
+should fall out.'
+
+'But if you look you will find these bars have been put here very recently:
+the screws and marks are quite new.'
+
+'_Eendeed!_' ejaculated Madame, with prolonged emphasis, in precisely the
+same consternation. 'Why, my dear, they told a me down stair what I have
+tell a you, when I ask the reason! Late a me see.'
+
+And Madame mounted on a chair, and made her scrutiny with much curiosity,
+but could not agree with me as to the very recent date of the carpentry.
+
+There is nothing, I think, so exasperating as that sort of falsehood which
+affects not to see what is quite palpable.
+
+'Do you mean to say, Madame, that you really think those chisellings and
+screws are forty years old?'
+
+'How can I tell, cheaile? What does signify whether it is forty or only
+fourteen years? Bah! we av other theeng to theenk about. Those villain men!
+I am glad to see bar and bolt, and lock and key, at least, to our room, to
+keep soche faylows out!'
+
+At that moment a knock came to the door, and Madame's nasal 'in moment'
+answered promptly, and she opened the door, stealthily popping out her
+head.
+
+'Oh, that is all right; go you long, no ting more, go way.'
+
+'Who's there?' I cried.
+
+'Hold a your tongue,' said Madame imperiously to the visitor, whose voice I
+fancied I recognised--'_go_ way.'
+
+Out slipped Madame again, locking the door; but this time she returned
+immediately, bearing a tray with breakfast.
+
+I think she fancied that I would perhaps attempt to break away and escape;
+but I had no such thought at that moment. She hastily set down the tray on
+the floor at the threshold, locking the door as before.
+
+My share of breakfast was a little tea; but Madame's digestion was seldom
+disturbed by her sympathies, and she ate voraciously. During this process
+there was a silence unusual in her company; but when her meal was ended she
+proposed a reconnaissance, professing much uncertainty as to whether my
+Uncle had been arrested or not.
+
+'And in case the poor old gentleman be poot in what you call stone jug,
+where are _we_ to go my dear Maud--to Knowl or to Elverston? You must
+direct.'
+
+And so she disappeared, turning the key in the door as before. It was an
+old custom of hers, locking herself in her room, and leaving the key in the
+lock; and the habit prevailed, for she left it there again.
+
+With a heavy heart I completed my simple toilet, wondering all the while
+how much of Madame's story might be false and how much, if any, true. Then
+I looked out upon the dingy courtyard below, in its deep damp shadow, and
+thought, 'How could an assassin have scaled that height in safety, and
+entered so noiselessly as not to awaken the slumbering gamester?' Then
+there were the iron bars across my window. What a fool had I been to object
+to that security!
+
+I was labouring hard to reassure myself, and keep all ghastly suspicions at
+arm's length. But I wished that my room had been to the front of the house,
+with some view less dismal.
+
+Lost in these ruminations of fear, as I stood at the window I was startled
+by the sound of a sharp tread on the lobby, and by the key turning in the
+lock of my door.
+
+In a panic I sprang back into the corner, and stood with my eyes fixed
+upon the door. It opened a little, and the black head of Meg Hawkes was
+introduced.
+
+'Oh, Meg!' I cried; 'thank God!'
+
+'I guessed'twas you, Miss Maud. I am feared, Miss.'
+
+The miller's daughter was pale, and her eyes, I thought, were red and
+swollen.
+
+'Oh, Meg! for God's sake, what is it all?'
+
+'I darn't come in. The old un's gone down, and locked the cross-door, and
+left me to watch. They think I care nout about ye, no more nor themselves.
+I donna know all, but summat more nor her. They tell her nout, she's so
+gi'n to drink; they say she's not safe, an' awful quarrelsome. I hear a
+deal when fayther and Master Dudley be a-talkin' in the mill. They think,
+comin' in an' out, I don't mind; but I put one think an' t'other together.
+An' don't ye eat nor drink nout here, Miss; hide away this; it's black
+enough, but wholesome anyhow!' and she slipt a piece of a coarse loaf from
+under her apron. '_Hide_ it mind. Drink nout but the water in the jug
+there--it's clean spring.'
+
+'Oh, Meg! Oh, Meg! I know what you mean,' said I, faintly.
+
+'Ay, Miss, I'm feared they'll try it; they'll try to make away wi' ye
+somehow. I'm goin' to your friends arter dark; I darn't try it no sooner.
+I'll git awa to Ellerston, to your lady-cousin, and I'll bring 'em back wi'
+me in a rin; so keep a good hairt, lass. Meg Hawkes will stan' to ye. Ye
+were better to me than fayther and mother, and a';' and she clasped me
+round the waist, and buried her head in my dress; 'an I'll gie my life for
+ye, darling, and if they hurt ye I'll kill myself.'
+
+She recovered her sterner mood quickly--
+
+'Not a word, lass,' she said, in her old tone. 'Don't ye try to git
+away--they'll _kill_ ye--ye _can't_ do't. Leave a' to me. It won't be,
+whatever it is, till two or three o'clock in the morning. I'll ha'e them a'
+here long afore; so keep a brave heart--there's a darling.'
+
+I suppose she heard, or fancied she heard, a step approaching, for she
+said--
+
+'Hish!'
+
+Her pale wild face vanished, the door shut quickly and softly, and the key
+turned again in the lock.
+
+Meg, in her rude way, had spoken softly--almost under her breath; but no
+prophecy shrieked by the Pythoness ever thundered so madly in the ears of
+the hearer. I dare say that Meg fancied I was marvellously little moved by
+her words. I felt my gaze grow intense, and my flesh and bones literally
+freeze. She did not know that every word she spoke seemed to burst like a
+blaze in my brain. She had delivered her frightful warning, and told
+her story coarsely and bluntly, which, in effect, means distinctly and
+concisely; and, I dare say, the announcement so made, like a quick bold
+incision in surgery, was more tolerable than the slow imperfect mangling,
+which falters and recedes and equivocates with torture. Madame was long
+away. I sat down at the window, and tried to appreciate my dreadful
+situation. I was stupid--the imagery was all frightful; but I beheld it as
+we sometimes see horrors--heads cut off and houses burnt--in a dream, and
+without the corresponding emotions. It did not seem as if all this were
+really happening to me. I remember sitting at the window, and looking and
+blinking at the opposite side of the building, like a person unable but
+striving to see an object distinctly, and every minute pressing my hand to
+the side of my head and saying--
+
+'Oh, it won't be--it won't be--Oh no!--never!--it could not be!' And in
+this stunned state Madame found me on her return.
+
+But the valley of the shadow of death has its varieties of dread. The
+'horror of great darkness' is disturbed by voices and illumed by sights.
+There are periods of incapacity and collapse, followed by paroxysms
+of active terror. Thus in my journey during those long hours I found
+it--agonies subsiding into lethargies, and these breaking again into
+frenzy. I sometimes wonder how I carried my reason safely through the
+ordeal.
+
+Madame locked the door, and amused herself with her own business, without
+minding me, humming little nasal snatches of French airs, as she smirked on
+her silken purchases displayed in the daylight. Suddenly it struck me that
+it was very dark, considering how early it was. I looked at my watch;
+it seemed to me a great effort of concentration to understand it. Four
+o'clock, it said. Four o'clock! It would be dark at five--_night_ in one
+hour!
+
+'Madame, what o'clock is it? Is it evening?' I cried with my hand to my
+forehead, like a person puzzled.
+
+'Two three minutes past four. It had five minutes to four when I came
+upstairs,' answered she, without interrupting her examination of a piece of
+darned lace which she was holding close to her eyes at the window.
+
+'Oh, Madame! _Madame!_ I'm frightened,' cried I, with a wild and piteous
+voice, grasping her arm, and looking up, as shipwrecked people may their
+last to heaven, into her inexorable eyes. Madame looked frightened too, I
+thought, as she stared into my face. At last she said, rather angrily, and
+shaking her arm loose--
+
+'What you mean, cheaile?'
+
+'Oh save me, Madame!--oh save me!--oh save me, Madame!' I pleaded, with the
+wild monotony of perfect terror, grasping and clinging to her dress, and
+looking up, with an agonised face, into the eyes of that shadowy Atropos.
+
+'Save a you, indeed! Save! What _niaiserie_!'
+
+'Oh, Madame! Oh, _dear_ Madame! for God's sake, only get me away--get me
+from this, and I'll do everything you ask me all my life--I will--_indeed_,
+Madame, I will! Oh save me! save me! _save_ me!'
+
+I was clinging to Madame as to my guardian angel in my agony.
+
+'And who told you, cheaile, you are in any danger?' demanded Madame,
+looking down on me with a black and witchlike stare.
+
+'I am, Madame--I am--in great danger! Oh, Madame, think of me--take pity on
+me! I have none to help me--there is no one but God and you!'
+
+Madame all this time viewed me with the same dismal stare, like a sorceress
+reading futurity in my face.
+
+'Well, maybe you are--how can I tell? Maybe your uncle is mad--maybe you
+are mad. You have been my enemy always--why should I care?'
+
+Again I burst into wild entreaty, and, clasping her fast, poured forth my
+supplications with the bitterness of death.
+
+'I have no confidence in you, little Maud; you are little rogue--petite
+traîtresse! Reflect, if you can, how you 'av always treat Madame. You 'av
+attempt to ruin me--you conspire with the bad domestics at Knowl to destroy
+me--and you expect me here to take a your part! You would never listen to
+me--you 'ad no mercy for me--you join to hunt me away from your house like
+wolf. Well, what you expect to find me now? _Bah_!'
+
+This terrific 'Bah!' with a long nasal yell of scorn, rang in my ears like
+a clap of thunder.
+
+'I say you are mad, petite insolente, to suppose I should care for you more
+than the poor hare it will care for the hound--more than the bird who has
+escape will love the oiseleur. I do not care--I ought not care. It is your
+turn to suffer. Lie down on your bed there, and suffer quaitely.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXIII
+
+_SPICED CLARET_
+
+
+I did not lie down; but I despaired. I walked round and round the room,
+wringing my hands in utter distraction. I threw myself at the bedside on my
+knees. I could not pray; I could only shiver and moan, with hands clasped,
+and eyes of horror turned up to heaven. I think Madame was, in her
+malignant way, perplexed. That some evil was intended me I am sure she was
+persuaded; but I dare say Meg Hawkes had said rightly in telling me that
+she was not fully in their secrets.
+
+The first paroxysm of despair subsided into another state. All at once my
+mind was filled with the idea of Meg Hawkes, her enterprise, and my chances
+of escape. There is one point at which the road to Elverston makes a short
+ascent: there is a sudden curve there, two great ash-trees, with a roadside
+stile between, at the right side, covered with ivy. Driving back and
+forward, I did not recollect having particularly remarked this point in
+the highway; but now it was before me, in the thin light of the thinnest
+segment of moon, and the figure of Meg Hawkes, her back toward me, always
+ascending towards Elverston. It was constantly the same picture--the same
+motion without progress--the same dreadful suspense and impatience.
+
+I was now sitting on the side of the bed, looking wistfully across the
+room. When I did not see Meg Hawkes, I beheld Madame darkly eyeing first
+one then another point of the chamber, evidently puzzling over some
+problem, and in one of her most savage moods--sometimes muttering to
+herself, sometimes protruding, and sometimes screwing up her great mouth.
+
+She went into her own room, where she remained, I think, nearly ten
+minutes, and on her return there was that in the flash of her eyes, the
+glow of her face, and the peculiar fragrance that surrounded her, that
+showed she had been partaking of her favourite restorative.
+
+I had not moved since she left my room.
+
+She paused about the middle of the floor, and looked at me with what I can
+only describe as her wild-beast stare.
+
+'You are a very secrete family, you Ruthyns--you are so coning. I hate the
+coning people. By my faith, I weel see Mr. Silas Ruthyn, and ask wat he
+mean. I heard him tell old Wyat that Mr. Dudley is gone away to-night. He
+shall tell me everything, or else I weel make echec et mat aussi vrai que
+je vis.'
+
+Madame's words had hardly ceased, when I was again watching Meg Hawkes on
+the steep road, mounting, but never reaching, the top of the acclivity, on
+the way to Elverston, and mentally praying that she might be brought
+safely there. Vain prayer of an agonised heart! Meg's journey was already
+frustrated: she was not to reach Elverston in time.
+
+Madame revisited her apartment, and returned, not, I think, improved in
+temper. She walked about the room, hustling the scanty furniture hither and
+thither as she encountered it. She kicked her empty box out of her way,
+with a horrid crash, and a curse in French. She strode and swaggered round
+the room, muttering all the way, and turning the corners of her course with
+a furious whisk. At last, out of the door she went. I think she fancied she
+had not been sufficiently taken into confidence as to what was intended for
+me.
+
+It was now growing late, and yet no succour! I was seized, I remember, with
+a dreadful icy shivering.
+
+I was listening for signals of deliverance. At ever distant sound, half
+stifled with a palpitation, these sounds piercing my ear with a horrible
+and exaggerated distinctness--'Oh Meg!--Oh cousin Monica!--Oh come! Oh
+Heaven, have mercy!--Lord, have mercy!' I thought I heard a roaring and
+jangle of voices. Perhaps it came from Uncle Silas's room. It might be the
+tipsy violence of Madame. It might--merciful Heaven!--be the arrival of
+friends. I started to my feet; I listened, quivering with attention. Was
+it in my brain?--was it real? I was at the door, and it seemed to open of
+itself. Madame had forgotten to lock it; she was losing her head a little
+by this time. The key stood in the gallery door beyond; it too, was open.
+I fled wildly. There was a subsiding sound of voices in my uncle's room.
+I was, I know not how, on the lobby at the great stair-head outside my
+uncle's apartment. My hand was on the banisters, my foot on the first step,
+when below me and against the faint light that glimmered through the great
+window on the landing I saw a bulky human form ascending, and a voice said
+'Hush!' I staggered back, and at that instant fancied, with a thrill of
+conviction, I heard Lady Knollys's voice in Uncle Silas' room.
+
+I don't know how I entered the room; I was there like a ghost. I was
+frightened at my own state.
+
+Lady Knollys was not there--no one but Madame and my guardian.
+
+I can never forget the look that Uncle Silas fixed on me as he cowered,
+seemingly as appalled as I.
+
+I think I must have looked like a phantom newly risen from the grave.
+
+'What's that?--where do you come from?' whispered he.
+
+'Death! death!' was my whispered answer, as I froze with terror where I
+stood.
+
+'What does she mean?--what does all this mean?' said Uncle Silas,
+recovering wonderfully, and turning with a withering sneer on Madame. 'Do
+you think it right to disobey my plain directions, and let her run about
+the house at this hour?'
+
+'Death! death! Oh, pray to God for you and me!' I whispered in the same
+dreadful tones.
+
+My uncle stared strangely at me again; and after several horrible seconds,
+in which he seemed to have recovered himself, he said, sternly and coolly--
+
+'You give too much place to your imagination, niece. Your spirits are in an
+odd state--you ought to have advice.'
+
+'Oh, uncle, pity me! Oh, uncle, you are good! you're kind; you're kind
+when you think. You could not--you could not--could not! Oh, think of your
+brother that was always so good to you! He sees me here. He sees us both.
+Oh, save me, uncle--save me!--and I'll give up everything to you. I'll pray
+to God to bless you--I'll never forget your goodness and mercy. But don't
+keep me in doubt. If I'm to go, oh, for God's sake, shoot me now!'
+
+'You were always odd, niece; I begin to fear you are insane,' he replied,
+in the same stern icy tone.
+
+'Oh, uncle--oh!--am I? Am I _mad_?'
+
+'I hope not; but you'll conduct yourself like a sane person if you wish to
+enjoy the privileges of one.'
+
+Then, with his finger pointing at me, he turned to Madame, and said, in a
+tone of suppressed ferocity--
+
+'What's the meaning of this?--why is she here?'
+
+Madame was gabbling volubly, but to me it was only a shrilly noise. My
+whole soul was concentrated in my uncle, the arbiter of my life, before
+whom I stood in the wildest agony of supplication.
+
+That night was dreadful. The people I saw dizzily, made of smoke or shining
+vapour, smiling or frowning, I could have passed my hand through them. They
+were evil spirits.
+
+'There's no ill intended you; by ---- there's none,' said my uncle, for
+the first time violently agitated. 'Madame told you why we've changed your
+room. You told her about the bailiffs, did not you? 'with a stamp of fury
+he demanded of Madame, whose nasal roullades of talk were running on like a
+accompaniment all the time. She had told me indeed only a few hours since,
+and now it sounded to me like the echo of something heard a month ago or
+more.
+
+'You can't go about the house, d--n it, with bailiffs in occupation. There
+now--there's the whole thing. Get to your room, Maud, and don't vex me.
+There's a good girl.'
+
+He was trying to smile as he spoke these last words, and, with quavering
+soft tones, to quiet me; but the old scowl was there, the smile was
+corpse-like and contorted, and the softness of his tones was more dreadful
+than another man's ferocity.
+
+'There, Madame, she'll go quite gently, and you can call if you want help.
+Don't let it happen again.'
+
+'Come, Maud,' said Madame, encircling but not hurting my arm with her grip;
+'let us go, my friend.'
+
+I did go, you will wonder, as well you may--as you may wonder at the
+docility with which strong men walk through the press-room to the drop,
+and thank the people of the prison for their civility when they bid them
+good-bye, and facilitate the fixing of the rope and adjusting of the cap.
+Have you never wondered that they don't make a last battle for life with
+the unscrupulous energy of terror, instead of surrendering it so gently in
+cold blood, on a silent calculation, the arithmetic of despair?
+
+I went upstairs with Madame like a somnambulist. I rather quickened my
+step as I drew near my room. I went in, and stood a phantom at the window,
+looking into the dark quadrange. A thin glimmering crescent hung in the
+frosty sky, and all heaven was strewn with stars. Over the steep roof at
+the other side spread on the dark azure of the night this glorious blazonry
+of the unfathomable Creator. To me a dreadful scroll--inexorable eyes--the
+cloud of cruel witnesses looking down in freezing brightness on my prayers
+and agonies.
+
+I turned about and sat down, leaning my head upon my arms. Then suddenly I
+sat up, as for the first time the picture of Uncle Silas's littered
+room, and the travelling bags and black boxes plied on the floor by his
+table--the desk, hat-case, umbrella, coats, rugs, and mufflers, all ready
+for a journey--reached my brain and suggested thought. The _mise en
+scène_ had remained in every detail fixed upon my retina; and how I
+wondered--'When is he going--how soon? Is he going to carry me away and
+place me in a madhouse?'
+
+'Am I--am I mad?' I began to think. 'Is this all a dream, or is it real?'
+
+I remembered how a thin polite gentleman, with a tall grizzled head and a
+black velvet waistcoat, came into the carriage on our journey, and said a
+few words to me; how Madame whispered him something, and he murmured 'Oh!'
+very gently, with raised eyebrows, and a glance at me, and thenceforward
+spoke no more to me, only to Madame, and at the next station carried his
+hat and other travelling chattels into another carriage. Had she told him I
+was mad?
+
+These horrid bars! Madame always with me! The direful hints that dropt from
+my uncle! My own terrific sensations!--All these evidences revolved in my
+brain, and presented themselves in turn like writings on a wheel of fire.
+
+There came a knock to the door--
+
+Oh, Meg! Was it she? No; old Wyat whispered Madame something about her
+room.
+
+So Madame re-entered, with a little silver tray and flagon in her hands,
+and a glass. Nothing came from Uncle Silas in ungentlemanlike fashion.
+
+'Drink, Maud,' said Madame, raising the cover, and evidently enjoying the
+fragrant steam.
+
+I could not. I might have done so had I been able to swallow anything--for
+I was too distracted to think of Meg's warning.
+
+Madame suddenly recollected her mistake of that evening, and tried the
+door; but it was duly locked. She took the key from her pocket and placed
+it in her breast.
+
+'You weel 'av these rooms to yourself, ma chère. I shall sleep downstairs
+to-night.'
+
+She poured out some of the hot claret into the glass abstractedly, and
+drank it off.
+
+''Tis very good--I drank without theenk. Bote 'tis very good. Why don't you
+drink some?'
+
+'I could not', I repeated. And Madame boldly helped herself.
+
+'Vary polite, certally, to Madame was it to send nothing at all for _hair_'
+(so she pronounced 'her'); 'bote is all same thing.' And so she ran on in
+her tipsy vein, which was loud and sarcastic, with a fierce laugh now and
+then.
+
+Afterwards I heard that they were afraid of Madame, who was given to cross
+purposes, and violent in her cups. She had been noisy and quarrelsome
+downstairs. She was under the delusion that I was to be conveyed away that
+night to a remote and safe place, and she was to be handsomely compensated
+for services and evidence to be afterwards given. She was not to be
+trusted, however, with the truth. That was to be known but to three people
+on earth.
+
+I never knew, but I believe that the spiced claret which Madame drank was
+drugged. She was a person who could, I have been told, drink a great deal
+without exhibiting any change from it but an inflamed colour and furious
+temper. I can only state for certain what I saw, and that was, that shortly
+after she had finished the claret she laid down upon my bed, and, I now
+know, fell asleep. I then thought she was _feigning_ sleep only, and that
+she was really watching me.
+
+About an hour after this I suddenly heard a little _clink_ in the
+yard beneath. I peeped out, but saw nothing. The sound was repeated,
+however--sometimes more frequently, sometimes at long intervals. At last,
+in the deep shadow next the farther wall, I thought I could discover a
+figure, sometimes erect, sometimes stooping and bowing toward the earth. I
+could see this figure only in the rudest outline mingling with the dark.
+
+Like a thunderbolt it smote my brain. 'They are making my grave!'
+
+After the first dreadful stun I grew quite wild, and ran up and down the
+room wringing my hands and gasping prayers to heaven. Then a calm stole
+over me--such a dreadful calm as I could fancy glide over one who floated
+in a boat under the shadow of the 'Traitor's Gate,' leaving life and hope
+and trouble behind.
+
+Shortly after there came a very low tap at my door; then another, like a
+tiny post-knock. I could never understand why it was I made no answer. Had
+I done so, and thus shown that I was awake, it might have sealed my fate.
+I was standing in the middle of the floor staring at the door, which I
+expected to see open, and admit I knew not what troop of spectres.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXIV
+
+_THE HOUR OF DEATH_
+
+
+It was a very still night and frosty. My candle had long burnt out. There
+was still a faint moonlight, which fell in a square of yellow on the floor
+near the window, leaving the rest of the room in what to an eye less
+accustomed than mine had become to that faint light would have been total
+darkness. Now, I am sure, I heard a soft whispering outside my door. I knew
+that I was in a state of siege! The crisis was come, and strange to say,
+I felt myself grow all at once resolute and self-possessed. It was not a
+subsidence, however, of the dreadful excitement, but a sudden screwing-up
+of my nerves to a pitch such as I cannot describe.
+
+I suppose the people outside moved with great caution; and the perfect
+solidity of the floor, which had not anywhere a creaking board in it,
+favoured their noiseless movements. It was well for me that there were
+in the house three persons whom it was part of their plan to mystify
+respecting my fate. This alone compelled the extreme caution of their
+proceedings. They suspected that I had placed furniture against the door,
+and were afraid to force it, lest a crash, a scream, perhaps a long and
+shrilly struggle, might follow.
+
+I remained for a space which I cannot pretend to estimate in the same
+posture, afraid to stir--afraid to move my eye from the door.
+
+A very peculiar grating sound above my head startled me from my
+watch--something of the character of sawing, only more crunching, and with
+a faint continued rumble in it--utterly inexplicable. It sounded over that
+portion of the roof which was farthest from the door, toward which I now
+glided; and as I took my stand under cover of the projecting angle of a
+clumsy old press that stood close by it, I perceived the room a little
+darkened, and I saw a man descend and take his stand upon the window-stone.
+He let go a rope, which, however, was still fast round his body, and
+employed both his hands, with apparently some exertion, about something at
+the side of the window, which in a moment more, in one mass, bars and all,
+swung noiselessly open, admitting the frosty night-air; and the man, whom
+I now distinctly saw to be Dudley Ruthyn, kneeled on the sill, and stept,
+after a moment's listening, into the room. His foot made no sound upon the
+floor; his head was bare, and he wore his usual short shooting-jacket.
+
+I cowered to the ground in my post of observation. He stood, as it
+seemed to me irresolutely for a moment, and then drew from his pocket an
+instrument which I distinctly saw against the faint moonlight. Imagine a
+hammer, one end of which had been beaten out into a longish tapering spike,
+with a handle something longer than usual. He drew stealthily to the
+window, and seemed to examine this hurriedly, and tested its strength with
+a twist or two of his hand. And then he adjusted it very carefully in his
+grasp, and made two or three little experimental picks with it in the air.
+
+I remained perfectly still, with a terrible composure, crouched in my
+hiding-place, my teeth clenched, and prepared to struggle like a tigress
+for my life when discovered. I thought his next measure would be to light a
+match. I saw a lantern, I fancied, on the window-sill. But this was not his
+plan. He stole, in a groping way, which seemed strange to me, who could
+distinguish objects in this light, to the side of my bed, the exact
+position of which he evidently knew; he stooped over it. Madame was
+breathing in the deep respiration of heavy sleep. Suddenly but softly he
+laid, as it seemed to me, his left hand over her face, and nearly at the
+same instant there came a scrunching blow; an unnatural shriek, beginning
+small and swelling for two or three seconds into a yell such as are
+imagined in haunted houses, accompanied by a convulsive sound, as of the
+motion of running, and the arms drumming on the bed; and then another
+blow--and with a horrid gasp he recoiled a step or two, and stood perfectly
+still. I heard a horrible tremor quivering through the joints and curtains
+of the bedstead--the convulsions of the murdered woman. It was a dreadful
+sound, like the shaking of a tree and rustling of leaves. Then once more
+he steps to the side of the bed, and I heard another of those horrid
+blows--and silence--and another--and more silence--and the diabolical
+surgery was ended. For a few seconds, I think, I was on the point of
+fainting; but a gentle stir outside the door, close to my ear, startled me,
+and proved that there had been a watcher posted outside. There was a little
+tapping at the door.
+
+'Who's that?' whispered Dudley, hoarsely.
+
+'A friend,' answered a sweet voice.
+
+And a key was introduced, the door quickly unlocked, and Uncle Silas
+entered. I saw that frail, tall, white figure, the venerable silver locks
+that resembled those upon the honoured head of John Wesley, and his thin
+white hand, the back of which hung so close to my face that I feared to
+breathe. I could see his fingers twitching nervously. The smell of perfumes
+and of ether entered the room with him.
+
+Dudley was trembling now like a man in an ague-fit.
+
+'Look what you made me do!' he said, maniacally.
+
+'Steady, sir!' said the old man, close beside me.
+
+'Yes, you damned old murderer! I've a mind to do for you.'
+
+'There, Dudley, like a dear boy, don't give way; it's done. Right or wrong,
+we can't help it. You must be quiet,' said the old man, with a stern
+gentleness.
+
+Dudley groaned.
+
+'Whoever advised it, you're a gainer, Dudley,' said Uncle Silas.
+
+Then there was a pause.
+
+'I hope that was not heard,' said Uncle Silas.
+
+Dudley walked to the window and stood there.
+
+'Come, Dudley, you and Hawkes must use expedition. You know you must get
+that out of the way.'
+
+'I've done too much. I won't do nout; I'll not touch it. I wish my hand was
+off first; I wish I was a soger. Do as ye like, you an' Hawkes. I won't go
+nigh it; damn ye both--and _that_!' and he hurled the hammer with all his
+force upon the floor.
+
+'Come, come, be reasonable, Dudley, dear boy. There's nothing to fear but
+your own folly. You won't make a noise?'
+
+'Oh, oh, my God!' said Dudley, hoarsely, and wiped his forehead with his
+open hand.
+
+'There now, you'll be all well in a minute,' continued the old man.
+
+'You said 'twouldn't hurt her. If I'd a known she'd a screeched like that
+I'd never a done it. 'Twas a damn lie. You're the damndest villain on
+earth.'
+
+'Come, Dudley!' said the old man under his breath, but very sternly, 'make
+up your mind. If you don't choose to go on, it can't be helped; only it's
+a pity you began. For _you_ it is a good deal--it does not much matter for
+_me_.'
+
+'Ay, for _you_!' echoed Dudley, through his set teeth. 'The old talk!'
+
+'Well, sir,' snarled the old man, in the same low tones, 'you should have
+thought of all this before. It's only taking leave of the world a year or
+two sooner, but a year or two's something. I'll leave you to do as you
+please.'
+
+'Stop, will you? Stop here. I know it's a fixt thing now. If a fella does
+a thing he's damned for, you might let him talk a bit anyhow. I don't care
+much if I was shot.'
+
+'There now--_there_--just stick to that, and don't run off again. There's a
+box and a bag here; we must change the direction, and take them away. The
+box has some jewels. Can you see them? I wish we had a light.'
+
+'No, I'd rayther not; I can see well enough. I wish we were out o' this.
+_Here's_ the box.'
+
+'Pull it to the window,' said the old man, to my inexpressible relief
+advancing at last a few steps.
+
+Coolness was given me in that dreadful moment, and I knew that all depended
+on my being prompt and resolute. I stood up swiftly. I often thought if I
+had happened to wear silk instead of the cachmere I had on that night, its
+rustle would have betrayed me.
+
+I distinctly saw the tall stooping figure of my uncle, and the outline of
+his venerable tresses, as he stood between me and the dull light of the
+window, like a shape cut in card.
+
+He was saying 'just to _there_,' and pointing with his long arm at that
+contracting patch of moonlight which lay squared upon the floor. The door
+was about a quarter open, and just as Dudley began to drag Madame's heavy
+box, with my jewel-case in it, across the floor from her room, inhaling a
+great breath--with a mental prayer for help--I glided on tiptoe from the
+room and found myself on the gallery floor.
+
+I turned to my right, simply by chance, and followed a long gallery in the
+dark, not running--I was too fearful of making the least noise--but walking
+with the tiptoe-swiftness of terror. At the termination of this was a
+cross-gallery, one end of which--that to my left--terminated in a great
+window, through which the dusky night-view was visible. With the instinct
+of terror I chose the darker, and turned again to my right; hurrying
+through this long and nearly dark passage, I was terrified by a light,
+about thirty feet before me, emerging from the ceiling. In spotted patches
+this light fell through the door and sides of a stable lantern, and showed
+me a ladder, down which, from an open skylight I suppose for the cool
+night-air floated in my face, came Dickon Hawkes notwithstanding his
+maimed condition, with so much celerity as to leave me hardly a moment for
+consideration.
+
+He sat on the last round of the ladder, and tightened the strap of his
+wooden leg.
+
+At my left was a door-case open, but no door. I entered; it was a short
+passage about six feet long, leading perhaps to a backstair, but the door
+at the end was locked.
+
+I was forced to stand in this recess, then, which afforded no shelter,
+while Pegtop stumped by with his lantern in his hand. I fancy he had some
+idea of listening to his master unperceived, for he stopped close to my
+hiding-place, blew out the candle, and pinched the long snuff with his
+horny finger and thumb.
+
+Having listened for a few seconds, he stumped stealthily along the gallery
+which I had just traversed, and turned the corner in the direction of the
+chamber where the crime had just been committed, and the discovery was
+impending. I could see him against the broad window which in the daytime
+lighted this long passage, and the moment he had passed the corner I
+resumed my flight.
+
+I descended a stair corresponding with that backstair, as I am told, up
+which Madame had led me only the night before. I tried the outer door. To
+my wild surprise it was open. In a moment I was upon the step, in the free
+air, and as instantaneously was seized by the arm in the gripe of a man.
+
+It was Tom Brice, who had already betrayed me, and who was now, in surtout
+and hat, waiting to drive the carriage with the guilty father and son from
+the scene of their abhorred outrage.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXV
+
+_IN THE OAK PARLOUR_
+
+
+So it was vain: I was trapped, and all was over.
+
+I stood before him on the step, the white moon shining on my face. I was
+trembling so that I wonder I could stand, my helpless hands raised towards
+him, and I looked up in his face. A long shuddering moan--'Oh--oh--oh!' was
+all I uttered.
+
+The man, still holding my arm, looked, I thought frightened, into my white
+dumb face.
+
+Suddenly he said, in a wild, fierce whisper--
+
+'Never say another word' (I had not uttered one). 'They shan't hurt ye,
+Miss; git ye in; I don't care a damn!'
+
+It was an uncouth speech. To me it was the voice of an angel. With a burst
+of gratitude that sounded in my own ears like a laugh, I thanked God for
+those blessed words.
+
+In a moment more he had placed me in the carriage, and almost instantly we
+were in motion--very cautiously while crossing the court, until he had got
+the wheels upon the grass, and then at a rapid pace, improving his speed as
+the distance increased. He drove along the side of the back-approach to the
+house, keeping on the grass; so that our progress, though swaying like that
+of a ship in a swell, was very nearly as noiseless.
+
+The gate had been left unlocked--he swung it open, and remounted the box.
+And we were now beyond the spell of Bartram-Haugh, thundering--Heaven be
+praised!--along the Queen's highway, right in the route to Elverston. It
+was literally a gallop. Through the chariot windows I saw Tom stand as he
+drove, and every now and then throw an awful glance over his shoulder. Were
+we pursued? Never was agony of prayer like mine, as with clasped hands and
+wild stare I gazed through the windows on the road, whose trees and hedges
+and gabled cottages were chasing one another backward at so giddy a speed.
+
+We were now ascending that identical steep, with the giant ash-trees at the
+right and the stile between, which my vision of Meg Hawkes had presented
+all that night, when my excited eye detected a running figure within the
+hedge. I saw the head of some one crossing the stile in pursuit, and I
+heard Brice's name shrieked.
+
+'Drive on--on--on!' I screamed.
+
+But Brice pulled up. I was on my knees on the floor of the carriage, with
+clasped hands, expecting capture, when the door opened, and Meg Hawkes,
+pale as death, her cloak drawn over her black tresses, looked in.
+
+'Oh!--ho!--ho!--thank God!' she screamed. 'Shake hands, lass. Tom, yer a
+good un! He's a good lad, Tom.'
+
+'Come in, Meg--you must sit by me,' I said, recovering all at once.
+
+Meg made no demur. 'Take my hand,' I said offering mine to her disengaged
+one.
+
+'I can't, Miss--my arm's broke.'
+
+And so it was, poor thing! She had been espied and overtaken in her errand
+of mercy for me, and her ruffian father had felled her with his cudgel, and
+then locked her into the cottage, whence, however, she had contrived to
+escape, and was now flying to Elverston, having tried in vain to get a
+hearing in Feltram, whose people had been for hours in bed.
+
+The door being shut upon Meg, the steaming horses were instantly at a
+gallop again.
+
+Tom was still watching as before, with many an anxious glance to rearward,
+for pursuit. Again he pulled up, and came to the window.
+
+'Oh, what is it?' cried I.
+
+''Bout that letter, Miss; I couldn't help. 'Twas Dickon, he found it in my
+pocket. That's a'.'
+
+'Oh yes!--no matter--thank you--thank Heaven! Are we near Elverston?'
+
+''Twill be a mile, Miss: and please'm to mind I had no finger in't.'
+
+'Thanks--thank you--you're very good--I shall _always_ thank you, Tom, as
+long as I live!'
+
+At length we entered Elverston. I think I was half wild. I don't know how I
+got into the hall. I was in the oak-parlour, I believe, when I saw cousin
+Monica. I was standing, my arms extended. I could not speak; but I ran with
+a loud long scream into her arms. I forget a great deal after that.
+
+
+
+
+CONCLUSION
+
+
+Oh, my beloved cousin Monica! Thank Heaven, you are living still, and
+younger, I think, than I in all things but in years.
+
+And Milly, my dear companion, she is now the happy wife of that good little
+clergyman, Sprigge Biddlepen. It has been in my power to be of use to them,
+and he shall have the next presentation to Dawling.
+
+Meg Hawkes, proud and wayward, and the most affectionate creature on earth,
+was married to Tom Brice a few months after these events; and, as both
+wished to emigrate, I furnished them with the capital, and I am told they
+are likely to be rich. I hear from my kind Meg often, and she seems very
+happy.
+
+My dear old friends, Mary Quince and Mrs. Rusk, are, alas! growing old, but
+living with me, and very happy. And after long solicitation, I persuaded
+Doctor Bryerly, the best and truest of ministers, with my dearest friend's
+concurrence, to undertake the management of the Derbyshire estates. In this
+I have been most fortunate. He is the very person for such a charge--so
+punctual, so laborious, so kind, and so shrewd.
+
+In compliance with medical advice, cousin Monica hurried me away to the
+Continent, where she would never permit me to allude to the terrific scenes
+which remain branded so awfully on my brain. It needed no constraint. It is
+a sort of agony to me even now to think of them.
+
+The plan was craftily devised. Neither old Wyat nor Giles, the butler, had
+a suspicion that I had returned to Bartram. Had I been put to death, the
+secret of my fate would have been deposited in the keeping of four persons
+only--the two Ruthyns, Hawkes, and ultimately Madame. My dear cousin Monica
+had been artfully led to believe in my departure for France, and prepared
+for my silence. Suspicion might not have been excited for a year after my
+death, and then would never, in all probability, have pointed to Bartram as
+the scene of the crime. The weeds would have grown over me, and I should
+have lain in that deep grave where the corpse of Madame de la Rougierre was
+unearthed in the darksome quadrangle of Bartram-Haugh.
+
+It was more than two years after that I heard what had befallen at Bartram
+after my flight. Old Wyat, who went early to Uncle Silas's room, to her
+surprise--for he had told her that he was that night to accompany his son,
+who had to meet the mailtrain to Derby at five o'clock in the morning--saw
+her old master lying on the sofa, much in his usual position.
+
+'There was nout much strange about him,' old Wyat said, 'but that his
+scent-bottle was spilt on its side over on the table, and he dead.'
+
+She thought he was not quite cold when she found him, and she sent the old
+butler for Doctor Jolks, who said he died of too much 'loddlum.'
+
+Of my wretched uncle's religion what am I to say? Was it utter hypocrisy,
+or had it at any time a vein of sincerity in it? I cannot say. I don't
+believe that he had any heart left for religion, which is the highest form
+of affection, to take hold of. Perhaps he was a sceptic with misgivings
+about the future, but past the time for finding anything reliable in it.
+The devil approached the citadel of his heart by stealth, with many zigzags
+and parallels. The idea of marrying me to his son by fair means, then by
+foul, and, when that wicked chance was gone, then the design of seizing all
+by murder, supervened. I dare say that Uncle Silas thought for a while that
+he was a righteous man. He wished to have heaven and to escape hell, if
+there were such places. But there were other things whose existence was
+not speculative, of which some he coveted, and some he dreaded more, and
+temptation came. 'Now if any man build upon this foundation, gold, silver,
+precious stones, wood, hay, stubble, every man's work shall be made
+manifest; for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by
+fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is.' There
+comes with old age a time when the heart is no longer fusible or malleable,
+and must retain the form in which it has cooled down. 'He that is unjust,
+let him be unjust still; he which is filthy, let him be filthy still.'
+
+Dudley had disappeared; but in one of her letters, Meg, writing from her
+Australian farm, says: 'There's a fella in toon as calls hisself Colbroke,
+wi' a good hoose o' wood, 15 foot length, and as by 'bout as silling o' the
+pearler o' Bartram--only lots o' rats, they do say, my lady--a bying and
+sellin' of goold back and forred wi' the diggin foke and the marchants. His
+chick and mouth be wry wi' scar o' burns or vitterel, an' no wiskers, bless
+you; but my Tom ee toll him he knowed him for Master Doodley. I ant seed
+him; but he sade ad shute Tom soon is look at 'im, an' denide it, wi'
+mouthful o' curses and oaf. Tom baint right shure; if I seed un wons i'd no
+for sartin; but 'appen,'twil best be let be.' This was all.
+
+Old Hawkes stood his ground, relying on the profound cunning with which
+their actual proceedings had been concealed, even from the suspicions of
+the two inmates of the house, and on the mystery that habitually shrouded
+Bartram-Haugh and all its belongings from the eyes of the outer world.
+
+Strangely enough, he fancied that I had made my escape long before the room
+was entered; and, even if he were arrested, there was no evidence, he was
+certain, to connect _him_ with the murder, all knowledge of which he would
+stoutly deny.
+
+There was an inquest on the body of my uncle, and Dr. Jolks was the chief
+witness. They found that his death was caused by 'an excessive dose of
+laudanum, accidentally administered by himself.'
+
+It was not until nearly a year after the dreadful occurrences at Bartram
+that Dickon Hawkes was arrested on a very awful charge, and placed in gaol.
+It was an old crime, committed in Lancashire, that had found him out.
+After his conviction, as a last chance, he tried a disclosure of all the
+circumstances of the unsuspected death of the Frenchwoman. Her body was
+discovered buried where he indicated, in the inner court of Bartram-Haugh,
+and, after due legal enquiry, was interred in the churchyard of Feltram.
+
+Thus I escaped the horrors of the witness-box, or the far worse torture of
+a dreadful secret.
+
+Doctor Bryerly, shortly after Lady Knollys had described to him the manner
+in which Dudley entered my room, visited the house of Bartram-Haugh, and
+minutely examined the windows of the room in which Mr. Charke had slept on
+the night of his murder. One of these he found provided with powerful steel
+hinges, very craftily sunk and concealed in the timber of the window-frame,
+which was secured by an iron pin outside, and swung open on its removal.
+This was the room in which they had placed me, and this the contrivance
+by means of which the room had been entered. The problem of Mr. Charke's
+murder was solved.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I have penned it. I sit for a moment breathless. My hands are cold and
+damp. I rise with a great sigh, and look out on the sweet green landscape
+and pastoral hills, and see the flowers and birds and the waving boughs of
+glorious trees--all images of liberty and safety; and as the tremendous
+nightmare of my youth melts into air, I lift my eyes in boundless gratitude
+to the God of all comfort, whose mighty hand and outstretched arm delivered
+me. When I lower my eyes and unclasp my hands, my cheeks are wet with
+tears. A tiny voice is calling me 'Mamma!' and a beloved smiling face, with
+his dear father's silken brown tresses, peeps in.
+
+'Yes, darling, our walk. Come away!'
+
+I am Lady Ilbury, happy in the affection of a beloved and noblehearted
+husband. The shy useless girl you have known is now a mother--trying to be
+a good one; and this, the last pledge, has lived.
+
+I am not going to tell of sorrows--how brief has been my pride of early
+maternity, or how beloved were those whom the Lord gave and the Lord has
+taken away. But sometimes as, smiling on my little boy, the tears gather
+in my eyes, and he wonders, I can see, why they come, I am thinking--and
+trembling while I smile--to think, how strong is love, how frail is life;
+and rejoicing while I tremble that, in the deathless love of those who
+mourn, the Lord of Life, who never gave a pang in vain, conveys the sweet
+and ennobling promise of a compensation by eternal reunion. So, through
+my sorrows, I have heard a voice from heaven say, 'Write, from hencefore
+blessed are the dead that die in the Lord!'
+
+This world is a parable--the habitation of symbols--the phantoms of
+spiritual things immortal shown in material shape. May the blessed
+second-sight be mine--to recognise under these beautiful forms of earth the
+ANGELS who wear them; for I am sure we may walk with them if we will, and
+hear them speak!
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Uncle Silas, by J. S. LeFanu
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+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
+<head>
+  <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" />
+
+  <title>Uncle Silas</title>
+
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+<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14851 ***</div>
+
+<p>[Transcriber's note: The spelling inconsistencies of the original have
+been retained in this etext.]</p>
+  <p>&nbsp;</p>
+  <p>&nbsp;</p>
+  <h1>UNCLE SILAS</h1>
+  <h3>A Tale of Bartram-Haugh</h3>
+  <h3>By</h3>
+  <h2>J. S. LeFanu</h2>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page2" id="page2"></a></span>
+
+  <h4>1899</h4>
+  <p>&nbsp;</p>
+  <p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page3" id="page3"></a></span>
+
+  <p>&nbsp;</p>
+  <h4>TO<br /> THE RIGHT HON.</h4>
+  <h2>THE COUNTESS OF GIFFORD,</h2>
+  <h4>AS A TOKEN OF<br /> RESPECT, SYMPATHY, AND ADMIRATION</h4>
+  <h3><i>This Tale</i></h3>
+  <h4>IS INSCRIBED BY</h4>
+  <h3>THE AUTHOR</h3>
+  <p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page4" id="page4"></a>[pg xvii]</span>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<h2><i>A PRELIMINARY WORD</i></h2>
+
+<p>The writer of this Tale ventures, in his own person, to address
+a very few words, chiefly of explanation, to his readers. A leading
+situation in this 'Story of Bartram-Haugh' is repeated, with a
+slight variation, from a short magazine tale of some fifteen pages
+written by him, and published long ago in a periodical under
+the title of 'A Passage in the Secret History of an Irish Countess,'
+and afterwards, still anonymously, in a small volume under
+an altered title. It is very unlikely that any of his readers should
+have encountered, and still more so that they should remember,
+this trifle. The bare possibility, however, he has ventured to
+anticipate by this brief explanation, lest he should be charged
+with plagiarism&mdash;always a disrespect to a reader.</p>
+
+<p>May he be permitted a few words also of remonstrance against
+the promiscuous application of the term 'sensation' to that large
+school of fiction which transgresses no one of those canons of
+construction and morality which, in producing the unapproachable
+'Waverley Novels,' their great author imposed upon himself?
+No one, it is assumed, would describe Sir Walter Scott's
+romances as 'sensation novels;' yet in that marvellous series there
+is not a single tale in which death, crime, and, in some form,
+mystery, have not a place.</p>
+
+<p>Passing by those grand romances of 'Ivanhoe,' 'Old Mortality,'
+and 'Kenilworth,' with their terrible intricacies of crime and
+bloodshed, constructed with so fine a mastery of the art of
+exciting suspense and horror, let the reader pick out those two
+exceptional novels in the series which profess to paint contemporary
+manners and the scenes of common life; and remembering
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page5" id="page5"></a>[pg xviii]</span>
+
+in the 'Antiquary' the vision in the tapestried chamber,
+the duel, the horrible secret, and the death of old Elspeth, the
+drowned fisherman, and above all the tremendous situation of
+the tide-bound party under the cliffs; and in 'St. Ronan's Well,'
+the long-drawn mystery, the suspicion of insanity, and the
+catastrophe of suicide;&mdash;determine whether an epithet which it
+would be a profanation to apply to the structure of any, even
+the most exciting of Sir Walter Scott's stories, is fairly applicable
+to tales which, though illimitably inferior in execution, yet
+observe the same limitations of incident, and the same moral
+aims.</p>
+
+<p>The author trusts that the Press, to whose masterly criticism
+and generous encouragement he and other humble labourers
+in the art owe so much, will insist upon the limitation of that
+degrading term to the peculiar type of fiction which it was
+originally intended to indicate, and prevent, as they may, its
+being made to include the legitimate school of tragic English
+romance, which has been ennobled, and in great measure
+founded, by the genius of Sir Walter Scott.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page6" id="page6"></a>[pg xix]</span>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<p>CHAPTER</p>
+
+<ol type="I">
+  <li><a href="#chap01">AUSTIN RUTHYN, OF KNOWL, AND HIS DAUGHTER</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#chap02">UNCLE SILAS</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#chap03">A NEW FACE</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#chap04">MADAME DE LA ROUGIERRE</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#chap05">SIGHTS AND NOISES</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#chap06">A WALK IN THE WOOD</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#chap07">CHURCH SCARSDALE</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#chap08">THE SMOKER</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#chap09">MONICA KNOLLYS</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#chap10">LADY KNOLLYS REMOVES A COVERLET</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#chap11">LADY KNOLLYS SEES THE FEATURES</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#chap12">A CURIOUS CONVERSATION</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#chap13">BEFORE AND AFTER BREAKFAST</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#chap14">ANGRY WORDS</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#chap15">A WARNING</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#chap16">DOCTOR BRYERLY LOOKS IN</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#chap17">AN ADVENTURE</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#chap18">A MIDNIGHT VISITOR</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#chap19">AU REVOIR</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#chap20">AUSTIN RUTHYN SETS OUT ON HIS JOURNEY</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#chap21">ARRIVALS</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#chap22">SOMEBODY IN THE ROOM WITH THE COFFIN</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#chap23">I TALK WITH DOCTOR BRYERLY</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#chap24">THE OPENING OF THE WILL</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#chap25">I HEAR FROM UNCLE SILAS</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#chap26">THE STORY OF UNCLE SILAS</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#chap27">MORE ABOUT TOM CHARKE'S SUICIDE</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#chap28">I AM PERSUADED</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#chap29">HOW THE AMBASSADOR FARED</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#chap30">ON THE ROAD</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#chap31">BARTRAM-HAUGH</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#chap32">UNCLE SILAS</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#chap33">THE WINDMILL WOOD</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#chap34">ZAMIEL</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#chap35">WE VISIT A ROOM IN THE SECOND STOREY</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#chap36">AN ARRIVAL AT DEAD OF NIGHT</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#chap37">DOCTOR BRYERLY EMERGES</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#chap38">A MIDNIGHT DEPARTURE</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#chap39">COUSIN MONICA AND UNCLE SILAS MEET</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#chap40">IN WHICH I MAKE ANOTHER COUSIN'S ACQUAINTANCE</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#chap41">MY COUSIN DUDLEY</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#chap42">ELVERSTON AND ITS PEOPLE</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#chap43">NEWS AT BARTRAM GATE</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#chap44">A FRIEND ARISES</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#chap45">A CHAPTER-FULL OF LOVERS</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#chap46">THE RIVALS</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#chap47">DOCTOR BRYERLY REAPPEARS</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#chap48">QUESTION AND ANSWER</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#chap49">AN APPARITION</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#chap50">MILLY'S FAREWELL</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#chap51">SARAH MATILDA COMES TO LIGHT</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#chap52">THE PICTURE OF A WOLF</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#chap53">AN ODD PROPOSAL</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#chap54">IN SEARCH OF MR. CHARKE'S SKELETON</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#chap55">THE FOOT OF HERCULES</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#chap56">I CONSPIRE</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#chap57">THE LETTER</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#chap58">LADY KNOLLYS' CARRIAGE</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#chap59">A SUDDEN DEPARTURE</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#chap60">THE JOURNEY</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#chap61">OUR BED-CHAMBER</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#chap62">A WELL-KNOWN FACE LOOKS IN</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#chap63">SPICED CLARET</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#chap64">THE HOUR OF DEATH</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#chap65">IN THE OAK PARLOUR</a></li>
+  <li><a href="#conclusion">CONCLUSION</a></li>
+</ol>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page8" id="page8"></a>[pg xxi]</span>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h1>UNCLE SILAS</h1>
+
+<h3>A Tale of Bartram-Haugh</h3>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page9" id="page9"></a>[pg 1]</span>
+
+<a name="chap01"></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER I</h3>
+<h2><i>AUSTIN RUTHYN, OF KNOWL,
+AND HIS DAUGHTER</i></h2>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>It was winter&mdash;that is, about the second week in November&mdash;and
+great gusts were rattling at the windows, and wailing and thundering
+among our tall trees and ivied chimneys&mdash;a very dark
+night, and a very cheerful fire blazing, a pleasant mixture of
+good round coal and spluttering dry wood, in a genuine old
+fireplace, in a sombre old room. Black wainscoting glimmered
+up to the ceiling, in small ebony panels; a cheerful clump of
+wax candles on the tea-table; many old portraits, some grim
+and pale, others pretty, and some very graceful and charming,
+hanging from the walls. Few pictures, except portraits long
+and short, were there. On the whole, I think you would have
+taken the room for our parlour. It was not like our modern
+notion of a drawing-room. It was a long room too, and every
+way capacious, but irregularly shaped.</p>
+
+<p>A girl, of a little more than seventeen, looking, I believe,
+younger still; slight and rather tall, with a great deal of golden
+hair, dark grey-eyed, and with a countenance rather sensitive
+and melancholy, was sitting at the tea-table, in a reverie. I was
+that girl.</p>
+
+<p>The only other person in the room&mdash;the only person in the
+house related to me&mdash;was my father. He was Mr. Ruthyn, of
+Knowl, so called in his county, but he had many other places,
+was of a very ancient lineage, who had refused a baronetage
+often, and it was said even a viscounty, being of a proud and
+defiant spirit, and thinking themselves higher in station and
+purer of blood than two-thirds of the nobility into whose
+ranks, it was said, they had been invited to enter. Of all this
+family lore I knew but little and vaguely; only what is to be
+gathered from the fireside talk of old retainers in the nursery.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page10" id="page10"></a>[pg 02]</span>
+
+<p>I am sure my father loved me, and I know I loved him. With
+the sure instinct of childhood I apprehended his tenderness,
+although it was never expressed in common ways. But my
+father was an oddity. He had been early disappointed in Parliament,
+where it was his ambition to succeed. Though a clever
+man, he failed there, where very inferior men did extremely
+well. Then he went abroad, and became a connoisseur and a
+collector; took a part, on his return, in literary and scientific
+institutions, and also in the foundation and direction of some
+charities. But he tired of this mimic government, and gave himself
+up to a country life, not that of a sportsman, but rather of
+a student, staying sometimes at one of his places and sometimes
+at another, and living a secluded life.</p>
+
+<p>Rather late in life he married, and his beautiful young wife
+died, leaving me, their only child, to his care. This bereavement,
+I have been told, changed him&mdash;made him more odd and
+taciturn than ever, and his temper also, except to me, more
+severe. There was also some disgrace about his younger brother&mdash;my
+uncle Silas&mdash;which he felt bitterly.</p>
+
+<p>He was now walking up and down this spacious old room,
+which, extending round an angle at the far end, was very dark
+in that quarter. It was his wont to walk up and down thus,
+without speaking&mdash;an exercise which used to remind me of
+Chateaubriand's father in the great chamber of the Château
+de Combourg. At the far end he nearly disappeared in the
+gloom, and then returning emerged for a few minutes, like a
+portrait with a background of shadow, and then again in silence
+faded nearly out of view.</p>
+
+<p>This monotony and silence would have been terrifying to a
+person less accustomed to it than I. As it was, it had its effect.
+I have known my father a whole day without once speaking to
+me. Though I loved him very much, I was also much in awe of
+him.</p>
+
+<p>While my father paced the floor, my thoughts were employed
+about the events of a month before. So few things happened at
+Knowl out of the accustomed routine, that a very trifling occurrence
+was enough to set people wondering and conjecturing
+in that serene household. My father lived in remarkable seclusion;
+except for a ride, he hardly ever left the grounds of Knowl;
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page11" id="page11"></a>[pg 03]</span>
+
+and I don't think it happened twice in the year that a visitor
+sojourned among us.</p>
+
+<p>There was not even that mild religious bustle which sometimes
+besets the wealthy and moral recluse. My father had left
+the Church of England for some odd sect, I forget its name, and
+ultimately became, I was told, a Swedenborgian. But he did not
+care to trouble me upon the subject. So the old carriage brought
+my governess, when I had one, the old housekeeper, Mrs. Rusk,
+and myself to the parish church every Sunday. And my father,
+in the view of the honest rector who shook his head over him&mdash;'a
+cloud without water, carried about of winds, and a wandering
+star to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness'&mdash;corresponded
+with the 'minister' of his church, and was provokingly
+contented with his own fertility and illumination; and Mrs.
+Rusk, who was a sound and bitter churchwoman, said he fancied
+he saw visions and talked with angels like the rest of that
+'rubbitch.'</p>
+
+<p>I don't know that she had any better foundation than analogy
+and conjecture for charging my father with supernatural pretensions;
+and in all points when her orthodoxy was not concerned,
+she loved her master and was a loyal housekeeper.</p>
+
+<p>I found her one morning superintending preparations for the
+reception of a visitor, in the hunting-room it was called, from
+the pieces of tapestry that covered its walls, representing scenes
+<i>à la Wouvermans</i>, of falconry, and the chase, dogs, hawks,
+ladies, gallants, and pages. In the midst of whom Mrs. Rusk,
+in black silk, was rummaging drawers, counting linen, and issuing
+orders.</p>
+
+<p>'Who is coming, Mrs. Rusk?'</p>
+
+<p>Well, she only knew his name. It was a Mr. Bryerly. My papa
+expected him to dinner, and to stay for some days.</p>
+
+<p>'I guess he's one of those creatures, dear, for I mentioned his
+name just to Dr. Clay (the rector), and he says there <i>is</i> a Doctor
+Bryerly, a great conjurer among the Swedenborg sect&mdash;and
+that's him, I do suppose.'</p>
+
+<p>In my hazy notions of these sectaries there was mingled a suspicion
+of necromancy, and a weird freemasonry, that inspired
+something of awe and antipathy.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Bryerly arrived time enough to dress at his leisure, before
+dinner. He entered the drawing-room&mdash;a tall, lean man, all
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page12" id="page12"></a>[pg 04]</span>
+
+in ungainly black, with a white choker, with either a black wig, or
+black hair dressed in imitation of one, a pair of spectacles,
+and a dark, sharp, short visage, rubbing his large hands together,
+and with a short brisk nod to me, whom he plainly regarded
+merely as a child, he sat down before the fire, crossed his legs,
+and took up a magazine.</p>
+
+<p>This treatment was mortifying, and I remember very well the
+resentment of which <i>he</i> was quite unconscious.</p>
+
+<p>His stay was not very long; not one of us divined the object
+of his visit, and he did not prepossess us favourably. He seemed
+restless, as men of busy habits do in country houses, and took
+walks, and a drive, and read in the library, and wrote half a
+dozen letters.</p>
+
+<p>His bed-room and dressing-room were at the side of the
+gallery, directly opposite to my father's, which had a sort of ante-room
+<i>en suite</i>, in which were some of his theological books.</p>
+
+<p>The day after Mr. Bryerly's arrival, I was about to see whether
+my father's water caraffe and glass had been duly laid on the
+table in this ante-room, and in doubt whether he was there, I
+knocked at the door.</p>
+
+<p>I suppose they were too intent on other matters to hear, but
+receiving no answer, I entered the room. My father was sitting
+in his chair, with his coat and waistcoat off, Mr. Bryerly kneeling
+on a stool beside him, rather facing him, his black scratch
+wig leaning close to my father's grizzled hair. There was a large
+tome of their divinity lore, I suppose, open on the table close
+by. The lank black figure of Mr. Bryerly stood up, and he concealed
+something quickly in the breast of his coat.</p>
+
+<p>My father stood up also, looking paler, I think, than I ever
+saw him till then, and he pointed grimly to the door, and said,
+'Go.'</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Bryerly pushed me gently back with his hands to my
+shoulders, and smiled down from his dark features with an expression
+quite unintelligible to me.</p>
+
+<p>I had recovered myself in a second, and withdrew without a
+word. The last thing I saw at the door was the tall, slim figure
+in black, and the dark, significant smile following me: and then
+the door was shut and locked, and the two Swedenborgians were
+left to their mysteries.</p>
+
+<p>I remember so well the kind of shock and disgust I felt in
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page13" id="page13"></a>[pg 05]</span>
+
+the certainty that I had surprised them at some, perhaps, debasing
+incantation&mdash;a suspicion of this Mr. Bryerly, of the ill-fitting
+black coat, and white choker&mdash;and a sort of fear came
+upon me, and I fancied he was asserting some kind of mastery
+over my father, which very much alarmed me.</p>
+
+<p>I fancied all sorts of dangers in the enigmatical smile of the
+lank high-priest. The image of my father, as I had seen him, it
+might be, confessing to this man in black, who was I knew not
+what, haunted me with the disagreeable uncertainties of a mind
+very uninstructed as to the limits of the marvellous.</p>
+
+<p>I mentioned it to no one. But I was immensely relieved when
+the sinister visitor took his departure the morning after, and
+it was upon this occurrence that my mind was now employed.</p>
+
+<p>Some one said that Dr. Johnson resembled a ghost, who must
+be spoken to before it will speak. But my father, in whatever
+else he may have resembled a ghost, did not in that particular;
+for no one but I in his household&mdash;and I very seldom&mdash;dared to
+address him until first addressed by him. I had no notion how
+singular this was until I began to go out a little among friends
+and relations, and found no such rule in force anywhere else.</p>
+
+<p>As I leaned back in my chair thinking, this phantasm of my
+father came, and turned, and vanished with a solemn regularity.
+It was a peculiar figure, strongly made, thick-set, with a face
+large, and very stern; he wore a loose, black velvet coat and
+waistcoat. It was, however, the figure of an elderly rather than
+an old man&mdash;though he was then past seventy&mdash;but firm, and
+with no sign of feebleness.</p>
+
+<p>I remember the start with which, not suspecting that he was
+close by me, I lifted my eyes, and saw that large, rugged countenance
+looking fixedly on me, from less than a yard away.</p>
+
+<p>After I saw him, he continued to regard me for a second or
+two; and then, taking one of the heavy candlesticks in his
+gnarled hand, he beckoned me to follow him; which, in silence
+and wondering, I accordingly did.</p>
+
+<p>He led me across the hall, where there were lights burning,
+and into a lobby by the foot of the back stairs, and so into his
+library.</p>
+
+<p>It is a long, narrow room, with two tall, slim windows at the
+far end, now draped in dark curtains. Dusky it was with but one
+candle; and he paused near the door, at the left-hand side of
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page14" id="page14"></a>[pg 06]</span>
+
+which stood, in those days, an old-fashioned press or cabinet of
+carved oak. In front of this he stopped.</p>
+
+<p>He had odd, absent ways, and talked more to himself, I believe,
+than to all the rest of the world put together.</p>
+
+<p>'She won't understand,' he whispered, looking at me enquiringly.
+'No, she won't. <i>Will</i> she?'</p>
+
+<p>Then there was a pause, during which he brought forth
+from his breast pocket a small bunch of some half-dozen keys,
+on one of which he looked frowningly, every now and then
+balancing it a little before his eyes, between his finger and
+thumb, as he deliberated.</p>
+
+<p>I knew him too well, of course, to interpose a word.</p>
+
+<p>'They are easily frightened&mdash;ay, they are. I'd better do it
+another way.'</p>
+
+<p>And pausing, he looked in my face as he might upon a picture.</p>
+
+<p>'They <i>are</i>&mdash;yes&mdash;I had better do it another way&mdash;another way;
+yes&mdash;and she'll not suspect&mdash;she'll not suppose.'</p>
+
+<p>Then he looked steadfastly upon the key, and from it to me,
+suddenly lifting it up, and said abruptly, 'See, child,' and, after
+a second or two, '<i>Remember</i> this key.'</p>
+
+<p>It was oddly shaped, and unlike others.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, sir.' I always called him 'sir.'</p>
+
+<p>'It opens that,' and he tapped it sharply on the door of the
+cabinet. 'In the daytime it is always here,' at which word he
+dropped it into his pocket again. 'You see?&mdash;and at night under
+my pillow&mdash;you hear me?'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, sir.'</p>
+
+<p>'You won't forget this cabinet&mdash;oak&mdash;next the door&mdash;on your
+left&mdash;you won't forget?'</p>
+
+<p>'No, sir.'</p>
+
+<p>'Pity she's a girl, and so young&mdash;ay, a girl, and so young&mdash;no
+sense&mdash;giddy. You say, you'll <i>remember</i>?'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, sir.'</p>
+
+<p>'It behoves you.'</p>
+
+<p>He turned round and looked full upon me, like a man who
+has taken a sudden resolution; and I think for a moment he had
+made up his mind to tell me a great deal more. But if so, he
+changed it again; and after another pause, he said slowly and
+sternly&mdash;'You
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page15" id="page15"></a>[pg 07]</span>
+
+will tell nobody what I have said, under pain of my
+displeasure.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh! no, sir!'</p>
+
+<p>'Good child!'</p>
+
+<p>'<i>Except</i>,' he resumed, 'under one contingency; that is, in case
+I should be absent, and Dr. Bryerly&mdash;you recollect the thin
+gentleman, in spectacles and a black wig, who spent three days
+here last month&mdash;should come and enquire for the key, you
+understand, in my absence.'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, sir.'</p>
+
+<p>So he kissed me on the forehead, and said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Let us return.'</p>
+
+<p>Which, accordingly, we did, in silence; the storm outside,
+like a dirge on a great organ, accompanying our flitting.</p>
+
+<a name="chap02"></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER II</h3>
+
+<h2><i>UNCLE SILAS</i></h2>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>When we reached the drawing-room, I resumed my chair, and
+my father his slow and regular walk to and fro, in the great
+room. Perhaps it was the uproar of the wind that disturbed the
+ordinary tenor of his thoughts; but, whatever was the cause,
+certainly he was unusually talkative that night.</p>
+
+<p>After an interval of nearly half an hour, he drew near again,
+and sat down in a high-backed arm-chair, beside the fire, and
+nearly opposite to me, and looked at me steadfastly for some
+time, as was his wont, before speaking; and said he&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'This won't do&mdash;you must have a governess.'</p>
+
+<p>In cases of this kind I merely set down my book or work, as
+it might be, and adjusted myself to listen without speaking.</p>
+
+<p>'Your French is pretty well, and your Italian; but you have
+no German. Your music may be pretty good&mdash;I'm no judge&mdash;but
+your drawing might be better&mdash;yes&mdash;yes. I believe there are
+accomplished ladies&mdash;finishing governesses, they call them&mdash;who
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page16" id="page16"></a>[pg 08]</span>
+
+undertake more than any one teacher would have professed
+in my time, and do very well. She can prepare you, and
+next winter, then, you shall visit France and Italy, where you
+may be accomplished as highly as you please.'</p>
+
+<p>'Thank you, sir.'</p>
+
+<p>'You shall. It is nearly six months since Miss Ellerton left
+you&mdash;too long without a teacher.'</p>
+
+<p>Then followed an interval.</p>
+
+<p>'Dr. Bryerly will ask you about that key, and what it opens;
+you show all that to <i>him</i>, and no one else.'</p>
+
+<p>'But,' I said, for I had a great terror of disobeying him in
+ever so minute a matter, 'you will then be absent, sir&mdash;how am
+I to find the key?'</p>
+
+<p>He smiled on me suddenly&mdash;a bright but wintry smile&mdash;it seldom
+came, and was very transitory, and kindly though mysterious.</p>
+
+<p>'True, child; I'm glad you are so wise; <i>that</i>, you will find, I
+have provided for, and you shall know exactly where to look.
+You have remarked how solitarily I live. You fancy, perhaps,
+I have not got a friend, and you are nearly right&mdash;<i>nearly</i>, but
+not altogether. I have a very sure friend&mdash;<i>one</i>&mdash;a friend whom I
+once misunderstood, but now appreciate.'</p>
+
+<p>I wondered silently whether it could be Uncle Silas.</p>
+
+<p>'He'll make me a call, some day soon; I'm not quite sure
+when. I won't tell you his name&mdash;you'll hear that soon enough,
+and I don't want it talked of; and I must make a little journey
+with him. You'll not be afraid of being left alone for a time?'</p>
+
+<p>'And have you promised, sir?' I answered, with another question,
+my curiosity and anxiety overcoming my awe. He took
+my questioning very good-humouredly.</p>
+
+<p>'Well&mdash;<i>promise</i>?&mdash;no, child; but I'm under condition; he's not
+to be denied. I must make the excursion with him the moment
+he calls. I have no choice; but, on the whole, I rather like it&mdash;remember,
+I say, I rather <i>like</i> it.'</p>
+
+<p>And he smiled again, with the same meaning, that was at once
+stern and sad. The exact purport of these sentences remained
+fixed in my mind, so that even at this distance of time I am
+quite sure of them.</p>
+
+<p>A person quite unacquainted with my father's habitually abrupt
+and odd way of talking, would have fancied that he was possibly
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page17" id="page17"></a>[pg 09]</span>
+
+a little disordered in his mind. But no such suspicion for a
+moment troubled me. I was quite sure that he spoke of a real
+person who was coming, and that his journey was something
+momentous; and when the visitor of whom he spoke did come,
+and he departed with him upon that mysterious excursion, I
+perfectly understood his language and his reasons for saying so
+much and yet so little.</p>
+
+<p>You are not to suppose that all my hours were passed in the
+sort of conference and isolation of which I have just given you a
+specimen; and singular and even awful as were sometimes my
+<i>tête-a-têtes</i> with my father, I had grown so accustomed to his
+strange ways, and had so unbounded a confidence in his affection,
+that they never depressed or agitated me in the manner
+you might have supposed. I had a great deal of quite a different
+sort of chat with good old Mrs. Rusk, and very pleasant talks
+with Mary Quince, my somewhat ancient maid; and besides all
+this, I had now and then a visit of a week or so at the house of
+some one of our country neighbours, and occasionally a visitor&mdash;but
+this, I must own, very rarely&mdash;at Knowl.</p>
+
+<p>There had come now a little pause in my father's revelations,
+and my fancy wandered away upon a flight of discovery. Who,
+I again thought, could this intending visitor be, who was to
+come, armed with the prerogative to make my stay-at-home
+father forthwith leave his household goods&mdash;his books and his
+child&mdash;to whom he clung, and set forth on an unknown knight-errantry?
+Who but Uncle Silas, I thought&mdash;that mysterious
+relative whom I had never seen&mdash;who was, it had in old times
+been very darkly hinted to me, unspeakably unfortunate or
+unspeakably vicious&mdash;whom I had seldom heard my father mention,
+and then in a hurried way, and with a pained, thoughtful
+look. Once only he had said anything from which I could
+gather my father's opinion of him, and then it was so slight
+and enigmatical that I might have filled in the character very
+nearly as I pleased.</p>
+
+<p>It happened thus. One day Mrs. Rusk was in the oak-room, I
+being then about fourteen. She was removing a stain from a
+tapestry chair, and I watched the process with a childish interest.
+She sat down to rest herself&mdash;she had been stooping over her
+work&mdash;and threw her head back, for her neck was weary, and in
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page18" id="page18"></a>[pg 10]</span>
+
+this position she fixed her eyes on a portrait that hung before
+her.</p>
+
+<p>It was a full-length, and represented a singularly handsome
+young man, dark, slender, elegant, in a costume then quite
+obsolete, though I believe it was seen at the beginning of this
+century&mdash;white leather pantaloons and top-boots, a buff waistcoat, and a
+chocolate-coloured coat, and the hair long and
+brushed back.</p>
+
+<p>There was a remarkable elegance and a delicacy in the features,
+but also a character of resolution and ability that quite
+took the portrait out of the category of mere fops or fine men.
+When people looked at it for the first time, I have so often
+heard the exclamation&mdash;'What a wonderfully handsome man!'
+and then, 'What a clever face!' An Italian greyhound stood by
+him, and some slender columns and a rich drapery in the background.
+But though the accessories were of the luxurious sort,
+and the beauty, as I have said, refined, there was a masculine
+force in that slender oval face, and a fire in the large, shadowy
+eyes, which were very peculiar, and quite redeemed it from the
+suspicion of effeminacy.</p>
+
+<p>'Is not that Uncle Silas?' said I.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, dear,' answered Mrs. Rusk, looking, with her resolute
+little face, quietly on the portrait.</p>
+
+<p>'He must be a very handsome man, Mrs. Rusk. Don't you
+think so?' I continued.</p>
+
+<p>'He <i>was</i>, my dear&mdash;yes; but it is forty years since that was
+painted&mdash;the date is there in the corner, in the shadow that
+comes from his foot, and forty years, I can tell you, makes a
+change in most of us;' and Mrs. Rusk laughed, in cynical good-humour.</p>
+
+<p>There was a little pause, both still looking on the handsome
+man in top-boots, and I said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'And why, Mrs. Rusk, is papa always so sad about Uncle
+Silas?'</p>
+
+<p>'What's that, child?' said my father's voice, very near. I looked
+round, with a start, and flushed and faltered, receding a step
+from him.</p>
+
+<p>'No harm, dear. You have said nothing wrong,' he said gently,
+observing my alarm. 'You said I was always sad, I think, about
+Uncle Silas. Well, I don't know how you gather that; but if I
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page19" id="page19"></a>[pg 11]</span>
+
+were, I will now tell you, it would not be unnatural. Your uncle
+is a man of great talents, great faults, and great wrongs. His
+talents have not availed him; his faults are long ago repented of;
+and his wrongs I believe he feels less than I do, but they are
+deep. Did she say any more, madam?' he demanded abruptly
+of Mrs. Rusk.</p>
+
+<p>'Nothing, sir,' with a stiff little courtesy, answered Mrs. Rusk,
+who stood in awe of him.</p>
+
+<p>'And there is no need, child,' he continued, addressing himself
+to me, 'that you should think more of him at present. Clear
+your head of Uncle Silas. One day, perhaps, you will know him&mdash;yes,
+very well&mdash;and understand how villains have injured him.</p>
+
+<p>Then my father retired, and at the door he said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Mrs. Rusk, a word, if you please,' beckoning to that lady, who
+trotted after him to the library.</p>
+
+<p>I think he then laid some injunction upon the housekeeper,
+which was transmitted by her to Mary Quince, for from that
+time forth I could never lead either to talk with me about
+Uncle Silas. They let me talk on, but were reserved and silent
+themselves, and seemed embarrassed, and Mrs. Rusk sometimes
+pettish and angry, when I pressed for information.</p>
+
+<p>Thus curiosity was piqued; and round the slender portrait
+in the leather pantaloons and top-boots gathered many-coloured
+circles of mystery, and the handsome features seemed to smile
+down upon my baffled curiosity with a provoking significance.</p>
+
+<p>Why is it that this form of ambition&mdash;curiosity&mdash;which entered
+into the temptation of our first parent, is so specially hard to
+resist? Knowledge is power&mdash;and power of one sort or another
+is the secret lust of human souls; and here is, beside the sense of
+exploration, the undefinable interest of a story, and above all,
+something forbidden, to stimulate the contumacious appetite.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page20" id="page20"></a>[pg 12]</span>
+
+<a name="chap03"></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER III</h3>
+
+<h2><i>A NEW FACE</i></h2>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>I think it was about a fortnight after that conversation in which
+my father had expressed his opinion, and given me the mysterious charge
+about the old oak cabinet in his library, as already
+detailed, that I was one night sitting at the great drawing-room
+window, lost in the melancholy reveries of night, and in admiration of the
+moonlighted scene. I was the only occupant of the
+room; and the lights near the fire, at its farther end, hardly
+reached to the window at which I sat.</p>
+
+<p>The shorn grass sloped gently downward from the windows
+till it met the broad level on which stood, in clumps, or solitarily
+scattered, some of the noblest timber in England. Hoar in
+the moonbeams stood those graceful trees casting their moveless
+shadows upon the grass, and in the background crowning the
+undulations of the distance, in masses, were piled those woods
+among which lay the solitary tomb where the remains of my
+beloved mother rested.</p>
+
+<p>The air was still. The silvery vapour hung serenely on the far
+horizon, and the frosty stars blinked brightly. Everyone knows
+the effect of such a scene on a mind already saddened. Fancies
+and regrets float mistily in the dream, and the scene affects
+us with a strange mixture of memory and anticipation, like
+some sweet old air heard in the distance. As my eyes rested on
+those, to me, funereal but glorious woods, which formed the
+background of the picture, my thoughts recurred to my father's
+mysterious intimations and the image of the approaching visitor;
+and the thought of the unknown journey saddened me.</p>
+
+<p>In all that concerned his religion, from very early association,
+there was to me something of the unearthly and spectral.</p>
+
+<p>When my dear mamma died I was not nine years old; and I
+remember, two days before the funeral, there came to Knowl,
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page21" id="page21"></a>[pg 13]</span>
+
+where she died, a thin little man, with large black eyes, and a
+very grave, dark face.</p>
+
+<p>He was shut up a good deal with my dear father, who was in
+deep affliction; and Mrs. Rusk used to say, 'It is rather odd to
+see him praying with that little scarecrow from London, and
+good Mr. Clay ready at call, in the village; much good that
+little black whipper-snapper will do him!'</p>
+
+<p>With that little black man, on the day after the funeral, I was
+sent out, for some reason, for a walk; my governess was ill, I
+know, and there was confusion in the house, and I dare say the
+maids made as much of a holiday as they could.</p>
+
+<p>I remember feeling a sort of awe of this little dark man; but
+I was not afraid of him, for he was gentle, though sad&mdash;and
+seemed kind. He led me into the garden&mdash;the Dutch garden, we
+used to call it&mdash;with a balustrade, and statues at the farther
+front, laid out in a carpet-pattern of brilliantly-coloured flowers.
+We came down the broad flight of Caen stone steps into this,
+and we walked in silence to the balustrade. The base was too
+high at the spot where we reached it for me to see over; but
+holding my hand, he said, 'Look through that, my child. Well,
+you can't; but <i>I</i> can see beyond it&mdash;shall I tell you what? I see
+ever so much. I see a cottage with a steep roof, that looks like
+gold in the sunlight; there are tall trees throwing soft shadows
+round it, and flowering shrubs, I can't say what, only the colours
+are beautiful, growing by the walls and windows, and two little
+children are playing among the stems of the trees, and we are
+on our way there, and in a few minutes shall be under those
+trees ourselves, and talking to those little children. Yet now to
+me it is but a picture in my brain, and to you but a story told
+by me, which you believe. Come, dear; let us be going.'</p>
+
+<p>So we descended the steps at the right, and side by side
+walked along the grass lane between tall trim walls of evergreens. The way
+was in deep shadow, for the sun was near
+the horizon; but suddenly we turned to the left, and there we
+stood in rich sunlight, among the many objects he had described.</p>
+
+<p>'Is this your house, my little men?' he asked of the children&mdash;pretty
+little rosy boys&mdash;who assented; and he leaned with his
+open hand against the stem of one of the trees, and with a
+grave smile he nodded down to me, saying&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'You see now, and hear, and <i>feel</i> for yourself that both the
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page22" id="page22"></a>[pg 14]</span>
+
+vision and the story were quite true; but come on, my dear, we
+have further to go.'</p>
+
+<p>And relapsing into silence we had a long ramble through the
+wood, the same on which I was now looking in the distance.
+Every now and then he made me sit down to rest, and he in a
+musing solemn sort of way would relate some little story, reflecting, even
+to my childish mind, a strange suspicion of a spiritual
+meaning, but different from what honest Mrs. Rusk used to expound
+to me from the Parables, and, somehow, startling in its
+very vagueness.</p>
+
+<p>Thus entertained, though a little awfully, I accompanied the
+dark mysterious little 'whipper-snapper' through the woodland
+glades. We came, to me quite unexpectedly, in the deep sylvan
+shadows, upon the grey, pillared temple, four-fronted, with a
+slanting pedestal of lichen-stained steps, the lonely sepulchre in
+which I had the morning before seen poor mamma laid. At the
+sight the fountains of my grief reopened, and I cried bitterly,
+repeating, 'Oh! mamma, mamma, little mamma!' and so went on
+weeping and calling wildly on the deaf and the silent. There was
+a stone bench some ten steps away from the tomb.</p>
+
+<p>'Sit down beside me, my child,' said the grave man with the
+black eyes, very kindly and gently. 'Now, what do you see
+there?' he asked, pointing horizontally with his stick towards
+the centre of the opposite structure.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, <i>that</i>&mdash;that place where poor mamma is?'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, a stone wall with pillars, too high for either you or me
+to see over. But&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>Here he mentioned a name which I think must have been
+Swedenborg, from what I afterwards learnt of his tenets and
+revelations; I only know that it sounded to me like the name of
+a magician in a fairy tale; I fancied he lived in the wood which
+surrounded us, and I began to grow frightened as he proceeded.</p>
+
+<p>'But Swedenborg sees beyond it, over, and <i>through</i> it, and has
+told me all that concerns us to know. He says your mamma is
+not there.'</p>
+
+<p>'She is taken away!' I cried, starting up, and with streaming
+eyes, gazing on the building which, though I stamped my feet
+in my distraction, I was afraid to approach. 'Oh, <i>is</i> mamma
+taken away? Where is she? Where have they brought her to?'</p>
+
+<p>I was uttering unconsciously very nearly the question with
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page23" id="page23"></a>[pg 15]</span>
+
+which Mary, in the grey of that wondrous morning on which she
+stood by the empty sepulchre, accosted the figure standing near.</p>
+
+<p>'Your mamma is alive but too far away to see or hear us.
+Swedenborg, standing here, can see and hear her, and tells me
+all he sees, just as I told you in the garden about the little boys
+and the cottage, and the trees and flowers which you could not
+see. You believed in when <i>I</i> told you. So I can tell you now as I
+did then; and as we are both, I hope, walking on to the same
+place just as we did to the trees and cottage. You will surely
+see with your own eyes how true the description is which I give
+you.'</p>
+
+<p>I was very frightened, for I feared that when he had
+done his narrative we were to walk on through the wood into
+that place of wonders and of shadows where the dead were
+visible.</p>
+
+<p>He leaned his elbow on his knee, and his forehead on his
+hand, which shaded his downcast eyes. In that attitude he described to me a
+beautiful landscape, radiant with a wondrous
+light, in which, rejoicing, my mother moved along an airy path,
+ascending among mountains of fantastic height, and peaks,
+melting in celestial colouring into the air, and peopled with
+human beings translated into the same image, beauty, and
+splendour. And when he had ended his relation, he rose, took
+my hand, and smiling gently down on my pale, wondering face,
+he said the same words he had spoken before&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Come, dear, let us go.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh! no, no, <i>no</i>&mdash;not now,' I said, resisting, and very much
+frightened.</p>
+
+<p>'Home, I mean, dear. We cannot walk to the place I have
+described. We can only reach it through the gate of death, to
+which we are all tending, young and old, with sure steps.'</p>
+
+<p>'And where is the gate of death?' I asked in a sort of whisper,
+as we walked together, holding his hand, and looking
+stealthily. He smiled sadly and said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'When, sooner or later, the time comes, as Hagar's eyes were
+opened in the wilderness, and she beheld the fountain of water,
+so shall each of us see the door open before us, and enter in and
+be refreshed.'</p>
+
+<p>For a long time following this walk I was very nervous; more
+so for the awful manner in which Mrs. Rusk received my
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page24" id="page24"></a>[pg 16]</span>
+
+statement&mdash;with stern lips and upturned hands and eyes, and an
+angry expostulation: 'I do wonder at you, Mary Quince, letting
+the child walk into the wood with that limb of darkness. It is a
+mercy he did not show her the devil, or frighten her out of her
+senses, in that lonely place!'</p>
+
+<p>Of these Swedenborgians, indeed, I know no more than I
+might learn from good Mrs. Rusk's very inaccurate talk. Two
+or three of them crossed in the course of my early life, like
+magic-lantern figures, the disk of my very circumscribed observation. All
+outside was and is darkness. I once tried to read one
+of their books upon the future state&mdash;heaven and hell; but I
+grew after a day or two so nervous that I laid it aside. It is
+enough for me to know that their founder either saw or fancied
+he saw amazing visions, which, so far from superseding, confirmed and
+interpreted the language of the Bible; and as dear
+papa accepted their ideas, I am happy in thinking that they did
+not conflict with the supreme authority of holy writ.</p>
+
+<p>Leaning on my hand, I was now looking upon that solemn
+wood, white and shadowy in the moonlight, where, for a long
+time after that ramble with the visionary, I fancied the gate of
+death, hidden only by a strange glamour, and the dazzling land
+of ghosts, were situate; and I suppose these earlier associations
+gave to my reverie about my father's coming visitor a wilder
+and a sadder tinge.</p>
+
+<a name="chap04"></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER IV</h3>
+
+<h2><i>MADAME DE LA ROUGIERRE</i></h2>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>On a sudden, on the grass before me, stood an odd figure&mdash;a
+very tall woman in grey draperies, nearly white under the moon,
+courtesying extraordinarily low, and rather fantastically.</p>
+
+<p>I stared in something like a horror upon the large and rather
+hollow features which I did not know, smiling very unpleasantly
+on me; and the moment it was plain that I saw her, the
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page25" id="page25"></a>[pg 17]</span>
+
+grey woman began gobbling and cackling shrilly&mdash;I could not
+distinctly hear <i>what</i> through the window&mdash;and gesticulating
+oddly with her long hands and arms.</p>
+
+<p>As she drew near the window, I flew to the fireplace, and rang
+the bell frantically, and seeing her still there, and fearing that
+she might break into the room, I flew out of the door, very much
+frightened, and met Branston the butler in the lobby.</p>
+
+<p>'There's a woman at the window!' I gasped; 'turn her away,
+please.'</p>
+
+<p>If I had said a man, I suppose fat Branston would have summoned and sent
+forward a detachment of footmen. As it was, he
+bowed gravely, with a&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, 'm&mdash;shall, 'm.'</p>
+
+<p>And with an air of authority approached the window.</p>
+
+<p>I don't think that he was pleasantly impressed himself by the
+first sight of our visitor, for he stopped short some steps of the
+window, and demanded rather sternly&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'What ye doin' there, woman?'</p>
+
+<p>To this summons, her answer, which occupied a little time,
+was inaudible to me. But Branston replied&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'I wasn't aware, ma'am; I heerd nothin'; if you'll go round
+<i>that</i> way, you'll see the hall-door steps, and I'll speak to the
+master, and do as he shall order.'</p>
+
+<p>The figure said something and pointed.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, that's it, and ye can't miss the door.'</p>
+
+<p>And Mr. Branston returned slowly down the long room, and
+halted with out-turned pumps and a grave inclination before
+me, and the faintest amount of interrogation in the announcement&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Please, 'm, she says she's the governess.'</p>
+
+<p>'The governess! <i>What</i> governess?'</p>
+
+<p>Branston was too well-bred to smile, and he said thoughtfully&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'P'raps, 'm, I'd best ask the master?'</p>
+
+<p>To which I assented, and away strode the flat pumps of the
+butler to the library.</p>
+
+<p>I stood breathless in the hall. Every girl at my age knows
+how much is involved in such an advent. I also heard Mrs.
+Rusk, in a minute or two more, emerge I suppose from the
+study. She walked quickly, and muttered sharply to herself&mdash;an
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page26" id="page26"></a>[pg 18]</span>
+
+evil trick, in which she indulged when much 'put about.' I
+should have been glad of a word with her; but I fancied she was
+vexed, and would not have talked satisfactorily. She did not,
+however, come my way; merely crossing the hall with her quick,
+energetic step.</p>
+
+<p>Was it really the arrival of a governess? Was that apparition
+which had impressed me so unpleasantly to take the command of
+me&mdash;to sit alone with me, and haunt me perpetually with her
+sinister looks and shrilly gabble?</p>
+
+<p>I was just making up my mind to go to Mary Quince, and
+learn something definite, when I heard my father's step approaching from
+the library: so I quietly re-entered the drawing-room,
+but with an anxious and throbbing heart.</p>
+
+<p>When he came in, as usual, he patted me on the head gently,
+with a kind of smile, and then began his silent walk up and
+down the room. I was yearning to question him on the point
+that just then engrossed me so disagreeably; but the awe in
+which I stood of him forbade.</p>
+
+<p>After a time he stopped at the window, the curtain of which
+I had drawn, and the shutter partly opened, and he looked out,
+perhaps with associations of his own, on the scene I had been
+contemplating.</p>
+
+<p>It was not for nearly an hour after, that my father suddenly,
+after his wont, in a few words, apprised me of the arrival of
+Madame de la Rougierre to be my governess, highly recommended
+and perfectly qualified. My heart sank with a sure
+presage of ill. I already disliked, distrusted, and feared her.</p>
+
+<p>I had more than an apprehension of her temper and fear
+of possibly abused authority. The large-featured, smirking phantom,
+saluting me so oddly in the moonlight, retained ever after
+its peculiar and unpleasant hold upon my nerves.</p>
+
+<p>'Well, Miss Maud, dear, I hope you'll like your new governess&mdash;for
+it's more than <i>I</i> do, just at present at least,' said Mrs. Rusk,
+sharply&mdash;she was awaiting me in my room. 'I hate them French-women; they're
+not natural, I think. I gave her her supper in
+my room. She eats like a wolf, she does, the great raw-boned
+hannimal. I wish you saw her in bed as I did. I put her next
+the clock-room&mdash;she'll hear the hours betimes, I'm thinking.
+You never saw such a sight. The great long nose and hollow
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page27" id="page27"></a>[pg 19]</span>
+
+cheeks of her, and oogh! such a mouth! I felt a'most like little
+Red Riding-Hood&mdash;I did, Miss.'</p>
+
+<p>Here honest Mary Quince, who enjoyed Mrs. Rusk's satire,
+a weapon in which she was not herself strong, laughed outright.</p>
+
+<p>'Turn down the bed, Mary. She's very agreeable&mdash;she is, just
+now&mdash;all new-comers is; but she did not get many compliments
+from me, Miss&mdash;no, I rayther think not. I wonder why honest
+English girls won't answer the gentry for governesses, instead of
+them gaping, scheming, wicked furriners? Lord forgi' me, I think
+they're all alike.'</p>
+
+<p>Next morning I made acquaintance with Madame de la Rougierre.
+She was tall, masculine, a little ghastly perhaps, and
+draped in purple silk, with a lace cap, and great bands of black
+hair, too thick and black, perhaps, to correspond quite naturally
+with her bleached and sallow skin, her hollow jaws, and the
+fine but grim wrinkles traced about her brows and eyelids. She
+smiled, she nodded, and then for a good while she scanned me
+in silence with a steady cunning eye, and a stern smile.</p>
+
+<p>'And how is she named&mdash;what is Mademoiselle's name?' said
+the tall stranger.</p>
+
+<p>'<i>Maud</i>, Madame.'</p>
+
+<p>'Maud!&mdash;what pretty name! Eh bien! I am very sure my
+dear Maud she will be very good little girl&mdash;is not so?&mdash;and I am
+sure I shall love you vary moche. And what 'av you been learning, Maud, my
+dear cheaile&mdash;music, French, German, eh?'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, a little; and I had just begun the use of the globes when
+my governess went away.'</p>
+
+<p>I nodded towards the globes, which stood near her, as I said
+this.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh! yes&mdash;the globes;' and she spun one of them with her
+great hand. 'Je vous expliquerai tout cela à fond.'</p>
+
+<p>Madame de la Rougierre, I found, was always quite ready to
+explain everything 'à fond;' but somehow her 'explications,' as
+she termed them, were not very intelligible, and when pressed
+her temper woke up; so that I preferred, after a while, accepting
+the expositions just as they came.</p>
+
+<p>Madame was on an unusually large scale, a circumstance
+which made some of her traits more startling, and altogether
+rendered her, in her strange way, more awful in the eyes of a
+nervous <i>child,</i> I may say, such as I was. She used to look at me
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page28" id="page28"></a>[pg 20]</span>
+
+for a long time sometimes, with the peculiar smile I have mentioned, and a
+great finger upon her lip, like the Eleusinian
+priestess on the vase.</p>
+
+<p>She would sit, too, sometimes for an hour together, looking
+into the fire or out of the window, plainly seeing nothing, and
+with an odd, fixed look of something like triumph&mdash;very nearly
+a smile&mdash;on her cunning face.</p>
+
+<p>She was by no means a pleasant <i>gouvernante</i> for a nervous
+girl of my years. Sometimes she had accesses of a sort of hilarity
+which frightened me still more than her graver moods, and I
+will describe these by-and-by.</p>
+
+<a name="chap05"></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER V</h3>
+
+<h2><i>SIGHTS AND NOISES</i></h2>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>There is not an old house in England of which the servants and
+young people who live in it do not cherish some traditions of
+the ghostly. Knowl has its shadows, noises, and marvellous
+records. Rachel Ruthyn, the beauty of Queen Anne's time, who
+died of grief for the handsome Colonel Norbrooke, who was
+killed in the Low Countries, walks the house by night, in crisp
+and sounding silks. She is not seen, only heard. The tapping of
+her high-heeled shoes, the sweep and rustle of her brocades, her
+sighs as she pauses in the galleries, near the bed-room doors;
+and sometimes, on stormy nights, her sobs.</p>
+
+<p>There is, beside, the 'link-man', a lank, dark-faced, black-haired man, in
+a sable suit, with a link or torch in his hand. It
+usually only smoulders, with a deep red glow, as he visits his
+beat. The library is one of the rooms he sees to. Unlike 'Lady
+Rachel,' as the maids called her, he is seen only, never heard.
+His steps fall noiseless as shadows on floor and carpet. The lurid
+glow of his smouldering torch imperfectly lights his figure and
+face, and, except when much perturbed, his link never blazes.
+On those occasions, however, as he goes his rounds, he ever and
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page29" id="page29"></a>[pg 21]</span>
+
+anon whirls it around his head, and it bursts into a dismal
+flame. This is a fearful omen, and always portends some direful
+crisis or calamity. It occurs, only once or twice in a
+century.</p>
+
+<p>I don't know whether Madame had heard anything of these
+phenomena; but she did report which very much frightened me
+and Mary Quince. She asked us who walked in the gallery on
+which her bed-room opened, making a rustling with her dress,
+and going down the stairs, and breathing long breaths here and
+there. Twice, she said, she had stood at her door in the dark,
+listening to these sounds, and once she called to know who
+it was. There was no answer, but the person plainly turned
+back, and hurried towards her with an unnatural speed, which
+made her jump within her door and shut it.</p>
+
+<p>When first such tales are told, they excite the nerves of the
+young and the ignorant intensely. But the special effect, I have
+found, soon wears out. The tale simply takes it's place with
+the rest. It was with Madame's narrative.</p>
+
+<p>About a week after its relation, I had my experience of a
+similar sort. Mary Quince went down-stairs for a night-light,
+leaving me in bed, a candle burning in the room, and being
+tired, I fell asleep before her return. When I awoke the candle
+had been extinguished. But I heard a step softly approaching.
+I jumped up&mdash;quite forgetting the ghost, and thinking only of
+Mary Quince&mdash;and opened the door, expecting to see the light
+of her candle. Instead, all was dark, and near me I heard the
+fall of a bare foot on the oak floor. It was as if some one had
+stumbled. I said, 'Mary,' but no answer came, only a rustling of
+clothes and a breathing at the other side of the gallery, which
+passed off towards the upper staircase. I turned into my room,
+freezing with horror, and clapt my door. The noise wakened
+Mary Quince, who had returned and gone to her bed half an
+hour before.</p>
+
+<p>About a fortnight after this, Mary Quince, a very veracious
+spinster, reported to me, that having got up to fix the window,
+which was rattling, at about four o'clock in the morning, she
+saw a light shining from the library window. She could swear
+to its being a strong light, streaming through the chinks of the
+shutter, and moving. No doubt the link was waved about his
+head by the angry 'link-man.'</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page30" id="page30"></a>[pg 22]</span>
+
+<p>These strange occurrences helped, I think, just then to make
+me nervous, and prepared the way for the odd sort of
+ascendency which, through my sense of the mysterious and
+super-natural, that repulsive Frenchwoman was gradually, and it
+seemed without effort, establishing over me.</p>
+
+<p>Some dark points of her character speedily emerged from the
+prismatic mist with which she had enveloped it.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Rusk's observation about the agreeability of new-comers
+I found to be true; for as Madame began to lose that character,
+her good-humour abated very perceptibly, and she began to
+show gleams of another sort of temper, that was lurid and
+dangerous.</p>
+
+<p>Notwithstanding this, she was in the habit of always having
+her Bible open by her, and was austerely attentive at morning
+and evening services, and asked my father, with great humility,
+to lend her some translations of Swedenborg's books, which she
+laid much to heart.</p>
+
+<p>When we went out for our walk, if the weather were bad we
+generally made our promenade up and down the broad terrace
+in front of the windows. Sullen and malign at times she used to
+look, and as suddenly she would pat me on the shoulder caressingly, and
+smile with a grotesque benignity, asking tenderly,
+'Are you fatigue, ma chère?' or 'Are you cold-a, dear Maud?'</p>
+
+<p>At first these abrupt transitions puzzled me, sometimes half
+frightened me, savouring, I fancied, of insanity. The key, however,
+was accidentally supplied, and I found that these accesses
+of demonstrative affection were sure to supervene whenever
+my father's face was visible through the library windows.</p>
+
+<p>I did not know well what to make of this woman, whom I
+feared with a vein of superstitious dread. I hated being alone
+with her after dusk in the school-room. She would sometimes
+sit for half an hour at a time, with her wide mouth drawn
+down at the corners, and a scowl, looking into the fire. If she
+saw me looking at her, she would change all this on the instant,
+affect a sort of languor, and lean her head upon her hand, and
+ultimately have recourse to her Bible. But I fancied she did not
+read, but pursued her own dark ruminations, for I observed that
+the open book might often lie for half an hour or more under
+her eyes and yet the leaf never turned.</p>
+
+<p>I should have been glad to be assured that she prayed when
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page31" id="page31"></a>[pg 23]</span>
+
+on her knees, or read when that book was before her; I should
+have felt that she was more canny and human. As it was, those
+external pieties made a suspicion of a hollow contrast with realities
+that helped to scare me; yet it was but a suspicion&mdash;I could not be
+certain.</p>
+
+<p>Our rector and the curate, with whom she was very gracious,
+and anxious about my collects and catechism, had an exalted
+opinion of her. In public places her affection for me was always
+demonstrative.</p>
+
+<p>In like manner she contrived conferences with my father.
+She was always making excuses to consult him about my reading,
+and to confide in him her sufferings, as I learned, from my
+contumacy and temper. The fact is, I was altogether quiet and
+submissive. But I think she had a wish to reduce me to a state
+of the most abject bondage. She had designs of domination and
+subversion regarding the entire household, I now believe, worthy
+of the evil spirit I sometimes fancied her.</p>
+
+<p>My father beckoned me into the study one day, and said he&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'You ought not to give poor Madame so much pain. She is
+one of the few persons who take an interest in you; why should
+she have so often to complain of your ill-temper and disobedience?&mdash;why
+should she be compelled to ask my permission to
+punish you? Don't be afraid, I won't concede that. But in so
+kind a person it argues much. Affection I can't command&mdash;respect and
+obedience I may&mdash;and I insist on your rendering <i>both</i>
+to Madame.'</p>
+
+<p>'But sir,' I said, roused into courage by the gross injustice of
+the charge, 'I have always done exactly as she bid me, and never
+said one disrespectful word to Madame.'</p>
+
+<p>'I don't think, child, <i>you</i> are the best judge of that. Go, and
+<i>amend</i>.' And with a displeased look he pointed to the door. My
+heart swelled with the sense of wrong, and as I reached the door
+I turned to say another word, but I could not, and only burst
+into tears.</p>
+
+<p>'There&mdash;don't cry, little Maud&mdash;only let us do better for the
+future. There&mdash;there&mdash;there has been enough.'</p>
+
+<p>And he kissed my forehead, and gently put me out and closed
+the door.</p>
+
+<p>In the school-room I took courage, and with some warmth
+upbraided Madame.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page32" id="page32"></a>[pg 24]</span>
+
+<p>'Wat wicked cheaile!' moaned Madame, demurely. 'Read
+aloud those three&mdash;yes, <i>those</i> three chapters of the Bible, my
+dear Maud.'</p>
+
+<p>There was no special fitness in those particular chapters, and
+when they were ended she said in a sad tone&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Now, dear, you must commit to memory this pretty priaire
+for umility of art.'</p>
+
+<p>It was a long one, and in a state of profound irritation I got
+through the task.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Rusk hated her. She said she stole wine and brandy
+whenever the opportunity offered&mdash;that she was always asking
+her for such stimulants and pretending pains in her stomach.
+Here, perhaps, there was exaggeration; but I knew it was true
+that I had been at different times despatched on that errand and
+pretext for brandy to Mrs. Rusk, who at last came to her bedside with pills
+and a mustard blister only, and was hated irrevocably ever after.</p>
+
+<p>I felt all this was done to torture me. But a day is a long time
+to a child, and they forgive quickly. It was always with a sense
+of danger that I heard Madame say she must go and see Monsieur Ruthyn in
+the library, and I think a jealousy of her growing influence was an
+ingredient in the detestation in which honest Mrs. Rusk held her.</p>
+
+<a name="chap06"></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER VI</h3>
+
+<h2><i>A WALK IN THE WOOD</i></h2>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>Two little pieces of by-play in which I detected her confirmed
+my unpleasant suspicion. From the corner of the gallery I one
+day saw her, when she thought I was out and all quiet, with her
+ear at the keyhole of papa's study, as we used to call the sitting-room
+next his bed-room. Her eyes were turned in the direction
+of the stairs, from which only she apprehended surprise. Her
+great mouth was open, and her eyes absolutely goggled with
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page33" id="page33"></a>[pg 25]</span>
+
+eagerness. She was devouring all that was passing there. I drew
+back into the shadow with a kind of disgust and horror. She
+was transformed into a great gaping reptile. I felt that I could
+have thrown something at her; but a kind of fear made me recede again
+toward my room. Indignation, however, quickly returned, and I came back,
+treading briskly as I did so. When
+I reached the angle of the gallery again. Madame, I suppose, had
+heard me, for she was half-way down the stairs.</p>
+
+<p>'Ah, my dear Cheaile, I am so glad to find you, and you are
+dress to come out. We shall have so pleasant walk.'</p>
+
+<p>At that moment the door of my father's study opened, and
+Mrs. Rusk, with her dark energetic face very much flushed,
+stepped out in high excitement.</p>
+
+<p>'The Master says you may have the brandy-bottle, Madame
+and I'm glad to be rid of it&mdash;<i>I</i> am.'</p>
+
+<p>Madame courtesied with a great smirk, that was full of intangible hate and
+insult.</p>
+
+<p>'Better your own brandy, if drink you must!' exclaimed Mrs.
+Rusk. 'You may come to the store-room now, or the butler can
+take it.'</p>
+
+<p>And off whisked Mrs. Rusk for the back staircase.</p>
+
+<p>There had been no common skirmish on this occasion, but
+a pitched battle.</p>
+
+<p>Madame had made a sort of pet of Anne Wixted, an under-chambermaid, and
+attached her to her interest economically by
+persuading me to make her presents of some old dresses and
+other things. Anne was such an angel!</p>
+
+<p>But Mrs. Rusk, whose eyes were about her, detected Anne,
+with a brandy-bottle under her apron, stealing up-stairs. Anne,
+in a panic, declared the truth. Madame had commissioned her
+to buy it in the town, and convey it to her bed-room. Upon
+this, Mrs. Rusk impounded the flask; and, with Anne beside
+her, rather precipitately appeared before 'the Master.' He heard
+and summoned Madame. Madame was cool, frank, and fluent.
+The brandy was purely medicinal. She produced a document
+in the form of a note. Doctor Somebody presented his compliments
+to Madame de la Rougierre, and ordered her a table-spoonful
+of brandy and some drops of laudanum whenever the pain of
+stomach returned. The flask would last a whole year, perhaps
+two. She claimed her medicine.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page34" id="page34"></a>[pg 26]</span>
+
+<p>Man's estimate of woman is higher than woman's own. Perhaps
+in their relations to men they are generally more trustworthy&mdash;perhaps
+woman's is the juster, and the other an appointed illusion. I don't
+know; but so it is ordained.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Rusk was recalled, and I saw, as you are aware, Madame's
+procedure during the interview.</p>
+
+<p>It was a great battle&mdash;a great victory. Madame was in high
+spirits. The air was sweet&mdash;the landscape charming&mdash;I, so good&mdash;everything
+so beautiful! Where should we go? <i>this</i> way?</p>
+
+<p>I had made a resolution to speak as little as possible to
+Madame, I was so incensed at the treachery I had witnessed;
+but such resolutions do not last long with very young people,
+and by the time we had reached the skirts of the wood we were
+talking pretty much as usual.</p>
+
+<p>'I don't wish to go into the wood, Madame.'</p>
+
+<p>'And for what?'</p>
+
+<p>'Poor mamma is buried there.'</p>
+
+<p>'Is <i>there</i> the vault?' demanded Madame eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>I assented.</p>
+
+<p>'My faith, curious reason; you say because poor mamma is
+buried there you will not approach! Why, cheaile, what would
+good Monsieur Ruthyn say if he heard such thing? You are
+surely not so unkain', and I am with you. <i>Allons</i>. Let us
+come&mdash;even a little part of the way.'</p>
+
+<p>And so I yielded, though still reluctant.</p>
+
+<p>There was a grass-grown road, which we easily reached, leading
+to the sombre building, and we soon arrived before it.</p>
+
+<p>Madame de la Rougierre seemed rather curious. She sat down
+on the little bank opposite, in her most languid pose&mdash;her head
+leaned upon the tips of her fingers.</p>
+
+<p>'How very sad&mdash;how solemn!' murmured Madame. 'What
+noble tomb! How triste, my dear cheaile, your visit 'ere must
+it be, remembering a so sweet maman. There is new inscription&mdash;is
+it not new?' And so, indeed, it seemed.</p>
+
+<p>'I am fatigue&mdash;maybe you will read it aloud to me slowly and
+solemnly, my dearest Maud?'</p>
+
+<p>As I approached, I happened to look, I can't tell why, suddenly,
+over my shoulder; I was startled, for Madame was grimacing
+after me with a vile derisive distortion. She pretended to
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page35" id="page35"></a>[pg 27]</span>
+
+be seized with a fit of coughing. But it would not do: she saw
+that I had detected her, and she laughed aloud.</p>
+
+<p>'Come here, dear cheaile. I was just reflecting how foolish is
+all this thing&mdash;the tomb&mdash;the epitaph. I think I would 'av none&mdash;no,
+no epitaph. We regard them first for the oracle of the
+dead, and find them after only the folly of the living. So I
+despise. Do you think your house of Knowl down there is what
+you call haunt, my dear?'</p>
+
+<p>'Why?' said I, flushing and growing pale again. I felt quite
+afraid of Madame, and confounded at the suddenness of all
+this.</p>
+
+<p>'Because Anne Wixted she says there is ghost. How dark is
+this place! and so many of the Ruthyn family they are buried
+here&mdash;is not so? How high and thick are the trees all round!
+and nobody comes near.'</p>
+
+<p>And Madame rolled her eyes awfully, as if she expected to
+see something unearthly, and, indeed, looked very like it herself.</p>
+
+<p>'Come away, Madame,' I said, growing frightened, and feeling
+that if I were once, by any accident, to give way to the panic
+that was gathering round me, I should instantaneously lose all
+control of myself. 'Oh, come away! do, Madame&mdash;I'm frightened.'</p>
+
+<p>'No, on the contrary, sit here by me. It is very odd, you will
+think, ma chêre&mdash;un goût bizarre, vraiment!&mdash;but I love very
+much to be near to the dead people&mdash;in solitary place like this.
+I am not afraid of the dead people, nor of the ghosts. 'Av you
+ever see a ghost, my dear?'</p>
+
+<p>'Do, Madame, <i>pray</i> speak of something else.'</p>
+
+<p>'Wat little fool! But no, you are not afraid. I 'av seen the
+ghosts myself. I saw one, for example, last night, shape like a
+monkey, sitting in the corner, with his arms round his knees;
+very wicked, old, old man his face was like, and white eyes
+so large.'</p>
+
+<p>'Come away, Madame! you are trying to frighten me,' I said,
+in the childish anger which accompanies fear.
+Madame laughed an ugly laugh, and said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Eh bien! little fool!&mdash;I will not tell the rest if you are really
+frightened; let us change to something else.'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, yes! oh, do&mdash;pray do.'</p>
+
+<p>'Wat good man is your father!'</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page36" id="page36"></a>[pg 28]</span>
+
+<p>'Very&mdash;the kindest darling. I don't know why it is, Madame,
+I am so afraid of him, and never could tell him how much I
+love him.'</p>
+
+<p>This confidential talking with Madame, strange to say, implied
+no confidence; it resulted from fear&mdash;it was deprecatory. I
+treated her as if she had human sympathies, in the hope that
+they might be generated somehow.</p>
+
+<p>'Was there not a doctor from London with him a few months
+ago? Dr. Bryerly, I think they call him.'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, a Doctor Bryerly, who remained a few days. Shall we
+begin to walk towards home, Madame? Do, pray.'</p>
+
+<p>'Immediately, cheaile; and does your father suffer much?'</p>
+
+<p>'No&mdash;I think not.'</p>
+
+<p>'And what then is his disease?'</p>
+
+<p>'Disease! he has <i>no</i> disease. Have you heard anything about
+his health, Madame?' I said, anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh no, ma foi&mdash;I have heard nothing; but if the doctor came,
+it was not because he was quite well.'</p>
+
+<p>'But that doctor is a doctor in theology, I fancy. I know he is
+a Swedenborgian; and papa is so well he <i>could</i> not have come
+as a physician.'</p>
+
+<p>'I am very glad, ma chère, to hear; but still you know your
+father is old man to have so young cheaile as you. Oh, yes&mdash;he
+is old man, and so uncertain life is. 'As he made his will, my
+dear? Every man so rich as he, especially so old, aught to 'av
+made his will.'</p>
+
+<p>'There is no need of haste, Madame; it is quite time enough
+when his health begins to fail.'</p>
+
+<p>'But has he really compose no will?'</p>
+
+<p>'I really don't know, Madame.'</p>
+
+<p>'Ah, little rogue! you will not tell&mdash;but you are not such fool
+as you feign yourself. No, no; you know everything. Come, tell
+me all about&mdash;it is for your advantage, you know. What is in
+his will, and when he wrote?'</p>
+
+<p>'But, Madame, I really know nothing of it. I can't say whether
+there is a will or not. Let us talk of something else.'</p>
+
+<p>'But, cheaile, it will not kill Monsieur Ruthyn to make his
+will; he will not come to lie here a day sooner by cause of that;
+but if he make no will, you may lose a great deal of the property.
+Would not that be pity?'</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page37" id="page37"></a>[pg 29]</span>
+
+<p>'I really don't know anything of his will. If papa has made
+one, he has never spoken of it to me. I know he loves me&mdash;that
+is enough.'</p>
+
+<p>'Ah! you are not such little goose&mdash;you do know everything,
+of course. Come tell me, little obstinate, otherwise I
+will break your little finger. Tell me everything.'</p>
+
+<p>'I know nothing of papa's will. You don't know, Madame, how
+you hurt me. Let us speak of something else.'</p>
+
+<p>'You do know, and you must tell, petite dure-tête, or I will
+break a your little finger.'</p>
+
+<p>With which words she seized that joint, and laughing spitefully,
+she twisted it suddenly back. I screamed while she continued to
+laugh.</p>
+
+<p>'Will you tell?'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, yes! let me go,' I shrieked.</p>
+
+<p>She did not release it immediately however, but continued
+her torture and discordant laughter. At last she finally
+released my finger.</p>
+
+<p>'So she is going to be good cheaile, and tell everything to
+her affectionate gouvernante. What do you cry for, little fool?'</p>
+
+<p>'You've hurt me very much&mdash;you have broken my finger,' I
+sobbed.</p>
+
+<p>'Rub it and blow it and give it a kiss, little fool! What
+cross girl! I will never play with you again&mdash;never. Let us go
+home.'</p>
+
+<p>Madame was silent and morose all the way home. She would
+not answer my questions, and affected to be very lofty and
+offended.</p>
+
+<p>This did not last very long, however, and she soon resumed
+her wonted ways. And she returned to the question of the will,
+but not so directly, and with more art.</p>
+
+<p>Why should this dreadful woman's thoughts be running so
+continually upon my father's will? How could it concern her?</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page38" id="page38"></a>[pg 30]</span>
+
+<a name="chap07"></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER VII</h3>
+
+<h2><i>CHURCH SCARSDALE</i></h2>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>I think all the females of our household, except Mrs. Rusk, who
+was at open feud with her and had only room for the fiercer
+emotions, were more or less afraid of this inauspicious foreigner.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Rusk would say in her confidences in my room&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Where does she come from?&mdash;is she a French or a Swiss one,
+or is she a Canada woman? I remember one of <i>them</i> when I
+was a girl, and a nice limb <i>she</i> was, too! And who did she live
+with? Where was her last family? Not one of us knows nothing
+about her, no more than a child; except, of course, the Master&mdash;I
+do suppose he made enquiry. She's always at hugger-mugger
+with Anne Wixted. I'll pack that <i>one</i> about her business, if she
+doesn't mind. Tattling and whispering eternally. It's not about
+her own business she's a-talking. Madame de la Rougepot, I
+call her. She <i>does</i> know how to paint up to the ninety-nines&mdash;she
+does, the old cat. I beg your pardon, Miss, but <i>that</i> she is&mdash;a
+devil, and no mistake. I found her out first by her thieving
+the Master's gin, that the doctor ordered him, and filling the
+decanter up with water&mdash;the old villain; but she'll be found out
+yet, she will; and all the maids is afraid on her. She's not right,
+they think&mdash;a witch or a ghost&mdash;I should not wonder. Catherine
+Jones found her in her bed asleep in the morning after she
+sulked with you, you know, Miss, with all her clothes on, what-ever
+was the meaning; and I think she has frightened <i>you,</i> Miss
+and has you as nervous as anythink&mdash;I do,' and so forth.</p>
+
+<p>It was true. I <i>was</i> nervous, and growing rather more so; and
+I think this cynical woman perceived and intended it, and was
+pleased. I was always afraid of her concealing herself in my
+room, and emerging at night to scare me. She began sometimes
+to mingle in my dreams, too&mdash;always awfully; and this nourished,
+of course, the kind of ambiguous fear in which, in waking hours,
+I held her.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page39" id="page39"></a>[pg 31]</span>
+
+<p>I dreamed one night that she led me, all the time whispering
+something so very fast that I could not understand her, into
+the library, holding a candle in her other hand above her
+head. We walked on tiptoe, like criminals at the dead of night,
+and stopped before that old oak cabinet which my father had
+indicated in so odd a way to me. I felt that we were about some
+contraband practice. There was a key in the door, which I experienced a
+guilty horror at turning, she whispering in the
+same unintelligible way, all the time, at my ear. I <i>did</i> turn it;
+the door opened quite softly, and within stood my father, his
+face white and malignant, and glaring close in mine. He cried
+in a terrible voice, 'Death!' Out went Madame's candle, and at
+the same moment, with a scream, I waked in the dark&mdash;still
+fancying myself in the library; and for an hour after I continued
+in a hysterical state.</p>
+
+<p>Every little incident about Madame furnished a topic of
+eager discussion among the maids. More or less covertly, they
+nearly all hated and feared her. They fancied that she was
+making good her footing with 'the Master;' and that she would
+then oust Mrs. Rusk&mdash;perhaps usurp her place&mdash;and so make a
+clean sweep of them all. I fancy the honest little housekeeper
+did not discourage that suspicion.</p>
+
+<p>About this time I recollect a pedlar&mdash;an odd, gipsified-looking
+man&mdash;called in at Knowl. I and Catherine Jones were in the
+court when he came, and set down his pack on the low balustrade beside the
+door.</p>
+
+<p>All sorts of commodities he had&mdash;ribbons, cottons, silks, stockings, lace,
+and even some bad jewellry; and just as he began his
+display&mdash;an interesting matter in a quiet country house&mdash;Madame
+came upon the ground. He grinned a recognition, and hoped
+'Madamasel' was well, and 'did not look to see <i>her</i> here.'</p>
+
+<p>'Madamasel' thanked him. 'Yes, vary well,' and looked for
+the first time decidedly 'put out.'</p>
+
+<p>'Wat a pretty things!' she said. 'Catherine, run and tell Mrs.
+Rusk. She wants scissars, and lace too&mdash;I heard her say.'</p>
+
+<p>So Catherine, with a lingering look, departed; and Madame
+said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Will you, dear cheaile, be so kind to bring here my purse, I
+forgot on the table in my room; also, I advise you, bring <i>your</i>.'</p>
+
+<p>Catherine returned with Mrs. Rusk. Here was a man who
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page40" id="page40"></a>[pg 32]</span>
+
+could tell them something of the old Frenchwoman, at last!
+Slyly they dawdled over his wares, until Madame had made her
+market and departed with me. But when the coveted opportunity
+came, the pedlar was quite impenetrable. 'He forgot everything;
+he did not believe as he ever saw the lady before. He called a
+Frenchwoman, all the world over, Madamasel&mdash;that wor the name
+on 'em all. He never seed her in partiklar afore, as he could
+bring to mind. He liked to see 'em always, 'cause they makes
+the young uns buy.'</p>
+
+<p>This reserve and oblivion were very provoking, and neither
+Mrs. Rusk nor Catherine Jones spent sixpence with him;&mdash;he
+was a stupid fellow, or worse.</p>
+
+<p>Of course Madame had tampered with him. But truth, like
+murder, will out some day. Tom Williams, the groom, had seen
+her, when alone with him, and pretending to look at his stock,
+with her face almost buried in his silks and Welsh linseys, talking
+as fast as she could all the time, and slipping <i>money</i>, he did
+suppose, under a piece of stuff in his box.</p>
+
+<p>In the mean time, I and Madame were walking over the
+wide, peaty sheep-walks that lie between Knowl and Church
+Scarsdale. Since our visit to the mausoleum in the wood, she
+had not worried me so much as before. She had been, indeed,
+more than usually thoughtful, very little talkative, and troubled
+me hardly at all about French and other accomplishments. A
+walk was a part of our daily routine. I now carried a tiny
+basket in my hand, with a few sandwiches, which were to furnish
+our luncheon when we reached the pretty scene, about two
+miles away, whither we were tending.</p>
+
+<p>We had started a little too late; Madame grew unwontedly
+fatigued and sat down to rest on a stile before we had got half-way;
+and there she intoned, with a dismal nasal cadence, a
+quaint old Bretagne ballad, about a lady with a pig's head:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">  <div class="stanza">
+<p>'This lady was neither pig nor maid,</p>
+<p>And so she was not of human mould;</p>
+<p>Not of the living nor the dead.</p>
+<p>Her left hand and foot were warm to touch;</p>
+<p>Her right as cold as a corpse's flesh!</p>
+<p>And she would sing like a funeral bell, with a ding-dong tune.</p>
+<p>The pigs were afraid, and viewed her aloof;</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page41" id="page41"></a>[pg 33]</span>
+
+<p>And women feared her and stood afar.</p>
+<p>She could do without sleep for a year and a day;</p>
+<p>She could sleep like a corpse, for a month and more.</p>
+<p>No one knew how this lady fed&mdash;</p>
+<p>On acorns or on flesh.</p>
+<p>Some say that she's one of the swine-possessed,</p>
+<p>That swam over the sea of Gennesaret.</p>
+<p>A mongrel body and demon soul.</p>
+<p>Some say she's the wife of the Wandering Jew,</p>
+<p>And broke the law for the sake of pork;</p>
+<p>And a swinish face for a token doth bear,</p>
+<p>That her shame is now, and her punishment coming.'</p>
+  </div>  </div>
+
+<p>And so it went on, in a gingling rigmarole. The more anxious I
+seemed to go on our way, the more likely was she to loiter. I
+therefore showed no signs of impatience, and I saw her consult
+her watch in the course of her ugly minstrelsy, and slyly glance,
+as if expecting something, in the direction of our destination.</p>
+
+<p>When she had sung to her heart's content, up rose Madame,
+and began to walk onward silently. I saw her glance once or
+twice, as before, toward the village of Trillsworth, which lay in
+front, a little to our left, and the smoke of which hung in a
+film over the brow of the hill. I think she observed me, for she
+enquired&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Wat is that a smoke there?'</p>
+
+<p>'That is Trillsworth, Madame; there is a railway station there.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, le chemin de fer, so near! I did not think. Where it
+goes?'</p>
+
+<p>I told her, and silence returned.</p>
+
+<p>Church Scarsdale is a very pretty and odd scene. The slightly
+undulating sheep-walk dips suddenly into a wide glen, in the lap
+of which, by a bright, winding rill, rise from the sward the ruins
+of a small abbey, with a few solemn trees scattered round. The
+crows' nests hung untenanted in the trees; the birds were foraging far away
+from their roosts. The very cattle had forsaken the
+place. It was solitude itself.</p>
+
+<p>Madame drew a long breath and smiled.</p>
+
+<p>'Come down, come down, cheaile&mdash;come down to the churchyard.'</p>
+
+<p>As we descended the slope which shut out the surrounding
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page42" id="page42"></a>[pg 34]</span>
+
+world, and the scene grew more sad and lonely, Madame's spirits
+seemed to rise.</p>
+
+<p>'See 'ow many grave-stones&mdash;one, <i>two</i> hundred. Don't you love
+the dead, cheaile? I will teach you to love them. You shall see
+me die here to-day, for half an hour, and be among them. That
+is what I love.'</p>
+
+<p>We were by this time at the little brook's side, and the low
+churchyard wall with a stile, reached by a couple of stepping-stones,
+across the stream, immediately at the other side.</p>
+
+<p>'Come, now!' cried Madame, raising her face, as if to sniff the
+air; 'we are close to them. You will like them soon as I. You
+shall see five of them. Ah, ça ira, ça ira, ça ira! Come cross
+quickily! I am Madame la Morgue&mdash;Mrs. Deadhouse! I will
+present you my friends, Monsieur Cadavre and Monsieur Squelette. Come,
+come, leetle mortal, let us play. Ouaah!' And she
+uttered a horrid yell from her enormous mouth, and pushing her
+wig and bonnet back, so as to show her great, bald head. She was
+laughing, and really looked quite mad.</p>
+
+<p>'No, Madame, I will not go with you,' I said, disengaging my
+hand with a violent effort, receding two or three steps.</p>
+
+<p>'Not enter the churchyard! Ma foi&mdash;wat mauvais goût! But
+see, we are already in shade. The sun he is setting soon&mdash;where
+well you remain, cheaile? I will not stay long.'</p>
+
+<p>'I'll stay here,' I said, a little angrily&mdash;for I <i>was</i> angry as well
+as nervous; and through my fear was that indignation at her extravagances
+which mimicked lunacy so unpleasantly, and were, I
+knew, designed to frighten me.</p>
+
+<p>Over the stepping-stones, pulling up her dress, she skipped with
+her long, lank legs, like a witch joining a Walpurgis. Over the
+stile she strode, and I saw her head wagging, and heard her sing
+some of her ill-omened rhymes, as she capered solemnly, with
+many a grin and courtesy, among the graves and headstones, towards the
+ruin.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page43" id="page43"></a>[pg 35]</span>
+
+<a name="chap08"></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER VIII</h3>
+
+<h2><i>THE SMOKER</i></h2>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>Three years later I learned&mdash;in a way she probably little expected,
+and then did not much care about&mdash;what really occurred
+there. I learned even phrases and looks&mdash;for the story was related
+by one who had heard it told&mdash;and therefore I venture to
+narrate what at the moment I neither saw nor suspected. While
+I sat, flushed and nervous, upon a flat stone by the bank of the
+little stream, Madame looked over her shoulder, and perceiving
+that I was out of sight, she abated her pace, and turned sharply
+towards the ruin which lay at her left. It was her first visit, and
+she was merely exploring; but now, with a perfectly shrewd and
+businesslike air, turning the corner of the building, she saw,
+seated upon the edge of a grave-stone, a rather fat and flashily-equipped
+young man, with large, light whiskers, a jerry hat,
+green cutaway coat with gilt buttons, and waistcoat and trousers
+rather striking than elegant in pattern. He was smoking a short
+pipe, and made a nod to Madame, without either removing it
+from his lips or rising, but with his brown and rather good-looking
+face turned up, he eyed her with something of the impudent
+and sulky expression that was habitual to it.</p>
+
+<p>'Ha, Deedle, you are there! an' look so well. I am here, too,
+quite <i>a</i>lon; but my friend, she wait outside the churchyard, by-side
+the leetle river, for she must not think I know you&mdash;so I am
+come <i>a</i>lon.'</p>
+
+<p>'You're a quarter late, and I lost a fight by you, old girl, this
+morning,' said the gay man, and spat on the ground; 'and I wish
+you would not call me Diddle. I'll call you Granny if you do.'</p>
+
+<p>'Eh bien! <i>Dud,</i> then. She is vary nice&mdash;wat you like. Slim
+waist, wite teeth, vary nice eyes&mdash;dark&mdash;wat you say is best&mdash;and
+nice leetle foot and ankle.'</p>
+
+<p>Madame smiled leeringly.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page44" id="page44"></a>[pg 36]</span>
+Dud smoked on.</p>
+
+<p>'Go on,' said Dud, with a nod of command.</p>
+
+<p>'I am teach her to sing and play&mdash;she has such sweet voice!</p>
+
+<p>There was another interval here.</p>
+
+<p>'Well, that isn't much good. I hate women's screechin' about
+fairies and flowers. Hang her! there's a scarecrow as sings at
+Curl's Divan. Such a caterwauling upon a stage! I'd like to
+put my two barrels into her.'</p>
+
+<p>By this time Dud's pipe was out, and he could afford to converse.</p>
+
+<p>'You shall see her and decide. You will walk down the river,
+and pass her by.'</p>
+
+<p>'That's as may be; howsoever, it would not do, nohow, to buy
+a pig in a poke, you know. And s'pose I shouldn't like her, arter
+all?'</p>
+
+<p>Madame sneered, with a patois ejaculation of derision.</p>
+
+<p>'Vary good! Then some one else will not be so 'ard to please&mdash;as
+you will soon find.'</p>
+
+<p>'Some one's bin a-lookin' arter her, you mean?' said the young
+man, with a shrewd uneasy glance on the cunning face of the
+French lady.</p>
+
+<p>'I mean precisely&mdash;that which I mean,' replied the lady, with
+a teazing pause at the break I have marked.</p>
+
+<p>'Come, old 'un, none of your d&mdash;&mdash; old chaff, if you want me
+to stay here listening to you. Speak out, can't you? There's
+any chap as has bin a-lookin' arter her&mdash;is there?'</p>
+
+<p>'Eh bien! I suppose some.'</p>
+
+<p>'Well, you <i>suppose,</i> and <i>I</i> suppose&mdash;we may <i>all</i> suppose,
+I guess;
+but that does not make a thing be, as wasn't before; and you tell
+me as how the lass is kep' private up there, and will be till you're
+done educating her&mdash;a precious good 'un that is!' And he laughed
+a little lazily, with the ivory handle of his cane on his lip, and
+eyeing Madame with indolent derision.</p>
+
+<p>Madame laughed, but looked rather dangerous.</p>
+
+<p>'I'm only chaffin', you know, old girl. <i>You</i>'ve bin chaffin'&mdash;w'y
+shouldn't <i>I</i>? But I don't see why she can't wait a bit; and
+what's all the d&mdash;&mdash;d hurry for? <i>I</i>'m in no hurry. I don't want
+a wife on my back for a while. There's no fellow marries till he's
+took his bit o' fun, and seen life&mdash;is there! And why should I be
+driving with her to fairs, or to church, or to meeting, by jingo!&mdash;for
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page45" id="page45"></a>[pg 37]</span>
+
+they say she's a Quaker&mdash;with a babby on each knee, only
+to please them as will be dead and rotten when <i>I</i>'m only beginning?'</p>
+
+<p>'Ah, you are such charming fellow; always the same&mdash;always
+sensible. So I and my friend we will walk home again, and you
+go see Maggie Hawkes. Good-a-by, Dud&mdash;good-a-by.'</p>
+
+<p>'Quiet, you fool!&mdash;can't ye?' said the young gentleman, with
+the sort of grin that made his face vicious when a horse vexed
+him. 'Who ever said I wouldn't go look at the girl? Why, you
+know that's just what I come here for&mdash;don't you? Only when
+I think a bit, and a notion comes across me, why shouldn't I
+speak out? I'm not one o' them shilly-shallies. If I like the girl,
+I'll not be mug in and mug out about it. Only mind ye, I'll
+judge for myself. Is that her a-coming?'</p>
+
+<p>'No; it was a distant sound.'</p>
+
+<p>Madame peeped round the corner. No one was approaching.</p>
+
+<p>'Well, you go round that a-way, and you only look at her, you
+know, for she is such fool&mdash;so nairvous.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, is that the way with her?' said Dud, knocking out the
+ashes of his pipe on a tombstone, and replacing the Turkish
+utensil in his pocket. 'Well, then, old lass, good-bye,' and he
+shook her hand. 'And, do ye see, don't ye come up till I pass, for
+I'm no hand at play-acting; an' if you called me "sir," or was
+coming it dignified and distant, you know, I'd be sure to laugh,
+a'most, and let all out. So good-bye, d'ye see, and if you want me
+again be sharp to time, mind.</p>
+
+<p>From habit he looked about for his dogs, but he had not
+brought one. He had come unostentatiously by rail, travelling in
+a third-class carriage, for the advantage of Jack Briderly's company, and
+getting a world of useful wrinkles about the steeplechase that was coming
+off next week.</p>
+
+<p>So he strode away, cutting off the heads of the nettles with
+his cane as he went; and Madame walked forth into the open
+space among the graves, where I might have seen her, had I
+stood up, looking with the absorbed gaze of an artist on the
+ruin.</p>
+
+<p>In a little while, along the path, I heard the clank of a step,
+and the gentleman in the green cutaway coat, sucking his cane,
+and eyeing me with an offensive familiar sort of stare the while,
+passed me by, rather hesitating as he did so.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page46" id="page46"></a>[pg 38]</span>
+
+<p>I was glad when he turned the corner in the little hollow close
+by, and disappeared. I stood up at once, and was reassured by a
+sight of Madame, not very many yards away, looking at the ruin,
+and apparently restored to her right mind. The last beams of the
+sun were by this time touching the uplands, and I was longing
+to recommence our walk home. I was hesitating about calling to
+Madame, because that lady had a certain spirit of opposition
+within her, and to disclose a small wish of any sort was generally,
+if it lay in her power, to prevent its accomplishment.</p>
+
+<p>At this moment the gentleman in the green coat returned,
+approaching me with a slow sort of swagger.</p>
+
+<p>'I say, Miss, I dropped a glove close by here. May you have
+seen it?'</p>
+
+<p>'No, sir,' I said, drawing back a little, and looking, I dare say,
+both frightened and offended.</p>
+
+<p>'I do think I must 'a dropped it close by your foot, Miss.'</p>
+
+<p>'No, sir,' I repeated.</p>
+
+<p>'No offence, Miss, but you're sure you didn't hide it?'</p>
+
+<p>I was beginning to grow seriously uncomfortable.</p>
+
+<p>'Don't be frightened, Miss; it's only a bit o' chaff. I'm not
+going to search.'</p>
+
+<p>I called aloud, 'Madame, Madame!' and he whistled through
+his fingers, and shouted, 'Madame, Madame,' and added, 'She's
+as deaf as a tombstone, or she'll hear that. Gi'e her my compliments,
+and say I said you're a beauty, Miss;' and with a laugh
+and a leer he strode off.</p>
+
+<p>Altogether this had not been a very pleasant excursion.
+Madame gobbled up our sandwiches, commending them every
+now and then to me. But I had been too much excited to have
+any appetite left, and very tired I was when we reached home.</p>
+
+<p>'So, there is lady coming to-morrow?' said Madame, who
+knew everything. 'Wat is her name? I forget.'</p>
+
+<p>'Lady Knollys,' I answered.</p>
+
+<p>'Lady Knollys&mdash;wat odd name! She is very young&mdash;is she
+not?'</p>
+
+<p>'Past fifty, I think.'</p>
+
+<p>'Hélas! She's vary old, then. Is she rich?'</p>
+
+<p>'I don't know. She has a place in Derbyshire.'</p>
+
+<p>'Derbyshire&mdash;that is one of your English counties, is it not?'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh yes, Madame,' I answered, laughing. 'I have said it to
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page47" id="page47"></a>[pg 39]</span>
+
+you twice since you came;' and I gabbled through the chief
+towns and rivers as catalogued in my geography.</p>
+
+<p>'Bah! to be sure&mdash;of course, cheaile. And is she your relation?'</p>
+
+<p>'Papa's first cousin.'</p>
+
+<p>'Won't you present-a me, pray?&mdash;I would so like!'</p>
+
+<p>Madame had fallen into the English way of liking people
+with titles, as perhaps foreigners would if titles implied the
+sort of power they do generally with us.</p>
+
+<p>'Certainly, Madame.'</p>
+
+<p>'You will not forget?'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh no.'</p>
+
+<p>Madame reminded me twice, in the course of the evening, of
+my promise. She was very eager on this point. But it is a world
+of disappointment, influenza, and rheumatics; and next morning
+Madame was prostrate in her bed, and careless of all things but
+flannel and James's powder.</p>
+
+<p>Madame was <i>désolée</i>; but she could not raise her head. She
+only murmured a question.</p>
+
+<p>'For 'ow long time, dear, will Lady Knollys remain?'</p>
+
+<p>'A very few days, I believe.'</p>
+
+<p>'Hélas! 'ow onlucky! maybe to-morrow I shall be better
+Ouah! my ear. The laudanum, dear cheaile!'</p>
+
+<p>And so our conversation for that time ended, and Madame
+buried her head in her old red cashmere shawl.</p>
+
+<a name="chap09"></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER IX</h3>
+
+<h2><i>MONICA KNOLLYS</i></h2>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>Punctually Lady Knollys arrived. She was accompanied by her
+nephew, Captain Oakley.</p>
+
+<p>They arrived a little before dinner; just in time to get to
+their rooms and dress. But Mary Quince enlivened my toilet with
+eloquent descriptions of the youthful Captain whom she had
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page48" id="page48"></a>[pg 40]</span>
+
+met in the gallery, on his way to his room, with the servant,
+and told me how he stopped to let her pass, and how 'he smiled
+so 'ansom.'</p>
+
+<p>I was very young then, you know, and more childish even than
+my years; but this talk of Mary Quince's interested me, I must
+confess, considerably. I was painting all sort of portraits of this
+heroic soldier, while affecting, I am afraid, a hypocritical indifference
+to her narration, and I know I was very nervous and
+painstaking about my toilet that evening. When I went down
+to the drawing-room, Lady Knollys was there, talking volubly
+to my father as I entered&mdash;a woman not really old, but such as
+very young people fancy aged&mdash;energetic, bright, saucy, dressed
+handsomely in purple satin, with a good deal of lace, and a rich
+point&mdash;I know not how to call it&mdash;not a cap, a sort of head-dress&mdash;light
+and simple, but grand withal, over her greyish, silken
+hair.</p>
+
+<p>Rather tall, by no means stout, on the whole a good firm
+figure, with something kindly in her look. She got up, quite like
+a young person, and coming quickly to meet me with a smile&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'My young cousin!' she cried, and kissed me on both cheeks.
+'You know who I am? Your cousin Monica&mdash;Monica Knollys&mdash;and
+very glad, dear, to see you, though she has not set eyes on
+you since you were no longer than that paper-knife. Now come
+here to the lamp, for I must look at you. Who is she like? Let
+me see. Like your poor mother, I think, my dear; but you've
+the Aylmer nose&mdash;yes&mdash;not a bad nose either, and, come! very
+good eyes, upon my life&mdash;yes, certainly something of her poor
+mother&mdash;not a bit like you, Austin.'</p>
+
+<p>My father gave her a look as near a smile as I had seen there
+for a long time, shrewd, cynical, but kindly too, and said he&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'So much the better, Monica, eh?'</p>
+
+<p>'It was not for me to say&mdash;but you know, Austin, you always
+were an ugly creature. How shocked and indignant the little
+girl looks! You must not be vexed, you loyal little woman, with
+Cousin Monica for telling the truth. Papa was and will be ugly
+all his days. Come, Austin, dear, tell her&mdash;is not it so?'</p>
+
+<p>'What! depose against myself! That's not English law,
+Monica.'</p>
+
+<p>'Well, maybe not; but if the child won't believe her own eyes,
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page49" id="page49"></a>[pg 41]</span>
+
+how is she to believe me? She has long, pretty hands&mdash;you have&mdash;and
+very nice feet too. How old is she?'</p>
+
+<p>'How old, child?' said my father to me, transferring the
+question.</p>
+
+<p>She recurred again to my eyes.</p>
+
+<p>'That is the true grey&mdash;large, deep, soft&mdash;very peculiar. Yes,
+dear, very pretty&mdash;long lashes, and such bright tints! You'll be
+in the Book of Beauty, my dear, when you come out, and have
+all the poet people writing verses to the tip of your nose&mdash;and
+a very pretty little nose it is!'</p>
+
+<p>I must mention here how striking was the change in my
+father's spirit while talking and listening to his odd and voluble
+old Cousin Monica. Reflected from bygone associations, there
+had come a glimmer of something, not gaiety, indeed, but like
+an appreciation of gaiety. The gloom and inflexibility were
+gone, and there was an evident encouragement and enjoyment
+of the incessant sallies of his bustling visitor.</p>
+
+<p>How morbid must have been the tendencies of his habitual
+solitude, I think, appeared from the evident thawing and brightening
+that accompanied even this transient gleam of human society.
+I was not a companion&mdash;more childish than most girls of
+my age, and trained in all his whimsical ways, never to interrupt
+a silence, or force his thoughts by unexpected question or
+remark out of their monotonous or painful channel.</p>
+
+<p>I was as much surprised at the good-humour with which he
+submitted to his cousin's saucy talk; and, indeed, just then
+those black-panelled and pictured walls, and that quaint, misshapen
+room, seemed to have exchanged their stern and awful
+character for something wonderfully pleasanter to me, notwithstanding
+the unpleasantness of the personal criticism to which
+the plain-spoken lady chose to subject me.</p>
+
+<p>Just at that moment Captain Oakley joined us. He was my
+first actual vision of that awful and distant world of fashion, of
+whose splendours I had already read something in the three-volumed
+gospel of the circulating library.</p>
+
+<p>Handsome, elegant, with features almost feminine, and soft,
+wavy, black hair, whiskers and moustache, he was altogether
+such a knight as I had never beheld, or even fancied, at Knowl&mdash;a
+hero of another species, and from the region of the demigods.
+I did not then perceive that coldness of the eye, and cruel curl
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page50" id="page50"></a>[pg 42]</span>
+
+of the voluptuous lip&mdash;only a suspicion, yet enough to indicate
+the profligate man, and savouring of death unto death.</p>
+
+<p>But I was young, and had not yet the direful knowledge of
+good and evil that comes with years; and he was so very handsome,
+and talked in a way that was so new to me, and was so
+much more charming than the well-bred converse of the humdrum
+county families with whom I had occasionally sojourned
+for a week at a time.</p>
+
+<p>It came out incidentally that his leave of absence was to expire
+the day after to-morrow. A Lilliputian pang of disappointment followed this
+announcement. Already I was sorry to lose
+him. So soon we begin to make a property of what pleases us.</p>
+
+<p>I was shy, but not awkward. I was flattered by the attention
+of this amusing, perhaps rather fascinating, young man of the
+world; and he plainly addressed himself with diligence to
+amuse and please me. I dare say there was more effort than I
+fancied in bringing his talk down to my humble level, and interesting me
+and making me laugh about people whom I had
+never heard of before, than I then suspected.</p>
+
+<p>Cousin Knollys meanwhile was talking to papa. It was just
+the conversation that suited a man so silent as habit had made
+him, for her frolic fluency left him little to supply. It was
+totally impossible, indeed, even in our taciturn household, that
+conversation should ever flag while she was among us.</p>
+
+<p>Cousin Knollys and I went into the drawing-room together,
+leaving the gentlemen&mdash;rather ill-assorted, I fear&mdash;to entertain
+one another for a time.</p>
+
+<p>'Come here, my dear, and sit near me,' said Lady Knollys,
+dropping into an easy chair with an energetic little plump, 'and
+tell me how you and your papa get on. I can remember him
+quite a cheerful man once, and rather amusing&mdash;yes, indeed&mdash;and
+now you see what a bore he is&mdash;all by shutting himself up and
+nursing his whims and fancies. Are those your drawings, dear?'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, very bad, I'm afraid; but there are a few, <i>better</i>, I think in
+the portfolio in the cabinet in the hall.'</p>
+
+<p>'They are by <i>no</i> means bad, my dear; and you play, of
+course?'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes&mdash;that is, a little&mdash;pretty well, I hope.'</p>
+
+<p>'I dare say. I must hear you by-and-by. And how does your
+papa amuse you? You look bewildered, dear. Well, I dare say,
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page51" id="page51"></a>[pg 43]</span>
+
+amusement is not a frequent word in this house. But you must
+not turn into a nun, or worse, into a puritan. What is he? A
+Fifth-Monarchy-man, or something&mdash;I forget; tell me the name,
+my dear.'</p>
+
+<p>'Papa is a Swedenborgian, I believe.'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, yes&mdash;I forgot the horrid name&mdash;a Swedenborgian, that is
+it. I don't know exactly what they think, but everyone knows
+they are a sort of pagans, my dear. He's not making one of <i>you</i>,
+dear&mdash;is he?'</p>
+
+<p>'I go to church every Sunday.'</p>
+
+<p>'Well, that's a mercy; Swedenborgian is such an ugly name,
+and besides, they are all likely to be damned, my dear, and that's
+a serious consideration. I really wish poor Austin had hit on
+something else; I'd much rather have no religion, and enjoy
+life while I'm in it, than choose one to worry me here and bedevil me
+hereafter. But some people, my dear, have a taste for
+being miserable, and provide, like poor Austin, for its gratification
+in the next world as well as here. Ha, ha, ha! how grave the
+little woman looks! Don't you think me very wicked? You know
+you do; and very likely you are right. Who makes your dresses,
+my dear? You <i>are</i> such a figure of fun!'</p>
+
+<p>'Mrs. Rusk, I think, ordered <i>this</i> dress. I and Mary Quince
+planned it. I thought it very nice. We all like it very well.'</p>
+
+<p>There was something, I dare say, very whimsical about it,
+probably very absurd, judged at least by the canons of fashion,
+and old Cousin Monica Knollys, in whose eye the London fashions
+were always fresh, was palpably struck by it as if it had
+been some enormity against anatomy, for she certainly laughed
+very heartily; indeed, there were tears on her cheeks when she
+had done, and I am sure my aspect of wonder and dignity, as
+her hilarity proceeded, helped to revive her merriment again
+and again as it was subsiding.</p>
+
+<p>'There, you mustn't be vexed with old Cousin Monica,' she
+cried, jumping up, and giving me a little hug, and bestowing a
+hearty kiss on my forehead, and a jolly little slap on my cheek.
+'Always remember your cousin Monica is an outspoken, wicked
+old fool, who likes you, and never be offended by her nonsense.
+A council of three&mdash;you all sat upon it&mdash;Mrs. Rusk, you said,
+and Mary Quince, and your wise self, the weird sisters; and
+Austin stepped in, as Macbeth, and said, 'What is't ye do?' You
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page52" id="page52"></a>[pg 44]</span>
+
+all made answer together, 'A something or other without a
+name!' Now, seriously, my dear, it is quite unpardonable in
+Austin&mdash;your papa, I mean&mdash;to hand you over to be robed and
+bedizened according to the whimsies of these wild old women&mdash;aren't
+they old? If they know better, it's positively <i>fiendish.</i>
+I'll blow him up&mdash;I will indeed, my dear. You know you're an
+heiress, and ought not to appear like a jack-pudding.'</p>
+
+<p>'Papa intends sending me to London with Madame and Mary
+Quince, and going with me himself, if Doctor Bryerly says he
+may make the journey, and then I am to have dresses and
+everything.'</p>
+
+<p>'Well, that is better. And who is Doctor Bryerly&mdash;is your papa
+ill?'</p>
+
+<p>'Ill; oh no; he always seems just the same. You don't think
+him ill&mdash;<i>looking</i> ill, I mean?' I asked eagerly and frightened.</p>
+
+<p>'No, my dear, he looks very well for his time of life; but why
+is Doctor What's-his-name here? Is he a physician, or a divine,
+or a horse-doctor? and why is his leave asked?'</p>
+
+<p>'I&mdash;I really don't understand.'</p>
+
+<p>'Is he a what d'ye call'em&mdash;a Swedenborgian?'</p>
+
+<p>'I believe so.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, I see; ha, ha, ha! And so poor Austin must ask leave to
+go up to town. Well, go he shall, whether his doctor likes it or
+not, for it would not do to send you there in charge of your
+Frenchwoman, my dear. What's her name?'</p>
+
+<p>'Madame de la Rougierre.'</p>
+
+<a name="chap10"></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER X</h3>
+
+<h2><i>LADY KNOLLYS REMOVES A COVERLET</i></h2>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>Lady Knollys pursued her enquiries.</p>
+
+<p>'And why does not Madame make your dresses, my dear? I
+wager a guinea the woman's a milliner. Did not she engage to
+make your dresses?'</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page53" id="page53"></a>[pg 45]</span>
+
+<p>'I&mdash;I really don't know; I rather think not. She is my governess&mdash;a
+finishing governess, Mrs. Rusk says.'</p>
+
+<p>'Finishing fiddle! Hoity-toity! and my lady's too grand to
+cut out your dresses and help to sew them? And what <i>does</i> she
+do? I venture to say she's fit to teach nothing but devilment&mdash;not
+that she has taught <i>you</i> much, my dear&mdash;<i>yet</i> at least. I'll
+see her, my dear; where is she? Come, let us visit Madame. I should
+so like to talk to her a little.'</p>
+
+<p>'But she is ill,' I answered, and all this time I was ready to cry
+for vexation, thinking of my dress, which must be very absurd to
+elicit so much unaffected laughter from my experienced relative,
+and I was only longing to get away and hide myself before that
+handsome Captain returned.</p>
+
+<p>'Ill! is she? what's the matter?'</p>
+
+<p>'A cold&mdash;feverish and rheumatic, she says.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, a cold; is she up, or in bed?'</p>
+
+<p>'In her room, but not in bed.'</p>
+
+<p>'I should so like to see her, my dear. It is not mere curiosity,
+I assure you. In fact, curiosity has nothing on earth to do with
+it. A governess may be a very useful or a very useless person;
+but she may also be about the most pernicious inmate imaginable.
+She may teach you a bad accent, and worse manners, and
+heaven knows what beside. Send the housekeeper, my dear, to
+tell her that I am going to see her.'</p>
+
+<p>'I had better go myself, perhaps,' I said, fearing a collision
+between Mrs. Rusk and the bitter Frenchwoman.</p>
+
+<p>'Very well, dear.'</p>
+
+<p>And away I ran, not sorry somehow to escape before Captain
+Oakley returned.</p>
+
+<p>As I went along the passage, I was thinking whether my dress
+could be so very ridiculous as my old cousin thought it, and trying
+in vain to recollect any evidence of a similar contemptuous
+estimate on the part of that beautiful and garrulous dandy. I
+could not&mdash;quite the reverse, indeed. Still I was uncomfortable
+and feverish&mdash;girls of my then age will easily conceive how miserable,
+under similar circumstances, such a misgiving would make
+them.</p>
+
+<p>It was a long way to Madame's room. I met Mrs. Rusk bustling
+along the passage with a housemaid.</p>
+
+<p>'How is Madame?' I asked.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page54" id="page54"></a>[pg 46]</span>
+
+<p>'Quite well, I believe,' answered the housekeeper, drily. 'Nothing
+the matter that <i>I</i> know of. She eat enough for two to-day.
+I wish <i>I</i> could sit in my room doing nothing.'</p>
+
+<p>Madame was sitting, or rather reclining, in a low arm-chair,
+when I entered the room, close to the fire, as was her wont, her
+feet extended near to the bars, and a little coffee equipage beside
+her. She stuffed a book hastily between her dress and the chair,
+and received me in a state of langour which, had it not been for
+Mrs. Rusk's comfortable assurances, would have frightened me.</p>
+
+<p>'I hope you are better, Madame,' I said, approaching.</p>
+
+<p>'Better than I deserve, my dear cheaile, sufficiently well. The
+people are all so good, trying me with every little thing, like a
+bird; here is café&mdash;Mrs. Rusk-a, poor woman, I try to swallow
+a little to please her.'</p>
+
+<p>'And your cold, is it better?'</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head languidly, her elbow resting on the chair,
+and three finger-tips supporting her forehead, and then she made
+a little sigh, looking down from the corners of her eyes, in an
+interesting dejection.</p>
+
+<p>'Je sens des lassitudes in all the members&mdash;but I am quaite
+'appy, and though I suffer I am console and oblige des bontés,
+ma chère, que vous avez tous pour moi;' and with these words
+she turned a languid glance of gratitude on me which dropped
+on the ground.</p>
+
+<p>'Lady Knollys wishes very much to see you, only for a few
+minutes, if you could admit her.'</p>
+
+<p>'Vous savez les malades see <i>never</i> visitors,' she replied with a
+startled sort of tartness, and a momentary energy. 'Besides, I
+cannot converse; je sens de temps en temps des douleurs de
+tête&mdash;of head, and of the ear, the right ear, it is parfois agony
+absolutely, and now it is here.'</p>
+
+<p>And she winced and moaned, with her eyes closed and her
+hand pressed to the organ affected.</p>
+
+<p>Simple as I was, I felt instinctively that Madame was shamming.
+She was over-acting; her transitions were too violent, and
+beside she forgot that I knew how well she could speak English,
+and must perceive that she was heightening the interest of her
+helplessness by that pretty tessellation of foreign idiom. I therefore
+said with a kind of courage which sometimes helped me
+suddenly&mdash;</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page55" id="page55"></a>[pg 47]</span>
+
+<p>'Oh, Madame, don't you really think you might, without much
+inconvenience, see Lady Knollys for a very few minutes?'</p>
+
+<p>'Cruel cheaile! you know I have a pain of the ear which
+makes me 'orribly suffer at this moment, and you demand me
+whether I will not converse with strangers. I did not think you
+would be so unkain, Maud; but it is impossible, you must see&mdash;quite
+impossible. I never, you <i>know</i>, refuse to take trouble
+when I am able&mdash;never&mdash;<i>never</i>.'</p>
+
+<p>And Madame shed some tears, which always came at call, and
+with her hand pressed to her ear, said very faintly,</p>
+
+<p>'Be so good to tell your friend how you see me, and how I
+suffer, and leave me, Maud, for I wish to lie down for a little,
+since the pain will not allow me to remain longer.'</p>
+
+<p>So with a few words of comfort which could not well be refused,
+but I dare say betraying my suspicion that more was made
+of her sufferings than need be, I returned to the drawing-room.</p>
+
+<p>'Captain Oakley has been here, my dear, and fancying, I
+suppose, that you had left us for the evening, has gone to the
+billiard-room, I think,' said Lady Knollys, as I entered.</p>
+
+<p>That, then, accounted for the rumble and smack of balls
+which I had heard as I passed the door.</p>
+
+<p>'I have been telling Maud how detestably she is got up.'</p>
+
+<p>'Very thoughtful of you, Monica!' said my father.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, and really, Austin, it is quite clear you ought to marry;
+you want some one to take this girl out, and look after her, and
+who's to do it? She's a dowdy&mdash;don't you see? Such a dust!
+And it <i>is</i> really such a pity; for she's a very pretty creature,
+and a clever woman could make her quite charming.'</p>
+
+<p>My father took Cousin Monica's sallies with the most wonderful
+good-humour. She had always, I fancy, been a privileged
+person, and my father, whom we all feared, received her jolly
+attacks, as I fancy the grim Front-de-Boeufs of old accepted the
+humours and personalities of their jesters.</p>
+
+<p>'Am I to accept this as an overture?' said my father to his
+voluble cousin.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, you may, but not for myself, Austin&mdash;I'm not worthy.
+Do you remember little Kitty Weadon that I wanted you to
+marry eight-and-twenty years ago, or more, with a hundred and
+twenty thousand pounds? Well, you know, she has got ever so
+much now, and she is really a most amiable old thing, and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page56" id="page56"></a>[pg 48]</span>
+though <i>you</i> would not have her then, she has had her second
+husband since, I can tell you.'</p>
+
+<p>'I'm glad I was not the first,' said my father.</p>
+
+<p>'Well, they really say her wealth is absolutely immense. Her
+last husband, the Russian merchant, left her everything. She has
+not a human relation, and she is in the best set.'</p>
+
+<p>'You were always a match-maker, Monica,' said my father,
+stopping, and putting his hand kindly on hers. 'But it won't do.
+No, no, Monica; we must take care of little Maud some other way.'</p>
+
+<p>I was relieved. We women have all an instinctive dread of
+second marriages, and think that no widower is quite above or
+below that danger; and I remember, whenever my father, which
+indeed was but seldom, made a visit to town or anywhere else,
+it was a saying of Mrs. Rusk&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'I shan't wonder, neither need you, my dear, if he brings home
+a young wife with him.'</p>
+
+<p>So my father, with a kind look at her, and a very tender one
+on me, went silently to the library, as he often did about that
+hour.</p>
+
+<p>I could not help resenting my Cousin Knollys' officious recommendation
+of matrimony. Nothing I dreaded more than a step-mother.
+Good Mrs. Rusk and Mary Quince, in their several
+ways, used to enhance, by occasional anecdotes and frequent
+reflections, the terrors of such an intrusion. I suppose they did
+not wish a revolution and all its consequences at Knowl, and
+thought it no harm to excite my vigilance.</p>
+
+<p>But it was impossible long to be vexed with Cousin Monica.</p>
+
+<p>'You know, my dear, your father is an oddity,' she said. 'I
+don't mind him&mdash;I never did. You must not. Cracky, my dear,
+cracky&mdash;decidedly cracky!'</p>
+
+<p>And she tapped the corner of her forehead, with a look
+so sly and comical, that I think I should have laughed, if the
+sentiment had not been so awfully irreverent.</p>
+
+<p>'Well, dear, how is our friend the milliner?'</p>
+
+<p>'Madame is suffering so much from pain in her ear, that she
+says it would be quite impossible to have the honour&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'Honour&mdash;fiddle! I want to see what the woman's like. Pain
+in her ear, you say? Poor thing! Well, dear, I think I can cure
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page57" id="page57"></a>[pg 49]</span>
+
+that in five minutes. I have it myself, now and then. Come to
+my room, and we'll get the bottles.'</p>
+
+<p>So she lighted her candle in the lobby, and with a light and
+agile step she scaled the stairs, I following; and having found
+the remedies, we approached Madame's room together.</p>
+
+<p>I think, while we were still at the end of the gallery, Madame
+heard and divined our approach, for her door suddenly shut,
+and there was a fumbling at the handle. But the bolt was out
+of order.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Knollys tapped at the door, saying&mdash;'we'll come in,
+please, and see you. I've some remedies, which I'm sure will do
+you good.'</p>
+
+<p>There was no answer; so she opened the door, and we both
+entered. Madame had rolled herself in the blue coverlet, and
+was lying on the bed, with her face buried in the pillow, and
+enveloped in the covering.</p>
+
+<p>'Perhaps she's asleep?' said Lady Knollys, getting round to
+the side of the bed, and stooping over her.</p>
+
+<p>Madame lay still as a mouse. Cousin Monica set down her two
+little vials on the table, and, stooping again over the bed, began
+very gently with her fingers to lift the coverlet that covered her
+face. Madame uttered a slumbering moan, and turned more
+upon her face, clasping the coverlet faster about her.</p>
+
+<p>'Madame, it is Maud and Lady Knollys. We have come to
+relieve your ear. Pray let me see it. She can't be asleep, she's
+holding the clothes so fast. Do, pray, allow me to see it.'</p>
+
+<a name="chap11"></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XI</h3>
+
+<h2><i>LADY KNOLLYS SEES THE FEATURES</i></h2>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps, if Madame had murmured, 'It is quite well&mdash;pray
+permit me to sleep,' she would have escaped an awkwardness.
+But having adopted the rôle of the exhausted slumberer, she
+could not consistently speak at the moment; neither would it do
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page58" id="page58"></a>[pg 50]</span>
+by main force, to hold the coverlet about her face, and so her
+presence of mind forsook her. Cousin Monica drew it back
+and hardly beheld the profile of the sufferer, when her good-humoured
+face was lined and shadowed with a dark curiosity
+and a surprise by no means pleasant. She stood erect beside
+the bed, with her mouth firmly shut and drawn down at the
+corners, in a sort of recoil and perturbation, looking down upon
+the patient.</p>
+
+<p>'So that's Madame de la Rougierre?' at length exclaimed Lady
+Knollys, with a very stately disdain. I think I never saw anyone
+look more shocked.</p>
+
+<p>Madame sat up, very flushed. No wonder, for she had been
+wrapped so close in the coverlet. She did not look quite at Lady
+Knollys, but straight before her, rather downward, and very
+luridly.</p>
+
+<p>I was very much frightened and amazed, and felt on the point
+of bursting into tears.</p>
+
+<p>'So, Mademoiselle, you have married, it seems, since I had
+last the honour of seeing you? I did not recognise Mademoiselle
+under her new name.'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes&mdash;I <i>am</i> married, Lady Knollys; I thought everyone who
+knew me had heard of that. Very respectably married, for a
+person of my rank. I shall not need long the life of a governess.
+There is no harm, I hope?'</p>
+
+<p>'I hope not,' said Lady Knollys, drily, a little pale, and still
+looking with a dark sort of wonder upon the flushed face and
+forehead of the governess, who was looking downward, straight
+before her, very sulkily and disconcerted.</p>
+
+<p>'I suppose you have explained everything satisfactorily to
+Mr. Ruthyn, in whose house I find you?' said Cousin Monica.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, certainly, everything he requires&mdash;in effect there is <i>nothing</i>
+to explain. I am ready to answer to any question. Let
+<i>him</i> demand me.'</p>
+
+<p>'Very good, Mademoiselle.'</p>
+
+<p>'<i>Madame</i>, if you please.'</p>
+
+<p>'I forgot&mdash;<i>Madame</i>&mdash;yes, I shall apprise him of everything.'</p>
+
+<p>Madame turned upon her a peaked and malign look, smiling
+askance with a stealthy scorn.</p>
+
+<p>'For myself, I have nothing to conceal. I have always done
+my duty. What fine scene about nothing absolutely&mdash;what charming
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page59" id="page59"></a>[pg 51]</span>
+
+remedies for a sick person! Ma foi! how much oblige I am
+for these so amiable attentions!'</p>
+
+<p>'So far as I can see, Mademoiselle&mdash;Madame, I mean&mdash;you
+don't stand very much in need of remedies. Your ear and head
+don't seem to trouble you just now. I fancy these pains may now
+be dismissed.'</p>
+
+<p>Lady Knollys was now speaking French.</p>
+
+<p>'Mi ladi has diverted my attention for a moment, but that
+does not prevent that I suffer frightfully. I am, of course, only
+poor governess, and such people perhaps ought not to have pain&mdash;at
+least to show when they suffer. It is permitted us to die, but
+not to be sick.'</p>
+
+<p>'Come, Maud, my dear, let us leave the invalid to her repose
+and to nature. I don't think she needs my chloroform and opium
+at present.'</p>
+
+<p>'Mi ladi is herself a physic which chases many things, and
+powerfully affects the ear. I would wish to sleep, notwithstanding,
+and can but gain that in silence, if it pleases mi ladi.'</p>
+
+<p>'Come, my dear,' said Lady Knollys, without again glancing
+at the scowling, smiling, swarthy face in the bed; 'let us leave
+your instructress to her <i>concforto</i>.'</p>
+
+<p>'The room smells all over of brandy, my dear&mdash;does she
+drink?' said Lady Knollys, as she closed the door, a little
+sharply.</p>
+
+<p>I am sure I looked as much amazed as I felt, at an imputation
+which then seemed to me so entirely incredible.</p>
+
+<p>'Good little simpleton!' said Cousin Monica, smiling in my
+face, and bestowing a little kiss on my cheek; 'such a thing as
+a tipsy lady has never been dreamt of in your philosophy. Well,
+we live and learn. Let us have our tea in my room&mdash;the gentlemen,
+I dare say, have retired.'</p>
+
+<p>I assented, of course, and we had tea very cosily by her bedroom fire.</p>
+
+<p>'How long have you had that woman?' she asked suddenly,
+after, for her, a very long rumination.</p>
+
+<p>'She came in the beginning of February&mdash;nearly ten months
+ago&mdash;is not it?'</p>
+
+<p>'And who sent her?'</p>
+
+<p>'I really don't know; papa tells me so little&mdash;he arranged
+it all himself, I think.'</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page60" id="page60"></a>[pg 52]</span>
+
+<p>Cousin Monica made a sound of acquiescence&mdash;her lips closed
+and a nod, frowning hard at the bars.</p>
+
+<p>'It <i>is</i> very odd!' she said; 'how people <i>can</i> be such fools!'
+Here there came a little pause. 'And what sort of person is she&mdash;do
+you like her?'</p>
+
+<p>'Very well&mdash;that is, <i>pretty</i> well. You won't tell?&mdash;but she
+rather frightens me. I'm sure she does not intend it, but somehow
+I am very much afraid of her.'</p>
+
+<p>'She does not beat you?' said Cousin Monica, with an incipient
+frenzy in her face that made me love her.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh no!'</p>
+
+<p>'Nor ill-use you in any way?'</p>
+
+<p>'No.'</p>
+
+<p>'Upon your honour and word, Maud?'</p>
+
+<p>'No, upon my honour.'</p>
+
+<p>'You know I won't tell her anything you say to me; and I
+only want to know, that I may put an end to it, my poor little
+cousin.'</p>
+
+<p>'Thank you, Cousin Monica very much; but really and truly
+she does not ill-use me.'</p>
+
+<p>'Nor threaten you, child?'</p>
+
+<p>'Well, <i>no</i>&mdash;no, she does not threaten.'</p>
+
+<p>'And how the plague <i>does</i> she frighten you, child?'</p>
+
+<p>'Well, I really&mdash;I'm half ashamed to tell you&mdash;you'll laugh at
+me&mdash;and I don't know that she wishes to frighten me. But there
+is something, is not there, ghosty, you know, about her?'</p>
+
+<p>'<i>Ghosty</i>&mdash;is there? well, I'm sure I don't know, but I suspect
+there's something devilish&mdash;I mean, she seems roguish&mdash;does
+not she? And I really think she has had neither cold
+nor pain, but has just been shamming sickness, to keep out of
+my way.'</p>
+
+<p>I perceived plainly enough that Cousin Monica's damnatory
+epithet referred to some retrospective knowledge, which she
+was not going to disclose to me.</p>
+
+<p>'You knew Madame before,' I said. 'Who is she?'</p>
+
+<p>'She assures me she is Madame de la Rougierre, and, I suppose,
+in French phrase she so calls herself,' answered Lady
+Knollys, with a laugh, but uncomfortably, I thought.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, dear Cousin Monica, do tell me&mdash;is she&mdash;is she very
+wicked? I am so afraid of her!'</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page61" id="page61"></a>[pg 53]</span>
+
+<p>'How should I know, dear Maud? But I do remember her
+face, and I don't very much like her, and you may depend on it,
+I will speak to your father in the morning about her, and don't,
+darling, ask me any more about her, for I really have not very
+much to tell that you would care to hear, and the fact is I
+<i>won't</i> say any more about her&mdash;there!'</p>
+
+<p>And Cousin Monica laughed, and gave me a little slap on the
+cheek, and then a kiss.</p>
+
+<p>'Well, just tell me this&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'Well, I <i>won't</i> tell you this, nor anything&mdash;not a word, curious
+little woman. The fact is, I have little to tell, and I mean to
+speak to your father, and he, I am sure, will do what is right;
+so don't ask me any more, and let us talk of something pleasanter.'</p>
+
+<p>There was something indescribably winning, it seemed to me,
+in Cousin Monica. Old as she was, she seemed to me so girlish,
+compared with those slow, unexceptionable young ladies whom
+I had met in my few visits at the county houses. By this time
+my shyness was quite gone, and I was on the most intimate
+terms with her.</p>
+
+<p>'You know a great deal about her, Cousin Monica, but you
+won't tell me.'</p>
+
+<p>'Nothing I should like better, if I were at liberty, little rogue;
+but you know, after all, I don't really say whether I <i>do</i> know
+anything about her or not, or what sort of knowledge it is. But
+tell me what you mean by ghosty, and all about it.'</p>
+
+<p>So I recounted my experiences, to which, so far from laughing
+at me, she listened with very special gravity.</p>
+
+<p>'Does she write and receive many letters?'</p>
+
+<p>I had seen her write letters, and supposed, though I could only
+recollect one or two, that she received in proportion.</p>
+
+<p>'Are <i>you</i> Mary Quince?' asked my lady cousin.</p>
+
+<p>Mary was arranging the window-curtains, and turned, dropping
+a courtesy affirmatively toward her.</p>
+
+<p>'You wait on my little cousin, Miss Ruthyn, don't you?'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, 'm,' said Mary, in her genteelest way.</p>
+
+<p>'Does anyone sleep in her room?'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, 'm, <i>I</i>&mdash;please, my lady.'</p>
+
+<p>'And no one else?'</p>
+
+<p>'No, 'm&mdash;please, my lady.'</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page62" id="page62"></a>[pg 54]</span>
+
+<p>'Not even the <i>governess</i>, sometimes?</p>
+
+<p>'No, please, my lady.'</p>
+
+<p>'Never, you are quite sure, my dear?' said Lady Knollys,
+transferring the question to me.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, no, never,' I answered.</p>
+
+<p>Cousin Monica mused gravely, I fancied even anxiously, into
+the grate; then stirred her tea and sipped it, still looking into
+the same point of our cheery fire.</p>
+
+<p>'I like your face, Mary Quince; I'm sure you are a good
+creature,' she said, suddenly turning toward her with a pleasant
+countenance. 'I'm very glad you have got her, dear. I wonder
+whether Austin has gone to his bed yet!'</p>
+
+<p>'I think not. I am certain he is either in the library or in
+his private room&mdash;papa often reads or prays alone at night, and&mdash;and
+he does not like to be interrupted.'</p>
+
+<p>'No, no; of course not&mdash;it will do very well in the morning.'</p>
+
+<p>Lady Knollys was thinking deeply, as it seemed to me.</p>
+
+<p>'And so you are afraid of goblins, my dear,' she said at last,
+with a faded sort of smile, turning toward me; 'well, if <i>I</i> were,
+I know what <i>I</i> should do&mdash;so soon as I, and good Mary Quince
+here, had got into my bed-chamber for the night, I should stir
+the fire into a good blaze, and bolt the door&mdash;do you see, Mary
+Quince?&mdash;bolt the door and keep a candle lighted all night.
+You'll be very attentive to her, Mary Quince, for I&mdash;I don't
+think she is very strong, and she must not grow nervous: so get
+to bed early, and don't leave her alone&mdash;do you see?&mdash;and&mdash;and
+remember to bolt the door, Mary Quince, and I shall be sending
+a little Christmas-box to my cousin, and I shan't forget you.
+Good-night.'</p>
+
+<p>And with a pleasant courtesy Mary fluttered out of the room.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page63" id="page63"></a>[pg 55]</span>
+
+<a name="chap12"></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XII</h3>
+
+<h2><i>A CURIOUS CONVERSATION</i></h2>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>We each had another cup of tea, and were silent for awhile.</p>
+
+<p>'We must not talk of ghosts now. You are a superstitious
+little woman, you know, and you shan't be frightened.'</p>
+
+<p>And now Cousin Monica grew silent again, and looking
+briskly around the room, like a lady in search of a subject, her
+eye rested on a small oval portrait, graceful, brightly tinted, in
+the French style, representing a pretty little boy, with rich
+golden hair, large soft eyes, delicate features, and a shy, peculiar
+expression.</p>
+
+<p>'It is odd; I think I remember that pretty little sketch, very
+long ago. I think I was then myself a child, but that is a much
+older style of dress, and of wearing the hair, too, than I ever
+saw. I am just forty-nine now. Oh dear, yes; that is a good while
+before I was <i>born</i>. What a strange, pretty little boy! a
+mysterious little fellow. Is he quite sincere, I wonder? What
+rich golden hair! It is very clever&mdash;a French artist, I dare say&mdash;and
+who <i>is</i> that little boy?'</p>
+
+<p>'I never heard. Some one a hundred years ago, I dare say.
+But there is a picture down-stairs I am so anxious to ask you
+about!'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh!' murmured Lady Knollys, still gazing dreamily on the
+crayon.</p>
+
+<p>'It is the full-length picture of Uncle Silas&mdash;I want to ask you
+about him.'</p>
+
+<p>At mention of his name, my cousin gave me a look so sudden
+and odd as to amount almost to a start.</p>
+
+<p>'Your uncle Silas, dear? It is very odd, I was just thinking of
+him;' and she laughed a little.</p>
+
+<p>'Wondering whether that little boy could be he.'</p>
+
+<p>And up jumped active Cousin Monica, with a candle in her
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page64" id="page64"></a>[pg 56]</span>
+
+hand, upon a chair, and scrutinised the border of the sketch for
+a name or a date.</p>
+
+<p>'Maybe on the back?' said she.</p>
+
+<p>And so she unhung it, and there, true enough, not on the back
+of the drawing, but of the frame, which was just as good, in
+pen-and-ink round Italian letters, hardly distinguishable now from
+the discoloured wood, we traced&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'<i>Silas Aylmer Ruthyn, Ætate</i> viii. 15 <i>May</i>, 1779.'</p>
+
+<p>'It is very odd I should not have been told or remembered
+who it was. I think if I had <i>ever</i> been told I <i>should</i> have
+remembered it. I do recollect this picture, though, I am nearly
+certain. What a singular child's face!'</p>
+
+<p>And my cousin leaned over it with a candle on each side, and
+her hand shading her eyes, as if seeking by aid of these fair and
+half-formed lineaments to read an enigma.</p>
+
+<p>The childish features defied her, I suppose; their secret was
+unfathomable, for after a good while she raised her head, still
+looking at the portrait, and sighed.</p>
+
+<p>'A very singular face,' she said, softly, as a person might who
+was looking into a coffin. 'Had not we better replace it?'</p>
+
+<p>So the pretty oval, containing the fair golden hair and large
+eyes, the pale, unfathomable sphinx, remounted to its nail, and
+the <i>funeste</i> and beautiful child seemed to smile down oracularly
+on our conjectures.</p>
+
+<p>'So is the face in the large portrait&mdash;<i>very</i> singular&mdash;more, I
+think, than that&mdash;handsomer too. This is a sickly child, I think;
+but the full-length is so manly, though so slender, and so handsome too. I
+always think him a hero and a mystery, and they
+won't tell me about him, and I can only dream and wonder.'</p>
+
+<p>'He has made more people than you dream and wonder, my
+dear Maud. I don't know what to make of him. He is a sort of
+idol, you know, of your father's, and yet I don't think he helps
+him much. His abilities were singular; so has been his misfortune;
+for the rest, my dear, he is neither a hero nor a wonder.
+So far as I know, there are very few sublime men going about
+the world.'</p>
+
+<p>'You really must tell me all you know about him, Cousin
+Monica. Now don't refuse.'</p>
+
+<p>'But why should you care to hear? There is really nothing
+pleasant to tell.'</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page65" id="page65"></a>[pg 57]</span>
+
+<p>'That is just the reason I wish it. If it were at all pleasant, it
+would be quite commonplace. I like to hear of adventures, dangers,
+and misfortunes; and above all, I love a mystery. You
+know, papa will never tell me, and I dare not ask him; not that
+he is ever unkind, but, somehow, I am afraid; and neither Mrs.
+Rusk nor Mary Quince will tell me anything, although I suspect
+they know a good deal.'</p>
+
+<p>'I don't see any good in telling you, dear, nor, to say the truth,
+any great harm either.'</p>
+
+<p>'No&mdash;now that's <i>quite</i> true&mdash;no harm. There <i>can't</i> be, for I
+<i>must</i> know it all some day, you know, and better now, and
+from <i>you</i>, than perhaps from a stranger, and in a less favourable
+way.'</p>
+
+<p>'Upon my word, it is a wise little woman; and really, that's
+not such bad sense after all.'</p>
+
+<p>So we poured out another cup of tea each, and sipped it very
+comfortably by the fire, while Lady Knollys talked on, and her
+animated face helped the strange story.</p>
+
+<p>'It is not very much, after all. Your uncle Silas, you know,
+is living?'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh yes, in Derbyshire.'</p>
+
+<p>'So I see you do know something of him, sly girl! but no matter.
+You know how very rich your father is; but Silas was the
+younger brother, and had little more than a thousand a year.
+If he had not played, and did not care to marry, it would have
+been quite enough&mdash;ever so much more than younger sons of
+dukes often have; but he was&mdash;well, a <i>mauvais sujet</i>&mdash;you know
+what that is. I don't want to say any ill of him&mdash;more than I
+really know&mdash;but he was fond of his pleasures, I suppose, like
+other young men, and he played, and was always losing, and
+your father for a long time paid great sums for him. I believe
+he was really a most expensive and vicious young man; and I
+fancy he does not deny that now, for they say he would change
+the past if he could.</p>
+
+<p>I was looking at the pensive little boy in the oval frame&mdash;aged
+eight years&mdash;who was, a few springs later, 'a most expensive and
+vicious young man,' and was now a suffering and outcast old
+one, and wondering from what a small seed the hemlock or the
+wallflower grows, and how microscopic are the beginnings of
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page66" id="page66"></a>[pg 58]</span>
+
+the kingdom of God or of the mystery of iniquity in a human
+being's heart.</p>
+
+<p>'Austin&mdash;your papa&mdash;was very kind to him&mdash;<i>very</i>; but then,
+you know, he's an oddity, dear&mdash;he <i>is</i> an oddity, though no one
+may have told you before&mdash;and he never forgave him for his
+marriage. Your father, I suppose, knew more about the lady
+than I did&mdash;I was young then&mdash;but there were various reports,
+none of them pleasant, and she was not visited, and for some
+time there was a complete estrangement between your father
+and your uncle Silas; and it was made up, rather oddly, on the
+very occasion which some people said ought to have totally
+separated them. Did you ever hear anything&mdash;anything <i>very</i>
+remarkable&mdash;about your uncle?'</p>
+
+<p>'No, never, they would not tell me, though I am sure they
+know. Pray go on.'</p>
+
+<p>'Well, Maud, as I have begun, I'll complete the story, though
+perhaps it might have been better untold. It was something
+rather shocking&mdash;indeed, <i>very</i> shocking; in fact, they insisted
+on suspecting him of having committed a murder.'</p>
+
+<p>I stared at my cousin for some time, and then at the little boy,
+so refined, so beautiful, so <i>funeste</i>, in the oval frame.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, dear,' said she, her eyes following mine; 'who'd have
+supposed he could ever have&mdash;have fallen under so horrible a
+suspicion?'</p>
+
+<p>'The wretches! Of course, Uncle Silas&mdash;of course, he's innocent?'
+I said at last.</p>
+
+<p>'Of course, my dear,' said Cousin Monica, with an odd look;
+'but you know there are some things as bad almost to be suspected
+of as to have done, and the country gentlemen chose to
+suspect him. They did not like him, you see. His politics vexed
+them; and he resented their treatment of his wife&mdash;though I
+really think, poor Silas, he did not care a pin about her&mdash;and he
+annoyed them whenever he could. Your papa, you know, is very
+proud of his family&mdash;<i>he</i> never had the slightest suspicion of your
+uncle.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh no!' I cried vehemently.</p>
+
+<p>'That's right, Maud Ruthyn,' said Cousin Monica, with a sad
+little smile and a nod. 'And your papa was, you may suppose,
+very angry.'</p>
+
+<p>'Of course he was,' I exclaimed.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page67" id="page67"></a>[pg 59]</span>
+
+<p>'You have no idea, my dear, <i>how</i> angry. He directed his
+attorney to prosecute, by wholesale, all who had said a word
+affecting your uncle's character. But the lawyers were against it, and
+then your uncle tried to fight his way through it, but the men
+would not meet him. He was quite slurred. Your father went up
+and saw the Minister. He wanted to have him a Deputy-Lieutenant,
+or something, in his county. Your papa, you know, had a
+very great influence with the Government. Beside his county
+influence, he had two boroughs then. But the Minister was
+afraid, the feeling was so very strong. They offered him something
+in the Colonies, but your father would not hear of it&mdash;that
+would have been a banishment, you know. They would
+have given your father a peerage to make it up, but he would
+not accept it, and broke with the party. Except in that way&mdash;which,
+you know, was connected with the reputation of the
+family&mdash;I don't think, considering his great wealth, he has done
+very much for Silas. To say truth, however, he was very liberal
+before his marriage. Old Mrs. Aylmer says he made a vow <i>then</i>
+that Silas should never have more than five hundred a year,
+which he still allows him, I believe, and he permits him to
+live in the place. But they say it is in a very wild, neglected
+state.'</p>
+
+<p>'You live in the same county&mdash;have you seen it lately, Cousin
+Monica?'</p>
+
+<p>'No, not very lately,' said Cousin Monica, and began to hum
+an air abstractedly.</p>
+
+<a name="chap13"></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XIII</h3>
+
+<h2><i>BEFORE AND AFTER BREAKFAST</i></h2>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>Next morning early I visited my favourite full-length portrait
+in the chocolate coat and top-boots. Scanty as had been my
+cousin Monica's notes upon this dark and eccentric biography,
+they were everything to me. A soul had entered that enchanted
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page68" id="page68"></a>[pg 60]</span>
+
+form. Truth had passed by with her torch, and a sad light
+shone for a moment on that enigmatic face.</p>
+
+<p>There stood the <i>roué</i>&mdash;the duellist&mdash;and, with all his faults, the
+hero too! In that dark large eye lurked the profound and fiery
+enthusiasm of his ill-starred passion. In the thin but exquisite
+lip I read the courage of the paladin, who would have 'fought
+his way,' though single-handed, against all the magnates of his
+county, and by ordeal of battle have purged the honour of the
+Ruthyns. There in that delicate half-sarcastic tracery of the nostril
+I detected the intellectual defiance which had politically
+isolated Silas Ruthyn and opposed him to the landed oligarchy
+of his county, whose retaliation had been a hideous slander.
+There, too, and on his brows and lip, I traced the patience of a
+cold disdain. I could now see him as he was&mdash;the prodigal, the
+hero, and the martyr. I stood gazing on him with a girlish interest
+and admiration. There was indignation, there was pity,
+there was hope. Some day it might come to pass that I, girl as
+I was, might contribute by word or deed towards the vindication
+of that long-suffering, gallant, and romantic prodigal. It was a
+flicker of the Joan of Arc inspiration, common, I fancy, to many
+girls. I little then imagined how profoundly and strangely involved
+my uncle's fate would one day become with mine.</p>
+
+<p>I was interrupted by Captain Oakley's voice at the window.
+He was leaning on the window-sill, and looking in with a smile&mdash;the
+window being open, the morning sunny, and his cap lifted
+in his hand.</p>
+
+<p>'Good-morning, Miss Ruthyn. What a charming old place!
+quite the setting for a romance; such timber, and this really
+<i>beautiful</i> house. I <i>do</i> so like these white and black
+houses&mdash;wonderful old things. By-the-by, you treated us very badly last
+night&mdash;you did, indeed; upon my word, now, it really was too
+bad&mdash;running away, and drinking tea with Lady Knollys&mdash;so
+she says. I really&mdash;I should not like to tell you how very savage
+I felt, particularly considering how very short my time is.'</p>
+
+<p>I was a shy, but not a giggling country miss. I knew I was an
+heiress; I knew I was somebody. I was not the least bit in the
+world conceited, but I think this knowledge helped to give me
+a certain sense of security and self-possession, which might have
+been mistaken for dignity or simplicity. I am sure I looked at
+him with a fearless enquiry, for he answered my thoughts.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page69" id="page69"></a>[pg 61]</span>
+
+<p>'I do really assure you, Miss Ruthyn, I am quite serious;
+you have no idea how very much we have missed you.'</p>
+
+<p>There was a little pause, and, like a fool, I lowered
+my eyes, and blushed.</p>
+
+<p>'I&mdash;I was thinking of leaving to-day; I am so unfortunate&mdash;my
+leave is just out&mdash;it is so unlucky; but I don't quite know
+whether my aunt Knollys will allow me to go.'</p>
+
+<p>'<i>I</i>?&mdash;certainly, my dear Charlie, <i>I</i> don't want you at all,'
+exclaimed a voice&mdash;Lady Knollys's&mdash;briskly, from an open window
+close by; 'what could put that in your head, dear?'</p>
+
+<p>And in went my cousin's head, and the window shut down.</p>
+
+<p>'She is <i>such</i> an oddity, poor dear Aunt Knollys,' murmured
+the young man, ever so little put out, and he laughed. 'I never
+know quite what she wishes, or how to please her; but she's
+<i>so</i> good-natured; and when she goes to town for the season&mdash;she
+does not always, you know&mdash;her house is really very gay&mdash;you
+can't think&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>Here again he was interrupted, for the door opened, and
+Lady Knollys entered. 'And you know, Charles,' she continued,
+'it would not do to forget your visit to Snodhurst; you wrote,
+you know, and you have only to-night and to-morrow. You are
+thinking of nothing but that moor; I heard you talking to the
+gamekeeper; I know he is&mdash;is not he, Maud, the brown man
+with great whiskers, and leggings? I'm very sorry, you know, but
+I really must spoil your shooting, for they do expect you at
+Snodhurst, Charlie; and do not you think this window a little
+too much for Miss Ruthyn? Maud, my dear, the air is very sharp;
+shut it down, Charles, and you'd better tell them to get a fly for
+you from the town after luncheon. Come, dear,' she said to me.
+'Was not that the breakfast bell? Why does not your papa
+get a gong?&mdash;it is so hard to know one bell from another.'</p>
+
+<p>I saw that Captain Oakley lingered for a last look, but I did
+not give it, and went out smiling with Cousin Knollys, and
+wondering why old ladies are so uniformly disagreeable.</p>
+
+<p>In the lobby she said, with an odd, good-natured look&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Don't allow any of his love-making, my dear. Charles Oakley
+has not a guinea, and an heiress would be very convenient.
+Of course he has his eyes about him. Charles is not by any
+means foolish; and I should not be at all sorry to see him well
+married, for I don't think he will do much good any other way;
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page70" id="page70"></a>[pg 62]</span>
+
+but there are degrees, and his ideas are sometimes very impertinent.'</p>
+
+<p>I was an admiring reader of the <i>Albums</i>, the <i>Souvenirs</i>, the
+<i>Keepsakes</i>, and all that flood of Christmas-present lore which yearly
+irrigated England, with pretty covers and engravings;
+and floods of elegant twaddle&mdash;the milk, not destitute of water,
+on which the babes of literature were then fed. On this, my
+genius throve. I had a little album, enriched with many gems
+of original thought and observation, which I jotted down in
+suitable language. Lately, turning over these faded leaves of
+rhyme and prose, I lighted, under this day's date, upon the following sage
+reflection, with my name appended:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>'Is there not in the female heart an ineradicable jealousy,
+which, if it sways the passions of the young, rules also the <i>advice</i>
+of the <i>aged</i>? Do they not grudge to youth the sentiments (though
+Heaven knows how <i>shadowed</i> with sorrow) which they can <i>no longer
+inspire</i>, perhaps even <i>experience</i>; and does not youth, in turn,
+sigh over the envy which has <i>power to blight</i>?</p>
+
+<p class="signature">M<small>AUD</small> A<small>YLMER</small> R<small>UTHYN</small>.'</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>'He has not been making love to me,' I said rather tartly,
+'and he does not seem to me at all impertinent, and I really
+don't care the least whether he goes or stays.'</p>
+
+<p>Cousin Monica looked in my face with her old waggish smile,
+and laughed.</p>
+
+<p>'You'll understand those London dandies better some day,
+dear Maud; they are very well, but they like money&mdash;not to keep,
+of course&mdash;but still they like it and know its value.'</p>
+
+<p>At breakfast my father told Captain Oakley where he might
+have shooting, or if he preferred going to Dilsford, only half
+an hour's ride, he might have his choice of hunters, and find
+the dogs there that morning.</p>
+
+<p>The Captain smiled archly at me, and looked at his aunt.
+There was a suspense. I hope I did not show how much I was
+interested&mdash;but it would not do. Cousin Monica was inexorable.</p>
+
+<p>'Hunting, hawking, fishing, fiddle-de-dee! You know, Charlie,
+my dear, it is quite out of the question. He is going to Snodhurst this
+afternoon, and without quite a rudeness, in which
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page71" id="page71"></a>[pg 63]</span>
+
+I should be involved too, he really can't&mdash;you know you can't,
+Charles! and&mdash;and he <i>must</i> go and keep his engagement.'</p>
+
+<p>So papa acquiesced with a polite regret, and hoped another
+time.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, leave all that to me. When you want him, only write me
+a note, and I'll send him or bring him if you let me. I always
+know where to find him&mdash;don't I, Charlie?&mdash;and we shall be only
+too happy.'</p>
+
+<p>Aunt Monica's influence with her nephew was special, for she
+'tipped' him handsomely every now and then, and he had
+formed for himself agreeable expectations, besides, respecting her
+will. I felt rather angry at his submitting to this sort of tutelage,
+knowing nothing of its motive; I was also disgusted by Cousin
+Monica's tyranny.</p>
+
+<p>So soon as he had left the room, Lady Knollys, not minding
+me, said briskly to papa, 'Never let that young man into your
+house again. I found him making speeches, this morning, to
+little Maud here; and he really has not two pence in the world&mdash;it
+is amazing impudence&mdash;and you know such absurd things
+do happen.'</p>
+
+<p>'Come, Maud, what compliments did he pay you?' asked my
+father.</p>
+
+<p>I was vexed, and therefore spoke courageously. 'His compliments
+were not to me; they were all to the house,' I said, drily.</p>
+
+<p>'Quite as it should be&mdash;the house, of course; it is that he's in
+love with,' said Cousin Knollys.</p>
+
+<div class="poem">  <div class="stanza">
+<p>'Twas on a widow's jointure land,</p>
+<p>The archer, Cupid, took his stand.'</p>
+  </div>  </div>
+
+<p>'Hey! I don't quite understand,' said my father, slily.</p>
+
+<p>'Tut! Austin; you forget Charlie is my nephew.'</p>
+
+<p>'So I did,' said my father.</p>
+
+<p>'Therefore the literal widow in this case <i>can</i> have no interest
+in view but one, and that is yours and Maud's. I wish him well,
+but he shan't put my little cousin and her expectations into his
+empty pocket&mdash;<i>not</i> a bit of it. And <i>there's</i> another
+reason, Austin, why you should marry&mdash;you have no eye for these things,
+whereas a clever <i>woman</i> would see at a glance and prevent mischief.'</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page72" id="page72"></a>[pg 64]</span>
+
+<p>'So she would,' acquiesced my father, in his gloomy, amused
+way. 'Maud, you must try to be a clever woman.'</p>
+
+<p>'So she will in her time, but that is not come yet; and I tell
+you, Austin Ruthyn, if you won't look about and marry somebody,
+somebody may possibly marry you.'</p>
+
+<p>'You were always an oracle, Monica; but <i>here</i> I am lost in
+total perplexity,' said my father.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes; sharks sailing round you, with keen eyes and large
+throats; and you have come to the age precisely when men <i>are</i>
+swallowed up alive like Jonah.'</p>
+
+<p>'Thank you for the parallel, but you know that was not a
+happy union, even for the fish, and there was a separation in a
+few days; not that I mean to trust to that; but there's no one to
+throw me into the jaws of the monster, and I've no notion of
+jumping there; and the fact is, Monica, there's no monster at
+all.'</p>
+
+<p>'I'm not so sure.'</p>
+
+<p>'But I'm quite sure,' said my father, a little drily. 'You forget
+how old I am, and how long I've lived alone&mdash;I and little Maud;'
+and he smiled and smoothed my hair, and, I thought, sighed.</p>
+
+<p>'No one is ever too old to do a foolish thing,' began Lady
+Knollys.</p>
+
+<p>'Nor to say a foolish thing, Monica. This has gone on too
+long. Don't you see that little Maud here is silly enough to be
+frightened at your fun.'</p>
+
+<p>So I was, but I could not divine how he guessed it.</p>
+
+<p>'And well or ill, wisely or madly, I'll <i>never</i> marry; so put
+that out of your head.'</p>
+
+<p>This was addressed rather to me, I think, than to Lady
+Knollys, who smiled a little waggishly on me, and said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'To be sure, Maud; maybe you are right; a stepdame is a
+risk, and I ought to have asked you first what you thought of
+it; and upon my honour,' she continued merrily but kindly, observing
+that my eyes, I know not exactly from what feeling,
+filled with tears, 'I'll never again advise your papa to marry,
+unless you first tell me you wish it.'</p>
+
+<p>This was a great deal from Lady Knollys, who had a taste
+for advising her friends and managing their affairs.</p>
+
+<p>'I've a great respect for instinct. I believe, Austin, it is truer
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page73" id="page73"></a>[pg 65]</span>
+than reason, and yours and Maud's are both against me, though
+I know I have reason on my side.'</p>
+
+<p>My father's brief wintry smile answered, and Cousin Monica
+kissed me, and said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'I've been so long my own mistress that I sometimes forget
+there are such things as fear and jealousy; and are you going to
+your governess, Maud?'</p>
+
+<a name="chap14"></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XIV</h3>
+
+<h2><i>ANGRY WORDS</i></h2>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>I was going to my governess, as Lady Knollys said; and so I
+went. The undefinable sense of danger that smote me whenever
+I beheld that woman had deepened since last night's occurrence,
+and was taken out of the region of instinct or prepossession by
+the strange though slight indications of recognition and abhorrence
+which I had witnessed in Lady Knollys on that occasion.</p>
+
+<p>The tone in which Cousin Monica had asked, 'are you going
+to your governess?' and the curious, grave, and anxious look
+that accompanied the question, disturbed me; and there was
+something odd and cold in the tone as if a remembrance had
+suddenly chilled her. The accent remained in my ear, and the
+sharp brooding look was fixed before me as I glided up the
+broad dark stairs to Madame de la Rougierre's chamber.</p>
+
+<p>She had not come down to the school-room, as the scene of my
+studies was called. She had decided on having a relapse, and
+accordingly had not made her appearance down-stairs that morning.
+The gallery leading to her room was dark and lonely, and
+I grew more nervous as I approached; I paused at the door,
+making up my mind to knock.</p>
+
+<p>But the door opened suddenly, and, like a magic-lantern
+figure, presented with a snap, appeared close before my eyes
+the great muffled face, with the forbidding smirk, of Madame de
+la Rougierre.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page74" id="page74"></a>[pg 66]</span>
+
+<p>'Wat you mean, my dear cheaile?' she inquired with a malevolent
+shrewdness in her eyes, and her hollow smile all the time
+disconcerting me more even than the suddenness of her appearance;
+'wat for you approach so softly? I do not sleep, you see,
+but you feared, perhaps, to have the misfortune of wakening me,
+and so you came&mdash;is it not so?&mdash;to leesten, and looke in very
+gentily; you want to know how I was. Vous êtes bien aimable
+d'avoir pensé à moi. Bah!' she cried, suddenly bursting through
+her irony. 'Wy could not Lady Knollys come herself and leesten
+to the keyhole to make her report? Fi donc! wat is there to
+conceal? Nothing. Enter, if you please. Every one they are
+welcome!' and she flung the door wide, turned her back upon
+me, and, with an ejaculation which I did not understand, strode
+into the room.</p>
+
+<p>'I did not come with any intention, Madame, to pry or to
+intrude&mdash;you don't think so&mdash;you <i>can't</i> think so&mdash;you
+can't possibly mean to insinuate anything so insulting!'</p>
+
+<p>I was very angry, and my tremors had all vanished now.</p>
+
+<p>'No, not for <i>you</i>, dear cheaile; I was thinking to miladi Knollys,
+who, without cause, is my enemy. Every one has enemy; you
+will learn all that so soon as you are little older, and without
+cause she is mine. Come, Maud, speak a the truth&mdash;was it not
+miladi Knollys who sent you here doucement, doucement, so
+quaite to my door&mdash;is it not so, little rogue?'</p>
+
+<p>Madame had confronted me again, and we were now standing
+in the middle of her floor.</p>
+
+<p>I indignantly repelled the charge, and searching me for a moment
+with her oddly-shaped, cunning eyes, she said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'That is good cheaile, you speak a so direct&mdash;I like that, and
+am glad to hear; but, my dear Maud, that woman&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'Lady Knollys is papa's cousin,' I interposed a little gravely.</p>
+
+<p>'She does hate a me so, you av no idea. She as tryed to injure
+me several times, and would employ the most innocent person,
+unconsciously you know, my dear, to assist her malice.'</p>
+
+<p>Here Madame wept a little. I had already discovered that she
+could shed tears whenever she pleased. I have heard of such
+persons, but I never met another before or since.</p>
+
+<p>Madame was unusually frank&mdash;no one ever knew better when
+to be candid. At present I suppose she concluded that Lady
+Knollys would certainly relate whatever she knew concerning
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page75" id="page75"></a>[pg 67]</span>
+
+her before she left Knowl; and so Madame's reserves, whatever
+they might be, were dissolving, and she growing childlike and
+confiding.</p>
+
+<p>'Et comment va monsieur votre père aujourd'hui?'</p>
+
+<p>'Very well,' I thanked her.</p>
+
+<p>'And how long miladi Knollys her visit is likely to be?'</p>
+
+<p>'I could not say exactly, but for some days.'</p>
+
+<p>'Eh bien, my dear cheaile, I find myself better this morning,
+and we must return to our lessons. Je veux m'habiller, ma chère
+Maud; you will wait me in the school-room.'</p>
+
+<p>By this time Madame, who, though lazy, could make an effort,
+and was capable of getting into a sudden hurry, had placed
+herself before her dressing-table, and was ogling her discoloured
+and bony countenance in the glass.</p>
+
+<p>'Wat horror! I am so pale. Quel ennui! wat bore! Ow weak
+av I grow in two three days!'</p>
+
+<p>And she practised some plaintive, invalid glances into the
+mirror. But on a sudden there came a little sharp inquisitive
+frown as she looked over the frame of the glass, upon the terrace
+beneath. It was only a glance, and she sat down languidly in her
+arm-chair to prepare, I suppose, for the fatigues of the toilet.</p>
+
+<p>My curiosity was sufficiently aroused to induce me to ask&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'But why, Madame, do you fancy that Lady Knollys dislikes
+you?'</p>
+
+<p>''Tis not fancy, my dear Maud. Ah ha, no! Mais c'est toute
+une histoire&mdash;too tedious to tell now&mdash;some time maybe&mdash;and you
+will learn when you are little older, the most violent hatreds
+often they are the most without cause. But, my dear cheaile, the
+hours they are running from us, and I must dress. Vite, vite! so
+you run away to the school-room, and I will come after.'</p>
+
+<p>Madame had her dressing-case and her mysteries, and palpably
+stood in need of repairs; so away I went to my studies. The
+room which we called the school-room was partly beneath the
+floor of Madame's bed-chamber, and commanded the same view;
+so, remembering my governess's peering glance from her windows,
+I looked out, and saw Cousin Monica making a brisk
+promenade up and down the terrace-walk. Well, that was quite
+enough to account for it. I had grown very curious, and I resolved
+when our lessons were over to join her and make another
+attempt to discover the mystery.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page76" id="page76"></a>[pg 68]</span>
+
+<p>As I sat over my books, I fancied I heard a movement outside
+the door. I suspected that Madame was listening. I waited for
+a time, expecting to see the door open, but she did not come; so
+I opened it suddenly myself, but Madame was not on the threshold
+nor on the lobby. I heard a rustling, however, and on the
+staircase over the banister I saw the folds of her silk dress as
+she descended.</p>
+
+<p>She is going, I thought, to seek an interview with Lady
+Knollys. She intends to propitiate that dangerous lady; so I
+amused some eight or ten minutes in watching Cousin Monica's
+quick march and right-about face upon the parade-ground of the
+terrace. But no one joined her.</p>
+
+<p>'She is certainly talking to papa,' was my next and more probable
+conjecture. Having the profoundest distrust of Madame, I
+was naturally extremely jealous of the confidential interviews in
+which deceit and malice might make their representations
+plausibly and without answer.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, I'll run down and see&mdash;see <i>papa</i>; she shan't tell lies
+behind my back, horrid woman!'</p>
+
+<p>At the study-door I knocked, and forthwith entered. My
+father was sitting near the window, his open book before him,
+Madame standing at the other side of the table, her cunning eyes
+bathed in tears, and her pocket-handkerchief pressed to her
+mouth. Her eyes glittered stealthily on me for an instant: she
+was sobbing&mdash;<i>désolée</i>, in fact&mdash;that grim grenadier lady, and
+her attitude was exquisitely dejected and timid. But she was,
+notwithstanding, reading closely and craftily my father's face.
+He was not looking at her, but rather upward toward the ceiling,
+reflectively leaning on his hand, with an expression, not
+angry, but rather surly and annoyed.</p>
+
+<p>'I ought to have heard of this before, Madame,' my father
+was saying as I came in; 'not that it would have made any
+difference&mdash;not the least; mind that. But it was the kind of thing
+that I ought to have heard, and the omission was not strictly
+right.'</p>
+
+<p>Madame, in a shrill and lamentable key, opened her voluble
+reply, but was arrested by a nod from my father, who asked me
+if I wanted anything.</p>
+
+<p>'Only&mdash;only that I was waiting in the school-room for Madame,
+and did not know where she was.'</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page77" id="page77"></a>[pg 69]</span>
+
+<p>'Well, she is here, you see, and will join you up-stairs in a
+few minutes.'</p>
+
+<p>So back I went again, huffed, angry, and curious, and sat
+back in my chair with a clouded countenance, thinking very
+little about lessons.</p>
+
+<p>When Madame entered, I did not lift my head or eyes.</p>
+
+<p>'Good cheaile! reading,' said she, as she approached briskly
+and reassured.</p>
+
+<p>'No,' I answered tartly; 'not good, nor a child either; I'm
+not reading, I've been thinking.'</p>
+
+<p>'Très-bien!' she said, with an insufferable smile, 'thinking is
+very good also; but you look unhappy&mdash;very, poor cheaile. Take
+care you are not grow jealous for poor Madame talking sometime
+to your papa; you must not, little fool. It is only for a
+your good, my dear Maud, and I had no objection you should
+stay.'</p>
+
+<p>'<i>You</i>! Madame!' I said loftily. I was very angry, and showed
+it through my dignity, to Madame's evident satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>'No&mdash;it was your papa, Mr. Ruthyn, who weesh to speak
+alone; for me I do not care; there was something I weesh to
+tell him. I don't care who know, but Mr. Ruthyn he is deeferent.'</p>
+
+<p>I made no remark.</p>
+
+<p>'Come, leetle Maud, you are not to be so cross; it will be
+much better you and I to be good friends together. Why should
+a we quarrel?&mdash;wat nonsense! Do you imagine I would anywhere
+undertake a the education of a young person unless I
+could speak with her parent?&mdash;wat folly! I would like to be your
+friend, however, my poor Maud, if you would allow&mdash;you and I
+together&mdash;wat you say?'</p>
+
+<p>'People grow to be friends by liking, Madame, and liking comes
+of itself, not by bargain; I like every one who is kind to me.'</p>
+
+<p>'And so I. You are like me in so many things, my dear
+Maud! Are you quaite well to-day? I think you look fateague;
+so I feel, too, vary tire. I think we weel put off the lessons
+to to-morrow.
+Eh? and we will come to play la grace in the garden.'</p>
+
+<p>Madame was plainly in a high state of exultation. Her
+audience had evidently been satisfactory, and, like other people,
+when things went well, her soul lighted up into a sulphureous
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page78" id="page78"></a>[pg 70]</span>
+good-humour, not very genuine nor pleasant, but still it was
+better than other moods.</p>
+
+<p>I was glad when our calisthenics were ended, and Madame
+had returned to her apartment, so that I had a pleasant little
+walk with Cousin Monica.</p>
+
+<p>We women are persevering when once our curiosity is roused,
+but she gaily foiled mine, and, I think, had a mischievous
+pleasure in doing so. As we were going in to dress for dinner,
+however, she said, quite gravely&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'I am sorry, Maud, I allowed you to see that I have any unpleasant
+impressions about that governess lady. I shall be at
+liberty some day to explain all about it, and, indeed, it will be
+enough to tell your father, whom I have not been able to find
+all day; but really we are, perhaps, making too much of the
+matter, and I cannot say that I know anything against Madame
+that is conclusive, or&mdash;or, indeed, at all; but that there are
+reasons, and&mdash;you must not ask any more&mdash;no, you must not.'</p>
+
+<p>That evening, while I was playing the overture to Cenerentola,
+for the entertainment of my cousin, there arose from the
+tea-table, where she and my father were sitting, a spirited and
+rather angry harangue from Lady Knollys' lips; I turned my
+eyes from the music towards the speakers; the overture swooned
+away with a little hesitating babble into silence, and I listened.</p>
+
+<p>Their conversation had begun under cover of the music which
+I was making, and now they were too much engrossed to perceive
+its discontinuance. The first sentence I heard seized my
+attention; my father had closed the book he was reading, upon
+his finger, and was leaning back in his chair, as he used to do
+when at all angry; his face was a little flushed, and I knew the
+fierce and glassy stare which expressed pride, surprise, and
+wrath.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, Lady Knollys, there's an animus; I know the spirit you
+speak in&mdash;it does you no honour,' said my father.</p>
+
+<p>'And I know the spirit <i>you</i> speak in, the spirit of <i>madness</i>,'
+retorted Cousin Monica, just as much in earnest. 'I can't conceive
+how you <i>can</i> be so <i>demented</i>, Austin. What has perverted
+you? are you <i>blind</i>?'</p>
+
+<p>'<i>You</i> are, Monica; your own unnatural prejudice&mdash;<i>unnatural</i>
+prejudice, blinds you. What is it all?&mdash;<i>nothing</i>. Were I to act
+as you say, I should be a <i>coward</i> and a traitor. I see, I <i>do</i> see,
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page79" id="page79"></a>[pg 71]</span>
+
+all that's real. I'm no Quixote, to draw my sword on illusions.'</p>
+
+<p>'There should be no halting here. How <i>can</i> you&mdash;do you ever
+<i>think</i>? I wonder if you can breathe. I feel as if the evil one were
+in the house.'</p>
+
+<p>A stern, momentary frown was my father's only answer, as he
+looked fixedly at her.</p>
+
+<p>'People need not nail up horseshoes and mark their door-stones
+with charms to keep the evil spirit out,' ran on Lady
+Knollys, who looked pale and angry, in her way, 'but you
+open your door in the dark and invoke unknown danger. How
+can you look at that child that's&mdash;she's <i>not</i> playing,' said
+Knollys, abruptly stopping.</p>
+
+<p>My father rose, muttering to himself, and cast a lurid glance
+at me, as he went in high displeasure to the door. Cousin Monica,
+now flushed a little, glanced also silently at me, biting the
+tip of her slender gold cross, and doubtful how much I had
+heard.</p>
+
+<p>My father opened the door suddenly, which he had just closed,
+and looking in, said, in a calmer tone&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Perhaps, Monica, you would come for a moment to the
+study; I'm sure you have none but kindly feelings towards me
+and little Maud, there; and I thank you for your good-will;
+but you must see other things more reasonably, and I think
+you will.'</p>
+
+<p>Cousin Monica got up silently and followed him, only throwing
+up her eyes and hands as she did so, and I was left alone,
+wondering and curious more than ever.</p>
+
+<a name="chap15"></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XV</h3>
+
+<h2><i>A WARNING</i></h2>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>I sat still, listening and wondering, and wondering and listening; but I ought to have known that no sound could reach me
+where I was from my father's study. Five minutes passed and
+they did not return. Ten, fifteen. I drew near the fire and made
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page80" id="page80"></a>[pg 72]</span>
+
+myself comfortable in a great arm-chair, looking on the embers,
+but not seeing all the scenery and <i>dramatis personae</i> of my past
+life or future fortunes, in their shifting glow, as people in romances
+usually do; but fanciful castles and caverns in blood-red
+and golden glare, suggestive of dreamy fairy-land, salamanders,
+sunsets, and palaces of fire-kings, and all this partly shaping
+and partly shaped by my fancy, and leading my closing eyes
+and drowsy senses off into dream-land. So I nodded and dozed,
+and sank into a deep slumber, from which I was roused by the
+voice of my cousin Monica. On opening my eyes, I saw nothing
+but Lady Knollys' face looking steadily into mine, and expanding
+into a good-natured laugh as she watched the vacant and
+lack-lustre stare with which I returned her gaze.</p>
+
+<p>'Come, dear Maud, it is late; you ought to have been in your
+bed an hour ago.'</p>
+
+<p>Up I stood, and so soon as I had begun to hear and see aright,
+it struck me that Cousin Monica was more grave and subdued
+than I had seen her.</p>
+
+<p>'Come, let us light our candles and go together.'</p>
+
+<p>Holding hands, we ascended, I sleepy, she silent; and not a
+word was spoken until we reached my room. Mary Quince was
+in waiting, and tea made.</p>
+
+<p>'Tell her to come back in a few minutes; I wish to say a word
+to you,' said Lady Knollys.</p>
+
+<p>The maid accordingly withdrew.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Knollys' eyes followed her till she closed the door behind
+her.</p>
+
+<p>'I'm going in the morning.'</p>
+
+<p>'So soon!'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, dear; I could not stay; in fact, I should have gone to-night,
+but it was too late, and I leave instead in the morning.'</p>
+
+<p>'I am so sorry&mdash;so <i>very</i> sorry,' I exclaimed, in honest disappointment,
+and the walls seemed to darken round me, and the
+monotony of the old routine loomed more terrible in prospect.</p>
+
+<p>'So am I, dear Maud.'</p>
+
+<p>'But can't you stay a little longer; <i>won't</i> you?'</p>
+
+<p>'No, Maud; I'm vexed with Austin&mdash;very much vexed with
+your father; in short, I can't conceive anything so entirely preposterous,
+and dangerous, and insane as his conduct, now that
+his eyes are quite opened, and I must say a word to you before
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page81" id="page81"></a>[pg 73]</span>
+
+I go, and it is just this:&mdash;you must cease to be a mere child,
+you must try and be a woman, Maud: now don't be frightened
+or foolish, but hear me out. That woman&mdash;what does she call
+herself&mdash;Rougierre? I have reason to believe is&mdash;in fact, from
+circumstances, <i>must</i> be your enemy; you will find her very deep,
+daring, and unscrupulous, I venture to say, and you can't be
+too much on your guard. Do you quite understand me, Maud?'</p>
+
+<p>'I do,' said I, with a gasp, and my eyes fixed on her with a
+terrified interest, as if on a warning ghost.</p>
+
+<p>'You must bridle your tongue, mind, and govern your conduct,
+and command even your features. It is hard to practise
+reserve; but you must&mdash;you must be secret and vigilant. Try and
+be in appearance just as usual; don't quarrel; tell her nothing,
+if you do happen to know anything, of your father's business;
+be always on your guard when with her, and keep your eye
+upon her everywhere. Observe everything, disclose nothing&mdash;do
+you see?'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes,' again I whispered.</p>
+
+<p>'You have good, honest servants about you, and, thank God,
+they don't like her. But you must not repeat to them one word
+I am now saying to you. Servants are fond of dropping hints,
+and letting things ooze out in that way, and in their quarrels
+with her would compromise you&mdash;you understand me?'</p>
+
+<p>'I do,' I sighed, with a wild stare.</p>
+
+<p>'And&mdash;and, Maud, don't let her meddle with your food.'</p>
+
+<p>Cousin Monica gave me a pale little nod, and looked away.</p>
+
+<p>I could only stare at her; and under my breath I uttered an
+ejaculation of terror.</p>
+
+<p>'Don't be so frightened; you must not be foolish; I only wish
+you to be upon your guard. I have my suspicions, but I may be
+quite wrong; your father thinks I am a fool; perhaps I am&mdash;perhaps
+not; maybe he may come to think as I do. But you
+must not speak to him on the subject; he's an odd man, and
+never did and never will act wisely, when his passions and prejudices
+are engaged.'</p>
+
+<p>'Has she ever committed any great crime?' I asked, feeling
+as if I were on the point of fainting.</p>
+
+<p>'No, dear Maud, I never said anything of the kind; don't be
+so frightened: I only said I have formed, from something I
+know, an ill opinion of her; and an unprincipled person, under
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page82" id="page82"></a>[pg 74]</span>
+
+temptation, is capable of a great deal. But no matter how wicked
+she may be, you may defy her, simply by assuming her to be so,
+and acting with caution; she is cunning and selfish, and she'll
+do nothing desperate. But I would give her no opportunity.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, dear! Oh, Cousin Monica, don't leave me.'</p>
+
+<p>'My dear, I <i>can't</i> stay; your papa and I&mdash;we've had a quarrel.
+I know I'm right, and he's wrong, and he'll come to see it soon,
+if he's left to himself, and then all will be right. But just now
+he misunderstands me, and we've not been civil to one another.
+I could not think of staying, and he would not allow you to
+come away with me for a short visit, which I wished. It won't
+last, though; and I do assure you, my dear Maud, I am quite
+happy about you now that you are quite on your guard. Just
+act respecting that person as if she were capable of any treachery,
+without showing distrust or dislike in your manner, and nothing
+will remain in her power; and write to me whenever you wish
+to hear from me, and if I can be of any real use, I don't care,
+I'll come: so there's a wise little woman; do as I've said, and
+depend upon it everything will go well, and I'll contrive before
+long to get that nasty creature away.'</p>
+
+<p>Except a kiss and a few hurried words in the morning when
+she was leaving, and a pencilled farewell for papa, there was
+nothing more from Cousin Monica for some time.</p>
+
+<p>Knowl was dark again&mdash;darker than ever. My father, gentle
+always to me, was now&mdash;perhaps it was contrast with his fitful
+return to something like the world's ways, during Lady Knollys'
+stay&mdash;more silent, sad, and isolated than before. Of Madame de
+la Rougierre I had nothing at first particular to remark. Only,
+reader, if you happen to be a rather nervous and very young
+girl, I ask you to conceive my fears and imaginings, and the
+kind of misery which I was suffering. Its intensity I cannot now
+even myself recall. But it overshadowed me perpetually&mdash;a care,
+an alarm. It lay down with me at night and got up with me in
+the morning, tinting and disturbing my dreams, and making
+my daily life terrible. I wonder now that I lived through the
+ordeal. The torment was secret and incessant, and kept my mind
+in unintermitting activity.</p>
+
+<p>Externally things went on at Knowl for some weeks in the
+usual routine. Madame was, so far as her unpleasant ways were
+concerned, less tormenting than before, and constantly reminded
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page83" id="page83"></a>[pg 75]</span>
+
+me of 'our leetle vow of friendship, you remember, dearest
+Maud!' and she would stand beside me, and looked from the
+window with her bony arm round my waist, and my reluctant
+hand drawn round in hers; and thus she would smile, and talk
+affectionately and even playfully; for at times she would grow
+quite girlish, and smile with her great carious teeth, and begin
+to quiz and babble about the young 'faylows,' and tell bragging
+tales of her lovers, all of which were dreadful to me.</p>
+
+<p>She was perpetually recurring, too, to the charming walk we
+had had together to Church Scarsdale, and proposing a repetition
+of that delightful excursion, which, you may be sure, I
+evaded, having by no means so agreeable a recollection of our
+visit.</p>
+
+<p>One day, as I was dressing to go out for a walk, in came good
+Mrs. Rusk, the housekeeper, to my room.</p>
+
+<p>'Miss Maud, dear, is not that too far for you? It is a long
+walk to Church Scarsdale, and you are not looking very well.'</p>
+
+<p>'To Church Scarsdale?' I repeated; 'I'm not going to
+Church Scarsdale; who said I was going to Church Scarsdale?
+There is nothing I should so much dislike.'</p>
+
+<p>'Well, I never!' exclaimed she. 'Why, there's old Madame's
+been down-stairs with me for fruit and sandwiches, telling me
+you were longing to go to Church Scarsdale&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'It's quite untrue,' I interrupted. 'She knows I hate it.'</p>
+
+<p>'She does?' said Mrs. Rusk, quietly; 'and you did not tell
+her nothing about the basket? Well&mdash;if there isn't a story! Now
+what may she be after&mdash;what is it&mdash;what <i>is</i> she driving at?'</p>
+
+<p>'I can't tell, but I won't go.'</p>
+
+<p>'No, of course, dear, you won't go. But you may be sure
+there's some scheme in her old head. Tom Fowkes says she's bin
+two or three times to drink tea at Farmer Gray's&mdash;now, could it
+be she's thinking to marry him?' And Mrs. Rusk sat down and
+laughed heartily, ending with a crow of derision.</p>
+
+<p>'To think of a young fellow like that, and his wife, poor
+thing, not dead a year&mdash;maybe she's got money?'</p>
+
+<p>'I don't know&mdash;I don't care&mdash;perhaps, Mrs. Rusk, you mistook
+Madame. I will go down; I am going out.'</p>
+
+<p>Madame had a basket in her hand. She held it quietly by her
+capacious skirt, at the far side, and made no allusion to the
+preparation, neither to the direction in which she proposed
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page84" id="page84"></a>[pg 76]</span>
+
+walking, and prattling artlessly and affectionately she marched
+by my side.</p>
+
+<p>Thus we reached the stile at the sheep-walk, and then I
+paused.</p>
+
+<p>'Now, Madame, have not we gone far enough in this direction?&mdash;suppose
+we visit the pigeon-house in the park?'</p>
+
+<p>'Wat folly! my dear a Maud&mdash;you cannot walk so far.'</p>
+
+<p>'Well, towards home, then.'</p>
+
+<p>'And wy not a this way? We ave not walk enough, and Mr.
+Ruthyn he will not be pleased if you do not take proper exercise.
+Let us walk on by the path, and stop when you like.'</p>
+
+<p>'Where do you wish to go, Madame?'</p>
+
+<p>'Nowhere particular&mdash;come along; don't be fool, Maud.'</p>
+
+<p>'This leads to Church Scarsdale.'</p>
+
+<p>'A yes indeed! wat sweet place! bote we need not a walk
+all the way to there.'</p>
+
+<p>'I'd rather not walk outside the grounds to-day, Madame.'</p>
+
+<p>'Come, Maud, you shall not be fool&mdash;wat you mean, Mademoiselle?'
+said the stalworth lady, growing yellow and greenish
+with an angry mottling, and accosting me very gruffly.</p>
+
+<p>'I don't care to cross the stile, thank you, Madame. I shall
+remain at this side.'</p>
+
+<p>'You shall do wat I tell you!' exclaimed she.</p>
+
+<p>'Let go my arm, Madame, you hurt me,' I cried.</p>
+
+<p>She had griped my arm very firmly in her great bony hand,
+and seemed preparing to drag me over by main force.</p>
+
+<p>'Let me go,' I repeated shrilly, for the pain increased.</p>
+
+<p>'La!' she cried with a smile of rage and a laugh, letting me
+go and shoving me backward at the same time, so that I had a
+rather dangerous tumble.</p>
+
+<p>I stood up, a good deal hurt, and very angry, notwithstanding
+my fear of her.</p>
+
+<p>'I'll ask papa if I am to be so ill-used.'</p>
+
+<p>'Wat av I done?' cried Madame, laughing grimly from her
+hollow jaws; I did all I could to help you over&mdash;'ow could I
+prevent you to pull back and tumble if you would do so? That
+is the way wen you petites Mademoiselles are naughty and hurt
+yourself they always try to make blame other people. Tell a wat
+you like&mdash;you think I care?'</p>
+
+<p>'Very well, Madame.'</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page85" id="page85"></a>[pg 77]</span>
+
+<p>'Are a you coming?'</p>
+
+<p>'No.'</p>
+
+<p>She looked steadily in my face and very wickedly. I gazed at
+her as with dazzled eyes&mdash;I suppose as the feathered prey do at
+the owl that glares on them by night. I neither moved back nor
+forward, but stared at her quite helplessly.</p>
+
+<p>'You are nice pupil&mdash;charming young person! So polite, so
+obedient, so amiable! I will walk towards Church Scarsdale,'
+she continued, suddenly breaking through the conventionalism
+of her irony, and accosting me in savage accents. 'You weel
+stay behind if you dare. I tell you to accompany&mdash;do you hear?'</p>
+
+<p>More than ever resolved against following her, I remained
+where I was, watching her as she marched fiercely away, swinging
+her basket as though in imagination knocking my head
+off with it.</p>
+
+<p>She soon cooled, however, and looking over her shoulder, and
+seeing me still at the other side of the stile, she paused, and
+beckoned me grimly to follow her. Seeing me resolutely maintain
+my position, she faced about, tossed her head, like an angry
+beast, and seemed uncertain for a while what course to take
+with me.</p>
+
+<p>She stamped and beckoned furiously again. I stood firm. I
+was very much frightened, and could not tell to what violence
+she might resort in her exasperation. She walked towards me
+with an inflamed countenance, and a slight angry wagging of
+the head; my heart fluttered, and I awaited the crisis in extreme
+trepidation. She came close, the stile only separating us, and
+stopped short, glaring and grinning at me like a French grenadier
+who has crossed bayonets, but hesitates to close.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page86" id="page86"></a>[pg 78]</span>
+
+<a name="chap16"></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XVI</h3>
+
+<h2><i>DOCTOR BRYERLY LOOKS IN</i></h2>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>What had I done to excite this ungovernable fury? We had
+often before had such small differences, and she had contented
+herself with being sarcastic, teasing, and impertinent.</p>
+
+<p>'So, for future you are gouvernante and I the cheaile for you
+to command&mdash;is not so?&mdash;and you must direct where we shall
+walk. Très-bien! we shall see; Monsieur Ruthyn he shall know
+everything. For me I do not care&mdash;not at all&mdash;I shall be rather
+pleased, on the contrary. Let him decide. If I shall be responsible
+for the conduct and the health of Mademoiselle his daughter,
+it must be that I shall have authority to direct her wat she
+must do&mdash;it must be that she or I shall obey. I ask only witch
+shall command for the future&mdash;voilà tout!'</p>
+
+<p>I was frightened, but resolute&mdash;I dare say I looked sullen and
+uncomfortable. At all events, she seemed to think she might
+possibly succeed by wheedling; so she tried coaxing and cajoling,
+and patted my cheek, and predicted that I would be 'a good
+cheaile,' and not 'vex poor Madame,' but do for the future 'wat
+she tell a me.'</p>
+
+<p>She smiled her wide wet grin, smoothed my hand, and patted
+my cheek, and would in the excess of her conciliatory paroxysm
+have kissed me; but I withdrew, and she commented only with
+a little laugh, and a 'Foolish little thing! but you will be quite
+amiable just now.'</p>
+
+<p>'Why, Madame,' I asked, suddenly raising my head and looking her
+straight in the face, 'do you wish me to walk to Church
+Scarsdale so particularly to-day?'</p>
+
+<p>She answered my steady look with a contracted gaze and an
+unpleasant frown.</p>
+
+<p>'Wy do I?&mdash;I do not understand a you; there is <i>no</i> particular
+day&mdash;wat folly! Wy I like Church Scarsdale? Well, it is such
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page87" id="page87"></a>[pg 79]</span>
+
+pretty place. There is all! Wat leetle fool! I suppose you think
+I want to keel a you and bury you in the churchyard?'</p>
+
+<p>And she laughed, and it would not have been a bad laugh for
+a ghoul.</p>
+
+<p>'Come, my dearest Maud, you are not a such fool to say, if
+<i>you</i> tell me me go thees a way, I weel go that; and if you say,
+go that a way, I weel go thees&mdash;you are rasonable leetle girl&mdash;come
+along&mdash;<i>alons donc</i>&mdash;we shall av soche agreeable walk&mdash;weel
+a you?'</p>
+
+<p>But I was immovable. It was neither obstinacy nor caprice,
+but a profound fear that governed me. I was then afraid&mdash;yes,
+<i>afraid</i>. Afraid of <i>what</i>? Well, of going with Madame de la
+Rougierre to Church Scarsdale that day. That was all. And I
+believe that instinct was true.</p>
+
+<p>She turned a bitter glance toward Church Scarsdale, and bit
+her lip. She saw that she must give it up. A shadow hung upon
+her drab features. A little scowl&mdash;a little sneer&mdash;wide lips compressed
+with a false smile, and a leaden shadow mottling all.
+Such was the countenance of the lady who only a minute or two
+before had been smiling and murmuring over the stile so amiably with
+her idiomatic 'blarney,' as the Irish call that kind of blandishment.</p>
+
+<p>There was no mistaking the malignant disappointment that
+hooked and warped her features&mdash;my heart sank&mdash;a tremendous
+fear overpowered me. Had she intended poisoning me? What
+was in that basket? I looked in her dreadful face. I felt for a
+minute quite frantic. A feeling of rage with my father, with my
+Cousin Monica, for abandoning me to this dreadful rogue, took
+possession of me, and I cried, helplessly wringing my hands&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Oh! it is a shame&mdash;it is a shame&mdash;it is a shame!'</p>
+
+<p>The countenance of the gouvernante relaxed. I think she in
+turn was frightened at my extreme agitation. It might have
+worked unfavourably with my father.</p>
+
+<p>'Come, Maud, it is time you should try to control your temper.
+You shall not walk to Church Scarsdale if you do not like&mdash;I
+only invite. <i>There</i>! It is quite as you please, where we shall
+walk then? Here to the peegeon-house? I think you say.
+Tout bien! Remember I concede you everything. Let us go.'</p>
+
+<p>We went, therefore, towards the pigeon-house, through the
+forest trees; I not speaking as the children in the wood did
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page88" id="page88"></a>[pg 80]</span>
+
+with their sinister conductor, but utterly silent and scared; she
+silent also, meditating, and sometimes with a sharp side-glance
+gauging my progress towards equanimity. Her own was rapid;
+for Madame was a philosopher, and speedily accommodated
+herself to circumstances. We had not walked a quarter of an
+hour when every trace of gloom had left her face, which had
+assumed its customary brightness, and she began to sing with a
+spiteful hilarity as we walked forward, and indeed seemed to be
+approaching one of her waggish, frolicsome moods. But her fun
+in these moods was solitary. The joke, whatever it was, remained
+in her own keeping. When we approached the ruined brick
+tower&mdash;in old times a pigeon-house&mdash;she grew quite frisky, and
+twirled her basket in the air, and capered to her own singing.</p>
+
+<p>Under the shadow of the broken wall, and its ivy, she sat
+down with a frolicsome <i>plump</i>, and opened her basket, inviting
+me to partake, which I declined. I must do her justice, however,
+upon the suspicion of poison, which she quite disposed of by
+gobbling up, to her own share, everything which the basket contained.</p>
+
+<p>The reader is not to suppose that Madame's cheerful demeanour
+indicated that I was forgiven. Nothing of the kind.
+One syllable more, on our walk home, she addressed not to me.
+And when we reached the terrace, she said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'You will please, Maud, remain for two&mdash;three minutes in the
+Dutch garden, while I speak with Mr. Ruthyn in the study.'</p>
+
+<p>This was spoken with a high head and an insufferable smile;
+and I more haughtily, but quite gravely, turned without disputing,
+and descended the steps to the quaint little garden she
+had indicated.</p>
+
+<p>I was surprised and very glad to see my father there. I ran
+to him, and began, 'Oh! papa!' and then stopped short, adding
+only, 'may I speak to you now?'</p>
+
+<p>He smiled kindly and gravely on me.</p>
+
+<p>'Well, Maud, say your say.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, sir, it is only this: I entreat that our walks, mine and
+Madame's may be confined to the grounds.'</p>
+
+<p>'And why?'</p>
+
+<p>'I&mdash;I'm afraid to go with her.'</p>
+
+<p>'<i>Afraid!</i>' he repeated, looking hard at me. 'Have you lately
+had a letter from Lady Knollys?'</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page89" id="page89"></a>[pg 81]</span>
+
+<p>'No, papa, not for two months or more.'</p>
+
+<p>There was a pause.</p>
+
+<p>'And why <i>afraid</i>, Maud?'</p>
+
+<p>'She brought me one day to Church Scarsdale; you know
+what a solitary place it is, sir; and she frightened me so that I
+was afraid to go with her into the churchyard. But she went and
+left me alone at the other side of the stream, and an impudent
+man passing by stopped and spoke to me, and seemed inclined
+to laugh at me, and altogether frightened me very much, and
+he did not go till Madame happened to return.'</p>
+
+<p>'What kind of man&mdash;young or old?'</p>
+
+<p>'A young man; he looked like a farmer's son, but very impudent, and
+stood there talking to me whether I would or not;
+and Madame did not care at all, and laughed at me for being
+frightened; and, indeed, I am very uncomfortable with her.'</p>
+
+<p>He gave me another shrewd look, and then looked down
+cloudily and thought.</p>
+
+<p>'You say you are uncomfortable and frightened. How is this&mdash;what
+causes these feelings?'</p>
+
+<p>'I don't know, sir; she likes frightening me; I am afraid of
+her&mdash;we are all afraid of her, I think. The servants, I mean,
+as well as I.'</p>
+
+<p>My father nodded his head contemptuously, twice or thrice,
+and muttered, 'A pack of fools!'</p>
+
+<p>'And she was so very angry to-day with me, because I would
+not walk again with her to Church Scarsdale. I am very much
+afraid of her. I&mdash;' and quite unpremeditatedly I burst into tears.</p>
+
+<p>'There, there, little Maud, you must not cry. She is here
+only for your good. If you are afraid&mdash;even <i>foolishly</i> afraid&mdash;it
+is enough. Be it as you say; your walks are henceforward confined
+to the grounds; I'll tell her so.'</p>
+
+<p>I thanked him through my tears very earnestly.</p>
+
+<p>'But, Maud, beware of prejudice; women are unjust and
+violent in their judgments. Your family has suffered in some of
+its members by such injustice. It behoves us to be careful not
+to practise it.'</p>
+
+<p>That evening in the drawing-room my father said, in his
+usual abrupt way&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'About my departure, Maud: I've had a letter from London
+this morning, and I think I shall be called away sooner than I
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page90" id="page90"></a>[pg 82]</span>
+
+at first supposed, and for a little time we must manage apart
+from one another. Do not be alarmed. You shall not be in
+Madame de la Rougierre's charge, but under the care of a relation;
+but even so, little Maud will miss her old father, I
+think.'</p>
+
+<p>His tone was very tender, so were his looks; he was looking
+down on me with a smile, and tears were in his eyes. This
+softening was new to me. I felt a strange thrill of surprise,
+delight, and love, and springing up, I threw my arms about his
+neck and wept in silence. He, I think, shed tears also.</p>
+
+<p>'You said a visitor was coming; some one, you mean, to go
+away with. Ah, yes, you love him better than me.'</p>
+
+<p>'No, dear, no; but I <i>fear</i> him; and I am sorry to leave you,
+little Maud.'</p>
+
+<p>'It won't be very long,' I pleaded.</p>
+
+<p>'No, dear,' he answered with a sigh.</p>
+
+<p>I was tempted almost to question him more closely on the
+subject, but he seemed to divine what was in my mind, for he
+said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Let us speak no more of it, but only bear in mind, Maud,
+what I told you about the oak cabinet, the key of which is here,'
+and he held it up as formerly: 'you remember what you are to
+do in case Doctor Bryerly should come while I am away?'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, sir.'</p>
+
+<p>His manner had changed, and I had returned to my accustomed
+formalities.</p>
+
+<p>It was only a few days later that Dr. Bryerly actually did
+arrive at Knowl, quite unexpectedly, except, I suppose, by my
+father. He was to stay only one night.</p>
+
+<p>He was twice closeted in the little study up-stairs with my
+father, who seemed to me, even for him, unusually dejected,
+and Mrs. Rusk inveighing against 'them rubbitch,' as she always
+termed the Swedenborgians, told me 'they were making him
+quite shaky-like, and he would not last no time, if that lanky,
+lean ghost of a fellow in black was to keep prowling in and
+out of his room like a tame cat.'</p>
+
+<p>I lay awake that night, wondering what the mystery might be
+that connected my father and Dr. Bryerly. There was something
+more than the convictions of their strange religion could account
+for. There was something that profoundly agitated my father.
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page91" id="page91"></a>[pg 83]</span>
+
+It may not be reasonable, but so it is. The person whose presence,
+though we know nothing of the cause of that effect, is
+palpably attended with pain to anyone who is dear to us, grows
+odious, and I began to detest Doctor Bryerly.</p>
+
+<p>It was a grey, dark morning, and in a dark pass in the gallery,
+near the staircase, I came full upon the ungainly Doctor, in his
+glossy black suit.</p>
+
+<p>I think, if my mind had been less anxiously excited on the
+subject of his visit, or if I had not disliked him so much, I
+should not have found courage to accost him as I did. There was
+something sly, I thought, in his dark, lean face; and he
+looked so low, so like a Scotch artisan in his Sunday clothes,
+that I felt a sudden pang of indignation, at the thought that
+a great gentleman, like my father, should have suffered under
+his influence, and I stopped suddenly, instead of passing him by
+with a mere salutation, as he expected, 'May I ask a question, Doctor
+Bryerly?'</p>
+
+<p>'Certainly'</p>
+
+<p>'Are you the friend whom my father expects?'</p>
+
+<p>'I don't quite see.'</p>
+
+<p>'The friend, I mean, with whom he is to make an expedition to some distance, I think, and for some little time?'</p>
+
+<p>'No,' said the Doctor, with a shake of his head.</p>
+
+<p>'And who is he?'</p>
+
+<p>'I really have not a notion, Miss.'</p>
+
+<p>'Why, he said that <i>you knew</i>,' I replied.</p>
+
+<p>The Doctor looked honestly puzzled.</p>
+
+<p>'Will he stay long away? pray tell me.'</p>
+
+<p>The Doctor looked into my troubled face with inquiring and
+darkened eyes, like one who half reads another's meaning; and
+then he said a little briskly, but not sharply&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Well, <i>I</i> don't know, I'm sure, Miss; no, indeed, you must
+have mistaken; there's nothing that <i>I</i> know.'</p>
+
+<p>There was a little pause, and he added&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'No. He never mentioned any friend to me.' I fancied that
+he was made uncomfortable by my question, and wanted to hide
+the truth. Perhaps I was partly right.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh! Doctor Bryerly, pray, <i>pray</i> who is the friend, and where
+is he going?'</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page92" id="page92"></a>[pg 84]</span>
+
+<p>'I do <i>assure</i> you,' he said, with a strange sort of impatience,
+'I don't know; it is all nonsense.'</p>
+
+<p>And he turned to go, looking, I think, annoyed and disconcerted.</p>
+
+<p>A terrific suspicion crossed my brain like lightning.</p>
+
+<p>'Doctor, one word,' I said, I believe, quite wildly. 'Do you&mdash;do
+you think his mind is at all affected?'</p>
+
+<p>'Insane?' he said, looking at me with a sudden, sharp inquisitiveness,
+that brightened into a smile. 'Pooh, pooh! Heaven
+forbid! not a saner man in England.'</p>
+
+<p>Then with a little nod he walked on, carrying, as I believed,
+notwithstanding his disclaimer, the secret with him. In the
+afternoon Doctor Bryerly went away.</p>
+
+<a name="chap17"></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XVII</h3>
+
+<h2><i>AN ADVENTURE</i></h2>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>For many days after our quarrel, Madame hardly spoke to
+me. As for lessons, I was not much troubled with them. It was
+plain, too, that my father had spoken to her, for she never after
+that day proposed our extending our walks beyond the precincts of Knowl.</p>
+
+<p>Knowl, however, was a very considerable territory, and it
+was possible for a much better pedestrian than I to tire herself
+effectually, without passing its limits. So we took occasionally
+long walks.</p>
+
+<p>After some weeks of sullenness, during which for days at a
+time she hardly spoke to me, and seemed lost in dark and evil
+abstraction, she once more, and somewhat suddenly, recovered
+her spirits, and grew quite friendly. Her gaieties and friendliness
+were not reassuring, and in my mind presaged approaching
+mischief and treachery. The days were shortening to the wintry
+span. The edge of the red sun had already touched the horizon
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page93" id="page93"></a>[pg 85]</span>
+
+as Madame and I, overtaken at the warren by his last beams,
+were hastening homeward.</p>
+
+<p>A narrow carriage-road traverses this wild region of the park,
+to which a distant gate gives entrance. On descending into this
+unfrequented road, I was surprised to see a carriage standing
+there. A thin, sly postilion, with that pert, turned-up nose which
+the old caricaturist Woodward used to attribute to the gentlemen
+of Tewkesbury, was leaning on his horses, and looked hard at
+me as I passed. A lady who sat within looked out, with an extra-fashionable
+bonnet on, and also treated us to a stare. Very
+pink and white cheeks she had, very black glossy hair and bright
+eyes&mdash;fat, bold, and rather cross, she looked&mdash;and in her bold
+way she examined us curiously as we passed.</p>
+
+<p>I mistook the situation. It had once happened before that an
+intending visitor at Knowl had entered the place by that park-road,
+and lost several hours in a vain search for the house.</p>
+
+<p>'Ask him, Madame, whether they want to go to the house; I
+dare say they have missed their way,' whispered I.</p>
+
+<p>'<i>Eh bien,</i> they will find again. I do not choose to talk to post-boys;
+<i>allons</i>!'</p>
+
+<p>But I asked the man as we passed, 'Do you want to reach
+the house?'</p>
+
+<p>By this time he was at the horses' heads, buckling the harness.</p>
+
+<p>'Noa,' he said in a surly tone, smiling oddly on the winkers,
+but, recollecting his politeness, he added, 'Noa, thankee, misses,
+it's what they calls a picnic; we'll be takin' the road now.'</p>
+
+<p>He was smiling now on a little buckle with which he was
+engaged.</p>
+
+<p>'Come&mdash;nonsense!' whispered Madame sharply in my ear,
+and she whisked me by the arm, so we crossed the little stile
+at the other side.</p>
+
+<p>Our path lay across the warren, which undulates in little
+hillocks. The sun was down by this time, blue shadows were
+stretching round us, colder in the splendid contrast of the
+burnished sunset sky.</p>
+
+<p>Descending over these hillocks we saw three figures a little in
+advance of us, not far from the path we were tracing. Two were
+standing smoking and chatting at intervals: one tall and slim,
+with a high chimney-pot, worn a little on one side, and a white
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page94" id="page94"></a>[pg 86]</span>
+
+great-coat buttoned up to the chin; the other shorter and
+stouter, with a dark-coloured wrapper. These gentlemen were
+facing rather our way as we came over the edge of the eminence,
+but turned their backs on perceiving our approach. As they did
+so, I remember so well each lowered his cigar suddenly with
+the simultaneousness of a drill. The third figure sustained the
+picnic character of the group, for he was repacking a hamper.
+He stood suddenly erect as we drew near, and a very ill-looking
+person he was, low-browed, square-chinned, and with a broad,
+broken nose. He wore gaiters, and was a little bandy, very broad,
+and had a closely-cropped bullet head, and deep-set little eyes.
+The moment I saw him, I beheld the living type of the burglars
+and bruisers whom I had so often beheld with a kind of scepticism
+in <i>Punch</i>. He stood over his hamper and scowled sharply
+at us for a moment; then with the point of his foot he jerked
+a little fur cap that lay on the ground into his hand, drew it
+tight over his lowering brows, and called to his companions,
+just as we passed him&mdash;'Hallo! mister. How's this?'</p>
+
+<p>'All right,' said the tall person in the white great-coat, who,
+as he answered, shook his shorter companion by the arm, I
+thought angrily.</p>
+
+<p>This shorter companion turned about. He had a muffler loose
+about his neck and chin. I thought he seemed shy and irresolute,
+and the tall man gave him a great jolt with his elbow, which
+made him stagger, and I fancied a little angry, for he said, as it
+seemed, a sulky word or two.</p>
+
+<p>The gentleman in the white surtout, however, standing direct
+in our way, raised his hat with a mock salutation, placing his
+hand on his breast, and forthwith began to advance with an
+insolent grin and an air of tipsy frolic.</p>
+
+<p>'Jist in time, ladies; five minutes more and we'd a bin off.
+Thankee, Mrs. Mouser, ma'am, for the honour of the meetin',
+and more particular for the pleasure of making your young
+lady's acquaintance&mdash;niece, ma'am? daughter, ma'am? granddaughter,
+by Jove, is it? Hallo! there, mild 'n, I say, stop
+packin'.' This was to the ill-favoured person with the broken
+nose. 'Bring us a couple o' glasses and a bottle o' curaçoa; what
+are you fear'd on, my dear? this is Lord Lollipop, here, a reg'lar
+charmer, wouldn't hurt a fly, hey Lolly? Isn't he pretty, Miss?
+and I'm Sir Simon Sugarstick&mdash;so called after old Sir Simon,
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page95" id="page95"></a>[pg 87]</span>
+
+ma'am; and I'm so tall and straight, Miss, and slim&mdash;ain't I?
+and ever so sweet, my honey, when you come to know me, just
+like a sugarstick; ain't I, Lolly, boy?'</p>
+
+<p>'I'm Miss Ruthyn, tell them, Madame,' I said, stamping on
+the ground, and very much frightened.</p>
+
+<p>'Be quaite, Maud. If you are angry, they will hurt us; leave
+me to speak,' whispered the gouvernante.</p>
+
+<p>All this time they were approaching from separate points. I
+glanced back, and saw the ruffianly-looking man within a yard
+or two, with his arm raised and one finger up, telegraphing, as
+it seemed, to the gentlemen in front.</p>
+
+<p>'Be quaite, Maud,' whispered Madame, with an awful adjuration,
+which I do not care to set down. 'They are teepsy; don't
+seem 'fraid.'</p>
+
+<p>I <i>was</i> afraid&mdash;terrified. The circle had now so narrowed that
+they might have placed their hands on my shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>'Pray, gentlemen, wat you want? <i>weel</i> a you 'av the goodness
+to permit us to go on?'</p>
+
+<p>I now observed for the first time, with a kind of shock, that
+the shorter of the two men, who prevented our advance, was
+the person who had accosted me so offensively at Church Scarsdale.
+I pulled Madame by the arm, whispering, 'Let us run.'</p>
+
+<p>'Be quaite, my dear Maud,' was her only reply.</p>
+
+<p>'I tell you what,' said the tall man, who had replaced his high
+hat more jauntily than before on the side of his head, 'We've
+caught you now, fair game, and we'll let you off on conditions.
+You must not be frightened, Miss. Upon my honour and soul,
+I mean no mischief; do I, Lollipop? I call him Lord Lollipop;
+it's only chaff, though; his name's Smith. Now, Lolly, I vote we
+let the prisoners go, when we just introduce them to Mrs.
+Smith; she's sitting in the carriage, and keeps Mr. S. here in
+precious good order, I promise you. There's easy terms for you,
+eh, and we'll have a glass o' curaçoa round, and so part friends.
+Is it a bargain? Come!'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, Maud, we must go&mdash;wat matter?' whispered Madame
+vehemently.</p>
+
+<p>'You shan't,' I said, instinctively terrified.</p>
+
+<p>'You'll go with Ma'am, young 'un, won't you?' said Mr. Smith,
+as his companion called him.</p>
+
+<p>Madame was holding my arm, but I snatched it from her, and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page96" id="page96"></a>[pg 88]</span>
+would have run; the tall man, however, placed his arms round
+me and held me fast with an affectation of playfulness, but his
+grip was hard enough to hurt me a good deal. Being now
+thoroughly frightened, after an ineffectual struggle, during
+which I heard Madame say, 'You fool, Maud, weel you come
+with me? see wat you are doing,' I began to scream, shriek after
+shriek, which the man attempted to drown with loud hooting,
+peals of laughter, forcing his handkerchief against my mouth,
+while Madame continued to bawl her exhortations to 'be
+quaite' in my ear.</p>
+
+<p>'I'll lift her, I say!' said a gruff voice behind me.</p>
+
+<p>But at this instant, wild with terror, I distinctly heard other
+voices shouting. The men who surrounded me were instantly
+silent, and all looked in the direction of the sound, now very
+near, and I screamed with redoubled energy. The ruffian behind
+me thrust his great hand over my mouth.</p>
+
+<p>'It is the gamekeeper,' cried Madame. '<i>Two</i> gamekeepers&mdash;we
+are safe&mdash;thank Heaven!' and she began to call on Dykes by
+name.</p>
+
+<p>I only remember, feeling myself at liberty&mdash;running a few
+steps&mdash;seeing Dykes' white furious face&mdash;clinging to his arm,
+with which he was bringing his gun to a level, and saying, 'Don't
+fire&mdash;they'll murder us if you do.'</p>
+
+<p>Madame, screaming lustily, ran up at the same moment.</p>
+
+<p>'Run on to the gate and lock it&mdash;I'll be wi' ye in a minute,'
+cried he to the other gamekeeper; who started instantly on this
+mission, for the three ruffians were already in full retreat for
+the carriage.</p>
+
+<p>Giddy&mdash;wild&mdash;fainting&mdash;still terror carried me on.</p>
+
+<p>'Now, Madame Rogers&mdash;s'pose you take young Misses on&mdash;I
+must run and len' Bill a hand.'</p>
+
+<p>'No, no; you moste not,' cried Madame. 'I am fainting myself,
+and more villains they may be near to us.'</p>
+
+<p>But at this moment we heard a shot, and, muttering to himself
+and grasping his gun, Dykes ran at his utmost speed in the
+direction of the sound.</p>
+
+<p>With many exhortations to speed, and ejaculations of alarm,
+Madame hurried me on toward the house, which at length we
+reached without further adventure.</p>
+
+<p>As it happened, my father met us in the hall. He was perfectly
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page97" id="page97"></a>[pg 89]</span>
+transported with fury on hearing from Madame what had happened,
+and set out at once, with some of the servants, in the
+hope of intercepting the party at the park-gate.</p>
+
+<p>Here was a new agitation; for my father did not return for
+nearly three hours, and I could not conjecture what might be
+occurring during the period of his absence. My alarm was
+greatly increased by the arrival in the interval of poor Bill, the
+under-gamekeeper, very much injured.</p>
+
+<p>Seeing that he was determined to intercept their retreat, the
+three men had set upon him, wrested his gun, which exploded
+in the struggle, from him, and beat him savagely. I mention
+these particulars, because they convinced everybody that there
+was something specially determined and ferocious in the spirit
+of the party, and that the fracas was no mere frolic, but the
+result of a predetermined plan.</p>
+
+<p>My father had not succeeded in overtaking them. He traced
+them to the Lugton Station, where they had taken the railway,
+and no one could tell him in what direction the carriage and
+posthorses had driven.</p>
+
+<p>Madame was, or affected to be, very much shattered by what
+had occurred. Her recollection and mine, when my father questioned
+us closely, differed very materially respecting many details
+of the <i>personnel</i> of the villanous party. She was obstinate
+and clear; and although the gamekeeper corroborated my description
+of them, still my father was puzzled. Perhaps he was
+not sorry that some hesitation was forced upon him, because
+although at first he would have gone almost any length to detect
+the persons, on reflection he was pleased that there was not
+evidence to bring them into a court of justice, the publicity and
+annoyance of which would have been inconceivably distressing
+to me.</p>
+
+<p>Madame was in a strange state&mdash;tempestuous in temper, talking
+incessantly&mdash;every now and then in floods of tears, and perpetually
+on her knees pouring forth torrents of thanksgiving to
+Heaven for our joint deliverance from the hands of those villains.
+Notwithstanding our community of danger and her thankfulness
+on my behalf, however, she broke forth into wrath and
+railing whenever we were alone together.</p>
+
+<p>'Wat fool you were! so disobedient and obstinate; if you 'ad
+done wat <i>I</i> say, then we should av been quaite safe; those persons
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page98" id="page98"></a>[pg 90]</span>
+they were tipsy, and there is nothing so dangerous as to
+quarrel with tipsy persons; I would 'av brought you quaite
+safe&mdash;the lady she seem so nice and quaite, and we should 'av
+been safe with her&mdash;there would 'av been nothing absolutely;
+but instead you would scream and pooshe, and so they grow
+quite wild, and all the impertinence and violence follow of
+course; and that a poor Bill&mdash;all his beating and danger to his
+life it is cause entairely by you.'</p>
+
+<p>And she spoke with more real virulence than that kind of upbraiding
+generally exhibits.</p>
+
+<p>'The beast!' exclaimed Mrs. Rusk, when she, I, and Mary
+Quince were in my room together, 'with all her crying and praying,
+I'd like to know as much as she does, maybe, about them
+rascals. There never was sich like about the place, long as I
+remember it, till she came to Knowl, old witch! with them unmerciful
+big bones of hers, and her great bald head, grinning
+here, and crying there, and her nose everywhere. The old French
+hypocrite!'</p>
+
+<p>Mary Quince threw in an observation, and I believe Mrs.
+Rusk rejoined, but I heard neither. For whether the housekeeper
+spoke with reflection or not, what she said affected me
+strangely. Through the smallest aperture, for a moment, I had
+had a peep into Pandemonium. Were not peculiarities of Madame's
+demeanour and advice during the adventure partly accounted
+for by the suggestion? Could the proposed excursion to
+Church Scarsdale have had any purpose of the same sort? What
+was proposed? How was Madame interested in it? Were such
+immeasurable treason and hypocrisy possible? I could not explain
+nor quite believe in the shapeless suspicion that with
+these light and bitter words of the old housekeeper had stolen
+so horribly into my mind.</p>
+
+<p>After Mrs. Rusk was gone I awoke from my dismal abstraction
+with something like a moan and a shudder, with a dreadful
+sense of danger.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh! Mary Quince,' I cried, 'do you think she really knew?'</p>
+
+<p>'<i>Who</i>, Miss Maud?'</p>
+
+<p>'Do you think Madame knew of those dreadful people? Oh,
+no&mdash;say you don't&mdash;you don't believe it&mdash;tell me she did not.
+I'm distracted, Mary Quince, I'm frightened out of my life.'</p>
+
+<p>'There now, Miss Maud, dear&mdash;there now, don't take on so&mdash;why
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page99" id="page99"></a>[pg 91]</span>
+should she?&mdash;no sich a thing. Mrs. Rusk, law bless you,
+she's no more meaning in what she says than the child unborn.'</p>
+
+<p>But I was really frightened. I was in a horrible state of
+uncertainty as to Madame de la Rougierre's complicity with the
+party who had beset us at the warren, and afterwards so
+murderously beat our poor gamekeeper. How was I ever to get rid of
+that horrible woman? How long was she to enjoy her continual
+opportunities of affrighting and injuring me?</p>
+
+<p>'She hates me&mdash;she hates me, Mary Quince; and she will
+never stop until she has done me some dreadful injury. Oh!
+will no one relieve me&mdash;will no one take her away? Oh, papa,
+papa, papa! you will be sorry when it is too late.'</p>
+
+<p>I was crying and wringing my hands, and turning from side
+to side, at my wits' ends, and honest Mary Quince in vain endevoured
+to quiet and comfort me.</p>
+
+<a name="chap18"></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XVIII</h3>
+
+<h2><i>A MIDNIGHT VISITOR</i></h2>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>The frightful warnings of Lady Knollys haunted me too. Was
+there no escape from the dreadful companion whom fate had
+assigned me? I made up my mind again and again to speak
+to my father and urge her removal. In other things he indulged
+me; here, however, he met me drily and sternly, and it was
+plain that he fancied I was under my cousin Monica's influence,
+and also that he had secret reasons for persisting in an opposite
+course. Just then I had a gay, odd letter from Lady Knollys,
+from some country house in Shropshire. Not a word about
+Captain Oakley. My eye skimmed its pages in search of that
+charmed name. With a peevish feeling I tossed the sheet upon
+the table. Inwardly I thought how ill-natured and unwomanly
+it was.</p>
+
+<p>After a time, however, I read it, and found the letter very
+good-natured. She had received a note from papa. He had 'had
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page100" id="page100"></a>[pg 92]</span>
+
+the impudence to forgive <i>her</i> for <i>his</i> impertinence.'
+But for my
+sake she meant, notwithstanding this aggravation, really to pardon
+him; and whenever she had a disengaged week, to accept
+his invitation to Knowl, from whence she was resolved to whisk
+me off to London, where, though I was too young to be presented
+at Court and come out, I might yet&mdash;besides having the best
+masters and a good excuse for getting rid of Medusa&mdash;see a great
+deal that would amuse and surprise me.</p>
+
+<p>'Great news, I suppose, from Lady Knollys?' said Madame,
+who always knew who in the house received letters by the post,
+and by an intuition from whom they came.</p>
+
+<p>'Two letters&mdash;you and your papa. She is quite well, I hope?'</p>
+
+<p>'Quite well, thank you, Madame.'</p>
+
+<p>Some fishing questions, dropped from time to time, fared no
+better. And as usual, when she was foiled even in a trifle, she
+became sullen and malignant.</p>
+
+<p>That night, when my father and I were alone, he suddenly
+closed the book he had been reading, and said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'I heard from Monica Knollys to-day. I always liked poor
+Monnie; and though she's no witch, and very wrong-headed
+at times, yet now and then she does say a thing that's worth
+weighing. Did she ever talk to you of a time, Maud, when you
+are to be your own mistress?'</p>
+
+<p>'No,' I answered, a little puzzled, and looking straight in his
+rugged, kindly face.</p>
+
+<p>'Well, I thought she might&mdash;she's a rattle, you know&mdash;always
+<i>was</i> a rattle, and that sort of people say whatever comes uppermost.
+But that's a subject for me, and more than once, Maud,
+it has puzzled me.'</p>
+
+<p>He sighed.</p>
+
+<p>'Come with me to the study, little Maud.'</p>
+
+<p>So, he carrying a candle, we crossed the lobby, and marched
+together through the passage, which at night always seemed a
+little awesome, darkly wainscoted, uncheered by the cross-light
+from the hall, which was lost at the turn, leading us away from
+the frequented parts of the house to that misshapen and lonely
+room about which the traditions of the nursery and the servants'
+hall had had so many fearful stories to recount.</p>
+
+<p>I think my father had intended making some disclosure to me
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page101" id="page101"></a>[pg 93]</span>
+
+on reaching this room. If so, he changed his mind, or at least
+postponed his intention.</p>
+
+<p>He had paused before the cabinet, respecting the key of which
+he had given me so strict a charge, and I think he was going to
+explain himself more fully than he had done. But he went on,
+instead, to the table where his desk, always jealously locked, was
+placed, and having lighted the candles which stood by it, he
+glanced at me, and said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'You must wait a little, Maud; I shall have something to say
+to you. Take this candle and amuse yourself with a book meanwhile.'</p>
+
+<p>I was accustomed to obey in silence. I chose a volume of engravings,
+and ensconced myself in a favourite nook in which
+I had often passed a half-hour similarly. This was a deep recess
+by the fireplace, fenced on the other side by a great old escritoir.
+Into this I drew a stool, and, with candle and book, I placed
+myself snugly in the narrow chamber. Every now and then I
+raised my eyes and saw my father either writing or ruminating,
+as it seemed to me, very anxiously at his desk.</p>
+
+<p>Time wore on&mdash;a longer time than he had intended, and still
+he continued absorbed at his desk. Gradually I grew sleepy,
+and as I nodded, the book and room faded away, and pleasant
+little dreams began to gather round me, and so I went off into
+a deep slumber.</p>
+
+<p>It must have lasted long, for when I wakened my candle had
+burnt out; my father, having quite forgotten me, was gone,
+and the room was dark and deserted. I felt cold and a little stiff,
+and for some seconds did not know where I was.</p>
+
+<p>I had been wakened, I suppose, by a sound which I now distinctly
+heard, to my great terror, approaching. There was a
+rustling; there was a breathing. I heard a creaking upon the
+plank that always creaked when walked upon in the passage. I
+held my breath and listened, and coiled myself up in the
+innermost recess of my little chamber.</p>
+
+<p>Sudden and sharp, a light shone in from the nearly-closed
+study door. It shone angularly on the ceiling like a letter L reversed.
+There was a pause. Then some one knocked softly at
+the door, which after another pause was slowly pushed open. I
+expected, I think, to see the dreaded figure of the linkman. I
+was scarcely less frightened to see that of Madame de la Rougierre.
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page102" id="page102"></a>[pg 94]</span>
+
+She was dressed in a sort of grey silk, which she called
+her Chinese silk&mdash;precisely as she had been in the daytime. In
+fact, I do not think she had undressed. She had no shoes on.
+Otherwise her toilet was deficient in nothing. Her wide mouth
+was grimly closed, and she stood scowling into the room with
+a searching and pallid scrutiny, the candle held high above her
+head at the full stretch of her arm.</p>
+
+<p>Placed as I was in a deep recess, and in a seat hardly raised
+above the level of the floor, I escaped her, although it seemed to
+me for some seconds, as I gazed on this spectre, that our eyes
+actually met.</p>
+
+<p>I sat without breathing or winking, staring upon the formidable
+image which with upstretched arm, and the sharp lights
+and hard shadows thrown upon her corrugated features, looked
+like a sorceress watching for the effect of a spell.</p>
+
+<p>She was plainly listening intensely. Unconsciously she had
+drawn her lower lip altogether between her teeth, and I well
+remember what a deathlike and idiotic look the contortion
+gave her. My terror lest she should discover me amounted to
+positive agony. She rolled her eyes stealthily from corner to
+corner of the room, and listened with her neck awry at the
+door.</p>
+
+<p>Then to my father's desk she went. To my great relief, her
+back was towards me. She stooped over it, with the candle close
+by; I saw her try a key&mdash;it could be nothing else&mdash;and I heard
+her blow through the wards to clear them.</p>
+
+<p>Then, again, she listened at the door, candle in hand, and
+then with long tiptoe steps came back, and papa's desk in
+another moment was open, and Madame cautiously turning over
+the papers it contained.</p>
+
+<p>Twice or thrice she paused, glided to the door, and listened
+again intently with her head near the ground, and then returned
+and continued her search, peeping into papers one after another,
+tolerably methodically, and reading some quite through.</p>
+
+<p>While this felonious business was going on, I was freezing with
+fear lest she should accidentally look round and her eyes light
+on me; for I could not say what she might not do rather than
+have her crime discovered.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes she would read a paper twice over; sometimes a
+whisper no louder than the ticking of a watch, sometimes a brief
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page103" id="page103"></a>[pg 95]</span>
+
+chuckle under her breath, bespoke the interest with which here
+and there a letter or a memorandum was read.</p>
+
+<p>For about half an hour, I think, this went on; but at the time
+it seemed to me all but interminable. On a sudden she raised her
+head and listened for a moment, replaced the papers deftly,
+closed the desk without noise, except for the tiny click of the
+lock, extinguished the candle, and rustled stealthily out of the
+room, leaving in the darkness the malign and hag-like face on
+which the candle had just shone still floating filmy in the dark.</p>
+
+<p>Why did I remain silent and motionless while such an outrage
+was being committed? If, instead of being a very nervous girl,
+preoccupied with an undefinable terror of that wicked woman, I
+had possessed courage and presence of mind, I dare say I might
+have given an alarm, and escaped from the room without the
+slightest risk. But so it was; I could no more stir than the bird
+who, cowering under its ivy, sees the white owl sailing back and
+forward under its predatory cruise.</p>
+
+<p>Not only during her presence, but for more than an hour after,
+I remained cowering in my hiding-place, and afraid to stir,
+lest she might either be lurking in the neighborhood, or return
+and surprise me.</p>
+
+<p>You will not be astonished, that after a night so passed I was
+ill and feverish in the morning. To my horror, Madame de la
+Rougierre came to visit me at my bedside. Not a trace of guilty
+consciousness of what had passed during the night was legible
+in her face. She had no sign of late watching, and her toilet was
+exemplary.</p>
+
+<p>As she sat smiling by me, full of anxious and affectionate enquiry,
+and smoothed the coverlet with her great felonious hand,
+I could quite comprehend the dreadful feeling with which the
+deceived husband in the 'Arabian Nights' met his ghoul wife,
+after his nocturnal discovery.</p>
+
+<p>Ill as I was, I got up and found my father in that room which
+adjoined his bedchamber. He perceived, I am sure, by my looks,
+that something unusual had happened. I shut the door, and came
+close beside his chair.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, papa, I have such a thing to tell you!' I forgot to call
+him 'Sir.' 'A secret; and you won't say who told you? Will you
+come down to the study?'</p>
+
+<p>He looked hard at me, got up, and kissing my forehead, said&mdash;'Don't
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page104" id="page104"></a>[pg 96]</span>
+
+be frightened, Maud; I venture to say it is a mare's nest;
+at all events, my child, we will take care that no danger reaches
+you; come, child.'</p>
+
+<p>And by the hand he led me to the study. When the door was
+shut, and we had reached the far end of the room next the window,
+I said, but in a low tone, and holding his arm fast&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, sir, you don't know what a dreadful person we have
+living with us&mdash;Madame de la Rougierre, I mean. Don't let her
+in if she comes; she would guess what I am telling you, and
+one way or another I am sure she would kill me.'</p>
+
+<p>'Tut, tut, child. You <i>must</i> know that's nonsense,' he said,
+looking pale and stern.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh no, papa. I am horribly frightened, and Lady Knollys
+thinks so too.'</p>
+
+<p>'Ha! I dare say; one fool makes many. We all know what
+Monica thinks.'</p>
+
+<p>'But I <i>saw</i> it, papa. She stole your key last night, and opened
+your desk, and read all your papers.'</p>
+
+<p>'Stole my key!' said my father, staring at me perplexed, but
+at the same instant producing it. 'Stole it! Why here it is!'</p>
+
+<p>'She unlocked your desk; she read your papers for ever so
+long. Open it now, and see whether they have not been stirred.'</p>
+
+<p>He looked at me this time in silence, with a puzzled air; but
+he did unlock the desk, and lifted the papers curiously and suspiciously.
+As he did so he uttered a few of those inarticulate interjections
+which are made with closed lips, and not always
+intelligible; but he made no remark.</p>
+
+<p>Then he placed me on a chair beside him, and sitting down
+himself, told me to recollect myself, and tell him distinctly all I
+had seen. This accordingly I did, he listening with deep attention.</p>
+
+<p>'Did she remove any paper?' asked my father, at the same
+time making a little search, I suppose, for that which he fancied
+might have been stolen.</p>
+
+<p>'No; I did not see her take anything.'</p>
+
+<p>'Well, you are a good girl, Maud. Act discreetly. Say nothing
+to anyone&mdash;not even to your cousin Monica.'</p>
+
+<p>Directions which, coming from another person would have
+had no great weight, were spoken by my father with an earnest
+look and a weight of emphasis that made them irresistibly impressive,
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page105" id="page105"></a>[pg 97]</span>
+
+and I went away with the seal of silence upon my lips.</p>
+
+<p>'Sit down, Maud, <i>there</i>. You have not been very happy with
+Madame de la Rougierre. It is time you were relieved. This
+occurrence decides it.'</p>
+
+<p>He rang the bell.</p>
+
+<p>'Tell Madame de la Rougierre that I request the honour of
+seeing her for a few minutes here.'</p>
+
+<p>My father's communications to her were always equally ceremonious.
+In a few minutes there was a knock at the door, and
+the same figure, smiling, courtesying, that had scared me on the
+threshold last night, like the spirit of evil, presented itself.</p>
+
+<p>My father rose, and Madame having at his request taken a
+chair opposite, looking, as usual in his presence, all amiability,
+he proceeded at once to the point.</p>
+
+<p>'Madame de la Rougierre, I have to request you that you will
+give me the key now in your possession, which unlocks this desk
+of mine.'</p>
+
+<p>With which termination he tapped his gold pencil-case suddenly
+on it.</p>
+
+<p>Madame, who had expected something very different, became
+instantly so pale, with a dull purplish hue upon her forehead,
+that, especially when she had twice essayed with her white lips,
+in vain, to answer, I expected to see her fall in a fit.</p>
+
+<p>She was not looking in his face; her eyes were fixed lower,
+and her mouth and cheek sucked in, with a strange distortion
+at one side.</p>
+
+<p>She stood up suddenly, and staring straight in his face, she
+succeeded in saying, after twice clearing her throat&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'I cannot comprehend, Monsieur Ruthyn, unless you intend
+to insult me.'</p>
+
+<p>'It won't do, Madame; I must have that false key. I give you
+the opportunity of surrendering it quietly here and now.'</p>
+
+<p>'But who dares to say I possess such thing?' demanded
+Madame, who, having rallied from her momentary paralysis,
+was now fierce and voluble as I had often seen her before.</p>
+
+<p>'You know, Madame, that you can rely on what I say, and I
+tell you that you were seen last night visiting this room, and
+with a key in your possession, opening this desk, and reading
+my letters and papers contained in it. Unless you forthwith give
+me that key, and any other false keys in your possession&mdash;in
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page106" id="page106"></a>[pg 98]</span>
+
+which case I shall rest content with dismissing you summarily&mdash;I
+will take a different course. You know I am a magistrate;&mdash;and
+I shall have you, your boxes, and places up-stairs, searched
+forthwith, and I will prosecute you criminally. The thing is
+clear; you aggravate by denying; you must give me that key,
+if you please, instantly, otherwise I ring this bell, and you shall
+see that I mean what I say.'</p>
+
+<p>There was a little pause. He rose and extended his hand
+towards the bell-rope. Madame glided round the table, extended
+her hand to arrest his.</p>
+
+<p>'I will do everything, Monsieur Ruthyn&mdash;whatever you wish.'</p>
+
+<p>And with these words Madame de la Rougierre broke down
+altogether. She sobbed, she wept, she gabbled piteously, all
+manner of incomprehensible roulades of lamentation and entreaty;
+coyly, penitently, in a most interesting agitation, she
+produced the very key from her breast, with a string tied to it.
+My father was little moved by this piteous tempest. He coolly
+took the key and tried it in the desk, which it locked and unlocked
+quite freely, though the wards were complicated. He
+shook his head and looked her in the face.</p>
+
+<p>'Pray, who made this key? It is a new one, and made expressly
+to pick this lock.'</p>
+
+<p>But Madame was not going to tell any more than she had
+expressly bargained for; so she only fell once more into her
+old paroxysm of sorrow, self-reproach, extenuation, and entreaty.</p>
+
+<p>'Well,' said my father,' I promised that on surrendering the
+key you should go. It is enough. I keep my word. You shall
+have an hour and a half to prepare in. You must then be ready
+to depart. I will send your money to you by Mrs. Rusk; and if
+you look for another situation, you had better not refer to me.
+Now be so good as to leave me.'</p>
+
+<p>Madame seemed to be in a strange perplexity. She bridled up,
+dried her eyes fiercely, and dropped a great courtesy, and then
+sailed away towards the door. Before reaching it she stopped on
+the way, turning half round, with a peaked, pallid glance at my
+father, and she bit her lip viciously as she eyed him. At the door
+the same repulsive pantomime was repeated, as she stood for a
+moment with her hand upon the handle. But she changed her
+bearing again with a sniff, and with a look of scorn, almost heightened
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page107" id="page107"></a>[pg 99]</span>
+to a sneer, she made another very low courtesy and a disdainful
+toss of her head, and so disappeared, shutting the door
+rather sharply behind her.</p>
+
+<a name="chap19"></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XIX</h3>
+
+<h2><i>AU REVOIR</i></h2>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Rusk was fond of assuring me that Madame 'did not like
+a bone in my skin.' Instinctively I knew that she bore me no
+good-will, although I really believe it was her wish to make me
+think quite the reverse. At all events I had no desire to see
+Madame again before her departure, especially as she had thrown
+upon me one momentary glance in the study, which seemed to
+me charged with very peculiar feelings.</p>
+
+<p>You may be very sure, therefore, that I had no desire for a
+formal leave-taking at her departure. I took my hat and cloak,
+therefore, and stole out quietly.</p>
+
+<p>My ramble was a sequestered one, and well screened, even at
+this late season, with foliage; the pathway devious among the
+stems of old trees, and its flooring interlaced and groined with
+their knotted roots. Though near the house, it was a sylvan
+solitude; a little brook ran darkling and glimmering through it,
+wild strawberries and other woodland plants strewed the ground,
+and the sweet notes and flutter of small birds made the shadow
+of the boughs cheery.</p>
+
+<p>I had been fully an hour in this picturesque solitude when I
+heard in the distance the ring of carriage-wheels, announcing
+to me that Madame de la Rougierre had fairly set out upon her
+travels. I thanked heaven; I could have danced and sung with
+delight; I heaved a great sigh and looked up through the
+branches to the clear blue sky.</p>
+
+<p>But things are oddly timed. Just at this moment I heard
+Madame's voice close at my ear, and her large bony hand was
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page108" id="page108"></a>[pg 100]</span>
+
+laid on my shoulder. We were instantly face to face&mdash;I recoiling,
+and for a moment speechless with fright.</p>
+
+<p>In very early youth we do not appreciate the restraints which
+act upon malignity, or know how effectually fear protects us
+where conscience is wanting. Quite alone, in this solitary spot,
+detected and overtaken with an awful instinct by my enemy,
+what might not be about to happen to me at that moment?</p>
+
+<p>'Frightened as usual, Maud,' she said quietly, and eyeing me
+with a sinister smile, 'and with cause you think, no doubt. Wat
+'av you done to injure poor Madame? Well, I think I know,
+little girl, and have quite discover the cleverness of my sweet
+little Maud. Eh&mdash;is not so? Petite carogne&mdash;ah, ha, ha!'</p>
+
+<p>I was too much confounded to answer.</p>
+
+<p>'You see, my dear cheaile,' she said, shaking her uplifted
+finger with a hideous archness at me, 'you could not hide what
+you 'av done from poor Madame. You cannot look so innocent
+but I can see your pretty little villany quite plain&mdash;you dear little
+diablesse.</p>
+
+<p>'Wat I 'av done I 'av no reproach of myself for it. If I could
+explain, your papa would say I 'av done right, and you should
+thank me on your knees; but I cannot explain yet.'</p>
+
+<p>She was speaking, as it were, in little paragraphs, with a momentary
+pause between each, to allow its meaning to impress
+itself.</p>
+
+<p>'If I were to choose to explain, your papa he would implore
+me to remain. But no&mdash;I would not&mdash;notwithstanding your so
+cheerful house, your charming servants, your papa's amusing
+society, and your affectionate and sincere heart, my sweet little
+maraude.</p>
+
+<p>'I am to go to London first, where I 'av, oh, so good friends!
+next I will go abroad for some time; but be sure, my sweetest
+Maud, wherever I may 'appen to be, I will remember you&mdash;ah,
+ha! Yes; <i>most certainly</i>, I will remember you.</p>
+
+<p>'And although I shall not be always near, yet I shall know
+everything about my charming little Maud; you will not know
+how, but I shall indeed, <i>everything</i>. And be sure, my dearest
+cheaile, I will some time be able to give you the sensible proofs
+of my gratitude and affection&mdash;you understand.</p>
+
+<p>'The carriage is waiting at the yew-tree stile, and I must
+go on. You did not expect to see me&mdash;here; I will appear, perhaps,
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page109" id="page109"></a>[pg 101]</span>
+
+as suddenly another time. It is great pleasure to us both&mdash;this
+opportunity to make our adieux. Farewell! my dearest little
+Maud. I will never cease to think of you, and of some way to
+recompense the kindness you 'av shown for poor Madame.'</p>
+
+<p>My hand hung by my side, and she took, not it, but my
+thumb, and shook it, folded in her broad palm, and looking on
+me as she held it, as if meditating mischief. Then suddenly she
+said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'You will always remember Madame, I <i>think</i>, and I will remind
+you of me beside; and for the present farewell, and I hope
+you may be as 'appy as you deserve.'</p>
+
+<p>The large sinister face looked on me for a second with its latent
+sneer, and then, with a sharp nod and a spasmodic shake of my
+imprisoned thumb, she turned, and holding her dress together,
+and showing her great bony ankles, she strode rapidly away over
+the gnarled roots into the perspective of the trees, and I did not
+awake, as it were, until she had quite disappeared in the distance.</p>
+
+<p>Events of this kind made no difference with my father; but
+every other face in Knowl was gladdened by the removal. My
+energies had returned, my spirits were come again. The sunlight
+was happy, the flowers innocent, the songs and flutter of the
+birds once more gay, and all nature delightful and rejoicing.</p>
+
+<p>After the first elation of relief, now and then a filmy shadow
+of Madame de la Rougierre would glide across the sunlight, and
+the remembrance of her menace return with an unexpected pang
+of fear.</p>
+
+<p>'Well, if <i>there</i> isn't impittens!' cried Mrs. Rusk. 'But never
+you trouble your head about it, Miss. Them sort's all alike&mdash;you
+never saw a rogue yet that was found out and didn't
+threaten the honest folk as he was leaving behind with all sorts;
+there was Martin the gamekeeper, and Jervis the footman, I
+mind well how hard they swore all they would not do when they
+was a-going, and who ever heard of them since? They always
+threatens that way&mdash;them sort always does, and none ever the
+worse&mdash;not but she would if she could, mind ye, but there it is;
+she can't do nothing but bite her nails and cuss us&mdash;not she&mdash;ha,
+ha, ha!'</p>
+
+<p>So I was comforted. But Madame's evil smile, nevertheless,
+from time to time, would sail across my vision with a silent
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page110" id="page110"></a>[pg 102]</span>
+
+menace, and my spirits sank, and a Fate, draped in black, whose
+face I could not see, took me by the hand, and led me away, in
+the spirit, silently, on an awful exploration from which I would
+rouse myself with a start, and Madame was gone for a while.</p>
+
+<p>She had, however, judged her little parting well. She contrived
+to leave her glamour over me, and in my dreams she
+troubled me.</p>
+
+<p>I was, however, indescribably relieved. I wrote in high spirits
+to Cousin Monica; and wondered what plans my father might
+have formed about me, and whether we were to stay at home, or
+go to London, or go abroad. Of the last&mdash;the pleasantest arrangement,
+in some respects&mdash;I had nevertheless an occult horror. A
+secret conviction haunted me that were we to go abroad, we
+should there meet Madame, which to me was like meeting my
+evil genius.</p>
+
+<p>I have said more than once that my father was an odd man;
+and the reader will, by this time, have seen that there was much
+about him not easily understood. I often wonder whether, if he
+had been franker, I should have found him less odd than I supposed,
+or more odd still. Things that moved me profoundly did
+not apparently affect him at all. The departure of Madame,
+under the circumstances which attended it, appeared to my
+childish mind an event of the vastest importance. No one was
+indifferent to the occurrence in the house but its master. He
+never alluded again to Madame de la Rougierre. But whether
+connected with her exposure and dismissal, I could not say,
+there did appear to be some new care or trouble now at work
+in my father's mind.</p>
+
+<p>'I have been thinking a great deal about you, Maud. I am
+anxious. I have not been so troubled for years. Why has not
+Monica Knollys a little more sense?'</p>
+
+<p>This oracular sentence he spoke, having stopped me in the
+hall; and then saying, 'We shall see,' he left me as abruptly as
+he appeared.</p>
+
+<p>Did he apprehend any danger to me from the vindictiveness
+of Madame?</p>
+
+<p>A day or two afterwards, as I was in the Dutch garden, I saw
+him on the terrace steps. He beckoned to me, and came to meet
+me as I approached.</p>
+
+<p>'You must be very solitary, little Maud; it is not good. I
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page111" id="page111"></a>[pg 103]</span>
+
+have written to Monica: in a matter of detail she is competent
+to advise; perhaps she will come here for a short visit.'</p>
+
+<p>I was very glad to hear this.</p>
+
+<p>'<i>You</i> are more interested than for my time <i>I</i> can be, in vindicating
+his character.'</p>
+
+<p>'Whose character, sir?' I ventured to enquire during the
+pause that followed.</p>
+
+<p>One trick which my father had acquired from his habits of
+solitude and silence was this of assuming that the context of his
+thoughts was legible to others, forgetting that they had not been
+spoken.</p>
+
+<p>'Whose?&mdash;your uncle Silas's. In the course of nature he must
+survive me. He will then represent the family name. Would
+you make some sacrifice to clear that name, Maud?'</p>
+
+<p>I answered briefly; but my face, I believe, showed my enthusiasm.</p>
+
+<p>He turned on me such an approving smile as you might fancy
+lighting up the rugged features of a pale old Rembrandt.</p>
+
+<p>'I can tell you, Maud; if my life could have done it, it should
+not have been undone&mdash;<i>ubi lapsus, quid feci</i>. But I had almost
+made up my mind to change my plan, and leave all to time&mdash;<i>edax
+rerum</i>&mdash;to illuminate or to <i>consume</i>. But I think little
+Maud would like to contribute to the restitution of her family
+name. It may cost you something&mdash;are you willing to buy it at
+a sacrifice? Is there&mdash;I don't speak of fortune, that is not involved&mdash;but
+is there any other honourable sacrifice you would
+shrink from to dispel the disgrace under which our most ancient
+and honourable name must otherwise continue to languish?'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, none&mdash;none indeed, sir&mdash;I am delighted!'</p>
+
+<p>Again I saw the Rembrandt smile.</p>
+
+<p>'Well, Maud, I am sure there is <i>no</i> risk; but you are to suppose
+there is. Are you still willing to accept it?'</p>
+
+<p>Again I assented.</p>
+
+<p>'You are worthy of your blood, Maud Ruthyn. It will come
+soon, and it won't last long. But you must not let people like
+Monica Knollys frighten you.'</p>
+
+<p>I was lost in wonder.</p>
+
+<p>'If you allow them to possess you with their follies, you had
+better recede in time&mdash;they may make the ordeal as terrible as
+hell itself. You have zeal&mdash;have you nerve?'</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page112" id="page112"></a>[pg 104]</span>
+
+<p>I thought in such a cause I had nerve for anything.</p>
+
+<p>'Well, Maud, in the course of a few months&mdash;and it may be
+sooner&mdash;there must be a change. I have had a letter from London
+this morning that assures me of that. I must then leave you for
+a time; in my absence be faithful to the duties that will arise.
+To whom much is committed, of him will much be required.
+You shall promise me not to mention this conversation to
+Monica Knollys. If you are a talking girl, and cannot trust yourself,
+say so, and we will not ask her to come. Also, don't invite
+her to talk about your uncle Silas&mdash;I have reasons. Do you quite
+understand my conditions?'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, sir.'</p>
+
+<p>'Your uncle Silas,' he said, speaking suddenly in loud and
+fierce tones that sounded from so old a man almost terrible,
+'lies under an intolerable slander. I don't correspond with him;
+I don't sympathise with him; I never quite did. He has grown
+religious, and that's well; but there are things in which even
+religion should not bring a man to acquiesce; and from what I
+can learn, he, the person primarily affected&mdash;the cause, though
+the innocent cause&mdash;of this great calamity&mdash;bears it with an easy
+apathy which is mistaken, and liable easily to be mistaken, and
+such as no Ruthyn, under the circumstances, ought to exhibit.
+I told him what he ought to do, and offered to open my purse
+for the purpose; but he would not, or <i>did</i> not; indeed, he <i>never</i>
+took my advice; he followed his own, and a foul and dismal shoal he
+has drifted on. It is not for his sake&mdash;why should I?-that
+I have longed and laboured to remove the disgraceful slur
+under which his ill-fortune has thrown us. He troubles himself
+little about it, I believe&mdash;he's meek, meeker than I. He cares less
+about his children than I about you, Maud; he is selfishly sunk
+in futurity&mdash;a feeble visionary. I am not so. I believe it to be a
+duty to take care of others beside myself. The character and
+influence of an ancient family is a peculiar heritage&mdash;sacred but
+destructible; and woe to him who either destroys or suffers it to
+perish!'</p>
+
+<p>This was the longest speech I ever heard my father speak before
+or after. He abruptly resumed&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, we will, Maud&mdash;you and I&mdash;we'll leave one proof on
+record, which, fairly read, will go far to convince the world.'</p>
+
+<p>He looked round, but we were alone. The garden was nearly
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page113" id="page113"></a>[pg 105]</span>
+
+always solitary, and few visitors ever approached the house
+from that side.</p>
+
+<p>'I have talked too long, I believe; we are children to the last.
+Leave me, Maud. I think I know you better than I did, and I
+am pleased with you. Go, child&mdash;I'll sit here.'</p>
+
+<p>If he had acquired new ideas of me, so had I of him from that
+interview. I had no idea till then how much passion still burned
+in that aged frame, nor how full of energy and fire that face,
+generally so stern and ashen, could appear. As I left him seated
+on the rustic chair, by the steps, the traces of that storm were
+still discernible on his features. His gathered brows, glowing
+eyes, and strangely hectic face, and the grim compression of
+his mouth, still showed the agitation which, somehow, in grey
+old age, shocks and alarms the young.</p>
+
+<a name="chap20"></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XX</h3>
+
+<h2><i>AUSTIN RUTHYN SETS OUT
+ON HIS JOURNEY</i></h2>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>The Rev. William Fairfield, Doctor Clay's somewhat bald curate,
+a mild, thin man, with a high and thin nose, who was preparing
+me for confirmation, came next day; and when our catechetical
+conference was ended, and before lunch was announced, my
+father sent for him to the study, where he remained until the
+bell rang out its summons.</p>
+
+<p>'We have had some interesting&mdash;I may say <i>very</i>
+interesting&mdash;conversation,
+your papa and I, Miss Ruthyn,' said my reverend
+<i>vis-à-vis</i>, so soon as nature was refreshed, smiling and shining, as
+he leaned back in his chair, his hand upon the table, and his
+finger curled gently upon the stem of his wine-glass. 'It never
+was your privilege, I believe, to see your uncle, Mr. Silas Ruthyn,
+of Bartram-Haugh?'</p>
+
+<p>'No&mdash;never; he leads so retired&mdash;so <i>very</i> retired a life.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, no,&mdash;of course, no; but I was going to remark a likeness&mdash;I
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page114" id="page114"></a>[pg 106]</span>
+
+mean, of course, a <i>family</i> likeness&mdash;only <i>that</i> sort of
+thing&mdash;you understand&mdash;between him and the profile of Lady
+Margaret in the drawing-room&mdash;is not it Lady Margaret?&mdash;which
+you were so good as to show me on Wednesday last. There
+certainly <i>is</i> a likeness. I <i>think</i> you would agree with me, if you
+had the pleasure of seeing your uncle.'</p>
+
+<p>'You know him, then? I have never seen him.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh dear, yes&mdash;I am happy to say, I know him very well. I
+have that privilege. I was for three years curate of Feltram, and
+I had the honour of being a pretty constant visitor at Bartram-Haugh
+during that, I may say, protracted period; and I think
+it really never has been my privilege and happiness, I may say,
+to enjoy the acquaintance and society of so very experienced a
+Christian, as my admirable friend, I may call him, Mr. Ruthyn,
+of Bartram-Haugh. I look upon him, I do assure you, quite in
+the light of a saint; not, of course, in the Popish sense, but in
+the very highest, you will understand me, which <i>our</i> Church
+allows,&mdash;a man built up in faith&mdash;full of faith&mdash;faith and
+grace&mdash;altogether
+exemplary; and I often ventured to regret, Miss
+Ruthyn, that Providence in its mysterious dispensations should
+have placed him so far apart from his brother, your respected
+father. His influence and opportunities would, no doubt, we may
+venture to hope, at least have been blessed; and, perhaps, we&mdash;my
+valued rector and I&mdash;might possibly have seen more of him at
+church, than, I deeply regret, we <i>have</i> done.' He shook his head
+a little, as he smiled with a sad complacency on me through his
+blue steel spectacles, and then sipped a little meditative sherry.</p>
+
+<p>'And you saw a good deal of my uncle?'</p>
+
+<p>'Well, a <i>good</i> deal, Miss Ruthyn&mdash;I may say a <i>good</i>
+deal&mdash;principally at his own house. His health is wretched&mdash;miserable
+health&mdash;a sadly afflicted man he has been, as, no doubt, you are
+aware. But afflictions, my dear Miss Ruthyn, as you remember
+Doctor Clay so well remarked on Sunday last, though birds of
+ill omen, yet spiritually resemble the ravens who supplied the
+prophet; and when they visit the faithful, come charged with
+nourishment for the soul.</p>
+
+<p>'He is a good deal embarrassed pecuniarily, I should say,'
+continued the curate, who was rather a good man than a very
+well-bred one. 'He found a difficulty&mdash;in fact it was not in his
+power&mdash;to subscribe generally to our little funds, and&mdash;and
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page115" id="page115"></a>[pg 107]</span>
+
+objects, and I used to say to him, and I really felt it, that it was
+more gratifying, such were his feeling and his power of expression,
+to be refused by him than assisted by others.'</p>
+
+<p>'Did papa wish you to speak to me about my uncle?' I enquired,
+as a sudden thought struck me; and then I felt half
+ashamed of my question.</p>
+
+<p>He looked surprised.</p>
+
+<p>'No, Miss Ruthyn, certainly not. Oh dear, no. It was merely
+a conversation between Mr. Ruthyn and me. He never suggested
+my opening that, or indeed any other point in my interview with
+you, Miss Ruthyn&mdash;not the least.'</p>
+
+<p>'I was not aware before that Uncle Silas was so religious.'</p>
+
+<p>He smiled tranquilly, not quite up to the ceiling, but gently
+upward, and shook his head in pity for my previous ignorance,
+as he lowered his eyes&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'I don't say that there may not be some little matters in a
+few points of doctrine which we could, perhaps, wish otherwise.
+But these, you know, are speculative, and in all essentials he
+is Church&mdash;not in the perverted modern sense; far from it&mdash;unexceptionably
+Church, strictly so. Would there were more
+among us of the same mind that is in him! Ay, Miss Ruthyn,
+even in the highest places of the Church herself.'</p>
+
+<p>The Rev. William Fairfield, while fighting against the Dissenters
+with his right hand, was, with his left, hotly engaged
+with the Tractarians. A good man I am sure he was, and I dare
+say sound in doctrine, though naturally, I think, not very wise.
+This conversation with him gave me new ideas about my uncle
+Silas. It quite agreed with what my father had said. These
+principles and his increasing years would necessarily quiet the
+turbulence of his resistance to injustice, and teach him to
+acquiesce in his fate.</p>
+
+<p>You would have fancied that one so young as I, born to
+wealth so vast, and living a life of such entire seclusion, would
+have been exempt from care. But you have seen how troubled
+my life was with fear and anxiety during the residence of Madame
+de la Rougierre, and now there rested upon my mind a
+vague and awful anticipation of the trial which my father had
+announced, without defining it.</p>
+
+<p>An 'ordeal' he called it, requiring not only zeal but nerve,
+which might possibly, were my courage to fail, become frightful,
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page116" id="page116"></a>[pg 108]</span>
+
+and even intolerable. What, and of what nature, could it be?
+Not designed to vindicate the fair fame of the meek and submissive
+old man&mdash;who, it seemed, had ceased to care for his
+bygone wrongs, and was looking to futurity&mdash;but the reputation
+of our ancient family.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes I repented my temerity in having undertaken it. I
+distrusted my courage. Had I not better retreat, while it was yet
+time? But there was shame and even difficulty in the thought.
+How should I appear before my father? Was it not important&mdash;had
+I not deliberately undertaken it&mdash;and was I not bound in
+conscience? Perhaps he had already taken steps in the matter
+which committed <i>him</i>. Besides, was I sure that, even were I free
+again, I would not once more devote myself to the trial, be
+it what it might? You perceive I had more spirit than courage.
+I think I had the mental attributes of courage; but then I was
+but a hysterical girl, and in so far neither more nor less than
+a coward.</p>
+
+<p>No wonder I distrusted myself; no wonder also my will stood
+out against my timidity. It was a struggle, then; a proud, wild
+resolve against constitutional cowardice.</p>
+
+<p>Those who have ever had cast upon them more than their
+strength seemed framed to bear&mdash;the weak, the aspiring, the adventurous
+and self-sacrificing in will, and the faltering in nerve&mdash;will
+understand the kind of agony which I sometimes endured.</p>
+
+<p>But, again, consolation would come, and it seemed to me that
+I must be exaggerating my risk in the coming crisis; and certain
+at least, if my father believed it attended with real peril, he
+would never have wished to see me involved in it. But the silence
+under which I was bound was terrifying&mdash;double so when
+the danger was so shapeless and undivulged.</p>
+
+<p>I was soon to understand it all&mdash;soon, too, to know all about
+my father's impending journey, whither, with what visitor, and
+why guarded from me with so awful a mystery.</p>
+
+<p>That day there came a lively and goodnatured letter from
+Lady Knollys. She was to arrive at Knowl in two or three days'
+time. I thought my father would have been pleased, but he
+seemed apathetic and dejected.</p>
+
+<p>'One does not always feel quite equal to Monica. But for
+you&mdash;yes, thank God. I wish she could only stay, Maud, for a
+month or two; I may be going then, and would be glad&mdash;provided
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page117" id="page117"></a>[pg 109]</span>
+
+she talks about suitable things&mdash;very glad, Maud, to leave
+her with you for a week or so.'</p>
+
+<p>There was something, I thought, agitating my father secretly
+that day. He had the strange hectic flush I had observed when
+he grew excited in our interview in the garden about Uncle
+Silas. There was something painful, perhaps even terrible, in
+the circumstances of the journey he was about to make, and
+from my heart I wished the suspense were over, the annoyance
+past, and he returned.</p>
+
+<p>That night my father bid me good-night early and went up-stairs.
+After I had been in bed some little time, I heard his
+hand-bell ring. This was not usual. Shortly after I heard his
+man, Ridley, talking with Mrs. Rusk in the gallery. I could
+not be mistaken in their voices. I knew not why I was startled
+and excited, and had raised myself to listen on my elbow. But
+they were talking quietly, like persons giving or taking an ordinary
+direction, and not in the haste of an unusual emergency.</p>
+
+<p>Then I heard the man bid Mrs. Rusk good-night and walk
+down the gallery to the stairs, so that I concluded he was wanted
+no more, and all must therefore be well. So I laid myself down
+again, though with a throbbing at my heart, and an ominous
+feeling of expectation, listening and fancying footsteps.</p>
+
+<p>I was going to sleep when I heard the bell ring again; and,
+in a few minutes, Mrs. Rusk's energetic step passed along the
+gallery; and, listening intently, I heard, or fancied, my father's
+voice and hers in dialogue. All this was very unusual, and again
+I was, with a beating heart, leaning with my elbow on my
+pillow.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Rusk came along the gallery in a minute or so after, and
+stopping at my door, began to open it gently. I was startled, and
+challenged my visitor with&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Who's there?'</p>
+
+<p>'It's only Rusk, Miss. Dearie me! and are you awake still?'</p>
+
+<p>'Is papa ill?'</p>
+
+<p>'Ill! not a bit ill, thank God. Only there's a little black book
+as I took for your prayer-book, and brought in here; ay, here it
+is, sure enough, and he wants it. And then I must go down to
+the study, and look out this one, "C, 15;" but I can't read the
+name, noways; and I was afraid to ask him again; if you be so
+kind to read it, Miss&mdash;I suspeck my eyes is a-going.'</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page118" id="page118"></a>[pg 110]</span>
+
+<p>I read the name; and Mrs. Rusk was tolerably expert at
+finding out books, as she had often been employed in that way
+before. So she departed.</p>
+
+<p>I suppose that this particular volume was hard to find, for
+she must have been a long time away, and I had actually fallen
+into a doze when I was roused in an instant by a dreadful crash
+and a piercing scream from Mrs. Rusk. Scream followed scream,
+wilder and more terror-stricken. I shrieked to Mary Quince,
+who was sleeping in the room with me:&mdash;'Mary, do you hear?
+what is it? It is something dreadful.'</p>
+
+<p>The crash was so tremendous that the solid flooring even of
+my room trembled under it, and to me it seemed as if some
+heavy man had burst through the top of the window, and shook
+the whole house with his descent. I found myself standing at my
+own door, crying, 'Help, help! murder! murder!' and Mary
+Quince, frightened half out of her wits, by my side.</p>
+
+<p>I could not think what was going on. It was plainly something
+most horrible, for Mrs. Rusk's screams pealed one after the
+other unabated, though with a muffled sound, as if the door was
+shut upon her; and by this time the bells of my father's room
+were ringing madly.</p>
+
+<p>'They are trying to murder him!' I cried, and I ran along
+the gallery to his door, followed by Mary Quince, whose white
+face I shall never forget, though her entreaties only sounded like
+unmeaning noises in my ears.</p>
+
+<p>'Here! help, help, help!' I cried, trying to force open the
+door.</p>
+
+<p>'Shove it, shove it, for God's sake! he's across it,' cried Mrs.
+Rusk's voice from within; 'drive it in. I can't move him.'</p>
+
+<p>I strained all I could at the door, but ineffectually. We heard
+steps approaching. The men were running to the spot, and
+shouting as they did so&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Never mind; hold on a bit; here we are; all right;' and the
+like.</p>
+
+<p>We drew back, as they came up. We were in no condition to
+be seen. We listened, however, at my open door.</p>
+
+<p>Then came the straining and bumping at the door. Mrs.
+Rusk's voice subsided to a sort of wailing; the men were talking
+all together, and I suppose the door opened, for I heard some
+of the voices, on a sudden, as if in the room; and then came a
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page119" id="page119"></a>[pg 111]</span>
+
+strange lull, and talking in very low tones, and not much even
+of that.</p>
+
+<p>'What is it, Mary? what <i>can</i> it be?' I ejaculated, not knowing
+what horror to suppose. And now, with a counterpane about
+my shoulders, I called loudly and imploringly, in my horror, to
+know what had happened.</p>
+
+<p>But I heard only the subdued and eager talk of men engaged
+in some absorbing task, and the dull sounds of some heavy
+body being moved.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Rusk came towards us looking half wild, and pale as a
+spectre, and putting her thin hands to my shoulders, she said&mdash;'Now,
+Miss Maud, darling, you must go back again; 'tisn't no
+place for you; you'll see all, my darling, time enough&mdash;you will.
+There now, there, like a dear, do get into your room.'</p>
+
+<p>What was that dreadful sound? Who had entered my father's
+chamber? It was the visitor whom we had so long expected,
+with whom he was to make the unknown journey, leaving me
+alone. The intruder was Death!</p>
+
+<a name="chap21"></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XXI</h3>
+
+<h2><i>ARRIVALS</i></h2>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>My father was dead&mdash;as suddenly as if he had been murdered.
+One of those fearful aneurisms that lie close to the heart, showing
+no outward sign of giving way in a moment, had been detected
+a good time since by Dr. Bryerly. My father knew what
+must happen, and that it could not be long deferred. He feared
+to tell me that he was soon to die. He hinted it only in the allegory
+of his journey, and left in that sad enigma some words of
+true consolation that remained with me ever after. Under his
+rugged ways was hidden a wonderful tenderness. I could not
+believe that he was actually dead. Most people for a minute or
+two, in the wild tumult of such a shock, have experienced the
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page120" id="page120"></a>[pg 112]</span>
+
+same skepticism. I insisted that the doctor should be instantly
+sent for from the village.</p>
+
+<p>'Well, Miss Maud, dear, I <i>will</i> send to please you, but it is
+all to no use. If only you saw him yourself you'd know that.
+Mary Quince, run you down and tell Thomas, Miss Maud desires
+he'll go down this minute to the village for Dr. Elweys.'</p>
+
+<p>Every minute of the interval seemed to me like an hour. I
+don't know what I said, but I fancied that if he were not already
+dead, he would lose his life by the delay. I suppose I was
+speaking very wildly, for Mrs. Rusk said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'My dear child, you ought to come in and see him; indeed
+but you should, Miss Maud. He's quite dead an hour ago. You'd
+wonder all the blood that's come from him&mdash;you would indeed;
+it's soaked through the bed already.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, don't, don't, <i>don't</i>, Mrs. Rusk.'</p>
+
+<p>'Will you come in and see him, just?</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, no, no, no, no!'</p>
+
+<p>'Well, then, my dear, don't of course, if you don't like;
+there's no need. Would not you like to lie down, Miss Maud?
+Mary Quince, attend to her. I must go into the room for a
+minute or two.'</p>
+
+<p>I was walking up and down the room in distraction. It was a
+cool night; but I did not feel it. I could only cry:&mdash;'Oh, Mary,
+Mary! what shall I do? Oh, Mary Quince! what shall I do?'</p>
+
+<p>It seemed to me it must be near daylight by the time the
+Doctor arrived. I had dressed myself. I dared not go into the
+room where my beloved father lay.</p>
+
+<p>I had gone out of my room to the gallery, where I awaited
+Dr. Elweys, when I saw him walking briskly after the servant,
+his coat buttoned up to his chin, his hat in his hand, and his
+bald head shining. I felt myself grow cold as ice, and colder and
+colder, and with a sudden sten my heart seemed to stand still.</p>
+
+<p>I heard him ask the maid who stood at the door, in that
+low, decisive, mysterious tone which doctors cultivate&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'In <i>here</i>?'</p>
+
+<p>And then, with a nod, I saw him enter.</p>
+
+<p>'Would not you like to see the Doctor, Miss Maud?' asked
+Mary Quince.</p>
+
+<p>The question roused me a little.</p>
+
+<p>'Thank you, Mary; yes, I must see him.'</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page121" id="page121"></a>[pg 113]</span>
+
+<p>And so, in a few minutes, I did. He was very respectful, very
+sad, semi-undertakerlike, in air and countenance, but quite
+explicit. I heard that my dear father 'had died palpably from
+the rupture of some great vessel near the heart.' The disease
+had, no doubt, been 'long established, and is in its nature incurable.'
+It is 'consolatory in these cases that in the act of dissolution,
+which is instantaneous, there can be no suffering.' These,
+and a few more remarks, were all he had to offer; and having
+had his fee from Mrs. Rusk, he, with a respectful melancholy,
+vanished.</p>
+
+<p>I returned to my room, and broke into paroxysms of grief,
+and after an hour or more grew more tranquil.</p>
+
+<p>From Mrs. Rusk I learned that he had seemed very well&mdash;better
+than usual, indeed&mdash;that night, and that on her return
+from the study with the book he required, he was noting down,
+after his wont, some passages which illustrated the text on
+which he was employing himself. He took the book, detaining
+her in the room, and then mounting on a chair to take down
+another book from a shelf, he had fallen, with the dreadful
+crash I had heard, dead upon the floor. He fell across the door,
+which caused the difficulty in opening it. Mrs. Rusk found she
+had not strength to force it open. No wonder she had given way
+to terror. I think I should have almost lost my reason.</p>
+
+<p>Everyone knows the reserved aspect and the taciturn mood
+of the house, one of whose rooms is tenanted by that mysterious
+guest.</p>
+
+<p>I do not know how those awful days, and more awful nights,
+passed over. The remembrance is repulsive. I hate to think of
+them. I was soon draped in the conventional black, with its
+heavy folds of crape. Lady Knollys came, and was very kind.
+She undertook the direction of all those details which were to
+me so inexpressibly dreadful. She wrote letters for me beside,
+and was really most kind and useful, and her society supported
+me indescribably. She was odd, but her eccentricity was leavened
+with strong common sense; and I have often thought since
+with admiration and gratitude of the tact with which she managed
+my grief.</p>
+
+<p>There is no dealing with great sorrow as if it were under the
+control of our wills. It is a terrible phenomenon, whose laws
+we must study, and to whose conditions we must submit, if we
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page122" id="page122"></a>[pg 114]</span>
+
+would mitigate it. Cousin Monica talked a great deal of my
+father. This was easy to her, for her early recollections were full
+of him.</p>
+
+<p>One of the terrible dislocations of our habits of mind respecting
+the dead is that our earthly future is robbed of them, and we
+thrown exclusively upon retrospect. From the long look forward
+they are removed, and every plan, imagination, and hope henceforth
+a silent and empty perspective. But in the past they are
+all they ever were. Now let me advise all who would comfort
+people in a new bereavement to talk to them, very freely, all
+they can, in this way of the dead. They will engage in it with
+interest, they will talk of their own recollections of the dead,
+and listen to yours, though they become sometimes pleasant,
+sometimes even laughable. I found it so. It robbed the calamity
+of something of its supernatural and horrible abruptness; it
+prevented that monotony of object which is to the mind what
+it is to the eye, and prepared the faculty for those mesmeric
+illusions that derange its sense.</p>
+
+<p>Cousin Monica, I am sure, cheered me wonderfully. I grow to
+love her more and more, as I think of all her trouble, care, and
+kindness.</p>
+
+<p>I had not forgotten my promise to dear papa about the key,
+concerning which he had evinced so great an anxiety. It was
+found in the pocket where he had desired me to remember he
+always kept it, except when it was placed, while he slept, under
+his pillow.</p>
+
+<p>'And so, my dear, that wicked woman was actually found
+picking the lock of your poor papa's desk. I <i>wonder</i> he did not
+punish her&mdash;you know that is <i>burglary</i>.'</p>
+
+<p>'Well, Lady Knollys, you know she is gone, and so I care no
+more about her&mdash;that is, I mean, I need not fear her.'</p>
+
+<p>'No, my dear, but you must call me Monica&mdash;do you mind&mdash;I'm
+your cousin, and you call me Monica, unless you wish to
+vex me. No, of course, you need not be afraid of her. And she's
+gone. But I'm an old thing, you know, and not so tender-hearted
+as you; and I confess I should have been very glad to hear
+that the wicked old witch had been sent to prison and hard
+labour&mdash;I should. And what do you suppose she was looking
+for&mdash;what did she want to steal? I think I can guess&mdash;what do
+<i>you</i> think?'</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page123" id="page123"></a>[pg 115]</span>
+
+<p>'To read the papers; maybe to take bank-notes&mdash;I'm not sure,'
+I answered.</p>
+
+<p>'Well, I think most likely she wanted to get at your poor
+papa's <i>will</i>&mdash;that's <i>my</i> idea.</p>
+
+<p>'There is nothing surprising in the supposition, dear,' she
+resumed. 'Did not you read the curious trial at York, the other
+day? There is nothing so valuable to steal as a will, when a
+great deal of property is to be disposed of by it. Why, you would
+have given her ever so much money to get it back again. Suppose
+you go down, dear&mdash;I'll go with you, and open the cabinet
+in the study.'</p>
+
+<p>'I don't think I can, for I promised to give the key to Dr.
+Bryerly, and the meaning was that <i>he</i> only should open it.'</p>
+
+<p>Cousin Monica uttered an inarticulate 'H'm!' of surprise
+or disapprobation.</p>
+
+<p>'Has he been written to?'</p>
+
+<p>'No, I do not know his address.'</p>
+
+<p>'Not know his address! come, that is curious,' said Knollys,
+a little testily.</p>
+
+<p>I could not&mdash;no one now living in the house could furnish
+even a conjecture. There was even a dispute as to which train he
+had gone by&mdash;north or south&mdash;they crossed the station at an interval
+of five minutes. If Dr. Bryerly had been an evil spirit,
+evoked by a secret incantation, there could not have been more
+complete darkness as to the immediate process of his approach.</p>
+
+<p>'And how long do you mean to wait, my dear? No matter;
+at all events you may open the <i>desk</i>; you may find papers to
+direct you&mdash;you may find Dr. Bryerly's address&mdash;you may find,
+heaven knows what.'</p>
+
+<p>So down we went&mdash;I assenting&mdash;and we opened the desk. How
+dreadful the desecration seems&mdash;all privacy abrogated&mdash;the shocking
+compensation for the silence of death!</p>
+
+<p>Henceforward all is circumstantial evidence&mdash;all conjectural&mdash;except
+the <i>litera scripta</i>, and to this evidence every note-book,
+and every scrap of paper and private letter, must contribute&mdash;ransacked,
+bare in the light of day&mdash;what it can.</p>
+
+<p>At the top of the desk lay two notes sealed, one to Cousin
+Monica, the other to me. Mine was a gentle and loving little
+farewell&mdash;nothing more&mdash;which opened afresh the fountains
+of my sorrow, and I cried and sobbed over it bitterly and long.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page124" id="page124"></a>[pg 116]</span>
+
+<p>The other was for 'Lady Knollys.' I did not see how she received
+it, for I was already absorbed in mine. But in awhile
+she came and kissed me in her girlish, goodnatured way. Her
+eyes used to fill with tears at sight of my paroxysms of grief.
+Then she would begin, 'I remember it was a saying of his,' and
+so she would repeat it&mdash;something maybe wise, maybe playful, at
+all events consolatory&mdash;and the circumstances in which she had
+heard him say it, and then would follow the recollections suggested
+by these; and so I was stolen away half by him, and half
+by Cousin Monica, from my despair and lamentation.</p>
+
+<p>Along with these lay a large envelope, inscribed with the
+words 'Directions to be complied with immediately on my
+death.' One of which was, 'Let the event be <i>forthwith</i> published
+in the <i>county</i> and principal <i>London</i> papers.' This step
+had been already taken. We found no record of Dr. Bryerly's
+address.</p>
+
+<p>We made search everywhere, except in the cabinet, which I
+would on no account permit to be opened except, according to
+his direction, by Dr. Bryerly's hand. But nowhere was a will,
+or any document resembling one, to be found. I had now, therefore,
+no doubt that his will was placed in the cabinet.</p>
+
+<p>In the search among my dear father's papers we found two
+sheafs of letters, neatly tied up and labelled&mdash;these were from
+my uncle Silas.</p>
+
+<p>My cousin Monica looked down upon these papers with a
+strange smile; was it satire&mdash;was it that indescribable smile
+with which a mystery which covers a long reach of years is
+sometimes approached?</p>
+
+<p>These were odd letters. If here and there occurred passages
+that were querulous and even abject, there were also long
+passages of manly and altogether noble sentiment, and the
+strangest rodomontade and maunderings about religion. Here
+and there a letter would gradually transform itself into a prayer,
+and end with a doxology and no signature; and some of them
+expressed such wild and disordered views respecting religion, as
+I imagine he can never have disclosed to good Mr. Fairfield,
+and which approached more nearly to the Swedenborg visions
+than to anything in the Church of England.</p>
+
+<p>I read these with a solemn interest, but my cousin Monica
+was not similarly moved. She read them with the same smile&mdash;faint,
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page125" id="page125"></a>[pg 117]</span>
+
+serenely contemptuous, I thought&mdash;with which she had
+first looked down upon them. It was the countenance of a person
+who amusedly traces the working of a character that is well
+understood.</p>
+
+<p>'Uncle Silas is very religious?' I said, not quite liking Lady
+Knollys' looks.</p>
+
+<p>'Very,' she said, without raising her eyes or abating her old
+bitter smile, as she glanced over a passage in one of his letters.</p>
+
+<p>'You don't think he <i>is</i>, Cousin Monica?' said I. She raised
+her head and looked straight at me.</p>
+
+<p>'Why do you say that, Maud?'</p>
+
+<p>'Because you smile incredulously, I think, over his letters.'</p>
+
+<p>'Do I?' said she; 'I was not thinking&mdash;it was quite an accident.
+The fact is, Maud, your poor papa quite mistook me. I
+had no prejudice respecting him&mdash;no theory. I never knew what
+to think about him. I do not think Silas a product of nature,
+but a child of the Sphinx, and I never could understand him&mdash;that's
+all.'</p>
+
+<p>'I always felt so too; but that was because I was left to speculation,
+and to glean conjectures as I might from his portrait, or
+anywhere. Except what you told me, I never heard more than a
+few sentences; poor papa did not like me to ask questions about
+him, and I think he ordered the servants to be silent.'</p>
+
+<p>'And much the same injunction this little note lays upon me&mdash;not
+quite, but something like it; and I don't know the meaning
+of it.'</p>
+
+<p>And she looked enquiringly at me.</p>
+
+<p>'You are not to be <i>alarmed</i> about your uncle Silas, because
+your being afraid would unfit you for an <i>important service</i>
+which you have undertaken for your family, the nature of which
+I shall soon understand, and which, although it is quite <i>passive</i>,
+would be made very sad if <i>illusory fears</i> were allowed to <i>steal
+into your mind</i>.'</p>
+
+<p>She was looking into the letter in poor papa's handwriting,
+which she had found addressed to her in his desk, and emphasised
+the words, I suppose, which she quoted from it.</p>
+
+<p>'Have you any idea, Maud, darling, what this <i>service</i> may
+be?' she enquired, with a grave and anxious curiosity in her
+countenance.</p>
+
+<p>'None, Cousin Monica; but I have thought long over my undertaking
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page126" id="page126"></a>[pg 118]</span>
+
+to do it, or submit to it, be it what it may; and I will
+keep the promise I voluntarily made, although I know what a
+coward I am, and often distrust my courage.'</p>
+
+<p>'Well, I am not to frighten you.'</p>
+
+<p>'How could you? Why should I be afraid? <i>Is</i> there anything
+frightful to be disclosed? Do tell me&mdash;you <i>must</i> tell me.'</p>
+
+<p>'No, darling, I did not mean <i>that</i>&mdash;I don't mean that;&mdash;I
+could, if I would; I&mdash;I don't know exactly what I meant. But
+your poor papa knew him better than I&mdash;in fact, I did not know
+him at all&mdash;that is, ever quite understood him&mdash;which your poor
+papa, I see, had ample opportunities of doing.' And after a
+little pause, she added&mdash;'So you do not know what you are
+expected to do or to undergo.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh! Cousin Monica, I know you think he committed that
+murder,' I cried, starting up, I don't know why, and I felt that I
+grew deadly pale.</p>
+
+<p>'I don't believe any such thing, you little fool; you must not
+say such horrible things, Maud,' she said, rising also, and looking
+both pale and angry. 'Shall we go out for a little walk?
+Come, lock up these papers, dear, and get your things on;
+and if that Dr. Bryerly does not turn up to-morrow, you must
+send for the Rector, good Doctor Clay, and let him make search
+for the will&mdash;there may be directions about many things, you
+know; and, my dear Maud, you are to remember that Silas is
+<i>my</i> cousin as well as your uncle. Come, dear, put on your hat.'</p>
+
+<p>So we went out together for a little cloistered walk.</p>
+
+<a name="chap22"></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XXII</h3>
+
+<h2><i>SOMEBODY IN THE ROOM
+WITH THE COFFIN</i></h2>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>When we returned, a 'young' gentleman had arrived. We saw
+him in the parlour as we passed the window. It was simply a
+glance, but such a one as suffices to make a photograph, which
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page127" id="page127"></a>[pg 119]</span>
+
+we can study afterwards, at our leisure. I remember him at this
+moment&mdash;a man of six-and-thirty&mdash;dressed in a grey travelling
+suit, not over-well made; light-haired, fat-faced, and clumsy;
+and he looked both dull and cunning, and not at all like a
+gentleman.</p>
+
+<p>Branston met us, announced the arrival, and handed me the
+stranger's credentials. My cousin and I stopped in the passage to
+read them.</p>
+
+<p>'<i>That's</i> your uncle Silas's,' said Lady Knollys, touching one
+of the two letters with the tip of her finger.</p>
+
+<p>'Shall we have lunch, Miss?'</p>
+
+<p>'Certainly.' So Branston departed.</p>
+
+<p>'Read it with me, Cousin Monica,' I said. And a very curious
+letter it was. It spoke as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>'How can I thank my beloved niece for remembering her
+aged and forlorn kinsman at such a moment of anguish?'</p>
+
+<p>I had written a note of a few, I dare say, incoherent words
+by the next post after my dear father's death.</p>
+
+<p>'It is, however, in the hour of bereavement that we most
+value the ties that are broken, and yearn for the sympathy of
+kindred.'</p>
+
+<p>Here came a little distich of French verse, of which I could
+only read <i>ciel</i> and <i>l'amour</i>.</p>
+
+<p>'Our quiet household here is clouded with a new sorrow. How
+inscrutable are the ways of Providence! I&mdash;though a few years
+younger&mdash;how much the more infirm&mdash;how shattered in energy
+and in mind&mdash;how mere a burden&mdash;how entirely <i>de trop</i>&mdash;am
+spared to my sad place in a world where I can be no longer useful,
+where I have but one business&mdash;prayer, but one hope&mdash;the
+tomb; and he&mdash;apparently so robust&mdash;the centre of so much
+good&mdash;so necessary to you&mdash;so necessary, alas! to me&mdash;is taken!
+He is gone to his rest&mdash;for us, what remains but to bow our
+heads, and murmur, "His will be done"? I trace these lines
+with a trembling hand, while tears dim my old eyes. I did not
+think that any earthly event could have moved me so profoundly.
+From the world I have long stood aloof. I once led a
+life of pleasure&mdash;alas! of wickedness&mdash;as I now do one of austerity;
+but as I never was rich, so my worst enemy will allow I
+never was avaricious. My sins, I thank my Maker, have been of
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page128" id="page128"></a>[pg 120]</span>
+
+a more reducible kind, and have succumbed to the discipline
+which Heaven has provided. To earth and its interests, as well
+as to its pleasures, I have long been dead. For the few remaining
+years of my life I ask but quiet&mdash;an exemption from the agitations
+and distractions of struggle and care, and I trust to the
+Giver of all Good for my deliverance&mdash;well knowing, at the
+same time, that whatever befalls will, under His direction,
+prove best. Happy shall I be, my dearest niece, if in your most
+interesting and, in some respects, forlorn situation, I can be of
+any use to you. My present religious adviser&mdash;of whom I ventured
+to ask counsel on your behalf&mdash;states that I ought to send
+some one to represent me at the melancholy ceremony of reading
+the will which my beloved and now happy brother has, no doubt,
+left behind; and the idea that the experience and professional
+knowledge possessed by the gentleman whom I have selected
+may possibly be of use to you, my dearest niece, determines me
+to place him at your disposal. He is the junior partner in the
+firm of Archer and Sleigh, who conduct any little business which
+I may have from time to time; may I entreat your hospitality
+for him during a brief stay at Knowl? I write, even for a moment,
+upon these small matters of business with an effort&mdash;a
+painful one, but necessary. Alas! my brother! The cup of bitterness
+is now full. Few and evil must the remainder of my old
+days be. Yet, while they last, I remain always for my beloved
+niece, that which all her wealth and splendour cannot purchase&mdash;a
+loving and faithful kinsman and friend,</p>
+
+<p class="signature">S<small>ILAS</small> R<small>UTHYN</small>.'</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>'Is not it a kind letter?' I said, while tears stood in my eyes.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes,' answered Lady Knollys, drily.</p>
+
+<p>'But don't you think it so, really?'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh! kind, very kind,' she answered in the same tone, 'and
+perhaps a little cunning.'</p>
+
+<p>'Cunning!&mdash;how?'</p>
+
+<p>'Well, you know I'm a peevish old Tabby, and of course I
+scratch now and then, and see in the dark. I dare say Silas is
+sorry, but I don't think he is in sackcloth and ashes. He has
+reason to be sorry and anxious, and I say I think he is both;
+and you know he pities you very much, and also himself a good
+deal; and he wants money, and you&mdash;his beloved niece&mdash;have a
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page129" id="page129"></a>[pg 121]</span>
+
+great deal&mdash;and altogether it is an affectionate and prudent letter:
+and he has sent his attorney here to make a note of the
+will; and you are to give the gentleman his meals and lodging;
+and Silas, very thoughtfully, invites you to confide your difficulties
+and troubles to <i>his</i> solicitor. It is very kind, but not imprudent.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, Cousin Monica, don't you think at such a moment it is
+hardly natural that he should form such petty schemes, even
+were he capable at other times of practising so low? Is it not
+judging him hardly? and you, you know, so little acquainted
+with him.'</p>
+
+<p>'I told you, dear, I'm a cross old thing&mdash;and there's an end;
+and I really don't care two pence about him; and of the two
+I'd much rather he were no relation of ours.'</p>
+
+<p>Now, was not this prejudice? I dare say in part it was. So,
+too, was my vehement predisposition in his favour. I am afraid
+we women are factionists; we always take a side, and nature has
+formed us for advocates rather than judges; and I think the
+function, if less dignified, is more amiable.</p>
+
+<p>I sat alone at the drawing-room window, at nightfall, awaiting
+my cousin Monica's entrance.</p>
+
+<p>Feverish and frightened I felt that night. It was a sympathy,
+I fancy, with the weather. The sun had set stormily. Though the
+air was still, the sky looked wild and storm-swept. The crowding
+clouds, slanting in the attitude of flight, reflected their own
+sacred aspect upon my spirits. My grief darkened with a wild
+presaging of danger, and a sense of the supernatural fell upon
+me. It was the saddest and most awful evening that had come
+since my beloved father's death.</p>
+
+<p>All kinds of shapeless fears environed me in silence. For the
+first time, dire misgivings about the form of faith affrighted me.
+Who were these Swedenborgians who had got about him&mdash;no one
+could tell how&mdash;and held him so fast to the close of his life?
+Who was this bilious, bewigged, black-eyed Doctor Bryerly,
+whom none of us quite liked and all a little feared; who seemed
+to rise out of the ground, and came and went, no one knew
+whence or whither, exercising, as I imagined, a mysterious authority
+over him? Was it all good and true, or a heresy and a
+witchcraft? Oh, my beloved father! was it all well with you?</p>
+
+<p>When Lady Knollys entered, she found me in floods of tears,
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page130" id="page130"></a>[pg 122]</span>
+
+walking distractedly up and down the room. She kissed me in
+silence; she walked back and forward with me, and did her best
+to console me.</p>
+
+<p>'I think, Cousin Monica, I would wish to see him once more.
+Shall we go up?'</p>
+
+<p>'Unless you really wish it very much, I think, darling, you
+had better not mind it. It is happier to recollect them as they
+were; there's a change, you know, darling, and there is seldom
+any comfort in the sight.'</p>
+
+<p>'But I do wish it <i>very</i> much. Oh! won't you come with me?'</p>
+
+<p>And so I persuaded her, and up we went hand in hand, in
+the deepening twilight; and we halted at the end of the dark
+gallery, and I called Mrs. Rusk, growing frightened.</p>
+
+<p>'Tell her to let us in, Cousin Monica,' I whispered.</p>
+
+<p>'She wishes to see him, my lady&mdash;does she?' enquired Mrs.
+Rusk, in an under-tone, and with a mysterious glance at me, as
+she softly fitted the key to the lock.</p>
+
+<p>'Are you quite sure, Maud, dear?'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, yes.'</p>
+
+<p>But when Mrs. Rusk entered bearing the candle, whose beam
+mixed dismally with the expiring twilight, disclosing a great
+black coffin standing upon trestles, near the foot of which she
+took her stand, gazing sternly into it, I lost heart again altogether
+and drew back.</p>
+
+<p>'No, Mrs. Rusk, she won't; and I am very glad, dear,' she
+added to me. 'Come, Mrs. Rusk, come away. Yes, darling,' she
+continued to me, 'it is much better for you;' and she hurried
+me away, and down-stairs again. But the awful outlines of that
+large black coffin remained upon my imagination with a new
+and terrible sense of death.</p>
+
+<p>I had no more any wish to see him. I felt a horror even of
+the room, and for more than an hour after a kind of despair
+and terror, such as I have never experienced before or since
+at the idea of death.</p>
+
+<p>Cousin Monica had had her bed placed in my room, and Mary
+Quince's moved to the dressing-room adjoining it. For the first
+time the superstitious awe that follows death, but not immediately,
+visited me. The idea of seeing my father enter the room,
+or open the door and look in, haunted me. After Lady Knollys
+and I were in bed, I could not sleep. The wind sounded mournfully
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page131" id="page131"></a>[pg 123]</span>
+
+outside, and the small sounds, the rattlings, and strainings
+that responded from within, constantly startled me, and
+simulated the sounds of steps, of doors opening, of knockings,
+and so forth, rousing me with a palpitating heart as often as I
+fell into a doze.</p>
+
+<p>At length the wind subsided, and these ambiguous noises
+abated, and I, fatigued, dropped into a quiet sleep. I was awakened
+by a sound in the gallery&mdash;which I could not define. A considerable
+time had passed, for the wind was now quite lulled.
+I sat up in my bed a good deal scared, listening breathlessly
+for I knew not what.</p>
+
+<p>I heard a step moving stealthily along the gallery. I called my
+cousin Monica softly; and we both heard the door of the room
+in which my father's body lay unlocked, some one furtively
+enter, and the door shut.</p>
+
+<p>'What can it be? Good Heavens, Cousin Monica, do you
+hear it?'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, dear; and it is two o'clock.'</p>
+
+<p>Everyone at Knowl was in bed at eleven. We knew very well
+that Mrs. Rusk was rather nervous, and would not, for worlds,
+go alone, and at such an hour, to the room. We called Mary
+Quince. We all three listened, but we heard no other sound. I
+set these things down here because they made so terrible an
+impression upon me at the time.</p>
+
+<p>It ended by our peeping out, all three in a body, upon the
+gallery. Through each window in the perspective came its blue
+sheet of moonshine; but the door on which our attention was
+fixed was in the shade, and we thought we could discern the
+glare of a candle through the key-hole. While in whispers we
+were debating this point together, the door opened, the dusky
+light of a candle emerged, the shadow of a figure crossed it
+within, and in another moment the mysterious Doctor
+Bryerly&mdash;angular,
+ungainly, in the black cloth coat that fitted little
+better than a coffin&mdash;issued from the chamber, candle in hand;
+murmuring, I suppose, a prayer&mdash;it sounded like a farewell&mdash;
+stepped cautiously upon the gallery floor, shutting and locking
+the door upon the dead; and then having listened for a second,
+the saturnine figure, casting a gigantic and distorted shadow
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page132" id="page132"></a>[pg 124]</span>
+
+upon the ceiling and side-wall from the lowered candle, strode
+lightly down the long dark passage, away from us.</p>
+
+<p>I can only speak for myself, and I can honestly say that I felt
+as much frightened as if I had just seen a sorcerer stealing
+from his unhallowed business. I think Cousin Monica was also
+affected in the same way, for she turned the key on the inside
+of the door when we entered. I do not think one of us believed
+at the moment that what we had seen was a Doctor Bryerly of
+flesh and blood, and yet the first thing we spoke of in the
+morning was Doctor Bryerly's arrival. The mind is a different
+organ by night and by day.</p>
+
+<a name="chap23"></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XXIII</h3>
+
+<h2><i>I TALK WITH DOCTOR BRYERLY</i></h2>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>Doctor Bryerly had, indeed, arrived at half-past twelve o'clock
+at night. His summons at the hall-door was little heard at our
+remote side of the old house of Knowl; and when the sleepy,
+half-dressed servant opened the door, the lank Doctor, in glossy
+black clothing, was standing alone, his portmanteau on its end
+upon the steps, and his vehicle disappearing in the shadows of
+the old trees.</p>
+
+<p>In he came, sterner and sharper of aspect than usual.</p>
+
+<p>'I've been expected? I'm Doctor Bryerly. Haven't I? So,
+let whoever is in charge of the body be called. I must visit it
+forthwith.'</p>
+
+<p>So the Doctor sat in the back drawing-room, with a solitary
+candle; and Mrs. Rusk was called up, and, grumbling much and
+very peevish, dressed and went down, her ill-temper subsiding in
+a sort of fear as she approached the visitor.</p>
+
+<p>'How do you do, Madam? A sad visit this. Is anyone watching
+in the room where the remains of your late master are
+laid?'</p>
+
+<p>'No.'</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page133" id="page133"></a>[pg 125]</span>
+
+<p>'So much the better; it is a foolish custom. Will you please
+conduct me to the room? I must pray where he lies&mdash;no longer
+<i>he</i>! And be good enough to show me my bedroom, and so no
+one need wait up, and I shall find my way.'</p>
+
+<p>Accompanied by the man who carried his valise, Mrs. Rusk
+showed him to his apartment; but he only looked in, and then
+glanced rapidly about to take 'the bearings' of the door.</p>
+
+<p>'Thank you&mdash;yes. Now we'll proceed, here, along here? Let
+me see. A turn to the right and another to the left&mdash;yes. He has
+been dead some days. Is he yet in his coffin?'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, sir; since yesterday afternoon.'</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Rusk was growing more and more afraid of this lean
+figure sheathed in shining black cloth, whose eyes glittered with
+a horrible sort of cunning, and whose long brown fingers groped
+before him, as if indicating the way by guess.</p>
+
+<p>'But, of course, the lid's not on; you've not screwed him down,
+hey?'</p>
+
+<p>'No, sir.'</p>
+
+<p>'That's well. I must look on the face as I pray. He is in his
+place; I here on earth. He in the spirit; I in the flesh. The
+neutral ground lies there. So are carried the vibrations, and so
+the light of earth and heaven reflected back and forward&mdash;apaugasma,
+a wonderful though helpless engine, the ladder of
+Jacob, and behold the angels of God ascending and descending
+on it. Thanks, I'll take the key. Mysteries to those who <i>will</i> live
+altogether in houses of clay, no mystery to such as will use their
+eyes and read what is revealed. <i>This</i> candle, it is the longer,
+please; no&mdash;no need of a pair, thanks; just this, to hold in my
+hand. And remember, all depends upon the willing mind. Why
+do you look frightened? Where is your faith? Don't you know
+that spirits are about us at all times? Why should you fear to
+be near the body? The spirit is everything; the flesh profiteth
+nothing.'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, sir,' said Mrs. Rusk, making him a great courtesy in the
+threshold.</p>
+
+<p>She was frightened by his eerie talk, which grew, she fancied,
+more voluble and energetic as they approached the corpse.</p>
+
+<p>'Remember, then, that when you fancy yourself alone and
+wrapt in darkness, you stand, in fact, in the centre of a theatre,
+as wide as the starry floor of heaven, with an audience, whom
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page134" id="page134"></a>[pg 126]</span>
+
+no man can number, beholding you under a flood of light.
+Therefore, though your body be in solitude and your mortal
+sense in darkness, remember to walk as being in the light, surrounded
+with a cloud of witnesses. Thus walk; and when the
+hour comes, and you pass forth unprisoned from the tabernacle
+of the flesh, although it still has its relations and its rights'&mdash;and
+saying this, as he held the solitary candle aloft in the doorway,
+he nodded towards the coffin, whose large black form was
+faintly traceable against the shadows beyond&mdash;'you will rejoice;
+and being clothed upon with your house from on high, you will
+not be found naked. On the other hand, he that loveth corruption
+shall have enough thereof. Think upon these things. Good-night.'</p>
+
+<p>And the Swedenborgian Doctor stepped into the room, taking
+the candle with him, and closed the door upon the shadowy
+still-life there, and on his own sharp and swarthy visage, leaving
+Mrs. Rusk in a sort of panic in the dark alone, to find her way
+to her room the best way she could.</p>
+
+<p>Early in the morning Mrs. Rusk came to my room to tell me
+that Doctor Bryerly was in the parlour, and begged to know
+whether I had not a message for him. I was already dressed,
+so, though it was dreadful seeing a stranger in my then mood,
+taking the key of the cabinet in my hand, I followed Mrs. Rusk
+downstairs.</p>
+
+<p>Opening the parlour door, she stepped in, and with a little
+courtesy said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Please, sir, the young mistress&mdash;Miss Ruthyn.'</p>
+
+<p>Draped in black and very pale, tall and slight, 'the young
+mistress' was; and as I entered I heard a newspaper rustle, and
+the sound of steps approaching to meet me.</p>
+
+<p>Face to face we met, near the door; and, without speaking,
+I made him a deep courtesy.</p>
+
+<p>He took my hand, without the least indication on my part, in
+his hard lean grasp, and shook it kindly, but familiarly, peering
+with a stern sort of curiosity into my face as he continued to
+hold it. His ill-fitting, glossy black cloth, ungainly presence, and
+sharp, dark, vulpine features had in them, as I said before, the
+vulgarity of a Glasgow artisan in his Sabbath suit. I made an
+instantaneous motion to withdraw my hand, but he held it
+firmly.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page135" id="page135"></a>[pg 127]</span>
+
+<p>Though there was a grim sort of familiarity, there was also
+decision, shrewdness, and, above all, kindness, in his dark face&mdash;a
+gleam on the whole of the masterly and the honest&mdash;that
+along with a certain paleness, betraying, I thought, restrained
+emotion, indicated sympathy and invited confidence.</p>
+
+<p>'I hope, Miss, you are pretty well?' He pronounced 'pretty'
+as it is spelt. 'I have come in consequence of a solemn promise
+exacted more than a year since by your deceased father, the late
+Mr. Austin Ruthyn of Knowl, for whom I cherished a warm
+esteem, being knit besides with him in spiritual bonds. It has
+been a shock to you, Miss?'</p>
+
+<p>'It has, indeed, sir.'</p>
+
+<p>'I've a doctor's degree, I have&mdash;Doctor of Medicine, Miss. Like
+St. Luke, preacher and doctor. I was in business once, but this
+is better. As one footing fails, the Lord provides another. The
+stream of life is black and angry; how so many of us get across
+without drowning, I often wonder. The best way is not to look
+too far before&mdash;just from one stepping-stone to another; and
+though you may wet your feet, He won't let you drown&mdash;He has
+not allowed me.'</p>
+
+<p>And Doctor Bryerly held up his head, and wagged it resolutely.</p>
+
+<p>'You are born to this world's wealth; in its way a great blessing,
+though a great trial, Miss, and a great trust; but don't
+suppose you are destined to exemption from trouble on that
+account, any more than poor Emmanuel Bryerly. As the sparks
+fly upwards, Miss Ruthyn! Your cushioned carriage may overturn
+on the highroad, as I may stumble and fall upon the footpath.
+There are other troubles than debt and privation. Who
+can tell how long health may last, or when an accident may
+happen the brain; what mortifications may await you in your
+own high sphere; what unknown enemies may rise up in your
+path; or what slanders may asperse your name&mdash;ha, ha! It is
+a wonderful equilibrium&mdash;a marvellous dispensation&mdash;ha, ha!'
+and he laughed with a shake of his head, I thought a little sarcastically,
+as if he was not sorry my money could not avail to
+buy immunity from the general curse.</p>
+
+<p>'But what money can't do, <i>prayer</i> can&mdash;bear that in mind, Miss
+Ruthyn. We can all pray; and though thorns and snares, and
+stones of fire lie strewn in our way, we need not fear them. He
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page136" id="page136"></a>[pg 128]</span>
+
+will give His angels charge over us, and in their hands they will
+bear us up, for He hears and sees everywhere, and His angels
+are innumerable.'</p>
+
+<p>He was now speaking gently and solemnly, and paused. But
+another vein of thought he had unconsciously opened in my
+mind, and I said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'And had my dear papa no other medical adviser?'</p>
+
+<p>He looked at me sharply, and flushed a little under his dark
+tint. His medical skill was, perhaps, the point on which his
+human vanity vaunted itself, and I dare say there was something
+very disparaging in my tone.</p>
+
+<p>'And if he <i>had</i> no other, he might have done worse. I've had
+many critical cases in my hands, Miss Ruthyn. I can't charge
+myself with any miscarriage through ignorance. My diagnosis
+in Mr. Ruthyn's case has been verified by the result. But I was
+<i>not</i> alone; Sir Clayton Barrow saw him, and took my view;
+a note will reach him in London. But this, excuse me, is not
+to the present purpose. The late Mr. Ruthyn told me I was to
+receive a key from you, which would open a cabinet where he
+had placed his will&mdash;ha! thanks,&mdash;in his study. And, I think, as
+there may be directions about the funeral, it had better be read
+forthwith. Is there any gentleman&mdash;a relative or man of business&mdash;near
+here, whom you would wish sent for?'</p>
+
+<p>'No, none, thank you; I have confidence in you, sir.'</p>
+
+<p>I think I spoke and looked frankly, for he smiled very kindly,
+though with closed lips.</p>
+
+<p>'And you may be sure, Miss Ruthyn, your confidence shall not
+be disappointed.' Here was a long pause. 'But you are very
+young, and you must have some one by in your interest, who
+has some experience in business. Let me see. Is not the Rector,
+Dr. Clay, at hand? In the town?&mdash;very good; and Mr. Danvers,
+who manages the estate, <i>he</i> must come. And get Grimston&mdash;you
+see I know all the names&mdash;Grimston, the attorney; for though he
+was not employed about this will, he has been Mr. Ruthyn's
+solicitor a great many years: we must have Grimston; for, as I
+suppose you know, though it is a short will, it is a very strange
+one. I expostulated, but you know he was very decided when
+he took a view. He read it to you, eh?'</p>
+
+<p>'No, sir.'</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page137" id="page137"></a>[pg 129]</span>
+
+<p>'Oh, but he told you so much as relates to you and your
+uncle, Mr. Silas Ruthyn, of Bartram-Haugh?'</p>
+
+<p>'No, indeed, sir.'</p>
+
+<p>'Ha! I wish he had.'</p>
+
+<p>And with these words Doctor Bryerly's countenance darkened.</p>
+
+<p>'Mr. Silas Ruthyn is a religious man?'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, <i>very</i>!' said I.</p>
+
+<p>'You've seen a good deal of him?'</p>
+
+<p>'No, I never saw him,' I answered.</p>
+
+<p>'H'm? Odder and odder! But he's a good man, isn't he?'</p>
+
+<p>'Very good, indeed, sir&mdash;a very religious man.'</p>
+
+<p>Doctor Bryerly was watching my countenance as I spoke,
+with a sharp and anxious eye; and then he looked down, and
+read the pattern of the carpet like bad news, for a while, and
+looking again in my face, askance, he said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'He was very near joining <i>us</i>&mdash;on the point. He got into
+correspondence with Henry Voerst, one of our best men. They
+call us Swedenborgians, you know; but I dare say that won't go
+much further, now. I suppose, Miss Ruthyn, one o'clock would
+be a good hour, and I am sure, under the circumstances, the
+gentlemen will make a point of attending.'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, Dr. Bryerly, the notes shall be sent, and my cousin,
+Lady Knollys, would I am sure attend with me while the will is
+being read&mdash;there would be no objection to her presence?'</p>
+
+<p>'None in the world. I can't be quite sure who are joined with
+me as executors. I'm almost sorry I did not decline; but it is
+too late regretting. One thing you must believe Miss Ruthyn:
+in framing the provisions of the will I was never consulted&mdash;although
+I expostulated against the only very unusual one it
+contains when I heard it. I did so strenuously, but in vain.
+There was one other against which I protested&mdash;having a right
+to do so&mdash;with better effect. In no other way does the will in
+any respect owe anything to my advice or dissuasion. You will
+please believe this; also that I am your friend. Yes, indeed, it
+is my duty.'</p>
+
+<p>The latter words he spoke looking down again, as it were in
+soliloquy; and thanking him, I withdrew.</p>
+
+<p>When I reached the hall, I regretted that I had not asked him
+to state distinctly what arrangements the will made so nearly
+affecting, as it seemed, my relations with my uncle Silas, and
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page138" id="page138"></a>[pg 130]</span>
+
+for a moment I thought of returning and requesting an explanation.
+But then, I bethought me, it was not very long to wait
+till one o'clock&mdash;so <i>he</i>, at least, would think. I went up-stairs,
+therefore, to the 'school-room,' which we used at present as a
+sitting-room, and there I found Cousin Monica awaiting me.</p>
+
+<p>'Are you quite well, dear?' asked Lady Knollys, as she came
+to meet and kiss me.</p>
+
+<p>'Quite well, Cousin Monica.'</p>
+
+<p>'No nonsense, Maud! you're as white as that handkerchief&mdash;what's
+the matter? Are you ill&mdash;are you frightened? Yes, you're
+trembling&mdash;you're terrified, child.'</p>
+
+<p>'I believe I <i>am</i> afraid. There <i>is</i> something in poor papa's will
+about Uncle Silas&mdash;about <i>me</i>. I don't know&mdash;Doctor Bryerly says,
+and he seems so uncomfortable and frightened himself, I am
+sure it is something very bad. I am <i>very</i> much frightened&mdash;I am&mdash;I
+<i>am</i>. Oh, Cousin Monica! you won't leave me?'</p>
+
+<p>So I threw my arms about her neck, clasping her very close,
+and we kissed one another, I crying like a frightened child&mdash;and
+indeed in experience of the world I was no more.</p>
+
+<a name="chap24"></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XXIV</h3>
+
+<h2><i>THE OPENING OF THE WILL</i></h2>
+
+<p>Perhaps the terror with which I anticipated the hour of one,
+and the disclosure of the unknown undertaking to which I had
+bound myself, was irrational and morbid. But, honestly, I doubt
+it; my tendency has always been that of many other weak characters,
+to act impetuously, and afterwards to reproach myself
+for consequences which I have, perhaps, in reality, had little or
+no share in producing.</p>
+
+<p>It was Doctor Bryerly's countenance and manner in alluding
+to a particular provision in my father's will that instinctively
+awed me. I have seen faces in a nightmare that haunted me with
+an indescribable horror, and yet I could not say wherein lay
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page139" id="page139"></a>[pg 131]</span>
+
+the fascination. And so it was with his&mdash;an omen, a menace,
+lurked in its sallow and dismal glance.</p>
+
+<p>'You must not be so frightened, darling,' said Cousin Monica.
+'It is foolish; it <i>is, really</i>; they can't cut off your head, you
+know: they can't really harm you in any essential way. If it
+involved a risk of a little money, you would not mind it; but
+men are such odd creatures&mdash;they measure all sacrifices by money.
+Doctor Bryerly would look just as you describe, if you were
+doomed to lose 500<i>l</i>., and yet it would not kill you.'</p>
+
+<p>A companion like Lady Knollys is reassuring; but I could
+not take her comfort altogether to heart, for I felt that she had
+no great confidence in it herself.</p>
+
+<p>There was a little French clock over the mantelpiece in the
+school-room, which I consulted nearly every minute. It wanted
+now but ten minutes of one.</p>
+
+<p>'Shall we go down to the drawing-room, dear?' said Cousin
+Knollys, who was growing restless like me.</p>
+
+<p>So down-stairs we went, pausing by mutual consent at the
+great window at the stair-head, which looks out on the avenue.
+Mr. Danvers was riding his tall, grey horse at a walk, under the
+wide branches toward the house, and we waited to see him get
+off at the door. In his turn he loitered there, for the good
+Rector's gig, driven by the Curate, was approaching at a smart
+ecclesiastical trot.</p>
+
+<p>Doctor Clay got down, and shook hands with Mr. Danvers;
+and after a word or two, away drove the Curate with that upward
+glance at the windows from which so few can refrain.</p>
+
+<p>I watched the Rector and Mr. Danvers loitering on the steps
+as a patient might the gathering of surgeons who are to perform
+some unknown operation. They, too, glanced up at the window
+as they turned to enter the house, and I drew back. Cousin
+Monica looked at her watch.</p>
+
+<p>'Four minutes only. Shall we go to the drawing-room?'</p>
+
+<p>Waiting for a moment to let the gentlemen get by on the
+way to the study, we, accordingly, went down, and I heard the
+Rector talk of the dangerous state of Grindleston bridge, and
+wondered how he could think of such things at a time of sorrow.
+Everything about those few minutes of suspense remains fresh
+in my recollection. I remember how they loitered and came to
+a halt at the corner of the oak passage leading to the study, and
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page140" id="page140"></a>[pg 132]</span>
+
+how the Rector patted the marble head and smoothed the inflexible
+tresses of William Pitt, as he listened to Mr. Danvers'
+details about the presentment; and then, as they went on, I
+recollect the boisterous nose-blowing that suddenly resounded
+from the passage, and which I then referred, and still refer,
+intuitively to the Rector.</p>
+
+<p>We had not been five minutes in the drawing-room when
+Branston entered, to say that the gentlemen I had mentioned
+were all assembled in the study.</p>
+
+<p>'Come, dear,' said Cousin Monica; and leaning on her arm I
+reached the study door. I entered, followed by her. The gentlemen
+arrested their talk and stood up, those who were sitting,
+and the Rector came forward very gravely, and in low tones, and
+very kindly, greeted me. There was nothing emotional in this
+salutation, for though my father never quarrelled, yet an immense
+distance separated him from all his neighbours, and I
+do not think there lived a human being who knew him at more
+than perhaps a point or two of his character.</p>
+
+<p>Considering how entirely he secluded himself, my father was,
+as many people living remember, wonderfully popular in his
+county. He was neighbourly in everything except in seeing company
+and mixing in society. He had magnificent shooting, of
+which he was extremely liberal. He kept a pack of hounds at
+Dollerton, with which all his side of the county hunted through
+the season. He never refused any claim upon his purse which
+had the slightest show of reason. He subscribed to every fund,
+social, charitable, sporting, agricultural, no matter what, provided
+the honest people of his county took an interest in it,
+and always with a princely hand; and although he shut himself
+up, no one could say that he was inaccessible, for he devoted
+hours daily to answering letters, and his checque-book contributed
+largely in those replies. He had taken his turn long ago
+as High Sheriff; so there was an end of that claim before his
+oddity and shyness had quite secluded him. He refused the Lord-Lieutenancy
+of his county; he declined every post of personal
+distinction connected with it. He could write an able as well as
+a genial letter when he pleased; and his appearances at public
+meetings, dinners, and so forth were made in this epistolary
+fashion, and, when occasion presented, by magnificent contributions
+from his purse.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page141" id="page141"></a>[pg 133]</span>
+
+<p>If my father had been less goodnatured in the sporting relations
+of his vast estates, or less magnificent in dealing with his
+fortune, or even if he had failed to exhibit the intellectual
+force which always characterised his letters on public matters, I
+dare say that his oddities would have condemned him to ridicule,
+and possibly to dislike. But every one of the principal
+gentlemen of his county, whose judgment was valuable, has told
+me that he was a remarkably able man, and that his failure in
+public life was due to his eccentricities, and in no respect to
+deficiency in those peculiar mental qualities which make men
+feared and useful in Parliament.</p>
+
+<p>I could not forbear placing on record this testimony to the
+high mental and the kindly qualities of my beloved father, who
+might have passed for a misanthrope or a fool. He was a man of
+generous nature and powerful intellect, but given up to the oddities
+of a shyness which grew with years and indulgence, and
+became inflexible with his disappointments and affliction.</p>
+
+<p>There was something even in the Rector's kind and ceremonious
+greeting which oddly enough reflected the mixed feelings
+in which awe was not without a place, with which his neighbours
+had regarded my dear father.</p>
+
+<p>Having done the honours&mdash;I am sure looking woefully pale&mdash;I
+had time to glance quietly at the only figure there with which
+I was not tolerably familiar. This was the junior partner in the
+firm of Archer and Sleigh who represented my uncle Silas&mdash;a
+fat and pallid man of six-and-thirty, with a sly and evil countenance,
+and it has always seemed to me, that ill dispositions
+show more repulsively in a pale fat face than in any other.</p>
+
+<p>Doctor Bryerly, standing near the window, was talking in a
+low tone to Mr. Grimston, our attorney.</p>
+
+<p>I heard good Dr. Clay whisper to Mr. Danvers&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Is not that Doctor Bryerly&mdash;the person with the black&mdash;the
+black&mdash;it's a wig, I think&mdash;in the window, talking to Abel Grimston?'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes; that's he.'</p>
+
+<p>'Odd-looking person&mdash;one of the Swedenborg people, is not
+he?' continued the Rector.</p>
+
+<p>'So I am told.'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes,' said the Rector, quietly; and he crossed one gaitered
+leg over the other, and, with fingers interlaced, twiddled his
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page142" id="page142"></a>[pg 134]</span>
+
+thumbs, as he eyed the monstrous sectary under his orthodox
+old brows with a stern inquisitiveness. I thought he was meditating
+theologic battle.</p>
+
+<p>But Dr. Bryerly and Mr. Grimston, still talking together,
+began to walk slowly from the window, and the former said in
+his peculiar grim tones&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'I beg pardon, Miss Ruthyn; perhaps you would be so good
+as to show us which of the cabinets in this room your late lamented
+father pointed out as that to which this key belongs.'</p>
+
+<p>I indicated the oak cabinet.</p>
+
+<p>'Very good, ma'am&mdash;very good,' said Doctor Bryerly, as he
+fumbled the key into the lock.</p>
+
+<p>Cousin Monica could not forbear murmuring&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Dear! what a brute!'</p>
+
+<p>The junior partner, with his dumpy hands in his pocket,
+poked his fat face over Mr. Grimston's shoulder, and peered
+into the cabinet as the door opened.</p>
+
+<p>The search was not long. A handsome white paper enclosure,
+neatly tied up in pink tape, and sealed with large red seals,
+was inscribed in my dear father's hand:&mdash;'Will of Austin R.
+Ruthyn, of Knowl.' Then, in smaller characters, the date, and
+in the corner a note&mdash;'This will was drawn from my instructions
+by Gaunt, Hogg, and Hatchett, Solicitors, Great Woburn Street,
+London, A.R.R.'</p>
+
+<p>'Let <i>me</i> have a squint at that indorsement, please, gentlemen,'
+half whispered the unpleasant person who represented my uncle
+Silas.</p>
+
+<p>''<i>Tisn't</i> an indorsement. There, look&mdash;a memorandum on an
+envelope,' said Abel Grimston, gruffly.</p>
+
+<p>'Thanks&mdash;all right&mdash;that will do,' he responded, himself
+making a pencil-note of it, in a long clasp-book which he drew
+from his coat-pocket.</p>
+
+<p>The tape was carefully cut, and the envelope removed without
+tearing the writing, and forth came the will, at sight of
+which my heart swelled and fluttered up to my lips, and then
+dropped down dead as it seemed into its place.</p>
+
+<p>'Mr. Grimston, you will please to read it,' said Doctor Bryerly,
+who took the direction of the process. 'I will sit beside you,
+and as we go along you will be good enough to help us to
+understand technicalities, and give us a lift where we want it.'</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page143" id="page143"></a>[pg 135]</span>
+
+<p>'It's a short will,' said Mr. Grimston, turning over the sheets
+'<i>very</i>&mdash;considering. Here's a codicil.'</p>
+
+<p>'I did not see that,' said Doctor Bryerly.</p>
+
+<p>'Dated only a month ago.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh!' said Doctor Bryerly, putting on his spectacles. Uncle
+Silas's ambassador, sitting close behind, had insinuated his face
+between Doctor Bryerly's and the reader's of the will.</p>
+
+<p>'On behalf of the surviving brother of the testator,' interposed
+the delegate, just as Abel Grimston had cleared his voice to begin,
+'I take leave to apply for a copy of this instrument. It
+will save a deal of trouble, if the young lady as represents the
+testator here has no objection.'</p>
+
+<p>'You can have as many copies as you like when the will is
+proved,' said Mr. Grimston.</p>
+
+<p>'I know that; but supposing as all's right, where's the objection?'</p>
+
+<p>'Just the objection there always is to acting irregular,' replied
+Mr. Grimston.</p>
+
+<p>'You don't object to act disobliging, it seems.'</p>
+
+<p>'You can do as I told you,' replied Mr. Grimston.</p>
+
+<p>'Thank you for nothing,' murmured Mr. Sleigh.</p>
+
+<p>And the reading of the will proceeded, while he made elaborate
+notes of its contents in his capacious pocket-book.</p>
+
+<p>'I, Austin Alymer Ruthyn Ruthyn, being, I thank God, of
+sound mind and perfect recollection,' &amp;c, &amp;c.; and then came a
+bequest of all his estates real, chattels real, copyrights, leases,
+chattels, money, rights, interests, reversions, powers, plate, pictures,
+and estates and possessions whatsoever, to four persons&mdash;Lord
+Ilbury, Mr. Penrose Creswell of Creswell, Sir William Aylmer,
+Bart., and Hans Emmanuel Bryerly, Doctor of Medicine,
+'to have and to hold,' &amp;c. &amp;c. Whereupon my Cousin Monica
+ejaculated 'Eh?' and Doctor Bryerly interposed&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Four trustees, ma'am. We take little but trouble&mdash;you'll see;
+go on.'</p>
+
+<p>Then it came out that all this multifarious splendour was bequeathed
+in trust for me, subject to a bequest of 15,000<i>l</i>. to his
+only brother, Silas Aylmer Ruthyn, and 3,500<i>l</i>. each to the two
+children of his said brother; and lest any doubt should arise
+by reason of his, the testator's decease as to the continuance of
+the arrangement by way of lease under which he enjoyed his
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page144" id="page144"></a>[pg 136]</span>
+
+present habitation and farm, he left him the use of the mansion-house
+and lands of Bartram-Haugh, in the county of Derbyshire,
+and of the lands of so-and-so and so-and-so, adjoining thereto,
+in the said county, for the term of his natural life, on payment
+of a rent of 5<i>s</i>. per annum, and subject to the like conditions as
+to waste, &amp;c., as are expressed in the said lease.</p>
+
+<p>'By your leave, may I ask is them dispositions all the devises
+to my client, which is his only brother, as it seems to me you've
+seen the will before?' enquired Mr. Sleigh.</p>
+
+<p>'Nothing more, unless there is something in the codicil,' answered
+Dr. Bryerly.</p>
+
+<p>But there was no mention of him in the codicil.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Sleigh threw himself back in his chair, and sneered, with
+the end of his pencil between his teeth. I hope his disappointment
+was altogether for his client. Mr. Danvers fancied, he afterwards
+said, that he had probably expected legacies which might
+have involved litigation, or, at all events, law costs, and perhaps
+a stewardship; but this was very barren; and Mr. Danvers
+also remarked, that the man was a very low practitioner, and
+wondered how my uncle Silas could have commissioned such a
+person to represent him.</p>
+
+<p>So far the will contained nothing of which my most partial
+friend could have complained. The codicil, too, devised only
+legacies to servants, and a sum of 1,000<i>l</i>., with a few kind words,
+to Monica, Lady Knollys, and a further sum of 3,000<i>l</i>. to Dr.
+Bryerly, stating that the legatee had prevailed upon him to
+erase from the draft of his will a bequest to him to that amount,
+but that, in consideration of all the trouble devolving upon him
+as trustee, he made that bequest by his codicil; and with these
+arrangements the permanent disposition of his property was
+completed.</p>
+
+<p>But that direction to which he and Doctor Bryerly had darkly
+alluded, was now to come, and certainly it was a strange one.
+It appointed my uncle Silas my sole guardian, with full parental
+authority over me until I should have reached the age of twenty-one,
+up to which time I was to reside under his care at Bartram-Haugh,
+and it directed the trustees to pay over to him yearly a
+sum of 2,000<i>l</i>. during the continuance of the guardianship for
+my suitable maintenance, education, and expenses.</p>
+
+<p>You have now a sufficient outline of my father's will. The only
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page145" id="page145"></a>[pg 137]</span>
+
+thing I painfully felt in this arrangement was, the break-up&mdash;the
+dismay that accompanies the disappearance of home. Otherwise,
+there was something rather pleasurable in the idea. As long as I
+could remember, I had always cherished the same mysterious
+curiosity about my uncle, and the same longing to behold him.
+This was about to be gratified. Then there was my cousin Milicent,
+about my own age. My life had been so lonely, that I had acquired
+none of those artificial habits that induce the fine-lady nature&mdash;a
+second, and not always a very amiable one. She had lived a solitary
+life, like me. What rambles and readings
+we should have together! what confidences and castle-buildings!
+and then there was a new country and a fine old place, and the
+sense of interest and adventure that always accompanies change
+in our early youth.</p>
+
+<p>There were four letters all alike with large, red seals, addressed
+respectively to each of the trustees named in the will.
+There was also one addressed to Silas Alymer Ruthyn, Esq.,
+Bartram-Haugh Manor, &amp;c. &amp;c., which Mr. Sleigh offered to
+deliver. But Doctor Bryerly thought the post-office was the more
+regular channel. Uncle Silas's representative was questioning
+Doctor Bryerly in an under-tone.</p>
+
+<p>I turned my eyes on my cousin Monica&mdash;I felt so inexpressibly
+relieved&mdash;expecting to see a corresponding expression in her
+countenance. But I was startled. She looked ghastly and angry.
+I stared in her face, not knowing what to think. Could the will
+have personally disappointed her? Such doubts, though we
+fancy in after-life they belong to maturity and experience only,
+do sometimes cross our minds in youth. But the suggestion wronged
+Lady Knollys, who neither expected nor wanted anything,
+being rich, childless, generous, and frank. It was the unexpected
+character of her countenance that scared me, and for
+a moment the shock called up corresponding moral images.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Knollys, starting up, raised her head, so as to see over
+Mr. Sleigh's shoulder, and biting her pale lip, she cleared her
+voice and demanded&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Doctor Bryerly, pray, sir, is the reading concluded?'</p>
+
+<p>'Concluded? Quite. Yes, nothing more,' he answered with a
+nod, and continued his talk with Mr. Danvers and Abel Grimston.</p>
+
+<p>'And to whom,' said Lady Knollys, with an effort, 'will the
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page146" id="page146"></a>[pg 138]</span>
+
+property belong, in case&mdash;in case my little cousin here should
+die before she comes of age?'</p>
+
+<p>'Eh? Well&mdash;wouldn't it go to the heir-at-law and next of
+kin?' said Doctor Bryerly, turning to Abel Grimston.</p>
+
+<p>'Ay&mdash;to be sure,' said the attorney, thoughtfully.</p>
+
+<p>'And who is that?' pursued my cousin.</p>
+
+<p>'Well, her uncle, Mr. Silas Ruthyn. He's both heir-at-law
+and next of kin,' pursued Abel Grimston.</p>
+
+<p>'Thank you,' said Lady Knollys.</p>
+
+<p>Doctor Clay came forward, bowing very low, in his standing
+collar and single-breasted coat, and graciously folded my hand
+in his soft wrinkled grasp&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Allow me, my dear Miss Ruthyn, while expressing my regret
+that we are to lose you from among our little flock&mdash;though I
+trust but for a short, a very short time&mdash;to say how I rejoice at the
+particular arrangement indicated by the will we have just heard
+read. My curate, William Fairfield, resided for some years in
+the same spiritual capacity in the neighbourhood of your, I will
+say, admirable uncle, with occasional intercourse with whom he
+was favoured&mdash;may I not say blessed?&mdash;a true Christian Churchman&mdash;a
+Christian gentleman. Can I say more? A most happy,
+happy choice.' A very low bow here, with eyes nearly closed,
+and a shake of the head. 'Mrs. Clay will do herself the honour
+of waiting upon you, to pay her respects, before you leave Knowl
+for your temporary sojourn in another sphere.'</p>
+
+<p>So, with another deep bow&mdash;for I had become a great personage
+all at once&mdash;he let go my hand cautiously and delicately,
+as if he were setting down a curious china tea-cup. And I courtesied
+low to him, not knowing what to say, and then to the
+assembly generally, who all bowed. And Cousin Monica whispered,
+briskly, 'Come away,' and took my hand with a very cold
+and rather damp one, and led me from the room.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page147" id="page147"></a>[pg 139]</span>
+
+<a name="chap25"></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XXV</h3>
+
+<h2><i>I HEAR FROM UNCLE SILAS</i></h2>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>Without saying a word, Cousin Monica accompanied me to the
+school-room, and on entering she shut the door, not with a
+spirited clang, but quietly and determinedly.</p>
+
+<p>'Well, dear,' she said, with the same pale, excited countenance,
+'that certainly is a sensible and charitable arrangement.
+I could not have believed it possible, had I not heard it with
+my ears.'</p>
+
+<p>'About my going to Bartram-Haugh?'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, exactly so, under Silas Ruthyn's guardianship, to spend
+two&mdash;<i>three</i>&mdash;of the most important years of your education and
+your life under that roof. Is <i>that</i>, my dear, what was in your
+mind when you were so alarmed about what you were to be
+called upon to do, or undergo?'</p>
+
+<p>'No, no, indeed. I had no notion what it might be. I was
+afraid of something serious,' I answered.</p>
+
+<p>'And, my dear Maud, did not your poor father speak to you as
+if it <i>was</i> something serious?' said she. 'And so it <i>is</i>, I can tell
+you, something serious, and <i>very</i> serious; and I think it ought to
+be prevented, and I certainly <i>will</i> prevent it if I possibly can.'</p>
+
+<p>I was puzzled utterly by the intensity of Lady Knollys' protest.
+I looked at her, expecting an explanation of her meaning; but
+she was silent, looking steadfastly on the jewels on her right-hand
+fingers, with which she was drumming a staccato march
+on the table, very pale, with gleaming eyes, evidently thinking
+deeply. I began to think she <i>had</i> a prejudice against my uncle
+Silas.</p>
+
+<p>'He is not very rich,' I commenced.</p>
+
+<p>'Who?' said Lady Knollys.</p>
+
+<p>'Uncle Silas,' I replied.</p>
+
+<p>'No, certainly; he's in debt,' she answered.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page148" id="page148"></a>[pg 140]</span>
+
+<p>'But then, how very highly Doctor Clay spoke of him!' I pursued.</p>
+
+<p>'Don't talk of Doctor Clay. I do think that man is the greatest
+goose I ever heard talk. I have no patience with such men,'
+she replied.</p>
+
+<p>I tried to remember what particular nonsense Doctor Clay had
+uttered, and I could recollect nothing, unless his eulogy upon
+my uncle were to be classed with that sort of declamation.</p>
+
+<p>'Danvers is a very proper man and a good accountant, I dare say;
+but he is either a very deep person, or a fool&mdash;<i>I</i> believe
+a fool. As for your attorney, I suppose he knows his business, and
+also his interest, and I have no doubt he will consult it. I begin
+to think the best man among them, the shrewdest and the most reliable,
+is that vulgar visionary in the black wig. I saw him look at you, Maud,
+and I liked his face, though it is abominably ugly and vulgar, and
+cunning, too; but I think he's a just man, and I dare say with
+right feelings&mdash;I'm <i>sure</i> he has.'</p>
+
+<p>I was quite at a loss to divine the gist of my cousin's criticism.</p>
+
+<p>'I'll have some talk with Dr. Bryerly; I feel convinced he
+takes my view, and we must really think what had best be
+done.'</p>
+
+<p>'Is there anything in the will, Cousin Monica, that does not appear?'
+I asked, for I was growing very uneasy. 'I wish you would tell me. What
+view do you mean?'</p>
+
+<p>'No view in particular; the view that a desolate old park, and the house
+of a <i>neglected</i> old man, who is very poor, and has been desperately
+foolish, is not the right place for you, particularly at your years. It is
+quite shocking, and I <i>will</i> speak to Doctor Bryerly. May I ring
+the bell, dear?'</p>
+
+<p>'Certainly;' and I rang it.</p>
+
+<p>'When does he leave Knowl?'</p>
+
+<p>I could not tell. Mrs. Rusk, however, was sent for, and she could tell us
+that he had announced his intention of taking the night train from
+Drackleton, and was to leave Knowl for that station at half-past
+six o'clock.</p>
+
+<p>'May Rusk give or send him a message from me, dear?' asked Lady Knollys.</p>
+
+<p>Of course she might.</p>
+
+<p>'Then please let him know that I request he will be so good
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page149" id="page149"></a>[pg 141]</span>
+
+as to allow me a very few minutes, just to say a word before he
+goes.'</p>
+
+<p>'You kind cousin!' I said, placing my two hands on her
+shoulders, and looking earnestly in her face; 'you are anxious
+about me, more than you say. Won't you tell me why? I am
+much more unhappy, really, in ignorance, than if I understood
+the cause.'</p>
+
+<p>'Well, dear, haven't I told you? The two or three years of
+your life which are to form you are destined to be passed in
+utter loneliness, and, I am sure, neglect. You can't estimate
+the disadvantage of such an arrangement. It is full of disadvantages.
+How it could have entered the head of poor Austin&mdash;although
+I should not say that, for I am sure I do understand it,&mdash;but
+how he could for any purpose have directed such a measure
+is quite inconceivable. I never heard of anything so foolish
+and abominable, and I will prevent it if I can.'</p>
+
+<p>At that moment Mrs. Rusk announced that Doctor Bryerly
+would see Lady Knollys at any time she pleased before his
+departure.</p>
+
+<p>'It shall be this moment, then,' said the energetic lady, and
+up she stood, and made that hasty general adjustment before
+the glass, which, no matter under what circumstances, and before
+what sort of creature one's appearance is to be made, is a
+duty that every woman owes to herself. And I heard her a moment
+after, at the stair-head, directing Branston to let Dr. Bryerly
+know that she awaited him in the drawing-room.</p>
+
+<p>And now she was gone, and I began to wonder and speculate.
+Why should my cousin Monica make all this fuss about,
+after all, a very natural arrangement? My uncle, whatever he
+might have been, was now a good man&mdash;a religious man&mdash;perhaps
+a little severe; and with this thought a dark streak fell across
+my sky.</p>
+
+<p>A cruel disciplinarian! had I not read of such characters?&mdash;lock
+and key, bread and water, and solitude! To sit locked up
+all night in a dark out-of-the-way room, in a great, ghosty, old-fashioned
+house, with no one nearer than the other wing. What
+years of horror in one such night! Would not this explain my
+poor father's hesitation, and my cousin Monica's apparently
+disproportioned opposition? When an idea of terror presents
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page150" id="page150"></a>[pg 142]</span>
+
+itself to a young person's mind, it transfixes and fills the vision,
+without respect of probabilities or reason.</p>
+
+<p>My uncle was now a terrible old martinet, with long Bible
+lessons, lectures, pages of catechism, sermons to be conned by
+rote, and an awful catalogue of punishments for idleness, and
+what would seem to him impiety. I was going, then, to a frightful
+isolated reformatory, where for the first time in my life I
+should be subjected to a rigorous and perhaps barbarous discipline.</p>
+
+<p>All this was an exhalation of fancy, but it quite overcame
+me. I threw myself, in my solitude, on the floor, upon my knees,
+and prayed for deliverance&mdash;prayed that Cousin Monica might
+prevail with Doctor Bryerly, and both on my behalf with the
+Lord Chancellor, or the High Sheriff, or whoever else my proper
+deliverer might be; and when my cousin returned, she found me
+quite in an agony.</p>
+
+<p>'Why, you little fool! what fancy has taken possession of you
+now?' she cried.</p>
+
+<p>And when my new terror came to light, she actually laughed
+a little to reassure me, and she said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'My dear child, your uncle Silas will never put you through
+your duty to your neighbour; all the time you are under his
+roof you'll have idleness and liberty enough, and too much, I
+fear. It is neglect, my dear, not discipline, that I'm afraid of.'</p>
+
+<p>'I think, dear Cousin Monica, you are afraid of something
+more than neglect,' I said, relieved, however.</p>
+
+<p>'I <i>am</i> afraid of more than neglect,' she replied promptly;
+'but I hope my fears may turn out illusory, and that possibly
+they may be avoided. And now, for a few hours at least, let us
+think of something else. I rather like that Doctor Bryerly. I
+could not get him to say what I wanted. I don't think he's
+Scotch, but he is very cautious, and I am sure, though he would
+not say so, that he thinks of the matter exactly as I do. He says
+that those fine people, who are named as his co-trustees, won't
+take any trouble, and will leave everything to him, and I am
+sure he is right. So we must not quarrel with him, Maud, nor
+call him hard names, although he certainly is intolerably vulgar
+and ugly, and at times very nearly impertinent&mdash;I suppose without
+knowing, or indeed very much caring.'</p>
+
+<p>We had a good deal to think of, and talked incessantly. There
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page151" id="page151"></a>[pg 143]</span>
+
+were bursts and interruptions of grief, and my kind cousin's
+consolations. I have often since been so lectured for giving way
+to grief, that I wonder at the patience exercised by her during
+this irksome visit. Then there was some reading of that book
+whose claims are always felt in the terrible days of affliction.
+After that we had a walk in the yew garden, that quaint little
+cloistered quadrangle&mdash;the most solemn, sad, and antiquated of
+gardens.</p>
+
+<p>'And now, my dear, I must really leave you for two or three
+hours. I have ever so many letters to write, and my people must
+think I'm dead by this time.'</p>
+
+<p>So till tea-time I had poor Mary Quince, with her gushes of
+simple prattle and her long fits of vacant silence, for my companion.
+And such a one, who can con over by rote the old
+friendly gossip about the dead, talk about their ways, and looks,
+and likings, without much psychologic refinement, but with a
+simple admiration and liking that never measured them critically,
+but always with faith and love, is in general about as comfortable
+a companion as one can find for the common moods of
+grief.</p>
+
+<p>It is not easy to recall in calm and happy hours the sensations
+of an acute sorrow that is past. Nothing, by the merciful ordinance
+of God, is more difficult to remember than pain. One or
+two great agonies of that time I do remember, and they remain
+to testify of the rest, and convince me, though I can see it no
+more, how terrible all that period was.</p>
+
+<p>Next day was the funeral, that appalling necessity; smuggled
+away in whispers, by black familiars, unresisting, the beloved
+one leaves home, without a farewell, to darken those doors no
+more; henceforward to lie outside, far away, and forsaken,
+through the drowsy heats of summer, through days of snow and
+nights of tempest, without light or warmth, without a voice
+near. Oh, Death, king of terrors! The body quakes and the
+spirit faints before thee. It is vain, with hands clasped over our
+eyes, to scream our reclamation; the horrible image will not
+be excluded. We have just the word spoken eighteen hundred
+years ago, and our trembling faith. And through the broken
+vault the gleam of the Star of Bethlehem.</p>
+
+<p>I was glad in a sort of agony when it was over. So long as it
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page152" id="page152"></a>[pg 144]</span>
+
+remained to be done, something of the catastrophe was still
+suspended. Now it was all over.</p>
+
+<p>The house so strangely empty. No owner&mdash;no master! I with
+my strange momentary liberty, bereft of that irreplaceable love,
+never quite prized until it is lost. Most people have experienced
+the dismay that underlies sorrow under such circumstances.</p>
+
+<p>The apartment of the poor outcast from life is now dismantled.
+Beds and curtains taken down, and furniture displaced; carpets
+removed, windows open and doors locked; the bedroom and
+anteroom were henceforward, for many a day, uninhabited.
+Every shocking change smote my heart like a reproach.</p>
+
+<p>I saw that day that Cousin Monica had been crying for the
+first time, I think, since her arrival at Knowl; and I loved her
+more for it, and felt consoled. My tears have often been arrested
+by the sight of another person weeping, and I never could explain
+why. But I believe that many persons experience the same
+odd reaction.</p>
+
+<p>The funeral was conducted, in obedience to his brief but
+peremptory direction, very privately and with little expense.
+But of course there was an attendance, and the tenants of the
+Knowl estate also followed the hearse to the mausoleum, as it is
+called, in the park, where he was laid beside my dear mother.
+And so the repulsive ceremonial of that dreadful day was over.
+The grief remained, but there was rest from the fatigue of agitation,
+and a comparative calm supervened.</p>
+
+<p>It was now the stormy equinoctial weather that sounds the
+wild dirge of autumn, and marches the winter in. I love, and
+always did, that grand undefinable music, threatening and bewailing,
+with its strange soul of liberty and desolation.</p>
+
+<p>By this night's mail, as we sat listening to the storm, in the
+drawing-room at Knowl, there reached me a large letter with
+a great black seal, and a wonderfully deep-black border, like
+a widow's crape. I did not recognise the handwriting; but on
+opening the funereal missive, it proved to be from my uncle
+Silas, and was thus expressed:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>'M<small>Y</small> D<small>EAREST</small> N<small>IECE</small>,&mdash;This letter will reach you, probably, on
+the day which consigns the mortal remains of my beloved
+brother, Austin, your dear father, to the earth. Sad ceremony,
+from taking my mournful part in which I am excluded by years,
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page153" id="page153"></a>[pg 145]</span>
+
+distance, and broken health. It will, I trust, at this season of
+desolation, be not unwelcome to remember that a substitute,
+imperfect&mdash;unworthy&mdash;but most affectionately zealous, for the
+honoured parent whom you have just lost, has been appointed,
+in me, your uncle, by his will. I am aware that you were present
+during the reading of it, but I think it will be for our mutual
+satisfaction that our new and more affectionate relations should
+be forthwith entered upon. My conscience and your safety, and
+I trust convenience, will thereby be consulted. You will, my dear
+niece, remain at Knowl, until a few simple arrangements shall
+have been completed for your reception at this place. I will then
+settle the details of your little journey to us, which shall be performed
+as comfortably and easily as possible. I humbly pray
+that this affliction may be sanctified to us all, and that in our
+new duties we may be supported, comforted, and directed. I
+need not remind you that I now stand to you <i>in loco parentis</i>,
+which means in the relation of father, and you will not forget
+that you are to remain at Knowl until you hear further from me.</p>
+
+<p>'I remain, my dear niece, your most affectionate uncle and
+guardian,</p>
+
+<p class="signature">S<small>ILAS</small> R<small>UTHYN</small>.'</p>
+
+<p>'P.S.&mdash;Pray present my respects to Lady Knollys, who, I
+understand, is sojourning at Knowl. I would observe that a
+lady who cherishes, I have reason to fear, unfriendly feelings
+against your uncle, is not the most desirable companion for his
+ward. But upon the express condition that I am not made the
+subject of your discussions&mdash;a distinction which could not
+conduce to your forming a just and respectful estimate of me&mdash;I
+do not interpose my authority to bring your intercourse to an
+immediate close.'</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>As I read this postscript, my cheek tingled as if I had received
+a box on the ear. Uncle Silas was as yet a stranger. The menace
+of authority was new and sudden, and I felt with a pang of mortification
+the full force of the position in which my dear father's
+will had placed me.</p>
+
+<p>I was silent, and handed the letter to my cousin, who read it
+with a kind of smile until she came, as I supposed, to the postscript,
+when her countenance, on which my eyes were fixed,
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page154" id="page154"></a>[pg 146]</span>
+
+changed, and with flushed cheeks she knocked the hand that
+held the letter on the table before her, and exclaimed&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Did I ever hear! Well, if this isn't impertinence! <i>What</i> an
+old man that is!'</p>
+
+<p>There was a pause, during which Lady Knollys held her head
+high with a frown, and sniffed a little.</p>
+
+<p>'I did not intend to talk about him, but now I <i>will</i>. I'll talk
+away just whatever I like; and I'll stay here just as long as you
+let me, Maud, and you need not be one atom afraid of him. Our
+intercourse to an "immediate close," indeed! I only wish he
+were here. He should hear something!'</p>
+
+<p>And Cousin Monica drank off her entire cup of tea at one
+draught, and then she said, more in her own way&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'I'm better!' and drew a long breath, and then she laughed
+a little in a waggish defiance. 'I wish we had him here, Maud,
+and <i>would</i> not we give him a bit of our minds! And this before
+the poor will is so much as proved!'</p>
+
+<p>'I am almost glad he wrote that postscript; for although I
+don't think he has any authority in that matter while I am under
+my own roof,' I said, extemporising a legal opinion, 'and, therefore,
+shan't obey him, it has somehow opened my eyes to my real
+situation.'</p>
+
+<p>I sighed, I believe, very desolately, for Lady Knollys came
+over and kissed me very gently and affectionately.</p>
+
+<p>'It really seems, Maud, as if he had a supernatural sense, and
+heard things through the air over fifty miles of heath and hill.
+You remember how, just as he was probably writing that very
+postscript yesterday, I was urging you to come and stay with
+me, and planning to move Dr. Bryerly in our favour. And so I
+will, Maud, and to me you <i>shall</i> come&mdash;my guest, mind&mdash;I should
+be so delighted; and really if Silas is under a cloud, it has been
+his own doing, and I don't see that it is your business to fight
+his battle. He can't live very long. The suspicion, whatever it is
+dies with him, and what could poor dear Austin prove by his
+will but what everybody knew quite well before&mdash;his own strong
+belief in Silas's innocence? What an awful storm! The room
+trembles. Don't you like the sound? What they used to call
+'wolving' in the old organ at Dorminster!'</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page155" id="page155"></a>[pg 147]</span>
+
+<a name="chap26"></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XXVI</h3>
+
+<h2><i>THE STORY OF UNCLE SILAS</i></h2>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>And so it was like the yelling of phantom hounds and hunters,
+and the thunder of their coursers in the air&mdash;a furious, grand
+and supernatural music, which in my fancy made a suitable accompaniment
+to the discussion of that enigmatical
+person&mdash;martyr&mdash;angel&mdash;demon&mdash;Uncle Silas&mdash;with whom my fate was now
+so strangely linked, and whom I had begun to fear.</p>
+
+<p>'The storm blows from that point,' I said, indicating it with
+my hand and eye, although the window shutters and curtains
+were closed. 'I saw all the trees bend that way this evening.
+That way stands the great lonely wood, where my darling father
+and mother lie. Oh, how dreadful on nights like this, to think
+of them&mdash;a vault!&mdash;damp, and dark, and solitary&mdash;under the
+storm.'</p>
+
+<p>Cousin Monica looked wistfully in the same direction, and
+with a short sigh she said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'We think too much of the poor remains, and too little of
+the spirit which lives for ever. I am sure they are happy.' And
+she sighed again. 'I wish I dare hope as confidently for myself.
+Yes, Maud, it is sad. We are such materialists, we can't help
+feeling so. We forget how well it is for us that our present bodies
+are not to last always. They are constructed for a time and place
+of trouble&mdash;plainly mere temporary machines that wear out,
+constantly exhibiting failure and decay, and with such tremendous
+capacity for pain. The body lies alone, and so it ought, for
+it is plainly its good Creator's will; it is only the tabernacle, not
+the person, who is clothed upon after death, Saint Paul says,
+"with a house which is from heaven." So Maud, darling, although
+the thought will trouble us again and again, there is nothing in
+it; and the poor mortal body is only the cold ruin of a habitation
+which <i>they</i> have forsaken before we do. So this great wind,
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page156" id="page156"></a>[pg 148]</span>
+
+you say, is blowing toward us from the wood there. If so,
+Maud, it is blowing from Bartram-Haugh, too, over the trees
+and chimneys of that old place, and the mysterious old man,
+who is quite right in thinking I don't like him; and I can fancy
+him an old enchanter in his castle, waving his familiar spirits
+on the wind to fetch and carry tidings of our occupations here.'</p>
+
+<p>I lifted my head and listened to the storm, dying away in
+the distance sometimes&mdash;sometimes swelling and pealing around
+and above us&mdash;and through the dark and solitude my thoughts
+sped away to Bartram-Haugh and Uncle Silas.</p>
+
+<p>'This letter,' I said at last, 'makes me feel differently. I think
+he is a stern old man&mdash;is he?'</p>
+
+<p>'It is twenty years, now, since I saw him,' answered Lady
+Knollys. 'I did not choose to visit at his house.'</p>
+
+<p>'Was that before the dreadful occurrence at Bartram-Haugh?'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes&mdash;before, dear. He was not a reformed rake, but only a
+ruined one then. Austin was very good to him. Mr. Danvers
+says it is quite unaccountable how Silas can have made away
+with the immense sums he got from his brother from time to
+time without benefiting himself in the least. But, my dear, he
+played; and trying to help a man who plays, and is unlucky&mdash;and
+some men are, I believe, habitually unlucky&mdash;is like trying
+to fill a vessel that has no bottom. I think, by-the-by, my hopeful
+nephew, Charles Oakley, plays. Then Silas went most unjustifiably into all
+manner of speculations, and your poor father
+had to pay everything. He lost something quite astounding in
+that bank that ruined so many country gentlemen&mdash;poor Sir
+Harry Shackleton, in Yorkshire, had to sell half his estate. But
+your kind father went on helping him, up to his marriage&mdash;I
+mean in that extravagant way which was really totally useless.'</p>
+
+<p>'Has my aunt been long dead?'</p>
+
+<p>'Twelve or fifteen years&mdash;more, indeed&mdash;she died before your
+poor mamma. She was very unhappy, and I am sure would have
+given her right hand she had never married Silas.'</p>
+
+<p>'Did you like her?'</p>
+
+<p>'No, dear; she was a coarse, vulgar woman.'</p>
+
+<p>'Coarse and vulgar, and Uncle Silas's wife!' I echoed in extreme surprise,
+for Uncle Silas was a man of fashion&mdash;a beau
+in his day&mdash;and might have married women of good birth and
+fortune, I had no doubt, and so I expressed myself.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page157" id="page157"></a>[pg 149]</span>
+
+<p>'Yes, dear; so he might, and poor dear Austin was very
+anxious he should, and would have helped him with a handsome
+settlement, I dare say, but he chose to marry the daughter of a
+Denbigh innkeeper.'</p>
+
+<p>'How utterly incredible!' I exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>'Not the least incredible, dear&mdash;a kind of thing not at all
+so uncommon as you fancy.'</p>
+
+<p>'What!&mdash;a gentleman of fashion and refinement marry a
+person&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'A barmaid!&mdash;just so,' said Lady Knollys. 'I think I could
+count half a dozen men of fashion who, to my knowledge, have
+ruined themselves just in a similar way.'</p>
+
+<p>'Well, at all events, it must be allowed that in this he proved
+himself altogether unworldly.'</p>
+
+<p>'Not a bit unworldly, but very vicious,' replied Cousin Monica,
+with a careless little laugh. 'She was very beautiful, curiously beautiful,
+for a person in her station. She was very like
+that Lady Hamilton who was Nelson's sorceress&mdash;elegantly
+beautiful, but perfectly low and stupid. I believe, to do him
+justice, he only intended to ruin her; but she was cunning
+enough to insist upon marriage. Men who have never in all
+their lives denied themselves the indulgence of a single fancy,
+cost what it may, will not be baulked even by that condition if
+the <i>penchant</i> be only violent enough.'</p>
+
+<p>I did not half understand this piece of worldly psychology, at
+which Lady Knollys seemed to laugh.</p>
+
+<p>'Poor Silas, certainly he struggled honestly against the consequences, for
+he tried after the honeymoon to prove the marriage
+bad. But the Welsh parson and the innkeeper papa were too
+strong for him, and the young lady was able to hold her struggling
+swain fast in that respectable noose&mdash;and a pretty prize
+he proved!'</p>
+
+<p>'And she died, poor thing, broken-hearted, I heard.'</p>
+
+<p>'She died, at all events, about ten years after her marriage;
+but I really can't say about her heart. She certainly had enough
+ill-usage, I believe, to kill her; but I don't know that she had
+feeling enough to die of it, if it had not been that she drank: I
+am told that Welsh women often do. There was jealousy, of
+course, and brutal quarrelling, and all sorts of horrid stories. I
+visited at Bartram-Haugh for a year or two, though no one
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page158" id="page158"></a>[pg 150]</span>
+
+else would. But when that sort of thing began, of course I gave
+it up; it was out of the question. I don't think poor Austin
+ever knew how bad it was. And then came that odious business
+about wretched Mr. Charke. You know he&mdash;he committed suicide
+at Bartram.'</p>
+
+<p>'I never heard about that,' I said; and we both paused, and
+she looked sternly at the fire, and the storm roared and ha-ha-ed
+till the old house shook again.</p>
+
+<p>'But Uncle Silas could not help that,' I said at last.</p>
+
+<p>'No, he could not help it,' she acquiesced unpleasantly.</p>
+
+<p>'And Uncle Silas was'&mdash;I paused in a sort of fear.</p>
+
+<p>'He was suspected by some people of having killed him'&mdash;she
+completed the sentence.</p>
+
+<p>There was another long pause here, during which the storm
+outside bellowed and hooted like an angry mob roaring at the
+windows for a victim. An intolerable and sickening sensation
+overpowered me.</p>
+
+<p>'But <i>you</i> did not suspect him, Cousin Knollys?' I said,
+trembling very much.</p>
+
+<p>'No,' she answered very sharply. 'I told you so before. Of
+course I did not.'</p>
+
+<p>There was another silence.</p>
+
+<p>'I wish, Cousin Monica,' I said, drawing close to her, 'you
+had not said <i>that</i> about Uncle Silas being like a wizard, and
+sending his spirits on the wind to listen. But I'm very glad
+you never suspected him.' I insinuated my cold hand into hers,
+and looked into her face I know not with what expression. She
+looked down into mine with a hard, haughty stare, I thought.</p>
+
+<p>'Of <i>course</i> I never suspected him; and <i>never</i> ask me
+<i>that</i> question again, Maud Ruthyn.'</p>
+
+<p>Was it family pride, or what was it, that gleamed so fiercely
+from her eyes as she said this? I was frightened&mdash;I was wounded&mdash;I
+burst into tears.</p>
+
+<p>'What is my darling crying for? I did not mean to be cross.
+<i>Was</i> I cross?' said this momentary phantom of a grim Lady
+Knollys, in an instant translated again into kind, pleasant
+Cousin Monica, with her arms about my neck.</p>
+
+<p>'No, no, indeed&mdash;only I thought I had vexed you; and, I believe, thinking
+of Uncle Silas makes me nervous, and I can't help thinking of him nearly
+always.'</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page159" id="page159"></a>[pg 151]</span>
+
+<p>'Nor can I, although we might both easily find something
+better to think of. Suppose we try?' said Lady Knollys.</p>
+
+<p>'But, first, I must know a little more about that Mr. Charke,
+and what circumstances enabled Uncle Silas's enemies to found
+on his death that wicked slander, which has done no one any
+good, and caused some persons so much misery. There is Uncle
+Silas, I may say, ruined by it; and we all know how it darkened
+the life of my dear father.'</p>
+
+<p>'People will talk, my dear. Your uncle Silas had injured
+himself before that in the opinion of the people of his county.
+He was a black sheep, in fact. Very bad stories were told and
+believed of him. His marriage certainly was a disadvantage, you
+know, and the miserable scenes that went on in his disreputable
+house&mdash;all that predisposed people to believe ill of him.'</p>
+
+<p>'How long is it since it happened?'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, a long time; I think before you were born,' answered
+she.</p>
+
+<p>'And the injustice still lives&mdash;they have not forgotten it yet?'
+said I, for such a period appeared to me long enough to have
+consigned anything in its nature perishable to oblivion.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Knollys smiled.</p>
+
+<p>'Tell me, like a darling cousin, the whole story as well as you
+can recollect it. Who was Mr. Charke?'</p>
+
+<p>'Mr. Charke, my dear, was a gentleman on the turf&mdash;that is
+the phrase, I think&mdash;one of those London men, without birth
+or breeding, who merely in right of their vices and their money
+are admitted to associate with young dandies who like hounds
+and horses, and all that sort of thing. That set knew him very
+well, but of course no one else. He was at the Matlock races,
+and your uncle asked him to Bartram-Haugh; and the creature,
+Jew or Gentile, whatever he was, fancied there was more honour
+than, perhaps, there really was in a visit to Bartram-Haugh.'</p>
+
+<p>'For the kind of person you describe, it <i>was</i>, I think, a rather
+unusual honour to be invited to stay in the house of a man of
+Uncle Ruthyn's birth.'</p>
+
+<p>'Well, so it was perhaps; for though they knew him very
+well on the course, and would ask him to their tavern dinners,
+they would not, of course, admit him to the houses where ladies
+were. But Silas's wife was not much regarded at Bartram-Haugh.
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page160" id="page160"></a>[pg 152]</span>
+
+Indeed, she was very little seen, for she was every evening tipsy
+in her bedroom, poor woman!'</p>
+
+<p>'How miserable!' I exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>'I don't think it troubled Silas very much, for she drank gin,
+they said, poor thing, and the expense was not much; and, on
+the whole, I really think he was glad she drank, for it kept her
+out of his way, and was likely to kill her. At this time your poor
+father, who was thoroughly disgusted at his marriage, had
+stopped the supplies, you know, and Silas was very poor, and
+as hungry as a hawk, and they said he pounced upon this rich
+London gamester, intending to win his money. I am telling
+you now all that was said afterwards. The races lasted I forget
+how many days, and Mr. Charke stayed at Bartram-Haugh all
+this time and for some days after. It was thought that poor Austin would
+pay all Silas's gambling debts, and so this wretched
+Mr. Charke made heavy wagers with him on the races, and they
+played very deep, besides, at Bartram. He and Silas used to sit
+up at night at cards. All these particulars, as I told you, came
+out afterwards, for there was an inquest, you know, and then
+Silas published what he called his "statement," and there was
+a great deal of most distressing correspondence in the newspapers.'</p>
+
+<p>'And why did Mr. Charke kill himself?' I asked.</p>
+
+<p>'Well, I will tell you first what all are agreed about. The
+second night after the races, your uncle and Mr. Charke sat up
+till between two and three o'clock in the morning, quite by
+themselves, in the parlour. Mr. Charke's servant was at the Stag's
+Head Inn at Feltram, and therefore could throw no light upon
+what occurred at night at Bartram-Haugh; but he was there at
+six o'clock in the morning, and very early at his master's door
+by his direction. He had locked it, as was his habit, upon the
+inside, and the key was in the lock, which turned out afterwards
+a very important point. On knocking he found that he could
+not awaken his master, because, as it appeared when the door
+was forced open, his master was lying dead at his bedside, not
+in a pool, but a perfect pond of blood, as they described it, with
+his throat cut.'</p>
+
+<p>'How horrible!' cried I.</p>
+
+<p>'So it was. Your uncle Silas was called up, and greatly shocked
+of course, and he did what I believe was best. He had everything
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page161" id="page161"></a>[pg 153]</span>
+
+left as nearly as possible in the exact state in which it
+had been found, and he sent his own servant forthwith for the
+coroner, and, being himself a justice of the peace, he took the
+depositions of Mr. Charke's servant while all the incidents were
+still fresh in his memory.'</p>
+
+<p>'Could anything be more straightforward, more right and
+wise?' I said.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, nothing of course,' answered Lady Knollys, I thought
+a little drily.</p>
+
+<a name="chap27"></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XXVII</h3>
+
+<h2><i>MORE ABOUT TOM CHARKE'S SUICIDE</i></h2>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>So the inquest was held, and Mr. Manwaring, of Wail Forest,
+was the only juryman who seemed to entertain the idea during
+the inquiry that Mr. Charke had died by any hand but his
+own.</p>
+
+<p>'And how <i>could</i> he fancy such a thing?' I exclaimed indignantly.</p>
+
+<p>'Well, you will see the result was quite enough to justify
+them in saying as they did, that he died by his own hand. The
+window was found fastened with a screw on the inside, as it
+had been when the chambermaid had arranged it at nine o'-clock;
+no one could have entered through it. Besides, it was
+on the third story, and the rooms are lofty, so it stood at a
+great height from the ground, and there was no ladder long
+enough to reach it. The house is built in the form of a hollow
+square, and Mr. Charke's room looked into the narrow court-yard
+within. There is but one door leading into this, and it
+did not show any sign of having been open for years. The door
+was locked upon the inside, and the key in the lock, so that
+nobody could have made an entrance that way either, for it was
+impossible, you see, to unlock the door from the outside.'</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page162" id="page162"></a>[pg 154]</span>
+
+<p>'And how could they affect to question anything so clear?' I asked.</p>
+
+<p>'There did come, nevertheless, a kind of mist over the subject, which gave
+those who chose to talk unpleasantly an opportunity of insinuating
+suspicions, though they could not themselves find the clue of the mystery.
+In the first place, it appeared that he had gone to bed very tipsy, and
+that he was heard singing and noisy in his room while getting to bed&mdash;not
+the mood in which men make away with themselves. Then, although his own
+razor was found in that dreadful blood (it is shocking to have to hear all
+this) near his right hand, the fingers of his left were cut to the bone.
+Then the memorandum book in which his bets were noted was nowhere to be
+found. That, you know,
+was very odd. His keys were there attached to a chain. He wore a great deal
+of gold and trinkets. I saw him, wretched man, on the course. They had got
+off their horses. He and your uncle were walking on the course.'</p>
+
+<p>'Did he look like a gentleman?' I inquired, as I dare say, other young
+ladies would.</p>
+
+<p>'He looked like a Jew, my dear. He had a horrid brown coat with a velvet
+cape, curling black hair over his collar, and great whiskers, very high
+shoulders, and he was puffing a cigar straight up into the air. I was
+shocked to see Silas in such company.'</p>
+
+<p>'And did his keys discover anything?' I asked.</p>
+
+<p>'On opening his travelling desk and a small japanned box within it a vast
+deal less money was found than was expected&mdash;in fact, very little. Your
+uncle said that he had won some of it the night before at play, and that
+Charke complained to him when tipsy of having had severe losses to
+counterbalance his gains on the races. Besides, he had been paid but a
+small part of those gains. About his book it appeared that there were
+little notes of bets on the backs of letters, and it was said that he
+sometimes made no other memorandum of his wagers&mdash;but this was
+disputed&mdash;and among those notes there was not one referring to Silas. But,
+then, there was an omission of all allusion to his transactions with two
+other well-known gentlemen. So that was
+not singular.'</p>
+
+<p>'No, certainly; that was quite accounted for,' said I.</p>
+
+<p>'And then came the question,' continued she, 'what motive
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page163" id="page163"></a>[pg 155]</span>
+
+could Mr. Charke possibly have had for making away with
+himself.'</p>
+
+<p>'But is not that very difficult to make out in many cases?' I
+interposed.</p>
+
+<p>'It was said that he had some mysterious troubles in London,
+at which he used to hint. Some people said that he really was
+in a scrape, but others that there was no such thing, and that
+when he talked so he was only jesting. There was no suspicion
+during the inquest that your uncle Silas was involved, except
+those questions of Mr. Manwaring's.'</p>
+
+<p>'What were they?' I asked.</p>
+
+<p>'I really forget; but they greatly offended your uncle, and
+there was a little scene in the room. Mr. Manwaring seemed to
+think that some one had somehow got into the room. Through
+the door it could not be, nor down the chimney, for they found
+an iron bar across the flue, near the top in the masonry. The
+window looked into a court-yard no bigger than a ball-room.
+They went down and examined it, but, though the ground beneath was moist,
+they could not discover the slightest trace of
+a footprint. So far as they could make out, Mr. Charke had
+hermetically sealed himself into his room, and then cut his
+throat with his own razor.'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes,' said I, 'for it was all secured&mdash;that is, the window and
+the door&mdash;upon the inside, and no sign of any attempt to get
+in.'</p>
+
+<p>'Just so; and when the walls were searched, and, as your
+uncle Silas directed, the wainscoting removed, some months afterwards,
+when the scandal grew loudest, then it was evident that
+there was no concealed access to the room.'</p>
+
+<p>'So the answer to all those calumnies was simply that the
+crime was impossible,' said I. 'How dreadful that such a slander
+should have required an answer at all!'</p>
+
+<p>'It was an unpleasant affair even then, although I cannot say
+that anyone supposed Silas guilty; but you know the whole
+thing was disreputable, that Mr. Charke was a discreditable inmate,
+the occurrence was horrible, and there was a glare of publicity which
+brought into relief the scandals of Bartram-Haugh.
+But in a little time it became, all on a sudden, a great deal
+worse.'</p>
+
+<p>My cousin paused to recollect exactly.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page164" id="page164"></a>[pg 156]</span>
+
+<p>'There were very disagreeable whispers among the sporting
+people in London. This person, Charke, had written two letters.
+Yes&mdash;two. They were published about two months after, by the
+villain to whom they were written; he wanted to extort money.
+They were first talked of a great deal among that set in town;
+but the moment they were published they produced a sensation
+in the country, and a storm of newspaper commentary. The first
+of these was of no great consequence, but the second was very
+startling, embarrassing, and even alarming.'</p>
+
+<p>'What was it, Cousin Monica?' I whispered.</p>
+
+<p>'I can only tell you in a general way, it is so very long since
+I read it; but both were written in the same kind of slang,
+and parts as hard to understand as a prize fight. I hope you
+never read those things.'</p>
+
+<p>I satisfied this sudden educational alarm, and Lady Knollys
+proceeded.</p>
+
+<p>'I am afraid you hardly hear me, the wind makes such an
+uproar. Well, listen. The letter said distinctly, that he, Mr.
+Charke, had made a very profitable visit to Bartram-Haugh, and
+mentioned in exact figures for how much he held your uncle
+Silas's I.O.U.'s, for he could not pay him. I can't say what the
+sum was. I only remember that it was quite frightful. It took
+away my breath when I read it.'</p>
+
+<p>'Uncle Silas had lost it?' I asked.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, and owed it; and had given him those papers called
+I.O.U.'s promising to pay, which, of course, Mr. Charke had
+locked up with his money; and the insinuation was that Silas
+had made away with him, to get rid of this debt, and that he had
+also taken a great deal of his money.</p>
+
+<p>'I just recollect these points which were exactly what made
+the impression,' continued Lady Knollys, after a short pause;
+'the letter was written in the evening of the last day of the
+wretched man's life, so that there had not been much time for
+your uncle Silas to win back his money; and he stoutly alleged
+that he did not owe Mr. Charke a guinea. It mentioned an
+enormous sum as being actually owed by Silas; and it cautioned
+the man, an agent, to whom he wrote, not to mention the circumstance,
+as Silas could only pay by getting the money from
+his wealthy brother, who would have the management; and he
+distinctly said that he had kept the matter very close at Silas's
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page165" id="page165"></a>[pg 157]</span>
+
+request. That, you know, was a very awkward letter, and all
+the worse that it was written in brutally high spirits, and not
+at all like a man meditating an exit from the world. You can't
+imagine what a sensation the publication of these letters produced.
+In a moment the storm was up, and certainly Silas did
+meet it bravely&mdash;yes, with great courage and ability. What a pity
+he did not early enter upon some career of ambition! Well, well,
+it is idle regretting. He suggested that the letters were forgeries.
+He alleged that Charke was in the habit of boasting, and telling
+enormous falsehoods about his gambling transactions, especially
+in his letters. He reminded the world how often men affect high
+animal spirits at the very moment of meditating suicide. He alluded,
+in a manly and graceful way, to his family and their
+character. He took a high and menacing tone with his adversaries,
+and he insisted that what they dared to insinuate against
+him was physically impossible.'</p>
+
+<p>I asked in what form this vindication appeared.</p>
+
+<p>'It was a letter, printed as a pamphlet; everybody admired
+its ability, ingenuity, and force, and it was written with immense
+rapidity.'</p>
+
+<p>'Was it at all in the style of his letters?' I innocently asked.</p>
+
+<p>My cousin laughed.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, dear, no! Ever since he avowed himself a religious
+character, he had written nothing but the most vapid and nerveless
+twaddle. Your poor dear father used to send his letters to
+me to read, and I sometimes really thought that Silas was losing
+his faculties; but I believe he was only trying to write in character.'</p>
+
+<p>'I suppose the general feeling was in his favour?' I said.</p>
+
+<p>'I don't think it was, anywhere; but in his own county it was
+certainly unanimously against him. There is no use in asking
+why; but so it was, and I think it would have been easier for
+him with his unaided strength to uproot the Peak than to change
+the convictions of the Derbyshire gentlemen. They were all
+against him. Of course there were predisposing causes. Your
+uncle published a very bitter attack upon them, describing himself
+as the victim of a political conspiracy: and I recollect he
+mentioned that from the hour of the shocking catastrophe in his
+house, he had forsworn the turf and all pursuits and amusements
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page166" id="page166"></a>[pg 158]</span>
+
+connected with it. People sneered, and said he might as well go
+as wait to be kicked out.'</p>
+
+<p>'Were there law-suits about all this?' I asked.</p>
+
+<p>'Everybody expected that there would, for there were very
+savage things printed on both sides, and I think, too, that the
+persons who thought worst of him expected that evidence would
+yet turn up to convict Silas of the crime they chose to impute;
+and so years have glided away, and many of the people who
+remembered the tragedy of Bartram-Haugh, and took the strongest
+part in the denunciation, and ostracism that followed, are
+dead, and no new light had been thrown upon the occurrence,
+and your uncle Silas remains an outcast. At first he was quite
+wild with rage, and would have fought the whole county, man
+by man, if they would have met him. But he had since changed
+his habits and, as he says, his aspirations altogether.'</p>
+
+<p>'He has become religious.'</p>
+
+<p>'The only occupation remaining to him. He owes money; he
+is poor; he is isolated; and he says, sick and religious. Your
+poor father, who was very decided and inflexible, never helped
+him beyond the limit he had prescribed, after Silas's <i>mésalliance</i>.
+He wanted to get him into Parliament, and would have paid
+his expenses, and made him an allowance; but either Silas had
+grown lazy, or he understood his position better than poor Austin,
+or he distrusted his powers, or possibly he really is in ill-health;
+but he objected his religious scruples. Your poor papa
+thought self-assertion possible, where an injured man has right to
+rely upon, but he had been very long out of the world, and the
+theory won't do. Nothing is harder than to get a person who has
+once been effectually slurred, received again. Silas, I think, was
+right. I don't think it was practicable.</p>
+
+<p>'Dear child, how late it is!' exclaimed Lady Knollys suddenly,
+looking at the Louis Quatorze clock, that crowned the mantelpiece.</p>
+
+<p>It was near one o'clock. The storm had a little subsided, and
+I took a less agitated and more confident view of Uncle Silas
+than I had at an earlier hour of that evening.</p>
+
+<p>'And what do you think of him?' I asked.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Knollys drummed on the table with her finger points
+as she looked into the fire.</p>
+
+<p>'I don't understand metaphysics, my dear, nor witchcraft. I
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page167" id="page167"></a>[pg 159]</span>
+
+sometimes believe in the supernatural, and sometimes I don't.
+Silas Ruthyn is himself alone, and I can't define him, because
+I don't understand him. Perhaps other souls than human are
+sometimes born into the world, and clothed in flesh. It is not only
+about that dreadful occurrence, but nearly always throughout
+his life; early and late he has puzzled me. I have tried in vain
+to understand him. But at one time of his life I am sure he was
+awfully wicked&mdash;eccentric indeed in his wickedness&mdash;gay, frivolous,
+secret, and dangerous. At one time I think he could have
+made poor Austin do almost anything; but his influence vanished
+with his marriage, never to return again. No; I don't understand
+him. He always bewildered me, like a shifting face, sometimes
+smiling, but always sinister, in an unpleasant dream.'</p>
+
+<a name="chap28"></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XXVIII</h3>
+
+<h2><i>I AM PERSUADED</i></h2>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>So now at last I had heard the story of Uncle Silas's mysterious
+disgrace. We sat silent for a while, and I, gazing into vacancy,
+sent him in a chariot of triumph, chapletted, ringed, and robed
+through the city of imagination, crying after him, 'Innocent!
+innocent! martyr and crowned!' All the virtues and honesties,
+reason and conscience, in myriad shapes&mdash;tier above tier of human
+faces&mdash;from the crowded pavement, crowded windows,
+crowded roofs, joined in the jubilant acclamation, and trumpeters
+trumpeted, and drums rolled, and great organs and choirs
+through open cathedral gates, rolled anthems of praise and
+thanksgiving, and the bells rang out, and cannons sounded, and
+the air trembled with the roaring harmony; and Silas Ruthyn,
+the full-length portrait, stood in the burnished chariot, with a
+proud, sad, clouded face, that rejoiced not with the rejoicers,
+and behind him the slave, thin as a ghost, white-faced, and
+sneering something in his ear: while I and all the city went
+on crying 'Innocent! innocent! martyr and crowned!' And now
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page168" id="page168"></a>[pg 160]</span>
+
+the reverie was ended; and there were only Lady Knollys' stern,
+thoughtful face, with the pale light of sarcasm on it, and the
+storm outside thundering and lamenting desolately.</p>
+
+<p>It was very good of Cousin Monica to stay with me so long. It
+must have been unspeakably tiresome. And now she began to
+talk of business at home, and plainly to prepare for immediate
+flight, and my heart sank.</p>
+
+<p>I know that I could not then have defined my feelings and
+agitations. I am not sure that I even now could. Any misgiving
+about Uncle Silas was, in my mind, a questioning the foundations
+of my faith, and in itself an impiety. And yet I am not sure
+that some such misgiving, faint, perhaps, and intermittent, may
+not have been at the bottom of my tribulation.</p>
+
+<p>I was not very well. Lady Knollys had gone out for a walk.
+She was not easily tired, and sometimes made a long excursion.
+The sun was setting now, when Mary Quince brought me a
+letter which had just arrived by the post. My heart throbbed
+violently. I was afraid to break the broad black seal. It was from
+Uncle Silas. I ran over in my mind all the unpleasant mandates
+which it might contain, to try and prepare myself for a shock.
+At last I opened the letter. It directed me to hold myself in readiness
+for the journey to Bartram-Haugh. It stated that I might
+bring two maids with me if I wished so many, and that his next
+letter would give me the details of my route, and the day of my
+departure for Derbyshire; and he said that I ought to make arrangements
+about Knowl during my absence, but that he was
+hardly the person properly to be consulted on that matter. Then
+came a prayer that he might be enabled to acquit himself of his
+trust to the full satisfaction of his conscience, and that I might
+enter upon my new relations in a spirit of prayer.</p>
+
+<p>I looked round my room, so long familiar, and now so endeared
+by the idea of parting and change. The old house&mdash;dear,
+dear Knowl, how could I leave you and all your affectionate associations,
+and kind looks and voices, for a strange land!</p>
+
+<p>With a great sigh I took Uncle Silas's letter, and went down
+stairs to the drawing-room. From the lobby window, where I
+loitered for a few moments, I looked out upon the well-known
+forest-trees. The sun was down. It was already twilight, and the
+white vapours of coming night were already filming their thinned
+and yellow foliage. Everything looked melancholy. How little did
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page169" id="page169"></a>[pg 161]</span>
+
+those who envied the young inheritrex of a princely fortune
+suspect the load that lay at her heart, or, bating the fear of
+death, how gladly at that moment she would have parted with
+her life!</p>
+
+<p>Lady Knollys had not yet returned, and it was darkening
+rapidly; a mass of black clouds stood piled in the west, through
+the chasms of which was still reflected a pale metallic lustre.</p>
+
+<p>The drawing-room was already very dark; but some streaks of
+this cold light fell upon a black figure, which would otherwise
+have been unseen, leaning beside the curtains against the window
+frame.</p>
+
+<p>It advanced abruptly, with creaking shoes; it was Doctor
+Bryerly.</p>
+
+<p>I was startled and surprised, not knowing how he had got
+there. I stood staring at him in the dusk rather awkwardly, I
+am afraid.</p>
+
+<p>'How do you do, Miss Ruthyn?' said he, extending his hand,
+long, hard, and brown as a mummy's, and stooping a little so as
+to approach more nearly, for it was not easy to see in the imperfect
+light. 'You're surprised, I dare say, to see me here so
+soon again?'</p>
+
+<p>'I did not know you had arrived. I am glad to see you,
+Doctor Bryerly. Nothing unpleasant, I hope, has happened?'</p>
+
+<p>'No, nothing unpleasant, Miss. The will has been lodged, and
+we shall have probate in due course; but there has been something
+on my mind, and I'm come to ask you two or three questions
+which you had better answer very considerately. Is Miss
+Knollys still here?'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, but she is not returned from her walk.'</p>
+
+<p>'I am glad she is here. I think she takes a sound view, and
+women understand one another better. As for me, it is plainly
+my duty to put it before you as it strikes me, and to offer all I
+can do in accomplishing, should you wish it, a different arrangement.
+You don't know your uncle, you said the other day?'</p>
+
+<p>'No, I've never seen him.'</p>
+
+<p>'You understand your late father's intention in making you
+his ward?'</p>
+
+<p>'I suppose he wished to show his high opinion of my uncle's
+fitness for such a trust.'</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page170" id="page170"></a>[pg 162]</span>
+
+<p>'That's quite true; but the nature of the trust in this instance
+is extraordinary.'</p>
+
+<p>'I don't understand.'</p>
+
+<p>'Why, if you die before you come to the age of twenty-one,
+the entire of the property will go to him&mdash;do you see?&mdash;and
+he has the custody of your person in the meantime; you are to
+live in his house, under his care and authority. You see now, I
+think, how it is; and I did not like it when your father read
+the will to me, and I said so. Do <i>you</i>?'</p>
+
+<p>I hesitated to speak, not sure that I quite comprehended him.</p>
+
+<p>'And the more I think of it, the less I like it, Miss,' said Doctor
+Bryerly, in a calm, stern tone.</p>
+
+<p>'Merciful Heaven! Doctor Bryerly, you can't suppose that
+I should not be as safe in my uncle's house as in the Lord Chancellor's?'
+I ejaculated, looking full in his face.</p>
+
+<p>'But don't you see, Miss, it is not a fair position to put
+your uncle in,' replied he, after a little hesitation.</p>
+
+<p>'But suppose <i>he</i> does not think so. You know, if he does, he
+may decline it.'</p>
+
+<p>'Well that's true&mdash;but he won't. Here is his letter'&mdash;and he
+produced it&mdash;'announcing officially that he means to accept the
+office; but I think he ought to be told it is not <i>delicate</i>, under
+all circumstances. You know, Miss, that your uncle, Mr. Silas
+Ruthyn, was talked about unpleasantly once.'</p>
+
+<p>'You mean'&mdash;I began.</p>
+
+<p>'I mean about the death of Mr. Charke, at Bartram-Haugh.'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, I have heard that,' I said; he was speaking with a
+shocking <i>aplomb</i>.</p>
+
+<p>'We assume, of course, <i>unjustly</i>; but there are many who
+think quite differently.'</p>
+
+<p>'And possibly, Doctor Bryerly, it was for that very reason that
+my dear papa made him my guardian.'</p>
+
+<p>'There can be no doubt of that, Miss; it was to purge him
+of that scandal.'</p>
+
+<p>'And when he has acquitted himself honourably of that trust,
+don't you think such a proof of confidence so honourably fulfilled
+must go far to silence his traducers?'</p>
+
+<p>'Why, if all goes well, it may do a little; but a great deal less
+than you fancy. But take it that you happen to <i>die</i>, Miss, during
+your minority. We are all mortal, and there are three years and
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page171" id="page171"></a>[pg 163]</span>
+
+some months to go; how will it be then? Don't you see? Just
+fancy how people will talk.'</p>
+
+<p>'I think you know that my uncle is a religious man?' said
+I.</p>
+
+<p>'Well, Miss, what of that?' he asked again.</p>
+
+<p>'He is&mdash;he has suffered intensely,' I continued. 'He has long
+retired from the world; he is very religious. Ask our curate,
+Mr. Fairfield, if you doubt it.'</p>
+
+<p>'But I am not disputing it, Miss; I'm only supposing what
+may happen&mdash;an accident, we'll call it small-pox, diphtheria,
+<i>that's</i> going very much. Three years and three months, you know,
+is a long time. You proceed to Bartram-Haugh, thinking you
+have much goods laid up for many years; but your Creator, you
+know, may say, "Thou fool, this day is thy soul required of thee."
+You go&mdash;and what pray is thought of your uncle, Mr. Silas
+Ruthyn, who walks in for the entire inheritance, and who has
+long been abused like a pickpocket, or worse, in his own county,
+I'm told?'</p>
+
+<p>'You are a religious man, Doctor Bryerly, according to your
+lights?' I said.</p>
+
+<p>The Swedenborgian smiled.</p>
+
+<p>'Well, knowing that he is so too, and having yourself experienced
+the power of religion, do not you think him deserving of
+every confidence? Don't you think it well that he should have
+this opportunity of exhibiting both his own character and the
+reliance which my dear papa reposed on it, and that we should
+leave all consequences and contingencies in the hands of Heaven?'</p>
+
+<p>'It appears to have been the will of Heaven hitherto,' said
+Doctor Bryerly&mdash;I could not see with what expression of face,
+but he was looking down, and drawing little diagrams with
+his stick on the dark carpet, and spoke in a very low tone&mdash;'that
+your uncle should suffer under this ill report. In countervailing
+the appointment of Providence, we must employ our
+reason, with conscientious diligence, as to the means, and if we
+find that they are as likely to do mischief as good, we have no
+right to expect a special interposition to turn our experiment
+into an ordeal. I think you ought to weigh it well&mdash;I am sure
+there are reasons against it. If you make up your mind that you
+would rather be placed under the care, say of Lady Knollys, I
+will endeavour all I can to effect it.'</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page172" id="page172"></a>[pg 164]</span>
+
+<p>'That could not be done without his consent, could it?'
+said I.</p>
+
+<p>'No, but I don't despair of getting that&mdash;on terms, of course,'
+remarked he.</p>
+
+<p>'I don't quite understand,' I said.</p>
+
+<p>'I mean, for instance, if he were allowed to keep the allowance
+for your maintenance&mdash;eh?'</p>
+
+<p>'I mistake my uncle Silas very much,' I said, 'if that allowance
+is any object whatever to him compared with the moral
+value of the position. If he were deprived of that, I am sure
+he would decline the other.'</p>
+
+<p>'We might try him at all events,' said Doctor Bryerly, on
+whose dark sinewy features, even in this imperfect light, I
+thought I detected a smile.</p>
+
+<p>'Perhaps,' said I, 'I appear very foolish in supposing him
+actuated by any but sordid motives; but he is my near relation,
+and I can't help it, sir.'</p>
+
+<p>'That is a very serious thing, Miss Ruthyn,' he replied. 'You
+are very young, and cannot see it at present, as you will hereafter.
+He is very religious, you say, and all that, but his house is not a
+proper place for you. It is a solitude&mdash;its master an outcast, and
+it has been the repeated scene of all sorts of scandals, and of one
+great crime; and Lady Knollys thinks your having been domesticated
+there will be an injury to you all the days of your life.'</p>
+
+<p>'So I do, Maud,' said Lady Knollys, who had just entered the
+room unperceived,&mdash;'How do you do, Doctor Bryerly?&mdash;a serious
+injury. You have no idea how entirely that house is condemned
+and avoided, and the very name of its inmates tabooed.'</p>
+
+<p>'How monstrous&mdash;how cruel!' I exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>'Very unpleasant, my dear, but perfectly natural. You are to
+recollect that quite independently of the story of Mr. Charke,
+the house was talked about, and the county people had cut your
+uncle Silas long before that adventure was dreamed of; and as to
+the circumstance of your being placed in his charge by his
+brother, who took, from strong family feeling, a totally one-sided
+view of the affair from the first, having the slightest effect in
+restoring his position in the county, you must quite give that up.
+Except me, if he will allow me, and the clergyman, not a soul
+in the country will visit at Bartram-Haugh. They may pity you,
+and think the whole thing the climax of folly and cruelty; but
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page173" id="page173"></a>[pg 165]</span>
+
+they won't visit at Bartram, or know Silas, or have anything to
+do with his household.'</p>
+
+<p>'They will see, at all events, what my dear papa's opinion
+was.'</p>
+
+<p>'They know that already,' answered she, 'and it has not, and
+ought not to have, the slightest weight with them. There are
+people there who think themselves just as great as the Ruthyns,
+or greater; and your poor father's idea of carrying it by a
+demonstration was simply the dream of a man who had forgotten
+the world, and learned to exaggerate himself in his long
+seclusion. I know he was beginning himself to hesitate; and I think
+if he had been spared another year that provision of his will
+would have been struck out.'</p>
+
+<p>Doctor Bryerly nodded, and he said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'And if he had the power to dictate <i>now</i>, would he insist on
+that direction? It is a mistake every way, injurious to you, his
+child; and should you happen to die during your sojourn under
+your uncle's care, it would woefully defeat the testator's
+object, and raise such a storm of surmise and inquiry as would
+awaken all England, and send the old scandal on the wing
+through the world again.'</p>
+
+<p>'Doctor Bryerly will, I have no doubt, arrange it all. In fact,
+I do not think it would be very difficult to bring Silas to terms;
+and if you do not consent to his trying, Maud, mark my words,
+you will live to repent it.'</p>
+
+<p>Here were two persons viewing the question from totally
+different points; both perfectly disinterested; both in their
+different ways, I believe, shrewd and even wise; and both
+honourable, urging me against it, and in a way that undefinably
+alarmed my imagination, as well as moved my reason. I looked
+from one to the other&mdash;there was a silence. By this time the
+candles had come, and we could see one another.</p>
+
+<p>'I only wait your decision, Miss Ruthyn,' said the trustee,
+'to see your uncle. If his advantage was the chief object
+contemplated in this arrangement, he will be the best judge whether
+his interest is really best consulted by it or no; and I think
+he will clearly see that it is <i>not</i> so, and will answer accordingly.'</p>
+
+<p>'I cannot answer now&mdash;you must allow me to think it over&mdash;I
+will do my best. I am very much obliged, my dear Cousin
+Monica, you are so very good, and you too, Doctor Bryerly.'</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page174" id="page174"></a>[pg 166]</span>
+
+<p>Doctor Bryerly by this time was looking into his pocket-book,
+and did not acknowledge my thanks even by a nod.</p>
+
+<p>'I must be in London the day after to-morrow. Bartram-Haugh
+is nearly sixty miles from here, and only twenty of that
+by rail, I find. Forty miles of posting over those Derbyshire
+mountains is slow work; but if you say <i>try</i>, I'll see him to-morrow
+morning.'</p>
+
+<p>'You must say try&mdash;you <i>must</i>, my dear Maud.'</p>
+
+<p>'But how can I decide in a moment? Oh, dear Cousin
+Monica, I am so distracted!'</p>
+
+<p>'But <i>you</i> need not decide at all; the decision rests with <i>him</i>.
+Come; he is more competent than you. You <i>must</i> say yes.'</p>
+
+<p>Again I looked from her to Doctor Bryerly, and from him to
+her again. I threw my arms about her neck, and hugging her
+closely to me, I cried&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, Cousin Monica, dear Cousin Monica, advise me. I am
+a wretched creature. You must advise me.'</p>
+
+<p>I did not know till now how irresolute a character was mine.</p>
+
+<p>I knew somehow by the tone of her voice that she was
+smiling as she answered&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Why, dear, I have advised you; I <i>do</i> advise you;' and then
+she added, impetuously, 'I entreat and implore, if you really
+think I love you, that you will <i>follow</i> my advice. It is your duty
+to leave your uncle Silas, whom you believe to be more competent
+than you are, to decide, after full conference with Doctor
+Bryerly, who knows more of your poor father's views and intentions
+in making that appointment than either you or I.'</p>
+
+<p>'Shall I say, yes?' I cried, drawing her close, and kissing her
+helplessly. 'Oh, tell me&mdash;tell me to say, yes.'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, of course, <i>yes</i>. She agrees, Doctor Bryerly, to your kind
+proposal.'</p>
+
+<p>'I am to understand so?' he asked.</p>
+
+<p>'Very well&mdash;yes, Doctor Bryerly,' I replied.</p>
+
+<p>'You have resolved wisely and well,' said he, briskly, like a
+man who has got a care off his mind.</p>
+
+<p>'I forgot to say, Doctor Bryerly&mdash;it was very rude&mdash;that you
+must stay here to-night.'</p>
+
+<p>'He <i>can't</i>, my dear,' interposed Lady Knolly's; 'it is a long
+way.'</p>
+
+<p>'He will dine. Won't you, Doctor Bryerly?'</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page175" id="page175"></a>[pg 167]</span>
+
+<p>'No; he can't. You know you can't, sir,' said my cousin,
+peremptorily. 'You must not worry him, my dear, with civilities
+he can't accept. He'll bid us good-bye this moment. Good-bye,
+Doctor Bryerly. You'll write immediately; don't wait till you
+reach town. Bid him good-bye, Maud. I'll say a word to you in
+the hall.'</p>
+
+<p>And thus she literally hurried him out of the room, leaving
+me in a state of amazement and confusion, not able to review my
+decision&mdash;unsatisfied, but still unable to recall it.</p>
+
+<p>I stood where they had left me, looking after them, I suppose,
+like a fool.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Knollys returned in a few minutes. If I had been a little
+cooler I was shrewd enough to perceive that she had sent poor
+Doctor Bryerly away upon his travels, to find board and lodging
+half-way to Bartram, to remove him forthwith from my presence,
+and thus to make my decision&mdash;if mine it was&mdash;irrevocable.</p>
+
+<p>'I applaud you, my dear,' said Cousin Knollys, in her turn
+embracing me heartily. 'You are a sensible little darling, and
+have done exactly what you ought to have done.'</p>
+
+<p>'I hope I have,' I faltered.</p>
+
+<p>'Hope? fiddle! stuff! the thing's as plain as a pikestaff.'</p>
+
+<p>And in came Branston to say that dinner was served.</p>
+
+<a name="chap29"></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XXIX</h3>
+
+<h2><i>HOW THE AMBASSADOR FARED</i></h2>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>Lady Knollys, I could plainly see, when we got into the
+brighter lights at the dinner table, was herself a good deal
+excited; she was relieved and glad, and was garrulous during
+our meal, and told me all her early recollections of dear papa.
+Most of them I had heard before; but they could not be told
+too often.</p>
+
+<p>Notwithstanding my mind sometimes wandered, <i>often</i> indeed,
+to the conference so unexpected, so suddenly decisive, possibly so
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page176" id="page176"></a>[pg 168]</span>
+
+momentous; and with a dismayed uncertainly, the question&mdash;had
+I done right?&mdash;was always before me.</p>
+
+<p>I dare say my cousin understood my character better, perhaps,
+after all my honest self-study, then I do even now. Irresolute,
+suddenly reversing my own decisions, impetuous in action as
+she knew me, she feared, I am sure, a revocation of my commission
+to Doctor Bryerly, and thought of the countermand I might
+send galloping after him.</p>
+
+<p>So, kind creature, she laboured to occupy my thoughts, and
+when one theme was exhausted found another, and had always
+her parry prepared as often as I directed a reflection or an
+enquiry to the re-opening of the question which she had taken
+so much pains to close.</p>
+
+<p>That night I was troubled. I was already upbraiding myself.
+I could not sleep, and at last sat up in bed, and cried. I lamented
+my weakness in having assented to Doctor Bryerly's and
+my cousin's advice. Was I not departing from my engagement
+to my dear papa? Was I not consenting that my Uncle Silas
+should be induced to second my breach of faith by a corresponding
+perfidy?</p>
+
+<p>Lady Knollys had done wisely in despatching Doctor Bryerly
+so promptly; for, most assuredly, had he been at Knowl next
+morning when I came down I should have recalled my commission.</p>
+
+<p>That day in the study I found four papers which increased
+my perturbation. They were in dear papa's handwriting, and
+had an indorsement in these words&mdash;'Copy of my letter addressed
+to &mdash;&mdash;, one of the trustees named in my will.' Here,
+then, were the contents of those four sealed letters which had
+excited mine and Lady Knollys' curiosity on the agitating day
+on which the will was read.</p>
+
+<p>It contained these words:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>'I name my oppressed and unhappy brother, Silas Ruthyn,
+residing at my house of Bartram-Haugh, as guardian of the
+person of my beloved child, to convince the world if possible,
+and failing that, to satisfy at least all future generations of our
+family, that his brother, who knew him best, had implicit confidence
+in him, and that he deserved it. A cowardly and preposterous
+slander, originating in political malice, and which
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page177" id="page177"></a>[pg 169]</span>
+
+never have been whispered had he not been poor and
+imprudent, is best silenced by this ordeal of purification. All
+I possess goes to him if my child dies under age; and the
+custody of her person I commit meanwhile to him alone, knowing
+that she is as safe in his as she could have been under my
+own care. I rely upon your remembrance of our early friendship
+to make this known wherever an opportunity occurs, and also
+to say what your sense of justice may warrant.'</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>The other letters were in the same spirit. My heart sank like
+lead as I read them. I quaked with fear. What had I done?
+My father's wise and noble vindication of our dishonoured name
+I had presumed to frustrate. I had, like a coward, receded from
+my easy share in the task; and, merciful Heaven, I had broken
+my faith with the dead!</p>
+
+<p>With these letters in my hand, white with fear, I flew like a
+shadow to the drawing-room where Cousin Monica was, and
+told her to read them. I saw by her countenance how much
+alarmed she was by my looks, but she said nothing, only read
+the letters hurriedly, and then exclaimed&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Is this all, my dear child? I really fancied you had found a
+second will, and had lost everything. Why, my dearest Maud,
+we knew all this before. We quite understood poor dear Austin's
+motive. Why are you so easily disturbed?'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, Cousin Monica, I think he was right; it all seems quite
+reasonable now; and I&mdash;oh, what a crime!&mdash;it must be stopped.'</p>
+
+<p>'My dear Maud, listen to reason. Doctor Bryerly has seen
+your uncle at Bartram at least two hours ago. You <i>can't</i> stop it,
+and why on earth should you if you could? Don't you think
+your uncle should be consulted?' said she.</p>
+
+<p>'But he has <i>decided</i>. I have his letter speaking of it as settled;
+and Doctor Bryerly&mdash;oh, Cousin Monica, he's gone <i>to tempt
+him</i>.'</p>
+
+<p>'Nonsense, girl! Doctor Bryerly is a good and just man, I do
+believe, and has, beside, no imaginable motive to pervert either
+his conscience or his judgment. He's not gone to tempt him&mdash;stuff!&mdash;but
+to unfold the facts and invite his consideration;
+and I say, considering how thoughtlessly such duties are often
+undertaken, and how long Silas has been living in lazy solitude,
+shut out from the world, and unused to discuss anything, I do
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page178" id="page178"></a>[pg 170]</span>
+
+think it only conscientious and honourable that he should have
+a fair and distinct view of the matter in all its bearings submitted
+to him before he indolently incurs what may prove the
+worst danger he was ever involved in.'</p>
+
+<p>So Lady Knollys argued, with feminine energy, and I must
+confess, with a good deal of the repetition which I have sometimes
+observed in logicians of my own sex, and she puzzled
+without satisfying me.</p>
+
+<p>'I don't know why I went to that room,' I said, quite frightened;
+'or why I went to that press; how it happened that these
+papers, which we never saw there before, were the first things to
+strike my eye to-day.'</p>
+
+<p>'What do you mean, dear?' said Lady Knollys.</p>
+
+<p>'I mean this&mdash;I think I was <i>brought</i> there, and that <i>there</i> is
+poor papa's appeal to me, as plain as if his hand came and wrote
+it upon the wall.' I nearly screamed the conclusion of this wild
+confession.</p>
+
+<p>'You are nervous, my darling; your bad nights have worn
+you out. Let us go out; the air will do you good; and I do assure
+you that you will very soon see that we are quite right, and
+rejoice conscientiously that you have acted as you did.'</p>
+
+<p>But I was not to be satisfied, although my first vehemence
+was quieted. In my prayers that night my conscience upbraided
+me. When I lay down in bed my nervousness returned fourfold.
+Everybody at all nervously excitable has suffered some time
+or another by the appearance of ghastly features presenting
+themselves in every variety of contortion, one after another, the
+moment the eyes are closed. This night my dear father's face
+troubled me&mdash;sometimes white and sharp as ivory, sometimes
+strangely transparent like glass, sometimes all hanging in cadaverous
+folds, always with the same unnatural expression of diabolical
+fury.</p>
+
+<p>From this dreadful vision I could only escape by sitting up
+and staring at the light. At length, worn out, I dropped asleep,
+and in a dream I distinctly heard papa's voice say sharply outside
+the bed-curtain:&mdash;'Maud, we shall be late at Bartram-Haugh.'</p>
+
+<p>And I awoke in a horror, the wall, as it seemed, still ringing
+with the summons, and the speaker, I fancied, standing at the
+other side of the curtain.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page179" id="page179"></a>[pg 171]</span>
+
+<p>A miserable night I passed. In the morning, looking myself
+like a ghost, I stood in my night-dress by Lady Knollys' bed.</p>
+
+<p>'I have had my warning,' I said. 'Oh, Cousin Monica, papa
+has been with me, and ordered me to Bartram-Haugh; and go
+I will.'</p>
+
+<p>She stared in my face uncomfortably, and then tried to laugh
+the matter off; but I know she was troubled at the strange state
+to which agitation and suspense had reduced me.</p>
+
+<p>'You're taking too much for granted, Maud,' said she; 'Silas
+Ruthyn, most likely, will refuse his consent, and insist on your
+going to Bartram-Haugh.'</p>
+
+<p>'Heaven grant!' I exclaimed; 'but if he doesn't, it is all the
+same to me, go I will. He may turn me out, but I'll go, and try
+to expiate the breach of faith that I fear is so horribly wicked.'</p>
+
+<p>We had several hours still to wait for the arrival of the post.
+For both of us the delay was a suspense; for me an almost agonising
+one. At length, at an unlooked-for moment, Branston did
+enter the room with the post-bag. There was a large letter, with
+the Feltram post-mark, addressed to Lady Knollys&mdash;it was Doctor
+Bryerly's despatch; we read it together. It was dated on the day
+before, and its purport was thus:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>'R<small>ESPECTED</small> M<small>ADAM</small>,&mdash;I this day saw Mr. Silas Ruthyn at
+Bartram-Haugh, and he peremptorily refuses, on any terms, to
+vacate the guardianship, or to consent to Miss Ruthyn's residing
+anywhere but under his own immediate care. As he bases his
+refusal, first upon a conscientious difficulty, declaring that he
+has no right, through fear of personal contingencies, to abdicate
+an office imposed in so solemn a way, and so naturally devolving
+on him as only brother to the deceased; and secondly upon
+the effect such a withdrawal, at the instance of the acting trustee,
+would have upon his own character, amounting to a public
+self-condemnation; and as he refused to discuss these positions
+with me, I could make no way whatsoever with him. Finding,
+therefore, that his mind was quite made up, after a short time
+I took my leave. He mentioned that preparations for his niece's
+reception are being completed, and that he will send for her in
+a few days; so that I think it will be advisable that I should go
+down to Knowl, to assist Miss Ruthyn with any advice she may
+require before her departure, to discharge servants, get inventories
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page180" id="page180"></a>[pg 172]</span>
+
+made, and provide for the care of the place and grounds
+during her minority.</p>
+
+<p class="closer">'I am, respected Madam, yours truly,</p>
+
+<p class="signature">H<small>ANS</small> E. B<small>RYERLY</small>.'</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>I can't describe to you how chapfallen and angry my cousin
+looked. She sniffed once or twice, and then said, rather bitterly,
+in a subdued tone:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Well, <i>now</i>; I hope you are pleased?'</p>
+
+<p>'No, no, no; you <i>know</i> I'm not&mdash;grieved to the heart, my
+only friend, my dear Cousin Monica; but my conscience is at
+rest; you don't know what a sacrifice it is; I am a most unhappy
+creature. I feel an indescribable foreboding. I am frightened;
+but you won't forsake me, Cousin Monica.'</p>
+
+<p>'No, darling, never,' she said, sadly.</p>
+
+<p>'And you'll come and see me, won't you, as often as you
+can?'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, dear; that is if Silas allows me; and I'm sure he will,'
+she added hastily, seeing, I suppose, my terror in my face. 'All
+I can do, you may be sure I will, and perhaps he will allow you
+to come to me, now and then, for a short visit. You know I am
+only six miles away&mdash;little more than half an hour's drive,
+and though I hate Bartram, and detest Silas&mdash;Yes, I <i>detest Silas</i>,'
+she repeated in reply to my surprised gaze&mdash;'I <i>will</i> call at
+Bartram&mdash;that is, I say, if he allows me; for, you know, I haven't
+been there for a quarter of a century; and though I never understood
+Silas, I fancy he forgives no sins, whether of omission
+or commission.'</p>
+
+<p>I wondered what old grudge could make my cousin judge
+Uncle Silas always so hardly&mdash;I could not suppose it was justice.
+I had seen my hero indeed lately so disrespectfully handled
+before my eyes, that he had, as idols will, lost something of his
+sacredness. But as an article of faith, I still cultivated my trust
+in his divinity, and dismissed every intruding doubt with an
+exorcism, as a suggestion of the evil one. But I wronged Lady
+Knollys in suspecting her of pique, or malice, or anything more
+than that tendency to take strong views which some persons
+attribute to my sex.</p>
+
+<p>So, then, the little project of Cousin Monica's guardianship,
+which, had it been poor papa's wish, would have made me so
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page181" id="page181"></a>[pg 173]</span>
+
+very happy, was quite knocked on the head, to revive no more. I
+comforted myself, however, with her promise to re-open communications
+with Bartram-Haugh, and we grew resigned.</p>
+
+<p>I remember, next morning, as we sat at a very late breakfast,
+Lady Knollys, reading a letter, suddenly made an exclamation
+and a little laugh, and read on with increased interest
+for a few minutes, and then, with another little laugh, she
+looked up, placing her hand, with the open letter in it, beside
+her tea-cup.</p>
+
+<p>'You'll not guess whom I've been reading about,' said she,
+with her head the least thing on one side, and an arch smile.</p>
+
+<p>I felt myself blushing&mdash;cheeks, forehead, even down to the tips
+of my fingers. I anticipated the name I was to hear. She looked
+very much amused. Was it possible that Captain Oakley was
+married?</p>
+
+<p>'I really have not the least idea,' I replied, with that kind of
+overdone carelessness which betrays us.</p>
+
+<p>'No, I see quite plainly you have not; but you can't think
+how prettily you blush,' answered she, very much diverted.</p>
+
+<p>'I really don't care,' I replied, with some little dignity, and
+blushing deeper and deeper.</p>
+
+<p>'Will you make a guess?' she asked.</p>
+
+<p>'I <i>can't</i> guess.'</p>
+
+<p>'Well, shall I tell you?'</p>
+
+<p>'Just as you please.'</p>
+
+<p>'Well, I will&mdash;that is, I'll read a page of my letter, which tells
+it all. Do you know Georgina Fanshawe?' she asked.</p>
+
+<p>'Lady Georgina? No.'</p>
+
+<p>'Well, no matter; she's in Paris now, and this letter is from
+her, and she says&mdash;let me see the place&mdash;"Yesterday, what do you
+think?&mdash;quite an apparition!&mdash;you shall hear. My brother
+Craven yesterday insisted on my accompanying him to Le Bas'
+shop in that odd little antique street near the Grève; it is a
+wonderful old curiosity shop. I forget what they call them here.
+When we went into this place it was very nearly deserted, and
+there were so many curious things to look at all about, that for
+a minute or two I did not observe a tall woman, in a grey silk
+and a black velvet mantle, and quite a nice new Parisian bonnet.
+You will be <i>charmed</i>, by-the-by, with the new shape&mdash;it is
+only out three weeks, and is quite <i>indescribably</i> elegant, <i>I</i>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page182" id="page182"></a>[pg 174]</span>
+
+think, at least. They have them, I am sure, by this time at Molnitz's,
+so I need say no more. And now that I am on this subject
+of dress, I have got your lace; and I think you will be very ungrateful
+if you are not <i>charmed</i> with it." Well, I need not read
+all that&mdash;here is the rest;' and she read&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'"But you'll ask about my mysterious <i>dame</i> in the new bonnet
+and velvet mantle; she was sitting on a stool at the counter,
+not buying, but evidently selling a quantity of stones and trinkets
+which she had in a card-box, and the man was picking them
+up one by one, and, I suppose, valuing them. I was near enough
+to see such a darling little pearl cross, with at least half a dozen
+really good pearls in it, and had begun to covet them for my
+set, when the lady glanced over my shoulder, and she knew me&mdash;in
+fact, we knew one another&mdash;and who do you think she was?
+Well&mdash;you'll not guess in a week, and I can't wait so long; so
+I may as well tell you at once&mdash;she was that horrid old Mademoiselle
+Blassemare whom you pointed out to me at Elverston;
+and I never forgot her face since&mdash;nor she, it seems, mine, for
+she turned away very quickly, and when I next saw her, her
+veil was down."'</p>
+
+<p>'Did not you tell me, Maud, that you had lost your pearl
+cross while that dreadful Madame de la Rougierre was here?'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes; but&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'I know; but what has she to do with Mademoiselle de Blassemare,
+you were going to say&mdash;they are one and the same person.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, I perceive,' answered I, with that dim sense of danger
+and dismay with which one hears suddenly of an enemy of whom
+one has lost sight for a time.</p>
+
+<p>'I'll write and tell Georgie to buy that cross. I wager my life
+it is yours,' said Lady Knollys, firmly.</p>
+
+<p>The servants, indeed, made no secret of their opinion of
+Madame de la Rougierre, and frankly charged her with a long
+list of larcenies. Even Anne Wixted, who had enjoyed her barren
+favour while the gouvernante was here, hinted privately that
+she had bartered a missing piece of lace belonging to me with a
+gipsy pedlar, for French gloves and an Irish poplin.</p>
+
+<p>'And so surely as I find it is yours, I'll set the police in pursuit.'</p>
+
+<p>'But you must not bring me into court,' said I, half amused
+and half alarmed.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page183" id="page183"></a>[pg 175]</span>
+
+<p>'No occasion, my dear; Mary Quince and Mrs. Rusk can
+prove it perfectly.'</p>
+
+<p>'And why do you dislike her so very much?' I asked.</p>
+
+<p>Cousin Monica leaned back in her chair, and searched the
+cornice from corner to corner with upturned eyes for the reason,
+and at last laughed a little, amused at herself.</p>
+
+<p>'Well, really, it is not easy to define, and, perhaps, it is not
+quite charitable; but I know I hate her, and I know, you little
+hypocrite, you hate her as much as I;' and we both laughed a
+little.</p>
+
+<p>'But you must tell me all you know of her history.'</p>
+
+<p>'Her history?' echoed she. 'I really know next to nothing
+about it; only that I used to see her sometimes about the place
+that Georgina mentions, and there were some unpleasant things
+said about her; but you know they may be all lies. The worst
+I <i>know</i> of her is her treatment of you, and her robbing the
+desk'&mdash;(Cousin Monica always called it her <i>robbery</i>)&mdash;'and I
+think that's enough to hang her. Suppose we go out for a walk?'</p>
+
+<p>So together we went, and I resumed about Madame; but no
+more could I extract&mdash;perhaps there was not much more to hear.</p>
+
+<a name="chap30"></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XXX</h3>
+
+<h2><i>ON THE ROAD</i></h2>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>All at Knowl was indicative of the break-up that was so near
+at hand. Doctor Bryerly arrived according to promise. He was
+in a whirl of business all the time. He and Mr. Danvers conferred
+about the management of the estate. It was agreed that
+the grounds and gardens should be let, but not the house, of
+which Mrs. Rusk was to take the care. The gamekeeper remained
+in office, and some out-door servants. But the rest were
+to go, except Mary Quince, who was to accompany me to Bartram-Haugh
+as my maid.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page184" id="page184"></a>[pg 176]</span>
+
+<p>'Don't part with Quince,' said Lady Knollys, peremptorily
+'they'll want you, but <i>don't</i>.'</p>
+
+<p>She kept harping on this point, and recurred to it half a
+dozen times every day.</p>
+
+<p>'They'll say, you know, that she is not fit for a lady's maid,
+as she certainly is <i>not</i>, if it in the least signified in such a
+wilderness
+as Bartram-Haugh; but she is attached, trustworthy, and
+honest; and those are qualities valuable everywhere, especially
+in a solitude. Don't allow them to get you a wicked young
+French milliner in her stead.'</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes she said things that jarred unpleasantly on my
+nerves, and left an undefined sense of danger. Such as:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'I know she's true to you, and a good creature; but is she
+shrewd enough?'</p>
+
+<p>Or, with an anxious look:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'I hope Mary Quince is not easily frightened.'</p>
+
+<p>Or, suddenly:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Can Mary Quince write, in case you were ill?'</p>
+
+<p>Or,</p>
+
+<p>'Can she take a message exactly?'</p>
+
+<p>Or,</p>
+
+<p>'Is she a person of any enterprise and resource, and cool in
+an emergency?'</p>
+
+<p>Now, these questions did not come all in a string, as I write
+them down here, but at long intervals, and were followed
+quickly by ordinary talk; but they generally escaped from my
+companion after silence and gloomy thought; and though I
+could extract nothing more defined than these questions, yet
+they seemed to me to point at some possible danger contemplated
+in my good cousin's dismal ruminations.</p>
+
+<p>Another topic that occupied my cousin's mind a good deal
+was obviously the larceny of my pearl cross. She made a note of
+the description furnished by the recollection, respectively, of
+Mary Quince, Mrs. Rusk, and myself. I had fancied her little
+vision of the police was no more than the result of a momentary
+impulse; but really, to judge by her methodical examinations of us,
+I should have fancied that she had taken it up in
+downright earnest.</p>
+
+<p>Having learned that my departure from Knowl was to be
+so very soon, she resolved not to leave me before the day of my
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page185" id="page185"></a>[pg 177]</span>
+
+journey to Bartram-Haugh; and as day after day passed by,
+and the hour of our leave-taking approached, she became more
+and more kind and affectionate. A feverish and sorrowful interval
+it was to me.</p>
+
+<p>Of Doctor Bryerly, though staying in the house, we saw almost
+nothing, except for an hour or so at tea-time. He breakfasted
+very early, and dined solitarily, and at uncertain hours,
+as business permitted.</p>
+
+<p>The second evening of his visit, Cousin Monica took occasion
+to introduce the subject of his visit to Bartram-Haugh.</p>
+
+<p>'You saw him, of course?' said Lady Knollys.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, he saw me; he was not well. On hearing who I was,
+he asked me to go to his room, where he sat in a silk dressing-gown
+and slippers.'</p>
+
+<p>'About business principally,' said Cousin Monica, laconically.</p>
+
+<p>'That was despatched in very few words; for he was quite
+resolved, and placed his refusal upon grounds which it was
+difficult to dispute. But difficult or no, mind you, he intimated
+that he would hear nothing more on the subject&mdash;so that was
+closed.'</p>
+
+<p>'Well; and what is his religion now?' inquired she, irreverently.</p>
+
+<p>'We had some interesting conversation on the subject. He
+leans much to what we call the doctrine of correspondents. He
+is read rather deeply in the writings of Swedenborg, and seemed
+anxious to discuss some points with one who professes to be his
+follower. To say truth, I did not expect to find him either so
+well read or so deeply interested in the subject.'</p>
+
+<p>'Was he angry when it was proposed that he should vacate
+the guardianship?'</p>
+
+<p>'Not at all. Contrariwise, he said he had at first been so
+minded himself. His years, his habits, and something of the unfitness
+of the situation, the remoteness of Bartram-Haugh from
+good teachers, and all that, had struck him, and nearly determined
+him against accepting the office. But then came the
+views which I stated in my letter, and they governed him; and
+nothing could shake them, he said, or induce him to re-open
+the question in his own mind.'</p>
+
+<p>All the time Doctor Bryerly was relating his conference with
+the head of the family at Bartram-Haugh my cousin commented
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page186" id="page186"></a>[pg 178]</span>
+
+on the narrative with a variety of little 'pishes' and sneers,
+which I thought showed more of vexation than contempt.</p>
+
+<p>I was glad to hear all that Doctor Bryerly related. It gave me
+a kind of confidence; and I experienced a momentary reaction.
+After all, could Bartram-Haugh be more lonely than I had
+found Knowl? Was I not sure of the society of my Cousin
+Millicent, who was about my own age? Was it not quite possible
+that my sojourn in Derbyshire might turn out a happy though
+very quiet remembrance through all my after-life? Why should
+it not? What time or place would be happy if we gave ourselves
+over to dismal imaginations?</p>
+
+<p>So the summons reached me from Uncle Silas. The hours at
+Knowl were numbered.</p>
+
+<p>The evening before I departed I visited the full-length portrait
+of Uncle Silas, and studied it for the last time carefully,
+with deep interest, for many minutes; but with results vaguer
+than ever.</p>
+
+<p>With a brother so generous and so wealthy, always ready to
+help him forward; with his talents; with his lithe and gorgeous
+beauty, the shadow of which hung on that canvas&mdash;what might
+he not have accomplished? whom might he not have captivated?
+And yet where and what was he? A poor and shunned
+old man, occupying a lonely house and place that did not belong
+to him, married to degradation, with a few years of suspected
+and solitary life before him, and then swift oblivion his best
+portion.</p>
+
+<p>I gazed on the picture, to fix it well and vividly in my remembrance.
+I might still trace some of its outlines and tints in
+its living original, whom I was next day to see for the first time
+in my life.</p>
+
+<p>So the morning came&mdash;my last for many a day at Knowl&mdash;a
+day of partings, a day of novelty and regrets. The travelling
+carriage and post horses were at the door. Cousin Monica's
+carriage had just carried her away to the railway. We had embraced
+with tears; and her kind face was still before me, and
+her words of comfort and promise in my ears. The early sharpness
+of morning was still in the air; the frosty dew still glistened
+on the window-panes. We had made a hasty breakfast, my share
+of which was a single cup of tea. The aspect of the house how
+strange! Uncarpeted, uninhabited, doors for the most part
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page187" id="page187"></a>[pg 179]</span>
+
+locked, all the servants but Mrs. Rusk and Branston departed.
+The drawing-room door stood open, and a charwoman was washing
+the bare floor. I was looking my last&mdash;for who could say how
+long?&mdash;on the old house, and lingered. The luggage was all up.
+I made Mary Quince get in first, for every delay was precious;
+and now the moment was come. I hugged and kissed Mrs. Rusk
+in the hall.</p>
+
+<p>'God bless you, Miss Maud, darling. You must not fret;
+mind, the time won't be long going over&mdash;<i>no</i> time at all; and
+you'll be bringing back a fine young gentleman&mdash;who knows?
+as great as the Duke of Wellington, for your husband; and I'll
+take the best of care of everything, and the birds and the dogs,
+till you come back; and I'll go and see you and Mary, if you'll
+allow, in Derbyshire;' and so forth.</p>
+
+<p>I got into the carriage, and bid Branston, who shut the door,
+good-bye, and kissed hands to Mrs. Rusk, who was smiling and
+drying her eyes and courtesying on the hall-door steps. The
+dogs, who had started gleefully with the carriage, were called
+back by Branston, and driven home, wondering and wistful,
+looking back with ears oddly cocked and tails dejected. My
+heart thanked them for their kindness, and I felt like a stranger,
+and very desolate.</p>
+
+<p>It was a bright, clear morning. It had been settled that it was
+not worth the trouble changing from the carriage to the railway
+for sake of five-and-twenty miles, and so the entire journey of
+sixty miles was to be made by the post road&mdash;the pleasantest
+travelling, if the mind were free. The grander and more distant
+features of the landscape we may see well enough from
+the window of the railway-carriage; but it is the foreground
+that interests and instructs us, like a pleasant gossiping history;
+and <i>that</i> we had, in old days, from the post-chaise window. It
+was more than travelling picquet. Something of all conditions of
+life&mdash;luxury and misery&mdash;high spirits and low;&mdash;all sorts of costume,
+livery, rags, millinery; faces buxom, faces wrinkled,
+faces kind, faces wicked;&mdash;no end of interest and suggestion,
+passing in a procession silent and vivid, and all in their proper
+scenery. The golden corn-sheafs&mdash;the old dark-alleyed orchards,
+and the high streets of antique towns. There were few dreams
+brighter, few books so pleasant.</p>
+
+<p>We drove by the dark wood&mdash;it always looked dark to me&mdash;where
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page188" id="page188"></a>[pg 180]</span>
+
+the 'mausoleum' stands&mdash;where my dear parents both lay
+now. I gazed on its sombre masses not with a softened feeling,
+but a peculiar sense of pain, and was glad when it was quite
+past.</p>
+
+<p>All the morning I had not shed a tear. Good Mary Quince
+cried at leaving Knowl; Lady Knollys' eyes were not dry as she
+kissed and blessed me, and promised an early visit; and the
+dark, lean, energetic face of the housekeeper was quivering, and
+her cheeks wet, as I drove away. But I, whose grief was sorest,
+never shed a tear. I only looked about from one familiar object
+to another, pale, excited, not quite apprehending my departure,
+and wondering at my own composure.</p>
+
+<p>But when we reached the old bridge, with the tall osiers standing
+by the buttress, and looked back at poor Knowl&mdash;the places
+we love and are leaving look so fairy-like and so sad in the clear
+distance, and this is the finest view of the gabled old house, with
+its slanting meadow-lands and noble timber reposing in solemn
+groups&mdash;I gazed at the receding vision, and the tears came at
+last, and I wept in silence long after the fair picture was hidden
+from view by the intervening uplands.</p>
+
+<p>I was relieved, and when we had made our next change of
+horses, and got into a country that was unknown to me, the new
+scenery and the sense of progress worked their accustomed
+effects on a young traveller who had lived a particularly secluded
+life, and I began to experience, on the whole, a not unpleasurable
+excitement.</p>
+
+<p>Mary Quince and I, with the hopefulness of inexperienced
+travellers, began already to speculate about our proximity to
+Bartram-Haugh, and were sorely disappointed when we heard
+from the nondescript courier&mdash;more like a ostler than a servant,
+who sat behind in charge of us and the luggage, and represented
+my guardian's special care&mdash;at nearly one o'clock, that we had
+still forty miles to go, a considerable portion of which was across
+the high Derbyshire mountains, before we reached Bartram-Haugh.</p>
+
+<p>The fact was, we had driven at a pace accommodated rather
+to the convenience of the horses than to our impatience; and
+finding, at the quaint little inn where we now halted, that we
+must wait for a nail or two in a loose shoe of one of our relay,
+we consulted, and being both hungry, agreed to beguile the time
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page189" id="page189"></a>[pg 181]</span>
+
+with an early dinner, which we enjoyed very sociably in a queer
+little parlour with a bow window, and commanding, with a
+little garden for foreground, a very pretty landscape.</p>
+
+<p>Good Mary Quince, like myself, had quite dried her tears
+by this time, and we were both highly interested, and I a little
+nervous, too, about our arrival and reception at Bartram. Some
+time, of course, was lost in this pleasant little parlour, before
+we found ourselves once more pursuing our way.</p>
+
+<p>The slowest part of our journey was the pull up the long
+mountain road, ascending zig-zag, as sailors make way against
+a head-wind, by tacking. I forget the name of the pretty little
+group of houses&mdash;it did not amount to a village&mdash;buried in trees,
+where we got our <i>four</i> horses and two postilions, for the work
+was severe. I can only designate it as the place where Mary
+Quince and I had our tea, very comfortably, and bought some
+gingerbread, very curious to look upon, but quite uneatable.</p>
+
+<p>The greater portion of the ascent, when we were fairly upon
+the mountain, was accomplished at a walk, and at some particularly
+steep points we had to get out and go on foot. But
+this to me was quite delightful. I had never scaled a mountain
+before, and the ferns and heath, the pure boisterous air, and
+above all the magnificent view of the rich country we were
+leaving behind, now gorgeous and misty in sunset tints, stretching
+in gentle undulations far beneath us, quite enchanted me.</p>
+
+<p>We had just reached the summit when the sun went down.
+The low grounds at the other side were already lying in cold
+grey shadow, and I got the man who sat behind to point out as
+well as he could the site of Bartram-Haugh. But mist was gathering
+over all by this time. The filmy disk of the moon which
+was to light us on, so soon as twilight faded into night, hung
+high in air. I tried to see the sable mass of wood which he
+described. But it was vain, and to acquire a clear idea of the
+place, as of its master, I must only wait that nearer view which
+an hour or two more would afford me.</p>
+
+<p>And now we rapidly descended the mountain side. The scenery
+was wilder and bolder than I was accustomed to. Our road
+skirted the edge of a great heathy moor. The silvery light of the
+moon began to glimmer, and we passed a gipsy bivouac with
+fires alight and caldrons hanging over them. It was the first I
+had seen. Two or three low tents; a couple of dark, withered
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page190" id="page190"></a>[pg 182]</span>
+
+crones, veritable witches; a graceful girl standing behind, gazing
+after us; and men in odd-shaped hats, with gaudy waistcoats and
+bright-coloured neck-handkerchiefs and gaitered legs, stood
+lazily in front. They had all a wild tawdry display of colour;
+and a group of alders in the rear made a background of shade
+for tents, fires, and figures.</p>
+
+<p>I opened a front window of the chariot, and called to the
+postboys to stop. The groom from behind came to the window.</p>
+
+<p>'Are not those gipsies?' I enquired.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, please'm, them's gipsies, sure, Miss,' he answered, glancing
+with that odd smile, half contemptuous, half superstitious,
+with which I have since often observed the peasants of Derbyshire
+eyeing those thievish and uncanny neighbours.</p>
+
+<a name="chap31"></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XXXI</h3>
+
+<h2><i>BARTRAM-HAUGH</i></h2>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>In a moment a tall, lithe girl, black-haired, black-eyed, and, as
+I thought, inexpressibly handsome, was smiling, with such beautiful
+rings of pearly teeth, at the window; and in her peculiar
+accent, with a suspicion of something foreign in it, proposing
+with many courtesies to tell the lady her fortune.</p>
+
+<p>I had never seen this wild tribe of the human race before&mdash;children
+of mystery and liberty. Such vagabondism and beauty
+in the figure before me! I looked at their hovels and thought
+of the night, and wondered at their independence, and felt my
+inferiority. I could not resist. She held up her slim oriental
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, I'll hear my fortune,' I said, returning the sibyl's smile
+instinctively.</p>
+
+<p>'Give me some money, Mary Quince. No, <i>not</i> that,' I said,
+rejecting the thrifty sixpence she tendered, for I had heard that
+the revelations of this weird sisterhood were bright in proportion
+to the kindness of their clients, and was resolved to approach
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page191" id="page191"></a>[pg 183]</span>
+
+Bartram with cheerful auguries. 'That five-shilling
+piece,' I insisted; and honest Mary reluctantly surrendered the
+coin.</p>
+
+<p>So the feline beauty took it, with courtesies and 'thankees,'
+smiling still, and hid it away as if she stole it, and looked on
+my open palm still smiling; and told me, to my surprise, that
+there was <i>somebody</i> I liked very much, and I was almost afraid
+she would name Captain Oakley; that he would grow very
+rich, and that I should marry him; that I should move about
+from place to place a great deal for a good while to come. That
+I had some enemies, who should be sometimes so near as to be in
+the same room with me, and yet they should not be able to hurt
+me. That I should see blood spilt and yet not my own, and
+finally be very happy and splendid, like the heroine of a fairy
+tale.</p>
+
+<p>Did this strange, girlish charlatan see in my face some signs of
+shrinking when she spoke of enemies, and set me down for a
+coward whose weakness might be profitable? Very likely. At
+all events she plucked a long brass pin, with a round bead for a
+head, from some part of her dress, and holding the point in her
+fingers, and exhibiting the treasure before my eyes, she told me
+that I must get a charmed pin like that, which her grandmother
+had given to her, and she ran glibly through a story of all the
+magic expended on it, and told me she could not part with it;
+but its virtue was that you were to stick it through the blanket,
+and while it was there neither rat, nor cat, nor snake&mdash;and then
+came two more terms in the catalogue, which I suppose belonged
+to the gipsy dialect, and which she explained to mean, as well
+as I could understand, the first a malevolent spirit, and the second
+'a cove to cut your throat,' could approach or hurt you.</p>
+
+<p>A charm like that, she gave me to understand, I must by hook
+or by crook obtain. She had not a second. None of her people
+in the camp over there possessed one. I am ashamed to confess
+that I actually paid her a pound for this brass pin! The purchase
+was partly an indication of my temperament, which could
+never let an opportunity pass away irrevocably without a struggle,
+and always apprehended 'Some day or other I'll reproach
+myself for having neglected it!' and partly a record of the trepidations
+of that period of my life. At all events I had her pin,
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page192" id="page192"></a>[pg 184]</span>
+
+and she my pound, and I venture to say I was the gladder of the
+two.</p>
+
+<p>She stood on the road-side bank courtseying and smiling, the
+first enchantress I had encountered, and I watched the receding
+picture, with its patches of firelight, its dusky groups and donkey
+carts, white as skeletons in the moonlight, as we drove rapidly
+away.</p>
+
+<p>They, I suppose, had a wild sneer and a merry laugh over
+my purchase, as they sat and ate their supper of stolen poultry,
+about their fire, and were duly proud of belonging to the superior race.</p>
+
+<p>Mary Quince, shocked at my prodigality, hinted a remonstrance.</p>
+
+<p>'It went to my heart, Miss, it did. They're such a lot, young
+and old, all alike thieves and vagabonds, and many a poor body
+wanting.'</p>
+
+<p>'Tut, Mary, never mind. Everyone has her fortune told some
+time in her life, and you can't have a good one without paying. I
+think, Mary, we must be near Bartram now.'</p>
+
+<p>The road now traversed the side of a steep hill, parallel to
+which, along the opposite side of a winding river, rose the dark
+steeps of a corresponding upland, covered with forest that looked
+awful and dim in the deep shadow, while the moonlight
+rippled fitfully upon the stream beneath.</p>
+
+<p>'It seems to be a beautiful country,' I said to Mary Quince,
+who was munching a sandwich in the corner, and thus appealed
+to, adjusted her bonnet, and made an inspection from <i>her</i>
+window, which, however, commanded nothing but the heathy
+slope of the hill whose side we were traversing.</p>
+
+<p>'Well, Miss, I suppose it is; but there's a deal o' mountains&mdash;is
+not there?'</p>
+
+<p>And so saying, honest Mary leaned back again, and went on
+with her sandwich.</p>
+
+<p>We were now descending at a great pace. I knew we were
+coming near. I stood up as well as I could in the carriage, to see
+over the postilions' heads. I was eager, but frightened too; agitated
+as the crisis of the arrival and meeting approached. At last,
+a long stretch of comparatively level country below us, with
+masses of wood as well as I could see irregularly overspreading
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page193" id="page193"></a>[pg 185]</span>
+
+it, became visible as the narrow valley through which we were
+speeding made a sudden bend.</p>
+
+<p>Down we drove, and now I did perceive a change. A great
+grass-grown park-wall, overtopped with mighty trees; but still
+on and on we came at a canter that seemed almost a gallop. The
+old grey park-wall flanking us at one side, and a pretty pastoral
+hedgerow of ash-trees, irregularly on the other.</p>
+
+<p>At last the postilions began to draw bridle, and at a slight
+angle, the moon shining full upon them, we wheeled into a wide
+semicircle formed by the receding park-walls, and halted before
+a great fantastic iron gate, and a pair of tall fluted piers, of
+white stone, all grass-grown and ivy-bound, with great cornices,
+surmounted with shields and supporters, the Ruthyn bearings
+washed by the rains of Derbyshire for many a generation of
+Ruthyns, almost smooth by this time, and looking bleached and
+phantasmal, like giant sentinels, with each a hand clasped in
+his comrade's, to bar our passage to the enchanted castle&mdash;the
+florid tracery of the iron gate showing like the draperies of white
+robes hanging from their extended arms to the earth.</p>
+
+<p>Our courier got down and shoved the great gate open, and we
+entered, between sombre files of magnificent forest trees, one of
+those very broad straight avenues whose width measures the
+front of the house. This was all built of white stone, resembling
+that of Caen, which parts of Derbyshire produce in such abundance.</p>
+
+<p>So this was Bartram, and here was Uncle Silas. I was almost
+breathless as I approached. The bright moon shining full on the
+white front of the old house revealed not only its highly decorated
+style, its fluted pillars and doorway, rich and florid
+carving, and balustraded summit, but also its stained and moss-grown
+front. Two giant trees, overthrown at last by the recent
+storm, lay with their upturned roots, and their yellow foliage
+still flickering on the sprays that were to bloom no more, where
+they had fallen, at the right side of the court-yard, which, like
+the avenue, was studded with tufted weeds and grass.</p>
+
+<p>All this gave to the aspect of Bartram a forlorn character of
+desertion and decay, contrasting almost awfully with the grandeur
+of its proportions and richness of its architecture.</p>
+
+<p>There was a ruddy glow from a broad window in the
+second row, and I thought I saw some one peep from it and disappear;
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page194" id="page194"></a>[pg 186]</span>
+
+at the same moment there was a furious barking of
+dogs, some of whom ran scampering into the court-yard from
+a half-closed side door; and amid their uproar, the bawling of
+the man in the back seat, who jumped down to drive them off,
+and the crack of the postilions' whips, who struck at them, we
+drew up before the lordly door-steps of this melancholy mansion.</p>
+
+<p>Just as our attendant had his hand on the knocker the door
+opened, and we saw, by a not very brilliant candle-light, three
+figures&mdash;a shabby little old man, thin, and very much stooped,
+with a white cravat, and looking as if his black clothes were too
+large, and made for some one else, stood with his hand upon the
+door; a young, plump, but very pretty female figure, in unusually
+short petticoats, with fattish legs, and nice ankles, in boots,
+stood in the centre; and a dowdy maid, like an old charwoman,
+behind her.</p>
+
+<p>The household paraded for welcome was not certainly very
+brilliant. Amid the riot the trunks were deliberately put down
+by our attendant, who kept shouting to the old man at the door,
+and to the dogs in turn; and the old man was talking and
+pointing stiffly and tremulously, but I could not hear what he
+said.</p>
+
+<p>'Was it possible&mdash;could that mean-looking old man be Uncle
+Silas?'</p>
+
+<p>The idea stunned me; but I almost instantly perceived that he
+was much too small, and I was relieved, and even grateful. It
+was certainly an odd mode of procedure to devote primary attention
+to the trunks and boxes, leaving the travellers still
+shut up in the carriage, of which they were by this time pretty
+well tired. I was not sorry for the reprieve, however: being nervous
+about first impressions, and willing to defer mine, I sat
+shyly back, peeping at the candle and moonlight picture before
+me, myself unseen.</p>
+
+<p>'Will you tell&mdash;yes or no&mdash;is my cousin in the coach?'
+screamed the plump young lady, stamping her stout black boot,
+in a momentary lull.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, I was there, sure.</p>
+
+<p>'And why the puck don't you let her out, you stupe, you?'</p>
+
+<p>'Run down, Giblets, you never do nout without driving, and
+let Cousin Maud out. You're very welcome to Bartram.' This
+greeting was screamed at an amazing pitch, and repeated before
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page195" id="page195"></a>[pg 187]</span>
+
+I had time to drop the window, and say 'thank you.' 'I'd a let
+you out myself&mdash;there's a good dog, you would na' bite Cousin'
+(the parenthesis was to a huge mastiff, who thrust himself beside
+her, by this time quite pacified)&mdash;'only I daren't go down the
+steps, for the governor said I shouldn't.'</p>
+
+<p>The venerable person who went by the name of Giblets had
+by this time opened the carriage door, and our courier, or
+'boots'&mdash;he looked more like the latter functionary&mdash;had lowered
+the steps, and in greater trepidation than I experienced when in
+after-days I was presented to my sovereign, I glided down, to offer
+myself to the greeting and inspection of the plain-spoken
+young lady who stood at the top of the steps to receive me.</p>
+
+<p>She welcomed me with a hug and a hearty buss, as she called
+that salutation, on each cheek, and pulled me into the hall, and
+was evidently glad to see me.</p>
+
+<p>'And you're tired a bit, I warrant; and who's the old 'un,
+who?' she asked eagerly, in a stage whisper, which made my ear
+numb for five minutes after. 'Oh, oh, the maid! and a precious
+old 'un&mdash;ha, ha, ha! But lawk! how grand she is, with her black
+silk, cloak and crape, and I only in twilled cotton, and rotten old
+Coburg for Sundays. Odds! it's a shame; but you'll be tired,
+you will. It's a smartish pull, they do say, from Knowl. I know
+a spell of it, only so far as the "Cat and Fiddle," near the
+Lunnon-road. Come up, will you? Would you like to come in
+first and talk a bit wi' the governor? Father, you know, he's a
+bit silly, he is, this while.' I found that the phrase meant only
+<i>bodily</i> infirmity. 'He took a pain o' Friday, newralgie&mdash;something
+or other he calls it&mdash;rheumatics it is when it takes old
+"Giblets" there; and he's sitting in his own room; or maybe
+you'd like better to come to your bedroom first, for it is dirty
+work travelling, they do say.'</p>
+
+<p>Yes; I preferred the preliminary adjustment. Mary Quince
+was standing behind me; and as my voluble kinswoman talked
+on, we had each ample time and opportunity to observe the personnel
+of the other; and she made no scruple of letting me perceive
+that she was improving it, for she stared me full in the
+face, taking in evidently feature after feature; and she felt the
+material of my mantle pretty carefully between her finger and
+thumb, and manually examined my chain and trinkets, and
+picked up my hand as she might a glove, to con over my rings.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page196" id="page196"></a>[pg 188]</span>
+
+<p>I can't say, of course, exactly what impression I may have produced
+on her. But in my cousin Milly I saw a girl who looked
+younger than her years, plump, but with a slender waist, with
+light hair, lighter than mine, and very blue eyes, rather round;
+on the whole very good-looking. She had an odd swaggering
+walk, a toss of her head, and a saucy and imperious, but rather
+good-natured and honest countenance. She talked rather loud,
+with a good ringing voice, and a boisterous laugh when it came.</p>
+
+<p>If <i>I</i> was behind the fashion, what would Cousin Monica have
+thought of her? She was arrayed, as she had stated, in black
+twilled cotton expressive of her affliction; but it was made almost
+as short in the skirt as that of the prints of the Bavarian
+broom girls. She had white cotton stockings, and a pair of black
+leather boots, with leather buttons, and, for a lady, prodigiously
+thick soles, which reminded me of the navvy boots I had so often
+admired in <i>Punch</i>. I must add that the hands with which she
+assisted her scrutiny of my dress, though pretty, were very much
+sunburnt indeed.</p>
+
+<p>'And what's <i>her</i> name?' she demanded, nodding to Mary
+Quince, who was gazing on her awfully, with round eyes, as
+an inland spinster might upon a whale beheld for the first
+time.</p>
+
+<p>Mary courtesied, and I answered.</p>
+
+<p>'Mary Quince,' she repeated. 'You're welcome, Quince. What
+shall I call her? I've a name for all o' them. Old Giles there,
+is Giblets. He did not like it first, but he answers quick enough
+now; and Old Lucy Wyat there,' nodding toward the old woman,
+'is Lucia de l'Amour.' A slightly erroneous reading of Lammermoor,
+for my cousin sometimes made mistakes, and was not
+much versed in the Italian opera. 'You know it's a play, and I
+call her L'Amour for shortness;' and she laughed hilariously,
+and I could not forbear joining; and, winking at me, she called
+aloud, 'L'Amour.'</p>
+
+<p>To which the crone, with a high-cauled cap, resembling
+Mother Hubbard, responded with a courtesy and 'Yes, 'm.'</p>
+
+<p>'Are all the trunks and boxes took up?'</p>
+
+<p>They were.</p>
+
+<p>'Well, we'll come now; and what shall I call you, Quince?
+Let me see.'</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page197" id="page197"></a>[pg 189]</span>
+
+<p>'According to your pleasure, Miss,' answered Mary, with
+dignity, and a dry courtesy.</p>
+
+<p>'Why, you're as hoarse as a frog, Quince. We'll call you
+Quinzy for the present. That'll do. Come along, Quinzy.'</p>
+
+<p>So my Cousin Milly took me under the arm, and pulled me
+forward; but as we ascended, she let me go, leaning back to
+make inspection of my attire from a new point of view.</p>
+
+<p>'Hallo, cousin,' she cried, giving my dress a smack with her
+open hand. 'What a plague do you want of all that bustle;
+you'll leave it behind, lass, the first bush you jump over.'</p>
+
+<p>I was a good deal astounded. I was also very near laughing,
+for there was a sort of importance in her plump countenance,
+and an indescribable grotesqueness in the fashion of her garments,
+which heightened the outlandishness of her talk, in a
+way which I cannot at all describe.</p>
+
+<p>What palatial wide stairs those were which we ascended, with
+their prodigious carved banisters of oak, and each huge pillar on
+the landing-place crowned with a shield and carved heraldic
+supporters; florid oak panelling covered the walls. But of the
+house I could form no estimate, for Uncle Silas's housekeeping
+did not provide light for hall and passages, and we were dependent
+on the glimmer of a single candle; but there would be
+quite enough of this kind of exploration in the daylight.</p>
+
+<p>So along dark oak flooring we advanced to my room, and I had
+now an opportunity of admiring, at my leisure, the lordly proportions
+of the building. Two great windows, with dark and
+tarnished curtains, rose half as high again as the windows of
+Knowl; and yet Knowl, in its own style, is a fine house. The
+door-frames, like the window-frames, were richly carved; the
+fireplace was in the same massive style, and the mantelpiece
+projected with a mass of very rich carving. On the whole I was
+surprised. I had never slept in so noble a room before.</p>
+
+<p>The furniture, I must confess, was by no means on a par with
+the architectural pretensions of the apartment. A French bed, a
+piece of carpet about three yards square, a small table, two
+chairs, a toilet table&mdash;no wardrobe&mdash;no chest of drawers. The furniture
+painted white, and of the light and diminutive kind, was
+particularly ill adapted to the scale and style of the apartment,
+one end only of which it occupied, and that but sparsely, leaving
+the rest of the chamber in the nakedness of a stately desolation.
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page198" id="page198"></a>[pg 190]</span>
+
+My cousin Milly ran away to report progress to 'the Governor,'
+as she termed Uncle Silas.</p>
+
+<p>'Well, Miss Maud, I never did expect to see the like o' that!'
+exclaimed honest Mary Quince, 'Did you ever see such a young
+lady? She's no more like one o' the family than I am. Law
+bless us! and what's she dressed like? Well, well, well!' And
+Mary, with a rueful shake of her head, clicked her tongue pathetically
+to the back of her teeth, while I could not forbear laughing.</p>
+
+<p>'And such a scrap o' furniture! Well, well, well!' and the
+same ticking of the tongue followed.</p>
+
+<p>But, in a few minutes, back came Cousin Milly, and, with a
+barbarous sort of curiosity, assisted in unpacking my trunks,
+and stowing away the treasures, on which she ventured a variety
+of admiring criticisms, in the presses which, like cupboards,
+filled recesses in the walls, with great oak doors, the keys of
+which were in them.</p>
+
+<p>As I was making my hurried toilet, she entertained me now
+and then with more strictly personal criticisms.</p>
+
+<p>'Your hair's a shade darker than mine&mdash;it's none the better o'
+that though&mdash;is it? Mine's said to be the right shade. I don't
+know&mdash;what do you say?'</p>
+
+<p>I conceded the point with a good grace.</p>
+
+<p>'I wish my hands was as white though&mdash;you do lick me there;
+but it's all gloves, and I never could abide 'em. I think I'll try
+though&mdash;they <i>are</i> very white, sure.'</p>
+
+<p>'I wonder which is the prettiest, you or me? <i>I</i> don't know,
+<i>I</i>'m sure&mdash;which do <i>you</i> think?'</p>
+
+<p>I laughed outright at this challenge, and she blushed a little,
+and for the first time seemed for a moment a little shy.</p>
+
+<p>'Well, you <i>are</i> a half an inch longer than me, I think&mdash;don't
+you?'</p>
+
+<p>I was fully an inch taller, so I had no difficulty in making the
+proposed admission.</p>
+
+<p>'Well, you do look handsome! doesn't she, Quinzy, lass? but
+your frock comes down almost to your heels&mdash;it does.'</p>
+
+<p>And she glanced from mine to hers, and made a little kick
+up with the heel of the navvy boot to assist her in measuring
+the comparative distance.</p>
+
+<p>'Maybe mine's a thought too short?' she suggested. 'Who's
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page199" id="page199"></a>[pg 191]</span>
+
+there? Oh! it's you, is it?' she cried as Mother Hubbard
+appeared at the door. 'Come in, L'Amour&mdash;don't you know, lass,
+you're always welcome?'</p>
+
+<p>She had come to let us know that Uncle Silas would be happy
+to see me whenever I was ready; and that my cousin Millicent
+would conduct me to the room where he awaited me.</p>
+
+<p>In an instant all the comic sensations awakened by my singular
+cousin's eccentricities vanished, and I was thrilled with awe. I
+was about to see in the flesh&mdash;faded, broken, aged, but still
+identical&mdash;that being who had been the vision and the problem
+of so many years of my short life.</p>
+
+<a name="chap32"></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XXXII</h3>
+
+<h2><i>UNCLE SILAS</i></h2>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>I thought my odd cousin was also impressed with a kind of
+awe, though different in degree from mine, for a shade overcast
+her face, and she was silent as we walked side by side along the
+gallery, accompanied by the crone who carried the candle which
+lighted us to the door of that apartment which I may call Uncle
+Silas's presence chamber.</p>
+
+<p>Milly whispered to me as we approached&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Mind how you make a noise; the governor's as sharp as a
+weasel, and nothing vexes him like that.'</p>
+
+<p>She was herself toppling along on tiptoe. We paused at a
+door near the head of the great staircase, and L'Amour knocked
+timidly with her rheumatic knuckles.</p>
+
+<p>A voice, clear and penetrating, from within summoned us
+to enter. The old woman opened the door, and the next moment
+I was in the presence of Uncle Silas.</p>
+
+<p>At the far end of a handsome wainscoted room, near the
+hearth in which a low fire was burning, beside a small table
+on which stood four waxlights, in tall silver candlesticks, sat
+a singular-looking old man.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page200" id="page200"></a>[pg 192]</span>
+
+<p>The dark wainscoting behind him, and the vastness of the
+room, in the remoter parts of which the light which fell strongly
+upon his face and figure expended itself with hardly any effect,
+exhibited him with the forcible and strange relief of a finely
+painted Dutch portrait. For some time I saw nothing but
+him.</p>
+
+<p>A face like marble, with a fearful monumental look, and, for
+an old man, singularly vivid strange eyes, the singularity of
+which rather grew upon me as I looked; for his eyebrows were
+still black, though his hair descended from his temples in long
+locks of the purest silver and fine as silk, nearly to his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>He rose, tall and slight, a little stooped, all in black, with an
+ample black velvet tunic, which was rather a gown than a coat,
+with loose sleeves, showing his snowy shirt some way up the
+arm, and a pair of wrist buttons, then quite out of fashion,
+which glimmered aristocratically with diamonds.</p>
+
+<p>I know I can't convey in words an idea of this apparition,
+drawn as it seemed in black and white, venerable, bloodless,
+fiery-eyed, with its singular look of power, and an expression so
+bewildering&mdash;was it derision, or anguish, or cruelty, or patience?</p>
+
+<p>The wild eyes of this strange old man were fixed upon me
+as he rose; an habitual contraction, which in certain lights
+took the character of a scowl, did not relax as he advanced toward
+me with his thin-lipped smile. He said something in his
+clear, gentle, but cold voice, the import of which I was too much
+agitated to catch, and he took both my hands in his, welcomed
+me with a courtly grace which belonged to another age, and led
+me affectionately, with many inquiries which I only half comprehended,
+to a chair near his own.</p>
+
+<p>'I need not introduce my daughter; she has saved me that
+mortification. You'll find her, I believe, good-natured and affectionate;
+<i>au reste</i>, I fear a very rustic Miranda, and fitted
+rather for the society of Caliban than of a sick old Prospero. Is
+it not so, Millicent?'</p>
+
+<p>The old man paused sarcastically for an answer, with his eyes
+fixed severely on my odd cousin, who blushed and looked uneasily
+to me for a hint.</p>
+
+<p>'I don't know who they be&mdash;neither one nor t'other.'</p>
+
+<p>'Very good, my dear,' he replied, with a little mocking bow.
+'You see, my dear Maud, what a Shakespearean you have got
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page201" id="page201"></a>[pg 193]</span>
+
+for a cousin. It's plain, however, she has made acquaintance
+with some of our dramatists: she has studied the rôle of <i>Miss
+Hoyden</i> so perfectly.'</p>
+
+<p>It was not a reasonable peculiarity of my uncle that he resented,
+with a good deal of playful acrimony, my poor cousin's
+want of education, for which, if he were not to blame, certainly
+neither was she.</p>
+
+<p>'You see her, poor thing, a result of all the combined disadvantages
+of want of refined education, refined companionship,
+and, I fear, naturally, of refined tastes; but a sojourn at a good
+French conventual school will do wonders, and I hope to
+manage by-and-by. In the meantime we jest at our misfortunes,
+and love one another, I hope, cordially.'</p>
+
+<p>He extended his thin, white hand with a chilly smile towards
+Milly, who bounced up, and took it with a frightened look;
+and he repeated, holding her hand rather slightly I thought,
+'Yes, I hope, very cordially,' and then turning again to me, he
+put it over the arm of his chair, and let it go, as a man might
+drop something he did not want from a carriage window.</p>
+
+<p>Having made this apology for poor Milly, who was plainly bewildered,
+he passed on, to her and my relief, to other topics,
+every now and then expressing his fears that I was fatigued, and
+his anxiety that I should partake of some supper or tea; but
+these solicitudes somehow seemed to escape his remembrance
+almost as soon as uttered; and he maintained the conversation,
+which soon degenerated into a close, and to me a painful examination,
+respecting my dear father's illness and its symptoms,
+upon which I could give no information, and his habits, upon
+which I could.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps he fancied that there might be some family predisposition
+to the organic disease of which his brother died, and
+that his questions were directed rather to the prolonging of his
+own life than to the better understanding of my dear father's
+death.</p>
+
+<p>How little was there left to this old man to make life desirable,
+and yet how keenly, I afterwards found, he clung to it.
+Have we not all of us seen those to whom life was not only
+<i>undesirable</i>, but positively painful&mdash;a mere series of bodily torments,
+yet hold to it with a desperate and pitiable tenacity&mdash;old
+children or young, it is all the same.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page202" id="page202"></a>[pg 194]</span>
+
+<p>See how a sleepy child will put off the inevitable departure for
+bed. The little creature's eyes blink and stare, and it needs constant
+jogging to prevent his nodding off into the slumber which
+nature craves. His waking is a pain; he is quite worn out, and
+peevish, and stupid, and yet he implores a respite, and deprecates
+repose, and vows he is not sleepy, even to the moment
+when his mother takes him in her arms, and carries him, in a
+sweet slumber, to the nursery. So it is with us old children of
+earth and the great sleep of death, and nature our kind mother.
+Just so reluctantly we part with consciousness, the picture is,
+even to the last, so interesting; the bird in the hand, though
+sick and moulting, so inestimably better than all the brilliant
+tenants of the bush. We sit up, yawning, and blinking, and
+stupid, the whole scene swimming before us, and the stories
+and music humming off into the sound of distant winds and
+waters. It is not time yet; we are not fatigued; we are good
+for another hour still, and so protesting against bed, we falter
+and drop into the dreamless sleep which nature assigns to
+fatigue and satiety.</p>
+
+<p>He then spoke a little eulogy of his brother, very polished,
+and, indeed, in a kind of way, eloquent. He possessed in a high
+degree that accomplishment, too little cultivated, I think, by
+the present generation, of expressing himself with perfect precision
+and fluency. There was, too, a good deal of slight illustrative
+quotation, and a sprinkling of French flowers, over his
+conversation, which gave to it a character at once elegant and
+artificial. It was all easy, light, and pointed, and being quite
+new to me, had a wonderful fascination.</p>
+
+<p>He then told me that Bartram was the temple of liberty, that
+the health of a whole life was founded in a few years of youth,
+air, and exercise, and that accomplishments, at least, if not
+education, should wait upon health. Therefore, while at Bartram,
+I should dispose of my time quite as I pleased, and the
+more I plundered the garden and gipsied in the woodlands, the
+better.</p>
+
+<p>Then he told me what a miserable invalid he was, and how
+the doctors interfered with his frugal tastes. A glass of beer and
+a mutton chop&mdash;his ideal of a dinner&mdash;he dared not touch. They
+made him drink light wines, which he detested, and live upon
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page203" id="page203"></a>[pg 195]</span>
+
+those artificial abominations all liking for which vanishes with
+youth.</p>
+
+<p>There stood on a side-table, in its silver coaster, a long-necked
+Rhenish bottle, and beside it a thin pink glass, and he quivered
+his fingers in a peevish way toward them.</p>
+
+<p>But unless he found himself better very soon, he would take
+his case into his own hands, and try the dietary to which nature
+pointed.</p>
+
+<p>He waved his fingers toward his bookcases, and told me his
+books were altogether at my service during my stay; but this
+promise ended, I must confess, disappointingly. At last, remarking
+that I must be fatigued, he rose, and kissed me with
+a solemn tenderness, placed his hand upon what I now perceived
+to be a large Bible, with two broad silk markers, red and gold,
+folded in it&mdash;the one, I might conjecture, indicating the place
+in the Old, the other in the New Testament. It stood on the
+small table that supported the waxlights, with a handsome cut
+bottle of eau-de-cologne, his gold and jewelled pencil-case, and
+his chased repeater, chain, and seals, beside it. There certainly
+were no indications of poverty in Uncle Silas's room; and he
+said impressively&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Remember that book; in it your father placed his trust, in
+it he found his reward, in it lives my only hope; consult it,
+my beloved niece, day and night, as the oracle of life.'</p>
+
+<p>Then he laid his thin hand on my head, and blessed me,
+and then kissed my forehead.</p>
+
+<p>'No&mdash;a!' exclaimed Cousin Milly's lusty voice. I had quite
+forgotten her presence, and looked at her with a little start. She was
+seated on a very high old-fashioned chair; she had palpably been asleep;
+her round eyes were blinking and staring glassily at us; and her white legs
+and navvy boots were dangling in the air.</p>
+
+<p>'Have you anything to remark about Noah?' enquired her
+father, with a polite inclination and an ironical interest.</p>
+
+<p>'No&mdash;a,' she repeated in the same blunt accents; 'I didn't
+snore; did I? No&mdash;a.'</p>
+
+<p>The old man smiled and shrugged a little at me&mdash;it was the
+smile of disgust.</p>
+
+<p>'Good night, my dear Maud;' and turning to her, he said,
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page204" id="page204"></a>[pg 196]</span>
+
+with a peculiar gentle sharpness, 'Had not you better wake, my
+dear, and try whether your cousin would like some supper?'</p>
+
+<p>So he accompanied us to the door, outside which we found
+L'Amour's candle awaiting us.</p>
+
+<p>'I'm awful afraid of the Governor, I am. Did I snore that
+time?'</p>
+
+<p>'No, dear; at least, I did not hear it,' I said, unable to repress
+a smile.</p>
+
+<p>'Well, if I didn't, I was awful near it,' she said, reflectively.</p>
+
+<p>We found poor Mary Quince dozing over the fire; but we
+soon had tea and other good things, of which Milly partook
+with a wonderful appetite.</p>
+
+<p>'I <i>was</i> in a qualm about it,' said Milly, who by this time was
+quite herself again. 'When he spies me a-napping, maybe he
+don't fetch me a prod with his pencil-case over the head. Odd!
+girl, it <i>is</i> sore.'</p>
+
+<p>When I contrasted the refined and fluent old gentleman whom
+I had just left, with this amazing specimen of young ladyhood, I
+grew sceptical almost as to the possibility of her being his child.</p>
+
+<p>I was to learn, however, how little she had, I won't say of his
+society, but even of his presence&mdash;that she had no domestic companion
+of the least pretensions to education&mdash;that she ran wild
+about the place&mdash;never, except in church, so much as saw a person
+of that rank to which she was born&mdash;and that the little she
+knew of reading and writing had been picked up, in desultory
+half-hours, from a person who did not care a pin about her manners
+or decorum, and perhaps rather enjoyed her grotesqueness&mdash;and
+that no one who was willing to take the least trouble about
+her was competent to make her a particle more refined than
+I saw her&mdash;the wonder ceased. We don't know how little is
+heritable, and how much simply training, until we encounter
+some-such spectacle as that of my poor cousin Milly.</p>
+
+<p>When I lay down in my bed and reviewed the day, it seemed
+like a month of wonders. Uncle Silas was always before me; the
+voice so silvery for an old man&mdash;so preternaturally soft; the manners
+so sweet, so gentle; the aspect, smiling, suffering, spectral.
+It was no longer a shadow; I had now seen him in the flesh.
+But, after all, was he more than a shadow to me? When I closed
+my eyes I saw him before me still, in necromantic black, ashy
+with a pallor on which I looked with fear and pain, a face so
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page205" id="page205"></a>[pg 197]</span>
+
+dazzlingly pale, and those hollow, fiery, awful eyes! It sometimes
+seemed as if the curtain opened, and I had seen a ghost.</p>
+
+<p>I had seen him; but he was still an enigma and a marvel.
+The living face did not expound the past, any more than the
+portrait portended the future. He was still a mystery and a
+vision; and thinking of these things I fell asleep.</p>
+
+<p>Mary Quince, who slept in the dressing-room, the door of
+which was close to my bed, and lay open to secure me against
+ghosts, called me up; and the moment I knew where I was I
+jumped up, and peeped eagerly from the window. It commanded
+the avenue and court-yard; but we were many windows removed
+from that over the hall-door, and immediately beneath
+ours lay the two giant lime trees, prostrate and uprooted,
+which I had observed as we drove up the night before.</p>
+
+<p>I saw more clearly in the bright light of morning the signs
+of neglect and almost of dilapidation which had struck me as I
+approached. The court-yard was tufted over with grass, seldom
+from year to year crushed by the carriage-wheels, or trodden by
+the feet of visitors. This melancholy verdure thickened where
+the area was more remote from the centre; and under the windows,
+and skirting the walls to the left, was reinforced by a
+thick grove of nettles. The avenue was all grass-grown, except
+in the very centre, where a narrow track still showed the roadway.
+The handsome carved balustrade of the court-yard was
+discoloured with lichens, and in two places gapped and broken;
+and the air of decay was heightened by the fallen trees, among
+whose sprays and yellow leaves the small birds were hopping.</p>
+
+<p>Before my toilet was completed, in marched my cousin Milly.
+We were to breakfast alone that morning, 'and so much the
+better,' she told me. Sometimes the Governor ordered her to
+breakfast with him, and 'never left off chaffing her' till his
+newspaper came, and 'sometimes he said such things he made
+her cry,' and then he only 'boshed her more,' and packed her
+away to her room; but she was by chalks nicer than him, talk
+as he might. '<i>Was</i> not she nicer? was not she? was not she?'
+Upon this point she was so strong and urgent that I was obliged
+to reply by a protest against awarding the palm of elegance
+between parent and child, and declaring I liked her very much,
+which I attested by a kiss.</p>
+
+<p>'I know right well which of us you do think's the nicest, and
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page206" id="page206"></a>[pg 198]</span>
+
+no mistake, only you're afraid of him; and he had no business
+boshing me last night before you. I knew he was at it, though I
+couldn't twig him altogether; but wasn't he a sneak, now, wasn't
+he?'</p>
+
+<p>This was a still more awkward question; so I kissed her again,
+and said she must never ask me to say of my uncle in his absence anything I
+could not say to his face.</p>
+
+<p>At which speech she stared at me for a while, and then treated
+me to one of her hearty laughs, after which she seemed happier,
+and gradually grew into better humour with her father.</p>
+
+<p>'Sometimes, when the curate calls, he has me up&mdash;for he's as
+religious as six, he is&mdash;and they read Bible and prays, ho&mdash;don't
+they? You'll have that, lass, like me, to go through; and maybe
+I don't hate it; oh, no!'</p>
+
+<p>We breakfasted in a small room, almost a closet, off the great
+parlour, which was evidently quite disused. Nothing could be
+homelier than our equipage, or more shabby than the furniture
+of the little apartment. Still, somehow, I liked it. It was a total
+change; but one likes 'roughing it' a little at first.</p>
+
+<a name="chap33"></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XXXIII</h3>
+
+<h2><i>THE WINDMILL WOOD</i></h2>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>I had not time to explore this noble old house as my curiosity
+prompted; for Milly was in such a fuss to set out for the 'blackberry dell'
+that I saw little more than just so much as I necessarily traversed in
+making my way to and from my room.</p>
+
+<p>The actual decay of the house had been prevented by my dear
+father; and the roof, windows, masonry, and carpentry had all
+been kept in repair. But short of indications of actual ruin,
+there are many manifestations of poverty and neglect which impress with a
+feeling of desolation. It was plain that not nearly
+a tithe of this great house was inhabited; long corridors and
+galleries stretched away in dust and silence, and were crossed
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page207" id="page207"></a>[pg 199]</span>
+
+by others, whose dark arches inspired me in the distance with
+an awful sort of sadness. It was plainly one of those great structures in
+which you might easily lose yourself, and with a pleasing terror it
+reminded me of that delightful old abbey in Mrs.
+Radcliffe's romance, among whose silent staircases, dim passages,
+and long suites of lordly, but forsaken chambers, begirt without
+by the sombre forest, the family of La Mote secured a gloomy
+asylum.</p>
+
+<p>My cousin Milly and I, however, were bent upon an open-air
+ramble, and traversing several passages, she conducted me to
+a door which led us out upon a terrace overgrown with weeds,
+and by a broad flight of steps we descended to the level of the
+grounds beneath. Then on, over the short grass, under the noble
+trees, we walked; Milly in high good-humour, and talking away
+volubly, in her short garment, navvy boots, and a weather-beaten
+hat. She carried a stick in her gloveless hand. Her conversation
+was quite new to me, and resembled very much what I would
+have fancied the holiday recollections of a schoolboy; and the
+language in which it was sustained was sometimes so outlandish,
+that I was forced to laugh outright&mdash;a demonstration which she
+plainly did not like.</p>
+
+<p>Her talk was about the great jumps she had made&mdash;how she
+'snow-balled the chaps' in winter&mdash;how she could slide twice the
+length of her stick beyond 'Briddles, the cow-boy.'</p>
+
+<p>With this and similar conversation she entertained me.</p>
+
+<p>The grounds were delightfully wild and neglected. But we
+had now passed into a vast park beautifully varied with hollows
+and uplands, and such glorious old timber massed and scattered
+over its slopes and levels. Among these, we got at last into a
+picturesque dingle; the grey rocks peeped from among the ferns
+and wild flowers, and the steps of soft sward along its sides were
+dark in the shadows of silver-stemmed birch, and russet thorn,
+and oak, under which, in the vaporous night, the Erl-king and
+his daughter might glide on their aërial horses.</p>
+
+<p>In the lap of this pleasant dell were the finest blackberry
+bushes, I think, I ever saw, bearing fruit quite fabulous; and
+plucking these, and chatting, we rambled on very pleasantly.</p>
+
+<p>I had first thought of Milly's absurdities, to which, in description, I
+cannot do justice, simply because so many details have,
+by distance of time, escaped my recollection. But her ways and
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page208" id="page208"></a>[pg 200]</span>
+
+her talk were so indescribably grotesque that she made me
+again and again quiver with suppressed laughter.</p>
+
+<p>But there was a pitiable and even a melancholy meaning underlying
+the burlesque.</p>
+
+<p>This creature, with no more education than a dairy-maid, I
+gradually discovered had fine natural aptitudes for accomplishment&mdash;a
+very sweet voice, and wonderfully delicate ear, and a
+talent for drawing which quite threw mine into the shade. It was
+really astonishing.</p>
+
+<p>Poor Milly, in all her life, had never read three books, and
+hated to think of them. One, over which she was wont to yawn
+and sigh, and stare fatiguedly for an hour every Sunday, by command of the
+Governor, was a stout volume of sermons of the
+earlier school of George III., and a drier collection you can't
+fancy. I don't think she read anything else. But she had, notwithstanding,
+ten times the cleverness of half the circulating
+library misses one meets with. Besides all this, I had a long
+sojourn before me at Bartram-Haugh, and I had learned from
+Milly, as I had heard before, what a perennial solitude it was,
+with a ludicrous fear of learning Milly's preposterous dialect,
+and turning at last into something like her. So I resolved to do
+all I could for her&mdash;teach her whatever I knew, if she would
+allow me&mdash;and gradually, if possible, effect some civilising
+changes in her language, and, as they term it in boarding-schools, her
+demeanour.</p>
+
+<p>But I must pursue at present our first day's ramble in what
+was called Bartram Chase. People can't go on eating blackberries
+always; so after a while we resumed our walk along this pretty
+dell, which gradually expanded into a wooded valley&mdash;level
+beneath and enclosed by irregular uplands, receding, as it were,
+in mimic bays and harbours at some points, and running out at
+others into broken promontories, ending in clumps of forest
+trees.</p>
+
+<p>Just where the glen which we had been traversing expanded
+into this broad, but wooded valley, it was traversed by a high
+and close paling, which, although it looked decayed, was still
+very strong.</p>
+
+<p>In this there was a wooden gate, rudely but strongly constructed,
+and at the side we were approaching stood a girl, who
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page209" id="page209"></a>[pg 201]</span>
+
+was leaning against the post, with one arm resting on the top of
+the gate.</p>
+
+<p>This girl was neither tall nor short&mdash;taller than she looked at a
+distance; she had not a slight waist; sooty black was her hair,
+with a broad forehead, perpendicular but low; she had a pair
+of very fine, dark, lustrous eyes, and no other good feature&mdash;unless
+I may so call her teeth, which were very white and even.
+Her face was rather short, and swarthy as a gipsy's; observant
+and sullen too; and she did not move, only eyed us negligently
+from under her dark lashes as we drew near. Altogether a not
+unpicturesque figure, with a dusky, red petticoat of drugget, and
+tattered jacket of bottle-green stuff, with short sleeves, which
+showed her brown arms from the elbow.</p>
+
+<p>'That's Pegtop's daughter,' said Milly.</p>
+
+<p>'Who is Pegtop?' I asked.</p>
+
+<p>'He's the miller&mdash;see, yonder it is,' and she pointed to a very
+pretty feature in the landscape, a windmill, crowning the summit
+of a hillock which rose suddenly above the level of the treetops,
+like an island in the centre of the valley.</p>
+
+<p>'The mill not going to-day, Beauty?' bawled Milly.</p>
+
+<p>'No&mdash;a, Beauty; it baint,' replied the girl, loweringly, and
+without stirring.</p>
+
+<p>'And what's gone with the stile?' demanded Milly, aghast.
+'It's tore away from the paling!'</p>
+
+<p>'Well, so it be,' replied the wood nymph in the red petticoat,
+showing her fine teeth with a lazy grin.</p>
+
+<p>'Who's a bin and done all that?' demanded Milly.</p>
+
+<p>'Not you nor me, lass,' said the girl.</p>
+
+<p>''Twas old Pegtop, your father, did it,' cried Milly, in rising
+wrath.</p>
+
+<p>''Appen it wor,' she replied.</p>
+
+<p>'And the gate locked.'</p>
+
+<p>'That's it&mdash;the gate locked,' she repeated, sulkily, with a defiant
+side-glance at Milly.</p>
+
+<p>'And where's Pegtop?'</p>
+
+<p>'At t'other side, somewhere; how should I know where he
+be?' she replied.</p>
+
+<p>'Who's got the key?'</p>
+
+<p>'Here it be, lass,' she answered, striking her hand on her
+pocket.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page210" id="page210"></a>[pg 202]</span>
+
+<p>'And how durst you stay us here? Unlock it, huzzy, this
+minute!' cried Milly, with a stamp.</p>
+
+<p>Her answer was a sullen smile.</p>
+
+<p>'Open the gate this instant!' bawled Milly.</p>
+
+<p>'Well, I <i>won't.</i>'</p>
+
+<p>I expected that Milly would have flown into a frenzy at this
+direct defiance, but she looked instead puzzled and curious&mdash;the
+girl's unexpected audacity bewildered her.</p>
+
+<p>'Why, you fool, I could get over the paling as soon as look at
+you, but I won't. What's come over you? Open the gate, I say,
+or I'll make you.'</p>
+
+<p>'Do let her alone, dear,' I entreated, fearing a mutual assault.
+'She has been ordered, may be, not to open it. Is it so, my
+good girl?'</p>
+
+<p>'Well, thou'rt not the biggest fool o' the two,' she observed,
+commendatively, 'thou'st hit it, lass.'</p>
+
+<p>'And who ordered you?' exclaimed Milly.</p>
+
+<p>'Fayther.'</p>
+
+<p>'Old Pegtop. Well, <i>that's</i> summat to laugh at, it is&mdash;our servant
+a-shutting us out of our own grounds.'</p>
+
+<p>'No servant o' yourn!'</p>
+
+<p>'Come, lass, what do you mean?'</p>
+
+<p>'He be old Silas's miller, and what's that to thee?'</p>
+
+<p>With these words the girl made a spring on the hasp of the
+padlock, and then got easily over the gate.</p>
+
+<p>'Can't you do that, cousin?' whispered Milly to me, with an
+impatient nudge. 'I <i>wish</i> you'd try.'</p>
+
+<p>'No, dear&mdash;come away, Milly,' and I began to withdraw.</p>
+
+<p>'Lookee, lass, 'twill be an ill day's work for thee when I tell
+the Governor,' said Milly, addressing the girl, who stood on a
+log of timber at the other side, regarding us with a sullen composure.</p>
+
+<p>'We'll be over in spite o' you,' cried Milly.</p>
+
+<p>'You lie!' answered she.</p>
+
+<p>'And why not, huzzy?' demanded my cousin, who was less
+incensed at the affront than I expected. All this time I was urging
+Milly in vain to come away.</p>
+
+<p>'Yon lass is no wild cat, like thee&mdash;that's why,' said the sturdy
+portress.</p>
+
+<p>'If I cross, I'll give you a knock,' said Milly.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page211" id="page211"></a>[pg 203]</span>
+
+<p>'And I'll gi' thee another,' she answered, with a vicious wag
+of the head.</p>
+
+<p>'Come, Milly, <i>I'll</i> go if <i>you</i> don't,' I said.</p>
+
+<p>'But we must not be beat,' whispered she, vehemently, catching
+my arm; 'and ye <i>shall</i> get over, and <i>see</i> what I will gi' her!'</p>
+
+<p>'I'll <i>not</i> get over.'</p>
+
+<p>'Then I'll break the door, for ye <i>shall</i> come through,' exclaimed
+Milly, kicking the stout paling with her ponderous boot.</p>
+
+<p>'Purr it, purr it, purr it!' cried the lass in the red petticoat
+with a grin.</p>
+
+<p>'Do you know who this lady is?' cried Milly, suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>'She is a prettier lass than thou,' answered Beauty.</p>
+
+<p>'She's <i>my</i> cousin Maud&mdash;Miss Ruthyn of Knowl&mdash;and she's a
+deal richer than the Queen; and the Governor's taking care of
+her; and he'll make old Pegtop bring you to reason.'</p>
+
+<p>The girl eyed me with a sulky listlessness, a little inquisitively,
+I thought.</p>
+
+<p>'See if he don't,' threatened Milly.</p>
+
+<p>'You positively <i>must</i> come,' I said, drawing her away with me.</p>
+
+<p>'Well, shall we come in?' cried Milly, trying a last summons.</p>
+
+<p>'You'll not come in that much,' she answered, surlily, measuring
+an infinitesimal distance on her finger with her thumb,
+which she pinched against it, the gesture ending with a snap
+of defiance, and a smile that showed her fine teeth.</p>
+
+<p>'I've a mind to shy a stone at you,' shouted Milly.</p>
+
+<p>'Faire away; I'll shy wi' ye as long as ye like, lass; take heed
+o' yerself;' and Beauty picked up a round stone as large as a
+cricket ball.</p>
+
+<p>With difficulty I got Milly away without an exchange of
+missiles, and much disgusted at my want of zeal and agility.</p>
+
+<p>'Well, come along, cousin, I know an easy way by the river,
+when it's low,' answered Milly. 'She's a brute&mdash;is not she?'</p>
+
+<p>As we receded, we saw the girl slowly wending her way towards
+the old thatched cottage, which showed its gable from
+the side of a little rugged eminence embowered in spreading
+trees, and dangling and twirling from its string on the end of
+her finger the key for which a battle had so nearly been fought.</p>
+
+<p>The stream was low enough to make our flank movement
+round the end of the paling next it quite easy, and so we pursued
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page212" id="page212"></a>[pg 204]</span>
+
+our way, and Milly's equanimity returned, and our ramble
+grew very pleasant again.</p>
+
+<p>Our path lay by the river bank, and as we proceeded, the
+dwarf timber was succeeded by grander trees, which crowded
+closer and taller, and, at last, the scenery deepened into solemn
+forest, and a sudden sweep in the river revealed the beautiful
+ruin of a steep old bridge, with the fragments of a gate-house
+on the farther side.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, Milly darling!' I exclaimed, 'what a beautiful drawing
+this would make! I should so like to make a sketch of it.'</p>
+
+<p>'So it would. <i>Make</i> a picture&mdash;<i>do</i>!&mdash;here's a stone that's pure
+and flat to sit upon, and you look very tired. Do make it, and I'll sit by
+you.'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, Milly, I <i>am</i> tired, a little, and I <i>will</i> sit down; but we
+must wait for another day to make the picture, for we have
+neither pencil nor paper. But it is much too pretty to be lost;
+so let us come again to-morrow.'</p>
+
+<p>'To-morrow be hanged! you'll do it to-day, bury-me-wick, but
+you <i>shall</i>; I'm wearying to see you make a picture, and I'll
+fetch your conundrums out o' your drawer, for do 't you shall.'</p>
+
+<a name="chap34"></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XXXIV</h3>
+
+<h2><i>ZAMIEL</i></h2>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>It was all vain my remonstrating. She vowed that by crossing
+the stepping-stones close by she could, by a short cut, reach the
+house, and return with my pencils and block-book in a quarter of
+an hour. Away then, with many a jump and fling, scampered
+Milly's queer white stockings and navvy boots across the irregular
+and precarious stepping-stones, over which I dared not follow
+her; so I was fain to return to the stone so 'pure and flat,' on
+which I sat, enjoying the grand sylvan solitude, the dark background
+and the grey bridge mid-way, so tall and slim, across
+whose ruins a sunbeam glimmered, and the gigantic forest trees
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page213" id="page213"></a>[pg 205]</span>
+
+that slumbered round, opening here and there in dusky vistas,
+and breaking in front into detached and solemn groups. It was
+the setting of a dream of romance.</p>
+
+<p>It would have been the very spot in which to read a volume of
+German folk-lore, and the darkening colonnades and silent
+nooks of the forest seemed already haunted with the voices and
+shadows of those charming elves and goblins.</p>
+
+<p>As I sat here enjoying the solitude and my fancies among the
+low branches of the wood, at my right I heard a crashing, and
+saw a squat broad figure in a stained and tattered military coat,
+and loose short trousers, one limb of which flapped about a
+wooden leg. He was forcing himself through. His face was rugged
+and wrinkled, and tanned to the tint of old oak; his eyes
+black, beadlike, and fierce, and a shock of sooty hair escaped
+from under his battered wide-awake nearly to his shoulders. This
+forbidding-looking person came stumping and jerking along toward
+me, whisking his stick now and then viciously in the air,
+and giving his fell of hair a short shake, like a wild bull
+preparing to attack.</p>
+
+<p>I stood up involuntarily with a sense of fear and surprise,
+almost fancying I saw in that wooden-legged old soldier, the
+forest demon who haunted Der Freischütz.</p>
+
+<p>So he approached shouting&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Hollo! you&mdash;how came you here? Dost 'eer?'</p>
+
+<p>And he drew near panting, and sometimes tugging angrily in
+his haste at his wooden leg, which sunk now and then deeper
+than was convenient in the sod. This exertion helped to anger
+him, and when he halted before me, his dark face smirched with
+smoke and dust, and the nostrils of his flat drooping nose
+expanded and quivered as he panted, like the gills of a fish; an
+angrier or uglier face it would not be easy to fancy.</p>
+
+<p>'Ye'll all come when ye like, will ye? and do nout but what
+pleases yourselves, won't you? And who'rt thou? Dost 'eer&mdash;who
+<i>are</i> ye, I say; and what the deil seek ye in the woods
+here? Come, bestir thee!'</p>
+
+<p>If his wide mouth and great tobacco-stained teeth, his scowl,
+and loud discordant tones were intimidating, they were also
+extremely irritating. The moment my spirit was roused, my
+courage came.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page214" id="page214"></a>[pg 206]</span>
+
+<p>'I am Miss Ruthyn of Knowl, and Mr. Silas Ruthyn, your
+master, is my uncle.'</p>
+
+<p>'Hoo!' he exclaimed more gently, 'an' if Silas be thy uncle
+thou'lt be come to live wi' him, and thou'rt she as come overnight&mdash;eh?'</p>
+
+<p>I made no answer, but I believe I looked both angrily and
+disdainfully.</p>
+
+<p>'And what make ye alone here? and how was I to know 't,
+an' Milly not wi' ye, nor no one? But Maud or no Maud, I
+wouldn't let the Dooke hisself set foot inside the palin' without
+Silas said let him. And you may tell Silas them's the words o'
+Dickon Hawkes, and I'll stick to 'm&mdash;and what's more I'll tell
+him <i>myself</i>&mdash;I will; I'll tell him there be no use o' my
+striving and straining hee, day an' night and night and day, watchin'
+again poachers, and thieves, and gipsies, and they robbing lads,
+if rules won't be kep, and folk do jist as they pleases. Dang it,
+lass, thou'rt in luck I didn't heave a brick at thee when I saw
+thee first.'</p>
+
+<p>'I'll complain of you to my uncle,' I replied.</p>
+
+<p>'So do, and and 'appen thou'lt find thyself in the wrong box,
+lass; thou canst na' say I set the dogs arter thee, nor cau'd thee
+so much as a wry name, nor heave a stone at thee&mdash;did I? Well?
+and where's the complaint then?'</p>
+
+<p>I simply answered, rather fiercely,</p>
+
+<p>'Be good enough to leave me.'</p>
+
+<p>'Well, I make no objections, mind. I'm takin' thy word&mdash;thou'rt
+Maud Ruthyn&mdash;'appen thou be'st and 'appen thou baint.
+I'm not aweer on't, but I takes thy word, and all I want to
+know's just this, did Meg open the gate to thee?'</p>
+
+<p>I made him no answer, and to my great relief I saw Milly
+striding and skipping across the unequal stepping-stones.</p>
+
+<p>'Hallo, Pegtop! what are you after now?' she cried, as she
+drew near.</p>
+
+<p>'This man has been extremely impertinent. You know him,
+Milly?' I said.</p>
+
+<p>'Why that's Pegtop Dickon. Dirty old Hawkes that never
+was washed. I tell you, lad, ye'll see what the Governor thinks
+o't&mdash;a-ha! He'll talk to you.'</p>
+
+<p>'I done or said nout&mdash;not but I <i>should</i>, and there's the fack&mdash;she
+can't deny't; she hadn't a hard word from I; and I don't
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page215" id="page215"></a>[pg 207]</span>
+
+care the top o' that thistle what no one says&mdash;not I. But I tell
+thee, Milly, I stopped <i>some</i> o' thy pranks, and I'll stop more.
+Ye'll be shying no more stones at the cattle.'</p>
+
+<p>'Tell your tales, and welcome,' cried Milly. 'I wish I was
+here when you jawed cousin. If Winny was here she'd catch you
+by the timber toe and put you on your back.'</p>
+
+<p>'Ay, she'll be a good un yet if she takes arter thee,' retorted
+the old man with a fierce sneer.</p>
+
+<p>'Drop it, and get away wi' ye,' cried she, 'or maybe I'd call
+Winny to smash your timber leg for you.'</p>
+
+<p>'A-ha! there's more on't. She's a sweet un. Isn't she?' he
+replied sardonically.</p>
+
+<p>'You did not like it last Easter, when Winny broke it with a
+kick.'</p>
+
+<p>''Twas a kick o' a horse,' he growled with a glance at me.</p>
+
+<p>''Twas no such thing&mdash;'twas Winny did it&mdash;and he laid on his
+back for a week while carpenter made him a new one.' And
+Milly laughed hilariously.</p>
+
+<p>'I'll fool no more wi' ye, losing my time; I won't; but mind
+ye, I'll speak wi' Silas.' And going away he put his hand to his
+crumpled wide-awake, and said to me with a surly difference&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Good evening, Miss Ruthyn&mdash;good evening, ma'am&mdash;and ye'll
+please remember, I did not mean nout to vex thee.'</p>
+
+<p>And so he swaggered away, jerking and waddling over the
+sward, and was soon lost in the wood.</p>
+
+<p>'It's well he's a little bit frightened&mdash;I never saw him so
+angry, I think; he is awful mad.'</p>
+
+<p>'Perhaps he really is not aware how very rude he is,' I suggested.</p>
+
+<p>'I hate him. We were twice as pleasant with poor Tom Driver&mdash;he
+never meddled with any one, and was always in liquor;
+Old Gin was the name he went by. But this brute&mdash;I do hate
+him&mdash;he comes from Wigan, I think, and he's always spoiling
+sport&mdash;and he whops Meg&mdash;that's Beauty, you know, and I don't
+think she'd be half as bad only for him. Listen to him whistlin'.'</p>
+
+<p>'I did hear whistling at some distance among the trees.'</p>
+
+<p>'I declare if he isn't callin' the dogs! Climb up here, I tell
+ye,' and we climbed up the slanting trunk of a great walnut
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page216" id="page216"></a>[pg 208]</span>
+
+tree, and strained our eyes in the direction from which we expected the
+onset of Pegtop's vicious pack.</p>
+
+<p>But it was a false alarm.</p>
+
+<p>'Well, I don't think he <i>would</i> do that, after all&mdash;<i>hardly</i>; but
+he is a brute, sure!'</p>
+
+<p>'And that dark girl who would not let us through, is his
+daughter, is she?'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, that's Meg&mdash;Beauty, I christened her, when I called him
+Beast; but I call him Pegtop now, and she's Beauty still, and
+that's the way o't.'</p>
+
+<p>'Come, sit down now, an' make your picture,' she resumed so
+soon as we had dismounted from our position of security.</p>
+
+<p>'I'm afraid I'm hardly in the vein. I don't think I could draw
+a straight line. My hand trembles.'</p>
+
+<p>'I wish you could, Maud,' said Milly, with a look so wistful
+and entreating, that considering the excursion she had made for
+the pencils, I could not bear to disappoint her.</p>
+
+<p>'Well, Milly, we must only try; and if we fail we can't help
+it. Sit you down beside me and I'll tell you why I begin with
+one part and not another, and you'll see how I make trees and
+the river, and&mdash;yes, <i>that</i> pencil, it is hard and answers for the
+fine
+light lines; but we must begin at the beginning, and learn to
+copy drawings before we attempt real views like this. And if you
+wish it, Milly, I'm resolved to teach you everything I know,
+which, after all, is not a great deal, and we shall have such fun
+making sketches of the same landscapes, and then comparing.'</p>
+
+<p>And so on, Milly, quite delighted, and longing to begin her
+course of instruction, sat down beside me in a rapture, and
+hugged and kissed me so heartily that we were very near rolling
+together off the stone on which we were seated. Her boisterous
+delight and good-nature helped to restore me, and both laughing
+heartily together, I commenced my task.</p>
+
+<p>'Dear me! who's that?' I exclaimed suddenly, as looking up
+from my block-book I saw the figure of a slight man in the
+careless morning-dress of a gentleman, crossing the ruinous
+bridge in our direction, with considerable caution, upon the
+precarious footing of the battlement, which alone offered an unbroken
+passage.</p>
+
+<p>This was a day of apparitions! Milly recognised him instantly. The
+gentleman was Mr. Carysbroke. He had taken The
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page217" id="page217"></a>[pg 209]</span>
+
+Grange only for a year. He lived quite to himself, and was very
+good to the poor, and was the only gentleman, for ever so long,
+who had visited at Bartram, and oddly enough nowhere else.
+But he wanted leave to cross through the grounds, and having
+obtained it, had repeated his visit, partly induced, no doubt, by
+the fact that Bartram boasted no hospitalities, and that there
+was no risk of meeting the county folk there.</p>
+
+<p>With a stout walking-stick in his hand, and a short shooting-coat,
+and a wide-awake hat in much better trim than Zamiel's,
+he emerged from the copse that covered the bridge, walking at a
+quick but easy pace.</p>
+
+<p>'He'll be goin' to see old Snoddles, I guess,' said Milly, looking
+a little frightened and curious; for Milly, I need not say,
+was a bumpkin, and stood in awe of this gentleman's good-breeding,
+though she was as brave as a lion, and would have
+fought the Philistines at any odds, with the jawbone of an ass.</p>
+
+<p>''Appen he won't see us,' whispered Milly, hopefully.</p>
+
+<p>But he did, and raising his hat, with a cheerful smile, that
+showed very white teeth, he paused.</p>
+
+<p>'Charming day, Miss Ruthyn.'</p>
+
+<p>I raised my head suddenly as he spoke, from habit appropriating
+the address; it was so marked that he raised his hat respectfully
+to me, and then continued to Milly&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Mr. Ruthyn, I hope, quite well? but I need hardly ask, you
+seem so happy. Will you kindly tell him, that I expect the book
+I mentioned in a day or two, and when it comes I'll either send
+or bring it to him immediately?'</p>
+
+<p>Milly and I were standing, by this time, but she only stared
+at him, tongue-tied, her cheeks rather flushed, and her eyes
+very round, and to facilitate the dialogue, as I suppose, he said
+again&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'He's quite well, I hope?'</p>
+
+<p>Still no response from Milly, and I, provoked, though myself
+a little shy, made answer&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'My uncle, Mr. Ruthyn, is very well, thank you,' and I felt
+that I blushed as I spoke.</p>
+
+<p>'Ah, pray excuse me, may I take a great liberty? you are Miss
+Ruthyn, of Knowl? Will you think me very impertinent&mdash;I'm
+afraid you will&mdash;if I venture to introduce myself? My name is
+Carysbroke, and I had the honour of knowing poor Mr. Ruthyn
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page218" id="page218"></a>[pg 210]</span>
+
+when I was quite a little boy, and he has shown a kindness for
+me since, and I hope you will pardon the liberty I fear I've
+taken. I think my friend, Lady Knollys, too, is a relation of
+yours; what a charming person she is!'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, is not she? such a darling!' I said, and then blushed at
+my outspoken affection.</p>
+
+<p>But he smiled kindly, as if he liked me for it; and he said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'You know whatever I think, I dare not quite say that; but
+frankly I can quite understand it. She preserves her youth so
+wonderfully, and her fun and her good-nature are so entirely
+girlish. What a sweet view you have selected,' he continued,
+changing all at once. 'I've stood just at this point so often to
+look back at that exquisite old bridge. Do you observe&mdash;you're
+an artist, I see&mdash;something very peculiar in that tint of the grey,
+with those odd cross stains of faded red and yellow?'</p>
+
+<p>'I do, indeed; I was just remarking the peculiar beauty of the
+colouring&mdash;was not I, Milly?'</p>
+
+<p>Milly stared at me, and uttered an alarmed 'Yes,' and looked
+as if she had been caught in a robbery.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, and you have so very peculiar a background,' he resumed.
+'It was better before the storm though; but it is very
+good still.'</p>
+
+<p>Then a little pause, and 'Do you know this country at all?'
+rather suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>'No, not in the least&mdash;that is, I've only had the drive to this
+place; but what I did see interested me very much.'</p>
+
+<p>'You will be charmed with it when you know it better&mdash;the
+very place for an artist. I'm a wretched scribbler myself, and I
+carry this little book in my pocket,' and he laughed deprecatingly
+while he drew forth a thin fishing-book, as it looked.
+'They are mere memoranda, you see. I walk so much and come
+unexpectedly on such pretty nooks and studies, I just try to
+make a note of them, but it is really more writing than sketching;
+my sister says it is a cipher which nobody but myself understands.
+However, I'll try and explain just two&mdash;because you really
+ought to go and see the places. Oh, no; not that,' he laughed, as
+accidentally the page blew over, 'that's the Cat and Fiddle, a
+curious little pot-house, where they gave me some very good ale
+one day.'</p>
+
+<p>Milly at this exhibited some uneasy tokens of being about to
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page219" id="page219"></a>[pg 211]</span>
+
+speak, but not knowing what might be coming, I hastened
+to observe on the spirited little sketches to which he meant to
+draw my attention.</p>
+
+<p>'I want to show you only the places within easy reach&mdash;a short
+ride or drive.'</p>
+
+<p>So he proceeded to turn over two or three, in addition to the
+two he had at first proposed, and then another; then a little
+sketch just tinted, and really quite a charming little gem, of
+Cousin Monica's pretty gabled old house; and every subject
+had its little criticism, or its narrative, or adventure.</p>
+
+<p>As he was about returning this little sketch-book to his pocket,
+still chatting to me, he suddenly recollected poor Milly, who was
+looking rather lowering; but she brightened a good deal as he
+presented it to her, with a little speech which she palpably misunderstood,
+for she made one of her odd courtesies, and was
+about, I thought, to put it into her large pocket, and accept it
+as a present.</p>
+
+<p>'Look at the drawings, Milly, and then return it,' I whispered.</p>
+
+<p>At his request I allowed him to look at my unfinished sketch
+of the bridge, and while he was measuring distances and proportions
+with his eye, Milly whispered rather angrily to me.</p>
+
+<p>'And why should I?'</p>
+
+<p>'Because he wants it back, and only meant to lend it to you,'
+whispered I.</p>
+
+<p>'<i>Lend</i> it to me&mdash;and after you! Bury-me-wick if I look at a
+leaf of it,' she retorted in high dudgeon. 'Take it, lass; give it
+him yourself&mdash;I'll not,' and she popped it into my hand, and
+made a sulky step back.</p>
+
+<p>'My cousin is very much obliged,' I said, returning the book,
+and smiling for her, and he took it smiling also and said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'I think if I had known how very well you draw, Miss
+Ruthyn, I should have hesitated about showing you my poor
+scrawls. But these are not my best, you know; Lady Knollys will
+tell you that I can really do better&mdash;a great deal better, I think.'</p>
+
+<p>And then with more apologies for what he called his impertinence,
+he took his leave, and I felt altogether very much pleased
+and flattered.</p>
+
+<p>He could not be more than twenty-nine or thirty, I thought,
+and he was decidedly handsome&mdash;that is, his eyes and teeth, and
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page220" id="page220"></a>[pg 212]</span>
+
+clear brown complexion were&mdash;and there was something distinguished
+and graceful in his figure and gesture; and altogether
+there was the indescribable attraction of intelligence; and I
+fancied&mdash;though this, of course, was a secret&mdash;that from the moment
+he spoke to us he felt an interest in me. I am not going to be
+vain. It was a <i>grave</i> interest, but still an interest, for I could
+see him studying my features while I was turning over his
+sketches, and he thought I saw nothing else. It was flattering,
+too, his anxiety that I should think well of his drawing, and referring
+me to Lady Knollys. Carysbroke&mdash;had I ever heard my
+dear father mention that name? I could not recollect it. But
+then he was habitually so silent, that his not doing so argued
+nothing.</p>
+
+<a name="chap35"></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XXXV</h3>
+
+<h2><i>WE VISIT A ROOM IN THE
+SECOND STOREY</i></h2>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Carysbroke amused my fancy sufficiently to prevent my observing
+Milly's silence, till we had begun our return homeward.</p>
+
+<p>'The Grange must be a pretty house, if that little sketch be
+true; is it far from this?'</p>
+
+<p>''Twill be two mile.'</p>
+
+<p>'Are you vexed, Milly?' I asked, for both her tone and looks
+were angry.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, I am vexed; and why not lass?'</p>
+
+<p>'What has happened?'</p>
+
+<p>'Well, now, that is rich! Why, look at that fellow, Carysbroke:
+he took no more notice to me than a dog, and kep'
+talking to you all the time of his pictures, and his walks, and his
+people. Why, a pig's better manners than that.'</p>
+
+<p>'But, Milly dear, you forget, he tried to talk to you, and you
+would not answer him,' I expostulated.</p>
+
+<p>'And is not that just what I say&mdash;I can't talk like other folk&mdash;ladies,
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page221" id="page221"></a>[pg 213]</span>
+
+I mean. Every one laughs at me; an' I'm dressed like a
+show, I am. It's a shame! I saw Polly Shives&mdash;what a lady she
+is, my eyes!&mdash;laughing at me in church last Sunday. I was
+minded to give her a bit of my mind. An' I know I'm queer.
+It's a shame, it is. Why should <i>I</i> be so rum? it is a shame! I
+don't want to be so, nor it isn't my fault.'</p>
+
+<p>And poor Milly broke into a flood of tears, and stamped on
+the ground, and buried her face in her short frock, which she
+whisked up to her eyes; and an odder figure of grief I never
+beheld.</p>
+
+<p>'And I could not make head or tail of what he was saying,'
+cried poor Milly through her buff cotton, with a stamp; 'and
+you twigged every word o't. An' why am I so? It's a shame&mdash;a
+shame! Oh, ho, ho! it's a shame!'</p>
+
+<p>'But, my dear Milly, we were talking of <i>drawing</i>, and you
+have not learned yet, but you shall&mdash;I'll teach you; and then
+you'll understand all about it.'</p>
+
+<p>'An' every one laughs at me&mdash;even you; though you try,
+Maud, you can scarce keep from laughing sometimes. I don't
+blame you, for I know I'm queer; but I can't help it; and it's
+a shame.'</p>
+
+<p>'Well, my dear Milly, listen to me: if you allow me, I assure
+you, I'll teach you all the music and drawing I know. You have
+lived very much alone; and, as you say, ladies have a way of
+speaking of their own that is different from the talk of other
+people.'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, that they have, an' gentlemen too&mdash;like the Governor,
+and that Carysbroke; and a precious lingo it is&mdash;dang it&mdash;why,
+the devil himself could not understand it; an' I'm like a fool
+among you. I could 'most drown myself. It's a shame! It is&mdash;you
+know it is.&mdash;It's a shame!'</p>
+
+<p>'But I'll teach you that lingo too, if you wish it, Milly; and
+you shall know everything that I know; and I'll manage to
+have your dresses better made.'</p>
+
+<p>By this time she was looking very ruefully, but attentively, in
+my face, her round eyes and nose swelled, and her cheeks all
+wet.</p>
+
+<p>'I think if they were a little longer&mdash;yours is longer, you
+know;' and the sentence was interrupted by a sob.</p>
+
+<p>'Now, Milly, you must not be crying; if you choose you
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page222" id="page222"></a>[pg 214]</span>
+
+may be just as the same as any other lady&mdash;and you shall; and
+you will be very much admired, I can tell you, if only you will
+take the trouble to quite unlearn all your odd words and ways,
+and dress yourself like other people; and I will take care of
+that if you let me; and I think you are very clever, Milly; and
+I know you are very pretty.'</p>
+
+<p>Poor Milly's blubbered face expanded into a smile in spite
+of herself; but she shook her head, looking down.</p>
+
+<p>'Noa, noa, Maud, I fear 'twon't be.' And indeed it seemed I
+had proposed to myself a labour of Hercules.</p>
+
+<p>But Milly was really a clever creature, could see quickly, and
+when her ungainly dialect was mastered, describe very pleasantly;
+and if only she would endure the restraint and possessed
+the industry requisite, I did not despair, and was resolved at
+least to do my part.</p>
+
+<p>Poor Milly! she was really very grateful, and entered into the
+project of her education with great zeal, and with a strange
+mixture of humility and insubordination.</p>
+
+<p>Milly was in favour of again attacking 'Beauty's' position on
+her return, and forcing a passage from this side; but I insisted
+on following the route by which we had arrived, and so we got
+round the paling by the river, and were treated to a provoking
+grin of defiance by 'Beauty,' who was talking across the gate to
+a slim young man, arrayed in fustian, and with an odd-looking
+cap of rabbit-skin on his head, which, on seeing us, he pulled
+sheepishly to the side of his face next to us, as he lounged, with
+his arm under his chin, on the top bar of the gate.</p>
+
+<p>After our encounter of to-day, indeed, it was Miss 'Beauty's'
+wont to exhibit a kind of jeering disdain in her countenance
+whenever we passed.</p>
+
+<p>I think Milly would have engaged her again, had I not reminded
+her of her undertaking, and exerted my new authority.</p>
+
+<p>'Look at that sneak, Pegtop, there, going up the path to the
+mill. He makes belief now he does not see us; but he does,
+though, only he's afraid we'll tell the Governor, and he thinks
+Governor won't give him his way with you. I hate that Pegtop:
+he stopped me o' riding the cows a year ago, he did.'</p>
+
+<p>I thought Pegtop might have done worse. Indeed it was plain
+that a total reformation was needed here; and I was glad to
+find that poor Milly seemed herself conscious of it; and that
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page223" id="page223"></a>[pg 215]</span>
+
+her resolution to become more like other people of her station
+was not a mere spasm of mortification and jealousy, but a genuine
+and very zealous resolve.</p>
+
+<p>I had not half seen this old house of Bartram-Haugh yet. At
+first, indeed, I had but an imperfect idea of its extent. There
+was a range of rooms along one side of the great gallery, with
+closed window-shutters, and the doors generally locked. Old
+L'Amour grew cross when we went into them, although we
+could see nothing; and Milly was afraid to open the windows&mdash;not
+that any Bluebeard revelations were apprehended, but
+simply because she knew that Uncle Silas's order was that things
+should be left undisturbed; and this boisterous spirit stood in
+awe of him to a degree which his gentle manners and apparent
+quietude rendered quite surprising.</p>
+
+<p>There were in this house, what certainly did not exist at
+Knowl, and what I have never observed, though they may possibly
+be found in other old houses&mdash;I mean, here and there, very
+high hatches, which we could only peep over by jumping in
+the air. They crossed the long corridors and great galleries;
+and several of them were turned across and locked, so as to
+intercept the passage, and interrupt our explorations.</p>
+
+<p>Milly, however, knew a queer little, very steep and dark back
+stair, which reached the upper floor; so she and I mounted, and
+made a long ramble through rooms much lower and ruder in
+finish than the lordly chambers we had left below. These commanded
+various views of the beautiful though neglected
+grounds; but on crossing a gallery we entered suddenly a chamber,
+which looked into a small and dismal quadrangle, formed
+by the inner walls of this great house, and of course designed
+only by the architect to afford the needful light and air to portions
+of the structure.</p>
+
+<p>I rubbed the window-pane with my handkerchief and looked
+out. The surrounding roof was steep and high. The walls looked
+soiled and dark. The windows lined with dust and dirt, and the
+window-stones were in places tufted with moss, and grass, and
+groundsel. An arched doorway had opened from the house into
+this darkened square, but it was soiled and dusty; and the damp
+weeds that overgrew the quadrangle drooped undisturbed
+against it. It was plain that human footsteps tracked it little,
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page224" id="page224"></a>[pg 216]</span>
+
+and I gazed into that blind and sinister area with a strange
+thrill and sinking.</p>
+
+<p>'This is the second floor&mdash;there is the enclosed court-yard'&mdash;I,
+as it were, soliloquised.</p>
+
+<p>'What are you afraid of, Maud? you look as ye'd seen a
+ghost,' exclaimed Milly, who came to the window and peeped
+over my shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>'It reminded me suddenly, Milly, of that frightful business.'</p>
+
+<p>'What business, Maud?&mdash;what a plague are ye thinking on?'
+demanded Milly, rather amused.</p>
+
+<p>'It was in one of these rooms&mdash;maybe this&mdash;yes, it certainly
+<i>was</i> this&mdash;for see, the panelling has been pulled off the wall&mdash;that
+Mr. Charke killed himself.'</p>
+
+<p>I was staring ruefully round the dim chamber, in whose corners
+the shadows of night were already gathering.</p>
+
+<p>'Charke!&mdash;what about him?&mdash;who's Charke?' asked Milly.</p>
+
+<p>'Why, you must have heard of him,' said I.</p>
+
+<p>'Not as I'm aware on,' answered she. 'And he killed himself,
+did he, hanged himself, eh, or blowed his brains out?'</p>
+
+<p>'He cut his throat in one of these rooms&mdash;<i>this</i> one, I'm sure&mdash;for
+your papa had the wainscoting stripped from the wall to
+ascertain whether there was any second door through which a
+murderer could have come; and you see these walls are stripped,
+and bear the marks of the woodwork that has been removed,' I
+answered.</p>
+
+<p>'Well, that <i>was</i> awful! I don't know how they have pluck to
+cut their throats; if I was doing it, I'd like best to put a pistol
+to my head and fire, like the young gentleman did, they say, in
+Deadman's Hollow. But the fellows that cut their throats, they
+must be awful game lads, I'm thinkin', for it's a long slice, you
+know.'</p>
+
+<p>'Don't, don't, Milly dear. Suppose we come away,' I said, for
+the evening was deepening rapidly into night.</p>
+
+<p>'Hey and bury-me-wick, but here's the blood; don't you see a
+big black cloud all spread over the floor hereabout, don't ye
+see?' Milly was stooping over the spot, and tracing the outline
+of this, perhaps, imaginary mapping, in the air with her finger.</p>
+
+<p>'No, Milly, you could not see it: the floor is too dark, and
+it's all in shadow. It must be fancy; and perhaps, after all, this
+is not the room.'</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page225" id="page225"></a>[pg 217]</span>
+
+<p>'Well&mdash;I think, I'm <i>sure</i> it <i>is</i>. Stand&mdash;just look.'</p>
+
+<p>'We'll come in the morning, and if you are right we can
+see it better then. Come away,' I said, growing frightened.</p>
+
+<p>And just as we stood up to depart, the white high-cauled cap
+and large sallow features of old L'Amour peeped in at the door.</p>
+
+<p>'Lawk! what brings you here?' cried Milly, nearly as much
+startled as I at the intrusion.</p>
+
+<p>'What brings <i>you</i> here, miss?' whistled L'Amour through her
+gums.</p>
+
+<p>'We're looking where Charke cut his throat,' replied Milly.</p>
+
+<p>'Charke the devil!' said the old woman, with an odd mixture
+of scorn and fury. ''Tisn't his room; and come ye out of it,
+please. Master won't like when he hears how you keep pulling
+Miss Maud from one room to another, all through the house,
+up and down.'</p>
+
+<p>She was gabbling sternly enough, but dropped a low courtesy
+as I passed her, and with a peaked and nodding stare round the
+room, the old woman clapped the door sharply, and locked it.</p>
+
+<p>'And who has been a talking about Charke&mdash;a pack o lies, I
+warrant. I s'pose you want to frighten Miss Maud here' (another
+crippled courtesy) 'wi' ghosts and like nonsense.'</p>
+
+<p>'You're out there: 'twas she told me; and much about it.
+Ghosts, indeed! I don't vally them, not I; if I did, I know
+who'd frighten me,' and Milly laughed.</p>
+
+<p>The old woman stuffed the key in her pocket, and her
+wrinkled mouth pouted and receded with a grim uneasiness.</p>
+
+<p>'A harmless brat, and kind she is; but wild&mdash;wild&mdash;she will
+be wild.'</p>
+
+<p>So whispered L'Amour in my ear, during the silence that followed,
+nodding shakily toward Milly over the banister, and she
+courtesied again as we departed, and shuffled off toward Uncle
+Silas's room.</p>
+
+<p>'The Governor is queerish this evening,' said Milly, when we
+were seated at our tea. 'You never saw him queerish, did you?'</p>
+
+<p>'You must say what you mean, more plainly, Milly. You
+don't mean ill, I hope?'</p>
+
+<p>'Well! I don't know what it is; but he does grow very queer
+sometimes&mdash;you'd think he was dead a'most, maybe two or three
+days and nights together. He sits all the time like an old woman
+in a swound. Well, well, it is awful!'</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page226" id="page226"></a>[pg 218]</span>
+
+<p>'Is he insensible when in that state?' I asked, a good deal
+alarmed.</p>
+
+<p>'I don't know; but it never signifies anything. It won't kill
+him, I do believe; but old L'Amour knows all about it. I
+hardly ever go into the room when he's so, only when I'm sent
+for; and he sometimes wakes up and takes a fancy to call for
+this one or that. One day he sent for Pegtop all the way to the
+mill; and when he came, he only stared at him for a minute
+or two, and ordered him out o' the room. He's like a child
+a'most, when he's in one o' them dazes.'</p>
+
+<p>I always knew when Uncle Silas was 'queerish,' by the injunctions
+of old L'Amour, whistled and spluttered over the
+banister as we came up-stairs, to mind how we made a noise
+passing master's door; and by the sound of mysterious to-ings
+and fro-ings about his room.</p>
+
+<p>I saw very little of him. He sometimes took a whim to have
+us breakfast with him, which lasted perhaps for a week; and
+then the order of our living would relapse into its old routine.</p>
+
+<p>I must not forget two kind letters from Lady Knollys, who
+was detained away, and delighted to hear that I enjoyed my
+quiet life; and promised to apply, in person, to Uncle Silas, for
+permission to visit me.</p>
+
+<p>She was to be for the Christmas at Elverston, and that was
+only six miles away from Bartram-Haugh, so I had the excitement
+of a pleasant look forward.</p>
+
+<p>She also said that she would include poor Milly in her invitation;
+and a vision of Captain Oakley rose before me, with his
+handsome gaze turned in wonder on poor Milly, for whom I
+had begun to feel myself responsible.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page227" id="page227"></a>[pg 219]</span>
+
+<a name="chap36"></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XXXVI</h3>
+
+<h2><i>AN ARRIVAL AT DEAD OF NIGHT</i></h2>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>I have sometimes been asked why I wear an odd little turquois
+ring&mdash;which to the uninstructed eye appears quite valueless and
+altogether an unworthy companion of those jewels which flash
+insultingly beside it. It is a little keepsake, of which I became
+possessed about this time.</p>
+
+<p>'Come, lass, what name shall I give you?' cried Milly, one
+morning, bursting into my room in a state of alarming hilarity.</p>
+
+<p>'My own, Milly.'</p>
+
+<p>'No, but you must have a nickname, like every one else.'</p>
+
+<p>'Don't mind it, Milly.'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, but I will. Shall I call you Mrs. Bustle?'</p>
+
+<p>'You shall do no such thing.'</p>
+
+<p>'But you must have a name.'</p>
+
+<p>'I refuse a name.'</p>
+
+<p>'But I'll give you one, lass.'</p>
+
+<p>'And <i>I</i> won't have it.'</p>
+
+<p>'But you can't help me christening you.'</p>
+
+<p>'I can decline answering.'</p>
+
+<p>'But I'll make you,' said Milly, growing very red.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps there was something provoking in my tone, for I
+certainly was very much disgusted at Milly's relapse into barbarism.</p>
+
+<p>'You can't,' I retorted quietly.</p>
+
+<p>'See if I don't, and I'll give ye one twice as ugly.'</p>
+
+<p>I smiled, I fear, disdainfully.</p>
+
+<p>'And I think you're a minx, and a slut, and a fool,' she broke
+out, flushing scarlet.</p>
+
+<p>I smiled in the same unchristian way.</p>
+
+<p>'And I'd give ye a smack o' the cheek as soon as look at you.'</p>
+
+<p>And she gave her dress a great slap, and drew near me, in her
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page228" id="page228"></a>[pg 220]</span>
+
+wrath. I really thought she was about tendering the ordeal of
+single combat.</p>
+
+<p>I made her, however, a paralysing courtesy, and, with immense
+dignity, sailed out of the room, and into Uncle Silas's
+study, where it happened we were to breakfast that morning,
+and for several subsequent ones.</p>
+
+<p>During the meal we maintained the most dignified reserve;
+and I don't think either so much as looked at the other.</p>
+
+<p>We had no walk together that day.</p>
+
+<p>I was sitting in the evening, quite alone, when Milly entered
+the room. Her eyes were red, and she looked very sullen.</p>
+
+<p>'I want your hand, cousin,' she said, at the same time taking
+it by the wrist, and administering with it a sudden slap on her
+plump cheek, which made the room ring, and my fingers tingle;
+and before I had recovered from my surprise, she had vanished.</p>
+
+<p>I called after her, but no answer; I pursued, but she was running
+too; and I quite lost her at the cross galleries.</p>
+
+<p>I did not see her at tea, nor before going to bed; but after I
+had fallen asleep I was awakened by Milly, in floods of tears.</p>
+
+<p>'Cousin Maud, will ye forgi' me&mdash;you'll never like me again,
+will ye? No&mdash;I know ye won't&mdash;I'm such a brute&mdash;I hate it&mdash;it's
+a shame. And here's a Banbury cake for you&mdash;I sent to the
+town for it, and some taffy&mdash;won't ye eat it? and here's a little
+ring&mdash;'tisn't as pretty as your own rings; and ye'll wear it,
+maybe, for my sake&mdash;poor Milly's sake, before I was so bad to ye&mdash;if
+ye forgi' me; and I'll look at breakfast, and if it's on your
+finger I'll know you're friends wi' me again; and if ye don't, I
+won't trouble you no more; and I think I'll just drown myself
+out o' the way, and you'll never see wicked Milly no more.'</p>
+
+<p>And without waiting a moment, leaving me only half awake,
+and with the sensations of dreaming, she scampered from the
+room, in her bare feet, with a petticoat about her shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>She had left her candle by my bed, and her little offerings on
+the coverlet by me. If I had stood an atom less in terror of goblins
+than I did, I should have followed her, but I was afraid. I
+stood in my bare feet at my bedside, and kissed the poor little
+ring and put it on my finger, where it has remained ever since
+and always shall. And when I lay down, longing for morning,
+the image of her pale, imploring, penitential face was before me
+for hours; and I repented bitterly of my cool provoking ways,
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page229" id="page229"></a>[pg 221]</span>
+
+and thought myself, I dare say justly, a thousand times more to
+blame than Milly.</p>
+
+<p>I searched in vain for her before breakfast. At that meal, however,
+we met, but in the presence of Uncle Silas, who, though
+silent and apathetic, was formidable; and we, sitting at a table
+disproportionably large, under the cold, strange gaze of my
+guardian, talked only what was inevitable, and that in low
+tones; for whenever Milly for a moment raised her voice, Uncle
+Silas would wince, place his thin white fingers quickly over his
+ear, and look as if a pain had pierced his brain, and then shrug
+and smile piteously into vacancy. When Uncle Silas, therefore,
+was not in the talking vein himself&mdash;and that was not often&mdash;you
+may suppose there was very little spoken in his presence.</p>
+
+<p>When Milly, across the table, saw the ring upon my finger,
+she, drawing in her breath, said, 'Oh!' and, with round eyes
+and mouth, she looked so delighted; and she made a little motion,
+as if she was on the point of jumping up; and then her
+poor face quivered, and she bit her lip; and staring imploringly
+at me, her eyes filled fast with tears, which rolled down her
+round penitential cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>I am sure I felt more penitent than she. I know I was crying
+and smiling, and longing to kiss her. I suppose we were very
+absurd; but it is well that small matters can stir the affections
+so profoundly at a time of life when great troubles seldom approach
+us.</p>
+
+<p>When at length the opportunity did come, never was such a
+hug out of the wrestling ring as poor Milly bestowed on me,
+swaying me this way and that, and burying her face in my dress,
+and blubbering&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'I was so lonely before you came, and you so good to me, and
+I such a devil; and I'll never call you a name, but Maud&mdash;my
+darling Maud.'</p>
+
+<p>'You must, Milly&mdash;Mrs. Bustle. I'll be Mrs. Bustle, or anything you like.
+You must.' I was blubbering like Milly, and
+hugging my best; and, indeed, I wonder how we kept our feet.</p>
+
+<p>So Milly and I were better friends than ever.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, the winter deepened, and we had short days and
+long nights, and long fireside gossipings at Bartram-Haugh. I
+was frightened at the frequency of the strange collapses to which
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page230" id="page230"></a>[pg 222]</span>
+
+Uncle Silas was subject. I did not at first mind them much, for
+I naturally fell into Milly's way of talking about them.</p>
+
+<p>But one day, while in one of his 'queerish' states, he called
+for me, and I saw him, and was unspeakably scared.</p>
+
+<p>In a white wrapper, he lay coiled in a great easy chair. I
+should have thought him dead, had I not been accompanied by
+old L'Amour, who knew every gradation and symptom of these
+strange affections.</p>
+
+<p>She winked and nodded to me with a ghastly significance,
+and whispered&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Don't make no noise, miss, till he talks; he'll come to for
+a bit, anon.'</p>
+
+<p>Except that there was no sign of convulsions, the countenance
+was like that of an epileptic arrested in one of his contortions.</p>
+
+<p>There was a frown and smirk like that of idiotcy, and a strip
+of white eyeball was also disclosed.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly, with a kind of chilly shudder, he opened his eyes
+wide, and screwed his lips together, and blinked and stared on
+me with a fatuised uncertainty, that gradually broke into a
+feeble smile.</p>
+
+<p>'Ah! the girl&mdash;Austin's child. Well, dear, I'm hardly able&mdash;I'll
+speak to-morrow&mdash;next day&mdash;it is tic&mdash;neuralgia, or
+something&mdash;<i>torture</i>&mdash;tell her.'</p>
+
+<p>So, huddling himself together, he lay again in his great
+chair, with the same inexpressible helplessness in his attitude,
+and gradually his face resumed its dreadful cast.</p>
+
+<p>'Come away, miss: he's changed his mind; he'll not be fit to
+talk to you noways all day, maybe,' said the old woman, again
+in a whisper.</p>
+
+<p>So forth we stole from the room, I unspeakably shocked. In
+fact, he looked as if he were dying, and so, in my agitation, I
+told the crone, who, forgetting the ceremony with which she
+usually treated me, chuckled out derisively,</p>
+
+<p>'A-dying is he? Well, he be like Saint Paul&mdash;he's bin a-dying
+daily this many a day.'</p>
+
+<p>I looked at her with a chill of horror. She did not care, I suppose, what
+sort of feelings she might excite, for she went on
+mumbling sarcastically to herself. I had paused, and overcame
+my reluctance to speak to her again, for I was really very much
+frightened.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page231" id="page231"></a>[pg 223]</span>
+
+<p>'Do you think he is in danger? Shall we send for a doctor?'
+I whispered.</p>
+
+<p>'Law bless ye, the doctor knows all about it, miss.' The old
+woman's face had a gleam of that derision which is so shocking
+in the features of feebleness and age.</p>
+
+<p>'But it is a <i>fit</i>, it is paralytic, or something horrible&mdash;it can't
+be <i>safe</i> to leave him to chance or nature to get through these
+terrible attacks.'</p>
+
+<p>'There's no fear of him, 'tisn't no fits at all, he's nout the
+worse o't. Jest silly a bit now and again. It's been the same a
+dozen year and more; and the doctor knows all about it,' answered
+the old woman sturdily. 'And ye'll find he'll be as mad
+as bedlam if ye make any stir about it.'</p>
+
+<p>That night I talked the matter over with Mary Quince.</p>
+
+<p>'They're very dark, miss; but I think he takes a deal too
+much laudlum,' said Mary.</p>
+
+<p>To this hour I cannot say what was the nature of those periodical seizures.
+I have often spoken to medical men about
+them, since, but never could learn that excessive use of opium
+could altogether account for them. It was, I believe, certain,
+however, that he did use that drug in startling quantities. It was,
+indeed, sometimes a topic of complaint with him that his neuralgia
+imposed this sad necessity upon him.</p>
+
+<p>The image of Uncle Silas, as I had seen him that day, troubled
+and affrighted my imagination, as I lay in my bed; I had
+slept very well since my arrival at Bartram. So much of the day
+was passed in the open air, and in active exercise, that this
+was but natural. But that night I was nervous and wakeful,
+and it was past two o'clock when I fancied I heard the sound of
+horses and carriage-wheels on the avenue.</p>
+
+<p>Mary Quince was close by, and therefore I was not afraid to
+get up and peep from the window. My heart beat fast as I saw
+a post-chaise approach the court-yard. A front window was let
+down, and the postilion pulled up for a few seconds.</p>
+
+<p>In consequence of some directions received by him, I fancied
+he resumed his route at a walk, and so drew up at the hall-door,
+on the steps of which a figure awaited his arrival. I think it was
+old L'Amour, but I could not be quite certain. There was a
+lantern on the top of the balustrade, close by the door. The
+chaise-lamps were lighted, for the night was rather dark.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page232" id="page232"></a>[pg 224]</span>
+
+<p>A bag and valise, as well as I could see, were pulled from the
+interior by the post-boy, and a box from the top of the vehicle,
+and these were carried into the hall.</p>
+
+<p>I was obliged to keep my cheek against the window-pane to
+command a view of the point of debarkation, and my breath
+upon the glass, which dimmed it again almost as fast as I wiped
+it away, helped to obscure my vision. But I saw a tall figure, in
+a cloak, get down and swiftly enter the house, but whether male
+or female I could not discern.</p>
+
+<p>My heart beat fast. I jumped at once to a conclusion. My
+uncle was worse&mdash;was, in fact, dying; and this was the physician,
+too late summoned to his bedside.</p>
+
+<p>I listened for the ascent of the doctor, and his entrance at my
+uncle's door, which, in the stillness of the night, I thought I
+might easily hear, but no sound reached me. I listened so for
+fully five minutes, but without result. I returned to the window,
+but the carriage and horses had disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>I was strongly tempted to wake Mary Quince, and take counsel with her, and
+persuade her to undertake a reconnoissance.
+The fact is, I was persuaded that my uncle was in extremity,
+and I was quite wild to know the doctor's opinion. But, after
+all, it would be cruel to summon the good soul from her refreshing nap. So,
+as I began to feel very cold, I returned to my
+bed, where I continued to listen and conjecture until I fell
+asleep.</p>
+
+<p>In the morning, as was usual, before I was dressed, in came
+Milly.</p>
+
+<p>'How is Uncle Silas?' I eagerly enquired.</p>
+
+<p>'Old L'Amour says he's queerish still; but he's not so dull
+as yesterday,' answered she.</p>
+
+<p>'Was not the doctor sent for?' I asked.</p>
+
+<p>'Was he? Well, that's odd; and she said never a word o't
+to me,' answered she.</p>
+
+<p>'I'm asking only,' said I.</p>
+
+<p>'I don't know whether he came or no,' she replied; 'but what
+makes you take that in your head?'</p>
+
+<p>'A chaise arrived here between two and three o'clock last
+night.'</p>
+
+<p>'Hey! and who told you?' Milly seemed all on a sudden
+highly interested.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page233" id="page233"></a>[pg 225]</span>
+
+<p>'I saw it, Milly; and some one, I fancy the doctor, came from
+it into the house.'</p>
+
+<p>'Fudge, lass! who'd send for the doctor? 'Twasn't he, I tell
+you. What was he like?' said Milly.</p>
+
+<p>'I could only see clearly that he, or <i>she</i>, was tall, and wore a
+cloak,' I replied.</p>
+
+<p>'Then 'twasn't him nor t'other I was thinking on, neither;
+and I'll be hanged but I think it will be Cormoran,' cried Milly,
+with a thoughtful rap with her knuckle on the table.</p>
+
+<p>Precisely at this juncture a tapping came to the door.</p>
+
+<p>'Come in,' said I.</p>
+
+<p>And old L'Amour entered the room, with a courtesy.</p>
+
+<p>'I came to tell Miss Quince her breakfast's ready,' said the
+old lady.</p>
+
+<p>'Who came in the chaise, L'Amour?' demanded Milly.</p>
+
+<p>'What chaise?' spluttered the beldame tartly.</p>
+
+<p>'The chaise that came last night, past two o'clock,' said Milly.</p>
+
+<p>'That's a lie, and a damn lie!' cried the beldame. 'There
+worn't no chaise at the door since Miss Maud there come from
+Knowl.'</p>
+
+<p>I stared at the audacious old menial who could utter such
+language.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, there was a chaise, and Cormoran, as I think, be come
+in it,' said Milly, who seemed accustomed to L'Amour's daring
+address.</p>
+
+<p>'And there's another damn lie, as big as the t'other,' said the
+crone, her haggard and withered face flushing orange all over.</p>
+
+<p>'I beg you will not use such language in my room,' I replied,
+very angrily. 'I saw the chaise at the door; your untruth signifies
+very little, but your impertinence here I will not permit.
+Should it be repeated, I will assuredly complain to my uncle.'</p>
+
+<p>The old woman flushed more fiercely as I spoke, and fixed
+her bleared glare on me, with a compression of her mouth that
+amounted to a wicked grimace. She resisted her angry impulse,
+however, and only chuckled a little spitefully, saying,</p>
+
+<p>'No offence, miss: it be a way we has in Derbyshire o' speaking
+our minds. No offence, miss, were meant, and none took, as
+I hopes,' and she made me another courtesy.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page234" id="page234"></a>[pg 226]</span>
+
+<p>'And I forgot to tell you, Miss Milly, the master wants
+you this minute.'</p>
+
+<p>So Milly, in mute haste, withdrew, followed closely by L'Amour.</p>
+
+<a name="chap37"></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XXXVII</h3>
+
+<h2><i>DOCTOR BRYERLY EMERGES</i></h2>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>When Milly joined me at breakfast, her eyes were red and
+swollen. She was still sniffing with that little sobbing hiccough,
+which betrays, even were there no other signs, recent violent
+weeping. She sat down quite silent.</p>
+
+<p>'Is he worse, Milly?' I enquired, anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>'No, nothing's wrong wi' him; he's right well,' said Milly,
+fiercely.</p>
+
+<p>'What's the matter then, Milly dear?'</p>
+
+<p>'The poisonous old witch! 'Twas just to tell the Gov'nor how
+I'd said 'twas Cormoran that came by the po'shay last night.'</p>
+
+<p>'And who is Cormoran?' I enquired.</p>
+
+<p>'Ay, there it is; I'd like to tell, and you want to hear&mdash;and
+I just daren't, for he'll send me off right to a French
+school&mdash;hang it&mdash;hang them all!&mdash;if I do.'</p>
+
+<p>'And why should Uncle Silas care?' said I, a good deal surprised.</p>
+
+<p>'They're a-tellin' lies.'</p>
+
+<p>'Who?' said I.</p>
+
+<p>'L'Amour&mdash;that's who. So soon as she made her complaint of
+me, the Gov'nor asked her, sharp enough, did anyone come
+last night, or a po'shay; and she was ready to swear there was
+no one. Are ye quite sure, Maud, you really did see aught, or
+'appen 'twas all a dream?'</p>
+
+<p>'It was no dream, Milly; so sure as you are there, I saw
+exactly what I told you,' I replied.</p>
+
+<p>'Gov'nor won't believe it anyhow; and he's right mad wi'
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page235" id="page235"></a>[pg 227]</span>
+
+me; and he threatens me he'll have me off to France; I wish
+'twas under the sea. I hate France&mdash;I do&mdash;like the devil. Don't
+you? They're always a-threatening me wi' France, if I dare say
+a word more about the po'shay, or&mdash;or anyone.'</p>
+
+<p>I really was curious about Cormoran; but Cormoran was not
+to be defined to me by Milly; nor did she, in reality, know
+more than I respecting the arrival of the night before.</p>
+
+<p>One day I was surprised to see Doctor Bryerly on the stairs.
+I was standing in a dark gallery as he walked across the floor
+of the lobby to my uncle's door, his hat on, and some papers
+in his hand.</p>
+
+<p>He did not see me; and when he had entered Uncle Silas's
+door, I went down and found Milly awaiting me in the hall.</p>
+
+<p>'So Doctor Bryerly is here,' I said.</p>
+
+<p>'That's the thin fellow, wi' the sharp look, and the shiny
+black coat, that went up just now?' asked Milly.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, he's gone into your papa's room,' said I.</p>
+
+<p>''Appen 'twas he come 'tother night. He may be staying
+here, though we see him seldom, for it's a barrack of a house&mdash;it
+is.'</p>
+
+<p>The same thought had struck me for a moment, but was
+dismissed immediately. It certainly was <i>not</i> Doctor Bryerly's
+figure which I had seen.</p>
+
+<p>So, without any new light gathered from this apparition, we
+went on our way, and made our little sketch of the ruined
+bridge. We found the gate locked as before; and, as Milly
+could not persuade me to climb it, we got round the paling by
+the river's bank.</p>
+
+<p>While at our drawing, we saw the swarthy face, sooty locks,
+and old weather-stained red coat of Zamiel, who was glowering
+malignly at us from among the trunks of the forest trees, and
+standing motionless as a monumental figure in the side aisle of
+a cathedral. When we looked again he was gone.</p>
+
+<p>Although it was a fine mild day for the wintry season, we yet,
+cloaked as we were, could not pursue so still an occupation as
+sketching for more than ten or fifteen minutes. As we returned,
+in passing a clump of trees, we heard a sudden outbreak of
+voices, angry and expostulatory; and saw, under the trees, the
+savage old Zamiel strike his daughter with his stick two great
+blows, one of which was across the head. 'Beauty' ran only a
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page236" id="page236"></a>[pg 228]</span>
+
+short distance away, while the swart old wood-demon stumped
+lustily after her, cursing and brandishing his cudgel.</p>
+
+<p>My blood boiled. I was so shocked that for a moment I could
+not speak; but in a moment more I screamed&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'You brute! How dare you strike the poor girl?'</p>
+
+<p>She had only run a few steps, and turned about confronting
+him and us, her eyes gleaming fire, her features pale and quivering
+to suppress a burst of weeping. Two little rivulets of
+blood were trickling over her temple.</p>
+
+<p>'I say, fayther, look at that,' she said, with a strange tremulous
+smile, lifting her hand, which was smeared with blood.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps he was ashamed, and the more enraged on that account,
+for he growled another curse, and started afresh to reach
+her, whirling his stick in the air. Our voices, however, arrested
+him.</p>
+
+<p>'My uncle shall hear of your brutality. The poor girl!'</p>
+
+<p>'Strike him, Meg, if he does it again; and pitch his leg into
+the river to-night, when he's asleep.'</p>
+
+<p>'I'd serve <i>you</i> the same;' and out came an oath. 'You'd have
+her lick her fayther, would ye? Look out!'</p>
+
+<p>And he wagged his head with a scowl at Milly, and a flourish
+of his cudgel.</p>
+
+<p>'Be quiet, Milly,' I whispered, for Milly was preparing for
+battle; and I again addressed him with the assurance that, on
+reaching home, I would tell my uncle how he had treated the
+poor girl.</p>
+
+<p>''Tis you she may thank for't, a wheedling o' her to open
+that gate,' he snarled.</p>
+
+<p>'That's a lie; we went round by the brook,' cried Milly.</p>
+
+<p>I did not think proper to discuss the matter with him; and
+looking very angry, and, I thought, a little put out, he jerked
+and swayed himself out of sight. I merely repeated my promise
+of informing my uncle as he went, to which, over his shoulder,
+he bawled&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Silas won't mind ye <i>that</i>;' snapping his horny finger and
+thumb.</p>
+
+<p>The girl remained where she had stood, wiping the blood
+off roughly with the palm of her hand, and looking at it before
+she rubbed it on her apron.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page237" id="page237"></a>[pg 229]</span>
+
+<p>'My poor girl,' I said, 'you must not cry. I'll speak to my
+uncle about you.'</p>
+
+<p>But she was not crying. She raised her head, and looked at us
+a little askance, with a sullen contempt, I thought.</p>
+
+<p>'And you must have these apples&mdash;won't you?' We had
+brought in our basket two or three of those splendid apples for
+which Bartram was famous.</p>
+
+<p>I hesitated to go near her, these Hawkeses, Beauty and Pegtop,
+were such savages. So I rolled the apples gently along the ground
+to her feet.</p>
+
+<p>She continued to look doggedly at us with the same expression, and kicked
+away the apples sullenly that approached her
+feet. Then, wiping her temple and forehead in her apron, without
+a word, she turned and walked slowly away.</p>
+
+<p>'Poor thing! I'm afraid she leads a hard life. What strange,
+repulsive people they are!'</p>
+
+<p>When we reached home, at the head of the great staircase
+old L'Amour was awaiting me; and with a courtesy, and very
+respectfully, she informed me that the Master would be happy
+to see me.</p>
+
+<p>Could it be about my evidence as to the arrival of the mysterious chaise
+that he summoned me to this interview? Gentle as
+were his ways, there was something undefinable about Uncle
+Silas which inspired fear; and I should have liked few things
+less than meeting his gaze in the character of a culprit.</p>
+
+<p>There was an uncertainty, too, as to the state in which I
+might find him, and a positive horror of beholding him again
+in the condition in which I had last seen him.</p>
+
+<p>I entered the room, then, in some trepidation, but was instantly relieved.
+Uncle Silas was in the same health apparently,
+and, as nearly as I could recollect it, in precisely the same rather
+handsome though negligent garb in which I had first seen him.</p>
+
+<p>Doctor Bryerly&mdash;what a marked and vulgar contrast, and yet,
+somehow, how reassuring!&mdash;sat at the table near him, and was
+tying up papers. His eyes watched me, I thought, with an
+anxious scrutiny as I approached; and I think it was not until
+I had saluted him that he recollected suddenly that he had not
+seen me before at Bartram, and stood up and greeted me in his
+usual abrupt and somewhat familiar way. It was vulgar and not
+cordial, and yet it was honest and indefinably kind.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page238" id="page238"></a>[pg 230]</span>
+
+<p>Up rose my uncle, that strangely venerable, pale portrait, in
+his loose Rembrandt black velvet. How gentle, how benignant,
+how unearthly, and inscrutable!</p>
+
+<p>'I need not say how she is. Those lilies and roses, Doctor
+Bryerly, speak their own beautiful praises of the air of Bartram.
+I almost regret that her carriage will be home so soon. I only
+hope it may not abridge her rambles. It positively does me
+good to look at her. It is the glow of flowers in winter, and the
+fragrance of a field which the Lord hath blessed.'</p>
+
+<p>'Country air, Miss Ruthyn, is a right good kitchen to country
+fare. I like to see young women eat heartily. You have had some
+pounds of beef and mutton since I saw you last,' said Dr. Bryerly.</p>
+
+<p>And this sly speech made, he scrutinised my countenance in
+silence rather embarrassingly.</p>
+
+<p>'My system, Doctor Bryerly, as a disciple of Aesculapius you
+will approve&mdash;health first, accomplishment afterwards. The
+Continent is the best field for elegant instruction, and we must
+see the world a little, by-and-by, Maud; and to me, if my health
+be spared, there would be an unspeakable though a melancholy
+charm in the scenes where so many happy, though so many
+wayward and foolish, young days were passed; and I think I
+should return to these picturesque solitudes with, perhaps, an
+increased relish. You remember old Chaulieu's sweet lines&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">  <div class="stanza">
+<p>Désert, aimable solitude,</p>
+<p>Séjour du calme et de la paix,</p>
+<p>Asile où n'entrèrent jamais</p>
+<p>Le tumulte et l'inquiétude.</p>
+  </div>  </div>
+
+<p>I can't say that care and sorrow have not sometimes penetrated
+these sylvan fastnesses; but the tumults of the world, thank
+Heaven!&mdash;never.'</p>
+
+<p>There was a sly scepticism, I thought, in Doctor Bryerly's
+sharp face; and hardly waiting for the impressive 'never,' he
+said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'I forgot to ask, who is your banker?'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh! Bartlet and Hall, Lombard Street,' answered Uncle
+Silas, dryly and shortly.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Bryerly made a note of it, with an expression of face
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page239" id="page239"></a>[pg 231]</span>
+
+which seemed, with a sly resolution, to say, 'You shan't come
+the anchorite over me.'</p>
+
+<p>I saw Uncle Silas's wild and piercing eye rest suspiciously on
+me for a moment, as if to ascertain whether I felt the spirit of
+Doctor Bryerly's almost interruption; and, nearly at the same
+moment, stuffing his papers into his capacious coat pockets,
+Doctor Bryerly rose and took his leave.</p>
+
+<p>When he was gone, I bethought me that now was a good
+opportunity of making my complaint of Dickon Hawkes. Uncle
+Silas having risen, I hesitated, and began,</p>
+
+<p>'Uncle, may I mention an occurrence&mdash;which I witnessed?'</p>
+
+<p>'Certainly, child,' he answered, fixing his eye sharply on me.
+I really think he fancied that the conversation was about to
+turn upon the phantom chaise.</p>
+
+<p>So I described the scene which had shocked Milly and me, an
+hour or so ago, in the Windmill Wood.</p>
+
+<p>'You see, my dear child, they are rough persons; their ideas
+are not ours; their young people must be chastised, and in a
+way and to a degree that we would look upon in a serious light.
+I've found it a bad plan interfering in strictly domestic
+misunderstandings, and should rather not.'</p>
+
+<p>'But he struck her violently on the head, uncle, with a heavy
+cudgel, and she was bleeding very fast.'</p>
+
+<p>'Ah?' said my uncle, dryly.</p>
+
+<p>'And only that Milly and I deterred him by saying that we
+would certainly tell you, he would have struck her again; and
+I really think if he goes on treating her with so much violence
+and cruelty he may injure her seriously, or perhaps kill her.'</p>
+
+<p>'Why, you romantic little child, people in that rank of life
+think absolutely nothing of a broken head,' answered Uncle
+Silas, in the same way.</p>
+
+<p>'But is it not horrible brutality, uncle?'</p>
+
+<p>'To be sure it is brutality; but then you must remember
+they are brutes, and it suits them,' said he.</p>
+
+<p>I was disappointed. I had fancied that Uncle Silas's gentle
+nature would have recoiled from such an outrage with horror
+and indignation; and instead, here he was, the apologist of
+that savage ruffian, Dickon Hawkes.</p>
+
+<p>'And he is always so rude and impertinent to Milly and to
+me,' I continued.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page240" id="page240"></a>[pg 232]</span>
+
+<p>'Oh! impertinent to you&mdash;that's another matter. I must see
+to that. Nothing more, my dear child?'</p>
+
+<p>'Well, there <i>was</i> nothing more.'</p>
+
+<p>'He's a useful servant, Hawkes; and though his looks are not
+prepossessing, and his ways and language rough, yet he is a very
+kind father, and a most honest man&mdash;a thoroughly moral man,
+though severe&mdash;a very rough diamond though, and has no idea
+of the refinements of polite society. I venture to say he honestly
+believes that he has been always unexceptionably polite to you,
+so we must make allowances.'</p>
+
+<p>And Uncle Silas smoothed my hair with his thin aged hand,
+and kissed my forehead.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, we must make allowances; we must be kind. What says
+the Book?&mdash;"Judge not, that ye be not judged." Your dear
+father acted upon that maxim&mdash;so noble and so awful&mdash;and I
+strive to do so. Alas! dear Austin, <i>longo intervalle</i>, far behind!
+and you are removed&mdash;my example and my help; you are gone
+to your rest, and I remain beneath my burden, still marching
+on by bleak and alpine paths, under the awful night.</p>
+
+<div class="poem">  <div class="stanza">
+<p>O nuit, nuit douloureuse! O toi, tardive aurore!</p>
+<p>Viens-tu? vas-tu venir? es-tu bien loin encore?</p>
+  </div>  </div>
+
+<p>And repeating these lines of Chenier, with upturned eyes,
+and one hand lifted, and an indescribable expression of grief
+and fatigue, he sank stiffly into his chair, and remained mute,
+with eyes closed for some time. Then applying his scented handkerchief
+to them hastily, and looking very kindly at me, he
+said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Anything more, dear child?'</p>
+
+<p>'Nothing, uncle, thank you, very much, only about that man,
+Hawkes; I dare say that he does not mean to be so uncivil as
+he is, but I am really afraid of him, and he makes our walks
+in that direction quite unpleasant.'</p>
+
+<p>'I understand quite, my dear. I will see to it; and you must
+remember that nothing is to be allowed to vex my beloved niece
+and ward during her stay at Bartram&mdash;nothing that her old kinsman,
+Silas Ruthyn, can remedy.'</p>
+
+<p>So with a tender smile, and a charge to shut the door 'perfectly,
+but without clapping it,' he dismissed me.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page241" id="page241"></a>[pg 233]</span>
+
+<p>Doctor Bryerly had not slept at Bartram, but at the little inn
+in Feltram, and he was going direct to London, as I afterwards
+learned.</p>
+
+<p>'Your ugly doctor's gone away in a fly,' said Milly, as we met
+on the stairs, she running up, I down.</p>
+
+<p>On reaching the little apartment which was our sitting-room,
+however, I found that she was mistaken; for Doctor Bryerly,
+with his hat and a great pair of woollen gloves on, and an old
+Oxford grey surtout that showed his lank length to advantage,
+buttoned all the way up to his chin, had set down his black
+leather bag on the table, and was reading at the window a little
+volume which I had borrowed from my uncle's library.</p>
+
+<p>It was Swedenborg's account of the other worlds, Heaven
+and Hell.</p>
+
+<p>He closed it on his finger as I entered, and without recollecting
+to remove his hat, he made a step or two towards me with
+his splay, creaking boots. With a quick glance at the door, he
+said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Glad to see you alone for a minute&mdash;very glad.'</p>
+
+<p>But his countenance, on the contrary, looked very anxious.</p>
+
+<a name="chap38"></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XXXVIII</h3>
+
+<h2><i>A MIDNIGHT DEPARTURE</i></h2>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>'I'm going this minute&mdash;I&mdash;I want to know'&mdash;another glance
+at the door&mdash;'are you really quite comfortable here?'</p>
+
+<p>'Quite,' I answered promptly.</p>
+
+<p>'You have only your cousin's company?' he continued, glancing
+at the table, which was laid for two.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes; but Milly and I are very happy together.'</p>
+
+<p>'That's very nice; but I think there are no teachers, you
+see&mdash;painters, and singers, and that sort of thing that is usual with
+young ladies. No teachers of that kind&mdash;of <i>any</i> kind&mdash;are
+there?'
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page242" id="page242"></a>[pg 234]</span>
+'No; my uncle thinks it better I should lay in a store of
+health, he says.'</p>
+
+<p>'I know; and the carriage and horses have not come; how
+soon are they expected?'</p>
+
+<p>'I really can't say, and I assure you I don't much care. I think
+running about great fun.'</p>
+
+<p>'You walk to church?'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes; Uncle Silas's carriage wants a new wheel, he told me.'</p>
+
+<p>'Ay, but a young woman of your rank, you know, it is not
+usual she should be without the use of a carriage. Have you
+horses to ride?'</p>
+
+<p>I shook my head.</p>
+
+<p>'Your uncle, you know, has a very liberal allowance for your
+maintenance and education.'</p>
+
+<p>I remembered something in the will about it, and Mary
+Quince was constantly grumbling that 'he did not spend a
+pound a week on our board.'</p>
+
+<p>I answered nothing, but looked down.</p>
+
+<p>Another glance at the door from Doctor Bryerly's sharp black
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>'Is he kind to you?'</p>
+
+<p>'Very kind&mdash;most gentle and affectionate.'</p>
+
+<p>'Why doesn't he keep company with you? Does he ever dine
+with you, or drink tea, or talk to you? Do you see much of
+him?'</p>
+
+<p>'He is a miserable invalid&mdash;his hours and regimen are peculiar.
+Indeed I wish very much you would consider his case; he
+is, I believe, often insensible for a long time, and his mind in
+a strange feeble state sometimes.'</p>
+
+<p>'I dare say&mdash;worn out in his young days; and I saw that
+preparation of opium in his bottle&mdash;he takes too much.'</p>
+
+<p>'Why do you think so, Doctor Bryerly?'</p>
+
+<p>'It's made on water: the spirit interferes with the use of it
+beyond a certain limit. You have no idea what those fellows can
+swallow. Read the "Opium Eater." I knew two cases in which
+the quantity exceeded De Quincy's. Aha! it's new to you?' and
+he laughed quietly at my simplicity.</p>
+
+<p>'And what do you think his complaint is?' I asked.</p>
+
+<p>'Pooh! I haven't a notion; but, probably, one way or another,
+he has been all his days working on his nerves and his
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page243" id="page243"></a>[pg 235]</span>
+
+brain. These men of pleasure, who have no other pursuit, use
+themselves up mostly, and pay a smart price for their sins. And
+so he's kind and affectionate, but hands you over to your cousin
+and the servants. Are his people civil and obliging?'</p>
+
+<p>'Well, I can't say much for them; there is a man named
+Hawkes, and his daughter, who are very rude, and even abusive
+sometimes, and say they have orders from my uncle to shut us
+out from a portion of the grounds; but I don't believe that, for
+Uncle Silas never alluded to it when I was making my complaint
+of them to-day.'</p>
+
+<p>'From what part of the grounds is that?' asked Doctor
+Bryerly, sharply.</p>
+
+<p>I described the situation as well as I could.</p>
+
+<p>'Can we see it from this?' he asked, peeping from the window.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, no.'</p>
+
+<p>Doctor Bryerly made a note in his pocket-book here, and I
+said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'But I am really quite sure it was a story of Dickon's, he is
+such a surly, disobliging man.'</p>
+
+<p>'And what sort is that old servant that came in and out of
+his room?'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, that is old L'Amour,' I answered, rather indirectly, and
+forgetting that I was using Milly's nickname.</p>
+
+<p>'And is <i>she</i> civil?' he asked.</p>
+
+<p>No, she certainly was not; a most disagreeable old woman,
+with a vein of wickedness. I thought I had heard her swearing.</p>
+
+<p>'They don't seem to be a very engaging lot,' said Doctor
+Bryerly; 'but where there's one, there will be more. See here,
+I was just reading a passage,' and he opened the little volume
+at the place where his finger marked it, and read for me a few
+sentences, the purport of which I well remember, although, of
+course, the words have escaped me.</p>
+
+<p>It was in that awful portion of the book which assumes to
+describe the condition of the condemned; and it said that, independently
+of the physical causes in that state operating to
+enforce community of habitation, and an isolation from superior
+spirits, there exist sympathies, aptitudes, and necessities which
+would, of themselves, induce that depraved gregariousness, and
+isolation too.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page244" id="page244"></a>[pg 236]</span>
+
+<p>'And what of the rest of the servants, are they better?' he
+resumed.</p>
+
+<p>We saw little or nothing of the others, except of old 'Giblets,'
+the butler, who went about like a little automaton of dry bones,
+poking here and there, and whispering and smiling to himself
+as he laid the cloth; and seeming otherwise quite unconscious
+of an external world.</p>
+
+<p>'This room is not got up like Mr. Ruthyn's: does he talk of
+furnishings and making things a little smart? No! Well, I must
+say, I think he might.'</p>
+
+<p>Here there was a little silence, and Doctor Bryerly, with his
+accustomed simultaneous glance at the door, said in low, cautious
+tones, very distinctly&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Have you been thinking at all over that matter again, I mean
+about getting your uncle to forego his guardianship? I would
+not mind his first refusal. You could make it worth his while,
+unless he&mdash;that is&mdash;unless he's very unreasonable indeed; and I
+think you would consult your interest, Miss Ruthyn, by doing
+so and, if possible, getting out of this place.'</p>
+
+<p>'But I have not thought of it at all; I am much happier here
+than I had at all expected, and I am very fond of my cousin
+Milly.'</p>
+
+<p>'How long have you been here exactly?'</p>
+
+<p>I told him. It was some two or three months.</p>
+
+<p>'Have you seen your other cousin yet&mdash;the young gentleman?'</p>
+
+<p>'No.'</p>
+
+<p>'H'm! Aren't you very lonely?' he enquired.</p>
+
+<p>'We see no visitors here; but that, you know, I was prepared
+for.'</p>
+
+<p>Doctor Bryerly read the wrinkles on his splay boot intently
+and peevishly, and tapped the sole lightly on the ground.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, it is very lonely, and the people a bad lot. You'd be
+pleasanter somewhere else&mdash;with Lady Knollys, for instance, eh?'</p>
+
+<p>'Well, <i>there</i> certainly. But I am very well here: really the
+time passes very pleasantly; and my uncle is so kind. I have
+only to mention anything that annoys me, and he will see that
+it is remedied: he is always impressing that on me.'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, it is not a fit place for you,' said Doctor Bryerly. 'Of
+course, about your uncle,' he resumed, observing my surprised
+look, 'it is all right: but he's quite helpless, you know. At all
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page245" id="page245"></a>[pg 237]</span>
+
+events, <i>think</i> about it. Here's my address&mdash;Hans Emmanuel
+Bryerly, M.D., 17 King Street, Covent Garden, London&mdash;don't
+lose it, mind,' and he tore the leaf out of his note-book.</p>
+
+<p>'Here's my fly at the door, and you must&mdash;you must' (he was
+looking at his watch)&mdash;'mind you <i>must</i> think of it seriously; and
+so, you see, don't let anyone see that. You'll be sure to leave it
+throwing about. The best way will be just to scratch it on the
+door of your press, inside, you know; and don't put my name&mdash;you'll
+remember that&mdash;only the rest of the address; and burn
+this. Quince is with you?'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes,' I answered, glad to have a satisfactory word to say.</p>
+
+<p>'Well, don't let her go; it's a bad sign if they wish it. Don't
+consent, mind; but just tip me a hint and you'll have me down.
+And any letters you get from Lady Knollys, you know, for she's
+very plain-spoken, you'd better burn them off-hand. And I've
+stayed too long, though; mind what I say, scratch it with a pin,
+and burn that, and not a word to a mortal about it. Good-bye;
+oh, I was taking away your book.'</p>
+
+<p>And so, in a fuss, with a slight shake of the hand, getting up
+his umbrella, his bag, and tin box, he hurried from the room;
+and in a minute more, I heard the sound of his vehicle as it
+drove away.</p>
+
+<p>I looked after it with a sigh; the uneasy sensations which I
+had experienced respecting my sojourn at Bartram-Haugh were
+re-awakened.</p>
+
+<p>My ugly, vulgar, true friend was disappearing beyond those
+gigantic lime trees which hid Bartram from the eyes of the outer
+world. The fly, with the doctor's valise on top, vanished, and I
+sighed an anxious sigh. The shadow of the over-arching trees
+contracted, and I felt helpless and forsaken; and glancing down
+the torn leaf, Doctor Bryerly's address met my eye, between my
+fingers.</p>
+
+<p>I slipt it into my breast, and ran up-stairs stealthily, trembling
+lest the old woman should summon me again, at the head of the
+stairs, into Uncle Silas's room, where under his gaze, I fancied, I
+should be sure to betray myself.</p>
+
+<p>But I glided unseen and safely by, entered my room, and shut
+my door. So listening and working, I, with my scissors' point,
+scratched the address where Doctor Bryerly had advised. Then,
+in positive terror, lest some one should even knock during the
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page246" id="page246"></a>[pg 238]</span>
+
+operation, I, with a match, consumed to ashes the tell-tale bit
+of paper.</p>
+
+<p>Now, for the first time, I experienced the unpleasant sensations
+of having a secret to keep. I fancy the pain of this solitary
+liability was disproportionately acute in my case, for I was naturally
+very open and very nervous. I was always on the point of
+betraying it <i>apropos des bottes</i>&mdash;always reproaching myself for
+my duplicity; and in constant terror when honest Mary Quince
+approached the press, or good-natured Milly made her occasional
+survey of the wonders of my wardrobe. I would have given
+anything to go and point to the tiny inscription, and say:&mdash;'This is Doctor
+Bryerly's address in London. I scratched it with
+my scissors' point, taking every precaution lest anyone&mdash;you, my
+good friends, included&mdash;should surprise me. I have ever since
+kept this secret to myself, and trembled whenever your frank
+kind faces looked into the press. There&mdash;you at last know all
+about it. Can you ever forgive my deceit?'</p>
+
+<p>But I could not make up my mind to reveal it; nor yet to
+erase the inscription, which was my alternative thought. Indeed
+I am a wavering, irresolute creature as ever lived, in my ordinary
+mood. High excitement or passion only can inspire me with decision. Under
+the inspiration of either, however, I am transformed,
+and often both prompt and brave.</p>
+
+<p>'Some one left here last night, I think, Miss,' said Mary
+Quince, with a mysterious nod, one morning. ''Twas two
+o'clock, and I was bad with the toothache, and went down to
+get a pinch o' red pepper&mdash;leaving the candle a-light here lest
+you should awake. When I was coming up&mdash;as I was crossing the
+lobby, at the far end of the long gallery&mdash;what should I hear,
+but a horse snorting, and some people a-talking, short and quiet
+like. So I looks out o' the window; and there surely I did see
+two horses yoked to a shay, and a fellah a-pullin' a box up o'
+top; and out comes a walise and a bag; and I think it was old
+Wyat, please'm, that Miss Milly calls L'Amour, that stood in the
+doorway a-talking to the driver.'</p>
+
+<p>'And who got into the chaise, Mary?' I asked.</p>
+
+<p>'Well, Miss, I waited as long as I could; but the pain was
+bad, and me so awful cold; I gave it up at last, and came back
+to bed, for I could not say how much longer they might wait.
+And you'll find, Miss,'twill be kep' a secret, like the shay as
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page247" id="page247"></a>[pg 239]</span>
+
+you saw'd, Miss, last week. I hate them dark ways, and secrets;
+and old Wyat&mdash;she does tell stories, don't she?&mdash;and she as
+ought to be partickler, seein' her time be short now, and she
+so old. It is awful, an old un like that telling such crams as
+she do.'</p>
+
+<p>Milly was as curious as I, but could throw no light on this.
+We both agreed, however, that the departure was probably that
+of the person whose arrival I had accidentally witnessed. This
+time the chaise had drawn up at the side door, round the corner
+of the left side of the house; and, no doubt, driven away
+by the back road.</p>
+
+<p>Another accident had revealed this nocturnal move. It was
+very provoking, however, that Mary Quince had not had
+resolution to wait for the appearance of the traveller. We all
+agreed, however, that we were to observe a strict silence, and
+that even to Wyat&mdash;L'Amour I had better continue to call her&mdash;Mary
+Quince was not to hint what she had seen. I suspect, however,
+that injured curiosity asserted itself, and that Mary hardly
+adhered to this self-denying resolve.</p>
+
+<p>But cheerful wintry suns and frosty skies, long nights, and
+brilliant starlight, with good homely fires in our snuggery&mdash;gossipings,
+stories, short readings now and then, and brisk walks
+through the always beautiful scenery of Bartram-Haugh, and,
+above all, the unbroken tenor of our life, which had fallen into
+a serene routine, foreign to the idea of danger or misadventure,
+gradually quieted the qualms and misgivings which my interview
+with Doctor Bryerly had so powerfully resuscitated.</p>
+
+<p>My cousin Monica, to my inexpressible joy, had returned to
+her country-house; and an active diplomacy, through the post-office,
+was negotiating the re-opening of friendly relations between
+the courts of Elverston and of Bartram.</p>
+
+<p>At length, one fine day, Cousin Monica, smiling pleasantly,
+with her cloak and bonnet on, and her colour fresh from the
+shrewd air of the Derbyshire hills, stood suddenly before me
+in our sitting-room. Our meeting was that of two school-companions
+long separated. Cousin Monica was always a girl in my
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>What a hug it was; what a shower of kisses and ejaculations,
+enquiries and caresses! At last I pressed her down into a chair,
+and, laughing, she said&mdash;</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page248" id="page248"></a>[pg 240]</span>
+
+<p>'You have no idea what self-denial I have exercised to bring
+this visit about. I, who detest writing, have actually written
+five letters to Silas; and I don't think I said a single impertinent
+thing in one of them! What a wonderful little old thing
+your butler is! I did not know what to make of him on the
+steps. Is he a struldbrug, or a fairy, or only a ghost? Where on
+earth did your uncle pick him up? I'm sure he came in on
+All Hallows E'en, to answer an incantation&mdash;not your future
+husband, I hope&mdash;and he'll vanish some night into gray smoke,
+and whisk sadly up the chimney. He's the most venerable little
+thing I ever beheld in my life. I leaned back in the carriage
+and thought I should absolutely die of laughing. He's gone up
+to prepare your uncle for my visit; and I really am very glad,
+for I'm sure I shall look as young as Hebe after <i>him</i>. But who is
+this? Who are you, my dear?'</p>
+
+<p>This was addressed to poor Milly, who stood at the corner
+of the chimney-piece, staring with her round eyes and plump
+cheeks in fear and wonder upon the strange lady.</p>
+
+<p>'How stupid of me,' I exclaimed. 'Milly, dear, this is your
+cousin, Lady Knollys.'</p>
+
+<p>'And so <i>you</i> are Millicent. Well, dear, I am very glad to see
+you.' And Cousin Monica was on her feet again in an instant,
+with Milly's hand very cordially in hers; and she gave her a
+kiss upon each cheek, and patted her head.</p>
+
+<p>Milly, I must mention, was a much more presentable figure
+than when I first encountered her. Her dresses were at least
+a quarter of a yard longer. Though very rustic, therefore, she
+was not so barbarously grotesque, by any means.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page249" id="page249"></a>[pg 241]</span>
+
+<a name="chap39"></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XXXIX</h3>
+
+<h2><i>COUSIN MONICA AND
+UNCLE SILAS MEET</i></h2>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>Cousin Monica, with her hands upon Milly's shoulders, looked
+amusedly and kindly in her face. 'And,' said she, 'we must be
+very good friends&mdash;you funny creature, you and I. I'm allowed
+to be the most saucy old woman in Derbyshire&mdash;quite incorrigibly
+privileged; and nobody is ever affronted with me, so I
+say the most shocking things constantly.'</p>
+
+<p>'I'm a bit that way, myself; and I think,' said poor Milly,
+making an effort, and growing very red; she quite lost her head
+at that point, and was incompetent to finish the sentiment she
+had prefaced.</p>
+
+<p>'You think? Now, take my advice, and never wait to think my
+dear; talk first, and think afterwards, that is my way; though,
+indeed, I can't say I ever think at all. It is a very cowardly
+habit. Our cold-blooded cousin Maud, there, thinks sometimes;
+but it is always such a failure that I forgive her. I wonder when
+your little pre-Adamite butler will return. He speaks the language
+of the Picts and Ancient Britons, I dare say, and your
+father requires a little time to translate him. And, Milly dear, I
+am very hungry, so I won't wait for your butler, who would give
+me, I suppose, one of the cakes baked by King Alfred, and some
+Danish beer in a skull; but I'll ask you for a little of that nice
+bread and butter.'</p>
+
+<p>With which accordingly Lady Knollys was quickly supplied;
+but it did not at all impede her utterance.</p>
+
+<p>'Do you think, girls, you could be ready to come away with
+me, if Silas gives leave, in an hour or two? I should so like to
+take you both home with me to Elverston.'</p>
+
+<p>'How delightful! you darling,' cried I, embracing and kissing
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page250" id="page250"></a>[pg 242]</span>
+
+her; 'for my part, I should be ready in five minutes; what do
+you say, Milly?'</p>
+
+<p>Poor Milly's wardrobe, I am afraid, was more portable than
+handsome; and she looked horribly affrighted, and whispered in
+my ear&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'My best petticoat is away at the laundress; say in a week,
+Maud.'</p>
+
+<p>'What does she say?' asked Lady Knollys.</p>
+
+<p>'She fears she can't be ready,' I answered, dejectedly.</p>
+
+<p>'There's a deal of my slops in the wash,' blurted out poor
+Milly, staring straight at Lady Knollys.</p>
+
+<p>'In the name of wonder, what does my cousin mean?' asked
+Lady Knollys.</p>
+
+<p>'Her things have not come home yet from the laundress,' I
+replied; and at this moment our wondrous old butler entered to
+announce to Lady Knollys that his master was ready to receive
+her, whenever she was disposed to favour him; and also to make
+polite apologies for his being compelled, by his state of health,
+to give her the trouble of ascending to his room.</p>
+
+<p>So Cousin Monica was at the door in a moment, over her
+shoulder calling to us, 'Come, girls.'</p>
+
+<p>'Please, not yet, my lady&mdash;you alone; and he requests the
+young ladies will be in the way, as he will send for them presently.'</p>
+
+<p>I began to admire poor 'Giblets' as the wreck of a tolerably
+respectable servant.</p>
+
+<p>'Very good; perhaps it is better we should kiss and be friends
+in private first,' said Cousin Knollys, laughing; and away she
+went under the guidance of the mummy.</p>
+
+<p>I had an account of this <i>tête-à-tête</i> afterwards from Lady
+Knollys.</p>
+
+<p>'When I saw him, my dear,' she said, 'I could hardly believe
+my eyes; such white hair&mdash;such a white face&mdash;such mad eyes&mdash;such
+a death-like smile. When I saw him last, his hair was dark;
+he dressed himself like a modern Englishman; and he really preserved
+a likeness to the full-length portrait at Knowl, that you
+fell in love with, you know; but, angels and ministers of grace!
+such a spectre! I asked myself, is it necromancy, or is it delirium
+tremens that has reduced him to this? And said he, with that
+odious smile, that made me fancy myself half insane&mdash;</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page251" id="page251"></a>[pg 243]</span>
+
+<p>'"You see a change, Monica."</p>
+
+<p>'What a sweet, gentle, insufferable voice he has! Somebody
+once told me about the tone of a glass flute that made some
+people hysterical to listen to, and I was thinking of it all the
+time. There was always a peculiar quality in his voice.</p>
+
+<p>'"I do see a change, Silas," I said at last; "and, no doubt,
+so do you in me&mdash;a great change."</p>
+
+<p>'"There has been time enough to work a greater than I observe
+in you since you last honoured me with a visit," said he.</p>
+
+<p>'I think he was at his old sarcasms, and meant that I was
+the same impertinent minx he remembered long ago, uncorrected
+by time; and so I am, and he must not expect compliments
+from old Monica Knollys.</p>
+
+<p>'"It is a long time, Silas; but that, you know, is not my
+fault," said I.</p>
+
+<p>'"Not your fault, my dear&mdash;your instinct. We are all imitative
+creatures: the great people ostracised me, and the small
+ones followed. We are very like turkeys, we have so much good
+sense and so much generosity. Fortune, in a freak, wounded
+my head, and the whole brood were upon me, pecking and gobbling,
+gobbling and pecking, and you among them, dear Monica.
+It wasn't your fault, only your instinct, so I quite forgive
+you; but no wonder the peckers wear better than the pecked.
+You are robust; and I, what I am."</p>
+
+<p>'"Now, Silas, I have not come here to quarrel. If we quarrel
+now, mind, we can never make it up&mdash;we are too old, so let us
+forget all we can, and try to forgive something; and if we can
+do neither, at all events let there be truce between us while I
+am here."</p>
+
+<p>'"My personal wrongs I can quite forgive, and I do, Heaven
+knows, from my heart; but there are things which ought not to
+be forgiven. My children have been ruined by it. I may, by the
+mercy of Providence, be yet set right in the world, and so soon
+as that time comes, I will remember, and I will act; but my
+children&mdash;you will see that wretched girl, my daughter&mdash;education,
+society, all would come too late&mdash;my children have been
+ruined by it."</p>
+
+<p>'"I have not done it; but I know what you mean," I said.
+"You menace litigation whenever you have the means; but you
+forget that Austin placed you under promise, when he gave you
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page252" id="page252"></a>[pg 244]</span>
+
+the use of this house and place, never to disturb my title to
+Elverston. So there is my answer, if you mean that."</p>
+
+<p>'"I mean what I mean," he replied, with his old smile.</p>
+
+<p>'"You mean then," said I, "that for the pleasure of vexing me
+with litigation, you are willing to forfeit your tenure of this
+house and place."</p>
+
+<p>'"Suppose I <i>did</i> mean precisely that, why should I forfeit
+anything? My beloved brother, by his will, has given me a right
+to the use of Bartram-Haugh for my life, and attached no absurd
+condition of the kind you fancy to his gift."</p>
+
+<p>'Silas was in one of his vicious old moods, and liked to menace
+me. His vindictiveness got the better of his craft; but he
+knows as well as I do that he never could succeed in disturbing
+the title of my poor dear Harry Knollys; and I was not at all
+alarmed by his threats; and I told him so, as coolly as I speak
+to you now.</p>
+
+<p>'"Well, Monica," he said, "I have weighed you in the balance,
+and you are not found wanting. For a moment the old
+man possessed me: the thought of my children, of past unkindness,
+and present affliction and disgrace, exasperated me, and I
+was mad. It was but for a moment&mdash;the galvanic spasm of a
+corpse. Never was breast more dead than mine to the passions
+and ambitions of the world. They are not for white locks like
+these, nor for a man who, for a week in every month, lies in the
+gate of death. Will you shake hands? <i>Here</i>&mdash;I <i>do</i> strike a
+truce;
+and I <i>do</i> forget and forgive <i>everything</i>."</p>
+
+<p>'I don't know what he meant by this scene. I have no idea
+whether he was acting, or lost his head, or, in fact, why or how
+it occurred; but I am glad, darling, that, unlike myself, I was
+calm, and that a quarrel has not been forced upon me.'</p>
+
+<p>When our turn came and we were summoned to the presence,
+Uncle Silas was quite as usual; but Cousin Monica's
+heightened colour, and the flash of her eyes, showed plainly
+that something exciting and angry had occurred.</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Silas commented in his own vein upon the effect of
+Bartram air and liberty, all he had to offer; and called on me
+to say how I liked them. And then he called Milly to him, kissed
+her tenderly, smiled sadly upon her, and turning to Cousin
+Monica, said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'This is my daughter Milly&mdash;oh! she has been presented to
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page253" id="page253"></a>[pg 245]</span>
+
+you down-stairs, has she? You have, no doubt, been interested
+by her. As I told her cousin Maud, though I am not yet quite
+a Sir Tunbelly Clumsy, she is a very finished Miss Hoyden. Are
+not you, my poor Milly? You owe your distinction, my dear, to
+that line of circumvallation which has, ever since your birth, intercepted
+all civilisation on its way to Bartram. You are much obliged,
+Milly, to everybody who, whether naturally or <i>un</i>-naturally,
+turned a sod in that invisible, but impenetrable, work. For
+your accomplishments&mdash;rather singular than fashionable&mdash;you
+are indebted, in part, to your cousin, Lady Knollys. Is not she,
+Monica? <i>Thank</i> her, Milly.'</p>
+
+<p>'This is your <i>truce</i>, Silas,' said Lady Knollys, with a quiet
+sharpness. 'I think, Silas Ruthyn, you want to provoke me to
+speak in a way before these young creatures which we should all
+regret.'</p>
+
+<p>'So my badinage excites your temper, Monnie. Think how
+you <i>would</i> feel, then, if I had found you by the highway side,
+mangled by robbers, and set my foot upon your throat, and spat
+in your face. But&mdash;stop this. Why have I said this? simply to
+emphasize my forgiveness. See, girls, Lady Knollys and I, cousins
+long estranged, forget and forgive the past, and join hands over
+its buried injuries.'</p>
+
+<p>'Well, <i>be</i> it so; only let us have done with ironies and covert
+taunts.'</p>
+
+<p>And with these words their hands were joined; and Uncle
+Silas, after he had released hers, patted and fondled it with
+his, laughing icily and very low all the time.</p>
+
+<p>'I wish so much, dear Monica,' he said, when this piece of
+silent by-play was over, 'that I could ask you to stay to-night;
+but absolutely I have not a bed to offer, and even if I had, I
+fear my suit would hardly prevail.'</p>
+
+<p>Then came Lady Knollys' invitation for Milly and me. He
+was very much obliged; he smiled over it a great deal, meditating.
+I thought he was puzzled; and amid his smiles, his wild
+eyes scanned Cousin Monica's frank face once or twice suspiciously.</p>
+
+<p>There was a difficulty&mdash;an <i>undefined</i> difficulty&mdash;about letting
+us go that day; but on a future one&mdash;soon&mdash;<i>very</i> soon&mdash;he would
+be most happy.</p>
+
+<p>Well, there was an end of that little project, for to-day at
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page254" id="page254"></a>[pg 246]</span>
+
+least; and Cousin Monica was too well-bred to urge it beyond
+a certain point.</p>
+
+<p>'Milly, my dear, will you put on your hat and show me
+the grounds about the house? May she, Silas? I should like to
+renew my acquaintance.'</p>
+
+<p>'You'll see them sadly neglected, Monnie. A poor man's pleasure
+grounds must rely on Nature, and trust to her for effects.
+Where there is fine timber, however, and abundance of slope,
+and rock, and hollow, we sometimes gain in picturesqueness
+what we lose by neglect in luxury.'</p>
+
+<p>Then, as Cousin Monica said she would cross the grounds by
+a path, and meet her carriage at a point to which we would accompany
+her, and so make her way home, she took leave of
+Uncle Silas; a ceremony whereat&mdash;without, I thought, much zeal
+at either side&mdash;a kiss took place.</p>
+
+<p>'Now, girls!' said Cousin Knollys, when we were fairly in
+motion over the grass, 'what do you say&mdash;will he let you come&mdash;yes
+or no? I can't say, but I think, dear,'&mdash;this to Milly&mdash;'he
+ought to let you see a little more of the world than appears
+among the glens and bushes of Bartram. Very pretty they are,
+like yourself; but very wild, and very little seen. Where is your
+brother, Milly; is not he older than you?'</p>
+
+<p>'I don't know where; and he is older by six years and a bit.'</p>
+
+<p>By-and-by, when Milly was gesticulating to frighten some
+herons by the river's brink into the air, Cousin Monica said
+confidentially to me&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'He has run away, I'm told&mdash;I wish I could believe it&mdash;and
+enlisted in a regiment going to India, perhaps the best thing
+for him. Did you see him here before his judicious self-banishment?'</p>
+
+<p>'No.'</p>
+
+<p>'Well, I suppose you have had no loss. Doctor Bryerly says
+from all he can learn he is a very bad young man. And now tell
+me, dear, <i>is</i> Silas kind to you?'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, always gentle, just as you saw him to-day; but we don't
+see a great deal of him&mdash;very little, in fact.'</p>
+
+<p>'And how do you like your life and the people?' she asked.</p>
+
+<p>'My life, very well; and the people, <i>pretty</i> well. There's an
+old women we don't like, old Wyat, she is cross and mysterious
+and tells untruths; but I don't think she is dishonest&mdash;so Mary
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page255" id="page255"></a>[pg 247]</span>
+
+Quince says&mdash;and that, you know, is a point; and there is a
+family, father and daughter, called Hawkes, who live in the
+Windmill Wood, who are perfect savages, though my uncle says
+they don't mean it; but they are very disagreeable, rude people;
+and except them we see very little of the servants or other
+people. But there has been a mysterious visit; some one came
+late at night, and remained for some days, though Milly and I
+never saw them, and Mary Quince saw a chaise at the side-door
+at two o'clock at night.'</p>
+
+<p>Cousin Monica was so highly interested at this that she arrested
+her walk and stood facing me, with her hand on my arm,
+questioning and listening, and lost, as it seemed, in dismal conjecture.</p>
+
+<p>'It is not pleasant, you know,' I said.</p>
+
+<p>'No, it is not pleasant,' said Lady Knollys, very gloomily.</p>
+
+<p>And just then Milly joined us, shouting to us to look at the
+herons flying; so Cousin Monica did, and smiled and nodded
+in thanks to Milly, and was again silent and thoughtful as we
+walked on.</p>
+
+<p>'You are to come to me, mind, both of you girls,' she said,
+abruptly; 'you <i>shall</i>. I'll manage it.'</p>
+
+<p>When silence returned, and Milly ran away once more to try
+whether the old gray trout was visible in the still water under
+the bridge, Cousin Monica said to me in a low tone, looking
+hard at me&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'You've not seen anything to frighten you, Maud? Don't look
+so alarmed, dear,' she added with a little laugh, which was not
+very merry, however. 'I don't mean frighten in any awful sense&mdash;in
+fact, I did not mean frighten at all. I meant&mdash;I can't exactly
+express it&mdash;anything to vex, or make you uncomfortable; have
+you?'</p>
+
+<p>'No, I can't say I have, except that room in which Mr. Charke
+was found dead.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh! you saw that, did you?&mdash;I should like to see it so much.
+Your bedroom is not near it?'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, no; on the floor beneath, and looking to the front. And
+Doctor Bryerly talked a little to me, and there seemed to be
+something on his mind more than he chose to tell me; so that
+for some time after I saw him I really was, as you say, frightened;
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page256" id="page256"></a>[pg 248]</span>
+
+but, except that, I really have had no cause. And what was
+in your mind when you asked me?'</p>
+
+<p>'Well, you know, Maud, you are afraid of ghosts, banditti,
+and <i>every</i>thing; and I wished to know whether you were uncomfortable,
+and what your particular bogle was just now&mdash;that, I
+assure you, was all; and I know,' she continued, suddenly changing
+her light tone and manner for one of pointed entreaty,
+'what Doctor Bryerly said; and I <i>implore</i> of you, Maud, to
+think of it seriously; and when you come to me, you shall do so
+with the intention of remaining at Elverston.'</p>
+
+<p>'Now, Cousin Monica, is this fair? You and Doctor Bryerly
+both talk in the same awful way to me; and I assure you, you
+don't know how nervous I am sometimes, and yet you won't,
+either of you, say what you mean. Now, Monica, dear cousin,
+won't you tell me?'</p>
+
+<p>'You see, dear, it is so lonely; it's a strange place, and he
+so odd. I don't like the place, and I don't like him. I've tried,
+but I can't, and I think I never shall. He may be a very&mdash;what
+was it that good little silly curate at Knowl used to call him?&mdash;a
+very advanced Christian&mdash;that is it, and I hope he is; but if
+he is only what he used to be, his utter seclusion from society
+removes the only check, except personal fear&mdash;and he never had
+much of that&mdash;upon a very bad man. And you must know, my
+dear Maud, what a prize you are, and what an immense trust
+it is.'</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly Cousin Monica stopped short, and looked at me as if
+she had gone too far.</p>
+
+<p>'But, you know, Silas may be very good <i>now</i>, although he was
+wild and selfish in his young days. Indeed I don't know what
+to make of him; but I am sure when you have thought it over,
+you will agree with me and Doctor Bryerly, that you must not
+stay here.'</p>
+
+<p>It was vain trying to induce my cousin to be more explicit.</p>
+
+<p>'I hope to see you at Elverston in a very few days. I will
+<i>shame</i> Silas into letting you come. I don't like his reluctance.'</p>
+
+<p>'But don't you think he must know that Milly would require
+some little outfit before her visit?'</p>
+
+<p>'Well, I can't say. I hope that is all; but be it what it may,
+I'll <i>make</i> him let you come, and <i>immediately</i>, too.'</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page257" id="page257"></a>[pg 249]</span>
+
+<p>After she had gone, I experienced a repetition of those undefined
+doubts which had tortured me for some time after my
+conversation with Dr. Bryerly. I had truly said, however, I was
+well enough contented with my mode of life here, for I had been
+trained at Knowl to a solitude very nearly as profound.</p>
+
+<a name="chap40"></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XL</h3>
+
+<h2><i>IN WHICH I MAKE ANOTHER
+COUSIN'S ACQUAINTANCE</i></h2>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>My correspondence about this time was not very extensive.
+About once a fortnight a letter from honest Mrs. Rusk conveyed
+to me how the dogs and ponies were, in queer English, oddly
+spelt; some village gossip, a critique upon Doctor Clay's or the
+Curate's last sermon, and some severities generally upon the Dissenters'
+doings, with loves to Mary Quince, and all good wishes
+to me. Sometimes a welcome letter from cheerful Cousin Monica;
+and now, to vary the series, a copy of complimentary verses,
+without a signature, very adoring&mdash;very like Byron, I then fancied,
+and now, I must confess, rather vapid. Could I doubt from
+whom they came?</p>
+
+<p>I had received, about a month after my arrival, a copy of
+verses in the same hand, in a plaintive ballad style, of the soldierly
+sort, in which the writer said, that as living his sole object
+was to please me, so dying I should be his latest thought; and
+some more poetic impieties, asking only in return that when the
+storm of battle had swept over, I should 'shed a tear' on seeing
+'the <i>oak lie</i>, where it fell.' Of course, about this lugubrious
+pun, there could be no misconception. The Captain was unmistakably
+indicated; and I was so moved that I could no longer
+retain my secret; but walking with Milly that day, confided
+the little romance to that unsophisticated listener, under the
+chestnut trees. The lines were so amorously dejected, and yet
+so heroically redolent of blood and gunpowder, that Milly and
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page258" id="page258"></a>[pg 250]</span>
+
+I agreed that the writer must be on the verge of a sanguinary
+campaign.</p>
+
+<p>It was not easy to get at Uncle Silas's 'Times' or 'Morning
+Post,' which we fancied would explain these horrible allusions;
+but Milly bethought her of a sergeant in the militia, resident
+in Feltram, who knew the destination and quarters of every
+regiment in the service; and circuitously, from this authority,
+we learned, to my infinite relief, that Captain Oakley's regiment
+had still two years to sojourn in England.</p>
+
+<p>I was summoned one evening by old L'Amour, to my uncle's
+room. I remember his appearance that evening so well, as he
+lay back in his chair; the pillow; the white glare of his strange
+eye; his feeble, painful smile.</p>
+
+<p>'You'll excuse my not rising, dear Maud, I am so miserably
+ill this evening.'</p>
+
+<p>I expressed my respectful condolence.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes; I <i>am</i> to be pitied; but pity is of no use, dear,' he murmured,
+peevishly. 'I sent for you to make you acquainted with
+your cousin, my son. Where are you Dudley?'</p>
+
+<p>A figure seated in a low lounging chair, at the other side of
+the fire, and which till then I had not observed, at these words
+rose up a little slowly, like a man stiff after a day's hunting; and
+I beheld with a shock that held my breath, and fixed my eyes
+upon him in a stare, the young man whom I had encountered
+at Church Scarsdale, on the day of my unpleasant excursion there
+with Madame, and who, to the best of my belief, was also one
+of that ruffianly party who had so unspeakably terrified me in
+the warren at Knowl.</p>
+
+<p>I suppose I looked very much affrighted. If I had been looking
+at a ghost I could not have felt much more scared and incredulous.</p>
+
+<p>When I was able to turn my eyes upon my uncle he was not
+looking at me; but with a glimmer of that smile with which
+a father looks on a son whose youth and comeliness he admires,
+his white face was turned towards the young man, in whom I
+beheld nothing but the image of odious and dreadful associations.</p>
+
+<p>'Come, sir,' said my uncle, we must not be too modest. Here's
+your cousin Maud&mdash;what do you say?'</p>
+
+<p>'How are ye, Miss?' he said, with a sheepish grin.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page259" id="page259"></a>[pg 251]</span>
+
+<p>'Miss! Come, come. Miss us, no Misses,' said my uncle; 'she
+is Maud, and you Dudley, or I mistake; or we shall have you
+calling Milly, madame. She'll not refuse you her hand, I venture
+to think. Come, young gentleman, speak for yourself.'</p>
+
+<p>'How are ye, Maud?' he said, doing his best, and drawing
+near, he extended his hand. 'You're welcome to Bartram-Haugh,
+Miss.'</p>
+
+<p>'Kiss your cousin, sir. Where's your gallantry? On my
+honour, I disown you,' exclaimed my uncle, with more energy
+than he had shown before.</p>
+
+<p>With a clumsy effort, and a grin that was both sheepish and
+impudent, he grasped my hand and advanced his face. The imminent
+salute gave me strength to spring back a step or two, and
+he hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>My uncle laughed peevishly.</p>
+
+<p>'Well, well, that will do, I suppose. In my time first-cousins
+did not meet like strangers; but perhaps we were wrong; we are
+learning modesty from the Americans, and old English ways are
+too gross for us.'</p>
+
+<p>'I have&mdash;I've seen him before&mdash;that is;' and at this point I
+stopped.</p>
+
+<p>My uncle turned his strange glare, in a sort of scowl of enquiry,
+upon me.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh!&mdash;hey! why this is news. You never told me. Where
+have you met&mdash;eh, Dudley?'</p>
+
+<p>'Never saw her in my days, so far as I'm aweer on,' said the
+young man.</p>
+
+<p>'No! Well, then, Maud, will <i>you</i> enlighten us?' said Uncle
+Silas, coldly.</p>
+
+<p>'I <i>did</i> see that young gentleman before,' I faltered.</p>
+
+<p>'Meaning <i>me</i>, ma'am?' he asked, coolly.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes&mdash;certainly <i>you</i>. I <i>did</i>, uncle,' answered I.</p>
+
+<p>'And where was it, my dear? Not at Knowl, I fancy. Poor
+dear Austin did not trouble me or mine much with his hospitalities.'</p>
+
+<p>This was not a pleasant tone to take in speaking of his dead
+brother and benefactor; but at the moment I was too much
+engaged upon the one point to observe it.</p>
+
+<p>'I met'&mdash;I could not say my cousin&mdash;'I met him, uncle&mdash;your
+son&mdash;that young gentleman&mdash;I <i>saw</i> him, I should say, at Church
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page260" id="page260"></a>[pg 252]</span>
+
+Scarsdale, and afterwards with some other persons in the warren
+at Knowl. It was the night our gamekeeper was beaten.'</p>
+
+<p>'Well, Dudley, what do you say to that?' asked Uncle Silas.</p>
+
+<p>'I never <i>was</i> at them places, so help me. I don't know where
+they be; and I never set eyes on the young lady before, as I hope
+to be saved, in all my days,' said he, with a countenance so
+unchanged and an air so confident that I began to think I must
+be the dupe of one of those strange resemblances which have
+been known to lead to positive identification in the witness-box,
+afterwards proved to be utterly mistaken.</p>
+
+<p>'You look so&mdash;so <i>uncomfortable</i>, Maud, at the idea of having
+seen him before, that I hardly wonder at the vehemence of his
+denial. There was plainly something disagreeable; but you
+see as respects him it is a total mistake. My boy was always a
+truth-telling fellow&mdash;you may rely implicitly on what he says.
+You were <i>not</i> at those places?'</p>
+
+<p>'I wish I may&mdash;&mdash;,' began the ingenuous youth, with increased
+vehemence.</p>
+
+<p>'There, there&mdash;that will do; your honour and word as a
+gentleman&mdash;and <i>that</i> you are, though a poor one&mdash;will quite
+satisfy your cousin Maud. Am I right, my dear? I do assure
+you, as a gentleman, I never knew him to say the thing that was
+not.'</p>
+
+<p>So Mr. Dudley Ruthyn began, not to curse, but to swear, in
+the prescribed form, that he had never seen me before, or the
+places I had named, 'since I was weaned, by&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'That's enough&mdash;now shake hands, if you won't kiss, like
+cousins,' interrupted my uncle.</p>
+
+<p>And very uncomfortably I did lend him my hand to shake.</p>
+
+<p>'You'll want some supper, Dudley, so Maud and I will excuse
+your going. Good-night, my dear boy,' and he smiled and waved
+him from the room.</p>
+
+<p>'That's as fine a young fellow, I think, as any English father
+can boast for his son&mdash;true, brave, and kind, and quite an
+Apollo. Did you observe how finely proportioned he is, and what
+exquisite features the fellow has? He's rustic and rough, as you
+see; but a year or two in the militia&mdash;I've a promise of a commission
+for him&mdash;he's too old for the line&mdash;will form and polish
+him. He wants nothing but manner; and I protest when he has
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page261" id="page261"></a>[pg 253]</span>
+
+had a little drilling of that kind, I do believe he'll be as pretty
+a fellow as you'd find in England.'</p>
+
+<p>I listened with amazement. I could discover nothing but what
+was disagreeable in the horrid bumpkin, and thought such
+an instance of the blindness of parental partiality was hardly
+credible.</p>
+
+<p>I looked down, dreading another direct appeal to my judgment;
+and Uncle Silas, I suppose, referred those downcast looks
+to maiden modesty, for he forbore to task mine by any new
+interrogatory.</p>
+
+<p>Dudley Ruthyn's cool and resolute denial of ever having
+seen me or the places I had named, and the inflexible serenity
+of his countenance while doing so, did very much shake my
+confidence in my own identification of him. I could not be
+<i>quite</i> certain that the person I had seen at Church Scarsdale
+was the very same whom I afterwards saw at Knowl. And now,
+in this particular instance, after the lapse of a still longer period,
+could I be perfectly certain that my memory, deceived by some
+accidental points of resemblance, had not duped me, and
+wronged my cousin, Dudley Ruthyn?</p>
+
+<p>I suppose my uncle had expected from me some signs of acquiesence
+in his splendid estimate of his cub, and was nettled at
+my silence. After a short interval he said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'I've seen something of the world in my day, and I can say
+without a misgiving of partiality, that Dudley is the material
+of a perfect English gentleman. I am not blind, of course&mdash;the
+training must be supplied; a year or two of good models, active
+self-criticism, and good society. I simply say that the <i>material</i>
+is there.'</p>
+
+<p>Here was another interval of silence.</p>
+
+<p>'And now tell me, child, what these recollections of
+Church&mdash;Church&mdash;<i>what</i>?'</p>
+
+<p>'Church Scarsdale,' I replied.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, thank you&mdash;Church Scarsdale and Knowl&mdash;are?'</p>
+
+<p>So I related my stories as well as I could.</p>
+
+<p>'Well, dear Maud, the adventure of Church Scarsdale is
+hardly so terrific as I expected,' said Uncle Silas with a cold
+little laugh; 'and I don't see, if he had really been the hero of
+it, why he should shrink from avowing it. I know I should not.
+And I really can't say that your pic-nic party in the grounds of
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page262" id="page262"></a>[pg 254]</span>
+
+Knowl has frightened me much more. A lady waiting in the
+carriage, and two or three tipsy young men. Her presence seems
+to me a guarantee that no mischief was meant; but champagne
+is the soul of frolic, and a row with the gamekeepers a natural
+consequence. It happened to me once&mdash;forty years ago, when
+I was a wild young buck&mdash;one of the worst rows I ever was in.'</p>
+
+<p>And Uncle Silas poured some eau-de-cologne over the corner
+of his handkerchief, and touched his temples with it.</p>
+
+<p>'If my boy had been there, I do assure you&mdash;and I know him&mdash;he
+would say so at once. I fancy he would rather <i>boast</i> of it.
+I never knew him utter an untruth. When you know him a
+little you'll say so.'</p>
+
+<p>With these words Uncle Silas leaned back exhausted, and
+languidly poured some of his favourite eau-de-cologne over
+the palms of his hands, nodded a farewell, and, in a whisper,
+wished me good-night.</p>
+
+<p>'Dudley's come,' whispered Milly, taking me under the arm
+as I entered the lobby. 'But I don't care: he never gives me
+nout; and he gets money from Governor, as much as he likes,
+and I never a sixpence. It's a shame!'</p>
+
+<p>So there was no great love between the only son and only
+daughter of the younger line of the Ruthyns.</p>
+
+<p>I was curious to learn all that Milly could tell me of this
+new inmate of Bartram-Haugh; and Milly was communicative
+without having a great deal to relate, and what I heard from her
+tended to confirm my own disagreeable impressions about him.
+She was afraid of him. He was a 'woundy ugly customer in a
+wax, she could tell me.' He was the only one 'she ever knowed as
+had pluck to jaw the Governor.' But he was 'afeard on the
+Governor, too.'</p>
+
+<p>His visits to Bartram-Haugh, I heard, were desultory; and
+this, to my relief, would probably not outlast a week or a fortnight.
+'He <i>was</i> such a fashionable cove:' he was always 'a
+gadding about, mostly to Liverpool and Birmingham, and sometimes
+to Lunnun, itself.' He was 'keeping company one time
+with Beauty, Governor thought, and he was awfully afraid he'd
+a married her; but that was all bosh and nonsense; and Beauty
+would have none of his chaff and wheedling, for she liked
+Tom Brice;' and Milly thought that Dudley never 'cared a
+crack of a whip for her.' He used to go to the Windmill to
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page263" id="page263"></a>[pg 255]</span>
+
+have 'a smoke with Pegtop;' and he was a member of the
+Feltram Club, that met at the 'Plume o' Feathers.' He was
+'a rare good shot,' she heard; and 'he was before the justices
+for poaching, but they could make nothing of it.' And the Governor
+said 'it was all through spite of him&mdash;for they hate us
+for being better blood than they.' And 'all but the squires and
+those upstart folk loves Dudley, he is so handsome and gay&mdash;though
+he be a bit cross at home.' And, 'Governor says, he'll
+be a Parliament man yet, spite o' them all.'</p>
+
+<p>Next morning, when our breakfast was nearly ended, Dudley
+tapped at the window with the end of his clay pipe&mdash;a 'churchwarden'
+Milly called it&mdash;just such a long curved pipe as Joe
+Willet is made to hold between his lips in those charming illustrations
+of 'Barnaby Rudge'&mdash;which we all know so well&mdash;and
+lifting his 'wide-awake' with a burlesque salutation, which,
+I suppose, would have charmed the 'Plume of Feathers,' he
+dropped, kicked and caught his 'wide-awake,' with an agility
+and gravity, as he replaced it, so inexpressibly humorous, that
+Milly went off in a loud fit of laughter, with the ejaculation&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Did you ever?'</p>
+
+<p>It was odd how repulsively my confidence in my original
+identification always revived on unexpectedly seeing Dudley
+after an interval.</p>
+
+<p>I could perceive that this piece of comic by-play was meant
+to make a suitable impression on me. I received it, however,
+with a killing gravity; and after a word or two to Milly, he
+lounged away, having first broken his pipe, bit by bit, into
+pieces, which he balanced in turn on his nose and on his chin,
+from which features he jerked them into his mouth, with a
+precision which, along with his excellent pantomime of eating
+them, highly excited Milly's mirth and admiration.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page264" id="page264"></a>[pg 256]</span>
+
+<a name="chap41"></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XLI</h3>
+
+<h2><i>MY COUSIN DUDLEY</i></h2>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>Greatly to my satisfaction, this engaging person did not appear
+again that day. But next day Milly told me that my uncle had
+taken him to task for the neglect with which he was treating us.</p>
+
+<p>'He did pitch into him, sharp and short, and not a word
+from him, only sulky like; and I so frightened, I durst not look
+up almost; and they said a lot I could not make head or tail
+of; and Governor ordered me out o' the room, and glad I was
+to go; and so they had it out between them.'</p>
+
+<p>Milly could throw no light whatsoever upon the adventures
+at Church Scarsdale and Knowl; and I was left still in doubt,
+which sometimes oscillated one way and sometimes another.
+But, on the whole, I could not shake off the misgivings which
+constantly recurred and pointed very obstinately to Dudley as
+the hero of those odious scenes.</p>
+
+<p>Oddly enough, though, I now felt far less confident upon the
+point than I did at first sight. I had begun to distrust my
+memory, and to suspect my fancy; but of this there could be no
+question, that between the person so unpleasantly linked in my
+remembrance with those scenes, and Dudley Ruthyn, a striking,
+though possibly only a general resemblance did exist.</p>
+
+<p>Milly was certainly right as to the gist of Uncle Silas's injunction,
+for we saw more of Dudley henceforward.</p>
+
+<p>He was shy; he was impudent; he was awkward; he was
+conceited;&mdash;altogether a most intolerable bumpkin. Though he
+sometimes flushed and stammered, and never for a moment was
+at his ease in my presence, yet, to my inexpressible disgust,
+there was a self-complacency in his manner, and a kind of triumph
+in his leer, which very plainly told me how satisfied he
+was as to the nature of the impression he was making upon me.</p>
+
+<p>I would have given worlds to tell him how odious I thought
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page265" id="page265"></a>[pg 257]</span>
+
+him. Probably, however, he would not have believed me. Perhaps
+he fancied that 'ladies' affected airs of indifference and
+repulsion to cover their real feelings. I never looked at or spoke
+to him when I could avoid either, and then it was as briefly as
+I could. To do him justice, however, he seemed to have no
+liking for our society, and certainly never seemed altogether
+comfortable in it.</p>
+
+<p>I find it hard to write quite impartially even of Dudley
+Ruthyn's personal appearance; but, with an effort, I confess
+that his features were good, and his figure not amiss, though a
+little fattish. He had light whiskers, light hair, and a pink
+complexion, and very good blue eyes. So far my uncle was
+right; and if he had been perfectly gentlemanlike, he really
+might have passed for a handsome man in the judgment of
+some critics.</p>
+
+<p>But there was that odious mixture of <i>mauvaise honte</i> and impudence,
+a clumsiness, a slyness, and a consciousness in his
+bearing and countenance, not distinctly boorish, but <i>low</i>, which
+turned his good looks into an ugliness more intolerable than
+that of feature; and a corresponding vulgarity pervading his
+dress, his demeanour, and his very walk, marred whatever good
+points his figure possessed. If you take all this into account, with
+the ominous and startling misgivings constantly recurring, you
+will understand the mixed feelings of anger and disgust with
+which I received the admiration he favoured me with.</p>
+
+<p>Gradually he grew less constrained in my presence, and certainly
+his manners were not improved by his growing ease and
+confidence.</p>
+
+<p>He came in while Milly and I were at luncheon, jumped up,
+with a 'right-about face' performed in the air, sitting on the
+sideboard, whence grinning slyly and kicking his heels, he leered
+at us.</p>
+
+<p>'Will you have something, Dudley?' asked Milly.</p>
+
+<p>'No, lass; but I'll look at ye, and maybe drink a drop for
+company.'</p>
+
+<p>And with these words, he took a sportsman's flask from his
+pocket; and helping himself to a large glass and a decanter, he
+compounded a glass of strong brandy-and-water, as he talked,
+and refreshed himself with it from time to time.</p>
+
+<p>'Curate's up wi' the Governor,' he said, with a grin. 'I
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page266" id="page266"></a>[pg 258]</span>
+
+wanted a word wi' him; but I s'pose I'll hardly git in this hour
+or more; they're a praying and disputing, and a Bible-chopping,
+as usual. Ha, ha! But 'twon't hold much longer, old Wyat says,
+now that Uncle Austin's dead; there's nout to be made o' praying
+and that work no longer, and it don't pay of itself.'</p>
+
+<p>'O fie! For shame, you sinner!' laughed Milly. 'He wasn't
+in a church these five years, he says, and then only to meet a
+young lady. Now, isn't he a sinner, Maud&mdash;isn't he?'</p>
+
+<p>Dudley, grinning, looked with a languishing slyness at me,
+biting the edge of his wide-awake, which he held over his breast.</p>
+
+<p>Dudley Ruthyn probably thought there was a manly and
+desperate sort of fascination in the impiety he professed.</p>
+
+<p>'I wonder, Milly,' said I, 'at your laughing. How <i>can</i> you
+laugh?'</p>
+
+<p>'You'd have me cry, would ye?' answered Milly.</p>
+
+<p>'I certainly would not have you laugh,' I replied.</p>
+
+<p>'I know I wish <i>some</i> one 'ud cry for me, and I know who,'
+said Dudley, in what he meant for a very engaging way, and he
+looked at me as if he thought I must feel flattered by his caring
+to have my tears.</p>
+
+<p>Instead of crying, however, I leaned back in my chair, and
+began quietly to turn over the pages of Walter Scott's poems,
+which I and Milly were then reading in the evenings.</p>
+
+<p>The tone in which this odious young man spoke of his father,
+his coarse mention of mine, and his low boasting of his irreligion,
+disgusted me more than ever with him.</p>
+
+<p>'They parsons be slow coaches&mdash;awful slow. I'll have a good
+bit to wait, I s'pose. I should be three miles away and more by
+this time&mdash;drat it!' He was eyeing the legging of the foot
+which he held up while he spoke, as if calculating how far away
+that limb should have carried him by this time. 'Why can't folk
+do their Bible and prayers o' Sundays, and get it off their
+stomachs? I say, Milly lass, will ye see if Governor be done
+wi' the Curate? Do. I'm a losing the whole day along o' him.'</p>
+
+<p>Milly jumped up, accustomed to obey her brother, and as she
+passed me, whispered, with a wink&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'<i>Money</i>.'</p>
+
+<p>And away she went. Dudley whistled a tune, and swung his
+foot like a pendulum, as he followed her with his side-glance.</p>
+
+<p>'I say, it is a hard case, Miss, a lad o' spirit should be kept
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page267" id="page267"></a>[pg 259]</span>
+
+so tight. I haven't a shilling but what comes through his fingers;
+an' drat the tizzy he'll gi' me till he knows the reason why.'</p>
+
+<p>'Perhaps,' I said, 'my uncle thinks you should earn some for
+yourself.'</p>
+
+<p>'I'd like to know how a fella's to earn money now-a-days.
+You wouldn't have a gentleman to keep a shop, I fancy. But
+I'll ha' a fistful jist now, and no thanks to he. Them executors,
+you know, owes me a deal o' money. Very honest chaps, of
+course; but they're cursed slow about paying, I know.'</p>
+
+<p>I made no remark upon this elegant allusion to the executors
+of my dear father's will.</p>
+
+<p>'An' I tell ye, Maud, when I git the tin, I know who I'll buy
+a farin' for. I do, lass.'</p>
+
+<p>The odious creature drawled this with a sidelong leer, which,
+I suppose, he fancied quite irresistible.</p>
+
+<p>I am one of those unfortunate persons who always blushed
+when I most wished to look indifferent; and now, to my inexpressible
+chagrin, with its accustomed perversity, I felt the blush
+mount to my cheeks, and glow even on my forehead.</p>
+
+<p>I saw that he perceived this most disconcerting indication of
+a sentiment the very idea of which was so detestable, that,
+equally enraged with myself and with him, I did not know how
+to exhibit my contempt and indignation.</p>
+
+<p>Mistaking the cause of my discomposure, Mr. Dudley Ruthyn
+laughed softly, with an insufferable suavity.</p>
+
+<p>'And there's some'at, lass, I must have in return. Honour thy
+father, you know; you would not ha' me disobey the Governor?
+No, you wouldn't&mdash;would ye?'</p>
+
+<p>I darted at him a look which I hoped would have quelled his
+impertinence; but I blushed most provokingly&mdash;more violently
+than ever.</p>
+
+<p>'I'd back them eyes again' the county, I would,' he exclaimed,
+with a condescending enthusiasm. 'You're awful pretty, you
+are, Maud. I don't know what came over me t'other night when
+Governor told me to buss ye; but dang it, ye shan't deny me
+now, and I'll have a kiss, lass, in spite o' thy blushes.'</p>
+
+<p>He jumped from his elevated seat on the sideboard, and came
+swaggering toward me, with an odious grin, and his arms extended.
+I started to my feet, absolutely transported with fury.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page268" id="page268"></a>[pg 260]</span>
+
+<p>'Drat me, if she baint a-going to fight me!' he chuckled
+humorously.</p>
+
+<p>'Come, Maud, you would not be ill-natured, sure? Arter all,
+it's only our duty. Governor bid us kiss, didn't he?'</p>
+
+<p>'Don't&mdash;<i>don't</i>, sir. Stand back, or I'll call the servants.'</p>
+
+<p>And as it was I began to scream for Milly.</p>
+
+<p>'There's how it is wi' all they cattle! You never knows your
+own mind&mdash;ye don't,' he said, surlily. 'You make such a row
+about a bit o' play. Drop it, will you? There's no one a-harming
+you&mdash;is there? <i>I</i>'m not, for sartain.'</p>
+
+<p>And, with an angry chuckle, he turned on his heel, and left
+the room.</p>
+
+<p>I think I was perfectly right to resist, with all the vehemence
+of which I was capable, this attempt to assume an intimacy
+which, notwithstanding my uncle's opinion to the contrary,
+seemed to me like an outrage.</p>
+
+<p>Milly found me alone&mdash;not frightened, but very angry. I had
+quite made up my mind to complain to my uncle, but the
+Curate was still with him; and, by the time he had gone, I
+was cooler. My awe of my uncle had returned. I fancied that he
+would treat the whole affair as a mere playful piece of gallantry.
+So, with the comfortable conviction that he had had a lesson,
+and would think twice before repeating his impertinence, I resolved,
+with Milly's approbation, to leave matters as they were.</p>
+
+<p>Dudley, greatly to my comfort, was huffed with me, and hardly
+appeared, and was sulky and silent when he did. I lived then in
+the pleasant anticipation of his departure, which, Milly thought,
+would be very soon.</p>
+
+<p>My uncle had his Bible and his consolations; but it cannot
+have been pleasant to this old <i>roué</i>, converted though he was&mdash;this
+refined man of fashion&mdash;to see his son grow up an outcast,
+and a Tony Lumpkin; for whatever he may have thought of
+his natural gifts, he must have known how mere a boor he was.</p>
+
+<p>I try to recall my then impressions of my uncle's character.
+Grizzly and chaotic the image rises&mdash;silver head, feet of clay.
+I as yet knew little of him.</p>
+
+<p>I began to perceive that he was what Mary Quince used to
+call 'dreadful particular'&mdash;I suppose a little selfish and impatient.
+He used to get cases of turtle from Liverpool. He drank
+claret and hock for his health, and ate woodcock and other light
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page269" id="page269"></a>[pg 261]</span>
+
+and salutary dainties for the same reason; and was petulant and
+vicious about the cooking of these, and the flavour and clearness
+of his coffee.</p>
+
+<p>His conversation was easy, polished, and, with a sentimental
+glazing, cold; but across this artificial talk, with its French
+rhymes, racy phrases, and fluent eloquence, like a streak of angry
+light, would, at intervals, suddenly gleam some dismal thought
+of religion. I never could quite satisfy myself whether they were
+affectations or genuine, like intermittent thrills of pain.</p>
+
+<p>The light of his large eyes was very peculiar. I can liken it
+to nothing but the sheen of intense moonlight on burnished
+metal. But that cannot express it. It glared white and suddenly&mdash;almost
+fatuous. I thought of Moore's lines whenever I looked
+on it:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">  <div class="stanza">
+<p>Oh, ye dead! oh, ye dead! whom we know by the light you give</p>
+<p>From your cold gleaming eyes, though you move like men who live.</p>
+  </div>  </div>
+
+<p>I never saw in any other eye the least glimmer of the same
+baleful effulgence. His fits, too&mdash;his hoverings between life and
+death&mdash;between intellect and insanity&mdash;a dubious, marsh-fire
+existence, horrible to look on!</p>
+
+<p>I was puzzled even to comprehend his feelings toward his
+children. Sometimes it seemed to me that he was ready to lay
+down his soul for them; at others, he looked and spoke almost
+as if he hated them. He talked as if the image of death was always
+before him, yet he took a terrible interest in life, while
+seemingly dozing away the dregs of his days in sight of his
+coffin.</p>
+
+<p>Oh! Uncle Silas, tremendous figure in the past, burning always
+in memory in the same awful lights; the fixed white face
+of scorn and anguish! It seems as if the Woman of Endor had
+led me to that chamber and showed me a spectre.</p>
+
+<p>Dudley had not left Bartram-Haugh when a little note reached
+me from Lady Knollys. It said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'D<small>EAREST</small> M<small>AUD</small>,&mdash;I have written by this post to Silas, beseeching
+a loan of you and my Cousin Milly. I see no reason your
+uncle can possibly have for refusing me; and, therefore, I count
+confidently on seeing you both at Elverston to-morrow, to stay
+for at least a week. I have hardly a creature to meet you. I have
+been disappointed in several visitors; but another time we shall
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page270" id="page270"></a>[pg 262]</span>
+
+have a gayer house. Tell Milly&mdash;with my love&mdash;that I will not
+forgive her if she fails to accompany you.</p>
+
+<p>'Believe me ever your affectionate cousin,</p>
+
+<p class="signature">'M<small>ONICA</small> K<small>NOLLYS</small>.'</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>Milly and I were both afraid that Uncle Silas would refuse his
+consent, although we could not divine any sound reason for his
+doing so, and there were many in favour of his improving the
+opportunity of allowing poor Milly to see some persons of her
+own sex above the rank of menials.</p>
+
+<p>At about twelve o'clock my uncle sent for us, and, to our great
+delight, announced his consent, and wished us a very happy excursion.</p>
+
+<a name="chap42"></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XLII</h3>
+
+<h2><i>ELVERSTON AND ITS PEOPLE</i></h2>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>So Milly and I drove through the gabled high street of Feltram
+next day. We saw my gracious cousin smoking with a man like
+a groom, at the door of the 'Plume of Feathers.' I drew myself
+back as we passed, and Milly popped her head out of the window.</p>
+
+<p>'I'm blessed,' said she, laughing, 'if he hadn't his thumb to
+his nose, and winding up his little finger, the way he does with
+old Wyat&mdash;L'Amour, ye know; and you may be sure he said
+something funny, for Jim Jolliter was laughin', with his pipe in
+his hand.'</p>
+
+<p>'I wish I had not seen him, Milly. I feel as if it were an ill
+omen. He always looks so cross; and I dare say he wished us
+some ill,' I said.</p>
+
+<p>'No, no, you don't know Dudley: if he were angry, he'd say
+nothing that's funny; no, he's not vexed, only shamming vexed.'</p>
+
+<p>The scenery through which we passed was very pretty. The
+road brought us through a narrow and wooded glen. Such
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page271" id="page271"></a>[pg 263]</span>
+
+studies of ivied rocks and twisted roots! A little stream tinkled
+lonely through the hollow. Poor Milly! In her odd way she
+made herself companionable. I have sometimes fancied an enjoyment
+of natural scenery not so much a faculty as an acquirement.
+It is so exquisite in the instructed, so strangely absent
+in uneducated humanity. But certainly with Milly it was inborn
+and hearty; and so she could enter into my raptures, and requite
+them.</p>
+
+<p>Then over one of those beautiful Derbyshire moors we drove,
+and so into a wide wooded hollow, where was our first view of
+Cousin Monica's pretty gabled house, beautified with that indescribable
+air of shelter and comfort which belongs to an old
+English residence, with old timber grouped round it, and something
+in its aspect of the quaint old times and bygone merrymakings,
+saying sadly, but genially, 'Come in: I bid you welcome.
+For two hundred years, or more, have I been the home of
+this beloved old family, whose generations I have seen in
+the cradle and in the coffin, and whose mirth and sorrows and
+hospitalities I remember. All their friends, like you, were welcome;
+and you, like them, will here enjoy the warm illusions
+that cheat the sad conditions of mortality; and like them you
+will go your way, and others succeed you, till at last I, too, shall
+yield to the general law of decay, and disappear.'</p>
+
+<p>By this time poor Milly had grown very nervous; a state
+which she described in such very odd phraseology as threw me,
+in spite of myself&mdash;for I affected an impressive gravity in lecturing
+her upon her language&mdash;into a hearty fit of laughter.</p>
+
+<p>I must mention, however, that in certain important points
+Milly was very essentially reformed. Her dress, though not very
+fashionable, was no longer absurd. And I had drilled her into
+speaking and laughing quietly; and for the rest I trusted to the
+indulgence which is always, I think, more honestly and easily
+obtained from well-bred than from under-bred people.</p>
+
+<p>Cousin Monica was out when we arrived; but we found that
+she had arranged a double-bedded room for me and Milly,
+greatly to our content; and good Mary Quince was placed in
+the dressing-room beside us.</p>
+
+<p>We had only just commenced our toilet when our hostess
+entered, as usual in high spirits, welcomed and kissed us both
+again and again. She was, indeed, in extraordinary delight, for
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page272" id="page272"></a>[pg 264]</span>
+
+she had anticipated some stratagem or evasion to prevent our
+visit; and in her usual way she spoke her mind as frankly about
+Uncle Silas to poor Milly as she used to do of my dear father
+to me.</p>
+
+<p>'I did not think he would let you come without a battle; and
+you know if he chose to be obstinate it would not have been
+easy to get you out of the enchanted ground, for so it seems to
+be with that awful old wizard in the midst of it. I mean, Silas,
+your papa, my dear. Honestly, is not he very like Michael
+Scott?'</p>
+
+<p>'I never saw him,' answered poor Milly. 'At least, that I'm
+aware of,' she added, perceiving us smile. 'But I do think he's
+a thought like old Michael Dobbs, that sells the ferrets, maybe
+you mean him?'</p>
+
+<p>'Why, you told me, Maud, that you and Milly were reading
+Walter Scott's poems. Well, no matter. Michael Scott, my dear,
+was a dead wizard, with ever so much silvery hair, lying in his
+grave for ever so many years, with just life enough to scowl
+when they took his book; and you'll find him in the "Lay of
+the Last Minstrel," exactly like your papa, my dear. And my
+people tell me that your brother Dudley has been seen drinking
+and smoking about Feltram this week. How long does he remain
+at home? Not very long, eh? And, Maud, dear, he has not
+been making love to you? Well, I see; of course he has. And
+<i>apropos</i> of love-making, I hope that impudent creature, Charles
+Oakley, has not been teasing you with notes or verses.'</p>
+
+<p>'Indeed but he has though,' interposed Miss Milly; a good
+deal to my chagrin, for I saw no particular reason for placing his
+verses in Cousin Monica's hands. So I confessed the two little
+copies of verses, with the qualification, however, that I did not
+know from whom they came.</p>
+
+<p>'Well now, dear Maud, have not I told you fifty times over
+to have nothing to say to him? I've found out, my dear, he plays,
+and he is very much in debt. I've made a vow to pay no more for
+him. I've been such a fool, you have no notion; and I'm speaking,
+you know, against myself; it would be such a relief if he
+were to find a wife to support him; and he has been, I'm told,
+very sweet upon a rich old maid&mdash;a button-maker's sister, in
+Manchester.'</p>
+
+<p>This arrow was well shot.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page273" id="page273"></a>[pg 265]</span>
+
+<p>'But don't be frightened: you are richer as well as younger;
+and, no doubt, will have your chance first, my dear; and in the
+meantime, I dare say, those verses, like Falstaff's <i>billet-doux,</i> you
+know, are doing double duty.'</p>
+
+<p>I laughed, but the button-maker was a secret trouble to me;
+and I would have given I know not what that Captain Oakley
+were one of the company, that I might treat him with the refined
+contempt which his deserts and my dignity demanded.</p>
+
+<p>Cousin Monica busied herself about Milly's toilet, and was a
+very useful lady's maid, chatting in her own way all the time;
+and, at last, tapping Milly under the chin with her finger, she
+said, very complacently&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'I think I have succeeded, Miss Milly; look in the glass. She
+really is a very pretty creature.'</p>
+
+<p>And Milly blushed, and looked with a shy gratification, which
+made her still prettier, on the mirror.</p>
+
+<p>Milly indeed was very pretty. She looked much taller now
+that her dresses were made of the usual length. A little plump
+she was, beautifully fair, with such azure eyes, and rich hair.</p>
+
+<p>'The more you laugh the better, Milly, for you've got very
+pretty teeth&mdash;very pretty; and if you were my daughter, or if
+your father would become president of a college of magicians,
+and give you up to me, I venture to say I would place you very
+well; and even as it is we must try, my dear.'</p>
+
+<p>So down to the drawing-room we went; and Cousin Monica
+entered, leading us both by the hands.</p>
+
+<p>By this time the curtains were closed, and the drawing-room
+dependent on the pleasant glow of the fire, and the slight provisional
+illumination usual before dinner.</p>
+
+<p>'Here are my two cousins,' began Lady Knollys: 'this is Miss
+Ruthyn, of Knowl, whom I take the liberty of calling Maud;
+and this is Miss Millicent Ruthyn, Silas's daughter, you know,
+whom I venture to call Milly; and they are very pretty, as you
+will see, when we get a little more light, and they know it very
+well themselves.'</p>
+
+<p>And as she spoke, a frank-eyed, gentle, prettyish lady, not so
+tall as I, but with a very kind face, rose up from a book of prints,
+and, smiling, took our hands.</p>
+
+<p>She was by no means young, as I then counted youth&mdash;past
+thirty, I suppose&mdash;and with an air that was very quiet, and
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page274" id="page274"></a>[pg 266]</span>
+
+friendly, and engaging. She had never been a mere fashionable
+woman plainly; but she had the ease and polish of the best
+society, and seemed to take a kindly interest both in Milly and
+me; and Cousin Monica called her Mary, and sometimes Polly.
+That was all I knew of her for the present.</p>
+
+<p>So very pleasantly the time passed by till the dressing-bell
+rang, and we ran away to our room.</p>
+
+<p>'Did I say anything very bad?' asked poor Milly, standing
+exactly before me, so soon as our door was shut.</p>
+
+<p>'Nothing, Milly; you are doing admirably.'</p>
+
+<p>'And I do look a great fool, don't I?' she demanded.</p>
+
+<p>'You look extremely pretty, Milly; and not a bit like a fool.'</p>
+
+<p>'I watch everything. I think I'll learn it at last; but it comes
+a little troublesome at first; and they do talk different from
+what I used&mdash;you were quite right there.'</p>
+
+<p>When we returned to the drawing-room, we found the party
+already assembled, and chatting, evidently with spirit.</p>
+
+<p>The village doctor, whose name I forget, a small man, grey,
+with shrewd grey eyes, sharp and mulberry nose, whose conflagration
+extended to his rugged cheeks, and touched his chin and
+forehead, was conversing, no doubt agreeably, with Mary, as
+Cousin Monica called her guest.</p>
+
+<p>Over my shoulder, Milly whispered&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Mr. Carysbroke.'</p>
+
+<p>And Milly was quite right: that gentleman chatting with
+Lady Knollys, his elbow resting on the chimney-piece, was,
+indeed, our acquaintance of the Windmill Wood. He instantly
+recognised us, and met us with his pleased and intelligent smile.</p>
+
+<p>'I was just trying to describe to Lady Knollys the charming
+scenery of the Windmill Wood, among which I was so fortunate
+as to make your acquaintance, Miss Ruthyn. Even in this beautiful
+county I know of nothing prettier.'</p>
+
+<p>Then he sketched it, as it were, with a few light but glowing
+words.</p>
+
+<p>'What a sweet scene!' said Cousin Monica: 'only think of
+her never bringing me through it. She reserves it, I fancy, for
+her romantic adventures; and you, I know, are very benevolent,
+Ilbury, and all that kind of thing; but I am not quite certain
+that you would have walked along that narrow parapet, over a
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page275" id="page275"></a>[pg 267]</span>
+
+river, to visit a sick old woman, if you had not happened to see
+two very pretty demoiselles on the other side.'</p>
+
+<p>'What an ill-natured speech! I must either forfeit my character
+for disinterested benevolence, so justly admired, or disavow
+a motive that does such infinite credit to my taste,' exclaimed
+Mr. Carysbroke. 'I think a charitable person would have said
+that a philanthropist, in prosecuting his virtuous, but perilous
+vocation, was unexpectedly <i>rewarded</i> by a vision of angels.'</p>
+
+<p>'And with these angels loitered away the time which ought
+to have been devoted to good Mother Hubbard, in her fit of lumbago,
+and returned without having set eyes on that afflicted
+Christian, to amaze his worthy sister with poetic babblings about
+wood-nymphs and such pagan impieties,' rejoined Lady Knollys.</p>
+
+<p>'Well, be just,' he replied, laughing; 'did not I go next day
+and see the patient?'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes; next day you went by the same route&mdash;in quest of the
+dryads, I am afraid&mdash;and were rewarded by the spectacle of
+Mother Hubbard.'</p>
+
+<p>'Will nobody help a humane man in difficulties?' Mr. Carysbroke
+appealed.</p>
+
+<p>'I do believe,' said the lady whom as yet I knew only as Mary,
+'that every word that Monica says is perfectly true.'</p>
+
+<p>'And if it be so, am I not all the more in need of help?
+Truth is simply the most dangerous kind of defamation, and I
+really think I'm most cruelly persecuted.'</p>
+
+<p>At this moment dinner was announced, and a meek and dapper
+little clergyman, with smooth pink cheeks, and tresses parted
+down the middle, whom I had not seen before, emerged from
+shadow.</p>
+
+<p>This little man was assigned to Milly, Mr. Carysbroke to me,
+and I know not how the remaining ladies divided the doctor
+between them.</p>
+
+<p>That dinner, the first at Elverston, I remember as a very
+pleasant repast. Everyone talked&mdash;it was impossible that conversation
+should flag where Lady Knollys was; and Mr. Carysbroke
+was very agreeable and amusing. At the other side of the
+table, the little pink curate, I was happy to see, was prattling
+away, with a modest fluency, in an under-tone to Milly, who
+was following my instructions most conscientiously, and speaking
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page276" id="page276"></a>[pg 268]</span>
+
+in so low a key that I could hardly hear at the opposite side
+one word she was saying.</p>
+
+<p>That night Cousin Monica paid us a visit, as we sat chatting
+by the fire in our room; and I told her&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'I have just been telling Milly what an impression she has
+made. The pretty little clergyman&mdash;<i>il en est épris</i>&mdash;he has
+evidently quite lost his heart to her. I dare say he'll preach next
+Sunday on some of King Solomon's wise sayings about the irresistible
+strength of women.'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes,' said Lady Knollys, 'or maybe on the sensible text,
+"Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favour,"
+and so forth. At all events, I may say, Milly, whoso
+findeth a husband such as he, findeth a tolerably good thing. He
+is an exemplary little creature, second son of Sir Harry Biddlepen,
+with a little independent income of his own, beside his
+church revenues of ninety pounds a year; and I don't think a
+more harmless and docile little husband could be found anywhere;
+and I think, Miss Maud, <i>you</i> seemed a good deal interested,
+too.'</p>
+
+<p>I laughed and blushed, I suppose; and Cousin Monica, skipping
+after her wont to quite another matter, said in her odd
+frank way&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'And how has Silas been?&mdash;not cross, I hope, or very odd.
+There was a rumour that your brother, Dudley, had gone a soldiering
+to India, Milly, or somewhere; but that was all a story,
+for he has turned up, just as usual. And what does he mean to
+do with himself? He has got some money now&mdash;your poor
+father's will, Maud. Surely he doesn't mean to go on lounging
+and smoking away his life among poachers, and prize-fighters,
+and worse people. He ought to go to Australia, like Thomas
+Swain, who, they say, is making a fortune&mdash;a great fortune&mdash;and
+coming home again. That's what your brother Dudley should
+do, if he has either sense or spirit; but I suppose he won't&mdash;too
+long abandoned to idleness and low company&mdash;and he'll not
+have a shilling left in a year or two. Does he know, I wonder,
+that his father has served a notice or something on Dr. Bryerly,
+telling him to pay sixteen hundred pounds of poor Austin's legacy
+to <i>him</i>, and saying that he has paid debts of the young man,
+and holds his acknowledgments to that amount? He won't have
+a guinea in a year if he stays here. I'd give fifty pounds he
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page277" id="page277"></a>[pg 269]</span>
+
+was in Van Diemen's Land&mdash;not that I care for the cub, Milly,
+any more than you do; but I really don't see any honest business
+he has in England.'</p>
+
+<p>Milly gaped in a total puzzle as Lady Knollys rattled on.</p>
+
+<p>'You know, Milly, you must not be talking about this when
+you go home to Bartram, because Silas would prevent your coming
+to me any more if he thought I spoke so freely; but I can't
+help it: so you must promise to be more discreet than I. And
+I am told that all kinds of claims are about to be pressed against
+him, now that he is thought to have got some money; and he
+has been cutting down oak and selling the bark, Doctor Bryerly
+has been told, in that Windmill Wood; and he has kilns there
+for burning charcoal, and got a man from Lancashire who understands
+it&mdash;Hawk, or something like that.'</p>
+
+<p>'Ay, Hawkes&mdash;Dickon Hawkes; that's Pegtop, you know,
+Maud,' said Milly.</p>
+
+<p>'Well, I dare say; but a man of very bad character, Dr. Bryerly
+says; and he has written to Mr. Danvers about it&mdash;for that
+is what they call waste, cutting down and selling the timber, and
+the oakbark, and burning the willows, and other trees that are
+turned into charcoal. It is all <i>waste</i>, and Dr. Bryerly is about
+to put a stop to it.'</p>
+
+<p>'Has he got your carriage for you, Maud, and your horses?'
+asked Cousin Monica, suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>'They have not come yet, but in a few weeks, Dudley says,
+positively&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>Cousin Monica laughed a little and shook her head.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, Maud, the carriage and horses will always be coming
+in a few weeks, till the time is over; and meanwhile the old
+travelling chariot and post-horses will do very well;' and she
+laughed a little again.</p>
+
+<p>'That's why the stile's pulled away at the paling, I suppose;
+and Beauty&mdash;Meg Hawkes, that is&mdash;is put there to stop us going
+through; for I often spied the smoke beyond the windmill,'
+observed Milly.</p>
+
+<p>Cousin Monica listened with interest, and nodded silently.</p>
+
+<p>I was very much shocked. It seemed to me quite incredible.
+I think Lady Knollys read my amazement and my exalted estimate
+of the heinousness of the procedure in my face, for she
+said&mdash;</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page278" id="page278"></a>[pg 270]</span>
+
+<p>'You know we can't quite condemn Silas till we have heard
+what he has to say. He may have done it in ignorance; or, it is
+just possible, he may have the right.'</p>
+
+<p>'Quite true. He may have the right to cut down trees at
+Bartram-Haugh. At all events, I am sure he thinks he has,' I
+echoed.</p>
+
+<p>The fact was, that I would not avow to myself a suspicion of
+Uncle Silas. Any falsehood there opened an abyss beneath my
+feet into which I dared not look.</p>
+
+<p>'And now, dear girls, good-night. You must be tired. We
+breakfast at a quarter past nine&mdash;not too early for you, I know.'</p>
+
+<p>And so saying, she kissed us, smiling, and was gone.</p>
+
+<p>I was so unpleasantly occupied, for some time after her departure,
+with the knaveries said to be practised among the
+dense cover of the Windmill Wood, that I did not immediately
+recollect that we had omitted to ask her any particulars about
+her guests.</p>
+
+<p>'Who can Mary be?' asked Milly.</p>
+
+<p>'Cousin Monica says she's engaged to be married, and I think
+I heard the Doctor call her <i>Lady</i> Mary, and I intended asking
+her ever so much about her; but what she told us about cutting
+down the trees, and all that, quite put it out of my head. We
+shall have time enough to-morrow, however, to ask questions.
+I like her very much, I know.'</p>
+
+<p>'And I think,' said Milly, 'it is to Mr. Carysbroke she's to be
+married.'</p>
+
+<p>'Do you?' said I, remembering that he had sat beside her for
+more than a quarter of an hour after tea in very close and low-toned
+conversation; 'and have you any particular reason?' I
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>'Well, I heard her once or twice call him "dear," and she
+called him his Christian name, just like Lady Knollys did&mdash;Ilbury,
+I think&mdash;and I saw him gi' her a sly kiss as she was going
+up-stairs.'</p>
+
+<p>I laughed.</p>
+
+<p>'Well, Milly,' I said, 'I remarked something myself, I thought,
+like confidential relations; but if you really saw them kiss on the
+staircase, the question is pretty well settled.'</p>
+
+<p>'Ay, lass.'</p>
+
+<p>'You're not to say <i>lass</i>.'</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page279" id="page279"></a>[pg 271]</span>
+
+<p>'Well, <i>Maud, then</i>. I did see them with the corner of my
+eye, and my back turned, when they did not think I could spy
+anything, as plain as I see you now.'</p>
+
+<p>I laughed again; but I felt an odd pang&mdash;something of
+mortification&mdash;something of regret; but I smiled very gaily, as I
+stood before the glass, un-making my toilet preparatory to bed.</p>
+
+<p>'Maud&mdash;Maud&mdash;fickle Maud!&mdash;What, Captain Oakley already
+superseded! and Mr. Carysbroke&mdash;oh! humiliation&mdash;engaged.'
+So I smiled on, very much vexed; and being afraid lest I had
+listened with too apparent an interest to this impostor, I sang a
+verse of a gay little chanson, and tried to think of Captain Oakley,
+who somehow had become rather silly.</p>
+
+<a name="chap43"></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XLIII</h3>
+
+<h2><i>NEWS AT BARTRAM GATE</i></h2>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>Milly and I, thanks to our early Bartram hours, were first down
+next morning; and so soon as Cousin Monica appeared we attacked
+her.</p>
+
+<p>'So Lady Mary is the <i>fiancée</i> of Mr. Carysbroke,' said I, very
+cleverly; 'and I think it was very wicked of you to try and involve
+me in a flirtation with him yesterday.'</p>
+
+<p>'And who told you that, pray?' asked Lady Knollys, with a
+pleasant little laugh.</p>
+
+<p>'Milly and I discovered it, simple as we stand here,' I
+answered.</p>
+
+<p>'But you did not flirt with Mr. Carysbroke, Maud, did you?'
+she asked.</p>
+
+<p>'No, certainly not; but that was not your doing, wicked
+woman, but my discretion. And now that we know your secret,
+you must tell us all about her, and all about him; and in the
+first place, what is her name&mdash;Lady Mary what?' I demanded.</p>
+
+<p>'Who would have thought you so cunning? Two country
+misses&mdash;two little nuns from the cloisters of Bartram! Well, I
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page280" id="page280"></a>[pg 272]</span>
+
+suppose I must answer. It is vain trying to hide anything from
+you; but how on earth did you find it out?'</p>
+
+<p>'We'll tell you that presently, but you shall first tell us who
+she is,' I persisted.</p>
+
+<p>'Well, that I will, of course, without compulsion. She is Lady
+Mary Carysbroke,' said Lady Knollys.</p>
+
+<p>'A relation of Mr. Carysbroke's,' I asserted.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, a relation; but who told you he was Mr. Carysbroke?'
+asked Cousin Monica.</p>
+
+<p>'Milly told me, when we saw him in the Windmill Wood.'</p>
+
+<p>'And who told you, Milly?'</p>
+
+<p>'It was L'Amour,' answered Milly, with her blue eyes very
+wide open.</p>
+
+<p>'What does the child mean? L'Amour! You don't mean
+<i>love</i>?' exclaimed Lady Knollys, puzzled in her turn.</p>
+
+<p>'I mean old Wyat; <i>she</i> told me and the Governor.'</p>
+
+<p>'You're <i>not</i> to say that,' I interposed.</p>
+
+<p>'You mean your father?' suggested Lady Knollys.</p>
+
+<p>'Well, yes; father told her, and so I knew him.'</p>
+
+<p>'What could he mean?' exclaimed Lady Knollys, laughing, as
+it were, in soliloquy; 'and I did not mention his name, I recollect
+now. He recognised you, and you him, when you came into
+the room yesterday; and now you must tell me how you discovered
+that he and Lady Mary were to be married.'</p>
+
+<p>So Milly restated her evidence, and Lady Knollys laughed
+unaccountably heartily; and she said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'They <i>will</i> be <i>so</i> confounded! but they deserve it; and,
+remember,
+<i>I</i> did not say so.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh! we acquit you.'</p>
+
+<p>'All I say is, such a deceitful, dangerous pair of girls&mdash;all
+things considered&mdash;I never heard of before,' exclaimed Lady
+Knollys. 'There's no such thing as conspiring in your presence.'</p>
+
+<p>'Good morning. I hope you slept well.' She was addressing
+the lady and gentleman who were just entering the room from
+the conservatory. 'You'll hardly sleep so well to-night, when you
+have learned what eyes are upon you. Here are two very pretty
+detectives who have found out your secret, and entirely by your
+imprudence and their own cleverness have discovered that you
+are a pair of betrothed lovers, about to ratify your vows at the
+hymeneal altar. I assure you I did not tell of you; you betrayed
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page281" id="page281"></a>[pg 273]</span>
+
+yourselves. If you will talk in that confidential way on sofas,
+and call one another stealthily by your Christian names, and actually
+kiss at the foot of the stairs, while a clever detective is
+scaling them, apparently with her back toward you, you must
+only take the consequences, and be known prematurely as the
+hero and heroine of the forthcoming paragraph in the "Morning
+Post."'</p>
+
+<p>Milly and I were horribly confounded, but Cousin Monica was
+resolved to place us all upon the least formal terms possible, and
+I believe she had set about it in the right way.</p>
+
+<p>'And now, girls, I am going to make a counter-discovery,
+which, I fear, a little conflicts with yours. This Mr. Carysbroke
+is Lord Ilbury, brother of this Lady Mary; and it is all my
+fault for not having done my honours better; but you see what
+clever match-making little creatures they are.'</p>
+
+<p>'You can't think how flattered I am at being made the subject
+of a theory, even a mistaken one, by Miss Ruthyn.'</p>
+
+<p>And so, after our modest fit was over, Milly and I were very
+merry, like the rest, and we all grew a great deal more intimate
+that morning.</p>
+
+<p>I think altogether those were the pleasantest and happiest days
+of my life: gay, intelligent, and kindly society at home; charming
+excursions&mdash;sometimes riding&mdash;sometimes by carriage&mdash;to distant
+points of beauty in the county. Evenings varied with music,
+reading, and spirited conversation. Now and then a visitor for a
+day or two, and constantly some neighbour from the town, or
+its dependencies, dropt in. Of these I but remember tall old Miss
+Wintletop, most entertaining of rustic old maids, with her nice
+lace and thick satin, and her small, kindly round face&mdash;pretty, I
+dare say, in other days, and now frosty, but kindly&mdash;who told
+us such delightful old stories of the county in her father's and
+grandfather's time; who knew the lineage of every family in it,
+and could recount all its duels and elopements; give us illustrative
+snatches from old election squibs, and lines from epitaphs,
+and tell exactly where all the old-world highway robberies
+had been committed: how it fared with the chief delinquents
+after the assizes; and, above all, where, and of what sort, the goblins
+and elves of the county had made themselves seen, from the
+phantom post-boy, who every third night crossed Windale Moor,
+by the old coach-road, to the fat old ghost, in mulberry velvet,
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page282" id="page282"></a>[pg 274]</span>
+
+who showed his great face, crutch, and ruffles, by moonlight, at
+the bow window of the old court-house that was taken down in
+1803.</p>
+
+<p>You cannot imagine what agreeable evenings we passed in
+this society, or how rapidly my good Cousin Milly improved in
+it. I remember well the intense suspense in which she and I
+awaited the answer from Bartram-Haugh to kind Cousin Monica's
+application for an extension of our leave of absence.</p>
+
+<p>It came, and with it a note from Uncle Silas, which was curious,
+and, therefore, is printed here:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>'M<small>Y DEAR</small> L<small>ADY</small> K<small>NOLLYS</small>,&mdash;To
+your kind letter I say yes
+(that is, for another week, not a fortnight), with all my heart. I
+am glad to hear that my starlings chatter so pleasantly; at all
+events the refrain is not that of Sterne's. They can get out; and
+do get out; and shall get out as much as they please. I am no
+gaoler, and shut up nobody but myself. I have always thought
+that young people have too little liberty. My principle has been
+to make little free men and women of them from the first. In
+morals, altogether&mdash;in intellect, more than we allow&mdash;<i>self</i>-education
+is that which abides; and <i>it</i> only begins where constraint
+ends. Such is my theory. My practice is consistent. Let them remain
+for a week longer, as you say. The horses shall be at Elverston
+on Tuesday, the 7th. I shall be more than usually sad
+and solitary till their return; so pray, I selfishly entreat, do not
+extend their absence. You will smile, remembering how little
+my health will allow me to see of them, even when at home;
+but as Chaulieu so prettily says&mdash;I stupidly forget the words,
+but the sentiment is this&mdash;"although concealed by a sylvan wall
+of leaves, impenetrable&mdash;(he is pursuing his favourite nymphs
+through the alleys and intricacies of a rustic labyrinth)&mdash;yet,
+your songs, your prattle, and your laughter, faint and far away,
+inspire my fancy; and, through my ears, I see your unseen
+smiles, your blushes, your floating tresses, and your ivory feet;
+and so, though sad, am happy; though alone, in company;"&mdash;and
+such is my case.</p>
+
+<p>'One only request, and I have done. Pray remind them of a
+promise made to me. The Book of Life&mdash;the fountain of life&mdash;it
+must be drunk of, night and morning, or their spiritual life
+expires.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page283" id="page283"></a>[pg 275]</span>
+
+<p>'And now, Heaven bless and keep you, my dear cousin; and
+with all assurances of affection to my beloved niece and my
+child, believe me ever yours affectionately.</p>
+
+<p class="signature">'S<small>ILAS</small> R<small>UTHYN</small>.'</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>Said Cousin Monica, with a waggish smile&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'And so, girls, you have Chaulieu and the evangelists; the
+French rhymester in his alley, and Silas in the valley of the
+shadow of death; perfect liberty, and a peremptory order to
+return in a week;&mdash;all illustrating one another. Poor Silas! old
+as he is, I don't think his religion fits him.'</p>
+
+<p><i>I</i> really rather liked his letter. I was struggling hard to think
+well of him, and Cousin Monica knew it; and I really think if
+I had not been by, she would often have been less severe on him.</p>
+
+<p>As we were all sitting pleasantly about the breakfast table a
+day or two after, the sun shining on the pleasant wintry landscape,
+Cousin Monica suddenly exclaimed&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'I quite forgot to tell you that Charles Oakley has written
+to say he is coming on Wednesday. I really don't want him. Poor
+Charlie! I wonder how they manage those doctors' certificates.
+I know nothing ails him, and he'd be much better with his
+regiment.'</p>
+
+<p>Wednesday!&mdash;how odd. Exactly the day after my departure.
+I tried to look perfectly unconcerned. Lady Knollys had addressed
+herself more to Lady Mary and Milly than to me, and
+nobody in particular was looking at me. Notwithstanding, with
+my usual perversity, I felt myself blushing with a brilliancy that
+may have been very becoming, but which was so intolerably provoking
+that I would have risen and left the room but that matters
+would have been so infinitely worse. I could have boxed my
+odious ears. I could almost have jumped from the window.</p>
+
+<p>I felt that Lord Ilbury saw it. I saw Lady Mary's eyes for a
+moment resting gravely on my tell-tale&mdash;my lying cheeks&mdash;for I
+really had begun to think much less celestially of Captain Oakley.
+I was angry with Cousin Monica, who, knowing my blushing
+infirmity, had mentioned her nephew so suddenly while I
+was strapped by etiquette in my chair, with my face to the
+window, and two pair of most disconcerting eyes, at least, opposite.
+I was angry with myself&mdash;generally angry&mdash;refused more
+tea rather dryly, and was laconic to Lord Ilbury, all which, of
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page284" id="page284"></a>[pg 276]</span>
+
+course, was very cross and foolish; and afterwards, from my
+bed-room window, I saw Cousin Monica and Lady Mary among
+the flowers, under the drawing-room window, talking, as I
+instinctively knew, of that little incident. I was standing at the
+glass.</p>
+
+<p>'My odious, stupid, <i>perjured</i> face' I whispered, furiously, at
+the same time stamping on the floor, and giving myself quite a
+smart slap on the cheek. 'I <i>can't</i> go down&mdash;I'm ready to cry&mdash;I've
+a mind to return to Bartram to-day; I am <i>always</i> blushing;
+and I wish that impudent Captain Oakley was at the bottom of
+the sea.'</p>
+
+<p>I was, perhaps, thinking more of Lord Ilbury than I was
+aware; and I am sure if Captain Oakley had arrived that day,
+I should have treated him with most unjustifiable rudeness.</p>
+
+<p>Notwithstanding this unfortunate blush, the remainder of
+our visit passed very happily for me. No one who has not experienced
+it can have an idea how intimate a small party, such
+as ours, will grow in a short time in a country house.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, a young lady of a well-regulated mind cannot possibly
+care a pin about any one of the opposite sex until she is
+well assured that he is beginning, at least, to like her better than
+all the world beside; but I could not deny to myself that I was
+rather anxious to know more about Lord Ilbury than I actually
+did know.</p>
+
+<p>There was a 'Peerage,' in its bright scarlet and gold uniform,
+corpulent and tempting, upon the little marble table in the
+drawing-room. I had many opportunities of consulting it, but
+I never could find courage to do so.</p>
+
+<p>For an inexperienced person it would have been a matter of
+several minutes, and during those minutes what awful risk of
+surprise and detection. One day, all being quiet, I did venture,
+and actually, with a beating heart, got so far as to find out the
+letter 'Il,' when I heard a step outside the door, which opened
+a little bit, and I heard Lady Knollys, luckily arrested at
+the entrance, talk some sentences outside, her hand still upon
+the door-handle. I shut the book, as Mrs. Bluebeard might the
+door of the chamber of horrors at the sound of her husband's
+step, and skipped to a remote part of the room, where Cousin
+Knollys found me in a mysterious state of agitation.</p>
+
+<p>On any other subject I would have questioned Cousin Monica
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page285" id="page285"></a>[pg 277]</span>
+
+unhesitatingly; upon this, somehow, I was dumb. I distrusted
+myself, and dreaded my odious habit of blushing, and knew
+that I should look so horribly guilty, and become so agitated
+and odd, that she would have reasonably concluded that I had
+quite lost my heart to him.</p>
+
+<p>After the lesson I had received, and my narrow escape of detection
+in the very act, you may be sure I never trusted myself
+in the vicinity of that fat and cruel 'Peerage,' which possessed
+the secret, but would not disclose without compromising me.</p>
+
+<p>In this state of tantalizing darkness and conjecture I should
+have departed, had not Cousin Monica quite spontaneously relieved
+me.</p>
+
+<p>The night before our departure she sat with us in our room,
+chatting a little farewell gossip.</p>
+
+<p>'And what do you think of Ilbury?' she asked.</p>
+
+<p>'I think him clever and accomplished, and amusing; but he
+sometimes appears to me very melancholy&mdash;that is, for a few minutes
+together&mdash;and then, I fancy, with an effort, re-engages in
+our conversation.'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, poor Ilbury! He lost his brother only about five months
+since, and is only beginning to recover his spirits a little. They
+were very much attached, and people thought that he would
+have succeeded to the title, had he lived, because Ilbury is
+<i>difficile</i>&mdash;or
+a philosopher&mdash;or a <i>Saint Kevin</i>; and, in fact, has begun
+to be treated as a premature old bachelor.'</p>
+
+<p>'What a charming person his sister, Lady Mary, is. She has
+made me promise to write to her,' I said, I suppose&mdash;such hypocrites
+are we&mdash;to prove to Cousin Knollys that I did not care
+particularly to hear anything more about him.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, and so devoted to him. He came down here, and took
+The Grange, for change of scene and solitude&mdash;of all things the
+worst for a man in grief&mdash;a morbid whim, as he is beginning to
+find out; for he is very glad to stay here, and confesses that he
+is much better since he came. His letters are still addressed to
+him as Mr. Carysbroke; for he fancied if his rank were known,
+that the county people would have been calling upon him, and
+so he would have found himself soon involved in a tiresome
+round of dinners, and must have gone somewhere else. You
+saw him, Milly, at Bartram, before Maud came?'</p>
+
+<p>Yes, she had, when he called there to see her father.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page286" id="page286"></a>[pg 278]</span>
+
+<p>'He thought, as he had accepted the trusteeship, that he could
+hardly, residing so near, omit to visit Silas. He was very much
+struck and interested by him, and he has a better opinion of
+him&mdash;you are not angry, Milly&mdash;than some ill-natured people I
+could name; and he says that the cutting down of the trees will
+turn out to have been a mere slip. But these slips don't occur
+with clever men in other things; and some persons have a way
+of always making them in their own favour. And, to talk of
+other things, I suspect that you and Milly will probably see
+Ilbury at Bartram; for I think he likes you very much.'</p>
+
+<p><i>You</i>; did she mean <i>both</i>, or only me?</p>
+
+<p>So our pleasant visit was over. Milly's good little curate had
+been much thrown in her way by our deep and dangerous
+cousin Monica. He was most laudably steady; and his flirtation
+advanced upon the field of theology, where, happily, Milly's
+little reading had been concentrated. A mild and earnest interest
+in poor, pretty Milly's orthodoxy was the leading
+feature of his case; and I was highly amused at her references
+to me, when we had retired at night, upon the points which she
+had disputed with him, and her anxious reports of their low-toned
+conferences, carried on upon a sequestered ottoman,
+where he patted and stroked his crossed leg, as he smiled tenderly
+and shook his head at her questionable doctrine. Milly's
+reverence for her instructor, and his admiration, grew daily;
+and he was known among us as Milly's confessor.</p>
+
+<p>He took luncheon with us on the day of our departure, and
+with an adroit privacy, which in a layman would have been sly,
+presented her, in right of his holy calling, with a little book,
+the binding of which was mediaeval and costly, and whose letter-press
+dealt in a way which he commended, with some points on
+which she was not satisfactory; and she found on the fly-leaf
+this little inscription:&mdash;'Presented to Miss Millicent Ruthyn
+by an earnest well-wisher, 1st December 1844.' A text, very neatly
+penned, followed this; and the 'presentation' was made unctiously
+indeed, but with a blush, as well as the accustomed smile,
+and with eyes that were lowered.</p>
+
+<p>The early crimson sun of December had gone down behind
+the hills before we took our seats in the carriage.</p>
+
+<p>Lord Ilbury leaned with his elbow on the carriage window,
+looking in, and he said to me&mdash;</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page287" id="page287"></a>[pg 279]</span>
+
+<p>'I really don't know what we shall do, Miss Ruthyn; we
+shall all feel so lonely. For myself, I think I shall run away to
+Grange.'</p>
+
+<p>This appeared to me as nearly perfect eloquence as human
+lips could utter.</p>
+
+<p>His hand still rested on the window, and the Rev. Sprigge
+Biddlepen was standing with a saddened smirk on the door
+steps, when the whip smacked, the horses scrambled into motion,
+and away we rolled down the avenue, leaving behind us the
+pleasantest house and hostess in the world, and trotting fleetly
+into darkness towards Bartram-Haugh.</p>
+
+<p>We were both rather silent. Milly had her book in her lap,
+and I saw her every now and then try to read her 'earnest well-wisher's'
+little inscription, but there was not light to read by.</p>
+
+<p>When we reached the great gate of Bartram-Haugh it was
+dark. Old Crowl, who kept the gate, I heard enjoining the postilion
+to make no avoidable noise at the hall-door, for the odd
+but startling reason that he believed my uncle 'would be dead
+by this time.'</p>
+
+<p>Very much shocked and frightened, we stopped the carriage,
+and questioned the tremulous old porter.</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Silas, it seemed, had been 'silly-ish' all yesterday, and
+'could not be woke this morning,' and 'the doctor had been
+here twice, being now in the house.'</p>
+
+<p>'Is he better?' I asked, tremblingly.</p>
+
+<p>'Not as I'm aweer on, Miss; he lay at God's mercy two hours
+agone; 'appen he's in heaven be this time.'</p>
+
+<p>'Drive on&mdash;drive fast,' I said to the driver. 'Don't be frightened,
+Milly; please Heaven we shall find all going well.'</p>
+
+<p>After some delay, during which my heart sank, and I quite
+gave up Uncle Silas, the aged little servant-man opened the
+door, and trotted shakily down the steps to the carriage side.</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Silas had been at death's door for hours; the question
+of life had trembled in the scale; but now the doctor said 'he
+might do.'</p>
+
+<p>'Where was the doctor?'</p>
+
+<p>'In master's room; he blooded him three hours agone.'</p>
+
+<p>I don't think that Milly was so frightened as I. My heart beat,
+and I was trembling so that I could hardly get up-stairs.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page288" id="page288"></a>[pg 280]</span>
+
+
+<a name="chap44"></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XLIV</h3>
+
+<h2><i>A FRIEND ARISES</i></h2>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>At the top of the great staircase I was glad to see the friendly
+face of Mary Quince, who stood, candle in hand, greeting us
+with many little courtesies, and a very haggard and pallid smile.</p>
+
+<p>'Very welcome, Miss, hoping you are very well.'</p>
+
+<p>'All well, and you are well, Mary? and oh! tell us quickly
+how is Uncle Silas?'</p>
+
+<p>'We thought he was gone, Miss, this morning, but doing
+fairly now; doctor says in a trance like. I was helping old Wyat
+most of the day, and was there when doctor blooded him, an' he
+spoke at last; but he must be awful weak, he took a deal o'
+blood from his arm, Miss; I held the basin.'</p>
+
+<p>'And he's better&mdash;decidedly better?' I asked.</p>
+
+<p>'Well, he's better, doctor says; he talked some, and doctor
+says if he goes off asleep again, and begins a-snoring like he
+did before, we're to loose the bandage, and let him bleed till he
+comes to his self again; which, it seems to me and Wyat, is the
+same thing a'most as saying he's to be killed off-hand, for I don't
+believe he has a drop to spare, as you'll say likewise, Miss, if
+you'll please look in the basin.'</p>
+
+<p>This was not an invitation with which I cared to comply. I
+thought I was going to faint. I sat on the stairs and sipped a
+little water, and Quince sprinkled a little in my face, and my
+strength returned.</p>
+
+<p>Milly must have felt her father's danger more than I, for she
+was affectionate, and loved him from habit and relation, although
+he was not kind to her. But I was more nervous and
+more impetuous, and my feelings both stimulated and overpowered
+me more easily. The moment I was able to stand I said&mdash;thinking
+of nothing but the one idea&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'We must see him&mdash;<i>come</i>, Milly.'</p>
+
+<p>I entered his sitting-room; a common 'dip' candle hanging
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page289" id="page289"></a>[pg 281]</span>
+
+like the tower of Pisa all to one side, with a dim, long wick, in
+a greasy candlestick, profaned the table of the fastidious invalid.
+The light was little better than darkness, and I crossed the
+room swiftly, still transfixed by the one idea of seeing my uncle.</p>
+
+<p>His bed-room door beside the fireplace stood partly open, and
+I looked in.</p>
+
+<p>Old Wyat, a white, high-cauled ghost, was pottering in her
+slippers in the shadow at the far side of the bed. The doctor, a
+stout little bald man, with a paunch and a big bunch of seals,
+stood with his back to the fireplace, which corresponded with
+that in the next room, eyeing his patient through the curtains
+of the bed with a listless sort of importance.</p>
+
+<p>The head of the large four-poster rested against the opposite
+wall. Its foot was presented toward the fireplace; but the curtains
+at the side, which alone I could see from my position, were
+closed.</p>
+
+<p>The little doctor knew me, and thinking me, I suppose, a
+person of consequence, removed his hands from behind him,
+suffering the skirts of his coat to fall forward, and with great
+celerity and gravity made me a low but important bow; then
+choosing more particularly to make my acquaintance he further
+advanced, and with another reverence he introduced himself as
+Doctor Jolks, in a murmured diapason. He bowed me back
+again into my uncle's study, and the light of old Wyat's dreadful
+candle.</p>
+
+<p>Doctor Jolks was suave and pompous. I longed for a fussy
+practitioner who would have got over the ground in half the
+time.</p>
+
+<p>Coma, madam; coma. Miss Ruthyn, your uncle, I may tell
+you, has been in a very critical state; highly so. Coma of the
+most obstinate type. He would have sunk&mdash;he must have gone,
+in fact, had I not resorted to a very extreme remedy, and bled
+him freely, which happily told precisely as we could have
+wished. A wonderful constitution&mdash;a marvellous
+constitution&mdash;prodigious nervous fibre; the greatest pity in the world he
+won't give himself fair play. His habits, you know, are quite, I
+may say, destructive. We do our best&mdash;we do all we can, but if
+the patient won't cooperate it can't possibly end satisfactorily.'</p>
+
+<p>And Jolks accompanied this with an awful shrug. 'Is there
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page290" id="page290"></a>[pg 282]</span>
+
+<i>anything</i>? Do you think change of air? What an awful complaint
+it is,' I exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>He smiled, mysteriously looking down, and shook his head
+undertaker-like.</p>
+
+<p>'Why, we can hardly call it a <i>complaint</i>, Miss Ruthyn. I look
+upon it he has been poisoned&mdash;he has had, you understand me,'
+he pursued, observing my startled look, 'an overdose of opium;
+you know he takes opium habitually; he takes it in laudanum,
+he takes it in water, and, most dangerous of all, he takes it
+solid, in lozenges. I've known people take it moderately. I've
+known people take it to excess, <i>but</i> they all were particular as
+to <i>measure,</i> and <i>that</i> is exactly the point I've tried to
+impress upon him. The habit, of course, you understand is formed,
+there's no uprooting that; but he won't <i>measure</i>&mdash;he goes by
+the eye and by sensation, which I need not tell you, Miss
+Ruthyn, is going by <i>chance;</i> and opium, as no doubt you are
+aware, is strictly a poison; a poison, no doubt, which habit will
+enable you to partake of, I may say, in considerable quantities,
+without fatal consequences, but still a poison; and to exhibit
+a poison <i>so</i>, is, I need scarcely tell you, to trifle with death. He
+has been so threatened, and for a time he changes his haphazard
+mode of dealing with it, and then returns; he may escape&mdash;of
+course, that is possible&mdash;but he may any day overdo the thing.
+I don't think the present crisis will result seriously. I am very
+glad, independently of the honour of making your acquaintance,
+Miss Ruthyn, that you and your cousin have returned;
+for, however zealous, I fear the servants are deficient in
+intelligence; and as in the event of a recurrence of the
+symptoms&mdash;which,
+however, is not probable&mdash;I would beg to inform you of
+their nature, and how exactly best to deal with them.'</p>
+
+<p>So upon these points he delivered us a pompous little lecture,
+and begged that either Milly or I would remain in the room
+with the patient until his return at two or three o'clock in the
+morning; a reappearance of the coma 'might be very bad indeed.'</p>
+
+<p>Of course Milly and I did as we were directed. We sat by the
+fire, scarcely daring to whisper. Uncle Silas, about whom a new
+and dreadful suspicion began to haunt me, lay still and motionless
+as if he were actually dead.</p>
+
+<p>'Had he attempted to poison himself?'</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page291" id="page291"></a>[pg 283]</span>
+
+<p>If he believed his position to be as desperate as Lady Knollys
+had described it, was this, after all, improbable? There were
+strange wild theories, I had been told, mixed up in his religion.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes, at an hour's interval, a sign of life would come&mdash;a
+moan from that tall sheeted figure in the bed&mdash;a moan and a
+pattering of the lips. Was it prayer&mdash;<i>what</i> was it? who could
+guess what thoughts were passing behind that white-fillited
+forehead?</p>
+
+<p>I had peeped at him: a white cloth steeped in vinegar and
+water was folded round his head; his great eyes were closed, so
+were his marble lips; his figure straight, thin, and long, dressed
+in a white dressing-gown, looked like a corpse 'laid out' in the
+bed; his gaunt bandaged arm lay outside the sheet that covered
+his body.</p>
+
+<p>With this awful image of death we kept our vigil, until poor
+Milly grew so sleepy that old Wyat proposed that she should
+take her place and watch with me.</p>
+
+<p>Little as I liked the crone with the high-cauled cap, she
+would, at all events, keep awake, which Milly could not. And
+so at one o'clock this new arrangement began.</p>
+
+<p>'Mr. Dudley Ruthyn is not at home?' I whispered to old
+Wyat.</p>
+
+<p>'He went away wi' himself yesternight, to Cloperton, Miss,
+to see the wrestling; it was to come off this morning.'</p>
+
+<p>'Was he sent for?'</p>
+
+<p>'Not he.'</p>
+
+<p>'And why not?'</p>
+
+<p>'He would na' leave the sport for this, I'm thinking,' and
+the old woman grinned uglily.</p>
+
+<p>'When is he to return?'</p>
+
+<p>'When he wants money.'</p>
+
+<p>So we grew silent, and again I thought of suicide, and of the
+unhappy old man, who just then whispered a sentence or two
+to himself with a sigh.</p>
+
+<p>For the next hour he had been quite silent, and old Wyat
+informed me that she must go down for candles. Ours were already
+burnt down to the sockets.</p>
+
+<p>'There's a candle in the next room,' I suggested, hating the
+idea of being left alone with the patient.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page292" id="page292"></a>[pg 284]</span>
+
+<p>'Hoot! Miss. I <i>dare</i> na' set a candle but wax in his presence,'
+whispered the old woman, scornfully.</p>
+
+<p>'I think if we were to stir the fire, and put on a little more
+coal, we should have a great deal of light.'</p>
+
+<p>'He'll ha' the candles,' said Dame Wyat, doggedly; and she
+tottered from the chamber, muttering to herself; and I heard
+her take her candle from the next room and depart, shutting
+the outer door after her.</p>
+
+<p>Here was I then alone, but for this unearthly companion,
+whom I feared inexpressibly, at two o'clock, in the vast old
+house of Bartram.</p>
+
+<p>I stirred the fire. It was low, and would not blaze. I stood up,
+and, with my hand on the mantelpiece, endeavoured to think
+of cheerful things. But it was a struggle against wind and tide&mdash;vain;
+and so I drifted away into haunted regions.</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Silas was perfectly still. I would not suffer myself to
+think of the number of dark rooms and passages which now
+separated me from the other living tenants of the house. I
+awaited with a false composure the return of old Wyat.</p>
+
+<p>Over the mantelpiece was a looking-glass. At another time
+this might have helped to entertain my solitary moments, but
+now I did not like to venture a peep. A small thick Bible lay
+on the chimneypiece, and leaning its back against the mirror, I
+began to read in it with a mind as attentively directed as I
+could. While so engaged in turning over the leaves, I lighted
+upon two or three odd-looking papers, which had been folded
+into it. One was a broad printed thing, with names and dates
+written into blank spaces, and was about the size of a quarter
+of a yard of very broad ribbon. The others were mere scraps,
+with 'Dudley Ruthyn' penned in my cousin's vulgar round-hand
+at the foot. While I folded and replaced these, I really don't
+know what caused me to fancy that something was moving
+behind me, as I stood with my back toward the bed. I do not
+recollect any sound whatever; but instinctively I glanced into
+the mirror, and my eyes were instantly fixed by what I saw.</p>
+
+<p>The figure of Uncle Silas rose up, and dressed in a long
+white morning gown, slid over the end of the bed, and with
+two or three swift noiseless steps, stood behind me, with a death-like
+scowl and a simper. Preternaturally tall and thin, he stood
+for a moment almost touching me, with the white bandage
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page293" id="page293"></a>[pg 285]</span>
+
+pinned across his forehead, his bandaged arm stiffly by his side,
+and diving over my shoulder, with his long thin hand he
+snatched the Bible, and whispered over my head&mdash;'The serpent
+beguiled her and she did eat;' and after a momentary pause, he
+glided to the farthest window, and appeared to look out upon
+the midnight prospect.</p>
+
+<p>It was cold, but he did not seem to feel it. With the same
+inflexible scowl and smile, he continued to look out for several
+minutes, and then with a great sigh, he sat down on the
+side of his bed, his face immovably turned towards me, with
+the same painful look.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed to me an hour before old Wyat came back; and
+never was lover made happier at sight of his mistress than I to
+behold that withered crone.</p>
+
+<p>You may be sure I did not prolong my watch. There was now
+plainly no risk of my uncle's relapsing into lethargy. I had a
+long hysterical fit of weeping when I got into my room, with
+honest Mary Quince by my side.</p>
+
+<p>Whenever I closed my eyes, the face of Uncle Silas was before
+me, as I had seen it reflected in the glass. The sorceries of
+Bartram were enveloping me once more.</p>
+
+<p>Next morning the doctor said he was quite out of danger, but
+very weak. Milly and I saw him; and again in our afternoon
+walk we saw the doctor marching under the trees in the direction
+of the Windmill Wood.</p>
+
+<p>'Going down to see that poor girl there?' he said, when he
+had made his salutation, prodding with his levelled stick in the
+direction. 'Hawke, or Hawkes, I think.'</p>
+
+<p>'Beauty's sick, Maud,' exclaimed Milly.</p>
+
+<p>'<i>Hawkes</i>. She's upon my dispensary list. Yes,' said the doctor,
+looking into his little note-book&mdash;'Hawkes.'</p>
+
+<p>'And what is her complaint?'</p>
+
+<p>'Rheumatic fever.'</p>
+
+<p>'Not infectious?'</p>
+
+<p>'Not the least&mdash;no more, as we say, Miss Ruthyn, than a
+broken leg,' and he laughed obligingly.</p>
+
+<p>So soon as the doctor had departed, Milly and I agreed to
+follow to Hawkes' cottage and enquire more particularly how
+she was. To say truth, I am afraid it was rather for the sake
+of giving our walk a purpose and a point of termination, than
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page294" id="page294"></a>[pg 286]</span>
+
+for any very charitable interest we might have felt in the patient.</p>
+
+<p>Over the inequalities of the upland slope, clumped with
+trees, we reached the gabled cottage, with its neglected little
+farm-yard. A rheumatic old woman was the only attendant; and,
+having turned her ear in an attitude of attention, which induced
+us in gradually exalted keys to enquire how Meg was, she informed
+us in very loud tones that she had long lost her hearing
+and was perfectly deaf. And added considerately&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'When the man comes in, 'appen he'll tell ye what ye want.'</p>
+
+<p>Through the door of a small room at the further end of that
+in which we were, we could see a portion of the narrow apartment
+of the patient, and hear her moans and the doctor's voice.</p>
+
+<p>'We'll see him, Milly, when he comes out. Let us wait here.'</p>
+
+<p>So we stood upon the door-stone awaiting him. The sounds of
+suffering had moved my compassion and interested us for the
+sick girl.</p>
+
+<p>'Blest if here isn't Pegtop,' said Milly.</p>
+
+<p>And the weather-stained red coat, the swarthy forbidding face
+and sooty locks of old Hawkes loomed in sight, as he stumped,
+steadying himself with his stick, over the uneven pavement of
+the yard. He touched his hat gruffly to me, but did not seem
+half to like our being where we were, for he looked surlily, and
+scratched his head under his wide-awake.</p>
+
+<p>'Your daughter is very ill, I'm afraid,' said I.</p>
+
+<p>'Ay&mdash;she'll be costin' me a handful, like her mother did,'
+said Pegtop.</p>
+
+<p>'I hope her room is comfortable, poor thing.'</p>
+
+<p>'Ay, that's it; she be comfortable enough, I warrant&mdash;more
+nor I. It be all Meg, and nout o' Dickon.'</p>
+
+<p>'When did her illness commence?' I asked.</p>
+
+<p>'Day the mare wor shod&mdash;<i>Saturday</i>. I talked a bit wi' the workus
+folk, but they won't gi'e nout&mdash;dang 'em&mdash;an' how be <i>I</i> to do't?
+It be all'ays hard bread wi' Silas, an' a deal harder now she'
+ta'en them pains. I won't stan' it much longer. Gammon! If
+she keeps on that way I'll just cut. See how the workus fellahs
+'ill like <i>that</i>!'</p>
+
+<p>'The Doctor gives his services for nothing,' I said.</p>
+
+<p>'An' <i>does</i> nothin', bless him! ha, ha. No more nor that old
+deaf gammon there that costs me three tizzies a week, and haint
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page295" id="page295"></a>[pg 287]</span>
+
+worth a h'porth&mdash;no more nor Meg there, that's making all she
+can o' them pains. They be all a foolin' o' me, an' thinks I don't
+know 't. Hey? <i>we</i>'ll see.'</p>
+
+<p>All this time he was cutting a bit of tobacco into shreds on
+the window-stone.</p>
+
+<p>'A workin' man be same as a hoss; if he baint cared, he can't
+work&mdash;'tisn't in him:' and with these words, having by this time
+stuffed his pipe with tobacco, he poked the deaf lady, who was
+pattering about with her back toward him, rather viciously with
+the point of his stick, and signed for a light.</p>
+
+<p>'It baint in him, you can't get it out o' 'im, no more nor ye'll
+draw smoke out o' this,' and he raised his pipe an inch or two,
+with his thumb on the bowl, 'without backy and fire. 'Tisn't in
+it.'</p>
+
+<p>'Maybe I can be of some use?' I said, thinking.</p>
+
+<p>'Maybe,' he rejoined.</p>
+
+<p>By this time he received from the old deaf abigail a flaming
+roll of brown paper, and, touching his hat to me, he withdrew,
+lighting his pipe and sending up little white puffs, like the salute
+of a departing ship.</p>
+
+<p>So he did not care to hear how his daughter was, and had
+only come here to light his pipe!</p>
+
+<p>Just then the Doctor emerged.</p>
+
+<p>'We have been waiting to hear how your poor patient is to-day?'
+I said.</p>
+
+<p>'Very ill, indeed, and utterly neglected, I fear. If she were
+equal to it&mdash;but she's not&mdash;I think she ought to be removed to
+the hospital immediately.'</p>
+
+<p>'That poor old woman is quite deaf, and the man is so surly
+and selfish! Could you recommend a nurse who would stay here
+till she's better? I will pay her with pleasure, and anything you
+think might be good for the poor girl.'</p>
+
+<p>So this was settled on the spot. Doctor Jolks was kind, like
+most men of his calling, and undertook to send the nurse from
+Feltram with a few comforts for the patient; and he called
+Dickon to the yard-gate, and I suppose told him of the arrangement;
+and Milly and I went to the poor girl's door and asked,
+'May we come in?'</p>
+
+<p>There was no answer. So, with the conventional construction
+of silence, we entered. Her looks showed how ill she was. We
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page296" id="page296"></a>[pg 288]</span>
+
+adjusted her bed-clothes, and darkened the room, and did what
+we could for her&mdash;noting, beside, what her comfort chiefly required.
+She did not answer any questions. She did not thank us.
+I should almost have fancied that she had not perceived our
+presence, had I not observed her dark, sunken eyes once or
+twice turned up towards my face, with a dismal look of wonder
+and enquiry.</p>
+
+<p>The girl was very ill, and we went every day to see her.
+Sometimes she would answer our questions&mdash;sometimes not.
+Thoughtful, observant, surly, she seemed; and as people like to
+be thanked, I sometimes wonder that we continued to throw our
+bread upon these ungrateful waters. Milly was specially impatient
+under this treatment, and protested against it, and
+finally refused to accompany me into poor Beauty's bed-room.</p>
+
+<p>'I think, my good Meg,' said I one day, as I stood by her bed&mdash;she
+was now recovering with the sure reascent of youth&mdash;'that
+you ought to thank Miss Milly.'</p>
+
+<p>'I'll <i>not</i> thank her,' said Beauty, doggedly.</p>
+
+<p>'Very well, Meg; I only thought I'd ask you, for I think you
+ought.'</p>
+
+<p>As I spoke, she very gently took just the tip of my finger,
+which hung close to her coverlet, in her fingers, and drew it
+beneath, and before I was aware, burying her head in the
+clothes, she suddenly clasped my hand in both hers to her lips,
+and kissed it passionately, again and again, sobbing. I felt her
+tears.</p>
+
+<p>I tried to withdraw my hand, but she held it with an angry
+pull, continuing to weep and kiss it.</p>
+
+<p>'Do you wish to say anything, my poor Meg?' I asked.</p>
+
+<p>'Nout, Miss,' she sobbed gently; and she continued to kiss
+my hand and weep. But suddenly she said, 'I won't thank Milly,
+for it's a' <i>you</i>; it baint her, she hadn't the thought&mdash;no, no, it's
+a' you, Miss. I cried hearty in the dark last night, thinkin' o'
+the apples, and the way I knocked them awa' wi' a pur o' my
+foot, the day father rapped me ower the head wi' his stick; it
+was kind o' you and very bad o' me. I wish you'd beat me, Miss;
+ye're better to me than father or mother&mdash;better to me than a';
+an' I wish I could die for you, Miss, for I'm not fit to look at
+you.'</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page297" id="page297"></a>[pg 289]</span>
+
+<p>I was surprised. I began to cry. I could have hugged poor
+Meg.</p>
+
+<p>I did not know her history. I have never learned it since. She
+used to talk with the most utter self-abasement before me. It
+was no religious feeling&mdash;it was a kind of expression of her love
+and worship of me&mdash;all the more strange that she was naturally
+very proud. There was nothing she would not have borne from
+me except the slightest suspicion of her entire devotion, or
+that she could in the most trifling way wrong or deceive me.</p>
+
+<p>I am not young now. I have had my sorrows, and with them
+all that wealth, virtually unlimited, can command; and through
+the retrospect a few bright and pure lights quiver along my
+life's dark stream&mdash;dark, but for them; and these are shed, not
+by the splendour of a splendid fortune, but by two or three of
+the simplest and kindest remembrances, such as the poorest and
+homeliest life may count up, and beside which, in the quiet
+hours of memory, all artificial triumphs pale, and disappear,
+for they are never quenched by time or distance, being founded
+on the affections, and so far heavenly.</p>
+
+<a name="chap45"></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XLV</h3>
+
+<h2><i>A CHAPTER-FULL OF LOVERS</i></h2>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>We had about this time a pleasant and quite unexpected visit
+from Lord Ilbury. He had come to pay his respects, understanding
+that my uncle Silas was sufficiently recovered to see visitors.
+'And I think I'll run up-stairs first, and see him, if he admits
+me, and then I have ever so long a message from my sister,
+Mary, for you and Miss Millicent; but I had better dispose of
+my business first&mdash;don't you think so?&mdash;and I shall return in a
+few minutes.'</p>
+
+<p>And as he spoke our tremulous old butler returned to say
+that Uncle Silas would be happy to see him. So he departed;
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page298" id="page298"></a>[pg 290]</span>
+
+and you can't think how pleasant our homely sitting-room
+looked with his coat and stick in it&mdash;guarantees of his return.</p>
+
+<p>'Do you think, Milly, he is going to speak about the timber,
+you know, that Cousin Knollys spoke of? I do hope not.'</p>
+
+<p>'So do I,' said Milly. 'I wish he'd stayed a bit longer with us
+first, for if he does, father will sure to turn him out of doors,
+and we'll see no more of him.'</p>
+
+<p>'Exactly, my dear Milly; and he's so pleasant and good-natured.'</p>
+
+<p>'And he likes you awful well, he does.'</p>
+
+<p>'I'm sure he likes us both equally, Milly; he talked a great
+deal to you at Elverston, and used to ask you so often to sing
+those two pretty Lancashire ballads,' I said; 'but you know
+when you were at your controversies and religious exercises in
+the window, with that pillar of the church, the Rev. Spriggs
+Biddlepen&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'Get awa' wi' your nonsense, Maud; how could I help answering
+when he dodged me up and down my Testament and catechism?&mdash;an
+I 'most hate him, I tell you, and Cousin Knollys,
+you're such fools, I do. And whatever you say, the lord likes you
+uncommon, and well you know it, ye hussy.'</p>
+
+<p>'I know no such thing; and you don't think it, <i>you</i> hussy,
+and I really don't care who likes me or who doesn't, except
+my relations; and I make the lord a present to you, if you'll
+have him.'</p>
+
+<p>In this strain were we talking when he re-entered the room, a
+little sooner than we had expected to see him.</p>
+
+<p>Milly, who, you are to recollect, was only in process of reformation,
+and still retained something of the Derbyshire dairymaid,
+gave me a little clandestine pinch on the arm just as he
+made his appearance.</p>
+
+<p>'I just refused a present from her,' said odious Milly, in
+answer to his enquiring look, 'because I knew she could not
+spare it.'</p>
+
+<p>The effect of all this was that I blushed one of my overpowering
+blushes. People told me they became me very much; I
+hope so, for the misfortune was frequent; and I think nature
+owed me that compensation.</p>
+
+<p>'It places you both in a most becoming light,' said Lord
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page299" id="page299"></a>[pg 291]</span>
+
+Ilbury, quite innocently. 'I really don't know which most to
+admire&mdash;the generosity of the offer or of the refusal.'</p>
+
+<p>'Well, it <i>was</i> kind, if you but knew. I'm 'most tempted to
+tell him,' said Milly.</p>
+
+<p>I checked her with a really angry look, and said, 'Perhaps you
+have not observed it; but I really think, for a sensible person,
+my cousin Milly here talks more nonsense than any twenty
+other girls.'</p>
+
+<p>'A twenty-girl power! That's an immense compliment. I've
+the greatest respect for nonsense, I owe it so much; and I
+really think if nonsense were banished, the earth would grow
+insupportable.'</p>
+
+<p>'Thank you, Lord Ilbury,' said Milly, who had grown quite
+easy in his company during our long visit at Elverston; 'and I
+tell you, Miss Maud, if you grow saucy, I'll accept your present,
+and what will you say then?'</p>
+
+<p>'I really don't know; but just now I want to ask Lord Ilbury
+how he thinks my uncle looks; neither I nor Milly have seen
+him since his illness.'</p>
+
+<p>'Very much weaker, I think; but he may be gaining strength.
+Still, as my business was not quite pleasant, I thought it better
+to postpone it, and if you think it would be right, I'll write
+to Doctor Bryerly to ask him to postpone the discussion for a
+little time.'</p>
+
+<p>I at once assented, and thanked him; indeed, if I had had
+my way, the subject should never have been mentioned, I felt
+so hardhearted and rapacious; but Lord Ilbury explained that
+the trustees were constrained by the provisions of the will, and
+that I really had no power to release them; and I hoped that
+Uncle Silas also understood all this.</p>
+
+<p>'And now,' said he, 'we've returned to Grange, my sister and
+I, and it is nearer than Elverston, so that we are really neighbours;
+and Mary wants Lady Knollys to fix a time she owes us
+a visit, you know&mdash;and you really must come at the same time;
+it will be so very pleasant, the same party exactly meeting in a
+new scene; and we have not half explored our neighbourhood;
+and I've got down all those Spanish engravings I told you of,
+and the Venetian missals, and all the rest. I think I remember
+very accurately the things you were most interested by, and
+they're all there; and really you must promise, you and Miss
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page300" id="page300"></a>[pg 292]</span>
+
+Millicent Ruthyn. And I forgot to mention&mdash;you know you
+complained that you were ill supplied with books, so Mary
+thought you would allow her to share her supply&mdash;they are the
+new books, you know&mdash;and when you have read yours, you and
+she can exchange.'</p>
+
+<p>What girl was ever quite frank about her likings? I don't
+think I was more of a cheat than others; but I never could
+tell of myself. It is quite true that this duplicity and reserve
+seldom deceives. Our hypocrisies are forced upon some of our
+sex by the acuteness and vigilance of all in this field of enquiry;
+but if we are sly, we are also lynx-eyed, capital detectives, most
+ingenious in fitting together the bits and dovetails of a cumulative
+case; and in those affairs of love and liking, have a terrible
+exploratory instinct, and so, for the most part, when
+detected we are found out not only to be in love, but to be
+rogues moreover.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Mary was very kind; but had Lady Mary of her own
+mere motion taken all this trouble? Was there no more energetic
+influence at the bottom of that welcome chest of books,
+which arrived only half an hour later? The circulating library
+of those days was not the epidemic and ubiquitous influence
+to which it has grown; and there were many places where it
+could not find you out.</p>
+
+<p>Altogether that evening Bartram had acquired a peculiar
+beauty&mdash;a bright and mellow glow, in which even its gate-posts
+and wheelbarrow were interesting, and next day came a little
+cloud&mdash;Dudley appeared.</p>
+
+<p>'You may be sure he wants money,' said Milly. 'He and
+father had words this morning.'</p>
+
+<p>He took a chair at our luncheon, found fault with everything
+in his own laconic dialect, ate a good deal notwithstanding, and
+was sulky, and with Milly snappish. To me, on the contrary,
+when Milly went into the hall, he was mild and whimpering,
+and disposed to be confidential.</p>
+
+<p>'There's the Governor says he hasn't a bob! Danged if I
+know how an old fellah in his bed-room muddles away money
+at that rate. I don't suppose he thinks I can git along without
+tin, and he knows them trustees won't gi'e me a tizzy till they
+get what they calls an opinion&mdash;dang 'em! Bryerly says he
+doubts it must all go under settlement. They'll settle me nicely
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page301" id="page301"></a>[pg 293]</span>
+
+if they do; and Governor knows all about it, and won't gi'e me
+a danged brass farthin', an' me wi' bills to pay, an' lawyers&mdash;dang
+'em&mdash;writing letters. He knows summat o' that hisself,
+does Governor; and he might ha' consideration a bit for his
+own flesh and blood, <i>I</i> say. But he never does nout for none but
+hisself. I'll sell his books and his jewels next fit he takes&mdash;that's
+how I'll fit him.'</p>
+
+<p>This amiable young man, glowering, with his elbows on the
+table and his fingers in his great whiskers, followed his homily,
+where clergymen append the blessing, with a muttered variety of
+very different matter.</p>
+
+<p>'Now, Maud,' said he, pathetically, leaning back suddenly
+in his chair, with all his conscious beauty and misfortunes in
+his face, 'is not it hard lines?'</p>
+
+<p>I thought the appeal was going to shape itself into an application
+for money; but it did not.</p>
+
+<p>'I never know'd a reel beauty&mdash;first-chop, of course, I mean&mdash;that
+wasn't kind along of it, and I'm a fellah as can't git along
+without sympathy&mdash;that's why I say it&mdash;an' isn't it hard lines?
+Now, <i>say</i> it's hard lines&mdash;<i>haint</i> it, Maud?'</p>
+
+<p>I did not know exactly what hard lines meant, but I said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'I suppose it is very disagreeable.'</p>
+
+<p>And with this concession, not caring to hear any more in the
+same vein, I rose, intending to take my departure.</p>
+
+<p>'No, that's jest it. I knew ye'd say it, Maud. Ye're a kind
+lass&mdash;ye be&mdash;'tis in yer pretty face. I like ye awful, I do&mdash;there's
+not a handsomer lass in Liverpool nor Lunnon itself&mdash;<i>no</i> where.'</p>
+
+<p>He had seized my hand, and trying to place his arm about my
+waist, essayed that salute which I had so narrowly escaped on
+my first introduction.</p>
+
+<p>'<i>Don't</i>, sir,' I exclaimed in high indignation, escaping at the
+same moment from his grasp.</p>
+
+<p>'No offence, lass; no harm, Maud; you must not be so shy&mdash;we're
+cousins, you know&mdash;an' I wouldn't hurt ye, Maud, no more
+nor I'd knock my head off. I wouldn't.'</p>
+
+<p>I did not wait to hear the rest of his tender protestations,
+but, without showing how nervous I was, I glided out of the
+room quietly, making an orderly retreat, the more meritorious
+as I heard him call after me persuasively&mdash;'Come
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page302" id="page302"></a>[pg 294]</span>
+
+back, Maud. What are ye afeard on, lass? Come back,
+I say&mdash;do now; there's a good wench.'</p>
+
+<p>As Milly and I were taking our walk that day, in the direction
+of the Windmill Wood, to which, in consequence perhaps
+of some secret order, we had now free access, we saw Beauty,
+for the first time since her illness, in the little yard, throwing
+grain to the poultry.</p>
+
+<p>'How do you find yourself to-day, Meg? I am <i>very</i> glad to
+see you able to be about again; but I hope it is not too soon.'</p>
+
+<p>We were standing at the barred gate of the little enclosure,
+and quite close to Meg, who, however, did not choose to raise
+her head, but, continuing to shower her grain and potato-skins
+among her hens and chickens, said in a low tone&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Father baint in sight? Look jist round a bit and say if ye
+see him.'</p>
+
+<p>But Dickon's dusky red costume was nowhere visible.</p>
+
+<p>So Meg looked up, pale and thin, and with her old grave,
+observant eyes, and she said quietly&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>''Tisn't that I'm not glad to see ye; but if father was to spy
+me talking friendly wi' ye, now that I'm hearty, and you havin'
+no more call to me, he'd be all'ays a watching and thinkin' I
+was tellin' o' tales, and 'appen he'd want me to worrit ye for
+money, Miss Maud; an' 'tisn't here he'd spend it, but in the
+Feltram pottusses, he would, and we want for nothin' that's good
+for us. But that's how 'twould be, an' he'd all'ays be a jawing
+and a lickin' of I; so don't mind me, Miss Maud, and 'appen I
+might do ye a good turn some day.'</p>
+
+<p>A few days after this little interview with Meg, as Milly and
+I were walking briskly&mdash;for it was a clear frosty day&mdash;along the
+pleasant slopes of the sheep-walk, we were overtaken by Dudley
+Ruthyn. It was not a pleasant surprise. There was this mitigation,
+however: we were on foot, and he driving in a dog-cart
+along the track leading to the moor, with his dogs and gun.
+He brought his horse for a moment to a walk, and with a careless
+nod to me, removing his short pipe from his mouth, he
+said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Governor's callin' for ye, Milly; and he told me to send you
+slick home to him if I saw you, and I think he'll gi'e ye some
+money; but ye better take him while he's in the humour, lass,
+or mayhap ye'll go long without.'</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page303" id="page303"></a>[pg 295]</span>
+
+<p>And with those words, apparently intent on his game, he
+nodded again, and, pipe in mouth, drove at a quick trot over
+the slope of the hill, and disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>So I agreed to await Milly's return while she ran home, and
+rejoined me where I was. Away she ran, in high spirits, and I
+wandered listlessly about in search of some convenient spot to
+sit down upon, for I was a little tired.</p>
+
+<p>She had not been gone five minutes, when I heard a step
+approaching, and looking round, saw the dog-cart close by,
+the horse browsing on the short grass, and Dudley Ruthyn
+within a few paces of me.</p>
+
+<p>'Ye see, Maud, I've bin thinkin' why you're so vexed wi' me,
+an' I thought I'd jest come back an' ask ye what I may a' done
+to anger ye so; there's no sin in that, I think&mdash;is there?'</p>
+
+<p>'I'm not angry. I did not say so. I hope that's enough,' I
+said, startled; and, notwithstanding my speech, <i>very</i> angry, for
+I felt instinctively that Milly's despatch homeward was a mere
+trick, and I the dupe of this coarse stratagem.</p>
+
+<p>'Well then, if ye baint angry, so much the better, Maud. I
+only want to know why you're afeard o' me. I never struck a
+man foul, much less hurt a girl, in my days; besides, Maud,
+I likes ye too well to hurt ye. Dang it, lass, you're my cousin, ye
+know, and cousins is all'ays together and lovin' like, an' none
+says again' it.'</p>
+
+<p>'I've nothing to explain&mdash;there <i>is</i> nothing to explain. I've
+been quite friendly,' I said, hurriedly.</p>
+
+<p>'<i>Friendly!</i> Well, if there baint a cram! How can ye think
+it friendly, Maud, when ye won't a'most shake hands wi' me?
+It's enough to make a fellah sware, or cry a'most. Why d'ye like
+aggravatin' a poor devil? Now baint ye an ill-natured little
+puss, Maud, an' I likin' ye so well? You're the prettiest lass in
+Derbyshire; there's nothin' I wouldn't do for ye.'</p>
+
+<p>And he backed his declaration with an oath.</p>
+
+<p>'Be so good, then, as to re-enter your dog-cart and drive
+away,' I replied, very much incensed.</p>
+
+<p>'Now, there it is again! Ye can't speak me civil. Another
+fellah'd fly out, an' maybe kiss ye for spite; but I baint that
+sort, I'm all for coaxin' and kindness, an' ye won't let me. What
+<i>be</i> you drivin' at, Maud?'</p>
+
+<p>'I think I've said very plainly, sir, that I wish to be alone.
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page304" id="page304"></a>[pg 296]</span>
+
+You've <i>nothing</i> to say, except utter nonsense, and I've heard
+quite enough. Once for all, I beg, sir, that you will be so good
+as to leave me.'</p>
+
+<p>'Well, now, look here, Maud; I'll do anything you like&mdash;burn
+me if I don't&mdash;if you'll only jest be kind to me, like cousins
+should. What did I ever do to vex you? If you think I like
+any lass better than you&mdash;some fellah at Elverston's bin talkin',
+maybe&mdash;it's nout but lies an' nonsense. Not but there's lots o'
+wenches likes me well enough, though I be a plain lad, and
+speaks my mind straight out.'</p>
+
+<p>'I can't see that you are so frank, sir, as you describe; you
+have just played a shabby trick to bring about this absurd and
+most disagreeable interview.'</p>
+
+<p>'And supposin' I did send that fool, Milly, out o' the way, to
+talk a bit wi' you here, where's the harm? Dang it, lass, ye
+mustn't be too hard. Didn't I say I'd do whatever ye wished?'</p>
+
+<p>'And you <i>won't</i>,' said I.</p>
+
+<p>'Ye mean to get along out o' this? Well, now, I <i>will</i>. There!
+No use, of course, askin' you to kiss and be friends, before I go,
+as cousins should. Well, don't be riled, lass, I'm not askin' it;
+only mind, I do like you awful, and 'appen I'll find ye in better
+humour another time. Good-bye, Maud; I'll make ye like me at
+last.'</p>
+
+<p>And with these words, to my comfort, he addressed himself
+to his horse and pipe, and was soon honestly on his way to the
+moor.</p>
+
+<a name="chap46"></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XLVI</h3>
+
+<h2><i>THE RIVALS</i></h2>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>All the time that Dudley chose to persecute me with his odious
+society, I continued to walk at a brisk pace toward home, so
+that I had nearly reached the house when Milly met me, with
+a note which had arrived for me by the post, in her hand.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page305" id="page305"></a>[pg 297]</span>
+
+<p>'Here, Milly, are more verses. He is a very persevering poet,
+whoever he is.' So I broke the seal; but this time it was prose.
+And the first words were 'Captain Oakley!'</p>
+
+<p>I confess to an odd sensation as these remarkable words met
+my eye. It might possibly be a proposal. I did not wait to speculate,
+however, but read these sentences traced in the identical
+handwriting which had copied the lines with which I had been
+twice favoured.</p>
+
+<p>'Captain Oakley presents his compliments to Miss Ruthyn,
+and trusts she will excuse his venturing to ask whether, during
+his short stay in Feltram, he might be permitted to pay his
+respects at Bartram-Haugh. He has been making a short visit
+to his aunt, and could not find himself so near without at least
+attempting to renew an acquaintance which he has never ceased
+to cherish in memory. If Miss Ruthyn would be so very good as
+to favour him with ever so short a reply to the question he ventures
+most respectfully to ask, her decision would reach him at
+the Hall Hotel, Feltram.'</p>
+
+<p>'Well, he's a roundabout fellah, anyhow. Couldn't he come
+up and see you if he wanted to? They poeters, they do love
+writing long yarns&mdash;don't they?' And with this reflection, Milly
+took the note and read it through again.</p>
+
+<p>'It's jolly polite anyhow, isn't it Maud?' said Milly, who had
+conned it over, and accepted it as a model composition.</p>
+
+<p>I must have been, I think, naturally a rather shrewd girl; and
+considering how very little I had seen of the world&mdash;nothing in
+fact&mdash;I often wonder now at the sage conclusions at which I
+arrived.</p>
+
+<p>Were I to answer this handsome and cunning fool according
+to his folly, in what position should I find myself? No doubt
+my reply would induce a rejoinder, and that compel another
+note from me, and that invite yet another from him; and however
+his might improve in warmth, they were sure not to abate.
+Was it his impertinent plan, with this show of respect and
+ceremony, to drag me into a clandestine correspondence? Inexperienced
+girl as I was, I fired at the idea of becoming his
+dupe, and fancying, perhaps, that there was more in merely answering
+his note than it would have amounted to, I said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'That kind of thing may answer very well with button-makers,
+but ladies don't like it. What would your papa think
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page306" id="page306"></a>[pg 298]</span>
+
+of it if he found that I had been writing to him, and seeing
+him without his permission? If he wanted to see me he could
+have'&mdash;(I really did not know exactly what he could have
+done)&mdash;'he could have timed his visit to Lady Knollys differently;
+at all events, he has no right to place me in an embarrassing
+situation, and I am certain Cousin Knollys would say
+so; and I think his note both shabby and impertinent.'</p>
+
+<p>Decision was not with me an intellectual process. When quite
+cool I was the most undecided of mortals, but once my feelings
+were excited I was prompt and bold.</p>
+
+<p>'I'll give the note to Uncle Silas,' I said, quickening my pace
+toward home; 'he'll know what to do.'</p>
+
+<p>But Milly, who, I fancy, had no objection to the little romance
+which the young officer proposed, told me that she could
+not see her father, that he was ill, and not speaking to anyone.</p>
+
+<p>'And arn't ye making a plaguy row about nothin'? I lay a
+guinea if ye had never set eyes on Lord Ilbury you'd a told him
+to come, and see ye, an' welcome.'</p>
+
+<p>'Don't talk like a fool, Milly. You never knew me do anything
+deceitful. Lord Ilbury has no more to do with it, you
+know very well, than the man in the moon.'</p>
+
+<p>I was altogether very indignant. I did not speak another word
+to Milly. The proportions of the house are so great, that it is a
+much longer walk than you would suppose from the hall-door
+to Uncle Silas's room. But I did not cool all that way; and it
+was not till I had just reached the lobby, and saw the sour,
+jealous face, and high caul of old Wyat, and felt the influence
+of that neighbourhood, that I paused to reconsider. I fancied
+there was a cool consciousness of success behind all the deferential
+phraseology of Captain Oakley, which nettled me extremely.
+No; there could be no doubt. I tapped softly at the door.</p>
+
+<p>'What is it <i>now</i>, Miss?' snarled the querulous old woman,
+with her shrivelled fingers on the door-handle.</p>
+
+<p>'Can I see my uncle for a moment?'</p>
+
+<p>'He's tired, and not a word from him all day long.'</p>
+
+<p>'Not ill, though?'</p>
+
+<p>'Awful bad in the night,' said the old crone, with a sudden
+savage glare in my face, as if <i>I</i> had brought it about.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh! I'm very sorry. I had not heard a word of it.'</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page307" id="page307"></a>[pg 299]</span>
+
+<p>'No one does but old Wyat. There's Milly there never asks
+neither&mdash;his own child!'</p>
+
+<p>'Weakness, or what?'</p>
+
+<p>'One o' them fits. He'll slide awa' in one o' them some day,
+and no one but old Wyat to know nor ask word about it; that's
+how 'twill be.'</p>
+
+<p>'Will you please hand him this note, if he is well enough
+to look at it, and say I am at the door?'</p>
+
+<p>She took it with a peevish nod and a grunt, closing the door
+in my face, and in a few minutes returned&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Come in wi' ye,' said Dame Wyat, and I appeared.</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Silas, who, after his nightly horror or vision, lay extended
+on a sofa, with his faded yellow silk dressing-gown
+about him, his long white hair hanging toward the ground,
+and that wild and feeble smile lighting his face&mdash;a glimmer I
+feared to look upon&mdash;his long thin arms lay by his sides, with
+hands and fingers that stirred not, except when now and then,
+with a feeble motion, he wet his temples and forehead with eau
+de Cologne from a glass saucer placed beside him.</p>
+
+<p>'Excellent girl! dutiful ward and niece!' murmured the
+oracle; 'heaven reward you&mdash;your frank dealing is your own
+safety and my peace. Sit you down, and say who is this Captain
+Oakley, when you made his acquaintance, what his age, fortune,
+and expectations, and who the aunt he mentions.'</p>
+
+<p>Upon all these points I satisfied him as fully as I was able.</p>
+
+<p>'Wyat&mdash;the white drops,' he called, in a thin, stern tone.
+'I'll write a line presently. I can't see visitors, and, of course,
+you can't receive young captains before you've come out. Farewell!
+God bless you, dear.'</p>
+
+<p>Wyat was dropping the 'white' restorative into a wine-glass
+and the room was redolent of ether. I was glad to escape. The
+figures and whole <i>mise en scène</i> were unearthly.</p>
+
+<p>'Well, Milly,' I said, as I met her in the hall, 'your papa is
+going to write to him.'</p>
+
+<p>I sometimes wonder whether Milly was right, and how I
+should have acted a few months earlier.</p>
+
+<p>Next day whom should we meet in the Windmill Wood but
+Captain Oakley. The spot where this interesting <i>rencontre</i>
+occurred was near that ruinous bridge on my sketch of which
+I had received so many compliments. It was so great a surprise
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page308" id="page308"></a>[pg 300]</span>
+
+that I had not time to recollect my indignation, and, having received
+him very affably, I found it impossible, during our brief
+interview, to recover my lost altitude.</p>
+
+<p>After our greetings were over, and some compliments neatly
+made, he said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'I had such a curious note from Mr. Silas Ruthyn. I am sure
+he thinks me a very impertinent fellow, for it was really anything
+but inviting&mdash;extremely rude, in fact. But I could not
+quite see that because he does not want me to invade his bed-room&mdash;an
+incursion I never dreamed of&mdash;I was not to present
+myself to you, who had already honoured me with your acquaintance,
+with the sanction of those who were most interested
+in your welfare, and who were just as well qualified as he, I
+fancy, to say who were qualified for such an honour.'</p>
+
+<p>'My uncle, Mr. Silas Ruthyn, you are aware, is my guardian;
+and this is my cousin, his daughter.'</p>
+
+<p>This was an opportunity of becoming a little lofty, and I improved
+it. He raised his hat and bowed to Milly.</p>
+
+<p>'I'm afraid I've been very rude and stupid. Mr. Ruthyn, of
+course, has a perfect right to&mdash;to&mdash;in fact, I was not the least
+aware that I had the honour of so near a relation's&mdash;a&mdash;a&mdash;and
+what exquisite scenery you have! I think this country round
+Feltram particularly fine; and this Bartram-Haugh is, I venture
+to say, about the very most beautiful spot in this beautiful
+region. I do assure you I am tempted beyond measure to make
+Feltram and the Hall Hotel my head-quarters for at least a
+week. I only regret the foliage; but your trees show wonderfully,
+even in winter, so many of them have got that ivy about
+them. They say it spoils trees, but it certainly beautifies them.
+I have just ten days' leave unexpired; I wish I could induce
+you to advise me how to apply them. What shall I do, Miss
+Ruthyn?'</p>
+
+<p>'I am the worst person in the world to make plans, even for
+myself, I find it so troublesome. What do you say? Suppose
+you try Wales or Scotland, and climb up some of those fine
+mountains that look so well in winter?'</p>
+
+<p>'I should much prefer Feltram. I so wish you would recommend
+<i>it</i>. What is this pretty plant?'</p>
+
+<p>'We call that Maud's myrtle. She planted it, and it's very
+pretty when it's full in blow,' said Milly.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page309" id="page309"></a>[pg 301]</span>
+
+<p>Our visit to Elverston had been of immense use to us both.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh! planted by <i>you?</i>' he said, very softly, with a momentary
+corresponding glance. 'May I&mdash;ever so little&mdash;just a leaf?'</p>
+
+<p>And without waiting for permission, he held a sprig of it
+next his waistcoat.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, it goes very prettily with those buttons. They are <i>very</i>
+pretty buttons; are not they, Milly? A present, a souvenir, I
+dare say?'</p>
+
+<p>This was a terrible hit at the button-maker, and I thought he
+looked a little oddly at me, but my countenance was so 'bewitchingly
+simple' that I suppose his suspicions were allayed.</p>
+
+<p>Now, it was very odd of me, I must confess, to talk in this
+way, and to receive all those tender allusions from a gentleman
+about whom I had spoken and felt so sharply only the evening
+before. But Bartram was abominably lonely. A civilised person
+was a valuable waif or stray in that region of the picturesque
+and the brutal; and to my lady reader especially, because
+she will probably be hardest upon me, I put it&mdash;can you not
+recollect any such folly in your own past life? Can you not in
+as many minutes call to mind at least six similar inconsistencies
+of your own practising? For my part, I really can't see the advantage
+of being the weaker sex if we are always to be as strong
+as our masculine neighbours.</p>
+
+<p>There was, indeed, no revival of the little sentiment which
+I had once experienced. When these things once expire, I do
+believe they are as hard to revive as our dead lap-dogs, guinea-pigs,
+and parrots. It was my perfect coolness which enabled me
+to chat, I flatter myself, so agreeably with the refined Captain,
+who plainly thought me his captive, and was probably now and
+then thinking what was to be done to utilise that little bit of
+Bartram, or to beautify some other, when he should see fit to
+become its master, as we rambled over these wild but beautiful
+grounds.</p>
+
+<p>It was just about then that Milly nudged me rather vehemently,
+and whispered 'Look there!'</p>
+
+<p>I followed with mine the direction of her eyes, and saw my
+odious cousin, Dudley, in a flagrant pair of cross-barred peg-tops,
+and what Milly before her reformation used to call other
+'slops' of corresponding atrocity, approaching our refined little
+party with great strides. I really think that Milly was very
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page310" id="page310"></a>[pg 302]</span>
+
+nearly ashamed of him. I certainly was. I had no apprehension,
+however, of the scene which was imminent.</p>
+
+<p>The charming Captain mistook him probably for some rustic
+servant of the place, for he continued his agreeable remarks up
+to the very moment when Dudley, whose face was pale with
+anger, and whose rapid advance had not served to cool him,
+without recollecting to salute either Milly or me, accosted our
+elegant companion as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'By your leave, master, baint you summat in the wrong box
+here, don't you think?'</p>
+
+<p>He had planted himself directly in his front, and looked unmistakably
+menacing.</p>
+
+<p>'May I speak to him? Will you excuse me?' said the Captain
+blandly.</p>
+
+<p>'Ow&mdash;ay, they'll excuse ye ready enough, I dessay; you're to
+deal wi' me though. Baint ye in the wrong box now?'</p>
+
+<p>'I'm not conscious, sir, of being in a box at all,' replied the
+Captain, with severe disdain. 'It strikes me you are disposed to
+get up a row. Let us, if you please, get a little apart from the
+ladies if that is your purpose.'</p>
+
+<p>'I mean to turn you out o' this the way ye came. If you make
+a row, so much the wuss for you, for I'll lick ye to fits.'</p>
+
+<p>'Tell him not to fight,' whispered Milly; 'he'll a no chance
+wi' Dudley.'</p>
+
+<p>I saw Dickon Hawkes grinning over the paling on which he
+leaned.</p>
+
+<p>'Mr. Hawkes,' I said, drawing Milly with me toward that unpromising
+mediator, 'pray prevent unpleasantness and go between them.'</p>
+
+<p>'An' git licked o' both sides? Rather not, Miss, thank ye,'
+grinned Dickon, tranquilly.</p>
+
+<p>'Who are you, sir?' demanded our romantic acquaintance,
+with military sternness.</p>
+
+<p>'I'll tell you who you are&mdash;you're Oakley, as stops at the Hall,
+that Governor wrote, over-night, not to dare show your nose
+inside the grounds. You're a half-starved cappen, come down
+here to look for a wife, and&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>Before Dudley could finish his sentence, Captain Oakley, than
+whose face no regimentals could possibly have been more scarlet,
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page311" id="page311"></a>[pg 303]</span>
+
+at that moment, struck with his switch at Dudley's handsome
+features.</p>
+
+<p>I don't know how it was done&mdash;by some 'devilish cantrip
+slight.' A smack was heard, and the Captain lay on his back
+on the ground, with his mouth full of blood.</p>
+
+<p>'How do ye like the taste o' that?' roared Dickon, from his
+post of observation.</p>
+
+<p>In an instant Captain Oakley was on his feet again, hatless,
+looking quite frantic, and striking out at Dudley, who was ducking
+and dipping quite coolly, and again the same horrid sound,
+only this time it was double, like a quick postman's knock, and
+Captain Oakley was on the grass again.</p>
+
+<p>'Tapped his smeller, by&mdash;!' thundered Dickon, with a roar
+of laughter.</p>
+
+<p>'Come away, Milly&mdash;I'm growing ill,' said I.</p>
+
+<p>'Drop it, Dudley, I tell ye; you'll kill him,' screamed Milly.</p>
+
+<p>But the devoted Captain, whose nose, and mouth, and shirt-front
+formed now but one great patch of blood, and who was
+bleeding beside over one eye, dashed at him again.</p>
+
+<p>I turned away. I felt quite faint, and on the point of crying,
+with mere horror.</p>
+
+<p>'Hammer away at his knocker,' bellowed Dickon, in a frenzy
+of delight.</p>
+
+<p>'He'll break it now, if it ain't already,' cried Milly, alluding,
+as I afterwards understood, to the Captain's Grecian nose.</p>
+
+<p>'Brayvo, little un!' The Captain was considerably the taller.</p>
+
+<p>Another smack, and, I suppose, Captain Oakley fell once
+more.</p>
+
+<p>'Hooray! the dinner-service again, by &mdash;&mdash;,' roared Dickon.
+'Stick to that. Over the same ground&mdash;subsoil, I say. He han't
+enough yet.'</p>
+
+<p>In a perfect tremor of disgust, I was making as quick a retreat
+as I could, and as I did, I heard Captain Oakley shriek
+hoarsely&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'You're a d&mdash;&mdash; prizefighter; I can't box you.'</p>
+
+<p>'I told ye I'd lick ye to fits,' hooted Dudley.</p>
+
+<p>'But you're the son of a gentleman, and by &mdash;&mdash; you shall
+fight me <i>as</i> a gentleman.'</p>
+
+<p>A yell of hooting laughter from Dudley and Dickon followed
+this sally.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page312" id="page312"></a>[pg 304]</span>
+
+<p>'Gi'e my love to the Colonel, and think o' me when ye look
+in the glass&mdash;won't ye? An' so you're goin' arter all; well, follow
+what's left o' yer nose. Ye forgot some o' yer ivories, didn't ye,
+on th' grass?'</p>
+
+<p>These and many similar jibes followed the mangled Captain
+in his retreat.</p>
+
+<a name="chap47"></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XLVII</h3>
+
+<h2><i>DOCTOR BRYERLY REAPPEARS</i></h2>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>No one who has not experienced it can imagine the nervous
+disgust and horror which such a spectacle as we had been forced
+in part to witness leaves upon the mind of a young person of
+my peculiar temperament.</p>
+
+<p>It affected ever after my involuntary estimate of the principal
+actors in it. An exhibition of such thorough inferiority, accompanied
+by such a shock to the feminine sense of elegance, is not
+forgotten by any woman. Captain Oakley had been severely
+beaten by a smaller man. It was pitiable, but also undignified;
+and Milly's anxieties about his teeth and nose, though in a
+certain sense horrible, had also a painful suspicion of the absurd.</p>
+
+<p>People say, on the other hand, that superior prowess, even
+in such barbarous contests, inspires in our sex an interest akin
+to admiration. I can positively say in my case it was quite the
+reverse. Dudley Ruthyn stood lower than ever in my estimation;
+for though I feared him more, it was by reason of these brutal
+and cold-blooded associations.</p>
+
+<p>After this I lived in constant apprehension of being summoned
+to my uncle's room, and being called on for an explanation
+of my meeting with Captain Oakley, which, notwithstanding
+my perfect innocence, looked suspicious, but no such inquisition
+resulted. Perhaps he did not suspect me; or, perhaps,
+he thought, not in his haste, all women are liars, and did not
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page313" id="page313"></a>[pg 305]</span>
+
+care to hear what I might say. I rather lean to the latter interpretation.</p>
+
+<p>The exchequer just now, I suppose, by some means, was
+replenished, for next morning Dudley set off upon one of his
+fashionable excursions, as poor Milly thought them, to Wolverhampton.
+And the same day Dr. Bryerly arrived.</p>
+
+<p>Milly and I, from my room window, saw him step from his
+vehicle to the court-yard.</p>
+
+<p>A lean man, with sandy hair and whiskers, was in the chaise
+with him. Dr. Bryerly descended in the unchangeable black suit
+that always looked new and never fitted him.</p>
+
+<p>The Doctor looked careworn, and older, I thought, by several
+years, than when I last saw him. He was not shown up to
+my uncle's room; on the contrary, Milly, who was more actively
+curious than I, ascertained that our tremulous butler informed
+him that my uncle was not sufficiently well for an interview.
+Whereupon Dr. Bryerly had pencilled a note, the reply to which
+was a message from Uncle Silas, saying that he would be happy
+to see him in five minutes.</p>
+
+<p>As Milly and I were conjecturing what it might mean, and
+before the five minutes had expired, Mary Quince entered.</p>
+
+<p>'Wyat bid me tell you, Miss, your uncle wants you <i>this minute</i>.'</p>
+
+<p>When I entered his room, Uncle Silas was seated at the table,
+with his desk before him. He looked up. Could anything be
+more dignified, suffering, and venerable?</p>
+
+<p>'I sent for you, dear,' he said very gently, extending his thin,
+white hand, and taking mine, which he held affectionately
+while he spoke, 'because I desire to have no secrets, and wish
+you thoroughly to know all that concerns your own interests
+while subject to my guardianship; and I am happy to think,
+my beloved niece, that you requite my candour. Oh, here is the
+gentleman. Sit down, dear.'</p>
+
+<p>Doctor Bryerly was advancing, as it seemed, to shake hands
+with Uncle Silas, who, however, rose with a severe and haughty
+air, not the least over-acted, and made him a slow, ceremonious
+bow. I wondered how the homely Doctor could confront so tranquilly
+that astounding statue of hauteur.</p>
+
+<p>A faint and weary smile, rather sad than comtemptuous, was the only
+sign he showed of feeling his repulse.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page314" id="page314"></a>[pg 306]</span>
+
+<p>'How do <i>you</i> do, Miss?' he said, extending his hand, and
+greeting me after his ungallant fashion, as if it were an afterthought.</p>
+
+<p>'I think I may as well take a chair, sir,' said Doctor Bryerly,
+sitting down serenely, near the table, and crossing his ungainly
+legs.</p>
+
+<p>My uncle bowed.</p>
+
+<p>'You understand the nature of the business, sir. Do you wish
+Miss Ruthyn to remain?' asked Doctor Bryerly.</p>
+
+<p>'I <i>sent</i> for her, sir,' replied my uncle, in a very gentle and
+sarcastic
+tone, a smile on his thin lips, and his strangely-contorted
+eyebrows raised for a moment contemptuously. 'This gentleman,
+my dear Maud, thinks proper to insinuate that I am robbing
+you. It surprises me a little, and, no doubt, you&mdash;I've
+nothing to conceal, and wished you to be present while he
+favours me more particularly with his views. I'm right, I think,
+in describing it as <i>robbery</i>, sir?'</p>
+
+<p>'Why,' said Doctor Bryerly thoughtfully, for he was treating
+the matter as one of right, and not of feeling, 'it would be,
+certainly, taking that which does not belong to you, and converting
+it to your own use; but, at the worst, it would more resemble
+<i>thieving</i>, I think, than robbery.'</p>
+
+<p>I saw Uncle Silas's lip, eyelid, and thin cheek quiver and
+shrink, as if with a thrill of tic-douloureux, as Doctor Bryerly
+spoke this unconsciously insulting answer. My uncle had, however,
+the self-command which is learned at the gaming-table.
+He shrugged, with a chilly, sarcastic, little laugh, and a glance
+at me.</p>
+
+<p>'Your note says <i>waste</i>, I think, sir?'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, waste&mdash;the felling and sale of timber in the Windmill
+Wood, the selling of oak bark and burning of charcoal, as I'm
+informed,' said Bryerly, as sadly and quietly as a man might
+relate a piece of intelligence from the newspaper.</p>
+
+<p>'Detectives? or private spies of your own&mdash;or, perhaps, my
+servants, bribed with my poor brother's money? A very high-minded
+procedure.'</p>
+
+<p>'Nothing of the kind, sir.'</p>
+
+<p>My uncle sneered.</p>
+
+<p>'I mean, sir, there has been no undue canvass for evidence,
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page315" id="page315"></a>[pg 307]</span>
+
+and the question is simply one of right; and it is our duty to
+see that this inexperienced young lady is not defrauded.'</p>
+
+<p>'By her own uncle?'</p>
+
+<p>'By anyone,' said Doctor Bryerly, with a natural impenetrability
+that excited my admiration.</p>
+
+<p>'Of course you come armed with an opinion?' said my smiling uncle,
+insinuatingly.</p>
+
+<p>'The case is before Mr. Serjeant Grinders. These bigwigs
+don't return their cases sometimes so quickly as we could wish.'</p>
+
+<p>'Then you have <i>no</i> opinion?' smiled my uncle.</p>
+
+<p>'My solicitor is quite clear upon it; and it seems to me there
+can be no question raised, but for form's sake.'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, for form's sake you take one, and in the meantime, upon
+a nice question of law, the surmises of a thick-headed attorney
+and of an ingenious apoth&mdash;I beg pardon, physician&mdash;are sufficient
+warrant for telling my niece and ward, in my presence,
+that I am defrauding her!'</p>
+
+<p>My uncle leaned back in his chair, and smiled with a contemptuous
+patience over Doctor Bryerly's head, as he spoke.</p>
+
+<p>'I don't know whether I used that expression, sir, but I am
+speaking merely in a technical sense. I mean to say, that, whether
+by mistake or otherwise, you are exercising a power which you
+don't lawfully possess, and that the effect of that is to impoverish
+the estate, and, by so much as it benefits you, to wrong this
+young lady.'</p>
+
+<p>'I'm a technical defrauder, I see, and your manner conveys
+the rest. I thank my God, sir, I am a <i>very</i> different man from
+what I once was.' Uncle Silas was speaking in a low tone, and
+with extraordinary deliberation. 'I remember when I should
+have certainly knocked you down, sir, or <i>tried</i> it, at least, for
+a great deal less.'</p>
+
+<p>'But seriously, sir, what <i>do</i> you propose?' asked Doctor Bryerly,
+sternly and a little flushed, for I think the old man was
+stirred within him; and though he did not raise his voice, his
+manner was excited.</p>
+
+<p>'I propose to defend my rights, sir,' murmured Uncle Silas,
+very grim. 'I'm not without an opinion, though you are.'</p>
+
+<p>'You seem to think, sir, that I have a pleasure in annoying
+you; you are quite wrong. I hate annoying anyone&mdash;constitutionally&mdash;I
+<i>hate</i> it; but don't you see, sir, the position I'm
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page316" id="page316"></a>[pg 308]</span>
+
+placed in? I wish I could please everyone, and do my duty.'</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Silas bowed and smiled.</p>
+
+<p>'I've brought with me the Scotch steward from Tolkingden,
+<i>your</i> estate, Miss, and if you let us we will visit the spot and
+make a note of what we observe, that is, assuming that you admit
+waste, and merely question our law.'</p>
+
+<p>'If you please, sir, you and your Scotchman shall do <i>no such
+thing</i>; and, bearing in mind that I neither deny nor admit anything,
+you will please further never more to present yourself,
+under any pretext whatsoever, either in this house or on the
+grounds of Bartram-Haugh, during my lifetime.'</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Silas rose up with the same glassy smile and scowl, in
+token that the interview was ended.</p>
+
+<p>'Good-bye, sir,' said Doctor Bryerly, with a sad and thoughtful
+air, and hesitating for a moment, he said to me, 'Do you think,
+Miss, you could afford me a word in the hall?'</p>
+
+<p>'Not a word, sir,' snarled Uncle Silas, with a white flash from
+his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>There was a pause.</p>
+
+<p>'Sit where you are, Maud.'</p>
+
+<p>Another pause.</p>
+
+<p>'If you have anything to say to my ward, sir, you will please
+to say it <i>here</i>.'</p>
+
+<p>Doctor Bryerly's dark and homely face was turned on me with
+an expression of unspeakable compassion.</p>
+
+<p>'I was going to say, that if you think of any way in which I
+can be of the least service, Miss, I'm ready to act, that's all;
+mind, <i>any</i> way.'</p>
+
+<p>He hesitated, looking at me with the same expression as if
+he had something more to say; but he only repeated&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'That's all, Miss.'</p>
+
+<p>'Won't you shake hands, Doctor Bryerly, before you go?' I
+said, eagerly approaching him.</p>
+
+<p>Without a smile, with the same sad anxiety in his face, with
+his mind, as it seemed to me, on something else, and irresolute
+whether to speak it or be silent, he took my fingers in a very
+cold hand, and holding it so, and slowly shaking it, his grave and
+troubled glance unconsciously rested on Uncle Silas's face, while
+in a sad tone and absent way he said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Good-bye, Miss.'</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page317" id="page317"></a>[pg 309]</span>
+
+<p>From before that sad gaze my uncle averted his strange eyes
+quickly, and looked, oddly, to the window.</p>
+
+<p>In a moment more Doctor Bryerly let my hand go with a
+sigh, and with an abrupt little nod to me, he left the room; and
+I heard that dismallest of sounds, the retreating footsteps of a
+true friend, <i>lost</i>.</p>
+
+<p>'Lead us not into temptation; if we pray so, we must not
+mock the eternal Majesty of Heaven by walking into temptation
+of our own accord.'</p>
+
+<p>This oracular sentence was not uttered by my uncle until
+Doctor Bryerly had been gone at least five minutes.</p>
+
+<p>'I've forbid him my house, Maud&mdash;first, because his perfectly
+unconscious insolence tries my patience nearly beyond endurance;
+and again, because I have heard unfavourable reports of
+him. On the question of right which he disputes, I am perfectly
+informed. I am your tenant, my dear niece; when I am gone
+you will learn how <i>scrupulous</i> I have been; you will see how,
+under the pressure of the most agonising pecuniary difficulties,
+the terrific penalty of a misspent youth, I have been careful
+never by a hair's breadth to transgress the strict line of my legal
+privileges; alike, as your tenant, Maud, and as your guardian;
+how, amid frightful agitations, I have kept myself, by the miraculous
+strength and grace vouchsafed me&mdash;<i>pure</i>.</p>
+
+<p>'The world,' he resumed after a short pause, 'has no faith in
+any man's conversion; it never forgets what he was, it never
+believes him anything better, it is an inexorable and stupid
+judge. What I was I will describe in blacker terms, and with
+more heartfelt detestation, than my traducers&mdash;a reckless prodigal,
+a godless profligate. Such I was; what I am, I am. If I
+had no hope beyond this world, of all men most miserable;
+but with that hope, a sinner saved.'</p>
+
+<p>Then he waxed eloquent and mystical. I think his Swedenborgian
+studies had crossed his notions of religion with strange
+lights. I never could follow him quite in these excursions into
+the region of symbolism. I only recollect that he talked of the
+deluge and the waters of Mara, and said, 'I am washed&mdash;I am
+sprinkled,' and then, pausing, bathed his thin temples and forehead
+with eau de Cologne; a process which was, perhaps, suggested
+by his imagery of sprinkling and so forth.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page318" id="page318"></a>[pg 310]</span>
+
+<p>Thus refreshed, he sighed and smiled, and passed to the subject
+of Doctor Bryerly.</p>
+
+<p>'Of Doctor Bryerly, I know that he is sly, that he loves money,
+was born poor, and makes nothing by his profession. But he
+possesses many thousand pounds, under my poor brother's will,
+of <i>your money</i>; and he has glided with, of course a modest
+"nolo episcopari," into the acting trusteeship, with all its multitudinous
+opportunities, of your immense property. That is
+not doing so badly for a visionary Swedenborgian. Such a man
+<i>must</i> prosper. But if he expected to make money of me, he is
+disappointed. Money, however, he will make of his trusteeship,
+as you will see. It is a dangerous resolution. But if he will seek
+the life of Dives, the worst I wish him is to find the death of
+Lazarus. But whether, like Lazarus, he be borne of angels into
+Abraham's bosom, or, like the rich man, only dies and is buried,
+and <i>the rest</i>, neither living nor dying do I desire his company.'</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Silas here seemed suddenly overtaken by exhaustion.
+He leaned back with a ghastly look, and his lean features glistened
+with the dew of faintness. I screamed for Wyat. But he
+soon recovered sufficiently to smile his odd smile, and with it
+and his frown, nodded and waved me away.</p>
+
+<a name="chap48"></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XLVIII</h3>
+
+<h2><i>QUESTION AND ANSWER</i></h2>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>My uncle, after all, was not ill that day, after the strange fashion
+of his malady, be it what it might. Old Wyat repeated in her
+sour laconic way that there was 'nothing to speak of amiss with
+him.' But there remained with me a sense of pain and fear.
+Doctor Bryerly, notwithstanding my uncle's sarcastic reflections,
+remained, in my estimation, a true and wise friend. I had all my
+life been accustomed to rely upon others, and here, haunted by
+many unavowed and ill-defined alarms and doubts, the disappearance
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page319" id="page319"></a>[pg 311]</span>
+
+of an active and able friend caused my heart to sink.</p>
+
+<p>Still there remained my dear Cousin Monica, and my pleasant
+and trusted friend, Lord Ilbury; and in less than a week arrived
+an invitation from Lady Mary to the Grange, for me and Milly,
+to meet Lady Knollys. It was accompanied, she told me, by a
+note from Lord Ilbury to my uncle, supporting her request;
+and in the afternoon I received a message to attend my uncle
+in his room.</p>
+
+<p>'An invitation from Lady Mary Carysbroke for you and Milly
+to meet Monica Knollys; have you received it?' asked my uncle,
+so soon as I was seated. Answered in the affirmative, he continued&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Now, Maud Ruthyn, I expect the truth from you; I have
+been frank, so shall you. Have you ever heard me spoken ill
+of by Lady Knollys?'</p>
+
+<p>I was quite taken aback.</p>
+
+<p>I felt my cheeks flushing. I was returning his fierce cold gaze
+with a stupid stare, and remained dumb.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, Maud, you <i>have</i>.'</p>
+
+<p>I looked down in silence.</p>
+
+<p>'I <i>know</i> it; but it is right you should answer; have you or
+have you not?'</p>
+
+<p>I had to clear my voice twice or thrice. There was a kind of
+spasm in my throat.</p>
+
+<p>'I am trying to recollect,' I said at last.</p>
+
+<p>'<i>Do</i> recollect,' he replied imperiously.</p>
+
+<p>There was a little interval of silence. I would have given the
+world to be, on any conditions, anywhere else in the world.</p>
+
+<p>'Surely, Maud, you don't wish to deceive your guardian?
+Come, the question is a plain one, and I know the truth already.
+I ask you again&mdash;have you ever heard me spoken ill of by Lady
+Knollys?'</p>
+
+<p>'Lady Knollys,' I said, half articulately, 'speaks very freely,
+and often half in jest; but,' I continued, observing something
+menacing in his face, 'I have heard her express disapprobation
+of some things you have done.'</p>
+
+<p>'Come, Maud,' he continued, in a stern, though still a low
+key, 'did she not insinuate that charge&mdash;then, I suppose, in a
+state of incubation, the other day presented here full-fledged,
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page320" id="page320"></a>[pg 312]</span>
+
+with beak and claws, by that scheming apothecary&mdash;the statement
+that I was defrauding you by cutting down timber upon
+the grounds?'</p>
+
+<p>'She certainly did mention the circumstance; but she also
+argued that it might have been through ignorance of the extent
+of your rights.'</p>
+
+<p>'Come, come, Maud, you must not prevaricate, girl. I <i>will</i>
+have it. Does she not habitually speak disparagingly of me, in
+your presence, and <i>to</i> you? <i>Answer</i>.'</p>
+
+<p>I hung my head.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes or no?'</p>
+
+<p>'Well, perhaps so&mdash;yes,' I faltered, and burst into tears.</p>
+
+<p>'There, don't cry; it may well shock you. Did she not, to your
+knowledge, say the same things in presence of my child Millicent?
+I know it, I repeat&mdash;there is no use in hesitating; and
+I command you to answer.'</p>
+
+<p>Sobbing, I told the truth.</p>
+
+<p>'Now sit still, while I write my reply.'</p>
+
+<p>He wrote, with the scowl and smile so painful to witness, as
+he looked down upon the paper, and then he placed the note
+before me&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Read that, my dear.'</p>
+
+<p>It began&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>'M<small>Y DEAR</small> L<small>ADY</small> K<small>NOLLYS</small>.&mdash;You have favoured me with a note,
+adding your request to that of Lord Ilbury, that I should permit
+my ward and my daughter to avail themselves of Lady
+Mary's invitation. Being perfectly cognisant of the ill-feeling
+you have always and unaccountably cherished toward me, and
+also of the terms in which you have had the delicacy and the
+conscience to speak of me before and to my child and my ward,
+I can only express my amazement at the modesty of your request,
+while peremptorily refusing it. And I shall conscientiously
+adopt effectual measures to prevent your ever again having an
+opportunity of endeavouring to destroy my influence and authority
+over my ward and my child, by direct or insinuated
+slander.</p>
+
+<p class="closer">'Your defamed and injured kinsman,</p>
+
+<p class="signature">S<small>ILAS</small> R<small>UTHYN</small>.'</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page321" id="page321"></a>[pg 313]</span>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>I was stunned; yet what could I plead against the blow that
+was to isolate me? I wept aloud, with my hands clasped, looking
+on the marble face of the old man.</p>
+
+<p>Without seeming to hear, he folded and sealed his note, and
+then proceeded to answer Lord Ilbury.</p>
+
+<p>When that note was written, he placed it likewise before me,
+and I read it also through. It simply referred him to Lady
+Knollys 'for an explanation of the unhappy circumstances
+which compelled him to decline an invitation which it would
+have made his niece and his daughter so happy to accept.'</p>
+
+<p>'You see, my dear Maud, how frank I am with you,' he said,
+waving the open note, which I had just read, slightly before he
+folded it. 'I think I may ask you to reciprocate my candour.'</p>
+
+<p>Dismissed from this interview, I ran to Milly, who burst into
+tears from sheer disappointment, so we wept and wailed together.
+But in my grief I think there was more reason.</p>
+
+<p>I sat down to the dismal task of writing to my dear Lady
+Knollys. I implored her to make her peace with my uncle. I
+told her how frank he had been with me, and how he had
+shown me his sad reply to her letter. I told her of the interview
+to which he had himself invited me with Dr. Bryerly; how little
+disturbed he was by the accusation&mdash;no sign of guilt; quite the
+contrary, perfect confidence. I implored of her to think the best,
+and remembering my isolation, to accomplish a reconciliation
+with Uncle Silas. 'Only think,' I wrote, 'I only nineteen, and
+two years of solitude before me. What a separation!' No broken
+merchant ever signed the schedule of his bankruptcy with a
+heavier heart than did I this letter.</p>
+
+<p>The griefs of youth are like the wounds of the gods&mdash;there
+is an ichor which heals the scars from which it flows: and thus
+Milly and I consoled ourselves, and next day enjoyed our
+ramble, our talk and readings, with a wonderful resignation
+to the inevitable.</p>
+
+<p>Milly and I stood in the relation of <i>Lord Duberly</i> to <i>Doctor
+Pangloss</i>. I was to mend her 'cackleology,' and the occupation
+amused us both. I think at the bottom of our submission to destiny
+lurked a hope that Uncle Silas, the inexorable, would relent,
+or that Cousin Monica, that siren, would win and melt
+him to her purpose.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever comfort, however, I derived from the absence of
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page322" id="page322"></a>[pg 314]</span>
+
+Dudley was not to be of very long duration; for one morning,
+as I was amusing myself alone, with a piece of worsted work,
+thinking, and just at that moment not unpleasantly, of many
+things, my cousin Dudley entered the room.</p>
+
+<p>'Back again, like a bad halfpenny, ye see. And how a' ye bin
+ever since, lass? Purely, I warrant, be your looks. I'm jolly glad
+to see ye, I am; no cattle going like ye, Maud.'</p>
+
+<p>'I think I must ask you to let go my hand, as I can't continue
+my work,' I said, very stiffly, hoping to chill his enthusiasm a
+little.</p>
+
+<p>'Anything to pleasure ye, Maud, 'tain't in my heart to refuse
+ye nout. I a'bin to Wolverhampton, lass&mdash;jolly row there&mdash;and
+run over to Leamington; a'most broke my neck, faith, wi' a
+borrowed horse arter the dogs; ye would na care, Maud, if I
+broke my neck, would ye? Well, 'appen, jest a little,' he good-naturedly
+supplied, as I was silent.</p>
+
+<p>'Little over a week since I left here, by George; and to me
+it's half the almanac like; can ye guess the reason, Maud?'</p>
+
+<p>'Have you seen your sister, Milly, or your father, since your
+return?' I asked coldly.</p>
+
+<p>'<i>They'll</i> keep, Maud, never mind 'em; it be you I want to see&mdash;it
+be you I wor thinkin' on a' the time. I tell ye, lass, I'm
+all'ays a thinkin' on ye.'</p>
+
+<p>'I think you ought to go and see your father; you have been
+away, you say, some time. I don't think it is respectful,' I said, a
+little sharply.</p>
+
+<p>'If ye bid me go I'd a'most go, but I could na quite; there's
+nout on earth I would na do for you, Maud, excep' leaving
+you.'</p>
+
+<p>'And that,' I said, with a petulant flush, 'is the only thing on
+earth I would ask you to do.'</p>
+
+<p>'Blessed if you baint a blushin', Maud,' he drawled, with an
+odious grin.</p>
+
+<p>His stupidity was proof against everything.</p>
+
+<p>'It is <i>too</i> bad!' I muttered, with an indignant little pat of
+my foot and mimic stamp.</p>
+
+<p>'Well, you lasses be queer cattle; ye're angry wi' me now,
+cos ye think I got into mischief&mdash;ye do, Maud; ye know 't, ye
+buxsom little fool, down there at Wolverhampton; and jest for
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page323" id="page323"></a>[pg 315]</span>
+
+that ye're ready to turn me off again the minute I come back;
+'tisn't fair.'</p>
+
+<p>'I don't <i>understand</i> you, sir; and I <i>beg</i> that you'll leave
+me.'</p>
+
+<p>'Now, didn't I tell ye about leavin' ye, Maud? 'tis the only
+thing I can't compass for yer sake. I'm jest a child in yere hands,
+I am, ye know. I can lick a big fellah to pot as limp as a rag,
+by George!'&mdash;(his oaths were not really so mild)&mdash;'ye see summat
+o' that t'other day. Well, don't be vexed, Maud; 'twas all
+along o' you; ye know, I wor a bit jealous, 'appen; but anyhow
+I can do it; and look at me here, jest a child, I say, in yer
+hands.'</p>
+
+<p>'I wish you'd go away. Have you nothing to do, and no one
+to see? Why <i>can't</i> you leave me alone, sir?'</p>
+
+<p>''Cos I can't, Maud, that's jest why; and I wonder, Maud,
+how can you be so ill-natured, when you see me like this; how
+can ye?'</p>
+
+<p>'I wish Milly would come,' said I peevishly, looking toward
+the door.</p>
+
+<p>'Well, I'll tell you how it is, Maud. I may as well have it out.
+I like you better than any lass that ever I saw, a deal; you're
+nicer by chalks; there's none like ye&mdash;there isn't; and I wish
+you'd have me. I ha'n't much tin&mdash;father's run through a deal,
+he's pretty well up a tree, ye know; but though I baint so rich
+as some folk, I'm a better man, 'appen; and if ye'd take a tidy
+lad, that likes ye awful, and 'id die for your sake, why here he
+is.'</p>
+
+<p>'What can you mean, sir?' I exclaimed, rising in indignant
+bewilderment.</p>
+
+<p>'I mean, Maud, if ye'll marry me, you'll never ha' cause to
+complain; I'll never let ye want for nout, nor gi'e ye a wry
+word.'</p>
+
+<p>'Actually a proposal!' I ejaculated, like a person speaking in
+a dream.</p>
+
+<p>I stood with my hand on the back of a chair, staring at Dudley;
+and looking, I dare say, as stupefied as I felt.</p>
+
+<p>'There's a good lass, ye would na deny me,' said the odious
+creature, with one knee on the seat of the chair behind which I
+was standing, and attempting to place his arm lovingly round
+my neck.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page324" id="page324"></a>[pg 316]</span>
+
+<p>This effectually roused me, and starting back, I stamped upon
+the ground with actual fury.</p>
+
+<p>'What has there ever been, sir, in my conduct, words, or looks,
+to warrant this unparalleled audacity? But that you are as
+stupid as you are impertinent, brutal, and ugly, you must, long
+ago, sir, have seen how I dislike you. How dare you, sir? Don't
+presume to obstruct me; I'm going to my uncle.'</p>
+
+<p>I had never spoken so violently to mortal before.</p>
+
+<p>He in turn looked a little confounded; and I passed his extended
+but motionless arm with a quick and angry step.</p>
+
+<p>He followed me a pace or two, however, before I reached the
+door, looking horridly angry, but stopped, and only swore after
+me some of those 'wry words' which I was never to have heard.
+I was myself, however, too much incensed, and moving at too
+rapid a pace, to catch their import; and I had knocked at my
+uncle's door before I began to collect my thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>'Come in,' replied my uncle's voice, clear, thin, and peevish.</p>
+
+<p>I entered and confronted him.</p>
+
+<p>'Your son, sir, has insulted me.'</p>
+
+<p>He looked at me with a cold curiosity steadly for a few seconds,
+as I stood panting before him with flaming cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>'Insulted you?' repeated he. 'Egad, you surprise me!'</p>
+
+<p>The ejaculation savoured of 'the old man,' to borrow his
+scriptural phrase, more than anything I had heard from him
+before.</p>
+
+<p>'<i>How?</i>' he continued; 'how has Dudley <i>insulted</i> you, my
+dear child? Come, you're excited; sit down; take time, and tell
+me all about it. I did not know that Dudley was here.'</p>
+
+<p>'I&mdash;he&mdash;it <i>is</i> an insult. He knew very well&mdash;he <i>must</i> know I
+dislike him; and he presumed to make a proposal of marriage
+to me.'</p>
+
+<p>'O&mdash;o&mdash;oh!' exclaimed my uncle, with a prolonged intonation
+which plainly said, Is that the mighty matter?</p>
+
+<p>He looked at me as he leaned back with the same steady
+curiosity, this time smiling, which somehow frightened me, and
+his countenance looked to me wicked, like the face of a witch,
+with a guilt I could not understand.</p>
+
+<p>'And that is the amount of your complaint. He made you a
+formal proposal of marriage!'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes; he proposed for me.'</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page325" id="page325"></a>[pg 317]</span>
+
+<p>As I cooled, I began to feel just a very little disconcerted, and
+a suspicion was troubling me that possibly an indifferent person
+might think that, having no more to complain of, my language
+was perhaps a little exaggerated, and my demeanour a
+little too tempestuous.</p>
+
+<p>My uncle, I dare say, saw some symptoms of this misgiving,
+for, smiling still, he said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'My dear Maud, however just, you appear to me a little
+cruel; you don't seem to remember how much you are yourself
+to blame; you have one faithful friend at least, whom I advise
+your consulting&mdash;I mean your looking-glass. The foolish fellow
+is young, quite ignorant in the world's ways. He is in love&mdash;desperately
+enamoured.</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<center>Aimer c'est craindre, et craindre c'est souffrir.</center>
+</div>
+
+<p>And suffering prompts to desperate remedies. We must not be
+too hard on a rough but romantic young fool, who talks according
+to his folly and his pain.'</p>
+
+<a name="chap49"></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XLIX</h3>
+
+<h2><i>AN APPARITION</i></h2>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>'But, after all,' he suddenly resumed, as if a new thought had
+struck him, 'is it quite such folly, after all? It really strikes me,
+dear Maud, that the subject may be worth a second thought. No,
+no, you won't refuse to hear me,' he said, observing me on the
+point of protesting. 'I am, of course, assuming that you are
+fancy free. I am assuming, too, that you don't care twopence
+about Dudley, and even that you fancy you dislike him. You
+know in that pleasant play, poor Sheridan&mdash;delightful fellow!&mdash;all
+our fine spirits are dead&mdash;he makes Mrs. Malaprop say there
+is nothing like beginning with a little aversion. Now, though in
+matrimony, of course, that is only a joke, yet in love, believe me,
+it is no such thing. His own marriage with Miss Ogle, I <i>know</i>,
+was a case in point. She expressed a positive horror of him at
+their first acquaintance; and yet, I believe, she would, a few
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page326" id="page326"></a>[pg 318]</span>
+
+months later, have died rather than not have married him.'</p>
+
+<p>I was again about to speak, but with a smile he beckoned me
+into silence.</p>
+
+<p>'There are two or three points you must bear in mind. One
+of the happiest privileges of your fortune is that you may,
+without imprudence, marry simply for love. There are few men
+in England who could offer you an estate comparable with that
+you already possess; or, in fact, appreciably increase the splendour
+of your fortune. If, therefore, he were in all other respects
+eligible, I can't see that his poverty would be an objection to
+weigh for one moment. He is quite a rough diamond. He has
+been, like many young men of the highest rank, too much given
+up to athletic sports&mdash;to that society which constitutes the aristocracy
+of the ring and the turf, and all that kind of thing. You
+see, I am putting all the worst points first. But I have known so
+many young men in my day, after a madcap career of a few
+years among prizefighters, wrestlers, and jockeys&mdash;learning their
+slang and affecting their manners&mdash;take up and cultivate the
+graces and the decencies. There was poor dear Newgate, many
+degrees lower in that kind of frolic, who, when he grew tired
+of it, became one of the most elegant and accomplished men in
+the House of Peers. Poor Newgate, he's gone, too! I could
+reckon up fifty of my early friends who all began like Dudley,
+and all turned out, more or less, like Newgate.'</p>
+
+<p>At this moment came a knock at the door, and Dudley put in
+his head most inopportunely for the vision of his future graces
+and accomplishments.</p>
+
+<p>'My good fellow,' said his father, with a sharp sort of playfulness,
+'I happen to be talking about my son, and should rather
+not be overheard; you will, therefore, choose another time for
+your visit.'</p>
+
+<p>Dudley hesitated gruffly at the door, but another look from
+his father dismissed him.</p>
+
+<p>'And now, my dear, you are to remember that Dudley has
+fine qualities&mdash;the most affectionate son in his rough way that
+ever father was blessed with; most admirable qualities&mdash;indomitable
+courage, and a high sense of honour; and lastly, that he
+has the Ruthyn blood&mdash;the purest blood, I maintain it, in England.'</p>
+
+<p>My uncle, as he said this, drew himself up a little, unconsciously,
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page327" id="page327"></a>[pg 319]</span>
+
+his thin hand laid lightly over his heart with a little
+patting motion, and his countenance looked so strangely dignified
+and melancholy, that in admiring contemplation of it I
+lost some sentences which followed next.</p>
+
+<p>'Therefore, dear, naturally anxious that my boy should not
+be dismissed from home&mdash;as he must be, should you persevere in
+rejecting his suit&mdash;I beg that you will reserve your decision to
+this day fortnight, when I will with much pleasure hear what
+you may have to say on the subject. But till then, observe me,
+not a word.'</p>
+
+<p>That evening he and Dudley were closeted for a long time. I
+suspect that he lectured him on the psychology of ladies; for
+a bouquet was laid beside my plate every morning at breakfast,
+which it must have been troublesome to get, for the conservatory
+at Bartram was a desert. In a few days more an anonymous
+green parrot arrived, in a gilt cage, with a little note in a clerk's
+hand, addressed to 'Miss Ruthyn (of Knowl), Bartram-Haugh,'
+&amp;c. It contained only 'Directions for caring green parrot,' at
+the close of which, <i>underlined</i>, the words appeared&mdash;'The bird's
+name is Maud.'</p>
+
+<p>The bouquets I invariably left on the table-cloth, where I
+found them&mdash;the bird I insisted on Milly's keeping as her property.
+During the intervening fortnight Dudley never appeared,
+as he used sometimes to do before, at luncheon, nor looked in
+at the window as we were at breakfast. He contented himself
+with one day placing himself in my way in the hall in his
+shooting accoutrements, and, with a clumsy, shuffling kind of
+respect, and hat in hand, he said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'I think, Miss, I must a spoke uncivil t'other day. I was so
+awful put about, and didn't know no more nor a child what I
+was saying; and I wanted to tell ye I'm sorry for it, and I beg
+your pardon&mdash;very humble, I do.'</p>
+
+<p>I did not know what to say. I therefore said nothing, but
+made a grave inclination, and passed on.</p>
+
+<p>Two or three times Milly and I saw him at a little distance in
+our walks. He never attempted to join us. Once only he passed
+so near that some recognition was inevitable, and he stopped
+and in silence lifted his hat with an awkward respect. But although
+he did not approach us, he was ostentatious with a kind
+of telegraphic civility in the distance. He opened gates, he
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page328" id="page328"></a>[pg 320]</span>
+
+whistled his dogs to 'heel,' he drove away cattle, and then himself
+withdrew. I really think he watched us occasionally to
+render these services, for in this distant way we encountered
+him decidedly oftener than we used to do before his flattering
+proposal of marriage.</p>
+
+<p>You may be sure that we discussed, Milly and I, that occurrence
+pretty constantly in all sorts of moods. Limited as had
+been her experience of human society, she very clearly saw
+<i>now</i> how far below its presentable level was her hopeful brother.</p>
+
+<p>The fortnight sped swiftly, as time always does when something
+we dislike and shrink from awaits us at its close. I never
+saw Uncle Silas during that period. It may seem odd to those
+who merely read the report of our last interview, in which his
+manner had been more playful and his talk more trifling than
+in any other, that from it I had carried away a profounder
+sense of fear and insecurity than from any other. It was with a
+foreboding of evil and an awful dejection that on a very dark
+day, in Milly's room, I awaited the summons which I was sure
+would reach me from my punctual guardian.</p>
+
+<p>As I looked from the window upon the slanting rain and
+leaden sky, and thought of the hated interview that awaited me,
+I pressed my hand to my troubled heart, and murmured, 'O
+that I had wings like a dove! then would I flee away, and be at
+rest.'</p>
+
+<p>Just then the prattle of the parrot struck my ear. I looked
+round on the wire cage, and remembered the words, 'The bird's
+name is Maud.'</p>
+
+<p>'Poor bird!' I said. 'I dare say, Milly, it longs to get out. If
+it were a native of this country, would not you like to open the
+window, and then the door of that cruel cage, and let the poor
+thing fly away?'</p>
+
+<p>'Master wants Miss Maud,' said Wyat's disagreeable tones,
+at the half-open door.</p>
+
+<p>I followed in silence, with the pressure of a near alarm at my
+heart, like a person going to an operation.</p>
+
+<p>When I entered the room, my heart beat so fast that I could
+hardly speak. The tall form of Uncle Silas rose before me, and
+I made him a faltering reverence.</p>
+
+<p>He darted from under his brows a wild, fierce glance at old
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page329" id="page329"></a>[pg 321]</span>
+
+Wyat, and pointed to the door imperiously with his skeleton
+finger. The door shut, and we were alone.</p>
+
+<p>'A chair?' he said, pointing to a seat.</p>
+
+<p>'Thank you, uncle, I prefer standing,' I faltered.</p>
+
+<p>He also stood&mdash;his white head bowed forward, the phosphoric
+glare of his strange eyes shone upon me from under his brows&mdash;his
+finger-nails just rested on the table.</p>
+
+<p>'You saw the luggage corded and addressed, as it stands ready
+for removal in the hall?' he asked.</p>
+
+<p>I had. Milly and I had read the cards which dangled from
+the trunk-handles and gun-case. The address was&mdash;'Mr. Dudley
+R. Ruthyn, Paris, <i>viâ</i> Dover.'</p>
+
+<p>'I am old&mdash;agitated&mdash;on the eve of a decision on which much
+depends. Pray relieve my suspense. Is my son to leave Bartram
+to-day in sorrow, or to remain in joy? Pray answer quickly.'</p>
+
+<p>I stammered I know not what. I was incoherent&mdash;wild, perhaps;
+but somehow I expressed my meaning&mdash;my unalterable
+decision. I thought his lips grew whiter and his eyes shone
+brighter as I spoke.</p>
+
+<p>When I had quite made an end, he heaved a great sigh, and
+turning his eyes slowly to the right and the left, like a man in
+a helpless distraction, he whispered&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'God's will be done.'</p>
+
+<p>I thought he was upon the point of fainting&mdash;a clay tint
+darkened the white of his face; and, seeming to forget my
+presence, he sat down, looking with a despairing scowl on his
+ashy old hand, as it lay upon the table.</p>
+
+<p>I stood gazing at him, feeling almost as if I had murdered
+the old man&mdash;he still gazing askance, with an imbecile scowl,
+upon his hand.</p>
+
+<p>'Shall I go, sir?' I at length found courage to whisper.</p>
+
+<p>'<i>Go?</i>' he said, looking up suddenly; and it seemed to me as
+if a stream of cold sheet-lightning had crossed and enveloped me
+for a moment.</p>
+
+<p>'Go?&mdash;oh!&mdash;a&mdash;yes&mdash;<i>yes</i>, Maud&mdash;go. I must see poor Dudley
+before his departure,' he added, as it were, in soliloquy.</p>
+
+<p>Trembling lest he should revoke his permission to depart, I
+glided quickly and noiselessly from the room.</p>
+
+<p>Old Wyat was prowling outside, with a cloth in her hand, pretending
+to dust the carved door-case. She frowned a stare of enquiry
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page330" id="page330"></a>[pg 322]</span>
+
+over her shrunken arm on me, as I passed. Milly, who
+had been on the watch, ran and met me. We heard my uncle's
+voice, as I shut the door, calling Dudley. He had been waiting,
+probably, in the adjoining room. I hurried into my chamber,
+with Milly at my side, and there my agitation found relief in
+tears, as that of girlhood naturally does.</p>
+
+<p>A little while after we saw from the window Dudley, looking,
+I thought, very pale, get into a vehicle, on the top of which his
+luggage lay, and drive away from Bartram.</p>
+
+<p>I began to take comfort. His departure was an inexpressible
+relief. His final departure! a distant journey!</p>
+
+<p>We had tea in Milly's room that night. Firelight and candles
+are inspiring. In that red glow I always felt and feel more safe,
+as well as more comfortable, than in the daylight&mdash;quite irrationally,
+for we know the night is the appointed day of such
+as love the darkness better than light, and evil walks thereby.
+But so it is. Perhaps the very consciousness of external danger
+enhances the enjoyment of the well-lighted interior, just as the
+storm does that roars and hurtles over the roof.</p>
+
+<p>While Milly and I were talking, very cosily, a knock came to
+the room-door, and, without waiting for an invitation to enter,
+old Wyat came in, and glowering at us, with her brown claw
+upon the door-handle, she said to Milly&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Ye must leave your funnin', Miss Milly, and take your turn
+in your father's room.'</p>
+
+<p>'Is he ill?' I asked.</p>
+
+<p>She answered, addressing not me, but Milly&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'A wrought two hours in a fit arter Master Dudley went.
+'Twill be the death o' him, I'm thinkin', poor old fellah. I wor
+sorry myself when I saw Master Dudley a going off in the moist
+to-day, poor fellah. There's trouble enough in the family without
+a' that; but 'twon't be a family long, I'm thinkin'. Nout but
+trouble, nout but trouble, since late changes came.'</p>
+
+<p>Judging by the sour glance she threw on me as she said this,
+I concluded that I represented those 'late changes' to which all
+the sorrows of the house were referred.</p>
+
+<p>I felt unhappy under the ill-will even of this odious old
+woman, being one of those unhappily constructed mortals who
+cannot be indifferent when they reasonably ought, and always
+yearn after kindness, even that of the worthless.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page331" id="page331"></a>[pg 323]</span>
+
+<p>'I must go. I wish you'd come wi' me, Maud, I'm so afraid all
+alone,' said Milly, imploringly.</p>
+
+<p>'Certainly, Milly,' I answered, not liking it, you may be sure;
+'you shan't sit there alone.'</p>
+
+<p>So together we went, old Wyat cautioning us for our lives
+to make no noise.</p>
+
+<p>We passed through the old man's sitting-room, where that
+day had occurred his brief but momentous interview with me,
+and his parting with his only son, and entered the bed-room at
+the farther end.</p>
+
+<p>A low fire burned in the grate. The room was in a sort of twilight.
+A dim lamp near the foot of the bed at the farther side
+was the only light burning there. Old Wyat whispered an injunction
+not to speak above our breaths, nor to leave the fireside
+unless the sick man called or showed signs of weariness.
+These were the directions of the doctor, who had been there.</p>
+
+<p>So Milly and I sat ourselves down near the hearth, and old
+Wyat left us to our resources. We could hear the patient
+breathe; but he was quite still. In whispers we talked; but our
+conversation flagged. I was, after my wont, upbraiding myself
+for the suffering I had inflicted. After about half an hour's
+desultory whispering, and intervals, growing longer and longer,
+of silence, it was plain that Milly was falling asleep.</p>
+
+<p>She strove against it, and I tried hard to keep her talking;
+but it would not do&mdash;sleep overcame her; and I was the only
+person in that ghastly room in a state of perfect consciousness.</p>
+
+<p>There were associations connected with my last vigil there to
+make my situation very nervous and disagreeable. Had I not
+had so much to occupy my mind of a distinctly practical kind&mdash;Dudley's
+audacious suit, my uncle's questionable toleration of
+it, and my own conduct throughout that most disagreeable period
+of my existence,&mdash;I should have felt my present situation a
+great deal more.</p>
+
+<p>As it was, I thought of my real troubles, and something of
+Cousin Knollys, and, I confess, a good deal of Lord Ilbury.
+When looking towards the door, I thought I saw a human face,
+about the most terrible my fancy could have called up, looking
+fixedly into the room. It was only a 'three-quarter,' and not the
+whole figure&mdash;the door hid that in a great measure, and I fancied
+I saw, too, a portion of the fingers. The face gazed toward
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page332" id="page332"></a>[pg 324]</span>
+
+the bed, and in the imperfect light looked like a livid mask,
+with chalky eyes.</p>
+
+<p>I had so often been startled by similar apparitions formed by
+accidental lights and shadows disguising homely objects, that
+I stooped forward, expecting, though tremulously, to see this
+tremendous one in like manner dissolve itself into its harmless
+elements; and now, to my unspeakable terror, I became perfectly
+certain that I saw the countenance of Madame de la
+Rougierre.</p>
+
+<p>With a cry, I started back, and shook Milly furiously from
+her trance.</p>
+
+<p>'Look! look!' I cried. But the apparition or illusion was
+gone.</p>
+
+<p>I clung so fast to Milly's arm, cowering behind her, that she
+could not rise.</p>
+
+<p>'Milly! Milly! Milly! Milly!' I went on crying, like one
+struck with idiotcy, and unable to say anything else.</p>
+
+<p>In a panic, Milly, who had seen nothing, and could conjecture
+nothing of the cause of my terror, jumped up, and clinging to
+one another, we huddled together into the corner of the room,
+I still crying wildly, 'Milly! Milly! <i>Milly</i>!' and nothing else.</p>
+
+<p>'What is it&mdash;where is it&mdash;what do you see?' cried Milly,
+clinging to me as I did to her.</p>
+
+<p>'It will come again; it will come; oh, heaven!'</p>
+
+<p>'What&mdash;what is it, Maud?'</p>
+
+<p>'The face! the face!' I cried. 'Oh, Milly! Milly! Milly!'</p>
+
+<p>We heard a step softly approaching the open door, and, in
+a horrible <i>sauve qui peut</i>, we rushed and stumbled together
+toward the light by Uncle Silas's bed. But old Wyat's voice and
+figure reassured us.</p>
+
+<p>'Milly,' I said, so soon as, pale and very faint, I reached my
+apartment, 'no power on earth shall ever tempt me to enter
+that room again after dark.'</p>
+
+<p>'Why, Maud dear, what, in Heaven's name, did you see?'
+said Milly, scarcely less terrified.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, I can't; I can't; I can't, Milly. Never ask me. It is
+haunted. The room is haunted <i>horribly</i>.'</p>
+
+<p>'Was it Charke?' whispered Milly, looking over her shoulder,
+all aghast.</p>
+
+<p>'No, no&mdash;don't ask me; a fiend in a worse shape.' I was
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page333" id="page333"></a>[pg 325]</span>
+
+relieved at last by a long fit of weeping; and all night good
+Mary Quince sat by me, and Milly slept by my side. Starting
+and screaming, and drugged with sal-volatile, I got through that
+night of supernatural terror, and saw the blessed light of heaven
+again.</p>
+
+<p>Doctor Jolks, when he came to see my uncle in the morning,
+visited me also. He pronounced me very hysterical, made minute
+enquiries respecting my hours and diet, asked what I had had
+for dinner yesterday. There was something a little comforting
+in his cool and confident pooh-poohing of the ghost theory. The
+result was, a regimen which excluded tea, and imposed chocolate
+and porter, earlier hours, and I forget all beside; and he undertook
+to promise that, if I would but observe his directions, I
+should never see a ghost again.</p>
+
+<a name="chap50"></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER L</h3>
+
+<h2><i>MILLY'S FAREWELL</i></h2>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>A few days' time saw me much better. Doctor Jolks was so
+contemptuously sturdy and positive on the point, that I began
+to have comfortable doubts about the reality of my ghost; and
+having still a horror indescribable of the illusion, if such it were,
+the room in which it appeared, and everything concerning it,
+I would neither speak, nor, so far as I could, think of it.</p>
+
+<p>So, though Bartram-Haugh was gloomy as well as beautiful,
+and some of its associations awful, and the solitude that reigned
+there sometimes almost terrible, yet early hours, bracing exercise,
+and the fine air that predominates that region, soon restored my
+nerves to a healthier tone.</p>
+
+<p>But it seemed to me that Bartram-Haugh was to be to me a
+vale of tears; or rather, in my sad pilgrimage, that valley of
+the shadow of death through which poor Christian fared alone
+and in the dark.</p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page334" id="page334"></a>[pg 326]</span>
+
+<p>One day Milly ran into the parlour, pale, with wet cheeks,
+and, without saying a word, threw her arms about my neck,
+and burst into a paroxysm of weeping.</p>
+
+<p>'What is it, Milly&mdash;what's the matter, dear&mdash;what is it?' I
+cried aghast, but returning her close embrace heartily.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh! Maud&mdash;Maud darling, he's going to send me away.'</p>
+
+<p>'Away, dear! <i>where</i> away? And leave me alone in this dreadful
+solitude, where he knows I shall die of fear and grief without
+you? Oh! no&mdash;no, it <i>must</i> be a mistake.'</p>
+
+<p>'I'm going to France, Maud&mdash;I'm going away. Mrs. Jolks is
+going to London, day ar'ter to-morrow, and I'm to go wi'
+her; and an old French lady, he says, from the school will meet
+me there, and bring me the rest o' the way.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh&mdash;ho&mdash;ho&mdash;ho&mdash;ho&mdash;o&mdash;o&mdash;o!' cried poor Milly, hugging
+me closer still, with her head buried in my shoulder, and swaying
+me about like a wrestler, in her agony.</p>
+
+<p>'I never wor away from home afore, except that little bit wi'
+you over there at Elverston; and you wor wi' me then, Maud;
+an' I love ye&mdash;better than Bartram&mdash;better than a'; an' I think
+I'll die, Maud, if they take me away.'</p>
+
+<p>I was just as wild in my woe as poor Milly; and it was not
+until we had wept together for a full hour&mdash;sometimes standing&mdash;sometimes
+walking up and down the room&mdash;sometimes sitting
+and getting up in turns to fall on one another's necks,&mdash;that
+Milly, plucking her handkerchief from her pocket, drew a note
+from it at the same time, which, as it fell upon the floor, she at
+once recollected to be one from Uncle Silas to me.</p>
+
+<p>It was to this effect:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>'I wish to apprise my dear niece and ward of my plans. Milly
+proceeds to an admirable French school, as a pensionnaire, and
+leaves this on Thursday next. If after three months' trial she
+finds it in any way objectionable, she returns to us. If, on the
+contrary, she finds it in all respects the charming residence it
+has been presented to me, you, on the expiration of that period,
+join her there, until the temporary complication of my affairs
+shall have been so far adjusted as to enable me to receive you
+once more at Bartram. Hoping for happier days, and wishing to
+assure you that three months is the extreme limit of your separation
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page335" id="page335"></a>[pg 327]</span>
+
+from my poor Milly, I have written this, feeling alas!
+unequal to seeing you at present.</p>
+
+<p class="note">'Bartram, Tuesday.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>'P.S.&mdash;I can have no objection to your apprising Monica
+Knollys of these arrangements. You will understand, of course,
+not a copy of this letter, but its substance.'</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>Over this document, scanning it as lawyers do a new Act of
+Parliament, we took comfort. After all, it was limited; a separation
+not to exceed three months, possibly much shorter. On the
+whole, too, I pleased myself with thinking Uncle Silas's note,
+though peremptory, was kind.</p>
+
+<p>Our paroxysms subsided into sadness; a close correspondence
+was arranged. Something of the bustle and excitement of change
+supervened. If it turned out to be, in truth, a 'charming residence,'
+how very delightful our meeting in France, with the
+interest of foreign scenery, ways, and faces, would be!</p>
+
+<p>So Thursday arrived&mdash;a new gush of sorrow&mdash;a new brightening
+up&mdash;and, amid regrets and anticipations, we parted at the
+gate at the farther end of the Windmill Wood. Then, of course,
+were more good-byes, more embraces, and tearful smiles. Good
+Mrs. Jolks, who met us there, was in a huge fuss; I believe it
+was her first visit to the metropolis, and she was in proportion
+heated and important, and terrified about the train, so we had
+not many last words.</p>
+
+<p>I watched poor Milly, whose head was stretched from the window,
+her hand waving many adieux, until the curve of the
+road, and the clump of old ash-trees, thick with ivy, hid Milly,
+carriage and all, from view. My eyes filled again with tears. I
+turned towards Bartram. At my side stood honest Mary Quince.</p>
+
+<p>'Don't take on so, Miss; 'twon't be no time passing; three
+months is nothing at all,' she said, smiling kindly.</p>
+
+<p>I smiled through my tears and kissed the good creature, and
+so side by side we re-entered the gate.</p>
+
+<p>The lithe young man in fustian, whom I had seen talking
+with Beauty on the morning of our first encounter with that
+youthful Amazon, was awaiting our re-entrance with the key
+in his hand. He stood half behind the open wicket. One lean
+brown cheek, one shy eye, and his sharp upturned nose, I saw
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page336" id="page336"></a>[pg 328]</span>
+
+as we passed. He was treating me to a stealthy scrutiny, and
+seemed to shun my glance, for he shut the door quickly, and
+busied himself locking it, and then began stubbing up some
+thistles which grew close by, with the toe of his thick shoe, his
+back to us all the time.</p>
+
+<p>It struck me that I recognised his features, and I asked Mary
+Quince.</p>
+
+<p>'Have you seen that young man before, Quince?'</p>
+
+<p>'He brings up game for your uncle, sometimes, Miss, and
+lends a hand in the garden, I believe.'</p>
+
+<p>'Do you know his name, Mary?'</p>
+
+<p>'They call him Tom, I don't know what more, Miss.'</p>
+
+<p>'Tom,' I called; 'please, Tom, come here for a moment.'</p>
+
+<p>Tom turned about, and approached slowly. He was more
+civil than the Bartram people usually were, for he plucked off
+his shapeless cap of rabbit-skin with a clownish respect.</p>
+
+<p>'Tom, what is your other name,&mdash;Tom <i>what</i>, my good man?'
+I asked.</p>
+
+<p>'Tom Brice, ma'am.'</p>
+
+<p>'Haven't I seen you before, Tom Brice?' I pursued, for my
+curiosity was excited, and with it much graver feelings; for
+there certainly <i>was</i> a resemblance in Tom's features to those of
+the postilion who had looked so hard at me as I passed the carriage
+in the warren at Knowl, on the evening of the outrage
+which had scared that quiet place.</p>
+
+<p>''Appen you may have, ma'am,' he answered, quite coolly,
+looking down the buttons of his gaiters.</p>
+
+<p>'Are you a good whip&mdash;do you drive well?'</p>
+
+<p>'I'll drive a plough wi' most lads hereabout,' answered Tom.</p>
+
+<p>'Have you ever been to Knowl, Tom?'</p>
+
+<p>Tom gaped very innocently.</p>
+
+<p>'Anan,' he said.</p>
+
+<p>'Here, Tom, is half-a-crown.'</p>
+
+<p>He took it readily enough.</p>
+
+<p>'That be very good,' said Tom, with a nod, having glanced
+sharply at the coin.</p>
+
+<p>I can't say whether he applied that term to the coin, or to
+his luck, or to my generous self.</p>
+
+<p>'Now, Tom, you'll tell me, have you ever been to Knowl?'</p>
+
+<p>'Maught a' bin, ma'am, but I don't mind no sich place&mdash;no.'</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page337" id="page337"></a>[pg 329]</span>
+
+<p>As Tom spoke this with great deliberation, like a man who
+loves truth, putting a strain upon his memory for its sake, he
+spun the silver coin two or three times into the air and caught
+it, staring at it the while, with all his might.</p>
+
+<p>'Now, Tom, recollect yourself, and tell me the truth, and
+I'll be a friend to you. Did you ride postilion to a carriage having
+a lady in it, and, I think, several gentlemen, which came
+to the grounds of Knowl, when the party had their luncheon
+on the grass, and there was a&mdash;a quarrel with the gamekeepers?
+Try, Tom, to recollect; you shall, upon my honour, have no
+trouble about it, and I'll try to serve you.'</p>
+
+<p>Tom was silent, while with a vacant gape he watched the
+spin of his half-crown twice, and then catching it with a
+smack in his hand, which he thrust into his pocket, he said,
+still looking in the same direction&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'I never rid postilion in my days, ma'am. I know nout o'
+sich a place, though 'appen I maught a' bin there; Knowl, ye
+ca't. I was ne'er out o' Derbyshire but thrice to Warwick fair
+wi' horses be rail, an' twice to York.'</p>
+
+<p>'You're certain, Tom?'</p>
+
+<p>'Sartin sure, ma'am.'</p>
+
+<p>And Tom made another loutish salute, and cut the conference
+short by turning off the path and beginning to hollo
+after some trespassing cattle.</p>
+
+<p>I had not felt anything like so nearly sure in this essay at
+identification as I had in that of Dudley. Even of Dudley's
+identity with the Church Scarsdale man, I had daily grown
+less confident; and, indeed, had it been proposed to bring it to
+the test of a wager, I do not think I should, in the language
+of sporting gentlemen, have cared to 'back' my original opinion.
+There was, however, a sufficient uncertainty to make me uncomfortable;
+and there was another uncertainty to enhance the
+unpleasant sense of ambiguity.</p>
+
+<p>On our way back we passed the bleaching trunks and limbs
+of several ranks of barkless oaks lying side by side, some squared
+by the hatchet, perhaps sold, for there were large letters and
+Roman numerals traced upon them in red chalk. I sighed as I
+passed them by, not because it was wrongfully done, for I really
+rather leaned to the belief that Uncle Silas was well advised
+in point of law. But, alas! here lay low the grand old family
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page338" id="page338"></a>[pg 330]</span>
+
+decorations of Bartram-Haugh, not to be replaced for centuries
+to come, under whose spreading boughs the Ruthyns of three
+hundred years ago had hawked and hunted!</p>
+
+<p>On the trunk of one of these I sat down to rest, Mary Quince
+meanwhile pattering about in unmeaning explorations. While
+thus listlessly seated, the girl Meg Hawkes, walked by, carrying
+a basket.</p>
+
+<p>'Hish!' she said quickly, as she passed, without altering a
+pace or raising her eyes; 'don't ye speak nor look&mdash;fayther
+spies us; I'll tell ye next turn.'</p>
+
+<p>'Next turn'&mdash;when was that? Well, she might be returning;
+and as she could not then say more than she had said, in merely
+passing without a pause, I concluded to wait for a short time
+and see what would come of it.</p>
+
+<p>After a short time I looked about me a little, and I saw
+Dickon Hawkes&mdash;Pegtop, as poor Milly used to call him&mdash;with
+an axe in his hand, prowling luridly among the timber.</p>
+
+<p>Observing that I saw him, he touched his hat sulkily, and
+by-and-by passed me, muttering to himself. He plainly could
+not understand what business I could have in that particular
+part of the Windmill Wood, and let me see it in his countenance.</p>
+
+<p>His daughter did pass me again; but this time he was near,
+and she was silent. Her next transit occurred as he was questioning
+Mary Quince at some little distance; and as she passed
+precisely in the same way, she said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Don't you be alone wi' Master Dudley nowhere for the
+world's worth.'</p>
+
+<p>The injunction was so startling that I was on the point of
+questioning the girl. But I recollected myself, and waited in the
+hope that in her future transits she might be more explicit. But
+one word more she did not utter, and the jealous eye of old
+Pegtop was so constantly upon us that I refrained.</p>
+
+<p>There was vagueness and suggestion enough in the oracle to
+supply work for many an hour of anxious conjecture, and many
+a horrible vigil by night. Was I never to know peace at
+Bartram-Haugh?</p>
+
+<p>Ten days of poor Milly's absence, and of my solitude, had
+already passed, when my uncle sent for me to his room.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page339" id="page339"></a>[pg 331]</span>
+
+<p>When old Wyat stood at the door, mumbling and snarling
+her message, my heart died within me.</p>
+
+<p>It was late&mdash;just that hour when dejected people feel their
+anxieties most&mdash;when the cold grey of twilight has deepened to
+its darkest shade, and before the cheerful candles are lighted,
+and the safe quiet of the night sets in.</p>
+
+<p>When I entered my uncle's sitting-room&mdash;though his window-shutters
+were open and the wan streaks of sunset visible through
+them, like narrow lakes in the chasms of the dark western
+clouds&mdash;a pair of candles were burning; one stood upon the
+table by his desk, the other on the chimneypiece, before which
+his tall, thin figure stooped. His hand leaned on the mantelpiece,
+and the light from the candle just above his bowed head
+touched his silvery hair. He was looking, as it seemed, into the
+subsiding embers of the fire, and was a very statue of forsaken
+dejection and decay.</p>
+
+<p>'Uncle!' I ventured to say, having stood for some time unperceived
+near his table.</p>
+
+<p>'Ah, yes, Maud, my dear child&mdash;my <i>dear</i> child.'</p>
+
+<p>He turned, and with the candle in his hand, smiling his silvery
+smile of suffering on me. He walked more feebly and stiffly,
+I thought, than I had ever seen him move before.</p>
+
+<p>'Sit down, Maud&mdash;pray sit there.'</p>
+
+<p>I took the chair he indicated.</p>
+
+<p>'In my misery and my solitude, Maud, I have invoked you
+like a spirit, and you appear.'</p>
+
+<p>With his two hands leaning on the table, he looked across at
+me, in a stooping attitude; he had not seated himself. I continued
+silent until it should be his pleasure to question or
+address me.</p>
+
+<p>At last he said, raising himself and looking upward, with a
+wild adoration&mdash;his finger-tips elevated and glimmering in the
+faint mixed light&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'No, I thank my Creator, I am not quite forsaken.'</p>
+
+<p>Another silence, during which he looked steadfastly at me,
+and muttered, as if thinking aloud&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'My guardian angel!&mdash;my guardian angel! Maud, <i>you</i> have
+a heart.' He addressed me suddenly&mdash;'Listen, for a few moments,
+to the appeal of an old and broken-hearted man&mdash;your
+guardian&mdash;your uncle&mdash;your <i>suppliant</i>. I had resolved never to
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page340" id="page340"></a>[pg 332]</span>
+
+speak to you more on this subject. But I was wrong. It was pride
+that inspired me&mdash;mere pride.'</p>
+
+<p>I felt myself growing pale and flushed by turns during the
+pause that followed.</p>
+
+<p>'I'm very miserable&mdash;very nearly desperate. What remains
+for me&mdash;what remains? Fortune has done her worst&mdash;thrown
+in the dust, her wheels rolled over me; and the servile world,
+who follow her chariot like a mob, stamp upon the mangled
+wretch. All this had passed over me, and left me scarred and
+bloodless in this solitude. It was not my fault, Maud&mdash;I say it
+was no fault of mine; I have no remorse, though more regrets
+than I can count, and all scored with fire. As people passed by
+Bartram, and looked upon its neglected grounds and smokeless
+chimneys, they thought my plight, I dare say, about the worst
+a proud man could be reduced to. They could not imagine one
+half its misery. But this old hectic&mdash;this old epileptic&mdash;this old
+spectre of wrongs, calamities, and follies, had still one hope&mdash;my
+manly though untutored son&mdash;the last male scion of the
+Ruthyns. Maud, have I lost him? His fate&mdash;my fate&mdash;I may say
+<i>Milly's fate</i>;&mdash;we all await your sentence. He loves you, as
+none but the very young can love, and that once only in a life.
+He loves you desperately&mdash;a most affectionate nature&mdash;a Ruthyn,
+the best blood in England&mdash;the last man of the race; and I&mdash;if I
+lose him I lose all; and you will see me in my coffin, Maud,
+before many months. I stand before you in the attitude of a
+suppliant&mdash;shall I kneel?'</p>
+
+<p>His eyes were fixed on me with the light of despair, his
+knotted hands clasped, his whole figure bowed toward me. I
+was inexpressibly shocked and pained.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, uncle! uncle!' I cried, and from very excitement I burst
+into tears.</p>
+
+<p>I saw that his eyes were fixed on me with a dismal scrutiny.
+I think he divined the nature of my agitation; but he determined,
+notwithstanding, to press me while my helpless agitation
+continued.</p>
+
+<p>'You see my suspense&mdash;you see my miserable and frightful
+suspense. You are kind, Maud; you love your father's memory;
+your pity your father's brother; you would not say no, and
+place a pistol at his head?'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh! I must&mdash;I must&mdash;I <i>must</i> say no. Oh! spare me, uncle,
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page341" id="page341"></a>[pg 333]</span>
+
+for Heaven's sake. Don't question me&mdash;don't press me. I could
+not&mdash;I <i>could</i> not do what you ask.'</p>
+
+<p>'I yield, Maud&mdash;I yield, my dear. I will <i>not</i> press you; you
+shall have time, your <i>own</i> time, to think. I will accept no answer
+now&mdash;no, <i>none</i>, Maud.'</p>
+
+<p>He said this, raising his thin hand to silence me.</p>
+
+<p>'There, Maud, enough. I have spoken, as I always do to you,
+frankly, perhaps too frankly; but agony and despair will speak
+out, and plead, even with the most obdurate and cruel.'</p>
+
+<p>With these words Uncle Silas entered his bed-chamber, and shut
+the door, not violently, but with a resolute hand, and I thought
+I heard a cry.</p>
+
+<p>I hastened to my own room. I threw myself on my knees, and
+thanked Heaven for the firmness vouchsafed me; I could not
+believe it to have been my own.</p>
+
+<p>I was more miserable in consequence of this renewed suit on
+behalf of my odious cousin than I can describe. My uncle had
+taken such a line of importunity that it became a sort of agony
+to resist. I thought of the possibility of my hearing of his
+having made away with himself, and was every morning relieved
+when I heard that he was still as usual. I have often wondered
+since at my own firmness. In that dreadful interview with my
+uncle I had felt, in the whirl and horror of my mind, on the
+very point of submitting, just as nervous people are said to
+throw themselves over precipices through sheer dread of falling.</p>
+
+<a name="chap51"></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER LI</h3>
+
+<h2><i>SARAH MATILDA COMES TO LIGHT</i></h2>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>Some time after this interview, one day as I sat, sad enough, in
+my room, looking listlessly from the window, with good Mary
+Quince, whom, whether in the house or in my melancholy
+rambles, I always had by my side, I was startled by the sound
+of a loud and shrill female voice, in violent hysterical action,
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page342" id="page342"></a>[pg 334]</span>
+
+gabbling with great rapidity, sobbing, and very nearly screaming
+in a sort of fury.</p>
+
+<p>I started up, staring at the door.</p>
+
+<p>'Lord bless us!' cried honest Mary Quince, with round eyes
+and mouth agape, staring in the same direction.</p>
+
+<p>'Mary&mdash;Mary, what can it be?'</p>
+
+<p>'Are they beating some one down yonder? I don't know
+where it comes from,' gasped Quince.</p>
+
+<p>'I will&mdash;I will&mdash;I'll see her. It's her I want.
+Oo&mdash;hoo&mdash;hoo&mdash;hoo&mdash;oo&mdash;o&mdash;Miss Maud Ruthyn of Knowl. Miss Ruthyn
+of Knowl. Hoo&mdash;hoo&mdash;hoo&mdash;hoo&mdash;oo!'</p>
+
+<p>'What on earth can it be?' I exclaimed, in great bewilderment
+and terror.</p>
+
+<p>It was now plainly very near indeed, and I heard the voice of
+our mild and shaky butler evidently remonstrating with the
+distressed damsel.</p>
+
+<p>'I'll see her,' she continued, pouring a torrent of vile abuse
+upon me, which stung me with a sudden sense of anger. What
+had I done to be afraid of anyone? How dared anyone in my
+uncle's house&mdash;in <i>my</i> house&mdash;mix my name up with her detestable
+scurrilities?</p>
+
+<p>'For Heaven's sake, Miss, don't ye go out,' cried poor Quince;
+'it's some drunken creature.'</p>
+
+<p>But I was very angry, and, like a fool as I was, I threw open
+the door, exclaiming in a loud and haughty key&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Here is Miss Ruthyn of Knowl. Who wants to see her?'</p>
+
+<p>A pink and white young lady, with black tresses, violent,
+weeping, shrill, voluble, was flouncing up the last stair, and
+shook her dress out on the lobby; and poor old Giblets, as Milly
+used to call him, was following in her wake, with many small
+remonstrances and entreaties, perfectly unheeded.</p>
+
+<p>The moment I looked at this person, it struck me that she was
+the identical lady whom I had seen in the carriage at Knowl
+Warren. The next moment I was in doubt; the next, still
+more so. She was decidedly thinner, and dressed by no means
+in such lady-like taste. Perhaps she was hardly like her at all. I
+began to distrust all these resemblances, and to fancy, with a
+shudder, that they originated, perhaps, only in my own sick
+brain.</p>
+
+<p>On seeing me, this young lady&mdash;as it seemed to me, a good
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page343" id="page343"></a>[pg 335]</span>
+
+deal of the barmaid or lady's-maid species&mdash;dried her eyes
+fiercely, and, with a flaming countenance, called upon me peremptorily
+to produce her 'lawful husband.' Her loud, insolent,
+outrageous attack had the effect of enhancing my indignation,
+and I quite forget what I said to her, but I well remember that
+her manner became a good deal more decent. She was plainly
+under the impression that I wanted to appropriate her husband,
+or, at least, that he wanted to marry me; and she ran on at
+such a pace, and her harangue was so passionate, incoherent,
+and unintelligible, that I thought her out of her mind: she was
+far from it, however. I think if she had allowed me even a
+second for reflection, I should have hit upon her meaning. As
+it was, nothing could exceed my perplexity, until, plucking a
+soiled newspaper from her pocket, she indicated a particular
+paragraph, already sufficiently emphasised by double lines of
+red ink at its sides. It was a Lancashire paper, of about six
+weeks since, and very much worn and soiled for its age. I remember
+in particular a circular stain from the bottom of a
+vessel, either of coffee or brown stout. The paragraph was as
+follows, recording an event a year or more anterior to the date
+of the paper:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>'M<small>ARRIAGE</small>.&mdash;On Tuesday, August 7, 18&mdash;, at Leatherwig
+Church, by the Rev. Arthur Hughes, Dudley R. Ruthyn, Esq.,
+only son and heir of Silas Ruthyn, Esq., of Bartram-Haugh, Derbyshire,
+to Sarah Matilda, second daughter of John Mangles,
+Esq., of Wiggan, in this county.'</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>At first I read nothing but amazement in this announcement,
+but in another moment I felt how completely I was relieved;
+and showing, I believe, my intense satisfaction in my countenance&mdash;for
+the young lady eyed me with considerable surprise
+and curiosity&mdash;I said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'This is extremely important. You must see Mr. Silas Ruthyn
+this moment. I am certain he knows nothing of it. I will conduct
+you to him.'</p>
+
+<p>'No more he does&mdash;I know that myself,' she replied, following
+me with a self-asserting swagger, and a great rustling of
+cheap silk.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page344" id="page344"></a>[pg 336]</span>
+
+<p>As we entered, Uncle Silas looked up from his sofa, and closed
+his <i>Revue des Deux Mondes</i>.</p>
+
+<p>'What is all this?' he enquired, drily.</p>
+
+<p>'This lady has brought with her a newspaper containing an
+extraordinary statement which affects our family,' I answered.</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Silas raised himself, and looked with a hard, narrow
+scrutiny at the unknown young lady.</p>
+
+<p>'A libel, I suppose, in the paper?' he said, extending his hand
+for it.</p>
+
+<p>'No, uncle&mdash;no; only a marriage,' I answered.</p>
+
+<p>'Not Monica?' he said, as he took it. 'Pah, it smells all over
+of tobacco and beer,' he added, throwing a little eau de Cologne
+over it.</p>
+
+<p>He raised it with a mixture of curiosity and disgust, saying
+again 'pah,' as he did so.</p>
+
+<p>He read the paragraph, and as he did his face changed from
+white, all over, to lead colour. He raised his eyes, and looked
+steadily for some seconds at the young lady, who seemed a little
+awed by his strange presence.</p>
+
+<p>'And you are, I suppose, the young lady, Sarah Matilda <i>née</i>
+Mangles, mentioned in this little paragraph?' he said, in a tone
+you would have called a sneer, were it not that it trembled.</p>
+
+<p>Sarah Matilda assented.</p>
+
+<p>'My son is, I dare say, within reach. It so happens that I wrote
+to arrest his journey, and summon him here, some days since&mdash;some
+days since&mdash;some days since,' he repeated slowly, like a
+person whose mind has wandered far away from the theme on
+which he is speaking.</p>
+
+<p>He had rung his bell, and old Wyat, always hovering about
+his rooms, entered.</p>
+
+<p>'I want my son, immediately. If not in the house, send Harry
+to the stables; if not there, let him be followed, instantly. Brice
+is an active fellow, and will know where to find him. If he is in
+Feltram, or at a distance, let Brice take a horse, and Master
+Dudley can ride it back. He must be here without the loss of
+one moment.'</p>
+
+<p>There intervened nearly a quarter of an hour, during which
+whenever he recollected her, Uncle Silas treated the young lady
+with a hyper-refined and ceremonious politeness, which appeared
+to make her uneasy, and even a little shy, and certainly prevented
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page345" id="page345"></a>[pg 337]</span>
+
+a renewal of those lamentations and invectives which he
+had heard faintly from the stair-head.</p>
+
+<p>But for the most part Uncle Silas seemed to forget us and
+his book, and all that surrounded him, lying back in the corner
+of his sofa, his chin upon his breast, and such a fearful shade
+and carving on his features as made me prefer looking in any
+direction but his.</p>
+
+<p>At length we heard the tread of Dudley's thick boots on the
+oak boards, and faint and muffled the sound of his voice as he
+cross-examined old Wyat before entering the chamber of audience.</p>
+
+<p>I think he suspected quite another visitor, and had no expectation
+of seeing the particular young lady, who rose from her
+chair as he entered, in an opportune flood of tears, crying&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, Dudley, Dudley!&mdash;oh, Dudley, could you? Oh, Dudley,
+your own poor Sal! You could not&mdash;you would not&mdash;your lawful
+wife!'</p>
+
+<p>This and a good deal more, with cheeks that streamed like a
+window-pane in a thunder-shower, spoke Sarah Matilda with all
+her oratory, working his arm, which she clung to, up and down
+all the time, like the handle of a pump. But Dudley was, manifestly,
+confounded and dumbfoundered. He stood for a long time
+gaping at his father, and stole just one sheepish glance at me;
+and, with red face and forehead, looked down at his boots, and
+then again at his father, who remained just in the attitude I
+have described, and with the same forbidding and dreary intensity
+in his strange face.</p>
+
+<p>Like a quarrelsome man worried in his sleep by a noise, Dudley
+suddenly woke up, as it were, with a start, in a half-suppressed
+exasperation, and shook her off with a jerk and a
+muttered curse, as she whisked involuntarily into a chair, with
+more violence than could have been pleasant.</p>
+
+<p>'Judging by your looks and demeanour, sir, I can almost anticipate
+your answers,' said my uncle, addressing him suddenly.
+'Will you be good enough&mdash;pray, madame (parenthetically to
+our visitor), command yourself for a few moments. Is this young
+person the daughter of a Mr. Mangles, and is her name Sarah
+Matilda?'</p>
+
+<p>'I dessay,' answered Dudley, hurriedly.</p>
+
+<p>'Is she your wife?'</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page346" id="page346"></a>[pg 338]</span>
+
+<p>'Is she my wife?' repeated Dudley, ill at ease.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, sir; it is a plain question.'</p>
+
+<p>All this time Sarah Matilda was perpetually breaking into
+talk, and with difficulty silenced by my uncle.</p>
+
+<p>'Well, 'appen she says I am&mdash;does she?' replied Dudley.</p>
+
+<p>'Is she your wife, sir?'</p>
+
+<p>'Mayhap she so considers it, after a fashion,' he replied, with
+an impudent swagger, seating himself as he did so.</p>
+
+<p>'What do <i>you</i> think, sir?' persisted Uncle Silas.</p>
+
+<p>'I don't think nout about it,' replied Dudley, surlily.</p>
+
+<p>'Is that account true?' said my uncle, handing him the paper.</p>
+
+<p>'They wishes us to believe so, at any rate.'</p>
+
+<p>'Answer directly, sir. We have our thoughts upon it. If it
+be true, it is capable of <i>every</i> proof. For expedition's sake I ask
+you. There is no use in prevaricating.'</p>
+
+<p>'Who wants to deny it? It <i>is</i> true&mdash;there!'</p>
+
+<p>'<i>There!</i> I knew he would,' screamed the young woman, hysterically,
+with a laugh of strange joy.</p>
+
+<p>'Shut up, will ye?' growled Dudley, savagely.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, Dudley, Dudley, darling! what have I done?'</p>
+
+<p>'Bin and ruined me, jest&mdash;that's all.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh! no, no, no, Dudley. Ye know I wouldn't. I could not&mdash;<i>could</i>
+not hurt ye, Dudley. No, no, no!'</p>
+
+<p>He grinned at her, and, with a sharp side-nod, said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Wait a bit.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, Dudley, don't be vexed, dear. I did not mean it. I
+would not hurt ye for all the world. Never.'</p>
+
+<p>'Well, never mind. You and yours tricked me finely; and
+now you've got me&mdash;that's all.'</p>
+
+<p>My uncle laughed a very odd laugh.</p>
+
+<p>'I knew it, of course; and upon my word, madame, you and
+he make a very pretty couple,' sneered Uncle Silas.</p>
+
+<p>Dudley made no answer, looking, however, very savage.</p>
+
+<p>And with this poor young wife, so recently wedded, the low
+villain had actually solicited me to marry him!</p>
+
+<p>I am quite certain that my uncle was as entirely ignorant as
+I of Dudley's connection, and had, therefore, no participation
+in this appalling wickedness.</p>
+
+<p>'And I have to congratulate you, my good fellow, on having
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page347" id="page347"></a>[pg 339]</span>
+
+secured the affections of a very suitable and vulgar young woman.'</p>
+
+<p>'I baint the first o' the family as a' done the same,' retorted
+Dudley.</p>
+
+<p>At this taunt the old man's fury for a moment overpowered
+him. In an instant he was on his feet, quivering from head to
+foot. I never saw such a countenance&mdash;like one of those demon-grotesques
+we see in the Gothic side-aisles and groinings&mdash;a
+dreadful grimace, monkey-like and insane&mdash;and his thin hand
+caught up his ebony stick, and shook it paralytically in the
+air.</p>
+
+<p>'If ye touch me wi' that, I'll smash ye, by &mdash;&mdash;!' shouted
+Dudley, furious, raising his hands and hitching his shoulder,
+just as I had seen him when he fought Captain Oakley.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment this picture was suspended before me, and I
+screamed, I know not what, in my terror. But the old man, the
+veteran of many a scene of excitement, where men disguise their
+ferocity in calm tones, and varnish their fury with smiles, had
+not quite lost his self-command. He turned toward me and
+said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Does he know what he's saying?'</p>
+
+<p>And with an icy laugh of contempt, his high, thin forehead
+still flushed, he sat down trembling.</p>
+
+<p>'If you want to say aught, I'll hear ye. Ye may jaw me all ye
+like, and I'll stan' it.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, I may speak? Thank you,' sneered Uncle Silas, glancing
+slowly round at me, and breaking into a cold laugh.</p>
+
+<p>'Ay, I don't mind cheek, not I; but you must not go for to do
+that, ye know. Gammon. I won't stand a blow&mdash;I won't fro <i>no</i>
+one.'</p>
+
+<p>'Well, sir, availing myself of your permission to speak, I may
+remark, without offence to the young lady, that I don't happen
+to recollect the name Mangles among the old families of England.
+I presume you have chosen her chiefly for her virtues and
+her graces.'</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Sarah Matilda, not apprehending this compliment quite
+as Uncle Silas meant it, dropped a courtesy, notwithstanding
+her agitation, and, wiping her eyes, said, with a blubbered
+smile&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'You're very kind, sure.'</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page348" id="page348"></a>[pg 340]</span>
+
+<p>'I hope, for both your sakes, she has got a little money. I
+don't see how you are to live else. You're too lazy for a game-keeper;
+and I don't think you could keep a pot-house, you are
+so addicted to drinking and quarrelling. The only thing I am
+quite clear upon is, that you and your wife must find some other
+abode than this. You shall depart this evening: and now, Mr.
+and Mrs. Dudley Ruthyn, you may quit this room, if you
+please.'</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Silas had risen, and made them one of his old courtly
+bows, smiling a death-like sneer, and pointing to the door with
+his trembling fingers.</p>
+
+<p>'Come, will ye?' said Dudley, grinding his teeth. 'You're
+pretty well done here.'</p>
+
+<p>Not half understanding the situation, but looking woefully
+bewildered, she dropped a farewell courtesy at the door.</p>
+
+<p>'Will ye <i>cut</i>?' barked Dudley, in a tone that made her jump;
+and suddenly, without looking about, he strode after her from
+the room.</p>
+
+<p>'Maud, how shall I recover this? The vulgar <i>villain</i>&mdash;the
+<i>fool</i>!
+What an abyss were we approaching! and for me the last hope
+gone&mdash;and for me utter, utter, irretrievable ruin.'</p>
+
+<p>He was passing his fingers tremulously back and forward along
+the top of the mantelpiece, like a man in search of something,
+and continued so, looking along it, feebly and vacantly, although
+there was nothing there.</p>
+
+<p>'I wish, uncle&mdash;you do not know how much I wish&mdash;I could
+be of any use to you. Maybe I can?'</p>
+
+<p>He turned, and looked at me sharply.</p>
+
+<p>'Maybe you can,' he echoed slowly. 'Yes, maybe you can,' he
+repeated more briskly. 'Let us&mdash;let us see&mdash;let us think&mdash;that
+d&mdash;&mdash; fellow!&mdash;my head!'</p>
+
+<p>'You're not well, uncle?'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh! yes, very well. We'll talk in the evening&mdash;I'll send for
+you.'</p>
+
+<p>I found Wyat in the next room, and told her to hasten, as I
+thought he was ill. I hope it was not very selfish, but such had
+grown to be my horror of seeing him in one of his strange seizures,
+that I hastened from the room precipitately&mdash;partly to
+escape the risk of being asked to remain.</p>
+
+<p>The walls of Bartram House are thick, and the recess at the
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page349" id="page349"></a>[pg 341]</span>
+
+doorway deep. As I closed my uncle's door, I heard Dudley's
+voice on the stairs. I did not wish to be seen by him or by his
+'lady', as his poor wife called herself, who was engaged in vehement
+dialogue with him as I emerged, and not caring either
+to re-enter my uncle's room, I remained quietly ensconced
+within the heavy door-case, in which position I overheard Dudley
+say with a savage snarl&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'You'll jest go back the way ye came. I'm not goin' wi' ye, if
+that's what ye be drivin' at&mdash;dang your impitins!'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh! Dudley, dear, what have I done&mdash;what <i>have</i> I done&mdash;ye
+hate me so?'</p>
+
+<p>'What a' ye done? Ye vicious little beast, ye! You've got us
+turned out an' disinherited wi' yer d&mdash;&mdash;d bosh, that's all; don't
+ye think it's enough?'</p>
+
+<p>I could only hear her sobs and shrill tones in reply, for they
+were descending the stairs; and Mary Quince reported to me, in
+a horrified sort of way, that she saw him bundle her into the
+fly at the door, like a truss of hay into a hay-loft. And he stood
+with his head in at the window, scolding her, till it drove away.</p>
+
+<p>'I knew he wor jawing her, poor thing! By the way he kep'
+waggin' his head&mdash;an' he had his fist inside, a shakin' in her
+face I'm sure he looked wicked enough for anything; an' she
+a crying like a babby, an' lookin' back, an' wavin' her wet hankicher
+to him&mdash;poor thing!&mdash;and she so young! 'Tis a pity.
+Dear me! I often think, Miss, 'tis well for me I never was
+married. And see how we all would like to get husbands for all
+that, though so few is happy together. 'Tis a queer world, and
+them that's single is maybe the best off after all.'</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page350" id="page350"></a>[pg 342]</span>
+
+<a name="chap52"></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER LII</h3>
+
+<h2><i>THE PICTURE OF A WOLF</i></h2>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>I went down that evening to the sitting-room which had been
+assigned to Milly and me, in search of a book&mdash;my good Mary
+Quince always attending me. The door was a little open, and I
+was startled by the light of a candle proceeding from the fireside,
+together with a considerable aroma of tobacco and brandy.</p>
+
+<p>On my little work-table, which he had drawn beside the
+hearth, lay Dudley's pipe, his brandy-flask, and an empty tumbler;
+and he was sitting with one foot on the fender, his elbow
+on his knee, and his head resting in his hand, weeping. His back
+being a little toward the door, he did not perceive us; and we
+saw him rub his knuckles in his eyes, and heard the sounds of
+his selfish lamentation.</p>
+
+<p>Mary and I stole away quietly, leaving him in possession,
+wondering when he was to leave the house, according to the
+sentence which I had heard pronounced upon him.</p>
+
+<p>I was delighted to see old 'Giblets' quietly strapping his
+luggage in the hall, and heard from him in a whisper that he
+was to leave that evening by rail&mdash;he did not know whither.</p>
+
+<p>About half an hour afterwards, Mary Quince, going out to
+reconnoitre, heard from old Wyat in the lobby that he had just
+started to meet the train.</p>
+
+<p>Blessed be heaven for that deliverance! An evil spirit had
+been cast out, and the house looked lighter and happier. It
+was not until I sat down in the quiet of my room that the
+scenes and images of that agitating day began to move before
+my memory in orderly procession, and for the first time I
+appreciated, with a stunning sense of horror and a perfect rapture
+of thanksgiving, the value of my escape and the immensity
+of the danger which had threatened me. It may have been
+miserable weakness&mdash;I think it was. But I was young, nervous,
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page351" id="page351"></a>[pg 343]</span>
+
+and afflicted with a troublesome sort of conscience, which occasionally
+went mad, and insisted, in small things as well as great,
+upon sacrifices which my reason now assures me were absurd.
+Of Dudley I had a perfect horror; and yet had that system
+of solicitation, that dreadful and direct appeal to my compassion,
+that placing of my feeble girlhood in the seat of the arbiter
+of my aged uncle's hope or despair, been long persisted
+in, my resistance might have been worn out&mdash;who can tell?&mdash;and
+I self-sacrificed! Just as criminals in Germany are teased,
+and watched, and cross-examined, year after year, incessantly,
+into a sort of madness; and worn out with the suspense, the
+iteration, the self-restraint, and insupportable fatigue, they at
+last cut all short, accuse themselves, and go infinitely relieved
+to the scaffold&mdash;you may guess, then, for me, nervous, self-diffident,
+and alone, how intense was the comfort of knowing that
+Dudley was actually married, and the harrowing importunity
+which had just commenced for ever silenced.</p>
+
+<p>That night I saw my uncle. I pitied him, though I feared him.
+I was longing to tell him how anxious I was to help him, if
+only he could point out the way. It was in substance what I had
+already said, but now strongly urged. He brightened; he sat up
+perpendicularly in his chair with a countenance, not weak or
+fatuous now, but resolute and searching, and which contracted
+into dark thought or calculation as I talked.</p>
+
+<p>I dare say I spoke confusedly enough. I was always nervous
+in his presence; there was, I fancy, something mesmeric in the
+odd sort of influence which, without effort, he exercised over
+my imagination.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes this grew into a dismal panic, and Uncle Silas&mdash;polished,
+mild&mdash;seemed unaccountably horrible to me. Then it
+was no longer an accidental fascination of electro-biology. It
+was something more. His nature was incomprehensible by me.
+He was without the nobleness, without the freshness, without
+the softness, without the frivolities of such human nature as I
+had experienced, either within myself or in other persons. I
+instinctively felt that appeals to sympathies or feelings could no
+more affect him than a marble monument. He seemed to accommodate
+his conversation to the moral structure of others, just
+as spirits are said to assume the shape of mortals. There were the
+sensualities of the gourmet for his body, and there ended his
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page352" id="page352"></a>[pg 344]</span>
+
+human nature, as it seemed to me. Through that semi-transparent
+structure I thought I could now and then discern the light
+or the glare of his inner life. But I understood it not.</p>
+
+<p>He never scoffed at what was good or noble&mdash;his hardest critic
+could not nail him to one such sentence; and yet, it seemed
+somehow to me that his unknown nature was a systematic blasphemy
+against it all. If fiend he was, he was yet something higher
+than the garrulous, and withal feeble, demon of Goethe. He assumed
+the limbs and features of our mortal nature. He shrouded
+his own, and was a profoundly reticent Mephistopheles. Gentle
+he had been to me&mdash;kindly he had nearly always spoken; but
+it seemed like the mild talk of one of those goblins of the desert,
+whom Asiatic superstition tells of, who appear in friendly shapes
+to stragglers from the caravan, beckon to them from afar, call
+them by their names, and lead them where they are found no
+more. Was, then, all his kindness but a phosphoric radiance
+covering something colder and more awful than the grave?</p>
+
+<p>'It is very noble of you, Maud&mdash;it is angelic; your sympathy
+with a ruined and despairing old man. But I fear you will recoil.
+I tell you frankly that less than twenty thousand pounds
+will not extricate me from the quag of ruin in which I am
+entangled&mdash;lost!'</p>
+
+<p>'Recoil! Far from it. I'll do it. There must be some way.'</p>
+
+<p>'Enough, my fair young protectress&mdash;celestial enthusiast,
+enough. Though you do not, yet I recoil. I could not bring myself
+to accept this sacrifice. What signifies, even to me, my extrication?
+I lie a mangled wretch, with fifty mortal wounds on
+my crown; what avails the healing of one wound, when there
+are so many beyond all cure? Better to let me perish where I fall;
+and reserve your money for the worthier objects whom, perhaps,
+hereafter may avail to save.'</p>
+
+<p>'But I <i>will</i> do this. I must. I cannot see you suffer with the
+power in my hands unemployed to help you,' I exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>'Enough, dear Maud; the will is here&mdash;enough: there is balm
+in your compassion and good-will. Leave me, ministering angel;
+for the present I cannot. If you <i>will</i>, we can talk of it again.
+Good-night.'</p>
+
+<p>And so we parted.</p>
+
+<p>The attorney from Feltram, I afterwards heard, was with him
+nearly all that night, trying in vain to devise by their joint
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page353" id="page353"></a>[pg 345]</span>
+
+ingenuity any means by which I might tie myself up. But there
+were none. I could not bind myself.</p>
+
+<p>I was myself full of the hope of helping him. What was this
+sum to me, great as it seemed? Truly nothing. I could have
+spared it, and never felt the loss.</p>
+
+<p>I took up a large quarto with coloured prints, one of the few
+books I had brought with me from dear old Knowl. Too much
+excited to hope for sleep in bed, I opened it, and turned over
+the leaves, my mind still full of Uncle Silas and the sum I hoped
+to help him with.</p>
+
+<p>Unaccountably one of those coloured engravings arrested my
+attention. It represented the solemn solitude of a lofty forest;
+a girl, in Swiss costume, was flying in terror, and as she fled
+flinging a piece of meat behind her which she had taken from
+a little market-basket hanging upon her arm. Through the glade
+a pack of wolves were pursuing her.</p>
+
+<p>The narrative told, that on her return homeward with her
+marketing, she had been chased by wolves, and barely escaped by
+flying at her utmost speed, from time to time retarding, as she
+did so, the pursuit, by throwing, piece by piece, the contents of
+her basket, in her wake, to be devoured and fought for by the
+famished beasts of prey.</p>
+
+<p>This print had seized my imagination. I looked with a curious
+interest on the print: something in the disposition of the trees,
+their great height, and rude boughs, interlacing, and the awful
+shadow beneath, reminded me of a portion of the Windmill
+Wood where Milly and I had often rambled. Then I looked at
+the figure of the poor girl, flying for her life, and glancing terrified
+over her shoulder. Then I gazed on the gaping, murderous
+pack, and the hoary brute that led the van; and then I leaned
+back in my chair, and I thought&mdash;perhaps some latent association
+suggested what seemed a thing so unlikely&mdash;of a fine print
+in my portfolio from Vandyke's noble picture of Belisarius. Idly
+I traced with my pencil, as I leaned back, on an envelope that
+lay upon the table, this little inscription. It was mere fiddling;
+and, absurd as it looked, there was nothing but an honest meaning
+in it:&mdash;'20,000<i>l</i>. Date Obolum Belisario!' My dear father
+had translated the little Latin inscription for me, and I had
+written it down as a sort of exercise of memory; and also,
+perhaps, as expressive of that sort of compassion which my
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page354" id="page354"></a>[pg 346]</span>
+
+uncle's fall and miserable fate excited invariably in me. So I
+threw this queer little memorandum upon the open leaf of the
+book, and again the flight, the pursuit, and the bait to stay it,
+engaged my eye. And I heard a voice near the hearthstone, as
+I thought, say, in a stern whisper, 'Fly the fangs of Belisarius!'</p>
+
+<p>'What's that?' said I, turning sharply to Mary Quince.</p>
+
+<p>Mary rose from her work at the fireside, staring at me with
+that odd sort of frown that accompanies fear and curiosity.</p>
+
+<p>'You spoke? Did you speak?' I said, catching her by the
+arm, very much frightened myself.</p>
+
+<p>'No, Miss; no, dear!' answered she, plainly thinking that I
+was a little wrong in my head.</p>
+
+<p>There could be no doubt it was a trick of the imagination, and
+yet to this hour I could recognise that clear stern voice among a
+thousand, were it to speak again.</p>
+
+<p>Jaded after a night of broken sleep and much agitation, I was
+summoned next morning to my uncle's room.</p>
+
+<p>He received me <i>oddly</i>, I thought. His manner had changed,
+and made an uncomfortable impression upon me. He was gentle,
+kind, smiling, submissive, as usual; but it seemed to me that
+he experienced henceforth toward me the same half-superstitous
+repulsion which I had always felt from him. Dream, or voice,
+or vision&mdash;which had done it? There seemed to be an unconscious
+antipathy and fear. When he thought I was not looking,
+his eyes were sometimes grimly fixed for a moment upon me.
+When I looked at him, his eyes were upon the book before him;
+and when he spoke, a person not heeding what he uttered
+would have fancied that he was reading aloud from it.</p>
+
+<p>There was nothing tangible but this shrinking from the encounter
+of our eyes. I said he was kind as usual. He was even
+more so. But there was this new sign of our silently repellant
+natures. Dislike it could not be. He knew I longed to serve him.
+Was it shame? Was there not a shade of horror in it?</p>
+
+<p>'I have not slept,' said he. 'For me the night has passed in
+thought, and the fruit of it is this&mdash;I <i>cannot</i>, Maud, accept your
+noble offer.'</p>
+
+<p>'I am <i>very</i> sorry,' exclaimed I, in all honesty.</p>
+
+<p>'I know it, my dear niece, and appreciate your goodness; but
+there are many reasons&mdash;none of them, I trust, ignoble&mdash;and
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page355" id="page355"></a>[pg 347]</span>
+
+which together render it impossible. No. It would be misunderstood&mdash;my
+honour shall not be impugned.'</p>
+
+<p>'But, sir, that could not be; you have never proposed it. It
+would be all, from first to last, <i>my</i> doing.'</p>
+
+<p>'True, dear Maud, but I know, alas! more of this evil and
+slanderous world than your happy inexperience can do. Who
+will receive our testimony? None&mdash;no, not one. The difficulty&mdash;the
+insuperable moral difficulty is this&mdash;that I should expose
+myself to the plausible imputation of having worked upon you,
+unduly, for this end; and more, that I could not hold myself
+quite free from blame. It is your voluntary goodness, Maud. But
+you are young, inexperienced; and it is, I hold it, my duty to
+stand between you and any dealing with your property at so
+unripe an age. Some people may call this Quixotic. In my mind
+it is an imperious mandate of conscience; and I peremptorily
+refuse to disobey it, although within three weeks an execution
+will be in this house!'</p>
+
+<p>I did not quite know what an execution meant; but from two
+harrowing novels, with whose distresses I was familiar, I knew
+that it indicated some direful process of legal torture and spoliation.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, uncle I&mdash;oh, sir!&mdash;you cannot allow this to happen. What
+will people say of me? And&mdash;and there is poor Milly&mdash;and
+<i>everything</i>! Think what it will be.'</p>
+
+<p>'It cannot be helped&mdash;<i>you</i> cannot help it, Maud. Listen to me.
+There will be an execution here, I cannot say exactly how soon,
+but, I think, in a little more than a fortnight. I must provide for
+your comfort. You must leave. I have arranged that you shall
+join Milly, for the present, in France, till I have time to look
+about me. You had better, I think, write to your cousin, Lady
+Knollys. She, with all her oddities, has a heart. Can you say,
+Maud, that I have been kind?'</p>
+
+<p>'You have never been anything but kind,' I exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>'That I've been self-denying when you made me a generous
+offer?' he continued. 'That I now act to spare you pain? You
+may tell her, not as a message from me, but as a fact, that I am
+seriously thinking of vacating my guardianship&mdash;that I feel I
+have done her an injustice, and that, so soon as my mind is a
+little less tortured, I shall endeavour to effect a reconciliation
+with her, and would wish ultimately to transfer the care of your
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page356" id="page356"></a>[pg 348]</span>
+
+person and education to <i>her</i>. You may say I have no longer an
+interest even in vindicating my name. My son has wrecked himself
+by a marriage. I forgot to tell you he stopped at Feltram,
+and this morning wrote to pray a parting interview. If I grant it,
+it shall be the last. I shall never see him or correspond with him
+more.'</p>
+
+<p>The old man seemed much overcome, and held his hankerchief
+to his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>'He and his wife are, I understand, about to emigrate; the
+sooner the better,' he resumed, bitterly. 'Deeply, Maud, I regret
+having tolerated his suit to you, even for a moment. Had
+I thought it over, as I did the whole case last night, nothing
+could have induced me to permit it. But I have lived for so long
+like a monk in his cell, my wants and observation limited to
+the narrow compass of this chamber, that my knowledge of the
+world has died out with my youth and my hopes: and I did not,
+as I ought to have done, consider many objections. Therefore,
+dear Maud, on this one subject, I entreat, be silent; its discussion
+can effect nothing now. I was wrong, and frankly ask
+you to forget my mistake.'</p>
+
+<p>I had been on the point of writing to Lady Knollys on this
+odious subject, when, happily, it was set at rest by the disclosure
+of yesterday; and being so, I could have no difficulty
+in acceding to my uncle's request. He was conceding so much
+that I could not withhold so trifling a concession in return.</p>
+
+<p>'I hope Monica will continue to be kind to poor Milly after
+I am gone.'</p>
+
+<p>Here there were a few seconds of meditation.</p>
+
+<p>'Maud, you will not, I think, refuse to convey the substance
+of what I have just said in a letter to Lady Knollys, and perhaps
+you would have no objection to let me see it when it is written.
+It will prevent the possibility of its containing any misconception
+of what I have just spoken: and, Maud, you won't forget
+to say whether I have been kind. It would be a satisfaction to me
+to know that Monica was assured that I never either teased or
+bullied my young ward.'</p>
+
+<p>With these words he dismissed me; and forthwith I completed
+such a letter as would quite embody what he had said; and in
+my own glowing terms, being in high good-humour with Uncle
+Silas, recorded my estimate of his gentleness and good-nature;
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page357" id="page357"></a>[pg 349]</span>
+
+and when I submitted it to him, he expressed his admiration of
+what he was pleased to call my cleverness in so exactly conveying
+what he wished, and his gratitude for the handsome
+terms in which I had spoken of my old guardian.</p>
+
+<a name="chap53"></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER LIII</h3>
+<h2><i>AN ODD PROPOSAL</i></h2>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>As I and Mary Quince returned from our walk that day, and
+had entered the hall, I was surprised most disagreeably by
+Dudley's emerging from the vestibule at the foot of the great
+staircase. He was, I suppose, in his travelling costume&mdash;a rather
+soiled white surtout, a great coloured muffler in folds about his
+throat, his 'chimney-pot' on, and his fur cap sticking out from
+his pocket. He had just descended, I suppose, from my uncle's
+room. On seeing me he stepped back, and stood with his shoulders
+to the wall, like a mummy in a museum.</p>
+
+<p>I pretended to have a few words to say to Mary before leaving
+the hall, in the hope that, as he seemed to wish to escape me, he
+would take the opportunity of getting quickly off the scene.</p>
+
+<p>But he had changed his mind, it would seem, in the interval;
+for when I glanced in that direction again he had moved toward
+us, and stood in the hall with his hat in his hand. I must
+do him the justice to say he looked horribly dismal, sulky, and
+frightened.</p>
+
+<p>'Ye'll gi'e me a word, Miss&mdash;only a thing I ought to say&mdash;for
+your good; by &mdash;&mdash;, mind, it's for <i>your</i> good, Miss.'</p>
+
+<p>Dudley stood a little way off, viewing me, with his hat in
+both hands and a 'glooming' countenance.</p>
+
+<p>I detested the idea of either hearing or speaking to him; but
+I had no resolution to refuse, and only saying 'I can't imagine
+what you can wish to speak to me about,' I approached him.
+'Wait there at the banister, Quince.'</p>
+
+<p>There was a fragrance of alcohol about the flushed face and
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page358" id="page358"></a>[pg 350]</span>
+
+gaudy muffler of this odious cousin, which heightened the effect
+of his horribly dismal features. He was speaking, besides, a little
+thickly; but his manner was dejected, and he was treating me
+with an elaborate and discomfited respect which reassured me.</p>
+
+<p>'I'm a bit up a tree, Miss,' he said shuffling his feet on the oak
+floor. 'I behaved a d&mdash;&mdash; fool; but I baint one o' they sort.
+I'm a fellah as 'ill fight his man, an' stan' up to 'm fair, don't
+ye see? An' <i>baint</i> one o' they sort&mdash;no, <i>dang</i> it, I baint.'</p>
+
+<p>Dudley delivered his puzzling harangue with a good deal of
+undertoned vehemence, and was strangely agitated. He, too, had
+got an unpleasant way of avoiding my eye, and glancing along
+the floor from corner to corner as he spoke, which gave him a
+very hang-dog air.</p>
+
+<p>He was twisting his fingers in his great sandy whisker, and
+pulling it roughly enough to drag his cheek about by that savage
+purchase; and with his other hand he was crushing and
+rubbing his hat against his knee.</p>
+
+<p>'The old boy above there be half crazed, I think; he don't
+mean half as he says thof, not he. But I'm in a bad fix anyhow&mdash;a
+regular sell it's been, and I can't get a tizzy out of him. So,
+ye see, I'm up a tree, Miss; and he sich a one, he'll make it a
+wuss mull if I let him. He's as sharp wi' me as one o' them lawyer
+chaps, dang 'em, and he's a lot of I O's and rubbitch o' mine;
+and Bryerly writes to me he can't gi'e me my legacy, 'cause he's
+got a notice from Archer and Sleigh a warnin' him not to gi'e
+me as much as a bob; for I signed it away to governor, he says&mdash;which
+I believe's a lie. I may a' signed some writing&mdash;'appen
+I did&mdash;when I was a bit cut one night. But that's no way to
+catch a gentleman, and 'twon't stand. There's justice to be had,
+and 'twon't <i>stand</i>, I say; and I'm not in 'is hands that way. Thof
+I may be a bit up the spout, too, I don't deny; only I baint
+agoin' the whole hog all at once. I'm none o' they sort. He'll
+find I baint.'</p>
+
+<p>Here Mary Quince coughed demurely from the foot of the
+stair, to remind me that the conversation was protracted.</p>
+
+<p>'I don't very well understand,' I said gravely; 'and I am now
+going up-stairs.'</p>
+
+<p>'Don't jest a minute, Miss; it's only a word, ye see. We'll be
+goin' t' Australia, Sary Mangles, an' me, aboard the <i>Seamew</i>, on
+the 5th. I'm for Liverpool to-night, and she'll meet me there,
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page359" id="page359"></a>[pg 351]</span>
+
+an'&mdash;an', please God Almighty, ye'll never see me more; an I'd
+rather gi'e ye a lift, Maud, before I go: an' I tell ye what, if
+ye'll just gi'e me your written promise ye'll gi'e me that twenty
+thousand ye were offering to gi'e the Governor, I'll take ye
+cleverly out o' Bartram, and put ye wi' your cousin Knollys, or
+anywhere ye like best.'</p>
+
+<p>'Take me from Bartram&mdash;for twenty thousand pounds! Take
+me away from my guardian! You seem to forget, sir,' my indignation
+rising as I spoke, 'that I can visit my cousin, Lady
+Knollys, whenever I please.'</p>
+
+<p>'Well, that is as it may be,' he said, with a sulky deliberation,
+scraping about a little bit of paper that lay on the floor with
+the toe of his boot.</p>
+
+<p>'It <i>is</i> as it may be, and that is as I say, sir; and considering
+how you have treated me&mdash;your mean, treacherous, and infamous
+suit, and your cruel treason to your poor wife, I am amazed
+at your effrontery.'</p>
+
+<p>I turned to leave him, being, in truth, in one of my passions.</p>
+
+<p>'Don't ye be a flying out,' he said peremptorily, and catching
+me roughly by the wrist, 'I baint a-going to vex ye. What a
+mouth you be, as can't see your way! Can't ye speak wi' common
+sense, like a woman&mdash;dang it&mdash;for once, and not keep brawling
+like a brat&mdash;can't ye see what I'm saying? I'll take ye out o' all
+this, and put ye wi' your cousin, or wheresoever you list, if ye'll
+gi'e me what I say.'</p>
+
+<p>He was, for the first time, looking me in the face, but with
+contracted eyes, and a countenance very much agitated.</p>
+
+<p>'Money?' said I, with a prompt disdain.</p>
+
+<p>'Ay, money&mdash;twenty thousand pounds&mdash;<i>there</i>. On or off?' he
+replied, with an unpleasant sort of effort.</p>
+
+<p>'You ask my promise for twenty thousand pounds, and you
+shan't have it.'</p>
+
+<p>My cheeks were flaming, and I stamped on the ground as I
+spoke.</p>
+
+<p>If he had known how to appeal to my better feelings, I am
+sure I should have done, perhaps not quite that, all at once
+at least, but something handsome, to assist him. But this application
+was so shabby and insolent! What could he take me for?
+That I should suppose his placing me with Cousin Monica constituted
+her my guardian? Why, he must fancy me the merest
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page360" id="page360"></a>[pg 352]</span>
+
+baby. There was a kind of stupid cunning in this that disgusted
+my good-nature and outraged my self-importance.</p>
+
+<p>'You won't gi'e me that, then?' he said, looking down again,
+with a frown, and working his mouth and cheeks about as I
+could fancy a man rolling a piece of tobacco in his jaw.</p>
+
+<p>'Certainly <i>not</i>, sir,' I replied.</p>
+
+<p>'<i>Take</i> it, then,' he replied, still looking down, very black and
+discontented.</p>
+
+<p>I joined Mary Quince, extremely angry. As I passed under the
+carved oak arch of the vestibule, I saw his figure in the deepening
+twilight. The picture remains in its murky halo fixed in
+memory. Standing where he last spoke in the centre of the hall,
+not looking after me, but downward, and, as well as I could
+see, with the countenance of a man who has lost a game, and a
+ruinous wager too&mdash;that is black and desperate. I did not utter
+a syllable on the way up. When I reached my room, I began to
+reconsider the interview more at my leisure. I was, such were my
+ruminations, to have agreed at once to his preposterous offer,
+and to have been driven, while he smirked and grimaced behind
+my back at his acquaintances, through Feltram in his dog-cart
+to Elverston; and then, to the just indignation of my uncle, to
+have been delivered up to Lady Knolly's guardianship, and to
+have handed my driver, as I alighted, the handsome fare of
+20.000<i>l</i>. It required the impudence of Tony Lumpkin, without
+either his fun or his shrewdness, to have conceived such a prodigious
+practical joke.</p>
+
+<p>'Maybe you'd like a little tea, Miss?' insinuated Mary Quince.</p>
+
+<p>'What impertinence!' I exclaimed, with one of my angry
+stamps on the floor. 'Not you, dear old Quince,' I added. 'No&mdash;no
+tea just now.'</p>
+
+<p>And I resumed my ruminations, which soon led me to this
+train of thought&mdash;'Stupid and insulting as Dudley's proposition
+was, it yet involved a great treason against my uncle. Should I be
+weak enough to be silent, may he not, wishing to forestall me,
+misrepresent all that has passed, so as to throw the blame altogether
+upon me?'</p>
+
+<p>This idea seized upon me with a force which I could not withstand;
+and on the impulse of the moment I obtained admission
+to my uncle, and related exactly what had passed. When I had
+finished my narrative, which he listened to without once raising
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page361" id="page361"></a>[pg 353]</span>
+
+his eyes, my uncle cleared his throat once or twice, as if to
+speak. He was smiling&mdash;I thought with an effort, and with elevated
+brows. When I concluded, he hummed one of those sliding
+notes, which a less refined man might have expressed by a
+whistle of surprise and contempt, and again he essayed to speak,
+but continued silent. The fact is, he seemed to me very much
+disconcerted. He rose from his seat, and shuffled about the room
+in his slippers, I believe affecting only to be in search of something,
+opening and shutting two or three drawers, and turning
+over some books and papers; and at length, taking up some
+loose sheets of manuscript, he appeared to have found what
+he was looking for, and began to read them carelessly, with his
+back towards me, and with another effort to clear his voice,
+he said at last&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'And pray, what could the fool mean by all that?'</p>
+
+<p>'I think he must have taken me for an idiot, sir,' I answered.</p>
+
+<p>'Not unlikely. He has lived in a stable, among horses and
+ostlers; he has always seemed to me something like a centaur&mdash;that
+is a centaur composed not of man and horse, but of an ape
+and an ass.'</p>
+
+<p>And upon this jibe he laughed, not coldly and sarcastically,
+as was his wont, but, I thought, flurriedly. And, continuing to
+look into his papers, he said, his back still toward me as he
+read&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'And he did not favour you with an exposition of his meaning,
+which, except in so far as it estimated his deserts at the modest
+sum you have named, appears to me too oracular to be interpreted
+without a kindred inspiration?'</p>
+
+<p>And again he laughed. He was growing more like himself.</p>
+
+<p>'As to your visiting your cousin, Lady Knollys, the stupid
+rogue had only five minutes before heard me express my wish
+that you should do so before leaving this. I am quite resolved
+you shall&mdash;that is, unless, dear Maud, you should yourself object;
+but, of course, we must wait for an invitation, which, I conjecture,
+will not be long in coming. In fact, your letter will
+naturally bring it about, and, I trust, open the way to a permanent
+residence with her. The more I think it over, the more
+am I convinced, dear niece, that as things are likely to turn out,
+my roof would be no desirable shelter for you; and that, under
+all circumstances, hers would. Such were my motives, Maud,
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page362" id="page362"></a>[pg 354]</span>
+
+in opening, through your letter, a door of reconciliation between
+us.'</p>
+
+<p>I felt that I ought to have kissed his hand&mdash;that he had indicated
+precisely the future that I most desired; and yet there was
+within me a vague feeling, akin to suspicion&mdash;akin to dismay
+which chilled and overcast my soul.</p>
+
+<p>'But, Maud,' he said, 'I am disquieted to think of that stupid
+jackanapes presuming to make you such an offer! A creditable
+situation truly&mdash;arriving in the dark at Elverston, under the solitary
+escort of that wild young man, with whom you would have
+fled from my guardianship; and, Maud, I tremble as I ask
+myself the question, would he have conducted you to Elverston
+at all? When you have lived as long in the world as I, you will
+appreciate its wickedness more justly.' Here there was a little
+pause.</p>
+
+<p>'I know, my dear, that were he convinced of his legal marriage
+with that young woman,' he resumed, perceiving how
+startled I looked, 'such an idea, of course, would not have
+entered his head; but he does not believe any such thing. Contrary
+to fact and logic, he does honestly think that his hand is
+still at his disposal; and I certainly do suspect that he would
+have employed that excursion in endeavouring to persuade you
+to think as he does. Be that how it may, however, it is satisfactory
+to me to know that you shall never more be troubled by
+one word from that ill-regulated young man. I made him my
+adieux, such as they were, this evening; and never more shall
+he enter the walls of Bartram-Haugh while we two live.'</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Silas replaced the papers which had ostensibly interested
+him so much, and returned. There was a vein which was
+visible near the angle of his lofty temple, and in moments of
+agitation stood out against the surrounding pallor in a knotted
+blue cord; and as he came back smiling askance, I saw this sign
+of inward tumult.</p>
+
+<p>'We can, however, afford to despise the follies and knaveries
+of the world, Maud, as long as we act, as we have hitherto done,
+with perfect confidence in each other. Heaven bless you, dear
+Maud! Your report troubled me, I believe, more than it need&mdash;troubled
+me a good deal; but reflection assures me it is nothing.
+He is gone. In a few days' time he will be on the sea. I will issue
+my orders to-morrow morning, and he will never more, during
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page363" id="page363"></a>[pg 355]</span>
+
+his brief stay in England, gain admission to Bartram-Haugh.
+Good-night, my good niece; I thank you.'</p>
+
+<p>And so I returned to Mary Quince, on the whole happier than
+I had left her, but still with the confused and jarring vision I
+could not interpret perpetually rising before me; and as, from
+time to time, shapeless anxieties agitated me, relieving them by
+appeals to Him who alone is wise and strong.</p>
+
+<p>Next day brought me a goodnatured gossiping letter from dear
+Milly, written in compulsory French, which was, in some places,
+very difficult to interpret. She gave me a very pleasant account
+of the place, and her opinion of the girls who were inmates, and
+mentioned some of the nuns with high commendation. The
+language plainly cramped poor Milly's genius; but although
+there was by no means so much fun as an honest English letter
+would have brought me, there could be no mistake about her
+liking the place, and she expressed her honest longing to see me
+in the most affectionate terms.</p>
+
+<p>This letter came enclosed in one to my uncle, from the proper
+authority in the convent; and as there was neither address
+within, nor post-mark without, I was as much in the dark as
+ever as to poor Milly's whereabouts.</p>
+
+<p>Pencilled across the envelope of this letter, in my uncle's hand,
+were the words, 'Let me have your answer when sealed, and I
+will transmit it.&mdash;S.R.'</p>
+
+<p>When, accordingly, some days later, I did place my letter
+to Milly in my uncle's hands, he told me the reason of his reserves
+on the subject.</p>
+
+<p>'I thought it best, dear Maud, not to plague you with a secret,
+and Milly's present address is one. It will in a few weeks
+become the rallying-point of our diverse routes, when you shall
+meet her, and I join you both. Nobody, until the storm shall
+have blown over, must know where I am to be found, except
+my lawyer; and I think you would prefer ignorance to the
+trouble of keeping a secret on which so much may depend.'</p>
+
+<p>This being reasonable, and even considerate, I acquiesced.</p>
+
+<p>In that interval there reached me such a charming, gay, and
+affectionate letter&mdash;a very <i>long</i> letter, too&mdash;though the writer was
+scarcely seven miles away, from dear Cousin Monica, full of
+pleasant gossip, and rose-coloured and golden castles in the air,
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page364" id="page364"></a>[pg 356]</span>
+
+and the kindest interest in poor Milly, and the warmest affection
+for me.</p>
+
+<p>One other incident varied that interval, if possible more pleasantly
+than those. It was the announcement, in a Liverpool paper,
+of the departure of the <i>Seamew</i>, bound for Melbourne; and
+among the passengers were reported 'Dudley Ruthyn, Esquire,
+of Bartram-H., and Mrs. D. Ruthyn.'</p>
+
+<p>And now I began to breathe freely, I plainly saw the end of
+my probation approaching: a short excursion to France, a happy
+meeting with Milly, and then a delightful residence with Cousin
+Monica for the remainder of my nonage.</p>
+
+<p>You will say then that my spirits and my serenity were quite
+restored. Not quite. How marvellously lie our anxieties, in
+filmy layers, one over the other! Take away that which has lain
+on the upper surface for so long&mdash;the care of cares&mdash;the only one,
+as it seemed to you, between your soul and the radiance of
+Heaven&mdash;and straight you find a new stratum there. As physical
+science tells us no fluid is without its skin, so does it seem with
+this fine medium of the soul, and these successive films of care
+that form upon its surface on mere contact with the upper air
+and light.</p>
+
+<p>What was my new trouble? A very fantastic one, you will say&mdash;the
+illusion of a self-tormentor. It was the face of Uncle Silas
+which haunted me. Notwithstanding the old pale smile, there
+was a shrinking grimness, and the always-averted look.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes I fancied his mind was disordered. I could not
+account for the eerie lights and shadows that flickered on his
+face, except so. There was a look of shame and fear of me, amazing
+as that seems, in the sheen of his peaked smile.</p>
+
+<p>I thought, 'Perhaps he blames himself for having tolerated
+Dudley's suit&mdash;for having urged it on grounds of personal distress&mdash;for
+having altogether lowered, though under sore temptation,
+both himself and his office; and he thinks that he has forfeited
+my respect.'</p>
+
+<p>Such was my analysis; but in the <i>coup-d'oeil</i> of that white
+face that dazzled me in darkness, and haunted my daily reveries
+with a faded light, there was an intangible character of the
+insidious and the terrible.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page365" id="page365"></a>[pg 357]</span>
+
+<a name="chap54"></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER LIV</h3>
+<h2><i>IN SEARCH OF MR. CHARKE'S SKELETON</i></h2>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>On the whole, however, I was unspeakably relieved. Dudley
+Ruthyn, Esq., and Mrs. D. Ruthyn, were now skimming the blue
+waves on the wings of the <i>Seamew</i>, and every morning widened
+the distance between us, which was to go on increasing until it
+measured a point on the antipodes. The Liverpool paper containing
+this golden line was carefully preserved in my room;
+and like the gentleman who, when much tried by the shrewish
+heiress whom he had married, used to retire to his closet and
+read over his marriage settlement, I used, when blue devils
+haunted me, to unfold my newspaper and read the paragraph
+concerning the <i>Seamew</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The day I now speak of was a dismal one of sleety snow. My
+own room seemed to me cheerier than the lonely parlour, where
+I could not have had good Mary Quince so decorously.</p>
+
+<p>A good fire, that kind and trusty face, the peep I had just
+indulged in at my favourite paragraph, and the certainty of
+soon seeing my dear cousin Monica, and afterwards affectionate
+Milly, raised my spirits.</p>
+
+<p>'So,' said I, 'as old Wyat, you say, is laid up with rheumatism,
+and can't turn up to scold me, I think I'll run up stairs and
+make an exploration, and find poor Mr. Charke's skeleton in
+a closet.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, law, Miss Maud, how can you say such things!' exclaimed
+good old Quince, lifting up her honest grey head and
+round eyes from her knitting.</p>
+
+<p>I had grown so familiar with the frightful tradition of Mr.
+Charke and his suicide, that I could now afford to frighten old
+Quince with him.</p>
+
+<p>'I am quite serious. I am going to have a ramble up-stairs
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page366" id="page366"></a>[pg 358]</span>
+
+and down-stairs, like goosey-goosey-gander; and if I do light upon
+his chamber, it is all the more interesting. I feel so like Adelaide,
+in the "Romance of the Forest," the book I was reading to you
+last night, when she commenced her delightful rambles through
+the interminable ruined abbey in the forest.'</p>
+
+<p>'Shall I go with you, Miss?'</p>
+
+<p>'No, Quince; stay there; keep a good fire, and make some
+tea. I suspect I shall lose heart and return very soon;' and with
+a shawl about me, cowl fashion, over my head, I stole up-stairs.</p>
+
+<p>I shall not recount with the particularity of the conscientious
+heroine of Mrs. Ann Radcliffe, all the suites of apartments, corridors,
+and lobbies, which I threaded in my ramble. It will be
+enough to mention that I lighted upon a door at the end of a
+long gallery, which, I think, ran parallel with the front of the
+house; it interested me because it had the air of having been
+very long undisturbed. There were two rusty bolts, which did
+not evidently belong to its original securities, and had been,
+though very long ago, somewhat clumsily superadded. Dusty and
+rusty they were, but I had no difficulty in drawing them back.
+There was a rusty key, I remember it well, with a crooked
+handle in the lock; I tried to turn it, but could not. My curiosity
+was piqued. I was thinking of going back and getting Mary
+Quince's assistance. It struck me, however, that possibly it was
+not locked, so I pulled the door and it opened quite easily. I
+did not find myself in a strangely-furnished suite of apartments,
+but at the entrance of a gallery, which diverged at right angles
+from that through which I had just passed; it was very imperfectly
+lighted, and ended in total darkness.</p>
+
+<p>I began to think how far I had already come, and to consider
+whether I could retrace my steps with accuracy in case of a
+panic, and I had serious thoughts of returning.</p>
+
+<p>The idea of Mr. Charke was growing unpleasantly sharp and
+menacing; and as I looked down the long space before me, losing
+itself among ambiguous shadows, lulled in a sinister silence,
+and as it were inviting my entrance like a trap, I was very near
+yielding to the cowardly impulse.</p>
+
+<p>But I took heart of grace and determined to see a little more.
+I opened a side-door, and entered a large room, where were, in
+a corner, some rusty and cobwebbed bird-cages, but nothing
+more. It was a wainscoted room, but a white mildew stained the
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page367" id="page367"></a>[pg 359]</span>
+
+panels. I looked from the window: it commanded that dismal,
+weed-choked quadrangle into which I had once looked from
+another window. I opened a door at its farther end, and entered
+another chamber, not quite so large, but equally dismal, with
+the same prison-like look-out, not very easily discerned through
+the grimy panes and the sleet that was falling thickly outside.
+The door through which I had entered made a little accidental
+creak, and, with my heart at my lips, I gazed at it, expecting to
+see Charke, or the skeleton of which I had talked so lightly, stalk
+in at the half-open aperture. But I had an odd sort of courage
+which was always fighting against my cowardly nerves, and I
+walked to the door, and looking up and down the dismal
+passage, was reassured.</p>
+
+<p>Well, one room more&mdash;just that whose deep-set door fronted
+me, with a melancholy frown, at the opposite end of the chamber.
+So to it I glided, shoved it open, advancing one step, and
+the great bony figure of Madame de la Rougierre was before me.</p>
+
+<p>I could see nothing else.</p>
+
+<p>The drowsy traveller who opens his sheets to slip into bed, and
+sees a scorpion coiled between them, may have experienced a
+shock the same in kind, but immeasurably less in degree.</p>
+
+<p>She sat in a clumsy old arm-chair, with an ancient shawl about
+her, and her bare feet in a delft tub. She looked a thought more
+withered. Her wig shoved back disclosed her bald wrinkled forehead,
+and enhanced the ugly effect of her exaggerated features
+and the gaunt hollows of her face. With a sense of incredulity
+and terror I gazed, freezing, at this evil phantom, who returned
+my stare for a few seconds with a shrinking scowl, dismal and
+grim, as of an evil spirit detected.</p>
+
+<p>The meeting, at least then and there, was as complete a surprise
+for her as for me. She could not tell how I might take it;
+but she quickly rallied, burst into a loud screeching laugh, and,
+with her old Walpurgis gaiety, danced some fantastic steps in
+her bare wet feet, tracking the floor with water, and holding out
+with finger and thumb, in dainty caricature, her slammakin old
+skirt, while she sang some of her nasal patois with an abominable
+hilarity and emphasis.</p>
+
+<p>With a gasp, I too recovered from the fascination of the surprise.
+I could not speak though for some seconds, and Madame was first.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page368" id="page368"></a>[pg 360]</span>
+
+<p>'Ah, dear Maud, what surprise! Are we not overjoy, dearest,
+and cannot speak? I am full of joy&mdash;quite charmed&mdash;<i>ravie</i>&mdash;of
+seeing you. So are you of me, your face betray. Ah! yes, thou
+dear little baboon! here is poor Madame once more! Who
+could have imagine?'</p>
+
+<p>'I thought you were in France, Madame,' I said, with a dismal
+effort.</p>
+
+<p>'And so I was, dear Maud; I 'av just arrive. Your uncle Silas
+he wrote to the superioress for gouvernante to accompany a
+young lady&mdash;that is you, Maud&mdash;on her journey, and she send
+me; and so, ma chère, here is poor Madame arrive to charge
+herself of that affair.'</p>
+
+<p>'How soon do we leave for France, Madame?' I asked.</p>
+
+<p>'I do not know, but the old women&mdash;wat is her name?'</p>
+
+<p>'Wyat,' I suggested.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh! oui, Waiatt;&mdash;she says two, three week. And who conduct
+you to poor Madame's apartment, my dear Maud?' She
+inquired insinuatingly.</p>
+
+<p>'No one, I answered promptly: 'I reached it quite accidentally,
+and I can't imagine why you should conceal yourself.'
+Something like indignation kindled in my mind as I began to
+wonder at the sly strategy which had been practised upon me.</p>
+
+<p>'I 'av not conceal myself, Mademoiselle,' retorted the governness.
+'I 'av act precisally as I 'av been ordered. Your uncle, Mr.
+Silas Ruthyn, he is afraid, Waiatt says, to be interrupted by his
+creditors, and everything must be done very quaitly. I have been
+commanded to avoid <i>me faire voir</i>, you know, and I must obey
+my employer&mdash;voilà tout!'</p>
+
+<p>'And for how long have you been residing here?' I persisted,
+in the same resentful vein.</p>
+
+<p>''Bout a week. It is soche triste place! I am so glad to see
+you, Maud! I've been so isolée, you dear leetle fool!'</p>
+
+<p>'You are <i>not</i> glad, Madame; you don't love me&mdash;you never
+did,' I exclaimed with sudden vehemence.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, I am <i>very</i> glad; you know not, chère petite <i>niaise</i>, how
+I 'av desire to educate you a leetle more. Let us understand one
+another. You think I do not love you, Mademoiselle, because
+you have mentioned to your poor papa that little <i>dérèglement</i>
+in his library. I have repent very often that so great indiscretion
+of my life. I thought to find some letters of Dr. Braierly. I
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page369" id="page369"></a>[pg 361]</span>
+
+think that man was trying to get your property, my dear Maud,
+and if I had found something I would tell you all about. But
+it was very great <i>sottise</i>, and you were very right to denounce
+me to Monsieur. Je n'ai point de rancune contre vous. No, no,
+none at all. On the contrary, I shall be your <i>gardienne
+tutelaire</i>&mdash;wat
+you call?&mdash;guardian angel&mdash;ah, yes, that is it. You think I
+speak <i>par dérision</i>; not at all. No, my dear cheaile, I do not
+speak <i>par moquerie</i>, unless perhaps the very least degree in the
+world.'</p>
+
+<p>And with these words Madame laughed unpleasantly, showing
+the black caverns at the side of her mouth, and with a cold,
+steady malignity in her gaze.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes,' I said; 'I know what you mean, Madame&mdash;you <i>hate</i> me.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh! wat great ogly word! I am shock! <i>vous me faites honte</i>.
+Poor Madame, she never hate any one; she loves all her friends,
+and her enemies she leaves to Heaven; while I am, as you see,
+more gay, more <i>joyeuse</i> than ever, they have not been 'appy&mdash;no,
+they have not been fortunate these others. Wen I return, I
+find always some of my enemy they 'av die, and some they have
+put themselves into embarrassment, or there has arrived to them
+some misfortune;' and Madame shrugged and laughed a little
+scornfully.</p>
+
+<p>A kind of horror chilled my rising anger, and I was silent.</p>
+
+<p>'You see, my dear Maud, it is very natural you should think
+I hate you. When I was with Mr. Austin Ruthyn, at Knowl, you
+know you did not like a me&mdash;never. But in consequence of our
+intimacy I confide you that which I 'av of most dear in the
+world, my reputation. It is always so. The pupil can <i>calomniate</i>,
+without been discover, the gouvernante. 'Av I not been always
+kind to you, Maud? Which 'av I use of violence or of sweetness
+the most? I am, like other persons, <i>jalouse de ma réputation</i>;
+and it was difficult to suffer with patience the banishment
+which was invoked by you, because chiefly for your good, and
+for an indiscretion to which I was excited by motives the most
+pure and laudable. It was you who spied so cleverly&mdash;eh! and
+denounce me to Monsieur Ruthyn? Helas! wat bad world it is!'</p>
+
+<p>'I do not mean to speak at all about that occurrence, Madame;
+I will not discuss it. I dare say what you tell me of the
+cause of your engagement here is true, and I suppose we must
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page370" id="page370"></a>[pg 362]</span>
+
+travel, as you say, in company; but you must know that the less
+we see of each other while in this house the better.'</p>
+
+<p>'I am not so sure of that, my sweet little <i>béte</i>; your education
+has been neglected, or rather entirely abandoned, since you 'av
+arrive at this place, I am told. You must not be a <i>bestiole</i>. We
+must do, you and I, as we are ordered. Mr. Silas Ruthyn he will
+tell us.'</p>
+
+<p>All this time Madame was pulling on her stockings, getting
+her boots on, and otherwise proceeding with her dowdy toilet.
+I do not know why I stood there talking to her. We often act
+very differently from what we would have done upon reflection.
+I had involved myself in a dialogue, as wiser generals than I
+have entangled themselves in a general action when they meant
+only an affair of outposts. I had grown a little angry, and would
+not betray the least symptom of fear, although I felt that sensation
+profoundly.</p>
+
+<p>'My beloved father thought you so unfit a companion for me
+that he dismissed you at an hour's notice, and I am very sure
+that my uncle will think as he did; you are <i>not</i> a fit companion
+for me, and had my uncle known what had passed he would
+never have admitted you to this house&mdash;never!'</p>
+
+<p>'Helas! <i>Quelle disgrace</i>! And you really think so, my dear
+Maud,' exclaimed Madame, adjusting her wig before her glass, in
+the corner of which I could see half of her sly, grinning face,
+as she ogled herself in it.</p>
+
+<p>'I do, and so do you, Madame,' I replied, growing more
+frightened.</p>
+
+<p>'It may be&mdash;we shall see; but everyone is not so cruel as you,
+<i>ma chère petite calomniatrice</i>.'</p>
+
+<p>'You shan't call me those names,' I said, in an angry tremor.</p>
+
+<p>'What name, dearest cheaile?'</p>
+
+<p>'<i>Calomniatrice</i>&mdash;that is an insult.'</p>
+
+<p>'Why, my most foolish little Maud, we may say rogue, and
+a thousand other little words in play which we do not say
+seriously.'</p>
+
+<p>'You are not playing&mdash;you never play&mdash;you are angry, and you
+hate me,' I exclaimed, vehemently.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, fie!&mdash;wat shame! Do you not perceive, dearest cheaile,
+how much education you still need? You are proud, little demoiselle;
+you must become, on the contrary, quaite humble. Je
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page371" id="page371"></a>[pg 363]</span>
+
+ferai baiser le babouin à vous&mdash;ha, ha, ha! I weel make a you
+to kees the monkey. You are too proud, my dear cheaile.'</p>
+
+<p>'I am not such a fool as I was at Knowl,' I said; 'you shall
+not terrify me here. I will tell my uncle the whole truth,' I
+said.</p>
+
+<p>'Well, it may be that is the best,' she replied, with provoking
+coolness.</p>
+
+<p>'You think I don't mean it?'</p>
+
+<p>'Of course you <i>do</i>,' she replied.</p>
+
+<p>'And we shall see what my uncle thinks of it.'</p>
+
+<p>'We shall see, my dear,' she replied, with an air of mock
+contrition.</p>
+
+<p>'Adieu, Madame!'</p>
+
+<p>'You are going to Monsieur Ruthyn?&mdash;very good!'</p>
+
+<p>I made her no answer, but more agitated than I cared to show
+her, I left the room. I hurried along the twilight passage, and
+turned into the long gallery that opened from it at right angles.
+I had not gone half-a-dozen steps on my return when I heard a
+heavy tread and a rustling behind me.</p>
+
+<p>'I am ready, my dear; I weel accompany you,' said the smirking
+phantom, hurrying after me.</p>
+
+<p>'Very well,' was my reply; and threading our way, with a few
+hesitations and mistakes, we reached and descended the stairs,
+and in a minute more stood at my uncle's door.</p>
+
+<p>My uncle looked hard and strangely at us as we entered. He
+looked, indeed, as if his temper was violently excited, and glared
+and muttered to himself for a few seconds; and treating Madame
+to a stare of disgust, he asked peevishly&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Why am I disturbed, pray?'</p>
+
+<p>'Miss Maud a Ruthyn, she weel explain,' replied Madame,
+with a great courtesy, like a boat going down in a ground swell.</p>
+
+<p>'<i>Will</i> you explain, my dear?' he asked, in his coldest and
+most sarcastic tone.</p>
+
+<p>I was agitated, and I am sure my statement was confused. I
+succeeded, however, in saying what I wanted.</p>
+
+<p>'Why, Madame, this is a grave charge! Do you admit it,
+pray?'</p>
+
+<p>Madame, with the coolest possible effrontery, denied it all;
+with the most solemn asseverations, and with streaming eyes
+and clasped hands, conjured me melodramatically to withdraw
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page372" id="page372"></a>[pg 364]</span>
+
+that intolerable story, and to do her justice. I stared at her for
+a while astounded, and turning suddenly to my uncle, as vehemently
+asserted the truth of every syllable I had related.</p>
+
+<p>'You hear, my dear child, you hear her deny everything; what
+am I to think? You must excuse the bewilderment of my old
+head. Madame de la&mdash;that lady has arrived excellently recommended
+by the superioress of the place where dear Milly awaits
+you, and such persons are particular. It strikes me, my dear niece,
+that you must have made a mistake.'</p>
+
+<p>I protested here. But he went on without seeming to hear
+the parenthesis&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'I know, my dear Maud, that you are quite incapable of wilfully
+deceiving anyone; but you are liable to be deceived like
+other young people. You were, no doubt, very nervous, and but
+half awake when you fancied you saw the occurrence you describe;
+and Madame de&mdash;de&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'De la Rougierre,' I supplied.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, thank you&mdash;Madame de la Rougierre, who has arrived
+with excellent testimonials, strenuously denies the whole thing.
+Here is a conflict, my dear&mdash;in my mind a presumption of mistake.
+I confess I should prefer that theory to a peremptory assumption
+of guilt.'</p>
+
+<p>I felt incredulous and amazed; it seemed as if a dream were
+being enacted before me. A transaction of the most serious import,
+which I had witnessed with my own eyes, and described
+with unexceptionable minuteness and consistency, is discredited
+by that strange and suspicious old man with an imbecile coolness.
+It was quite in vain my reiterating my statement, backing it
+with the most earnest asseverations. I was beating the air. It did
+not seem to reach his mind. It was all received with a simper of
+feeble incredulity.</p>
+
+<p>He patted and smoothed my head&mdash;he laughed gently, and
+shook his while I insisted; and Madame protested her purity in
+now tranquil floods of innocent tears, and murmured mild and
+melancholy prayers for my enlightenment and reformation. I
+felt as if I should lose my reason.</p>
+
+<p>'There now, dear Maud, we have heard enough; it is, I do
+believe, a delusion. Madame de la Rougierre will be your companion,
+at the utmost, for three or four weeks. Do exercise a
+little of your self-command and good sense&mdash;you know how I am
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page373" id="page373"></a>[pg 365]</span>
+
+tortured. Do not, I entreat, add to my perplexities. You may
+make yourself very happy with Madame if you will, I have no
+doubt.'</p>
+
+<p>'I propose to Mademoiselle,' said Madame, drying her eyes
+with a gentle alacrity, 'to profit of my visit for her education.
+But she does not seem to weesh wat I think is so useful.'</p>
+
+<p>'She threatened me with some horrid French vulgarism&mdash;<i>de
+faire baiser le babouin à moi</i>, whatever that means; and I
+know she hates me,' I replied, impetuously.</p>
+
+<p>'Doucement&mdash;doucement!' said my uncle, with a smile at
+once amused and compassionate. 'Doucement! ma chère.'</p>
+
+<p>With great hands and cunning eyes uplifted, Madame tearfully&mdash;for
+her tears came on short notice&mdash;again protested her
+absolute innocence. She had never in all her life so much as
+heard one so villain phrase.</p>
+
+<p>'You see, my dear, you have misheard; young people never
+attend. You will do well to take advantage of Madame's short
+residence to get up your French a little, and the more you are
+with her the better.'</p>
+
+<p>'I understand then, Mr. Ruthyn, you weesh I should resume
+my instructions?' asked Madame.</p>
+
+<p>'Certainly; and converse all you can in French with Mademoiselle
+Maud. You will be glad, my dear, that I've insisted on
+it,' he said, turning to me, 'when you have reached France,
+where you will find they speak nothing else. And now, dear
+Maud&mdash;no, not a word more&mdash;you must leave me. Farewell, Madame!'</p>
+
+<p>And he waved us out a little impatiently; and I, without one
+look toward Madame de la Rougierre, stunned and incensed,
+walked into my room and shut the door.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page374" id="page374"></a>[pg 366]</span>
+
+<a name="chap55"></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER LV</h3>
+<h2><i>THE FOOT OF HERCULES</i></h2>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>I stood at the window&mdash;still the same leaden sky and feathery
+sleet before me&mdash;trying to estimate the magnitude of the discovery
+I had just made. Gradually a kind of despair seized me, and I
+threw myself passionately on my bed, weeping aloud.</p>
+
+<p>Good Mary Quince was, of course, beside me in a moment,
+with her pale, concerned face.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, Mary, Mary, she's come&mdash;that dreadful woman, Madame
+de la Rougierre, has come to be my governess again; and Uncle
+Silas won't hear or believe anything about her. It is vain
+talking; he is prepossessed. Was ever so unfortunate a creature
+as I? Who could have fancied or feared such a thing? Oh,
+Mary, Mary, what am I to do? what is to become of me? Am I
+never to shake off that vindictive, terrible woman?'</p>
+
+<p>Mary said all she could to console me. I was making too much
+of her. What was she, after all, more than a governess?&mdash;she could
+not hurt me. I was not a child no longer&mdash;she could not bully me
+now; and my uncle, though he might be deceived for a while,
+would not be long finding her out.</p>
+
+<p>Thus and soforth did good Mary Quince declaim, and at
+last she did impress me a little, and I began to think that I had,
+perhaps, been making too much of Madame's visit. But still
+imagination, that instrument and mirror of prophecy, showed
+her formidable image always on its surface, with a terrible moving
+background of shadows.</p>
+
+<p>In a few minutes there was a knock at my door, and Madame
+herself entered. She was in walking costume. There had been a
+brief clearing of the weather, and she proposed our making a
+promenade together.</p>
+
+<p>On seeing Mary Quince she broke into a rapture of compliment
+and greeting, and took what Mr. Richardson would have
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page375" id="page375"></a>[pg 367]</span>
+
+called her passive hand, and pressed it with wonderful tenderness.</p>
+
+<p>Honest Mary suffered all this somewhat reluctantly, never
+smiling, and, on the contrary, looking rather ruefully at her
+feet.</p>
+
+<p>'Weel you make a some tea? When I come back, dear Mary
+Quince, I 'av so much to tell you and dear Miss Maud of all
+my adventures while I 'av been away; it will make a you laugh
+ever so much. I was&mdash;what you theenk?&mdash;near, ever so near to be
+married!' And upon this she broke into a screeching laugh, and
+shook Mary Quince merrily by the shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>I sullenly declined going out, or rising; and when she had
+gone away, I told Mary that I should confine myself to my room
+while Madame stayed.</p>
+
+<p>But self-denying ordinances self-imposed are not always long
+observed by youth. Madame de la Rougierre laid herself out to
+be agreeable; she had no end of stories&mdash;more than half, no
+doubt, pure fictions&mdash;to tell, but all, in that triste place, amusing.
+Mary Quince began to entertain a better opinion of her.
+She actually helped to make beds, and tried to be in every way
+of use, and seemed to have quite turned over a new leaf; and so
+gradually she moved me, first to listen, and at last to talk.</p>
+
+<p>On the whole, these terms were better than a perpetual skirmish; but,
+notwithstanding all her gossip and friendliness, I
+continued to have a profound distrust and even terror of her.</p>
+
+<p>She seemed curious about the Bartram-Haugh family, and
+all their ways, and listened darkly when I spoke. I told her, bit
+by bit, the whole story of Dudley, and she used, whenever there
+was news of the Seamew, to read the paragraph for my benefit;
+and in poor Milly's battered little Atlas she used to trace the
+ship's course with a pencil, writing in, from point to point, the
+date at which the vessel was 'spoken' at sea. She seemed amused
+at the irrepressible satisfaction with which I received these
+minutes of his progress; and she used to calculate the distance;&mdash;on
+such a day he was two hundred and sixty miles, on
+such another five hundred; the last point was more than eight
+hundred&mdash;good, better, best&mdash;best of all would be those 'deleecious
+antipode, w'ere he would so soon promener on his head
+twelve thousand mile away;' and at the conceit she would
+fall into screams of laughter.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page376" id="page376"></a>[pg 368]</span>
+
+<p>Laugh as she might, however, there was substantial comfort
+in thinking of the boundless stretch of blue wave that rolled between
+me and that villainous cousin.</p>
+
+<p>I was now on very odd terms with Madame. She had not
+relapsed into her favourite vein of oracular sarcasm and menace;
+she had, on the contrary, affected her good-humoured and genial
+vein. But I was not to be deceived by this. I carried in my
+heart that deep-seated fear of her which her unpleasant goodhumour
+and gaiety never disturbed for a moment. I was very
+glad, therefore, when she went to Todcaster by rail, to make
+some purchases for the journey which we were daily expecting to
+commence; and happy in the opportunity of a walk, good old
+Mary Quince and I set forth for a little ramble.</p>
+
+<p>As I wished to make some purchases in Feltram, I set out,
+with Mary Quince for my companion. On reaching the great gate
+we found it locked. The key, however, was in it, and as it required
+more than the strength of my hand to turn, Mary tried
+it. At the same moment old Crowle came out of the sombre
+lodge by its side, swallowing down a mouthful of his dinner in
+haste. No one, I believe, liked the long suspicious face of the
+old man, seldom shorn or washed, and furrowed with great,
+grimy perpendicular wrinkles. Leering fiercely at Mary, not pretending
+to see me, he wiped his mouth hurriedly with the back
+of his hand, and growled&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Drop it.'</p>
+
+<p>'Open it, please, Mr. Crowle,' said Mary, renouncing the
+task.</p>
+
+<p>Crowle wiped his mouth as before, looking inauspicious; shuffling
+to the spot, and muttering to himself, he first satisfied
+himself that the lock was fast, and then lodged the key in his
+coat-pocket, and still muttering, retraced his steps.</p>
+
+<p>'We want the gate open, please,' said Mary.</p>
+
+<p>No answer.</p>
+
+<p>'Miss Maud wants to go into the town,' she insisted.</p>
+
+<p>'We wants many a thing we can't get,' he growled, stepping
+into his habitation.</p>
+
+<p>'Please open the gate,' I said, advancing.</p>
+
+<p>He half turned on his threshold, and made a dumb show of
+touching his hat, although he had none on.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page377" id="page377"></a>[pg 369]</span>
+
+<p>'Can't, ma'am; without an order from master, no one goes
+out here.'</p>
+
+<p>'You won't allow me and my maid to pass the gate?' I said.</p>
+
+<p>''Tisn't <i>me</i>, ma'am,' said he; 'but I can't break orders, and no
+one goes out without the master allows.'</p>
+
+<p>And without awaiting further parley, he entered, shutting
+his hatch behind him.</p>
+
+<p>So Mary and I stood, looking very foolish at one another.
+This was the first restraint I had experienced since Milly and I
+had been refused a passage through the Windmill paling. The
+rule, however, on which Crowle insisted I felt confident could
+not have been intended to apply to me. A word to Uncle Silas
+would set all right; and in the meantime I proposed to Mary
+that we should take a walk&mdash;my favourite ramble&mdash;into the
+Windmill Wood.</p>
+
+<p>I looked toward Dickon's farmstead as we passed, thinking
+that Beauty might have been there. I did see the girl, who was
+plainly watching us. She stood in the doorway of the cottage,
+withdrawn into the shade, and, I fancied, anxious to escape observation.
+When we had passed on a little, I was confirmed
+in that belief by seeing her run down the footpath which led
+from the rear of the farmyard in the direction contrary to that
+in which we were moving.</p>
+
+<p>'So,' I thought, 'poor Meg falls from me!'</p>
+
+<p>Mary Quince and I rambled on through the wood, till we
+reached the windmill itself, and seeing its low arched door open,
+we entered the chiaro-oscuro of its circular basement. As we
+did so I heard a rush and the creak of a plank, and looking up,
+I saw just a foot&mdash;no more&mdash;disappearing through the trap-door.</p>
+
+<p>In the case of one we love or fear intensely, what feats of comparative
+anatomy will not the mind unconsciously perform? Constructing
+the whole living animal from the turn of an elbow,
+the curl of a whisker, a segment of a hand. How instantaneous
+and unerring is the instinct!</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, Mary, what have I seen!' I whispered, recovering from
+the fascination that held my gaze fast to the topmost rounds of
+the ladder, that disappeared in the darkness above the open door
+in the loft. 'Come, Mary&mdash;come away.'</p>
+
+<p>At the same instant appeared the swarthy, sullen face of
+Dickon Hawkes in the shadow of the aperture. Having but one
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page378" id="page378"></a>[pg 370]</span>
+
+serviceable leg, his descent was slow and awkward, and having
+got his head to the level of the loft he stopped to touch his hat
+to me, and to hasp and lock the trap-door.</p>
+
+<p>When this was done, the man again touched his hat, and
+looked steadily and searchingly at me for a second or so, while
+he got the key into his pocket.</p>
+
+<p>'These fellahs stores their flour too long 'ere, ma'am. There's
+a deal o' trouble a-looking arter it. I'll talk wi' Silas, and settle
+that.'</p>
+
+<p>By this time he had got upon the worn-tiled floor, and touching
+his hat again, he said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'I'm a-goin' to lock the door, ma'am!'</p>
+
+<p>So with a start, and again whispering&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Come, Mary&mdash;come away'&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>With my arm fast in hers, we made a swift departure.</p>
+
+<p>'I feel very faint, Mary,' said I. 'Come quickly.
+There's nobody following us?'</p>
+
+<p>'No, Miss, dear. That man with the wooden leg is putting a
+padlock on the door.'</p>
+
+<p>'Come <i>very</i> fast,' I said; and when we had got a little farther,
+I said, 'Look again, and see whether anyone is following.'</p>
+
+<p>'No one, Miss,' answered Mary, plainly surprised. 'He's putting
+the key in his pocket, and standin' there a-lookin' after us.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, Mary, did not you see it?'</p>
+
+<p>'What, Miss?' asked Mary, almost stopping.</p>
+
+<p>'Come on, Mary. Don't pause. They will observe us,' I
+whispered, hurrying her forward.</p>
+
+<p>'What did you see, Miss?' repeated Mary.</p>
+
+<p>'<i>Mr. Dudley</i>,' I whispered, with a terrified emphasis, not daring
+to turn my head as I spoke.</p>
+
+<p>'Lawk, Miss!' remonstrated honest Quince, with a protracted
+intonation of wonder and incredulity, which plainly implied a
+suspicion that I was dreaming.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, Mary. When we went into that dreadful room&mdash;that
+dark, round place&mdash;I saw his foot on the ladder. <i>His</i> foot, Mary
+I can't be mistaken. <i>I won't be questioned</i>. You'll <i>find</i> I'm right.
+He's <i>here</i>. He never went in that ship at all. A fraud has been
+practised on me&mdash;it is infamous&mdash;it is terrible. I'm frightened out
+of my life. For heaven's sake, look back again, and tell me what
+you see.'</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page379" id="page379"></a>[pg 371]</span>
+
+<p>'<i>Nothing</i>, Miss,' answered Mary, in contagious whispers, 'but
+that wooden-legged chap, standin' hard by the door.'</p>
+
+<p>'And no one with him?'</p>
+
+<p>'No one, Miss.'</p>
+
+<p>We got without pursuit through the gate in the paling. I drew
+breath so soon as we had reached the cover of the thicket near
+the chestnut hollow, and I began to reflect that whoever the
+owner of the foot might be&mdash;and I was still instinctively certain
+that it was no other than Dudley&mdash;concealment was plainly his
+object. I need not, then, be at all uneasy lest he should pursue
+us.</p>
+
+<p>As we walked slowly and in silence along the grassy footpath,
+I heard a voice calling my name from behind. Mary Quince had
+not heard it at all, but I was quite certain.</p>
+
+<p>It was repeated twice or thrice, and, looking in considerable
+doubt and trepidation under the hanging boughs, I saw Beauty,
+not ten yards away, standing among the underwood.</p>
+
+<p>I remember how white the eyes and teeth of the swarthy girl
+looked, as with hand uplifted toward her ear, she watched us
+while, as it seemed, listening for more distant sounds.</p>
+
+<p>Beauty beckoned eagerly to me, advancing, with looks of great
+fear and anxiety, two or three short steps toward me.</p>
+
+<p>'<i>She</i> baint to come,' said Beauty, under her breath, so soon as
+I had nearly reached her, pointing without raising her hand at
+Mary Quince.</p>
+
+<p>'Tell her to sit on the ash-tree stump down yonder, and call
+ye as loud as she can if she sees any fellah a-comin' this way, an'
+rin ye back to me;' and she impatiently beckoned me away on
+her errand.</p>
+
+<p>When I returned, having made this dispositions, I perceived
+how pale the girl was.</p>
+
+<p>'Are you ill, Meg?' I asked.</p>
+
+<p>'Never ye mind. Well enough. Listen, Miss; I must tell it
+all in a crack, an' if she calls, rin awa' to her, and le' me to myself,
+for if fayther or t'other un wor to kotch me here, I think
+they'd kill me a'most. Hish!'</p>
+
+<p>She paused a second, looking askance, in the direction where
+she fancied Mary Quince was. Then she resumed in a whisper&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Now, lass, mind ye, ye'll keep what I say to yourself. You're
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page380" id="page380"></a>[pg 372]</span>
+
+not to tell that un nor any other for your life, mind, a word o'
+what I'm goin' to tell ye.'</p>
+
+<p>'I'll not say a word. Go on.'</p>
+
+<p>'Did ye see Dudley?'</p>
+
+<p>'I think I saw him getting up the ladder.'</p>
+
+<p>'In the mill? Ha! that's him. He never went beyond Todcaster.
+He staid in Feltram after.'</p>
+
+<p>It was my turn to look pale now. My worst conjecture was
+established.</p>
+
+<a name="chap56"></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER LVI</h3>
+<h2><i>I CONSPIRE</i></h2>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>'That's a bad un, he is&mdash;oh, Miss, Miss Maud! It's nout that's
+good as keeps him an' fayther&mdash;(mind, lass, ye promised you
+would not tell no one)&mdash;as keeps them two a-talkin' and a-smokin'
+secret-like together in the mill. An' fayther don't know I
+found him out. They don't let me into the town, but Brice tells
+me, and he knows it's Dudley; and it's nout that's good, but
+summat very bad. An' I reckon, Miss, it's all about you. Be ye
+frightened, Miss Maud?'</p>
+
+<p>I felt on the point of fainting, but I rallied.</p>
+
+<p>'Not much, Meg. Go on, for Heaven's sake. Does Uncle Silas
+know he is here?'</p>
+
+<p>'Well, Miss, they were with him, Brice told me, from eleven
+o'clock to nigh one o' Tuesday night, an' went in and come out
+like thieves, 'feard ye'd see 'em.'</p>
+
+<p>'And how does Brice know anything bad?' I asked, with a
+strange freezing sensation creeping from my heels to my head
+and down again&mdash;I am sure deadly pale, but speaking very collectedly.</p>
+
+<p>'Brice said, Miss, he saw Dudley a-cryin' and lookin' awful
+black, and says he to fayther, "'Tisn't in my line nohow, an' I
+can't;" and says fayther to he, "No one likes they soart o'
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page381" id="page381"></a>[pg 373]</span>
+
+things, but how can ye help it? The old boy's behind ye wi'
+his pitchfork, and ye canna stop." An' wi' that he bethought
+him o' Brice, and says he, "What be ye a-doin' there? Get
+ye down wi' the nags to blacksmith, do ye." An' oop gits Dudley,
+pullin' his hat ower his brows, an' says he, "I wish I was in the
+<i>Seamew</i>. I'm good for nout wi' this thing a-hangin' ower me."
+An' that's all as Brice heard. An' he's afeard o' fayther and
+Dudley awful. Dudley could lick him to pot if he crossed him,
+and he and fayther 'ud think nout o' havin' him afore the
+justices for poachin', and swearin' him into gaol.'</p>
+
+<p>'But why does he think it's about <i>me</i>?'</p>
+
+<p>'Hish!' said Meg, who fancied she heard a sound, but all was
+quiet. 'I can't say&mdash;we're in danger, lass. I don't know why&mdash;but
+<i>he</i> does, an' so do I, an', for that matter, so do <i>ye</i>.'</p>
+
+<p>'Meg, I'll leave Bartram.'</p>
+
+<p>'Ye can't.'</p>
+
+<p>'Can't. What do you mean, girl?'</p>
+
+<p>'They won't let ye oot. The gates is all locked. They've dogs&mdash;they've
+bloodhounds, Brice says. Ye <i>can't</i> git oot, mind; put
+that oot o' your head.</p>
+
+<p>'I tell ye what ye'll do. Write a bit o' a note to the lady
+yonder at Elverston; an' though Brice be a wild fellah, and
+'appen not ower good sometimes, he likes me, an' I'll make him
+take it. Fayther will be grindin' at mill to-morrow. Coom ye
+here about one o'clock&mdash;that's if ye see the mill-sails a-turnin'&mdash;and
+me and Brice will meet ye here. Bring that old lass wi' ye.
+There's an old French un, though, that talks wi' Dudley. Mind
+ye, that un knows nout o' the matter. Brice be a kind lad to me,
+whatsoe'er he be wi' others, and I think he won't split. Now,
+lass, I must go. God help ye; God bless ye; an', for the world's
+wealth, don't ye let one o' them see ye've got ought in your head,
+not even that un.'</p>
+
+<p>Before I could say another word, the girl had glided from me,
+with a wild gesture of silence, and a shake of her head.</p>
+
+<p>I can't at all account for the state in which I was. There are
+resources both of energy and endurance in human nature which
+we never suspect until the tremendous voice of necessity summons
+them into play. Petrified with a totally new horror, but
+with something of the coldness and impassiveness of the transformation,
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page382" id="page382"></a>[pg 374]</span>
+
+I stood, spoke, and acted&mdash;a wonder, almost a terror,
+to myself.</p>
+
+<p>I met Madame on my return as if nothing had happened. I
+heard her ugly gabble, and looked at the fruits of her hour's
+shopping, as I might hear, and see, and talk, and smile,
+in a dream.</p>
+
+<p>But the night was dreadful. When Mary Quince and I were
+alone, I locked the door. I continued walking up and down the
+room, with my hands clasped, looking at the inexorable floor,
+the walls, the ceiling, with a sort of imploring despair. I was
+afraid to tell my dear old Mary. The least indiscretion would be
+failure, and failure destruction.</p>
+
+<p>I answered her perplexed solicitudes by telling her that I was
+not very well&mdash;that I was uneasy; but I did not fail to extract
+from her a promise that she would not hint to mortal, either
+my suspicions about Dudley, or our rencontre with Meg Hawkes.</p>
+
+<p>I remember how, when, after we had got, late at night, into
+bed, I sat up, shivering with horror, in mine, while honest Mary's
+tranquil breathing told how soundly she slept. I got up, and looked from
+the window, expecting to see some of those
+wolfish dogs which they had brought to the place prowling
+about the court-yard. Sometimes I prayed, and felt tranquillised,
+and fancied that I was perhaps to have a short interval of sleep. But the
+serenity was delusive, and all the time my
+nerves were strung hysterically. Sometimes I felt quite wild, and
+on the point of screaming. At length that dreadful night passed
+away. Morning came, and a less morbid, though hardly a less
+terrible state of mind. Madame paid me an early visit. A thought
+struck me. I knew that she loved shopping, and I said, quite
+carelessly&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Your yesterday's shopping tempts me, Madame, and I must
+get a few things before we leave for France. Suppose we go into
+Feltram to-day, and make my purchases, you and I?'</p>
+
+<p>She looked from the corner of her cunning eye in my face
+without answering. I did not blench, and she said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Vary good. I would be vary 'appy,' and again she looked
+oddly at me.</p>
+
+<p>'Wat hour, my dear Maud? One o'clock? I think that weel
+de very well, eh?'</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page383" id="page383"></a>[pg 375]</span>
+
+<p>I assented, and she grew silent.</p>
+
+<p>I wonder whether I did look as careless as I tried. I do not
+know. Through the whole of this awful period I was, I think,
+supernatural; and I even now look back with wonder upon my
+strange self-command.</p>
+
+<p>Madame, I hoped, had heard nothing of the order which prohibited
+my exit from the place. She would herself conduct me to
+Feltram, and secure, by accompanying me, my free egress.</p>
+
+<p>Once in Feltram, I would assert my freedom, and manage to
+reach my dear cousin Knollys. Back to Bartram no power should
+convey me. My heart swelled and fluttered in the awful suspense
+of that hour.</p>
+
+<p>Oh, Bartram-Haugh! how came you by those lofty walls?
+Which of my ancestors had begirt me with an impassable barrier
+in this horrible strait?</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly I remembered my letter to Lady Knollys. If I were
+disappointed in effecting my escape through Feltram, all would
+depend upon it.</p>
+
+<p>Having locked my door, I wrote as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, my beloved cousin, as you hope for comfort in <i>your</i>
+hour of fear, aid me now. Dudley has returned, and is secreted
+somewhere about the grounds. It is a <i>fraud</i>. They all pretend
+to me that he is gone away in the <i>Seamew</i>; and he or they had
+his name published as one of the passengers. Madame de la
+Rougierre has appeared! She is here, and my uncle insists on
+making her my close companion. I am at my wits' ends. I cannot
+escape&mdash;the walls are a prison; and I believe the eyes of
+my gaolers are always upon me. Dogs are kept for pursuit&mdash;yes,
+<i>dogs</i>! and the gates are locked against my escape. God help me!
+I don't know where to look, or whom to trust. I fear my uncle
+more than all. I think I could bear this better if I knew what
+their plans are, even the worst. If ever you loved or pitied me,
+dear cousin, I conjure you, help me in this extremity. Take me
+away from this. Oh, darling, for God's sake take me away!</p>
+
+<p class="closer">'Your distracted and terrified cousin,</p>
+
+<p class="signature">M<small>AUD</small>'</p>
+
+<p><span class="smalltext">'Bartram-Haugh</span>.'</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page384" id="page384"></a>[pg 376]</span>
+
+<p>I sealed this letter jealously, as if the inanimate missive would
+burst its cerements, and proclaim my desperate appeal through
+all the chambers and passages of silent Bartram.</p>
+
+<p>Old Quince, greatly to cousin Monica's amusement, persisted
+in furnishing me with those capacious pockets which belonged
+to a former generation. I was glad of this old-world eccentricity
+now, and placed my guilty letter, that, amidst all my hypocrisies,
+spoke out with terrible frankness, deep in this receptacle, and
+having hid away the pen and ink, my accomplices, I opened the
+door, and resumed my careless looks, awaiting Madame's return.</p>
+
+<p>'I was to demand to Mr. Ruthyn the permission to go to
+Feltram, and I think he will allow. He want to speak to you.'</p>
+
+<p>With Madame I entered my uncle's room. He was reclining on
+a sofa, his back towards us, and his long white hair, as fine as
+spun glass, hung over the back of the couch.</p>
+
+<p>'I was going to ask you, dear Maud, to execute two or three
+little commissions for me in Feltram.'</p>
+
+<p>My dreadful letter felt lighter in my pocket, and my heart
+beat violently.</p>
+
+<p>'But I have just recollected that this is a market-day, and
+Feltram will be full of doubtful characters and tipsy persons,
+so we must wait till to-morrow; and Madame says, very kindly,
+that she will, as she does not so much mind, make any little
+purchases to-day which cannot conveniently wait.'</p>
+
+<p>Madame assented with a courtesy to Uncle Silas, and a great
+hollow smile to me.</p>
+
+<p>By this time Uncle Silas had raised himself from his reclining
+posture, and was sitting, gaunt and white, upon the sofa.</p>
+
+<p>'News of my prodigal to-day,' he said, with a peevish smile,
+drawing the newspaper towards him. 'The vessel has been
+spoken again. How many miles away, do you suppose?'</p>
+
+<p>He spoke in a plaintive key, looking at me, with hungry eyes,
+and a horribly smiling countenance.</p>
+
+<p>'How far do you suppose Dudley is to-day?' and he laid the
+palm of his hand on the paragraph as he spoke. <i>Guess</i>!'</p>
+
+<p>For a moment I fancied this was a theatric preparation to give
+point to the disclosure of Dudley's real whereabouts.</p>
+
+<p>'It was a very long way. Guess!' he repeated.</p>
+
+<p>So, stammering a little and pale, I performed the required
+hypocrisy, after which my uncle read aloud for my benefit the
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page385" id="page385"></a>[pg 377]</span>
+
+line or two in which were recorded the event, and the latitude
+and longitude of the vessel at the time, of which Madame made
+a note in her memory, for the purpose of making her usual
+tracing in poor Milly's Atlas.</p>
+
+<p>I cannot say how it really was, but I fancied that Uncle Silas
+was all the time reading my countenance, with a grim and practised
+scrutiny; but nothing came of it, and we were dismissed.</p>
+
+<p>Madame loved shopping, even for its own sake, but shopping
+with opportunities of peculation still more. She had had her
+luncheon, and was dressed for the excursion, she did precisely
+what I now most desired&mdash;she proposed to take charge of my
+commissions and my money; and thus entrusted, left me at
+liberty to keep tryst at the Chestnut Hollow.</p>
+
+<p>So soon as I had seen Madame fairly off, I hurried Mary
+Quince, and got my things on quickly. We left the house by
+the side entrance, which I knew my uncle's windows did not
+command. Glad was I to feel a slight breeze, enough to make
+the mill-sails revolve; and as we got further into the grounds,
+and obtained a distant view of the picturesque old windmill,
+I felt inexpressibly relieved on seeing that it was actually working.</p>
+
+<p>We were now in the Chestnut Hollow, and I sent Mary
+Quince to her old point of observation, which commanded a
+view of the path in the direction of the Windmill Wood, with
+her former order to call 'I've found it,' as loudly as she could,
+in case she should see anyone approaching.</p>
+
+<p>I stopped at the point of our yesterday's meeting. I peered
+under the branches, and my heart beat fast as I saw Meg
+Hawkes awaiting me.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page386" id="page386"></a>[pg 378]</span>
+
+<a name="chap57"></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER LVII</h3>
+<h2><i>THE LETTER</i></h2>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>'Come away, lass,' whispered Beauty, very pale; 'he's here&mdash;Tom Brice.'</p>
+
+<p>And she led the way, shoving aside the leafless underwood,
+and we reached Tom. The slender youth, groom or poacher&mdash;he
+might answer for either&mdash;with his short coat and gaitered
+legs, was sitting on a low horizontal bough, with his shoulder
+against the trunk.</p>
+
+<p>'<i>Don't</i> ye mind; sit ye still, lad,' said Meg, observing that he
+was preparing to rise, and had entangled his hat in the boughs.
+'Sit ye still, and hark to the lady. He'll take it, Miss Maud, if
+he can; wi' na ye, lad?'</p>
+
+<p>'E'es, I'll take it,' he replied, holding out his hand.</p>
+
+<p>'Tom Brice, you won't deceive me?'</p>
+
+<p>'Noa, sure,' said Tom and Meg nearly in the same breath.</p>
+
+<p>'You are an honest English lad, Tom&mdash;you would not betray
+me?' I was speaking imploringly.</p>
+
+<p>'Noa, sure,' repeated Tom.</p>
+
+<p>There was something a little unsatisfactory in the countenance
+of this light-haired youth, with the sharpish upturned nose.
+Throughout our interview he said next to nothing, and smiled
+lazily to himself, like a man listening to a child's solemn nonsense,
+and leading it on, with an amused irony, from one wise
+sally to another.</p>
+
+<p>Thus it seemed to me that this young clown, without in the
+least intending to be offensive, was listening to me with a profound
+and lazy mockery.</p>
+
+<p>I could not choose, however; and, such as he was, I must
+employ him or none.</p>
+
+<p>'Now, Tom Brice, a great deal depends on this.'</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page387" id="page387"></a>[pg 379]</span>
+
+<p>'That's true for her, Tom Brice,' said Meg, who now and then
+confirmed my asseverations.</p>
+
+<p>'I'll give you a pound <i>now</i>, Tom,' and I placed the coin and
+the letter together in his hand. 'And you are to give this letter
+to Lady Knollys, at Elverston; you know Elverston, don't you?'</p>
+
+<p>'He does, Miss. Don't ye, lad?'</p>
+
+<p>'E'es.'</p>
+
+<p>'Well, do so, Tom, and I'll be good to you so long as I live.'</p>
+
+<p>'D'ye hear, lad?'</p>
+
+<p>'E'es,' said Tom; 'it's very good.'</p>
+
+<p>'You'll take the letter, Tom?' I said, in much greater trepidation as to
+his answer than I showed.</p>
+
+<p>'E'es, I'll take the letter,' said he, rising, and turning it about
+in his fingers under his eye, like a curiosity.</p>
+
+<p>'Tom Brice,' I said, 'If you can't be true to me, say so; but
+don't take the letter except to give it to Lady Knollys, at Elverston. If
+you won't promise that, let me have the note back.
+Keep the pound; but tell me that you won't mention my having
+asked you to carry a letter to Elverston to anyone.'</p>
+
+<p>For the first time Tom looked perfectly serious. He twiddled
+the corner of my letter between his finger and thumb, and wore
+very much the countenance of a poacher about to be committed.</p>
+
+<p>'I don't want to chouce ye, Miss; but I must take care o' myself,
+ye see. The letters goes all through Silas's fingers to the
+post, and he'd know damn well this worn't among 'em. They do
+say he opens 'em, and reads 'em before they go; an' that's his
+diversion. I don't know; but I do believe that's how it be; an'
+if this one turned up, they'd all know it went be hand, and I'd
+be spotted for't.'</p>
+
+<p>'But you know who I am, Tom, and I'd save you,' said I,
+eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>'Ye'd want savin' yerself, I'm thinkin', if that feel oot,' said
+Tom, cynically. 'I don't say, though, I'll not take it&mdash;only this&mdash;I
+won't run my head again a wall for no one.'</p>
+
+<p>'Tom,' I said, with a sudden inspiration, 'give me back the
+letter, and take me out of Bartram; take me to Elverston; it
+will be the best thing&mdash;for <i>you</i>, Tom, I mean&mdash;it will indeed&mdash;that
+ever befell you.'</p>
+
+<p>With this clown I was pleading, as for my life; my hand was
+on his sleeve. I was gazing imploringly in his face.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page388" id="page388"></a>[pg 380]</span>
+
+<p>But it would not do; Tom Brice looked amused again, swung
+his head a little on one side, grinning sheepishly over his shoulder on the
+roots of the trees beside him, as if he were striving
+to keep himself from an uncivil fit of laughter.</p>
+
+<p>'I'll do what a wise lad may, Miss; but ye don't know they
+lads; they bain't that easy come over; and I won't get knocked
+on the head, nor sent to gaol 'appen, for no good to thee nor me.
+There's Meg there, she knows well enough I could na' manage
+that; so I won't try it, Miss, by no chance; no offence, Miss;
+but I'd rayther not, an' I'll just try what I can make o'this;
+that's all I can do for ye.'</p>
+
+<p>Tom Brice, with these words, stood up, and looked uneasily
+in the direction of the Windmill Wood.</p>
+
+<p>'Mind ye, Miss, coom what will, ye'll not tell o' me?'</p>
+
+<p>'Whar 'ill ye go now, Tom?' inquired Meg, uneasily.</p>
+
+<p>'Never ye mind, lass,' answered he, breaking his way through
+the thicket, and soon disappearing.</p>
+
+<p>'E'es that 'ill be it&mdash;he'll git into the sheepwalk behind the
+mound. They're all down yonder; git ye back, Miss, to the hoose&mdash;be
+the side-door; mind ye, don't go round the corner; and
+I'll jest sit awhile among the bushes, and wait a good time for
+a start. And good-bye, Miss; and don't ye show like as if there
+was aught out o' common on your mind. Hish!'</p>
+
+<p>There was a distant hallooing.</p>
+
+<p>'That be fayther!' she whispered, with a very blank countenance,
+and listened with her sunburnt hand to her ear.</p>
+
+<p>'Tisn't me, only Davy he'll be callin',' she said, with a great
+sigh, and a joyless smile. 'Now git ye away i' God's name.'</p>
+
+<p>So running lightly along the path, under cover of this thick
+wood, I recalled Mary Quince, and together we hastened back
+again to the house, and entered, as directed, by the side-door,
+which did not expose us to be seen from the Windmill Wood,
+and, like two criminals, we stole up by the backstairs, and so
+through the side-gallery to my room; and there sat down to collect
+my wits, and try to estimate the exact effect of what had
+just occurred.</p>
+
+<p>Madame had not returned. That was well; she always visited
+my room first, and everything was precisely as I had left it&mdash;a
+certain sign that her prying eyes and busy fingers had not been
+at work during my absence.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page389" id="page389"></a>[pg 381]</span>
+
+<p>When she did appear, strange to say, it was to bring me unexpected comfort.
+She had in her hand a letter from my dear Lady
+Knollys&mdash;a gleam of sunlight from the free and happy outer
+world entered with it. The moment Madame left me to myself,
+I opened it and read as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>'I am so happy, my dearest Maud, in the immediate prospect
+of seeing you. I have had a really kind letter from poor Silas&mdash;<i>poor</i>
+I say, for I really compassionate his situation, about
+which he has been, I do believe, quite frank&mdash;at least Ilbury
+says so, and somehow he happens to know. I have had quite an
+affecting, changed letter. I will tell you all when I see you. He
+wants me ultimately to undertake that which would afford me
+the most unmixed happiness&mdash;I mean the care of you, my dear
+girl. I only fear lest my too eager acceptance of the trust should
+excite that vein of opposition which is in most human beings,
+and induce him to think over his offer less favourably again.
+He says I must come to Bartram, and stay a night, and promises
+to lodge me comfortably; about which last I honestly do not
+care a pin, when the chance of a comfortable evening's gossip
+with you is in view. Silas explains his sad situation, and must
+hold himself in readiness for early flight, if he would avoid
+the risk of losing his personal liberty. It is a sad thing that he
+should have so irretrievably ruined himself, that poor Austin's
+liberality seems to have positively precipitated his extremity.
+His great anxiety is that I should see you before you leave for
+your short stay in France. He thinks you must leave before a
+fortnight. I am thinking of asking you to come over here; I
+know you would be just as well at Elverston as in France; but
+perhaps, as he seems disposed to do what we all wish, it may
+be safer to let him set about it in his own way. The truth is,
+I have so set my heart upon it that I fear to risk it by crossing
+him even in a trifle. He says I must fix an early day next week,
+and talks as if he meant to urge me to make a longer visit than
+he defined. I shall be only too happy. I begin, my dear Maud, to
+think that there is no use in trying to control events, and that
+things often turn out best, and most exactly to our wishes, by
+being left quite to themselves. I think it was Talleyrand who
+praised the talent of <i>waiting</i> so much. In high spirits, and with
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page390" id="page390"></a>[pg 382]</span>
+
+my head brimful of plans, I remain, dearest Maud, ever your
+affectionate cousin,</p>
+
+<p class="signature">M<small>ONICA</small>.'</p>
+
+<p>Here was an inexplicable puzzle! A faint radiance of hope,
+however, began to overspread a landscape only a few minutes
+before darkened by total eclipse; but construct what theory I
+might, all were inconsistent with many well-established and
+awful incongruities, and their wrecks lay strown over the troubled
+waters of the gulf into which I gazed.</p>
+
+<p>Why was Madame here? Why was Dudley concealed about
+the place? Why was I a prisoner within the walls? What were
+those dangers which Meg Hawkes seemed to think so great and
+so imminent as to induce her to risk her lover's safety for my
+deliverance? All these menacing facts stood grouped together
+against the dark certainty that never were men more deeply interested in
+making away with one human being, than were Uncle
+Silas and Dudley in removing me.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes to these dreadful evidences I abandoned my soul.
+Sometimes, reading Cousin Monica's sunny letter, the sky would
+clear, and my terrors melt away like nightmares in the morning.
+I never repented, however, that I had sent my letter by Tom
+Brice. Escape from Bartram-Haugh was my hourly longing.</p>
+
+<p>That evening Madame invited herself to tea with me. I did
+not object. It was better just then to be on friendly relations
+with everybody, if possible, even on their own terms. She was in
+one of her boisterous and hilarious moods, and there was a perfume
+of brandy.</p>
+
+<p>She narrated some compliments paid her that morning in Feltram
+by that 'good crayature' Mrs. Litheways, the silk-mercer,
+and what ''ansom faylow' was her new foreman&mdash;(she intended
+plainly that I should 'queez' her)&mdash;and how 'he follow' her
+with his eyes wherever she went. I thought, perhaps, he fancied
+she might pocket some of his lace or gloves. And all the time
+her great wicked eyes were rolling and glancing according to her
+ideas of fascination, and her bony face grinning and flaming
+with the 'strong drink' in which she delighted. She sang twaddling
+chansons, and being, as was her wont under such exhilarating influences, in
+a vapouring mood, she vowed that I should have my carriage and horses immediately.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page391" id="page391"></a>[pg 383]</span>
+
+<p>'I weel try what I can do weeth your Uncle Silas. We are
+very good old friends, Mr. Ruthyn and I,' she said with a leer
+which I did not understand, and which yet frightened me.</p>
+
+<p>I never could quite understand why these Jezebels like to insinuate the
+dreadful truth against themselves; but they do. Is
+it the spirit of feminine triumph overcoming feminine shame,
+and making them vaunt their fall as an evidence of bygone fascination and
+existing power? Need we wonder? Have not women
+preferred hatred to indifference, and the reputation of witchcraft, with
+all its penalties, to absolute insignificance? Thus,
+as they enjoyed the fear inspired among simple neighbours by
+their imagined traffic with the father of ill, did Madame, I
+think, relish with a cynical vainglory the suspicion of her satanic
+superiority.</p>
+
+<p>Next morning Uncle Silas sent for me. He was seated at his
+table, and spoke his little French greeting, smiling as usual,
+pointing to a chair opposite.</p>
+
+<p>'How far, I forget,' he said, carelessly laying his newspaper on
+the table, 'did you yesterday guess Dudley to be?'</p>
+
+<p>'Eleven hundred miles I thought it was.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh yes, so it was;' and then there was an abstracted pause.
+'I have been writing to Lord Ilbury, your trustee,' he resumed.
+'I ventured to say, my dear Maud&mdash;(for having thoughts of a
+different arrangement for you, more suitable under my distressing
+circumstances, I do not wish to vacate without some expression of
+your estimate of my treatment of you while under my
+roof)&mdash;I ventured to say that you thought me kind, considerate,
+indulgent,&mdash;may I say so?'</p>
+
+<p>I assented. What could I say?</p>
+
+<p>'I said you had enjoyed our poor way of living here&mdash;our
+rough ways and liberty. Was I right?'</p>
+
+<p>Again I assented.</p>
+
+<p>'And, in fact, that you had nothing to object against your
+poor old uncle, except indeed his poverty, which you forgave. I
+think I said truth. Did I, dear Maud?'</p>
+
+<p>Again I acquiesced.</p>
+
+<p>All this time he was fumbling among the papers in his coatpocket.</p>
+
+<p>'That is satisfactory. So I expected you to say,' he murmured.
+'I expected no less.'</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page392" id="page392"></a>[pg 384]</span>
+
+<p>On a sudden a frightful change spread across his face. He
+rose like a spectre with a white scowl.</p>
+
+<p>'Then how do you account for that?' he shrieked in a voice
+of thunder, and smiting my open letter to Lady Knollys, face upward, upon
+the table.</p>
+
+<p>I stared at my uncle, unable to speak, until I seemed to lose
+sight of him; but his voice, like a bell, still yelled in my ears.</p>
+
+<p>'There! young hypocrite and liar! explain that farrago of
+slander which you bribed my servant to place in the hands of my
+kinswoman, Lady Knollys.'</p>
+
+<p>And so on and on it went, I gazing into darkness, until the
+voice itself became indistinct, grew into a buzz, and hummed
+away into silence.</p>
+
+<p>I think I must have had a fit.</p>
+
+<p>When I came to myself I was drenched with water, my hair,
+face, neck, and dress. I did not in the least know where I was. I
+thought my father was ill, and spoke to him. Uncle Silas was
+standing near the window, looking unspeakably grim. Madame
+was seated beside me, and an open bottle of ether, one of Uncle
+Silas's restoratives, on the table before me.</p>
+
+<p>'Who's that&mdash;who's ill&mdash;is anyone dead?' I cried.</p>
+
+<p>At last I was relieved by long paroxysms of weeping. When I
+was sufficiently recovered, I was conveyed into my own room.</p>
+
+<a name="chap58"></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER LVIII</h3>
+<h2><i>LADY KNOLLYS' CARRIAGE</i></h2>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>Next morning&mdash;it was Sunday&mdash;I lay on my bed in my dressing-gown,
+dull, apathetic, with all my limbs sore, and, as I thought,
+rheumatic, and feeling so ill that I did not care to speak or lift
+my head. My recollection of what had passed in Uncle Silas's
+room was utterly confused, and it seemed to me as if my poor
+father had been there and taken a share&mdash;I could not remember
+how&mdash;in the conference.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page393" id="page393"></a>[pg 385]</span>
+
+<p>I was too exhausted and stupid to clear up this horrible
+muddle, and merely lay with my face toward the wall, motionless
+and silent, except for a great sigh every now and then.</p>
+
+<p>Good Mary Quince was in the room&mdash;there was some comfort
+in that; but I felt quite worn out, and had rather she did not
+speak to me; and indeed for the time I felt absolutely indifferent
+as to whether I lived or died.</p>
+
+<p>Cousin Monica this morning, at pleasant Elverston, all-unconscious
+of my sad plight, proposed to Lady Mary Carysbroke and
+Lord Ilbury, her guests, to drive over to church at Feltram,
+and then pay us a visit at Bartram-Haugh, to which they readily
+agreed.</p>
+
+<p>Accordingly, at about two o'clock, this pleasant party of
+three arrived at Bartram. They walked, having left the carriage to
+follow when the horses were fed; and Madame de la Rougierre,
+who was in my uncle's room when little Giblets arrived to say
+that the party were in the parlour, whispered for a little with
+my uncle, who then said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Miss Maud Ruthyn has gone out to drive, but I shall be
+happy to see Lady Knollys here, if she will do me the favour
+to come up-stairs and see me for a few moments; and you can
+mention that I am very far from well.'</p>
+
+<p>Madame followed him out upon the lobby, and added, holding
+him by the collar, and whispering earnestly in his ear&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Bring hair ladysheep up by the backstairs&mdash;mind, the <i>back</i>stairs.'</p>
+
+<p>And the next moment Madame entered my room, with long
+tiptoe steps, and looking, Mary Quince said, as if she were going
+to be hanged.</p>
+
+<p>On entering she looked sharply round, and being satisfied of
+Mary Quince's presence, she turned the key in the door, and
+made some affectionate enquiries about me in a whisper; and
+then she stole to the window and peeped out, standing back
+some way; after which she came to my bedside, murmured some
+tender sentences, drew the curtain a little, and making some
+little fidgety adjustments about the room; among the rest she took
+the key from the lock, quietly, and put it into her pocket.</p>
+
+<p>This was so odd a procedure that honest Mary Quince rose
+stoutly from her chair, pointing to the lock, with her frank
+little blue eyes fixed on Madame, and she whispered&mdash;'Won't
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page394" id="page394"></a>[pg 386]</span>
+
+you put the key in the lock, please?'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, certainly, Mary Queence; but it is better it shall be
+locked, for I think her uncle he is coming to see her, and I
+am sure she would be very much frightened, for he is very much
+displease, don't you see? and we can tell him she is not well
+enough, or asleep, and so he weel go away again, without any
+trouble.'</p>
+
+<p>I heard nothing of this, which was conducted in close whispers;
+and Mary, although she did not give Madame credit for
+caring whether I was frightened or not, and suspected her motives
+in everything, acquiesced grudgingly, fearing lest her alleged
+reason might possibly be the true one.</p>
+
+<p>So Madame hovered about the door, uneasily; and of what
+went on elsewhere during that period Lady Knollys afterwards
+gave me the following account:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'We were very much disappointed; but of course I was glad
+to see Silas, and your little hobgoblin butler led me up-stairs to
+his room a different way, I think, from that I came before; but
+I don't know the house of Bartram well enough to speak positively.
+I only know that I was conducted quite across his bedroom,
+which I had not seen on my former visit, and so into
+his sitting-room, where I found him.</p>
+
+<p>'He seemed very glad to see me, came forward smiling&mdash;I disliked
+his smile always&mdash;with both hands out, and shook mine
+with more warmth than I ever remembered in his greeting before,
+and said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'"My dear, <i>dear</i> Monica, how <i>very</i> good of you&mdash;the very
+person I longed to see! I have been miserably ill, the sad consequence
+of still more miserable anxiety. Sit down, pray, for a
+moment."</p>
+
+<p>'And he paid me some nice little French compliment in
+verse.</p>
+
+<p>'"And where is Maud?" said I.</p>
+
+<p>'"I think Maud is by this time about halfway to Elverston,"
+said the old gentleman. "I persuaded her to take a drive, and
+advised a call there, which seemed to please her, so I conjecture
+she obeyed."</p>
+
+<p>'"How <i>very</i> provoking!" cried I.</p>
+
+<p>'"My poor Maud will be sadly disappointed, but you will
+console her by a visit&mdash;you have promised to come, and I shall
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page395" id="page395"></a>[pg 387]</span>
+
+try to make you comfortable. I shall be happier, Monica, with
+this proof of our perfect reconciliation. You won't deny me?"</p>
+
+<p>'"Certainly not. I am only too glad to come," said I; "and
+I want to thank you, Silas."</p>
+
+<p>'"For what?" said he.</p>
+
+<p>'"For wishing to place Maud in my care. I am very much
+obliged to you."</p>
+
+<p>'"I did not suggest it, I must say, Monica, with the least
+intention of obliging <i>you</i>," said Silas.</p>
+
+<p>'I thought he was going to break into one of his ungracious
+moods.</p>
+
+<p>'"But I <i>am</i> obliged to you&mdash;very much obliged to you, Silas;
+and you sha'n't refuse my thanks."</p>
+
+<p>'"I am happy, at all events, Monica, in having won your
+good-will; we learn at last that in the affections only are our
+capacities for happiness; and how true is St. Paul's preference
+of love&mdash;the principle that abideth! The affections, dear Monica,
+are eternal; and being so, celestial, divine, and consequently
+happy, deriving happiness, and bestowing it."</p>
+
+<p>'I was always impatient of his or anybody else's metaphysics;
+but I controlled myself, and only said, with my customary impudence&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'"Well, dear Silas, and when do you wish me to come?"</p>
+
+<p>'"The earlier the better," said he.</p>
+
+<p>'"Lady Mary and Ilbury will be leaving me on Tuesday
+morning. I can come to you in the afternoon, if you think
+Tuesday a good day."</p>
+
+<p>'"Thank you, dear Monica. I shall be, I trust, enlightened
+by that day as to my enemies' plans. It is a humiliating confession,
+Monica, but I am past feeling that. It is quite possible
+that an execution may be sent into this house to-morrow, and
+an end of all my schemes. It is not likely, however&mdash;hardly
+possible&mdash;before three weeks, my attorney tells me. I shall hear from
+him to-morrow morning, and then I shall ask you to name a
+very early day. If we are to have an unmolested fortnight certain,
+you shall hear, and name your own day."</p>
+
+<p>'Then he asked me who had accompanied me, and lamented
+ever so much his not being able to go down to receive them;
+and he offered luncheon, with a sort of Ravenswood smile, and
+a shrug, and I declined, telling him that we had but a few
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page396" id="page396"></a>[pg 388]</span>
+
+minutes, and that my companions were walking in the grounds
+near the house.</p>
+
+<p>'I asked whether Maud was likely to return soon?</p>
+
+<p>'"Certainly not before five o'clock." He thought we should
+probably meet her on our way back to Elverston; but could not
+be certain, as she might have changed her plans.</p>
+
+<p>'So then came&mdash;no more remaining to be said&mdash;a very
+affectionate parting. I believe all about his legal dangers was strictly
+true. How he could, unless that horrid woman had deceived
+him, with so serene a countenance tell me all those gross untruths
+about Maud, I can only admire.'</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime, as I lay in my bed, Madame, gliding hither
+and thither, whispering sometimes, listening at others,
+I suddenly startled them both by saying&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Whose carriage?'</p>
+
+<p>'What carriage, dear?' inquired Quince, whose ears were not
+so sharp as mine.</p>
+
+<p>Madame peeped from the window.</p>
+
+<p>''Tis the physician, Doctor Jolks. He is come to see your
+uncle, my dear,' said Madame.</p>
+
+<p>'But I hear a female voice,' I said, sitting up.</p>
+
+<p>'No, my dear; there is only the doctor,' said Madame. 'He
+is come to your uncle. I tell you he is getting out of his
+carriage,' and she affected to watch the doctor's descent.</p>
+
+<p>'The carriage is driving away!' I cried.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, it is draiving away,' she echoed.</p>
+
+<p>But I had sprung from my bed, and was looking over her
+shoulder, before she perceived me.</p>
+
+<p>'It is Lady Knollys!' I screamed, seizing the window-frame
+to force it up, and, vainly struggling to open it, I cried&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'I'm here, Cousin Monica. For God's sake, Cousin Monica&mdash;Cousin
+Monica!'</p>
+
+<p>'You are mad, Meess&mdash;go back,' screamed Madame, exerting
+her superior strength to force me back.</p>
+
+<p>But I saw deliverance and escape gliding away from my reach,
+and, strung to unnatural force by desperation, I pushed past her,
+and beat the window wildly with my hands, screaming&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Save me&mdash;save me! Here, here, Monica, here! Cousin, cousin,
+oh! save me!'</p>
+
+<p>Madame had seized my wrists, and a wild struggle was going
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page397" id="page397"></a>[pg 389]</span>
+
+on. A window-pane was broken, and I was shrieking to stop the
+carriage. The Frenchwoman looked black and haggard as a
+fury, as if she could have murdered me.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing daunted&mdash;frantic&mdash;I screamed in my despair, seeing
+the carriage drive swiftly away&mdash;seeing Cousin Monica's bonnet,
+as she sat chatting with her <i>vis-à-vis</i>.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, oh, oh!' I shrieked, in vain and prolonged agony, as
+Madame, exerting her strength and matching her fury against
+my despair, forced me back in spite of my wild struggles, and
+pushed me sitting on the bed, where she held me fast, glaring
+in my face, and chuckling and panting over me.</p>
+
+<p>I think I felt something of the despair of a lost spirit.</p>
+
+<p>I remember the face of poor Mary Quince&mdash;its horror, its
+wonder&mdash;as she stood gaping into my face, over Madame's
+shoulder, and crying&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'What is it, Miss Maud? What is it, dear?' And turning
+fiercely on Madame, and striving to force her grasp from my
+wrists, 'Are you hurting the child? Let her go&mdash;let her go.'</p>
+
+<p>'I <i>weel</i> let her go. Wat old fool are you, Mary Queence! She
+is mad, I think. She 'as lost hair head.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, Mary, cry from the window. Stop the carriage!' I cried.</p>
+
+<p>Mary looked out, but there was by this time, of course, nothing
+in sight.</p>
+
+<p>'Why don't a you stop the carriage?' sneered Madame. 'Call
+a the coachman and the postilion. W'ere is the footman? Bah!
+<i>elle a le cerveau mal timbré</i>.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, Mary, Mary, is it gone&mdash;is it gone? Is there nothing
+there?' cried I, rushing to the window; and turning to Madame,
+after a vain straining of my eyes, my face against the
+glass&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, cruel, cruel, wicked woman! why have you done this?
+What was it to you? Why do you persecute me? What good
+<i>can</i> you gain by my ruin?'</p>
+
+<p>'Rueen! Par bleu! ma chère, you talk too fast. Did not a you
+see it, Mary Queence? It was the doctor's carriage, and Mrs.
+Jolks, and that eempudent faylow, young Jolks, staring up to
+the window, and Mademoiselle she come in soche shocking
+déshabille to show herself knocking at the window. 'Twould be
+very nice thing, Mary Queence, don't you think?'</p>
+
+<p>I was sitting now on the bedside, crying in mere despair. I
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page398" id="page398"></a>[pg 390]</span>
+
+did not care to dispute or to resist. Oh! why had rescue come so
+near, only to prove that it could not reach me? So I went on crying,
+with a clasping of my hands and turning up of my eyes, in
+incoherent prayer. I was not thinking of Madame, or of Mary
+Quince, or any other person, only babbling my anguish and despair
+helplessly in the ear of heaven.</p>
+
+<p>'I did not think there was soche fool. Wat <i>enfant gaté</i>! My
+dear cheaile, wat a can you <i>mean</i> by soche strange language and
+conduct? Wat for should a you weesh to display yourself in the
+window in soche 'orrible déshabille to the people in the doctor's
+coach?'</p>
+
+<p>'It was <i>Cousin Knollys</i>&mdash;Cousin Knollys. Oh, Cousin Knollys!
+You're gone&mdash;you're gone&mdash;you're <i>gone</i>!'</p>
+
+<p>'And if it was Lady Knollys' coach, there was certainly a
+coachman and a footman; and whoever has the coach there
+was young gentlemen in it. If it was Lady Knollys' carriage it
+would 'av been <i>worse</i> than the doctor.'</p>
+
+<p>'It is no matter&mdash;it is all over. Oh, Cousin Monica, your poor
+Maud&mdash;where is she to turn? Is there no help?'</p>
+
+<p>That evening Madame visited me again, in one of her sedate
+and moral moods. She found me dejected and passive, as she had
+left me.</p>
+
+<p>'I think, Maud, there is news; but I am not certain.'</p>
+
+<p>I raised my head and looked at her wistfully.</p>
+
+<p>'I think there is letter of <i>bad</i> news from the attorney in
+London.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh!' I said, in a tone which I am sure implied the absolute
+indifference of dejection.</p>
+
+<p>'But, my dear Maud, if't be so, we shall go at once, you and
+me, to join Meess Millicent in France. La belle France! You
+weel like so moche! We shall be so gay. You cannot imagine
+there are such naice girl there. They all love a me so moche,
+you will be delight.'</p>
+
+<p>'How soon do we go?' I asked.</p>
+
+<p>'I do not know. Bote I was to bring in a case of eau de
+cologne that came this evening, and he laid down a letter and
+say:&mdash;"The blow has descended, Madame! My niece must hold
+herself in readiness." I said, "For what, Monsieur?" <i>twice</i>;
+bote he did not answer. I am sure it is <i>un procès</i>. They 'av ruin
+him. Eh bien, my dear. I suppose we shall leave this triste place
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page399" id="page399"></a>[pg 391]</span>
+
+immediately. I am so rejoice. It appears to me <i>un cimetière</i>!'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, I should like to leave it,' I said, sitting up, with a great
+sigh and sunken eyes. It seemed to me that I had quite lost all
+sense of resentment towards Madame. A debility of feeling had
+supervened&mdash;the fatigue, I suppose, and prostration of the passions.</p>
+
+<p>'I weel make excuse to go into his room again,' said Madame;
+'and I weel endeavor to learn something more from him, and
+I weel come back again to you in half an hour.'</p>
+
+<p>She departed. But in half an hour did not return. I had a dull
+longing to leave Bartram-Haugh. For me, since the departure of
+poor Milly, it had grown like the haunt of evil spirits, and to
+escape on any terms from it was a blessing unspeakable.</p>
+
+<p>Another half-hour passed, and another, and I grew insufferably
+feverish. I sent Mary Quince to the lobby to try and see
+Madame, who, I feared, was probably to-ing and fro-ing in and
+out of Uncle Silas's room.</p>
+
+<p>Mary returned to tell me that she had seen old Wyat, who
+told her that she thought Madame had gone to her bed half an
+hour before.</p>
+
+<a name="chap59"></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER LIX</h2>
+<h3><i>A SUDDEN DEPARTURE</i></h3>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>'Mary,' said I, 'I am miserably anxious to hear what Madame
+may have to tell; she knows the state I am in, and she would
+not like so much trouble as to look in at my door to say a word.
+Did you hear what she told me?'</p>
+
+<p>'No, Miss Maud,' she answered, rising and drawing near.</p>
+
+<p>'She thinks we are going to France immediately, and to leave
+this place perhaps for ever.'</p>
+
+<p>'Heaven be praised for that, if it be so, Miss!' said Mary,
+with more energy than was common with her, 'for there is no
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page400" id="page400"></a>[pg 392]</span>
+
+luck about it, and I don't expect to see you ever well or happy
+in it.'</p>
+
+<p>'You must take your candle, Mary, and make out her room,
+up-stairs; I found it accidentally myself one evening.'</p>
+
+<p>'But Wyat won't let us up-stairs.'</p>
+
+<p>'Don't mind her, Mary; I tell you to go. You must try. I
+can't sleep till we hear.'</p>
+
+<p>'What direction is her room in, Miss?' asked Mary.</p>
+
+<p>'Somewhere in <i>that</i> direction, Mary,' I answered, pointing.
+'I cannot describe the turns; but I think you will find it if you
+go along the great passage to your left, on getting to the top
+of the stairs, till you come to the cross-galleries, and then turn
+to your left; and when you have passed four or perhaps five
+doors, you must be very near it, and I am sure she will hear if
+you call.'</p>
+
+<p>'But will she tell me&mdash;she <i>is</i> such a rum un, Miss?' suggested
+Mary.</p>
+
+<p>'Tell her exactly what I have said to you, and when she
+learns that you already know as much as I do, she may&mdash;unless,
+indeed, she wishes to torture me. If she won't, perhaps at least
+you can persuade her to come to me for a moment. Try, dear
+Mary; we can but fail.'</p>
+
+<p>'Will you be very lonely, Miss, while I am away?' asked
+Mary, uneasily, as she lighted her candle.</p>
+
+<p>'I can't help it, Mary. Go. I think if I heard we were going,
+I could almost get up and dance and sing. I can't bear this
+dreadful uncertainty any longer.'</p>
+
+<p>'If old Wyat is outside, I'll come back and wait here a bit,
+till she's out o' the way,' said Mary; 'and, anyhow, I'll make
+all the haste I can. The drops and the sal-volatile is here, Miss,
+by your hand.'</p>
+
+<p>And with an anxious look at me, she made her exit, softly,
+and did not immediately return, by which I concluded that
+she had found the way clear, and had gained the upper story
+without interruption.</p>
+
+<p>This little anxiety ended, its subsidence was followed by a
+sense of loneliness, and with it, of vague insecurity, which
+increased at last to such a pitch, that I wondered at my own
+madness in sending my companion away; and at last my terrors so
+grew, that I drew back into the farthest corner of the bed, with
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page401" id="page401"></a>[pg 393]</span>
+
+my shoulders to the wall, and my bed-clothes huddled about me,
+with only a point open to peep at.</p>
+
+<p>At last the door opened gently.</p>
+
+<p>'Who's there?' I cried, in extremity of horror, expecting
+I knew not whom.</p>
+
+<p>'Me, Miss,' whispered Mary Quince, to my unutterable relief;
+and with her candle flared, and a wild and pallid face, Mary
+Quince glided into the room, locking the door as she entered.</p>
+
+<p>I do not know how it was, but I found myself holding Mary
+fast with both my hands as we stood side by side on the floor.</p>
+
+<p>'Mary, you are terrified; for God's sake, what is the matter?'
+I cried.</p>
+
+<p>'No, Miss,' said Mary, faintly, 'not much.'</p>
+
+<p>'I see it in your face. What is it?'</p>
+
+<p>'Let me sit down, Miss. I'll tell you what I saw; only I'm
+just a bit queerish.'</p>
+
+<p>Mary sat down by my bed.</p>
+
+<p>'Get in, Miss; you'll take cold. Get into bed, and I'll tell you.
+It is not much.'</p>
+
+<p>I did get into bed, and gazing on Mary's frightened face, I
+felt a corresponding horror.</p>
+
+<p>'For mercy's sake, Mary, say what it is?'</p>
+
+<p>So again assuring me 'it was not much,' she gave me in a
+somewhat diffuse and tangled narrative the following facts:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>On closing my door, she raised her candle above her head and
+surveyed the lobby, and seeing no one there she ascended the
+stairs swiftly. She passed along the great gallery to the left,
+and paused a moment at the cross gallery, and then recollected
+my directions clearly, and followed the passage to the right.</p>
+
+<p>There are doors at each side, and she had forgotten to ask me
+at which Madame's was. She opened several. In one room she
+was frightened by a bat, which had very nearly put her candle
+out. She went on a little, paused, and began to lose heart in the
+dismal solitude, when on a sudden, a few doors farther on, she
+thought she heard Madame's voice.</p>
+
+<p>She said that she knocked at the door, but receiving no answer,
+and hearing Madame still talking within, she opened it.</p>
+
+<p>There was a candle on the chimneypiece, and another in a
+stable lantern near the window. Madame was conversing volubly
+on the hearth, with her face toward the window, the entire
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page402" id="page402"></a>[pg 394]</span>
+
+frame of which had been taken from its place: Dickon Hawkes,
+the Zamiel of the wooden leg, was supporting it with one hand,
+as it leaned imperfectly against the angle of the recess. There
+was a third figure standing, buttoned up in a surtout, with a
+bundle of tools under his arm, like a glazier, and, with a silent
+thrill of fear, she distinctly recognised the features as those of
+Dudley Ruthyn.</p>
+
+<p>''Twas him, Miss, so sure as I sit here! Well, like that, they
+were as mute as mice; three pairs of eyes were on me. I don't
+know what made me so study like, but som'at told me I should
+not make as though I knew any but Madame; and so I made
+a courtesy, as well as I could, and I said, "Might I speak a
+word wi' ye, please, on the lobby?"</p>
+
+<p>'Mr. Dudley was making belief be this time to look out
+at window, wi' his back to me, and I kept looking straight on
+Madame, and she said, "They're mendin' my broken glass,
+Mary," walking between them and me, and coming close up
+to me very quick; and so she marched me backward out o'
+the door, prating all the time.</p>
+
+<p>'When we were on the lobby, she took my candle from my
+hand, shutting the door behind her, and she held the light a bit
+behind her ear; so'twas full on my face, as she looked sharp
+into it; and, after a bit, she said again, in her queer lingo&mdash;there
+was two panes broke in her room, and men sent for to
+mend it.</p>
+
+<p>'I was awful frightened when I saw Mr. Dudley, for I could
+not believe any such thing before, and I don't know how I
+could look her in the face as I did and not show it. I was as
+smooth and cool as yonder chimneypiece, and she has an awful
+evil eye to stan' against; but I never flinched, and I think
+she's puzzled, for as cunning as she is, whether I believe all she
+said, or knowed 'twas a pack o' stories. So I told her your
+message, and she said she had not heard another word since; but
+she did believe we had not many more days here, and would tell
+you if she heard to-night, when she brought his soup to your
+uncle, in half an hour's time.'</p>
+
+<p>I asked her, as soon as I could speak, whether she was perfectly
+certain as to the fact that the man in the surtout was
+Dudley, and she made answer&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'I'd swear to him on that Bible, Miss.'</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page403" id="page403"></a>[pg 395]</span>
+
+<p>So far from any longer wishing Madame's return that night, I
+trembled at the idea of it. Who could tell who might enter the
+room with her when the door opened to admit her?</p>
+
+<p>Dudley, so soon as he recovered the surprise, had turned
+about, evidently anxious to prevent recognition; Dickon Hawkes
+stood glowering at her. Both might have hope of escaping
+recognition in the imperfect light, for the candle on the
+chimneypiece was flaring in the air, and the light from the
+lantern fell in spots, and was confusing.</p>
+
+<p>What could that ruffian, Hawkes, be doing in the house? Why
+was Dudley there? Could a more ominous combination be
+imagined? I puzzled my distracted head over all Mary Quince's
+details, but could make nothing of their occupation. I know of
+nothing so terrifying as this kind of perpetual puzzling over
+ominous problems.</p>
+
+<p>You may imagine how the long hours of that night passed,
+and how my heart beat at every fancied sound outside my door.</p>
+
+<p>But morning came, and with its light some reassurance. Early,
+Madame de la Rougierre made her appearance; she searched my
+eyes darkly and shrewdly, but made no allusion to Mary Quince's
+visit. Perhaps she expected some question from me, and, hearing
+none, thought it as well to leave the subject at rest.</p>
+
+<p>She had merely come in to say that she had heard nothing
+since, but was now going to make my uncle's chocolate; and
+that so soon as her interview was ended she would see me again,
+and let me hear anything she should have gleaned.</p>
+
+<p>In a little while a knock came to my door, and Mary Quince
+was ordered by old Wyat into my uncle's room. She returned
+flushed, in a huge fuss, to say that I was to be up and dressed
+for a journey in half an hour, and to go straight, when dressed,
+to my uncle's room.</p>
+
+<p>It was good news; at the same time it was a shock. I was glad.
+I was stunned. I jumped out of bed, and set about my toilet with
+an energy quite new to me. Good Mary Quince was busily
+packing my boxes, and consulting as to what I should take with
+me, and what not.</p>
+
+<p>Was Mary Quince to accompany me? He had not said a word
+on that point; and I feared from his silence she was to remain.
+There was comfort, however, in this&mdash;that the separation would
+not be for long; I felt confident of that; and I was about to
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page404" id="page404"></a>[pg 396]</span>
+
+join Milly, whom I loved better than I could have believed
+before our separation; but whatsoever the conditions might be,
+it was an indescribable relief to have done with Bartram-Haugh,
+and leave behind me its sinister lines of circumvallation, its
+haunted recesses, and the awful spectres that had lately appeared
+within its walls.</p>
+
+<p>I stood too much in awe of my uncle to fail in presenting myself
+punctually at the close of the half-hour. I entered his sitting-room
+under the shadow of sour old Wyat's high-cauled cap; she
+closed the door behind me, and the conference commenced.</p>
+
+<p>Madame de la Rougierre sat there, dressed and draped for a
+journey, and with a thick black lace veil on. My uncle rose,
+gaunt and venerable, and with a harsh and severe countenance.
+He did not offer his hand; he made me a kind of bow, more of
+repulsion than of respect. He remained in a standing position,
+supporting his crooked frame by his hand, which he leaned on
+a despatch-box; he glared on me steadily with his wild phosphoric
+eyes, from under the dark brows I have described to you,
+now corrugated in lines indescribably stern.</p>
+
+<p>'You shall join my daughter at the Pension, in France;
+Madame de la Rougierre shall accompany you,' said my uncle,
+delivering his directions with the stern monotony and the
+measured pauses of a person dictating an important despatch
+to a secretary.' Old Mrs. Quince shall follow with me, or, if alone,
+in a week. You shall pass to-night in London; to-morrow night
+you proceed thence to Dover, and cross by the mail-packet.
+You shall now sit down and write a letter to your cousin Monica
+Knollys, which I will first read and then despatch. Tomorrow
+you shall write a note to Lady Knollys, from <i>London</i>, telling
+her how you have got over so much of your journey, and that
+you cannot write from Dover, as you must instantly start by the
+packet on reaching it; and that until my affairs are a little
+settled, you cannot write to her from France, as it is of high
+importance to my safety that no clue should exist as to our address.
+Intelligence, however, shall reach her through my attorneys,
+Archer and Sleigh, and I trust we shall soon return. You
+will, please, submit that latter note to Madame de la Rougierre,
+who has my directions to see that it contains no <i>libels</i> upon
+my character. Now, sit down.'</p>
+
+<p>So, with those unpleasant words tingling in my ears, I obeyed.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page405" id="page405"></a>[pg 397]</span>
+
+<p>'<i>Write</i>,' said he, when I was duly placed. 'You shall convey
+the substance of what I say in your own language. The immiment
+danger this morning announced of an execution&mdash;remember
+the word,' and he spelled it for me&mdash;'being put into this
+house either this afternoon or to-morrow, compels me to anticipate
+my plans, and despatch you for France this day. That you
+are starting with an attendant.' Here an uneasy movement
+from Madame, whose dignity was perhaps excited. 'An
+<i>attendant</i>,' he repeated, with a discordant emphasis; 'and you can,
+if you please&mdash;but I don't <i>solicit</i> that justice&mdash;say
+that you have been as kindly treated here as my unfortunate circumstances
+would permit. That is all. You have just fifteen minutes to
+write. Begin.'</p>
+
+<p>I wrote accordingly. My hysterical state had made me far less
+combative than I might have proved some months since, for
+there was much that was insulting as well as formidable in his
+manner. I completed my letter, however, to his satisfaction in
+the prescribed time; and he said, as he laid it and its envelope
+on the table&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Please to remember that this lady is not your attendant only,
+but that she has authority to direct every detail respecting your
+journey, and will make all the necessary payments on the way.
+You will please, then, implicitly to comply with her directions.
+The carriage awaits you at the hall-door.'</p>
+
+<p>Having thus spoken, with another grim bow, and 'I wish you
+a safe and pleasant journey,' he receded a step or two, and I,
+with an undefinable kind of melancholy, though also with a
+sense of relief, withdrew.</p>
+
+<p>My letter, I afterwards found, reached Lady Knollys, accompanied
+by one from Uncle Silas, who said&mdash;'Dear Maud apprises
+me that she has written to tell you something of our movements.
+A sudden crisis in my miserable affairs compels a break-up as
+sudden here. Maud joins my daughter at the Pension, in France.
+I purposely omit the address, because I mean to reside in its
+vicinity until this storm shall have blown over; and as the
+consequences of some of my unhappy entanglements might pursue
+me even there, I must only for the present spare you the pain
+and trouble of keeping a secret. I am sure that for some little
+time you will excuse the girl's silence; in the meantime you
+shall hear of them, and perhaps circuitously, from me. Our dear
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page406" id="page406"></a>[pg 398]</span>
+
+Maud started this morning <i>en route</i> for her destination, very
+sorry, as am I, that she could not enjoy first a flying visit to
+Elverston, but in high spirits, notwithstanding, at the new life
+and sights before her.'</p>
+
+<p>At the door my beloved old friend, Mary Quince, awaited me.</p>
+
+<p>'Am I going with you, Miss Maud?'</p>
+
+<p>I burst into tears and clasped her in my arms.</p>
+
+<p>'I'm not,' said Mary, very sorrowfully; 'and I never was
+from you yet, Miss, since you wasn't the length of my arm.'</p>
+
+<p>And kind old Mary began to cry with me.</p>
+
+<p>'Bote you are coming in a few days, Mary Quince,' expostulated
+Madame. 'I wonder you are soche fool. What is two, three
+days? Bah! nonsense, girl.'</p>
+
+<p>Another farewell to poor Mary Quince, quite bewildered at
+the suddenness of her bereavement. A serious and tremulous
+bow from our little old butler on the steps. Madame bawling
+through the open window to the driver to make good speed, and
+remember that we had but nineteen minutes to reach the station.
+Away we went. Old Crowle's iron <i>grille</i> rolled back before
+us. I looked on the receding landscape, the giant trees&mdash;the
+palatial, time-stained mansion. A strange conflict of feelings,
+sweet and bitter, rose and mingled in the reverie. Had I been
+too hard and suspicious with the inhabitants of that old house
+of my family? Was my uncle <i>justly</i> indignant? Was I ever
+again to know such pleasant rambles as some of those I had
+enjoyed with dear Millicent through the wild and beautiful
+woodlands I was leaving behind me? And there, with my
+latest glimpse of the front of Bartram-Haugh, I beheld dear
+old Mary Quince gazing after us. Again my tears flowed. I waved
+my handkerchief from the window; and now the park-wall hid
+all from view, and at a great pace, through the steep wooded
+glen, with the rocky and precipitous character of a ravine, we
+glided; and when the road next emerged, Bartram-Haugh was
+a misty mass of forest and chimneys, slope and hollow, and we
+within a few minutes of the station.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page407" id="page407"></a>[pg 399]</span>
+
+<a name="chap60"></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER LX</h3>
+<h2><i>THE JOURNEY</i></h2>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>Waiting for the train, as we stood upon the platform, I looked
+back again toward the wooded uplands of Bartram; and far behind,
+the fine range of mountains, azure and soft in the distance,
+beyond which lay beloved old Knowl, and my lost father and
+mother, and the scenes of my childhood, never embittered except
+by the sibyl who sat beside me.</p>
+
+<p>Under happier circumstances I should have been, at my then
+early age, quite wild with pleasurable excitement on entering
+London for the first time. But black Care sat by me, with her
+pale hand in mine: a voice of fear and warning, whose words I
+could not catch, was always in my ear. We drove through London,
+amid the glare of lamps, toward the West-end, and for a
+little while the sense of novelty and curiosity overcame my
+despondency, and I peeped eagerly from the window; while
+Madame, who was in high good-humour, spite of the fatigues
+of our long railway flight, screeched scraps of topographic
+information in my ear; for London was a picture-book in which
+she was well read.</p>
+
+<p>'That is Euston Square, my dear&mdash;Russell Square. Here is
+Oxford Street&mdash;Haymarket. See, there is the Opera House&mdash;Hair
+Majesty's Theatre. See all the carriages waiting;' and so on, till
+we reached at length a little narrow street, which she told me
+was off Piccadilly, where we drew up before a private house,
+as it seemed to me&mdash;a family hotel&mdash;and I was glad to be at rest
+for the night.</p>
+
+<p>Fatigued with the peculiar fatigue of railway travelling, dusty,
+a little chilly, with eyes aching and wearied, I ascended the
+stairs silently, our garrulous and bustling landlady leading the
+way, and telling her oft-told story of the house, its noble owner
+in old time, and how those fine drawing-rooms were taken every
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page408" id="page408"></a>[pg 400]</span>
+
+year during the Session by the Bishop of Rochet-on-Copeley, and
+at last into our double-bedded room.</p>
+
+<p>I would fain have been alone, but I was too tired and dejected
+to care very much for anything.</p>
+
+<p>At tea, Madame expanded in spirit, like a giant refreshed,
+and chattered and sang; and at last, seeing that I was nodding,
+advised my going to bed, while she ran across the street to see
+'her dear old friend, Mademoiselle St. Eloi, who was sure to be
+up, and would be offended if she failed to make her ever so
+short a call.'</p>
+
+<p>I cared little what she said, and was glad to be rid of her even
+for a short time, and was soon fast asleep.</p>
+
+<p>I saw her, I know not how much later, poking about the
+room, like a figure in a dream, and taking off her things.</p>
+
+<p>She had her breakfast in bed next morning, and I was, to my
+comfort, left to take mine in solitary possession of our sitting-room;
+where I began to wonder how little annoyance I had as
+yet suffered from her company, and began to speculate upon the
+chances of my making the journey with tolerable comfort.</p>
+
+<p>Our hostess gave me five minutes of her valuable time. Her
+talk ran chiefly upon nuns and convents, and her old acquaintance with
+Madame; and it seemed to me that she had at one
+time driven a kind of trade, no doubt profitable enough, in
+escorting young ladies to establishments on the Continent; and
+although I did not then quite understand the tone in which
+she spoke to me, I often thought afterwards that Madame had
+represented me as a young person destined for the holy vocation
+of the veil.</p>
+
+<p>When she was gone, I sat listlessly looking out of the window,
+and saw some chance equipages drive by, and now and then a
+fashionable pedestrian; and wondered if this quiet thoroughfare
+could really be one of the arteries so near the heart of the
+tumultuous capital.</p>
+
+<p>I think my nervous vitality must have burnt very low just
+then, for I felt perfectly indifferent about all the novelty and
+world of wonders beyond, and should have hated to leave the
+dull tranquillity of my window for an excursion through the
+splendours of the unseen streets and palaces that surrounded me.</p>
+
+<p>It was one o'clock before Madame joined me; and finding me
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page409" id="page409"></a>[pg 401]</span>
+
+in this dull mood, she did not press me to accompany her in
+her drive, no doubt well pleased to be rid of me.</p>
+
+<p>After tea that evening, as we sat alone in our room, she
+entertained me with some very odd conversation&mdash;at the time
+unintelligible&mdash;but which acquired a tolerably distinct meaning from
+the events that followed.</p>
+
+<p>Two or three times that day Madame appeared to me on the
+point of saying something of grave import, as she scanned me
+with her bleak wicked stare.</p>
+
+<p>It was a peculiarity of hers, that whenever she was pressed
+upon by an anxiety that really troubled her, her countenance
+did not look sad or solicitous, as other people's would, but
+simply wicked. Her great gaunt mouth was compressed and
+drawn down firmly at the corners, and her eyes glared with a
+dismal scowl.</p>
+
+<p>At last she said suddenly&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Are you ever grateful, Maud?'</p>
+
+<p>'I hope so, Madame,' I answered.</p>
+
+<p>'And how do you show your gratitude? For instance, would
+a you do great deal for a person who would run <i>risque</i> for your
+sake?'</p>
+
+<p>It struck me all at once that she was sounding me about poor
+Meg Hawkes, whose fidelity, notwithstanding the treason or
+cowardice of her lover, Tom Brice, I never doubted; and I grew
+at once wary and reserved.</p>
+
+<p>'I know of no opportunity, thank Heaven, for any such service,
+Madame. How can anyone serve me at present, by themselves
+incurring danger? What do you mean?'</p>
+
+<p>'Do you like, for example, to go to that French Pension?
+Would you not like better some other arrangement?'</p>
+
+<p>'Of course there are other arrangements I should like better;
+but I see no use in talking of them; they are not to be,' I
+answered.</p>
+
+<p>'What other arrangements do you mean, my dear cheaile?'
+enquired Madame. 'You mean, I suppose, you would like better
+to go to Lady Knollys?'</p>
+
+<p>'My uncle does not choose it at present; and except with his
+consent nothing can be done!'</p>
+
+<p>'He weel never consent, dear cheaile.'</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page410" id="page410"></a>[pg 402]</span>
+
+<p>'But he <i>has</i> consented&mdash;not immediately indeed, but in a
+short time, when his affairs are settled.'</p>
+
+<p>'<i>Lanternes</i>! They will never be settle,' said Madame.</p>
+
+<p>'At all events, for the present I am to go to France. Milly
+seems very happy, and I dare say I shall like it too. I am very
+glad to leave Bartram-Haugh, at all events.'</p>
+
+<p>'But your uncle weel bring you back there,' said Madame,
+drily.</p>
+
+<p>'It is doubtful whether he will ever return to Bartram himself,'
+I said.</p>
+
+<p>'Ah!' said Madame, with a long-drawn nasal intonation, 'you
+theenk I hate you. You are quaite wrong, my dear Maud. I am,
+on the contrary, very much interested for you&mdash;I am, I assure
+you, dear a cheaile.'</p>
+
+<p>And she laid her great hand, with joints misshapen by old
+chilblains, upon the back of mine. I looked up in her face.
+She was not smiling. On the contrary, her wide mouth was
+drawn down at the corners ruefully, as before, and she gazed on
+my face with a scowl from her abysmal eyes.</p>
+
+<p>I used to think the flare of that irony which lighted her face
+so often immeasurably worse than any other expression she
+could assume; but this lack-lustre stare and dismal collapse of
+feature was more wicked still.</p>
+
+<p>'Suppose I should bring you to Lady Knollys, and place you
+in her charge, what would a you do then for poor Madame?'
+said this dark spectre.</p>
+
+<p>I was inwardly startled at these words. I looked into her
+unsearchable face, but could draw thence nothing but fear. Had
+she made the same overture only two days since, I think I
+would have offered her half my fortune. But circumstances
+were altered. I was no longer in the panic of despair. The lesson
+I had received from Tom Brice was fresh in my mind, and
+my profound distrust of her was uppermost. I saw before me
+only a tempter and betrayer, and said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Do you mean to imply, Madame, that my guardian is not
+to be trusted, and that I ought to make my escape from him,
+and that you are really willing to aid me in doing so?'</p>
+
+<p>This, you see, was turning the tables upon her. I looked her
+steadily in the face as I spoke. She returned my gaze with a
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page411" id="page411"></a>[pg 403]</span>
+
+strange stare and a gape, which haunted me long after; and
+it seemed as we sat in utter silence that each was rather horribly
+fascinated by the other's gaze.</p>
+
+<p>At last she shut her mouth sternly, and eyes me with a more
+determined and meaning scowl, and then said in a low tone&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'I believe, Maud, that you are a cunning and wicked little
+thing.'</p>
+
+<p>'Wisdom is not cunning, Madame; nor is it wicked to ask
+your meaning in explicit language,' I replied.</p>
+
+<p>'And so, you clever cheaile, we two sit here, playing at a game
+of chess, over this little table, to decide which shall destroy the
+other&mdash;is it not so?'</p>
+
+<p>'I will not allow you to destroy me,' I retorted, with a sudden
+flash.</p>
+
+<p>Madame stood up, and rubbed her mouth with her open
+hand. She looked to me like some evil being seen in a dream. I
+was frightened.</p>
+
+<p>'You are going to hurt me!' I ejaculated, scarce knowing
+what I said.</p>
+
+<p>'If I were, you deserve it. You are very <i>malicious</i>, ma chère:
+or, it may be, only very stupid.'</p>
+
+<p>A knock came to the door.</p>
+
+<p>'Come in,' I cried, with a glad sense of relief.</p>
+
+<p>A maid entered.</p>
+
+<p>'A letter, please, 'm,' she said, handing it to me.</p>
+
+<p>'For <i>me</i>,' snarled Madame, snatching it.</p>
+
+<p>I had seen my uncle's hand, and the Feltram post-mark.</p>
+
+<p>Madame broke the seal, and read. It seemed but a word, for
+she turned it about after the first momentary glance, and
+examined the interior of the envelope, and then returned to the
+line she had already read.</p>
+
+<p>She folded the letter again, drawing her nails in a sharp
+pinch along the creases, as she stared in a blank, hesitating
+way at me.</p>
+
+<p>'You are stupid little ingrate, I am employ by Monsieur
+Ruthyn, and of course I am faithful to my employer. I do not
+want to talk to you. <i>There</i>, you may read that.'</p>
+
+<p>She jerked the letter before me on the table. It contained but
+these words:&mdash;</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page412" id="page412"></a>[pg 404]</span>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p class="place">Bartram-Haugh:</p>
+
+<p class="date">'<i>30th January, 1845</i>.</p>
+
+<p>'M<small>Y DEAR</small> M<small>ADAME</small>,</p>
+
+<p>'Be so good as to take the half-past eight o'clock train to
+<u><i>Dover</i></u> to-night. Beds are prepared.&mdash;Yours very truly,</p>
+
+<p class="signature">S<small>ILAS</small> R<small>UTHYN</small>.'</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>I cannot say what it was in this short advice that struck me
+with fear. Was it the thick line beneath the word 'Dover,' that
+was so uncalled for, and gave me a faint but terrible sense of
+something preconcerted?</p>
+
+<p>I said to Madame&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Why is "Dover" underlined?'</p>
+
+<p>'I do not know, little fool, no more than you. How can I tell
+what is passing in your oncle's head when he make that a
+mark?'</p>
+
+<p>'Has it not a meaning, Madame?'</p>
+
+<p>'How can you talk like that?' she answered, more in her old
+way. 'You are either mocking of me, or you are becoming truly
+a fool!'</p>
+
+<p>She rang the bell, called for our bill, saw our hostess; while
+I made a few hasty prepartions in my room.</p>
+
+<p>'You need not look after the trunks&mdash;they will follow us all
+right. Let us go, cheaile&mdash;we 'av half an hour only to reach the
+train.'</p>
+
+<p>No one ever fussed like Madame when occasion offered. There
+was a cab at the door, into which she hurried me. I assumed
+that she would give all needful directions, and leaned back, very
+weary and sleepy already, though it was so early, listening to her
+farewell screamed from the cab-step, and seeing her black cloak
+flitting and flapping this way and that, like the wings of a raven
+disturbed over its prey.</p>
+
+<p>In she got, and away we drove through a glare of lamps, and
+shop-windows, still open; gas everywhere, and cabs, busses, and
+carriages, still thundering through the streets. I was too tired
+and too depressed to look at those things. Madame, on the contrary,
+had her head out of the window till we reached the station.</p>
+
+<p>'Where are the rest of the boxes?' I asked, as Madame placed
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page413" id="page413"></a>[pg 405]</span>
+me in charge of her box and my bag in the office of the terminus.</p>
+
+<p>'They will follow with Boots in another cab, and will come
+safe with us in this train. Mind those two, we weel bring in the
+carriage with us.'</p>
+
+<p>So into a carriage we got; in came Madame's box and my
+bag; Madame stood at the door, and, I think, frightened away
+intending passengers, by her size and shrillness.</p>
+
+<p>At last the bell rang her into her place, the door clapt, the
+whistle sounded, and we were off.</p>
+
+<a name="chap61"></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER LXI</h3>
+<h2><i>OUR BED-CHAMBER</i></h2>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>I had passed a miserable night, and, indeed, for many nights had
+not had my due proportion of sleep. Still I sometimes fancy that
+I may have swallowed something in my tea that helped to make
+me so irresistibly drowsy. It was a very dark night&mdash;no moon,
+and the stars soon hid by the gathering clouds. Madame sat
+silent, and ruminating in her place, with her rugs about her. I,
+in my corner similarly enveloped, tried to keep awake. Madame
+plainly thought I was asleep already, for she stole a leather flask
+from her pocket, and applied it to her lips, causing an aroma of
+brandy.</p>
+
+<p>But it was vain struggling against the influence that was
+stealing over me, and I was soon in a profound and dreamless
+slumber.</p>
+
+<p>Madame awoke me at last, in a huge fuss. She had got out all
+our things and hurried them away to a close carriage which was
+awaiting us. It was still dark and starless. We got along the
+platform, I half asleep, the porter carrying our rugs, by the glare
+of a pair of gas-jets in the wall, and out by a small door at
+the end.</p>
+
+<p>I remember that Madame, contrary to her wont, gave the man
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page414" id="page414"></a>[pg 406]</span>
+
+some money. By the puzzling light of the carriage-lamps we got
+in and took our seats.</p>
+
+<p>'Go on,' screamed Madame, and drew up the window with a
+great chuck; and we were enclosed in darkness and silence, the
+most favourable conditions for thought.</p>
+
+<p>My sleep had not restored me as it might; I felt feverish,
+fatigued, and still very drowsy, though unable to sleep as I had
+done.</p>
+
+<p>I dozed by fits and starts, and lay awake, or half-awake,
+sometimes, not thinking but in a way imagining what kind of a place
+Dover would be; but too tired and listless to ask Madame any
+questions, and merely seeing the hedges, grey in the lamplight,
+glide backward into darkness, as I leaned back.</p>
+
+<p>We turned off the main road, at right angles, and drew up.</p>
+
+<p>'Get down and poosh it, it is open,' screamed Madame from
+the window.</p>
+
+<p>A gate, I suppose, was thus passed; for when we resumed our
+brisk trot, Madame bawled across the carriage&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'We are now in the 'otel grounds.'</p>
+
+<p>And so all again was darkness and silence, and I fell into
+another doze, from which, on waking, I found that we had come to
+a standstill, and Madame was standing on the low step of an
+open door, paying the driver. She, herself, pulled her box and
+the bag in. I was too tired to care what had become of the rest
+of our luggage.</p>
+
+<p>I descended, glancing to the right and left, but there was
+nothing visible but a patch of light from the lamps on a paved
+ground and on the wall.</p>
+
+<p>We stepped into the hall or vestibule, and Madame shut the
+door, and I thought I heard the key turn in it. We were in total
+darkness.</p>
+
+<p>'Where are the lights, Madame&mdash;where are the people?' I
+asked, more awake than I had been.</p>
+
+<p>''Tis pass three o'clock, cheaile, bote there is always light
+here.' She was groping at the side; and in a moment more
+lighted a lucifer match, and so a bedroom candle.</p>
+
+<p>We were in a flagged lobby, under an archway at the right,
+and at the left of which opened long flagged passages, lost in
+darkness; a winding stair, barely wide enough to admit Madame,
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page415" id="page415"></a>[pg 407]</span>
+
+dragging her box, led upward under a doorway, in a corner at the
+right.</p>
+
+<p>'Come, dear cheaile, take your bag; don't mind the rugs,
+they are safe enough.'</p>
+
+<p>'But where are we to go? There is no one!' I said, looking
+round in wonder. It certainly was a strange reception at an
+hotel.</p>
+
+<p>'Never mind, my dear cheaile. They know me here, and I
+have always the same room ready when I write for it. Follow
+me quaitely.'</p>
+
+<p>So she mounted, carrying the candle. The stair was steep, and
+the march long. We halted at the second landing, and entered a
+gaunt, grimy passage. All the way up we had not heard a single
+sound of life, nor seen a human being, nor so much as passed a
+gaslight.</p>
+
+<p>'Voila! here 'tis, my dear old room. Enter, dearest Maud.'</p>
+
+<p>And so I did. The room was large and lofty, but shabby and
+dismal. There was a tall four-post bed, with its foot beside the
+window, hung with dark-green curtains, of some plush or velvet
+texture, that looked like a dusty pall. The remaining furniture
+was scant and old, and a ravelled square of threadbare carpet
+covered a patch of floor at the bedside. The room was grim
+and large, and had a cold, vault-like atmosphere, as if long
+uninhabited; but there were cinders in the grate and under it. The
+imperfect light of our mutton-fat candle made all this look still
+more comfortless.</p>
+
+<p>Madame placed the candle on the chimneypiece, locked the
+door, and put the key in her pocket.</p>
+
+<p>'I always do so in '<i>otel</i>' said she, with a wink at me.</p>
+
+<p>And, then with a long 'ha!' expressive of fatigue and relief,
+she threw herself into a chair.</p>
+
+<p>'So 'ere we are at last!' said she; 'I'm glad. <i>There's</i> your
+bed, Maud. <i>Mine</i> is in the dressing-room.'</p>
+
+<p>She took the candle, and I went in with her. A shabby press
+bed, a chair, and table were all its furniture; it was rather a
+closet than a dressing-room, and had no door except that
+through which we had entered. So we returned, and very tired,
+wondering, I sat down on the side of my bed and yawned.</p>
+
+<p>'I hope they will call us in time for the packet,' I said.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page416" id="page416"></a>[pg 408]</span>
+
+<p>'Oh yes, they never fail,' she answered, looking steadfastly on
+her box, which she was diligently uncording.</p>
+
+<p>Uninviting as was my bed, I was longing to lie down in it;
+and having made those ablutions which our journey rendered
+necessary, I at length lay down, having first religiously stuck my
+talismanic pin, with the head of sealing-wax, into the bolster.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing escaped the restless eye of Madame.</p>
+
+<p>'Wat is that, dear cheaile?' she enquired, drawing near and
+scrutinising the head of the gipsy charm, which showed like a
+little ladybird newly lighted on the sheet.</p>
+
+<p>'Nothing&mdash;a charm&mdash;folly. Pray, Madame, allow me to go to
+sleep.'</p>
+
+<p>So, with another look and a little twiddle between her finger
+and thumb, she seemed satisfied; but, unhappily for me, she did
+not seem at all sleepy. She busied herself in unpacking and
+displaying over the back of the chair a whole series of London
+purchases&mdash;silk dresses, a shawl, a sort of lace demi-coiffure then
+in vogue, and a variety of other articles.</p>
+
+<p>The vainest and most slammakin of women&mdash;the merest slut
+at home, a milliner's lay figure out of doors&mdash;she had one square
+foot of looking-glass upon the chimneypiece, and therein tried
+effects, and conjured up grotesque simpers upon her sinister and
+weary face.</p>
+
+<p>I knew that the sure way to prolong this worry was to express
+my uneasiness under it, so I bore it as quietly as I could;
+and at last fell fast asleep with the gaunt image of Madame, with
+a festoon of grey silk with a cerise stripe, pinched up in her
+finger and thumb, and smiling over her shoulder across it into
+the little shaving-glass that stood on the chimney.</p>
+
+<p>I awoke suddenly in the morning, and sat up in my bed, having
+for a moment forgotten all about our travelling. A moment
+more, however, brought all back again.</p>
+
+<p>'Are we in time, Madame?'</p>
+
+<p>'For the packet?' she enquired, with one of her charming
+smiles, and cutting a caper on the floor. 'To be sure; you don't
+suppose they would forget. We have two hours yet to wait.'</p>
+
+<p>'Can we see the sea from the window?'</p>
+
+<p>'No, dearest cheaile; you will see't time enough.'</p>
+
+<p>'I'd like to get up,' I said.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page417" id="page417"></a>[pg 409]</span>
+
+<p>'Time enough, my dear Maud; you are fatigued; are you sure
+you feel quite well?'</p>
+
+<p>'Well enough to get up; I should be better, I think, out of
+bed.'</p>
+
+<p>'There is no hurry, you know; you need not even go by the
+next packet. Your uncle, he tell me, I may use my discretion.'</p>
+
+<p>'Is there any water?'</p>
+
+<p>'They will bring some.'</p>
+
+<p>'Please, Madame, ring the bell.'</p>
+
+<p>She pulled it with alacrity. I afterwards learnt that it did not
+ring.</p>
+
+<p>'What has become of my gipsy pin?' I demanded, with an
+unaccountable sinking of the heart.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh! the little pin with the red top? maybe it 'as fall on the
+ground; we weel find when you get up.'</p>
+
+<p>I suspected that she had taken it merely to spite me. It would
+have been quite the thing she would have liked. I cannot describe
+to you how the loss of this little 'charm' depressed and excited
+me. I searched the bed; I turned over all the bed-clothes;
+I searched in and outside; at last I gave up.</p>
+
+<p>'How odious!' I cried; 'somebody has stolen it merely to
+vex me.'</p>
+
+<p>And, like a fool as I was, I threw myself on my face on the bed
+and wept, partly in anger, partly in dismay.</p>
+
+<p>After a time, however, this blew over. I had a hope of recovering
+it. If Madame had stolen it, it would turn up yet. But
+in the meantime its disappearance troubled me like an omen.</p>
+
+<p>'I am afraid, my dear cheaile, you are not very well. It is
+really very odd you should make such fuss about a pin! Nobody
+would believe! Do you not theenk it would be a good plan to
+take a your breakfast in your bed?'</p>
+
+<p>She continued to urge this point for some time. At last, however,
+having by this time quite recovered my self-command, and
+resolved to preserve ostensibly fair terms with Madame, who
+could contribute so essentially to make me wretched during
+the rest of my journey, and possibly to prejudice me very
+seriously on my arrival, I said quietly&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Well, Madame, I know it is very silly; but I had kept that
+foolish little pin so long and so carefully, that I had grown
+quite fond of it; but I suppose it is lost, and I must content myself,
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page418" id="page418"></a>[pg 410]</span>
+
+though I cannot laugh as you do. So I will get up now, and
+dress.'</p>
+
+<p>'I think you will do well to get all the repose you can,' answered
+Madame; 'but as you please,' she added, observing that
+I was getting up.</p>
+
+<p>So soon as I had got some of my things on, I said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Is there a pretty view from the window?'</p>
+
+<p>'No,' said Madame.</p>
+
+<p>I looked out and saw a dreary quadrangle of cut stone, in
+one side of which my window was placed. As I looked a dream
+rose up before me.</p>
+
+<p>'This hotel,' I said, in a puzzled way. '<i>Is</i> it a hotel? Why this
+is just like&mdash;it <i>is</i> the inner court of Bartram-Haugh!'</p>
+
+<p>Madame clapped her large hands together, made a fantastic
+<i>chassé</i> on the floor, burst into a great nasal laugh like the scream
+of a parrot, and then said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Well, dearest Maud, is not clever trick?'</p>
+
+<p>I was so utterly confounded that I could only stare about me in
+stupid silence, a spectacle which renewed Madame's peals of
+laughter.</p>
+
+<p>'We are at Bartram-Haugh!' I repeated, in utter consternation.
+'How was this done?'</p>
+
+<p>I had no reply but shrieks of laughter, and one of those Walpurgis
+dances in which she excelled.</p>
+
+<p>'It is a mistake&mdash;is it? <i>What</i> is it?'</p>
+
+<p>'All a mistake, of course. Bartram-Haugh, it is so like Dover,
+as all philosophers know.'</p>
+
+<p>I sat down in total silence, looking out into the deep and dark
+enclosure, and trying to comprehend the reality and the meaning of all
+this.</p>
+
+<p>'Well, Madame, I suppose you will be able to satisfy my uncle
+of your fidelity and intelligence. But to me it seems that his
+money has been ill-spent, and his directions anything but well
+observed.'</p>
+
+<p>'Ah, ha! Never mind; I think he will forgive me,' laughed
+Madame.</p>
+
+<p>Her tone frightened me. I began to think, with a vague but
+overpowering sense of danger, that she had acted under the
+Machiavellian directions of her superior.</p>
+
+<p>'You have brought me back, then, by my uncle's orders?'</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page419" id="page419"></a>[pg 411]</span>
+
+<p>'Did I say so?'</p>
+
+<p>'No; but what you have said can have no other meaning,
+though I can't believe it. And why have I been brought here?
+What is the object of all this duplicity and trick. I <i>will</i> know.
+It is not possible that my uncle, a gentleman and a kinsman, can
+be privy to so disreputable a manouvre.'</p>
+
+<p>'First you will eat your breakfast, dear Maud; next you can
+tell your story to your uncle, Monsieur Ruthyn; and then you
+shall hear what he thinks of my so terrible misconduct. What
+nonsense, cheaile! Can you not think how many things may
+'appen to change a your uncle's plans? Is he not in danger to be
+arrest? Bah! You are cheaile still; you cannot have intelligence
+more than a cheaile. Dress yourself, and I will order breakfast.'</p>
+
+<p>I could not comprehend the strategy which had been practised
+on me. Why had I been so shamelessly deceived? If it were
+decided that I should remain here, for what imaginable reason
+had I been sent so far on my journey to France? Why had I
+been conveyed back with such mystery? Why was I removed to
+this uncomfortable and desolate room, on the same floor with the
+apartment in which Charke had met his death, and with no
+window commanding the front of the house, and no view but
+the deep and weed-choked court, that looked like a deserted
+churchyard in a city?</p>
+
+<p>'I suppose I may go to my own room?' I said.</p>
+
+<p>'Not to-day, my dear cheaile, for it was all disarrange when
+we go 'way; 'twill be ready again in two three days.'</p>
+
+<p>'Where is Mary Quince?' I asked.</p>
+
+<p>'Mary Quince!&mdash;she has follow us to France,' said Madame,
+making what in Ireland they call a bull.</p>
+
+<p>'They are not sure where they will go or what will do for day
+or two more. I will go and get breakfast. Adieu for a moment.'</p>
+
+<p>Madame was out of the door as she said this, and I thought I
+heard the key turn in the lock.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page420" id="page420"></a>[pg 412]</span>
+
+<a name="chap62"></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER LXII</h3>
+<h2><i>A WELL-KNOWN FACE LOOKS IN</i></h2>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>You who have never experienced it can have no idea how angry
+and frightened you become under the sinister insult of being
+locked into a room, as on trying the door I found I was.</p>
+
+<p>The key was in the lock; I could see it through the hole. I
+called after Madame, I shook at the solid oak-door, beat upon it
+with my hands, kicked it&mdash;but all to no purpose.</p>
+
+<p>I rushed into the next room, forgetting&mdash;if indeed I had observed
+it, that there was no door from it upon the gallery. I
+turned round in an angry and dismayed perplexity, and, like
+prisoners in romances, examined the windows.</p>
+
+<p>I was shocked and affrighted on discovering in reality what
+they occasionally find&mdash;a series of iron bars crossing the window!
+They were firmly secured in the oak woodwork of the window-frame,
+and each window was, besides, so compactly screwed
+down that it could not open. This bedroom was converted into
+a prison. A momentary hope flashed on me&mdash;perhaps all the
+windows were secured alike! But it was no such thing: these
+gaol-like precautions were confined to the windows to which I
+had access.</p>
+
+<p>For a few minutes I felt quite distracted; but I bethought
+me that I must now, if ever, control my terrors and exert whatever
+faculties I possessed.</p>
+
+<p>I stood upon a chair and examined the oak-work. I thought
+I detected marks of new chiselling here and there. The screws,
+too, looked new; and they and the scars on the woodwork were
+freshly smeared over with some coloured stuff by way of disguise.</p>
+
+<p>While I was making these observations, I heard the key
+stealthily stirred. I suspect that Madame wished to surprise me.
+Her approaching step, indeed, was seldom audible; she had the
+soft tread of the feline tribe.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page421" id="page421"></a>[pg 413]</span>
+
+<p>I was standing in the centre of the room confronting her when
+she entered.</p>
+
+<p>'Why did you lock the door, Madame?' I demanded.</p>
+
+<p>She slipped in suddenly with an insidious smirk, and locked
+the door hastily.</p>
+
+<p>'Hish!' whispered Madame, raising her broad palm; and
+then screwing in her cheeks, she made an ogle over her shoulder
+in the direction of the passage.</p>
+
+<p>'Hish! be quiate, cheaile, weel you, and I weel tale you everything
+presently.'</p>
+
+<p>She paused, with her ear laid to the door.</p>
+
+<p>'Now I can speak, ma chère; I weel tale a you there is bailiff
+in the house, two, three, four soche impertinent fallows!
+They have another as bad as themselve to make a leest of the
+furniture: we most keep them out of these rooms, dear Maud.'</p>
+
+<p>'You left the key in the door on the outside,' I retorted; 'that
+was not to keep them out, but me in, Madame.'</p>
+
+<p>'<i>Deed</i> I leave the key in the door?' ejaculated Madame, with
+both hands raised, and such a genuine look of consternation as
+for a moment shook me.</p>
+
+<p>It was the nature of this woman's deceptions that they often
+puzzled though they seldom convinced me.</p>
+
+<p>'I re-ally think, Maud, all those so frequent changes and excite-ments
+they weel overturn my poor head.'</p>
+
+<p>'And the windows are secured with iron bars&mdash;what are they
+for?' I whispered sternly, pointing with my finger at these grim
+securities.</p>
+
+<p>'That is for more a than forty years, when Sir Phileep Aylmer
+was to reside here, and had this room for his children's
+nursery, and was afraid they should fall out.'</p>
+
+<p>'But if you look you will find these bars have been put here
+very recently: the screws and marks are quite new.'</p>
+
+<p>'<i>Eendeed!</i>' ejaculated Madame, with prolonged emphasis, in
+precisely the same consternation. 'Why, my dear, they told a
+me down stair what I have tell a you, when I ask the reason!
+Late a me see.'</p>
+
+<p>And Madame mounted on a chair, and made her scrutiny with
+much curiosity, but could not agree with me as to the very recent
+date of the carpentry.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page422" id="page422"></a>[pg 414]</span>
+
+<p>There is nothing, I think, so exasperating as that sort of
+falsehood which affects not to see what is quite palpable.</p>
+
+<p>'Do you mean to say, Madame, that you really think those
+chisellings and screws are forty years old?'</p>
+
+<p>'How can I tell, cheaile? What does signify whether it is forty
+or only fourteen years? Bah! we av other theeng to theenk about.
+Those villain men! I am glad to see bar and bolt, and lock and key,
+at least, to our room, to keep soche faylows out!'</p>
+
+<p>At that moment a knock came to the door, and Madame's nasal 'in
+moment' answered promptly, and she opened the door, stealthily
+popping out her head.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, that is all right; go you long, no ting more, go way.'</p>
+
+<p>'Who's there?' I cried.</p>
+
+<p>'Hold a your tongue,' said Madame imperiously to the visitor,
+whose voice I fancied I recognised&mdash;'<i>go</i> way.'</p>
+
+<p>Out slipped Madame again, locking the door; but this time she
+returned immediately, bearing a tray with breakfast.</p>
+
+<p>I think she fancied that I would perhaps attempt to break away
+and escape; but I had no such thought at that moment. She hastily
+set down the tray on the floor at the threshold, locking the door
+as before.</p>
+
+<p>My share of breakfast was a little tea; but Madame's digestion was
+seldom disturbed by her sympathies, and she ate voraciously. During
+this process there was a silence unusual in her company; but when her
+meal was ended she proposed a reconnaissance, professing much
+uncertainty as to whether my Uncle had been arrested or not.</p>
+
+<p>'And in case the poor old gentleman be poot in what you call stone
+jug, where are <i>we</i> to go my dear Maud&mdash;to Knowl or to
+Elverston? You must direct.'</p>
+
+<p>And so she disappeared, turning the key in the door as before. It
+was an old custom of hers, locking herself in her room, and leaving
+the key in the lock; and the habit prevailed, for she left it there again.</p>
+
+<p>With a heavy heart I completed my simple toilet, wondering
+all the while how much of Madame's story might be false
+and how much, if any, true. Then I looked out upon the dingy
+courtyard below, in its deep damp shadow, and thought, 'How
+could an assassin have scaled that height in safety, and entered
+so noiselessly as not to awaken the slumbering gamester?' Then
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page423" id="page423"></a>[pg 415]</span>
+
+there were the iron bars across my window. What a fool had I
+been to object to that security!</p>
+
+<p>I was labouring hard to reassure myself, and keep all ghastly
+suspicions at arm's length. But I wished that my room had been
+to the front of the house, with some view less dismal.</p>
+
+<p>Lost in these ruminations of fear, as I stood at the window
+I was startled by the sound of a sharp tread on the lobby, and
+by the key turning in the lock of my door.</p>
+
+<p>In a panic I sprang back into the corner, and stood with my
+eyes fixed upon the door. It opened a little, and the black head
+of Meg Hawkes was introduced.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, Meg!' I cried; 'thank God!'</p>
+
+<p>'I guessed'twas you, Miss Maud. I am feared, Miss.'</p>
+
+<p>The miller's daughter was pale, and her eyes, I thought, were
+red and swollen.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, Meg! for God's sake, what is it all?'</p>
+
+<p>'I darn't come in. The old un's gone down, and locked the
+cross-door, and left me to watch. They think I care nout about
+ye, no more nor themselves. I donna know all, but summat more
+nor her. They tell her nout, she's so gi'n to drink; they say
+she's not safe, an' awful quarrelsome. I hear a deal when fayther
+and Master Dudley be a-talkin' in the mill. They think,
+comin' in an' out, I don't mind; but I put one think an' t'other
+together. An' don't ye eat nor drink nout here, Miss; hide away
+this; it's black enough, but wholesome anyhow!' and she slipt
+a piece of a coarse loaf from under her apron. '<i>Hide</i> it
+mind. Drink nout but the water in the jug there&mdash;it's clean spring.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, Meg! Oh, Meg! I know what you mean,' said I, faintly.</p>
+
+<p>'Ay, Miss, I'm feared they'll try it; they'll try to make away
+wi' ye somehow. I'm goin' to your friends arter dark; I darn't
+try it no sooner. I'll git awa to Ellerston, to your lady-cousin,
+and I'll bring 'em back wi' me in a rin; so keep a good hairt,
+lass. Meg Hawkes will stan' to ye. Ye were better to me than fayther
+and mother, and a';' and she clasped me round the
+waist, and buried her head in my dress; 'an I'll gie my life for
+ye, darling, and if they hurt ye I'll kill myself.'</p>
+
+<p>She recovered her sterner mood quickly&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Not a word, lass,' she said, in her old tone. 'Don't ye try to git
+away&mdash;they'll <i>kill</i> ye&mdash;ye <i>can't</i> do't. Leave a' to me. It
+won't be, whatever it is, till two or three o'clock in the morning. I'll
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page424" id="page424"></a>[pg 416]</span>
+
+ha'e them a' here long afore; so keep a brave heart&mdash;there's a
+darling.'</p>
+
+<p>I suppose she heard, or fancied she heard, a step approaching,
+for she said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Hish!'</p>
+
+<p>Her pale wild face vanished, the door shut quickly and softly,
+and the key turned again in the lock.</p>
+
+<p>Meg, in her rude way, had spoken softly&mdash;almost under her
+breath; but no prophecy shrieked by the Pythoness ever thundered
+so madly in the ears of the hearer. I dare say that Meg
+fancied I was marvellously little moved by her words. I felt my
+gaze grow intense, and my flesh and bones literally freeze. She
+did not know that every word she spoke seemed to burst like
+a blaze in my brain. She had delivered her frightful warning,
+and told her story coarsely and bluntly, which, in effect, means
+distinctly and concisely; and, I dare say, the announcement so
+made, like a quick bold incision in surgery, was more tolerable
+than the slow imperfect mangling, which falters and recedes and
+equivocates with torture. Madame was long away. I sat down at
+the window, and tried to appreciate my dreadful situation. I
+was stupid&mdash;the imagery was all frightful; but I beheld it as
+we sometimes see horrors&mdash;heads cut off and houses burnt&mdash;in a
+dream, and without the corresponding emotions. It did not
+seem as if all this were really happening to me. I remember
+sitting at the window, and looking and blinking at the opposite
+side of the building, like a person unable but striving to
+see an object distinctly, and every minute pressing my hand
+to the side of my head and saying&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, it won't be&mdash;it won't be&mdash;Oh no!&mdash;never!&mdash;it could not
+be!' And in this stunned state Madame found me on her
+return.</p>
+
+<p>But the valley of the shadow of death has its varieties of
+dread. The 'horror of great darkness' is disturbed by voices
+and illumed by sights. There are periods of incapacity and
+collapse, followed by paroxysms of active terror. Thus in my
+journey during those long hours I found it&mdash;agonies subsiding
+into lethargies, and these breaking again into frenzy. I sometimes
+wonder how I carried my reason safely through the ordeal.</p>
+
+<p>Madame locked the door, and amused herself with her own
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page425" id="page425"></a>[pg 417]</span>
+
+business, without minding me, humming little nasal snatches
+of French airs, as she smirked on her silken purchases displayed
+in the daylight. Suddenly it struck me that it was very dark,
+considering how early it was. I looked at my watch; it seemed
+to me a great effort of concentration to understand it. Four
+o'clock, it said. Four o'clock! It would be dark at five&mdash;<i>night</i>
+in one hour!</p>
+
+<p>'Madame, what o'clock is it? Is it evening?' I cried with
+my hand to my forehead, like a person puzzled.</p>
+
+<p>'Two three minutes past four. It had five minutes to four
+when I came up-stairs,' answered she, without interrupting her
+examination of a piece of darned lace which she was holding
+close to her eyes at the window.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, Madame! <i>Madame!</i> I'm frightened,' cried I, with a wild
+and piteous voice, grasping her arm, and looking up, as shipwrecked
+people may their last to heaven, into her inexorable
+eyes. Madame looked frightened too, I thought, as she stared
+into my face. At last she said, rather angrily, and shaking her
+arm loose&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'What you mean, cheaile?'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh save me, Madame!&mdash;oh save me!&mdash;oh save me, Madame!'
+I pleaded, with the wild monotony of perfect terror, grasping
+and clinging to her dress, and looking up, with an agonised
+face, into the eyes of that shadowy Atropos.</p>
+
+<p>'Save a you, indeed! Save! What <i>niaiserie</i>!'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, Madame! Oh, <i>dear</i> Madame! for God's sake, only get
+me away&mdash;get me from this, and I'll do everything you ask me
+all my life&mdash;I will&mdash;<i>indeed</i>, Madame, I will! Oh save me! save
+me! <i>save</i> me!'</p>
+
+<p>I was clinging to Madame as to my guardian angel in my
+agony.</p>
+
+<p>'And who told you, cheaile, you are in any danger?' demanded
+Madame, looking down on me with a black and witchlike
+stare.</p>
+
+<p>'I am, Madame&mdash;I am&mdash;in great danger! Oh, Madame, think
+of me&mdash;take pity on me! I have none to help me&mdash;there is no
+one but God and you!'</p>
+
+<p>Madame all this time viewed me with the same dismal stare,
+like a sorceress reading futurity in my face.</p>
+
+<p>'Well, maybe you are&mdash;how can I tell? Maybe your uncle is
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page426" id="page426"></a>[pg 418]</span>
+
+mad&mdash;maybe you are mad. You have been my enemy always&mdash;why
+should I care?'</p>
+
+<p>Again I burst into wild entreaty, and, clasping her fast,
+poured forth my supplications with the bitterness of death.</p>
+
+<p>'I have no confidence in you, little Maud; you are little
+rogue&mdash;petite traîtresse! Reflect, if you can, how you 'av always
+treat Madame. You 'av attempt to ruin me&mdash;you conspire with
+the bad domestics at Knowl to destroy me&mdash;and you expect me
+here to take a your part! You would never listen to me&mdash;you 'ad no
+mercy for me&mdash;you join to hunt me away from your house like
+wolf. Well, what you expect to find me now? <i>Bah</i>!'</p>
+
+<p>This terrific 'Bah!' with a long nasal yell of scorn, rang in
+my ears like a clap of thunder.</p>
+
+<p>'I say you are mad, petite insolente, to suppose I should care
+for you more than the poor hare it will care for the hound&mdash;more
+than the bird who has escape will love the oiseleur. I do
+not care&mdash;I ought not care. It is your turn to suffer. Lie down
+on your bed there, and suffer quaitely.'</p>
+
+<a name="chap63"></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER LXIII</h3>
+<h2><i>SPICED CLARET</i></h2>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>I did not lie down; but I despaired. I walked round and round
+the room, wringing my hands in utter distraction. I threw myself
+at the bedside on my knees. I could not pray; I could only
+shiver and moan, with hands clasped, and eyes of horror turned
+up to heaven. I think Madame was, in her malignant way, perplexed.
+That some evil was intended me I am sure she was persuaded;
+but I dare say Meg Hawkes had said rightly in telling
+me that she was not fully in their secrets.</p>
+
+<p>The first paroxysm of despair subsided into another state. All
+at once my mind was filled with the idea of Meg Hawkes, her
+enterprise, and my chances of escape. There is one point at
+which the road to Elverston makes a short ascent: there is a sudden
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page427" id="page427"></a>[pg 419]</span>
+curve there, two great ash-trees, with a roadside stile between,
+at the right side, covered with ivy. Driving back and
+forward, I did not recollect having particularly remarked this
+point in the highway; but now it was before me, in the thin
+light of the thinnest segment of moon, and the figure of Meg
+Hawkes, her back toward me, always ascending towards Elverston.
+It was constantly the same picture&mdash;the same motion without
+progress&mdash;the same dreadful suspense and impatience.</p>
+
+<p>I was now sitting on the side of the bed, looking wistfully
+across the room. When I did not see Meg Hawkes, I beheld
+Madame darkly eyeing first one then another point of the chamber,
+evidently puzzling over some problem, and in one of her
+most savage moods&mdash;sometimes muttering to herself, sometimes
+protruding, and sometimes screwing up her great mouth.</p>
+
+<p>She went into her own room, where she remained, I think,
+nearly ten minutes, and on her return there was that in the flash
+of her eyes, the glow of her face, and the peculiar fragrance that
+surrounded her, that showed she had been partaking of her
+favourite restorative.</p>
+
+<p>I had not moved since she left my room.</p>
+
+<p>She paused about the middle of the floor, and looked at me
+with what I can only describe as her wild-beast stare.</p>
+
+<p>'You are a very secrete family, you Ruthyns&mdash;you are so coning.
+I hate the coning people. By my faith, I weel see Mr. Silas
+Ruthyn, and ask wat he mean. I heard him tell old Wyat that
+Mr. Dudley is gone away to-night. He shall tell me everything,
+or else I weel make echec et mat aussi vrai que je vis.'</p>
+
+<p>Madame's words had hardly ceased, when I was again watching
+Meg Hawkes on the steep road, mounting, but never reaching,
+the top of the acclivity, on the way to Elverston, and mentally
+praying that she might be brought safely there. Vain prayer
+of an agonised heart! Meg's journey was already frustrated:
+she was not to reach Elverston in time.</p>
+
+<p>Madame revisited her apartment, and returned, not, I think,
+improved in temper. She walked about the room, hustling the
+scanty furniture hither and thither as she encountered it. She
+kicked her empty box out of her way, with a horrid crash, and
+a curse in French. She strode and swaggered round the room,
+muttering all the way, and turning the corners of her course
+with a furious whisk. At last, out of the door she went. I think
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page428" id="page428"></a>[pg 420]</span>
+she fancied she had not been sufficiently taken into confidence
+as to what was intended for me.</p>
+
+<p>It was now growing late, and yet no succour! I was seized, I
+remember, with a dreadful icy shivering.</p>
+
+<p>I was listening for signals of deliverance. At every distant sound,
+half stifled with a palpitation, these sounds piercing my ear
+with a horrible and exaggerated distinctness&mdash;'Oh Meg!&mdash;Oh
+cousin Monica!&mdash;Oh come! Oh Heaven, have mercy!&mdash;Lord,
+have mercy!' I thought I heard a roaring and jangle of voices.
+Perhaps it came from Uncle Silas's room. It might be the tipsy
+violence of Madame. It might&mdash;merciful Heaven!&mdash;be the arrival
+of friends. I started to my feet; I listened, quivering with attention.
+Was it in my brain?&mdash;was it real? I was at the door, and
+it seemed to open of itself. Madame had forgotten to lock it; she
+was losing her head a little by this time. The key stood in the
+gallery door beyond; it too, was open. I fled wildly. There was
+a subsiding sound of voices in my uncle's room. I was, I know
+not how, on the lobby at the great stair-head outside my uncle's
+apartment. My hand was on the banisters, my foot on the first
+step, when below me and against the faint light that glimmered
+through the great window on the landing I saw a bulky human
+form ascending, and a voice said 'Hush!' I staggered back, and
+at that instant fancied, with a thrill of conviction, I heard Lady
+Knollys's voice in Uncle Silas' room.</p>
+
+<p>I don't know how I entered the room; I was there like a
+ghost. I was frightened at my own state.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Knollys was not there&mdash;no one but Madame and my
+guardian.</p>
+
+<p>I can never forget the look that Uncle Silas fixed on me as he
+cowered, seemingly as appalled as I.</p>
+
+<p>I think I must have looked like a phantom newly risen from
+the grave.</p>
+
+<p>'What's that?&mdash;where do you come from?' whispered he.</p>
+
+<p>'Death! death!' was my whispered answer, as I froze with
+terror where I stood.</p>
+
+<p>'What does she mean?&mdash;what does all this mean?' said Uncle
+Silas, recovering wonderfully, and turning with a withering
+sneer on Madame. 'Do you think it right to disobey my plain
+directions, and let her run about the house at this hour?'
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page429" id="page429"></a>[pg 421]</span>
+'Death! death! Oh, pray to God for you and me!' I whispered
+in the same dreadful tones.</p>
+
+<p>My uncle stared strangely at me again; and after several
+horrible seconds, in which he seemed to have recovered himself,
+he said, sternly and coolly&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'You give too much place to your imagination, niece. Your
+spirits are in an odd state&mdash;you ought to have advice.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, uncle, pity me! Oh, uncle, you are good! you're kind;
+you're kind when you think. You could not&mdash;you could not&mdash;could
+not! Oh, think of your brother that was always so good
+to you! He sees me here. He sees us both. Oh, save me, uncle&mdash;save
+me!&mdash;and I'll give up everything to you. I'll pray to God
+to bless you&mdash;I'll never forget your goodness and mercy. But
+don't keep me in doubt. If I'm to go, oh, for God's sake, shoot
+me now!'</p>
+
+<p>'You were always odd, niece; I begin to fear you are insane,'
+he replied, in the same stern icy tone.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, uncle&mdash;oh!&mdash;am I? Am I <i>mad</i>?'</p>
+
+<p>'I hope not; but you'll conduct yourself like a sane person if
+you wish to enjoy the privileges of one.'</p>
+
+<p>Then, with his finger pointing at me, he turned to Madame,
+and said, in a tone of suppressed ferocity&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'What's the meaning of this?&mdash;why is she here?'</p>
+
+<p>Madame was gabbling volubly, but to me it was only a shrilly
+noise. My whole soul was concentrated in my uncle, the arbiter
+of my life, before whom I stood in the wildest agony of supplication.</p>
+
+<p>That night was dreadful. The people I saw dizzily, made of
+smoke or shining vapour, smiling or frowning, I could have
+passed my hand through them. They were evil spirits.</p>
+
+<p>'There's no ill intended you; by &mdash;&mdash; there's none,' said my
+uncle, for the first time violently agitated. 'Madame told you
+why we've changed your room. You told her about the bailiffs,
+did not you?' with a stamp of fury he demanded of Madame,
+whose nasal roullades of talk were running on like an accompaniment
+all the time. She had told me indeed only a few hours
+since, and now it sounded to me like the echo of something
+heard a month ago or more.</p>
+
+<p>'You can't go about the house, d&mdash;n it, with bailiffs in occupation.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page430" id="page430"></a>[pg 422]</span>
+There now&mdash;there's the whole thing. Get to your room,
+Maud, and don't vex me. There's a good girl.'</p>
+
+<p>He was trying to smile as he spoke these last words, and, with
+quavering soft tones, to quiet me; but the old scowl was there,
+the smile was corpse-like and contorted, and the softness of his
+tones was more dreadful than another man's ferocity.</p>
+
+<p>'There, Madame, she'll go quite gently, and you can call if
+you want help. Don't let it happen again.'</p>
+
+<p>'Come, Maud,' said Madame, encircling but not hurting my
+arm with her grip; 'let us go, my friend.'</p>
+
+<p>I did go, you will wonder, as well you may&mdash;as you may wonder
+at the docility with which strong men walk through the
+press-room to the drop, and thank the people of the prison
+for their civility when they bid them good-bye, and facilitate
+the fixing of the rope and adjusting of the cap. Have you never
+wondered that they don't make a last battle for life with the
+unscrupulous energy of terror, instead of surrendering it so
+gently in cold blood, on a silent calculation, the arithmetic
+of despair?</p>
+
+<p>I went up-stairs with Madame like a somnambulist. I rather
+quickened my step as I drew near my room. I went in, and
+stood a phantom at the window, looking into the dark quadrangle.
+A thin glimmering crescent hung in the frosty sky, and
+all heaven was strewn with stars. Over the steep roof at the
+other side spread on the dark azure of the night this glorious
+blazonry of the unfathomable Creator. To me a dreadful
+scroll&mdash;inexorable eyes&mdash;the cloud of cruel witnesses
+looking down in freezing brightness on my prayers and agonies.</p>
+
+<p>I turned about and sat down, leaning my head upon my arms.
+Then suddenly I sat up, as for the first time the picture of
+Uncle Silas's littered room, and the travelling bags and black
+boxes plied on the floor by his table&mdash;the desk, hat-case, umbrella,
+coats, rugs, and mufflers, all ready for a journey&mdash;reached
+my brain and suggested thought. The <i>mise en scène</i> had
+remained in every detail fixed upon my retina; and how I
+wondered&mdash;'When is he going&mdash;how soon? Is he going to carry
+me away and place me in a madhouse?'</p>
+
+<p>'Am I&mdash;am I mad?' I began to think. 'Is this all a dream,
+or is it real?'</p>
+
+<p>I remembered how a thin polite gentleman, with a tall grizzled
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page431" id="page431"></a>[pg 423]</span>
+head and a black velvet waistcoat, came into the carriage
+on our journey, and said a few words to me; how Madame
+whispered him something, and he murmured 'Oh!' very gently,
+with raised eyebrows, and a glance at me, and thenceforward
+spoke no more to me, only to Madame, and at the next station
+carried his hat and other travelling chattels into another carriage.
+Had she told him I was mad?</p>
+
+<p>These horrid bars! Madame always with me! The direful
+hints that dropt from my uncle! My own terrific sensations!&mdash;All
+these evidences revolved in my brain, and presented themselves
+in turn like writings on a wheel of fire.</p>
+
+<p>There came a knock to the door&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Oh, Meg! Was it she? No; old Wyat whispered Madame
+something about her room.</p>
+
+<p>So Madame re-entered, with a little silver tray and flagon in
+her hands, and a glass. Nothing came from Uncle Silas in ungentlemanlike
+fashion.</p>
+
+<p>'Drink, Maud,' said Madame, raising the cover, and evidently
+enjoying the fragrant steam.</p>
+
+<p>I could not. I might have done so had I been able to swallow
+anything&mdash;for I was too distracted to think of Meg's warning.</p>
+
+<p>Madame suddenly recollected her mistake of that evening, and
+tried the door; but it was duly locked. She took the key from
+her pocket and placed it in her breast.</p>
+
+<p>'You weel 'av these rooms to yourself, ma chère. I shall sleep
+downstairs to-night.'</p>
+
+<p>She poured out some of the hot claret into the glass abstractedly, and
+drank it off.</p>
+
+<p>''Tis very good&mdash;I drank without theenk. Bote 'tis very good.
+Why don't you drink some?'</p>
+
+<p>'I could not', I repeated. And Madame boldly helped herself.</p>
+
+<p>'Vary polite, certally, to Madame was it to send nothing at
+all for <i>hair</i>' (so she pronounced 'her'); 'bote is all same thing.'
+And so she ran on in her tipsy vein, which was loud and sarcastic,
+with a fierce laugh now and then.</p>
+
+<p>Afterwards I heard that they were afraid of Madame, who was
+given to cross purposes, and violent in her cups. She had been
+noisy and quarrelsome downstairs. She was under the delusion
+that I was to be conveyed away that night to a remote and safe
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page432" id="page432"></a>[pg 424]</span>
+
+place, and she was to be handsomely compensated for services
+and evidence to be afterwards given. She was not to be trusted,
+however, with the truth. That was to be known but to three
+people on earth.</p>
+
+<p>I never knew, but I believe that the spiced claret which
+Madame drank was drugged. She was a person who could, I
+have been told, drink a great deal without exhibiting any
+change from it but an inflamed colour and furious temper. I
+can only state for certain what I saw, and that was, that shortly
+after she had finished the claret she laid down upon my bed,
+and, I now know, fell asleep. I then thought she was <i>feigning</i>
+sleep only, and that she was really watching me.</p>
+
+<p>About an hour after this I suddenly heard a little <i>clink</i> in
+the yard beneath. I peeped out, but saw nothing. The sound was
+repeated, however&mdash;sometimes more frequently, sometimes at
+long intervals. At last, in the deep shadow next the farther wall,
+I thought I could discover a figure, sometimes erect, sometimes
+stooping and bowing toward the earth. I could see this figure
+only in the rudest outline mingling with the dark.</p>
+
+<p>Like a thunderbolt it smote my brain. 'They are making my
+grave!'</p>
+
+<p>After the first dreadful stun I grew quite wild, and ran up and
+down the room wringing my hands and gasping prayers to
+heaven. Then a calm stole over me&mdash;such a dreadful calm as I
+could fancy glide over one who floated in a boat under the
+shadow of the 'Traitor's Gate,' leaving life and hope and
+trouble behind.</p>
+
+<p>Shortly after there came a very low tap at my door; then
+another, like a tiny post-knock. I could never understand why
+it was I made no answer. Had I done so, and thus shown that
+I was awake, it might have sealed my fate. I was standing in the
+middle of the floor staring at the door, which I expected to see
+open, and admit I knew not what troop of spectres.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page433" id="page433"></a>[pg 425]</span>
+
+<a name="chap64"></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER LXIV</h3>
+<h2><i>THE HOUR OF DEATH</i></h2>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>It was a very still night and frosty. My candle had long burnt
+out. There was still a faint moonlight, which fell in a square of
+yellow on the floor near the window, leaving the rest of the
+room in what to an eye less accustomed than mine had become
+to that faint light would have been total darkness. Now, I am
+sure, I heard a soft whispering outside my door. I knew that I
+was in a state of siege! The crisis was come, and strange to
+say, I felt myself grow all at once resolute and self-possessed.
+It was not a subsidence, however, of the dreadful excitement,
+but a sudden screwing-up of my nerves to a pitch such as I
+cannot describe.</p>
+
+<p>I suppose the people outside moved with great caution; and
+the perfect solidity of the floor, which had not anywhere a creaking
+board in it, favoured their noiseless movements. It was well
+for me that there were in the house three persons whom it was
+part of their plan to mystify respecting my fate. This alone compelled
+the extreme caution of their proceedings. They suspected
+that I had placed furniture against the door, and were afraid
+to force it, lest a crash, a scream, perhaps a long and shrilly
+struggle, might follow.</p>
+
+<p>I remained for a space which I cannot pretend to estimate in
+the same posture, afraid to stir&mdash;afraid to move my eye from the
+door.</p>
+
+<p>A very peculiar grating sound above my head startled me
+from my watch&mdash;something of the character of sawing, only
+more crunching, and with a faint continued rumble in it&mdash;utterly
+inexplicable. It sounded over that portion of the roof
+which was farthest from the door, toward which I now glided;
+and as I took my stand under cover of the projecting angle of a
+clumsy old press that stood close by it, I perceived the room a
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page434" id="page434"></a>[pg 426]</span>
+
+little darkened, and I saw a man descend and take his stand
+upon the window-stone. He let go a rope, which, however, was
+still fast round his body, and employed both his hands, with
+apparently some exertion, about something at the side of the
+window, which in a moment more, in one mass, bars and all,
+swung noiselessly open, admitting the frosty night-air; and
+the man, whom I now distinctly saw to be Dudley Ruthyn,
+kneeled on the sill, and stept, after a moment's listening, into
+the room. His foot made no sound upon the floor; his head was
+bare, and he wore his usual short shooting-jacket.</p>
+
+<p>I cowered to the ground in my post of observation. He stood,
+as it seemed to me irresolutely for a moment, and then drew
+from his pocket an instrument which I distinctly saw against
+the faint moonlight. Imagine a hammer, one end of which had
+been beaten out into a longish tapering spike, with a handle something
+longer than usual. He drew stealthily to the window, and
+seemed to examine this hurriedly, and tested its strength with
+a twist or two of his hand. And then he adjusted it very carefully
+in his grasp, and made two or three little experimental
+picks with it in the air.</p>
+
+<p>I remained perfectly still, with a terrible composure, crouched
+in my hiding-place, my teeth clenched, and prepared to struggle
+like a tigress for my life when discovered. I thought his next
+measure would be to light a match. I saw a lantern, I fancied,
+on the window-sill. But this was not his plan. He stole, in a
+groping way, which seemed strange to me, who could distinguish
+objects in this light, to the side of my bed, the exact position of
+which he evidently knew; he stooped over it. Madame was
+breathing in the deep respiration of heavy sleep. Suddenly but
+softly he laid, as it seemed to me, his left hand over her face,
+and nearly at the same instant there came a scrunching blow;
+an unnatural shriek, beginning small and swelling for two or
+three seconds into a yell such as are imagined in haunted houses,
+accompanied by a convulsive sound, as of the motion of running,
+and the arms drumming on the bed; and then another blow&mdash;and
+with a horrid gasp he recoiled a step or two, and stood
+perfectly still. I heard a horrible tremor quivering through the
+joints and curtains of the bedstead&mdash;the convulsions of the murdered
+woman. It was a dreadful sound, like the shaking of a
+tree and rustling of leaves. Then once more he steps to the side
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page435" id="page435"></a>[pg 427]</span>
+
+of the bed, and I heard another of those horrid blows&mdash;and
+silence&mdash;and another&mdash;and more silence&mdash;and the diabolical
+surgery was ended. For a few seconds, I think, I was on the point
+of fainting; but a gentle stir outside the door, close to my ear,
+startled me, and proved that there had been a watcher posted
+outside. There was a little tapping at the door.</p>
+
+<p>'Who's that?' whispered Dudley, hoarsely.</p>
+
+<p>'A friend,' answered a sweet voice.</p>
+
+<p>And a key was introduced, the door quickly unlocked, and
+Uncle Silas entered. I saw that frail, tall, white figure, the
+venerable silver locks that resembled those upon the honoured
+head of John Wesley, and his thin white hand, the back of
+which hung so close to my face that I feared to breathe. I
+could see his fingers twitching nervously. The smell of perfumes
+and of ether entered the room with him.</p>
+
+<p>Dudley was trembling now like a man in an ague-fit.</p>
+
+<p>'Look what you made me do!' he said, maniacally.</p>
+
+<p>'Steady, sir!' said the old man, close beside me.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, you damned old murderer! I've a mind to do for you.'</p>
+
+<p>'There, Dudley, like a dear boy, don't give way; it's done.
+Right or wrong, we can't help it. You must be quiet,' said the
+old man, with a stern gentleness.</p>
+
+<p>Dudley groaned.</p>
+
+<p>'Whoever advised it, you're a gainer, Dudley,' said Uncle
+Silas.</p>
+
+<p>Then there was a pause.</p>
+
+<p>'I hope that was not heard,' said Uncle Silas.</p>
+
+<p>Dudley walked to the window and stood there.</p>
+
+<p>'Come, Dudley, you and Hawkes must use expedition. You
+know you must get that out of the way.'</p>
+
+<p>'I've done too much. I won't do nout; I'll not touch it. I wish
+my hand was off first; I wish I was a soger. Do as ye like, you
+an' Hawkes. I won't go nigh it; damn ye both&mdash;and <i>that</i>!'
+and he hurled the hammer with all his force upon the floor.</p>
+
+<p>'Come, come, be reasonable, Dudley, dear boy. There's nothing to
+fear but your own folly. You won't make a noise?'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, oh, my God!' said Dudley, hoarsely, and wiped his
+forehead with his open hand.</p>
+
+<p>'There now, you'll be all well in a minute,' continued the
+old man.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page436" id="page436"></a>[pg 428]</span>
+
+<p>'You said 'twouldn't hurt her. If I'd a known she'd a
+screeched like that I'd never a done it. 'Twas a damn lie. You're
+the damndest villain on earth.'</p>
+
+<p>'Come, Dudley!' said the old man under his breath, but very
+sternly, 'make up your mind. If you don't choose to go on, it
+can't be helped; only it's a pity you began. For <i>you</i> it is a good
+deal&mdash;it does not much matter for <i>me</i>.'</p>
+
+<p>'Ay, for <i>you</i>!' echoed Dudley, through his set teeth. 'The old
+talk!'</p>
+
+<p>'Well, sir,' snarled the old man, in the same low tones, 'you
+should have thought of all this before. It's only taking leave of
+the world a year or two sooner, but a year or two's something.
+I'll leave you to do as you please.'</p>
+
+<p>'Stop, will you? Stop here. I know it's a fixt thing now. If
+a fella does a thing he's damned for, you might let him talk
+a bit anyhow. I don't care much if I was shot.'</p>
+
+<p>'There now&mdash;<i>there</i>&mdash;just stick to that, and don't run off again.
+There's a box and a bag here; we must change the direction,
+and take them away. The box has some jewels. Can you see
+them? I wish we had a light.'</p>
+
+<p>'No, I'd rayther not; I can see well enough. I wish we were
+out o' this. <i>Here's</i> the box.'</p>
+
+<p>'Pull it to the window,' said the old man, to my inexpressible
+relief advancing at last a few steps.</p>
+
+<p>Coolness was given me in that dreadful moment, and I knew
+that all depended on my being prompt and resolute. I stood up
+swiftly. I often thought if I had happened to wear silk instead
+of the cachmere I had on that night, its rustle would have betrayed me.</p>
+
+<p>I distinctly saw the tall stooping figure of my uncle, and the
+outline of his venerable tresses, as he stood between me and the
+dull light of the window, like a shape cut in card.</p>
+
+<p>He was saying 'just to <i>there</i>,' and pointing with his long arm
+at that contracting patch of moonlight which lay squared upon
+the floor. The door was about a quarter open, and just as
+Dudley began to drag Madame's heavy box, with my jewel-case
+in it, across the floor from her room, inhaling a great breath&mdash;with
+a mental prayer for help&mdash;I glided on tiptoe from the
+room and found myself on the gallery floor.</p>
+
+<p>I turned to my right, simply by chance, and followed a long
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page437" id="page437"></a>[pg 429]</span>
+
+gallery in the dark, not running&mdash;I was too fearful of making
+the least noise&mdash;but walking with the tiptoe-swiftness of terror.
+At the termination of this was a cross-gallery, one end of
+which&mdash;that to my left&mdash;terminated in a great window, through which
+the dusky night-view was visible. With the instinct of terror I
+chose the darker, and turned again to my right; hurrying
+through this long and nearly dark passage, I was terrified by a
+light, about thirty feet before me, emerging from the ceiling.
+In spotted patches this light fell through the door and sides of
+a stable lantern, and showed me a ladder, down which, from an
+open skylight I suppose for the cool night-air floated in my face,
+came Dickon Hawkes notwithstanding his maimed condition,
+with so much celerity as to leave me hardly a moment for consideration.</p>
+
+<p>He sat on the last round of the ladder, and tightened the
+strap of his wooden leg.</p>
+
+<p>At my left was a door-case open, but no door. I entered;
+it was a short passage about six feet long, leading perhaps to
+a backstair, but the door at the end was locked.</p>
+
+<p>I was forced to stand in this recess, then, which afforded no
+shelter, while Pegtop stumped by with his lantern in his hand.
+I fancy he had some idea of listening to his master unperceived,
+for he stopped close to my hiding-place, blew out the candle,
+and pinched the long snuff with his horny finger and thumb.</p>
+
+<p>Having listened for a few seconds, he stumped stealthily along
+the gallery which I had just traversed, and turned the corner in
+the direction of the chamber where the crime had just been
+committed, and the discovery was impending. I could see him
+against the broad window which in the daytime lighted this long
+passage, and the moment he had passed the corner I resumed my
+flight.</p>
+
+<p>I descended a stair corresponding with that backstair, as I am
+told, up which Madame had led me only the night before. I
+tried the outer door. To my wild surprise it was open. In a
+moment I was upon the step, in the free air, and as instantaneously
+was seized by the arm in the gripe of a man.</p>
+
+<p>It was Tom Brice, who had already betrayed me, and who
+was now, in surtout and hat, waiting to drive the carriage with
+the guilty father and son from the scene of their abhorred outrage.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page438" id="page438"></a>[pg 430]</span>
+
+<a name="chap65"></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER LXV</h3>
+<h2><i>IN THE OAK PARLOUR</i></h2>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>So it was vain: I was trapped, and all was over.</p>
+
+<p>I stood before him on the step, the white moon shining on
+my face. I was trembling so that I wonder I could stand, my
+helpless hands raised towards him, and I looked up in his face.
+A long shuddering moan&mdash;'Oh&mdash;oh&mdash;oh!' was all I uttered.</p>
+
+<p>The man, still holding my arm, looked, I thought frightened,
+into my white dumb face.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly he said, in a wild, fierce whisper&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Never say another word' (I had not uttered one). 'They
+shan't hurt ye, Miss; git ye in; I don't care a damn!'</p>
+
+<p>It was an uncouth speech. To me it was the voice of an angel.
+With a burst of gratitude that sounded in my own ears like a
+laugh, I thanked God for those blessed words.</p>
+
+<p>In a moment more he had placed me in the carriage, and
+almost instantly we were in motion&mdash;very cautiously while crossing
+the court, until he had got the wheels upon the grass, and
+then at a rapid pace, improving his speed as the distance increased.
+He drove along the side of the back-approach to the
+house, keeping on the grass; so that our progress, though swaying
+like that of a ship in a swell, was very nearly as noiseless.</p>
+
+<p>The gate had been left unlocked&mdash;he swung it open, and remounted
+the box. And we were now beyond the spell of
+Bartram-Haugh, thundering&mdash;Heaven be praised!&mdash;along the
+Queen's highway, right in the route to Elverston. It was literally
+a gallop. Through the chariot windows I saw Tom stand as he
+drove, and every now and then throw an awful glance over his
+shoulder. Were we pursued? Never was agony of prayer like
+mine, as with clasped hands and wild stare I gazed through the
+windows on the road, whose trees and hedges and gabled cottages
+were chasing one another backward at so giddy a speed.</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page439" id="page439"></a>[pg 431]</span>
+
+<p>We were now ascending that identical steep, with the giant
+ash-trees at the right and the stile between, which my vision of
+Meg Hawkes had presented all that night, when my excited
+eye detected a running figure within the hedge. I saw the head
+of some one crossing the stile in pursuit, and I heard Brice's
+name shrieked.</p>
+
+<p>'Drive on&mdash;on&mdash;on!' I screamed.</p>
+
+<p>But Brice pulled up. I was on my knees on the floor of the
+carriage, with clasped hands, expecting capture, when the door
+opened, and Meg Hawkes, pale as death, her cloak drawn over
+her black tresses, looked in.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh!&mdash;ho!&mdash;ho!&mdash;thank God!' she screamed. 'Shake hands,
+lass. Tom, yer a good un! He's a good lad, Tom.'</p>
+
+<p>'Come in, Meg&mdash;you must sit by me,' I said, recovering all
+at once.</p>
+
+<p>Meg made no demur. 'Take my hand,' I said offering mine
+to her disengaged one.</p>
+
+<p>'I can't, Miss&mdash;my arm's broke.'</p>
+
+<p>And so it was, poor thing! She had been espied and overtaken
+in her errand of mercy for me, and her ruffian father had felled
+her with his cudgel, and then locked her into the cottage,
+whence, however, she had contrived to escape, and was now flying
+to Elverston, having tried in vain to get a hearing in Feltram,
+whose people had been for hours in bed.</p>
+
+<p>The door being shut upon Meg, the steaming horses were
+instantly at a gallop again.</p>
+
+<p>Tom was still watching as before, with many an anxious
+glance to rearward, for pursuit. Again he pulled up, and came
+to the window.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, what is it?' cried I.</p>
+
+<p>''Bout that letter, Miss; I couldn't help. 'Twas Dickon, he
+found it in my pocket. That's a'.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh yes!&mdash;no matter&mdash;thank you&mdash;thank Heaven! Are we
+near Elverston?'</p>
+
+<p>''Twill be a mile, Miss: and please'm to mind I had no finger
+in't.'</p>
+
+<p>'Thanks&mdash;thank you&mdash;you're very good&mdash;I shall <i>always</i> thank
+you, Tom, as long as I live!'</p>
+
+<p>At length we entered Elverston. I think I was half wild. I
+don't know how I got into the hall. I was in the oak-parlour, I
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page440" id="page440"></a>[pg 432]</span>
+
+believe, when I saw cousin Monica. I was standing, my arms extended.
+I could not speak; but I ran with a loud long scream
+into her arms. I forget a great deal after that.</p>
+
+<a name="conclusion"></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h2><i>CONCLUSION</i></h2>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>Oh, my beloved cousin Monica! Thank Heaven, you are living
+still, and younger, I think, than I in all things but in years.</p>
+
+<p>And Milly, my dear companion, she is now the happy wife of
+that good little clergyman, Sprigge Biddlepen. It has been in
+my power to be of use to them, and he shall have the next presentation
+to Dawling.</p>
+
+<p>Meg Hawkes, proud and wayward, and the most affectionate
+creature on earth, was married to Tom Brice a few months after
+these events; and, as both wished to emigrate, I furnished them
+with the capital, and I am told they are likely to be rich. I
+hear from my kind Meg often, and she seems very happy.</p>
+
+<p>My dear old friends, Mary Quince and Mrs. Rusk, are, alas!
+growing old, but living with me, and very happy. And after
+long solicitation, I persuaded Doctor Bryerly, the best and
+truest of ministers, with my dearest friend's concurrence, to
+undertake the management of the Derbyshire estates. In this I
+have been most fortunate. He is the very person for such a
+charge&mdash;so punctual, so laborious, so kind, and so shrewd.</p>
+
+<p>In compliance with medical advice, cousin Monica hurried
+me away to the Continent, where she would never permit me
+to allude to the terrific scenes which remain branded so awfully
+on my brain. It needed no constraint. It is a sort of agony
+to me even now to think of them.</p>
+
+<p>The plan was craftily devised. Neither old Wyat nor Giles,
+the butler, had a suspicion that I had returned to Bartram. Had
+I been put to death, the secret of my fate would have been deposited
+in the keeping of four persons only&mdash;the two Ruthyns,
+Hawkes, and ultimately Madame. My dear cousin Monica had
+been artfully led to believe in my departure for France, and
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page441" id="page441"></a>[pg 433]</span>
+prepared for my silence. Suspicion might not have been excited
+for a year after my death, and then would never, in all probability, have
+pointed to Bartram as the scene of the crime. The
+weeds would have grown over me, and I should have lain in
+that deep grave where the corpse of Madame de la Rougierre
+was unearthed in the darksome quadrangle of Bartram-Haugh.</p>
+
+<p>It was more than two years after that I heard what had befallen
+at Bartram after my flight. Old Wyat, who went early to
+Uncle Silas's room, to her surprise&mdash;for he had told her that he
+was that night to accompany his son, who had to meet the mailtrain
+to Derby at five o'clock in the morning&mdash;saw her old
+master lying on the sofa, much in his usual position.</p>
+
+<p>'There was nout much strange about him,' old Wyat said,
+'but that his scent-bottle was spilt on its side over on the
+table, and he dead.'</p>
+
+<p>She thought he was not quite cold when she found him, and
+she sent the old butler for Doctor Jolks, who said he died of
+too much 'loddlum.'</p>
+
+<p>Of my wretched uncle's religion what am I to say? Was it
+utter hypocrisy, or had it at any time a vein of sincerity in it?
+I cannot say. I don't believe that he had any heart left for religion,
+which is the highest form of affection, to take hold of.
+Perhaps he was a sceptic with misgivings about the future, but
+past the time for finding anything reliable in it. The devil
+approached the citadel of his heart by stealth, with many zigzags
+and parallels. The idea of marrying me to his son by fair
+means, then by foul, and, when that wicked chance was gone,
+then the design of seizing all by murder, supervened. I dare
+say that Uncle Silas thought for a while that he was a righteous
+man. He wished to have heaven and to escape hell, if there were
+such places. But there were other things whose existence was not
+speculative, of which some he coveted, and some he dreaded
+more, and temptation came. 'Now if any man build upon this
+foundation, gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble,
+every man's work shall be made manifest; for the day shall declare
+it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall
+try every man's work of what sort it is.' There comes with old
+age a time when the heart is no longer fusible or malleable,
+and must retain the form in which it has cooled down. 'He
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page442" id="page442"></a>[pg 434]</span>
+
+that is unjust, let him be unjust still; he which is filthy, let him
+be filthy still.'</p>
+
+<p>Dudley had disappeared; but in one of her letters, Meg, writing
+from her Australian farm, says: 'There's a fella in toon as
+calls hisself Colbroke, wi' a good hoose o' wood, 15 foot length,
+and as by 'bout as silling o' the pearler o' Bartram&mdash;only lots
+o' rats, they do say, my lady&mdash;a bying and sellin' of goold back
+and forred wi' the diggin foke and the marchants. His chick
+and mouth be wry wi' scar o' burns or vitterel, an' no wiskers,
+bless you; but my Tom ee toll him he knowed him for Master
+Doodley. I ant seed him; but he sade ad shute Tom soon is
+look at 'im, an' denide it, wi' mouthful o' curses and oaf. Tom
+baint right shure; if I seed un wons i'd no for sartin; but
+'appen,'twil best be let be.' This was all.</p>
+
+<p>Old Hawkes stood his ground, relying on the profound cunning
+with which their actual proceedings had been concealed,
+even from the suspicions of the two inmates of the house, and
+on the mystery that habitually shrouded Bartram-Haugh and all
+its belongings from the eyes of the outer world.</p>
+
+<p>Strangely enough, he fancied that I had made my escape long
+before the room was entered; and, even if he were arrested,
+there was no evidence, he was certain, to connect <i>him</i> with the
+murder, all knowledge of which he would stoutly deny.</p>
+
+<p>There was an inquest on the body of my uncle, and Dr. Jolks
+was the chief witness. They found that his death was caused by
+'an excessive dose of laudanum, accidentally administered by
+himself.'</p>
+
+<p>It was not until nearly a year after the dreadful occurrences
+at Bartram that Dickon Hawkes was arrested on a very awful
+charge, and placed in gaol. It was an old crime, committed in
+Lancashire, that had found him out. After his conviction, as a
+last chance, he tried a disclosure of all the circumstances of the
+unsuspected death of the Frenchwoman. Her body was discovered
+buried where he indicated, in the inner court of Bartram-Haugh,
+and, after due legal enquiry, was interred in the
+churchyard of Feltram.</p>
+
+<p>Thus I escaped the horrors of the witness-box, or the far
+worse torture of a dreadful secret.</p>
+
+<p>Doctor Bryerly, shortly after Lady Knollys had described to
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page443" id="page443"></a>[pg 435]</span>
+
+him the manner in which Dudley entered my room, visited the
+house of Bartram-Haugh, and minutely examined the windows
+of the room in which Mr. Charke had slept on the night of his
+murder. One of these he found provided with powerful steel
+hinges, very craftily sunk and concealed in the timber of the
+window-frame, which was secured by an iron pin outside, and
+swung open on its removal. This was the room in which they
+had placed me, and this the contrivance by means of which the
+room had been entered. The problem of Mr. Charke's murder
+was solved.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>I have penned it. I sit for a moment breathless. My hands are
+cold and damp. I rise with a great sigh, and look out on the
+sweet green landscape and pastoral hills, and see the flowers and
+birds and the waving boughs of glorious trees&mdash;all images of
+liberty and safety; and as the tremendous nightmare of my youth
+melts into air, I lift my eyes in boundless gratitude to the God
+of all comfort, whose mighty hand and outstretched arm delivered
+me. When I lower my eyes and unclasp my hands, my
+cheeks are wet with tears. A tiny voice is calling me 'Mamma!'
+and a beloved smiling face, with his dear father's silken brown
+tresses, peeps in.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, darling, our walk. Come away!'</p>
+
+<p>I am Lady Ilbury, happy in the affection of a beloved and
+noblehearted husband. The shy useless girl you have known is
+now a mother&mdash;trying to be a good one; and this, the last
+pledge, has lived.</p>
+
+<p>I am not going to tell of sorrows&mdash;how brief has been my
+pride of early maternity, or how beloved were those whom
+the Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. But sometimes as,
+smiling on my little boy, the tears gather in my eyes, and he
+wonders, I can see, why they come, I am thinking&mdash;and trembling
+while I smile&mdash;to think, how strong is love, how frail is
+life; and rejoicing while I tremble that, in the deathless love
+of those who mourn, the Lord of Life, who never gave a pang
+in vain, conveys the sweet and ennobling promise of a compensation
+by eternal reunion. So, through my sorrows, I have heard
+a voice from heaven say, 'Write, from hencefore blessed are the
+dead that die in the Lord!'</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page444" id="page444"></a>[pg 436]</span>
+
+<p>This world is a parable&mdash;the habitation of symbols&mdash;the phantoms
+of spiritual things immortal shown in material shape. May
+the blessed second-sight be mine&mdash;to recognise under these beautiful
+forms of earth the A<small>NGELS</small> who wear them; for I am sure
+we may walk with them if we will, and hear them speak!</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14851 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Uncle Silas, by J. S. LeFanu
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Uncle Silas
+       A Tale of Bartram-Haugh
+
+Author: J. S. LeFanu
+
+Release Date: January 31, 2005 [EBook #14851]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UNCLE SILAS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Shell, Bob McKillip and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+[Transcriber's note: The spelling inconsistencies of the original have
+been retained in this etext.]
+
+
+
+UNCLE SILAS
+
+A Tale of Bartram-Haugh
+
+By J. S. LeFanu
+
+1899
+
+
+
+TO
+THE RIGHT HON.
+THE COUNTESS OF GIFFORD,
+AS A TOKEN OF
+RESPECT, SYMPATHY, AND ADMIRATION
+_This Tale_
+IS INSCRIBED BY
+THE AUTHOR
+
+
+
+
+_A PRELIMINARY WORD_
+
+The writer of this Tale ventures, in his own person, to address a very few
+words, chiefly of explanation, to his readers. A leading situation in this
+'Story of Bartram-Haugh' is repeated, with a slight variation, from a short
+magazine tale of some fifteen pages written by him, and published long ago
+in a periodical under the title of 'A Passage in the Secret History of an
+Irish Countess,' and afterwards, still anonymously, in a small volume under
+an altered title. It is very unlikely that any of his readers should have
+encountered, and still more so that they should remember, this trifle. The
+bare possibility, however, he has ventured to anticipate by this brief
+explanation, lest he should be charged with plagiarism--always a disrespect
+to a reader.
+
+May he be permitted a few words also of remonstrance against the
+promiscuous application of the term 'sensation' to that large school of
+fiction which transgresses no one of those canons of construction and
+morality which, in producing the unapproachable 'Waverley Novels,' their
+great author imposed upon himself? No one, it is assumed, would describe
+Sir Walter Scott's romances as 'sensation novels;' yet in that marvellous
+series there is not a single tale in which death, crime, and, in some form,
+mystery, have not a place.
+
+Passing by those grand romances of 'Ivanhoe,' 'Old Mortality,' and
+'Kenilworth,' with their terrible intricacies of crime and bloodshed,
+constructed with so fine a mastery of the art of exciting suspense and
+horror, let the reader pick out those two exceptional novels in the series
+which profess to paint contemporary manners and the scenes of common life;
+and remembering in the 'Antiquary' the vision in the tapestried chamber,
+the duel, the horrible secret, and the death of old Elspeth, the drowned
+fisherman, and above all the tremendous situation of the tide-bound party
+under the cliffs; and in 'St. Ronan's Well,' the long-drawn mystery, the
+suspicion of insanity, and the catastrophe of suicide;--determine whether
+an epithet which it would be a profanation to apply to the structure of
+any, even the most exciting of Sir Walter Scott's stories, is fairly
+applicable to tales which, though illimitably inferior in execution, yet
+observe the same limitations of incident, and the same moral aims.
+
+The author trusts that the Press, to whose masterly criticism and generous
+encouragement he and other humble labourers in the art owe so much, will
+insist upon the limitation of that degrading term to the peculiar type of
+fiction which it was originally intended to indicate, and prevent, as they
+may, its being made to include the legitimate school of tragic English
+romance, which has been ennobled, and in great measure founded, by the
+genius of Sir Walter Scott.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER
+
+I. AUSTIN RUTHYN, OF KNOWL, AND HIS DAUGHTER
+
+II. UNCLE SILAS
+
+III. A NEW FACE
+
+IV. MADAME DE LA ROUGIERRE
+
+V. SIGHTS AND NOISES
+
+VI. A WALK IN THE WOOD
+
+VII. CHURCH SCARSDALE
+
+VIII. THE SMOKER
+
+IX. MONICA KNOLLYS
+
+X. LADY KNOLLYS REMOVES A COVERLET
+
+XI. LADY KNOLLYS SEES THE FEATURES
+
+XII. A CURIOUS CONVERSATION
+
+XIII. BEFORE AND AFTER BREAKFAST
+
+XIV. ANGRY WORDS
+
+XV. A WARNING
+
+XVI. DOCTOR BRYERLY LOOKS IN
+
+XVII. AN ADVENTURE
+
+XVIII. A MIDNIGHT VISITOR
+
+XIX. AU REVOIR
+
+XX. AUSTIN RUTHYN SETS OUT ON HIS JOURNEY
+
+XXI. ARRIVALS
+
+XXII. SOMEBODY IN THE ROOM WITH THE COFFIN
+
+XXIII. I TALK WITH DOCTOR BRYERLY
+
+XXIV. THE OPENING OF THE WILL
+
+XXV. I HEAR FROM UNCLE SILAS
+
+XXVI. THE STORY OF UNCLE SILAS
+
+XXVII. MORE ABOUT TOM CHARKE'S SUICIDE
+
+XXVIII. I AM PERSUADED
+
+XXIX. HOW THE AMBASSADOR FARED
+
+XXX. ON THE ROAD
+
+XXXI. BARTRAM-HAUGH
+
+XXXII. UNCLE SILAS
+
+XXXIII. THE WINDMILL WOOD
+
+XXXIV. ZAMIEL
+
+XXXV. WE VISIT A ROOM IN THE SECOND STOREY
+
+XXXVI. AN ARRIVAL AT DEAD OF NIGHT
+
+XXXVII. DOCTOR BRYERLY EMERGES
+
+XXXVIII. A MIDNIGHT DEPARTURE
+
+XXXIX. COUSIN MONICA AND UNCLE SILAS MEET
+
+XL. IN WHICH I MAKE ANOTHER COUSIN'S ACQUAINTANCE
+
+XLI. MY COUSIN DUDLEY
+
+XLII. ELVERSTON AND ITS PEOPLE
+
+XLIII. NEWS AT BARTRAM GATE
+
+XLIV. A FRIEND ARISES
+
+XLV. A CHAPTER-FULL OF LOVERS
+
+XLVI. THE RIVALS
+
+XLVII. DOCTOR BRYERLY REAPPEARS
+
+XLVIII. QUESTION AND ANSWER
+
+XLIX. AN APPARITION
+
+L. MILLY'S FAREWELL
+
+LI. SARAH MATILDA COMES TO LIGHT
+
+LII. THE PICTURE OF A WOLF
+
+LIII. AN ODD PROPOSAL
+
+LIV. IN SEARCH OF MR. CHARKE'S SKELETON
+
+LV. THE FOOT OF HERCULES
+
+LVI. I CONSPIRE
+
+LVII. THE LETTER
+
+LVIII. LADY KNOLLYS' CARRIAGE
+
+LIX. A SUDDEN DEPARTURE
+
+LX. THE JOURNEY
+
+LXI. OUR BED-CHAMBER
+
+LXII. A WELL-KNOWN FACE LOOKS IN
+
+LXIII. SPICED CLARET
+
+LXIV. THE HOUR OF DEATH
+
+LXV. IN THE OAK PARLOUR
+
+CONCLUSION
+
+
+
+
+UNCLE SILAS
+
+A Tale of Bartram-Haugh
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+_AUSTIN RUTHYN, OF KNOWL, AND HIS DAUGHTER_
+
+
+It was winter--that is, about the second week in November--and great gusts
+were rattling at the windows, and wailing and thundering among our tall
+trees and ivied chimneys--a very dark night, and a very cheerful fire
+blazing, a pleasant mixture of good round coal and spluttering dry wood, in
+a genuine old fireplace, in a sombre old room. Black wainscoting glimmered
+up to the ceiling, in small ebony panels; a cheerful clump of wax candles
+on the tea-table; many old portraits, some grim and pale, others pretty,
+and some very graceful and charming, hanging from the walls. Few pictures,
+except portraits long and short, were there. On the whole, I think you
+would have taken the room for our parlour. It was not like our modern
+notion of a drawing-room. It was a long room too, and every way capacious,
+but irregularly shaped.
+
+A girl, of a little more than seventeen, looking, I believe, younger still;
+slight and rather tall, with a great deal of golden hair, dark grey-eyed,
+and with a countenance rather sensitive and melancholy, was sitting at the
+tea-table, in a reverie. I was that girl.
+
+The only other person in the room--the only person in the house related to
+me--was my father. He was Mr. Ruthyn, of Knowl, so called in his county,
+but he had many other places, was of a very ancient lineage, who had
+refused a baronetage often, and it was said even a viscounty, being of a
+proud and defiant spirit, and thinking themselves higher in station and
+purer of blood than two-thirds of the nobility into whose ranks, it was
+said, they had been invited to enter. Of all this family lore I knew but
+little and vaguely; only what is to be gathered from the fireside talk of
+old retainers in the nursery.
+
+I am sure my father loved me, and I know I loved him. With the sure
+instinct of childhood I apprehended his tenderness, although it was never
+expressed in common ways. But my father was an oddity. He had been early
+disappointed in Parliament, where it was his ambition to succeed. Though a
+clever man, he failed there, where very inferior men did extremely well.
+Then he went abroad, and became a connoisseur and a collector; took a part,
+on his return, in literary and scientific institutions, and also in the
+foundation and direction of some charities. But he tired of this mimic
+government, and gave himself up to a country life, not that of a sportsman,
+but rather of a student, staying sometimes at one of his places and
+sometimes at another, and living a secluded life.
+
+Rather late in life he married, and his beautiful young wife died, leaving
+me, their only child, to his care. This bereavement, I have been told,
+changed him--made him more odd and taciturn than ever, and his temper also,
+except to me, more severe. There was also some disgrace about his younger
+brother--my uncle Silas--which he felt bitterly.
+
+He was now walking up and down this spacious old room, which, extending
+round an angle at the far end, was very dark in that quarter. It was his
+wont to walk up and down thus, without speaking--an exercise which used to
+remind me of Chateaubriand's father in the great chamber of the Chateau
+de Combourg. At the far end he nearly disappeared in the gloom, and then
+returning emerged for a few minutes, like a portrait with a background of
+shadow, and then again in silence faded nearly out of view.
+
+This monotony and silence would have been terrifying to a person less
+accustomed to it than I. As it was, it had its effect. I have known my
+father a whole day without once speaking to me. Though I loved him very
+much, I was also much in awe of him.
+
+While my father paced the floor, my thoughts were employed about the events
+of a month before. So few things happened at Knowl out of the accustomed
+routine, that a very trifling occurrence was enough to set people wondering
+and conjecturing in that serene household. My father lived in remarkable
+seclusion; except for a ride, he hardly ever left the grounds of Knowl; and
+I don't think it happened twice in the year that a visitor sojourned among
+us.
+
+There was not even that mild religious bustle which sometimes besets the
+wealthy and moral recluse. My father had left the Church of England for
+some odd sect, I forget its name, and ultimately became, I was told, a
+Swedenborgian. But he did not care to trouble me upon the subject. So the
+old carriage brought my governess, when I had one, the old housekeeper,
+Mrs. Rusk, and myself to the parish church every Sunday. And my father, in
+the view of the honest rector who shook his head over him--'a cloud without
+water, carried about of winds, and a wandering star to whom is reserved the
+blackness of darkness'--corresponded with the 'minister' of his church, and
+was provokingly contented with his own fertility and illumination; and
+Mrs. Rusk, who was a sound and bitter churchwoman, said he fancied he saw
+visions and talked with angels like the rest of that 'rubbitch.'
+
+I don't know that she had any better foundation than analogy and conjecture
+for charging my father with supernatural pretensions; and in all points
+when her orthodoxy was not concerned, she loved her master and was a loyal
+housekeeper.
+
+I found her one morning superintending preparations for the reception of
+a visitor, in the hunting-room it was called, from the pieces of tapestry
+that covered its walls, representing scenes _a la Wouvermans_, of falconry,
+and the chase, dogs, hawks, ladies, gallants, and pages. In the midst of
+whom Mrs. Rusk, in black silk, was rummaging drawers, counting linen, and
+issuing orders.
+
+'Who is coming, Mrs. Rusk?'
+
+Well, she only knew his name. It was a Mr. Bryerly. My papa expected him to
+dinner, and to stay for some days.
+
+'I guess he's one of those creatures, dear, for I mentioned his name just
+to Dr. Clay (the rector), and he says there _is_ a Doctor Bryerly, a great
+conjurer among the Swedenborg sect--and that's him, I do suppose.'
+
+In my hazy notions of these sectaries there was mingled a suspicion of
+necromancy, and a weird freemasonry, that inspired something of awe and
+antipathy.
+
+Mr. Bryerly arrived time enough to dress at his leisure, before dinner. He
+entered the drawing-room--a tall, lean man, all in ungainly black, with a
+white choker, with either a black wig, or black hair dressed in imitation
+of one, a pair of spectacles, and a dark, sharp, short visage, rubbing his
+large hands together, and with a short brisk nod to me, whom he plainly
+regarded merely as a child, he sat down before the fire, crossed his legs,
+and took up a magazine.
+
+This treatment was mortifying, and I remember very well the resentment of
+which _he_ was quite unconscious.
+
+His stay was not very long; not one of us divined the object of his visit,
+and he did not prepossess us favourably. He seemed restless, as men of busy
+habits do in country houses, and took walks, and a drive, and read in the
+library, and wrote half a dozen letters.
+
+His bed-room and dressing-room were at the side of the gallery, directly
+opposite to my father's, which had a sort of ante-room _en suite_, in which
+were some of his theological books.
+
+The day after Mr. Bryerly's arrival, I was about to see whether my father's
+water caraffe and glass had been duly laid on the table in this ante-room,
+and in doubt whether he was there, I knocked at the door.
+
+I suppose they were too intent on other matters to hear, but receiving no
+answer, I entered the room. My father was sitting in his chair, with his
+coat and waistcoat off, Mr. Bryerly kneeling on a stool beside him, rather
+facing him, his black scratch wig leaning close to my father's grizzled
+hair. There was a large tome of their divinity lore, I suppose, open on
+the table close by. The lank black figure of Mr. Bryerly stood up, and he
+concealed something quickly in the breast of his coat.
+
+My father stood up also, looking paler, I think, than I ever saw him till
+then, and he pointed grimly to the door, and said, 'Go.'
+
+Mr. Bryerly pushed me gently back with his hands to my shoulders, and
+smiled down from his dark features with an expression quite unintelligible
+to me.
+
+I had recovered myself in a second, and withdrew without a word. The last
+thing I saw at the door was the tall, slim figure in black, and the dark,
+significant smile following me: and then the door was shut and locked, and
+the two Swedenborgians were left to their mysteries.
+
+I remember so well the kind of shock and disgust I felt in the certainty
+that I had surprised them at some, perhaps, debasing incantation--a
+suspicion of this Mr. Bryerly, of the ill-fitting black coat, and white
+choker--and a sort of fear came upon me, and I fancied he was asserting
+some kind of mastery over my father, which very much alarmed me.
+
+I fancied all sorts of dangers in the enigmatical smile of the lank
+high-priest. The image of my father, as I had seen him, it might be,
+confessing to this man in black, who was I knew not what, haunted me with
+the disagreeable uncertainties of a mind very uninstructed as to the limits
+of the marvellous.
+
+I mentioned it to no one. But I was immensely relieved when the sinister
+visitor took his departure the morning after, and it was upon this
+occurrence that my mind was now employed.
+
+Some one said that Dr. Johnson resembled a ghost, who must be spoken to
+before it will speak. But my father, in whatever else he may have resembled
+a ghost, did not in that particular; for no one but I in his household--and
+I very seldom--dared to address him until first addressed by him. I had no
+notion how singular this was until I began to go out a little among friends
+and relations, and found no such rule in force anywhere else.
+
+As I leaned back in my chair thinking, this phantasm of my father came, and
+turned, and vanished with a solemn regularity. It was a peculiar figure,
+strongly made, thick-set, with a face large, and very stern; he wore a
+loose, black velvet coat and waistcoat. It was, however, the figure of an
+elderly rather than an old man--though he was then past seventy--but firm,
+and with no sign of feebleness.
+
+I remember the start with which, not suspecting that he was close by me, I
+lifted my eyes, and saw that large, rugged countenance looking fixedly on
+me, from less than a yard away.
+
+After I saw him, he continued to regard me for a second or two; and then,
+taking one of the heavy candlesticks in his gnarled hand, he beckoned me to
+follow him; which, in silence and wondering, I accordingly did.
+
+He led me across the hall, where there were lights burning, and into a
+lobby by the foot of the back stairs, and so into his library.
+
+It is a long, narrow room, with two tall, slim windows at the far end, now
+draped in dark curtains. Dusky it was with but one candle; and he paused
+near the door, at the left-hand side of which stood, in those days, an
+old-fashioned press or cabinet of carved oak. In front of this he stopped.
+
+He had odd, absent ways, and talked more to himself, I believe, than to all
+the rest of the world put together.
+
+'She won't understand,' he whispered, looking at me enquiringly. 'No, she
+won't. _Will_ she?'
+
+Then there was a pause, during which he brought forth from his breast
+pocket a small bunch of some half-dozen keys, on one of which he looked
+frowningly, every now and then balancing it a little before his eyes,
+between his finger and thumb, as he deliberated.
+
+I knew him too well, of course, to interpose a word.
+
+'They are easily frightened--ay, they are. I'd better do it another way.'
+
+And pausing, he looked in my face as he might upon a picture.
+
+'They _are_--yes--I had better do it another way--another way; yes--and
+she'll not suspect--she'll not suppose.'
+
+Then he looked steadfastly upon the key, and from it to me, suddenly
+lifting it up, and said abruptly, 'See, child,' and, after a second or two,
+'_Remember_ this key.'
+
+It was oddly shaped, and unlike others.
+
+'Yes, sir.' I always called him 'sir.'
+
+'It opens that,' and he tapped it sharply on the door of the cabinet. 'In
+the daytime it is always here,' at which word he dropped it into his pocket
+again. 'You see?--and at night under my pillow--you hear me?'
+
+'Yes, sir.'
+
+'You won't forget this cabinet--oak--next the door--on your left--you won't
+forget?'
+
+'No, sir.'
+
+'Pity she's a girl, and so young--ay, a girl, and so young--no
+sense--giddy. You say, you'll _remember_?'
+
+'Yes, sir.'
+
+'It behoves you.'
+
+He turned round and looked full upon me, like a man who has taken a sudden
+resolution; and I think for a moment he had made up his mind to tell me a
+great deal more. But if so, he changed it again; and after another pause,
+he said slowly and sternly--'You will tell nobody what I have said, under
+pain of my displeasure.'
+
+'Oh! no, sir!'
+
+'Good child!'
+
+'_Except_,' he resumed, 'under one contingency; that is, in case I should
+be absent, and Dr. Bryerly--you recollect the thin gentleman, in spectacles
+and a black wig, who spent three days here last month--should come and
+enquire for the key, you understand, in my absence.'
+
+'Yes, sir.'
+
+So he kissed me on the forehead, and said--
+
+'Let us return.'
+
+Which, accordingly, we did, in silence; the storm outside, like a dirge on
+a great organ, accompanying our flitting.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+_UNCLE SILAS_
+
+
+When we reached the drawing-room, I resumed my chair, and my father his
+slow and regular walk to and fro, in the great room. Perhaps it was the
+uproar of the wind that disturbed the ordinary tenor of his thoughts; but,
+whatever was the cause, certainly he was unusually talkative that night.
+
+After an interval of nearly half an hour, he drew near again, and sat down
+in a high-backed arm-chair, beside the fire, and nearly opposite to me, and
+looked at me steadfastly for some time, as was his wont, before speaking;
+and said he--
+
+'This won't do--you must have a governess.'
+
+In cases of this kind I merely set down my book or work, as it might be,
+and adjusted myself to listen without speaking.
+
+'Your French is pretty well, and your Italian; but you have no German.
+Your music may be pretty good--I'm no judge--but your drawing might be
+better--yes--yes. I believe there are accomplished ladies--finishing
+governesses, they call them--who undertake more than any one teacher would
+have professed in my time, and do very well. She can prepare you, and
+next winter, then, you shall visit France and Italy, where you may be
+accomplished as highly as you please.'
+
+'Thank you, sir.'
+
+'You shall. It is nearly six months since Miss Ellerton left you--too long
+without a teacher.'
+
+Then followed an interval.
+
+'Dr. Bryerly will ask you about that key, and what it opens; you show all
+that to _him_, and no one else.'
+
+'But,' I said, for I had a great terror of disobeying him in ever so minute
+a matter, 'you will then be absent, sir--how am I to find the key?'
+
+He smiled on me suddenly--a bright but wintry smile--it seldom came, and
+was very transitory, and kindly though mysterious.
+
+'True, child; I'm glad you are so wise; _that_, you will find, I have
+provided for, and you shall know exactly where to look. You have remarked
+how solitarily I live. You fancy, perhaps, I have not got a friend, and
+you are nearly right--_nearly_, but not altogether. I have a very sure
+friend--_one_--a friend whom I once misunderstood, but now appreciate.'
+
+I wondered silently whether it could be Uncle Silas.
+
+'He'll make me a call, some day soon; I'm not quite sure when. I won't tell
+you his name--you'll hear that soon enough, and I don't want it talked of;
+and I must make a little journey with him. You'll not be afraid of being
+left alone for a time?'
+
+'And have you promised, sir?' I answered, with another question, my
+curiosity and anxiety overcoming my awe. He took my questioning very
+good-humouredly.
+
+'Well--_promise_?--no, child; but I'm under condition; he's not to be
+denied. I must make the excursion with him the moment he calls. I have no
+choice; but, on the whole, I rather like it--remember, I say, I rather
+_like_ it.'
+
+And he smiled again, with the same meaning, that was at once stern and sad.
+The exact purport of these sentences remained fixed in my mind, so that
+even at this distance of time I am quite sure of them.
+
+A person quite unacquainted with my father's habitually abrupt and odd way
+of talking, would have fancied that he was possibly a little disordered in
+his mind. But no such suspicion for a moment troubled me. I was quite sure
+that he spoke of a real person who was coming, and that his journey was
+something momentous; and when the visitor of whom he spoke did come, and he
+departed with him upon that mysterious excursion, I perfectly understood
+his language and his reasons for saying so much and yet so little.
+
+You are not to suppose that all my hours were passed in the sort of
+conference and isolation of which I have just given you a specimen; and
+singular and even awful as were sometimes my _tete-a-tetes_ with my father,
+I had grown so accustomed to his strange ways, and had so unbounded a
+confidence in his affection, that they never depressed or agitated me in
+the manner you might have supposed. I had a great deal of quite a different
+sort of chat with good old Mrs. Rusk, and very pleasant talks with Mary
+Quince, my somewhat ancient maid; and besides all this, I had now and then
+a visit of a week or so at the house of some one of our country neighbours,
+and occasionally a visitor--but this, I must own, very rarely--at Knowl.
+
+There had come now a little pause in my father's revelations, and my fancy
+wandered away upon a flight of discovery. Who, I again thought, could this
+intending visitor be, who was to come, armed with the prerogative to make
+my stay-at-home father forthwith leave his household goods--his books and
+his child--to whom he clung, and set forth on an unknown knight-errantry?
+Who but Uncle Silas, I thought--that mysterious relative whom I had
+never seen--who was, it had in old times been very darkly hinted to me,
+unspeakably unfortunate or unspeakably vicious--whom I had seldom heard my
+father mention, and then in a hurried way, and with a pained, thoughtful
+look. Once only he had said anything from which I could gather my father's
+opinion of him, and then it was so slight and enigmatical that I might have
+filled in the character very nearly as I pleased.
+
+It happened thus. One day Mrs. Rusk was in the oak-room, I being then about
+fourteen. She was removing a stain from a tapestry chair, and I watched the
+process with a childish interest. She sat down to rest herself--she had
+been stooping over her work--and threw her head back, for her neck was
+weary, and in this position she fixed her eyes on a portrait that hung
+before her.
+
+It was a full-length, and represented a singularly handsome young man,
+dark, slender, elegant, in a costume then quite obsolete, though I believe
+it was seen at the beginning of this century--white leather pantaloons and
+top-boots, a buff waistcoat, and a chocolate-coloured coat, and the hair
+long and brushed back.
+
+There was a remarkable elegance and a delicacy in the features, but also a
+character of resolution and ability that quite took the portrait out of the
+category of mere fops or fine men. When people looked at it for the first
+time, I have so often heard the exclamation--'What a wonderfully handsome
+man!' and then, 'What a clever face!' An Italian greyhound stood by him,
+and some slender columns and a rich drapery in the background. But though
+the accessories were of the luxurious sort, and the beauty, as I have said,
+refined, there was a masculine force in that slender oval face, and a fire
+in the large, shadowy eyes, which were very peculiar, and quite redeemed it
+from the suspicion of effeminacy.
+
+'Is not that Uncle Silas?' said I.
+
+'Yes, dear,' answered Mrs. Rusk, looking, with her resolute little face,
+quietly on the portrait.
+
+'He must be a very handsome man, Mrs. Rusk. Don't you think so?' I
+continued.
+
+'He _was_, my dear--yes; but it is forty years since that was painted--the
+date is there in the corner, in the shadow that comes from his foot, and
+forty years, I can tell you, makes a change in most of us;' and Mrs. Rusk
+laughed, in cynical good-humour.
+
+There was a little pause, both still looking on the handsome man in
+top-boots, and I said--
+
+'And why, Mrs. Rusk, is papa always so sad about Uncle Silas?'
+
+'What's that, child?' said my father's voice, very near. I looked round,
+with a start, and flushed and faltered, receding a step from him.
+
+'No harm, dear. You have said nothing wrong,' he said gently, observing
+my alarm. 'You said I was always sad, I think, about Uncle Silas. Well,
+I don't know how you gather that; but if I were, I will now tell you, it
+would not be unnatural. Your uncle is a man of great talents, great faults,
+and great wrongs. His talents have not availed him; his faults are long ago
+repented of; and his wrongs I believe he feels less than I do, but they are
+deep. Did she say any more, madam?' he demanded abruptly of Mrs. Rusk.
+
+'Nothing, sir,' with a stiff little courtesy, answered Mrs. Rusk, who stood
+in awe of him.
+
+'And there is no need, child,' he continued, addressing himself to me,
+'that you should think more of him at present. Clear your head of Uncle
+Silas. One day, perhaps, you will know him--yes, very well--and understand
+how villains have injured him.
+
+Then my father retired, and at the door he said--
+
+'Mrs. Rusk, a word, if you please,' beckoning to that lady, who trotted
+after him to the library.
+
+I think he then laid some injunction upon the housekeeper, which was
+transmitted by her to Mary Quince, for from that time forth I could never
+lead either to talk with me about Uncle Silas. They let me talk on, but
+were reserved and silent themselves, and seemed embarrassed, and Mrs. Rusk
+sometimes pettish and angry, when I pressed for information.
+
+Thus curiosity was piqued; and round the slender portrait in the leather
+pantaloons and top-boots gathered many-coloured circles of mystery, and the
+handsome features seemed to smile down upon my baffled curiosity with a
+provoking significance.
+
+Why is it that this form of ambition--curiosity--which entered into the
+temptation of our first parent, is so specially hard to resist? Knowledge
+is power--and power of one sort or another is the secret lust of human
+souls; and here is, beside the sense of exploration, the undefinable
+interest of a story, and above all, something forbidden, to stimulate the
+contumacious appetite.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+_A NEW FACE_
+
+
+I think it was about a fortnight after that conversation in which my father
+had expressed his opinion, and given me the mysterious charge about the
+old oak cabinet in his library, as already detailed, that I was one night
+sitting at the great drawing-room window, lost in the melancholy reveries
+of night, and in admiration of the moonlighted scene. I was the only
+occupant of the room; and the lights near the fire, at its farther end,
+hardly reached to the window at which I sat.
+
+The shorn grass sloped gently downward from the windows till it met the
+broad level on which stood, in clumps, or solitarily scattered, some of the
+noblest timber in England. Hoar in the moonbeams stood those graceful
+trees casting their moveless shadows upon the grass, and in the background
+crowning the undulations of the distance, in masses, were piled those woods
+among which lay the solitary tomb where the remains of my beloved mother
+rested.
+
+The air was still. The silvery vapour hung serenely on the far horizon,
+and the frosty stars blinked brightly. Everyone knows the effect of such a
+scene on a mind already saddened. Fancies and regrets float mistily in
+the dream, and the scene affects us with a strange mixture of memory and
+anticipation, like some sweet old air heard in the distance. As my eyes
+rested on those, to me, funereal but glorious woods, which formed the
+background of the picture, my thoughts recurred to my father's mysterious
+intimations and the image of the approaching visitor; and the thought of
+the unknown journey saddened me.
+
+In all that concerned his religion, from very early association, there was
+to me something of the unearthly and spectral.
+
+When my dear mamma died I was not nine years old; and I remember, two days
+before the funeral, there came to Knowl, where she died, a thin little man,
+with large black eyes, and a very grave, dark face.
+
+He was shut up a good deal with my dear father, who was in deep affliction;
+and Mrs. Rusk used to say, 'It is rather odd to see him praying with that
+little scarecrow from London, and good Mr. Clay ready at call, in the
+village; much good that little black whipper-snapper will do him!'
+
+With that little black man, on the day after the funeral, I was sent out,
+for some reason, for a walk; my governess was ill, I know, and there was
+confusion in the house, and I dare say the maids made as much of a holiday
+as they could.
+
+I remember feeling a sort of awe of this little dark man; but I was not
+afraid of him, for he was gentle, though sad--and seemed kind. He led me
+into the garden--the Dutch garden, we used to call it--with a balustrade,
+and statues at the farther front, laid out in a carpet-pattern of
+brilliantly-coloured flowers. We came down the broad flight of Caen stone
+steps into this, and we walked in silence to the balustrade. The base was
+too high at the spot where we reached it for me to see over; but holding my
+hand, he said, 'Look through that, my child. Well, you can't; but _I_ can
+see beyond it--shall I tell you what? I see ever so much. I see a cottage
+with a steep roof, that looks like gold in the sunlight; there are tall
+trees throwing soft shadows round it, and flowering shrubs, I can't say
+what, only the colours are beautiful, growing by the walls and windows, and
+two little children are playing among the stems of the trees, and we are on
+our way there, and in a few minutes shall be under those trees ourselves,
+and talking to those little children. Yet now to me it is but a picture in
+my brain, and to you but a story told by me, which you believe. Come, dear;
+let us be going.'
+
+So we descended the steps at the right, and side by side walked along the
+grass lane between tall trim walls of evergreens. The way was in deep
+shadow, for the sun was near the horizon; but suddenly we turned to the
+left, and there we stood in rich sunlight, among the many objects he had
+described.
+
+'Is this your house, my little men?' he asked of the children--pretty
+little rosy boys--who assented; and he leaned with his open hand against
+the stem of one of the trees, and with a grave smile he nodded down to me,
+saying--
+
+'You see now, and hear, and _feel_ for yourself that both the vision and
+the story were quite true; but come on, my dear, we have further to go.'
+
+And relapsing into silence we had a long ramble through the wood, the same
+on which I was now looking in the distance. Every now and then he made me
+sit down to rest, and he in a musing solemn sort of way would relate some
+little story, reflecting, even to my childish mind, a strange suspicion
+of a spiritual meaning, but different from what honest Mrs. Rusk used
+to expound to me from the Parables, and, somehow, startling in its very
+vagueness.
+
+Thus entertained, though a little awfully, I accompanied the dark
+mysterious little 'whipper-snapper' through the woodland glades. We came,
+to me quite unexpectedly, in the deep sylvan shadows, upon the grey,
+pillared temple, four-fronted, with a slanting pedestal of lichen-stained
+steps, the lonely sepulchre in which I had the morning before seen poor
+mamma laid. At the sight the fountains of my grief reopened, and I cried
+bitterly, repeating, 'Oh! mamma, mamma, little mamma!' and so went on
+weeping and calling wildly on the deaf and the silent. There was a stone
+bench some ten steps away from the tomb.
+
+'Sit down beside me, my child,' said the grave man with the black eyes,
+very kindly and gently. 'Now, what do you see there?' he asked, pointing
+horizontally with his stick towards the centre of the opposite structure.
+
+'Oh, _that_--that place where poor mamma is?'
+
+'Yes, a stone wall with pillars, too high for either you or me to see over.
+But----'
+
+Here he mentioned a name which I think must have been Swedenborg, from what
+I afterwards learnt of his tenets and revelations; I only know that it
+sounded to me like the name of a magician in a fairy tale; I fancied he
+lived in the wood which surrounded us, and I began to grow frightened as he
+proceeded.
+
+'But Swedenborg sees beyond it, over, and _through_ it, and has told me all
+that concerns us to know. He says your mamma is not there.'
+
+'She is taken away!' I cried, starting up, and with streaming eyes, gazing
+on the building which, though I stamped my feet in my distraction, I was
+afraid to approach. 'Oh, _is_ mamma taken away? Where is she? Where have
+they brought her to?'
+
+I was uttering unconsciously very nearly the question with which Mary,
+in the grey of that wondrous morning on which she stood by the empty
+sepulchre, accosted the figure standing near.
+
+'Your mamma is alive but too far away to see or hear us. Swedenborg,
+standing here, can see and hear her, and tells me all he sees, just as I
+told you in the garden about the little boys and the cottage, and the trees
+and flowers which you could not see, but you believed in when _I_ told you. So
+I can tell you now as I did then; and as we are both, I hope, walking on to
+the same place just as we did to the trees and cottage. You will surely see
+with your own eyes how true the description is which I give you.'
+
+I was very frightened, for I feared that when he had done his narrative we
+were to walk on through the wood into that place of wonders and of shadows
+where the dead were visible.
+
+He leaned his elbow on his knee, and his forehead on his hand, which
+shaded his downcast eyes. In that attitude he described to me a beautiful
+landscape, radiant with a wondrous light, in which, rejoicing, my mother
+moved along an airy path, ascending among mountains of fantastic height,
+and peaks, melting in celestial colouring into the air, and peopled with
+human beings translated into the same image, beauty, and splendour. And
+when he had ended his relation, he rose, took my hand, and smiling gently
+down on my pale, wondering face, he said the same words he had spoken
+before--
+
+'Come, dear, let us go.'
+
+'Oh! no, no, _no_--not now,' I said, resisting, and very much frightened.
+
+'Home, I mean, dear. We cannot walk to the place I have described. We can
+only reach it through the gate of death, to which we are all tending, young
+and old, with sure steps.'
+
+'And where is the gate of death?' I asked in a sort of whisper, as we
+walked together, holding his hand, and looking stealthily. He smiled sadly
+and said--
+
+'When, sooner or later, the time comes, as Hagar's eyes were opened in the
+wilderness, and she beheld the fountain of water, so shall each of us see
+the door open before us, and enter in and be refreshed.'
+
+For a long time following this walk I was very nervous; more so for the
+awful manner in which Mrs. Rusk received my statement--with stern lips and
+upturned hands and eyes, and an angry expostulation: 'I do wonder at
+you, Mary Quince, letting the child walk into the wood with that limb of
+darkness. It is a mercy he did not show her the devil, or frighten her out
+of her senses, in that lonely place!'
+
+Of these Swedenborgians, indeed, I know no more than I might learn from
+good Mrs. Rusk's very inaccurate talk. Two or three of them crossed in the
+course of my early life, like magic-lantern figures, the disk of my very
+circumscribed observation. All outside was and is darkness. I once tried to
+read one of their books upon the future state--heaven and hell; but I grew
+after a day or two so nervous that I laid it aside. It is enough for me
+to know that their founder either saw or fancied he saw amazing visions,
+which, so far from superseding, confirmed and interpreted the language of
+the Bible; and as dear papa accepted their ideas, I am happy in thinking
+that they did not conflict with the supreme authority of holy writ.
+
+Leaning on my hand, I was now looking upon that solemn wood, white and
+shadowy in the moonlight, where, for a long time after that ramble with the
+visionary, I fancied the gate of death, hidden only by a strange glamour,
+and the dazzling land of ghosts, were situate; and I suppose these earlier
+associations gave to my reverie about my father's coming visitor a wilder
+and a sadder tinge.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+_MADAME DE LA ROUGIERRE_
+
+
+On a sudden, on the grass before me, stood an odd figure--a very tall woman
+in grey draperies, nearly white under the moon, courtesying extraordinarily
+low, and rather fantastically.
+
+I stared in something like a horror upon the large and rather hollow
+features which I did not know, smiling very unpleasantly on me; and the
+moment it was plain that I saw her, the grey woman began gobbling
+and cackling shrilly--I could not distinctly hear _what_ through the
+window--and gesticulating oddly with her long hands and arms.
+
+As she drew near the window, I flew to the fireplace, and rang the bell
+frantically, and seeing her still there, and fearing that she might break
+into the room, I flew out of the door, very much frightened, and met
+Branston the butler in the lobby.
+
+'There's a woman at the window!' I gasped; 'turn her away, please.'
+
+If I had said a man, I suppose fat Branston would have summoned and sent
+forward a detachment of footmen. As it was, he bowed gravely, with a--
+
+'Yes, 'm--shall, 'm.'
+
+And with an air of authority approached the window.
+
+I don't think that he was pleasantly impressed himself by the first sight
+of our visitor, for he stopped short some steps of the window, and demanded
+rather sternly--
+
+'What ye doin' there, woman?'
+
+To this summons, her answer, which occupied a little time, was inaudible to
+me. But Branston replied--
+
+'I wasn't aware, ma'am; I heerd nothin'; if you'll go round _that_ way,
+you'll see the hall-door steps, and I'll speak to the master, and do as he
+shall order.'
+
+The figure said something and pointed.
+
+'Yes, that's it, and ye can't miss the door.'
+
+And Mr. Branston returned slowly down the long room, and halted with
+out-turned pumps and a grave inclination before me, and the faintest amount
+of interrogation in the announcement--
+
+'Please, 'm, she says she's the governess.'
+
+'The governess! _What_ governess?'
+
+Branston was too well-bred to smile, and he said thoughtfully--
+
+'P'raps, 'm, I'd best ask the master?'
+
+To which I assented, and away strode the flat pumps of the butler to the
+library.
+
+I stood breathless in the hall. Every girl at my age knows how much is
+involved in such an advent. I also heard Mrs. Rusk, in a minute or two
+more, emerge I suppose from the study. She walked quickly, and muttered
+sharply to herself--an evil trick, in which she indulged when much 'put
+about.' I should have been glad of a word with her; but I fancied she was
+vexed, and would not have talked satisfactorily. She did not, however, come
+my way; merely crossing the hall with her quick, energetic step.
+
+Was it really the arrival of a governess? Was that apparition which had
+impressed me so unpleasantly to take the command of me--to sit alone with
+me, and haunt me perpetually with her sinister looks and shrilly gabble?
+
+I was just making up my mind to go to Mary Quince, and learn something
+definite, when I heard my father's step approaching from the library: so
+I quietly re-entered the drawing-room, but with an anxious and throbbing
+heart.
+
+When he came in, as usual, he patted me on the head gently, with a kind of
+smile, and then began his silent walk up and down the room. I was yearning
+to question him on the point that just then engrossed me so disagreeably;
+but the awe in which I stood of him forbade.
+
+After a time he stopped at the window, the curtain of which I had drawn,
+and the shutter partly opened, and he looked out, perhaps with associations
+of his own, on the scene I had been contemplating.
+
+It was not for nearly an hour after, that my father suddenly, after his
+wont, in a few words, apprised me of the arrival of Madame de la Rougierre
+to be my governess, highly recommended and perfectly qualified. My heart
+sank with a sure presage of ill. I already disliked, distrusted, and feared
+her.
+
+I had more than an apprehension of her temper and fear of possibly abused
+authority. The large-featured, smirking phantom, saluting me so oddly in
+the moonlight, retained ever after its peculiar and unpleasant hold upon my
+nerves.
+
+'Well, Miss Maud, dear, I hope you'll like your new governess--for it's
+more than _I_ do, just at present at least,' said Mrs. Rusk, sharply--she
+was awaiting me in my room. 'I hate them French-women; they're not natural,
+I think. I gave her her supper in my room. She eats like a wolf, she does,
+the great raw-boned hannimal. I wish you saw her in bed as I did. I put her
+next the clock-room--she'll hear the hours betimes, I'm thinking. You never
+saw such a sight. The great long nose and hollow cheeks of her, and oogh!
+such a mouth! I felt a'most like little Red Riding-Hood--I did, Miss.'
+
+Here honest Mary Quince, who enjoyed Mrs. Rusk's satire, a weapon in which
+she was not herself strong, laughed outright.
+
+'Turn down the bed, Mary. She's very agreeable--she is, just now--all
+new-comers is; but she did not get many compliments from me, Miss--no,
+I rayther think not. I wonder why honest English girls won't answer the
+gentry for governesses, instead of them gaping, scheming, wicked furriners?
+Lord forgi' me, I think they're all alike.'
+
+Next morning I made acquaintance with Madame de la Rougierre. She was tall,
+masculine, a little ghastly perhaps, and draped in purple silk, with a
+lace cap, and great bands of black hair, too thick and black, perhaps, to
+correspond quite naturally with her bleached and sallow skin, her hollow
+jaws, and the fine but grim wrinkles traced about her brows and eyelids.
+She smiled, she nodded, and then for a good while she scanned me in silence
+with a steady cunning eye, and a stern smile.
+
+'And how is she named--what is Mademoiselle's name?' said the tall
+stranger.
+
+'_Maud_, Madame.'
+
+'Maud!--what pretty name! Eh bien! I am very sure my dear Maud she will
+be very good little girl--is not so?--and I am sure I shall love you vary
+moche. And what 'av you been learning, Maud, my dear cheaile--music,
+French, German, eh?'
+
+'Yes, a little; and I had just begun the use of the globes when my
+governess went away.'
+
+I nodded towards the globes, which stood near her, as I said this.
+
+'Oh! yes--the globes;' and she spun one of them with her great hand. 'Je
+vous expliquerai tout cela a fond.'
+
+Madame de la Rougierre, I found, was always quite ready to explain
+everything 'a fond;' but somehow her 'explications,' as she termed them,
+were not very intelligible, and when pressed her temper woke up; so that I
+preferred, after a while, accepting the expositions just as they came.
+
+Madame was on an unusually large scale, a circumstance which made some of
+her traits more startling, and altogether rendered her, in her strange way,
+more awful in the eyes of a nervous _child,_ I may say, such as I was. She
+used to look at me for a long time sometimes, with the peculiar smile
+I have mentioned, and a great finger upon her lip, like the Eleusinian
+priestess on the vase.
+
+She would sit, too, sometimes for an hour together, looking into the fire
+or out of the window, plainly seeing nothing, and with an odd, fixed look
+of something like triumph--very nearly a smile--on her cunning face.
+
+She was by no means a pleasant _gouvernante_ for a nervous girl of my
+years. Sometimes she had accesses of a sort of hilarity which frightened me
+still more than her graver moods, and I will describe these by-and-by.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+_SIGHTS AND NOISES_
+
+
+There is not an old house in England of which the servants and young people
+who live in it do not cherish some traditions of the ghostly. Knowl has its
+shadows, noises, and marvellous records. Rachel Ruthyn, the beauty of Queen
+Anne's time, who died of grief for the handsome Colonel Norbrooke, who
+was killed in the Low Countries, walks the house by night, in crisp and
+sounding silks. She is not seen, only heard. The tapping of her high-heeled
+shoes, the sweep and rustle of her brocades, her sighs as she pauses in the
+galleries, near the bed-room doors; and sometimes, on stormy nights, her
+sobs.
+
+There is, beside, the 'link-man', a lank, dark-faced, black-haired man, in
+a sable suit, with a link or torch in his hand. It usually only smoulders,
+with a deep red glow, as he visits his beat. The library is one of the
+rooms he sees to. Unlike 'Lady Rachel,' as the maids called her, he is seen
+only, never heard. His steps fall noiseless as shadows on floor and carpet.
+The lurid glow of his smouldering torch imperfectly lights his figure and
+face, and, except when much perturbed, his link never blazes. On those
+occasions, however, as he goes his rounds, he ever and anon whirls it
+around his head, and it bursts into a dismal flame. This is a fearful omen,
+and always portends some direful crisis or calamity. It occurs, only once
+or twice in a century.
+
+I don't know whether Madame had heard anything of these phenomena; but she
+did report which very much frightened me and Mary Quince. She asked us who
+walked in the gallery on which her bed-room opened, making a rustling with
+her dress, and going down the stairs, and breathing long breaths here and
+there. Twice, she said, she had stood at her door in the dark, listening to
+these sounds, and once she called to know who it was. There was no answer,
+but the person plainly turned back, and hurried towards her with an
+unnatural speed, which made her jump within her door and shut it.
+
+When first such tales are told, they excite the nerves of the young and the
+ignorant intensely. But the special effect, I have found, soon wears out
+The tale simply takes it's place with the rest. It was with Madame's
+narrative.
+
+About a week after its relation, I had my experience of a similar sort.
+Mary Quince went down-stairs for a night-light, leaving me in bed, a candle
+burning in the room, and being tired, I fell asleep before her return.
+When I awoke the candle had been extinguished. But I heard a step softly
+approaching. I jumped up--quite forgetting the ghost, and thinking only of
+Mary Quince--and opened the door, expecting to see the light of her candle.
+Instead, all was dark, and near me I heard the fall of a bare foot on the
+oak floor. It was as if some one had stumbled. I said, 'Mary,' but no
+answer came, only a rustling of clothes and a breathing at the other side
+of the gallery, which passed off towards the upper staircase. I turned into
+my room, freezing with horror, and clapt my door. The noise wakened Mary
+Quince, who had returned and gone to her bed half an hour before.
+
+About a fortnight after this, Mary Quince, a very veracious spinster,
+reported to me, that having got up to fix the window, which was rattling,
+at about four o'clock in the morning, she saw a light shining from the
+library window. She could swear to its being a strong light, streaming
+through the chinks of the shutter, and moving. No doubt the link was waved
+about his head by the angry 'link-man.'
+
+These strange occurrences helped, I think, just then to make me nervous,
+and prepared the way for the odd sort of ascendency which, through my
+sense of the mysterious and super-natural, that repulsive Frenchwoman was
+gradually, and it seemed without effort, establishing over me.
+
+Some dark points of her character speedily emerged from the prismatic mist
+with which she had enveloped it.
+
+Mrs. Rusk's observation about the agreeability of new-comers I found to be
+true; for as Madame began to lose that character, her good-humour abated
+very perceptibly, and she began to show gleams of another sort of temper,
+that was lurid and dangerous.
+
+Notwithstanding this, she was in the habit of always having her Bible open
+by her, and was austerely attentive at morning and evening services, and
+asked my father, with great humility, to lend her some translations of
+Swedenborg's books, which she laid much to heart.
+
+When we went out for our walk, if the weather were bad we generally made
+our promenade up and down the broad terrace in front of the windows. Sullen
+and malign at times she used to look, and as suddenly she would pat me on
+the shoulder caressingly, and smile with a grotesque benignity, asking
+tenderly, 'Are you fatigue, ma chere?' or 'Are you cold-a, dear Maud?'
+
+At first these abrupt transitions puzzled me, sometimes half frightened
+me, savouring, I fancied, of insanity. The key, however, was accidentally
+supplied, and I found that these accesses of demonstrative affection were
+sure to supervene whenever my father's face was visible through the library
+windows.
+
+I did not know well what to make of this woman, whom I feared with a vein
+of superstitious dread. I hated being alone with her after dusk in the
+school-room. She would sometimes sit for half an hour at a time, with her
+wide mouth drawn down at the corners, and a scowl, looking into the fire.
+If she saw me looking at her, she would change all this on the instant,
+affect a sort of languor, and lean her head upon her hand, and ultimately
+have recourse to her Bible. But I fancied she did not read, but pursued her
+own dark ruminations, for I observed that the open book might often lie for
+half an hour or more under her eyes and yet the leaf never turned.
+
+I should have been glad to be assured that she prayed when on her knees, or
+read when that book was before her; I should have felt that she was more
+canny and human. As it was, those external pieties made a suspicion of a
+hollow contrast with realities that helped to scare me; yet it was but a
+suspicion--I could not be certain.
+
+Our rector and the curate, with whom she was very gracious, and anxious
+about my collects and catechism, had an exalted opinion of her. In public
+places her affection for me was always demonstrative.
+
+In like manner she contrived conferences with my father. She was always
+making excuses to consult him about my reading, and to confide in him her
+sufferings, as I learned, from my contumacy and temper. The fact is, I was
+altogether quiet and submissive. But I think she had a wish to reduce me
+to a state of the most abject bondage. She had designs of domination and
+subversion regarding the entire household, I now believe, worthy of the
+evil spirit I sometimes fancied her.
+
+My father beckoned me into the study one day, and said he--
+
+'You ought not to give poor Madame so much pain. She is one of the few
+persons who take an interest in you; why should she have so often to
+complain of your ill-temper and disobedience?--why should she be compelled
+to ask my permission to punish you? Don't be afraid, I won't concede that.
+But in so kind a person it argues much. Affection I can't command--respect
+and obedience I may--and I insist on your rendering _both_ to Madame.'
+
+'But sir,' I said, roused into courage by the gross injustice of the
+charge, 'I have always done exactly as she bid me, and never said one
+disrespectful word to Madame.'
+
+'I don't think, child, _you_ are the best judge of that. Go, and _amend_.'
+And with a displeased look he pointed to the door. My heart swelled with
+the sense of wrong, and as I reached the door I turned to say another word,
+but I could not, and only burst into tears.
+
+'There--don't cry, little Maud--only let us do better for the future.
+There--there--there has been enough.'
+
+And he kissed my forehead, and gently put me out and closed the door.
+
+In the school-room I took courage, and with some warmth upbraided Madame.
+
+'Wat wicked cheaile!' moaned Madame, demurely. 'Read aloud those
+three--yes, _those_ three chapters of the Bible, my dear Maud.'
+
+There was no special fitness in those particular chapters, and when they
+were ended she said in a sad tone--
+
+'Now, dear, you must commit to memory this pretty priaire for umility of
+art.'
+
+It was a long one, and in a state of profound irritation I got through the
+task.
+
+Mrs. Rusk hated her. She said she stole wine and brandy whenever the
+opportunity offered--that she was always asking her for such stimulants and
+pretending pains in her stomach. Here, perhaps, there was exaggeration; but
+I knew it was true that I had been at different times despatched on that
+errand and pretext for brandy to Mrs. Rusk, who at last came to her bedside
+with pills and a mustard blister only, and was hated irrevocably ever
+after.
+
+I felt all this was done to torture me. But a day is a long time to a
+child, and they forgive quickly. It was always with a sense of danger that
+I heard Madame say she must go and see Monsieur Ruthyn in the library,
+and I think a jealousy of her growing influence was an ingredient in the
+detestation in which honest Mrs. Rusk held her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+_A WALK IN THE WOOD_
+
+
+Two little pieces of by-play in which I detected her confirmed my
+unpleasant suspicion. From the corner of the gallery I one day saw her,
+when she thought I was out and all quiet, with her ear at the keyhole of
+papa's study, as we used to call the sitting-room next his bed-room. Her
+eyes were turned in the direction of the stairs, from which only she
+apprehended surprise. Her great mouth was open, and her eyes absolutely
+goggled with eagerness. She was devouring all that was passing there.
+I drew back into the shadow with a kind of disgust and horror. She was
+transformed into a great gaping reptile. I felt that I could have thrown
+something at her; but a kind of fear made me recede again toward my room.
+Indignation, however, quickly returned, and I came back, treading briskly
+as I did so. When I reached the angle of the gallery again. Madame, I
+suppose, had heard me, for she was half-way down the stairs.
+
+'Ah, my dear Cheaile, I am so glad to find you, and you are dress to come
+out. We shall have so pleasant walk.'
+
+At that moment the door of my father's study opened, and Mrs. Rusk, with
+her dark energetic face very much flushed, stepped out in high excitement.
+
+'The Master says you may have the brandy-bottle, Madame and I'm glad to be
+rid of it--_I_ am.'
+
+Madame courtesied with a great smirk, that was full of intangible hate and
+insult.
+
+'Better your own brandy, if drink you must!' exclaimed Mrs. Rusk. 'You may
+come to the store-room now, or the butler can take it.'
+
+And off whisked Mrs. Rusk for the back staircase.
+
+There had been no common skirmish on this occasion, but a pitched battle.
+
+Madame had made a sort of pet of Anne Wixted, an under-chambermaid, and
+attached her to her interest economically by persuading me to make her
+presents of some old dresses and other things. Anne was such an angel!
+
+But Mrs. Rusk, whose eyes were about her, detected Anne, with a
+brandy-bottle under her apron, stealing up-stairs. Anne, in a panic,
+declared the truth. Madame had commissioned her to buy it in the town, and
+convey it to her bed-room. Upon this, Mrs. Rusk impounded the flask; and,
+with Anne beside her, rather precipitately appeared before 'the Master.' He
+heard and summoned Madame. Madame was cool, frank, and fluent. The brandy
+was purely medicinal. She produced a document in the form of a note. Doctor
+Somebody presented his compliments to Madame de la Rougierre, and ordered
+her a table-spoonful of brandy and some drops of laudanum whenever the pain
+of stomach returned. The flask would last a whole year, perhaps two. She
+claimed her medicine.
+
+Man's estimate of woman is higher than woman's own. Perhaps in their
+relations to men they are generally more trustworthy--perhaps woman's is
+the juster, and the other an appointed illusion. I don't know; but so it is
+ordained.
+
+Mrs. Rusk was recalled, and I saw, as you are aware, Madame's procedure
+during the interview.
+
+It was a great battle--a great victory. Madame was in high spirits. The air
+was sweet--the landscape charming--I, so good--everything so beautiful!
+Where should we go? _this_ way?
+
+I had made a resolution to speak as little as possible to Madame, I was so
+incensed at the treachery I had witnessed; but such resolutions do not last
+long with very young people, and by the time we had reached the skirts of
+the wood we were talking pretty much as usual.
+
+'I don't wish to go into the wood, Madame.
+
+'And for what?'
+
+'Poor mamma is buried there.'
+
+'Is _there_ the vault?' demanded Madame eagerly.
+
+I assented.
+
+'My faith, curious reason; you say because poor mamma is buried there you
+will not approach! Why, cheaile, what would good Monsieur Ruthyn say if
+he heard such thing? You are surely not so unkain', and I am with you.
+_Allons_. Let us come--even a little part of the way.'
+
+And so I yielded, though still reluctant.
+
+There was a grass-grown road, which we easily reached, leading to the
+sombre building, and we soon arrived before it.
+
+Madame de la Rougierre seemed rather curious. She sat down on the little
+bank opposite, in her most languid pose--her head leaned upon the tips of
+her fingers.
+
+'How very sad--how solemn!' murmured Madame. 'What noble tomb! How triste,
+my dear cheaile, your visit 'ere must it be, remembering a so sweet maman.
+There is new inscription--is it not new?' And so, indeed, it seemed.
+
+'I am fatigue--maybe you will read it aloud to me slowly and solemnly, my
+dearest Maud?'
+
+As I approached, I happened to look, I can't tell why, suddenly, over my
+shoulder; I was startled, for Madame was grimacing after me with a vile
+derisive distortion. She pretended to be seized with a fit of coughing. But
+it would not do: she saw that I had detected her, and she laughed aloud.
+
+'Come here, dear cheaile. I was just reflecting how foolish is all this
+thing--the tomb--the epitaph. I think I would 'av none--no, no epitaph. We
+regard them first for the oracle of the dead, and find them after only the
+folly of the living. So I despise. Do you think your house of Knowl down
+there is what you call haunt, my dear?'
+
+'Why?' said I, flushing and growing pale again. I felt quite afraid of
+Madame, and confounded at the suddenness of all this.
+
+'Because Anne Wixted she says there is ghost. How dark is this place! and
+so many of the Ruthyn family they are buried here--is not so? How high and
+thick are the trees all round! and nobody comes near.'
+
+And Madame rolled her eyes awfully, as if she expected to see something
+unearthly, and, indeed, looked very like it herself.
+
+'Come away, Madame,' I said, growing frightened, and feeling that if I were
+once, by any accident, to give way to the panic that was gathering round
+me, I should instantaneously lose all control of myself. 'Oh, come away!
+do, Madame--I'm frightened.'
+
+'No, on the contrary, sit here by me. It is very odd, you will think, ma
+chere--un gout bizarre, vraiment!--but I love very much to be near to the
+dead people--in solitary place like this. I am not afraid of the dead
+people, nor of the ghosts. 'Av you ever see a ghost, my dear?'
+
+'Do, Madame, _pray_ speak of something else.'
+
+'Wat little fool! But no, you are not afraid. I 'av seen the ghosts myself.
+I saw one, for example, last night, shape like a monkey, sitting in the
+corner, with his arms round his knees; very wicked, old, old man his face
+was like, and white eyes so large.'
+
+'Come away, Madame! you are trying to frighten me,' I said, in the childish
+anger which accompanies fear. Madame laughed an ugly laugh, and said--
+
+'Eh bien! little fool!--I will not tell the rest if you are really
+frightened; let us change to something else.'
+
+'Yes, yes! oh, do--pray do.'
+
+'Wat good man is your father!'
+
+'Very--the kindest darling. I don't know why it is, Madame, I am so afraid
+of him, and never could tell him how much I love him.'
+
+This confidential talking with Madame, strange to say, implied no
+confidence; it resulted from fear--it was deprecatory. I treated her as if
+she had human sympathies, in the hope that they might be generated somehow.
+
+'Was there not a doctor from London with him a few months ago? Dr. Bryerly,
+I think they call him.'
+
+'Yes, a Doctor Bryerly, who remained a few days. Shall we begin to walk
+towards home, Madame? Do, pray.'
+
+'Immediately, cheaile; and does your father suffer much?'
+
+'No--I think not.'
+
+'And what then is his disease?'
+
+'Disease! he has _no_ disease. Have you heard anything about his health,
+Madame?' I said, anxiously.
+
+'Oh no, ma foi--I have heard nothing; but if the doctor came, it was not
+because he was quite well.'
+
+'But that doctor is a doctor in theology, I fancy. I know he is a
+Swedenborgian; and papa is so well he _could_ not have come as a
+physician.'
+
+'I am very glad, ma chere, to hear; but still you know your father is
+old man to have so young cheaile as you. Oh, yes--he is old man, and so
+uncertain life is. 'As he made his will, my dear? Every man so rich as he,
+especially so old, aught to 'av made his will.'
+
+'There is no need of haste, Madame; it is quite time enough when his health
+begins to fail.'
+
+'But has he really compose no will?'
+
+'I really don't know, Madame.'
+
+'Ah, little rogue! you will not tell--but you are not such fool as you
+feign yourself. No, no; you know everything. Come, tell me all about--it is
+for your advantage, you know. What is in his will, and when he wrote?'
+
+'But, Madame, I really know nothing of it. I can't say whether there is a
+will or not. Let us talk of something else.'
+
+'But, cheaile, it will not kill Monsieur Ruthyn to make his will; he will
+not come to lie here a day sooner by cause of that; but if he make no will,
+you may lose a great deal of the property. Would not that be pity?'
+
+'I really don't know anything of his will. If papa has made one, he has
+never spoken of it to me. I know he loves me--that is enough.'
+
+'Ah! you are not such little goose--you do know everything, of course. Come
+tell me, little obstinate, otherwise I will break your little finger. Tell
+me everything.'
+
+'I know nothing of papa's will. You don't know, Madame, how you hurt me.
+Let us speak of something else.'
+
+'You do know, and you must tell, petite dure-tete, or I will break a your
+little finger.'
+
+With which words she seized that joint, and laughing spitefully, she
+twisted it suddenly back. I screamed while she continued to laugh.
+
+'Will you tell?'
+
+'Yes, yes! let me go,' I shrieked.
+
+She did not release it immediately however, but continued her torture and
+discordant laughter. At last she finally released my finger.
+
+'So she is going to be good cheaile, and tell everything to her
+affectionate gouvernante. What do you cry for, little fool?'
+
+'You've hurt me very much--you have broken my finger,' I sobbed.
+
+'Rub it and blow it and give it a kiss, little fool! What cross girl! I
+will never play with you again--never. Let us go home.'
+
+Madame was silent and morose all the way home. She would not answer my
+questions, and affected to be very lofty and offended.
+
+This did not last very long, however, and she soon resumed her wonted ways.
+And she returned to the question of the will, but not so directly, and with
+more art.
+
+Why should this dreadful woman's thoughts be running so continually upon my
+father's will? How could it concern her?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+_CHURCH SCARSDALE_
+
+
+I think all the females of our household, except Mrs. Rusk, who was at open
+feud with her and had only room for the fiercer emotions, were more or less
+afraid of this inauspicious foreigner.
+
+Mrs. Rusk would say in her confidences in my room--
+
+'Where does she come from?--is she a French or a Swiss one, or is she a
+Canada woman? I remember one of _them_ when I was a girl, and a nice limb
+_she_ was, too! And who did she live with? Where was her last family? Not
+one of us knows nothing about her, no more than a child; except, of course,
+the Master--I do suppose he made enquiry. She's always at hugger-mugger
+with Anne Wixted. I'll pack that _one_ about her business, if she doesn't
+mind. Tattling and whispering eternally. It's not about her own business
+she's a-talking. Madame de la Rougepot, I call her. She _does_ know how to
+paint up to the ninety-nines--she does, the old cat. I beg your pardon,
+Miss, but _that_ she is--a devil, and no mistake. I found her out first by
+her thieving the Master's gin, that the doctor ordered him, and filling the
+decanter up with water--the old villain; but she'll be found out yet, she
+will; and all the maids is afraid on her. She's not right, they think--a
+witch or a ghost--I should not wonder. Catherine Jones found her in her bed
+asleep in the morning after she sulked with you, you know, Miss, with all
+her clothes on, what-ever was the meaning; and I think she has frightened
+_you,_ Miss and has you as nervous as anythink--I do,' and so forth.
+
+It was true. I _was_ nervous, and growing rather more so; and I think this
+cynical woman perceived and intended it, and was pleased. I was always
+afraid of her concealing herself in my room, and emerging at night to scare
+me. She began sometimes to mingle in my dreams, too--always awfully; and
+this nourished, of course, the kind of ambiguous fear in which, in waking
+hours, I held her.
+
+I dreamed one night that she led me, all the time whispering something so
+very fast that I could not understand her, into the library, holding
+a candle in her other hand above her head. We walked on tiptoe, like
+criminals at the dead of night, and stopped before that old oak cabinet
+which my father had indicated in so odd a way to me. I felt that we were
+about some contraband practice. There was a key in the door, which I
+experienced a guilty horror at turning, she whispering in the same
+unintelligible way, all the time, at my ear. I _did_ turn it; the door
+opened quite softly, and within stood my father, his face white and
+malignant, and glaring close in mine. He cried in a terrible voice,
+'Death!' Out went Madame's candle, and at the same moment, with a scream,
+I waked in the dark--still fancying myself in the library; and for an hour
+after I continued in a hysterical state.
+
+Every little incident about Madame furnished a topic of eager discussion
+among the maids. More or less covertly, they nearly all hated and feared
+her. They fancied that she was making good her footing with 'the Master;'
+and that she would then oust Mrs. Rusk--perhaps usurp her place--and so
+make a clean sweep of them all. I fancy the honest little housekeeper did
+not discourage that suspicion.
+
+About this time I recollect a pedlar--an odd, gipsified-looking man--called
+in at Knowl. I and Catherine Jones were in the court when he came, and set
+down his pack on the low balustrade beside the door.
+
+All sorts of commodities he had--ribbons, cottons, silks, stockings,
+lace, and even some bad jewellry; and just as he began his display--an
+interesting matter in a quiet country house--Madame came upon the ground.
+He grinned a recognition, and hoped 'Madamasel' was well, and 'did not look
+to see _her_ here.'
+
+'Madamasel' thanked him. 'Yes, vary well,' and looked for the first time
+decidedly 'put out.'
+
+'Wat a pretty things!' she said. 'Catherine, run and tell Mrs. Rusk. She
+wants scissars, and lace too--I heard her say.'
+
+So Catherine, with a lingering look, departed; and Madame said--
+
+'Will you, dear cheaile, be so kind to bring here my purse, I forgot on the
+table in my room; also, I advise you, bring _your_.'
+
+Catherine returned with Mrs. Rusk. Here was a man who could tell them
+something of the old Frenchwoman, at last! Slyly they dawdled over his
+wares, until Madame had made her market and departed with me. But when the
+coveted opportunity came, the pedlar was quite impenetrable. 'He forgot
+everything; he did not believe as he ever saw the lady before. He called a
+Frenchwoman, all the world over, Madamasel--that wor the name on 'em all.
+He never seed her in partiklar afore, as he could bring to mind. He liked
+to see 'em always, 'cause they makes the young uns buy.'
+
+This reserve and oblivion were very provoking, and neither Mrs. Rusk nor
+Catherine Jones spent sixpence with him;--he was a stupid fellow, or worse.
+
+Of course Madame had tampered with him. But truth, like murder, will out
+some day. Tom Williams, the groom, had seen her, when alone with him, and
+pretending to look at his stock, with her face almost buried in his silks
+and Welsh linseys, talking as fast as she could all the time, and slipping
+_money_, he did suppose, under a piece of stuff in his box.
+
+In the mean time, I and Madame were walking over the wide, peaty
+sheep-walks that lie between Knowl and Church Scarsdale. Since our visit to
+the mausoleum in the wood, she had not worried me so much as before. She
+had been, indeed, more than usually thoughtful, very little talkative, and
+troubled me hardly at all about French and other accomplishments. A walk
+was a part of our daily routine. I now carried a tiny basket in my hand,
+with a few sandwiches, which were to furnish our luncheon when we reached
+the pretty scene, about two miles away, whither we were tending.
+
+We had started a little too late; Madame grew unwontedly fatigued and sat
+down to rest on a stile before we had got half-way; and there she intoned,
+with a dismal nasal cadence, a quaint old Bretagne ballad, about a lady
+with a pig's head:--
+
+  'This lady was neither pig nor maid,
+  And so she was not of human mould;
+  Not of the living nor the dead.
+  Her left hand and foot were warm to touch;
+  Her right as cold as a corpse's flesh!
+  And she would sing like a funeral bell, with a ding-dong tune.
+  The pigs were afraid, and viewed her aloof;
+  And women feared her and stood afar.
+  She could do without sleep for a year and a day;
+  She could sleep like a corpse, for a month and more.
+  No one knew how this lady fed--
+  On acorns or on flesh.
+  Some say that she's one of the swine-possessed,
+  That swam over the sea of Gennesaret.
+  A mongrel body and demon soul.
+  Some say she's the wife of the Wandering Jew,
+  And broke the law for the sake of pork;
+  And a swinish face for a token doth bear,
+  That her shame is now, and her punishment coming.'
+
+And so it went on, in a gingling rigmarole. The more anxious I seemed to go
+on our way, the more likely was she to loiter. I therefore showed no signs
+of impatience, and I saw her consult her watch in the course of her ugly
+minstrelsy, and slyly glance, as if expecting something, in the direction
+of our destination.
+
+When she had sung to her heart's content, up rose Madame, and began to walk
+onward silently. I saw her glance once or twice, as before, toward the
+village of Trillsworth, which lay in front, a little to our left, and
+the smoke of which hung in a film over the brow of the hill. I think she
+observed me, for she enquired--
+
+'Wat is that a smoke there?'
+
+'That is Trillsworth, Madame; there is a railway station there.'
+
+'Oh, le chemin de fer, so near! I did not think. Where it goes?'
+
+I told her, and silence returned.
+
+Church Scarsdale is a very pretty and odd scene. The slightly undulating
+sheep-walk dips suddenly into a wide glen, in the lap of which, by a
+bright, winding rill, rise from the sward the ruins of a small abbey, with
+a few solemn trees scattered round. The crows' nests hung untenanted in the
+trees; the birds were foraging far away from their roosts. The very cattle
+had forsaken the place. It was solitude itself.
+
+Madame drew a long breath and smiled.
+
+'Come down, come down, cheaile--come down to the churchyard.'
+
+As we descended the slope which shut out the surrounding world, and the
+scene grew more sad and lonely. Madame's spirits seemed to rise.
+
+'See 'ow many grave-stones--one, _two_ hundred. Don't you love the dead,
+cheaile? I will teach you to love them. You shall see me die here to-day,
+for half an hour, and be among them. That is what I love.'
+
+We were by this time at the little brook's side, and the low churchyard
+wall with a stile, reached by a couple of stepping-stones, across the
+stream, immediately at the other side.
+
+'Come, now!' cried Madame, raising her face, as if to sniff the air; 'we
+are close to them. You will like them soon as I. You shall see five of
+them. Ah, ca ira, ca ira, ca ira! Come cross quickily! I am Madame la
+Morgue--Mrs. Deadhouse! I will present you my friends, Monsieur Cadavre and
+Monsieur Squelette. Come, come, leetle mortal, let us play. Ouaah!' And
+she uttered a horrid yell from her enormous mouth, and pushing her wig and
+bonnet back, so as to show her great, bald head. She was laughing, and
+really looked quite mad.
+
+'No, Madame, I will not go with you,' I said, disengaging my hand with a
+violent effort, receding two or three steps.
+
+'Not enter the churchyard! Ma foi--wat mauvais gout! But see, we are
+already in shade. The sun he is setting soon--where well you remain,
+cheaile? I will not stay long.'
+
+'I'll stay here,' I said, a little angrily--for I _was_ angry as well as
+nervous; and through my fear was that indignation at her extravagances
+which mimicked lunacy so unpleasantly, and were, I knew, designed to
+frighten me.
+
+Over the stepping-stones, pulling up her dress, she skipped with her long,
+lank legs, like a witch joining a Walpurgis. Over the stile she strode, and
+I saw her head wagging, and heard her sing some of her ill-omened rhymes,
+as she capered solemnly, with many a grin and courtesy, among the graves
+and headstones, towards the ruin.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+_THE SMOKER_
+
+
+Three years later I learned--in a way she probably little expected, and
+then did not much care about--what really occurred there. I learned even
+phrases and looks--for the story was related by one who had heard it
+told--and therefore I venture to narrate what at the moment I neither saw
+nor suspected. While I sat, flushed and nervous, upon a flat stone by the
+bank of the little stream, Madame looked over her shoulder, and perceiving
+that I was out of sight, she abated her pace, and turned sharply towards
+the ruin which lay at her left. It was her first visit, and she was merely
+exploring; but now, with a perfectly shrewd and businesslike air, turning
+the corner of the building, she saw, seated upon the edge of a grave-stone,
+a rather fat and flashily-equipped young man, with large, light whiskers, a
+jerry hat, green cutaway coat with gilt buttons, and waistcoat and trousers
+rather striking than elegant in pattern. He was smoking a short pipe, and
+made a nod to Madame, without either removing it from his lips or rising,
+but with his brown and rather good-looking face turned up, he eyed her with
+something of the impudent and sulky expression that was habitual to it.
+
+'Ha, Deedle, you are there! an' look so well. I am here, too, quite _a_lon;
+but my friend, she wait outside the churchyard, by-side the leetle river,
+for she must not think I know you--so I am come _a_lon.'
+
+'You're a quarter late, and I lost a fight by you, old girl, this morning,'
+said the gay man, and spat on the ground; 'and I wish you would not call me
+Diddle. I'll call you Granny if you do.'
+
+'Eh bien! _Dud,_ then. She is vary nice--wat you like. Slim waist, wite
+teeth, vary nice eyes--dark--wat you say is best--and nice leetle foot and
+ankle.'
+
+Madame smiled leeringly.
+
+Dud smoked on.
+
+'Go on,' said Dud, with a nod of command.
+
+'I am teach her to sing and play--she has such sweet voice!
+
+There was another interval here.
+
+'Well, that isn't much good. I hate women's screechin' about fairies and
+flowers. Hang her! there's a scarecrow as sings at Curl's Divan. Such a
+caterwauling upon a stage! I'd like to put my two barrels into her.'
+
+By this time Dud's pipe was out, and he could afford to converse.
+
+'You shall see her and decide. You will walk down the river, and pass her
+by.'
+
+'That's as may be; howsoever, it would not do, nohow, to buy a pig in a
+poke, you know. And s'pose I shouldn't like her, arter all?'
+
+Madame sneered, with a patois ejaculation of derision.
+
+'Vary good! Then some one else will not be so 'ard to please--as you will
+soon find.'
+
+'Some one's bin a-lookin' arter her, you mean?' said the young man, with a
+shrewd uneasy glance on the cunning face of the French lady.
+
+'I mean precisely--that which I mean,' replied the lady, with a teazing
+pause at the break I have marked.
+
+'Come, old 'un, none of your d---- old chaff, if you want me to stay
+here listening to you. Speak out, can't you? There's any chap as has bin
+a-lookin' arter her--is there?'
+
+'Eh bien! I suppose some.'
+
+'Well, you _suppose,_ and _I_ suppose--we may _all_ suppose, I guess; but
+that does not make a thing be, as wasn't before; and you tell me as how
+the lass is kep' private up there, and will be till you're done educating
+her--a precious good 'un that is!' And he laughed a little lazily, with
+the ivory handle of his cane on his lip, and eyeing Madame with indolent
+derision.
+
+Madame laughed, but looked rather dangerous.
+
+'I'm only chaffin', you know, old girl. _You_'ve bin chaffin'--w'y
+shouldn't _I_? But I don't see why she can't wait a bit; and what's all the
+d----d hurry for? _I_'m in no hurry. I don't want a wife on my back for a
+while. There's no fellow marries till he's took his bit o' fun, and seen
+life--is there! And why should I be driving with her to fairs, or to
+church, or to meeting, by jingo!--for they say she's a Quaker--with a babby
+on each knee, only to please them as will be dead and rotten when _I_'m
+only beginning?'
+
+'Ah, you are such charming fellow; always the same--always sensible. So
+I and my friend we will walk home again, and you go see Maggie Hawkes.
+Good-a-by, Dud--good-a-by.'
+
+'Quiet, you fool!--can't ye?' said the young gentleman, with the sort of
+grin that made his face vicious when a horse vexed him. 'Who ever said I
+wouldn't go look at the girl? Why, you know that's just what I come here
+for--don't you? Only when I think a bit, and a notion comes across me, why
+shouldn't I speak out? I'm not one o' them shilly-shallies. If I like the
+girl, I'll not be mug in and mug out about it. Only mind ye, I'll judge for
+myself. Is that her a-coming?'
+
+'No; it was a distant sound.'
+
+Madame peeped round the corner. No one was approaching.
+
+'Well, you go round that a-way, and you only look at her, you know, for she
+is such fool--so nairvous.'
+
+'Oh, is that the way with her?' said Dud, knocking out the ashes of his
+pipe on a tombstone, and replacing the Turkish utensil in his pocket.
+'Well, then, old lass, good-bye,' and he shook her hand. 'And, do ye see,
+don't ye come up till I pass, for I'm no hand at play-acting; an' if you
+called me "sir," or was coming it dignified and distant, you know, I'd be
+sure to laugh, a'most, and let all out. So good-bye, d'ye see, and if you
+want me again be sharp to time, mind.
+
+From habit he looked about for his dogs, but he had not brought one. He had
+come unostentatiously by rail, travelling in a third-class carriage, for
+the advantage of Jack Briderly's company, and getting a world of useful
+wrinkles about the steeplechase that was coming off next week.
+
+So he strode away, cutting off the heads of the nettles with his cane as he
+went; and Madame walked forth into the open space among the graves, where I
+might have seen her, had I stood up, looking with the absorbed gaze of an
+artist on the ruin.
+
+In a little while, along the path, I heard the clank of a step, and the
+gentleman in the green cutaway coat, sucking his cane, and eyeing me
+with an offensive familiar sort of stare the while, passed me by, rather
+hesitating as he did so. I was glad when he turned the corner in the little
+hollow close by, and disappeared. I stood up at once, and was reassured
+by a sight of Madame, not very many yards away, looking at the ruin, and
+apparently restored to her right mind. The last beams of the sun were by
+this time touching the uplands, and I was longing to recommence our walk
+home. I was hesitating about calling to Madame, because that lady had a
+certain spirit of opposition within her, and to disclose a small wish
+of any sort was generally, if it lay in her power, to prevent its
+accomplishment.
+
+At this moment the gentleman in the green coat returned, approaching me
+with a slow sort of swagger.
+
+'I say, Miss, I dropped a glove close by here. May you have seen it?'
+
+'No, sir,' I said, drawing back a little, and looking, I dare say, both
+frightened and offended.
+
+'I do think I must 'a dropped it close by your foot, Miss.'
+
+'No, sir,' I repeated.
+
+'No offence, Miss, but you're sure you didn't hide it?'
+
+I was beginning to grow seriously uncomfortable.
+
+'Don't be frightened, Miss; it's only a bit o' chaff. I'm not going to
+search.'
+
+I called aloud, 'Madame, Madame!' and he whistled through his fingers, and
+shouted, 'Madame, Madame,' and added, 'She's as deaf as a tombstone, or
+she'll hear that. Gi'e her my compliments, and say I said you're a beauty,
+Miss;' and with a laugh and a leer he strode off.
+
+Altogether this had not been a very pleasant excursion. Madame gobbled up
+our sandwiches, commending them every now and then to me. But I had been
+too much excited to have any appetite left, and very tired I was when we
+reached home.
+
+'So, there is lady coming to-morrow?' said Madame, who knew everything.
+'Wat is her name? I forget.'
+
+'Lady Knollys,' I answered.
+
+'Lady Knollys--wat odd name! She is very young--is she not?'
+
+'Past fifty, I think.'
+
+'Helas! She's vary old, then. Is she rich?'
+
+'I don't know. She has a place in Derbyshire.'
+
+'Derbyshire--that is one of your English counties, is it not?'
+
+'Oh yes, Madame,' I answered, laughing. 'I have said it to you twice since
+you came;' and I gabbled through the chief towns and rivers as catalogued
+in my geography.
+
+'Bah! to be sure--of course, cheaile. And is she your relation?'
+
+'Papa's first cousin.'
+
+'Won't you present-a me, pray?--I would so like!'
+
+Madame had fallen into the English way of liking people with titles, as
+perhaps foreigners would if titles implied the sort of power they do
+generally with us.
+
+'Certainly, Madame.'
+
+'You will not forget?'
+
+'Oh no.'
+
+Madame reminded me twice, in the course of the evening, of my promise.
+She was very eager on this point. But it is a world of disappointment,
+influenza, and rheumatics; and next morning Madame was prostrate in her
+bed, and careless of all things but flannel and James's powder.
+
+Madame was _desolee_; but she could not raise her head. She only murmured a
+question.
+
+'For 'ow long time, dear, will Lady Knollys remain?'
+
+'A very few days, I believe.'
+
+'Helas! 'ow onlucky! maybe to-morrow I shall be better Ouah! my ear. The
+laudanum, dear cheaile!'
+
+And so our conversation for that time ended, and Madame buried her head in
+her old red cashmere shawl.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+_MONICA KNOLLYS_
+
+
+Punctually Lady Knollys arrived. She was accompanied by her nephew, Captain
+Oakley.
+
+They arrived a little before dinner; just in time to get to their rooms and
+dress. But Mary Quince enlivened my toilet with eloquent descriptions of
+the youthful Captain whom she had met in the gallery, on his way to his
+room, with the servant, and told me how he stopped to let her pass, and how
+'he smiled so 'ansom.'
+
+I was very young then, you know, and more childish even than my years; but
+this talk of Mary Quince's interested me, I must confess, considerably. I
+was painting all sort of portraits of this heroic soldier, while affecting,
+I am afraid, a hypocritical indifference to her narration, and I know I was
+very nervous and painstaking about my toilet that evening. When I went down
+to the drawing-room, Lady Knollys was there, talking volubly to my father
+as I entered--a woman not really old, but such as very young people fancy
+aged--energetic, bright, saucy, dressed handsomely in purple satin, with a
+good deal of lace, and a rich point--I know not how to call it--not a cap,
+a sort of head-dress--light and simple, but grand withal, over her greyish,
+silken hair.
+
+Rather tall, by no means stout, on the whole a good firm figure, with
+something kindly in her look. She got up, quite like a young person, and
+coming quickly to meet me with a smile--
+
+'My young cousin!' she cried, and kissed me on both cheeks. 'You know who
+I am? Your cousin Monica--Monica Knollys--and very glad, dear, to see you,
+though she has not set eyes on you since you were no longer than that
+paper-knife. Now come here to the lamp, for I must look at you. Who is she
+like? Let me see. Like your poor mother, I think, my dear; but you've the
+Aylmer nose--yes--not a bad nose either, and, come! very good eyes, upon
+my life--yes, certainly something of her poor mother--not a bit like you,
+Austin.'
+
+My father gave her a look as near a smile as I had seen there for a long
+time, shrewd, cynical, but kindly too, and said he--
+
+'So much the better, Monica, eh?'
+
+'It was not for me to say--but you know, Austin, you always were an ugly
+creature. How shocked and indignant the little girl looks! You must not be
+vexed, you loyal little woman, with Cousin Monica for telling the truth.
+Papa was and will be ugly all his days. Come, Austin, dear, tell her--is
+not it so?'
+
+'What! depose against myself! That's not English law, Monica.'
+
+'Well, maybe not; but if the child won't believe her own eyes, how is she
+to believe me? She has long, pretty hands--you have--and very nice feet
+too. How old is she?'
+
+'How old, child?' said my father to me, transferring the question.
+
+She recurred again to my eyes.
+
+'That is the true grey--large, deep, soft--very peculiar. Yes, dear, very
+pretty--long lashes, and such bright tints! You'll be in the Book of
+Beauty, my dear, when you come out, and have all the poet people writing
+verses to the tip of your nose--and a very pretty little nose it is!'
+
+I must mention here how striking was the change in my father's spirit while
+talking and listening to his odd and voluble old Cousin Monica. Reflected
+from bygone associations, there had come a glimmer of something, not
+gaiety, indeed, but like an appreciation of gaiety. The gloom and
+inflexibility were gone, and there was an evident encouragement and
+enjoyment of the incessant sallies of his bustling visitor.
+
+How morbid must have been the tendencies of his habitual solitude, I think,
+appeared from the evident thawing and brightening that accompanied even
+this transient gleam of human society. I was not a companion--more childish
+than most girls of my age, and trained in all his whimsical ways, never to
+interrupt a silence, or force his thoughts by unexpected question or remark
+out of their monotonous or painful channel.
+
+I was as much surprised at the good-humour with which he submitted to
+his cousin's saucy talk; and, indeed, just then those black-panelled and
+pictured walls, and that quaint, misshapen room, seemed to have exchanged
+their stern and awful character for something wonderfully pleasanter to me,
+notwithstanding the unpleasantness of the personal criticism to which the
+plain-spoken lady chose to subject me.
+
+Just at that moment Captain Oakley joined us. He was my first actual vision
+of that awful and distant world of fashion, of whose splendours I had
+already read something in the three-volumed gospel of the circulating
+library.
+
+Handsome, elegant, with features almost feminine, and soft, wavy, black
+hair, whiskers and moustache, he was altogether such a knight as I had
+never beheld, or even fancied, at Knowl--a hero of another species, and
+from the region of the demigods. I did not then perceive that coldness of
+the eye, and cruel curl of the voluptuous lip--only a suspicion, yet enough
+to indicate the profligate man, and savouring of death unto death.
+
+But I was young, and had not yet the direful knowledge of good and evil
+that comes with years; and he was so very handsome, and talked in a way
+that was so new to me, and was so much more charming than the well-bred
+converse of the humdrum county families with whom I had occasionally
+sojourned for a week at a time.
+
+It came out incidentally that his leave of absence was to expire the
+day after to-morrow. A Lilliputian pang of disappointment followed this
+announcement. Already I was sorry to lose him. So soon we begin to make a
+property of what pleases us.
+
+I was shy, but not awkward. I was flattered by the attention of this
+amusing, perhaps rather fascinating, young man of the world; and he plainly
+addressed himself with diligence to amuse and please me. I dare say there
+was more effort than I fancied in bringing his talk down to my humble
+level, and interesting me and making me laugh about people whom I had never
+heard of before, than I then suspected.
+
+Cousin Knollys meanwhile was talking to papa. It was just the conversation
+that suited a man so silent as habit had made him, for her frolic fluency
+left him little to supply. It was totally impossible, indeed, even in our
+taciturn household, that conversation should ever flag while she was among
+us.
+
+Cousin Knollys and I went into the drawing-room together, leaving the
+gentlemen--rather ill-assorted, I fear--to entertain one another for a
+time.
+
+'Come here, my dear, and sit near me,' said Lady Knollys, dropping into an
+easy chair with an energetic little plump, 'and tell me how you and your
+papa get on. I can remember him quite a cheerful man once, and rather
+amusing--yes, indeed--and now you see what a bore he is--all by shutting
+himself up and nursing his whims and fancies. Are those your drawings,
+dear?'
+
+'Yes, very bad, I'm afraid; but there are a few, _better_, I think in the
+portfolio in the cabinet in the hall.'
+
+'They are by _no_ means bad, my dear; and you play, of course?'
+
+'Yes--that is, a little--pretty well, I hope.'
+
+'I dare say. I must hear you by-and-by. And how does your papa amuse you?
+You look bewildered, dear. Well, I dare say, amusement is not a frequent
+word in this house. But you must not turn into a nun, or worse, into a
+puritan. What is he? A Fifth-Monarchy-man, or something--I forget; tell me
+the name, my dear.'
+
+'Papa is a Swedenborgian, I believe.'
+
+'Yes, yes--I forgot the horrid name--a Swedenborgian, that is it. I don't
+know exactly what they think, but everyone knows they are a sort of pagans,
+my dear. He's not making one of _you_, dear--is he?'
+
+'I go to church every Sunday.'
+
+'Well, that's a mercy; Swedenborgian is such an ugly name, and besides,
+they are all likely to be damned, my dear, and that's a serious
+consideration. I really wish poor Austin had hit on something else; I'd
+much rather have no religion, and enjoy life while I'm in it, than choose
+one to worry me here and bedevil me hereafter. But some people, my dear,
+have a taste for being miserable, and provide, like poor Austin, for its
+gratification in the next world as well as here. Ha, ha, ha! how grave the
+little woman looks! Don't you think me very wicked? You know you do; and
+very likely you are right. Who makes your dresses, my dear? You _are_ such
+a figure of fun!'
+
+'Mrs. Rusk, I think, ordered _this_ dress. I and Mary Quince planned it. I
+thought it very nice. We all like it very well.'
+
+There was something, I dare say, very whimsical about it, probably very
+absurd, judged at least by the canons of fashion, and old Cousin Monica
+Knollys, in whose eye the London fashions were always fresh, was palpably
+struck by it as if it had been some enormity against anatomy, for she
+certainly laughed very heartily; indeed, there were tears on her cheeks
+when she had done, and I am sure my aspect of wonder and dignity, as her
+hilarity proceeded, helped to revive her merriment again and again as it
+was subsiding.
+
+'There, you mustn't be vexed with old Cousin Monica,' she cried, jumping
+up, and giving me a little hug, and bestowing a hearty kiss on my forehead,
+and a jolly little slap on my cheek. 'Always remember your cousin Monica is
+an outspoken, wicked old fool, who likes you, and never be offended by her
+nonsense. A council of three--you all sat upon it--Mrs. Rusk, you said, and
+Mary Quince, and your wise self, the weird sisters; and Austin stepped in,
+as Macbeth, and said, 'What is't ye do?' you all made answer together, 'A
+something or other without a name!' Now, seriously, my dear, it is quite
+unpardonable in Austin--your papa, I mean--to hand you over to be robed and
+bedizened according to the whimsies of these wild old women--aren't they
+old? If they know better, it's positively _fiendish._ I'll blow him up--I
+will indeed, my dear. You know you're an heiress, and ought not to appear
+like a jack-pudding.'
+
+'Papa intends sending me to London with Madame and Mary Quince, and going
+with me himself, if Doctor Bryerly says he may make the journey, and then I
+am to have dresses and everything.'
+
+'Well, that is better. And who is Doctor Bryerly--is your papa ill?'
+
+'Ill; oh no; he always seems just the same. You don't think him
+ill--_looking_ ill, I mean?' I asked eagerly and frightened.
+
+'No, my dear, he looks very well for his time of life; but why is Doctor
+What's-his-name here? Is he a physician, or a divine, or a horse-doctor?
+and why is his leave asked?'
+
+'I--I really don't understand.'
+
+'Is he a what d'ye call'em--a Swedenborgian?'
+
+'I believe so.'
+
+'Oh, I see; ha, ha, ha! And so poor Austin must ask leave to go up to town.
+Well, go he shall, whether his doctor likes it or not, for it would not do
+to send you there in charge of your Frenchwoman, my dear. What's her name?'
+
+'Madame de la Rougierre.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+_LADY KNOLLYS REMOVES A COVERLET_
+
+
+Lady Knollys pursued her enquiries.
+
+'And why does not Madame make your dresses, my dear? I wager a guinea the
+woman's a milliner. Did not she engage to make your dresses?'
+
+'I--I really don't know; I rather think not. She is my governess--a
+finishing governess, Mrs. Rusk says.'
+
+'Finishing fiddle! Hoity-toity! and my lady's too grand to cut out your
+dresses and help to sew them? And what _does_ she do? I venture to say
+she's fit to teach nothing but devilment--not that she has taught _you_
+much, my dear--_yet_ at least. I'll see her, my dear; where is she? Come,
+let us visit Madame. I should so like to talk to her a little.'
+
+'But she is ill,' I answered, and all this time I was ready to cry for
+vexation, thinking of my dress, which must be very absurd to elicit so much
+unaffected laughter from my experienced relative, and I was only longing to
+get away and hide myself before that handsome Captain returned.
+
+'Ill! is she? what's the matter?'
+
+'A cold--feverish and rheumatic, she says.'
+
+'Oh, a cold; is she up, or in bed?'
+
+'In her room, but not in bed.'
+
+'I should so like to see her, my dear. It is not mere curiosity, I assure
+you. In fact, curiosity has nothing on earth to do with it. A governess may
+be a very useful or a very useless person; but she may also be about the
+most pernicious inmate imaginable. She may teach you a bad accent, and
+worse manners, and heaven knows what beside. Send the housekeeper, my dear,
+to tell her that I am going to see her.'
+
+'I had better go myself, perhaps,' I said, fearing a collision between Mrs.
+Rusk and the bitter Frenchwoman.
+
+'Very well, dear.'
+
+And away I ran, not sorry somehow to escape before Captain Oakley returned.
+
+As I went along the passage, I was thinking whether my dress could be
+so very ridiculous as my old cousin thought it, and trying in vain to
+recollect any evidence of a similar contemptuous estimate on the part of
+that beautiful and garrulous dandy. I could not--quite the reverse, indeed.
+Still I was uncomfortable and feverish--girls of my then age will easily
+conceive how miserable, under similar circumstances, such a misgiving would
+make them.
+
+It was a long way to Madame's room. I met Mrs. Rusk bustling along the
+passage with a housemaid.
+
+'How is Madame?' I asked.
+
+'Quite well, I believe,' answered the housekeeper, drily. 'Nothing the
+matter that _I_ know of. She eat enough for two to-day. I wish _I_ could
+sit in my room doing nothing.'
+
+Madame was sitting, or rather reclining, in a low arm-chair, when I entered
+the room, close to the fire, as was her wont, her feet extended near to the
+bars, and a little coffee equipage beside her. She stuffed a book hastily
+between her dress and the chair, and received me in a state of langour
+which, had it not been for Mrs. Rusk's comfortable assurances, would have
+frightened me.
+
+'I hope you are better, Madame,' I said, approaching.
+
+'Better than I deserve, my dear cheaile, sufficiently well. The people
+are all so good, trying me with every little thing, like a bird; here is
+cafe--Mrs. Rusk-a, poor woman, I try to swallow a little to please her.'
+
+'And your cold, is it better?'
+
+She shook her head languidly, her elbow resting on the chair, and three
+finger-tips supporting her forehead, and then she made a little sigh,
+looking down from the corners of her eyes, in an interesting dejection.
+
+'Je sens des lassitudes in all the members--but I am quaite 'appy, and
+though I suffer I am console and oblige des bontes, ma chere, que vous
+avez tous pour moi;' and with these words she turned a languid glance of
+gratitude on me which dropped on the ground.
+
+'Lady Knollys wishes very much to see you, only for a few minutes, if you
+could admit her.'
+
+'Vous savez les malades see _never_ visitors,' she replied with a startled
+sort of tartness, and a momentary energy. 'Besides, I cannot converse; je
+sens de temps en temps des douleurs de tete--of head, and of the ear, the
+right ear, it is parfois agony absolutely, and now it is here.'
+
+And she winced and moaned, with her eyes closed and her hand pressed to the
+organ affected.
+
+Simple as I was, I felt instinctively that Madame was shamming. She was
+over-acting; her transitions were too violent, and beside she forgot that
+I knew how well she could speak English, and must perceive that she was
+heightening the interest of her helplessness by that pretty tessellation
+of foreign idiom. I therefore said with a kind of courage which sometimes
+helped me suddenly--
+
+'Oh, Madame, don't you really think you might, without much inconvenience,
+see Lady Knollys for a very few minutes?'
+
+'Cruel cheaile! you know I have a pain of the ear which makes me 'orribly
+suffer at this moment, and you demand me whether I will not converse
+with strangers. I did not think you would be so unkain, Maud; but it is
+impossible, you must see--quite impossible. I never, you _know_, refuse to
+take trouble when I am able--never--_never_.'
+
+And Madame shed some tears, which always came at call, and with her hand
+pressed to her ear, said very faintly,
+
+'Be so good to tell your friend how you see me, and how I suffer, and leave
+me, Maud, for I wish to lie down for a little, since the pain will not
+allow me to remain longer.'
+
+So with a few words of comfort which could not well be refused, but I dare
+say betraying my suspicion that more was made of her sufferings than need
+be, I returned to the drawing-room.
+
+'Captain Oakley has been here, my dear, and fancying, I suppose, that you
+had left us for the evening, has gone to the billiard-room, I think,' said
+Lady Knollys, as I entered.
+
+That, then, accounted for the rumble and smack of balls which I had heard
+as I passed the door.
+
+'I have been telling Maud how detestably she is got up.'
+
+'Very thoughtful of you, Monica!' said my father.
+
+'Yes, and really, Austin, it is quite clear you ought to marry; you want
+some one to take this girl out, and look after her, and who's to do it?
+She's a dowdy--don't you see? Such a dust! And it _is_ really such a pity;
+for she's a very pretty creature, and a clever woman could make her quite
+charming.'
+
+My father took Cousin Monica's sallies with the most wonderful good-humour.
+She had always, I fancy, been a privileged person, and my father, whom we
+all feared, received her jolly attacks, as I fancy the grim Front-de-Boeufs
+of old accepted the humours and personalities of their jesters.
+
+'Am I to accept this as an overture?' said my father to his voluble cousin.
+
+'Yes, you may, but not for myself, Austin--I'm not worthy. Do you remember
+little Kitty Weadon that I wanted you to marry eight-and-twenty years ago,
+or more, with a hundred and twenty thousand pounds? Well, you know, she
+has got ever so much now, and she is really a most amiable old thing, and
+though _you_ would not have her then, she has had her second husband since,
+I can tell you.'
+
+'I'm glad I was not the first,' said my father.
+
+'Well, they really say her wealth is absolutely immense. Her last husband,
+the Russian merchant, left her everything. She has not a human relation,
+and she is in the best set.'
+
+'You were always a match-maker, Monica,' said my father, stopping, and
+putting his hand kindly on hers. 'But it won't do. No, no, Monica; we must
+take care of little Maud some other way.'
+
+I was relieved. We women have all an instinctive dread of second marriages,
+and think that no widower is quite above or below that danger; and I
+remember, whenever my father, which indeed was but seldom, made a visit to
+town or anywhere else, it was a saying of Mrs. Rusk--
+
+'I shan't wonder, neither need you, my dear, if he brings home a young wife
+with him.'
+
+So my father, with a kind look at her, and a very tender one on me, went
+silently to the library, as he often did about that hour.
+
+I could not help resenting my Cousin Knollys' officious recommendation of
+matrimony. Nothing I dreaded more than a step-mother. Good Mrs. Rusk
+and Mary Quince, in their several ways, used to enhance, by occasional
+anecdotes and frequent reflections, the terrors of such an intrusion. I
+suppose they did not wish a revolution and all its consequences at Knowl,
+and thought it no harm to excite my vigilance.
+
+But it was impossible long to be vexed with Cousin Monica.
+
+'You know, my dear, your father is an oddity,' she said. 'I don't mind
+him--I never did. You must not. Cracky, my dear, cracky--decidedly cracky!'
+
+And she tapped the corner of her forehead, with a look so sly and comical,
+that I think I should have laughed, if the sentiment had not been so
+awfully irreverent.
+
+'Well, dear, how is our friend the milliner?'
+
+'Madame is suffering so much from pain in her ear, that she says it would
+be quite impossible to have the honour--'
+
+'Honour--fiddle! I want to see what the woman's like. Pain in her ear, you
+say? Poor thing! Well, dear, I think I can cure that in five minutes. I
+have it myself, now and then. Come to my room, and we'll get the bottles.
+
+So she lighted her candle in the lobby, and with a light and agile step
+she scaled the stairs, I following; and having found the remedies, we
+approached Madame's room together.
+
+I think, while we were still at the end of the gallery, Madame heard and
+divined our approach, for her door suddenly shut, and there was a fumbling
+at the handle. But the bolt was out of order.
+
+Lady Knollys tapped at the door, saying--'we'll come in, please, and see
+you. I've some remedies, which I'm sure will do you good.'
+
+There was no answer; so she opened the door, and we both entered. Madame
+had rolled herself in the blue coverlet, and was lying on the bed, with her
+face buried in the pillow, and enveloped in the covering.
+
+'Perhaps she's asleep?' said Lady Knollys, getting round to the side of the
+bed, and stooping over her.
+
+Madame lay still as a mouse. Cousin Monica set down her two little vials
+on the table, and, stooping again over the bed, began very gently with
+her fingers to lift the coverlet that covered her face. Madame uttered
+a slumbering moan, and turned more upon her face, clasping the coverlet
+faster about her.
+
+'Madame, it is Maud and Lady Knollys. We have come to relieve your ear.
+Pray let me see it. She can't be asleep, she's holding the clothes so fast.
+Do, pray, allow me to see it.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+_LADY KNOLLYS SEES THE FEATURES_
+
+
+Perhaps, if Madame had murmured, 'It is quite well--pray permit me to
+sleep,' she would have escaped an awkwardness. But having adopted the role
+of the exhausted slumberer, she could not consistently speak at the moment;
+neither would it do by main force, to hold the coverlet about her face, and
+so her presence of mind forsook her. Cousin Monica drew it back and hardly
+beheld the profile of the sufferer, when her good-humoured face was lined
+and shadowed with a dark curiosity and a surprise by no means pleasant. She
+stood erect beside the bed, with her mouth firmly shut and drawn down at
+the corners, in a sort of recoil and perturbation, looking down upon the
+patient.
+
+'So that's Madame de la Rougierre?' at length exclaimed Lady Knollys, with
+a very stately disdain. I think I never saw anyone look more shocked.
+
+Madame sat up, very flushed. No wonder, for she had been wrapped so close
+in the coverlet. She did not look quite at Lady Knollys, but straight
+before her, rather downward, and very luridly.
+
+I was very much frightened and amazed, and felt on the point of bursting
+into tears.
+
+'So, Mademoiselle, you have married, it seems, since I had last the honour
+of seeing you? I did not recognise Mademoiselle under her new name.'
+
+'Yes--I _am_ married, Lady Knollys; I thought everyone who knew me had
+heard of that. Very respectably married, for a person of my rank. I shall
+not need long the life of a governess. There is no harm, I hope?'
+
+'I hope not,' said Lady Knollys, drily, a little pale, and still looking
+with a dark sort of wonder upon the flushed face and forehead of the
+governess, who was looking downward, straight before her, very sulkily and
+disconcerted.
+
+'I suppose you have explained everything satisfactorily to Mr. Ruthyn, in
+whose house I find you?' said Cousin Monica.
+
+'Yes, certainly, everything he requires--in effect there is _nothing_ to
+explain. I am ready to answer to any question. Let _him_ demand me.'
+
+'Very good, Mademoiselle.'
+
+'_Madame_, if you please.'
+
+'I forgot--_Madame_--yes, I shall apprise him of everything.'
+
+Madame turned upon her a peaked and malign look, smiling askance with a
+stealthy scorn.
+
+'For myself, I have nothing to conceal. I have always done my duty. What
+fine scene about nothing absolutely--what charming remedies for a sick
+person! Ma foi! how much oblige I am for these so amiable attentions!'
+
+'So far as I can see, Mademoiselle--Madame, I mean--you don't stand very
+much in need of remedies. Your ear and head don't seem to trouble you just
+now. I fancy these pains may now be dismissed.'
+
+Lady Knollys was now speaking French.
+
+'Mi ladi has diverted my attention for a moment, but that does not prevent
+that I suffer frightfully. I am, of course, only poor governess, and such
+people perhaps ought not to have pain--at least to show when they suffer.
+It is permitted us to die, but not to be sick.'
+
+'Come, Maud, my dear, let us leave the invalid to her repose and to nature.
+I don't think she needs my chloroform and opium at present.'
+
+'Mi ladi is herself a physic which chases many things, and powerfully
+affects the ear. I would wish to sleep, notwithstanding, and can but gain
+that in silence, if it pleases mi ladi.'
+
+'Come, my dear,' said Lady Knollys, without again glancing at the scowling,
+smiling, swarthy face in the bed; 'let us leave your instructress to her
+_concforto_.'
+
+'The room smells all over of brandy, my dear--does she drink?' said Lady
+Knollys, as she closed the door, a little sharply.
+
+I am sure I looked as much amazed as I felt, at an imputation which then
+seemed to me so entirely incredible.
+
+'Good little simpleton!' said Cousin Monica, smiling in my face, and
+bestowing a little kiss on my cheek; 'such a thing as a tipsy lady has
+never been dreamt of in your philosophy. Well, we live and learn. Let us
+have our tea in my room--the gentlemen, I dare say, have retired.'
+
+I assented, of course, and we had tea very cosily by her bedroom fire.
+
+'How long have you had that woman?' she asked suddenly, after, for her, a
+very long rumination.
+
+'She came in the beginning of February--nearly ten months ago--is not it?'
+
+'And who sent her?'
+
+'I really don't know; papa tells me so little--he arranged it all himself,
+I think.'
+
+Cousin Monica made a sound of acquiescence--her lips closed and a nod,
+frowning hard at the bars.
+
+'It _is_ very odd!' she said; 'how people _can_ be such fools!' Here there
+came a little pause. 'And what sort of person is she--do you like her?'
+
+'Very well--that is, _pretty_ well. You won't tell?--but she rather
+frightens me. I'm sure she does not intend it, but somehow I am very much
+afraid of her.'
+
+'She does not beat you?' said Cousin Monica, with an incipient frenzy in
+her face that made me love her.
+
+'Oh no!'
+
+'Nor ill-use you in any way?'
+
+'No.'
+
+'Upon your honour and word, Maud?'
+
+'No, upon my honour.'
+
+'You know I won't tell her anything you say to me; and I only want to know,
+that I may put an end to it, my poor little cousin.'
+
+'Thank you, Cousin Monica very much; but really and truly she does not
+ill-use me.'
+
+'Nor threaten you, child?'
+
+'Well, _no_--no, she does not threaten.'
+
+'And how the plague _does_ she frighten you, child?'
+
+'Well, I really--I'm half ashamed to tell you--you'll laugh at me--and I
+don't know that she wishes to frighten me. But there is something, is not
+there, ghosty, you know, about her?'
+
+'_Ghosty_--is there? well, I'm sure I don't know, but I suspect there's
+something devilish--I mean, she seems roguish--does not she? And I really
+think she has had neither cold nor pain, but has just been shamming
+sickness, to keep out of my way.'
+
+I perceived plainly enough that Cousin Monica's damnatory epithet referred
+to some retrospective knowledge, which she was not going to disclose to me.
+
+'You knew Madame before,' I said. 'Who is she?'
+
+'She assures me she is Madame de la Rougierre, and, I suppose, in French
+phrase she so calls herself,' answered Lady Knollys, with a laugh, but
+uncomfortably, I thought.
+
+'Oh, dear Cousin Monica, do tell me--is she--is she very wicked? I am so
+afraid of her!'
+
+'How should I know, dear Maud? But I do remember her face, and I don't very
+much like her, and you may depend on it. I will speak to your father in the
+morning about her, and don't, darling, ask me any more about her, for I
+really have not very much to tell that you would care to hear, and the fact
+is I _won't_ say any more about her--there!'
+
+And Cousin Monica laughed, and gave me a little slap on the cheek, and then
+a kiss.
+
+'Well, just tell me this----'
+
+'Well, I _won't_ tell you this, nor anything--not a word, curious little
+woman. The fact is, I have little to tell, and I mean to speak to your
+father, and he, I am sure, will do what is right; so don't ask me any more,
+and let us talk of something pleasanter.'
+
+There was something indescribably winning, it seemed to me, in Cousin
+Monica. Old as she was, she seemed to me so girlish, compared with those
+slow, unexceptionable young ladies whom I had met in my few visits at the
+county houses. By this time my shyness was quite gone, and I was on the
+most intimate terms with her.
+
+'You know a great deal about her, Cousin Monica, but you won't tell me.'
+
+'Nothing I should like better, if I were at liberty, little rogue; but you
+know, after all, I don't really say whether I _do_ know anything about
+her or not, or what sort of knowledge it is. But tell me what you mean by
+ghosty, and all about it.'
+
+So I recounted my experiences, to which, so far from laughing at me, she
+listened with very special gravity.
+
+'Does she write and receive many letters?'
+
+I had seen her write letters, and supposed, though I could only recollect
+one or two, that she received in proportion.
+
+'Are _you_ Mary Quince?' asked my lady cousin.
+
+Mary was arranging the window-curtains, and turned, dropping a courtesy
+affirmatively toward her.
+
+'You wait on my little cousin, Miss Ruthyn, don't you?'
+
+'Yes, 'm,' said Mary, in her genteelest way.
+
+'Does anyone sleep in her room?'
+
+'Yes, 'm, _I_--please, my lady.'
+
+'And no one else?'
+
+'No, 'm--please, my lady.'
+
+'Not even the _governess_, sometimes?
+
+'No, please, my lady.'
+
+'Never, you are quite sure, my dear?' said Lady Knollys, transferring the
+question to me.
+
+'Oh, no, never,' I answered.
+
+Cousin Monica mused gravely, I fancied even anxiously, into the grate; then
+stirred her tea and sipped it, still looking into the same point of our
+cheery fire.
+
+'I like your face, Mary Quince; I'm sure you are a good creature,' she
+said, suddenly turning toward her with a pleasant countenance. 'I'm very
+glad you have got her, dear. I wonder whether Austin has gone to his bed
+yet!'
+
+'I think not. I am certain he is either in the library or in his private
+room--papa often reads or prays alone at night, and--and he does not like
+to be interrupted.'
+
+'No, no; of course not--it will do very well in the morning.'
+
+Lady Knollys was thinking deeply, as it seemed to me.
+
+'And so you are afraid of goblins, my dear,' she said at last, with a faded
+sort of smile, turning toward me; 'well, if _I_ were, I know what _I_
+should do--so soon as I, and good Mary Quince here, had got into my
+bed-chamber for the night, I should stir the fire into a good blaze, and
+bolt the door--do you see, Mary Quince?--bolt the door and keep a candle
+lighted all night. You'll be very attentive to her, Mary Quince, for I--I
+don't think she is very strong, and she must not grow nervous: so get to
+bed early, and don't leave her alone--do you see?--and--and remember to
+bolt the door, Mary Quince, and I shall be sending a little Christmas-box
+to my cousin, and I shan't forget you. Good-night.'
+
+And with a pleasant courtesy Mary fluttered out of the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+_A CURIOUS CONVERSATION_
+
+
+We each had another cup of tea, and were silent for awhile.
+
+'We must not talk of ghosts now. You are a superstitious little woman, you
+know, and you shan't be frightened.'
+
+And now Cousin Monica grew silent again, and looking briskly around the
+room, like a lady in search of a subject, her eye rested on a small oval
+portrait, graceful, brightly tinted, in the French style, representing
+a pretty little boy, with rich golden hair, large soft eyes, delicate
+features, and a shy, peculiar expression.
+
+'It is odd; I think I remember that pretty little sketch, very long ago. I
+think I was then myself a child, but that is a much older style of dress,
+and of wearing the hair, too, than I ever saw. I am just forty-nine now. Oh
+dear, yes; that is a good while before I was _born_. What a strange, pretty
+little boy! a mysterious little fellow. Is he quite sincere, I wonder? What
+rich golden hair! It is very clever--a French artist, I dare say--and who
+_is_ that little boy?'
+
+'I never heard. Some one a hundred years ago, I dare say. But there is a
+picture down-stairs I am so anxious to ask you about!'
+
+'Oh!' murmured Lady Knollys, still gazing dreamily on the crayon.
+
+'It is the full-length picture of Uncle Silas--I want to ask you about
+him.'
+
+At mention of his name, my cousin gave me a look so sudden and odd as to
+amount almost to a start.
+
+'Your uncle Silas, dear? It is very odd, I was just thinking of him;' and
+she laughed a little.
+
+'Wondering whether that little boy could be he.'
+
+And up jumped active Cousin Monica, with a candle in her hand, upon a
+chair, and scrutinised the border of the sketch for a name or a date.
+
+'Maybe on the back?' said she.
+
+And so she unhung it, and there, true enough, not on the back of the
+drawing, but of the frame, which was just as good, in pen-and-ink round
+Italian letters, hardly distinguishable now from the discoloured wood, we
+traced--
+
+'_Silas Aylmer Ruthyn, AEtate_ viii. 15 _May_, 1779.'
+
+'It is very odd I should not have been told or remembered who it was.
+I think if I had _ever_ been told I _should_ have remembered it. I do
+recollect this picture, though, I am nearly certain. What a singular
+child's face!'
+
+And my cousin leaned over it with a candle on each side, and her hand
+shading her eyes, as if seeking by aid of these fair and half-formed
+lineaments to read an enigma.
+
+The childish features defied her, I suppose; their secret was unfathomable,
+for after a good while she raised her head, still looking at the portrait,
+and sighed.
+
+'A very singular face,' she said, softly, as a person might who was looking
+into a coffin. 'Had not we better replace it?'
+
+So the pretty oval, containing the fair golden hair and large eyes, the
+pale, unfathomable sphinx, remounted to its nail, and the _funeste_ and
+beautiful child seemed to smile down oracularly on our conjectures.
+
+'So is the face in the large portrait--_very_ singular--more, I think, than
+that--handsomer too. This is a sickly child, I think; but the full-length
+is so manly, though so slender, and so handsome too. I always think him a
+hero and a mystery, and they won't tell me about him, and I can only dream
+and wonder.'
+
+'He has made more people than you dream and wonder, my dear Maud. I don't
+know what to make of him. He is a sort of idol, you know, of your father's,
+and yet I don't think he helps him much. His abilities were singular; so
+has been his misfortune; for the rest, my dear, he is neither a hero nor a
+wonder. So far as I know, there are very few sublime men going about the
+world.'
+
+'You really must tell me all you know about him, Cousin Monica. Now don't
+refuse.'
+
+'But why should you care to hear? There is really nothing pleasant to
+tell.'
+
+'That is just the reason I wish it. If it were at all pleasant, it would be
+quite commonplace. I like to hear of adventures, dangers, and misfortunes;
+and above all, I love a mystery. You know, papa will never tell me, and I
+dare not ask him; not that he is ever unkind, but, somehow, I am afraid;
+and neither Mrs. Rusk nor Mary Quince will tell me anything, although I
+suspect they know a good deal.'
+
+'I don't see any good in telling you, dear, nor, to say the truth, any
+great harm either.'
+
+'No--now that's _quite_ true--no harm. There _can't_ be, for I _must_ know
+it all some day, you know, and better now, and from _you_, than perhaps
+from a stranger, and in a less favourable way.'
+
+'Upon my word, it is a wise little woman; and really, that's not such bad
+sense after all.'
+
+So we poured out another cup of tea each, and sipped it very comfortably by
+the fire, while Lady Knollys talked on, and her animated face helped the
+strange story.
+
+'It is not very much, after all. Your uncle Silas, you know, is living?'
+
+'Oh yes, in Derbyshire.'
+
+'So I see you do know something of him, sly girl! but no matter. You know
+how very rich your father is; but Silas was the younger brother, and had
+little more than a thousand a year. If he had not played, and did not care
+to marry, it would have been quite enough--ever so much more than younger
+sons of dukes often have; but he was--well, a _mauvais sujet_--you know
+what that is. I don't want to say any ill of him--more than I really
+know--but he was fond of his pleasures, I suppose, like other young men,
+and he played, and was always losing, and your father for a long time paid
+great sums for him. I believe he was really a most expensive and vicious
+young man; and I fancy he does not deny that now, for they say he would
+change the past if he could.
+
+I was looking at the pensive little boy in the oval frame--aged eight
+years--who was, a few springs later, 'a most expensive and vicious young
+man,' and was now a suffering and outcast old one, and wondering from what
+a small seed the hemlock or the wallflower grows, and how microscopic are
+the beginnings of the kingdom of God or of the mystery of iniquity in a
+human being's heart.
+
+'Austin--your papa--was very kind to him--_very_; but then, you know,
+he's an oddity, dear--he _is_ an oddity, though no one may have told you
+before--and he never forgave him for his marriage. Your father, I suppose,
+knew more about the lady than I did--I was young then--but there were
+various reports, none of them pleasant, and she was not visited, and for
+some time there was a complete estrangement between your father and your
+uncle Silas; and it was made up, rather oddly, on the very occasion which
+some people said ought to have totally separated them. Did you ever hear
+anything--anything _very_ remarkable--about your uncle?'
+
+'No, never, they would not tell me, though I am sure they know. Pray go
+on.'
+
+'Well, Maud, as I have begun, I'll complete the story, though perhaps it
+might have been better untold. It was something rather shocking--indeed,
+_very_ shocking; in fact, they insisted on suspecting him of having
+committed a murder.'
+
+I stared at my cousin for some time, and then at the little boy, so
+refined, so beautiful, so _funeste_, in the oval frame.
+
+'Yes, dear,' said she, her eyes following mine; 'who'd have supposed he
+could ever have--have fallen under so horrible a suspicion?'
+
+'The wretches! Of course, Uncle Silas--of course, he's innocent?' I said at
+last.
+
+'Of course, my dear,' said Cousin Monica, with an odd look; 'but you know
+there are some things as bad almost to be suspected of as to have done, and
+the country gentlemen chose to suspect him. They did not like him, you
+see. His politics vexed them; and he resented their treatment of his
+wife--though I really think, poor Silas, he did not care a pin about
+her--and he annoyed them whenever he could. Your papa, you know, is very
+proud of his family--_he_ never had the slightest suspicion of your uncle.'
+
+'Oh no!' I cried vehemently.
+
+'That's right, Maud Ruthyn,' said Cousin Monica, with a sad little smile
+and a nod. 'And your papa was, you may suppose, very angry.'
+
+'Of course he was,' I exclaimed.
+
+'You have no idea, my dear, _how_ angry. He directed his attorney to
+prosecute, by wholesale, all who had said a word affecting your uncle's
+character. But the lawyers were against it, and then your uncle tried to
+fight his way through it, but the men would not meet him. He was quite
+slurred. Your father went up and saw the Minister. He wanted to have him a
+Deputy-Lieutenant, or something, in his county. Your papa, you know, had a
+very great influence with the Government. Beside his county influence, he
+had two boroughs then. But the Minister was afraid, the feeling was so very
+strong. They offered him something in the Colonies, but your father would
+not hear of it--that would have been a banishment, you know. They would
+have given your father a peerage to make it up, but he would not accept
+it, and broke with the party. Except in that way--which, you know, was
+connected with the reputation of the family--I don't think, considering his
+great wealth, he has done very much for Silas. To say truth, however, he
+was very liberal before his marriage. Old Mrs. Aylmer says he made a vow
+_then_ that Silas should never have more than five hundred a year, which he
+still allows him, I believe, and he permits him to live in the place. But
+they say it is in a very wild, neglected state.'
+
+'You live in the same county--have you seen it lately, Cousin Monica?'
+
+'No, not very lately,' said Cousin Monica, and began to hum an air
+abstractedly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+_BEFORE AND AFTER BREAKFAST_
+
+
+Next morning early I visited my favourite full-length portrait in the
+chocolate coat and top-boots. Scanty as had been my cousin Monica's notes
+upon this dark and eccentric biography, they were everything to me. A soul
+had entered that enchanted form. Truth had passed by with her torch, and a
+sad light shone for a moment on that enigmatic face.
+
+There stood the _roue_--the duellist--and, with all his faults, the hero
+too! In that dark large eye lurked the profound and fiery enthusiasm of his
+ill-starred passion. In the thin but exquisite lip I read the courage of
+the paladin, who would have 'fought his way,' though single-handed, against
+all the magnates of his county, and by ordeal of battle have purged the
+honour of the Ruthyns. There in that delicate half-sarcastic tracery of the
+nostril I detected the intellectual defiance which had politically isolated
+Silas Ruthyn and opposed him to the landed oligarchy of his county, whose
+retaliation had been a hideous slander. There, too, and on his brows and
+lip, I traced the patience of a cold disdain. I could now see him as he
+was--the prodigal, the hero, and the martyr. I stood gazing on him with a
+girlish interest and admiration. There was indignation, there was pity,
+there was hope. Some day it might come to pass that I, girl as I was, might
+contribute by word or deed towards the vindication of that long-suffering,
+gallant, and romantic prodigal. It was a flicker of the Joan of Arc
+inspiration, common, I fancy, to many girls. I little then imagined how
+profoundly and strangely involved my uncle's fate would one day become with
+mine.
+
+I was interrupted by Captain Oakley's voice at the window. He was leaning
+on the window-sill, and looking in with a smile--the window being open, the
+morning sunny, and his cap lifted in his hand.
+
+'Good-morning, Miss Ruthyn. What a charming old place! quite the setting
+for a romance; such timber, and this really _beautiful_ house. I _do_ so
+like these white and black houses--wonderful old things. By-the-by, you
+treated us very badly last night--you did, indeed; upon my word, now, it
+really was too bad--running away, and drinking tea with Lady Knollys--so
+she says. I really--I should not like to tell you how very savage I felt,
+particularly considering how very short my time is.'
+
+I was a shy, but not a giggling country miss. I knew I was an heiress; I
+knew I was somebody. I was not the least bit in the world conceited, but
+I think this knowledge helped to give me a certain sense of security and
+self-possession, which might have been mistaken for dignity or simplicity.
+I am sure I looked at him with a fearless enquiry, for he answered my
+thoughts.
+
+'I do really assure you, Miss Ruthyn, I am quite serious; you have no idea
+how very much we have missed you.'
+
+There was a little pause, and, like a fool, I lowered my eyes, and blushed.
+
+'I--I was thinking of leaving today; I am so unfortunate--my leave is just
+out--it is so unlucky; but I don't quite know whether my aunt Knollys will
+allow me to go.'
+
+'_I_?--certainly, my dear Charlie, _I_ don't want you at all,' exclaimed a
+voice--Lady Knollys's--briskly, from an open window close by; 'what could
+put that in your head, dear?'
+
+And in went my cousin's head, and the window shut down.
+
+'She is _such_ an oddity, poor dear Aunt Knollys,' murmured the young
+man, ever so little put out, and he laughed. 'I never know quite what she
+wishes, or how to please her; but she's _so_ good-natured; and when she
+goes to town for the season--she does not always, you know--her house is
+really very gay--you can't think----'
+
+Here again he was interrupted, for the door opened, and Lady Knollys
+entered. 'And you know, Charles,' she continued, 'it would not do to forget
+your visit to Snodhurst; you wrote, you know, and you have only to-night
+and to-morrow. You are thinking of nothing but that moor; I heard you
+talking to the gamekeeper; I know he is--is not he, Maud, the brown man
+with great whiskers, and leggings? I'm very sorry, you know, but I really
+must spoil your shooting, for they do expect you at Snodhurst, Charlie; and
+do not you think this window a little too much for Miss Ruthyn? Maud, my
+dear, the air is very sharp; shut it down, Charles, and you'd better tell
+them to get a fly for you from the town after luncheon. Come, dear,' she
+said to me. 'Was not that the breakfast bell? Why does not your papa get a
+gong?--it is so hard to know one bell from another.'
+
+I saw that Captain Oakley lingered for a last look, but I did not give it,
+and went out smiling with Cousin Knollys, and wondering why old ladies are
+so uniformly disagreeable.
+
+In the lobby she said, with an odd, goodnatured look--
+
+'Don't allow any of his love-making, my dear. Charles Oakley has not a
+guinea, and an heiress would be very convenient. Of course he has his eyes
+about him. Charles is not by any means foolish; and I should not be at all
+sorry to see him well married, for I don't think he will do much good
+any other way; but there are degrees, and his ideas are sometimes very
+impertinent.'
+
+I was an admiring reader of the _Albums_, the _Souvenirs_, the _Keepsakes_,
+and all that flood of Christmas-present lore which yearly irrigated
+England, with pretty covers and engravings; and floods of elegant
+twaddle--the milk, not destitute of water, on which the babes of literature
+were then fed. On this, my genius throve. I had a little album, enriched
+with many gems of original thought and observation, which I jotted down in
+suitable language. Lately, turning over these faded leaves of rhyme
+and prose, I lighted, under this day's date, upon the following sage
+reflection, with my name appended:--
+
+'Is there not in the female heart an ineradicable jealousy, which, if it
+sways the passions of the young, rules also the _advice_ of the _aged_? Do
+they not grudge to youth the sentiments (though Heaven knows how _shadowed_
+with sorrow) which they can _no longer inspire_, perhaps even _experience_;
+and does not youth, in turn, sigh over the envy which has _power to
+blight_?
+
+MAUD AYLMER RUTHYN.'
+
+'He has not been making love to me,' I said rather tartly, 'and he does not
+seem to me at all impertinent, and I really don't care the least whether he
+goes or stays.'
+
+Cousin Monica looked in my face with her old waggish smile, and laughed.
+
+'You'll understand those London dandies better some day, dear Maud; they
+are very well, but they like money--not to keep, of course--but still they
+like it and know its value.'
+
+At breakfast my father told Captain Oakley where he might have shooting, or
+if he preferred going to Dilsford, only half an hour's ride, he might have
+his choice of hunters, and find the dogs there that morning.
+
+The Captain smiled archly at me, and looked at his aunt. There was a
+suspense. I hope I did not show how much I was interested--but it would not
+do. Cousin Monica was inexorable.
+
+'Hunting, hawking, fishing, fiddle-de-dee! You know, Charlie, my dear, it
+is quite out of the question. He is going to Snodhurst this afternoon, and
+without quite a rudeness, in which I should be involved too, he really
+can't--you know you can't, Charles! and--and he _must_ go and keep his
+engagement.'
+
+So papa acquiesced with a polite regret, and hoped another time.
+
+'Oh, leave all that to me. When you want him, only write me a note, and
+I'll send him or bring him if you let me. I always know where to find
+him--don't I, Charlie?--and we shall be only too happy.'
+
+Aunt Monica's influence with her nephew was special, for she 'tipped' him
+handsomely every now and then, and he had formed for himself agreeable
+expectations, besides, respecting her will. I felt rather angry at his
+submitting to this sort of tutelage, knowing nothing of its motive; I was
+also disgusted by Cousin Monica's tyranny.
+
+So soon as he had left the room, Lady Knollys, not minding me, said briskly
+to papa, 'Never let that young man into your house again. I found him
+making speeches, this morning, to little Maud here; and he really has not
+two pence in the world--it is amazing impudence--and you know such absurd
+things do happen.'
+
+'Come, Maud, what compliments did he pay you?' asked my father.
+
+I was vexed, and therefore spoke courageously. 'His compliments were not to
+me; they were all to the house,' I said, drily.
+
+'Quite as it should be--the house, of course; it is that he's in love
+with,' said Cousin Knollys.
+
+  ''Twas on a widow's jointure land,
+  The archer, Cupid, took his stand.'
+
+'Hey! I don't quite understand,' said my father, slily.
+
+'Tut! Austin; you forget Charlie is my nephew.'
+
+'So I did,' said my father.
+
+'Therefore the literal widow in this case _can_ have no interest in view
+but one, and that is yours and Maud's. I wish him well, but he shan't put
+my little cousin and her expectations into his empty pocket--_not_ a bit of
+it. And _there's_ another reason, Austin, why you should marry--you have no
+eye for these things, whereas a clever _woman_ would see at a glance and
+prevent mischief.'
+
+'So she would,' acquiesced my father, in his gloomy, amused way. 'Maud, you
+must try to be a clever woman.'
+
+'So she will in her time, but that is not come yet; and I tell you, Austin
+Ruthyn, if you won't look about and marry somebody, somebody may possibly
+marry you.'
+
+'You were always an oracle, Monica; but _here_ I am lost in total
+perplexity,' said my father.
+
+'Yes; sharks sailing round you, with keen eyes and large throats; and you
+have come to the age precisely when men _are_ swallowed up alive like
+Jonah.'
+
+'Thank you for the parallel, but you know that was not a happy union, even
+for the fish, and there was a separation in a few days; not that I mean to
+trust to that; but there's no one to throw me into the jaws of the monster,
+and I've no notion of jumping there; and the fact is, Monica, there's no
+monster at all.'
+
+'I'm not so sure.'
+
+'But I'm quite sure,' said my father, a little drily. 'You forget how old
+I am, and how long I've lived alone--I and little Maud;' and he smiled and
+smoothed my hair, and, I thought, sighed.
+
+'No one is ever too old to do a foolish thing,' began Lady Knollys.
+
+'Nor to say a foolish thing, Monica. This has gone on too long. Don't you
+see that little Maud here is silly enough to be frightened at your fun.'
+
+So I was, but I could not divine how he guessed it.
+
+'And well or ill, wisely or madly, I'll _never_ marry; so put that out of
+your head.'
+
+This was addressed rather to me, I think, than to Lady Knollys, who smiled
+a little waggishly on me, and said--
+
+'To be sure, Maud; maybe you are right; a stepdame is a risk, and I ought
+to have asked you first what you thought of it; and upon my honour,' she
+continued merrily but kindly, observing that my eyes, I know not exactly
+from what feeling, filled with tears, 'I'll never again advise your papa to
+marry, unless you first tell me you wish it.'
+
+This was a great deal from Lady Knollys, who had a taste for advising her
+friends and managing their affairs.
+
+'I've a great respect for instinct. I believe, Austin, it is truer than
+reason, and yours and Maud's are both against me, though I know I have
+reason on my side.'
+
+My father's brief wintry smile answered, and Cousin Monica kissed me, and
+said--
+
+'I've been so long my own mistress that I sometimes forget there are such
+things as fear and jealousy; and are you going to your governess, Maud?'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+_ANGRY WORDS_
+
+
+I was going to my governess, as Lady Knollys said; and so I went. The
+undefinable sense of danger that smote me whenever I beheld that woman had
+deepened since last night's occurrence, and was taken out of the region
+of instinct or prepossession by the strange though slight indications of
+recognition and abhorrence which I had witnessed in Lady Knollys on that
+occasion.
+
+The tone in which Cousin Monica had asked, 'are you going to your
+governess?' and the curious, grave, and anxious look that accompanied the
+question, disturbed me; and there was something odd and cold in the tone as
+if a remembrance had suddenly chilled her. The accent remained in my ear,
+and the sharp brooding look was fixed before me as I glided up the broad
+dark stairs to Madame de la Rougierre's chamber.
+
+She had not come down to the school-room, as the scene of my studies was
+called. She had decided on having a relapse, and accordingly had not made
+her appearance down-stairs that morning. The gallery leading to her room
+was dark and lonely, and I grew more nervous as I approached; I paused at
+the door, making up my mind to knock.
+
+But the door opened suddenly, and, like a magic-lantern figure, presented
+with a snap, appeared close before my eyes the great muffled face, with the
+forbidding smirk, of Madame de la Rougierre.
+
+'Wat you mean, my dear cheaile?' she inquired with a malevolent shrewdness
+in her eyes, and her hollow smile all the time disconcerting me more even
+than the suddenness of her appearance; 'wat for you approach so softly? I
+do not sleep, you see, but you feared, perhaps, to have the misfortune of
+wakening me, and so you came--is it not so?--to leesten, and looke in very
+gentily; you want to know how I was. Vous etes bien aimable d'avoir pense
+a moi. Bah!' she cried, suddenly bursting through her irony. 'Wy could not
+Lady Knollys come herself and leesten to the keyhole to make her report?
+Fi donc! wat is there to conceal? Nothing. Enter, if you please. Every one
+they are welcome!' and she flung the door wide, turned her back upon me,
+and, with an ejaculation which I did not understand, strode into the room.
+
+'I did not come with any intention, Madame, to pry or to intrude--you
+don't think so--you _can't_ think so--you can't possibly mean to insinuate
+anything so insulting!'
+
+I was very angry, and my tremors had all vanished now.
+
+'No, not for _you_, dear cheaile; I was thinking to miladi Knollys, who,
+without cause, is my enemy. Every one has enemy; you will learn all that so
+soon as you are little older, and without cause she is mine. Come, Maud,
+speak a the truth--was it not miladi Knollys who sent you here doucement,
+doucement, so quaite to my door--is it not so, little rogue?'
+
+Madame had confronted me again, and we were now standing in the middle of
+her floor.
+
+I indignantly repelled the charge, and searching me for a moment with her
+oddly-shaped, cunning eyes, she said--
+
+'That is good cheaile, you speak a so direct--I like that, and am glad to
+hear; but, my dear Maud, that woman----'
+
+'Lady Knollys is papa's cousin,' I interposed a little gravely.
+
+'She does hate a me so, you av no idea. She as tryed to injure me several
+times, and would employ the most innocent person, unconsciously you know,
+my dear, to assist her malice.'
+
+Here Madame wept a little. I had already discovered that she could shed
+tears whenever she pleased. I have heard of such persons, but I never met
+another before or since.
+
+Madame was unusually frank--no one ever knew better when to be candid. At
+present I suppose she concluded that Lady Knollys would certainly relate
+whatever she knew concerning her before she left Knowl; and so Madame's
+reserves, whatever they might be, were dissolving, and she growing
+childlike and confiding.
+
+'Et comment va monsieur votre pere aujourd'hui?'
+
+'Very well,' I thanked her.
+
+'And how long miladi Knollys her visit is likely to be?'
+
+'I could not say exactly, but for some days.'
+
+'Eh bien, my dear cheaile, I find myself better this morning, and we must
+return to our lessons. Je veux m'habiller, ma chere Maud; you will wait me
+in the school-room.'
+
+By this time Madame, who, though lazy, could make an effort, and was
+capable of getting into a sudden hurry, had placed herself before her
+dressing-table, and was ogling her discoloured and bony countenance in the
+glass.
+
+'Wat horror! I am so pale. Quel ennui! wat bore! Ow weak av I grow in two
+three days!'
+
+And she practised some plaintive, invalid glances into the mirror. But on a
+sudden there came a little sharp inquisitive frown as she looked over the
+frame of the glass, upon the terrace beneath. It was only a glance, and she
+sat down languidly in her arm-chair to prepare, I suppose, for the fatigues
+of the toilet.
+
+My curiosity was sufficiently aroused to induce me to ask--
+
+'But why, Madame, do you fancy that Lady Knollys dislikes you?'
+
+''Tis not fancy, my dear Maud. Ah ha, no! Mais c'est toute une
+histoire--too tedious to tell now--some time maybe--and you will learn when
+you are little older, the most violent hatreds often they are the most
+without cause. But, my dear cheaile, the hours they are running from us,
+and I must dress. Vite, vite! so you run away to the school-room, and I
+will come after.'
+
+Madame had her dressing-case and her mysteries, and palpably stood in need
+of repairs; so away I went to my studies. The room which we called the
+school-room was partly beneath the floor of Madame's bed-chamber, and
+commanded the same view; so, remembering my governess's peering glance from
+her windows, I looked out, and saw Cousin Monica making a brisk promenade
+up and down the terrace-walk. Well, that was quite enough to account for
+it. I had grown very curious, and I resolved when our lessons were over to
+join her and make another attempt to discover the mystery.
+
+As I sat over my books, I fancied I heard a movement outside the door. I
+suspected that Madame was listening. I waited for a time, expecting to see
+the door open, but she did not come; so I opened it suddenly myself, but
+Madame was not on the threshold nor on the lobby. I heard a rustling,
+however, and on the staircase over the banister I saw the folds of her silk
+dress as she descended.
+
+She is going, I thought, to seek an interview with Lady Knollys. She
+intends to propitiate that dangerous lady; so I amused some eight or ten
+minutes in watching Cousin Monica's quick march and right-about face upon
+the parade-ground of the terrace. But no one joined her.
+
+'She is certainly talking to papa,' was my next and more probable
+conjecture. Having the profoundest distrust of Madame, I was naturally
+extremely jealous of the confidential interviews in which deceit and malice
+might make their representations plausibly and without answer.
+
+'Yes, I'll run down and see--see _papa_; she shan't tell lies behind my
+back, horrid woman!'
+
+At the study-door I knocked, and forthwith entered. My father was sitting
+near the window, his open book before him, Madame standing at the
+other side of the table, her cunning eyes bathed in tears, and her
+pocket-handkerchief pressed to her mouth. Her eyes glittered stealthily on
+me for an instant: she was sobbing--_desolee_, in fact--that grim grenadier
+lady, and her attitude was exquisitely dejected and timid. But she was,
+notwithstanding, reading closely and craftily my father's face. He was not
+looking at her, but rather upward toward the ceiling, reflectively leaning
+on his hand, with an expression, not angry, but rather surly and annoyed.
+
+'I ought to have heard of this before, Madame,' my father was saying as I
+came in; 'not that it would have made any difference--not the least; mind
+that. But it was the kind of thing that I ought to have heard, and the
+omission was not strictly right.'
+
+Madame, in a shrill and lamentable key, opened her voluble reply, but was
+arrested by a nod from my father, who asked me if I wanted anything.
+
+'Only--only that I was waiting in the school-room for Madame, and did not
+know where she was.'
+
+'Well, she is here, you see, and will join you up-stairs in a few minutes.'
+
+So back I went again, huffed, angry, and curious, and sat back in my chair
+with a clouded countenance, thinking very little about lessons.
+
+When Madame entered, I did not lift my head or eyes.
+
+'Good cheaile! reading,' said she, as she approached briskly and reassured.
+
+'No,' I answered tartly; 'not good, nor a child either; I'm not reading,
+I've been thinking.'
+
+'Tres-bien!' she said, with an insufferable smile, 'thinking is very good
+also; but you look unhappy--very, poor cheaile. Take care you are not grow
+jealous for poor Madame talking sometime to your papa; you must not, little
+fool. It is only for a your good, my dear Maud, and I had no objection you
+should stay.'
+
+'_You_! Madame!' I said loftily. I was very angry, and showed it through my
+dignity, to Madame's evident satisfaction.
+
+'No--it was your papa, Mr. Ruthyn, who weesh to speak alone; for me I do
+not care; there was something I weesh to tell him. I don't care who know,
+but Mr. Ruthyn he is deeferent.'
+
+I made no remark.
+
+'Come, leetle Maud, you are not to be so cross; it will be much better you
+and I to be good friends together. Why should a we quarrel?--wat nonsense!
+Do you imagine I would anywhere undertake a the education of a young person
+unless I could speak with her parent?--wat folly! I would like to be your
+friend, however, my poor Maud, if you would allow--you and I together--wat
+you say?'
+
+'People grow to be friends by liking, Madame, and liking comes of itself,
+not by bargain; I like every one who is kind to me.'
+
+'And so I. You are like me in so many things, my dear Maud! Are you quaite
+well to-day? I think you look fateague; so I feel, too, vary tire. I think
+we weel put off the lessons to to-morrow. Eh? and we will come to play la
+grace in the garden.'
+
+Madame was plainly in a high state of exultation. Her audience had
+evidently been satisfactory, and, like other people, when things went well,
+her soul lighted up into a sulphureous good-humour, not very genuine nor
+pleasant, but still it was better than other moods.
+
+I was glad when our calisthenics were ended, and Madame had returned to her
+apartment, so that I had a pleasant little walk with Cousin Monica.
+
+We women are persevering when once our curiosity is roused, but she gaily
+foiled mine, and, I think, had a mischievous pleasure in doing so. As we
+were going in to dress for dinner, however, she said, quite gravely--
+
+'I am sorry, Maud, I allowed you to see that I have any unpleasant
+impressions about that governess lady. I shall be at liberty some day to
+explain all about it, and, indeed, it will be enough to tell your father,
+whom I have not been able to find all day; but really we are, perhaps,
+making too much of the matter, and I cannot say that I know anything
+against Madame that is conclusive, or--or, indeed, at all; but that there
+are reasons, and--you must not ask any more--no, you must not.'
+
+That evening, while I was playing the overture to Cenerentola, for the
+entertainment of my cousin, there arose from the tea-table, where she and
+my father were sitting, a spirited and rather angry harangue from Lady
+Knollys' lips; I turned my eyes from the music towards the speakers; the
+overture swooned away with a little hesitating babble into silence, and I
+listened.
+
+Their conversation had begun under cover of the music which I was making,
+and now they were too much engrossed to perceive its discontinuance. The
+first sentence I heard seized my attention; my father had closed the book
+he was reading, upon his finger, and was leaning back in his chair, as he
+used to do when at all angry; his face was a little flushed, and I knew the
+fierce and glassy stare which expressed pride, surprise, and wrath.
+
+'Yes, Lady Knollys, there's an animus; I know the spirit you speak in--it
+does you no honour,' said my father.
+
+'And I know the spirit _you_ speak in, the spirit of _madness_,' retorted
+Cousin Monica, just as much in earnest. 'I can't conceive how you _can_ be
+so _demented_, Austin. What has perverted you? are you _blind_?'
+
+'_You_ are, Monica; your own unnatural prejudice--_unnatural_ prejudice,
+blinds you. What is it all?--_nothing_. Were I to act as you say, I should
+be a _coward_ and a traitor. I see, I _do_ see, all that's real. I'm no
+Quixote, to draw my sword on illusions.'
+
+'There should be no halting here. How _can_ you--do you ever _think_? I
+wonder if you can breathe. I feel as if the evil one were in the house.'
+
+A stern, momentary frown was my father's only answer, as he looked fixedly
+at her.
+
+'People need not nail up horseshoes and mark their door-stones with charms
+to keep the evil spirit out,' ran on Lady Knollys, who looked pale and
+angry, in her way, 'but you open your door in the dark and invoke unknown
+danger. How can you look at that child that's--she's _not_ playing,' said
+Knollys, abruptly stopping.
+
+My father rose, muttering to himself, and cast a lurid glance at me, as he
+went in high displeasure to the door. Cousin Monica, now flushed a little,
+glanced also silently at me, biting the tip of her slender gold cross, and
+doubtful how much I had heard.
+
+My father opened the door suddenly, which he had just closed, and looking
+in, said, in a calmer tone--
+
+'Perhaps, Monica, you would come for a moment to the study; I'm sure you
+have none but kindly feelings towards me and little Maud, there; and
+I thank you for your good-will; but you must see other things more
+reasonably, and I think you will.'
+
+Cousin Monica got up silently and followed him, only throwing up her eyes
+and hands as she did so, and I was left alone, wondering and curious more
+than ever.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+_A WARNING_
+
+
+I sat still, listening and wondering, and wondering and listening; but
+I ought to have known that no sound could reach me where I was from my
+father's study. Five minutes passed and they did not return. Ten, fifteen.
+I drew near the fire and made myself comfortable in a great arm-chair,
+looking on the embers, but not seeing all the scenery and _dramatis
+personae_ of my past life or future fortunes, in their shifting glow,
+as people in romances usually do; but fanciful castles and caverns in
+blood-red and golden glare, suggestive of dreamy fairy-land, salamanders,
+sunsets, and palaces of fire-kings, and all this partly shaping and partly
+shaped by my fancy, and leading my closing eyes and drowsy senses off into
+dream-land. So I nodded and dozed, and sank into a deep slumber, from which
+I was roused by the voice of my cousin Monica. On opening my eyes, I saw
+nothing but Lady Knollys' face looking steadily into mine, and expanding
+into a good-natured laugh as she watched the vacant and lack-lustre stare
+with which I returned her gaze.
+
+'Come, dear Maud, it is late; you ought to have been in your bed an hour
+ago.'
+
+Up I stood, and so soon as I had begun to hear and see aright, it struck me
+that Cousin Monica was more grave and subdued than I had seen her.
+
+'Come, let us light our candles and go together.'
+
+Holding hands, we ascended, I sleepy, she silent; and not a word was spoken
+until we reached my room. Mary Quince was in waiting, and tea made.
+
+'Tell her to come back in a few minutes; I wish to say a word to you,' said
+Lady Knollys.
+
+The maid accordingly withdrew.
+
+Lady Knollys' eyes followed her till she closed the door behind her.
+
+'I'm going in the morning.'
+
+'So soon!'
+
+'Yes, dear; I could not stay; in fact, I should have gone to-night, but it
+was too late, and I leave instead in the morning.'
+
+'I am so sorry--so _very_ sorry,' I exclaimed, in honest disappointment,
+and the walls seemed to darken round me, and the monotony of the old
+routine loomed more terrible in prospect.
+
+'So am I, dear Maud.'
+
+'But can't you stay a little longer; _won't_ you?'
+
+'No, Maud; I'm vexed with Austin--very much vexed with your father; in
+short, I can't conceive anything so entirely preposterous, and dangerous,
+and insane as his conduct, now that his eyes are quite opened, and I must
+say a word to you before I go, and it is just this:--you must cease to be a
+mere child, you must try and be a woman, Maud: now don't be frightened
+or foolish, but hear me out. That woman--what does she call
+herself--Rougierre? I have reason to believe is--in fact, from
+circumstances, _must_ be your enemy; you will find her very deep, daring,
+and unscrupulous, I venture to say, and you can't be too much on your
+guard. Do you quite understand me, Maud?'
+
+'I do,' said I, with a gasp, and my eyes fixed on her with a terrified
+interest, as if on a warning ghost.
+
+'You must bridle your tongue, mind, and govern your conduct, and command
+even your features. It is hard to practise reserve; but you must--you must
+be secret and vigilant. Try and be in appearance just as usual; don't
+quarrel; tell her nothing, if you do happen to know anything, of your
+father's business; be always on your guard when with her, and keep your eye
+upon her everywhere. Observe everything, disclose nothing--do you see?'
+
+'Yes,' again I whispered.
+
+'You have good, honest servants about you, and, thank God, they don't like
+her. But you must not repeat to them one word I am now saying to you.
+Servants are fond of dropping hints, and letting things ooze out in that
+way, and in their quarrels with her would compromise you--you understand
+me?'
+
+'I do,' I sighed, with a wild stare.
+
+'And--and, Maud, don't let her meddle with your food.'
+
+Cousin Monica gave me a pale little nod, and looked away.
+
+I could only stare at her; and under my breath I uttered an ejaculation of
+terror.
+
+'Don't be so frightened; you must not be foolish; I only wish you to be
+upon your guard. I have my suspicions, but I may be quite wrong; your
+father thinks I am a fool; perhaps I am--perhaps not; maybe he may come to
+think as I do. But you must not speak to him on the subject; he's an
+odd man, and never did and never will act wisely, when his passions and
+prejudices are engaged.'
+
+'Has she ever committed any great crime?' I asked, feeling as if I were on
+the point of fainting.
+
+'No, dear Maud, I never said anything of the kind; don't be so frightened:
+I only said I have formed, from something I know, an ill opinion of her;
+and an unprincipled person, under temptation, is capable of a great deal.
+But no matter how wicked she may be, you may defy her, simply by assuming
+her to be so, and acting with caution; she is cunning and selfish, and
+she'll do nothing desperate. But I would give her no opportunity.'
+
+'Oh, dear! Oh, Cousin Monica, don't leave me.'
+
+'My dear, I _can't_ stay; your papa and I--we've had a quarrel. I know
+I'm right, and he's wrong, and he'll come to see it soon, if he's left to
+himself, and then all will be right. But just now he misunderstands me, and
+we've not been civil to one another. I could not think of staying, and he
+would not allow you to come away with me for a short visit, which I wished.
+It won't last, though; and I do assure you, my dear Maud, I am quite happy
+about you now that you are quite on your guard. Just act respecting that
+person as if she were capable of any treachery, without showing distrust or
+dislike in your manner, and nothing will remain in her power; and write to
+me whenever you wish to hear from me, and if I can be of any real use, I
+don't care, I'll come: so there's a wise little woman; do as I've said, and
+depend upon it everything will go well, and I'll contrive before long to
+get that nasty creature away.'
+
+Except a kiss and a few hurried words in the morning when she was leaving,
+and a pencilled farewell for papa, there was nothing more from Cousin
+Monica for some time.
+
+Knowl was dark again--darker than ever. My father, gentle always to me, was
+now--perhaps it was contrast with his fitful return to something like the
+world's ways, during Lady Knollys' stay--more silent, sad, and isolated
+than before. Of Madame de la Rougierre I had nothing at first particular to
+remark. Only, reader, if you happen to be a rather nervous and very young
+girl, I ask you to conceive my fears and imaginings, and the kind of misery
+which I was suffering. Its intensity I cannot now even myself recall. But
+it overshadowed me perpetually--a care, an alarm. It lay down with me at
+night and got up with me in the morning, tinting and disturbing my dreams,
+and making my daily life terrible. I wonder now that I lived through
+the ordeal. The torment was secret and incessant, and kept my mind in
+unintermitting activity.
+
+Externally things went on at Knowl for some weeks in the usual routine.
+Madame was, so far as her unpleasant ways were concerned, less tormenting
+than before, and constantly reminded me of 'our leetle vow of friendship,
+you remember, dearest Maud!' and she would stand beside me, and looked from
+the window with her bony arm round my waist, and my reluctant hand drawn
+round in hers; and thus she would smile, and talk affectionately and even
+playfully; for at times she would grow quite girlish, and smile with
+her great carious teeth, and begin to quiz and babble about the young
+'faylows,' and tell bragging tales of her lovers, all of which were
+dreadful to me.
+
+She was perpetually recurring, too, to the charming walk we had had
+together to Church Scarsdale, and proposing a repetition of that delightful
+excursion, which, you may be sure, I evaded, having by no means so
+agreeable a recollection of our visit.
+
+One day, as I was dressing to go out for a walk, in came good Mrs. Rusk,
+the housekeeper, to my room.
+
+'Miss Maud, dear, is not that too far for you? It is a long walk to Church
+Scarsdale, and you are not looking very well.'
+
+'To Church Scarsdale?' I repeated; 'I'm not going to Church Scarsdale; who
+said I was going to Church Scarsdale? There is nothing I should so much
+dislike.'
+
+'Well, I never!' exclaimed she. 'Why, there's old Madame's been down-stairs
+with me for fruit and sandwiches, telling me you were longing to go to
+Church Scarsdale----'
+
+'It's quite untrue,' I interrupted. 'She knows I hate it.'
+
+'She does?' said Mrs. Rusk, quietly; 'and you did not tell her nothing
+about the basket? Well--if there isn't a story! Now what may she be
+after--what is it--what _is_ she driving at?'
+
+'I can't tell, but I won't go.'
+
+'No, of course, dear, you won't go. But you may be sure there's some scheme
+in her old head. Tom Fowkes says she's bin two or three times to drink tea
+at Farmer Gray's--now, could it be she's thinking to marry him?' And Mrs.
+Rusk sat down and laughed heartily, ending with a crow of derision.
+
+'To think of a young fellow like that, and his wife, poor thing, not dead a
+year--maybe she's got money?'
+
+'I don't know--I don't care--perhaps, Mrs. Rusk, you mistook Madame. I will
+go down; I am going out.'
+
+Madame had a basket in her hand. She held it quietly by her capacious
+skirt, at the far side, and made no allusion to the preparation, neither to
+the direction in which she proposed walking, and prattling artlessly and
+affectionately she marched by my side.
+
+Thus we reached the stile at the sheep-walk, and then I paused.
+
+'Now, Madame, have not we gone far enough in this direction?--suppose we
+visit the pigeon-house in the park?'
+
+'Wat folly! my dear a Maud--you cannot walk so far.'
+
+'Well, towards home, then.'
+
+'And wy not a this way? We ave not walk enough, and Mr. Ruthyn he will not
+be pleased if you do not take proper exercise. Let us walk on by the path,
+and stop when you like.'
+
+'Where do you wish to go, Madame?'
+
+'Nowhere particular--come along; don't be fool, Maud.'
+
+'This leads to Church Scarsdale.'
+
+'A yes indeed! wat sweet place! bote we need not a walk all the way to
+there.'
+
+'I'd rather not walk outside the grounds to-day, Madame.'
+
+'Come, Maud, you shall not be fool--wat you mean, Mademoiselle?' said the
+stalworth lady, growing yellow and greenish with an angry mottling, and
+accosting me very gruffly.
+
+'I don't care to cross the stile, thank you, Madame. I shall remain at this
+side.'
+
+'You shall do wat I tell you!' exclaimed she.
+
+'Let go my arm, Madame, you hurt me,' I cried.
+
+She had griped my arm very firmly in her great bony hand, and seemed
+preparing to drag me over by main force.
+
+'Let me go,' I repeated shrilly, for the pain increased.
+
+'La!' she cried with a smile of rage and a laugh, letting me go and shoving
+me backward at the same time, so that I had a rather dangerous tumble.
+
+I stood up, a good deal hurt, and very angry, notwithstanding my fear of
+her.
+
+'I'll ask papa if I am to be so ill-used.'
+
+'Wat av I done?' cried Madame, laughing grimly from her hollow jaws; I did
+all I could to help you over--'ow could I prevent you to pull back and
+tumble if you would do so? That is the way wen you petites Mademoiselles
+are naughty and hurt yourself they always try to make blame other people.
+Tell a wat you like--you think I care?'
+
+'Very well, Madame.'
+
+'Are a you coming?'
+
+'No.'
+
+She looked steadily in my face and very wickedly. I gazed at her as with
+dazzled eyes--I suppose as the feathered prey do at the owl that glares on
+them by night. I neither moved back nor forward, but stared at her quite
+helplessly.
+
+'You are nice pupil--charming young person! So polite, so obedient, so
+amiable! I will walk towards Church Scarsdale,' she continued, suddenly
+breaking through the conventionalism of her irony, and accosting me
+in savage accents. 'You weel stay behind if you dare. I tell you to
+accompany--do you hear?'
+
+More than ever resolved against following her, I remained where I was,
+watching her as she marched fiercely away, swinging her basket as though in
+imagination knocking my head off with it.
+
+She soon cooled, however, and looking over her shoulder, and seeing me
+still at the other side of the stile, she paused, and beckoned me grimly
+to follow her. Seeing me resolutely maintain my position, she faced about,
+tossed her head, like an angry beast, and seemed uncertain for a while what
+course to take with me.
+
+She stamped and beckoned furiously again. I stood firm. I was very much
+frightened, and could not tell to what violence she might resort in her
+exasperation. She walked towards me with an inflamed countenance, and a
+slight angry wagging of the head; my heart fluttered, and I awaited the
+crisis in extreme trepidation. She came close, the stile only separating
+us, and stopped short, glaring and grinning at me like a French grenadier
+who has crossed bayonets, but hesitates to close.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+_DOCTOR BRYERLY LOOKS IN_
+
+
+What had I done to excite this ungovernable fury? We had often before had
+such small differences, and she had contented herself with being sarcastic,
+teasing, and impertinent.
+
+'So, for future you are gouvernante and I the cheaile for you to
+command--is not so?--and you must direct where we shall walk. Tres-bien!
+we shall see; Monsieur Ruthyn he shall know everything. For me I do not
+care--not at all--I shall be rather pleased, on the contrary. Let him
+decide. If I shall be responsible for the conduct and the health of
+Mademoiselle his daughter, it must be that I shall have authority to direct
+her wat she must do--it must be that she or I shall obey. I ask only witch
+shall command for the future--voila tout!'
+
+I was frightened, but resolute--I dare say I looked sullen and
+uncomfortable. At all events, she seemed to think she might possibly
+succeed by wheedling; so she tried coaxing and cajoling, and patted my
+cheek, and predicted that I would be 'a good cheaile,' and not 'vex poor
+Madame,' but do for the future 'wat she tell a me.'
+
+She smiled her wide wet grin, smoothed my hand, and patted my cheek, and
+would in the excess of her conciliatory paroxysm have kissed me; but I
+withdrew, and she commented only with a little laugh, and a 'Foolish little
+thing! but you will be quite amiable just now.'
+
+'Why, Madame,' I asked, suddenly raising my head and looking her straight
+in the face, 'do you wish me to walk to Church Scarsdale so particularly
+to-day?'
+
+She answered my steady look with a contracted gaze and an unpleasant frown.
+
+'Wy do I?--I do not understand a you; there is _no_ particular day--wat
+folly! Wy I like Church Scarsdale? Well, it is such pretty place. There is
+all! Wat leetle fool! I suppose you think I want to keel a you and bury you
+in the churchyard?'
+
+And she laughed, and it would not have been a bad laugh for a ghoul.
+
+'Come, my dearest Maud, you are not a such fool to say, if _you_ tell me me
+go thees a way, I weel go that; and if you say, go that a way, I weel go
+thees--you are rasonable leetle girl--come along--_alons donc_--we shall av
+soche agreeable walk--weel a you?'
+
+But I was immovable. It was neither obstinacy nor caprice, but a profound
+fear that governed me. I was then afraid--yes, _afraid_. Afraid of _what_?
+Well, of going with Madame de la Rougierre to Church Scarsdale that day.
+That was all. And I believe that instinct was true.
+
+She turned a bitter glance toward Church Scarsdale, and bit her lip. She
+saw that she must give it up. A shadow hung upon her drab features. A
+little scowl--a little sneer--wide lips compressed with a false smile, and
+a leaden shadow mottling all. Such was the countenance of the lady who only
+a minute or two before had been smiling and murmuring over the stile so
+amiably with her idiomatic 'blarney,' as the Irish call that kind of
+blandishment.
+
+There was no mistaking the malignant disappointment that hooked and warped
+her features--my heart sank--a tremendous fear overpowered me. Had she
+intended poisoning me? What was in that basket? I looked in her dreadful
+face. I felt for a minute quite frantic. A feeling of rage with my father,
+with my Cousin Monica, for abandoning me to this dreadful rogue, took
+possession of me, and I cried, helplessly wringing my hands--
+
+'Oh! it is a shame--it is a shame--it is a shame!'
+
+The countenance of the gouvernante relaxed. I think she in turn was
+frightened at my extreme agitation. It might have worked unfavourably with
+my father.
+
+'Come, Maud, it is time you should try to control your temper. You shall
+not walk to Church Scarsdale if you do not like--I only invite. _There_!
+It is quite as you please, where we shall walk then? Here to the
+peegeon-house? I think you say. Tout bien! Remember I concede you
+everything. Let us go.'
+
+We went, therefore, towards the pigeon-house, through the forest trees; I
+not speaking as the children in the wood did with their sinister conductor,
+but utterly silent and scared; she silent also, meditating, and sometimes
+with a sharp side-glance gauging my progress towards equanimity. Her own
+was rapid; for Madame was a philosopher, and speedily accommodated herself
+to circumstances. We had not walked a quarter of an hour when every trace
+of gloom had left her face, which had assumed its customary brightness, and
+she began to sing with a spiteful hilarity as we walked forward, and indeed
+seemed to be approaching one of her waggish, frolicsome moods. But her fun
+in these moods was solitary. The joke, whatever it was, remained in her
+own keeping. When we approached the ruined brick tower--in old times a
+pigeon-house--she grew quite frisky, and twirled her basket in the air, and
+capered to her own singing.
+
+Under the shadow of the broken wall, and its ivy, she sat down with a
+frolicsome _plump_, and opened her basket, inviting me to partake, which
+I declined. I must do her justice, however, upon the suspicion of poison,
+which she quite disposed of by gobbling up, to her own share, everything
+which the basket contained.
+
+The reader is not to suppose that Madame's cheerful demeanour indicated
+that I was forgiven. Nothing of the kind. One syllable more, on our walk
+home, she addressed not to me. And when we reached the terrace, she said--
+
+'You will please, Maud, remain for two--three minutes in the Dutch garden,
+while I speak with Mr. Ruthyn in the study.'
+
+This was spoken with a high head and an insufferable smile; and I more
+haughtily, but quite gravely, turned without disputing, and descended the
+steps to the quaint little garden she had indicated.
+
+I was surprised and very glad to see my father there. I ran to him, and
+began, 'Oh! papa!' and then stopped short, adding only, 'may I speak to you
+now?'
+
+He smiled kindly and gravely on me.
+
+'Well, Maud, say your say.'
+
+'Oh, sir, it is only this: I entreat that our walks, mine and Madame's may
+be confined to the grounds.'
+
+'And why?'
+
+'I--I'm afraid to go with her.'
+
+'_Afraid!_' he repeated, looking hard at me. 'Have you lately had a letter
+from Lady Knollys?'
+
+'No, papa, not for two months or more.'
+
+There was a pause.
+
+'And why _afraid_, Maud?'
+
+'She brought me one day to Church Scarsdale; you know what a solitary place
+it is, sir; and she frightened me so that I was afraid to go with her into
+the churchyard. But she went and left me alone at the other side of the
+stream, and an impudent man passing by stopped and spoke to me, and seemed
+inclined to laugh at me, and altogether frightened me very much, and he did
+not go till Madame happened to return.'
+
+'What kind of man--young or old?'
+
+'A young man; he looked like a farmer's son, but very impudent, and stood
+there talking to me whether I would or not; and Madame did not care at
+all, and laughed at me for being frightened; and, indeed, I am very
+uncomfortable with her.'
+
+He gave me another shrewd look, and then looked down cloudily and thought.
+
+'You say you are uncomfortable and frightened. How is this--what causes
+these feelings?'
+
+'I don't know, sir; she likes frightening me; I am afraid of her--we are
+all afraid of her, I think. The servants, I mean, as well as I.'
+
+My father nodded his head contemptuously, twice or thrice, and muttered, 'A
+pack of fools!'
+
+'And she was so very angry to-day with me, because I would not walk again
+with her to Church Scarsdale. I am very much afraid of her. I--' and quite
+unpremeditatedly I burst into tears.
+
+'There, there, little Maud, you must not cry. She is here only for your
+good. If you are afraid--even _foolishly_ afraid--it is enough. Be it as
+you say; your walks are henceforward confined to the grounds; I'll tell her
+so.'
+
+I thanked him through my tears very earnestly.
+
+'But, Maud, beware of prejudice; women are unjust and violent in their
+judgments. Your family has suffered in some of its members by such
+injustice. It behoves us to be careful not to practise it.'
+
+That evening in the drawing-room my father said, in his usual abrupt way--
+
+'About my departure, Maud: I've had a letter from London this morning, and
+I think I shall be called away sooner than I at first supposed, and for a
+little time we must manage apart from one another. Do not be alarmed. You
+shall not be in Madame de la Rougierre's charge, but under the care of a
+relation; but even so, little Maud will miss her old father, I think.'
+
+His tone was very tender, so were his looks; he was looking down on me with
+a smile, and tears were in his eyes. This softening was new to me. I felt a
+strange thrill of surprise, delight, and love, and springing up, I threw my
+arms about his neck and wept in silence. He, I think, shed tears also.
+
+'You said a visitor was coming; some one, you mean, to go away with. Ah,
+yes, you love him better than me.'
+
+'No, dear, no; but I _fear_ him; and I am sorry to leave you, little Maud.'
+
+'It won't be very long,' I pleaded.
+
+'No, dear,' he answered with a sigh.
+
+I was tempted almost to question him more closely on the subject, but he
+seemed to divine what was in my mind, for he said--
+
+'Let us speak no more of it, but only bear in mind, Maud, what I told you
+about the oak cabinet, the key of which is here,' and he held it up as
+formerly: 'you remember what you are to do in case Doctor Bryerly should
+come while I am away?'
+
+'Yes, sir.'
+
+His manner had changed, and I had returned to my accustomed formalities.
+
+It was only a few days later that Dr. Bryerly actually did arrive at Knowl,
+quite unexpectedly, except, I suppose, by my father. He was to stay only
+one night.
+
+He was twice closeted in the little study up-stairs with my father, who
+seemed to me, even for him, unusually dejected, and Mrs. Rusk inveighing
+against 'them rubbitch,' as she always termed the Swedenborgians, told me
+'they were making him quite shaky-like, and he would not last no time, if
+that lanky, lean ghost of a fellow in black was to keep prowling in and out
+of his room like a tame cat.'
+
+I lay awake that night, wondering what the mystery might be that connected
+my father and Dr. Bryerly. There was something more than the convictions
+of their strange religion could account for. There was something that
+profoundly agitated my father. It may not be reasonable, but so it is. The
+person whose presence, though we know nothing of the cause of that effect,
+is palpably attended with pain to anyone who is dear to us, grows odious,
+and I began to detest Doctor Bryerly.
+
+It was a grey, dark morning, and in a dark pass in the gallery, near the
+staircase, I came full upon the ungainly Doctor, in his glossy black suit.
+
+I think, if my mind had been less anxiously excited on the subject of
+his visit, or if I had not disliked him so much, I should not have found
+courage to accost him as I did. There was something sly, I thought, in his
+dark, lean face; and he looked so low, so like a Scotch artisan in his
+Sunday clothes, that I felt a sudden pang of indignation, at the thought
+that a great gentleman, like my father, should have suffered under his
+influence, and I stopped suddenly, instead of passing him by with a mere
+salutation, as he expected, 'May I ask a question, Doctor Bryerly?'
+
+'Certainly'
+
+'Are you the friend whom my father expects?'
+
+'I don't quite see.'
+
+'The friend, I mean, with whom he is to make an expedition to some
+distance, I think, and for some little time?'
+
+'No,' said the Doctor, with a shake of his head.
+
+'And who is he?'
+
+'I really have not a notion, Miss.'
+
+'Why, he said that _you knew_,' I replied.
+
+The Doctor looked honestly puzzled.
+
+'Will he stay long away? pray tell me.'
+
+The Doctor looked into my troubled face with inquiring and darkened eyes,
+like one who half reads another's meaning; and then he said a little
+briskly, but not sharply--
+
+'Well, _I_ don't know, I'm sure, Miss; no, indeed, you must have mistaken;
+there's nothing that _I_ know.'
+
+There was a little pause, and he added--
+
+'No. He never mentioned any friend to me.' I fancied that he was made
+uncomfortable by my question, and wanted to hide the truth. Perhaps I was
+partly right.
+
+'Oh! Doctor Bryerly, pray, _pray_ who is the friend, and where is he
+going?'
+
+'I do _assure_ you,' he said, with a strange sort of impatience, 'I don't
+know; it is all nonsense.'
+
+And he turned to go, looking, I think, annoyed and disconcerted.
+
+A terrific suspicion crossed my brain like lightning.
+
+'Doctor, one word,' I said, I believe, quite wildly. 'Do you--do you think
+his mind is at all affected?'
+
+'Insane?' he said, looking at me with a sudden, sharp inquisitiveness, that
+brightened into a smile. 'Pooh, pooh! Heaven forbid! not a saner man in
+England.'
+
+Then with a little nod he walked on, carrying, as I believed,
+notwithstanding his disclaimer, the secret with him. In the afternoon
+Doctor Bryerly went away.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+_AN ADVENTURE_
+
+
+For many days after our quarrel, Madame hardly spoke to me. As for lessons,
+I was not much troubled with them. It was plain, too, that my father had
+spoken to her, for she never after that day proposed our extending our
+walks beyond the precincts of Knowl.
+
+Knowl, however, was a very considerable territory, and it was possible
+for a much better pedestrian than I to tire herself effectually, without
+passing its limits. So we took occasionally long walks.
+
+After some weeks of sullenness, during which for days at a time she hardly
+spoke to me, and seemed lost in dark and evil abstraction, she once more,
+and somewhat suddenly, recovered her spirits, and grew quite friendly. Her
+gaieties and friendliness were not reassuring, and in my mind presaged
+approaching mischief and treachery. The days were shortening to the wintry
+span. The edge of the red sun had already touched the horizon as Madame and
+I, overtaken at the warren by his last beams, were hastening homeward.
+
+A narrow carriage-road traverses this wild region of the park, to which a
+distant gate gives entrance. On descending into this unfrequented road, I
+was surprised to see a carriage standing there. A thin, sly postilion,
+with that pert, turned-up nose which the old caricaturist Woodward used to
+attribute to the gentlemen of Tewkesbury, was leaning on his horses, and
+looked hard at me as I passed. A lady who sat within looked out, with an
+extra-fashionable bonnet on, and also treated us to a stare. Very pink and
+white cheeks she had, very black glossy hair and bright eyes--fat, bold,
+and rather cross, she looked--and in her bold way she examined us curiously
+as we passed.
+
+I mistook the situation. It had once happened before that an intending
+visitor at Knowl had entered the place by that park-road, and lost several
+hours in a vain search for the house.
+
+'Ask him, Madame, whether they want to go to the house; I dare say they
+have missed their way,' whispered I.
+
+'_Eh bien,_ they will find again. I do not choose to talk to post-boys;
+_allons_!'
+
+But I asked the man as we passed, 'Do you want to reach the house?'
+
+By this time he was at the horses' heads, buckling the harness.
+
+'Noa,' he said in a surly tone, smiling oddly on the winkers, but,
+recollecting his politeness, he added, 'Noa, thankee, misses, it's what
+they calls a picnic; we'll be takin' the road now.'
+
+He was smiling now on a little buckle with which he was engaged.
+
+'Come--nonsense!' whispered Madame sharply in my ear, and she whisked me by
+the arm, so we crossed the little stile at the other side.
+
+Our path lay across the warren, which undulates in little hillocks. The sun
+was down by this time, blue shadows were stretching round us, colder in the
+splendid contrast of the burnished sunset sky.
+
+Descending over these hillocks we saw three figures a little in advance of
+us, not far from the path we were tracing. Two were standing smoking and
+chatting at intervals: one tall and slim, with a high chimney-pot, worn a
+little on one side, and a white great-coat buttoned up to the chin; the
+other shorter and stouter, with a dark-coloured wrapper. These gentlemen
+were facing rather our way as we came over the edge of the eminence, but
+turned their backs on perceiving our approach. As they did so, I remember
+so well each lowered his cigar suddenly with the simultaneousness of a
+drill. The third figure sustained the picnic character of the group, for he
+was repacking a hamper. He stood suddenly erect as we drew near, and a very
+ill-looking person he was, low-browed, square-chinned, and with a broad,
+broken nose. He wore gaiters, and was a little bandy, very broad, and had
+a closely-cropped bullet head, and deep-set little eyes. The moment I saw
+him, I beheld the living type of the burglars and bruisers whom I had so
+often beheld with a kind of scepticism in _Punch_. He stood over his hamper
+and scowled sharply at us for a moment; then with the point of his foot he
+jerked a little fur cap that lay on the ground into his hand, drew it tight
+over his lowering brows, and called to his companions, just as we passed
+him--'Hallo! mister. How's this?'
+
+'All right,' said the tall person in the white great-coat, who, as he
+answered, shook his shorter companion by the arm, I thought angrily.
+
+This shorter companion turned about. He had a muffler loose about his neck
+and chin. I thought he seemed shy and irresolute, and the tall man gave him
+a great jolt with his elbow, which made him stagger, and I fancied a little
+angry, for he said, as it seemed, a sulky word or two.
+
+The gentleman in the white surtout, however, standing direct in our way,
+raised his hat with a mock salutation, placing his hand on his breast,
+and forthwith began to advance with an insolent grin and an air of tipsy
+frolic.
+
+'Jist in time, ladies; five minutes more and we'd a bin off. Thankee, Mrs.
+Mouser, ma'am, for the honour of the meetin', and more particular for the
+pleasure of making your young lady's acquaintance--niece, ma'am? daughter,
+ma'am? granddaughter, by Jove, is it? Hallo! there, mild 'n, I say, stop
+packin'.' This was to the ill-favoured person with the broken nose. 'Bring
+us a couple o' glasses and a bottle o' curacoa; what are you fear'd on, my
+dear? this is Lord Lollipop, here, a reg'lar charmer, wouldn't hurt a fly,
+hey Lolly? Isn't he pretty, Miss? and I'm Sir Simon Sugarstick--so called
+after old Sir Simon, ma'am; and I'm so tall and straight, Miss, and
+slim--ain't I? and ever so sweet, my honey, when you come to know me, just
+like a sugarstick; ain't I, Lolly, boy?'
+
+'I'm Miss Ruthyn, tell them, Madame,' I said, stamping on the ground, and
+very much frightened.
+
+'Be quaite, Maud. If you are angry, they will hurt us; leave me to speak,'
+whispered the gouvernante.
+
+All this time they were approaching from separate points. I glanced back,
+and saw the ruffianly-looking man within a yard or two, with his arm raised
+and one finger up, telegraphing, as it seemed, to the gentlemen in front.
+
+'Be quaite, Maud,' whispered Madame, with an awful adjuration, which I do
+not care to set down. 'They are teepsy; don't seem 'fraid.'
+
+I _was_ afraid--terrified. The circle had now so narrowed that they might
+have placed their hands on my shoulders.
+
+'Pray, gentlemen, wat you want? _weel_ a you 'av the goodness to permit us
+to go on?'
+
+I now observed for the first time, with a kind of shock, that the shorter
+of the two men, who prevented our advance, was the person who had accosted
+me so offensively at Church Scarsdale. I pulled Madame by the arm,
+whispering, 'Let us run.'
+
+'Be quaite, my dear Maud,' was her only reply.
+
+'I tell you what,' said the tall man, who had replaced his high hat more
+jauntily than before on the side of his head, 'We've caught you now, fair
+game, and we'll let you off on conditions. You must not be frightened,
+Miss. Upon my honour and soul, I mean no mischief; do I, Lollipop? I call
+him Lord Lollipop; it's only chaff, though; his name's Smith. Now, Lolly,
+I vote we let the prisoners go, when we just introduce them to Mrs. Smith;
+she's sitting in the carriage, and keeps Mr. S. here in precious good
+order, I promise you. There's easy terms for you, eh, and we'll have a
+glass o' curacoa round, and so part friends. Is it a bargain? Come!'
+
+'Yes, Maud, we must go--wat matter?' whispered Madame vehemently.
+
+'You shan't,' I said, instinctively terrified.
+
+'You'll go with Ma'am, young 'un, won't you?' said Mr. Smith, as his
+companion called him.
+
+Madame was holding my arm, but I snatched it from her, and would have run;
+the tall man, however, placed his arms round me and held me fast with an
+affectation of playfulness, but his grip was hard enough to hurt me a good
+deal. Being now thoroughly frightened, after an ineffectual struggle,
+during which I heard Madame say, 'You fool, Maud, weel you come with me?
+see wat you are doing,' I began to scream, shriek after shriek, which the
+man attempted to drown with loud hooting, peals of laughter, forcing
+his handkerchief against my mouth, while Madame continued to bawl her
+exhortations to 'be quaite' in my ear.
+
+'I'll lift her, I say!' said a gruff voice behind me.
+
+But at this instant, wild with terror, I distinctly heard other voices
+shouting. The men who surrounded me were instantly silent, and all looked
+in the direction of the sound, now very near, and I screamed with redoubled
+energy. The ruffian behind me thrust his great hand over my mouth.
+
+'It is the gamekeeper,' cried Madame. '_Two_ gamekeepers--we are
+safe--thank Heaven!' and she began to call on Dykes by name.
+
+I only remember, feeling myself at liberty--running a few steps--seeing
+Dykes' white furious face--clinging to his arm, with which he was bringing
+his gun to a level, and saying, 'Don't fire--they'll murder us if you do.'
+
+Madame, screaming lustily, ran up at the same moment.
+
+'Run on to the gate and lock it--I'll be wi' ye in a minute,' cried he to
+the other gamekeeper; who started instantly on this mission, for the three
+ruffians were already in full retreat for the carriage.
+
+Giddy--wild--fainting--still terror carried me on.
+
+'Now, Madame Rogers--s'pose you take young Misses on--I must run and len'
+Bill a hand.'
+
+'No, no; you moste not,' cried Madame. 'I am fainting myself, and more
+villains they may be near to us.'
+
+But at this moment we heard a shot, and, muttering to himself and grasping
+his gun, Dykes ran at his utmost speed in the direction of the sound.
+
+With many exhortations to speed, and ejaculations of alarm, Madame hurried
+me on toward the house, which at length we reached without further
+adventure.
+
+As it happened, my father met us in the hall. He was perfectly transported
+with fury on hearing from Madame what had happened, and set out at once,
+with some of the servants, in the hope of intercepting the party at the
+park-gate.
+
+Here was a new agitation; for my father did not return for nearly three
+hours, and I could not conjecture what might be occurring during the period
+of his absence. My alarm was greatly increased by the arrival in the
+interval of poor Bill, the under-gamekeeper, very much injured.
+
+Seeing that he was determined to intercept their retreat, the three men had
+set upon him, wrested his gun, which exploded in the struggle, from him,
+and beat him savagely. I mention these particulars, because they convinced
+everybody that there was something specially determined and ferocious in
+the spirit of the party, and that the fracas was no mere frolic, but the
+result of a predetermined plan.
+
+My father had not succeeded in overtaking them. He traced them to the
+Lugton Station, where they had taken the railway, and no one could tell him
+in what direction the carriage and posthorses had driven.
+
+Madame was, or affected to be, very much shattered by what had occurred.
+Her recollection and mine, when my father questioned us closely, differed
+very materially respecting many details of the _personnel_ of the
+villanous party. She was obstinate and clear; and although the gamekeeper
+corroborated my description of them, still my father was puzzled. Perhaps
+he was not sorry that some hesitation was forced upon him, because although
+at first he would have gone almost any length to detect the persons, on
+reflection he was pleased that there was not evidence to bring them into
+a court of justice, the publicity and annoyance of which would have been
+inconceivably distressing to me.
+
+Madame was in a strange state--tempestuous in temper, talking
+incessantly--every now and then in floods of tears, and perpetually on
+her knees pouring forth torrents of thanksgiving to Heaven for our joint
+deliverance from the hands of those villains. Notwithstanding our community
+of danger and her thankfulness on my behalf, however, she broke forth into
+wrath and railing whenever we were alone together.
+
+'Wat fool you were! so disobedient and obstinate; if you 'ad done wat _I_
+say, then we should av been quaite safe; those persons they were tipsy, and
+there is nothing so dangerous as to quarrel with tipsy persons; I would
+'av brought you quaite safe--the lady she seem so nice and quaite, and we
+should 'av been safe with her--there would 'av been nothing absolutely; but
+instead you would scream and pooshe, and so they grow quite wild, and all
+the impertinence and violence follow of course; and that a poor Bill--all
+his beating and danger to his life it is cause entairely by you.'
+
+And she spoke with more real virulence than that kind of upbraiding
+generally exhibits.
+
+'The beast!' exclaimed Mrs. Rusk, when she, I, and Mary Quince were in my
+room together, 'with all her crying and praying, I'd like to know as much
+as she does, maybe, about them rascals. There never was sich like about the
+place, long as I remember it, till she came to Knowl, old witch! with them
+unmerciful big bones of hers, and her great bald head, grinning here, and
+crying there, and her nose everywhere. The old French hypocrite!'
+
+Mary Quince threw in an observation, and I believe Mrs. Rusk rejoined, but
+I heard neither. For whether the housekeeper spoke with reflection or not,
+what she said affected me strangely. Through the smallest aperture, for
+a moment, I had had a peep into Pandemonium. Were not peculiarities of
+Madame's demeanour and advice during the adventure partly accounted for by
+the suggestion? Could the proposed excursion to Church Scarsdale have had
+any purpose of the same sort? What was proposed? How was Madame interested
+in it? Were such immeasurable treason and hypocrisy possible? I could not
+explain nor quite believe in the shapeless suspicion that with these light
+and bitter words of the old housekeeper had stolen so horribly into my
+mind.
+
+After Mrs. Rusk was gone I awoke from my dismal abstraction with something
+like a moan and a shudder, with a dreadful sense of danger.
+
+'Oh! Mary Quince,' I cried, 'do you think she really knew?'
+
+'_Who_, Miss Maud?'
+
+'Do you think Madame knew of those dreadful people? Oh, no--say you
+don't--you don't believe it--tell me she did not. I'm distracted, Mary
+Quince, I'm frightened out of my life.'
+
+'There now, Miss Maud, dear--there now, don't take on so--why should
+she?--no sich a thing. Mrs. Rusk, law bless you, she's no more meaning in
+what she says than the child unborn.'
+
+But I was really frightened. I was in a horrible state of uncertainty as to
+Madame de la Rougierre's complicity with the party who had beset us at the
+warren, and afterwards so murderously beat our poor gamekeeper. How was
+I ever to get rid of that horrible woman? How long was she to enjoy her
+continual opportunities of affrighting and injuring me?
+
+'She hates me--she hates me, Mary Quince; and she will never stop until she
+has done me some dreadful injury. Oh! will no one relieve me--will no one
+take her away? Oh, papa, papa, papa! you will be sorry when it is too
+late.'
+
+I was crying and wringing my hands, and turning from side to side, at my
+wits' ends, and honest Mary Quince in vain endevoured to quiet and comfort
+me.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+_A MIDNIGHT VISITOR_
+
+
+The frightful warnings of Lady Knollys haunted me too. Was there no escape
+from the dreadful companion whom fate had assigned me? I made up my mind
+again and again to speak to my father and urge her removal. In other things
+he indulged me; here, however, he met me drily and sternly, and it was
+plain that he fancied I was under my cousin Monica's influence, and also
+that he had secret reasons for persisting in an opposite course. Just then
+I had a gay, odd letter from Lady Knollys, from some country house in
+Shropshire. Not a word about Captain Oakley. My eye skimmed its pages in
+search of that charmed name. With a peevish feeling I tossed the sheet upon
+the table. Inwardly I thought how ill-natured and unwomanly it was.
+
+After a time, however, I read it, and found the letter very good-natured.
+She had received a note from papa. He had 'had the impudence to forgive
+_her_ for _his_ impertinence.' But for my sake she meant, notwithstanding
+this aggravation, really to pardon him; and whenever she had a disengaged
+week, to accept his invitation to Knowl, from whence she was resolved to
+whisk me off to London, where, though I was too young to be presented at
+Court and come out, I might yet--besides having the best masters and a good
+excuse for getting rid of Medusa--see a great deal that would amuse and
+surprise me.
+
+'Great news, I suppose, from Lady Knollys?' said Madame, who always knew
+who in the house received letters by the post, and by an intuition from
+whom they came.
+
+'Two letters--you and your papa. She is quite well, I hope?'
+
+'Quite well, thank you, Madame.'
+
+Some fishing questions, dropped from time to time, fared no better. And
+as usual, when she was foiled even in a trifle, she became sullen and
+malignant.
+
+That night, when my father and I were alone, he suddenly closed the book he
+had been reading, and said--
+
+'I heard from Monica Knollys to-day. I always liked poor Monnie; and though
+she's no witch, and very wrong-headed at times, yet now and then she does
+say a thing that's worth weighing. Did she ever talk to you of a time,
+Maud, when you are to be your own mistress?'
+
+'No,' I answered, a little puzzled, and looking straight in his rugged,
+kindly face.
+
+'Well, I thought she might--she's a rattle, you know--always _was_ a
+rattle, and that sort of people say whatever comes uppermost. But that's a
+subject for me, and more than once, Maud, it has puzzled me.'
+
+He sighed.
+
+'Come with me to the study, little Maud.'
+
+So, he carrying a candle, we crossed the lobby, and marched together
+through the passage, which at night always seemed a little awesome, darkly
+wainscoted, uncheered by the cross-light from the hall, which was lost at
+the turn, leading us away from the frequented parts of the house to that
+misshapen and lonely room about which the traditions of the nursery and the
+servants' hall had had so many fearful stories to recount.
+
+I think my father had intended making some disclosure to me on reaching
+this room. If so, he changed his mind, or at least postponed his intention.
+
+He had paused before the cabinet, respecting the key of which he had given
+me so strict a charge, and I think he was going to explain himself more
+fully than he had done. But he went on, instead, to the table where his
+desk, always jealously locked, was placed, and having lighted the candles
+which stood by it, he glanced at me, and said--
+
+'You must wait a little, Maud; I shall have something to say to you. Take
+this candle and amuse yourself with a book meanwhile.'
+
+I was accustomed to obey in silence. I chose a volume of engravings,
+and ensconced myself in a favourite nook in which I had often passed a
+half-hour similarly. This was a deep recess by the fireplace, fenced on the
+other side by a great old escritoir. Into this I drew a stool, and, with
+candle and book, I placed myself snugly in the narrow chamber. Every now
+and then I raised my eyes and saw my father either writing or ruminating,
+as it seemed to me, very anxiously at his desk.
+
+Time wore on--a longer time than he had intended, and still he continued
+absorbed at his desk. Gradually I grew sleepy, and as I nodded, the book
+and room faded away, and pleasant little dreams began to gather round me,
+and so I went off into a deep slumber.
+
+It must have lasted long, for when I wakened my candle had burnt out; my
+father, having quite forgotten me, was gone, and the room was dark and
+deserted. I felt cold and a little stiff, and for some seconds did not know
+where I was.
+
+I had been wakened, I suppose, by a sound which I now distinctly heard, to
+my great terror, approaching. There was a rustling; there was a breathing.
+I heard a creaking upon the plank that always creaked when walked upon in
+the passage. I held my breath and listened, and coiled myself up in the
+innermost recess of my little chamber.
+
+Sudden and sharp, a light shone in from the nearly-closed study door. It
+shone angularly on the ceiling like a letter L reversed. There was a pause.
+Then some one knocked softly at the door, which after another pause was
+slowly pushed open. I expected, I think, to see the dreaded figure of
+the linkman. I was scarcely less frightened to see that of Madame de la
+Rougierre. She was dressed in a sort of grey silk, which she called her
+Chinese silk--precisely as she had been in the daytime. In fact, I do not
+think she had undressed. She had no shoes on. Otherwise her toilet was
+deficient in nothing. Her wide mouth was grimly closed, and she stood
+scowling into the room with a searching and pallid scrutiny, the candle
+held high above her head at the full stretch of her arm.
+
+Placed as I was in a deep recess, and in a seat hardly raised above the
+level of the floor, I escaped her, although it seemed to me for some
+seconds, as I gazed on this spectre, that our eyes actually met.
+
+I sat without breathing or winking, staring upon the formidable image which
+with upstretched arm, and the sharp lights and hard shadows thrown upon her
+corrugated features, looked like a sorceress watching for the effect of a
+spell.
+
+She was plainly listening intensely. Unconsciously she had drawn her lower
+lip altogether between her teeth, and I well remember what a deathlike and
+idiotic look the contortion gave her. My terror lest she should discover me
+amounted to positive agony. She rolled her eyes stealthily from corner to
+corner of the room, and listened with her neck awry at the door.
+
+Then to my father's desk she went. To my great relief, her back was towards
+me. She stooped over it, with the candle close by; I saw her try a key--it
+could be nothing else--and I heard her blow through the wards to clear
+them.
+
+Then, again, she listened at the door, candle in hand, and then with long
+tiptoe steps came back, and papa's desk in another moment was open, and
+Madame cautiously turning over the papers it contained.
+
+Twice or thrice she paused, glided to the door, and listened again intently
+with her head near the ground, and then returned and continued her search,
+peeping into papers one after another, tolerably methodically, and reading
+some quite through.
+
+While this felonious business was going on, I was freezing with fear lest
+she should accidentally look round and her eyes light on me; for I could
+not say what she might not do rather than have her crime discovered.
+
+Sometimes she would read a paper twice over; sometimes a whisper no louder
+than the ticking of a watch, sometimes a brief chuckle under her breath,
+bespoke the interest with which here and there a letter or a memorandum was
+read.
+
+For about half an hour, I think, this went on; but at the time it seemed to
+me all but interminable. On a sudden she raised her head and listened for a
+moment, replaced the papers deftly, closed the desk without noise, except
+for the tiny click of the lock, extinguished the candle, and rustled
+stealthily out of the room, leaving in the darkness the malign and hag-like
+face on which the candle had just shone still floating filmy in the dark.
+
+Why did I remain silent and motionless while such an outrage was being
+committed? If, instead of being a very nervous girl, preoccupied with
+an undefinable terror of that wicked woman, I had possessed courage and
+presence of mind, I dare say I might have given an alarm, and escaped from
+the room without the slightest risk. But so it was; I could no more stir
+than the bird who, cowering under its ivy, sees the white owl sailing back
+and forward under its predatory cruise.
+
+Not only during her presence, but for more than an hour after, I remained
+cowering in my hiding-place, and afraid to stir, lest she might either be
+lurking in the neighborhood, or return and surprise me.
+
+You will not be astonished, that after a night so passed I was ill and
+feverish in the morning. To my horror, Madame de la Rougierre came to visit
+me at my bedside. Not a trace of guilty consciousness of what had passed
+during the night was legible in her face. She had no sign of late watching,
+and her toilet was exemplary.
+
+As she sat smiling by me, full of anxious and affectionate enquiry,
+and smoothed the coverlet with her great felonious hand, I could quite
+comprehend the dreadful feeling with which the deceived husband in the
+'Arabian Nights' met his ghoul wife, after his nocturnal discovery.
+
+Ill as I was, I got up and found my father in that room which adjoined his
+bedchamber. He perceived, I am sure, by my looks, that something unusual
+had happened. I shut the door, and came close beside his chair.
+
+'Oh, papa, I have such a thing to tell you!' I forgot to call him 'Sir.' 'A
+secret; and you won't say who told you? Will you come down to the study?'
+
+He looked hard at me, got up, and kissing my forehead, said--'Don't be
+frightened, Maud; I venture to say it is a mare's nest; at all events, my
+child, we will take care that no danger reaches you; come, child.'
+
+And by the hand he led me to the study. When the door was shut, and we had
+reached the far end of the room next the window, I said, but in a low tone,
+and holding his arm fast--
+
+'Oh, sir, you don't know what a dreadful person we have living with
+us--Madame de la Rougierre, I mean. Don't let her in if she comes; she
+would guess what I am telling you, and one way or another I am sure she
+would kill me.'
+
+'Tut, tut, child. You _must_ know that's nonsense,' he said, looking pale
+and stern.
+
+'Oh no, papa. I am horribly frightened, and Lady Knollys thinks so too.'
+
+'Ha! I dare say; one fool makes many. We all know what Monica thinks.'
+
+'But I _saw_ it, papa. She stole your key last night, and opened your desk,
+and read all your papers.'
+
+'Stole my key!' said my father, staring at me perplexed, but at the same
+instant producing it. 'Stole it! Why here it is!'
+
+'She unlocked your desk; she read your papers for ever so long. Open it
+now, and see whether they have not been stirred.'
+
+He looked at me this time in silence, with a puzzled air; but he did unlock
+the desk, and lifted the papers curiously and suspiciously. As he did so
+he uttered a few of those inarticulate interjections which are made with
+closed lips, and not always intelligible; but he made no remark.
+
+Then he placed me on a chair beside him, and sitting down himself, told
+me to recollect myself, and tell him distinctly all I had seen. This
+accordingly I did, he listening with deep attention.
+
+'Did she remove any paper?' asked my father, at the same time making a
+little search, I suppose, for that which he fancied might have been stolen.
+
+'No; I did not see her take anything.'
+
+'Well, you are a good girl, Maud. Act discreetly. Say nothing to
+anyone--not even to your cousin Monica.'
+
+Directions which, coming from another person would have had no great
+weight, were spoken by my father with an earnest look and a weight of
+emphasis that made them irresistibly impressive, and I went away with the
+seal of silence upon my lips.
+
+'Sit down, Maud, _there_. You have not been very happy with Madame de la
+Rougierre. It is time you were relieved. This occurrence decides it.'
+
+He rang the bell.
+
+'Tell Madame de la Rougierre that I request the honour of seeing her for a
+few minutes here.'
+
+My father's communications to her were always equally ceremonious. In a
+few minutes there was a knock at the door, and the same figure, smiling,
+courtesying, that had scared me on the threshold last night, like the
+spirit of evil, presented itself.
+
+My father rose, and Madame having at his request taken a chair opposite,
+looking, as usual in his presence, all amiability, he proceeded at once to
+the point.
+
+'Madame de la Rougierre, I have to request you that you will give me the
+key now in your possession, which unlocks this desk of mine.'
+
+With which termination he tapped his gold pencil-case suddenly on it.
+
+Madame, who had expected something very different, became instantly so
+pale, with a dull purplish hue upon her forehead, that, especially when she
+had twice essayed with her white lips, in vain, to answer, I expected to
+see her fall in a fit.
+
+She was not looking in his face; her eyes were fixed lower, and her mouth
+and cheek sucked in, with a strange distortion at one side.
+
+She stood up suddenly, and staring straight in his face, she succeeded in
+saying, after twice clearing her throat--
+
+'I cannot comprehend, Monsieur Ruthyn, unless you intend to insult me.'
+
+'It won't do, Madame; I must have that false key. I give you the
+opportunity of surrendering it quietly here and now.'
+
+'But who dares to say I possess such thing?' demanded Madame, who, having
+rallied from her momentary paralysis, was now fierce and voluble as I had
+often seen her before.
+
+'You know, Madame, that you can rely on what I say, and I tell you that you
+were seen last night visiting this room, and with a key in your possession,
+opening this desk, and reading my letters and papers contained in it.
+Unless you forthwith give me that key, and any other false keys in your
+possession--in which case I shall rest content with dismissing you
+summarily--I will take a different course. You know I am a magistrate;--and
+I shall have you, your boxes, and places up-stairs, searched forthwith,
+and I will prosecute you criminally. The thing is clear; you aggravate by
+denying; you must give me that key, if you please, instantly, otherwise I
+ring this bell, and you shall see that I mean what I say.'
+
+There was a little pause. He rose and extended his hand towards the
+bell-rope. Madame glided round the table, extended her hand to arrest his.
+
+'I will do everything, Monsieur Ruthyn--whatever you wish.'
+
+And with these words Madame de la Rougierre broke down altogether. She
+sobbed, she wept, she gabbled piteously, all manner of incomprehensible
+roulades of lamentation and entreaty; coyly, penitently, in a most
+interesting agitation, she produced the very key from her breast, with a
+string tied to it. My father was little moved by this piteous tempest. He
+coolly took the key and tried it in the desk, which it locked and unlocked
+quite freely, though the wards were complicated. He shook his head and
+looked her in the face.
+
+'Pray, who made this key? It is a new one, and made expressly to pick this
+lock.'
+
+But Madame was not going to tell any more than she had expressly bargained
+for; so she only fell once more into her old paroxysm of sorrow,
+self-reproach, extenuation, and entreaty.
+
+'Well,' said my father,' I promised that on surrendering the key you should
+go. It is enough. I keep my word. You shall have an hour and a half to
+prepare in. You must then be ready to depart. I will send your money to you
+by Mrs. Rusk; and if you look for another situation, you had better not
+refer to me. Now be so good as to leave me.'
+
+Madame seemed to be in a strange perplexity. She bridled up, dried her eyes
+fiercely, and dropped a great courtesy, and then sailed away towards the
+door. Before reaching it she stopped on the way, turning half round, with
+a peaked, pallid glance at my father, and she bit her lip viciously as she
+eyed him. At the door the same repulsive pantomime was repeated, as she
+stood for a moment with her hand upon the handle. But she changed her
+bearing again with a sniff, and with a look of scorn, almost heightened to
+a sneer, she made another very low courtesy and a disdainful toss of her
+head, and so disappeared, shutting the door rather sharply behind her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+_AU REVOIR_
+
+
+Mrs. Rusk was fond of assuring me that Madame 'did not like a bone in my
+skin.' Instinctively I knew that she bore me no good-will, although I
+really believe it was her wish to make me think quite the reverse. At all
+events I had no desire to see Madame again before her departure, especially
+as she had thrown upon me one momentary glance in the study, which seemed
+to me charged with very peculiar feelings.
+
+You may be very sure, therefore, that I had no desire for a formal
+leave-taking at her departure. I took my hat and cloak, therefore, and
+stole out quietly.
+
+My ramble was a sequestered one, and well screened, even at this late
+season, with foliage; the pathway devious among the stems of old trees, and
+its flooring interlaced and groined with their knotted roots. Though near
+the house, it was a sylvan solitude; a little brook ran darkling and
+glimmering through it, wild strawberries and other woodland plants strewed
+the ground, and the sweet notes and flutter of small birds made the shadow
+of the boughs cheery.
+
+I had been fully an hour in this picturesque solitude when I heard in the
+distance the ring of carriage-wheels, announcing to me that Madame de la
+Rougierre had fairly set out upon her travels. I thanked heaven; I could
+have danced and sung with delight; I heaved a great sigh and looked up
+through the branches to the clear blue sky.
+
+But things are oddly timed. Just at this moment I heard Madame's voice
+close at my ear, and her large bony hand was laid on my shoulder. We were
+instantly face to face--I recoiling, and for a moment speechless with
+fright.
+
+In very early youth we do not appreciate the restraints which act upon
+malignity, or know how effectually fear protects us where conscience is
+wanting. Quite alone, in this solitary spot, detected and overtaken with an
+awful instinct by my enemy, what might not be about to happen to me at that
+moment?
+
+'Frightened as usual, Maud,' she said quietly, and eyeing me with a
+sinister smile, 'and with cause you think, no doubt. Wat 'av you done to
+injure poor Madame? Well, I think I know, little girl, and have quite
+discover the cleverness of my sweet little Maud. Eh--is not so? Petite
+carogne--ah, ha, ha!'
+
+I was too much confounded to answer.
+
+'You see, my dear cheaile,' she said, shaking her uplifted finger with a
+hideous archness at me, 'you could not hide what you 'av done from poor
+Madame. You cannot look so innocent but I can see your pretty little
+villany quite plain--you dear little diablesse.
+
+'Wat I 'av done I 'av no reproach of myself for it. If I could explain,
+your papa would say I 'av done right, and you should thank me on your
+knees; but I cannot explain yet.'
+
+She was speaking, as it were, in little paragraphs, with a momentary pause
+between each, to allow its meaning to impress itself.
+
+'If I were to choose to explain, your papa he would implore me to remain.
+But no--I would not--notwithstanding your so cheerful house, your charming
+servants, your papa's amusing society, and your affectionate and sincere
+heart, my sweet little maraude.
+
+'I am to go to London first, where I 'av, oh, so good friends! next I will
+go abroad for some time; but be sure, my sweetest Maud, wherever I may
+'appen to be, I will remember you--ah, ha! Yes; _most certainly_, I will
+remember you.
+
+'And although I shall not be always near, yet I shall know everything
+about my charming little Maud; you will not know how, but I shall indeed,
+_everything_. And be sure, my dearest cheaile, I will some time be able to
+give you the sensible proofs of my gratitude and affection--you understand.
+
+'The carriage is waiting at the yew-tree stile, and I must go on. You did
+not expect to see me--here; I will appear, perhaps, as suddenly another
+time. It is great pleasure to us both--this opportunity to make our adieux.
+Farewell! my dearest little Maud. I will never cease to think of you, and
+of some way to recompense the kindness you 'av shown for poor Madame.'
+
+My hand hung by my side, and she took, not it, but my thumb, and shook
+it, folded in her broad palm, and looking on me as she held it, as if
+meditating mischief. Then suddenly she said--
+
+'You will always remember Madame, I _think_, and I will remind you of me
+beside; and for the present farewell, and I hope you may be as 'appy as you
+deserve.'
+
+The large sinister face looked on me for a second with its latent sneer,
+and then, with a sharp nod and a spasmodic shake of my imprisoned thumb,
+she turned, and holding her dress together, and showing her great bony
+ankles, she strode rapidly away over the gnarled roots into the perspective
+of the trees, and I did not awake, as it were, until she had quite
+disappeared in the distance.
+
+Events of this kind made no difference with my father; but every other face
+in Knowl was gladdened by the removal. My energies had returned, my spirits
+were come again. The sunlight was happy, the flowers innocent, the songs
+and flutter of the birds once more gay, and all nature delightful and
+rejoicing.
+
+After the first elation of relief, now and then a filmy shadow of Madame de
+la Rougierre would glide across the sunlight, and the remembrance of her
+menace return with an unexpected pang of fear.
+
+'Well, if _there_ isn't impittens!' cried Mrs. Rusk. 'But never you trouble
+your head about it, Miss. Them sort's all alike--you never saw a rogue yet
+that was found out and didn't threaten the honest folk as he was leaving
+behind with all sorts; there was Martin the gamekeeper, and Jervis the
+footman, I mind well how hard they swore all they would not do when they
+was a-going, and who ever heard of them since? They always threatens that
+way--them sort always does, and none ever the worse--not but she would if
+she could, mind ye, but there it is; she can't do nothing but bite her
+nails and cuss us--not she--ha, ha, ha!'
+
+So I was comforted. But Madame's evil smile, nevertheless, from time to
+time, would sail across my vision with a silent menace, and my spirits
+sank, and a Fate, draped in black, whose face I could not see, took me by
+the hand, and led me away, in the spirit, silently, on an awful exploration
+from which I would rouse myself with a start, and Madame was gone for a
+while.
+
+She had, however, judged her little parting well. She contrived to leave
+her glamour over me, and in my dreams she troubled me.
+
+I was, however, indescribably relieved. I wrote in high spirits to Cousin
+Monica; and wondered what plans my father might have formed about me, and
+whether we were to stay at home, or go to London, or go abroad. Of the
+last--the pleasantest arrangement, in some respects--I had nevertheless an
+occult horror. A secret conviction haunted me that were we to go abroad, we
+should there meet Madame, which to me was like meeting my evil genius.
+
+I have said more than once that my father was an odd man; and the reader
+will, by this time, have seen that there was much about him not easily
+understood. I often wonder whether, if he had been franker, I should have
+found him less odd than I supposed, or more odd still. Things that moved me
+profoundly did not apparently affect him at all. The departure of Madame,
+under the circumstances which attended it, appeared to my childish mind an
+event of the vastest importance. No one was indifferent to the occurrence
+in the house but its master. He never alluded again to Madame de la
+Rougierre. But whether connected with her exposure and dismissal, I could
+not say, there did appear to be some new care or trouble now at work in my
+father's mind.
+
+'I have been thinking a great deal about you, Maud. I am anxious. I have
+not been so troubled for years. Why has not Monica Knollys a little more
+sense?'
+
+This oracular sentence he spoke, having stopped me in the hall; and then
+saying, 'We shall see,' he left me as abruptly as he appeared.
+
+Did he apprehend any danger to me from the vindictiveness of Madame?
+
+A day or two afterwards, as I was in the Dutch garden, I saw him on the
+terrace steps. He beckoned to me, and came to meet me as I approached.
+
+'You must be very solitary, little Maud; it is not good. I have written to
+Monica: in a matter of detail she is competent to advise; perhaps she will
+come here for a short visit.'
+
+I was very glad to hear this.
+
+'_You_ are more interested than for my time _I_ can be, in vindicating his
+character.'
+
+'Whose character, sir?' I ventured to enquire during the pause that
+followed.
+
+One trick which my father had acquired from his habits of solitude and
+silence was this of assuming that the context of his thoughts was legible
+to others, forgetting that they had not been spoken.
+
+'Whose?--your uncle Silas's. In the course of nature he must survive me. He
+will then represent the family name. Would you make some sacrifice to clear
+that name, Maud?'
+
+I answered briefly; but my face, I believe, showed my enthusiasm.
+
+He turned on me such an approving smile as you might fancy lighting up the
+rugged features of a pale old Rembrandt.
+
+'I can tell you, Maud; if my life could have done it, it should not have
+been undone--_ubi lapsus, quid feci_. But I had almost made up my mind to
+change my plan, and leave all to time--_edax rerum_--to illuminate or
+to _consume_. But I think little Maud would like to contribute to the
+restitution of her family name. It may cost you something--are you willing
+to buy it at a sacrifice? Is there--I don't speak of fortune, that is not
+involved--but is there any other honourable sacrifice you would shrink from
+to dispel the disgrace under which our most ancient and honourable name
+must otherwise continue to languish?'
+
+'Oh, none--none indeed, sir--I am delighted!'
+
+Again I saw the Rembrandt smile.
+
+'Well, Maud, I am sure there is _no_ risk; but you are to suppose there is.
+Are you still willing to accept it?'
+
+Again I assented.
+
+'You are worthy of your blood, Maud Ruthyn. It will come soon, and it won't
+last long. But you must not let people like Monica Knollys frighten you.'
+
+I was lost in wonder.
+
+'If you allow them to possess you with their follies, you had better recede
+in time--they may make the ordeal as terrible as hell itself. You have
+zeal--have you nerve?' I thought in such a cause I had nerve for anything.
+
+'Well, Maud, in the course of a few months--and it may be sooner--there
+must be a change. I have had a letter from London this morning that assures
+me of that. I must then leave you for a time; in my absence be faithful to
+the duties that will arise. To whom much is committed, of him will much be
+required. You shall promise me not to mention this conversation to Monica
+Knollys. If you are a talking girl, and cannot trust yourself, say so, and
+we will not ask her to come. Also, don't invite her to talk about your
+uncle Silas--I have reasons. Do you quite understand my conditions?'
+
+'Yes, sir.'
+
+'Your uncle Silas,' he said, speaking suddenly in loud and fierce tones
+that sounded from so old a man almost terrible, 'lies under an intolerable
+slander. I don't correspond with him; I don't sympathise with him; I never
+quite did. He has grown religious, and that's well; but there are things in
+which even religion should not bring a man to acquiesce; and from what
+I can learn, he, the person primarily affected--the cause, though the
+innocent cause--of this great calamity--bears it with an easy apathy which
+is mistaken, and liable easily to be mistaken, and such as no Ruthyn, under
+the circumstances, ought to exhibit. I told him what he ought to do, and
+offered to open my purse for the purpose; but he would not, or _did_ not;
+indeed, he _never_ took my advice; he followed his own, and a foul and
+dismal shoal he has drifted on. It is not for his sake--why should I?-that
+I have longed and laboured to remove the disgraceful slur under which
+his ill-fortune has thrown us. He troubles himself little about it, I
+believe--he's meek, meeker than I. He cares less about his children than I
+about you, Maud; he is selfishly sunk in futurity--a feeble visionary. I am
+not so. I believe it to be a duty to take care of others beside myself. The
+character and influence of an ancient family is a peculiar heritage--sacred
+but destructible; and woe to him who either destroys or suffers it to
+perish!'
+
+This was the longest speech I ever heard my father speak before or after.
+He abruptly resumed--
+
+'Yes, we will, Maud--you and I--we'll leave one proof on record, which,
+fairly read, will go far to convince the world.'
+
+He looked round, but we were alone. The garden was nearly always solitary,
+and few visitors ever approached the house from that side.
+
+'I have talked too long, I believe; we are children to the last. Leave me,
+Maud. I think I know you better than I did, and I am pleased with you. Go,
+child--I'll sit here.'
+
+If he had acquired new ideas of me, so had I of him from that interview. I
+had no idea till then how much passion still burned in that aged frame, nor
+how full of energy and fire that face, generally so stern and ashen, could
+appear. As I left him seated on the rustic chair, by the steps, the traces
+of that storm were still discernible on his features. His gathered brows,
+glowing eyes, and strangely hectic face, and the grim compression of his
+mouth, still showed the agitation which, somehow, in grey old age, shocks
+and alarms the young.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+_AUSTIN RUTHYN SETS OUT ON HIS JOURNEY_
+
+
+The Rev. William Fairfield, Doctor Clay's somewhat bald curate, a mild,
+thin man, with a high and thin nose, who was preparing me for confirmation,
+came next day; and when our catechetical conference was ended, and before
+lunch was announced, my father sent for him to the study, where he remained
+until the bell rang out its summons.
+
+'We have had some interesting--I may say _very_ interesting--conversation,
+your papa and I, Miss Ruthyn,' said my reverend _vis-a-vis_, so soon as
+nature was refreshed, smiling and shining, as he leaned back in his chair,
+his hand upon the table, and his finger curled gently upon the stem of his
+wine-glass. 'It never was your privilege, I believe, to see your uncle, Mr.
+Silas Ruthyn, of Bartram-Haugh?'
+
+'No--never; he leads so retired--so _very_ retired a life.'
+
+'Oh, no,--of course, no; but I was going to remark a likeness--I mean,
+of course, a _family_ likeness--only _that_ sort of thing--you
+understand--between him and the profile of Lady Margaret in the
+drawing-room--is not it Lady Margaret?--which you were so good as to show
+me on Wednesday last. There certainly _is_ a likeness. I _think_ you would
+agree with me, if you had the pleasure of seeing your uncle.'
+
+'You know him, then? I have never seen him.'
+
+'Oh dear, yes--I am happy to say, I know him very well. I have that
+privilege. I was for three years curate of Feltram, and I had the honour of
+being a pretty constant visitor at Bartram-Haugh during that, I may say,
+protracted period; and I think it really never has been my privilege and
+happiness, I may say, to enjoy the acquaintance and society of so very
+experienced a Christian, as my admirable friend, I may call him, Mr.
+Ruthyn, of Bartram-Haugh. I look upon him, I do assure you, quite in the
+light of a saint; not, of course, in the Popish sense, but in the very
+highest, you will understand me, which _our_ Church allows,--a man built up
+in faith--full of faith--faith and grace--altogether exemplary; and I
+often ventured to regret, Miss Ruthyn, that Providence in its mysterious
+dispensations should have placed him so far apart from his brother, your
+respected father. His influence and opportunities would, no doubt, we may
+venture to hope, at least have been blessed; and, perhaps, we--my valued
+rector and I--might possibly have seen more of him at church, than, I
+deeply regret, we _have_ done.' He shook his head a little, as he smiled
+with a sad complacency on me through his blue steel spectacles, and then
+sipped a little meditative sherry.
+
+'And you saw a good deal of my uncle?'
+
+'Well, a _good_ deal, Miss Ruthyn--I may say a _good_ deal--principally at
+his own house. His health is wretched--miserable health--a sadly afflicted
+man he has been, as, no doubt, you are aware. But afflictions, my dear Miss
+Ruthyn, as you remember Doctor Clay so well remarked on Sunday last, though
+birds of ill omen, yet spiritually resemble the ravens who supplied the
+prophet; and when they visit the faithful, come charged with nourishment
+for the soul.
+
+'He is a good deal embarrassed pecuniarily, I should say,' continued the
+curate, who was rather a good man than a very well-bred one. 'He found a
+difficulty--in fact it was not in his power--to subscribe generally to our
+little funds, and--and objects, and I used to say to him, and I really felt
+it, that it was more gratifying, such were his feeling and his power of
+expression, to be refused by him than assisted by others.'
+
+'Did papa wish you to speak to me about my uncle?' I enquired, as a sudden
+thought struck me; and then I felt half ashamed of my question.
+
+He looked surprised.
+
+'No, Miss Ruthyn, certainly not. Oh dear, no. It was merely a conversation
+between Mr. Ruthyn and me. He never suggested my opening that, or indeed
+any other point in my interview with you, Miss Ruthyn--not the least.'
+
+'I was not aware before that Uncle Silas was so religious.'
+
+He smiled tranquilly, not quite up to the ceiling, but gently upward, and
+shook his head in pity for my previous ignorance, as he lowered his eyes--
+
+'I don't say that there may not be some little matters in a few points of
+doctrine which we could, perhaps, wish otherwise. But these, you know,
+are speculative, and in all essentials he is Church--not in the perverted
+modern sense; far from it--unexceptionably Church, strictly so. Would there
+were more among us of the same mind that is in him! Ay, Miss Ruthyn, even
+in the highest places of the Church herself.'
+
+The Rev. William Fairfield, while fighting against the Dissenters with his
+right hand, was, with his left, hotly engaged with the Tractarians. A good
+man I am sure he was, and I dare say sound in doctrine, though naturally, I
+think, not very wise. This conversation with him gave me new ideas about my
+uncle Silas. It quite agreed with what my father had said. These principles
+and his increasing years would necessarily quiet the turbulence of his
+resistance to injustice, and teach him to acquiesce in his fate.
+
+You would have fancied that one so young as I, born to wealth so vast, and
+living a life of such entire seclusion, would have been exempt from care.
+But you have seen how troubled my life was with fear and anxiety during the
+residence of Madame de la Rougierre, and now there rested upon my mind a
+vague and awful anticipation of the trial which my father had announced,
+without defining it.
+
+An 'ordeal' he called it, requiring not only zeal but nerve, which might
+possibly, were my courage to fail, become frightful, and even intolerable.
+What, and of what nature, could it be? Not designed to vindicate the fair
+fame of the meek and submissive old man--who, it seemed, had ceased to care
+for his bygone wrongs, and was looking to futurity--but the reputation of
+our ancient family.
+
+Sometimes I repented my temerity in having undertaken it. I distrusted my
+courage. Had I not better retreat, while it was yet time? But there was
+shame and even difficulty in the thought. How should I appear before my
+father? Was it not important--had I not deliberately undertaken it--and was
+I not bound in conscience? Perhaps he had already taken steps in the matter
+which committed _him_. Besides, was I sure that, even were I free again, I
+would not once more devote myself to the trial, be it what it might?
+You perceive I had more spirit than courage. I think I had the mental
+attributes of courage; but then I was but a hysterical girl, and in so far
+neither more nor less than a coward.
+
+No wonder I distrusted myself; no wonder also my will stood out against
+my timidity. It was a struggle, then; a proud, wild resolve against
+constitutional cowardice.
+
+Those who have ever had cast upon them more than their strength
+seemed framed to bear--the weak, the aspiring, the adventurous and
+self-sacrificing in will, and the faltering in nerve--will understand the
+kind of agony which I sometimes endured.
+
+But, again, consolation would come, and it seemed to me that I must be
+exaggerating my risk in the coming crisis; and certain at least, if my
+father believed it attended with real peril, he would never have wished
+to see me involved in it. But the silence under which I was bound was
+terrifying--double so when the danger was so shapeless and undivulged.
+
+I was soon to understand it all--soon, too, to know all about my father's
+impending journey, whither, with what visitor, and why guarded from me with
+so awful a mystery.
+
+That day there came a lively and goodnatured letter from Lady Knollys. She
+was to arrive at Knowl in two or three days' time. I thought my father
+would have been pleased, but he seemed apathetic and dejected.
+
+'One does not always feel quite equal to Monica. But for you--yes, thank
+God. I wish she could only stay, Maud, for a month or two; I may be going
+then, and would be glad--provided she talks about suitable things--very
+glad, Maud, to leave her with you for a week or so.'
+
+There was something, I thought, agitating my father secretly that day. He
+had the strange hectic flush I had observed when he grew excited in our
+interview in the garden about Uncle Silas. There was something painful,
+perhaps even terrible, in the circumstances of the journey he was about
+to make, and from my heart I wished the suspense were over, the annoyance
+past, and he returned.
+
+That night my father bid me good-night early and went upstairs. After I
+had been in bed some little time, I heard his hand-bell ring. This was not
+usual. Shortly after I heard his man, Ridley, talking with Mrs. Rusk in
+the gallery. I could not be mistaken in their voices. I knew not why I was
+startled and excited, and had raised myself to listen on my elbow. But they
+were talking quietly, like persons giving or taking an ordinary direction,
+and not in the haste of an unusual emergency.
+
+Then I heard the man bid Mrs. Rusk good-night and walk down the gallery
+to the stairs, so that I concluded he was wanted no more, and all must
+therefore be well. So I laid myself down again, though with a throbbing at
+my heart, and an ominous feeling of expectation, listening and fancying
+footsteps.
+
+I was going to sleep when I heard the bell ring again; and, in a few
+minutes, Mrs. Rusk's energetic step passed along the gallery; and,
+listening intently, I heard, or fancied, my father's voice and hers in
+dialogue. All this was very unusual, and again I was, with a beating heart,
+leaning with my elbow on my pillow.
+
+Mrs. Rusk came along the gallery in a minute or so after, and stopping at
+my door, began to open it gently. I was startled, and challenged my visitor
+with--
+
+'Who's there?'
+
+'It's only Rusk, Miss. Dearie me! and are you awake still?'
+
+'Is papa ill?'
+
+'Ill! not a bit ill, thank God. Only there's a little black book as I took
+for your prayer-book, and brought in here; ay, here it is, sure enough, and
+he wants it. And then I must go down to the study, and look out this one,
+"C, 15;" but I can't read the name, noways; and I was afraid to ask him
+again; if you be so kind to read it, Miss--I suspeck my eyes is a-going.'
+
+I read the name; and Mrs. Rusk was tolerably expert at finding out books,
+as she had often been employed in that way before. So she departed.
+
+I suppose that this particular volume was hard to find, for she must have
+been a long time away, and I had actually fallen into a doze when I was
+roused in an instant by a dreadful crash and a piercing scream from Mrs.
+Rusk. Scream followed scream, wilder and more terror-stricken. I shrieked
+to Mary Quince, who was sleeping in the room with me:--'Mary, do you hear?
+what is it? It is something dreadful.'
+
+The crash was so tremendous that the solid flooring even of my room
+trembled under it, and to me it seemed as if some heavy man had burst
+through the top of the window, and shook the whole house with his descent.
+I found myself standing at my own door, crying, 'Help, help! murder!
+murder!' and Mary Quince, frightened half out of her wits, by my side.
+
+I could not think what was going on. It was plainly something most
+horrible, for Mrs. Rusk's screams pealed one after the other unabated,
+though with a muffled sound, as if the door was shut upon her; and by this
+time the bells of my father's room were ringing madly.
+
+'They are trying to murder him!' I cried, and I ran along the gallery to
+his door, followed by Mary Quince, whose white face I shall never forget,
+though her entreaties only sounded like unmeaning noises in my ears.
+
+'Here! help, help, help!' I cried, trying to force open the door.
+
+'Shove it, shove it, for God's sake! he's across it,' cried Mrs. Rusk's
+voice from within; 'drive it in. I can't move him.'
+
+I strained all I could at the door, but ineffectually. We heard steps
+approaching. The men were running to the spot, and shouting as they did
+so--
+
+'Never mind; hold on a bit; here we are; all right;' and the like.
+
+We drew back, as they came up. We were in no condition to be seen. We
+listened, however, at my open door.
+
+Then came the straining and bumping at the door. Mrs. Rusk's voice subsided
+to a sort of wailing; the men were talking all together, and I suppose the
+door opened, for I heard some of the voices, on a sudden, as if in the
+room; and then came a strange lull, and talking in very low tones, and not
+much even of that.
+
+'What is it, Mary? what _can_ it be?' I ejaculated, not knowing what horror
+to suppose. And now, with a counterpane about my shoulders, I called loudly
+and imploringly, in my horror, to know what had happened.
+
+But I heard only the subdued and eager talk of men engaged in some
+absorbing task, and the dull sounds of some heavy body being moved.
+
+Mrs. Rusk came towards us looking half wild, and pale as a spectre, and
+putting her thin hands to my shoulders, she said--'Now, Miss Maud, darling,
+you must go back again; 'tisn't no place for you; you'll see all, my
+darling, time enough--you will. There now, there, like a dear, do get into
+your room.'
+
+What was that dreadful sound? Who had entered my father's chamber? It was
+the visitor whom we had so long expected, with whom he was to make the
+unknown journey, leaving me alone. The intruder was Death!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+_ARRIVALS_
+
+
+My father was dead--as suddenly as if he had been murdered. One of those
+fearful aneurisms that lie close to the heart, showing no outward sign of
+giving way in a moment, had been detected a good time since by Dr. Bryerly.
+My father knew what must happen, and that it could not be long deferred.
+He feared to tell me that he was soon to die. He hinted it only in the
+allegory of his journey, and left in that sad enigma some words of true
+consolation that remained with me ever after. Under his rugged ways was
+hidden a wonderful tenderness. I could not believe that he was actually
+dead. Most people for a minute or two, in the wild tumult of such a shock,
+have experienced the same skepticism. I insisted that the doctor should be
+instantly sent for from the village.
+
+'Well, Miss Maud, dear, I _will_ send to please you, but it is all to no
+use. If only you saw him yourself you'd know that. Mary Quince, run you
+down and tell Thomas, Miss Maud desires he'll go down this minute to the
+village for Dr. Elweys.'
+
+Every minute of the interval seemed to me like an hour. I don't know what
+I said, but I fancied that if he were not already dead, he would lose his
+life by the delay. I suppose I was speaking very wildly, for Mrs. Rusk
+said--
+
+'My dear child, you ought to come in and see him; indeed but you should,
+Miss Maud. He's quite dead an hour ago. You'd wonder all the blood that's
+come from him--you would indeed; it's soaked through the bed already.'
+
+'Oh, don't, don't, _don't_, Mrs. Rusk.'
+
+'Will you come in and see him, just?
+
+'Oh, no, no, no, no!'
+
+'Well, then, my dear, don't of course, if you don't like; there's no need.
+Would not you like to lie down, Miss Maud? Mary Quince, attend to her. I
+must go into the room for a minute or two.'
+
+I was walking up and down the room in distraction. It was a cool night; but
+I did not feel it. I could only cry:--'Oh, Mary, Mary! what shall I do? Oh,
+Mary Quince! what shall I do?'
+
+It seemed to me it must be near daylight by the time the Doctor arrived. I
+had dressed myself. I dared not go into the room where my beloved father
+lay.
+
+I had gone out of my room to the gallery, where I awaited Dr. Elweys, when
+I saw him walking briskly after the servant, his coat buttoned up to his
+chin, his hat in his hand, and his bald head shining. I felt myself grow
+cold as ice, and colder and colder, and with a sudden sten my heart seemed
+to stand still.
+
+I heard him ask the maid who stood at the door, in that low, decisive,
+mysterious tone which doctors cultivate--
+
+'In _here_?'
+
+And then, with a nod, I saw him enter.
+
+'Would not you like to see the Doctor, Miss Maud?' asked Mary Quince.
+
+The question roused me a little.
+
+'Thank you, Mary; yes, I must see him.'
+
+And so, in a few minutes, I did. He was very respectful, very sad,
+semi-undertakerlike, in air and countenance, but quite explicit. I heard
+that my dear father 'had died palpably from the rupture of some great
+vessel near the heart.' The disease had, no doubt, been 'long established,
+and is in its nature incurable.' It is 'consolatory in these cases that in
+the act of dissolution, which is instantaneous, there can be no suffering.'
+These, and a few more remarks, were all he had to offer; and having had his
+fee from Mrs. Rusk, he, with a respectful melancholy, vanished.
+
+I returned to my room, and broke into paroxysms of grief, and after an hour
+or more grew more tranquil.
+
+From Mrs. Rusk I learned that he had seemed very well--better than usual,
+indeed--that night, and that on her return from the study with the book
+he required, he was noting down, after his wont, some passages which
+illustrated the text on which he was employing himself. He took the book,
+detaining her in the room, and then mounting on a chair to take down
+another book from a shelf, he had fallen, with the dreadful crash I had
+heard, dead upon the floor. He fell across the door, which caused the
+difficulty in opening it. Mrs. Rusk found she had not strength to force it
+open. No wonder she had given way to terror. I think I should have almost
+lost my reason.
+
+Everyone knows the reserved aspect and the taciturn mood of the house, one
+of whose rooms is tenanted by that mysterious guest.
+
+I do not know how those awful days, and more awful nights, passed over. The
+remembrance is repulsive. I hate to think of them. I was soon draped in the
+conventional black, with its heavy folds of crape. Lady Knollys came, and
+was very kind. She undertook the direction of all those details which were
+to me so inexpressibly dreadful. She wrote letters for me beside, and was
+really most kind and useful, and her society supported me indescribably.
+She was odd, but her eccentricity was leavened with strong common sense;
+and I have often thought since with admiration and gratitude of the tact
+with which she managed my grief.
+
+There is no dealing with great sorrow as if it were under the control of
+our wills. It is a terrible phenomenon, whose laws we must study, and to
+whose conditions we must submit, if we would mitigate it. Cousin Monica
+talked a great deal of my father. This was easy to her, for her early
+recollections were full of him.
+
+One of the terrible dislocations of our habits of mind respecting the dead
+is that our earthly future is robbed of them, and we thrown exclusively
+upon retrospect. From the long look forward they are removed, and every
+plan, imagination, and hope henceforth a silent and empty perspective. But
+in the past they are all they ever were. Now let me advise all who would
+comfort people in a new bereavement to talk to them, very freely, all they
+can, in this way of the dead. They will engage in it with interest, they
+will talk of their own recollections of the dead, and listen to yours,
+though they become sometimes pleasant, sometimes even laughable. I found it
+so. It robbed the calamity of something of its supernatural and horrible
+abruptness; it prevented that monotony of object which is to the mind what
+it is to the eye, and prepared the faculty for those mesmeric illusions
+that derange its sense.
+
+Cousin Monica, I am sure, cheered me wonderfully. I grow to love her more
+and more, as I think of all her trouble, care, and kindness.
+
+I had not forgotten my promise to dear papa about the key, concerning which
+he had evinced so great an anxiety. It was found in the pocket where he had
+desired me to remember he always kept it, except when it was placed, while
+he slept, under his pillow.
+
+'And so, my dear, that wicked woman was actually found picking the lock of
+your poor papa's desk. I _wonder_ he did not punish her--you know that is
+_burglary_.'
+
+'Well, Lady Knollys, you know she is gone, and so I care no more about
+her--that is, I mean, I need not fear her.'
+
+'No, my dear, but you must call me Monica--do you mind--I'm your cousin,
+and you call me Monica, unless you wish to vex me. No, of course, you need
+not be afraid of her. And she's gone. But I'm an old thing, you know, and
+not so tender-hearted as you; and I confess I should have been very glad to
+hear that the wicked old witch had been sent to prison and hard labour--I
+should. And what do you suppose she was looking for--what did she want to
+steal? I think I can guess--what do _you_ think?'
+
+'To read the papers; maybe to take bank-notes--I'm not sure,' I answered.
+
+'Well, I think most likely she wanted to get at your poor papa's
+_will_--that's _my_ idea.
+
+'There is nothing surprising in the supposition, dear,' she resumed. 'Did
+not you read the curious trial at York, the other day? There is nothing
+so valuable to steal as a will, when a great deal of property is to be
+disposed of by it. Why, you would have given her ever so much money to get
+it back again. Suppose you go down, dear--I'll go with you, and open the
+cabinet in the study.'
+
+'I don't think I can, for I promised to give the key to Dr. Bryerly, and
+the meaning was that _he_ only should open it.'
+
+Cousin Monica uttered an inarticulate 'H'm!' of surprise or disapprobation.
+
+'Has he been written to?'
+
+'No, I do not know his address.'
+
+'Not know his address! come, that is curious,' said Knollys, a little
+testily.
+
+I could not--no one now living in the house could furnish even a
+conjecture. There was even a dispute as to which train he had gone
+by--north or south--they crossed the station at an interval of five
+minutes. If Dr. Bryerly had been an evil spirit, evoked by a secret
+incantation, there could not have been more complete darkness as to the
+immediate process of his approach.
+
+'And how long do you mean to wait, my dear? No matter; at all events you
+may open the _desk_; you may find papers to direct you--you may find Dr.
+Bryerly's address--you may find, heaven knows what.'
+
+So down we went--I assenting--and we opened the desk. How dreadful the
+desecration seems--all privacy abrogated--the shocking compensation for the
+silence of death!
+
+Henceforward all is circumstantial evidence--all conjectural--except the
+_litera scripta_, and to this evidence every note-book, and every scrap of
+paper and private letter, must contribute--ransacked, bare in the light of
+day--what it can.
+
+At the top of the desk lay two notes sealed, one to Cousin Monica, the
+other to me. Mine was a gentle and loving little farewell--nothing
+more--which opened afresh the fountains of my sorrow, and I cried and
+sobbed over it bitterly and long. The other was for 'Lady Knollys.' I did
+not see how she received it, for I was already absorbed in mine. But in
+awhile she came and kissed me in her girlish, goodnatured way. Her eyes
+used to fill with tears at sight of my paroxysms of grief. Then she would
+begin, 'I remember it was a saying of his,' and so she would repeat
+it--something maybe wise, maybe playful, at all events consolatory--and the
+circumstances in which she had heard him say it, and then would follow the
+recollections suggested by these; and so I was stolen away half by him, and
+half by Cousin Monica, from my despair and lamentation.
+
+Along with these lay a large envelope, inscribed with the words 'Directions
+to be complied with immediately on my death.' One of which was, 'Let the
+event be _forthwith_ published in the _county_ and principal _London_
+papers.' This step had been already taken. We found no record of Dr.
+Bryerly's address.
+
+We made search everywhere, except in the cabinet, which I would on no
+account permit to be opened except, according to his direction, by Dr.
+Bryerly's hand. But nowhere was a will, or any document resembling one, to
+be found. I had now, therefore, no doubt that his will was placed in the
+cabinet.
+
+In the search among my dear father's papers we found two sheafs of letters,
+neatly tied up and labelled--these were from my uncle Silas.
+
+My cousin Monica looked down upon these papers with a strange smile; was it
+satire--was it that indescribable smile with which a mystery which covers a
+long reach of years is sometimes approached?
+
+These were odd letters. If here and there occurred passages that were
+querulous and even abject, there were also long passages of manly and
+altogether noble sentiment, and the strangest rodomontade and maunderings
+about religion. Here and there a letter would gradually transform itself
+into a prayer, and end with a doxology and no signature; and some of them
+expressed such wild and disordered views respecting religion, as I imagine
+he can never have disclosed to good Mr. Fairfield, and which approached
+more nearly to the Swedenborg visions than to anything in the Church of
+England.
+
+I read these with a solemn interest, but my cousin Monica was not similarly
+moved. She read them with the same smile--faint, serenely contemptuous,
+I thought--with which she had first looked down upon them. It was the
+countenance of a person who amusedly traces the working of a character that
+is well understood.
+
+'Uncle Silas is very religious?' I said, not quite liking Lady Knollys'
+looks.
+
+'Very,' she said, without raising her eyes or abating her old bitter smile,
+as she glanced over a passage in one of his letters.
+
+'You don't think he _is_, Cousin Monica?' said I. She raised her head and
+looked straight at me.
+
+'Why do you say that, Maud?'
+
+'Because you smile incredulously, I think, over his letters.'
+
+'Do I?' said she; 'I was not thinking--it was quite an accident. The fact
+is, Maud, your poor papa quite mistook me. I had no prejudice respecting
+him--no theory. I never knew what to think about him. I do not think
+Silas a product of nature, but a child of the Sphinx, and I never could
+understand him--that's all.'
+
+'I always felt so too; but that was because I was left to speculation, and
+to glean conjectures as I might from his portrait, or anywhere. Except what
+you told me, I never heard more than a few sentences; poor papa did not
+like me to ask questions about him, and I think he ordered the servants to
+be silent.'
+
+'And much the same injunction this little note lays upon me--not quite, but
+something like it; and I don't know the meaning of it.'
+
+And she looked enquiringly at me.
+
+'You are not to be _alarmed_ about your uncle Silas, because your being
+afraid would unfit you for an _important service_ which you have undertaken
+for your family, the nature of which I shall soon understand, and which,
+although it is quite _passive_, would be made very sad if _illusory fears_
+were allowed to _steal into your mind_.'
+
+She was looking into the letter in poor papa's handwriting, which she had
+found addressed to her in his desk, and emphasised the words, I suppose,
+which she quoted from it.
+
+'Have you any idea, Maud, darling, what this _service_ may be?' she
+enquired, with a grave and anxious curiosity in her countenance.
+
+'None, Cousin Monica; but I have thought long over my undertaking to do
+it, or submit to it, be it what it may; and I will keep the promise I
+voluntarily made, although I know what a coward I am, and often distrust my
+courage.'
+
+'Well, I am not to frighten you.'
+
+'How could you? Why should I be afraid? _Is_ there anything frightful to be
+disclosed? Do tell me--you _must_ tell me.'
+
+'No, darling, I did not mean _that_--I don't mean that;--I could, if I
+would; I--I don't know exactly what I meant. But your poor papa knew him
+better than I--in fact, I did not know him at all--that is, ever quite
+understood him--which your poor papa, I see, had ample opportunities of
+doing.' And after a little pause, she added--'So you do not know what you
+are expected to do or to undergo.'
+
+'Oh! Cousin Monica, I know you think he committed that murder,' I cried,
+starting up, I don't know why, and I felt that I grew deadly pale.
+
+'I don't believe any such thing, you little fool; you must not say such
+horrible things, Maud,' she said, rising also, and looking both pale and
+angry. 'Shall we go out for a little walk? Come, lock up these papers,
+dear, and get your things on; and if that Dr. Bryerly does not turn up
+to-morrow, you must send for the Rector, good Doctor Clay, and let him make
+search for the will--there may be directions about many things, you know;
+and, my dear Maud, you are to remember that Silas is _my_ cousin as well as
+your uncle. Come, dear, put on your hat.'
+
+So we went out together for a little cloistered walk.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+_SOMEBODY IN THE ROOM WITH THE COFFIN_
+
+
+When we returned, a 'young' gentleman had arrived. We saw him in the
+parlour as we passed the window. It was simply a glance, but such a one
+as suffices to make a photograph, which we can study afterwards, at our
+leisure. I remember him at this moment--a man of six-and-thirty--dressed in
+a grey travelling suit, not over-well made; light-haired, fat-faced,
+and clumsy; and he looked both dull and cunning, and not at all like a
+gentleman.
+
+Branston met us, announced the arrival, and handed me the stranger's
+credentials. My cousin and I stopped in the passage to read them.
+
+'_That's_ your uncle Silas's,' said Lady Knollys, touching one of the two
+letters with the tip of her finger.
+
+'Shall we have lunch, Miss?'
+
+'Certainly.' So Branston departed.
+
+'Read it with me, Cousin Monica,' I said. And a very curious letter it was.
+It spoke as follows:--
+
+'How can I thank my beloved niece for remembering her aged and forlorn
+kinsman at such a moment of anguish?'
+
+I had written a note of a few, I dare say, incoherent words by the next
+post after my dear father's death.
+
+'It is, however, in the hour of bereavement that we most value the ties
+that are broken, and yearn for the sympathy of kindred.'
+
+Here came a little distich of French verse, of which I could only read
+_ciel_ and _l'amour_.
+
+'Our quiet household here is clouded with a new sorrow. How inscrutable are
+the ways of Providence! I--though a few years younger--how much the more
+infirm--how shattered in energy and in mind--how mere a burden--how
+entirely _de trop_--am spared to my sad place in a world where I can be no
+longer useful, where I have but one business--prayer, but one hope--the
+tomb; and he--apparently so robust--the centre of so much good--so
+necessary to you--so necessary, alas! to me--is taken! He is gone to his
+rest--for us, what remains but to bow our heads, and murmur, "His will be
+done"? I trace these lines with a trembling hand, while tears dim my
+old eyes. I did not think that any earthly event could have moved me so
+profoundly. From the world I have long stood aloof. I once led a life of
+pleasure--alas! of wickedness--as I now do one of austerity; but as I never
+was rich, so my worst enemy will allow I never was avaricious. My sins, I
+thank my Maker, have been of a more reducible kind, and have succumbed to
+the discipline which Heaven has provided. To earth and its interests, as
+well as to its pleasures, I have long been dead. For the few remaining
+years of my life I ask but quiet--an exemption from the agitations and
+distractions of struggle and care, and I trust to the Giver of all Good for
+my deliverance--well knowing, at the same time, that whatever befalls will,
+under His direction, prove best. Happy shall I be, my dearest niece, if in
+your most interesting and, in some respects, forlorn situation, I can be
+of any use to you. My present religious adviser--of whom I ventured to ask
+counsel on your behalf--states that I ought to send some one to represent
+me at the melancholy ceremony of reading the will which my beloved and now
+happy brother has, no doubt, left behind; and the idea that the experience
+and professional knowledge possessed by the gentleman whom I have selected
+may possibly be of use to you, my dearest niece, determines me to place
+him at your disposal. He is the junior partner in the firm of Archer and
+Sleigh, who conduct any little business which I may have from time to time;
+may I entreat your hospitality for him during a brief stay at Knowl? I
+write, even for a moment, upon these small matters of business with
+an effort--a painful one, but necessary. Alas! my brother! The cup of
+bitterness is now full. Few and evil must the remainder of my old days be.
+Yet, while they last, I remain always for my beloved niece, that which all
+her wealth and splendour cannot purchase--a loving and faithful kinsman and
+friend,
+
+SILAS RUTHYN.'
+
+'Is not it a kind letter?' I said, while tears stood in my eyes.
+
+'Yes,' answered Lady Knollys, drily.
+
+'But don't you think it so, really?'
+
+'Oh! kind, very kind,' she answered in the same tone, 'and perhaps a little
+cunning.'
+
+'Cunning!--how?'
+
+'Well, you know I'm a peevish old Tabby, and of course I scratch now and
+then, and see in the dark. I dare say Silas is sorry, but I don't think he
+is in sackcloth and ashes. He has reason to be sorry and anxious, and I say
+I think he is both; and you know he pities you very much, and also himself
+a good deal; and he wants money, and you--his beloved niece--have a great
+deal--and altogether it is an affectionate and prudent letter: and he has
+sent his attorney here to make a note of the will; and you are to give the
+gentleman his meals and lodging; and Silas, very thoughtfully, invites you
+to confide your difficulties and troubles to _his_ solicitor. It is very
+kind, but not imprudent.'
+
+'Oh, Cousin Monica, don't you think at such a moment it is hardly natural
+that he should form such petty schemes, even were he capable at other times
+of practising so low? Is it not judging him hardly? and you, you know, so
+little acquainted with him.'
+
+'I told you, dear, I'm a cross old thing--and there's an end; and I really
+don't care two pence about him; and of the two I'd much rather he were no
+relation of ours.'
+
+Now, was not this prejudice? I dare say in part it was. So, too, was
+my vehement predisposition in his favour. I am afraid we women are
+factionists; we always take a side, and nature has formed us for advocates
+rather than judges; and I think the function, if less dignified, is more
+amiable.
+
+I sat alone at the drawing-room window, at nightfall, awaiting my cousin
+Monica's entrance.
+
+Feverish and frightened I felt that night. It was a sympathy, I fancy, with
+the weather. The sun had set stormily. Though the air was still, the sky
+looked wild and storm-swept. The crowding clouds, slanting in the attitude
+of flight, reflected their own sacred aspect upon my spirits. My grief
+darkened with a wild presaging of danger, and a sense of the supernatural
+fell upon me. It was the saddest and most awful evening that had come since
+my beloved father's death.
+
+All kinds of shapeless fears environed me in silence. For the first time,
+dire misgivings about the form of faith affrighted me. Who were these
+Swedenborgians who had got about him--no one could tell how--and held
+him so fast to the close of his life? Who was this bilious, bewigged,
+black-eyed Doctor Bryerly, whom none of us quite liked and all a little
+feared; who seemed to rise out of the ground, and came and went, no one
+knew whence or whither, exercising, as I imagined, a mysterious authority
+over him? Was it all good and true, or a heresy and a witchcraft? Oh, my
+beloved father! was it all well with you?
+
+When Lady Knollys entered, she found me in floods of tears, walking
+distractedly up and down the room. She kissed me in silence; she walked
+back and forward with me, and did her best to console me.
+
+'I think, Cousin Monica, I would wish to see him once more. Shall we go
+up?'
+
+'Unless you really wish it very much, I think, darling, you had better not
+mind it. It is happier to recollect them as they were; there's a change,
+you know, darling, and there is seldom any comfort in the sight.'
+
+'But I do wish it _very_ much. Oh! won't you come with me?'
+
+And so I persuaded her, and up we went hand in hand, in the deepening
+twilight; and we halted at the end of the dark gallery, and I called Mrs.
+Rusk, growing frightened.
+
+'Tell her to let us in, Cousin Monica,' I whispered.
+
+'She wishes to see him, my lady--does she?' enquired Mrs. Rusk, in an
+under-tone, and with a mysterious glance at me, as she softly fitted the
+key to the lock.
+
+'Are you quite sure, Maud, dear?'
+
+'Yes, yes.'
+
+But when Mrs. Rusk entered bearing the candle, whose beam mixed dismally
+with the expiring twilight, disclosing a great black coffin standing upon
+trestles, near the foot of which she took her stand, gazing sternly into
+it, I lost heart again altogether and drew back.
+
+'No, Mrs. Rusk, she won't; and I am very glad, dear,' she added to me.
+'Come, Mrs. Rusk, come away. Yes, darling,' she continued to me, 'it is
+much better for you;' and she hurried me away, and down-stairs again. But
+the awful outlines of that large black coffin remained upon my imagination
+with a new and terrible sense of death.
+
+I had no more any wish to see him. I felt a horror even of the room, and
+for more than an hour after a kind of despair and terror, such as I have
+never experienced before or since at the idea of death.
+
+Cousin Monica had had her bed placed in my room, and Mary Quince's moved to
+the dressing-room adjoining it. For the first time the superstitious awe
+that follows death, but not immediately, visited me. The idea of seeing my
+father enter the room, or open the door and look in, haunted me. After Lady
+Knollys and I were in bed, I could not sleep. The wind sounded mournfully
+outside, and the small sounds, the rattlings, and strainings that responded
+from within, constantly startled me, and simulated the sounds of steps, of
+doors opening, of knockings, and so forth, rousing me with a palpitating
+heart as often as I fell into a doze.
+
+At length the wind subsided, and these ambiguous noises abated, and I,
+fatigued, dropped into a quiet sleep. I was awakened by a sound in the
+gallery--which I could not define. A considerable time had passed, for the
+wind was now quite lulled. I sat up in my bed a good deal scared, listening
+breathlessly for I knew not what.
+
+I heard a step moving stealthily along the gallery. I called my cousin
+Monica softly; and we both heard the door of the room in which my father's
+body lay unlocked, some one furtively enter, and the door shut.
+
+'What can it be? Good Heavens, Cousin Monica, do you hear it?'
+
+'Yes, dear; and it is two o'clock.'
+
+Everyone at Knowl was in bed at eleven. We knew very well that Mrs. Rusk
+was rather nervous, and would not, for worlds, go alone, and at such an
+hour, to the room. We called Mary Quince. We all three listened, but we
+heard no other sound. I set these things down here because they made so
+terrible an impression upon me at the time.
+
+It ended by our peeping out, all three in a body, upon the gallery. Through
+each window in the perspective came its blue sheet of moonshine; but the
+door on which our attention was fixed was in the shade, and we thought we
+could discern the glare of a candle through the key-hole. While in whispers
+we were debating this point together, the door opened, the dusky light of
+a candle emerged, the shadow of a figure crossed it within, and in another
+moment the mysterious Doctor Bryerly--angular, ungainly, in the black cloth
+coat that fitted little better than a coffin--issued from the chamber,
+candle in hand; murmuring, I suppose, a prayer--it sounded like a
+farewell--as much frightened as if I had just seen a sorcerer stealing
+stepped cautiously upon the gallery floor, shutting and locking the door
+upon the dead; and then having listened for a second, the saturnine figure,
+casting a gigantic and distorted shadow upon the ceiling and side-wall from
+the lowered candle, strode lightly down the long dark passage, away from
+us.
+
+I can only speak for myself, and I can honestly say that I felt as much
+frightened as if I had just seen a sorcerer stealing from his unhallowed
+business. I think Cousin Monica was also affected in the same way, for she
+turned the key on the inside of the door when we entered. I do not think
+one of us believed at the moment that what we had seen was a Doctor Bryerly
+of flesh and blood, and yet the first thing we spoke of in the morning was
+Doctor Bryerly's arrival. The mind is a different organ by night and by
+day.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+_I TALK WITH DOCTOR BRYERLY_
+
+
+Doctor Bryerly had, indeed, arrived at half-past twelve o'clock at night.
+His summons at the hall-door was little heard at our remote side of the old
+house of Knowl; and when the sleepy, half-dressed servant opened the
+door, the lank Doctor, in glossy black clothing, was standing alone, his
+portmanteau on its end upon the steps, and his vehicle disappearing in the
+shadows of the old trees.
+
+In he came, sterner and sharper of aspect than usual.
+
+'I've been expected? I'm Doctor Bryerly. Haven't I? So, let whoever is in
+charge of the body be called. I must visit it forthwith.'
+
+So the Doctor sat in the back drawing-room, with a solitary candle; and
+Mrs. Rusk was called up, and, grumbling much and very peevish, dressed and
+went down, her ill-temper subsiding in a sort of fear as she approached the
+visitor.
+
+'How do you do, Madam? A sad visit this. Is anyone watching in the room
+where the remains of your late master are laid?'
+
+'No.'
+
+'So much the better; it is a foolish custom. Will you please conduct me to
+the room? I must pray where he lies--no longer _he_! And be good enough to
+show me my bedroom, and so no one need wait up, and I shall find my way.'
+
+Accompanied by the man who carried his valise, Mrs. Rusk showed him to his
+apartment; but he only looked in, and then glanced rapidly about to take
+'the bearings' of the door.
+
+'Thank you--yes. Now we'll proceed, here, along here? Let me see. A turn to
+the right and another to the left--yes. He has been dead some days. Is he
+yet in his coffin?'
+
+'Yes, sir; since yesterday afternoon.'
+
+Mrs. Rusk was growing more and more afraid of this lean figure sheathed in
+shining black cloth, whose eyes glittered with a horrible sort of cunning,
+and whose long brown fingers groped before him, as if indicating the way by
+guess.
+
+'But, of course, the lid's not on; you've not screwed him down, hey?'
+
+'No, sir.'
+
+'That's well. I must look on the face as I pray. He is in his place; I here
+on earth. He in the spirit; I in the flesh. The neutral ground lies there.
+So are carried the vibrations, and so the light of earth and heaven
+reflected back and forward--apaugasma, a wonderful though helpless engine,
+the ladder of Jacob, and behold the angels of God ascending and descending
+on it. Thanks, I'll take the key. Mysteries to those who _will_ live
+altogether in houses of clay, no mystery to such as will use their eyes and
+read what is revealed. _This_ candle, it is the longer, please; no--no need
+of a pair, thanks; just this, to hold in my hand. And remember, all depends
+upon the willing mind. Why do you look frightened? Where is your faith?
+Don't you know that spirits are about us at all times? Why should you
+fear to be near the body? The spirit is everything; the flesh profiteth
+nothing.'
+
+'Yes, sir,' said Mrs. Rusk, making him a great courtesy in the threshold.
+
+She was frightened by his eerie talk, which grew, she fancied, more voluble
+and energetic as they approached the corpse.
+
+'Remember, then, that when you fancy yourself alone and wrapt in darkness,
+you stand, in fact, in the centre of a theatre, as wide as the starry floor
+of heaven, with an audience, whom no man can number, beholding you under a
+flood of light. Therefore, though your body be in solitude and your mortal
+sense in darkness, remember to walk as being in the light, surrounded with
+a cloud of witnesses. Thus walk; and when the hour comes, and you pass
+forth unprisoned from the tabernacle of the flesh, although it still has
+its relations and its rights'--and saying this, as he held the solitary
+candle aloft in the doorway, he nodded towards the coffin, whose large
+black form was faintly traceable against the shadows beyond--'you will
+rejoice; and being clothed upon with your house from on high, you will not
+be found naked. On the other hand, he that loveth corruption shall have
+enough thereof. Think upon these things. Good-night.'
+
+And the Swedenborgian Doctor stepped into the room, taking the candle with
+him, and closed the door upon the shadowy still-life there, and on his own
+sharp and swarthy visage, leaving Mrs. Rusk in a sort of panic in the dark
+alone, to find her way to her room the best way she could.
+
+Early in the morning Mrs. Rusk came to my room to tell me that Doctor
+Bryerly was in the parlour, and begged to know whether I had not a message
+for him. I was already dressed, so, though it was dreadful seeing a
+stranger in my then mood, taking the key of the cabinet in my hand, I
+followed Mrs. Rusk downstairs.
+
+Opening the parlour door, she stepped in, and with a little courtesy
+said,--
+
+'Please, sir, the young mistress--Miss Ruthyn.'
+
+Draped in black and very pale, tall and slight, 'the young mistress'
+was; and as I entered I heard a newspaper rustle, and the sound of steps
+approaching to meet me.
+
+Face to face we met, near the door; and, without speaking, I made him a
+deep courtesy.
+
+He took my hand, without the least indication on my part, in his hard lean
+grasp, and shook it kindly, but familiarly, peering with a stern sort of
+curiosity into my face as he continued to hold it. His ill-fitting, glossy
+black cloth, ungainly presence, and sharp, dark, vulpine features had in
+them, as I said before, the vulgarity of a Glasgow artisan in his Sabbath
+suit. I made an instantaneous motion to withdraw my hand, but he held it
+firmly.
+
+Though there was a grim sort of familiarity, there was also decision,
+shrewdness, and, above all, kindness, in his dark face--a gleam on the
+whole of the masterly and the honest--that along with a certain paleness,
+betraying, I thought, restrained emotion, indicated sympathy and invited
+confidence.
+
+'I hope, Miss, you are pretty well?' He pronounced 'pretty' as it is spelt.
+'I have come in consequence of a solemn promise exacted more than a year
+since by your deceased father, the late Mr. Austin Ruthyn of Knowl, for
+whom I cherished a warm esteem, being knit besides with him in spiritual
+bonds. It has been a shock to you, Miss?'
+
+'It has, indeed, sir.'
+
+'I've a doctor's degree, I have--Doctor of Medicine, Miss. Like St. Luke,
+preacher and doctor. I was in business once, but this is better. As one
+footing fails, the Lord provides another. The stream of life is black and
+angry; how so many of us get across without drowning, I often wonder. The
+best way is not to look too far before--just from one stepping-stone to
+another; and though you may wet your feet, He won't let you drown--He has
+not allowed me.'
+
+And Doctor Bryerly held up his head, and wagged it resolutely.
+
+'You are born to this world's wealth; in its way a great blessing, though a
+great trial, Miss, and a great trust; but don't suppose you are destined
+to exemption from trouble on that account, any more than poor Emmanuel
+Bryerly. As the sparks fly upwards, Miss Ruthyn! Your cushioned carriage
+may overturn on the highroad, as I may stumble and fall upon the footpath.
+There are other troubles than debt and privation. Who can tell how
+long health may last, or when an accident may happen the brain; what
+mortifications may await you in your own high sphere; what unknown enemies
+may rise up in your path; or what slanders may asperse your name--ha, ha!
+It is a wonderful equilibrium--a marvellous dispensation--ha, ha!' and he
+laughed with a shake of his head, I thought a little sarcastically, as if
+he was not sorry my money could not avail to buy immunity from the general
+curse.
+
+'But what money can't do, _prayer_ can--bear that in mind, Miss Ruthyn. We
+can all pray; and though thorns and snares, and stones of fire lie strewn
+in our way, we need not fear them. He will give His angels charge over us,
+and in their hands they will bear us up, for He hears and sees everywhere,
+and His angels are innumerable.'
+
+He was now speaking gently and solemnly, and paused. But another vein of
+thought he had unconsciously opened in my mind, and I said--
+
+'And had my dear papa no other medical adviser?'
+
+He looked at me sharply, and flushed a little under his dark tint. His
+medical skill was, perhaps, the point on which his human vanity vaunted
+itself, and I dare say there was something very disparaging in my tone.
+
+'And if he _had_ no other, he might have done worse. I've had many critical
+cases in my hands, Miss Ruthyn. I can't charge myself with any miscarriage
+through ignorance. My diagnosis in Mr. Ruthyn's case has been verified by
+the result. But I was _not_ alone; Sir Clayton Barrow saw him, and took my
+view; a note will reach him in London. But this, excuse me, is not to the
+present purpose. The late Mr. Ruthyn told me I was to receive a key
+from you, which would open a cabinet where he had placed his will--ha!
+thanks,--in his study. And, I think, as there may be directions about
+the funeral, it had better be read forthwith. Is there any gentleman--a
+relative or man of business--near here, whom you would wish sent for?'
+
+'No, none, thank you; I have confidence in you, sir.'
+
+I think I spoke and looked frankly, for he smiled very kindly, though with
+closed lips.
+
+'And you may be sure, Miss Ruthyn, your confidence shall not be
+disappointed.' Here was a long pause. 'But you are very young, and you must
+have some one by in your interest, who has some experience in business. Let
+me see. Is not the Rector, Dr. Clay, at hand? In the town?--very good; and
+Mr. Danvers, who manages the estate, _he_ must come. And get Grimston--you
+see I know all the names--Grimston, the attorney; for though he was not
+employed about this will, he has been Mr. Ruthyn's solicitor a great many
+years: we must have Grimston; for, as I suppose you know, though it is a
+short will, it is a very strange one. I expostulated, but you know he was
+very decided when he took a view. He read it to you, eh?'
+
+'No, sir.'
+
+'Oh, but he told you so much as relates to you and your uncle, Mr. Silas
+Ruthyn, of Bartram-Haugh?'
+
+'No, indeed, sir.'
+
+'Ha! I wish he had.'
+
+And with these words Doctor Bryerly's countenance darkened.
+
+'Mr. Silas Ruthyn is a religious man?'
+
+'Oh, _very_!' said I.
+
+'You've seen a good deal of him?'
+
+'No, I never saw him,' I answered.
+
+'H'm? Odder and odder! But he's a good man, isn't he?'
+
+'Very good, indeed, sir--a very religious man.'
+
+Doctor Bryerly was watching my countenance as I spoke, with a sharp and
+anxious eye; and then he looked down, and read the pattern of the carpet
+like bad news, for a while, and looking again in my face, askance, he
+said--
+
+'He was very near joining _us_--on the point. He got into correspondence
+with Henry Voerst, one of our best men. They call us Swedenborgians, you
+know; but I dare say that won't go much further, now. I suppose, Miss
+Ruthyn, one o'clock would be a good hour, and I am sure, under the
+circumstances, the gentlemen will make a point of attending.'
+
+'Yes, Dr. Bryerly, the notes shall be sent, and my cousin, Lady Knollys,
+would I am sure attend with me while the will is being read--there would be
+no objection to her presence?'
+
+'None in the world. I can't be quite sure who are joined with me as
+executors. I'm almost sorry I did not decline; but it is too late
+regretting. One thing you must believe Miss Ruthyn: in framing the
+provisions of the will I was never consulted--although I expostulated
+against the only very unusual one it contains when I heard it. I did
+so strenuously, but in vain. There was one other against which I
+protested--having a right to do so--with better effect. In no other way
+does the will in any respect owe anything to my advice or dissuasion. You
+will please believe this; also that I am your friend. Yes, indeed, it is my
+duty.'
+
+The latter words he spoke looking down again, as it were in soliloquy; and
+thanking him, I withdrew.
+
+When I reached the hall, I regretted that I had not asked him to state
+distinctly what arrangements the will made so nearly affecting, as it
+seemed, my relations with my uncle Silas, and for a moment I thought of
+returning and requesting an explanation. But then, I bethought me, it was
+not very long to wait till one o'clock--so _he_, at least, would think. I
+went up-stairs, therefore, to the 'school-room,' which we used at present
+as a sitting-room, and there I found Cousin Monica awaiting me.
+
+'Are you quite well, dear?' asked Lady Knollys, as she came to meet and
+kiss me.
+
+'Quite well, Cousin Monica.'
+
+'No nonsense, Maud! you're as white as that handkerchief--what's the
+matter? Are you ill--are you frightened? Yes, you're trembling--you're
+terrified, child.'
+
+'I believe I _am_ afraid. There _is_ something in poor papa's will about
+Uncle Silas--about _me_. I don't know--Doctor Bryerly says, and he seems so
+uncomfortable and frightened himself, I am sure it is something very bad. I
+am _very_ much frightened--I am--I _am_. Oh, Cousin Monica! you won't leave
+me?'
+
+So I threw my arms about her neck, clasping her very close, and we kissed
+one another, I crying like a frightened child--and indeed in experience of
+the world I was no more.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+_THE OPENING OF THE WILL_
+
+
+Perhaps the terror with which I anticipated the hour of one, and the
+disclosure of the unknown undertaking to which I had bound myself, was
+irrational and morbid. But, honestly, I doubt it; my tendency has always
+been that of many other weak characters, to act impetuously, and afterwards
+to reproach myself for consequences which I have, perhaps, in reality, had
+little or no share in producing.
+
+It was Doctor Bryerly's countenance and manner in alluding to a particular
+provision in my father's will that instinctively awed me. I have seen faces
+in a nightmare that haunted me with an indescribable horror, and yet I
+could not say wherein lay the fascination. And so it was with his--an omen,
+a menace, lurked in its sallow and dismal glance.
+
+'You must not be so frightened, darling,' said Cousin Monica. 'It is
+foolish; it _is, really_; they can't cut off your head, you know: they
+can't really harm you in any essential way. If it involved a risk of a
+little money, you would not mind it; but men are such odd creatures--they
+measure all sacrifices by money. Doctor Bryerly would look just as you
+describe, if you were doomed to lose 500_l_., and yet it would not kill
+you.'
+
+A companion like Lady Knollys is reassuring; but I could not take her
+comfort altogether to heart, for I felt that she had no great confidence in
+it herself.
+
+There was a little French clock over the mantelpiece in the school-room,
+which I consulted nearly every minute. It wanted now but ten minutes of
+one.
+
+'Shall we go down to the drawing-room, dear?' said Cousin Knollys, who was
+growing restless like me.
+
+So down-stairs we went, pausing by mutual consent at the great window at
+the stair-head, which looks out on the avenue. Mr. Danvers was riding his
+tall, grey horse at a walk, under the wide branches toward the house, and
+we waited to see him get off at the door. In his turn he loitered there,
+for the good Rector's gig, driven by the Curate, was approaching at a smart
+ecclesiastical trot.
+
+Doctor Clay got down, and shook hands with Mr. Danvers; and after a word
+or two, away drove the Curate with that upward glance at the windows from
+which so few can refrain.
+
+I watched the Rector and Mr. Danvers loitering on the steps as a patient
+might the gathering of surgeons who are to perform some unknown operation.
+They, too, glanced up at the window as they turned to enter the house, and
+I drew back. Cousin Monica looked at her watch.
+
+'Four minutes only. Shall we go to the drawing-room?'
+
+Waiting for a moment to let the gentlemen get by on the way to the study,
+we, accordingly, went down, and I heard the Rector talk of the dangerous
+state of Grindleston bridge, and wondered how he could think of such things
+at a time of sorrow. Everything about those few minutes of suspense remains
+fresh in my recollection. I remember how they loitered and came to a halt
+at the corner of the oak passage leading to the study, and how the Rector
+patted the marble head and smoothed the inflexible tresses of William Pitt,
+as he listened to Mr. Danvers' details about the presentment; and then,
+as they went on, I recollect the boisterous nose-blowing that suddenly
+resounded from the passage, and which I then referred, and still refer,
+intuitively to the Rector.
+
+We had not been five minutes in the drawing-room when Branston entered, to
+say that the gentlemen I had mentioned were all assembled in the study.
+
+'Come, dear,' said Cousin Monica; and leaning on her arm I reached the
+study door. I entered, followed by her. The gentlemen arrested their talk
+and stood up, those who were sitting, and the Rector came forward very
+gravely, and in low tones, and very kindly, greeted me. There was nothing
+emotional in this salutation, for though my father never quarrelled, yet an
+immense distance separated him from all his neighbours, and I do not think
+there lived a human being who knew him at more than perhaps a point or two
+of his character.
+
+Considering how entirely he secluded himself, my father was, as many people
+living remember, wonderfully popular in his county. He was neighbourly
+in everything except in seeing company and mixing in society. He had
+magnificent shooting, of which he was extremely liberal. He kept a pack of
+hounds at Dollerton, with which all his side of the county hunted through
+the season. He never refused any claim upon his purse which had the
+slightest show of reason. He subscribed to every fund, social, charitable,
+sporting, agricultural, no matter what, provided the honest people of
+his county took an interest in it, and always with a princely hand; and
+although he shut himself up, no one could say that he was inaccessible,
+for he devoted hours daily to answering letters, and his checque-book
+contributed largely in those replies. He had taken his turn long ago as
+High Sheriff; so there was an end of that claim before his oddity and
+shyness had quite secluded him. He refused the Lord-Lieutenancy of his
+county; he declined every post of personal distinction connected with it.
+He could write an able as well as a genial letter when he pleased; and his
+appearances at public meetings, dinners, and so forth were made in
+this epistolary fashion, and, when occasion presented, by magnificent
+contributions from his purse.
+
+If my father had been less goodnatured in the sporting relations of his
+vast estates, or less magnificent in dealing with his fortune, or even if
+he had failed to exhibit the intellectual force which always characterised
+his letters on public matters, I dare say that his oddities would have
+condemned him to ridicule, and possibly to dislike. But every one of the
+principal gentlemen of his county, whose judgment was valuable, has told me
+that he was a remarkably able man, and that his failure in public life
+was due to his eccentricities, and in no respect to deficiency in those
+peculiar mental qualities which make men feared and useful in Parliament.
+
+I could not forbear placing on record this testimony to the high mental
+and the kindly qualities of my beloved father, who might have passed for
+a misanthrope or a fool. He was a man of generous nature and powerful
+intellect, but given up to the oddities of a shyness which grew with
+years and indulgence, and became inflexible with his disappointments and
+affliction.
+
+There was something even in the Rector's kind and ceremonious greeting
+which oddly enough reflected the mixed feelings in which awe was not
+without a place, with which his neighbours had regarded my dear father.
+
+Having done the honours--I am sure looking woefully pale--I had time to
+glance quietly at the only figure there with which I was not tolerably
+familiar. This was the junior partner in the firm of Archer and Sleigh who
+represented my uncle Silas--a fat and pallid man of six-and-thirty, with
+a sly and evil countenance, and it has always seemed to me, that ill
+dispositions show more repulsively in a pale fat face than in any other.
+
+Doctor Bryerly, standing near the window, was talking in a low tone to Mr.
+Grimston, our attorney.
+
+I heard good Dr. Clay whisper to Mr. Danvers--
+
+'Is not that Doctor Bryerly--the person with the black--the black--it's a
+wig, I think--in the window, talking to Abel Grimston?'
+
+'Yes; that's he.'
+
+'Odd-looking person--one of the Swedenborg people, is not he?' continued
+the Rector.
+
+'So I am told.'
+
+'Yes,' said the Rector, quietly; and he crossed one gaitered leg over the
+other, and, with fingers interlaced, twiddled his thumbs, as he eyed
+the monstrous sectary under his orthodox old brows with a stern
+inquisitiveness. I thought he was meditating theologic battle.
+
+But Dr. Bryerly and Mr. Grimston, still talking together, began to walk
+slowly from the window, and the former said in his peculiar grim tones--
+
+'I beg pardon, Miss Ruthyn; perhaps you would be so good as to show us
+which of the cabinets in this room your late lamented father pointed out as
+that to which this key belongs.'
+
+I indicated the oak cabinet.
+
+'Very good, ma'am--very good,' said Doctor Bryerly, as he fumbled the key
+into the lock.
+
+Cousin Monica could not forbear murmuring--
+
+'Dear! what a brute!'
+
+The junior partner, with his dumpy hands in his pocket, poked his fat face
+over Mr. Grimston's shoulder, and peered into the cabinet as the door
+opened.
+
+The search was not long. A handsome white paper enclosure, neatly tied up
+in pink tape, and sealed with large red seals, was inscribed in my dear
+father's hand:--'Will of Austin R. Ruthyn, of Knowl.' Then, in smaller
+characters, the date, and in the corner a note--'This will was drawn from
+my instructions by Gaunt, Hogg, and Hatchett, Solicitors, Great Woburn
+Street, London, A.R.R.'
+
+'Let _me_ have a squint at that indorsement, please, gentlemen,' half
+whispered the unpleasant person who represented my uncle Silas.
+
+''_Tisn't_ an indorsement. There, look--a memorandum on an envelope,' said
+Abel Grimston, gruffly.
+
+'Thanks--all right--that will do,' he responded, himself making a
+pencil-note of it, in a long clasp-book which he drew from his coat-pocket.
+
+The tape was carefully cut, and the envelope removed without tearing the
+writing, and forth came the will, at sight of which my heart swelled and
+fluttered up to my lips, and then dropped down dead as it seemed into its
+place.
+
+'Mr. Grimston, you will please to read it,' said Doctor Bryerly, who took
+the direction of the process. 'I will sit beside you, and as we go along
+you will be good enough to help us to understand technicalities, and give
+us a lift where we want it.' 'It's a short will,' said Mr. Grimston,
+turning over the sheets '_very_--considering. Here's a codicil.'
+
+'I did not see that,' said Doctor Bryerly.
+
+'Dated only a month ago.'
+
+'Oh!' said Doctor Bryerly, putting on his spectacles. Uncle Silas's
+ambassador, sitting close behind, had insinuated his face between Doctor
+Bryerly's and the reader's of the will.
+
+'On behalf of the surviving brother of the testator,' interposed the
+delegate, just as Abel Grimston had cleared his voice to begin, 'I take
+leave to apply for a copy of this instrument. It will save a deal of
+trouble, if the young lady as represents the testator here has no
+objection.'
+
+'You can have as many copies as you like when the will is proved,' said Mr.
+Grimston.
+
+'I know that; but supposing as all's right, where's the objection?'
+
+'Just the objection there always is to acting irregular,' replied Mr.
+Grimston.
+
+'You don't object to act disobliging, it seems.'
+
+'You can do as I told you,' replied Mr. Grimston.
+
+'Thank you for nothing,' murmured Mr. Sleigh.
+
+And the reading of the will proceeded, while he made elaborate notes of its
+contents in his capacious pocket-book.
+
+'I, Austin Alymer Ruthyn Ruthyn, being, I thank God, of sound mind and
+perfect recollection,' &c, &c.; and then came a bequest of all his
+estates real, chattels real, copyrights, leases, chattels, money, rights,
+interests, reversions, powers, plate, pictures, and estates and possessions
+whatsoever, to four persons--Lord Ilbury, Mr. Penrose Creswell of Creswell,
+Sir William Aylmer, Bart., and Hans Emmanuel Bryerly, Doctor of Medicine,
+'to have and to hold,' &c. &c. Whereupon my Cousin Monica ejaculated 'Eh?'
+and Doctor Bryerly interposed--
+
+'Four trustees, ma'am. We take little but trouble--you'll see; go on.'
+
+Then it came out that all this multifarious splendour was bequeathed in
+trust for me, subject to a bequest of 15,000_l_. to his only brother, Silas
+Aylmer Ruthyn, and 3,500_l_. each to the two children of his said brother;
+and lest any doubt should arise by reason of his, the testator's decease
+as to the continuance of the arrangement by way of lease under which
+he enjoyed his present habitation and farm, he left him the use of the
+mansion-house and lands of Bartram-Haugh, in the county of Derbyshire, and
+of the lands of so-and-so and so-and-so, adjoining thereto, in the said
+county, for the term of his natural life, on payment of a rent of 5_s_.
+per annum, and subject to the like conditions as to waste, &c., as are
+expressed in the said lease.
+
+'By your leave, may I ask is them dispositions all the devises to my
+client, which is his only brother, as it seems to me you've seen the will
+before?' enquired Mr. Sleigh.
+
+'Nothing more, unless there is something in the codicil,' answered Dr.
+Bryerly.
+
+But there was no mention of him in the codicil.
+
+Mr. Sleigh threw himself back in his chair, and sneered, with the end of
+his pencil between his teeth. I hope his disappointment was altogether for
+his client. Mr. Danvers fancied, he afterwards said, that he had probably
+expected legacies which might have involved litigation, or, at all events,
+law costs, and perhaps a stewardship; but this was very barren; and Mr.
+Danvers also remarked, that the man was a very low practitioner, and
+wondered how my uncle Silas could have commissioned such a person to
+represent him.
+
+So far the will contained nothing of which my most partial friend could
+have complained. The codicil, too, devised only legacies to servants, and
+a sum of 1,000_l_., with a few kind words, to Monica, Lady Knollys, and
+a further sum of 3,000_l_. to Dr. Bryerly, stating that the legatee had
+prevailed upon him to erase from the draft of his will a bequest to him to
+that amount, but that, in consideration of all the trouble devolving
+upon him as trustee, he made that bequest by his codicil; and with these
+arrangements the permanent disposition of his property was completed.
+
+But that direction to which he and Doctor Bryerly had darkly alluded, was
+now to come, and certainly it was a strange one. It appointed my uncle
+Silas my sole guardian, with full parental authority over me until I should
+have reached the age of twenty-one, up to which time I was to reside under
+his care at Bartram-Haugh, and it directed the trustees to pay over to him
+yearly a sum of 2,000_l_. during the continuance of the guardianship for my
+suitable maintenance, education, and expenses.
+
+You have now a sufficient outline of my father's will. The only thing I
+painfully felt in this arrangement was, the break-up--the dismay that
+accompanies the disappearance of home. Otherwise, there was something
+rather pleasurable in the idea. As long as I could remember, I had always
+cherished the same mysterious curiosity about my uncle, and the same
+longing to behold him. This was about to be gratified. Then there was my
+cousin Milicent, about my own age. My life had been so lonely, that I
+had acquired none of those artificial habits that induce the fine-lady
+nature--a second, and not always a very amiable one. She had lived a
+solitary life, like me. What rambles and readings we should have together!
+what confidences and castle-buildings! and then there was a new country
+and a fine old place, and the sense of interest and adventure that always
+accompanies change in our early youth.
+
+There were four letters all alike with large, red seals, addressed
+respectively to each of the trustees named in the will. There was also one
+addressed to Silas Alymer Ruthyn, Esq., Bartram-Haugh Manor, &c. &c., which
+Mr. Sleigh offered to deliver. But Doctor Bryerly thought the post-office
+was the more regular channel. Uncle Silas's representative was questioning
+Doctor Bryerly in an under-tone.
+
+I turned my eyes on my cousin Monica--I felt so inexpressibly
+relieved--expecting to see a corresponding expression in her countenance.
+But I was startled. She looked ghastly and angry. I stared in her face, not
+knowing what to think. Could the will have personally disappointed her?
+Such doubts, though we fancy in after-life they belong to maturity and
+experience only, do sometimes cross our minds in youth. But the suggestion
+wronged Lady Knollys, who neither expected nor wanted anything, being rich,
+childless, generous, and frank. It was the unexpected character of
+her countenance that scared me, and for a moment the shock called up
+corresponding moral images.
+
+Lady Knollys, starting up, raised her head, so as to see over Mr. Sleigh's
+shoulder, and biting her pale lip, she cleared her voice and demanded--
+
+'Doctor Bryerly, pray, sir, is the reading concluded?'
+
+'Concluded? Quite. Yes, nothing more,' he answered with a nod, and
+continued his talk with Mr. Danvers and Abel Grimston.
+
+'And to whom,' said Lady Knollys, with an effort, 'will the property
+belong, in case--in case my little cousin here should die before she comes
+of age?'
+
+'Eh? Well--wouldn't it go to the heir-at-law and next of kin?' said Doctor
+Bryerly, turning to Abel Grimston.
+
+'Ay--to be sure,' said the attorney, thoughtfully.
+
+'And who is that?' pursued my cousin.
+
+'Well, her uncle, Mr. Silas Ruthyn. He's both heir-at-law and next of kin,'
+pursued Abel Grimston.
+
+'Thank you,' said Lady Knollys.
+
+Doctor Clay came forward, bowing very low, in his standing collar and
+single-breasted coat, and graciously folded my hand in his soft wrinkled
+grasp--
+
+'Allow me, my dear Miss Ruthyn, while expressing my regret that we are to
+lose you from among our little flock--though I trust but for a short,
+a very short time--to say how I rejoice at the particular arrangement
+indicated by the will we have just heard read. My curate, William
+Fairfield, resided for some years in the same spiritual capacity in the
+neighbourhood of your, I will say, admirable uncle, with occasional
+intercourse with whom he was favoured--may I not say blessed?--a true
+Christian Churchman--a Christian gentleman. Can I say more? A most happy,
+happy choice.' A very low bow here, with eyes nearly closed, and a shake of
+the head. 'Mrs. Clay will do herself the honour of waiting upon you, to pay
+her respects, before you leave Knowl for your temporary sojourn in another
+sphere.'
+
+So, with another deep bow--for I had become a great personage all at
+once--he let go my hand cautiously and delicately, as if he were setting
+down a curious china tea-cup. And I courtesied low to him, not knowing
+what to say, and then to the assembly generally, who all bowed. And Cousin
+Monica whispered, briskly, 'Come away,' and took my hand with a very cold
+and rather damp one, and led me from the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+_I HEAR FROM UNCLE SILAS_
+
+
+Without saying a word, Cousin Monica accompanied me to the school-room, and
+on entering she shut the door, not with a spirited clang, but quietly and
+determinedly.
+
+'Well, dear,' she said, with the same pale, excited countenance, 'that
+certainly is a sensible and charitable arrangement. I could not have
+believed it possible, had I not heard it with my ears.'
+
+'About my going to Bartram-Haugh?'
+
+'Yes, exactly so, under Silas Ruthyn's guardianship, to spend
+two--_three_--of the most important years of your education and your life
+under that roof. Is _that_, my dear, what was in your mind when you were so
+alarmed about what you were to be called upon to do, or undergo?'
+
+'No, no, indeed. I had no notion what it might be. I was afraid of
+something serious,' I answered.
+
+'And, my dear Maud, did not your poor father speak to you as if it _was_
+something serious?' said she. 'And so it _is_, I can tell you, something
+serious, and _very_ serious; and I think it ought to be prevented, and I
+certainly _will_ prevent it if I possibly can.'
+
+I was puzzled utterly by the intensity of Lady Knollys' protest. I looked
+at her, expecting an explanation of her meaning; but she was silent,
+looking steadfastly on the jewels on her right-hand fingers, with which she
+was drumming a staccato march on the table, very pale, with gleaming eyes,
+evidently thinking deeply. I began to think she _had_ a prejudice against
+my uncle Silas.
+
+'He is not very rich,' I commenced.
+
+'Who?' said Lady Knollys.
+
+'Uncle Silas,' I replied.
+
+'No, certainly; he's in debt,' she answered. 'But then, how very highly
+Doctor Clay spoke of him!' I pursued.
+
+'Don't talk of Doctor Clay. I do think that man is the greatest goose I
+ever heard talk. I have no patience with such men,' she replied.
+
+I tried to remember what particular nonsense Doctor Clay had uttered, and I
+could recollect nothing, unless his eulogy upon my uncle were to be classed
+with that sort of declamation.
+
+'Danvers is a very proper man and a good accountant, I dare say; but he
+is either a very deep person, or a fool--_I_ believe a fool. As for your
+attorney, I suppose he knows his business, and also his interest, and I
+have no doubt he will consult it. I begin to think he best man among them,
+the shrewdest and the most reliable, is that vulgar visionary in the black
+wig. I saw him look at you, Maud, and I liked his face, though it is
+abominably ugly and vulgar, and cunning, too; but I think he's a just man,
+and I dare say with right feelings--I'm _sure_ he has.'
+
+I was quite at a loss to divine the gist of my cousin's criticism.
+
+'I'll have some talk with Dr. Bryerly; I feel convinced he takes my view,
+and we must really think what had best be done.'
+
+'Is there anything in the will, Cousin Monica, that does not appear?' I
+asked, for I was growing very uneasy. 'I wish you would tell me. What view
+do you mean?'
+
+'No view in particular; the view that a desolate old park, and the house of
+a _neglected_ old man, who is very poor, and has been desperately foolish,
+is not the right place for you, particularly at your years. It is quite
+shocking, and I _will_ speak to Doctor Bryerly. May I ring the bell, dear?'
+
+'Certainly;' and I rang it.
+
+'When does he leave Knowl?'
+
+I could not tell. Mrs. Rusk, however, was sent for, and she could tell
+us that he had announced his intention of taking the night train from
+Drackleton, and was to leave Knowl for that station at half-past six
+o'clock.
+
+'May Rusk give or send him a message from me, dear?' asked Lady Knollys.
+
+Of course she might.
+
+'Then please let him know that I request he will be so good as to allow me
+a very few minutes, just to say a word before he goes.'
+
+'You kind cousin!' I said, placing my two hands on her shoulders, and
+looking earnestly in her face; 'you are anxious about me, more than you
+say. Won't you tell me why? I am much more unhappy, really, in ignorance,
+than if I understood the cause.'
+
+'Well, dear, haven't I told you? The two or three years of your life which
+are to form you are destined to be passed in utter loneliness, and, I am
+sure, neglect. You can't estimate the disadvantage of such an arrangement.
+It is full of disadvantages. How it could have entered the head of poor
+Austin--although I should not say that, for I am sure I do understand
+it,--but how he could for any purpose have directed such a measure is quite
+inconceivable. I never heard of anything so foolish and abominable, and I
+will prevent it if I can.'
+
+At that moment Mrs. Rusk announced that Doctor Bryerly would see Lady
+Knollys at any time she pleased before his departure.
+
+'It shall be this moment, then,' said the energetic lady, and up she stood,
+and made that hasty general adjustment before the glass, which, no matter
+under what circumstances, and before what sort of creature one's appearance
+is to be made, is a duty that every woman owes to herself. And I heard her
+a moment after, at the stair-head, directing Branston to let Dr. Bryerly
+know that she awaited him in the drawing-room.
+
+And now she was gone, and I began to wonder and speculate. Why should
+my cousin Monica make all this fuss about, after all, a very natural
+arrangement? My uncle, whatever he might have been, was now a good man--a
+religious man--perhaps a little severe; and with this thought a dark streak
+fell across my sky.
+
+A cruel disciplinarian! had I not read of such characters?--lock and
+key, bread and water, and solitude! To sit locked up all night in a dark
+out-of-the-way room, in a great, ghosty, old-fashioned house, with no one
+nearer than the other wing. What years of horror in one such night! Would
+not this explain my poor father's hesitation, and my cousin Monica's
+apparently disproportioned opposition? When an idea of terror presents
+itself to a young person's mind, it transfixes and fills the vision,
+without respect of probabilities or reason.
+
+My uncle was now a terrible old martinet, with long Bible lessons,
+lectures, pages of catechism, sermons to be conned by rote, and an awful
+catalogue of punishments for idleness, and what would seem to him impiety.
+I was going, then, to a frightful isolated reformatory, where for the first
+time in my life I should be subjected to a rigorous and perhaps barbarous
+discipline.
+
+All this was an exhalation of fancy, but it quite overcame me. I threw
+myself, in my solitude, on the floor, upon my knees, and prayed for
+deliverance--prayed that Cousin Monica might prevail with Doctor Bryerly,
+and both on my behalf with the Lord Chancellor, or the High Sheriff, or
+whoever else my proper deliverer might be; and when my cousin returned, she
+found me quite in an agony.
+
+'Why, you little fool! what fancy has taken possession of you now?' she
+cried.
+
+And when my new terror came to light, she actually laughed a little to
+reassure me, and she said--
+
+'My dear child, your uncle Silas will never put you through your duty to
+your neighbour; all the time you are under his roof you'll have idleness
+and liberty enough, and too much, I fear. It is neglect, my dear, not
+discipline, that I'm afraid of.'
+
+'I think, dear Cousin Monica, you are afraid of something more than
+neglect,' I said, relieved, however.
+
+'I _am_ afraid of more than neglect,' she replied promptly; 'but I hope my
+fears may turn out illusory, and that possibly they may be avoided. And
+now, for a few hours at least, let us think of something else. I rather
+like that Doctor Bryerly. I could not get him to say what I wanted. I don't
+think he's Scotch, but he is very cautious, and I am sure, though he would
+not say so, that he thinks of the matter exactly as I do. He says that
+those fine people, who are named as his co-trustees, won't take any
+trouble, and will leave everything to him, and I am sure he is right. So
+we must not quarrel with him, Maud, nor call him hard names, although
+he certainly is intolerably vulgar and ugly, and at times very nearly
+impertinent--I suppose without knowing, or indeed very much caring.'
+
+We had a good deal to think of, and talked incessantly. There were bursts
+and interruptions of grief, and my kind cousin's consolations. I have
+often since been so lectured for giving way to grief, that I wonder at the
+patience exercised by her during this irksome visit. Then there was some
+reading of that book whose claims are always felt in the terrible days of
+affliction. After that we had a walk in the yew garden, that quaint little
+cloistered quadrangle--the most solemn, sad, and antiquated of gardens.
+
+'And now, my dear, I must really leave you for two or three hours. I have
+ever so many letters to write, and my people must think I'm dead by this
+time.'
+
+So till tea-time I had poor Mary Quince, with her gushes of simple prattle
+and her long fits of vacant silence, for my companion. And such a one, who
+can con over by rote the old friendly gossip about the dead, talk about
+their ways, and looks, and likings, without much psychologic refinement,
+but with a simple admiration and liking that never measured them
+critically, but always with faith and love, is in general about as
+comfortable a companion as one can find for the common moods of grief.
+
+It is not easy to recall in calm and happy hours the sensations of an acute
+sorrow that is past. Nothing, by the merciful ordinance of God, is more
+difficult to remember than pain. One or two great agonies of that time I do
+remember, and they remain to testify of the rest, and convince me, though I
+can see it no more, how terrible all that period was.
+
+Next day was the funeral, that appalling necessity; smuggled away in
+whispers, by black familiars, unresisting, the beloved one leaves home,
+without a farewell, to darken those doors no more; henceforward to lie
+outside, far away, and forsaken, through the drowsy heats of summer,
+through days of snow and nights of tempest, without light or warmth,
+without a voice near. Oh, Death, king of terrors! The body quakes and the
+spirit faints before thee. It is vain, with hands clasped over our eyes, to
+scream our reclamation; the horrible image will not be excluded. We have
+just the word spoken eighteen hundred years ago, and our trembling faith.
+And through the broken vault the gleam of the Star of Bethlehem.
+
+I was glad in a sort of agony when it was over. So long as it remained to
+be done, something of the catastrophe was still suspended. Now it was all
+over.
+
+The house so strangely empty. No owner--no master! I with my strange
+momentary liberty, bereft of that irreplaceable love, never quite prized
+until it is lost. Most people have experienced the dismay that underlies
+sorrow under such circumstances.
+
+The apartment of the poor outcast from life is now dismantled. Beds and
+curtains taken down, and furniture displaced; carpets removed, windows open
+and doors locked; the bedroom and anteroom were henceforward, for many a
+day, uninhabited. Every shocking change smote my heart like a reproach.
+
+I saw that day that Cousin Monica had been crying for the first time, I
+think, since her arrival at Knowl; and I loved her more for it, and felt
+consoled. My tears have often been arrested by the sight of another person
+weeping, and I never could explain why. But I believe that many persons
+experience the same odd reaction.
+
+The funeral was conducted, in obedience to his brief but peremptory
+direction, very privately and with little expense. But of course there was
+an attendance, and the tenants of the Knowl estate also followed the hearse
+to the mausoleum, as it is called, in the park, where he was laid beside my
+dear mother. And so the repulsive ceremonial of that dreadful day was over.
+The grief remained, but there was rest from the fatigue of agitation, and a
+comparative calm supervened.
+
+It was now the stormy equinoctial weather that sounds the wild dirge of
+autumn, and marches the winter in. I love, and always did, that grand
+undefinable music, threatening and bewailing, with its strange soul of
+liberty and desolation.
+
+By this night's mail, as we sat listening to the storm, in the drawing-room
+at Knowl, there reached me a large letter with a great black seal, and a
+wonderfully deep-black border, like a widow's crape. I did not recognise
+the handwriting; but on opening the funereal missive, it proved to be from
+my uncle Silas, and was thus expressed:--
+
+'MY DEAREST NIECE,--This letter will reach you, probably, on the day which
+consigns the mortal remains of my beloved brother, Austin, your dear
+father, to the earth. Sad ceremony, from taking my mournful part in which
+I am excluded by years, distance, and broken health. It will, I trust, at
+this season of desolation, be not unwelcome to remember that a substitute,
+imperfect--unworthy--but most affectionately zealous, for the honoured
+parent whom you have just lost, has been appointed, in me, your uncle, by
+his will. I am aware that you were present during the reading of it, but
+I think it will be for our mutual satisfaction that our new and more
+affectionate relations should be forthwith entered upon. My conscience and
+your safety, and I trust convenience, will thereby be consulted. You will,
+my dear niece, remain at Knowl, until a few simple arrangements shall have
+been completed for your reception at this place. I will then settle
+the details of your little journey to us, which shall be performed as
+comfortably and easily as possible. I humbly pray that this affliction may
+be sanctified to us all, and that in our new duties we may be supported,
+comforted, and directed. I need not remind you that I now stand to you _in
+loco parentis_, which means in the relation of father, and you will not
+forget that you are to remain at Knowl until you hear further from me.
+
+'I remain, my dear niece, your most affectionate uncle and guardian,
+
+SILAS RUTHYN.'
+
+'P.S.--Pray present my respects to Lady Knollys, who, I understand, is
+sojourning at Knowl. I would observe that a lady who cherishes, I have
+reason to fear, unfriendly feelings against your uncle, is not the most
+desirable companion for his ward. But upon the express condition that I am
+not made the subject of your discussions--a distinction which could not
+conduce to your forming a just and respectful estimate of me--I do not
+interpose my authority to bring your intercourse to an immediate close.'
+
+As I read this postscript, my cheek tingled as if I had received a box on
+the ear. Uncle Silas was as yet a stranger. The menace of authority was new
+and sudden, and I felt with a pang of mortification the full force of the
+position in which my dear father's will had placed me.
+
+I was silent, and handed the letter to my cousin, who read it with a
+kind of smile until she came, as I supposed, to the postscript, when her
+countenance, on which my eyes were fixed, changed, and with flushed cheeks
+she knocked the hand that held the letter on the table before her, and
+exclaimed--
+
+'Did I ever hear! Well, if this isn't impertinence! _What_ an old man that
+is!'
+
+There was a pause, during which Lady Knollys held her head high with a
+frown, and sniffed a little.
+
+'I did not intend to talk about him, but now I _will_. I'll talk away just
+whatever I like; and I'll stay here just as long as you let me, Maud, and
+you need not be one atom afraid of him. Our intercourse to an "immediate
+close," indeed! I only wish he were here. He should hear something!'
+
+And Cousin Monica drank off her entire cup of tea at one draught, and then
+she said, more in her own way--
+
+'I'm better!' and drew a long breath, and then she laughed a little in a
+waggish defiance. 'I wish we had him here, Maud, and _would_ not we give
+him a bit of our minds! And this before the poor will is so much as
+proved!'
+
+'I am almost glad he wrote that postscript; for although I don't think he
+has any authority in that matter while I am under my own roof,' I said,
+extemporising a legal opinion, 'and, therefore, shan't obey him, it has
+somehow opened my eyes to my real situation.'
+
+I sighed, I believe, very desolately, for Lady Knollys came over and kissed
+me very gently and affectionately.
+
+'It really seems, Maud, as if he had a supernatural sense, and heard things
+through the air over fifty miles of heath and hill. You remember how, just
+as he was probably writing that very postscript yesterday, I was urging you
+to come and stay with me, and planning to move Dr. Bryerly in our favour.
+And so I will, Maud, and to me you _shall_ come--my guest, mind--I should
+be so delighted; and really if Silas is under a cloud, it has been his own
+doing, and I don't see that it is your business to fight his battle. He
+can't live very long. The suspicion, whatever it is dies with him, and what
+could poor dear Austin prove by his will but what everybody knew quite well
+before--his own strong belief in Silas's innocence? What an awful storm!
+The room trembles. Don't you like the sound? What they used to call
+'wolving' in the old organ at Dorminster!'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+_THE STORY OF UNCLE SILAS_
+
+
+And so it was like the yelling of phantom hounds and hunters, and the
+thunder of their coursers in the air--a furious, grand and supernatural
+music, which in my fancy made a suitable accompaniment to the discussion of
+that enigmatical person--martyr--angel--demon--Uncle Silas--with whom my
+fate was now so strangely linked, and whom I had begun to fear.
+
+'The storm blows from that point,' I said, indicating it with my hand and
+eye, although the window shutters and curtains were closed. 'I saw all the
+trees bend that way this evening. That way stands the great lonely wood,
+where my darling father and mother lie. Oh, how dreadful on nights like
+this, to think of them--a vault!--damp, and dark, and solitary--under the
+storm.'
+
+Cousin Monica looked wistfully in the same direction, and with a short sigh
+she said--
+
+'We think too much of the poor remains, and too little of the spirit which
+lives for ever. I am sure they are happy.' And she sighed again. 'I wish
+I dare hope as confidently for myself. Yes, Maud, it is sad. We are such
+materialists, we can't help feeling so. We forget how well it is for us
+that our present bodies are not to last always. They are constructed for a
+time and place of trouble--plainly mere temporary machines that wear out,
+constantly exhibiting failure and decay, and with such tremendous capacity
+for pain. The body lies alone, and so it ought, for it is plainly its good
+Creator's will; it is only the tabernacle, not the person, who is clothed
+upon after death, Saint Paul says, "with a house which is from heaven." So
+Maud, darling, although the thought will trouble us again and again, there
+is nothing in it; and the poor mortal body is only the cold ruin of a
+habitation which _they_ have forsaken before we do. So this great wind, you
+say, is blowing toward us from the wood there. If so, Maud, it is blowing
+from Bartram-Haugh, too, over the trees and chimneys of that old place, and
+the mysterious old man, who is quite right in thinking I don't like him;
+and I can fancy him an old enchanter in his castle, waving his familiar
+spirits on the wind to fetch and carry tidings of our occupations here.'
+
+I lifted my head and listened to the storm, dying away in the distance
+sometimes--sometimes swelling and pealing around and above us--and through
+the dark and solitude my thoughts sped away to Bartram-Haugh and Uncle
+Silas.
+
+'This letter,' I said at last, 'makes me feel differently. I think he is a
+stern old man--is he?'
+
+'It is twenty years, now, since I saw him,' answered Lady Knollys. 'I did
+not choose to visit at his house.'
+
+'Was that before the dreadful occurrence at Bartram-Haugh?'
+
+'Yes--before, dear. He was not a reformed rake, but only a ruined one then.
+Austin was very good to him. Mr. Danvers says it is quite unaccountable how
+Silas can have made away with the immense sums he got from his brother from
+time to time without benefiting himself in the least. But, my dear, he
+played; and trying to help a man who plays, and is unlucky--and some men
+are, I believe, habitually unlucky--is like trying to fill a vessel that
+has no bottom. I think, by-the-by, my hopeful nephew, Charles Oakley,
+plays. Then Silas went most unjustifiably into all manner of speculations,
+and your poor father had to pay everything. He lost something quite
+astounding in that bank that ruined so many country gentlemen--poor Sir
+Harry Shackleton, in Yorkshire, had to sell half his estate. But your kind
+father went on helping him, up to his marriage--I mean in that extravagant
+way which was really totally useless.'
+
+'Has my aunt been long dead?'
+
+'Twelve or fifteen years--more, indeed--she died before your poor mamma.
+She was very unhappy, and I am sure would have given her right hand she had
+never married Silas.'
+
+'Did you like her?'
+
+'No, dear; she was a coarse, vulgar woman.'
+
+'Coarse and vulgar, and Uncle Silas's wife!' I echoed in extreme surprise,
+for Uncle Silas was a man of fashion--a beau in his day--and might have
+married women of good birth and fortune, I had no doubt, and so I expressed
+myself. 'Yes, dear; so he might, and poor dear Austin was very anxious he
+should, and would have helped him with a handsome settlement, I dare say,
+but he chose to marry the daughter of a Denbigh innkeeper.'
+
+'How utterly incredible!' I exclaimed.
+
+'Not the least incredible, dear--a kind of thing not at all so uncommon as
+you fancy.'
+
+'What!--a gentleman of fashion and refinement marry a person--'
+
+'A barmaid!--just so,' said Lady Knollys. 'I think I could count half a
+dozen men of fashion who, to my knowledge, have ruined themselves just in a
+similar way.'
+
+'Well, at all events, it must be allowed that in this he proved himself
+altogether unworldly.'
+
+'Not a bit unworldly, but very vicious,' replied Cousin Monica, with a
+careless little laugh. 'She was very beautiful, curiously beautiful, for
+a person in her station. She was very like that Lady Hamilton who was
+Nelson's sorceress--elegantly beautiful, but perfectly low and stupid.
+I believe, to do him justice, he only intended to ruin her; but she was
+cunning enough to insist upon marriage. Men who have never in all their
+lives denied themselves the indulgence of a single fancy, cost what it
+may, will not be baulked even by that condition if the _penchant_ be only
+violent enough.'
+
+I did not half understand this piece of worldly psychology, at which Lady
+Knollys seemed to laugh.
+
+'Poor Silas, certainly he struggled honestly against the consequences,
+for he tried after the honeymoon to prove the marriage bad. But the Welsh
+parson and the innkeeper papa were too strong for him, and the young lady
+was able to hold her struggling swain fast in that respectable noose--and a
+pretty prize he proved!'
+
+'And she died, poor thing, broken-hearted, I heard.'
+
+'She died, at all events, about ten years after her marriage; but I really
+can't say about her heart. She certainly had enough ill-usage, I believe,
+to kill her; but I don't know that she had feeling enough to die of it, if
+it had not been that she drank: I am told that Welsh women often do. There
+was jealousy, of course, and brutal quarrelling, and all sorts of horrid
+stories. I visited at Bartram-Haugh for a year or two, though no one else
+would. But when that sort of thing began, of course I gave it up; it was
+out of the question. I don't think poor Austin ever knew how bad it was.
+And then came that odious business about wretched Mr. Charke. You know
+he--he committed suicide at Bartram.'
+
+'I never heard about that,' I said; and we both paused, and she looked
+sternly at the fire, and the storm roared and ha-ha-ed till the old house
+shook again.
+
+'But Uncle Silas could not help that,' I said at last.
+
+'No, he could not help it,' she acquiesced unpleasantly.
+
+'And Uncle Silas was'--I paused in a sort of fear.
+
+'He was suspected by some people of having killed him'--she completed the
+sentence.
+
+There was another long pause here, during which the storm outside bellowed
+and hooted like an angry mob roaring at the windows for a victim. An
+intolerable and sickening sensation overpowered me.
+
+'But _you_ did not suspect him, Cousin Knollys?' I said, trembling very
+much.
+
+'No,' she answered very sharply. 'I told you so before. Of course I did
+not.'
+
+There was another silence.
+
+'I wish, Cousin Monica,' I said, drawing close to her, 'you had not said
+_that_ about Uncle Silas being like a wizard, and sending his spirits
+on the wind to listen. But I'm very glad you never suspected him.' I
+insinuated my cold hand into hers, and looked into her face I know not with
+what expression. She looked down into mine with a hard, haughty stare, I
+thought.
+
+'Of _course_ I never suspected him; and _never_ ask me _that_ question
+again, Maud Ruthyn.'
+
+Was it family pride, or what was it, that gleamed so fiercely from her eyes
+as she said this? I was frightened--I was wounded--I burst into tears.
+
+'What is my darling crying for? I did not mean to be cross. _Was_ I
+cross?' said this momentary phantom of a grim Lady Knollys, in an instant
+translated again into kind, pleasant Cousin Monica, with her arms about my
+neck.
+
+'No, no, indeed--only I thought I had vexed you; and, I believe, thinking
+of Uncle Silas makes me nervous, and I can't help thinking of him nearly
+always.' 'Nor can I, although we might both easily find something better to
+think of. Suppose we try?' said Lady Knollys.
+
+'But, first, I must know a little more about that Mr. Charke, and what
+circumstances enabled Uncle Silas's enemies to found on his death that
+wicked slander, which has done no one any good, and caused some persons so
+much misery. There is Uncle Silas, I may say, ruined by it; and we all know
+how it darkened the life of my dear father.'
+
+'People will talk, my dear. Your uncle Silas had injured himself before
+that in the opinion of the people of his county. He was a black sheep,
+in fact. Very bad stories were told and believed of him. His marriage
+certainly was a disadvantage, you know, and the miserable scenes that went
+on in his disreputable house--all that predisposed people to believe ill of
+him.'
+
+'How long is it since it happened?'
+
+'Oh, a long time; I think before you were born,' answered she.
+
+'And the injustice still lives--they have not forgotten it yet?' said I,
+for such a period appeared to me long enough to have consigned anything in
+its nature perishable to oblivion.
+
+Lady Knollys smiled.
+
+'Tell me, like a darling cousin, the whole story as well as you can
+recollect it. Who was Mr. Charke?'
+
+'Mr. Charke, my dear, was a gentleman on the turf--that is the phrase, I
+think--one of those London men, without birth or breeding, who merely in
+right of their vices and their money are admitted to associate with young
+dandies who like hounds and horses, and all that sort of thing. That set
+knew him very well, but of course no one else. He was at the Matlock
+races, and your uncle asked him to Bartram-Haugh; and the creature, Jew
+or Gentile, whatever he was, fancied there was more honour than, perhaps,
+there really was in a visit to Bartram-Haugh.'
+
+'For the kind of person you describe, it _was_, I think, a rather unusual
+honour to be invited to stay in the house of a man of Uncle Ruthyn's
+birth.'
+
+'Well, so it was perhaps; for though they knew him very well on the course,
+and would ask him to their tavern dinners, they would not, of course, admit
+him to the houses where ladies were. But Silas's wife was not much regarded
+at Bartram-Haugh. Indeed, she was very little seen, for she was every
+evening tipsy in her bedroom, poor woman!'
+
+'How miserable!' I exclaimed.
+
+'I don't think it troubled Silas very much, for she drank gin, they said,
+poor thing, and the expense was not much; and, on the whole, I really think
+he was glad she drank, for it kept her out of his way, and was likely to
+kill her. At this time your poor father, who was thoroughly disgusted at
+his marriage, had stopped the supplies, you know, and Silas was very poor,
+and as hungry as a hawk, and they said he pounced upon this rich London
+gamester, intending to win his money. I am telling you now all that was
+said afterwards. The races lasted I forget how many days, and Mr. Charke
+stayed at Bartram-Haugh all this time and for some days after. It was
+thought that poor Austin would pay all Silas's gambling debts, and so this
+wretched Mr. Charke made heavy wagers with him on the races, and they
+played very deep, besides, at Bartram. He and Silas used to sit up at night
+at cards. All these particulars, as I told you, came out afterwards, for
+there was an inquest, you know, and then Silas published what he called his
+"statement," and there was a great deal of most distressing correspondence
+in the newspapers.'
+
+'And why did Mr. Charke kill himself?' I asked.
+
+'Well, I will tell you first what all are agreed about. The second night
+after the races, your uncle and Mr. Charke sat up till between two and
+three o'clock in the morning, quite by themselves, in the parlour. Mr.
+Charke's servant was at the Stag's Head Inn at Feltram, and therefore could
+throw no light upon what occurred at night at Bartram-Haugh; but he was
+there at six o'clock in the morning, and very early at his master's door by
+his direction. He had locked it, as was his habit, upon the inside, and the
+key was in the lock, which turned out afterwards a very important point.
+On knocking he found that he could not awaken his master, because, as it
+appeared when the door was forced open, his master was lying dead at his
+bedside, not in a pool, but a perfect pond of blood, as they described it,
+with his throat cut.'
+
+'How horrible!' cried I.
+
+'So it was. Your uncle Silas was called up, and greatly shocked of course,
+and he did what I believe was best. He had everything left as nearly as
+possible in the exact state in which it had been found, and he sent his
+own servant forthwith for the coroner, and, being himself a justice of
+the peace, he took the depositions of Mr. Charke's servant while all the
+incidents were still fresh in his memory.'
+
+'Could anything be more straightforward, more right and wise?' I said.
+
+'Oh, nothing of course,' answered Lady Knollys, I thought a little drily.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+_MORE ABOUT TOM CHARKE'S SUICIDE_
+
+
+So the inquest was held, and Mr. Manwaring, of Wail Forest, was the only
+juryman who seemed to entertain the idea during the inquiry that Mr. Charke
+had died by any hand but his own.
+
+'And how _could_ he fancy such a thing?' I exclaimed indignantly.
+
+'Well, you will see the result was quite enough to justify them in saying
+as they did, that he died by his own hand. The window was found fastened
+with a screw on the inside, as it had been when the chambermaid had
+arranged it at nine o'-clock; no one could have entered through it.
+Besides, it was on the third story, and the rooms are lofty, so it stood
+at a great height from the ground, and there was no ladder long enough
+to reach it. The house is built in the form of a hollow square, and Mr.
+Charke's room looked into the narrow court-yard within. There is but one
+door leading into this, and it did not show any sign of having been open
+for years. The door was locked upon the inside, and the key in the lock,
+so that nobody could have made an entrance that way either, for it was
+impossible, you see, to unlock the door from the outside.' 'And how could
+they affect to question anything so clear?' I asked.
+
+'There did come, nevertheless, a kind of mist over the subject, which
+gave those who chose to talk unpleasantly an opportunity of insinuating
+suspicions, though they could not themselves find the clue of the mystery.
+In the first place, it appeared that he had gone to bed very tipsy, and
+that he was heard singing and noisy in his room while getting to bed--not
+the mood in which men make away with themselves. Then, although his own
+razor was found in that dreadful blood (it is shocking to have to hear all
+this) near his right hand, the fingers of his left were cut to the bone.
+Then the memorandum book in which his bets were noted was nowhere to be
+found. That, you know, was very odd. His keys were there attached to a
+chain. He wore a great deal of gold and trinkets. I saw him, wretched
+man, on the course. They had got off their horses. He and your uncle were
+walking on the course.'
+
+'Did he look like a gentleman?' I inquired, as I dare say, other young
+ladies would.
+
+'He looked like a Jew, my dear. He had a horrid brown coat with a velvet
+cape, curling black hair over his collar, and great whiskers, very high
+shoulders, and he was puffing a cigar straight up into the air. I was
+shocked to see Silas in such company.'
+
+'And did his keys discover anything?' I asked.
+
+'On opening his travelling desk and a small japanned box within it a vast
+deal less money was found than was expected--in fact, very little. Your
+uncle said that he had won some of it the night before at play, and
+that Charke complained to him when tipsy of having had severe losses to
+counterbalance his gains on the races. Besides, he had been paid but a
+small part of those gains. About his book it appeared that there were
+little notes of bets on the backs of letters, and it was said that
+he sometimes made no other memorandum of his wagers--but this was
+disputed--and among those notes there was not one referring to Silas. But,
+then, there was an omission of all allusion to his transactions with two
+other well-known gentlemen. So that was not singular.'
+
+'No, certainly; that was quite accounted for,' said I.
+
+'And then came the question,' continued she, 'what motive could Mr. Charke
+possibly have had for making away with himself.'
+
+'But is not that very difficult to make out in many cases?' I interposed.
+
+'It was said that he had some mysterious troubles in London, at which he
+used to hint. Some people said that he really was in a scrape, but others
+that there was no such thing, and that when he talked so he was only
+jesting. There was no suspicion during the inquest that your uncle Silas
+was involved, except those questions of Mr. Manwaring's.'
+
+'What were they?' I asked.
+
+'I really forget; but they greatly offended your uncle, and there was a
+little scene in the room. Mr. Manwaring seemed to think that some one had
+somehow got into the room. Through the door it could not be, nor down the
+chimney, for they found an iron bar across the flue, near the top in the
+masonry. The window looked into a court-yard no bigger than a ball-room.
+They went down and examined it, but, though the ground beneath was moist,
+they could not discover the slightest trace of a footprint. So far as they
+could make out, Mr. Charke had hermetically sealed himself into his room,
+and then cut his throat with his own razor.'
+
+'Yes,' said I, 'for it was all secured--that is, the window and the
+door--upon the inside, and no sign of any attempt to get in.'
+
+'Just so; and when the walls were searched, and, as your uncle Silas
+directed, the wainscoting removed, some months afterwards, when the scandal
+grew loudest, then it was evident that there was no concealed access to the
+room.'
+
+'So the answer to all those calumnies was simply that the crime was
+impossible,' said I. 'How dreadful that such a slander should have required
+an answer at all!'
+
+'It was an unpleasant affair even then, although I cannot say that anyone
+supposed Silas guilty; but you know the whole thing was disreputable, that
+Mr. Charke was a discreditable inmate, the occurrence was horrible, and
+there was a glare of publicity which brought into relief the scandals of
+Bartram-Haugh. But in a little time it became, all on a sudden, a great
+deal worse.'
+
+My cousin paused to recollect exactly.
+
+'There were very disagreeable whispers among the sporting people in London.
+This person, Charke, had written two letters. Yes--two. They were published
+about two months after, by the villain to whom they were written; he wanted
+to extort money. They were first talked of a great deal among that set in
+town; but the moment they were published they produced a sensation in the
+country, and a storm of newspaper commentary. The first of these was of no
+great consequence, but the second was very startling, embarrassing, and
+even alarming.'
+
+'What was it, Cousin Monica?' I whispered.
+
+'I can only tell you in a general way, it is so very long since I read
+it; but both were written in the same kind of slang, and parts as hard to
+understand as a prize fight. I hope you never read those things.'
+
+I satisfied this sudden educational alarm, and Lady Knollys proceeded.
+
+'I am afraid you hardly hear me, the wind makes such an uproar. Well,
+listen. The letter said distinctly, that he, Mr. Charke, had made a very
+profitable visit to Bartram-Haugh, and mentioned in exact figures for how
+much he held your uncle Silas's I.O.U.'s, for he could not pay him. I can't
+say what the sum was. I only remember that it was quite frightful. It took
+away my breath when I read it.'
+
+'Uncle Silas had lost it?' I asked.
+
+'Yes, and owed it; and had given him those papers called I.O.U.'s promising
+to pay, which, of course, Mr. Charke had locked up with his money; and the
+insinuation was that Silas had made away with him, to get rid of this debt,
+and that he had also taken a great deal of his money.
+
+'I just recollect these points which were exactly what made the
+impression,' continued Lady Knollys, after a short pause; 'the letter was
+written in the evening of the last day of the wretched man's life, so that
+there had not been much time for your uncle Silas to win back his money;
+and he stoutly alleged that he did not owe Mr. Charke a guinea. It
+mentioned an enormous sum as being actually owed by Silas; and it cautioned
+the man, an agent, to whom he wrote, not to mention the circumstance, as
+Silas could only pay by getting the money from his wealthy brother, who
+would have the management; and he distinctly said that he had kept the
+matter very close at Silas's request. That, you know, was a very awkward
+letter, and all the worse that it was written in brutally high spirits, and
+not at all like a man meditating an exit from the world. You can't imagine
+what a sensation the publication of these letters produced. In a moment
+the storm was up, and certainly Silas did meet it bravely--yes, with great
+courage and ability. What a pity he did not early enter upon some career of
+ambition! Well, well, it is idle regretting. He suggested that the letters
+were forgeries. He alleged that Charke was in the habit of boasting, and
+telling enormous falsehoods about his gambling transactions, especially in
+his letters. He reminded the world how often men affect high animal spirits
+at the very moment of meditating suicide. He alluded, in a manly and
+graceful way, to his family and their character. He took a high and
+menacing tone with his adversaries, and he insisted that what they dared to
+insinuate against him was physically impossible.'
+
+I asked in what form this vindication appeared.
+
+'It was a letter, printed as a pamphlet; everybody admired its ability,
+ingenuity, and force, and it was written with immense rapidity.'
+
+'Was it at all in the style of his letters?' I innocently asked.
+
+My cousin laughed.
+
+'Oh, dear, no! Ever since he avowed himself a religious character, he had
+written nothing but the most vapid and nerveless twaddle. Your poor dear
+father used to send his letters to me to read, and I sometimes really
+thought that Silas was losing his faculties; but I believe he was only
+trying to write in character.'
+
+'I suppose the general feeling was in his favour?' I said.
+
+'I don't think it was, anywhere; but in his own county it was certainly
+unanimously against him. There is no use in asking why; but so it was, and
+I think it would have been easier for him with his unaided strength to
+uproot the Peak than to change the convictions of the Derbyshire gentlemen.
+They were all against him. Of course there were predisposing causes. Your
+uncle published a very bitter attack upon them, describing himself as the
+victim of a political conspiracy: and I recollect he mentioned that from
+the hour of the shocking catastrophe in his house, he had forsworn the turf
+and all pursuits and amusements connected with it. People sneered, and said
+he might as well go as wait to be kicked out.'
+
+'Were there law-suits about all this?' I asked.
+
+'Everybody expected that there would, for there were very savage things
+printed on both sides, and I think, too, that the persons who thought worst
+of him expected that evidence would yet turn up to convict Silas of the
+crime they chose to impute; and so years have glided away, and many of the
+people who remembered the tragedy of Bartram-Haugh, and took the strongest
+part in the denunciation, and ostracism that followed, are dead, and no new
+light had been thrown upon the occurrence, and your uncle Silas remains an
+outcast. At first he was quite wild with rage, and would have fought the
+whole county, man by man, if they would have met him. But he had since
+changed his habits and, as he says, his aspirations altogether.'
+
+'He has become religious.'
+
+'The only occupation remaining to him. He owes money; he is poor; he is
+isolated; and he says, sick and religious. Your poor father, who was
+very decided and inflexible, never helped him beyond the limit he had
+prescribed, after Silas's _mesalliance_. He wanted to get him into
+Parliament, and would have paid his expenses, and made him an allowance;
+but either Silas had grown lazy, or he understood his position better than
+poor Austin, or he distrusted his powers, or possibly he really is in
+ill-health; but he objected his religious scruples. Your poor papa thought
+self-assertion possible, where an injured man has right to rely upon, but
+he had been very long out of the world, and the theory won't do. Nothing is
+harder than to get a person who has once been effectually slurred, received
+again. Silas, I think, was right. I don't think it was practicable.
+
+'Dear child, how late it is!' exclaimed Lady Knollys suddenly, looking at
+the Louis Quatorze clock, that crowned the mantelpiece.
+
+It was near one o'clock. The storm had a little subsided, and I took a less
+agitated and more confident view of Uncle Silas than I had at an earlier
+hour of that evening.
+
+'And what do you think of him?' I asked.
+
+Lady Knollys drummed on the table with her finger points as she looked into
+the fire.
+
+'I don't understand metaphysics, my dear, nor witchcraft. I sometimes
+believe in the supernatural, and sometimes I don't. Silas Ruthyn is himself
+alone, and I can't define him, because I don't understand him. Perhaps
+other souls than human are sometimes born into the world, and clothed in
+flesh. It is not only about that dreadful occurrence, but nearly always
+throughout his life; early and late he has puzzled me. I have tried in vain
+to understand him. But at one time of his life I am sure he was awfully
+wicked--eccentric indeed in his wickedness--gay, frivolous, secret, and
+dangerous. At one time I think he could have made poor Austin do almost
+anything; but his influence vanished with his marriage, never to return
+again. No; I don't understand him. He always bewildered me, like a shifting
+face, sometimes smiling, but always sinister, in an unpleasant dream.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+_I AM PERSUADED_
+
+
+So now at last I had heard the story of Uncle Silas's mysterious disgrace.
+We sat silent for a while, and I, gazing into vacancy, sent him in a
+chariot of triumph, chapletted, ringed, and robed through the city of
+imagination, crying after him, 'Innocent! innocent! martyr and crowned!'
+All the virtues and honesties, reason and conscience, in myriad
+shapes--tier above tier of human faces--from the crowded pavement, crowded
+windows, crowded roofs, joined in the jubilant acclamation, and trumpeters
+trumpeted, and drums rolled, and great organs and choirs through open
+cathedral gates, rolled anthems of praise and thanksgiving, and the bells
+rang out, and cannons sounded, and the air trembled with the roaring
+harmony; and Silas Ruthyn, the full-length portrait, stood in the burnished
+chariot, with a proud, sad, clouded face, that rejoiced not with the
+rejoicers, and behind him the slave, thin as a ghost, white-faced, and
+sneering something in his ear: while I and all the city went on crying
+'Innocent! innocent! martyr and crowned!' And now the reverie was ended;
+and there were only Lady Knollys' stern, thoughtful face, with the pale
+light of sarcasm on it, and the storm outside thundering and lamenting
+desolately.
+
+It was very good of Cousin Monica to stay with me so long. It must have
+been unspeakably tiresome. And now she began to talk of business at home,
+and plainly to prepare for immediate flight, and my heart sank.
+
+I know that I could not then have defined my feelings and agitations. I am
+not sure that I even now could. Any misgiving about Uncle Silas was, in my
+mind, a questioning the foundations of my faith, and in itself an impiety.
+And yet I am not sure that some such misgiving, faint, perhaps, and
+intermittent, may not have been at the bottom of my tribulation.
+
+I was not very well. Lady Knollys had gone out for a walk. She was not
+easily tired, and sometimes made a long excursion. The sun was setting now,
+when Mary Quince brought me a letter which had just arrived by the post. My
+heart throbbed violently. I was afraid to break the broad black seal. It
+was from Uncle Silas. I ran over in my mind all the unpleasant mandates
+which it might contain, to try and prepare myself for a shock. At last
+I opened the letter. It directed me to hold myself in readiness for the
+journey to Bartram-Haugh. It stated that I might bring two maids with me if
+I wished so many, and that his next letter would give me the details of my
+route, and the day of my departure for Derbyshire; and he said that I ought
+to make arrangements about Knowl during my absence, but that he was hardly
+the person properly to be consulted on that matter. Then came a prayer that
+he might be enabled to acquit himself of his trust to the full satisfaction
+of his conscience, and that I might enter upon my new relations in a spirit
+of prayer.
+
+I looked round my room, so long familiar, and now so endeared by the idea
+of parting and change. The old house--dear, dear Knowl, how could I leave
+you and all your affectionate associations, and kind looks and voices, for
+a strange land!
+
+With a great sigh I took Uncle Silas's letter, and went down stairs to the
+drawing-room. From the lobby window, where I loitered for a few moments,
+I looked out upon the well-known forest-trees. The sun was down. It was
+already twilight, and the white vapours of coming night were already
+filming their thinned and yellow foliage. Everything looked melancholy.
+How little did those who envied the young inheritrex of a princely fortune
+suspect the load that lay at her heart, or, bating the fear of death, how
+gladly at that moment she would have parted with her life!
+
+Lady Knollys had not yet returned, and it was darkening rapidly; a mass of
+black clouds stood piled in the west, through the chasms of which was still
+reflected a pale metallic lustre.
+
+The drawing-room was already very dark; but some streaks of this cold light
+fell upon a black figure, which would otherwise have been unseen, leaning
+beside the curtains against the window frame.
+
+It advanced abruptly, with creaking shoes; it was Doctor Bryerly.
+
+I was startled and surprised, not knowing how he had got there. I stood
+staring at him in the dusk rather awkwardly, I am afraid.
+
+'How do you do, Miss Ruthyn?' said he, extending his hand, long, hard, and
+brown as a mummy's, and stooping a little so as to approach more nearly,
+for it was not easy to see in the imperfect light. 'You're surprised, I
+dare say, to see me here so soon again?'
+
+'I did not know you had arrived. I am glad to see you, Doctor Bryerly.
+Nothing unpleasant, I hope, has happened?'
+
+'No, nothing unpleasant, Miss. The will has been lodged, and we shall have
+probate in due course; but there has been something on my mind, and I'm
+come to ask you two or three questions which you had better answer very
+considerately. Is Miss Knollys still here?'
+
+'Yes, but she is not returned from her walk.'
+
+'I am glad she is here. I think she takes a sound view, and women
+understand one another better. As for me, it is plainly my duty to put it
+before you as it strikes me, and to offer all I can do in accomplishing,
+should you wish it, a different arrangement. You don't know your uncle, you
+said the other day?'
+
+'No, I've never seen him.'
+
+'You understand your late father's intention in making you his ward?'
+
+'I suppose he wished to show his high opinion of my uncle's fitness for
+such a trust.'
+
+'That's quite true; but the nature of the trust in this instance is
+extraordinary.'
+
+'I don't understand.'
+
+'Why, if you die before you come to the age of twenty-one, the entire of
+the property will go to him--do you see?--and he has the custody of your
+person in the meantime; you are to live in his house, under his care and
+authority. You see now, I think, how it is; and I did not like it when your
+father read the will to me, and I said so. Do _you_?'
+
+I hesitated to speak, not sure that I quite comprehended him.
+
+'And the more I think of it, the less I like it, Miss,' said Doctor
+Bryerly, in a calm, stern tone.
+
+'Merciful Heaven! Doctor Bryerly, you can't suppose that I should not be
+as safe in my uncle's house as in the Lord Chancellor's?' I ejaculated,
+looking full in his face.
+
+'But don't you see, Miss, it is not a fair position to put your uncle in,'
+replied he, after a little hesitation.
+
+'But suppose _he_ does not think so. You know, if he does, he may decline
+it.'
+
+'Well that's true--but he won't. Here is his letter'--and he produced
+it--'announcing officially that he means to accept the office; but I think
+he ought to be told it is not _delicate_, under all circumstances.
+You know, Miss, that your uncle, Mr. Silas Ruthyn, was talked about
+unpleasantly once.'
+
+'You mean'--I began.
+
+'I mean about the death of Mr. Charke, at Bartram-Haugh.'
+
+'Yes, I have heard that,' I said; he was speaking with a shocking _aplomb_.
+
+'We assume, of course, _unjustly_; but there are many who think quite
+differently.'
+
+'And possibly, Doctor Bryerly, it was for that very reason that my dear
+papa made him my guardian.'
+
+'There can be no doubt of that, Miss; it was to purge him of that scandal.'
+
+'And when he has acquitted himself honourably of that trust, don't you
+think such a proof of confidence so honourably fulfilled must go far to
+silence his traducers?'
+
+'Why, if all goes well, it may do a little; but a great deal less than you
+fancy. But take it that you happen to _die_, Miss, during your minority. We
+are all mortal, and there are three years and some months to go; how will
+it be then? Don't you see? Just fancy how people will talk.'
+
+'I think you know that my uncle is a religious man?' said I.
+
+'Well, Miss, what of that?' he asked again.
+
+'He is--he has suffered intensely,' I continued. 'He has long retired from
+the world; he is very religious. Ask our curate, Mr. Fairfield, if you
+doubt it.'
+
+'But I am not disputing it, Miss; I'm only supposing what may happen--an
+accident, we'll call it small-pox, diphtheria, _that's_ going very much.
+Three years and three months, you know, is a long time. You proceed to
+Bartram-Haugh, thinking you have much goods laid up for many years; but
+your Creator, you know, may say, "Thou fool, this day is thy soul required
+of thee." You go--and what pray is thought of your uncle, Mr. Silas Ruthyn,
+who walks in for the entire inheritance, and who has long been abused like
+a pickpocket, or worse, in his own county, I'm told?'
+
+'You are a religious man, Doctor Bryerly, according to your lights?' I
+said.
+
+The Swedenborgian smiled.
+
+'Well, knowing that he is so too, and having yourself experienced the power
+of religion, do not you think him deserving of every confidence? Don't you
+think it well that he should have this opportunity of exhibiting both his
+own character and the reliance which my dear papa reposed on it, and that
+we should leave all consequences and contingencies in the hands of Heaven?'
+
+'It appears to have been the will of Heaven hitherto,' said Doctor
+Bryerly--I could not see with what expression of face, but he was looking
+down, and drawing little diagrams with his stick on the dark carpet, and
+spoke in a very low tone--'that your uncle should suffer under this ill
+report. In countervailing the appointment of Providence, we must employ our
+reason, with conscientious diligence, as to the means, and if we find that
+they are as likely to do mischief as good, we have no right to expect a
+special interposition to turn our experiment into an ordeal. I think you
+ought to weigh it well--I am sure there are reasons against it. If you make
+up your mind that you would rather be placed under the care, say of Lady
+Knollys, I will endeavour all I can to effect it.'
+
+'That could not be done without his consent, could it?' said I.
+
+'No, but I don't despair of getting that--on terms, of course,' remarked
+he.
+
+'I don't quite understand,' I said.
+
+'I mean, for instance, if he were allowed to keep the allowance for your
+maintenance--eh?'
+
+'I mistake my uncle Silas very much,' I said, 'if that allowance is any
+object whatever to him compared with the moral value of the position. If he
+were deprived of that, I am sure he would decline the other.'
+
+'We might try him at all events,' said Doctor Bryerly, on whose dark sinewy
+features, even in this imperfect light, I thought I detected a smile.
+
+'Perhaps,' said I, 'I appear very foolish in supposing him actuated by any
+but sordid motives; but he is my near relation, and I can't help it, sir.'
+
+'That is a very serious thing, Miss Ruthyn,' he replied. 'You are very
+young, and cannot see it at present, as you will hereafter. He is very
+religious, you say, and all that, but his house is not a proper place for
+you. It is a solitude--its master an outcast, and it has been the repeated
+scene of all sorts of scandals, and of one great crime; and Lady Knollys
+thinks your having been domesticated there will be an injury to you all the
+days of your life.'
+
+'So I do, Maud,' said Lady Knollys, who had just entered the room
+unperceived,--'How do you do, Doctor Bryerly?--a serious injury. You have
+no idea how entirely that house is condemned and avoided, and the very name
+of its inmates tabooed.'
+
+'How monstrous--how cruel!' I exclaimed.
+
+'Very unpleasant, my dear, but perfectly natural. You are to recollect that
+quite independently of the story of Mr. Charke, the house was talked about,
+and the county people had cut your uncle Silas long before that adventure
+was dreamed of; and as to the circumstance of your being placed in his
+charge by his brother, who took, from strong family feeling, a totally
+one-sided view of the affair from the first, having the slightest effect in
+restoring his position in the county, you must quite give that up. Except
+me, if he will allow me, and the clergyman, not a soul in the country will
+visit at Bartram-Haugh. They may pity you, and think the whole thing the
+climax of folly and cruelty; but they won't visit at Bartram, or know
+Silas, or have anything to do with his household.'
+
+'They will see, at all events, what my dear papa's opinion was.'
+
+'They know that already,' answered she, 'and it has not, and ought not to
+have, the slightest weight with them. There are people there who think
+themselves just as great as the Ruthyns, or greater; and your poor father's
+idea of carrying it by a demonstration was simply the dream of a man who
+had forgotten the world, and learned to exaggerate himself in his long
+seclusion. I know he was beginning himself to hesitate; and I think if he
+had been spared another year that provision of his will would have been
+struck out.'
+
+Doctor Bryerly nodded, and he said--
+
+'And if he had the power to dictate _now_, would he insist on that
+direction? It is a mistake every way, injurious to you, his child; and
+should you happen to die during your sojourn under your uncle's care, it
+would woefully defeat the testator's object, and raise such a storm of
+surmise and inquiry as would awaken all England, and send the old scandal
+on the wing through the world again.'
+
+'Doctor Bryerly will, I have no doubt, arrange it all. In fact, I do not
+think it would be very difficult to bring Silas to terms; and if you do not
+consent to his trying, Maud, mark my words, you will live to repent it.'
+
+Here were two persons viewing the question from totally different points;
+both perfectly disinterested; both in their different ways, I believe,
+shrewd and even wise; and both honourable, urging me against it, and in a
+way that undefinably alarmed my imagination, as well as moved my reason. I
+looked from one to the other--there was a silence. By this time the candles
+had come, and we could see one another.
+
+'I only wait your decision, Miss Ruthyn,' said the trustee, 'to see
+your uncle. If his advantage was the chief object contemplated in this
+arrangement, he will be the best judge whether his interest is really best
+consulted by it or no; and I think he will clearly see that it is _not_ so,
+and will answer accordingly.'
+
+'I cannot answer now--you must allow me to think it over--I will do my
+best. I am very much obliged, my dear Cousin Monica, you are so very good,
+and you too, Doctor Bryerly.'
+
+Doctor Bryerly by this time was looking into his pocket-book, and did not
+acknowledge my thanks even by a nod.
+
+'I must be in London the day after to-morrow. Bartram-Haugh is nearly sixty
+miles from here, and only twenty of that by rail, I find. Forty miles of
+posting over those Derbyshire mountains is slow work; but if you say _try_,
+I'll see him to-morrow morning.'
+
+'You must say try--you _must_, my dear Maud.'
+
+'But how can I decide in a moment? Oh, dear Cousin Monica, I am so
+distracted!'
+
+'But _you_ need not decide at all; the decision rests with _him_. Come; he
+is more competent than you. You _must_ say yes.'
+
+Again I looked from her to Doctor Bryerly, and from him to her again. I
+threw my arms about her neck, and hugging her closely to me, I cried--
+
+'Oh, Cousin Monica, dear Cousin Monica, advise me. I am a wretched
+creature. You must advise me.'
+
+I did not know till now how irresolute a character was mine.
+
+I knew somehow by the tone of her voice that she was smiling as she
+answered--
+
+'Why, dear, I have advised you; I _do_ advise you;' and then she added,
+impetuously, 'I entreat and implore, if you really think I love you, that
+you will _follow_ my advice. It is your duty to leave your uncle Silas,
+whom you believe to be more competent than you are, to decide, after full
+conference with Doctor Bryerly, who knows more of your poor father's views
+and intentions in making that appointment than either you or I.'
+
+'Shall I say, yes?' I cried, drawing her close, and kissing her
+helplessly.' Oh, tell me--tell me to say, yes.'
+
+'Yes, of course, _yes_. She agrees, Doctor Bryerly, to your kind proposal.'
+
+'I am to understand so?' he asked.
+
+'Very well--yes, Doctor Bryerly,' I replied.
+
+'You have resolved wisely and well,' said he, briskly, like a man who has
+got a care off his mind.
+
+'I forgot to say, Doctor Bryerly--it was very rude--that you must stay here
+to-night.'
+
+'He _can't_, my dear,' interposed Lady Knolly's; 'it is a long way.'
+
+'He will dine. Won't you, Doctor Bryerly?'
+
+'No; he can't. You know you can't, sir,' said my cousin, peremptorily. 'You
+must not worry him, my dear, with civilities he can't accept. He'll bid us
+good-bye this moment. Good-bye, Doctor Bryerly. You'll write immediately;
+don't wait till you reach town. Bid him good-bye, Maud. I'll say a word to
+you in the hall.'
+
+And thus she literally hurried him out of the room, leaving me in a state
+of amazement and confusion, not able to review my decision--unsatisfied,
+but still unable to recall it.
+
+I stood where they had left me, looking after them, I suppose, like a fool.
+
+Lady Knollys returned in a few minutes. If I had been a little cooler I was
+shrewd enough to perceive that she had sent poor Doctor Bryerly away upon
+his travels, to find board and lodging half-way to Bartram, to remove
+him forthwith from my presence, and thus to make my decision--if mine it
+was--irrevocable.
+
+'I applaud you, my dear,' said Cousin Knollys, in her turn embracing me
+heartily. 'You are a sensible little darling, and have done exactly what
+you ought to have done.'
+
+'I hope I have,' I faltered.
+
+'Hope? fiddle! stuff! the thing's as plain as a pikestaff.'
+
+And in came Branston to say that dinner was served.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+_HOW THE AMBASSADOR FARED_
+
+
+Lady Knollys, I could plainly see, when we got into the brighter lights at
+the dinner table, was herself a good deal excited; she was relieved
+and glad, and was garrulous during our meal, and told me all her early
+recollections of dear papa. Most of them I had heard before; but they could
+not be told too often.
+
+Notwithstanding my mind sometimes wandered, _often_ indeed, to the
+conference so unexpected, so suddenly decisive, possibly so momentous; and
+with a dismayed uncertainly, the question--had I done right?--was always
+before me.
+
+I dare say my cousin understood my character better, perhaps, after all my
+honest self-study, then I do even now. Irresolute, suddenly reversing my
+own decisions, impetuous in action as she knew me, she feared, I am sure,
+a revocation of my commission to Doctor Bryerly, and thought of the
+countermand I might send galloping after him.
+
+So, kind creature, she laboured to occupy my thoughts, and when one theme
+was exhausted found another, and had always her parry prepared as often as
+I directed a reflection or an enquiry to the re-opening of the question
+which she had taken so much pains to close.
+
+That night I was troubled. I was already upbraiding myself. I could not
+sleep, and at last sat up in bed, and cried. I lamented my weakness in
+having assented to Doctor Bryerly's and my cousin's advice. Was I not
+departing from my engagement to my dear papa? Was I not consenting that
+my Uncle Silas should be induced to second my breach of faith by a
+corresponding perfidy?
+
+Lady Knollys had done wisely in despatching Doctor Bryerly so promptly;
+for, most assuredly, had he been at Knowl next morning when I came down I
+should have recalled my commission.
+
+That day in the study I found four papers which increased my perturbation.
+They were in dear papa's handwriting, and had an indorsement in these
+words--'Copy of my letter addressed to ----, one of the trustees named in
+my will.' Here, then, were the contents of those four sealed letters which
+had excited mine and Lady Knollys' curiosity on the agitating day on which
+the will was read.
+
+It contained these words:--
+
+'I name my oppressed and unhappy brother, Silas Ruthyn, residing at my
+house of Bartram-Haugh, as guardian of the person of my beloved child, to
+convince the world if possible, and failing that, to satisfy at least all
+future generations of our family, that his brother, who knew him best,
+had implicit confidence in him, and that he deserved it. A cowardly and
+preposterous slander, originating in political malice, and which never have
+been whispered had he not been poor and imprudent, is best silenced by this
+ordeal of purification. All I possess goes to him if my child dies under
+age; and the custody of her person I commit meanwhile to him alone, knowing
+that she is as safe in his as she could have been under my own care. I rely
+upon your remembrance of our early friendship to make this known wherever
+an opportunity occurs, and also to say what your sense of justice may
+warrant.'
+
+The other letters were in the same spirit. My heart sank like lead as I
+read them. I quaked with fear. What had I done? My father's wise and noble
+vindication of our dishonoured name I had presumed to frustrate. I had,
+like a coward, receded from my easy share in the task; and, merciful
+Heaven, I had broken my faith with the dead!
+
+With these letters in my hand, white with fear, I flew like a shadow to the
+drawing-room where Cousin Monica was, and told her to read them. I saw by
+her countenance how much alarmed she was by my looks, but she said nothing,
+only read the letters hurriedly, and then exclaimed--
+
+'Is this all, my dear child? I really fancied you had found a second will,
+and had lost everything. Why, my dearest Maud, we knew all this before.
+We quite understood poor dear Austin's motive. Why are you so easily
+disturbed?'
+
+'Oh, Cousin Monica, I think he was right; it all seems quite reasonable
+now; and I--oh, what a crime!--it must be stopped.'
+
+'My dear Maud, listen to reason. Doctor Bryerly has seen your uncle at
+Bartram at least two hours ago. You _can't_ stop it, and why on earth
+should you if you could? Don't you think your uncle should be consulted?'
+said she.
+
+'But he has _decided_. I have his letter speaking of it as settled; and
+Doctor Bryerly--oh, Cousin Monica, he's gone _to tempt him_.'
+
+'Nonsense, girl! Doctor Bryerly is a good and just man, I do believe, and
+has, beside, no imaginable motive to pervert either his conscience or his
+judgment. He's not gone to tempt him--stuff!--but to unfold the facts and
+invite his consideration; and I say, considering how thoughtlessly such
+duties are often undertaken, and how long Silas has been living in lazy
+solitude, shut out from the world, and unused to discuss anything, I do
+think it only conscientious and honourable that he should have a fair and
+distinct view of the matter in all its bearings submitted to him before he
+indolently incurs what may prove the worst danger he was ever involved in.'
+
+So Lady Knollys argued, with feminine energy, and I must confess, with a
+good deal of the repetition which I have sometimes observed in logicians of
+my own sex, and she puzzled without satisfying me.
+
+'I don't know why I went to that room,' I said, quite frightened; 'or why I
+went to that press; how it happened that these papers, which we never saw
+there before, were the first things to strike my eye to-day.'
+
+'What do you mean, dear?' said Lady Knollys.
+
+'I mean this--I think I was _brought_ there, and that _there_ is poor
+papa's appeal to me, as plain as if his hand came and wrote it upon the
+wall.' I nearly screamed the conclusion of this wild confession.
+
+'You are nervous, my darling; your bad nights have worn you out. Let us go
+out; the air will do you good; and I do assure you that you will very soon
+see that we are quite right, and rejoice conscientiously that you have
+acted as you did.'
+
+But I was not to be satisfied, although my first vehemence was quieted. In
+my prayers that night my conscience upbraided me. When I lay down in bed
+my nervousness returned fourfold. Everybody at all nervously excitable
+has suffered some time or another by the appearance of ghastly features
+presenting themselves in every variety of contortion, one after another,
+the moment the eyes are closed. This night my dear father's face troubled
+me--sometimes white and sharp as ivory, sometimes strangely transparent
+like glass, sometimes all hanging in cadaverous folds, always with the same
+unnatural expression of diabolical fury.
+
+From this dreadful vision I could only escape by sitting up and staring
+at the light. At length, worn out, I dropped asleep, and in a dream I
+distinctly heard papa's voice say sharply outside the bed-curtain:--'Maud,
+we shall be late at Bartram-Haugh.'
+
+And I awoke in a horror, the wall, as it seemed, still ringing with the
+summons, and the speaker, I fancied, standing at the other side of the
+curtain.
+
+A miserable night I passed. In the morning, looking myself like a ghost, I
+stood in my night-dress by Lady Knollys' bed.
+
+'I have had my warning,' I said. 'Oh, Cousin Monica, papa has been with me,
+and ordered me to Bartram-Haugh; and go I will.'
+
+She stared in my face uncomfortably, and then tried to laugh the matter
+off; but I know she was troubled at the strange state to which agitation
+and suspense had reduced me.
+
+'You're taking too much for granted, Maud,' said she; 'Silas Ruthyn,
+most likely, will refuse his consent, and insist on your going to
+Bartram-Haugh.'
+
+'Heaven grant!' I exclaimed; 'but if he doesn't, it is all the same to me,
+go I will. He may turn me out, but I'll go, and try to expiate the breach
+of faith that I fear is so horribly wicked.'
+
+We had several hours still to wait for the arrival of the post. For both of
+us the delay was a suspense; for me an almost agonising one. At length,
+at an unlooked-for moment, Branston did enter the room with the post-bag.
+There was a large letter, with the Feltram post-mark, addressed to Lady
+Knollys--it was Doctor Bryerly's despatch; we read it together. It was
+dated on the day before, and its purport was thus:--
+
+'RESPECTED MADAM,--I this day saw Mr. Silas Ruthyn at Bartram-Haugh, and
+he peremptorily refuses, on any terms, to vacate the guardianship, or to
+consent to Miss Ruthyn's residing anywhere but under his own immediate
+care. As he bases his refusal, first upon a conscientious difficulty,
+declaring that he has no right, through fear of personal contingencies, to
+abdicate an office imposed in so solemn a way, and so naturally devolving
+on him as only brother to the deceased; and secondly upon the effect such a
+withdrawal, at the instance of the acting trustee, would have upon his own
+character, amounting to a public self-condemnation; and as he refused to
+discuss these positions with me, I could make no way whatsoever with him.
+Finding, therefore, that his mind was quite made up, after a short time I
+took my leave. He mentioned that preparations for his niece's reception are
+being completed, and that he will send for her in a few days; so that I
+think it will be advisable that I should go down to Knowl, to assist Miss
+Ruthyn with any advice she may require before her departure, to discharge
+servants, get inventories made, and provide for the care of the place and
+grounds during her minority.
+
+'I am, respected Madam, yours truly,
+
+HANS E. BRYERLY.'
+
+I can't describe to you how chapfallen and angry my cousin looked. She
+sniffed once or twice, and then said, rather bitterly, in a subdued tone:--
+
+'Well, _now_; I hope you are pleased?'
+
+'No, no, no; you _know_ I'm not--grieved to the heart, my only friend, my
+dear Cousin Monica; but my conscience is at rest; you don't know what a
+sacrifice it is; I am a most unhappy creature. I feel an indescribable
+foreboding. I am frightened; but you won't forsake me, Cousin Monica.'
+
+'No, darling, never,' she said, sadly.
+
+'And you'll come and see me, won't you, as often as you can?'
+
+'Yes, dear; that is if Silas allows me; and I'm sure he will,' she added
+hastily, seeing, I suppose, my terror in my face. 'All I can do, you may be
+sure I will, and perhaps he will allow you to come to me, now and then, for
+a short visit. You know I am only six miles away--little more than half an
+hour's drive, and though I hate Bartram, and detest Silas--Yes, I _detest
+Silas_,' she repeated in reply to my surprised gaze--'I _will_ call at
+Bartram--that is, I say, if he allows me; for, you know, I haven't been
+there for a quarter of a century; and though I never understood Silas, I
+fancy he forgives no sins, whether of omission or commission.'
+
+I wondered what old grudge could make my cousin judge Uncle Silas always
+so hardly--I could not suppose it was justice. I had seen my hero indeed
+lately so disrespectfully handled before my eyes, that he had, as idols
+will, lost something of his sacredness. But as an article of faith, I still
+cultivated my trust in his divinity, and dismissed every intruding doubt
+with an exorcism, as a suggestion of the evil one. But I wronged Lady
+Knollys in suspecting her of pique, or malice, or anything more than that
+tendency to take strong views which some persons attribute to my sex.
+
+So, then, the little project of Cousin Monica's guardianship, which, had it
+been poor papa's wish, would have made me so very happy, was quite knocked
+on the head, to revive no more. I comforted myself, however, with her
+promise to re-open communications with Bartram-Haugh, and we grew resigned.
+
+I remember, next morning, as we sat at a very late breakfast, Lady Knollys,
+reading a letter, suddenly made an exclamation and a little laugh, and read
+on with increased interest for a few minutes, and then, with another little
+laugh, she looked up, placing her hand, with the open letter in it, beside
+her tea-cup.
+
+'You'll not guess whom I've been reading about,' said she, with her head
+the least thing on one side, and an arch smile.
+
+I felt myself blushing--cheeks, forehead, even down to the tips of my
+fingers. I anticipated the name I was to hear. She looked very much amused.
+Was it possible that Captain Oakley was married?
+
+'I really have not the least idea,' I replied, with that kind of overdone
+carelessness which betrays us.
+
+'No, I see quite plainly you have not; but you can't think how prettily you
+blush,' answered she, very much diverted.
+
+'I really don't care,' I replied, with some little dignity, and blushing
+deeper and deeper.
+
+'Will you make a guess?' she asked.
+
+'I _can't_ guess.'
+
+'Well, shall I tell you?'
+
+'Just as you please.'
+
+'Well, I will--that is, I'll read a page of my letter, which tells it all.
+Do you know Georgina Fanshawe?' she asked.
+
+'Lady Georgina? No.'
+
+'Well, no matter; she's in Paris now, and this letter is from her, and
+she says--let me see the place--"Yesterday, what do you think?--quite an
+apparition!--you shall hear. My brother Craven yesterday insisted on my
+accompanying him to Le Bas' shop in that odd little antique street near the
+Greve; it is a wonderful old curiosity shop. I forget what they call them
+here. When we went into this place it was very nearly deserted, and there
+were so many curious things to look at all about, that for a minute or two
+I did not observe a tall woman, in a grey silk and a black velvet mantle,
+and quite a nice new Parisian bonnet. You will be _charmed_, by-the-by,
+with the new shape--it is only out three weeks, and is quite
+_indescribably_ elegant, _I_ think, at least. They have them, I am sure, by
+this time at Molnitz's, so I need say no more. And now that I am on this
+subject of dress, I have got your lace; and I think you will be very
+ungrateful if you are not _charmed_ with it." Well, I need not read all
+that--here is the rest;' and she read--
+
+'"But you'll ask about my mysterious _dame_ in the new bonnet and velvet
+mantle; she was sitting on a stool at the counter, not buying, but
+evidently selling a quantity of stones and trinkets which she had in a
+card-box, and the man was picking them up one by one, and, I suppose,
+valuing them. I was near enough to see such a darling little pearl cross,
+with at least half a dozen really good pearls in it, and had begun to covet
+them for my set, when the lady glanced over my shoulder, and she
+knew me--in fact, we knew one another--and who do you think she was?
+Well--you'll not guess in a week, and I can't wait so long; so I may as
+well tell you at once--she was that horrid old Mademoiselle Blassemare whom
+you pointed out to me at Elverston; and I never forgot her face since--nor
+she, it seems, mine, for she turned away very quickly, and when I next saw
+her, her veil was down."'
+
+'Did not you tell me, Maud, that you had lost your pearl cross while that
+dreadful Madame de la Rougierre was here?'
+
+'Yes; but--'
+
+'I know; but what has she to do with Mademoiselle de Blassemare, you were
+going to say--they are one and the same person.'
+
+'Oh, I perceive,' answered I, with that dim sense of danger and dismay with
+which one hears suddenly of an enemy of whom one has lost sight for a time.
+
+'I'll write and tell Georgie to buy that cross. I wager my life it is
+yours,' said Lady Knollys, firmly.
+
+The servants, indeed, made no secret of their opinion of Madame de la
+Rougierre, and frankly charged her with a long list of larcenies. Even Anne
+Wixted, who had enjoyed her barren favour while the gouvernante was here,
+hinted privately that she had bartered a missing piece of lace belonging to
+me with a gipsy pedlar, for French gloves and an Irish poplin.
+
+'And so surely as I find it is yours, I'll set the police in pursuit.'
+
+'But you must not bring me into court,' said I, half amused and half
+alarmed.
+
+'No occasion, my dear; Mary Quince and Mrs. Rusk can prove it perfectly.'
+
+'And why do you dislike her so very much?' I asked.
+
+Cousin Monica leaned back in her chair, and searched the cornice from
+corner to corner with upturned eyes for the reason, and at last laughed a
+little, amused at herself.
+
+'Well, really, it is not easy to define, and, perhaps, it is not quite
+charitable; but I know I hate her, and I know, you little hypocrite, you
+hate her as much as I;' and we both laughed a little.
+
+'But you must tell me all you know of her history.'
+
+'Her history?' echoed she. 'I really know next to nothing about it; only
+that I used to see her sometimes about the place that Georgina mentions,
+and there were some unpleasant things said about her; but you know they may
+be all lies. The worst I _know_ of her is her treatment of you, and her
+robbing the desk'--(Cousin Monica always called it her _robbery_)--'and I
+think that's enough to hang her. Suppose we go out for a walk?'
+
+So together we went, and I resumed about Madame; but no more could I
+extract--perhaps there was not much more to hear.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+_ON THE ROAD_
+
+
+All at Knowl was indicative of the break-up that was so near at hand.
+Doctor Bryerly arrived according to promise. He was in a whirl of business
+all the time. He and Mr. Danvers conferred about the management of the
+estate. It was agreed that the grounds and gardens should be let, but not
+the house, of which Mrs. Rusk was to take the care. The gamekeeper remained
+in office, and some out-door servants. But the rest were to go, except Mary
+Quince, who was to accompany me to Bartram-Haugh as my maid.
+
+'Don't part with Quince,' said Lady Knollys, peremptorily 'they'll want
+you, but _don't_.'
+
+She kept harping on this point, and recurred to it half a dozen times every
+day.
+
+'They'll say, you know, that she is not fit for a lady's maid, as she
+certainly is _not_, if it in the least signified in such a wilderness as
+Bartram-Haugh; but she is attached, trustworthy, and honest; and those are
+qualities valuable everywhere, especially in a solitude. Don't allow them
+to get you a wicked young French milliner in her stead.'
+
+Sometimes she said things that jarred unpleasantly on my nerves, and left
+an undefined sense of danger. Such as:--
+
+'I know she's true to you, and a good creature; but is she shrewd enough?'
+
+Or, with an anxious look:--
+
+'I hope Mary Quince is not easily frightened.'
+
+Or, suddenly:--
+
+'Can Mary Quince write, in case you were ill?'
+
+Or,
+
+'Can she take a message exactly?'
+
+Or,
+
+'Is she a person of any enterprise and resource, and cool in an emergency?'
+
+Now, these questions did not come all in a string, as I write them down
+here, but at long intervals, and were followed quickly by ordinary talk;
+but they generally escaped from my companion after silence and gloomy
+thought; and though I could extract nothing more defined than these
+questions, yet they seemed to me to point at some possible danger
+contemplated in my good cousin's dismal ruminations.
+
+Another topic that occupied my cousin's mind a good deal was obviously the
+larceny of my pearl cross. She made a note of the description furnished by
+the recollection, respectively, of Mary Quince, Mrs. Rusk, and myself. I
+had fancied her little vision of the police was no more than the result of
+a momentary impulse; but really, to judge by her methodical examinations of
+us, I should have fancied that she had taken it up in downright earnest.
+
+Having learned that my departure from Knowl was to be so very soon, she
+resolved not to leave me before the day of my journey to Bartram-Haugh; and
+as day after day passed by, and the hour of our leave-taking approached,
+she became more and more kind and affectionate. A feverish and sorrowful
+interval it was to me.
+
+Of Doctor Bryerly, though staying in the house, we saw almost nothing,
+except for an hour or so at tea-time. He breakfasted very early, and dined
+solitarily, and at uncertain hours, as business permitted.
+
+The second evening of his visit, Cousin Monica took occasion to introduce
+the subject of his visit to Bartram-Haugh.
+
+'You saw him, of course?' said Lady Knollys.
+
+'Yes, he saw me; he was not well. On hearing who I was, he asked me to go
+to his room, where he sat in a silk dressing-gown and slippers.'
+
+'About business principally,' said Cousin Monica, laconically.
+
+'That was despatched in very few words; for he was quite resolved, and
+placed his refusal upon grounds which it was difficult to dispute. But
+difficult or no, mind you, he intimated that he would hear nothing more on
+the subject--so that was closed.'
+
+'Well; and what is his religion now?' inquired she, irreverently.
+
+'We had some interesting conversation on the subject. He leans much to what
+we call the doctrine of correspondents. He is read rather deeply in the
+writings of Swedenborg, and seemed anxious to discuss some points with one
+who professes to be his follower. To say truth, I did not expect to find
+him either so well read or so deeply interested in the subject.'
+
+'Was he angry when it was proposed that he should vacate the guardianship?'
+
+'Not at all. Contrariwise, he said he had at first been so minded himself.
+His years, his habits, and something of the unfitness of the situation, the
+remoteness of Bartram-Haugh from good teachers, and all that, had struck
+him, and nearly determined him against accepting the office. But then came
+the views which I stated in my letter, and they governed him; and nothing
+could shake them, he said, or induce him to re-open the question in his own
+mind.'
+
+All the time Doctor Bryerly was relating his conference with the head of
+the family at Bartram-Haugh my cousin commented on the narrative with a
+variety of little 'pishes' and sneers, which I thought showed more of
+vexation than contempt.
+
+I was glad to hear all that Doctor Bryerly related. It gave me a kind
+of confidence; and I experienced a momentary reaction. After all, could
+Bartram-Haugh be more lonely than I had found Knowl? Was I not sure of the
+society of my Cousin Millicent, who was about my own age? Was it not quite
+possible that my sojourn in Derbyshire might turn out a happy though very
+quiet remembrance through all my after-life? Why should it not? What time
+or place would be happy if we gave ourselves over to dismal imaginations?
+
+So the summons reached me from Uncle Silas. The hours at Knowl were
+numbered.
+
+The evening before I departed I visited the full-length portrait of Uncle
+Silas, and studied it for the last time carefully, with deep interest, for
+many minutes; but with results vaguer than ever.
+
+With a brother so generous and so wealthy, always ready to help him
+forward; with his talents; with his lithe and gorgeous beauty, the shadow
+of which hung on that canvas--what might he not have accomplished? whom
+might he not have captivated? And yet where and what was he? A poor and
+shunned old man, occupying a lonely house and place that did not belong to
+him, married to degradation, with a few years of suspected and solitary
+life before him, and then swift oblivion his best portion.
+
+I gazed on the picture, to fix it well and vividly in my remembrance. I
+might still trace some of its outlines and tints in its living original,
+whom I was next day to see for the first time in my life.
+
+So the morning came--my last for many a day at Knowl--a day of partings, a
+day of novelty and regrets. The travelling carriage and post horses were
+at the door. Cousin Monica's carriage had just carried her away to the
+railway. We had embraced with tears; and her kind face was still before me,
+and her words of comfort and promise in my ears. The early sharpness
+of morning was still in the air; the frosty dew still glistened on the
+window-panes. We had made a hasty breakfast, my share of which was a single
+cup of tea. The aspect of the house how strange! Uncarpeted, uninhabited,
+doors for the most part locked, all the servants but Mrs. Rusk and Branston
+departed. The drawing-room door stood open, and a charwoman was washing the
+bare floor. I was looking my last--for who could say how long?--on the old
+house, and lingered. The luggage was all up. I made Mary Quince get in
+first, for every delay was precious; and now the moment was come. I hugged
+and kissed Mrs. Rusk in the hall.
+
+'God bless you, Miss Maud, darling. You must not fret; mind, the time won't
+be long going over--_no_ time at all; and you'll be bringing back a fine
+young gentleman--who knows? as great as the Duke of Wellington, for your
+husband; and I'll take the best of care of everything, and the birds and
+the dogs, till you come back; and I'll go and see you and Mary, if you'll
+allow, in Derbyshire;' and so forth.
+
+I got into the carriage, and bid Branston, who shut the door, good-bye,
+and kissed hands to Mrs. Rusk, who was smiling and drying her eyes and
+courtesying on the hall-door steps. The dogs, who had started gleefully
+with the carriage, were called back by Branston, and driven home, wondering
+and wistful, looking back with ears oddly cocked and tails dejected. My
+heart thanked them for their kindness, and I felt like a stranger, and very
+desolate.
+
+It was a bright, clear morning. It had been settled that it was not
+worth the trouble changing from the carriage to the railway for sake of
+five-and-twenty miles, and so the entire journey of sixty miles was to be
+made by the post road--the pleasantest travelling, if the mind were free.
+The grander and more distant features of the landscape we may see well
+enough from the window of the railway-carriage; but it is the foreground
+that interests and instructs us, like a pleasant gossiping history; and
+_that_ we had, in old days, from the post-chaise window. It was more
+than travelling picquet. Something of all conditions of life--luxury
+and misery--high spirits and low;--all sorts of costume, livery, rags,
+millinery; faces buxom, faces wrinkled, faces kind, faces wicked;--no end
+of interest and suggestion, passing in a procession silent and vivid, and
+all in their proper scenery. The golden corn-sheafs--the old dark-alleyed
+orchards, and the high streets of antique towns. There were few dreams
+brighter, few books so pleasant.
+
+We drove by the dark wood--it always looked dark to me--where the
+'mausoleum' stands--where my dear parents both lay now. I gazed on its
+sombre masses not with a softened feeling, but a peculiar sense of pain,
+and was glad when it was quite past.
+
+All the morning I had not shed a tear. Good Mary Quince cried at leaving
+Knowl; Lady Knollys' eyes were not dry as she kissed and blessed me,
+and promised an early visit; and the dark, lean, energetic face of the
+housekeeper was quivering, and her cheeks wet, as I drove away. But I,
+whose grief was sorest, never shed a tear. I only looked about from one
+familiar object to another, pale, excited, not quite apprehending my
+departure, and wondering at my own composure.
+
+But when we reached the old bridge, with the tall osiers standing by the
+buttress, and looked back at poor Knowl--the places we love and are leaving
+look so fairy-like and so sad in the clear distance, and this is the finest
+view of the gabled old house, with its slanting meadow-lands and noble
+timber reposing in solemn groups--I gazed at the receding vision, and the
+tears came at last, and I wept in silence long after the fair picture was
+hidden from view by the intervening uplands.
+
+I was relieved, and when we had made our next change of horses, and got
+into a country that was unknown to me, the new scenery and the sense of
+progress worked their accustomed effects on a young traveller who had lived
+a particularly secluded life, and I began to experience, on the whole, a
+not unpleasurable excitement.
+
+Mary Quince and I, with the hopefulness of inexperienced travellers, began
+already to speculate about our proximity to Bartram-Haugh, and were sorely
+disappointed when we heard from the nondescript courier--more like a
+ostler than a servant, who sat behind in charge of us and the luggage, and
+represented my guardian's special care--at nearly one o'clock, that we had
+still forty miles to go, a considerable portion of which was across the
+high Derbyshire mountains, before we reached Bartram-Haugh.
+
+The fact was, we had driven at a pace accommodated rather to the
+convenience of the horses than to our impatience; and finding, at the
+quaint little inn where we now halted, that we must wait for a nail or two
+in a loose shoe of one of our relay, we consulted, and being both hungry,
+agreed to beguile the time with an early dinner, which we enjoyed very
+sociably in a queer little parlour with a bow window, and commanding, with
+a little garden for foreground, a very pretty landscape.
+
+Good Mary Quince, like myself, had quite dried her tears by this time, and
+we were both highly interested, and I a little nervous, too, about our
+arrival and reception at Bartram. Some time, of course, was lost in this
+pleasant little parlour, before we found ourselves once more pursuing our
+way.
+
+The slowest part of our journey was the pull up the long mountain road,
+ascending zig-zag, as sailors make way against a head-wind, by tacking. I
+forget the name of the pretty little group of houses--it did not amount
+to a village--buried in trees, where we got our _four_ horses and two
+postilions, for the work was severe. I can only designate it as the place
+where Mary Quince and I had our tea, very comfortably, and bought some
+gingerbread, very curious to look upon, but quite uneatable.
+
+The greater portion of the ascent, when we were fairly upon the mountain,
+was accomplished at a walk, and at some particularly steep points we had to
+get out and go on foot. But this to me was quite delightful. I had never
+scaled a mountain before, and the ferns and heath, the pure boisterous air,
+and above all the magnificent view of the rich country we were leaving
+behind, now gorgeous and misty in sunset tints, stretching in gentle
+undulations far beneath us, quite enchanted me.
+
+We had just reached the summit when the sun went down. The low grounds at
+the other side were already lying in cold grey shadow, and I got the man
+who sat behind to point out as well as he could the site of Bartram-Haugh.
+But mist was gathering over all by this time. The filmy disk of the moon
+which was to light us on, so soon as twilight faded into night, hung high
+in air. I tried to see the sable mass of wood which he described. But it
+was vain, and to acquire a clear idea of the place, as of its master, I
+must only wait that nearer view which an hour or two more would afford me.
+
+And now we rapidly descended the mountain side. The scenery was wilder
+and bolder than I was accustomed to. Our road skirted the edge of a great
+heathy moor. The silvery light of the moon began to glimmer, and we passed
+a gipsy bivouac with fires alight and caldrons hanging over them. It was
+the first I had seen. Two or three low tents; a couple of dark, withered
+crones, veritable witches; a graceful girl standing behind, gazing after
+us; and men in odd-shaped hats, with gaudy waistcoats and bright-coloured
+neck-handkerchiefs and gaitered legs, stood lazily in front. They had all
+a wild tawdry display of colour; and a group of alders in the rear made a
+background of shade for tents, fires, and figures.
+
+I opened a front window of the chariot, and called to the postboys to stop.
+The groom from behind came to the window.
+
+'Are not those gipsies?' I enquired.
+
+'Yes, please'm, them's gipsies, sure, Miss,' he answered, glancing with
+that odd smile, half contemptuous, half superstitious, with which I have
+since often observed the peasants of Derbyshire eyeing those thievish and
+uncanny neighbours.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+_BARTRAM-HAUGH_
+
+
+In a moment a tall, lithe girl, black-haired, black-eyed, and, as I
+thought, inexpressibly handsome, was smiling, with such beautiful rings of
+pearly teeth, at the window; and in her peculiar accent, with a suspicion
+of something foreign in it, proposing with many courtesies to tell the lady
+her fortune.
+
+I had never seen this wild tribe of the human race before--children of
+mystery and liberty. Such vagabondism and beauty in the figure before me!
+I looked at their hovels and thought of the night, and wondered at their
+independence, and felt my inferiority. I could not resist. She held up her
+slim oriental hand.
+
+'Yes, I'll hear my fortune,' I said, returning the sibyl's smile
+instinctively.
+
+'Give me some money, Mary Quince. No, _not_ that,' I said, rejecting the
+thrifty sixpence she tendered, for I had heard that the revelations of
+this weird sisterhood were bright in proportion to the kindness of their
+clients, and was resolved to approach Bartram with cheerful auguries. 'That
+five-shilling piece,' I insisted; and honest Mary reluctantly surrendered
+the coin.
+
+So the feline beauty took it, with courtesies and 'thankees,' smiling
+still, and hid it away as if she stole it, and looked on my open palm still
+smiling; and told me, to my surprise, that there was _somebody_ I liked
+very much, and I was almost afraid she would name Captain Oakley; that he
+would grow very rich, and that I should marry him; that I should move about
+from place to place a great deal for a good while to come. That I had some
+enemies, who should be sometimes so near as to be in the same room with me,
+and yet they should not be able to hurt me. That I should see blood spilt
+and yet not my own, and finally be very happy and splendid, like the
+heroine of a fairy tale.
+
+Did this strange, girlish charlatan see in my face some signs of shrinking
+when she spoke of enemies, and set me down for a coward whose weakness
+might be profitable? Very likely. At all events she plucked a long brass
+pin, with a round bead for a head, from some part of her dress, and holding
+the point in her fingers, and exhibiting the treasure before my eyes, she
+told me that I must get a charmed pin like that, which her grandmother had
+given to her, and she ran glibly through a story of all the magic expended
+on it, and told me she could not part with it; but its virtue was that you
+were to stick it through the blanket, and while it was there neither rat,
+nor cat, nor snake--and then came two more terms in the catalogue, which I
+suppose belonged to the gipsy dialect, and which she explained to mean, as
+well as I could understand, the first a malevolent spirit, and the second
+'a cove to cut your throat,' could approach or hurt you.
+
+A charm like that, she gave me to understand, I must by hook or by crook
+obtain. She had not a second. None of her people in the camp over there
+possessed one. I am ashamed to confess that I actually paid her a pound for
+this brass pin! The purchase was partly an indication of my temperament,
+which could never let an opportunity pass away irrevocably without a
+struggle, and always apprehended 'Some day or other I'll reproach myself
+for having neglected it!' and partly a record of the trepidations of that
+period of my life. At all events I had her pin, and she my pound, and I
+venture to say I was the gladder of the two.
+
+She stood on the road-side bank courtseying and smiling, the first
+enchantress I had encountered, and I watched the receding picture, with its
+patches of firelight, its dusky groups and donkey carts, white as skeletons
+in the moonlight, as we drove rapidly away.
+
+They, I suppose, had a wild sneer and a merry laugh over my purchase, as
+they sat and ate their supper of stolen poultry, about their fire, and were
+duly proud of belonging to the superior race.
+
+Mary Quince, shocked at my prodigality, hinted a remonstrance.
+
+'It went to my heart, Miss, it did. They're such a lot, young and old, all
+alike thieves and vagabonds, and many a poor body wanting.'
+
+'Tut, Mary, never mind. Everyone has her fortune told some time in her
+life, and you can't have a good one without paying. I think, Mary, we must
+be near Bartram now.'
+
+The road now traversed the side of a steep hill, parallel to which,
+along the opposite side of a winding river, rose the dark steeps of a
+corresponding upland, covered with forest that looked awful and dim in the
+deep shadow, while the moonlight rippled fitfully upon the stream beneath.
+
+'It seems to be a beautiful country,' I said to Mary Quince, who was
+munching a sandwich in the corner, and thus appealed to, adjusted her
+bonnet, and made an inspection from _her_ window, which, however, commanded
+nothing but the heathy slope of the hill whose side we were traversing.
+
+'Well, Miss, I suppose it is; but there's a deal o' mountains--is not
+there?'
+
+And so saying, honest Mary leaned back again, and went on with her
+sandwich.
+
+We were now descending at a great pace. I knew we were coming near. I stood
+up as well as I could in the carriage, to see over the postilions' heads.
+I was eager, but frightened too; agitated as the crisis of the arrival and
+meeting approached. At last, a long stretch of comparatively level
+country below us, with masses of wood as well as I could see irregularly
+overspreading it, became visible as the narrow valley through which we were
+speeding made a sudden bend.
+
+Down we drove, and now I did perceive a change. A great grass-grown
+park-wall, overtopped with mighty trees; but still on and on we came at a
+canter that seemed almost a gallop. The old grey park-wall flanking us at
+one side, and a pretty pastoral hedgerow of ash-trees, irregularly on the
+other.
+
+At last the postilions began to draw bridle, and at a slight angle, the
+moon shining full upon them, we wheeled into a wide semicircle formed by
+the receding park-walls, and halted before a great fantastic iron gate, and
+a pair of tall fluted piers, of white stone, all grass-grown and ivy-bound,
+with great cornices, surmounted with shields and supporters, the Ruthyn
+bearings washed by the rains of Derbyshire for many a generation of
+Ruthyns, almost smooth by this time, and looking bleached and phantasmal,
+like giant sentinels, with each a hand clasped in his comrade's, to bar
+our passage to the enchanted castle--the florid tracery of the iron gate
+showing like the draperies of white robes hanging from their extended arms
+to the earth.
+
+Our courier got down and shoved the great gate open, and we entered,
+between sombre files of magnificent forest trees, one of those very broad
+straight avenues whose width measures the front of the house. This was all
+built of white stone, resembling that of Caen, which parts of Derbyshire
+produce in such abundance.
+
+So this was Bartram, and here was Uncle Silas. I was almost breathless as
+I approached. The bright moon shining full on the white front of the old
+house revealed not only its highly decorated style, its fluted pillars and
+doorway, rich and florid carving, and balustraded summit, but also its
+stained and moss-grown front. Two giant trees, overthrown at last by the
+recent storm, lay with their upturned roots, and their yellow foliage still
+flickering on the sprays that were to bloom no more, where they had fallen,
+at the right side of the court-yard, which, like the avenue, was studded
+with tufted weeds and grass.
+
+All this gave to the aspect of Bartram a forlorn character of desertion and
+decay, contrasting almost awfully with the grandeur of its proportions and
+richness of its architecture.
+
+There was a ruddy glow from a broad window in the second row, and I thought
+I saw some one peep from it and disappear; at the same moment there was a
+furious barking of dogs, some of whom ran scampering into the court-yard
+from a half-closed side door; and amid their uproar, the bawling of the man
+in the back seat, who jumped down to drive them off, and the crack of
+the postilions' whips, who struck at them, we drew up before the lordly
+door-steps of this melancholy mansion.
+
+Just as our attendant had his hand on the knocker the door opened, and we
+saw, by a not very brilliant candle-light, three figures--a shabby little
+old man, thin, and very much stooped, with a white cravat, and looking as
+if his black clothes were too large, and made for some one else, stood with
+his hand upon the door; a young, plump, but very pretty female figure, in
+unusually short petticoats, with fattish legs, and nice ankles, in boots,
+stood in the centre; and a dowdy maid, like an old charwoman, behind her.
+
+The household paraded for welcome was not certainly very brilliant. Amid
+the riot the trunks were deliberately put down by our attendant, who kept
+shouting to the old man at the door, and to the dogs in turn; and the old
+man was talking and pointing stiffly and tremulously, but I could not hear
+what he said.
+
+'Was it possible--could that mean-looking old man be Uncle Silas?'
+
+The idea stunned me; but I almost instantly perceived that he was much too
+small, and I was relieved, and even grateful. It was certainly an odd mode
+of procedure to devote primary attention to the trunks and boxes, leaving
+the travellers still shut up in the carriage, of which they were by this
+time pretty well tired. I was not sorry for the reprieve, however: being
+nervous about first impressions, and willing to defer mine, I sat shyly
+back, peeping at the candle and moonlight picture before me, myself unseen.
+
+'Will you tell--yes or no--is my cousin in the coach?' screamed the plump
+young lady, stamping her stout black boot, in a momentary lull.
+
+Yes, I was there, sure.
+
+'And why the puck don't you let her out, you stupe, you?'
+
+'Run down, Giblets, you never do nout without driving, and let Cousin Maud
+out. You're very welcome to Bartram.' This greeting was screamed at an
+amazing pitch, and repeated before I had time to drop the window, and say
+'thank you.' 'I'd a let you out myself--there's a good dog, you would na'
+bite Cousin' (the parenthesis was to a huge mastiff, who thrust himself
+beside her, by this time quite pacified)--'only I daren't go down the
+steps, for the governor said I shouldn't.'
+
+The venerable person who went by the name of Giblets had by this time
+opened the carriage door, and our courier, or 'boots'--he looked more like
+the latter functionary--had lowered the steps, and in greater trepidation
+than I experienced when in after-days I was presented to my sovereign,
+I glided down, to offer myself to the greeting and inspection of the
+plain-spoken young lady who stood at the top of the steps to receive me.
+
+She welcomed me with a hug and a hearty buss, as she called that
+salutation, on each cheek, and pulled me into the hall, and was evidently
+glad to see me.
+
+'And you're tired a bit, I warrant; and who's the old 'un, who?' she asked
+eagerly, in a stage whisper, which made my ear numb for five minutes after.
+'Oh, oh, the maid! and a precious old 'un--ha, ha, ha! But lawk! how grand
+she is, with her black silk, cloak and crape, and I only in twilled cotton,
+and rotten old Coburg for Sundays. Odds! it's a shame; but you'll be tired,
+you will. It's a smartish pull, they do say, from Knowl. I know a spell of
+it, only so far as the "Cat and Fiddle," near the Lunnon-road. Come up,
+will you? Would you like to come in first and talk a bit wi' the governor?
+Father, you know, he's a bit silly, he is, this while.' I found that
+the phrase meant only _bodily_ infirmity. 'He took a pain o' Friday,
+newralgie--something or other he calls it--rheumatics it is when it takes
+old "Giblets" there; and he's sitting in his own room; or maybe you'd like
+better to come to your bedroom first, for it is dirty work travelling, they
+do say.'
+
+Yes; I preferred the preliminary adjustment. Mary Quince was standing
+behind me; and as my voluble kinswoman talked on, we had each ample time
+and opportunity to observe the personnel of the other; and she made no
+scruple of letting me perceive that she was improving it, for she stared me
+full in the face, taking in evidently feature after feature; and she felt
+the material of my mantle pretty carefully between her finger and thumb,
+and manually examined my chain and trinkets, and picked up my hand as she
+might a glove, to con over my rings.
+
+I can't say, of course, exactly what impression I may have produced on her.
+But in my cousin Milly I saw a girl who looked younger than her years,
+plump, but with a slender waist, with light hair, lighter than mine, and
+very blue eyes, rather round; on the whole very good-looking. She had an
+odd swaggering walk, a toss of her head, and a saucy and imperious, but
+rather good-natured and honest countenance. She talked rather loud, with a
+good ringing voice, and a boisterous laugh when it came.
+
+If _I_ was behind the fashion, what would Cousin Monica have thought of
+her? She was arrayed, as she had stated, in black twilled cotton expressive
+of her affliction; but it was made almost as short in the skirt as that of
+the prints of the Bavarian broom girls. She had white cotton stockings,
+and a pair of black leather boots, with leather buttons, and, for a lady,
+prodigiously thick soles, which reminded me of the navvy boots I had so
+often admired in _Punch_. I must add that the hands with which she assisted
+her scrutiny of my dress, though pretty, were very much sunburnt indeed.
+
+'And what's _her_ name?' she demanded, nodding to Mary Quince, who was
+gazing on her awfully, with round eyes, as an inland spinster might upon a
+whale beheld for the first time.
+
+Mary courtesied, and I answered.
+
+'Mary Quince,' she repeated. 'You're welcome, Quince. What shall I call
+her? I've a name for all o' them. Old Giles there, is Giblets. He did not
+like it first, but he answers quick enough now; and Old Lucy Wyat there,'
+nodding toward the old woman, 'is Lucia de l'Amour.' A slightly erroneous
+reading of Lammermoor, for my cousin sometimes made mistakes, and was not
+much versed in the Italian opera. 'You know it's a play, and I call her
+L'Amour for shortness;' and she laughed hilariously, and I could not
+forbear joining; and, winking at me, she called aloud, 'L'Amour.'
+
+To which the crone, with a high-cauled cap, resembling Mother Hubbard,
+responded with a courtesy and 'Yes, 'm.'
+
+'Are all the trunks and boxes took up?'
+
+They were.
+
+'Well, we'll come now; and what shall I call you, Quince? Let me see.'
+
+'According to your pleasure, Miss,' answered Mary, with dignity, and a dry
+courtesy.
+
+'Why, you're as hoarse as a frog, Quince. We'll call you Quinzy for the
+present. That'll do. Come along, Quinzy.'
+
+So my Cousin Milly took me under the arm, and pulled me forward; but as we
+ascended, she let me go, leaning back to make inspection of my attire from
+a new point of view.
+
+'Hallo, cousin,' she cried, giving my dress a smack with her open hand.
+'What a plague do you want of all that bustle; you'll leave it behind,
+lass, the first bush you jump over.'
+
+I was a good deal astounded. I was also very near laughing, for there was
+a sort of importance in her plump countenance, and an indescribable
+grotesqueness in the fashion of her garments, which heightened the
+outlandishness of her talk, in a way which I cannot at all describe.
+
+What palatial wide stairs those were which we ascended, with their
+prodigious carved banisters of oak, and each huge pillar on the
+landing-place crowned with a shield and carved heraldic supporters; florid
+oak panelling covered the walls. But of the house I could form no estimate,
+for Uncle Silas's housekeeping did not provide light for hall and passages,
+and we were dependent on the glimmer of a single candle; but there would be
+quite enough of this kind of exploration in the daylight.
+
+So along dark oak flooring we advanced to my room, and I had now an
+opportunity of admiring, at my leisure, the lordly proportions of the
+building. Two great windows, with dark and tarnished curtains, rose half as
+high again as the windows of Knowl; and yet Knowl, in its own style, is a
+fine house. The door-frames, like the window-frames, were richly carved;
+the fireplace was in the same massive style, and the mantelpiece projected
+with a mass of very rich carving. On the whole I was surprised. I had never
+slept in so noble a room before.
+
+The furniture, I must confess, was by no means on a par with the
+architectural pretensions of the apartment. A French bed, a piece of carpet
+about three yards square, a small table, two chairs, a toilet table--no
+wardrobe--no chest of drawers. The furniture painted white, and of the
+light and diminutive kind, was particularly ill adapted to the scale and
+style of the apartment, one end only of which it occupied, and that but
+sparsely, leaving the rest of the chamber in the nakedness of a stately
+desolation. My cousin Milly ran away to report progress to 'the Governor,'
+as she termed Uncle Silas.
+
+'Well, Miss Maud, I never did expect to see the like o' that!' exclaimed
+honest Mary Quince, 'Did you ever see such a young lady? She's no more like
+one o' the family than I am. Law bless us! and what's she dressed like?
+Well, well, well!' And Mary, with a rueful shake of her head, clicked her
+tongue pathetically to the back of her teeth, while I could not forbear
+laughing.
+
+'And such a scrap o' furniture! Well, well, well!' and the same ticking of
+the tongue followed.
+
+But, in a few minutes, back came Cousin Milly, and, with a barbarous
+sort of curiosity, assisted in unpacking my trunks, and stowing away the
+treasures, on which she ventured a variety of admiring criticisms, in the
+presses which, like cupboards, filled recesses in the walls, with great oak
+doors, the keys of which were in them.
+
+As I was making my hurried toilet, she entertained me now and then with
+more strictly personal criticisms.
+
+'Your hair's a shade darker than mine--it's none the better o' that
+though--is it? Mine's said to be the right shade. I don't know--what do you
+say?'
+
+I conceded the point with a good grace.
+
+'I wish my hands was as white though--you do lick me there; but it's all
+gloves, and I never could abide 'em. I think I'll try though--they _are_
+very white, sure.'
+
+'I wonder which is the prettiest, you or me? _I_ don't know, _I_'m
+sure--which do _you_ think?'
+
+I laughed outright at this challenge, and she blushed a little, and for the
+first time seemed for a moment a little shy.
+
+'Well, you _are_ a half an inch longer than me, I think--don't you?'
+
+I was fully an inch taller, so I had no difficulty in making the proposed
+admission.
+
+'Well, you do look handsome! doesn't she, Quinzy, lass? but your frock
+comes down almost to your heels--it does.'
+
+And she glanced from mine to hers, and made a little kick up with the heel
+of the navvy boot to assist her in measuring the comparative distance.
+
+'Maybe mine's a thought too short?' she suggested. 'Who's there? Oh! it's
+you, is it?' she cried as Mother Hubbard appeared at the door. 'Come in,
+L'Amour--don't you know, lass, you're always welcome?'
+
+She had come to let us know that Uncle Silas would be happy to see me
+whenever I was ready; and that my cousin Millicent would conduct me to the
+room where he awaited me.
+
+In an instant all the comic sensations awakened by my singular cousin's
+eccentricities vanished, and I was thrilled with awe. I was about to see
+in the flesh--faded, broken, aged, but still identical--that being who had
+been the vision and the problem of so many years of my short life.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+_UNCLE SILAS_
+
+
+I thought my odd cousin was also impressed with a kind of awe, though
+different in degree from mine, for a shade overcast her face, and she was
+silent as we walked side by side along the gallery, accompanied by the
+crone who carried the candle which lighted us to the door of that apartment
+which I may call Uncle Silas's presence chamber.
+
+Milly whispered to me as we approached--
+
+'Mind how you make a noise; the governor's as sharp as a weasel, and
+nothing vexes him like that.'
+
+She was herself toppling along on tiptoe. We paused at a door near the head
+of the great staircase, and L'Amour knocked timidly with her rheumatic
+knuckles.
+
+A voice, clear and penetrating, from within summoned us to enter. The old
+woman opened the door, and the next moment I was in the presence of Uncle
+Silas.
+
+At the far end of a handsome wainscoted room, near the hearth in which a
+low fire was burning, beside a small table on which stood four waxlights,
+in tall silver candlesticks, sat a singular-looking old man.
+
+The dark wainscoting behind him, and the vastness of the room, in the
+remoter parts of which the light which fell strongly upon his face and
+figure expended itself with hardly any effect, exhibited him with the
+forcible and strange relief of a finely painted Dutch portrait. For some
+time I saw nothing but him.
+
+A face like marble, with a fearful monumental look, and, for an old man,
+singularly vivid strange eyes, the singularity of which rather grew upon me
+as I looked; for his eyebrows were still black, though his hair descended
+from his temples in long locks of the purest silver and fine as silk,
+nearly to his shoulders.
+
+He rose, tall and slight, a little stooped, all in black, with an ample
+black velvet tunic, which was rather a gown than a coat, with loose
+sleeves, showing his snowy shirt some way up the arm, and a pair of wrist
+buttons, then quite out of fashion, which glimmered aristocratically with
+diamonds.
+
+I know I can't convey in words an idea of this apparition, drawn as it
+seemed in black and white, venerable, bloodless, fiery-eyed, with its
+singular look of power, and an expression so bewildering--was it derision,
+or anguish, or cruelty, or patience?
+
+The wild eyes of this strange old man were fixed upon me as he rose; an
+habitual contraction, which in certain lights took the character of a
+scowl, did not relax as he advanced toward me with his thin-lipped smile.
+He said something in his clear, gentle, but cold voice, the import of
+which I was too much agitated to catch, and he took both my hands in his,
+welcomed me with a courtly grace which belonged to another age, and led me
+affectionately, with many inquiries which I only half comprehended, to a
+chair near his own.
+
+'I need not introduce my daughter; she has saved me that mortification.
+You'll find her, I believe, good-natured and affectionate; _au reste_, I
+fear a very rustic Miranda, and fitted rather for the society of Caliban
+than of a sick old Prospero. Is it not so, Millicent?'
+
+The old man paused sarcastically for an answer, with his eyes fixed
+severely on my odd cousin, who blushed and looked uneasily to me for a
+hint.
+
+'I don't know who they be--neither one nor t'other.'
+
+'Very good, my dear,' he replied, with a little mocking bow. 'You see, my
+dear Maud, what a Shakespearean you have got for a cousin. It's plain,
+however, she has made acquaintance with some of our dramatists: she has
+studied the role of _Miss Hoyden_ so perfectly.'
+
+It was not a reasonable peculiarity of my uncle that he resented, with a
+good deal of playful acrimony, my poor cousin's want of education, for
+which, if he were not to blame, certainly neither was she.
+
+'You see her, poor thing, a result of all the combined disadvantages of
+want of refined education, refined companionship, and, I fear, naturally,
+of refined tastes; but a sojourn at a good French conventual school will
+do wonders, and I hope to manage by-and-by. In the meantime we jest at our
+misfortunes, and love one another, I hope, cordially.'
+
+He extended his thin, white hand with a chilly smile towards Milly, who
+bounced up, and took it with a frightened look; and he repeated, holding
+her hand rather slightly I thought, 'Yes, I hope, very cordially,' and then
+turning again to me, he put it over the arm of his chair, and let it go, as
+a man might drop something he did not want from a carriage window.
+
+Having made this apology for poor Milly, who was plainly bewildered, he
+passed on, to her and my relief, to other topics, every now and then
+expressing his fears that I was fatigued, and his anxiety that I should
+partake of some supper or tea; but these solicitudes somehow seemed to
+escape his remembrance almost as soon as uttered; and he maintained the
+conversation, which soon degenerated into a close, and to me a painful
+examination, respecting my dear father's illness and its symptoms, upon
+which I could give no information, and his habits, upon which I could.
+
+Perhaps he fancied that there might be some family predisposition to the
+organic disease of which his brother died, and that his questions were
+directed rather to the prolonging of his own life than to the better
+understanding of my dear father's death.
+
+How little was there left to this old man to make life desirable, and yet
+how keenly, I afterwards found, he clung to it. Have we not all of us seen
+those to whom life was not only _undesirable_, but positively painful--a
+mere series of bodily torments, yet hold to it with a desperate and
+pitiable tenacity--old children or young, it is all the same.
+
+See how a sleepy child will put off the inevitable departure for bed. The
+little creature's eyes blink and stare, and it needs constant jogging to
+prevent his nodding off into the slumber which nature craves. His waking is
+a pain; he is quite worn out, and peevish, and stupid, and yet he implores
+a respite, and deprecates repose, and vows he is not sleepy, even to the
+moment when his mother takes him in her arms, and carries him, in a sweet
+slumber, to the nursery. So it is with us old children of earth and the
+great sleep of death, and nature our kind mother. Just so reluctantly we
+part with consciousness, the picture is, even to the last, so interesting;
+the bird in the hand, though sick and moulting, so inestimably better than
+all the brilliant tenants of the bush. We sit up, yawning, and blinking,
+and stupid, the whole scene swimming before us, and the stories and music
+humming off into the sound of distant winds and waters. It is not time yet;
+we are not fatigued; we are good for another hour still, and so protesting
+against bed, we falter and drop into the dreamless sleep which nature
+assigns to fatigue and satiety.
+
+He then spoke a little eulogy of his brother, very polished, and,
+indeed, in a kind of way, eloquent. He possessed in a high degree that
+accomplishment, too little cultivated, I think, by the present generation,
+of expressing himself with perfect precision and fluency. There was, too,
+a good deal of slight illustrative quotation, and a sprinkling of French
+flowers, over his conversation, which gave to it a character at once
+elegant and artificial. It was all easy, light, and pointed, and being
+quite new to me, had a wonderful fascination.
+
+He then told me that Bartram was the temple of liberty, that the health of
+a whole life was founded in a few years of youth, air, and exercise, and
+that accomplishments, at least, if not education, should wait upon health.
+Therefore, while at Bartram, I should dispose of my time quite as I
+pleased, and the more I plundered the garden and gipsied in the woodlands,
+the better.
+
+Then he told me what a miserable invalid he was, and how the doctors
+interfered with his frugal tastes. A glass of beer and a mutton chop--his
+ideal of a dinner--he dared not touch. They made him drink light wines,
+which he detested, and live upon those artificial abominations all liking
+for which vanishes with youth.
+
+There stood on a side-table, in its silver coaster, a long-necked Rhenish
+bottle, and beside it a thin pink glass, and he quivered his fingers in a
+peevish way toward them.
+
+But unless he found himself better very soon, he would take his case into
+his own hands, and try the dietary to which nature pointed.
+
+He waved his fingers toward his bookcases, and told me his books were
+altogether at my service during my stay; but this promise ended, I must
+confess, disappointingly. At last, remarking that I must be fatigued, he
+rose, and kissed me with a solemn tenderness, placed his hand upon what I
+now perceived to be a large Bible, with two broad silk markers, red and
+gold, folded in it--the one, I might conjecture, indicating the place in
+the Old, the other in the New Testament. It stood on the small table that
+supported the waxlights, with a handsome cut bottle of eau-de-cologne, his
+gold and jewelled pencil-case, and his chased repeater, chain, and seals,
+beside it. There certainly were no indications of poverty in Uncle Silas's
+room; and he said impressively--
+
+'Remember that book; in it your father placed his trust, in it he found his
+reward, in it lives my only hope; consult it, my beloved niece, day and
+night, as the oracle of life.'
+
+Then he laid his thin hand on my head, and blessed me, and then kissed my
+forehead.
+
+'No--a!' exclaimed Cousin Milly's lusty voice. I had quite forgotten her
+presence, and looked at her with a little start. She was seated on a very
+high old-fashioned chair; she had palpably been asleep; her round eyes were
+blinking and staring glassily at us; and her white legs and navvy boots
+were dangling in the air.
+
+'Have you anything to remark about Noah?' enquired her father, with a
+polite inclination and an ironical interest.
+
+'No--a,' she repeated in the same blunt accents; 'I didn't snore; did I?
+No--a.'
+
+The old man smiled and shrugged a little at me--it was the smile of
+disgust.
+
+'Good night, my dear Maud;' and turning to her, he said, with a peculiar
+gentle sharpness, 'Had not you better wake, my dear, and try whether your
+cousin would like some supper?'
+
+So he accompanied us to the door, outside which we found L'Amour's candle
+awaiting us.
+
+'I'm awful afraid of the Governor, I am. Did I snore that time?'
+
+'No, dear; at least, I did not hear it,' I said, unable to repress a smile.
+
+'Well, if I didn't, I was awful near it,' she said, reflectively.
+
+We found poor Mary Quince dozing over the fire; but we soon had tea and
+other good things, of which Milly partook with a wonderful appetite.
+
+'I _was_ in a qualm about it,' said Milly, who by this time was quite
+herself again. 'When he spies me a-napping, maybe he don't fetch me a prod
+with his pencil-case over the head. Odd! girl, it _is_ sore.'
+
+When I contrasted the refined and fluent old gentleman whom I had just
+left, with this amazing specimen of young ladyhood, I grew sceptical almost
+as to the possibility of her being his child.
+
+I was to learn, however, how little she had, I won't say of his society,
+but even of his presence--that she had no domestic companion of the least
+pretensions to education--that she ran wild about the place--never, except
+in church, so much as saw a person of that rank to which she was born--and
+that the little she knew of reading and writing had been picked up, in
+desultory half-hours, from a person who did not care a pin about her
+manners or decorum, and perhaps rather enjoyed her grotesqueness--and that
+no one who was willing to take the least trouble about her was competent
+to make her a particle more refined than I saw her--the wonder ceased. We
+don't know how little is heritable, and how much simply training, until we
+encounter some-such spectacle as that of my poor cousin Milly.
+
+When I lay down in my bed and reviewed the day, it seemed like a month of
+wonders. Uncle Silas was always before me; the voice so silvery for an old
+man--so preternaturally soft; the manners so sweet, so gentle; the aspect,
+smiling, suffering, spectral. It was no longer a shadow; I had now seen
+him in the flesh. But, after all, was he more than a shadow to me? When I
+closed my eyes I saw him before me still, in necromantic black, ashy with a
+pallor on which I looked with fear and pain, a face so dazzlingly pale,
+and those hollow, fiery, awful eyes! It sometimes seemed as if the curtain
+opened, and I had seen a ghost.
+
+I had seen him; but he was still an enigma and a marvel. The living face
+did not expound the past, any more than the portrait portended the future.
+He was still a mystery and a vision; and thinking of these things I fell
+asleep.
+
+Mary Quince, who slept in the dressing-room, the door of which was close
+to my bed, and lay open to secure me against ghosts, called me up; and the
+moment I knew where I was I jumped up, and peeped eagerly from the window.
+It commanded the avenue and court-yard; but we were many windows removed
+from that over the hall-door, and immediately beneath ours lay the two
+giant lime trees, prostrate and uprooted, which I had observed as we drove
+up the night before.
+
+I saw more clearly in the bright light of morning the signs of neglect and
+almost of dilapidation which had struck me as I approached. The court-yard
+was tufted over with grass, seldom from year to year crushed by the
+carriage-wheels, or trodden by the feet of visitors. This melancholy
+verdure thickened where the area was more remote from the centre; and under
+the windows, and skirting the walls to the left, was reinforced by a thick
+grove of nettles. The avenue was all grass-grown, except in the very
+centre, where a narrow track still showed the roadway. The handsome carved
+balustrade of the court-yard was discoloured with lichens, and in two
+places gapped and broken; and the air of decay was heightened by the fallen
+trees, among whose sprays and yellow leaves the small birds were hopping.
+
+Before my toilet was completed, in marched my cousin Milly. We were to
+breakfast alone that morning, 'and so much the better,' she told me.
+Sometimes the Governor ordered her to breakfast with him, and 'never left
+off chaffing her' till his newspaper came, and 'sometimes he said such
+things he made her cry,' and then he only 'boshed her more,' and packed her
+away to her room; but she was by chalks nicer than him, talk as he might.
+'_Was_ not she nicer? was not she? was not she?' Upon this point she was so
+strong and urgent that I was obliged to reply by a protest against awarding
+the palm of elegance between parent and child, and declaring I liked her
+very much, which I attested by a kiss.
+
+'I know right well which of us you do think's the nicest, and no mistake,
+only you're afraid of him; and he had no business boshing me last night
+before you. I knew he was at it, though I couldn't twig him altogether; but
+wasn't he a sneak, now, wasn't he?'
+
+This was a still more awkward question; so I kissed her again, and said she
+must never ask me to say of my uncle in his absence anything I could not
+say to his face.
+
+At which speech she stared at me for a while, and then treated me to one of
+her hearty laughs, after which she seemed happier, and gradually grew into
+better humour with her father.
+
+'Sometimes, when the curate calls, he has me up--for he's as religious as
+six, he is--and they read Bible and prays, ho--don't they? You'll have
+that, lass, like me, to go through; and maybe I don't hate it; oh, no!'
+
+We breakfasted in a small room, almost a closet, off the great parlour,
+which was evidently quite disused. Nothing could be homelier than our
+equipage, or more shabby than the furniture of the little apartment. Still,
+somehow, I liked it. It was a total change; but one likes 'roughing it' a
+little at first.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+_THE WINDMILL WOOD_
+
+
+I had not time to explore this noble old house as my curiosity prompted;
+for Milly was in such a fuss to set out for the 'blackberry dell' that I
+saw little more than just so much as I necessarily traversed in making my
+way to and from my room.
+
+The actual decay of the house had been prevented by my dear father; and
+the roof, windows, masonry, and carpentry had all been kept in repair.
+But short of indications of actual ruin, there are many manifestations of
+poverty and neglect which impress with a feeling of desolation. It was
+plain that not nearly a tithe of this great house was inhabited; long
+corridors and galleries stretched away in dust and silence, and were
+crossed by others, whose dark arches inspired me in the distance with an
+awful sort of sadness. It was plainly one of those great structures in
+which you might easily lose yourself, and with a pleasing terror it
+reminded me of that delightful old abbey in Mrs. Radcliffe's romance, among
+whose silent staircases, dim passages, and long suites of lordly, but
+forsaken chambers, begirt without by the sombre forest, the family of La
+Mote secured a gloomy asylum.
+
+My cousin Milly and I, however, were bent upon an open-air ramble, and
+traversing several passages, she conducted me to a door which led us out
+upon a terrace overgrown with weeds, and by a broad flight of steps we
+descended to the level of the grounds beneath. Then on, over the short
+grass, under the noble trees, we walked; Milly in high good-humour,
+and talking away volubly, in her short garment, navvy boots, and a
+weather-beaten hat. She carried a stick in her gloveless hand. Her
+conversation was quite new to me, and resembled very much what I would have
+fancied the holiday recollections of a schoolboy; and the language in which
+it was sustained was sometimes so outlandish, that I was forced to laugh
+outright--a demonstration which she plainly did not like.
+
+Her talk was about the great jumps she had made--how she snow-balled the
+chaps' in winter--how she could slide twice the length of her stick beyond
+'Briddles, the cow-boy.'
+
+With this and similar conversation she entertained me.
+
+The grounds were delightfully wild and neglected. But we had now passed
+into a vast park beautifully varied with hollows and uplands, and such
+glorious old timber massed and scattered over its slopes and levels. Among
+these, we got at last into a picturesque dingle; the grey rocks peeped from
+among the ferns and wild flowers, and the steps of soft sward along its
+sides were dark in the shadows of silver-stemmed birch, and russet thorn,
+and oak, under which, in the vaporous night, the Erl-king and his daughter
+might glide on their aerial horses.
+
+In the lap of this pleasant dell were the finest blackberry bushes, I
+think, I ever saw, bearing fruit quite fabulous; and plucking these, and
+chatting, we rambled on very pleasantly.
+
+I had first thought of Milly's absurdities, to which, in description, I
+cannot do justice, simply because so many details have, by distance
+of time, escaped my recollection. But her ways and her talk were so
+indescribably grotesque that she made me again and again quiver with
+suppressed laughter.
+
+But there was a pitiable and even a melancholy meaning underlying the
+burlesque.
+
+This creature, with no more education than a dairy-maid, I gradually
+discovered had fine natural aptitudes for accomplishment--a very sweet
+voice, and wonderfully delicate ear, and a talent for drawing which quite
+threw mine into the shade. It was really astonishing.
+
+Poor Milly, in all her life, had never read three books, and hated to
+think of them. One, over which she was wont to yawn and sigh, and stare
+fatiguedly for an hour every Sunday, by command of the Governor, was a
+stout volume of sermons of the earlier school of George III., and a drier
+collection you can't fancy. I don't think she read anything else. But she
+had, notwithstanding, ten times the cleverness of half the circulating
+library misses one meets with. Besides all this, I had a long sojourn
+before me at Bartram-Haugh, and I had learned from Milly, as I had heard
+before, what a perennial solitude it was, with a ludicrous fear of learning
+Milly's preposterous dialect, and turning at last into something like her.
+So I resolved to do all I could for her--teach her whatever I knew, if she
+would allow me--and gradually, if possible, effect some civilising changes
+in her language, and, as they term it in boarding-schools, her demeanour.
+
+But I must pursue at present our first day's ramble in what was called
+Bartram Chase. People can't go on eating blackberries always; so after a
+while we resumed our walk along this pretty dell, which gradually expanded
+into a wooded valley--level beneath and enclosed by irregular uplands,
+receding, as it were, in mimic bays and harbours at some points, and
+running out at others into broken promontories, ending in clumps of forest
+trees.
+
+Just where the glen which we had been traversing expanded into this broad,
+but wooded valley, it was traversed by a high and close paling, which,
+although it looked decayed, was still very strong.
+
+In this there was a wooden gate, rudely but strongly constructed, and at
+the side we were approaching stood a girl, who was leaning against the
+post, with one arm resting on the top of the gate.
+
+This girl was neither tall nor short--taller than she looked at a distance;
+she had not a slight waist; sooty black was her hair, with a broad
+forehead, perpendicular but low; she had a pair of very fine, dark,
+lustrous eyes, and no other good feature--unless I may so call her teeth,
+which were very white and even. Her face was rather short, and swarthy as
+a gipsy's; observant and sullen too; and she did not move, only eyed us
+negligently from under her dark lashes as we drew near. Altogether a not
+unpicturesque figure, with a dusky, red petticoat of drugget, and tattered
+jacket of bottle-green stuff, with short sleeves, which showed her brown
+arms from the elbow.
+
+'That's Pegtop's daughter,' said Milly.
+
+'Who is Pegtop?' I asked.
+
+'He's the miller--see, yonder it is,' and she pointed to a very pretty
+feature in the landscape, a windmill, crowning the summit of a hillock
+which rose suddenly above the level of the treetops, like an island in the
+centre of the valley.
+
+'The mill not going to-day, Beauty?' bawled Milly.
+
+'No--a, Beauty; it baint,' replied the girl, loweringly, and without
+stirring.
+
+'And what's gone with the stile?' demanded Milly, aghast. 'It's tore away
+from the paling!'
+
+'Well, so it be,' replied the wood nymph in the red petticoat, showing her
+fine teeth with a lazy grin.
+
+'Who's a bin and done all that?' demanded Milly.
+
+'Not you nor me, lass,' said the girl.
+
+''Twas old Pegtop, your father, did it,' cried Milly, in rising wrath.
+
+''Appen it wor,' she replied.
+
+'And the gate locked.'
+
+'That's it--the gate locked,' she repeated, sulkily, with a defiant
+side-glance at Milly.
+
+'And where's Pegtop?'
+
+'At t'other side, somewhere; how should I know where he be?' she replied.
+
+'Who's got the key?'
+
+'Here it be, lass,' she answered, striking her hand on her pocket. 'And how
+durst you stay us here? Unlock it, huzzy, this minute!' cried Milly, with a
+stamp.
+
+Her answer was a sullen smile.
+
+'Open the gate this instant!' bawled Milly.
+
+'Well, I _won't._'
+
+I expected that Milly would have flown into a frenzy at this direct
+defiance, but she looked instead puzzled and curious--the girl's unexpected
+audacity bewildered her.
+
+'Why, you fool, I could get over the paling as soon as look at you, but I
+won't. What's come over you? Open the gate, I say, or I'll make you.'
+
+'Do let her alone, dear,' I entreated, fearing a mutual assault. 'She has
+been ordered, may be, not to open it. Is it so, my good girl?'
+
+'Well, thou'rt not the biggest fool o' the two,' she observed,
+commendatively, 'thou'st hit it, lass.'
+
+'And who ordered you?' exclaimed Milly.
+
+'Fayther.'
+
+'Old Pegtop. Well, _that's_ summat to laugh at, it is--our servant
+a-shutting us out of our own grounds.'
+
+'No servant o' yourn!'
+
+'Come, lass, what do you mean?'
+
+'He be old Silas's miller, and what's that to thee?'
+
+With these words the girl made a spring on the hasp of the padlock, and
+then got easily over the gate.
+
+'Can't you do that, cousin?' whispered Milly to me, with an impatient
+nudge. 'I _wish_ you'd try.'
+
+'No, dear--come away, Milly,' and I began to withdraw.
+
+'Lookee, lass, 'twill be an ill day's work for thee when I tell the
+Governor,' said Milly, addressing the girl, who stood on a log of timber at
+the other side, regarding us with a sullen composure.
+
+'We'll be over in spite o' you,' cried Milly.
+
+'You lie!' answered she.
+
+'And why not, huzzy?' demanded my cousin, who was less incensed at the
+affront than I expected. All this time I was urging Milly in vain to come
+away.
+
+'Yon lass is no wild cat, like thee--that's why,' said the sturdy portress.
+
+'If I cross, I'll give you a knock,' said Milly.
+
+'And I'll gi' thee another,' she answered, with a vicious wag of the head.
+
+'Come, Milly, _I'll_ go if _you_ don't,' I said.
+
+'But we must not be beat,' whispered she, vehemently, catching my arm; 'and
+ye _shall_ get over, and _see_ what I will gi' her!'
+
+'I'll _not_ get over.'
+
+'Then I'll break the door, for ye _shall_ come through,' exclaimed Milly,
+kicking the stout paling with her ponderous boot.
+
+'Purr it, purr it, purr it!' cried the lass in the red petticoat with a
+grin.
+
+'Do you know who this lady is?' cried Milly, suddenly.
+
+'She is a prettier lass than thou,' answered Beauty.
+
+'She's _my_ cousin Maud--Miss Ruthyn of Knowl--and she's a deal richer than
+the Queen; and the Governor's taking care of her; and he'll make old Pegtop
+bring you to reason.'
+
+The girl eyed me with a sulky listlessness, a little inquisitively, I
+thought.
+
+'See if he don't,' threatened Milly.
+
+'You positively _must_ come,' I said, drawing her away with me.
+
+'Well, shall we come in?' cried Milly, trying a last summons.
+
+'You'll not come in that much,' she answered, surlily, measuring an
+infinitesimal distance on her finger with her thumb, which she pinched
+against it, the gesture ending with a snap of defiance, and a smile that
+showed her fine teeth.
+
+'I've a mind to shy a stone at you,' shouted Milly.
+
+'Faire away; I'll shy wi' ye as long as ye like, lass; take heed o'
+yerself;' and Beauty picked up a round stone as large as a cricket ball.
+
+With difficulty I got Milly away without an exchange of missiles, and much
+disgusted at my want of zeal and agility.
+
+'Well, come along, cousin, I know an easy way by the river, when it's low,'
+answered Milly. 'She's a brute--is not she?'
+
+As we receded, we saw the girl slowly wending her way towards the old
+thatched cottage, which showed its gable from the side of a little rugged
+eminence embowered in spreading trees, and dangling and twirling from its
+string on the end of her finger the key for which a battle had so nearly
+been fought.
+
+The stream was low enough to make our flank movement round the end of
+the paling next it quite easy, and so we pursued our way, and Milly's
+equanimity returned, and our ramble grew very pleasant again.
+
+Our path lay by the river bank, and as we proceeded, the dwarf timber was
+succeeded by grander trees, which crowded closer and taller, and, at last,
+the scenery deepened into solemn forest, and a sudden sweep in the river
+revealed the beautiful ruin of a steep old bridge, with the fragments of a
+gate-house on the farther side.
+
+'Oh, Milly darling!' I exclaimed, 'what a beautiful drawing this would
+make! I should so like to make a sketch of it.'
+
+'So it would. _Make_ a picture--_do_!--here's a stone that's pure and flat
+to sit upon, and you look very tired. Do make it, and I'll sit by you.'
+
+'Yes, Milly, I _am_ tired, a little, and I _will_ sit down; but we must
+wait for another day to make the picture, for we have neither pencil
+nor paper. But it is much too pretty to be lost; so let us come again
+to-morrow.'
+
+'To-morrow be hanged! you'll do it to-day, bury-me-wick, but you _shall_;
+I'm wearying to see you make a picture, and I'll fetch your conundrums out
+o' your drawer, for do 't you shall.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+_ZAMIEL_
+
+
+It was all vain my remonstrating. She vowed that by crossing the
+stepping-stones close by she could, by a short cut, reach the house, and
+return with my pencils and block-book in a quarter of an hour. Away then,
+with many a jump and fling, scampered Milly's queer white stockings and
+navvy boots across the irregular and precarious stepping-stones, over which
+I dared not follow her; so I was fain to return to the stone so 'pure
+and flat,' on which I sat, enjoying the grand sylvan solitude, the dark
+background and the grey bridge mid-way, so tall and slim, across whose
+ruins a sunbeam glimmered, and the gigantic forest trees that slumbered
+round, opening here and there in dusky vistas, and breaking in front into
+detached and solemn groups. It was the setting of a dream of romance.
+
+It would have been the very spot in which to read a volume of German
+folk-lore, and the darkening colonnades and silent nooks of the forest
+seemed already haunted with the voices and shadows of those charming elves
+and goblins.
+
+As I sat here enjoying the solitude and my fancies among the low branches
+of the wood, at my right I heard a crashing, and saw a squat broad figure
+in a stained and tattered military coat, and loose short trousers, one limb
+of which flapped about a wooden leg. He was forcing himself through. His
+face was rugged and wrinkled, and tanned to the tint of old oak; his eyes
+black, beadlike, and fierce, and a shock of sooty hair escaped from under
+his battered wide-awake nearly to his shoulders. This forbidding-looking
+person came stumping and jerking along toward me, whisking his stick now
+and then viciously in the air, and giving his fell of hair a short shake,
+like a wild bull preparing to attack.
+
+I stood up involuntarily with a sense of fear and surprise, almost fancying
+I saw in that wooden-legged old soldier, the forest demon who haunted Der
+Freischuetz.
+
+So he approached shouting--
+
+'Hollo! you--how came you here? Dost 'eer?'
+
+And he drew near panting, and sometimes tugging angrily in his haste at his
+wooden leg, which sunk now and then deeper than was convenient in the sod.
+This exertion helped to anger him, and when he halted before me, his dark
+face smirched with smoke and dust, and the nostrils of his flat drooping
+nose expanded and quivered as he panted, like the gills of a fish; an
+angrier or uglier face it would not be easy to fancy.
+
+'Ye'll all come when ye like, will ye? and do nout but what pleases
+yourselves, won't you? And who'rt thou? Dost 'eer--who _are_ ye, I say; and
+what the deil seek ye in the woods here? Come, bestir thee!'
+
+If his wide mouth and great tobacco-stained teeth, his scowl, and loud
+discordant tones were intimidating, they were also extremely irritating.
+The moment my spirit was roused, my courage came.
+
+'I am Miss Ruthyn of Knowl, and Mr. Silas Ruthyn, your master, is my
+uncle.'
+
+'Hoo!' he exclaimed more gently, 'an' if Silas be thy uncle thou'lt be come
+to live wi' him, and thou'rt she as come overnight--eh?'
+
+I made no answer, but I believe I looked both angrily and disdainfully.
+
+'And what make ye alone here? and how was I to know't, an' Milly not wi'
+ye, nor no one? But Maud or no Maud, I wouldn't let the Dooke hisself set
+foot inside the palin' without Silas said let him. And you may tell Silas
+them's the words o' Dickon Hawkes, and I'll stick to 'm--and what's more
+I'll tell him _myself_--I will; I'll tell him there be no use o' my
+striving and straining hee, day an' night and night and day, watchin' again
+poachers, and thieves, and gipsies, and they robbing lads, if rules won't
+be kep, and folk do jist as they pleases. Dang it, lass, thou'rt in luck I
+didn't heave a brick at thee when I saw thee first.'
+
+'I'll complain of you to my uncle,' I replied.
+
+'So do, and and 'appen thou'lt find thyself in the wrong box, lass; thou
+canst na' say I set the dogs arter thee, nor cau'd thee so much as a wry
+name, nor heave a stone at thee--did I? Well? and where's the complaint
+then?'
+
+I simply answered, rather fiercely,
+
+'Be good enough to leave me.'
+
+'Well, I make no objections, mind. I'm takin' thy word--thou'rt Maud
+Ruthyn--'appen thou be'st and 'appen thou baint. I'm not aweer on't, but I
+takes thy word, and all I want to know's just this, did Meg open the gate
+to thee?'
+
+I made him no answer, and to my great relief I saw Milly striding and
+skipping across the unequal stepping-stones.
+
+'Hallo, Pegtop! what are you after now?' she cried, as she drew near.
+
+'This man has been extremely impertinent. You know him, Milly?' I said.
+
+'Why that's Pegtop Dickon. Dirty old Hawkes that never was washed. I tell
+you, lad, ye'll see what the Governor thinks o't--a-ha! He'll talk to you.'
+
+'I done or said nout--not but I _should_, and there's the fack--she can't
+deny't; she hadn't a hard word from I; and I don't care the top o' that
+thistle what no one says--not I. But I tell thee, Milly, I stopped _some_
+o' thy pranks, and I'll stop more. Ye'll be shying no more stones at the
+cattle.'
+
+'Tell your tales, and welcome, cried Milly. 'I wish I was here when you
+jawed cousin. If Winny was here she'd catch you by the timber toe and put
+you on your back.'
+
+'Ay, she'll be a good un yet if she takes arter thee,' retorted the old man
+with a fierce sneer.
+
+'Drop it, and get away wi' ye,' cried she, 'or maybe I'd call Winny to
+smash your timber leg for you.'
+
+'A-ha! there's more on't. She's a sweet un. Isn't she?' he replied
+sardonically.
+
+'You did not like it last Easter, when Winny broke it with a kick.'
+
+''Twas a kick o' a horse,' he growled with a glance at me.
+
+''Twas no such thing--'twas Winny did it--and he laid on his back for a
+week while carpenter made him a new one.' And Milly laughed hilariously.
+
+'I'll fool no more wi' ye, losing my time; I won't; but mind ye, I'll speak
+wi' Silas.' And going away he put his hand to his crumpled wide-awake, and
+said to me with a surly difference--
+
+'Good evening, Miss Ruthyn--good evening, ma'am--and ye'll please remember,
+I did not mean nout to vex thee.'
+
+And so he swaggered away, jerking and waddling over the sward, and was soon
+lost in the wood.
+
+'It's well he's a little bit frightened--I never saw him so angry, I think;
+he is awful mad.'
+
+'Perhaps he really is not aware how very rude he is,' I suggested.
+
+'I hate him. We were twice as pleasant with poor Tom Driver--he never
+meddled with any one, and was always in liquor; Old Gin was the name he
+went by. But this brute--I do hate him--he comes from Wigan, I think, and
+he's always spoiling sport--and he whops Meg--that's Beauty, you know, and
+I don't think she'd be half as bad only for him. Listen to him whistlin'.'
+
+'I did hear whistling at some distance among the trees.'
+
+'I declare if he isn't callin' the dogs! Climb up here, I tell ye,' and we
+climbed up the slanting trunk of a great walnut tree, and strained our eyes
+in the direction from which we expected the onset of Pegtop's vicious pack.
+
+But it was a false alarm.
+
+'Well, I don't think he _would_ do that, after all--_hardly_; but he is a
+brute, sure!'
+
+'And that dark girl who would not let us through, is his daughter, is she?'
+
+'Yes, that's Meg--Beauty, I christened her, when I called him Beast; but I
+call him Pegtop now, and she's Beauty still, and that's the way o't.'
+
+'Come, sit down now, an' make your picture,' she resumed so soon as we had
+dismounted from our position of security.
+
+'I'm afraid I'm hardly in the vein. I don't think I could draw a straight
+line. My hand trembles.'
+
+'I wish you could, Maud,' said Milly, with a look so wistful and
+entreating, that considering the excursion she had made for the pencils, I
+could not bear to disappoint her.
+
+'Well, Milly, we must only try; and if we fail we can't help it. Sit you
+down beside me and I'll tell you why I begin with one part and not another,
+and you'll see how I make trees and the river, and--yes, _that_ pencil,
+it is hard and answers for the fine light lines; but we must begin at the
+beginning, and learn to copy drawings before we attempt real views like
+this. And if you wish it, Milly, I'm resolved to teach you everything I
+know, which, after all, is not a great deal, and we shall have such fun
+making sketches of the same landscapes, and then comparing.'
+
+And so on, Milly, quite delighted, and longing to begin her course of
+instruction, sat down beside me in a rapture, and hugged and kissed me so
+heartily that we were very near rolling together off the stone on which we
+were seated. Her boisterous delight and good-nature helped to restore me,
+and both laughing heartily together, I commenced my task.
+
+'Dear me! who's that?' I exclaimed suddenly, as looking up from my
+block-book I saw the figure of a slight man in the careless morning-dress
+of a gentleman, crossing the ruinous bridge in our direction, with
+considerable caution, upon the precarious footing of the battlement, which
+alone offered an unbroken passage.
+
+This was a day of apparitions! Milly recognised him instantly. The
+gentleman was Mr. Carysbroke. He had taken The Grange only for a year. He
+lived quite to himself, and was very good to the poor, and was the only
+gentleman, for ever so long, who had visited at Bartram, and oddly enough
+nowhere else. But he wanted leave to cross through the grounds, and having
+obtained it, had repeated his visit, partly induced, no doubt, by the
+fact that Bartram boasted no hospitalities, and that there was no risk of
+meeting the county folk there.
+
+With a stout walking-stick in his hand, and a short shooting-coat, and a
+wide-awake hat in much better trim than Zamiel's, he emerged from the copse
+that covered the bridge, walking at a quick but easy pace.
+
+'He'll be goin' to see old Snoddles, I guess,' said Milly, looking a little
+frightened and curious; for Milly, I need not say, was a bumpkin, and stood
+in awe of this gentleman's good-breeding, though she was as brave as a
+lion, and would have fought the Philistines at any odds, with the jawbone
+of an ass.
+
+''Appen he won't see us,' whispered Milly, hopefully.
+
+But he did, and raising his hat, with a cheerful smile, that showed very
+white teeth, he paused.
+
+'Charming day, Miss Ruthyn.'
+
+I raised my head suddenly as he spoke, from habit appropriating the
+address; it was so marked that he raised his hat respectfully to me, and
+then continued to Milly--
+
+'Mr. Ruthyn, I hope, quite well? but I need hardly ask, you seem so happy.
+Will you kindly tell him, that I expect the book I mentioned in a day or
+two, and when it comes I'll either send or bring it to him immediately?'
+
+Milly and I were standing, by this time, but she only stared at him,
+tongue-tied, her cheeks rather flushed, and her eyes very round, and to
+facilitate the dialogue, as I suppose, he said again--
+
+'He's quite well, I hope?'
+
+Still no response from Milly, and I, provoked, though myself a little shy,
+made answer--
+
+'My uncle, Mr. Ruthyn, is very well, thank you,' and I felt that I blushed
+as I spoke.
+
+'Ah, pray excuse me, may I take a great liberty? you are Miss Ruthyn,
+of Knowl? Will you think me very impertinent--I'm afraid you will--if I
+venture to introduce myself? My name is Carysbroke, and I had the honour of
+knowing poor Mr. Ruthyn when I was quite a little boy, and he has shown a
+kindness for me since, and I hope you will pardon the liberty I fear I've
+taken. I think my friend, Lady Knollys, too, is a relation of yours; what a
+charming person she is!'
+
+'Oh, is not she? such a darling!' I said, and then blushed at my outspoken
+affection.
+
+But he smiled kindly, as if he liked me for it; and he said--
+
+'You know whatever I think, I dare not quite say that; but frankly I can
+quite understand it. She preserves her youth so wonderfully, and her fun
+and her good-nature are so entirely girlish. What a sweet view you have
+selected,' he continued, changing all at once. 'I've stood just at
+this point so often to look back at that exquisite old bridge. Do you
+observe--you're an artist, I see--something very peculiar in that tint of
+the grey, with those odd cross stains of faded red and yellow?'
+
+'I do, indeed; I was just remarking the peculiar beauty of the
+colouring--was not I, Milly?'
+
+Milly stared at me, and uttered an alarmed 'Yes,' and looked as if she had
+been caught in a robbery.
+
+'Yes, and you have so very peculiar a background,' he resumed. 'It was
+better before the storm though; but it is very good still.'
+
+Then a little pause, and 'Do you know this country at all?' rather
+suddenly.
+
+'No, not in the least--that is, I've only had the drive to this place; but
+what I did see interested me very much.'
+
+'You will be charmed with it when you know it better--the very place for an
+artist. I'm a wretched scribbler myself, and I carry this little book in
+my pocket,' and he laughed deprecatingly while he drew forth a thin
+fishing-book, as it looked. 'They are mere memoranda, you see. I walk so
+much and come unexpectedly on such pretty nooks and studies, I just try
+to make a note of them, but it is really more writing than sketching; my
+sister says it is a cipher which nobody but myself understands. However,
+I'll try and explain just two--because you really ought to go and see the
+places. Oh, no; not that,' he laughed, as accidentally the page blew over,
+'that's the Cat and Fiddle, a curious little pot-house, where they gave me
+some very good ale one day.'
+
+Milly at this exhibited some uneasy tokens of being about to speak, but not
+knowing what might be coming, I hastened to observe on the spirited little
+sketches to which he meant to draw my attention.
+
+'I want to show you only the places within easy reach--a short ride or
+drive.'
+
+So he proceeded to turn over two or three, in addition to the two he had
+at first proposed, and then another; then a little sketch just tinted, and
+really quite a charming little gem, of Cousin Monica's pretty gabled old
+house; and every subject had its little criticism, or its narrative, or
+adventure.
+
+As he was about returning this little sketch-book to his pocket, still
+chatting to me, he suddenly recollected poor Milly, who was looking rather
+lowering; but she brightened a good deal as he presented it to her, with a
+little speech which she palpably misunderstood, for she made one of her odd
+courtesies, and was about, I thought, to put it into her large pocket, and
+accept it as a present.
+
+'Look at the drawings, Milly, and then return it,' I whispered.
+
+At his request I allowed him to look at my unfinished sketch of the bridge,
+and while he was measuring distances and proportions with his eye, Milly
+whispered rather angrily to me.
+
+'And why should I?'
+
+'Because he wants it back, and only meant to lend it to you,' whispered I.
+
+'_Lend_ it to me--and after you! Bury-me-wick if I look at a leaf of it,'
+she retorted in high dudgeon. 'Take it, lass; give it him yourself--I'll
+not,' and she popped it into my hand, and made a sulky step back.
+
+'My cousin is very much obliged,' I said, returning the book, and smiling
+for her, and he took it smiling also and said--
+
+'I think if I had known how very well you draw, Miss Ruthyn, I should have
+hesitated about showing you my poor scrawls. But these are not my best, you
+know; Lady Knollys will tell you that I can really do better--a great deal
+better, I think.'
+
+And then with more apologies for what he called his impertinence, he took
+his leave, and I felt altogether very much pleased and flattered.
+
+He could not be more than twenty-nine or thirty, I thought, and he was
+decidedly handsome--that is, his eyes and teeth, and clear brown complexion
+were--and there was something distinguished and graceful in his figure
+and gesture; and altogether there was the indescribable attraction of
+intelligence; and I fancied--though this, of course, was a secret--that
+from the moment he spoke to us he felt an interest in me. I am not going to
+be vain. It was a _grave_ interest, but still an interest, for I could see
+him studying my features while I was turning over his sketches, and he
+thought I saw nothing else. It was flattering, too, his anxiety that
+I should think well of his drawing, and referring me to Lady Knollys.
+Carysbroke--had I ever heard my dear father mention that name? I could not
+recollect it. But then he was habitually so silent, that his not doing so
+argued nothing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+_WE VISIT A ROOM IN THE SECOND STOREY_
+
+
+Mr. Carysbroke amused my fancy sufficiently to prevent my observing Milly's
+silence, till we had begun our return homeward.
+
+'The Grange must be a pretty house, if that little sketch be true; is it
+far from this?'
+
+''Twill be two mile.'
+
+'Are you vexed, Milly?' I asked, for both her tone and looks were angry.
+
+'Yes, I am vexed; and why not lass?'
+
+'What has happened?'
+
+'Well, now, that is rich! Why, look at that fellow, Carysbroke: he took no
+more notice to me than a dog, and kep' talking to you all the time of his
+pictures, and his walks, and his people. Why, a pig's better manners than
+that.'
+
+'But, Milly dear, you forget, he tried to talk to you, and you would not
+answer him,' I expostulated.
+
+'And is not that just what I say--I can't talk like other folk--ladies, I
+mean. Every one laughs at me; an' I'm dressed like a show, I am. It's a
+shame! I saw Polly Shives--what a lady she is, my eyes!--laughing at me in
+church last Sunday. I was minded to give her a bit of my mind. An' I know
+I'm queer. It's a shame, it is. Why should _I_ be so rum? it is a shame! I
+don't want to be so, nor it isn't my fault.'
+
+And poor Milly broke into a flood of tears, and stamped on the ground, and
+buried her face in her short frock, which she whisked up to her eyes; and
+an odder figure of grief I never beheld.
+
+'And I could not make head or tail of what he was saying,' cried poor Milly
+through her buff cotton, with a stamp; 'and you twigged every word o't. An'
+why am I so? It's a shame--a shame! Oh, ho, ho! it's a shame!'
+
+'But, my dear Milly, we were talking of _drawing_, and you have not learned
+yet, but you shall--I'll teach you; and then you'll understand all about
+it.'
+
+'An' every one laughs at me--even you; though you try, Maud, you can scarce
+keep from laughing sometimes. I don't blame you, for I know I'm queer; but
+I can't help it; and it's a shame.'
+
+'Well, my dear Milly, listen to me: if you allow me, I assure you, I'll
+teach you all the music and drawing I know. You have lived very much
+alone; and, as you say, ladies have a way of speaking of their own that is
+different from the talk of other people.'
+
+'Yes, that they have, an' gentlemen too--like the Governor, and that
+Carysbroke; and a precious lingo it is--dang it--why, the devil himself
+could not understand it; an' I'm like a fool among you. I could 'most drown
+myself. It's a shame! It is--you know it is.--It's a shame!'
+
+'But I'll teach you that lingo too, if you wish it, Milly; and you shall
+know everything that I know; and I'll manage to have your dresses better
+made.'
+
+By this time she was looking very ruefully, but attentively, in my face,
+her round eyes and nose swelled, and her cheeks all wet.
+
+'I think if they were a little longer--yours is longer, you know;' and the
+sentence was interrupted by a sob.
+
+'Now, Milly, you must not be crying; if you choose you may be just as the
+same as any other lady--and you shall; and you will be very much admired, I
+can tell you, if only you will take the trouble to quite unlearn all your
+odd words and ways, and dress yourself like other people; and I will take
+care of that if you let me; and I think you are very clever, Milly; and I
+know you are very pretty.'
+
+Poor Milly's blubbered face expanded into a smile in spite of herself; but
+she shook her head, looking down.
+
+'Noa, noa, Maud, I fear 'twon't be.' And indeed it seemed I had proposed to
+myself a labour of Hercules.
+
+But Milly was really a clever creature, could see quickly, and when her
+ungainly dialect was mastered, describe very pleasantly; and if only she
+would endure the restraint and possessed the industry requisite, I did not
+despair, and was resolved at least to do my part.
+
+Poor Milly! she was really very grateful, and entered into the project of
+her education with great zeal, and with a strange mixture of humility and
+insubordination.
+
+Milly was in favour of again attacking 'Beauty's' position on her return,
+and forcing a passage from this side; but I insisted on following the route
+by which we had arrived, and so we got round the paling by the river, and
+were treated to a provoking grin of defiance by 'Beauty,' who was talking
+across the gate to a slim young man, arrayed in fustian, and with an
+odd-looking cap of rabbit-skin on his head, which, on seeing us, he pulled
+sheepishly to the side of his face next to us, as he lounged, with his arm
+under his chin, on the top bar of the gate.
+
+After our encounter of to-day, indeed, it was Miss 'Beauty's' wont to
+exhibit a kind of jeering disdain in her countenance whenever we passed.
+
+I think Milly would have engaged her again, had I not reminded her of her
+undertaking, and exerted my new authority.
+
+'Look at that sneak, Pegtop, there, going up the path to the mill. He makes
+belief now he does not see us; but he does, though, only he's afraid we'll
+tell the Governor, and he thinks Governor won't give him his way with you.
+I hate that Pegtop: he stopped me o' riding the cows a year ago, he did.'
+
+I thought Pegtop might have done worse. Indeed it was plain that a total
+reformation was needed here; and I was glad to find that poor Milly seemed
+herself conscious of it; and that her resolution to become more like other
+people of her station was not a mere spasm of mortification and jealousy,
+but a genuine and very zealous resolve.
+
+I had not half seen this old house of Bartram-Haugh yet. At first, indeed,
+I had but an imperfect idea of its extent. There was a range of rooms along
+one side of the great gallery, with closed window-shutters, and the doors
+generally locked. Old L'Amour grew cross when we went into them, although
+we could see nothing; and Milly was afraid to open the windows--not that
+any Bluebeard revelations were apprehended, but simply because she knew
+that Uncle Silas's order was that things should be left undisturbed; and
+this boisterous spirit stood in awe of him to a degree which his gentle
+manners and apparent quietude rendered quite surprising.
+
+There were in this house, what certainly did not exist at Knowl, and what
+I have never observed, thought they may possibly be found in other old
+houses--I mean, here and there, very high hatches, which we could only
+peep over by jumping in the air. They crossed the long corridors and great
+galleries; and several of them were turned across and locked, so as to
+intercept the passage, and interrupt our explorations.
+
+Milly, however, knew a queer little, very steep and dark back stair, which
+reached the upper floor; so she and I mounted, and made a long ramble
+through rooms much lower and ruder in finish than the lordly chambers we
+had left below. These commanded various views of the beautiful though
+neglected grounds; but on crossing a gallery we entered suddenly a chamber,
+which looked into a small and dismal quadrangle, formed by the inner walls
+of this great house, and of course designed only by the architect to afford
+the needful light and air to portions of the structure.
+
+I rubbed the window-pane with my handkerchief and looked out. The
+surrounding roof was steep and high. The walls looked soiled and dark. The
+windows lined with dust and dirt, and the window-stones were in places
+tufted with moss, and grass, and groundsel. An arched doorway had opened
+from the house into this darkened square, but it was soiled and dusty; and
+the damp weeds that overgrew the quadrangle drooped undisturbed against it.
+It was plain that human footsteps tracked it little, and I gazed into that
+blind and sinister area with a strange thrill and sinking.
+
+'This is the second floor--there is the enclosed court-yard'--I, as it
+were, soliloquised.
+
+'What are you afraid of, Maud? you look as ye'd seen a ghost,' exclaimed
+Milly, who came to the window and peeped over my shoulder.
+
+'It reminded me suddenly, Milly, of that frightful business.'
+
+'What business, Maud?--what a plague are ye thinking on?' demanded Milly,
+rather amused.
+
+'It was in one of these rooms--maybe this--yes, it certainly _was_
+this--for see, the panelling has been pulled off the wall--that Mr. Charke
+killed himself.'
+
+I was staring ruefully round the dim chamber, in whose corners the shadows
+of night were already gathering.
+
+'Charke!--what about him?--who's Charke?' asked Milly.
+
+'Why, you must have heard of him,' said I.
+
+'Not as I'm aware on,' answered she. 'And he killed himself, did he, hanged
+himself, eh, or blowed his brains out?'
+
+'He cut his throat in one of these rooms--_this_ one, I'm sure--for your
+papa had the wainscoting stripped from the wall to ascertain whether there
+was any second door through which a murderer could have come; and you see
+these walls are stripped, and bear the marks of the woodwork that has been
+removed,' I answered.
+
+'Well, that _was_ awful! I don't know how they have pluck to cut their
+throats; if I was doing it, I'd like best to put a pistol to my head and
+fire, like the young gentleman did, they say, in Deadman's Hollow. But the
+fellows that cut their throats, they must be awful game lads, I'm thinkin',
+for it's a long slice, you know.'
+
+'Don't, don't, Milly dear. Suppose we come away,' I said, for the evening
+was deepening rapidly into night.
+
+'Hey and bury-me-wick, but here's the blood; don't you see a big black
+cloud all spread over the floor hereabout, don't ye see?' Milly was
+stooping over the spot, and tracing the outline of this, perhaps, imaginary
+mapping, in the air with her finger.
+
+'No, Milly, you could not see it: the floor is too dark, and it's all in
+shadow. It must be fancy; and perhaps, after all, this is not the room.'
+
+'Well--I think, I'm _sure_ it _is_. Stand--just look.'
+
+'We'll come in the morning, and if you are right we can see it better then.
+Come away,' I said, growing frightened.
+
+And just as we stood up to depart, the white high-cauled cap and large
+sallow features of old L'Amour peeped in at the door.
+
+'Lawk! what brings you here?' cried Milly, nearly as much startled as I at
+the intrusion.
+
+'What brings _you_ here, miss?' whistled L'Amour through her gums.
+
+'We're looking where Charke cut his throat,' replied Milly.
+
+'Charke the devil!' said the old woman, with an odd mixture of scorn and
+fury. ''Tisn't his room; and come ye out of it, please. Master won't like
+when he hears how you keep pulling Miss Maud from one room to another, all
+through the house, up and down.'
+
+She was gabbling sternly enough, but dropped a low courtesy as I passed
+her, and with a peaked and nodding stare round the room, the old woman
+clapped the door sharply, and locked it.
+
+'And who has been a talking about Charke--a pack o lies, I warrant. I
+s'pose you want to frighten Miss Maud here' (another crippled courtesy)
+'wi' ghosts and like nonsense.'
+
+'You're out there: 'twas she told me; and much about it. Ghosts, indeed!
+I don't vally them, not I; if I did, I know who'd frighten me,' and Milly
+laughed.
+
+The old woman stuffed the key in her pocket, and her wrinkled mouth pouted
+and receded with a grim uneasiness.
+
+'A harmless brat, and kind she is; but wild--wild--she will be wild.'
+
+So whispered L'Amour in my ear, during the silence that followed, nodding
+shakily toward Milly over the banister, and she courtesied again as we
+departed, and shuffled off toward Uncle Silas's room.
+
+The Governor is queerish this evening,' said Milly, when we were seated at
+our tea. 'You never saw him queerish, did you?'
+
+'You must say what you mean, more plainly, Milly. You don't mean ill, I
+hope?'
+
+'Well! I don't know what it is; but he does grow very queer
+sometimes--you'd think he was dead a'most, maybe two or three days and
+nights together. He sits all the time like an old woman in a swound. Well,
+well, it is awful!'
+
+'Is he insensible when in that state?' I asked, a good deal alarmed.
+
+'I don't know; but it never signifies anything. It won't kill him, I do
+believe; but old L'Amour knows all about it. I hardly ever go into the room
+when he's so, only when I'm sent for; and he sometimes wakes up and takes a
+fancy to call for this one or that. One day he sent for Pegtop all the way
+to the mill; and when he came, he only stared at him for a minute or two,
+and ordered him out o' the room. He's like a child a'most, when he's in one
+o' them dazes.'
+
+I always knew when Uncle Silas was 'queerish,' by the injunctions of old
+L'Amour, whistled and spluttered over the banister as we came up-stairs,
+to mind how we made a noise passing master's door; and by the sound of
+mysterious to-ings and fro-ings about his room.
+
+I saw very little of him. He sometimes took a whim to have us breakfast
+with him, which lasted perhaps for a week; and then the order of our living
+would relapse into its old routine.
+
+I must not forget two kind letters from Lady Knollys, who was detained
+away, and delighted to hear that I enjoyed my quiet life; and promised to
+apply, in person, to Uncle Silas, for permission to visit me.
+
+She was to be for the Christmas at Elverston, and that was only six miles
+away from Bartram-Haugh, so I had the excitement of a pleasant look
+forward.
+
+She also said that she would include poor Milly in her invitation; and a
+vision of Captain Oakley rose before me, with his handsome gaze turned in
+wonder on poor Milly, for whom I had begun to feel myself responsible.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+_AN ARRIVAL AT DEAD OF NIGHT_
+
+
+I have sometimes been asked why I wear an odd little turquois ring--which
+to the uninstructed eye appears quite valueless and altogether an unworthy
+companion of those jewels which flash insultingly beside it. It is a little
+keepsake, of which I became possessed about this time.
+
+'Come, lass, what name shall I give you?' cried Milly, one morning,
+bursting into my room in a state of alarming hilarity.
+
+'My own, Milly.'
+
+'No, but you must have a nickname, like every one else.'
+
+'Don't mind it, Milly.'
+
+'Yes, but I will. Shall I call you Mrs. Bustle?'
+
+'You shall do no such thing.'
+
+'But you must have a name.'
+
+'I refuse a name.'
+
+'But I'll give you one, lass.'
+
+'And _I_ won't have it.'
+
+'But you can't help me christening you.'
+
+'I can decline answering.'
+
+'But I'll make you,' said Milly, growing very red.
+
+Perhaps there was something provoking in my tone, for I certainly was very
+much disgusted at Milly's relapse into barbarism.
+
+'You can't,' I retorted quietly.
+
+'See if I don't, and I'll give ye one twice as ugly.'
+
+I smiled, I fear, disdainfully.
+
+'And I think you're a minx, and a slut, and a fool,' she broke out,
+flushing scarlet.
+
+I smiled in the same unchristian way.
+
+'And I'd give ye a smack o' the cheek as soon as look at you.'
+
+And she gave her dress a great slap, and drew near me, in her wrath. I
+really thought she was about tendering the ordeal of single combat.
+
+I made her, however, a paralysing courtesy, and, with immense dignity,
+sailed out of the room, and into Uncle Silas's study, where it happened we
+were to breakfast that morning, and for several subsequent ones.
+
+During the meal we maintained the most dignified reserve; and I don't think
+either so much as looked at the other.
+
+We had no walk together that day.
+
+I was sitting in the evening, quite alone, when Milly entered the room. Her
+eyes were red, and she looked very sullen.
+
+'I want your hand, cousin,' she said, at the same time taking it by the
+wrist, and administering with it a sudden slap on her plump cheek, which
+made the room ring, and my fingers tingle; and before I had recovered from
+my surprise, she had vanished.
+
+I called after her, but no answer; I pursued, but she was running too; and
+I quite lost her at the cross galleries.
+
+I did not see her at tea, nor before going to bed; but after I had fallen
+asleep I was awakened by Milly, in floods of tears.
+
+'Cousin Maud, will ye forgi' me--you'll never like me again, will ye? No--I
+know ye won't--I'm such a brute--I hate it--it's a shame. And here's a
+Banbury cake for you--I sent to the town for it, and some taffy--won't ye
+eat it? and here's a little ring--'tisn't as pretty as your own rings; and
+ye'll wear it, maybe, for my sake--poor Milly's sake, before I was so bad
+to ye--if ye forgi' me; and I'll look at breakfast, and if it's on your
+finger I'll know you're friends wi' me again; and if ye don't, I won't
+trouble you no more; and I think I'll just drown myself out o' the way, and
+you'll never see wicked Milly no more.'
+
+And without waiting a moment, leaving me only half awake, and with the
+sensations of dreaming, she scampered from the room, in her bare feet, with
+a petticoat about her shoulders.
+
+She had left her candle by my bed, and her little offerings on the coverlet
+by me. If I had stood an atom less in terror of goblins than I did, I
+should have followed her, but I was afraid. I stood in my bare feet at my
+bedside, and kissed the poor little ring and put it on my finger, where it
+has remained ever since and always shall. And when I lay down, longing for
+morning, the image of her pale, imploring, penitential face was before me
+for hours; and I repented bitterly of my cool provoking ways, and thought
+myself, I dare say justly, a thousand times more to blame than Milly.
+
+I searched in vain for her before breakfast. At that meal, however, we met,
+but in the presence of Uncle Silas, who, though silent and apathetic, was
+formidable; and we, sitting at a table disproportionably large, under the
+cold, strange gaze of my guardian, talked only what was inevitable, and
+that in low tones; for whenever Milly for a moment raised her voice, Uncle
+Silas would wince, place his thin white fingers quickly over his ear, and
+look as if a pain had pierced his brain, and then shrug and smile piteously
+into vacancy. When Uncle Silas, therefore, was not in the talking vein
+himself--and that was not often--you may suppose there was very little
+spoken in his presence.
+
+When Milly, across the table, saw the ring upon my finger, she, drawing
+in her breath, said, 'Oh!' and, with round eyes and mouth, she looked so
+delighted; and she made a little motion, as if she was on the point of
+jumping up; and then her poor face quivered, and she bit her lip; and
+staring imploringly at me, her eyes filled fast with tears, which rolled
+down her round penitential cheeks.
+
+I am sure I felt more penitent than she. I know I was crying and smiling,
+and longing to kiss her. I suppose we were very absurd; but it is well that
+small matters can stir the affections so profoundly at a time of life when
+great troubles seldom approach us.
+
+When at length the opportunity did come, never was such a hug out of the
+wrestling ring as poor Milly bestowed on me, swaying me this way and that,
+and burying her face in my dress, and blubbering--
+
+'I was so lonely before you came, and you so good to me, and I such a
+devil; and I'll never call you a name, but Maud--my darling Maud.'
+
+'You must, Milly--Mrs. Bustle. I'll be Mrs. Bustle, or anything you like.
+You must.' I was blubbering like Milly, and hugging my best; and, indeed, I
+wonder how we kept our feet.
+
+So Milly and I were better friends than ever.
+
+Meanwhile, the winter deepened, and we had short days and long nights,
+and long fireside gossipings at Bartram-Haugh. I was frightened at the
+frequency of the strange collapses to which Uncle Silas was subject. I
+did not at first mind them much, for I naturally fell into Milly's way of
+talking about them.
+
+But one day, while in one of his 'queerish' states, he called for me, and I
+saw him, and was unspeakably scared.
+
+In a white wrapper, he lay coiled in a great easy chair. I should have
+thought him dead, had I not been accompanied by old L'Amour, who knew every
+gradation and symptom of these strange affections.
+
+She winked and nodded to me with a ghastly significance, and whispered--
+
+'Don't make no noise, miss, till he talks; he'll come to for a bit, anon.'
+
+Except that there was no sign of convulsions, the countenance was like that
+of an epileptic arrested in one of his contortions.
+
+There was a frown and smirk like that of idiotcy, and a strip of white
+eyeball was also disclosed.
+
+Suddenly, with a kind of chilly shudder, he opened his eyes wide, and
+screwed his lips together, and blinked and stared on me with a fatuised
+uncertainty, that gradually broke into a feeble smile.
+
+'Ah! the girl--Austin's child. Well, dear, I'm hardly able--I'll speak
+to-morrow--next day--it is tic--neuralgia, or something--_torture_--tell
+her.'
+
+So, huddling himself together, he lay again in his great chair, with the
+same inexpressible helplessness in his attitude, and gradually his face
+resumed its dreadful cast.
+
+'Come away, miss: he's changed his mind; he'll not be fit to talk to you
+noways all day, maybe,' said the old woman, again in a whisper.
+
+So forth we stole from the room, I unspeakably shocked. In fact, he looked
+as if he were dying, and so, in my agitation, I told the crone, who,
+forgetting the ceremony with which she usually treated me, chuckled out
+derisively,
+
+'A-dying is he? Well, he be like Saint Paul--he's bin a-dying daily this
+many a day.'
+
+I looked at her with a chill of horror. She did not care, I suppose, what
+sort of feelings she might excite, for she went on mumbling sarcastically
+to herself. I had paused, and overcame my reluctance to speak to her again,
+for I was really very much frightened. 'Do you think he is in danger? Shall
+we send for a doctor?' I whispered.
+
+'Law bless ye, the doctor knows all about it, miss.' The old woman's face
+had a gleam of that derision which is so shocking in the features of
+feebleness and age.
+
+'But it is a _fit_, it is paralytic, or something horrible--it can't be
+_safe_ to leave him to chance or nature to get through these terrible
+attacks.'
+
+'There's no fear of him, 'tisn't no fits at all, he's nout the worse o't.
+Jest silly a bit now and again. It's been the same a dozen year and more;
+and the doctor knows all about it,' answered the old woman sturdily. 'And
+ye'll find he'll be as mad as bedlam if ye make any stir about it.'
+
+That night I talked the matter over with Mary Quince.
+
+'They're very dark, miss; but I think he takes a deal too much laudlum,'
+said Mary.
+
+To this hour I cannot say what was the nature of those periodical seizures.
+I have often spoken to medical men about them, since, but never could learn
+that excessive use of opium could altogether account for them. It was,
+I believe, certain, however, that he did use that drug in startling
+quantities. It was, indeed, sometimes a topic of complaint with him that
+his neuralgia imposed this sad necessity upon him.
+
+The image of Uncle Silas, as I had seen him that day, troubled and
+affrighted my imagination, as I lay in my bed; I had slept very well since
+my arrival at Bartram. So much of the day was passed in the open air, and
+in active exercise, that this was but natural. But that night I was nervous
+and wakeful, and it was past two o'clock when I fancied I heard the sound
+of horses and carriage-wheels on the avenue.
+
+Mary Quince was close by, and therefore I was not afraid to get up and peep
+from the window. My heart beat fast as I saw a post-chaise approach the
+court-yard. A front window was let down, and the postilion pulled up for a
+few seconds.
+
+In consequence of some directions received by him, I fancied he resumed his
+route at a walk, and so drew up at the hall-door, on the steps of which a
+figure awaited his arrival. I think it was old L'Amour, but I could not be
+quite certain. There was a lantern on the top of the balustrade, close by
+the door. The chaise-lamps were lighted, for the night was rather dark. A
+bag and valise, as well as I could see, were pulled from the interior by
+the post-boy, and a box from the top of the vehicle, and these were carried
+into the hall.
+
+I was obliged to keep my cheek against the window-pane to command a view
+of the point of debarkation, and my breath upon the glass, which dimmed it
+again almost as fast as I wiped it away, helped to obscure my vision. But
+I saw a tall figure, in a cloak, get down and swiftly enter the house, but
+whether male or female I could not discern.
+
+My heart beat fast. I jumped at once to a conclusion. My uncle was
+worse--was, in fact, dying; and this was the physician, too late summoned
+to his bedside.
+
+I listened for the ascent of the doctor, and his entrance at my uncle's
+door, which, in the stillness of the night, I thought I might easily hear,
+but no sound reached me. I listened so for fully five minutes, but
+without result. I returned to the window, but the carriage and horses had
+disappeared.
+
+I was strongly tempted to wake Mary Quince, and take counsel with her, and
+persuade her to undertake a reconnoissance. The fact is, I was persuaded
+that my uncle was in extremity, and I was quite wild to know the doctor's
+opinion. But, after all, it would be cruel to summon the good soul from her
+refreshing nap. So, as I began to feel very cold, I returned to my bed,
+where I continued to listen and conjecture until I fell asleep.
+
+In the morning, as was usual, before I was dressed, in came Milly.
+
+'How is Uncle Silas?' I eagerly enquired.
+
+'Old L'Amour says he's queerish still; but he's not so dull as yesterday,'
+answered she.
+
+'Was not the doctor sent for?' I asked.
+
+'Was he? Well, that's odd; and she said never a word o't to me,' answered
+she.
+
+'I'm asking only,' said I.
+
+'I don't know whether he came or no,' she replied; 'but what makes you take
+that in your head?'
+
+'A chaise arrived here between two and three o'clock last night.'
+
+'Hey! and who told you?' Milly seemed all on a sudden highly interested.
+
+'I saw it, Milly; and some one, I fancy the doctor, came from it into the
+house.'
+
+'Fudge, lass! who'd send for the doctor? 'Twasn't he, I tell you. What was
+he like?' said Milly.
+
+'I could only see clearly that he, or _she_, was tall, and wore a cloak,' I
+replied.
+
+'Then 'twasn't him nor t'other I was thinking on, neither; and I'll be
+hanged but I think it will be Cormoran,' cried Milly, with a thoughtful rap
+with her knuckle on the table.
+
+Precisely at this juncture a tapping came to the door.
+
+'Come in,' said I.
+
+And old L'Amour entered the room, with a courtesy.
+
+'I came to tell Miss Quince her breakfast's ready,' said the old lady.
+
+'Who came in the chaise, L'Amour?' demanded Milly.
+
+'What chaise?' spluttered the beldame tartly.
+
+'The chaise that came last night, past two o'clock,' said Milly.
+
+'That's a lie, and a damn lie!' cried the beldame. 'There worn't no chaise
+at the door since Miss Maud there come from Knowl.'
+
+I stared at the audacious old menial who could utter such language.
+
+'Yes, there was a chaise, and Cormoran, as I think, be come in it,' said
+Milly, who seemed accustomed to L'Amour's daring address.
+
+'And there's another damn lie, as big as the t'other,' said the crone, her
+haggard and withered face flushing orange all over.
+
+'I beg you will not use such language in my room,' I replied, very angrily.
+'I saw the chaise at the door; your untruth signifies very little, but
+your impertinence here I will not permit. Should it be repeated, I will
+assuredly complain to my uncle.'
+
+The old woman flushed more fiercely as I spoke, and fixed her bleared glare
+on me, with a compression of her mouth that amounted to a wicked grimace.
+She resisted her angry impulse, however, and only chuckled a little
+spitefully, saying,
+
+'No offence, miss: it be a way we has in Derbyshire o' speaking our minds.
+No offence, miss, were meant, and none took, as I hopes,' and she made me
+another courtesy. 'And I forgot to tell you, Miss Milly, the master wants
+you this minute.'
+
+So Milly, in mute haste, withdrew, followed closely by L'Amour.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII
+
+_DOCTOR BRYERLY EMERGES_
+
+
+When Milly joined me at breakfast, her eyes were red and swollen. She was
+still sniffing with that little sobbing hiccough, which betrays, even were
+there no other signs, recent violent weeping. She sat down quite silent.
+
+'Is he worse, Milly?' I enquired, anxiously.
+
+'No, nothing's wrong wi' him; he's right well,' said Milly, fiercely.
+
+'What's the matter then, Milly dear?'
+
+'The poisonous old witch! 'Twas just to tell the Gov'nor how I'd said 'twas
+Cormoran that came by the po'shay last night.'
+
+'And who is Cormoran?' I enquired.
+
+'Ay, there it is; I'd like to tell, and you want to hear--and I just
+daren't, for he'll send me off right to a French school--hang it--hang them
+all!--if I do.'
+
+'And why should Uncle Silas care?' said I, a good deal surprised.
+
+'They're a-tellin' lies.'
+
+'Who?' said I.
+
+'L'Amour--that's who. So soon as she made her complaint of me, the Gov'nor
+asked her, sharp enough, did anyone come last night, or a po'shay; and she
+was ready to swear there was no one. Are ye quite sure, Maud, you really
+did see aught, or 'appen 'twas all a dream?'
+
+'It was no dream, Milly; so sure as you are there, I saw exactly what I
+told you,' I replied.
+
+'Gov'nor won't believe it anyhow; and he's right mad wi' me; and he
+threatens me he'll have me off to France; I wish 'twas under the sea. I
+hate France--I do--like the devil. Don't you? They're always a-threatening
+me wi' France, if I dare say a word more about the po'shay, or--or anyone.'
+
+I really was curious about Cormoran; but Cormoran was not to be defined
+to me by Milly; nor did she, in reality, know more than I respecting the
+arrival of the night before.
+
+One day I was surprised to see Doctor Bryerly on the stairs. I was standing
+in a dark gallery as he walked across the floor of the lobby to my uncle's
+door, his hat on, and some papers in his hand.
+
+He did not see me; and when he had entered Uncle Silas's door, I went down
+and found Milly awaiting me in the hall.
+
+'So Doctor Bryerly is here,' I said.
+
+'That's the thin fellow, wi' the sharp look, and the shiny black coat, that
+went up just now?' asked Milly.
+
+'Yes, he's gone into your papa's room,' said I.
+
+''Appen 'twas he come 'tother night. He may be staying here, though we see
+him seldom, for it's a barrack of a house--it is.'
+
+The same thought had struck me for a moment, but was dismissed immediately.
+It certainly was _not_ Doctor Bryerly's figure which I had seen.
+
+So, without any new light gathered from this apparition, we went on our
+way, and made our little sketch of the ruined bridge. We found the gate
+locked as before; and, as Milly could not persuade me to climb it, we got
+round the paling by the river's bank.
+
+While at our drawing, we saw the swarthy face, sooty locks, and old
+weather-stained red coat of Zamiel, who was glowering malignly at us
+from among the trunks of the forest trees, and standing motionless as a
+monumental figure in the side aisle of a cathedral. When we looked again he
+was gone.
+
+Although it was a fine mild day for the wintry season, we yet, cloaked as
+we were, could not pursue so still an occupation as sketching for more than
+ten or fifteen minutes. As we returned, in passing a clump of trees, we
+heard a sudden outbreak of voices, angry and expostulatory; and saw, under
+the trees, the savage old Zamiel strike his daughter with his stick two
+great blows, one of which was across the head. 'Beauty' ran only a short
+distance away, while the swart old wood-demon stumped lustily after her,
+cursing and brandishing his cudgel.
+
+My blood boiled. I was so shocked that for a moment I could not speak; but
+in a moment more I screamed--
+
+'You brute! How dare you strike the poor girl?'
+
+She had only run a few steps, and turned about confronting him and us, her
+eyes gleaming fire, her features pale and quivering to suppress a burst of
+weeping. Two little rivulets of blood were trickling over her temple.
+
+'I say, fayther, look at that,' she said, with a strange tremulous smile,
+lifting her hand, which was smeared with blood.
+
+Perhaps he was ashamed, and the more enraged on that account, for he
+growled another curse, and started afresh to reach her, whirling his stick
+in the air. Our voices, however, arrested him.
+
+'My uncle shall hear of your brutality. The poor girl!'
+
+'Strike him, Meg, if he does it again; and pitch his leg into the river
+to-night, when he's asleep.'
+
+'I'd serve _you_ the same;' and out came an oath. 'You'd have her lick her
+fayther, would ye? Look out!'
+
+And he wagged his head with a scowl at Milly, and a flourish of his cudgel.
+
+'Be quiet, Milly,' I whispered, for Milly was preparing for battle; and I
+again addressed him with the assurance that, on reaching home, I would tell
+my uncle how he had treated the poor girl.
+
+''Tis you she may thank for't, a wheedling o' her to open that gate,' he
+snarled.
+
+'That's a lie; we went round by the brook,' cried Milly.
+
+I did not think proper to discuss the matter with him; and looking very
+angry, and, I thought, a little put out, he jerked and swayed himself out
+of sight. I merely repeated my promise of informing my uncle as he went, to
+which, over his shoulder, he bawled--
+
+'Silas won't mind ye _that_;' snapping his horny finger and thumb.
+
+The girl remained where she had stood, wiping the blood off roughly with
+the palm of her hand, and looking at it before she rubbed it on her apron.
+'My poor girl,' I said, 'you must not cry. I'll speak to my uncle about
+you.'
+
+But she was not crying. She raised her head, and looked at us a little
+askance, with a sullen contempt, I thought.
+
+'And you must have these apples--won't you?' We had brought in our basket
+two or three of those splendid apples for which Bartram was famous.
+
+I hesitated to go near her, these Hawkeses, Beauty and Pegtop, were such
+savages. So I rolled the apples gently along the ground to her feet.
+
+She continued to look doggedly at us with the same expression, and kicked
+away the apples sullenly that approached her feet. Then, wiping her temple
+and forehead in her apron, without a word, she turned and walked slowly
+away.
+
+'Poor thing! I'm afraid she leads a hard life. What strange, repulsive
+people they are!'
+
+When we reached home, at the head of the great staircase old L'Amour was
+awaiting me; and with a courtesy, and very respectfully, she informed me
+that the Master would be happy to see me.
+
+Could it be about my evidence as to the arrival of the mysterious chaise
+that he summoned me to this interview? Gentle as were his ways, there was
+something undefinable about Uncle Silas which inspired fear; and I should
+have liked few things less than meeting his gaze in the character of a
+culprit.
+
+There was an uncertainty, too, as to the state in which I might find him,
+and a positive horror of beholding him again in the condition in which I
+had last seen him.
+
+I entered the room, then, in some trepidation, but was instantly relieved.
+Uncle Silas was in the same health apparently, and, as nearly as I could
+recollect it, in precisely the same rather handsome though negligent garb
+in which I had first seen him.
+
+Doctor Bryerly--what a marked and vulgar contrast, and yet, somehow, how
+reassuring!--sat at the table near him, and was tying up papers. His eyes
+watched me, I thought, with an anxious scrutiny as I approached; and I
+think it was not until I had saluted him that he recollected suddenly that
+he had not seen me before at Bartram, and stood up and greeted me in his
+usual abrupt and somewhat familiar way. It was vulgar and not cordial, and
+yet it was honest and indefinably kind. Up rose my uncle, that strangely
+venerable, pale portrait, in his loose Rembrandt black velvet. How gentle,
+how benignant, how unearthly, and inscrutable!
+
+'I need not say how she is. Those lilies and roses, Doctor Bryerly, speak
+their own beautiful praises of the air of Bartram. I almost regret that her
+carriage will be home so soon. I only hope it may not abridge her rambles.
+It positively does me good to look at her. It is the glow of flowers in
+winter, and the fragrance of a field which the Lord hath blessed.'
+
+'Country air, Miss Ruthyn, is a right good kitchen to country fare. I like
+to see young women eat heartily. You have had some pounds of beef and
+mutton since I saw you last,' said Dr. Bryerly.
+
+And this sly speech made, he scrutinised my countenance in silence rather
+embarrassingly.
+
+'My system, Doctor Bryerly, as a disciple of Aesculapius you will
+approve--health first, accomplishment afterwards. The Continent is the
+best field for elegant instruction, and we must see the world a little,
+by-and-by, Maud; and to me, if my health be spared, there would be an
+unspeakable though a melancholy charm in the scenes where so many happy,
+though so many wayward and foolish, young days were passed; and I think I
+should return to these picturesque solitudes with, perhaps, an increased
+relish. You remember old Chaulieu's sweet lines--
+
+  Desert, aimable solitude,
+  Sejour du calme et de la paix,
+  Asile ou n'entrerent jamais
+  Le tumulte et l'inquietude.
+
+I can't say that care and sorrow have not sometimes penetrated these sylvan
+fastnesses; but the tumults of the world, thank Heaven!--never.'
+
+There was a sly scepticism, I thought, in Doctor Bryerly's sharp face; and
+hardly waiting for the impressive 'never,' he said--
+
+'I forgot to ask, who is your banker?'
+
+'Oh! Bartlet and Hall, Lombard Street,' answered Uncle Silas, dryly and
+shortly.
+
+Dr. Bryerly made a note of it, with an expression of face which seemed,
+with a sly resolution, to say, 'You shan't come the anchorite over me.'
+
+I saw Uncle Silas's wild and piercing eye rest suspiciously on me for a
+moment, as if to ascertain whether I felt the spirit of Doctor Bryerly's
+almost interruption; and, nearly at the same moment, stuffing his papers
+into his capacious coat pockets, Doctor Bryerly rose and took his leave.
+
+When he was gone, I bethought me that now was a good opportunity of making
+my complaint of Dickon Hawkes. Uncle Silas having risen, I hesitated, and
+began,
+
+'Uncle, may I mention an occurrence--which I witnessed?'
+
+'Certainly, child,' he answered, fixing his eye sharply on me. I really
+think he fancied that the conversation was about to turn upon the phantom
+chaise.
+
+So I described the scene which had shocked Milly and me, an hour or so ago,
+in the Windmill Wood.
+
+'You see, my dear child, they are rough persons; their ideas are not ours;
+their young people must be chastised, and in a way and to a degree that we
+would look upon in a serious light. I've found it a bad plan interfering in
+strictly domestic misunderstandings, and should rather not.'
+
+'But he struck her violently on the head, uncle, with a heavy cudgel, and
+she was bleeding very fast.'
+
+'Ah?' said my uncle, dryly.
+
+'And only that Milly and I deterred him by saying that we would certainly
+tell you, he would have struck her again; and I really think if he goes on
+treating her with so much violence and cruelty he may injure her seriously,
+or perhaps kill her.'
+
+'Why, you romantic little child, people in that rank of life think
+absolutely nothing of a broken head,' answered Uncle Silas, in the same
+way.
+
+'But is it not horrible brutality, uncle?'
+
+'To be sure it is brutality; but then you must remember they are brutes,
+and it suits them,' said he.
+
+I was disappointed. I had fancied that Uncle Silas's gentle nature would
+have recoiled from such an outrage with horror and indignation; and
+instead, here he was, the apologist of that savage ruffian, Dickon Hawkes.
+
+'And he is always so rude and impertinent to Milly and to me,' I continued.
+'Oh! impertinent to you--that's another matter. I must see to that. Nothing
+more, my dear child?'
+
+'Well, there _was_ nothing more.'
+
+'He's a useful servant, Hawkes; and though his looks are not prepossessing,
+and his ways and language rough, yet he is a very kind father, and a most
+honest man--a thoroughly moral man, though severe--a very rough diamond
+though, and has no idea of the refinements of polite society. I venture to
+say he honestly believes that he has been always unexceptionably polite to
+you, so we must make allowances.'
+
+And Uncle Silas smoothed my hair with his thin aged hand, and kissed my
+forehead.
+
+'Yes, we must make allowances; we must be kind. What says the Book?--"Judge
+not, that ye be not judged." Your dear father acted upon that maxim--so
+noble and so awful--and I strive to do so. Alas! dear Austin, _longo
+intervalle_, far behind! and you are removed--my example and my help; you
+are gone to your rest, and I remain beneath my burden, still marching on by
+bleak and alpine paths, under the awful night.
+
+  O nuit, nuit douloureuse! O toi, tardive aurore!
+  Viens-tu? vas-tu venir? es-tu bien loin encore?
+
+And repeating these lines of Chenier, with upturned eyes, and one hand
+lifted, and an indescribable expression of grief and fatigue, he sank
+stiffly into his chair, and remained mute, with eyes closed for some time.
+Then applying his scented handkerchief to them hastily, and looking very
+kindly at me, he said--
+
+'Anything more, dear child?'
+
+'Nothing, uncle, thank you, very much, only about that man, Hawkes; I dare
+say that he does not mean to be so uncivil as he is, but I am really afraid
+of him, and he makes our walks in that direction quite unpleasant.'
+
+'I understand quite, my dear. I will see to it; and you must remember that
+nothing is to be allowed to vex my beloved niece and ward during her stay
+at Bartram--nothing that her old kinsman, Silas Ruthyn, can remedy.'
+
+So with a tender smile, and a charge to shut the door 'perfectly, but
+without clapping it,' he dismissed me. Doctor Bryerly had not slept at
+Bartram, but at the little inn in Feltram, and he was going direct to
+London, as I afterwards learned.
+
+'Your ugly doctor's gone away in a fly,' said Milly, as we met on the
+stairs, she running up, I down.
+
+On reaching the little apartment which was our sitting-room, however, I
+found that she was mistaken; for Doctor Bryerly, with his hat and a great
+pair of woollen gloves on, and an old Oxford grey surtout that showed his
+lank length to advantage, buttoned all the way up to his chin, had set down
+his black leather bag on the table, and was reading at the window a little
+volume which I had borrowed from my uncle's library.
+
+It was Swedenborg's account of the other worlds, Heaven and Hell.
+
+He closed it on his finger as I entered, and without recollecting to remove
+his hat, he made a step or two towards me with his splay, creaking boots.
+With a quick glance at the door, he said--
+
+'Glad to see you alone for a minute--very glad.'
+
+But his countenance, on the contrary, looked very anxious.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII
+
+_A MIDNIGHT DEPARTURE_
+
+
+'I'm going this minute--I--I want to know'--another glance at the
+door--'are you really quite comfortable here?'
+
+'Quite,' I answered promptly.
+
+'You have only your cousin's company?' he continued, glancing at the table,
+which was laid for two.
+
+'Yes; but Milly and I are very happy together.'
+
+'That's very nice; but I think there are no teachers, you see--painters,
+and singers, and that sort of thing that is usual with young ladies. No
+teachers of that kind--of _any_ kind--are there?' 'No; my uncle thinks it
+better I should lay in a store of health, he says.'
+
+'I know; and the carriage and horses have not come; how soon are they
+expected?'
+
+'I really can't say, and I assure you I don't much care. I think running
+about great fun.'
+
+'You walk to church?'
+
+'Yes; Uncle Silas's carriage wants a new wheel, he told me.'
+
+'Ay, but a young woman of your rank, you know, it is not usual she should
+be without the use of a carriage. Have you horses to ride?'
+
+I shook my head.
+
+'Your uncle, you know, has a very liberal allowance for your maintenance
+and education.'
+
+I remembered something in the will about it, and Mary Quince was constantly
+grumbling that 'he did not spend a pound a week on our board.'
+
+I answered nothing, but looked down.
+
+Another glance at the door from Doctor Bryerly's sharp black eyes.
+
+'Is he kind to you?'
+
+'Very kind--most gentle and affectionate.'
+
+'Why doesn't he keep company with you? Does he ever dine with you, or drink
+tea, or talk to you? Do you see much of him?'
+
+'He is a miserable invalid--his hours and regimen are peculiar. Indeed
+I wish very much you would consider his case; he is, I believe, often
+insensible for a long time, and his mind in a strange feeble state
+sometimes.'
+
+'I dare say--worn out in his young days; and I saw that preparation of
+opium in his bottle--he takes too much.'
+
+'Why do you think so, Doctor Bryerly?'
+
+'It's made on water: the spirit interferes with the use of it beyond a
+certain limit. You have no idea what those fellows can swallow. Read the
+"Opium Eater." I knew two cases in which the quantity exceeded De Quincy's.
+Aha! it's new to you?' and he laughed quietly at my simplicity.
+
+'And what do you think his complaint is?' I asked.
+
+'Pooh! I haven't a notion; but, probably, one way or another, he has been
+all his days working on his nerves and his brain. These men of pleasure,
+who have no other pursuit, use themselves up mostly, and pay a smart price
+for their sins. And so he's kind and affectionate, but hands you over to
+your cousin and the servants. Are his people civil and obliging?'
+
+'Well, I can't say much for them; there is a man named Hawkes, and his
+daughter, who are very rude, and even abusive sometimes, and say they have
+orders from my uncle to shut us out from a portion of the grounds; but I
+don't believe that, for Uncle Silas never alluded to it when I was making
+my complaint of them to-day.'
+
+'From what part of the grounds is that?' asked Doctor Bryerly, sharply.
+
+I described the situation as well as I could.
+
+'Can we see it from this?' he asked, peeping from the window.
+
+'Oh, no.'
+
+Doctor Bryerly made a note in his pocket-book here, and I said--
+
+'But I am really quite sure it was a story of Dickon's, he is such a surly,
+disobliging man.'
+
+'And what sort is that old servant that came in and out of his room?'
+
+'Oh, that is old L'Amour,' I answered, rather indirectly, and forgetting
+that I was using Milly's nickname.
+
+'And is _she_ civil?' he asked.
+
+No, she certainly was not; a most disagreeable old woman, with a vein of
+wickedness. I thought I had heard her swearing.
+
+'They don't seem to be a very engaging lot,' said Doctor Bryerly;' but
+where there's one, there will be more. See here, I was just reading a
+passage,' and he opened the little volume at the place where his finger
+marked it, and read for me a few sentences, the purport of which I well
+remember, although, of course, the words have escaped me.
+
+It was in that awful portion of the book which assumes to describe the
+condition of the condemned; and it said that, independently of the physical
+causes in that state operating to enforce community of habitation, and an
+isolation from superior spirits, there exist sympathies, aptitudes,
+and necessities which would, of themselves, induce that depraved
+gregariousness, and isolation too. 'And what of the rest of the servants,
+are they better?' he resumed.
+
+We saw little or nothing of the others, except of old 'Giblets,' the
+butler, who went about like a little automaton of dry bones, poking here
+and there, and whispering and smiling to himself as he laid the cloth; and
+seeming otherwise quite unconscious of an external world.
+
+'This room is not got up like Mr. Ruthyn's: does he talk of furnishings and
+making things a little smart? No! Well, I must say, I think he might.'
+
+Here there was a little silence, and Doctor Bryerly, with his accustomed
+simultaneous glance at the door, said in low, cautious tones, very
+distinctly--
+
+'Have you been thinking at all over that matter again, I mean about getting
+your uncle to forego his guardianship? I would not mind his first refusal.
+You could make it worth his while, unless he--that is--unless he's very
+unreasonable indeed; and I think you would consult your interest, Miss
+Ruthyn, by doing so and, if possible, getting out of this place.'
+
+'But I have not thought of it at all; I am much happier here than I had at
+all expected, and I am very fond of my cousin Milly.'
+
+'How long have you been here exactly?'
+
+I told him. It was some two or three months.
+
+'Have you seen your other cousin yet--the young gentleman?'
+
+'No.'
+
+'H'm! Aren't you very lonely?' he enquired.
+
+'We see no visitors here; but that, you know, I was prepared for.'
+
+Doctor Bryerly read the wrinkles on his splay boot intently and peevishly,
+and tapped the sole lightly on the ground.
+
+'Yes, it is very lonely, and the people a bad lot. You'd be pleasanter
+somewhere else--with Lady Knollys, for instance, eh?'
+
+'Well, _there_ certainly. But I am very well here: really the time passes
+very pleasantly; and my uncle is so kind. I have only to mention anything
+that annoys me, and he will see that it is remedied: he is always
+impressing that on me.'
+
+'Yes, it is not a fit place for you,' said Doctor Bryerly. 'Of course,
+about your uncle,' he resumed, observing my surprised look, 'it is all
+right: but he's quite helpless, you know. At all events, _think_ about it.
+Here's my address--Hans Emmanuel Bryerly, M.D., 17 King Street, Covent
+Garden, London--don't lose it, mind,' and he tore the leaf out of his
+note-book.
+
+'Here's my fly at the door, and you must--you must' (he was looking at his
+watch)--'mind you _must_ think of it seriously; and so, you see, don't let
+anyone see that. You'll be sure to leave it throwing about. The best way
+will be just to scratch it on the door of your press, inside, you know; and
+don't put my name--you'll remember that--only the rest of the address; and
+burn this. Quince is with you?'
+
+'Yes,' I answered, glad to have a satisfactory word to say.
+
+'Well, don't let her go; it's a bad sign if they wish it. Don't consent,
+mind; but just tip me a hint and you'll have me down. And any letters you
+get from Lady Knollys, you know, for she's very plain-spoken, you'd better
+burn them off-hand. And I've stayed too long, though; mind what I say,
+scratch it with a pin, and burn that, and not a word to a mortal about it.
+Good-bye; oh, I was taking away your book.'
+
+And so, in a fuss, with a slight shake of the hand, getting up his
+umbrella, his bag, and tin box, he hurried from the room; and in a minute
+more, I heard the sound of his vehicle as it drove away.
+
+I looked after it with a sigh; the uneasy sensations which I had
+experienced respecting my sojourn at Bartram-Haugh were re-awakened.
+
+My ugly, vulgar, true friend was disappearing beyond those gigantic lime
+trees which hid Bartram from the eyes of the outer world. The fly, with the
+doctor's valise on top, vanished, and I sighed an anxious sigh. The shadow
+of the over-arching trees contracted, and I felt helpless and forsaken; and
+glancing down the torn leaf, Doctor Bryerly's address met my eye, between
+my fingers.
+
+I slipt it into my breast, and ran up-stairs stealthily, trembling lest the
+old woman should summon me again, at the head of the stairs, into Uncle
+Silas's room, where under his gaze, I fancied, I should be sure to betray
+myself.
+
+But I glided unseen and safely by, entered my room, and shut my door. So
+listening and working, I, with my scissors' point, scratched the address
+where Doctor Bryerly had advised. Then, in positive terror, lest some one
+should even knock during the operation, I, with a match, consumed to ashes
+the tell-tale bit of paper.
+
+Now, for the first time, I experienced the unpleasant sensations of
+having a secret to keep. I fancy the pain of this solitary liability was
+disproportionately acute in my case, for I was naturally very open and
+very nervous. I was always on the point of betraying it _apropos des
+bottes_--always reproaching myself for my duplicity; and in constant terror
+when honest Mary Quince approached the press, or good-natured Milly made
+her occasional survey of the wonders of my wardrobe. I would have given
+anything to go and point to the tiny inscription, and say:--'This is Doctor
+Bryerly's address in London. I scratched it with my scissors' point, taking
+every precaution lest anyone--you, my good friends, included--should
+surprise me. I have ever since kept this secret to myself, and trembled
+whenever your frank kind faces looked into the press. There--you at last
+know all about it. Can you ever forgive my deceit?'
+
+But I could not make up my mind to reveal it; nor yet to erase the
+inscription, which was my alternative thought. Indeed I am a wavering,
+irresolute creature as ever lived, in my ordinary mood. High excitement or
+passion only can inspire me with decision. Under the inspiration of either,
+however, I am transformed, and often both prompt and brave.
+
+'Some one left here last night, I think, Miss,' said Mary Quince, with a
+mysterious nod, one morning. ''Twas two o'clock, and I was bad with the
+toothache, and went down to get a pinch o' red pepper--leaving the candle
+a-light here lest you should awake. When I was coming up--as I was crossing
+the lobby, at the far end of the long gallery--what should I hear, but a
+horse snorting, and some people a-talking, short and quiet like. So I looks
+out o' the window; and there surely I did see two horses yoked to a shay,
+and a fellah a-pullin' a box up o' top; and out comes a walise and a bag;
+and I think it was old Wyat, please'm, that Miss Milly calls L'Amour, that
+stood in the doorway a-talking to the driver.'
+
+'And who got into the chaise, Mary?' I asked.
+
+'Well, Miss, I waited as long as I could; but the pain was bad, and me so
+awful cold; I gave it up at last, and came back to bed, for I could not say
+how much longer they might wait. And you'll find, Miss,'twill be kep' a
+secret, like the shay as you saw'd, Miss, last week. I hate them dark ways,
+and secrets; and old Wyat--she does tell stories, don't she?--and she as
+ought to be partickler, seein' her time be short now, and she so old. It is
+awful, an old un like that telling such crams as she do.'
+
+Milly was as curious as I, but could throw no light on this. We both
+agreed, however, that the departure was probably that of the person whose
+arrival I had accidentally witnessed. This time the chaise had drawn up
+at the side door, round the corner of the left side of the house; and, no
+doubt, driven away by the back road.
+
+Another accident had revealed this nocturnal move. It was very provoking,
+however, that Mary Quince had not had resolution to wait for the appearance
+of the traveller. We all agreed, however, that we were to observe a strict
+silence, and that even to Wyat--L'Amour I had better continue to call
+her--Mary Quince was not to hint what she had seen. I suspect, however,
+that injured curiosity asserted itself, and that Mary hardly adhered to
+this self-denying resolve.
+
+But cheerful wintry suns and frosty skies, long nights, and brilliant
+starlight, with good homely fires in our snuggery--gossipings, stories,
+short readings now and then, and brisk walks through the always beautiful
+scenery of Bartram-Haugh, and, above all, the unbroken tenor of our life,
+which had fallen into a serene routine, foreign to the idea of danger
+or misadventure, gradually quieted the qualms and misgivings which my
+interview with Doctor Bryerly had so powerfully resuscitated.
+
+My cousin Monica, to my inexpressible joy, had returned to her
+country-house; and an active diplomacy, through the post-office, was
+negotiating the re-opening of friendly relations between the courts of
+Elverston and of Bartram.
+
+At length, one fine day, Cousin Monica, smiling pleasantly, with her cloak
+and bonnet on, and her colour fresh from the shrewd air of the Derbyshire
+hills, stood suddenly before me in our sitting-room. Our meeting was that
+of two school-companions long separated. Cousin Monica was always a girl in
+my eyes.
+
+What a hug it was; what a shower of kisses and ejaculations, enquiries
+and caresses! At last I pressed her down into a chair, and, laughing, she
+said--
+
+'You have no idea what self-denial I have exercised to bring this visit
+about. I, who detest writing, have actually written five letters to Silas;
+and I don't think I said a single impertinent thing in one of them! What a
+wonderful little old thing your butler is! I did not know what to make of
+him on the steps. Is he a struldbrug, or a fairy, or only a ghost? Where on
+earth did your uncle pick him up? I'm sure he came in on All Hallows E'en,
+to answer an incantation--not your future husband, I hope--and he'll vanish
+some night into gray smoke, and whisk sadly up the chimney. He's the most
+venerable little thing I ever beheld in my life. I leaned back in the
+carriage and thought I should absolutely die of laughing. He's gone up to
+prepare your uncle for my visit; and I really am very glad, for I'm sure I
+shall look as young as Hebe after _him_. But who is this? Who are you, my
+dear?'
+
+This was addressed to poor Milly, who stood at the corner of the
+chimney-piece, staring with her round eyes and plump cheeks in fear and
+wonder upon the strange lady.
+
+'How stupid of me,' I exclaimed. 'Milly, dear, this is your cousin, Lady
+Knollys.'
+
+'And so _you_ are Millicent. Well, dear, I am very glad to see you.' And
+Cousin Monica was on her feet again in an instant, with Milly's hand very
+cordially in hers; and she gave her a kiss upon each cheek, and patted her
+head.
+
+Milly, I must mention, was a much more presentable figure than when I first
+encountered her. Her dresses were at least a quarter of a yard longer.
+Though very rustic, therefore, she was not so barbarously grotesque, by any
+means.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX
+
+_COUSIN MONICA AND UNCLE SILAS MEET_
+
+
+Cousin Monica, with her hands upon Milly's shoulders, looked amusedly and
+kindly in her face. 'And,' said she, 'we must be very good friends--you
+funny creature, you and I. I'm allowed to be the most saucy old woman in
+Derbyshire--quite incorrigibly privileged; and nobody is ever affronted
+with me, so I say the most shocking things constantly.'
+
+'I'm a bit that way, myself; and I think,' said poor Milly, making an
+effort, and growing very red; she quite lost her head at that point, and
+was incompetent to finish the sentiment she had prefaced.
+
+'You think? Now, take my advice, and never wait to think my dear; talk
+first, and think afterwards, that is my way; though, indeed, I can't say
+I ever think at all. It is a very cowardly habit. Our cold-blooded cousin
+Maud, there, thinks sometimes; but it is always such a failure that I
+forgive her. I wonder when your little pre-Adamite butler will return. He
+speaks the language of the Picts and Ancient Britons, I dare say, and your
+father requires a little time to translate him. And, Milly dear, I am very
+hungry, so I won't wait for your butler, who would give me, I suppose, one
+of the cakes baked by King Alfred, and some Danish beer in a skull; but
+I'll ask you for a little of that nice bread and butter.'
+
+With which accordingly Lady Knollys was quickly supplied; but it did not at
+all impede her utterance.
+
+'Do you think, girls, you could be ready to come away with me, if Silas
+gives leave, in an hour or two? I should so like to take you both home with
+me to Elverston.'
+
+'How delightful! you darling,' cried I, embracing and kissing her; 'for my
+part, I should be ready in five minutes; what do you say, Milly?'
+
+Poor Milly's wardrobe, I am afraid, was more portable than handsome; and
+she looked horribly affrighted, and whispered in my ear--
+
+'My best petticoat is away at the laundress; say in a week, Maud.'
+
+'What does she say?' asked Lady Knollys.
+
+'She fears she can't be ready,' I answered, dejectedly.
+
+'There's a deal of my slops in the wash,' blurted out poor Milly, staring
+straight at Lady Knollys.
+
+'In the name of wonder, what does my cousin mean?' asked Lady Knollys.
+
+'Her things have not come home yet from the laundress,' I replied; and at
+this moment our wondrous old butler entered to announce to Lady Knollys
+that his master was ready to receive her, whenever she was disposed to
+favour him; and also to make polite apologies for his being compelled, by
+his state of health, to give her the trouble of ascending to his room.
+
+So Cousin Monica was at the door in a moment, over her shoulder calling to
+us, 'Come, girls.'
+
+'Please, not yet, my lady--you alone; and he requests the young ladies will
+be in the way, as he will send for them presently.'
+
+I began to admire poor 'Giblets' as the wreck of a tolerably respectable
+servant.
+
+'Very good; perhaps it is better we should kiss and be friends in private
+first,' said Cousin Knollys, laughing; and away she went under the guidance
+of the mummy.
+
+I had an account of this _tete-a-tete_ afterwards from Lady Knollys.
+
+'When I saw him, my dear,' she said, 'I could hardly believe my eyes; such
+white hair--such a white face--such mad eyes--such a death-like smile.
+When I saw him last, his hair was dark; he dressed himself like a modern
+Englishman; and he really preserved a likeness to the full-length portrait
+at Knowl, that you fell in love with, you know; but, angels and ministers
+of grace! such a spectre! I asked myself, is it necromancy, or is it
+delirium tremens that has reduced him to this? And said he, with that
+odious smile, that made me fancy myself half insane--
+
+'"You see a change, Monica."
+
+'What a sweet, gentle, insufferable voice he has! Somebody once told me
+about the tone of a glass flute that made some people hysterical to listen
+to, and I was thinking of it all the time. There was always a peculiar
+quality in his voice.
+
+'"I do see a change, Silas," I said at last; "and, no doubt, so do you in
+me--a great change."
+
+'"There has been time enough to work a greater than I observe in you since
+you last honoured me with a visit," said he.
+
+'I think he was at his old sarcasms, and meant that I was the same
+impertinent minx he remembered long ago, uncorrected by time; and so I am,
+and he must not expect compliments from old Monica Knollys.
+
+'"It is a long time, Silas; but that, you know, is not my fault," said I.
+
+'"Not your fault, my dear--your instinct. We are all imitative creatures:
+the great people ostracised me, and the small ones followed. We are very
+like turkeys, we have so much good sense and so much generosity. Fortune,
+in a freak, wounded my head, and the whole brood were upon me, pecking and
+gobbling, gobbling and pecking, and you among them, dear Monica. It wasn't
+your fault, only your instinct, so I quite forgive you; but no wonder the
+peckers wear better than the pecked. You are robust; and I, what I am."
+
+'"Now, Silas, I have not come here to quarrel. If we quarrel now, mind, we
+can never make it up--we are too old, so let us forget all we can, and try
+to forgive something; and if we can do neither, at all events let there be
+truce between us while I am here."
+
+'"My personal wrongs I can quite forgive, and I do, Heaven knows, from my
+heart; but there are things which ought not to be forgiven. My children
+have been ruined by it. I may, by the mercy of Providence, be yet set right
+in the world, and so soon as that time comes, I will remember, and I
+will act; but my children--you will see that wretched girl, my
+daughter--education, society, all would come too late--my children have
+been ruined by it."
+
+'"I have not done it; but I know what you mean," I said. "You menace
+litigation whenever you have the means; but you forget that Austin placed
+you under promise, when he gave you the use of this house and place, never
+to disturb my title to Elverston. So there is my answer, if you mean that."
+
+'"I mean what I mean," he replied, with his old smile.
+
+'"You mean then," said I, "that for the pleasure of vexing me with
+litigation, you are willing to forfeit your tenure of this house and
+place."
+
+'"Suppose I _did_ mean precisely that, why should I forfeit anything?
+My beloved brother, by his will, has given me a right to the use of
+Bartram-Haugh for my life, and attached no absurd condition of the kind you
+fancy to his gift."
+
+'Silas was in one of his vicious old moods, and liked to menace me. His
+vindictiveness got the better of his craft; but he knows as well as I do
+that he never could succeed in disturbing the title of my poor dear Harry
+Knollys; and I was not at all alarmed by his threats; and I told him so, as
+coolly as I speak to you now.
+
+'"Well, Monica," he said, "I have weighed you in the balance, and you are
+not found wanting. For a moment the old man possessed me: the thought of
+my children, of past unkindness, and present affliction and disgrace,
+exasperated me, and I was mad. It was but for a moment--the galvanic spasm
+of a corpse. Never was breast more dead than mine to the passions and
+ambitions of the world. They are not for white locks like these, nor for
+a man who, for a week in every month, lies in the gate of death. Will you
+shake hands? _Here_--I _do_ strike a truce; and I _do_ forget and forgive
+_everything_."
+
+'I don't know what he meant by this scene. I have no idea whether he was
+acting, or lost his head, or, in fact, why or how it occurred; but I am
+glad, darling, that, unlike myself, I was calm, and that a quarrel has not
+been forced upon me.'
+
+When our turn came and we were summoned to the presence, Uncle Silas was
+quite as usual; but Cousin Monica's heightened colour, and the flash of her
+eyes, showed plainly that something exciting and angry had occurred.
+
+Uncle Silas commented in his own vein upon the effect of Bartram air and
+liberty, all he had to offer; and called on me to say how I liked them. And
+then he called Milly to him, kissed her tenderly, smiled sadly upon her,
+and turning to Cousin Monica, said--
+
+'This is my daughter Milly--oh! she has been presented to you down-stairs,
+has she? You have, no doubt, been interested by her. As I told her cousin
+Maud, though I am not yet quite a Sir Tunbelly Clumsy, she is a very
+finished Miss Hoyden. Are not you, my poor Milly? You owe your distinction,
+my dear, to that line of circumvallation which has, ever since your birth,
+intercepted all civilisation on its way to Bartram. You are much obliged,
+Milly, to everybody who, whether naturally or _un_-naturally, turned a sod
+in that invisible, but impenetrable, work. For your accomplishments--rather
+singular than fashionable--you are indebted, in part, to your cousin, Lady
+Knollys. Is not she, Monica? _Thank_ her, Milly.'
+
+'This is your _truce_, Silas,' said Lady Knollys, with a quiet sharpness.
+'I think, Silas Ruthyn, you want to provoke me to speak in a way before
+these young creatures which we should all regret.'
+
+'So my badinage excites your temper, Monnie. Think how you _would_ feel,
+then, if I had found you by the highway side, mangled by robbers, and set
+my foot upon your throat, and spat in your face. But--stop this. Why have I
+said this? simply to emphasize my forgiveness. See, girls, Lady Knollys and
+I, cousins long estranged, forget and forgive the past, and join hands over
+its buried injuries.'
+
+'Well, _be_ it so; only let us have done with ironies and covert taunts.'
+
+And with these words their hands were joined; and Uncle Silas, after he had
+released hers, patted and fondled it with his, laughing icily and very low
+all the time.
+
+'I wish so much, dear Monica,' he said, when this piece of silent by-play
+was over, 'that I could ask you to stay to-night; but absolutely I have not
+a bed to offer, and even if I had, I fear my suit would hardly prevail.'
+
+Then came Lady Knollys' invitation for Milly and me. He was very much
+obliged; he smiled over it a great deal, meditating. I thought he was
+puzzled; and amid his smiles, his wild eyes scanned Cousin Monica's frank
+face once or twice suspiciously.
+
+There was a difficulty--an _undefined_ difficulty--about letting us go that
+day; but on a future one--soon--_very_ soon--he would be most happy.
+
+Well, there was an end of that little project, for to-day at least; and
+Cousin Monica was too well-bred to urge it beyond a certain point.
+
+'Milly, my dear, will you put on your hat and show me the grounds about the
+house? May she, Silas? I should like to renew my acquaintance.'
+
+'You'll see them sadly neglected, Monnie. A poor man's pleasure grounds
+must rely on Nature, and trust to her for effects. Where there is fine
+timber, however, and abundance of slope, and rock, and hollow, we sometimes
+gain in picturesqueness what we lose by neglect in luxury.'
+
+Then, as Cousin Monica said she would cross the grounds by a path, and meet
+her carriage at a point to which we would accompany her, and so make her
+way home, she took leave of Uncle Silas; a ceremony whereat--without, I
+thought, much zeal at either side--a kiss took place.
+
+'Now, girls!' said Cousin Knollys, when we were fairly in motion over the
+grass, 'what do you say--will he let you come--yes or no? I can't say, but
+I think, dear,'--this to Milly--' he ought to let you see a little more of
+the world than appears among the glens and bushes of Bartram. Very pretty
+they are, like yourself; but very wild, and very little seen. Where is your
+brother, Milly; is not he older than you?'
+
+'I don't know where; and he is older by six years and a bit.'
+
+By-and-by, when Milly was gesticulating to frighten some herons by the
+river's brink into the air, Cousin Monica said confidentially to me--
+
+'He has run away, I'm told--I wish I could believe it--and enlisted in a
+regiment going to India, perhaps the best thing for him. Did you see him
+here before his judicious self-banishment?'
+
+'No.'
+
+'Well, I suppose you have had no loss. Doctor Bryerly says from all he can
+learn he is a very bad young man. And now tell me, dear, _is_ Silas kind to
+you?'
+
+'Yes, always gentle, just as you saw him to-day; but we don't see a great
+deal of him--very little, in fact.'
+
+'And how do you like your life and the people?' she asked.
+
+'My life, very well; and the people, _pretty_ well. There's an old women we
+don't like, old Wyat, she is cross and mysterious and tells untruths; but I
+don't think she is dishonest--so Mary Quince says--and that, you know, is a
+point; and there is a family, father and daughter, called Hawkes, who live
+in the Windmill Wood, who are perfect savages, though my uncle says they
+don't mean it; but they are very disagreeable, rude people; and except them
+we see very little of the servants or other people. But there has been a
+mysterious visit; some one came late at night, and remained for some days,
+though Milly and I never saw them, and Mary Quince saw a chaise at the
+side-door at two o'clock at night.'
+
+Cousin Monica was so highly interested at this that she arrested her walk
+and stood facing me, with her hand on my arm, questioning and listening,
+and lost, as it seemed, in dismal conjecture.
+
+'It is not pleasant, you know,' I said.
+
+'No, it is not pleasant,' said Lady Knollys, very gloomily.
+
+And just then Milly joined us, shouting to us to look at the herons flying;
+so Cousin Monica did, and smiled and nodded in thanks to Milly, and was
+again silent and thoughtful as we walked on.
+
+'You are to come to me, mind, both of you girls,' she said, abruptly;' you
+_shall_. I'll manage it.'
+
+When silence returned, and Milly ran away once more to try whether the old
+gray trout was visible in the still water under the bridge, Cousin Monica
+said to me in a low tone, looking hard at me--
+
+'You've not seen anything to frighten you, Maud? Don't look so alarmed,
+dear,' she added with a little laugh, which was not very merry, however. 'I
+don't mean frighten in any awful sense--in fact, I did not mean frighten
+at all. I meant--I can't exactly express it--anything to vex, or make you
+uncomfortable; have you?'
+
+'No, I can't say I have, except that room in which Mr. Charke was found
+dead.'
+
+'Oh! you saw that, did you?--I should like to see it so much. Your bedroom
+is not near it?'
+
+'Oh, no; on the floor beneath, and looking to the front. And Doctor Bryerly
+talked a little to me, and there seemed to be something on his mind more
+than he chose to tell me; so that for some time after I saw him I really
+was, as you say, frightened; but, except that, I really have had no cause.
+And what was in your mind when you asked me?'
+
+'Well, you know, Maud, you are afraid of ghosts, banditti, and
+_every_thing; and I wished to know whether you were uncomfortable, and what
+your particular bogle was just now--that, I assure you, was all; and I
+know,' she continued, suddenly changing her light tone and manner for one
+of pointed entreaty, 'what Doctor Bryerly said; and I _implore_ of you,
+Maud, to think of it seriously; and when you come to me, you shall do so
+with the intention of remaining at Elverston.'
+
+'Now, Cousin Monica, is this fair? You and Doctor Bryerly both talk in the
+same awful way to me; and I assure you, you don't know how nervous I am
+sometimes, and yet you won't, either of you, say what you mean. Now,
+Monica, dear cousin, won't you tell me?'
+
+'You see, dear, it is so lonely; it's a strange place, and he so odd. I
+don't like the place, and I don't like him. I've tried, but I can't, and I
+think I never shall. He may be a very--what was it that good little silly
+curate at Knowl used to call him?--a very advanced Christian--that is it,
+and I hope he is; but if he is only what he used to be, his utter seclusion
+from society removes the only check, except personal fear--and he never had
+much of that--upon a very bad man. And you must know, my dear Maud, what a
+prize you are, and what an immense trust it is.'
+
+Suddenly Cousin Monica stopped short, and looked at me as if she had gone
+too far.
+
+'But, you know, Silas may be very good _now_, although he was wild and
+selfish in his young days. Indeed I don't know what to make of him; but I
+am sure when you have thought it over, you will agree with me and Doctor
+Bryerly, that you must not stay here.'
+
+It was vain trying to induce my cousin to be more explicit.
+
+'I hope to see you at Elverston in a very few days. I will _shame_ Silas
+into letting you come. I don't like his reluctance.'
+
+'But don't you think he must know that Milly would require some little
+outfit before her visit?'
+
+'Well, I can't say. I hope that is all; but be it what it may, I'll
+_make_ him let you come, and _immediately_, too.' After she had gone, I
+experienced a repetition of those undefined doubts which had tortured me
+for some time after my conversation with Dr. Bryerly. I had truly said,
+however, I was well enough contented with my mode of life here, for I had
+been trained at Knowl to a solitude very nearly as profound.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL
+
+_IN WHICH I MAKE ANOTHER COUSIN'S ACQUAINTANCE_
+
+
+My correspondence about this time was not very extensive. About once a
+fortnight a letter from honest Mrs. Rusk conveyed to me how the dogs and
+ponies were, in queer English, oddly spelt; some village gossip, a critique
+upon Doctor Clay's or the Curate's last sermon, and some severities
+generally upon the Dissenters' doings, with loves to Mary Quince, and all
+good wishes to me. Sometimes a welcome letter from cheerful Cousin Monica;
+and now, to vary the series, a copy of complimentary verses, without a
+signature, very adoring--very like Byron, I then fancied, and now, I must
+confess, rather vapid. Could I doubt from whom they came?
+
+I had received, about a month after my arrival, a copy of verses in the
+same hand, in a plaintive ballad style, of the soldierly sort, in which the
+writer said, that as living his sole object was to please me, so dying I
+should be his latest thought; and some more poetic impieties, asking only
+in return that when the storm of battle had swept over, I should 'shed
+a tear' on seeing 'the _oak lie_, where it fell.' Of course, about
+this lugubrious pun, there could be no misconception. The Captain was
+unmistakably indicated; and I was so moved that I could no longer retain
+my secret; but walking with Milly that day, confided the little romance to
+that unsophisticated listener, under the chestnut trees. The lines were so
+amorously dejected, and yet so heroically redolent of blood and gunpowder,
+that Milly and I agreed that the writer must be on the verge of a
+sanguinary campaign.
+
+It was not easy to get at Uncle Silas's 'Times' or 'Morning Post,' which we
+fancied would explain these horrible allusions; but Milly bethought her of
+a sergeant in the militia, resident in Feltram, who knew the destination
+and quarters of every regiment in the service; and circuitously, from
+this authority, we learned, to my infinite relief, that Captain Oakley's
+regiment had still two years to sojourn in England.
+
+I was summoned one evening by old L'Amour, to my uncle's room. I remember
+his appearance that evening so well, as he lay back in his chair; the
+pillow; the white glare of his strange eye; his feeble, painful smile.
+
+'You'll excuse my not rising, dear Maud, I am so miserably ill this
+evening.'
+
+I expressed my respectful condolence.
+
+'Yes; I _am_ to be pitied; but pity is of no use, dear,' he murmured,
+peevishly. 'I sent for you to make you acquainted with your cousin, my son.
+Where are you Dudley?'
+
+A figure seated in a low lounging chair, at the other side of the fire, and
+which till then I had not observed, at these words rose up a little slowly,
+like a man stiff after a day's hunting; and I beheld with a shock that held
+my breath, and fixed my eyes upon him in a stare, the young man whom I had
+encountered at Church Scarsdale, on the day of my unpleasant excursion
+there with Madame, and who, to the best of my belief, was also one of that
+ruffianly party who had so unspeakably terrified me in the warren at Knowl.
+
+I suppose I looked very much affrighted. If I had been looking at a ghost I
+could not have felt much more scared and incredulous.
+
+When I was able to turn my eyes upon my uncle he was not looking at me; but
+with a glimmer of that smile with which a father looks on a son whose youth
+and comeliness he admires, his white face was turned towards the young man,
+in whom I beheld nothing but the image of odious and dreadful associations.
+
+'Come, sir,' said my uncle, we must not be too modest. Here's your cousin
+Maud--what do you say?'
+
+'How are ye, Miss?' he said, with a sheepish grin.
+
+'Miss! Come, come. Miss us, no Misses,' said my uncle; 'she is Maud, and
+you Dudley, or I mistake; or we shall have you calling Milly, madame.
+She'll not refuse you her hand, I venture to think. Come, young gentleman,
+speak for yourself.'
+
+'How are ye, Maud?' he said, doing his best, and drawing near, he extended
+his hand.' You're welcome to Bartram-Haugh, Miss.'
+
+'Kiss your cousin, sir. Where's your gallantry? On my honour, I disown
+you,' exclaimed my uncle, with more energy than he had shown before.
+
+With a clumsy effort, and a grin that was both sheepish and impudent, he
+grasped my hand and advanced his face. The imminent salute gave me strength
+to spring back a step or two, and he hesitated.
+
+My uncle laughed peevishly.
+
+'Well, well, that will do, I suppose. In my time first-cousins did not meet
+like strangers; but perhaps we were wrong; we are learning modesty from the
+Americans, and old English ways are too gross for us.'
+
+'I have--I've seen him before--that is;' and at this point I stopped.
+
+My uncle turned his strange glare, in a sort of scowl of enquiry, upon me.
+
+'Oh!--hey! why this is news. You never told me. Where have you met--eh,
+Dudley?'
+
+'Never saw her in my days, so far as I'm aweer on,' said the young man.
+
+'No! Well, then, Maud, will _you_ enlighten us?' said Uncle Silas, coldly.
+
+'I _did_ see that young gentleman before,' I faltered.
+
+'Meaning _me_, ma'am?' he asked, coolly.
+
+'Yes--certainly _you_. I _did_, uncle,' answered I.
+
+'And where was it, my dear? Not at Knowl, I fancy. Poor dear Austin did not
+trouble me or mine much with his hospitalities.'
+
+This was not a pleasant tone to take in speaking of his dead brother and
+benefactor; but at the moment I was too much engaged upon the one point to
+observe it.
+
+'I met'--I could not say my cousin--'I met him, uncle--your son--that young
+gentleman--I _saw_ him, I should say, at Church Scarsdale, and afterwards
+with some other persons in the warren at Knowl. It was the night our
+gamekeeper was beaten.'
+
+'Well, Dudley, what do you say to that?' asked Uncle Silas.
+
+'I never _was_ at them places, so help me. I don't know where they be; and
+I never set eyes on the young lady before, as I hope to be saved, in all
+my days,' said he, with a countenance so unchanged and an air so confident
+that I began to think I must be the dupe of one of those strange
+resemblances which have been known to lead to positive identification in
+the witness-box, afterwards proved to be utterly mistaken.
+
+'You look so--so _uncomfortable_, Maud, at the idea of having seen him
+before, that I hardly wonder at the vehemence of his denial. There was
+plainly something disagreeable; but you see as respects him it is a total
+mistake. My boy was always a truth-telling fellow--you may rely implicitly
+on what he says. You were _not_ at those places?'
+
+'I wish I may----,' began the ingenuous youth, with increased vehemence.
+
+'There, there--that will do; your honour and word as a gentleman--and
+_that_ you are, though a poor one--will quite satisfy your cousin Maud. Am
+I right, my dear? I do assure you, as a gentleman, I never knew him to say
+the thing that was not.'
+
+So Mr. Dudley Ruthyn began, not to curse, but to swear, in the prescribed
+form, that he had never seen me before, or the places I had named, 'since I
+was weaned, by----'
+
+'That's enough--now shake hands, if you won't kiss, like cousins,'
+interrupted my uncle.
+
+And very uncomfortably I did lend him my hand to shake.
+
+'You'll want some supper, Dudley, so Maud and I will excuse your going.
+Good-night, my dear boy,' and he smiled and waved him from the room.
+
+'That's as fine a young fellow, I think, as any English father can boast
+for his son--true, brave, and kind, and quite an Apollo. Did you observe
+how finely proportioned he is, and what exquisite features the fellow has?
+He's rustic and rough, as you see; but a year or two in the militia--I've a
+promise of a commission for him--he's too old for the line--will form and
+polish him. He wants nothing but manner; and I protest when he has had a
+little drilling of that kind, I do believe he'll be as pretty a fellow as
+you'd find in England.'
+
+I listened with amazement. I could discover nothing but what was
+disagreeable in the horrid bumpkin, and thought such an instance of the
+blindness of parental partiality was hardly credible.
+
+I looked down, dreading another direct appeal to my judgment; and Uncle
+Silas, I suppose, referred those downcast looks to maiden modesty, for he
+forbore to task mine by any new interrogatory.
+
+Dudley Ruthyn's cool and resolute denial of ever having seen me or the
+places I had named, and the inflexible serenity of his countenance while
+doing so, did very much shake my confidence in my own identification of
+him. I could not be _quite_ certain that the person I had seen at Church
+Scarsdale was the very same whom I afterwards saw at Knowl. And now, in
+this particular instance, after the lapse of a still longer period, could I
+be perfectly certain that my memory, deceived by some accidental points of
+resemblance, had not duped me, and wronged my cousin, Dudley Ruthyn?
+
+I suppose my uncle had expected from me some signs of acquiesence in his
+splendid estimate of his cub, and was nettled at my silence. After a short
+interval he said--
+
+'I've seen something of the world in my day, and I can say without a
+misgiving of partiality, that Dudley is the material of a perfect English
+gentleman. I am not blind, of course--the training must be supplied; a year
+or two of good models, active self-criticism, and good society. I simply
+say that the _material_ is there.'
+
+Here was another interval of silence.
+
+'And now tell me, child, what these recollections of
+Church--Church--_what_?'
+
+'Church Scarsdale,' I replied.
+
+'Yes, thank you--Church Scarsdale and Knowl--are?'
+
+So I related my stories as well as I could.
+
+'Well, dear Maud, the adventure of Church Scarsdale is hardly so terrific
+as I expected,' said Uncle Silas with a cold little laugh; 'and I don't
+see, if he had really been the hero of it, why he should shrink from
+avowing it. I know I should not. And I really can't say that your pic-nic
+party in the grounds of Knowl has frightened me much more. A lady waiting
+in the carriage, and two or three tipsy young men. Her presence seems to
+me a guarantee that no mischief was meant; but champagne is the soul of
+frolic, and a row with the gamekeepers a natural consequence. It happened
+to me once--forty years ago, when I was a wild young buck--one of the worst
+rows I ever was in.'
+
+And Uncle Silas poured some eau-de-cologne over the corner of his
+handkerchief, and touched his temples with it.
+
+'If my boy had been there, I do assure you--and I know him--he would say so
+at once. I fancy he would rather _boast_ of it. I never knew him utter an
+untruth. When you know him a little you'll say so.'
+
+With these words Uncle Silas leaned back exhausted, and languidly poured
+some of his favourite eau-de-cologne over the palms of his hands, nodded a
+farewell, and, in a whisper, wished me good-night.
+
+'Dudley's come,' whispered Milly, taking me under the arm as I entered the
+lobby. 'But I don't care: he never gives me nout; and he gets money from
+Governor, as much as he likes, and I never a sixpence. It's a shame!'
+
+So there was no great love between the only son and only daughter of the
+younger line of the Ruthyns.
+
+I was curious to learn all that Milly could tell me of this new inmate of
+Bartram-Haugh; and Milly was communicative without having a great deal to
+relate, and what I heard from her tended to confirm my own disagreeable
+impressions about him. She was afraid of him. He was a 'woundy ugly
+customer in a wax, she could tell me.' He was the only one 'she ever knowed
+as had pluck to jaw the Governor.' But he was 'afeard on the Governor,
+too.'
+
+His visits to Bartram-Haugh, I heard, were desultory; and this, to my
+relief, would probably not outlast a week or a fortnight. 'He _was_ such a
+fashionable cove:' he was always 'a gadding about, mostly to Liverpool and
+Birmingham, and sometimes to Lunnun, itself.' He was 'keeping company
+one time with Beauty, Governor thought, and he was awfully afraid he'd a
+married her; but that was all bosh and nonsense; and Beauty would have none
+of his chaff and wheedling, for she liked Tom Brice;' and Milly thought
+that Dudley never 'cared a crack of a whip for her.' He used to go to the
+Windmill to have 'a smoke with Pegtop;' and he was a member of the Feltram
+Club, that met at the 'Plume o' Feathers.' He was 'a rare good shot,' she
+heard; and 'he was before the justices for poaching, but they could make
+nothing of it.' And the Governor said 'it was all through spite of him--for
+they hate us for being better blood than they.' And 'all but the squires
+and those upstart folk loves Dudley, he is so handsome and gay--though he
+be a bit cross at home.' And, 'Governor says, he'll be a Parliament man
+yet, spite o' them all.'
+
+Next morning, when our breakfast was nearly ended, Dudley tapped at the
+window with the end of his clay pipe--a 'churchwarden' Milly called
+it--just such a long curved pipe as Joe Willet is made to hold between his
+lips in those charming illustrations of 'Barnaby Rudge'--which we all know
+so well--and lifting his 'wide-awake' with a burlesque salutation, which, I
+suppose, would have charmed the 'Plume of Feathers,' he dropped, kicked and
+caught his 'wide-awake,' with an agility and gravity, as he replaced it, so
+inexpressibly humorous, that Milly went off in a loud fit of laughter, with
+the ejaculation--
+
+'Did you ever?'
+
+It was odd how repulsively my confidence in my original identification
+always revived on unexpectedly seeing Dudley after an interval.
+
+I could perceive that this piece of comic by-play was meant to make a
+suitable impression on me. I received it, however, with a killing gravity;
+and after a word or two to Milly, he lounged away, having first broken his
+pipe, bit by bit, into pieces, which he balanced in turn on his nose and
+on his chin, from which features he jerked them into his mouth, with a
+precision which, along with his excellent pantomime of eating them, highly
+excited Milly's mirth and admiration.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI
+
+_MY COUSIN DUDLEY_
+
+
+Greatly to my satisfaction, this engaging person did not appear again that
+day. But next day Milly told me that my uncle had taken him to task for the
+neglect with which he was treating us.
+
+'He did pitch into him, sharp and short, and not a word from him, only
+sulky like; and I so frightened, I durst not look up almost; and they said
+a lot I could not make head or tail of; and Governor ordered me out o' the
+room, and glad I was to go; and so they had it out between them.'
+
+Milly could throw no light whatsoever upon the adventures at Church
+Scarsdale and Knowl; and I was left still in doubt, which sometimes
+oscillated one way and sometimes another. But, on the whole, I could
+not shake off the misgivings which constantly recurred and pointed very
+obstinately to Dudley as the hero of those odious scenes.
+
+Oddly enough, though, I now felt far less confident upon the point than I
+did at first sight. I had begun to distrust my memory, and to suspect my
+fancy; but of this there could be no question, that between the person so
+unpleasantly linked in my remembrance with those scenes, and Dudley Ruthyn,
+a striking, though possibly only a general resemblance did exist.
+
+Milly was certainly right as to the gist of Uncle Silas's injunction, for
+we saw more of Dudley henceforward.
+
+He was shy; he was impudent; he was awkward; he was conceited;--altogether
+a most intolerable bumpkin. Though he sometimes flushed and stammered, and
+never for a moment was at his ease in my presence, yet, to my inexpressible
+disgust, there was a self-complacency in his manner, and a kind of triumph
+in his leer, which very plainly told me how satisfied he was as to the
+nature of the impression he was making upon me.
+
+I would have given worlds to tell him how odious I thought him. Probably,
+however, he would not have believed me. Perhaps he fancied that 'ladies'
+affected airs of indifference and repulsion to cover their real feelings. I
+never looked at or spoke to him when I could avoid either, and then it was
+as briefly as I could. To do him justice, however, he seemed to have no
+liking for our society, and certainly never seemed altogether comfortable
+in it.
+
+I find it hard to write quite impartially even of Dudley Ruthyn's personal
+appearance; but, with an effort, I confess that his features were good, and
+his figure not amiss, though a little fattish. He had light whiskers, light
+hair, and a pink complexion, and very good blue eyes. So far my uncle was
+right; and if he had been perfectly gentlemanlike, he really might have
+passed for a handsome man in the judgment of some critics.
+
+But there was that odious mixture of _mauvaise honte_ and impudence, a
+clumsiness, a slyness, and a consciousness in his bearing and countenance,
+not distinctly boorish, but _low_, which turned his good looks into an
+ugliness more intolerable than that of feature; and a corresponding
+vulgarity pervading his dress, his demeanour, and his very walk, marred
+whatever good points his figure possessed. If you take all this into
+account, with the ominous and startling misgivings constantly recurring,
+you will understand the mixed feelings of anger and disgust with which I
+received the admiration he favoured me with.
+
+Gradually he grew less constrained in my presence, and certainly his
+manners were not improved by his growing ease and confidence.
+
+He came in while Milly and I were at luncheon, jumped up, with a
+'right-about face' performed in the air, sitting on the sideboard, whence
+grinning slyly and kicking his heels, he leered at us.
+
+'Will you have something, Dudley?' asked Milly.
+
+'No, lass; but I'll look at ye, and maybe drink a drop for company.'
+
+And with these words, he took a sportsman's flask from his pocket; and
+helping himself to a large glass and a decanter, he compounded a glass of
+strong brandy-and-water, as he talked, and refreshed himself with it from
+time to time.
+
+'Curate's up wi' the Governor,' he said, with a grin. 'I wanted a word wi'
+him; but I s'pose I'll hardly git in this hour or more; they're a praying
+and disputing, and a Bible-chopping, as usual. Ha, ha! But 'twon't hold
+much longer, old Wyat says, now that Uncle Austin's dead; there's nout to
+be made o' praying and that work no longer, and it don't pay of itself.'
+
+'O fie! For shame, you sinner!' laughed Milly. 'He wasn't in a church these
+five years, he says, and then only to meet a young lady. Now, isn't he a
+sinner, Maud--isn't he?'
+
+Dudley, grinning, looked with a languishing slyness at me, biting the edge
+of his wide-awake, which he held over his breast.
+
+Dudley Ruthyn probably thought there was a manly and desperate sort of
+fascination in the impiety he professed.
+
+'I wonder, Milly,' said I, 'at your laughing. How _can_ you laugh?'
+
+'You'd have me cry, would ye?' answered Milly.
+
+'I certainly would not have you laugh,' I replied.
+
+'I know I wish _some_ one 'ud cry for me, and I know who,' said Dudley, in
+what he meant for a very engaging way, and he looked at me as if he thought
+I must feel flattered by his caring to have my tears.
+
+Instead of crying, however, I leaned back in my chair, and began quietly to
+turn over the pages of Walter Scott's poems, which I and Milly were then
+reading in the evenings.
+
+The tone in which this odious young man spoke of his father, his coarse
+mention of mine, and his low boasting of his irreligion, disgusted me more
+than ever with him.
+
+'They parsons be slow coaches--awful slow. I'll have a good bit to wait, I
+s'pose. I should be three miles away and more by this time--drat it!' He
+was eyeing the legging of the foot which he held up while he spoke, as if
+calculating how far away that limb should have carried him by this time.
+'Why can't folk do their Bible and prayers o' Sundays, and get it off
+their stomachs? I say, Milly lass, will ye see if Governor be done wi' the
+Curate? Do. I'm a losing the whole day along o' him.'
+
+Milly jumped up, accustomed to obey her brother, and as she passed me,
+whispered, with a wink--
+
+'_Money_.'
+
+And away she went. Dudley whistled a tune, and swung his foot like a
+pendulum, as he followed her with his side-glance.
+
+'I say, it is a hard case, Miss, a lad o' spirit should be kept so tight. I
+haven't a shilling but what comes through his fingers; an' drat the tizzy
+he'll gi' me till he knows the reason why.'
+
+'Perhaps,' I said, 'my uncle thinks you should earn some for yourself.'
+
+'I'd like to know how a fella's to earn money now-a-days. You wouldn't have
+a gentleman to keep a shop, I fancy. But I'll ha' a fistful jist now, and
+no thanks to he. Them executors, you know, owes me a deal o' money. Very
+honest chaps, of course; but they're cursed slow about paying, I know.'
+
+I made no remark upon this elegant allusion to the executors of my dear
+father's will.
+
+'An' I tell ye, Maud, when I git the tin, I know who I'll buy a farin' for.
+I do, lass.'
+
+The odious creature drawled this with a sidelong leer, which, I suppose, he
+fancied quite irresistible.
+
+I am one of those unfortunate persons who always blushed when I most
+wished to look indifferent; and now, to my inexpressible chagrin, with its
+accustomed perversity, I felt the blush mount to my cheeks, and glow even
+on my forehead.
+
+I saw that he perceived this most disconcerting indication of a sentiment
+the very idea of which was so detestable, that, equally enraged with myself
+and with him, I did not know how to exhibit my contempt and indignation.
+
+Mistaking the cause of my discomposure, Mr. Dudley Ruthyn laughed softly,
+with an insufferable suavity.
+
+'And there's some'at, lass, I must have in return. Honour thy father, you
+know; you would not ha' me disobey the Governor? No, you wouldn't--would
+ye?'
+
+I darted at him a look which I hoped would have quelled his impertinence;
+but I blushed most provokingly--more violently than ever.
+
+'I'd back them eyes again' the county, I would,' he exclaimed, with a
+condescending enthusiasm. 'You're awful pretty, you are, Maud. I don't know
+what came over me t'other night when Governor told me to buss ye; but dang
+it, ye shan't deny me now, and I'll have a kiss, lass, in spite o' thy
+blushes.'
+
+He jumped from his elevated seat on the sideboard, and came swaggering
+toward me, with an odious grin, and his arms extended. I started to my
+feet, absolutely transported with fury.
+
+'Drat me, if she baint a-going to fight me!' he chuckled humorously.
+
+'Come, Maud, you would not be ill-natured, sure? Arter all, it's only our
+duty. Governor bid us kiss, didn't he?'
+
+'Don't--_don't_, sir. Stand back, or I'll call the servants.'
+
+And as it was I began to scream for Milly.
+
+'There's how it is wi' all they cattle! You never knows your own mind--ye
+don't,' he said, surlily. 'You make such a row about a bit o' play. Drop
+it, will you? There's no one a-harming you--is there? _I_'m not, for
+sartain.'
+
+And, with an angry chuckle, he turned on his heel, and left the room.
+
+I think I was perfectly right to resist, with all the vehemence of which I
+was capable, this attempt to assume an intimacy which, notwithstanding my
+uncle's opinion to the contrary, seemed to me like an outrage.
+
+Milly found me alone--not frightened, but very angry. I had quite made up
+my mind to complain to my uncle, but the Curate was still with him; and,
+by the time he had gone, I was cooler. My awe of my uncle had returned. I
+fancied that he would treat the whole affair as a mere playful piece of
+gallantry. So, with the comfortable conviction that he had had a lesson,
+and would think twice before repeating his impertinence, I resolved, with
+Milly's approbation, to leave matters as they were.
+
+Dudley, greatly to my comfort, was huffed with me, and hardly appeared, and
+was sulky and silent when he did. I lived then in the pleasant anticipation
+of his departure, which, Milly thought, would be very soon.
+
+My uncle had his Bible and his consolations; but it cannot have been
+pleasant to this old _roue_, converted though he was--this refined man
+of fashion--to see his son grow up an outcast, and a Tony Lumpkin; for
+whatever he may have thought of his natural gifts, he must have known how
+mere a boor he was.
+
+I try to recall my then impressions of my uncle's character. Grizzly and
+chaotic the image rises--silver head, feet of clay. I as yet knew little of
+him.
+
+I began to perceive that he was what Mary Quince used to call 'dreadful
+particular'--I suppose a little selfish and impatient. He used to get cases
+of turtle from Liverpool. He drank claret and hock for his health, and ate
+woodcock and other light and salutary dainties for the same reason; and
+was petulant and vicious about the cooking of these, and the flavour and
+clearness of his coffee.
+
+His conversation was easy, polished, and, with a sentimental glazing, cold;
+but across this artificial talk, with its French rhymes, racy phrases,
+and fluent eloquence, like a streak of angry light, would, at intervals,
+suddenly gleam some dismal thought of religion. I never could quite satisfy
+myself whether they were affectations or genuine, like intermittent thrills
+of pain.
+
+The light of his large eyes was very peculiar. I can liken it to nothing
+but the sheen of intense moonlight on burnished metal. But that cannot
+express it. It glared white and suddenly--almost fatuous. I thought of
+Moore's lines whenever I looked on it:--
+
+  Oh, ye dead! oh, ye dead! whom we know by the light you give
+  From your cold gleaming eyes, though you move like men who live.
+
+I never saw in any other eye the least glimmer of the same baleful
+effulgence. His fits, too--his hoverings between life and death--between
+intellect and insanity--a dubious, marsh-fire existence, horrible to look
+on!
+
+I was puzzled even to comprehend his feelings toward his children.
+Sometimes it seemed to me that he was ready to lay down his soul for them;
+at others, he looked and spoke almost as if he hated them. He talked as if
+the image of death was always before him, yet he took a terrible interest
+in life, while seemingly dozing away the dregs of his days in sight of his
+coffin.
+
+Oh! Uncle Silas, tremendous figure in the past, burning always in memory in
+the same awful lights; the fixed white face of scorn and anguish! It
+seems as if the Woman of Endor had led me to that chamber and showed me a
+spectre.
+
+Dudley had not left Bartram-Haugh when a little note reached me from Lady
+Knollys. It said--
+
+'DEAREST MAUD,--I have written by this post to Silas, beseeching a loan of
+you and my Cousin Milly. I see no reason your uncle can possibly have for
+refusing me; and, therefore, I count confidently on seeing you both at
+Elverston to-morrow, to stay for at least a week. I have hardly a creature
+to meet you. I have been disappointed in several visitors; but another time
+we shall have a gayer house. Tell Milly--with my love--that I will not
+forgive her if she fails to accompany you.
+
+'Believe me ever your affectionate cousin,
+
+'MONICA KNOLLYS.'
+
+Milly and I were both afraid that Uncle Silas would refuse his consent,
+although we could not divine any sound reason for his doing so, and there
+were many in favour of his improving the opportunity of allowing poor Milly
+to see some persons of her own sex above the rank of menials.
+
+At about twelve o'clock my uncle sent for us, and, to our great delight,
+announced his consent, and wished us a very happy excursion.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII
+
+_ELVERSTON AND ITS PEOPLE_
+
+
+So Milly and I drove through the gabled high street of Feltram next day. We
+saw my gracious cousin smoking with a man like a groom, at the door of the
+'Plume of Feathers.' I drew myself back as we passed, and Milly popped her
+head out of the window.
+
+'I'm blessed,' said she, laughing, 'if he hadn't his thumb to his nose, and
+winding up his little finger, the way he does with old Wyat--L'Amour, ye
+know; and you may be sure he said something funny, for Jim Jolliter was
+laughin', with his pipe in his hand.'
+
+'I wish I had not seen him, Milly. I feel as if it were an ill omen. He
+always looks so cross; and I dare say he wished us some ill,' I said.
+
+'No, no, you don't know Dudley: if he were angry, he'd say nothing that's
+funny; no, he's not vexed, only shamming vexed.'
+
+The scenery through which we passed was very pretty. The road brought us
+through a narrow and wooded glen. Such studies of ivied rocks and twisted
+roots! A little stream tinkled lonely through the hollow. Poor Milly! In
+her odd way she made herself companionable. I have sometimes fancied an
+enjoyment of natural scenery not so much a faculty as an acquirement. It is
+so exquisite in the instructed, so strangely absent in uneducated humanity.
+But certainly with Milly it was inborn and hearty; and so she could enter
+into my raptures, and requite them.
+
+Then over one of those beautiful Derbyshire moors we drove, and so into
+a wide wooded hollow, where was our first view of Cousin Monica's pretty
+gabled house, beautified with that indescribable air of shelter and comfort
+which belongs to an old English residence, with old timber grouped round
+it, and something in its aspect of the quaint old times and bygone
+merrymakings, saying sadly, but genially, 'Come in: I bid you welcome.
+For two hundred years, or more, have I been the home of this beloved old
+family, whose generations I have seen in the cradle and in the coffin, and
+whose mirth and sorrows and hospitalities I remember. All their friends,
+like you, were welcome; and you, like them, will here enjoy the warm
+illusions that cheat the sad conditions of mortality; and like them you
+will go your way, and others succeed you, till at last I, too, shall yield
+to the general law of decay, and disappear.'
+
+By this time poor Milly had grown very nervous; a state which she described
+in such very odd phraseology as threw me, in spite of myself--for I
+affected an impressive gravity in lecturing her upon her language--into a
+hearty fit of laughter.
+
+I must mention, however, that in certain important points Milly was very
+essentially reformed. Her dress, though not very fashionable, was no longer
+absurd. And I had drilled her into speaking and laughing quietly; and
+for the rest I trusted to the indulgence which is always, I think, more
+honestly and easily obtained from well-bred than from under-bred people.
+
+Cousin Monica was out when we arrived; but we found that she had arranged a
+double-bedded room for me and Milly, greatly to our content; and good Mary
+Quince was placed in the dressing-room beside us.
+
+We had only just commenced our toilet when our hostess entered, as usual in
+high spirits, welcomed and kissed us both again and again. She was, indeed,
+in extraordinary delight, for she had anticipated some stratagem or evasion
+to prevent our visit; and in her usual way she spoke her mind as frankly
+about Uncle Silas to poor Milly as she used to do of my dear father to me.
+
+'I did not think he would let you come without a battle; and you know if
+he chose to be obstinate it would not have been easy to get you out of the
+enchanted ground, for so it seems to be with that awful old wizard in the
+midst of it. I mean, Silas, your papa, my dear. Honestly, is not he very
+like Michael Scott?'
+
+'I never saw him,' answered poor Milly. 'At least, that I'm aware of,' she
+added, perceiving us smile. 'But I do think he's a thought like old Michael
+Dobbs, that sells the ferrets, maybe you mean him?'
+
+'Why, you told me, Maud, that you and Milly were reading Walter Scott's
+poems. Well, no matter. Michael Scott, my dear, was a dead wizard, with
+ever so much silvery hair, lying in his grave for ever so many years, with
+just life enough to scowl when they took his book; and you'll find him in
+the "Lay of the Last Minstrel," exactly like your papa, my dear. And my
+people tell me that your brother Dudley has been seen drinking and smoking
+about Feltram this week. How long does he remain at home? Not very long,
+eh? And, Maud, dear, he has not been making love to you? Well, I see; of
+course he has. And _apropos_ of love-making, I hope that impudent creature,
+Charles Oakley, has not been teasing you with notes or verses.'
+
+'Indeed but he has though,' interposed Miss Milly; a good deal to my
+chagrin, for I saw no particular reason for placing his verses in Cousin
+Monica's hands. So I confessed the two little copies of verses, with the
+qualification, however, that I did not know from whom they came.
+
+'Well now, dear Maud, have not I told you fifty times over to have nothing
+to say to him? I've found out, my dear, he plays, and he is very much in
+debt. I've made a vow to pay no more for him. I've been such a fool, you
+have no notion; and I'm speaking, you know, against myself; it would be
+such a relief if he were to find a wife to support him; and he has been,
+I'm told, very sweet upon a rich old maid--a button-maker's sister, in
+Manchester.'
+
+This arrow was well shot.
+
+'But don't be frightened: you are richer as well as younger; and, no doubt,
+will have your chance first, my dear; and in the meantime, I dare say,
+those verses, like Falstaff's _billet-doux,_ you know, are doing double
+duty.'
+
+I laughed, but the button-maker was a secret trouble to me; and I would
+have given I know not what that Captain Oakley were one of the company,
+that I might treat him with the refined contempt which his deserts and my
+dignity demanded.
+
+Cousin Monica busied herself about Milly's toilet, and was a very useful
+lady's maid, chatting in her own way all the time; and, at last, tapping
+Milly under the chin with her finger, she said, very complacently--
+
+'I think I have succeeded, Miss Milly; look in the glass. She really is a
+very pretty creature.'
+
+And Milly blushed, and looked with a shy gratification, which made her
+still prettier, on the mirror.
+
+Milly indeed was very pretty. She looked much taller now that her dresses
+were made of the usual length. A little plump she was, beautifully fair,
+with such azure eyes, and rich hair.
+
+'The more you laugh the better, Milly, for you've got very pretty
+teeth--very pretty; and if you were my daughter, or if your father would
+become president of a college of magicians, and give you up to me, I
+venture to say I would place you very well; and even as it is we must try,
+my dear.'
+
+So down to the drawing-room we went; and Cousin Monica entered, leading us
+both by the hands.
+
+By this time the curtains were closed, and the drawing-room dependent on
+the pleasant glow of the fire, and the slight provisional illumination
+usual before dinner.
+
+'Here are my two cousins,' began Lady Knollys: 'this is Miss Ruthyn, of
+Knowl, whom I take the liberty of calling Maud; and this is Miss Millicent
+Ruthyn, Silas's daughter, you know, whom I venture to call Milly; and they
+are very pretty, as you will see, when we get a little more light, and they
+know it very well themselves.'
+
+And as she spoke, a frank-eyed, gentle, prettyish lady, not so tall as I,
+but with a very kind face, rose up from a book of prints, and, smiling,
+took our hands.
+
+She was by no means young, as I then counted youth--past thirty, I
+suppose--and with an air that was very quiet, and friendly, and engaging.
+She had never been a mere fashionable woman plainly; but she had the ease
+and polish of the best society, and seemed to take a kindly interest both
+in Milly and me; and Cousin Monica called her Mary, and sometimes Polly.
+That was all I knew of her for the present.
+
+So very pleasantly the time passed by till the dressing-bell rang, and we
+ran away to our room.
+
+'Did I say anything very bad?' asked poor Milly, standing exactly before
+me, so soon as our door was shut.
+
+'Nothing, Milly; you are doing admirably.'
+
+'And I do look a great fool, don't I?' she demanded.
+
+'You look extremely pretty, Milly; and not a bit like a fool.'
+
+'I watch everything. I think I'll learn it at last; but it comes a little
+troublesome at first; and they do talk different from what I used--you were
+quite right there.'
+
+When we returned to the drawing-room, we found the party already assembled,
+and chatting, evidently with spirit.
+
+The village doctor, whose name I forget, a small man, grey, with shrewd
+grey eyes, sharp and mulberry nose, whose conflagration extended to his
+rugged cheeks, and touched his chin and forehead, was conversing, no doubt
+agreeably, with Mary, as Cousin Monica called her guest.
+
+Over my shoulder, Milly whispered--
+
+'Mr. Carysbroke.'
+
+And Milly was quite right: that gentleman chatting with Lady Knollys, his
+elbow resting on the chimney-piece, was, indeed, our acquaintance of the
+Windmill Wood. He instantly recognised us, and met us with his pleased and
+intelligent smile.
+
+'I was just trying to describe to Lady Knollys the charming scenery of the
+Windmill Wood, among which I was so fortunate as to make your acquaintance,
+Miss Ruthyn. Even in this beautiful county I know of nothing prettier.'
+
+Then he sketched it, as it were, with a few light but glowing words.
+
+'What a sweet scene!' said Cousin Monica: 'only think of her never bringing
+me through it. She reserves it, I fancy, for her romantic adventures; and
+you, I know, are very benevolent, Ilbury, and all that kind of thing; but I
+am not quite certain that you would have walked along that narrow parapet,
+over a river, to visit a sick old woman, if you had not happened to see two
+very pretty demoiselles on the other side.'
+
+'What an ill-natured speech! I must either forfeit my character for
+disinterested benevolence, so justly admired, or disavow a motive that does
+such infinite credit to my taste,' exclaimed Mr. Carysbroke. 'I think a
+charitable person would have said that a philanthropist, in prosecuting his
+virtuous, but perilous vocation, was unexpectedly _rewarded_ by a vision of
+angels.'
+
+'And with these angels loitered away the time which ought to have been
+devoted to good Mother Hubbard, in her fit of lumbago, and returned without
+having set eyes on that afflicted Christian, to amaze his worthy sister
+with poetic babblings about wood-nymphs and such pagan impieties,' rejoined
+Lady Knollys.
+
+'Well, be just,' he replied, laughing; 'did not I go next day and see the
+patient?'
+
+'Yes; next day you went by the same route--in quest of the dryads, I am
+afraid--and were rewarded by the spectacle of Mother Hubbard.'
+
+'Will nobody help a humane man in difficulties?' Mr. Carysbroke appealed.
+
+'I do believe,' said the lady whom as yet I knew only as Mary, 'that every
+word that Monica says is perfectly true.'
+
+'And if it be so, am I not all the more in need of help? Truth is simply
+the most dangerous kind of defamation, and I really think I'm most cruelly
+persecuted.'
+
+At this moment dinner was announced, and a meek and dapper little
+clergyman, with smooth pink cheeks, and tresses parted down the middle,
+whom I had not seen before, emerged from shadow.
+
+This little man was assigned to Milly, Mr. Carysbroke to me, and I know not
+how the remaining ladies divided the doctor between them.
+
+That dinner, the first at Elverston, I remember as a very pleasant repast.
+Everyone talked--it was impossible that conversation should flag where Lady
+Knollys was; and Mr. Carysbroke was very agreeable and amusing. At the
+other side of the table, the little pink curate, I was happy to see, was
+prattling away, with a modest fluency, in an under-tone to Milly, who was
+following my instructions most conscientiously, and speaking in so low a
+key that I could hardly hear at the opposite side one word she was saying.
+
+That night Cousin Monica paid us a visit, as we sat chatting by the fire in
+our room; and I told her--
+
+'I have just been telling Milly what an impression she has made. The pretty
+little clergyman--_il en est epris_--he has evidently quite lost his heart
+to her. I dare say he'll preach next Sunday on some of King Solomon's wise
+sayings about the irresistible strength of women.'
+
+'Yes,' said Lady Knollys,' or maybe on the sensible text, "Whoso findeth
+a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favour," and so forth. At all
+events, I may say, Milly, whoso findeth a husband such as he, findeth a
+tolerably good thing. He is an exemplary little creature, second son of Sir
+Harry Biddlepen, with a little independent income of his own, beside his
+church revenues of ninety pounds a year; and I don't think a more harmless
+and docile little husband could be found anywhere; and I think, Miss Maud,
+_you_ seemed a good deal interested, too.'
+
+I laughed and blushed, I suppose; and Cousin Monica, skipping after her
+wont to quite another matter, said in her odd frank way--
+
+'And how has Silas been?--not cross, I hope, or very odd. There was a
+rumour that your brother, Dudley, had gone a soldiering to India, Milly, or
+somewhere; but that was all a story, for he has turned up, just as usual.
+And what does he mean to do with himself? He has got some money now--your
+poor father's will, Maud. Surely he doesn't mean to go on lounging and
+smoking away his life among poachers, and prize-fighters, and worse people.
+He ought to go to Australia, like Thomas Swain, who, they say, is making a
+fortune--a great fortune--and coming home again. That's what your brother
+Dudley should do, if he has either sense or spirit; but I suppose he
+won't--too long abandoned to idleness and low company--and he'll not have a
+shilling left in a year or two. Does he know, I wonder, that his father has
+served a notice or something on Dr. Bryerly, telling him to pay sixteen
+hundred pounds of poor Austin's legacy to _him_, and saying that he has
+paid debts of the young man, and holds his acknowledgments to that amount?
+He won't have a guinea in a year if he stays here. I'd give fifty pounds he
+was in Van Diemen's Land--not that I care for the cub, Milly, any more than
+you do; but I really don't see any honest business he has in England.'
+
+Milly gaped in a total puzzle as Lady Knollys rattled on.
+
+'You know, Milly, you must not be talking about this when you go home to
+Bartram, because Silas would prevent your coming to me any more if he
+thought I spoke so freely; but I can't help it: so you must promise to be
+more discreet than I. And I am told that all kinds of claims are about to
+be pressed against him, now that he is thought to have got some money; and
+he has been cutting down oak and selling the bark, Doctor Bryerly has been
+told, in that Windmill Wood; and he has kilns there for burning charcoal,
+and got a man from Lancashire who understands it--Hawk, or something like
+that.'
+
+'Ay, Hawkes--Dickon Hawkes; that's Pegtop, you know, Maud,' said Milly.
+
+'Well, I dare say; but a man of very bad character, Dr. Bryerly says; and
+he has written to Mr. Danvers about it--for that is what they call waste,
+cutting down and selling the timber, and the oakbark, and burning the
+willows, and other trees that are turned into charcoal. It is all _waste_,
+and Dr. Bryerly is about to put a stop to it.'
+
+'Has he got your carriage for you, Maud, and your horses?' asked Cousin
+Monica, suddenly.
+
+'They have not come yet, but in a few weeks, Dudley says, positively--'
+
+Cousin Monica laughed a little and shook her head.
+
+'Yes, Maud, the carriage and horses will always be coming in a few weeks,
+till the time is over; and meanwhile the old travelling chariot and
+post-horses will do very well;' and she laughed a little again.
+
+'That's why the stile's pulled away at the paling, I suppose; and
+Beauty--Meg Hawkes, that is--is put there to stop us going through; for I
+often spied the smoke beyond the windmill,' observed Milly.
+
+Cousin Monica listened with interest, and nodded silently.
+
+I was very much shocked. It seemed to me quite incredible. I think Lady
+Knollys read my amazement and my exalted estimate of the heinousness of the
+procedure in my face, for she said--
+
+'You know we can't quite condemn Silas till we have heard what he has to
+say. He may have done it in ignorance; or, it is just possible, he may have
+the right.'
+
+'Quite true. He may have the right to cut down trees at Bartram-Haugh. At
+all events, I am sure he thinks he has,' I echoed.
+
+The fact was, that I would not avow to myself a suspicion of Uncle Silas.
+Any falsehood there opened an abyss beneath my feet into which I dared not
+look.
+
+'And now, dear girls, good-night. You must be tired. We breakfast at a
+quarter past nine--not too early for you, I know.'
+
+And so saying, she kissed us, smiling, and was gone.
+
+I was so unpleasantly occupied, for some time after her departure, with the
+knaveries said to be practised among the dense cover of the Windmill Wood,
+that I did not immediately recollect that we had omitted to ask her any
+particulars about her guests.
+
+'Who can Mary be?' asked Milly.
+
+'Cousin Monica says she's engaged to be married, and I think I heard the
+Doctor call her _Lady_ Mary, and I intended asking her ever so much about
+her; but what she told us about cutting down the trees, and all that, quite
+put it out of my head. We shall have time enough to-morrow, however, to ask
+questions. I like her very much, I know.'
+
+'And I think,' said Milly, 'it is to Mr. Carysbroke she's to be married.'
+
+'Do you?' said I, remembering that he had sat beside her for more than a
+quarter of an hour after tea in very close and low-toned conversation; 'and
+have you any particular reason?' I asked.
+
+'Well, I heard her once or twice call him "dear," and she called him his
+Christian name, just like Lady Knollys did--Ilbury, I think--and I saw him
+gi' her a sly kiss as she was going up-stairs.'
+
+I laughed.
+
+'Well, Milly,' I said, 'I remarked something myself, I thought, like
+confidential relations; but if you really saw them kiss on the staircase,
+the question is pretty well settled.'
+
+'Ay, lass.'
+
+'You're not to say _lass_.'
+
+'Well, _Maud, then_. I did see them with the corner of my eye, and my back
+turned, when they did not think I could spy anything, as plain as I see you
+now.'
+
+I laughed again; but I felt an odd pang--something of
+mortification--something of regret; but I smiled very gaily, as I stood
+before the glass, un-making my toilet preparatory to bed.
+
+'Maud--Maud--fickle Maud!--What, Captain Oakley already superseded! and Mr.
+Carysbroke--oh! humiliation--engaged.' So I smiled on, very much vexed;
+and being afraid lest I had listened with too apparent an interest to this
+impostor, I sang a verse of a gay little chanson, and tried to think of
+Captain Oakley, who somehow had become rather silly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII
+
+_NEWS AT BARTRAM GATE_
+
+
+Milly and I, thanks to our early Bartram hours, were first down next
+morning; and so soon as Cousin Monica appeared we attacked her.
+
+'So Lady Mary is the _fiancee_ of Mr. Carysbroke,' said I, very cleverly;
+'and I think it was very wicked of you to try and involve me in a
+flirtation with him yesterday.'
+
+'And who told you that, pray?' asked Lady Knollys, with a pleasant little
+laugh.
+
+'Milly and I discovered it, simple as we stand here,' I answered.
+
+'But you did not flirt with Mr. Carysbroke, Maud, did you?' she asked.
+
+'No, certainly not; but that was not your doing, wicked woman, but my
+discretion. And now that we know your secret, you must tell us all about
+her, and all about him; and in the first place, what is her name--Lady Mary
+what?' I demanded.
+
+'Who would have thought you so cunning? Two country misses--two little nuns
+from the cloisters of Bartram! Well, I suppose I must answer. It is vain
+trying to hide anything from you; but how on earth did you find it out?'
+
+'We'll tell you that presently, but you shall first tell us who she is,' I
+persisted.
+
+'Well, that I will, of course, without compulsion. She is Lady Mary
+Carysbroke,' said Lady Knollys.
+
+'A relation of Mr. Carysbroke's,' I asserted.
+
+'Yes, a relation; but who told you he was Mr. Carysbroke?' asked Cousin
+Monica.
+
+'Milly told me, when we saw him in the Windmill Wood.'
+
+'And who told you, Milly?'
+
+'It was L'Amour,' answered Milly, with her blue eyes very wide open.
+
+'What does the child mean? L'Amour! You don't mean _love_?' exclaimed Lady
+Knollys, puzzled in her turn.
+
+'I mean old Wyat; _she_ told me and the Governor.'
+
+'You're _not_ to say that,' I interposed.
+
+'You mean your father?' suggested Lady Knollys.
+
+'Well, yes; father told her, and so I knew him.'
+
+'What could he mean?' exclaimed Lady Knollys, laughing, as it were, in
+soliloquy; 'and I did not mention his name, I recollect now. He recognised
+you, and you him, when you came into the room yesterday; and now you must
+tell me how you discovered that he and Lady Mary were to be married.'
+
+So Milly restated her evidence, and Lady Knollys laughed unaccountably
+heartily; and she said--
+
+'They _will_ be _so_ confounded! but they deserve it; and, remember, _I_
+did not say so.'
+
+'Oh! we acquit you.'
+
+'All I say is, such a deceitful, dangerous pair of girls--all things
+considered--I never heard of before,' exclaimed Lady Knollys. 'There's no
+such thing as conspiring in your presence.'
+
+'Good morning. I hope you slept well.' She was addressing the lady and
+gentleman who were just entering the room from the conservatory. 'You'll
+hardly sleep so well to-night, when you have learned what eyes are upon
+you. Here are two very pretty detectives who have found out your secret,
+and entirely by your imprudence and their own cleverness have discovered
+that you are a pair of betrothed lovers, about to ratify your vows at
+the hymeneal altar. I assure you I did not tell of you; you betrayed
+yourselves. If you will talk in that confidential way on sofas, and call
+one another stealthily by your Christian names, and actually kiss at the
+foot of the stairs, while a clever detective is scaling them, apparently
+with her back toward you, you must only take the consequences, and be known
+prematurely as the hero and heroine of the forthcoming paragraph in the
+"Morning Post."'
+
+Milly and I were horribly confounded, but Cousin Monica was resolved to
+place us all upon the least formal terms possible, and I believe she had
+set about it in the right way.
+
+'And now, girls, I am going to make a counter-discovery, which, I fear, a
+little conflicts with yours. This Mr. Carysbroke is Lord Ilbury, brother
+of this Lady Mary; and it is all my fault for not having done my honours
+better; but you see what clever match-making little creatures they are.'
+
+'You can't think how flattered I am at being made the subject of a theory,
+even a mistaken one, by Miss Ruthyn.'
+
+And so, after our modest fit was over, Milly and I were very merry, like
+the rest, and we all grew a great deal more intimate that morning.
+
+I think altogether those were the pleasantest and happiest days of my
+life: gay, intelligent, and kindly society at home; charming
+excursions--sometimes riding--sometimes by carriage--to distant points of
+beauty in the county. Evenings varied with music, reading, and spirited
+conversation. Now and then a visitor for a day or two, and constantly some
+neighbour from the town, or its dependencies, dropt in. Of these I but
+remember tall old Miss Wintletop, most entertaining of rustic old
+maids, with her nice lace and thick satin, and her small, kindly round
+face--pretty, I dare say, in other days, and now frosty, but kindly--who
+told us such delightful old stories of the county in her father's and
+grandfather's time; who knew the lineage of every family in it, and could
+recount all its duels and elopements; give us illustrative snatches from
+old election squibs, and lines from epitaphs, and tell exactly where all
+the old-world highway robberies had been committed: how it fared with the
+chief delinquents after the assizes; and, above all, where, and of what
+sort, the goblins and elves of the county had made themselves seen, from
+the phantom post-boy, who every third night crossed Windale Moor, by the
+old coach-road, to the fat old ghost, in mulberry velvet, who showed his
+great face, crutch, and ruffles, by moonlight, at the bow window of the old
+court-house that was taken down in 1803.
+
+You cannot imagine what agreeable evenings we passed in this society,
+or how rapidly my good Cousin Milly improved in it. I remember well the
+intense suspense in which she and I awaited the answer from Bartram-Haugh
+to kind Cousin Monica's application for an extension of our leave of
+absence.
+
+It came, and with it a note from Uncle Silas, which was curious, and,
+therefore, is printed here:--
+
+'MY DEAR LADY KNOLLYS,--To your kind letter I say yes (that is, for another
+week, not a fortnight), with all my heart. I am glad to hear that my
+starlings chatter so pleasantly; at all events the refrain is not that of
+Sterne's. They can get out; and do get out; and shall get out as much as
+they please. I am no gaoler, and shut up nobody but myself. I have always
+thought that young people have too little liberty. My principle has been
+to make little free men and women of them from the first. In morals,
+altogether--in intellect, more than we allow--_self_-education is that
+which abides; and _it_ only begins where constraint ends. Such is my
+theory. My practice is consistent. Let them remain for a week longer, as
+you say. The horses shall be at Elverston on Tuesday, the 7th. I shall be
+more than usually sad and solitary till their return; so pray, I selfishly
+entreat, do not extend their absence. You will smile, remembering how
+little my health will allow me to see of them, even when at home; but as
+Chaulieu so prettily says--I stupidly forget the words, but the sentiment
+is this--"although concealed by a sylvan wall of leaves, impenetrable--(he
+is pursuing his favourite nymphs through the alleys and intricacies of a
+rustic labyrinth)--yet, your songs, your prattle, and your laughter, faint
+and far away, inspire my fancy; and, through my ears, I see your unseen
+smiles, your blushes, your floating tresses, and your ivory feet; and so,
+though sad, am happy; though alone, in company;"--and such is my case.
+
+'One only request, and I have done. Pray remind them of a promise made to
+me. The Book of Life--the fountain of life--it must be drunk of, night and
+morning, or their spiritual life expires.
+
+'And now, Heaven bless and keep you, my dear cousin; and with all
+assurances of affection to my beloved niece and my child, believe me ever
+yours affectionately.
+
+'SILAS RUTHYN.'
+
+Said Cousin Monica, with a waggish smile--
+
+'And so, girls, you have Chaulieu and the evangelists; the French rhymester
+in his alley, and Silas in the valley of the shadow of death; perfect
+liberty, and a peremptory order to return in a week;--all illustrating one
+another. Poor Silas! old as he is, I don't think his religion fits him.'
+
+_I_ really rather liked his letter. I was struggling hard to think well of
+him, and Cousin Monica knew it; and I really think if I had not been by,
+she would often have been less severe on him.
+
+As we were all sitting pleasantly about the breakfast table a day or two
+after, the sun shining on the pleasant wintry landscape, Cousin Monica
+suddenly exclaimed--
+
+'I quite forgot to tell you that Charles Oakley has written to say he is
+coming on Wednesday. I really don't want him. Poor Charlie! I wonder how
+they manage those doctors' certificates. I know nothing ails him, and he'd
+be much better with his regiment.'
+
+Wednesday!--how odd. Exactly the day after my departure. I tried to look
+perfectly unconcerned. Lady Knollys had addressed herself more to Lady
+Mary and Milly than to me, and nobody in particular was looking at me.
+Notwithstanding, with my usual perversity, I felt myself blushing with a
+brilliancy that may have been very becoming, but which was so intolerably
+provoking that I would have risen and left the room but that matters would
+have been so infinitely worse. I could have boxed my odious ears. I could
+almost have jumped from the window.
+
+I felt that Lord Ilbury saw it. I saw Lady Mary's eyes for a moment resting
+gravely on my tell-tale--my lying cheeks--for I really had begun to think
+much less celestially of Captain Oakley. I was angry with Cousin Monica,
+who, knowing my blushing infirmity, had mentioned her nephew so suddenly
+while I was strapped by etiquette in my chair, with my face to the window,
+and two pair of most disconcerting eyes, at least, opposite. I was angry
+with myself--generally angry--refused more tea rather dryly, and was
+laconic to Lord Ilbury, all which, of course, was very cross and foolish;
+and afterwards, from my bed-room window, I saw Cousin Monica and Lady
+Mary among the flowers, under the drawing-room window, talking, as I
+instinctively knew, of that little incident. I was standing at the glass.
+
+'My odious, stupid, _perjured_ face' I whispered, furiously, at the same
+time stamping on the floor, and giving myself quite a smart slap on the
+cheek. 'I _can't_ go down--I'm ready to cry--I've a mind to return to
+Bartram to-day; I am _always_ blushing; and I wish that impudent Captain
+Oakley was at the bottom of the sea.'
+
+I was, perhaps, thinking more of Lord Ilbury than I was aware; and I am
+sure if Captain Oakley had arrived that day, I should have treated him with
+most unjustifiable rudeness.
+
+Notwithstanding this unfortunate blush, the remainder of our visit passed
+very happily for me. No one who has not experienced it can have an idea
+how intimate a small party, such as ours, will grow in a short time in a
+country house.
+
+Of course, a young lady of a well-regulated mind cannot possibly care a
+pin about any one of the opposite sex until she is well assured that he is
+beginning, at least, to like her better than all the world beside; but I
+could not deny to myself that I was rather anxious to know more about Lord
+Ilbury than I actually did know.
+
+There was a 'Peerage,' in its bright scarlet and gold uniform, corpulent
+and tempting, upon the little marble table in the drawing-room. I had many
+opportunities of consulting it, but I never could find courage to do so.
+
+For an inexperienced person it would have been a matter of several minutes,
+and during those minutes what awful risk of surprise and detection. One
+day, all being quiet, I did venture, and actually, with a beating heart,
+got so far as to find out the letter 'Il,' when I heard a step outside the
+door, which opened a little bit, and I heard Lady Knollys, luckily arrested
+at the entrance, talk some sentences outside, her hand still upon the
+door-handle. I shut the book, as Mrs. Bluebeard might the door of the
+chamber of horrors at the sound of her husband's step, and skipped to a
+remote part of the room, where Cousin Knollys found me in a mysterious
+state of agitation.
+
+On any other subject I would have questioned Cousin Monica unhesitatingly;
+upon this, somehow, I was dumb. I distrusted myself, and dreaded my odious
+habit of blushing, and knew that I should look so horribly guilty, and
+become so agitated and odd, that she would have reasonably concluded that I
+had quite lost my heart to him.
+
+After the lesson I had received, and my narrow escape of detection in the
+very act, you may be sure I never trusted myself in the vicinity of that
+fat and cruel 'Peerage,' which possessed the secret, but would not disclose
+without compromising me.
+
+In this state of tantalizing darkness and conjecture I should have
+departed, had not Cousin Monica quite spontaneously relieved me.
+
+The night before our departure she sat with us in our room, chatting a
+little farewell gossip.
+
+'And what do you think of Ilbury?' she asked.
+
+'I think him clever and accomplished, and amusing; but he sometimes appears
+to me very melancholy--that is, for a few minutes together--and then, I
+fancy, with an effort, re-engages in our conversation.'
+
+'Yes, poor Ilbury! He lost his brother only about five months since, and
+is only beginning to recover his spirits a little. They were very much
+attached, and people thought that he would have succeeded to the title,
+had he lived, because Ilbury is _difficile_--or a philosopher--or a _Saint
+Kevin_; and, in fact, has begun to be treated as a premature old bachelor.'
+
+'What a charming person his sister, Lady Mary, is. She has made me promise
+to write to her,' I said, I suppose--such hypocrites are we--to prove to
+Cousin Knollys that I did not care particularly to hear anything more about
+him.
+
+'Yes, and so devoted to him. He came down here, and took The Grange, for
+change of scene and solitude--of all things the worst for a man in grief--a
+morbid whim, as he is beginning to find out; for he is very glad to stay
+here, and confesses that he is much better since he came. His letters are
+still addressed to him as Mr. Carysbroke; for he fancied if his rank were
+known, that the county people would have been calling upon him, and so he
+would have found himself soon involved in a tiresome round of dinners, and
+must have gone somewhere else. You saw him, Milly, at Bartram, before Maud
+came?'
+
+Yes, she had, when he called there to see her father.
+
+'He thought, as he had accepted the trusteeship, that he could hardly,
+residing so near, omit to visit Silas. He was very much struck and
+interested by him, and he has a better opinion of him--you are not angry,
+Milly--than some ill-natured people I could name; and he says that the
+cutting down of the trees will turn out to have been a mere slip. But these
+slips don't occur with clever men in other things; and some persons have
+a way of always making them in their own favour. And, to talk of other
+things, I suspect that you and Milly will probably see Ilbury at Bartram;
+for I think he likes you very much.'
+
+_You_; did she mean _both_, or only me?
+
+So our pleasant visit was over. Milly's good little curate had been much
+thrown in her way by our deep and dangerous cousin Monica. He was most
+laudably steady; and his flirtation advanced upon the field of theology,
+where, happily, Milly's little reading had been concentrated. A mild and
+earnest interest in poor, pretty Milly's orthodoxy was the leading feature
+of his case; and I was highly amused at her references to me, when we had
+retired at night, upon the points which she had disputed with him, and
+her anxious reports of their low-toned conferences, carried on upon a
+sequestered ottoman, where he patted and stroked his crossed leg, as he
+smiled tenderly and shook his head at her questionable doctrine. Milly's
+reverence for her instructor, and his admiration, grew daily; and he was
+known among us as Milly's confessor.
+
+He took luncheon with us on the day of our departure, and with an adroit
+privacy, which in a layman would have been sly, presented her, in right of
+his holy calling, with a little book, the binding of which was mediaeval
+and costly, and whose letter-press dealt in a way which he commended,
+with some points on which she was not satisfactory; and she found on the
+fly-leaf this little inscription:--'Presented to Miss Millicent Ruthyn by
+an earnest well-wisher, 1st December 1844.' A text, very neatly penned,
+followed this; and the 'presentation' was made unctiously indeed, but with
+a blush, as well as the accustomed smile, and with eyes that were lowered.
+
+The early crimson sun of December had gone down behind the hills before we
+took our seats in the carriage.
+
+Lord Ilbury leaned with his elbow on the carriage window, looking in, and
+he said to me--
+
+'I really don't know what we shall do, Miss Ruthyn; we shall all feel so
+lonely. For myself, I think I shall run away to Grange.'
+
+This appeared to me as nearly perfect eloquence as human lips could utter.
+
+His hand still rested on the window, and the Rev. Sprigge Biddlepen was
+standing with a saddened smirk on the door steps, when the whip smacked,
+the horses scrambled into motion, and away we rolled down the avenue,
+leaving behind us the pleasantest house and hostess in the world, and
+trotting fleetly into darkness towards Bartram-Haugh.
+
+We were both rather silent. Milly had her book in her lap, and I saw
+her every now and then try to read her 'earnest well-wisher's' little
+inscription, but there was not light to read by.
+
+When we reached the great gate of Bartram-Haugh it was dark. Old Crowl, who
+kept the gate, I heard enjoining the postilion to make no avoidable noise
+at the hall-door, for the odd but startling reason that he believed my
+uncle 'would be dead by this time.'
+
+Very much shocked and frightened, we stopped the carriage, and questioned
+the tremulous old porter.
+
+Uncle Silas, it seemed, had been 'silly-ish' all yesterday, and 'could not
+be woke this morning,' and 'the doctor had been here twice, being now in
+the house.'
+
+'Is he better?' I asked, tremblingly.
+
+'Not as I'm aweer on, Miss; he lay at God's mercy two hours agone; 'appen
+he's in heaven be this time.'
+
+'Drive on--drive fast,' I said to the driver. 'Don't be frightened, Milly;
+please Heaven we shall find all going well.'
+
+After some delay, during which my heart sank, and I quite gave up Uncle
+Silas, the aged little servant-man opened the door, and trotted shakily
+down the steps to the carriage side.
+
+Uncle Silas had been at death's door for hours; the question of life had
+trembled in the scale; but now the doctor said 'he might do.'
+
+'Where was the doctor?'
+
+'In master's room; he blooded him three hours agone.'
+
+I don't think that Milly was so frightened as I. My heart beat, and I was
+trembling so that I could hardly get upstairs.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIV
+
+_A FRIEND ARISES_
+
+
+At the top of the great staircase I was glad to see the friendly face
+of Mary Quince, who stood, candle in hand, greeting us with many little
+courtesies, and a very haggard and pallid smile.
+
+'Very welcome, Miss, hoping you are very well.'
+
+'All well, and you are well, Mary? and oh! tell us quickly how is Uncle
+Silas?'
+
+'We thought he was gone, Miss, this morning, but doing fairly now; doctor
+says in a trance like. I was helping old Wyat most of the day, and was
+there when doctor blooded him, an' he spoke at last; but he must be awful
+weak, he took a deal o' blood from his arm, Miss; I held the basin.'
+
+'And he's better--decidedly better?' I asked.
+
+'Well, he's better, doctor says; he talked some, and doctor says if he goes
+off asleep again, and begins a-snoring like he did before, we're to loose
+the bandage, and let him bleed till he comes to his self again; which, it
+seems to me and Wyat, is the same thing a'most as saying he's to be killed
+off-hand, for I don't believe he has a drop to spare, as you'll say
+likewise, Miss, if you'll please look in the basin.'
+
+This was not an invitation with which I cared to comply. I thought I was
+going to faint. I sat on the stairs and sipped a little water, and Quince
+sprinkled a little in my face, and my strength returned.
+
+Milly must have felt her father's danger more than I, for she was
+affectionate, and loved him from habit and relation, although he was not
+kind to her. But I was more nervous and more impetuous, and my feelings
+both stimulated and overpowered me more easily. The moment I was able to
+stand I said--thinking of nothing but the one idea--
+
+'We must see him--_come_, Milly.'
+
+I entered his sitting-room; a common 'dip' candle hanging like the tower
+of Pisa all to one side, with a dim, long wick, in a greasy candlestick,
+profaned the table of the fastidious invalid. The light was little better
+than darkness, and I crossed the room swiftly, still transfixed by the one
+idea of seeing my uncle.
+
+His bed-room door beside the fireplace stood partly open, and I looked in.
+
+Old Wyat, a white, high-cauled ghost, was pottering in her slippers in the
+shadow at the far side of the bed. The doctor, a stout little bald man,
+with a paunch and a big bunch of seals, stood with his back to the
+fireplace, which corresponded with that in the next room, eyeing his
+patient through the curtains of the bed with a listless sort of importance.
+
+The head of the large four-poster rested against the opposite wall. Its
+foot was presented toward the fireplace; but the curtains at the side,
+which alone I could see from my position, were closed.
+
+The little doctor knew me, and thinking me, I suppose, a person of
+consequence, removed his hands from behind him, suffering the skirts of his
+coat to fall forward, and with great celerity and gravity made me a low but
+important bow; then choosing more particularly to make my acquaintance
+he further advanced, and with another reverence he introduced himself
+as Doctor Jolks, in a murmured diapason. He bowed me back again into my
+uncle's study, and the light of old Wyat's dreadful candle.
+
+Doctor Jolks was suave and pompous. I longed for a fussy practitioner who
+would have got over the ground in half the time.
+
+Coma, madam; coma. Miss Ruthyn, your uncle, I may tell you, has been in a
+very critical state; highly so. Coma of the most obstinate type. He would
+have sunk--he must have gone, in fact, had I not resorted to a very extreme
+remedy, and bled him freely, which happily told precisely as we could have
+wished. A wonderful constitution--a marvellous constitution--prodigious
+nervous fibre; the greatest pity in the world he won't give himself fair
+play. His habits, you know, are quite, I may say, destructive. We do
+our best--we do all we can, but if the patient won't cooperate it can't
+possibly end satisfactorily.'
+
+And Jolks accompanied this with an awful shrug. 'Is there _anything_? Do
+you think change of air? What an awful complaint it is,' I exclaimed.
+
+He smiled, mysteriously looking down, and shook his head undertaker-like.
+
+'Why, we can hardly call it a _complaint_, Miss Ruthyn. I look upon it he
+has been poisoned--he has had, you understand me,' he pursued, observing my
+startled look, 'an overdose of opium; you know he takes opium habitually;
+he takes it in laudanum, he takes it in water, and, most dangerous of all,
+he takes it solid, in lozenges. I've known people take it moderately.
+I've known people take it to excess, _but_ they all were particular as to
+_measure,_ and _that_ is exactly the point I've tried to impress upon him.
+The habit, of course, you understand is formed, there's no uprooting that;
+but he won't _measure_--he goes by the eye and by sensation, which I need
+not tell you, Miss Ruthyn, is going by _chance;_ and opium, as no doubt
+you are aware, is strictly a poison; a poison, no doubt, which habit will
+enable you to partake of, I may say, in considerable quantities, without
+fatal consequences, but still a poison; and to exhibit a poison _so_, is,
+I need scarcely tell you, to trifle with death. He has been so threatened,
+and for a time he changes his haphazard mode of dealing with it, and then
+returns; he may escape--of course, that is possible--but he may any day
+overdo the thing. I don't think the present crisis will result seriously. I
+am very glad, independently of the honour of making your acquaintance, Miss
+Ruthyn, that you and your cousin have returned; for, however zealous, I
+fear the servants are deficient in intelligence; and as in the event of a
+recurrence of the symptoms--which, however, is not probable--I would beg to
+inform you of their nature, and how exactly best to deal with them.'
+
+So upon these points he delivered us a pompous little lecture, and begged
+that either Milly or I would remain in the room with the patient until his
+return at two or three o'clock in the morning; a reappearance of the coma
+'might be very bad indeed.'
+
+Of course Milly and I did as we were directed. We sat by the fire, scarcely
+daring to whisper. Uncle Silas, about whom a new and dreadful suspicion
+began to haunt me, lay still and motionless as if he were actually dead.
+
+'Had he attempted to poison himself?'
+
+If he believed his position to be as desperate as Lady Knollys had
+described it, was this, after all, improbable? There were strange wild
+theories, I had been told, mixed up in his religion.
+
+Sometimes, at an hour's interval, a sign of life would come--a moan from
+that tall sheeted figure in the bed--a moan and a pattering of the lips.
+Was it prayer--_what_ was it? who could guess what thoughts were passing
+behind that white-fillited forehead?
+
+I had peeped at him: a white cloth steeped in vinegar and water was folded
+round his head; his great eyes were closed, so were his marble lips; his
+figure straight, thin, and long, dressed in a white dressing-gown, looked
+like a corpse 'laid out' in the bed; his gaunt bandaged arm lay outside the
+sheet that covered his body.
+
+With this awful image of death we kept our vigil, until poor Milly grew so
+sleepy that old Wyat proposed that she should take her place and watch with
+me.
+
+Little as I liked the crone with the high-cauled cap, she would, at all
+events, keep awake, which Milly could not. And so at one o'clock this new
+arrangement began.
+
+'Mr. Dudley Ruthyn is not at home?' I whispered to old Wyat.
+
+'He went away wi' himself yesternight, to Cloperton, Miss, to see the
+wrestling; it was to come off this morning.'
+
+'Was he sent for?'
+
+'Not he.'
+
+'And why not?'
+
+'He would na' leave the sport for this, I'm thinking,' and the old woman
+grinned uglily.
+
+'When is he to return?'
+
+'When he wants money.'
+
+So we grew silent, and again I thought of suicide, and of the unhappy old
+man, who just then whispered a sentence or two to himself with a sigh.
+
+For the next hour he had been quite silent, and old Wyat informed me that
+she must go down for candles. Ours were already burnt down to the sockets.
+
+'There's a candle in the next room,' I suggested, hating the idea of being
+left alone with the patient.
+
+'Hoot! Miss. I _dare_ na' set a candle but wax in his presence,' whispered
+the old woman, scornfully.
+
+'I think if we were to stir the fire, and put on a little more coal, we
+should have a great deal of light.'
+
+'He'll ha' the candles,' said Dame Wyat, doggedly; and she tottered from
+the chamber, muttering to herself; and I heard her take her candle from the
+next room and depart, shutting the outer door after her.
+
+Here was I then alone, but for this unearthly companion, whom I feared
+inexpressibly, at two o'clock, in the vast old house of Bartram.
+
+I stirred the fire. It was low, and would not blaze. I stood up, and, with
+my hand on the mantelpiece, endeavoured to think of cheerful things. But
+it was a struggle against wind and tide--vain; and so I drifted away into
+haunted regions.
+
+Uncle Silas was perfectly still. I would not suffer myself to think of the
+number of dark rooms and passages which now separated me from the other
+living tenants of the house. I awaited with a false composure the return of
+old Wyat.
+
+Over the mantelpiece was a looking-glass. At another time this might have
+helped to entertain my solitary moments, but now I did not like to venture
+a peep. A small thick Bible lay on the chimneypiece, and leaning its back
+against the mirror, I began to read in it with a mind as attentively
+directed as I could. While so engaged in turning over the leaves, I lighted
+upon two or three odd-looking papers, which had been folded into it. One
+was a broad printed thing, with names and dates written into blank spaces,
+and was about the size of a quarter of a yard of very broad ribbon. The
+others were mere scraps, with 'Dudley Ruthyn' penned in my cousin's vulgar
+round-hand at the foot. While I folded and replaced these, I really don't
+know what caused me to fancy that something was moving behind me, as I
+stood with my back toward the bed. I do not recollect any sound whatever;
+but instinctively I glanced into the mirror, and my eyes were instantly
+fixed by what I saw.
+
+The figure of Uncle Silas rose up, and dressed in a long white morning
+gown, slid over the end of the bed, and with two or three swift
+noiseless steps, stood behind me, with a death-like scowl and a simper.
+Preternaturally tall and thin, he stood for a moment almost touching me,
+with the white bandage pinned across his forehead, his bandaged arm stiffly
+by his side, and diving over my shoulder, with his long thin hand he
+snatched the Bible, and whispered over my head--'The serpent beguiled her
+and she did eat;' and after a momentary pause, he glided to the farthest
+window, and appeared to look out upon the midnight prospect.
+
+It was cold, but he did not seem to feel it. With the same inflexible scowl
+and smile, he continued to look out for several minutes, and then with a
+great sigh, he sat down on the side of his bed, his face immovably turned
+towards me, with the same painful look.
+
+It seemed to me an hour before old Wyat came back; and never was lover made
+happier at sight of his mistress than I to behold that withered crone.
+
+You may be sure I did not prolong my watch. There was now plainly no risk
+of my uncle's relapsing into lethargy. I had a long hysterical fit of
+weeping when I got into my room, with honest Mary Quince by my side.
+
+Whenever I closed my eyes, the face of Uncle Silas was before me, as I had
+seen it reflected in the glass. The sorceries of Bartram were enveloping me
+once more.
+
+Next morning the doctor said he was quite out of danger, but very weak.
+Milly and I saw him; and again in our afternoon walk we saw the doctor
+marching under the trees in the direction of the Windmill Wood.
+
+'Going down to see that poor girl there?' he said, when he had made his
+salutation, prodding with his levelled stick in the direction. 'Hawke, or
+Hawkes, I think.'
+
+'Beauty's sick, Maud,' exclaimed Milly.
+
+'_Hawkes_. She's upon my dispensary list. Yes,' said the doctor, looking
+into his little note-book--'Hawkes.'
+
+'And what is her complaint?'
+
+'Rheumatic fever.'
+
+'Not infectious?'
+
+'Not the least--no more, as we say, Miss Ruthyn, than a broken leg,' and he
+laughed obligingly.
+
+So soon as the doctor had departed, Milly and I agreed to follow to Hawkes'
+cottage and enquire more particularly how she was. To say truth, I am
+afraid it was rather for the sake of giving our walk a purpose and a point
+of termination, than for any very charitable interest we might have felt in
+the patient.
+
+Over the inequalities of the upland slope, clumped with trees, we reached
+the gabled cottage, with its neglected little farm-yard. A rheumatic old
+woman was the only attendant; and, having turned her ear in an attitude of
+attention, which induced us in gradually exalted keys to enquire how Meg
+was, she informed us in very loud tones that she had long lost her hearing
+and was perfectly deaf. And added considerately--
+
+'When the man comes in, 'appen he'll tell ye what ye want.'
+
+Through the door of a small room at the further end of that in which we
+were, we could see a portion of the narrow apartment of the patient, and
+hear her moans and the doctor's voice.
+
+'We'll see him, Milly, when he comes out. Let us wait here.'
+
+So we stood upon the door-stone awaiting him. The sounds of suffering had
+moved my compassion and interested us for the sick girl.
+
+'Blest if here isn't Pegtop,' said Milly.
+
+And the weather-stained red coat, the swarthy forbidding face and sooty
+locks of old Hawkes loomed in sight, as he stumped, steadying himself with
+his stick, over the uneven pavement of the yard. He touched his hat gruffly
+to me, but did not seem half to like our being where we were, for he looked
+surlily, and scratched his head under his wide-awake.
+
+'Your daughter is very ill, I'm afraid,' said I.
+
+'Ay--she'll be costin' me a handful, like her mother did,' said Pegtop.
+
+'I hope her room is comfortable, poor thing.'
+
+'Ay, that's it; she be comfortable enough, I warrant--more nor I. It be all
+Meg, and nout o' Dickon.'
+
+'When did her illness commence?' I asked.
+
+'Day the mare wor shod--_Saturday_. I talked a bit wi' the workus folk, but
+they won't gi'e nout--dang 'em--an' how be _I_ to do't? It be all'ays hard
+bread wi' Silas, an' a deal harder now she' ta'en them pains. I won't stan'
+it much longer. Gammon! If she keeps on that way I'll just cut. See how the
+workus fellahs 'ill like _that_!'
+
+'The Doctor gives his services for nothing,' I said.
+
+'An' _does_ nothin', bless him! ha, ha. No more nor that old deaf gammon
+there that costs me three tizzies a week, and haint worth a h'porth--no
+more nor Meg there, that's making all she can o' them pains. They be all a
+foolin' o' me, an' thinks I don't know't. Hey? _we_'ll see.'
+
+All this time he was cutting a bit of tobacco into shreds on the
+window-stone.
+
+'A workin' man be same as a hoss; if he baint cared, he can't work--'tisn't
+in him:' and with these words, having by this time stuffed his pipe with
+tobacco, he poked the deaf lady, who was pattering about with her back
+toward him, rather viciously with the point of his stick, and signed for a
+light.
+
+'It baint in him, you can't get it out o' 'im, no more nor ye'll draw smoke
+out o' this,' and he raised his pipe an inch or two, with his thumb on the
+bowl, 'without backy and fire. 'Tisn't in it.'
+
+'Maybe I can be of some use?' I said, thinking.
+
+'Maybe,' he rejoined.
+
+By this time he received from the old deaf abigail a flaming roll of brown
+paper, and, touching his hat to me, he withdrew, lighting his pipe and
+sending up little white puffs, like the salute of a departing ship.
+
+So he did not care to hear how his daughter was, and had only come here to
+light his pipe!
+
+Just then the Doctor emerged.
+
+'We have been waiting to hear how your poor patient is to-day?' I said.
+
+'Very ill, indeed, and utterly neglected, I fear. If she were equal
+to it--but she's not--I think she ought to be removed to the hospital
+immediately.'
+
+'That poor old woman is quite deaf, and the man is so surly and selfish!
+Could you recommend a nurse who would stay here till she's better? I will
+pay her with pleasure, and anything you think might be good for the poor
+girl.'
+
+So this was settled on the spot. Doctor Jolks was kind, like most men
+of his calling, and undertook to send the nurse from Feltram with a few
+comforts for the patient; and he called Dickon to the yard-gate, and I
+suppose told him of the arrangement; and Milly and I went to the poor
+girl's door and asked, 'May we come in?'
+
+There was no answer. So, with the conventional construction of silence, we
+entered. Her looks showed how ill she was. We adjusted her bed-clothes, and
+darkened the room, and did what we could for her--noting, beside, what her
+comfort chiefly required. She did not answer any questions. She did not
+thank us. I should almost have fancied that she had not perceived our
+presence, had I not observed her dark, sunken eyes once or twice turned up
+towards my face, with a dismal look of wonder and enquiry.
+
+The girl was very ill, and we went every day to see her. Sometimes she
+would answer our questions--sometimes not. Thoughtful, observant, surly,
+she seemed; and as people like to be thanked, I sometimes wonder that
+we continued to throw our bread upon these ungrateful waters. Milly was
+specially impatient under this treatment, and protested against it, and
+finally refused to accompany me into poor Beauty's bed-room.
+
+'I think, my good Meg,' said I one day, as I stood by her bed--she was now
+recovering with the sure reascent of youth--'that you ought to thank Miss
+Milly.'
+
+'I'll _not_ thank her,' said Beauty, doggedly.
+
+'Very well, Meg; I only thought I'd ask you, for I think you ought.'
+
+As I spoke, she very gently took just the tip of my finger, which hung
+close to her coverlet, in her fingers, and drew it beneath, and before I
+was aware, burying her head in the clothes, she suddenly clasped my hand
+in both hers to her lips, and kissed it passionately, again and again,
+sobbing. I felt her tears.
+
+I tried to withdraw my hand, but she held it with an angry pull, continuing
+to weep and kiss it.
+
+'Do you wish to say anything, my poor Meg?' I asked.
+
+'Nout, Miss,' she sobbed gently; and she continued to kiss my hand and
+weep. But suddenly she said, 'I won't thank Milly, for it's a' _you_; it
+baint her, she hadn't the thought--no, no, it's a' you, Miss. I cried
+hearty in the dark last night, thinkin' o' the apples, and the way I
+knocked them awa' wi' a pur o' my foot, the day father rapped me ower the
+head wi' his stick; it was kind o' you and very bad o' me. I wish you'd
+beat me, Miss; ye're better to me than father or mother--better to me than
+a'; an' I wish I could die for you, Miss, for I'm not fit to look at you.'
+
+I was surprised. I began to cry. I could have hugged poor Meg.
+
+I did not know her history. I have never learned it since. She used to
+talk with the most utter self-abasement before me. It was no religious
+feeling--it was a kind of expression of her love and worship of me--all the
+more strange that she was naturally very proud. There was nothing she
+would not have borne from me except the slightest suspicion of her entire
+devotion, or that she could in the most trifling way wrong or deceive me.
+
+I am not young now. I have had my sorrows, and with them all that wealth,
+virtually unlimited, can command; and through the retrospect a few bright
+and pure lights quiver along my life's dark stream--dark, but for them; and
+these are shed, not by the splendour of a splendid fortune, but by two or
+three of the simplest and kindest remembrances, such as the poorest and
+homeliest life may count up, and beside which, in the quiet hours of
+memory, all artificial triumphs pale, and disappear, for they are never
+quenched by time or distance, being founded on the affections, and so far
+heavenly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLV
+
+_A CHAPTER-FULL OF LOVERS_
+
+
+We had about this time a pleasant and quite unexpected visit from Lord
+Ilbury. He had come to pay his respects, understanding that my uncle Silas
+was sufficiently recovered to see visitors. 'And I think I'll run up-stairs
+first, and see him, if he admits me, and then I have ever so long a message
+from my sister, Mary, for you and Miss Millicent; but I had better dispose
+of my business first--don't you think so?--and I shall return in a few
+minutes.'
+
+And as he spoke our tremulous old butler returned to say that Uncle Silas
+would be happy to see him. So he departed; and you can't think how pleasant
+our homely sitting-room looked with his coat and stick in it--guarantees of
+his return.
+
+'Do you think, Milly, he is going to speak about the timber, you know, that
+Cousin Knollys spoke of? I do hope not.'
+
+'So do I,' said Milly. 'I wish he'd stayed a bit longer with us first, for
+if he does, father will sure to turn him out of doors, and we'll see no
+more of him.'
+
+'Exactly, my dear Milly; and he's so pleasant and good-natured.'
+
+'And he likes you awful well, he does.'
+
+'I'm sure he likes us both equally, Milly; he talked a great deal to you at
+Elverston, and used to ask you so often to sing those two pretty Lancashire
+ballads,' I said; 'but you know when you were at your controversies and
+religious exercises in the window, with that pillar of the church, the Rev.
+Spriggs Biddlepen--'
+
+'Get awa' wi' your nonsense, Maud; how could I help answering when he
+dodged me up and down my Testament and catechism?--an I 'most hate him, I
+tell you, and Cousin Knollys, you're such fools, I do. And whatever you
+say, the lord likes you uncommon, and well you know it, ye hussy.'
+
+'I know no such thing; and you don't think it, _you_ hussy, and I really
+don't care who likes me or who doesn't, except my relations; and I make the
+lord a present to you, if you'll have him.'
+
+In this strain were we talking when he re-entered the room, a little sooner
+than we had expected to see him.
+
+Milly, who, you are to recollect, was only in process of reformation, and
+still retained something of the Derbyshire dairymaid, gave me a little
+clandestine pinch on the arm just as he made his appearance.
+
+'I just refused a present from her,' said odious Milly, in answer to his
+enquiring look, 'because I knew she could not spare it.'
+
+The effect of all this was that I blushed one of my overpowering blushes.
+People told me they became me very much; I hope so, for the misfortune was
+frequent; and I think nature owed me that compensation.
+
+'It places you both in a most becoming light,' said Lord Ilbury, quite
+innocently. 'I really don't know which most to admire--the generosity of
+the offer or of the refusal.'
+
+'Well, it _was_ kind, if you but knew. I'm 'most tempted to tell him,' said
+Milly.
+
+I checked her with a really angry look, and said, 'Perhaps you have not
+observed it; but I really think, for a sensible person, my cousin Milly
+here talks more nonsense than any twenty other girls.'
+
+'A twenty-girl power! That's an immense compliment. I've the greatest
+respect for nonsense, I owe it so much; and I really think if nonsense were
+banished, the earth would grow insupportable.'
+
+'Thank you, Lord Ilbury,' said Milly, who had grown quite easy in his
+company during our long visit at Elverston; 'and I tell you, Miss Maud, if
+you grow saucy, I'll accept your present, and what will you say then?'
+
+'I really don't know; but just now I want to ask Lord Ilbury how he thinks
+my uncle looks; neither I nor Milly have seen him since his illness.'
+
+'Very much weaker, I think; but he may be gaining strength. Still, as my
+business was not quite pleasant, I thought it better to postpone it, and
+if you think it would be right, I'll write to Doctor Bryerly to ask him to
+postpone the discussion for a little time.'
+
+I at once assented, and thanked him; indeed, if I had had my way, the
+subject should never have been mentioned, I felt so hardhearted and
+rapacious; but Lord Ilbury explained that the trustees were constrained by
+the provisions of the will, and that I really had no power to release them;
+and I hoped that Uncle Silas also understood all this.
+
+'And now,' said he, 'we've returned to Grange, my sister and I, and it is
+nearer than Elverston, so that we are really neighbours; and Mary wants
+Lady Knollys to fix a time she owes us a visit, you know--and you really
+must come at the same time; it will be so very pleasant, the same party
+exactly meeting in a new scene; and we have not half explored our
+neighbourhood; and I've got down all those Spanish engravings I told you
+of, and the Venetian missals, and all the rest. I think I remember very
+accurately the things you were most interested by, and they're all there;
+and really you must promise, you and Miss Millicent Ruthyn. And I forgot to
+mention--you know you complained that you were ill supplied with books,
+so Mary thought you would allow her to share her supply--they are the new
+books, you know--and when you have read yours, you and she can exchange.'
+
+What girl was ever quite frank about her likings? I don't think I was more
+of a cheat than others; but I never could tell of myself. It is quite true
+that this duplicity and reserve seldom deceives. Our hypocrisies are forced
+upon some of our sex by the acuteness and vigilance of all in this field of
+enquiry; but if we are sly, we are also lynx-eyed, capital detectives, most
+ingenious in fitting together the bits and dovetails of a cumulative case;
+and in those affairs of love and liking, have a terrible exploratory
+instinct, and so, for the most part, when detected we are found out not
+only to be in love, but to be rogues moreover.
+
+Lady Mary was very kind; but had Lady Mary of her own mere motion taken all
+this trouble? Was there no more energetic influence at the bottom of
+that welcome chest of books, which arrived only half an hour later? The
+circulating library of those days was not the epidemic and ubiquitous
+influence to which it has grown; and there were many places where it could
+not find you out.
+
+Altogether that evening Bartram had acquired a peculiar beauty--a bright
+and mellow glow, in which even its gate-posts and wheelbarrow were
+interesting, and next day came a little cloud--Dudley appeared.
+
+'You may be sure he wants money,' said Milly. 'He and father had words this
+morning.'
+
+He took a chair at our luncheon, found fault with everything in his own
+laconic dialect, ate a good deal notwithstanding, and was sulky, and with
+Milly snappish. To me, on the contrary, when Milly went into the hall, he
+was mild and whimpering, and disposed to be confidential.
+
+'There's the Governor says he hasn't a bob! Danged if I know how an old
+fellah in his bed-room muddles away money at that rate. I don't suppose he
+thinks I can git along without tin, and he knows them trustees won't gi'e
+me a tizzy till they get what they calls an opinion--dang 'em! Bryerly says
+he doubts it must all go under settlement. They'll settle me nicely if
+they do; and Governor knows all about it, and won't gi'e me a danged brass
+farthin', an' me wi' bills to pay, an' lawyers--dang 'em--writing
+letters. He knows summat o' that hisself, does Governor; and he might ha'
+consideration a bit for his own flesh and blood, _I_ say. But he never does
+nout for none but hisself. I'll sell his books and his jewels next fit he
+takes--that's how I'll fit him.'
+
+This amiable young man, glowering, with his elbows on the table and his
+fingers in his great whiskers, followed his homily, where clergymen append
+the blessing, with a muttered variety of very different matter.
+
+'Now, Maud,' said he, pathetically, leaning back suddenly in his chair,
+with all his conscious beauty and misfortunes in his face, 'is not it hard
+lines?'
+
+I thought the appeal was going to shape itself into an application for
+money; but it did not.
+
+'I never know'd a reel beauty--first-chop, of course, I mean--that
+wasn't kind along of it, and I'm a fellah as can't git along without
+sympathy--that's why I say it--an' isn't it hard lines? Now, _say_ it's
+hard lines--_haint_ it, Maud?'
+
+I did not know exactly what hard lines meant, but I said--
+
+'I suppose it is very disagreeable.'
+
+And with this concession, not caring to hear any more in the same vein, I
+rose, intending to take my departure.
+
+'No, that's jest it. I knew ye'd say it, Maud. Ye're a kind lass--ye
+be--'tis in yer pretty face. I like ye awful, I do--there's not a handsomer
+lass in Liverpool nor Lunnon itself--_no_ where.'
+
+He had seized my hand, and trying to place his arm about my waist, essayed
+that salute which I had so narrowly escaped on my first introduction.
+
+'_Don't_, sir,' I exclaimed in high indignation, escaping at the same
+moment from his grasp.
+
+'No offence, lass; no harm, Maud; you must not be so shy--we're cousins,
+you know--an' I wouldn't hurt ye, Maud, no more nor I'd knock my head off.
+I wouldn't.'
+
+I did not wait to hear the rest of his tender protestations, but, without
+showing how nervous I was, I glided out of the room quietly, making
+an orderly retreat, the more meritorious as I heard him call after me
+persuasively--'Come back, Maud. What are ye afeard on, lass? Come back, I
+say--do now; there's a good wench.'
+
+As Milly and I were taking our walk that day, in the direction of the
+Windmill Wood, to which, in consequence perhaps of some secret order, we
+had now free access, we saw Beauty, for the first time since her illness,
+in the little yard, throwing grain to the poultry.
+
+'How do you find yourself to-day, Meg? I am _very_ glad to see you able to
+be about again; but I hope it is not too soon.'
+
+We were standing at the barred gate of the little enclosure, and quite
+close to Meg, who, however, did not choose to raise her head, but,
+continuing to shower her grain and potato-skins among her hens and
+chickens, said in a low tone--
+
+'Father baint in sight? Look jist round a bit and say if ye see him.'
+
+But Dickon's dusky red costume was nowhere visible.
+
+So Meg looked up, pale and thin, and with her old grave, observant eyes,
+and she said quietly--
+
+''Tisn't that I'm not glad to see ye; but if father was to spy me talking
+friendly wi' ye, now that I'm hearty, and you havin' no more call to me,
+he'd be all'ays a watching and thinkin' I was tellin' o' tales, and 'appen
+he'd want me to worrit ye for money, Miss Maud; an' 'tisn't here he'd spend
+it, but in the Feltram pottusses, he would, and we want for nothin' that's
+good for us. But that's how 'twould be, an' he'd all'ays be a jawing and a
+lickin' of I; so don't mind me, Miss Maud, and 'appen I might do ye a good
+turn some day.'
+
+A few days after this little interview with Meg, as Milly and I were
+walking briskly--for it was a clear frosty day--along the pleasant slopes
+of the sheep-walk, we were overtaken by Dudley Ruthyn. It was not a
+pleasant surprise. There was this mitigation, however: we were on foot, and
+he driving in a dog-cart along the track leading to the moor, with his dogs
+and gun. He brought his horse for a moment to a walk, and with a careless
+nod to me, removing his short pipe from his mouth, he said--
+
+'Governor's callin' for ye, Milly; and he told me to send you slick home to
+him if I saw you, and I think he'll gi'e ye some money; but ye better take
+him while he's in the humour, lass, or mayhap ye'll go long without.'
+
+And with those words, apparently intent on his game, he nodded again,
+and, pipe in mouth, drove at a quick trot over the slope of the hill, and
+disappeared.
+
+So I agreed to await Milly's return while she ran home, and rejoined me
+where I was. Away she ran, in high spirits, and I wandered listlessly about
+in search of some convenient spot to sit down upon, for I was a little
+tired.
+
+She had not been gone five minutes, when I heard a step approaching, and
+looking round, saw the dog-cart close by, the horse browsing on the short
+grass, and Dudley Ruthyn within a few paces of me.
+
+'Ye see, Maud, I've bin thinkin' why you're so vexed wi' me, an' I thought
+I'd jest come back an' ask ye what I may a' done to anger ye so; there's no
+sin in that, I think--is there?'
+
+'I'm not angry. I did not say so. I hope that's enough,' I said, startled;
+and, notwithstanding my speech, _very_ angry, for I felt instinctively that
+Milly's despatch homeward was a mere trick, and I the dupe of this coarse
+stratagem.
+
+'Well then, if ye baint angry, so much the better, Maud. I only want to
+know why you're afeard o' me. I never struck a man foul, much less hurt a
+girl, in my days; besides, Maud, I likes ye too well to hurt ye. Dang it,
+lass, you're my cousin, ye know, and cousins is all'ays together and lovin'
+like, an' none says again' it.'
+
+'I've nothing to explain--there _is_ nothing to explain. I've been quite
+friendly,' I said, hurriedly.
+
+'_Friendly!_ Well, if there baint a cram! How can ye think it friendly,
+Maud, when ye won't a'most shake hands wi' me? It's enough to make a fellah
+sware, or cry a'most. Why d'ye like aggravatin' a poor devil? Now baint
+ye an ill-natured little puss, Maud, an' I likin' ye so well? You're the
+prettiest lass in Derbyshire; there's nothin' I wouldn't do for ye.'
+
+And he backed his declaration with an oath.
+
+'Be so good, then, as to re-enter your dog-cart and drive away,' I replied,
+very much incensed.
+
+'Now, there it is again! Ye can't speak me civil. Another fellah'd fly out,
+an' maybe kiss ye for spite; but I baint that sort, I'm all for coaxin' and
+kindness, an' ye won't let me. What _be_ you drivin' at, Maud?'
+
+'I think I've said very plainly, sir, that I wish to be alone. You've
+_nothing_ to say, except utter nonsense, and I've heard quite enough. Once
+for all, I beg, sir, that you will be so good as to leave me.'
+
+'Well, now, look here, Maud; I'll do anything you like--burn me if I
+don't--if you'll only jest be kind to me, like cousins should. What did
+I ever do to vex you? If you think I like any lass better than you--some
+fellah at Elverston's bin talkin', maybe--it's nout but lies an' nonsense.
+Not but there's lots o' wenches likes me well enough, though I be a plain
+lad, and speaks my mind straight out.'
+
+'I can't see that you are so frank, sir, as you describe; you have just
+played a shabby trick to bring about this absurd and most disagreeable
+interview.'
+
+'And supposin' I did send that fool, Milly, out o' the way, to talk a bit
+wi' you here, where's the harm? Dang it, lass, ye mustn't be too hard.
+Didn't I say I'd do whatever ye wished?'
+
+'And you _won't_,' said I.
+
+'Ye mean to get along out o' this? Well, now, I _will_. There! No use, of
+course, askin' you to kiss and be friends, before I go, as cousins should.
+Well, don't be riled, lass, I'm not askin' it; only mind, I do like you
+awful, and 'appen I'll find ye in better humour another time. Good-bye,
+Maud; I'll make ye like me at last.'
+
+And with these words, to my comfort, he addressed himself to his horse and
+pipe, and was soon honestly on his way to the moor.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVI
+
+_THE RIVALS_
+
+
+All the time that Dudley chose to persecute me with his odious society, I
+continued to walk at a brisk pace toward home, so that I had nearly reached
+the house when Milly met me, with a note which had arrived for me by the
+post, in her hand.
+
+'Here, Milly, are more verses. He is a very persevering poet, whoever he
+is.' So I broke the seal; but this time it was prose. And the first words
+were 'Captain Oakley!'
+
+I confess to an odd sensation as these remarkable words met my eye. It
+might possibly be a proposal. I did not wait to speculate, however, but
+read these sentences traced in the identical handwriting which had copied
+the lines with which I had been twice favoured.
+
+'Captain Oakley presents his compliments to Miss Ruthyn, and trusts she
+will excuse his venturing to ask whether, during his short stay in Feltram,
+he might be permitted to pay his respects at Bartram-Haugh. He has been
+making a short visit to his aunt, and could not find himself so near
+without at least attempting to renew an acquaintance which he has never
+ceased to cherish in memory. If Miss Ruthyn would be so very good as to
+favour him with ever so short a reply to the question he ventures most
+respectfully to ask, her decision would reach him at the Hall Hotel,
+Feltram.'
+
+'Well, he's a roundabout fellah, anyhow. Couldn't he come up and see you if
+he wanted to? They poeters, they do love writing long yarns--don't they?'
+And with this reflection, Milly took the note and read it through again.
+
+'It's jolly polite anyhow, isn't it Maud?' said Milly, who had conned it
+over, and accepted it as a model composition.
+
+I must have been, I think, naturally a rather shrewd girl; and considering
+how very little I had seen of the world--nothing in fact--I often wonder
+now at the sage conclusions at which I arrived.
+
+Were I to answer this handsome and cunning fool according to his folly,
+in what position should I find myself? No doubt my reply would induce
+a rejoinder, and that compel another note from me, and that invite yet
+another from him; and however his might improve in warmth, they were sure
+not to abate. Was it his impertinent plan, with this show of respect and
+ceremony, to drag me into a clandestine correspondence? Inexperienced girl
+as I was, I fired at the idea of becoming his dupe, and fancying, perhaps,
+that there was more in merely answering his note than it would have
+amounted to, I said--
+
+'That kind of thing may answer very well with button-makers, but ladies
+don't like it. What would your papa think of it if he found that I had been
+writing to him, and seeing him without his permission? If he wanted to
+see me he could have'--(I really did not know exactly what he could have
+done)--'he could have timed his visit to Lady Knollys differently; at all
+events, he has no right to place me in an embarrassing situation, and I am
+certain Cousin Knollys would say so; and I think his note both shabby and
+impertinent.'
+
+Decision was not with me an intellectual process. When quite cool I was the
+most undecided of mortals, but once my feelings were excited I was prompt
+and bold.
+
+'I'll give the note to Uncle Silas,' I said, quickening my pace toward
+home; 'he'll know what to do.'
+
+But Milly, who, I fancy, had no objection to the little romance which the
+young officer proposed, told me that she could not see her father, that he
+was ill, and not speaking to anyone.
+
+'And arn't ye making a plaguy row about nothin'? I lay a guinea if ye had
+never set eyes on Lord Ilbury you'd a told him to come, and see ye, an'
+welcome.'
+
+'Don't talk like a fool, Milly. You never knew me do anything deceitful.
+Lord Ilbury has no more to do with it, you know very well, than the man in
+the moon.'
+
+I was altogether very indignant. I did not speak another word to Milly. The
+proportions of the house are so great, that it is a much longer walk than
+you would suppose from the hall-door to Uncle Silas's room. But I did not
+cool all that way; and it was not till I had just reached the lobby,
+and saw the sour, jealous face, and high caul of old Wyat, and felt the
+influence of that neighbourhood, that I paused to reconsider. I fancied
+there was a cool consciousness of success behind all the deferential
+phraseology of Captain Oakley, which nettled me extremely. No; there could
+be no doubt. I tapped softly at the door.
+
+'What is it _now_, Miss?' snarled the querulous old woman, with her
+shrivelled fingers on the door-handle.
+
+'Can I see my uncle for a moment?'
+
+'He's tired, and not a word from him all day long.'
+
+'Not ill, though?'
+
+'Awful bad in the night,' said the old crone, with a sudden savage glare in
+my face, as if _I_ had brought it about.
+
+'Oh! I'm very sorry. I had not heard a word of it.'
+
+'No one does but old Wyat. There's Milly there never asks neither--his own
+child!'
+
+'Weakness, or what?'
+
+'One o' them fits. He'll slide awa' in one o' them some day, and no one but
+old Wyat to know nor ask word about it; that's how 'twill be.'
+
+'Will you please hand him this note, if he is well enough to look at it,
+and say I am at the door?'
+
+She took it with a peevish nod and a grunt, closing the door in my face,
+and in a few minutes returned--
+
+'Come in wi' ye,' said Dame Wyat, and I appeared.
+
+Uncle Silas, who, after his nightly horror or vision, lay extended on a
+sofa, with his faded yellow silk dressing-gown about him, his long white
+hair hanging toward the ground, and that wild and feeble smile lighting his
+face--a glimmer I feared to look upon--his long thin arms lay by his sides,
+with hands and fingers that stirred not, except when now and then, with a
+feeble motion, he wet his temples and forehead with eau de Cologne from a
+glass saucer placed beside him.
+
+'Excellent girl! dutiful ward and niece!' murmured the oracle; 'heaven
+reward you--your frank dealing is your own safety and my peace. Sit you
+down, and say who is this Captain Oakley, when you made his acquaintance,
+what his age, fortune, and expectations, and who the aunt he mentions.'
+
+Upon all these points I satisfied him as fully as I was able.
+
+'Wyat--the white drops,' he called, in a thin, stern tone. 'I'll write a
+line presently. I can't see visitors, and, of course, you can't receive
+young captains before you've come out. Farewell! God bless you, dear.'
+
+Wyat was dropping the 'white' restorative into a wine-glass and the room
+was redolent of ether. I was glad to escape. The figures and whole _mise en
+scene_ were unearthly.
+
+'Well, Milly,' I said, as I met her in the hall, 'your papa is going to
+write to him.'
+
+I sometimes wonder whether Milly was right, and how I should have acted a
+few months earlier.
+
+Next day whom should we meet in the Windmill Wood but Captain Oakley. The
+spot where this interesting _rencontre_ occurred was near that ruinous
+bridge on my sketch of which I had received so many compliments. It was
+so great a surprise that I had not time to recollect my indignation, and,
+having received him very affably, I found it impossible, during our brief
+interview, to recover my lost altitude.
+
+After our greetings were over, and some compliments neatly made, he said--
+
+'I had such a curious note from Mr. Silas Ruthyn. I am sure he thinks me a
+very impertinent fellow, for it was really anything but inviting--extremely
+rude, in fact. But I could not quite see that because he does not want
+me to invade his bed-room--an incursion I never dreamed of--I was not to
+present myself to you, who had already honoured me with your acquaintance,
+with the sanction of those who were most interested in your welfare, and
+who were just as well qualified as he, I fancy, to say who were qualified
+for such an honour.'
+
+'My uncle, Mr. Silas Ruthyn, you are aware, is my guardian; and this is my
+cousin, his daughter.'
+
+This was an opportunity of becoming a little lofty, and I improved it. He
+raised his hat and bowed to Milly.
+
+'I'm afraid I've been very rude and stupid. Mr. Ruthyn, of course, has a
+perfect right to--to--in fact, I was not the least aware that I had the
+honour of so near a relation's--a--a--and what exquisite scenery you
+have! I think this country round Feltram particularly fine; and this
+Bartram-Haugh is, I venture to say, about the very most beautiful spot in
+this beautiful region. I do assure you I am tempted beyond measure to make
+Feltram and the Hall Hotel my head-quarters for at least a week. I only
+regret the foliage; but your trees show wonderfully, even in winter, so
+many of them have got that ivy about them. They say it spoils trees, but it
+certainly beautifies them. I have just ten days' leave unexpired; I wish
+I could induce you to advise me how to apply them. What shall I do, Miss
+Ruthyn?'
+
+'I am the worst person in the world to make plans, even for myself, I find
+it so troublesome. What do you say? Suppose you try Wales or Scotland, and
+climb up some of those fine mountains that look so well in winter?'
+
+'I should much prefer Feltram. I so wish you would recommend _it_. What is
+this pretty plant?'
+
+'We call that Maud's myrtle. She planted it, and it's very pretty when it's
+full in blow,' said Milly.
+
+Our visit to Elverston had been of immense use to us both.
+
+'Oh! planted by _you?_' he said, very softly, with a momentary
+corresponding glance. 'May I--ever so little--just a leaf?'
+
+And without waiting for permission, he held a sprig of it next his
+waistcoat.
+
+'Yes, it goes very prettily with those buttons. They are _very_ pretty
+buttons; are not they, Milly? A present, a souvenir, I dare say?'
+
+This was a terrible hit at the button-maker, and I thought he looked a
+little oddly at me, but my countenance was so 'bewitchingly simple' that I
+suppose his suspicions were allayed.
+
+Now, it was very odd of me, I must confess, to talk in this way, and to
+receive all those tender allusions from a gentleman about whom I had spoken
+and felt so sharply only the evening before. But Bartram was abominably
+lonely. A civilised person was a valuable waif or stray in that region of
+the picturesque and the brutal; and to my lady reader especially, because
+she will probably be hardest upon me, I put it--can you not recollect any
+such folly in your own past life? Can you not in as many minutes call to
+mind at least six similar inconsistencies of your own practising? For my
+part, I really can't see the advantage of being the weaker sex if we are
+always to be as strong as our masculine neighbours.
+
+There was, indeed, no revival of the little sentiment which I had once
+experienced. When these things once expire, I do believe they are as hard
+to revive as our dead lap-dogs, guinea-pigs, and parrots. It was my perfect
+coolness which enabled me to chat, I flatter myself, so agreeably with the
+refined Captain, who plainly thought me his captive, and was probably
+now and then thinking what was to be done to utilise that little bit of
+Bartram, or to beautify some other, when he should see fit to become its
+master, as we rambled over these wild but beautiful grounds.
+
+It was just about then that Milly nudged me rather vehemently, and
+whispered 'Look there!'
+
+I followed with mine the direction of her eyes, and saw my odious cousin,
+Dudley, in a flagrant pair of cross-barred peg-tops, and what Milly before
+her reformation used to call other 'slops' of corresponding atrocity,
+approaching our refined little party with great strides. I really think
+that Milly was very nearly ashamed of him. I certainly was. I had no
+apprehension, however, of the scene which was imminent.
+
+The charming Captain mistook him probably for some rustic servant of the
+place, for he continued his agreeable remarks up to the very moment when
+Dudley, whose face was pale with anger, and whose rapid advance had not
+served to cool him, without recollecting to salute either Milly or me,
+accosted our elegant companion as follows:--
+
+'By your leave, master, baint you summat in the wrong box here, don't you
+think?'
+
+He had planted himself directly in his front, and looked unmistakably
+menacing.
+
+'May I speak to him? Will you excuse me?' said the Captain blandly.
+
+'Ow--ay, they'll excuse ye ready enough, I dessay; you're to deal wi' me
+though. Baint ye in the wrong box now?'
+
+'I'm not conscious, sir, of being in a box at all,' replied the Captain,
+with severe disdain. 'It strikes me you are disposed to get up a row. Let
+us, if you please, get a little apart from the ladies if that is your
+purpose.'
+
+'I mean to turn you out o' this the way ye came. If you make a row, so much
+the wuss for you, for I'll lick ye to fits.'
+
+'Tell him not to fight,' whispered Milly; 'he'll a no chance wi' Dudley.'
+
+I saw Dickon Hawkes grinning over the paling on which he leaned.
+
+'Mr. Hawkes,' I said, drawing Milly with me toward that unpromising
+mediator, 'pray prevent unpleasantness and go between them.'
+
+'An' git licked o' both sides? Rather not, Miss, thank ye,' grinned Dickon,
+tranquilly.
+
+'Who are you, sir?' demanded our romantic acquaintance, with military
+sternness.
+
+'I'll tell you who you are--you're Oakley, as stops at the Hall, that
+Governor wrote, over-night, not to dare show your nose inside the grounds.
+You're a half-starved cappen, come down here to look for a wife, and----'
+
+Before Dudley could finish his sentence, Captain Oakley, than whose face no
+regimentals could possibly have been more scarlet, at that moment, struck
+with his switch at Dudley's handsome features.
+
+I don't know how it was done--by some 'devilish cantrip slight.' A smack
+was heard, and the Captain lay on his back on the ground, with his mouth
+full of blood.
+
+'How do ye like the taste o' that?' roared Dickon, from his post of
+observation.
+
+In an instant Captain Oakley was on his feet again, hatless, looking quite
+frantic, and striking out at Dudley, who was ducking and dipping quite
+coolly, and again the same horrid sound, only this time it was double, like
+a quick postman's knock, and Captain Oakley was on the grass again.
+
+'Tapped his smeller, by--!' thundered Dickon, with a roar of laughter.
+
+'Come away, Milly--I'm growing ill,' said I.
+
+'Drop it, Dudley, I tell ye; you'll kill him,' screamed Milly.
+
+But the devoted Captain, whose nose, and mouth, and shirt-front formed now
+but one great patch of blood, and who was bleeding beside over one eye,
+dashed at him again.
+
+I turned away. I felt quite faint, and on the point of crying, with mere
+horror.
+
+'Hammer away at his knocker,' bellowed Dickon, in a frenzy of delight.
+
+'He'll break it now, if it ain't already,' cried Milly, alluding, as I
+afterwards understood, to the Captain's Grecian nose.
+
+'Brayvo, little un!' The Captain was considerably the taller.
+
+Another smack, and, I suppose, Captain Oakley fell once more.
+
+'Hooray! the dinner-service again, by ----,' roared Dickon. 'Stick to that.
+Over the same ground--subsoil, I say. He han't enough yet.'
+
+In a perfect tremor of disgust, I was making as quick a retreat as I could,
+and as I did, I heard Captain Oakley shriek hoarsely--
+
+'You're a d---- prizefighter; I can't box you.'
+
+'I told ye I'd lick ye to fits,' hooted Dudley.
+
+'But you're the son of a gentleman, and by ---- you shall fight me _as_ a
+gentleman.'
+
+A yell of hooting laughter from Dudley and Dickon followed this sally.
+
+'Gi'e my love to the Colonel, and think o' me when ye look in the
+glass--won't ye? An' so you're goin' arter all; well, follow what's left o'
+yer nose. Ye forgot some o' yer ivories, didn't ye, on th' grass?'
+
+These and many similar jibes followed the mangled Captain in his retreat.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVII
+
+_DOCTOR BRYERLY REAPPEARS_
+
+
+No one who has not experienced it can imagine the nervous disgust and
+horror which such a spectacle as we had been forced in part to witness
+leaves upon the mind of a young person of my peculiar temperament.
+
+It affected ever after my involuntary estimate of the principal actors in
+it. An exhibition of such thorough inferiority, accompanied by such a shock
+to the feminine sense of elegance, is not forgotten by any woman. Captain
+Oakley had been severely beaten by a smaller man. It was pitiable, but also
+undignified; and Milly's anxieties about his teeth and nose, though in a
+certain sense horrible, had also a painful suspicion of the absurd.
+
+People say, on the other hand, that superior prowess, even in such
+barbarous contests, inspires in our sex an interest akin to admiration. I
+can positively say in my case it was quite the reverse. Dudley Ruthyn stood
+lower than ever in my estimation; for though I feared him more, it was by
+reason of these brutal and cold-blooded associations.
+
+After this I lived in constant apprehension of being summoned to my uncle's
+room, and being called on for an explanation of my meeting with Captain
+Oakley, which, notwithstanding my perfect innocence, looked suspicious, but
+no such inquisition resulted. Perhaps he did not suspect me; or, perhaps,
+he thought, not in his haste, all women are liars, and did not care to hear
+what I might say. I rather lean to the latter interpretation.
+
+The exchequer just now, I suppose, by some means, was replenished, for next
+morning Dudley set off upon one of his fashionable excursions, as poor
+Milly thought them, to Wolverhampton. And the same day Dr. Bryerly arrived.
+
+Milly and I, from my room window, saw him step from his vehicle to the
+court-yard.
+
+A lean man, with sandy hair and whiskers, was in the chaise with him. Dr.
+Bryerly descended in the unchangeable black suit that always looked new and
+never fitted him.
+
+The Doctor looked careworn, and older, I thought, by several years, than
+when I last saw him. He was not shown up to my uncle's room; on the
+contrary, Milly, who was more actively curious than I, ascertained that our
+tremulous butler informed him that my uncle was not sufficiently well for
+an interview. Whereupon Dr. Bryerly had pencilled a note, the reply to
+which was a message from Uncle Silas, saying that he would be happy to see
+him in five minutes.
+
+As Milly and I were conjecturing what it might mean, and before the five
+minutes had expired, Mary Quince entered.
+
+'Wyat bid me tell you, Miss, your uncle wants you _this minute_.'
+
+When I entered his room, Uncle Silas was seated at the table, with his desk
+before him. He looked up. Could anything be more dignified, suffering, and
+venerable?
+
+'I sent for you, dear,' he said very gently, extending his thin, white
+hand, and taking mine, which he held affectionately while he spoke,
+'because I desire to have no secrets, and wish you thoroughly to know all
+that concerns your own interests while subject to my guardianship; and I am
+happy to think, my beloved niece, that you requite my candour. Oh, here is
+the gentleman. Sit down, dear.'
+
+Doctor Bryerly was advancing, as it seemed, to shake hands with Uncle
+Silas, who, however, rose with a severe and haughty air, not the least
+over-acted, and made him a slow, ceremonious bow. I wondered how the homely
+Doctor could confront so tranquilly that astounding statue of hauteur.
+
+A faint and weary smile, rather sad than comtemptuous, was the only sign he
+showed of feeling his repulse.
+
+'How do _you_ do, Miss?' he said, extending his hand, and greeting me after
+his ungallant fashion, as if it were an afterthought.
+
+'I think I may as well take a chair, sir,' said Doctor Bryerly, sitting
+down serenely, near the table, and crossing his ungainly legs.
+
+My uncle bowed.
+
+'You understand the nature of the business, sir. Do you wish Miss Ruthyn to
+remain?' asked Doctor Bryerly.
+
+'I _sent_ for her, sir,' replied my uncle, in a very gentle and sarcastic
+tone, a smile on his thin lips, and his strangely-contorted eyebrows raised
+for a moment contemptuously. 'This gentleman, my dear Maud, thinks proper
+to insinuate that I am robbing you. It surprises me a little, and, no
+doubt, you--I've nothing to conceal, and wished you to be present while
+he favours me more particularly with his views. I'm right, I think, in
+describing it as _robbery_, sir?'
+
+'Why,' said Doctor Bryerly thoughtfully, for he was treating the matter
+as one of right, and not of feeling, 'it would be, certainly, taking that
+which does not belong to you, and converting it to your own use; but, at
+the worst, it would more resemble _thieving_, I think, than robbery.'
+
+I saw Uncle Silas's lip, eyelid, and thin cheek quiver and shrink, as if
+with a thrill of tic-douloureux, as Doctor Bryerly spoke this unconsciously
+insulting answer. My uncle had, however, the self-command which is learned
+at the gaming-table. He shrugged, with a chilly, sarcastic, little laugh,
+and a glance at me.
+
+'Your note says _waste_, I think, sir?'
+
+'Yes, waste--the felling and sale of timber in the Windmill Wood, the
+selling of oak bark and burning of charcoal, as I'm informed,' said
+Bryerly, as sadly and quietly as a man might relate a piece of intelligence
+from the newspaper.
+
+'Detectives? or private spies of your own--or, perhaps, my servants, bribed
+with my poor brother's money? A very high-minded procedure.'
+
+'Nothing of the kind, sir.'
+
+My uncle sneered.
+
+'I mean, sir, there has been no undue canvass for evidence, and the
+question is simply one of right; and it is our duty to see that this
+inexperienced young lady is not defrauded.'
+
+'By her own uncle?'
+
+'By anyone,' said Doctor Bryerly, with a natural impenetrability that
+excited my admiration.
+
+'Of course you come armed with an opinion?' said my smiling uncle,
+insinuatingly.
+
+'The case is before Mr. Serjeant Grinders. These bigwigs don't return their
+cases sometimes so quickly as we could wish.'
+
+'Then you have _no_ opinion?' smiled my uncle.
+
+'My solicitor is quite clear upon it; and it seems to me there can be no
+question raised, but for form's sake.'
+
+'Yes, for form's sake you take one, and in the meantime, upon a nice
+question of law, the surmises of a thick-headed attorney and of an
+ingenious apoth--I beg pardon, physician--are sufficient warrant for
+telling my niece and ward, in my presence, that I am defrauding her!'
+
+My uncle leaned back in his chair, and smiled with a contemptuous patience
+over Doctor Bryerly's head, as he spoke.
+
+'I don't know whether I used that expression, sir, but I am speaking merely
+in a technical sense. I mean to say, that, whether by mistake or otherwise,
+you are exercising a power which you don't lawfully possess, and that the
+effect of that is to impoverish the estate, and, by so much as it benefits
+you, to wrong this young lady.'
+
+'I'm a technical defrauder, I see, and your manner conveys the rest. I
+thank my God, sir, I am a _very_ different man from what I once was.' Uncle
+Silas was speaking in a low tone, and with extraordinary deliberation. 'I
+remember when I should have certainly knocked you down, sir, or _tried_ it,
+at least, for a great deal less.'
+
+'But seriously, sir, what _do_ you propose?' asked Doctor Bryerly, sternly
+and a little flushed, for I think the old man was stirred within him; and
+though he did not raise his voice, his manner was excited.
+
+'I propose to defend my rights, sir,' murmured Uncle Silas, very grim. 'I'm
+not without an opinion, though you are.'
+
+You seem to think, sir, that I have a pleasure in annoying you; you are
+quite wrong. I hate annoying anyone--constitutionally--I _hate_ it; but
+don't you see, sir, the position I'm placed in? I wish I could please
+everyone, and do my duty.'
+
+Uncle Silas bowed and smiled.
+
+'I've brought with me the Scotch steward from Tolkingden, _your_ estate,
+Miss, and if you let us we will visit the spot and make a note of what we
+observe, that is, assuming that you admit waste, and merely question our
+law.'
+
+'If you please, sir, you and your Scotchman shall do _no such thing_; and,
+bearing in mind that I neither deny nor admit anything, you will please
+further never more to present yourself, under any pretext whatsoever,
+either in this house or on the grounds of Bartram-Haugh, during my
+lifetime.'
+
+Uncle Silas rose up with the same glassy smile and scowl, in token that the
+interview was ended.
+
+'Good-bye, sir,' said Doctor Bryerly, with a sad and thoughtful air, and
+hesitating for a moment, he said to me, 'Do you think, Miss, you could
+afford me a word in the hall?'
+
+'Not a word, sir,' snarled Uncle Silas, with a white flash from his eyes.
+
+There was a pause.
+
+'Sit where you are, Maud.'
+
+Another pause.
+
+'If you have anything to say to my ward, sir, you will please to say it
+_here_.'
+
+Doctor Bryerly's dark and homely face was turned on me with an expression
+of unspeakable compassion.
+
+'I was going to say, that if you think of any way in which I can be of the
+least service, Miss, I'm ready to act, that's all; mind, _any_ way.'
+
+He hesitated, looking at me with the same expression as if he had something
+more to say; but he only repeated--
+
+'That's all, Miss.'
+
+'Won't you shake hands, Doctor Bryerly, before you go?' I said, eagerly
+approaching him.
+
+Without a smile, with the same sad anxiety in his face, with his mind, as
+it seemed to me, on something else, and irresolute whether to speak it or
+be silent, he took my fingers in a very cold hand, and holding it so, and
+slowly shaking it, his grave and troubled glance unconsciously rested on
+Uncle Silas's face, while in a sad tone and absent way he said--
+
+'Good-bye, Miss.'
+
+From before that sad gaze my uncle averted his strange eyes quickly, and
+looked, oddly, to the window.
+
+In a moment more Doctor Bryerly let my hand go with a sigh, and with an
+abrupt little nod to me, he left the room; and I heard that dismallest of
+sounds, the retreating footsteps of a true friend, _lost_.
+
+'Lead us not into temptation; if we pray so, we must not mock the eternal
+Majesty of Heaven by walking into temptation of our own accord.'
+
+This oracular sentence was not uttered by my uncle until Doctor Bryerly had
+been gone at least five minutes.
+
+'I've forbid him my house, Maud--first, because his perfectly unconscious
+insolence tries my patience nearly beyond endurance; and again, because I
+have heard unfavourable reports of him. On the question of right which he
+disputes, I am perfectly informed. I am your tenant, my dear niece; when
+I am gone you will learn how _scrupulous_ I have been; you will see how,
+under the pressure of the most agonising pecuniary difficulties, the
+terrific penalty of a misspent youth, I have been careful never by a hair's
+breadth to transgress the strict line of my legal privileges; alike, as
+your tenant, Maud, and as your guardian; how, amid frightful agitations,
+I have kept myself, by the miraculous strength and grace vouchsafed
+me--_pure_.
+
+'The world,' he resumed after a short pause, 'has no faith in any man's
+conversion; it never forgets what he was, it never believes him anything
+better, it is an inexorable and stupid judge. What I was I will describe in
+blacker terms, and with more heartfelt detestation, than my traducers--a
+reckless prodigal, a godless profligate. Such I was; what I am, I am. If
+I had no hope beyond this world, of all men most miserable; but with that
+hope, a sinner saved.'
+
+Then he waxed eloquent and mystical. I think his Swedenborgian studies had
+crossed his notions of religion with strange lights. I never could follow
+him quite in these excursions into the region of symbolism. I only
+recollect that he talked of the deluge and the waters of Mara, and said, 'I
+am washed--I am sprinkled,' and then, pausing, bathed his thin temples and
+forehead with eau de Cologne; a process which was, perhaps, suggested by
+his imagery of sprinkling and so forth.
+
+Thus refreshed, he sighed and smiled, and passed to the subject of Doctor
+Bryerly.
+
+'Of Doctor Bryerly, I know that he is sly, that he loves money, was born
+poor, and makes nothing by his profession. But he possesses many thousand
+pounds, under my poor brother's will, of _your money_; and he has glided
+with, of course a modest "nolo episcopari," into the acting trusteeship,
+with all its multitudinous opportunities, of your immense property. That
+is not doing so badly for a visionary Swedenborgian. Such a man _must_
+prosper. But if he expected to make money of me, he is disappointed.
+Money, however, he will make of his trusteeship, as you will see. It is a
+dangerous resolution. But if he will seek the life of Dives, the worst I
+wish him is to find the death of Lazarus. But whether, like Lazarus, he be
+borne of angels into Abraham's bosom, or, like the rich man, only dies
+and is buried, and _the rest_, neither living nor dying do I desire his
+company.'
+
+Uncle Silas here seemed suddenly overtaken by exhaustion. He leaned back
+with a ghastly look, and his lean features glistened with the dew of
+faintness. I screamed for Wyat. But he soon recovered sufficiently to smile
+his odd smile, and with it and his frown, nodded and waved me away.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVIII
+
+_QUESTION AND ANSWER_
+
+
+My uncle, after all, was not ill that day, after the strange fashion of his
+malady, be it what it might. Old Wyat repeated in her sour laconic way that
+there was 'nothing to speak of amiss with him.' But there remained with
+me a sense of pain and fear. Doctor Bryerly, notwithstanding my uncle's
+sarcastic reflections, remained, in my estimation, a true and wise friend.
+I had all my life been accustomed to rely upon others, and here, haunted by
+many unavowed and ill-defined alarms and doubts, the disappearance of an
+active and able friend caused my heart to sink.
+
+Still there remained my dear Cousin Monica, and my pleasant and trusted
+friend, Lord Ilbury; and in less than a week arrived an invitation from
+Lady Mary to the Grange, for me and Milly, to meet Lady Knollys. It
+was accompanied, she told me, by a note from Lord Ilbury to my uncle,
+supporting her request; and in the afternoon I received a message to attend
+my uncle in his room.
+
+'An invitation from Lady Mary Carysbroke for you and Milly to meet Monica
+Knollys; have you received it?' asked my uncle, so soon as I was seated.
+Answered in the affirmative, he continued--
+
+'Now, Maud Ruthyn, I expect the truth from you; I have been frank, so shall
+you. Have you ever heard me spoken ill of by Lady Knollys?'
+
+I was quite taken aback.
+
+I felt my cheeks flushing. I was returning his fierce cold gaze with a
+stupid stare, and remained dumb.
+
+'Yes, Maud, you _have_.'
+
+I looked down in silence.
+
+'I _know_ it; but it is right you should answer; have you or have you not?'
+
+I had to clear my voice twice or thrice. There was a kind of spasm in my
+throat.
+
+'I am trying to recollect,' I said at last.
+
+'_Do_ recollect,' he replied imperiously.
+
+There was a little interval of silence. I would have given the world to be,
+on any conditions, anywhere else in the world.
+
+'Surely, Maud, you don't wish to deceive your guardian? Come, the question
+is a plain one, and I know the truth already. I ask you again--have you
+ever heard me spoken ill of by Lady Knollys?'
+
+'Lady Knollys,' I said, half articulately,' speaks very freely, and often
+half in jest; but,' I continued, observing something menacing in his face,
+'I have heard her express disapprobation of some things you have done.'
+
+'Come, Maud,' he continued, in a stern, though still a low key, 'did she
+not insinuate that charge--then, I suppose, in a state of incubation,
+the other day presented here full-fledged, with beak and claws, by that
+scheming apothecary--the statement that I was defrauding you by cutting
+down timber upon the grounds?'
+
+'She certainly did mention the circumstance; but she also argued that it
+might have been through ignorance of the extent of your rights.'
+
+'Come, come, Maud, you must not prevaricate, girl. I _will_ have it. Does
+she not habitually speak disparagingly of me, in your presence, and _to_
+you? _Answer_.'
+
+I hung my head.
+
+'Yes or no?'
+
+'Well, perhaps so--yes,' I faltered, and burst into tears.
+
+'There, don't cry; it may well shock you. Did she not, to your knowledge,
+say the same things in presence of my child Millicent? I know it, I
+repeat--there is no use in hesitating; and I command you to answer.'
+
+Sobbing, I told the truth.
+
+'Now sit still, while I write my reply.'
+
+He wrote, with the scowl and smile so painful to witness, as he looked down
+upon the paper, and then he placed the note before me--
+
+'Read that, my dear.'
+
+It began--
+
+'MY DEAR LADY KNOLLYS.--You have favoured me with a note, adding your
+request to that of Lord Ilbury, that I should permit my ward and my
+daughter to avail themselves of Lady Mary's invitation. Being perfectly
+cognisant of the ill-feeling you have always and unaccountably cherished
+toward me, and also of the terms in which you have had the delicacy and the
+conscience to speak of me before and to my child and my ward, I can only
+express my amazement at the modesty of your request, while peremptorily
+refusing it. And I shall conscientiously adopt effectual measures to
+prevent your ever again having an opportunity of endeavouring to destroy my
+influence and authority over my ward and my child, by direct or insinuated
+slander.
+
+'Your defamed and injured kinsman,
+
+SILAS RUTHYN.'
+
+I was stunned; yet what could I plead against the blow that was to isolate
+me? I wept aloud, with my hands clasped, looking on the marble face of the
+old man.
+
+Without seeming to hear, he folded and sealed his note, and then proceeded
+to answer Lord Ilbury.
+
+When that note was written, he placed it likewise before me, and I read it
+also through. It simply referred him to Lady Knollys 'for an explanation
+of the unhappy circumstances which compelled him to decline an invitation
+which it would have made his niece and his daughter so happy to accept.'
+
+'You see, my dear Maud, how frank I am with you,' he said, waving the open
+note, which I had just read, slightly before he folded it. 'I think I may
+ask you to reciprocate my candour.'
+
+Dismissed from this interview, I ran to Milly, who burst into tears from
+sheer disappointment, so we wept and wailed together. But in my grief I
+think there was more reason.
+
+I sat down to the dismal task of writing to my dear Lady Knollys. I
+implored her to make her peace with my uncle. I told her how frank he had
+been with me, and how he had shown me his sad reply to her letter. I told
+her of the interview to which he had himself invited me with Dr. Bryerly;
+how little disturbed he was by the accusation--no sign of guilt; quite the
+contrary, perfect confidence. I implored of her to think the best, and
+remembering my isolation, to accomplish a reconciliation with Uncle Silas.
+'Only think,' I wrote, 'I only nineteen, and two years of solitude before
+me. What a separation!' No broken merchant ever signed the schedule of his
+bankruptcy with a heavier heart than did I this letter.
+
+The griefs of youth are like the wounds of the gods--there is an ichor
+which heals the scars from which it flows: and thus Milly and I consoled
+ourselves, and next day enjoyed our ramble, our talk and readings, with a
+wonderful resignation to the inevitable.
+
+Milly and I stood in the relation of _Lord Duberly_ to _Doctor Pangloss_. I
+was to mend her 'cackleology,' and the occupation amused us both. I think
+at the bottom of our submission to destiny lurked a hope that Uncle Silas,
+the inexorable, would relent, or that Cousin Monica, that siren, would win
+and melt him to her purpose.
+
+Whatever comfort, however, I derived from the absence of Dudley was not to
+be of very long duration; for one morning, as I was amusing myself alone,
+with a piece of worsted work, thinking, and just at that moment not
+unpleasantly, of many things, my cousin Dudley entered the room.
+
+'Back again, like a bad halfpenny, ye see. And how a' ye bin ever since,
+lass? Purely, I warrant, be your looks. I'm jolly glad to see ye, I am; no
+cattle going like ye, Maud.'
+
+'I think I must ask you to let go my hand, as I can't continue my work,' I
+said, very stiffly, hoping to chill his enthusiasm a little.
+
+'Anything to pleasure ye, Maud, 'tain't in my heart to refuse ye nout. I
+a'bin to Wolverhampton, lass--jolly row there--and run over to Leamington;
+a'most broke my neck, faith, wi' a borrowed horse arter the dogs; ye would
+na care, Maud, if I broke my neck, would ye? Well, 'appen, jest a little,'
+he good-naturedly supplied, as I was silent.
+
+'Little over a week since I left here, by George; and to me it's half the
+almanac like; can ye guess the reason, Maud?'
+
+'Have you seen your sister, Milly, or your father, since your return?' I
+asked coldly.
+
+'_They'll_ keep, Maud, never mind 'em; it be you I want to see--it be you
+I wor thinkin' on a' the time. I tell ye, lass, I'm all'ays a thinkin' on
+ye.'
+
+'I think you ought to go and see your father; you have been away, you say,
+some time. I don't think it is respectful,' I said, a little sharply.
+
+'If ye bid me go I'd a'most go, but I could na quite; there's nout on earth
+I would na do for you, Maud, excep' leaving you.'
+
+'And that,' I said, with a petulant flush, 'is the only thing on earth I
+would ask you to do.'
+
+'Blessed if you baint a blushin', Maud,' he drawled, with an odious grin.
+
+His stupidity was proof against everything.
+
+'It is _too_ bad!' I muttered, with an indignant little pat of my foot and
+mimic stamp.
+
+'Well, you lasses be queer cattle; ye're angry wi' me now, cos ye think
+I got into mischief--ye do, Maud; ye know't, ye buxsom little fool, down
+there at Wolverhampton; and jest for that ye're ready to turn me off again
+the minute I come back; 'tisn't fair.'
+
+'I don't _understand_ you, sir; and I _beg_ that you'll leave me.'
+
+'Now, didn't I tell ye about leavin' ye, Maud? 'tis the only thing I can't
+compass for yer sake. I'm jest a child in yere hands, I am, ye know. I can
+lick a big fellah to pot as limp as a rag, by George!'--(his oaths were not
+really so mild)--'ye see summat o' that t'other day. Well, don't be vexed,
+Maud; 'twas all along o' you; ye know, I wor a bit jealous, 'appen; but
+anyhow I can do it; and look at me here, jest a child, I say, in yer
+hands.'
+
+'I wish you'd go away. Have you nothing to do, and no one to see? Why
+_can't_ you leave me alone, sir?'
+
+''Cos I can't, Maud, that's jest why; and I wonder, Maud, how can you be so
+ill-natured, when you see me like this; how can ye?'
+
+'I wish Milly would come,' said I peevishly, looking toward the door.
+
+'Well, I'll tell you how it is, Maud. I may as well have it out. I like
+you better than any lass that ever I saw, a deal; you're nicer by chalks;
+there's none like ye--there isn't; and I wish you'd have me. I ha'n't much
+tin--father's run through a deal, he's pretty well up a tree, ye know; but
+though I baint so rich as some folk, I'm a better man, 'appen; and if ye'd
+take a tidy lad, that likes ye awful, and 'id die for your sake, why here
+he is.'
+
+'What can you mean, sir?' I exclaimed, rising in indignant bewilderment.
+
+'I mean, Maud, if ye'll marry me, you'll never ha' cause to complain; I'll
+never let ye want for nout, nor gi'e ye a wry word.'
+
+'Actually a proposal!' I ejaculated, like a person speaking in a dream.
+
+I stood with my hand on the back of a chair, staring at Dudley; and
+looking, I dare say, as stupefied as I felt.
+
+'There's a good lass, ye would na deny me,' said the odious creature,
+with one knee on the seat of the chair behind which I was standing, and
+attempting to place his arm lovingly round my neck.
+
+This effectually roused me, and starting back, I stamped upon the ground
+with actual fury.
+
+'What has there ever been, sir, in my conduct, words, or looks, to
+warrant this unparalleled audacity? But that you are as stupid as you are
+impertinent, brutal, and ugly, you must, long ago, sir, have seen how I
+dislike you. How dare you, sir? Don't presume to obstruct me; I'm going to
+my uncle.'
+
+I had never spoken so violently to mortal before.
+
+He in turn looked a little confounded; and I passed his extended but
+motionless arm with a quick and angry step.
+
+He followed me a pace or two, however, before I reached the door, looking
+horridly angry, but stopped, and only swore after me some of those 'wry
+words' which I was never to have heard. I was myself, however, too much
+incensed, and moving at too rapid a pace, to catch their import; and I had
+knocked at my uncle's door before I began to collect my thoughts.
+
+'Come in,' replied my uncle's voice, clear, thin, and peevish.
+
+I entered and confronted him.
+
+'Your son, sir, has insulted me.'
+
+He looked at me with a cold curiosity steadly for a few seconds, as I stood
+panting before him with flaming cheeks.
+
+'Insulted you?' repeated he. 'Egad, you surprise me!'
+
+The ejaculation savoured of 'the old man,' to borrow his scriptural phrase,
+more than anything I had heard from him before.
+
+'_How?_' he continued; 'how has Dudley _insulted_ you, my dear child? Come,
+you're excited; sit down; take time, and tell me all about it. I did not
+know that Dudley was here.'
+
+'I--he--it _is_ an insult. He knew very well--he _must_ know I dislike him;
+and he presumed to make a proposal of marriage to me.'
+
+'O--o--oh!' exclaimed my uncle, with a prolonged intonation which plainly
+said, Is that the mighty matter?
+
+He looked at me as he leaned back with the same steady curiosity, this time
+smiling, which somehow frightened me, and his countenance looked to me
+wicked, like the face of a witch, with a guilt I could not understand.
+
+'And that is the amount of your complaint. He made you a formal proposal of
+marriage!'
+
+'Yes; he proposed for me.'
+
+As I cooled, I began to feel just a very little disconcerted, and a
+suspicion was troubling me that possibly an indifferent person might think
+that, having no more to complain of, my language was perhaps a little
+exaggerated, and my demeanour a little too tempestuous.
+
+My uncle, I dare say, saw some symptoms of this misgiving, for, smiling
+still, he said--
+
+'My dear Maud, however just, you appear to me a little cruel; you don't
+seem to remember how much you are yourself to blame; you have one faithful
+friend at least, whom I advise your consulting--I mean your looking-glass.
+The foolish fellow is young, quite ignorant in the world's ways. He is in
+love--desperately enamoured.
+
+  Aimer c'est craindre, et craindre c'est souffrir.
+
+And suffering prompts to desperate remedies. We must not be too hard on a
+rough but romantic young fool, who talks according to his folly and his
+pain.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIX
+
+_AN APPARITION_
+
+
+'But, after all,' he suddenly resumed, as if a new thought had struck him,
+'is it quite such folly, after all? It really strikes me, dear Maud, that
+the subject may be worth a second thought. No, no, you won't refuse to hear
+me,' he said, observing me on the point of protesting. 'I am, of course,
+assuming that you are fancy free. I am assuming, too, that you don't care
+twopence about Dudley, and even that you fancy you dislike him. You know in
+that pleasant play, poor Sheridan--delightful fellow!--all our fine spirits
+are dead--he makes Mrs. Malaprop say there is nothing like beginning with a
+little aversion. Now, though in matrimony, of course, that is only a joke,
+yet in love, believe me, it is no such thing. His own marriage with Miss
+Ogle, I _know_, was a case in point. She expressed a positive horror of him
+at their first acquaintance; and yet, I believe, she would, a few months
+later, have died rather than not have married him.'
+
+I was again about to speak, but with a smile he beckoned me into silence.
+
+'There are two or three points you must bear in mind. One of the happiest
+privileges of your fortune is that you may, without imprudence, marry
+simply for love. There are few men in England who could offer you an estate
+comparable with that you already possess; or, in fact, appreciably increase
+the splendour of your fortune. If, therefore, he were in all other respects
+eligible, I can't see that his poverty would be an objection to weigh for
+one moment. He is quite a rough diamond. He has been, like many young men
+of the highest rank, too much given up to athletic sports--to that society
+which constitutes the aristocracy of the ring and the turf, and all that
+kind of thing. You see, I am putting all the worst points first. But I have
+known so many young men in my day, after a madcap career of a few years
+among prizefighters, wrestlers, and jockeys--learning their slang and
+affecting their manners--take up and cultivate the graces and the
+decencies. There was poor dear Newgate, many degrees lower in that kind of
+frolic, who, when he grew tired of it, became one of the most elegant and
+accomplished men in the House of Peers. Poor Newgate, he's gone, too! I
+could reckon up fifty of my early friends who all began like Dudley, and
+all turned out, more or less, like Newgate.'
+
+At this moment came a knock at the door, and Dudley put in his head most
+inopportunely for the vision of his future graces and accomplishments.
+
+'My good fellow,' said his father, with a sharp sort of playfulness, 'I
+happen to be talking about my son, and should rather not be overheard; you
+will, therefore, choose another time for your visit.'
+
+Dudley hesitated gruffly at the door, but another look from his father
+dismissed him.
+
+'And now, my dear, you are to remember that Dudley has fine qualities--the
+most affectionate son in his rough way that ever father was blessed with;
+most admirable qualities--indomitable courage, and a high sense of honour;
+and lastly, that he has the Ruthyn blood--the purest blood, I maintain it,
+in England.'
+
+My uncle, as he said this, drew himself up a little, unconsciously, his
+thin hand laid lightly over his heart with a little patting motion, and his
+countenance looked so strangely dignified and melancholy, that in admiring
+contemplation of it I lost some sentences which followed next.
+
+'Therefore, dear, naturally anxious that my boy should not be dismissed
+from home--as he must be, should you persevere in rejecting his suit--I beg
+that you will reserve your decision to this day fortnight, when I will with
+much pleasure hear what you may have to say on the subject. But till then,
+observe me, not a word.'
+
+That evening he and Dudley were closeted for a long time. I suspect that he
+lectured him on the psychology of ladies; for a bouquet was laid beside my
+plate every morning at breakfast, which it must have been troublesome to
+get, for the conservatory at Bartram was a desert. In a few days more an
+anonymous green parrot arrived, in a gilt cage, with a little note in a
+clerk's hand, addressed to 'Miss Ruthyn (of Knowl), Bartram-Haugh,' &c. It
+contained only 'Directions for caring green parrot,' at the close of which,
+_underlined_, the words appeared--'The bird's name is Maud.'
+
+The bouquets I invariably left on the table-cloth, where I found them--the
+bird I insisted on Milly's keeping as her property. During the intervening
+fortnight Dudley never appeared, as he used sometimes to do before, at
+luncheon, nor looked in at the window as we were at breakfast. He contented
+himself with one day placing himself in my way in the hall in his shooting
+accoutrements, and, with a clumsy, shuffling kind of respect, and hat in
+hand, he said--
+
+'I think, Miss, I must a spoke uncivil t'other day. I was so awful put
+about, and didn't know no more nor a child what I was saying; and I wanted
+to tell ye I'm sorry for it, and I beg your pardon--very humble, I do.'
+
+I did not know what to say. I therefore said nothing, but made a grave
+inclination, and passed on.
+
+Two or three times Milly and I saw him at a little distance in our walks.
+He never attempted to join us. Once only he passed so near that some
+recognition was inevitable, and he stopped and in silence lifted his hat
+with an awkward respect. But although he did not approach us, he was
+ostentatious with a kind of telegraphic civility in the distance. He opened
+gates, he whistled his dogs to 'heel,' he drove away cattle, and then
+himself withdrew. I really think he watched us occasionally to render these
+services, for in this distant way we encountered him decidedly oftener than
+we used to do before his flattering proposal of marriage.
+
+You may be sure that we discussed, Milly and I, that occurrence pretty
+constantly in all sorts of moods. Limited as had been her experience of
+human society, she very clearly saw _now_ how far below its presentable
+level was her hopeful brother.
+
+The fortnight sped swiftly, as time always does when something we dislike
+and shrink from awaits us at its close. I never saw Uncle Silas during that
+period. It may seem odd to those who merely read the report of our last
+interview, in which his manner had been more playful and his talk more
+trifling than in any other, that from it I had carried away a profounder
+sense of fear and insecurity than from any other. It was with a foreboding
+of evil and an awful dejection that on a very dark day, in Milly's room,
+I awaited the summons which I was sure would reach me from my punctual
+guardian.
+
+As I looked from the window upon the slanting rain and leaden sky, and
+thought of the hated interview that awaited me, I pressed my hand to my
+troubled heart, and murmured, 'O that I had wings like a dove! then would I
+flee away, and be at rest.'
+
+Just then the prattle of the parrot struck my ear. I looked round on the
+wire cage, and remembered the words, 'The bird's name is Maud.'
+
+'Poor bird!' I said. 'I dare say, Milly, it longs to get out. If it were a
+native of this country, would not you like to open the window, and then the
+door of that cruel cage, and let the poor thing fly away?'
+
+'Master wants Miss Maud,' said Wyat's disagreeable tones, at the half-open
+door.
+
+I followed in silence, with the pressure of a near alarm at my heart, like
+a person going to an operation.
+
+When I entered the room, my heart beat so fast that I could hardly speak.
+The tall form of Uncle Silas rose before me, and I made him a faltering
+reverence.
+
+He darted from under his brows a wild, fierce glance at old Wyat, and
+pointed to the door imperiously with his skeleton finger. The door shut,
+and we were alone.
+
+'A chair?' he said, pointing to a seat.
+
+'Thank you, uncle, I prefer standing,' I faltered.
+
+He also stood--his white head bowed forward, the phosphoric glare of his
+strange eyes shone upon me from under his brows--his finger-nails just
+rested on the table.
+
+'You saw the luggage corded and addressed, as it stands ready for removal
+in the hall?' he asked.
+
+I had. Milly and I had read the cards which dangled from the trunk-handles
+and gun-case. The address was--'Mr. Dudley R. Ruthyn, Paris, _via_ Dover.'
+
+'I am old--agitated--on the eve of a decision on which much depends. Pray
+relieve my suspense. Is my son to leave Bartram to-day in sorrow, or to
+remain in joy? Pray answer quickly.'
+
+I stammered I know not what. I was incoherent--wild, perhaps; but somehow
+I expressed my meaning--my unalterable decision. I thought his lips grew
+whiter and his eyes shone brighter as I spoke.
+
+When I had quite made an end, he heaved a great sigh, and turning his eyes
+slowly to the right and the left, like a man in a helpless distraction, he
+whispered--
+
+'God's will be done.'
+
+I thought he was upon the point of fainting--a clay tint darkened the white
+of his face; and, seeming to forget my presence, he sat down, looking with
+a despairing scowl on his ashy old hand, as it lay upon the table.
+
+I stood gazing at him, feeling almost as if I had murdered the old man--he
+still gazing askance, with an imbecile scowl, upon his hand.
+
+'Shall I go, sir?' I at length found courage to whisper.
+
+'_Go?_' he said, looking up suddenly; and it seemed to me as if a stream of
+cold sheet-lightning had crossed and enveloped me for a moment.
+
+'Go?--oh!--a--yes--_yes_, Maud--go. I must see poor Dudley before his
+departure,' he added, as it were, in soliloquy.
+
+Trembling lest he should revoke his permission to depart, I glided quickly
+and noiselessly from the room.
+
+Old Wyat was prowling outside, with a cloth in her hand, pretending to dust
+the carved door-case. She frowned a stare of enquiry over her shrunken arm
+on me, as I passed. Milly, who had been on the watch, ran and met me. We
+heard my uncle's voice, as I shut the door, calling Dudley. He had been
+waiting, probably, in the adjoining room. I hurried into my chamber, with
+Milly at my side, and there my agitation found relief in tears, as that of
+girlhood naturally does.
+
+A little while after we saw from the window Dudley, looking, I thought,
+very pale, get into a vehicle, on the top of which his luggage lay, and
+drive away from Bartram.
+
+I began to take comfort. His departure was an inexpressible relief. His
+final departure! a distant journey!
+
+We had tea in Milly's room that night. Firelight and candles are inspiring.
+In that red glow I always felt and feel more safe, as well as more
+comfortable, than in the daylight--quite irrationally, for we know the
+night is the appointed day of such as love the darkness better than light,
+and evil walks thereby. But so it is. Perhaps the very consciousness of
+external danger enhances the enjoyment of the well-lighted interior, just
+as the storm does that roars and hurtles over the roof.
+
+While Milly and I were talking, very cosily, a knock came to the room-door,
+and, without waiting for an invitation to enter, old Wyat came in, and
+glowering at us, with her brown claw upon the door-handle, she said to
+Milly--
+
+'Ye must leave your funnin', Miss Milly, and take your turn in your
+father's room.'
+
+'Is he ill?' I asked.
+
+She answered, addressing not me, but Milly--
+
+'A wrought two hours in a fit arter Master Dudley went. 'Twill be the death
+o' him, I'm thinkin', poor old fellah. I wor sorry myself when I saw Master
+Dudley a going off in the moist to-day, poor fellah. There's trouble enough
+in the family without a' that; but 'twon't be a family long, I'm thinkin'.
+Nout but trouble, nout but trouble, since late changes came.'
+
+Judging by the sour glance she threw on me as she said this, I concluded
+that I represented those 'late changes' to which all the sorrows of the
+house were referred.
+
+I felt unhappy under the ill-will even of this odious old woman, being one
+of those unhappily constructed mortals who cannot be indifferent when
+they reasonably ought, and always yearn after kindness, even that of the
+worthless.
+
+'I must go. I wish you'd come wi' me, Maud, I'm so afraid all alone,' said
+Milly, imploringly.
+
+'Certainly, Milly,' I answered, not liking it, you may be sure; 'you shan't
+sit there alone.'
+
+So together we went, old Wyat cautioning us for our lives to make no noise.
+
+We passed through the old man's sitting-room, where that day had occurred
+his brief but momentous interview with me, and his parting with his only
+son, and entered the bed-room at the farther end.
+
+A low fire burned in the grate. The room was in a sort of twilight. A
+dim lamp near the foot of the bed at the farther side was the only light
+burning there. Old Wyat whispered an injunction not to speak above our
+breaths, nor to leave the fireside unless the sick man called or showed
+signs of weariness. These were the directions of the doctor, who had been
+there.
+
+So Milly and I sat ourselves down near the hearth, and old Wyat left us to
+our resources. We could hear the patient breathe; but he was quite still.
+In whispers we talked; but our conversation flagged. I was, after my wont,
+upbraiding myself for the suffering I had inflicted. After about half an
+hour's desultory whispering, and intervals, growing longer and longer, of
+silence, it was plain that Milly was falling asleep.
+
+She strove against it, and I tried hard to keep her talking; but it would
+not do--sleep overcame her; and I was the only person in that ghastly room
+in a state of perfect consciousness.
+
+There were associations connected with my last vigil there to make my
+situation very nervous and disagreeable. Had I not had so much to occupy my
+mind of a distinctly practical kind--Dudley's audacious suit, my uncle's
+questionable toleration of it, and my own conduct throughout that most
+disagreeable period of my existence,--I should have felt my present
+situation a great deal more.
+
+As it was, I thought of my real troubles, and something of Cousin Knollys,
+and, I confess, a good deal of Lord Ilbury. When looking towards the door,
+I thought I saw a human face, about the most terrible my fancy could have
+called up, looking fixedly into the room. It was only a 'three-quarter,'
+and not the whole figure--the door hid that in a great measure, and I
+fancied I saw, too, a portion of the fingers. The face gazed toward the
+bed, and in the imperfect light looked like a livid mask, with chalky eyes.
+
+I had so often been startled by similar apparitions formed by accidental
+lights and shadows disguising homely objects, that I stooped forward,
+expecting, though tremulously, to see this tremendous one in like manner
+dissolve itself into its harmless elements; and now, to my unspeakable
+terror, I became perfectly certain that I saw the countenance of Madame de
+la Rougierre.
+
+With a cry, I started back, and shook Milly furiously from her trance.
+
+'Look! look!' I cried. But the apparition or illusion was gone.
+
+I clung so fast to Milly's arm, cowering behind her, that she could not
+rise.
+
+'Milly! Milly! Milly! Milly!' I went on crying, like one struck with
+idiotcy, and unable to say anything else.
+
+In a panic, Milly, who had seen nothing, and could conjecture nothing of
+the cause of my terror, jumped up, and clinging to one another, we huddled
+together into the corner of the room, I still crying wildly, 'Milly! Milly!
+_Milly_!' and nothing else.
+
+'What is it--where is it--what do you see?' cried Milly, clinging to me as
+I did to her.
+
+'It will come again; it will come; oh, heaven!'
+
+'What--what is it, Maud?'
+
+'The face! the face!' I cried. 'Oh, Milly! Milly! Milly!'
+
+We heard a step softly approaching the open door, and, in a horrible _sauve
+qui peut_, we rushed and stumbled together toward the light by Uncle
+Silas's bed. But old Wyat's voice and figure reassured us.
+
+'Milly,' I said, so soon as, pale and very faint, I reached my apartment,
+'no power on earth shall ever tempt me to enter that room again after
+dark.'
+
+'Why, Maud dear, what, in Heaven's name, did you see?' said Milly, scarcely
+less terrified.
+
+'Oh, I can't; I can't; I can't, Milly. Never ask me. It is haunted. The
+room is haunted _horribly_.'
+
+'Was it Charke?' whispered Milly, looking over her shoulder, all aghast.
+
+'No, no--don't ask me; a fiend in a worse shape.' I was relieved at last by
+a long fit of weeping; and all night good Mary Quince sat by me, and Milly
+slept by my side. Starting and screaming, and drugged with sal-volatile, I
+got through that night of supernatural terror, and saw the blessed light of
+heaven again.
+
+Doctor Jolks, when he came to see my uncle in the morning, visited me also.
+He pronounced me very hysterical, made minute enquiries respecting my hours
+and diet, asked what I had had for dinner yesterday. There was something
+a little comforting in his cool and confident pooh-poohing of the ghost
+theory. The result was, a regimen which excluded tea, and imposed chocolate
+and porter, earlier hours, and I forget all beside; and he undertook to
+promise that, if I would but observe his directions, I should never see a
+ghost again.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER L
+
+_MILLY'S FAREWELL_
+
+
+A few days' time saw me much better. Doctor Jolks was so contemptuously
+sturdy and positive on the point, that I began to have comfortable doubts
+about the reality of my ghost; and having still a horror indescribable
+of the illusion, if such it were, the room in which it appeared, and
+everything concerning it, I would neither speak, nor, so far as I could,
+think of it.
+
+So, though Bartram-Haugh was gloomy as well as beautiful, and some of its
+associations awful, and the solitude that reigned there sometimes almost
+terrible, yet early hours, bracing exercise, and the fine air that
+predominates that region, soon restored my nerves to a healthier tone.
+
+But it seemed to me that Bartram-Haugh was to be to me a vale of tears; or
+rather, in my sad pilgrimage, that valley of the shadow of death through
+which poor Christian fared alone and in the dark.
+
+One day Milly ran into the parlour, pale, with wet cheeks, and, without
+saying a word, threw her arms about my neck, and burst into a paroxysm of
+weeping.
+
+'What is it, Milly--what's the matter, dear--what is it?' I cried aghast,
+but returning her close embrace heartily.
+
+'Oh! Maud--Maud darling, he's going to send me away.'
+
+'Away, dear! _where_ away? And leave me alone in this dreadful solitude,
+where he knows I shall die of fear and grief without you? Oh! no--no, it
+_must_ be a mistake.'
+
+'I'm going to France, Maud--I'm going away. Mrs. Jolks is going to London,
+day ar'ter to-morrow, and I'm to go wi' her; and an old French lady, he
+says, from the school will meet me there, and bring me the rest o' the
+way.'
+
+'Oh--ho--ho--ho--ho--o--o--o!' cried poor Milly, hugging me closer still,
+with her head buried in my shoulder, and swaying me about like a wrestler,
+in her agony.
+
+'I never wor away from home afore, except that little bit wi' you over
+there at Elverston; and you wor wi' me then, Maud; an' I love ye--better
+than Bartram--better than a'; an' I think I'll die, Maud, if they take me
+away.'
+
+I was just as wild in my woe as poor Milly; and it was not until we had
+wept together for a full hour--sometimes standing--sometimes walking up and
+down the room--sometimes sitting and getting up in turns to fall on one
+another's necks,--that Milly, plucking her handkerchief from her pocket,
+drew a note from it at the same time, which, as it fell upon the floor, she
+at once recollected to be one from Uncle Silas to me.
+
+It was to this effect:--
+
+'I wish to apprise my dear niece and ward of my plans. Milly proceeds to
+an admirable French school, as a pensionnaire, and leaves this on Thursday
+next. If after three months' trial she finds it in any way objectionable,
+she returns to us. If, on the contrary, she finds it in all respects the
+charming residence it has been presented to me, you, on the expiration of
+that period, join her there, until the temporary complication of my affairs
+shall have been so far adjusted as to enable me to receive you once more
+at Bartram. Hoping for happier days, and wishing to assure you that three
+months is the extreme limit of your separation from my poor Milly, I have
+written this, feeling alas! unequal to seeing you at present. 'Bartram,
+Tuesday.
+
+'P.S.--I can have no objection to your apprising Monica Knollys of these
+arrangements. You will understand, of course, not a copy of this letter,
+but its substance.'
+
+Over this document, scanning it as lawyers do a new Act of Parliament, we
+took comfort. After all, it was limited; a separation not to exceed three
+months, possibly much shorter. On the whole, too, I pleased myself with
+thinking Uncle Silas's note, though peremptory, was kind.
+
+Our paroxysms subsided into sadness; a close correspondence was arranged.
+Something of the bustle and excitement of change supervened. If it turned
+out to be, in truth, a 'charming residence,' how very delightful our
+meeting in France, with the interest of foreign scenery, ways, and faces,
+would be!
+
+So Thursday arrived--a new gush of sorrow--a new brightening up--and, amid
+regrets and anticipations, we parted at the gate at the farther end of the
+Windmill Wood. Then, of course, were more good-byes, more embraces, and
+tearful smiles. Good Mrs. Jolks, who met us there, was in a huge fuss; I
+believe it was her first visit to the metropolis, and she was in proportion
+heated and important, and terrified about the train, so we had not many
+last words.
+
+I watched poor Milly, whose head was stretched from the window, her hand
+waving many adieux, until the curve of the road, and the clump of old
+ash-trees, thick with ivy, hid Milly, carriage and all, from view. My eyes
+filled again with tears. I turned towards Bartram. At my side stood honest
+Mary Quince.
+
+'Don't take on so, Miss; 'twon't be no time passing; three months is
+nothing at all,' she said, smiling kindly.
+
+I smiled through my tears and kissed the good creature, and so side by side
+we re-entered the gate.
+
+The lithe young man in fustian, whom I had seen talking with Beauty on the
+morning of our first encounter with that youthful Amazon, was awaiting our
+re-entrance with the key in his hand. He stood half behind the open wicket.
+One lean brown cheek, one shy eye, and his sharp up-turned nose, I saw as
+we passed. He was treating me to a stealthy scrutiny, and seemed to shun my
+glance, for he shut the door quickly, and busied himself locking it, and
+then began stubbing up some thistles which grew close by, with the toe of
+his thick shoe, his back to us all the time.
+
+It struck me that I recognised his features, and I asked Mary Quince.
+
+'Have you seen that young man before, Quince?'
+
+'He brings up game for your uncle, sometimes, Miss, and lends a hand in the
+garden, I believe.'
+
+'Do you know his name, Mary?'
+
+'They call him Tom, I don't know what more, Miss.'
+
+'Tom,' I called; 'please, Tom, come here for a moment.'
+
+Tom turned about, and approached slowly. He was more civil than the Bartram
+people usually were, for he plucked off his shapeless cap of rabbit-skin
+with a clownish respect.
+
+'Tom, what is your other name,--Tom _what_, my good man?' I asked.
+
+'Tom Brice, ma'am.'
+
+'Haven't I seen you before, Tom Brice?' I pursued, for my curiosity was
+excited, and with it much graver feelings; for there certainly _was_ a
+resemblance in Tom's features to those of the postilion who had looked so
+hard at me as I passed the carriage in the warren at Knowl, on the evening
+of the outrage which had scared that quiet place.
+
+''Appen you may have, ma'am,' he answered, quite coolly, looking down the
+buttons of his gaiters.
+
+'Are you a good whip--do you drive well?'
+
+'I'll drive a plough wi' most lads hereabout,' answered Tom.
+
+'Have you ever been to Knowl, Tom?'
+
+Tom gaped very innocently.
+
+'Anan,' he said.
+
+'Here, Tom, is half-a-crown.'
+
+He took it readily enough.
+
+'That be very good,' said Tom, with a nod, having glanced sharply at the
+coin.
+
+I can't say whether he applied that term to the coin, or to his luck, or to
+my generous self.
+
+'Now, Tom, you'll tell me, have you ever been to Knowl?'
+
+'Maught a' bin, ma'am, but I don't mind no sich place--no.'
+
+As Tom spoke this with great deliberation, like a man who loves truth,
+putting a strain upon his memory for its sake, he spun the silver coin two
+or three times into the air and caught it, staring at it the while, with
+all his might.
+
+'Now, Tom, recollect yourself, and tell me the truth, and I'll be a friend
+to you. Did you ride postilion to a carriage having a lady in it, and, I
+think, several gentlemen, which came to the grounds of Knowl, when the
+party had their luncheon on the grass, and there was a--a quarrel with the
+gamekeepers? Try, Tom, to recollect; you shall, upon my honour, have no
+trouble about it, and I'll try to serve you.'
+
+Tom was silent, while with a vacant gape he watched the spin of his
+half-crown twice, and then catching it with a smack in his hand, which he
+thrust into his pocket, he said, still looking in the same direction--
+
+'I never rid postilion in my days, ma'am. I know nout o' sich a place,
+though 'appen I maught a' bin there; Knowl, ye ca't. I was ne'er out o'
+Derbyshire but thrice to Warwick fair wi' horses be rail, an' twice to
+York.'
+
+'You're certain, Tom?'
+
+'Sartin sure, ma'am.'
+
+And Tom made another loutish salute, and cut the conference short by
+turning off the path and beginning to hollo after some trespassing cattle.
+
+I had not felt anything like so nearly sure in this essay at identification
+as I had in that of Dudley. Even of Dudley's identity with the Church
+Scarsdale man, I had daily grown less confident; and, indeed, had it been
+proposed to bring it to the test of a wager, I do not think I should,
+in the language of sporting gentlemen, have cared to 'back' my original
+opinion. There was, however, a sufficient uncertainty to make me
+uncomfortable; and there was another uncertainty to enhance the unpleasant
+sense of ambiguity.
+
+On our way back we passed the bleaching trunks and limbs of several ranks
+of barkless oaks lying side by side, some squared by the hatchet, perhaps
+sold, for there were large letters and Roman numerals traced upon them in
+red chalk. I sighed as I passed them by, not because it was wrongfully
+done, for I really rather leaned to the belief that Uncle Silas was well
+advised in point of law. But, alas! here lay low the grand old family
+decorations of Bartram-Haugh, not to be replaced for centuries to come,
+under whose spreading boughs the Ruthyns of three hundred years ago had
+hawked and hunted!
+
+On the trunk of one of these I sat down to rest, Mary Quince meanwhile
+pattering about in unmeaning explorations. While thus listlessly seated,
+the girl Meg Hawkes, walked by, carrying a basket.
+
+'Hish!' she said quickly, as she passed, without altering a pace or raising
+her eyes; 'don't ye speak nor look--fayther spies us; I'll tell ye next
+turn.'
+
+'Next turn'--when was that? Well, she might be returning; and as she could
+not then say more than she had said, in merely passing without a pause, I
+concluded to wait for a short time and see what would come of it.
+
+After a short time I looked about me a little, and I saw Dickon
+Hawkes--Pegtop, as poor Milly used to call him--with an axe in his hand,
+prowling luridly among the timber.
+
+Observing that I saw him, he touched his hat sulkily, and by-and-by passed
+me, muttering to himself. He plainly could not understand what business I
+could have in that particular part of the Windmill Wood, and let me see it
+in his countenance.
+
+His daughter did pass me again; but this time he was near, and she was
+silent. Her next transit occurred as he was questioning Mary Quince at some
+little distance; and as she passed precisely in the same way, she said--
+
+'Don't you be alone wi' Master Dudley nowhere for the world's worth.'
+
+The injunction was so startling that I was on the point of questioning the
+girl. But I recollected myself, and waited in the hope that in her future
+transits she might be more explicit. But one word more she did not utter,
+and the jealous eye of old Pegtop was so constantly upon us that I
+refrained.
+
+There was vagueness and suggestion enough in the oracle to supply work for
+many an hour of anxious conjecture, and many a horrible vigil by night. Was
+I never to know peace at Bartram-Haugh?
+
+Ten days of poor Milly's absence, and of my solitude, had already passed,
+when my uncle sent for me to his room.
+
+When old Wyat stood at the door, mumbling and snarling her message, my
+heart died within me.
+
+It was late--just that hour when dejected people feel their anxieties
+most--when the cold grey of twilight has deepened to its darkest shade, and
+before the cheerful candles are lighted, and the safe quiet of the night
+sets in.
+
+When I entered my uncle's sitting-room--though his window-shutters were
+open and the wan streaks of sunset visible through them, like narrow lakes
+in the chasms of the dark western clouds--a pair of candles were burning;
+one stood upon the table by his desk, the other on the chimneypiece, before
+which his tall, thin figure stooped. His hand leaned on the mantelpiece,
+and the light from the candle just above his bowed head touched his silvery
+hair. He was looking, as it seemed, into the subsiding embers of the fire,
+and was a very statue of forsaken dejection and decay.
+
+'Uncle!' I ventured to say, having stood for some time unperceived near his
+table.
+
+'Ah, yes, Maud, my dear child--my _dear_ child.'
+
+He turned, and with the candle in his hand, smiling his silvery smile of
+suffering on me. He walked more feebly and stiffly, I thought, than I had
+ever seen him move before.
+
+'Sit down, Maud--pray sit there.'
+
+I took the chair he indicated.
+
+'In my misery and my solitude, Maud, I have invoked you like a spirit, and
+you appear.'
+
+With his two hands leaning on the table, he looked across at me, in a
+stooping attitude; he had not seated himself. I continued silent until it
+should be his pleasure to question or address me.
+
+At last he said, raising himself and looking upward, with a wild
+adoration--his finger-tips elevated and glimmering in the faint mixed
+light--
+
+'No, I thank my Creator, I am not quite forsaken.'
+
+Another silence, during which he looked steadfastly at me, and muttered, as
+if thinking aloud--
+
+'My guardian angel!--my guardian angel! Maud, _you_ have a heart.' He
+addressed me suddenly--'Listen, for a few moments, to the appeal of an old
+and broken-hearted man--your guardian--your uncle--your _suppliant_. I had
+resolved never to speak to you more on this subject. But I was wrong. It
+was pride that inspired me--mere pride.'
+
+I felt myself growing pale and flushed by turns during the pause that
+followed.
+
+'I'm very miserable--very nearly desperate. What remains for me--what
+remains? Fortune has done her worst--thrown in the dust, her wheels rolled
+over me; and the servile world, who follow her chariot like a mob, stamp
+upon the mangled wretch. All this had passed over me, and left me scarred
+and bloodless in this solitude. It was not my fault, Maud--I say it was no
+fault of mine; I have no remorse, though more regrets than I can count,
+and all scored with fire. As people passed by Bartram, and looked upon its
+neglected grounds and smokeless chimneys, they thought my plight, I dare
+say, about the worst a proud man could be reduced to. They could not
+imagine one half its misery. But this old hectic--this old epileptic--this
+old spectre of wrongs, calamities, and follies, had still one hope--my
+manly though untutored son--the last male scion of the Ruthyns. Maud, have
+I lost him? His fate--my fate--I may say _Milly's fate_;--we all await your
+sentence. He loves you, as none but the very young can love, and that once
+only in a life. He loves you desperately--a most affectionate nature--a
+Ruthyn, the best blood in England--the last man of the race; and I--if I
+lose him I lose all; and you will see me in my coffin, Maud, before many
+months. I stand before you in the attitude of a suppliant--shall I kneel?'
+
+His eyes were fixed on me with the light of despair, his knotted hands
+clasped, his whole figure bowed toward me. I was inexpressibly shocked and
+pained.
+
+'Oh, uncle! uncle!' I cried, and from very excitement I burst into tears.
+
+I saw that his eyes were fixed on me with a dismal scrutiny. I think he
+divined the nature of my agitation; but he determined, notwithstanding, to
+press me while my helpless agitation continued.
+
+'You see my suspense--you see my miserable and frightful suspense. You are
+kind, Maud; you love your father's memory; your pity your father's brother;
+you would not say no, and place a pistol at his head?'
+
+'Oh! I must--I must--I _must_ say no. Oh! spare me, uncle, for Heaven's
+sake. Don't question me--don't press me. I could not--I _could_ not do what
+you ask.'
+
+'I yield, Maud--I yield, my dear. I will _not_ press you; you shall have
+time, your _own_ time, to think. I will accept no answer now--no, _none_,
+Maud.'
+
+He said this, raising his thin hand to silence me.
+
+'There, Maud, enough. I have spoken, as I always do to you, frankly,
+perhaps too frankly; but agony and despair will speak out, and plead, even
+with the most obdurate and cruel.'
+
+With these words Uncle Silas entered his bed-chamber, and shut the door,
+not violently, but with a resolute hand, and I thought I heard a cry.
+
+I hastened to my own room. I threw myself on my knees, and thanked Heaven
+for the firmness vouchsafed me; I could not believe it to have been my own.
+
+I was more miserable in consequence of this renewed suit on behalf of
+my odious cousin than I can describe. My uncle had taken such a line of
+importunity that it became a sort of agony to resist. I thought of the
+possibility of my hearing of his having made away with himself, and was
+every morning relieved when I heard that he was still as usual. I have
+often wondered since at my own firmness. In that dreadful interview with my
+uncle I had felt, in the whirl and horror of my mind, on the very point
+of submitting, just as nervous people are said to throw themselves over
+precipices through sheer dread of falling.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LI
+
+_SARAH MATILDA COMES TO LIGHT_
+
+
+Some time after this interview, one day as I sat, sad enough, in my room,
+looking listlessly from the window, with good Mary Quince, whom, whether
+in the house or in my melancholy rambles, I always had by my side, I
+was startled by the sound of a loud and shrill female voice, in violent
+hysterical action, gabbling with great rapidity, sobbing, and very nearly
+screaming in a sort of fury.
+
+I started up, staring at the door.
+
+'Lord bless us!' cried honest Mary Quince, with round eyes and mouth agape,
+staring in the same direction.
+
+'Mary--Mary, what can it be?'
+
+'Are they beating some one down yonder? I don't know where it comes from,'
+gasped Quince.
+
+'I will--I will--I'll see her. It's her I want.
+Oo--hoo--hoo--hoo--oo--o--Miss Maud Ruthyn of Knowl. Miss Ruthyn of Knowl.
+Hoo--hoo--hoo--hoo--oo!'
+
+'What on earth can it be?' I exclaimed, in great bewilderment and terror.
+
+It was now plainly very near indeed, and I heard the voice of our mild and
+shaky butler evidently remonstrating with the distressed damsel.
+
+'I'll see her,' she continued, pouring a torrent of vile abuse upon me,
+which stung me with a sudden sense of anger. What had I done to be afraid
+of anyone? How dared anyone in my uncle's house--in _my_ house--mix my name
+up with her detestable scurrilities?
+
+'For Heaven's sake, Miss, don't ye go out,' cried poor Quince; 'it's some
+drunken creature.'
+
+But I was very angry, and, like a fool as I was, I threw open the door,
+exclaiming in a loud and haughty key--
+
+'Here is Miss Ruthyn of Knowl. Who wants to see her?'
+
+A pink and white young lady, with black tresses, violent, weeping, shrill,
+voluble, was flouncing up the last stair, and shook her dress out on the
+lobby; and poor old Giblets, as Milly used to call him, was following in
+her wake, with many small remonstrances and entreaties, perfectly unheeded.
+
+The moment I looked at this person, it struck me that she was the identical
+lady whom I had seen in the carriage at Knowl Warren. The next moment I was
+in doubt; the next, still more so. She was decidedly thinner, and dressed
+by no means in such lady-like taste. Perhaps she was hardly like her at
+all. I began to distrust all these resemblances, and to fancy, with a
+shudder, that they originated, perhaps, only in my own sick brain.
+
+On seeing me, this young lady--as it seemed to me, a good deal of the
+barmaid or lady's-maid species--dried her eyes fiercely, and, with a
+flaming countenance, called upon me peremptorily to produce her 'lawful
+husband.' Her loud, insolent, outrageous attack had the effect of enhancing
+my indignation, and I quite forget what I said to her, but I well remember
+that her manner became a good deal more decent. She was plainly under the
+impression that I wanted to appropriate her husband, or, at least, that he
+wanted to marry me; and she ran on at such a pace, and her harangue was so
+passionate, incoherent, and unintelligible, that I thought her out of her
+mind: she was far from it, however. I think if she had allowed me even
+a second for reflection, I should have hit upon her meaning. As it was,
+nothing could exceed my perplexity, until, plucking a soiled newspaper from
+her pocket, she indicated a particular paragraph, already sufficiently
+emphasised by double lines of red ink at its sides. It was a Lancashire
+paper, of about six weeks since, and very much worn and soiled for its age.
+I remember in particular a circular stain from the bottom of a vessel,
+either of coffee or brown stout. The paragraph was as follows, recording an
+event a year or more anterior to the date of the paper:--
+
+'MARRIAGE.--On Tuesday, August 7, 18--, at Leatherwig Church, by the Rev.
+Arthur Hughes, Dudley R. Ruthyn, Esq., only son and heir of Silas Ruthyn,
+Esq., of Bartram-Haugh, Derbyshire, to Sarah Matilda, second daughter of
+John Mangles, Esq., of Wiggan, in this county.'
+
+At first I read nothing but amazement in this announcement, but in another
+moment I felt how completely I was relieved; and showing, I believe, my
+intense satisfaction in my countenance--for the young lady eyed me with
+considerable surprise and curiosity--I said--
+
+'This is extremely important. You must see Mr. Silas Ruthyn this moment. I
+am certain he knows nothing of it. I will conduct you to him.'
+
+'No more he does--I know that myself,' she replied, following me with a
+self-asserting swagger, and a great rustling of cheap silk.
+
+As we entered, Uncle Silas looked up from his sofa, and closed his _Revue
+des Deux Mondes_.
+
+'What is all this?' he enquired, drily.
+
+'This lady has brought with her a newspaper containing an extraordinary
+statement which affects our family,' I answered.
+
+Uncle Silas raised himself, and looked with a hard, narrow scrutiny at the
+unknown young lady.
+
+'A libel, I suppose, in the paper?' he said, extending his hand for it.
+
+'No, uncle--no; only a marriage,' I answered.
+
+'Not Monica?' he said, as he took it. 'Pah, it smells all over of tobacco
+and beer,' he added, throwing a little eau de Cologne over it.
+
+He raised it with a mixture of curiosity and disgust, saying again 'pah,'
+as he did so.
+
+He read the paragraph, and as he did his face changed from white, all over,
+to lead colour. He raised his eyes, and looked steadily for some seconds at
+the young lady, who seemed a little awed by his strange presence.
+
+'And you are, I suppose, the young lady, Sarah Matilda _nee_ Mangles,
+mentioned in this little paragraph?' he said, in a tone you would have
+called a sneer, were it not that it trembled.
+
+Sarah Matilda assented.
+
+'My son is, I dare say, within reach. It so happens that I wrote to arrest
+his journey, and summon him here, some days since--some days since--some
+days since,' he repeated slowly, like a person whose mind has wandered far
+away from the theme on which he is speaking.
+
+He had rung his bell, and old Wyat, always hovering about his rooms,
+entered.
+
+'I want my son, immediately. If not in the house, send Harry to the
+stables; if not there, let him be followed, instantly. Brice is an active
+fellow, and will know where to find him. If he is in Feltram, or at a
+distance, let Brice take a horse, and Master Dudley can ride it back. He
+must be here without the loss of one moment.'
+
+There intervened nearly a quarter of an hour, during which whenever he
+recollected her, Uncle Silas treated the young lady with a hyper-refined
+and ceremonious politeness, which appeared to make her uneasy, and even a
+little shy, and certainly prevented a renewal of those lamentations and
+invectives which he had heard faintly from the stair-head.
+
+But for the most part Uncle Silas seemed to forget us and his book, and all
+that surrounded him, lying back in the corner of his sofa, his chin upon
+his breast, and such a fearful shade and carving on his features as made me
+prefer looking in any direction but his.
+
+At length we heard the tread of Dudley's thick boots on the oak boards,
+and faint and muffled the sound of his voice as he cross-examined old Wyat
+before entering the chamber of audience.
+
+I think he suspected quite another visitor, and had no expectation of
+seeing the particular young lady, who rose from her chair as he entered, in
+an opportune flood of tears, crying--
+
+'Oh, Dudley, Dudley!--oh, Dudley, could you? Oh, Dudley, your own poor Sal!
+You could not--you would not--your lawful wife!'
+
+This and a good deal more, with cheeks that streamed like a window-pane in
+a thunder-shower, spoke Sarah Matilda with all her oratory, working his
+arm, which she clung to, up and down all the time, like the handle of a
+pump. But Dudley was, manifestly, confounded and dumbfoundered. He stood
+for a long time gaping at his father, and stole just one sheepish glance
+at me; and, with red face and forehead, looked down at his boots, and then
+again at his father, who remained just in the attitude I have described,
+and with the same forbidding and dreary intensity in his strange face.
+
+Like a quarrelsome man worried in his sleep by a noise, Dudley suddenly
+woke up, as it were, with a start, in a half-suppressed exasperation,
+and shook her off with a jerk and a muttered curse, as she whisked
+involuntarily into a chair, with more violence than could have been
+pleasant.
+
+'Judging by your looks and demeanour, sir, I can almost anticipate your
+answers,' said my uncle, addressing him suddenly. 'Will you be good
+enough--pray, madame (parenthetically to our visitor), command yourself for
+a few moments. Is this young person the daughter of a Mr. Mangles, and is
+her name Sarah Matilda?'
+
+'I dessay,' answered Dudley, hurriedly.
+
+'Is she your wife?'
+
+'Is she my wife?' repeated Dudley, ill at ease.
+
+'Yes, sir; it is a plain question.'
+
+All this time Sarah Matilda was perpetually breaking into talk, and with
+difficulty silenced by my uncle.
+
+'Well, 'appen she says I am--does she?' replied Dudley.
+
+'Is she your wife, sir?'
+
+'Mayhap she so considers it, after a fashion,' he replied, with an impudent
+swagger, seating himself as he did so.
+
+'What do _you_ think, sir?' persisted Uncle Silas.
+
+'I don't think nout about it,' replied Dudley, surlily.
+
+'Is that account true?' said my uncle, handing him the paper.
+
+'They wishes us to believe so, at any rate.'
+
+'Answer directly, sir. We have our thoughts upon it. If it be true, it is
+capable of _every_ proof. For expedition's sake I ask you. There is no use
+in prevaricating.'
+
+'Who wants to deny it? It _is_ true--there!'
+
+'_There!_ I knew he would,' screamed the young woman, hysterically, with a
+laugh of strange joy.
+
+'Shut up, will ye?' growled Dudley, savagely.
+
+'Oh, Dudley, Dudley, darling! what have I done?'
+
+'Bin and ruined me, jest--that's all.'
+
+'Oh! no, no, no, Dudley. Ye know I wouldn't. I could not--_could_ not hurt
+ye, Dudley. No, no, no!'
+
+He grinned at her, and, with a sharp side-nod, said--
+
+'Wait a bit.'
+
+'Oh, Dudley, don't be vexed, dear. I did not mean it. I would not hurt ye
+for all the world. Never.'
+
+'Well, never mind. You and yours tricked me finely; and now you've got
+me--that's all.'
+
+My uncle laughed a very odd laugh.
+
+'I knew it, of course; and upon my word, madame, you and he make a very
+pretty couple,' sneered Uncle Silas.
+
+Dudley made no answer, looking, however, very savage.
+
+And with this poor young wife, so recently wedded, the low villain had
+actually solicited me to marry him!
+
+I am quite certain that my uncle was as entirely ignorant as I of Dudley's
+connection, and had, therefore, no participation in this appalling
+wickedness.
+
+'And I have to congratulate you, my good fellow, on having secured the
+affections of a very suitable and vulgar young woman.'
+
+'I baint the first o' the family as a' done the same,' retorted Dudley.
+
+At this taunt the old man's fury for a moment overpowered him. In an
+instant he was on his feet, quivering from head to foot. I never saw such
+a countenance--like one of those demon-grotesques we see in the Gothic
+side-aisles and groinings--a dreadful grimace, monkey-like and insane--and
+his thin hand caught up his ebony stick, and shook it paralytically in the
+air.
+
+'If ye touch me wi' that, I'll smash ye, by ----!' shouted Dudley, furious,
+raising his hands and hitching his shoulder, just as I had seen him when he
+fought Captain Oakley.
+
+For a moment this picture was suspended before me, and I screamed, I know
+not what, in my terror. But the old man, the veteran of many a scene of
+excitement, where men disguise their ferocity in calm tones, and varnish
+their fury with smiles, had not quite lost his self-command. He turned
+toward me and said--
+
+'Does he know what he's saying?'
+
+And with an icy laugh of contempt, his high, thin forehead still flushed,
+he sat down trembling.
+
+'If you want to say aught, I'll hear ye. Ye may jaw me all ye like, and
+I'll stan' it.'
+
+'Oh, I may speak? Thank you,' sneered Uncle Silas, glancing slowly round at
+me, and breaking into a cold laugh.
+
+'Ay, I don't mind cheek, not I; but you must not go for to do that, ye
+know. Gammon. I won't stand a blow--I won't fro _no_ one.
+
+'Well, sir, availing myself of your permission to speak, I may remark,
+without offence to the young lady, that I don't happen to recollect the
+name Mangles among the old families of England. I presume you have chosen
+her chiefly for her virtues and her graces.'
+
+Mrs. Sarah Matilda, not apprehending this compliment quite as Uncle Silas
+meant it, dropped a courtesy, notwithstanding her agitation, and, wiping
+her eyes, said, with a blubbered smile--
+
+'You're very kind, sure.'
+
+'I hope, for both your sakes, she has got a little money. I don't see how
+you are to live else. You're too lazy for a game-keeper; and I don't
+think you could keep a pot-house, you are so addicted to drinking and
+quarrelling. The only thing I am quite clear upon is, that you and your
+wife must find some other abode than this. You shall depart this evening:
+and now, Mr. and Mrs. Dudley Ruthyn, you may quit this room, if you
+please.'
+
+Uncle Silas had risen, and made them one of his old courtly bows, smiling a
+death-like sneer, and pointing to the door with his trembling fingers.
+
+'Come, will ye?' said Dudley, grinding his teeth. 'You're pretty well done
+here.'
+
+Not half understanding the situation, but looking woefully bewildered, she
+dropped a farewell courtesy at the door.
+
+'Will ye _cut_?' barked Dudley, in a tone that made her jump; and suddenly,
+without looking about, he strode after her from the room.
+
+'Maud, how shall I recover this? The vulgar _villain_--the _fool_! What an
+abyss were we approaching! and for me the last hope gone--and for me utter,
+utter, irretrievable ruin.'
+
+He was passing his fingers tremulously back and forward along the top of
+the mantelpiece, like a man in search of something, and continued so,
+looking along it, feebly and vacantly, although there was nothing there.
+
+'I wish, uncle--you do not know how much I wish--I could be of any use to
+you. Maybe I can?'
+
+He turned, and looked at me sharply.
+
+'Maybe you can,' he echoed slowly. 'Yes, maybe you can,' he repeated more
+briskly.' Let us--let us see--let us think--that d---- fellow!--my head!'
+
+'You're not well, uncle?'
+
+'Oh! yes, very well. We'll talk in the evening--I'll send for you.'
+
+I found Wyat in the next room, and told her to hasten, as I thought he was
+ill. I hope it was not very selfish, but such had grown to be my horror of
+seeing him in one of his strange seizures, that I hastened from the room
+precipitately--partly to escape the risk of being asked to remain.
+
+The walls of Bartram House are thick, and the recess at the doorway deep.
+As I closed my uncle's door, I heard Dudley's voice on the stairs. I did
+not wish to be seen by him or by his 'lady', as his poor wife called
+herself, who was engaged in vehement dialogue with him as I emerged, and
+not caring either to re-enter my uncle's room, I remained quietly ensconced
+within the heavy door-case, in which position I overheard Dudley say with a
+savage snarl--
+
+'You'll jest go back the way ye came. I'm not goin' wi' ye, if that's what
+ye be drivin' at--dang your impitins!'
+
+'Oh! Dudley, dear, what have I done--what _have_ I done--ye hate me so?'
+
+'What a' ye done? Ye vicious little beast, ye! You've got us turned out an'
+disinherited wi' yer d----d bosh, that's all; don't ye think it's enough?'
+
+I could only hear her sobs and shrill tones in reply, for they were
+descending the stairs; and Mary Quince reported to me, in a horrified sort
+of way, that she saw him bundle her into the fly at the door, like a truss
+of hay into a hay-loft. And he stood with his head in at the window,
+scolding her, till it drove away.
+
+'I knew he wor jawing her, poor thing! By the way he kep' waggin' his
+head--an' he had his fist inside, a shakin' in her face I'm sure he looked
+wicked enough for anything; an' she a crying like a babby, an' lookin'
+back, an' wavin' her wet hankicher to him--poor thing!--and she so young!
+'Tis a pity. Dear me! I often think, Miss, 'tis well for me I never was
+married. And see how we all would like to get husbands for all that, though
+so few is happy together. 'Tis a queer world, and them that's single is
+maybe the best off after all.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LII
+
+_THE PICTURE OF A WOLF_
+
+
+I went down that evening to the sitting-room which had been assigned to
+Milly and me, in search of a book--my good Mary Quince always attending me.
+The door was a little open, and I was startled by the light of a candle
+proceeding from the fireside, together with a considerable aroma of tobacco
+and brandy.
+
+On my little work-table, which he had drawn beside the hearth, lay Dudley's
+pipe, his brandy-flask, and an empty tumbler; and he was sitting with one
+foot on the fender, his elbow on his knee, and his head resting in his
+hand, weeping. His back being a little toward the door, he did not perceive
+us; and we saw him rub his knuckles in his eyes, and heard the sounds of
+his selfish lamentation.
+
+Mary and I stole away quietly, leaving him in possession, wondering when
+he was to leave the house, according to the sentence which I had heard
+pronounced upon him.
+
+I was delighted to see old 'Giblets' quietly strapping his luggage in the
+hall, and heard from him in a whisper that he was to leave that evening by
+rail--he did not know whither.
+
+About half an hour afterwards, Mary Quince, going out to reconnoitre, heard
+from old Wyat in the lobby that he had just started to meet the train.
+
+Blessed be heaven for that deliverance! An evil spirit had been cast out,
+and the house looked lighter and happier. It was not until I sat down in
+the quiet of my room that the scenes and images of that agitating day began
+to move before my memory in orderly procession, and for the first time
+I appreciated, with a stunning sense of horror and a perfect rapture of
+thanksgiving, the value of my escape and the immensity of the danger which
+had threatened me. It may have been miserable weakness--I think it was. But
+I was young, nervous, and afflicted with a troublesome sort of conscience,
+which occasionally went mad, and insisted, in small things as well as
+great, upon sacrifices which my reason now assures me were absurd. Of
+Dudley I had a perfect horror; and yet had that system of solicitation,
+that dreadful and direct appeal to my compassion, that placing of my feeble
+girlhood in the seat of the arbiter of my aged uncle's hope or despair,
+been long persisted in, my resistance might have been worn out--who can
+tell?--and I self-sacrificed! Just as criminals in Germany are teased, and
+watched, and cross-examined, year after year, incessantly, into a sort of
+madness; and worn out with the suspense, the iteration, the self-restraint,
+and insupportable fatigue, they at last cut all short, accuse themselves,
+and go infinitely relieved to the scaffold--you may guess, then, for me,
+nervous, self-diffident, and alone, how intense was the comfort of knowing
+that Dudley was actually married, and the harrowing importunity which had
+just commenced for ever silenced.
+
+That night I saw my uncle. I pitied him, though I feared him. I was longing
+to tell him how anxious I was to help him, if only he could point out the
+way. It was in substance what I had already said, but now strongly urged.
+He brightened; he sat up perpendicularly in his chair with a countenance,
+not weak or fatuous now, but resolute and searching, and which contracted
+into dark thought or calculation as I talked.
+
+I dare say I spoke confusedly enough. I was always nervous in his presence;
+there was, I fancy, something mesmeric in the odd sort of influence which,
+without effort, he exercised over my imagination.
+
+Sometimes this grew into a dismal panic, and Uncle Silas--polished,
+mild--seemed unaccountably horrible to me. Then it was no longer an
+accidental fascination of electro-biology. It was something more. His
+nature was incomprehensible by me. He was without the nobleness, without
+the freshness, without the softness, without the frivolities of such human
+nature as I had experienced, either within myself or in other persons. I
+instinctively felt that appeals to sympathies or feelings could no
+more affect him than a marble monument. He seemed to accommodate his
+conversation to the moral structure of others, just as spirits are said to
+assume the shape of mortals. There were the sensualities of the gourmet for
+his body, and there ended his human nature, as it seemed to me. Through
+that semi-transparent structure I thought I could now and then discern the
+light or the glare of his inner life. But I understood it not.
+
+He never scoffed at what was good or noble--his hardest critic could not
+nail him to one such sentence; and yet, it seemed somehow to me that his
+unknown nature was a systematic blasphemy against it all. If fiend he was,
+he was yet something higher than the garrulous, and withal feeble, demon of
+Goethe. He assumed the limbs and features of our mortal nature. He shrouded
+his own, and was a profoundly reticent Mephistopheles. Gentle he had been
+to me--kindly he had nearly always spoken; but it seemed like the mild talk
+of one of those goblins of the desert, whom Asiatic superstition tells of,
+who appear in friendly shapes to stragglers from the caravan, beckon to
+them from afar, call them by their names, and lead them where they are
+found no more. Was, then, all his kindness but a phosphoric radiance
+covering something colder and more awful than the grave?
+
+'It is very noble of you, Maud--it is angelic; your sympathy with a ruined
+and despairing old man. But I fear you will recoil. I tell you frankly that
+less than twenty thousand pounds will not extricate me from the quag of
+ruin in which I am entangled--lost!'
+
+'Recoil! Far from it. I'll do it. There must be some way.'
+
+'Enough, my fair young protectress--celestial enthusiast, enough. Though
+you do not, yet I recoil. I could not bring myself to accept this
+sacrifice. What signifies, even to me, my extrication? I lie a mangled
+wretch, with fifty mortal wounds on my crown; what avails the healing of
+one wound, when there are so many beyond all cure? Better to let me perish
+where I fall; and reserve your money for the worthier objects whom,
+perhaps, hereafter may avail to save.'
+
+'But I _will_ do this. I must. I cannot see you suffer with the power in my
+hands unemployed to help you,' I exclaimed.
+
+'Enough, dear Maud; the will is here--enough: there is balm in your
+compassion and good-will. Leave me, ministering angel; for the present I
+cannot. If you _will_, we can talk of it again. Good-night.'
+
+And so we parted.
+
+The attorney from Feltram, I afterwards heard, was with him nearly all that
+night, trying in vain to devise by their joint ingenuity any means by which
+I might tie myself up. But there were none. I could not bind myself.
+
+I was myself full of the hope of helping him. What was this sum to me,
+great as it seemed? Truly nothing. I could have spared it, and never felt
+the loss.
+
+I took up a large quarto with coloured prints, one of the few books I had
+brought with me from dear old Knowl. Too much excited to hope for sleep in
+bed, I opened it, and turned over the leaves, my mind still full of Uncle
+Silas and the sum I hoped to help him with.
+
+Unaccountably one of those coloured engravings arrested my attention.
+It represented the solemn solitude of a lofty forest; a girl, in Swiss
+costume, was flying in terror, and as she fled flinging a piece of meat
+behind her which she had taken from a little market-basket hanging upon her
+arm. Through the glade a pack of wolves were pursuing her.
+
+The narrative told, that on her return homeward with her marketing, she had
+been chased by wolves, and barely escaped by flying at her utmost speed,
+from time to time retarding, as she did so, the pursuit, by throwing, piece
+by piece, the contents of her basket, in her wake, to be devoured and
+fought for by the famished beasts of prey.
+
+This print had seized my imagination. I looked with a curious interest on
+the print: something in the disposition of the trees, their great height,
+and rude boughs, interlacing, and the awful shadow beneath, reminded me of
+a portion of the Windmill Wood where Milly and I had often rambled. Then I
+looked at the figure of the poor girl, flying for her life, and glancing
+terrified over her shoulder. Then I gazed on the gaping, murderous pack,
+and the hoary brute that led the van; and then I leaned back in my chair,
+and I thought--perhaps some latent association suggested what seemed a
+thing so unlikely--of a fine print in my portfolio from Vandyke's noble
+picture of Belisarius. Idly I traced with my pencil, as I leaned back, on
+an envelope that lay upon the table, this little inscription. It was mere
+fiddling; and, absurd as it looked, there was nothing but an honest meaning
+in it:--'20,000_l_. Date Obolum Belisario!' My dear father had translated
+the little Latin inscription for me, and I had written it down as a sort
+of exercise of memory; and also, perhaps, as expressive of that sort of
+compassion which my uncle's fall and miserable fate excited invariably in
+me. So I threw this queer little memorandum upon the open leaf of the book,
+and again the flight, the pursuit, and the bait to stay it, engaged my eye.
+And I heard a voice near the hearthstone, as I thought, say, in a stern
+whisper, 'Fly the fangs of Belisarius!'
+
+'What's that?' said I, turning sharply to Mary Quince.
+
+Mary rose from her work at the fireside, staring at me with that odd sort
+of frown that accompanies fear and curiosity.
+
+'You spoke? Did you speak?' I said, catching her by the arm, very much
+frightened myself.
+
+'No, Miss; no, dear!' answered she, plainly thinking that I was a little
+wrong in my head.
+
+There could be no doubt it was a trick of the imagination, and yet to this
+hour I could recognise that clear stern voice among a thousand, were it to
+speak again.
+
+Jaded after a night of broken sleep and much agitation, I was summoned next
+morning to my uncle's room.
+
+He received me _oddly_, I thought. His manner had changed, and made an
+uncomfortable impression upon me. He was gentle, kind, smiling, submissive,
+as usual; but it seemed to me that he experienced henceforth toward me the
+same half-superstitous repulsion which I had always felt from him. Dream,
+or voice, or vision--which had done it? There seemed to be an unconscious
+antipathy and fear. When he thought I was not looking, his eyes were
+sometimes grimly fixed for a moment upon me. When I looked at him, his eyes
+were upon the book before him; and when he spoke, a person not heeding what
+he uttered would have fancied that he was reading aloud from it.
+
+There was nothing tangible but this shrinking from the encounter of our
+eyes. I said he was kind as usual. He was even more so. But there was this
+new sign of our silently repellant natures. Dislike it could not be. He
+knew I longed to serve him. Was it shame? Was there not a shade of horror
+in it?
+
+'I have not slept,' said he. 'For me the night has passed in thought, and
+the fruit of it is this--I _cannot_, Maud, accept your noble offer.'
+
+'I am _very_ sorry,' exclaimed I, in all honesty.
+
+'I know it, my dear niece, and appreciate your goodness; but there are
+many reasons--none of them, I trust, ignoble--and which together render
+it impossible. No. It would be misunderstood--my honour shall not be
+impugned.'
+
+'But, sir, that could not be; you have never proposed it. It would be all,
+from first to last, _my_ doing.'
+
+'True, dear Maud, but I know, alas! more of this evil and slanderous world
+than your happy inexperience can do. Who will receive our testimony?
+None--no, not one. The difficulty--the insuperable moral difficulty is
+this--that I should expose myself to the plausible imputation of having
+worked upon you, unduly, for this end; and more, that I could not hold
+myself quite free from blame. It is your voluntary goodness, Maud. But you
+are young, inexperienced; and it is, I hold it, my duty to stand between
+you and any dealing with your property at so unripe an age. Some people may
+call this Quixotic. In my mind it is an imperious mandate of conscience;
+and I peremptorily refuse to disobey it, although within three weeks an
+execution will be in this house!'
+
+I did not quite know what an execution meant; but from two harrowing
+novels, with whose distresses I was familiar, I knew that it indicated some
+direful process of legal torture and spoliation.
+
+'Oh, uncle I--oh, sir!--you cannot allow this to happen. What will people
+say of me? And--and there is poor Milly--and _everything_! Think what it
+will be.'
+
+'It cannot be helped--_you_ cannot help it, Maud. Listen to me. There will
+be an execution here, I cannot say exactly how soon, but, I think, in a
+little more than a fortnight. I must provide for your comfort. You must
+leave. I have arranged that you shall join Milly, for the present, in
+France, till I have time to look about me. You had better, I think, write
+to your cousin, Lady Knollys. She, with all her oddities, has a heart. Can
+you say, Maud, that I have been kind?'
+
+'You have never been anything but kind,' I exclaimed.
+
+'That I've been self-denying when you made me a generous offer?' he
+continued. 'That I now act to spare you pain? You may tell her, not as a
+message from me, but as a fact, that I am seriously thinking of vacating my
+guardianship--that I feel I have done her an injustice, and that, so
+soon as my mind is a little less tortured, I shall endeavour to effect a
+reconciliation with her, and would wish ultimately to transfer the care
+of your person and education to _her_. You may say I have no longer an
+interest even in vindicating my name. My son has wrecked himself by a
+marriage. I forgot to tell you he stopped at Feltram, and this morning
+wrote to pray a parting interview. If I grant it, it shall be the last. I
+shall never see him or correspond with him more.'
+
+The old man seemed much overcome, and held his hankerchief to his eyes.
+
+'He and his wife are, I understand, about to emigrate; the sooner the
+better,' he resumed, bitterly. 'Deeply, Maud, I regret having tolerated his
+suit to you, even for a moment. Had I thought it over, as I did the whole
+case last night, nothing could have induced me to permit it. But I have
+lived for so long like a monk in his cell, my wants and observation limited
+to the narrow compass of this chamber, that my knowledge of the world has
+died out with my youth and my hopes: and I did not, as I ought to have
+done, consider many objections. Therefore, dear Maud, on this one subject,
+I entreat, be silent; its discussion can effect nothing now. I was wrong,
+and frankly ask you to forget my mistake.'
+
+I had been on the point of writing to Lady Knollys on this odious subject,
+when, happily, it was set at rest by the disclosure of yesterday; and being
+so, I could have no difficulty in acceding to my uncle's request. He was
+conceding so much that I could not withhold so trifling a concession in
+return.
+
+'I hope Monica will continue to be kind to poor Milly after I am gone.'
+
+Here there were a few seconds of meditation.
+
+'Maud, you will not, I think, refuse to convey the substance of what I
+have just said in a letter to Lady Knollys, and perhaps you would have
+no objection to let me see it when it is written. It will prevent the
+possibility of its containing any misconception of what I have just spoken:
+and, Maud, you won't forget to say whether I have been kind. It would be
+a satisfaction to me to know that Monica was assured that I never either
+teased or bullied my young ward.'
+
+With these words he dismissed me; and forthwith I completed such a letter
+as would quite embody what he had said; and in my own glowing terms,
+being in high good-humour with Uncle Silas, recorded my estimate of his
+gentleness and good-nature; and when I submitted it to him, he expressed
+his admiration of what he was pleased to call my cleverness in so exactly
+conveying what he wished, and his gratitude for the handsome terms in which
+I had spoken of my old guardian.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIII
+
+_AN ODD PROPOSAL_
+
+
+As I and Mary Quince returned from our walk that day, and had entered the
+hall, I was surprised most disagreeably by Dudley's emerging from the
+vestibule at the foot of the great staircase. He was, I suppose, in his
+travelling costume--a rather soiled white surtout, a great coloured muffler
+in folds about his throat, his 'chimney-pot' on, and his fur cap sticking
+out from his pocket. He had just descended, I suppose, from my uncle's
+room. On seeing me he stepped back, and stood with his shoulders to the
+wall, like a mummy in a museum.
+
+I pretended to have a few words to say to Mary before leaving the hall,
+in the hope that, as he seemed to wish to escape me, he would take the
+opportunity of getting quickly off the scene.
+
+But he had changed his mind, it would seem, in the interval; for when I
+glanced in that direction again he had moved toward us, and stood in the
+hall with his hat in his hand. I must do him the justice to say he looked
+horribly dismal, sulky, and frightened.
+
+'Ye'll gi'e me a word, Miss--only a thing I ought to say--for your good; by
+----, mind, it's for _your_ good, Miss.'
+
+Dudley stood a little way off, viewing me, with his hat in both hands and a
+'glooming' countenance.
+
+I detested the idea of either hearing or speaking to him; but I had no
+resolution to refuse, and only saying 'I can't imagine what you can wish to
+speak to me about,' I approached him. 'Wait there at the banister, Quince.'
+
+There was a fragrance of alcohol about the flushed face and gaudy muffler
+of this odious cousin, which heightened the effect of his horribly dismal
+features. He was speaking, besides, a little thickly; but his manner was
+dejected, and he was treating me with an elaborate and discomfited respect
+which reassured me.
+
+'I'm a bit up a tree, Miss,' he said shuffling his feet on the oak floor.
+'I behaved a d---- fool; but I baint one o' they sort. I'm a fellah as 'ill
+fight his man, an' stan' up to 'm fair, don't ye see? An' _baint_ one o'
+they sort--no, _dang_ it, I baint.'
+
+Dudley delivered his puzzling harangue with a good deal of undertoned
+vehemence, and was strangely agitated. He, too, had got an unpleasant way
+of avoiding my eye, and glancing along the floor from corner to corner as
+he spoke, which gave him a very hang-dog air.
+
+He was twisting his fingers in his great sandy whisker, and pulling it
+roughly enough to drag his cheek about by that savage purchase; and with
+his other hand he was crushing and rubbing his hat against his knee.
+
+'The old boy above there be half crazed, I think; he don't mean half as he
+says thof, not he. But I'm in a bad fix anyhow--a regular sell it's been,
+and I can't get a tizzy out of him. So, ye see, I'm up a tree, Miss; and he
+sich a one, he'll make it a wuss mull if I let him. He's as sharp wi' me as
+one o' them lawyer chaps, dang 'em, and he's a lot of I O's and rubbitch o'
+mine; and Bryerly writes to me he can't gi'e me my legacy, 'cause he's got
+a notice from Archer and Sleigh a warnin' him not to gi'e me as much as a
+bob; for I signed it away to governor, he says--which I believe's a lie. I
+may a' signed some writing--'appen I did--when I was a bit cut one night.
+But that's no way to catch a gentleman, and 'twon't stand. There's justice
+to be had, and 'twon't _stand_, I say; and I'm not in 'is hands that way.
+Thof I may be a bit up the spout, too, I don't deny; only I baint agoin'
+the whole hog all at once. I'm none o' they sort. He'll find I baint.'
+
+Here Mary Quince coughed demurely from the foot of the stair, to remind me
+that the conversation was protracted.
+
+'I don't very well understand,' I said gravely; 'and I am now going
+upstairs.'
+
+'Don't jest a minute, Miss; it's only a word, ye see. We'll be goin' t'
+Australia, Sary Mangles, an' me, aboard the _Seamew_, on the 5th. I'm
+for Liverpool to-night, and she'll meet me there, an'--an', please God
+Almighty, ye'll never see me more; an I'd rather gi'e ye a lift, Maud,
+before I go: an' I tell ye what, if ye'll just gi'e me your written promise
+ye'll gi'e me that twenty thousand ye were offering to gi'e the Governor,
+I'll take ye cleverly out o' Bartram, and put ye wi' your cousin Knollys,
+or anywhere ye like best.'
+
+'Take me from Bartram--for twenty thousand pounds! Take me away from my
+guardian! You seem to forget, sir,' my indignation rising as I spoke, 'that
+I can visit my cousin, Lady Knollys, whenever I please.'
+
+'Well, that is as it may be,' he said, with a sulky deliberation, scraping
+about a little bit of paper that lay on the floor with the toe of his boot.
+
+'It _is_ as it may be, and that is as I say, sir; and considering how you
+have treated me--your mean, treacherous, and infamous suit, and your cruel
+treason to your poor wife, I am amazed at your effrontery.'
+
+I turned to leave him, being, in truth, in one of my passions.
+
+'Don't ye be a flying' out,' he said peremptorily, and catching me roughly
+by the wrist,' I baint a-going to vex ye. What a mouth you be, as can't see
+your way! Can't ye speak wi' common sense, like a woman--dang it--for once,
+and not keep brawling like a brat--can't ye see what I'm saying? I'll take
+ye out o' all this, and put ye wi' your cousin, or wheresoever you list, if
+ye'll gi'e me what I say.'
+
+He was, for the first time, looking me in the face, but with contracted
+eyes, and a countenance very much agitated.
+
+'Money?' said I, with a prompt disdain.
+
+'Ay, money--twenty thousand pounds--_there_. On or off?' he replied, with
+an unpleasant sort of effort.
+
+'You ask my promise for twenty thousand pounds, and you shan't have it.'
+
+My cheeks were flaming, and I stamped on the ground as I spoke.
+
+If he had known how to appeal to my better feelings, I am sure I should
+have done, perhaps not quite that, all at once at least, but something
+handsome, to assist him. But this application was so shabby and insolent!
+What could he take me for? That I should suppose his placing me with Cousin
+Monica constituted her my guardian? Why, he must fancy me the merest baby.
+There was a kind of stupid cunning in this that disgusted my good-nature
+and outraged my self-importance.
+
+'You won't gi'e me that, then?' he said, looking down again, with a frown,
+and working his mouth and cheeks about as I could fancy a man rolling a
+piece of tobacco in his jaw.
+
+'Certainly _not_, sir,' I replied.
+
+'_Take_ it, then,' he replied, still looking down, very black and
+discontented.
+
+I joined Mary Quince, extremely angry. As I passed under the carved oak
+arch of the vestibule, I saw his figure in the deepening twilight. The
+picture remains in its murky halo fixed in memory. Standing where he last
+spoke in the centre of the hall, not looking after me, but downward, and,
+as well as I could see, with the countenance of a man who has lost a game,
+and a ruinous wager too--that is black and desperate. I did not utter a
+syllable on the way up. When I reached my room, I began to reconsider the
+interview more at my leisure. I was, such were my ruminations, to have
+agreed at once to his preposterous offer, and to have been driven, while he
+smirked and grimaced behind my back at his acquaintances, through Feltram
+in his dog-cart to Elverston; and then, to the just indignation of my
+uncle, to have been delivered up to Lady Knolly's guardianship, and to
+have handed my driver, as I alighted, the handsome fare of 20.000_l_. It
+required the impudence of Tony Lumpkin, without either his fun or his
+shrewdness, to have conceived such a prodigious practical joke.
+
+'Maybe you'd like a little tea, Miss?' insinuated Mary Quince.
+
+'What impertinence!' I exclaimed, with one of my angry stamps on the floor.
+'Not you, dear old Quince,' I added. 'No--no tea just now.'
+
+And I resumed my ruminations, which soon led me to this train of
+thought--'Stupid and insulting as Dudley's proposition was, it yet involved
+a great treason against my uncle. Should I be weak enough to be silent, may
+he not, wishing to forestall me, misrepresent all that has passed, so as to
+throw the blame altogether upon me?'
+
+This idea seized upon me with a force which I could not withstand; and on
+the impulse of the moment I obtained admission to my uncle, and related
+exactly what had passed. When I had finished my narrative, which he
+listened to without once raising his eyes, my uncle cleared his throat once
+or twice, as if to speak. He was smiling--I thought with an effort, and
+with elevated brows. When I concluded, he hummed one of those sliding
+notes, which a less refined man might have expressed by a whistle of
+surprise and contempt, and again he essayed to speak, but continued silent.
+The fact is, he seemed to me very much disconcerted. He rose from his seat,
+and shuffled about the room in his slippers, I believe affecting only to
+be in search of something, opening and shutting two or three drawers, and
+turning over some books and papers; and at length, taking up some loose
+sheets of manuscript, he appeared to have found what he was looking for,
+and began to read them carelessly, with his back towards me, and with
+another effort to clear his voice, he said at last--
+
+'And pray, what could the fool mean by all that?'
+
+'I think he must have taken me for an idiot, sir,' I answered.
+
+'Not unlikely. He has lived in a stable, among horses and ostlers; he has
+always seemed to me something like a centaur--that is a centaur composed
+not of man and horse, but of an ape and an ass.'
+
+And upon this jibe he laughed, not coldly and sarcastically, as was his
+wont, but, I thought, flurriedly. And, continuing to look into his papers,
+he said, his back still toward me as he read--
+
+'And he did not favour you with an exposition of his meaning, which, except
+in so far as it estimated his deserts at the modest sum you have
+named, appears to me too oracular to be interpreted without a kindred
+inspiration?'
+
+And again he laughed. He was growing more like himself.
+
+'As to your visiting your cousin, Lady Knollys, the stupid rogue had only
+five minutes before heard me express my wish that you should do so before
+leaving this. I am quite resolved you shall--that is, unless, dear Maud,
+you should yourself object; but, of course, we must wait for an invitation,
+which, I conjecture, will not be long in coming. In fact, your letter
+will naturally bring it about, and, I trust, open the way to a permanent
+residence with her. The more I think it over, the more am I convinced, dear
+niece, that as things are likely to turn out, my roof would be no desirable
+shelter for you; and that, under all circumstances, hers would. Such were
+my motives, Maud, in opening, through your letter, a door of reconciliation
+between us.'
+
+I felt that I ought to have kissed his hand--that he had indicated
+precisely the future that I most desired; and yet there was within me a
+vague feeling, akin to suspicion--akin to dismay which chilled and overcast
+my soul.
+
+'But, Maud,' he said, 'I am disquieted to think of that stupid jackanapes
+presuming to make you such an offer! A creditable situation truly--arriving
+in the dark at Elverston, under the solitary escort of that wild young man,
+with whom you would have fled from my guardianship; and, Maud, I tremble as
+I ask myself the question, would he have conducted you to Elverston at all?
+When you have lived as long in the world as I, you will appreciate its
+wickedness more justly.' Here there was a little pause.
+
+'I know, my dear, that were he convinced of his legal marriage with that
+young woman,' he resumed, perceiving how startled I looked, 'such an idea,
+of course, would not have entered his head; but he does not believe any
+such thing. Contrary to fact and logic, he does honestly think that his
+hand is still at his disposal; and I certainly do suspect that he would
+have employed that excursion in endeavouring to persuade you to think as he
+does. Be that how it may, however, it is satisfactory to me to know that
+you shall never more be troubled by one word from that ill-regulated young
+man. I made him my adieux, such as they were, this evening; and never more
+shall he enter the walls of Bartram-Haugh while we two live.'
+
+Uncle Silas replaced the papers which had ostensibly interested him so
+much, and returned. There was a vein which was visible near the angle
+of his lofty temple, and in moments of agitation stood out against the
+surrounding pallor in a knotted blue cord; and as he came back smiling
+askance, I saw this sign of inward tumult.
+
+'We can, however, afford to despise the follies and knaveries of the world,
+Maud, as long as we act, as we have hitherto done, with perfect confidence
+in each other. Heaven bless you, dear Maud! Your report troubled me, I
+believe, more than it need--troubled me a good deal; but reflection assures
+me it is nothing. He is gone. In a few days' time he will be on the sea. I
+will issue my orders to-morrow morning, and he will never more, during his
+brief stay in England, gain admission to Bartram-Haugh. Good-night, my good
+niece; I thank you.'
+
+And so I returned to Mary Quince, on the whole happier than I had left
+her, but still with the confused and jarring vision I could not interpret
+perpetually rising before me; and as, from time to time, shapeless
+anxieties agitated me, relieving them by appeals to Him who alone is wise
+and strong.
+
+Next day brought me a goodnatured gossiping letter from dear Milly,
+written in compulsory French, which was, in some places, very difficult
+to interpret. She gave me a very pleasant account of the place, and her
+opinion of the girls who were inmates, and mentioned some of the nuns with
+high commendation. The language plainly cramped poor Milly's genius; but
+although there was by no means so much fun as an honest English letter
+would have brought me, there could be no mistake about her liking the
+place, and she expressed her honest longing to see me in the most
+affectionate terms.
+
+This letter came enclosed in one to my uncle, from the proper authority
+in the convent; and as there was neither address within, nor post-mark
+without, I was as much in the dark as ever as to poor Milly's whereabouts.
+
+Pencilled across the envelope of this letter, in my uncle's hand, were the
+words, 'Let me have your answer when sealed, and I will transmit it.--S.R.'
+
+When, accordingly, some days later, I did place my letter to Milly in my
+uncle's hands, he told me the reason of his reserves on the subject.
+
+'I thought it best, dear Maud, not to plague you with a secret, and Milly's
+present address is one. It will in a few weeks become the rallying-point of
+our diverse routes, when you shall meet her, and I join you both. Nobody,
+until the storm shall have blown over, must know where I am to be found,
+except my lawyer; and I think you would prefer ignorance to the trouble of
+keeping a secret on which so much may depend.'
+
+This being reasonable, and even considerate, I acquiesced.
+
+In that interval there reached me such a charming, gay, and affectionate
+letter--a very _long_ letter, too--though the writer was scarcely seven
+miles away, from dear Cousin Monica, full of pleasant gossip, and
+rose-coloured and golden castles in the air, and the kindest interest in
+poor Milly, and the warmest affection for me.
+
+One other incident varied that interval, if possible more pleasantly than
+those. It was the announcement, in a Liverpool paper, of the departure of
+the _Seamew_, bound for Melbourne; and among the passengers were reported
+'Dudley Ruthyn, Esquire, of Bartram-H., and Mrs. D. Ruthyn.'
+
+And now I began to breathe freely, I plainly saw the end of my probation
+approaching: a short excursion to France, a happy meeting with Milly, and
+then a delightful residence with Cousin Monica for the remainder of my
+nonage.
+
+You will say then that my spirits and my serenity were quite restored. Not
+quite. How marvellously lie our anxieties, in filmy layers, one over the
+other! Take away that which has lain on the upper surface for so long--the
+care of cares--the only one, as it seemed to you, between your soul and the
+radiance of Heaven--and straight you find a new stratum there. As physical
+science tells us no fluid is without its skin, so does it seem with this
+fine medium of the soul, and these successive films of care that form upon
+its surface on mere contact with the upper air and light.
+
+What was my new trouble? A very fantastic one, you will say--the illusion
+of a self-tormentor. It was the face of Uncle Silas which haunted me.
+Notwithstanding the old pale smile, there was a shrinking grimness, and the
+always-averted look.
+
+Sometimes I fancied his mind was disordered. I could not account for the
+eerie lights and shadows that flickered on his face, except so. There was
+a look of shame and fear of me, amazing as that seems, in the sheen of his
+peaked smile.
+
+I thought, 'Perhaps he blames himself for having tolerated Dudley's
+suit--for having urged it on grounds of personal distress--for having
+altogether lowered, though under sore temptation, both himself and his
+office; and he thinks that he has forfeited my respect.'
+
+Such was my analysis; but in the _coup-d'oeil_ of that white face that
+dazzled me in darkness, and haunted my daily reveries with a faded light,
+there was an intangible character of the insidious and the terrible.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIV
+
+_IN SEARCH OF MR. CHARKE'S SKELETON_
+
+
+On the whole, however, I was unspeakably relieved. Dudley Ruthyn, Esq.,
+and Mrs. D. Ruthyn, were now skimming the blue waves on the wings of the
+_Seamew_, and every morning widened the distance between us, which was to
+go on increasing until it measured a point on the antipodes. The Liverpool
+paper containing this golden line was carefully preserved in my room; and
+like the gentleman who, when much tried by the shrewish heiress whom he
+had married, used to retire to his closet and read over his marriage
+settlement, I used, when blue devils haunted me, to unfold my newspaper and
+read the paragraph concerning the _Seamew_.
+
+The day I now speak of was a dismal one of sleety snow. My own room seemed
+to me cheerier than the lonely parlour, where I could not have had good
+Mary Quince so decorously.
+
+A good fire, that kind and trusty face, the peep I had just indulged in at
+my favourite paragraph, and the certainty of soon seeing my dear cousin
+Monica, and afterwards affectionate Milly, raised my spirits.
+
+'So,' said I, 'as old Wyat, you say, is laid up with rheumatism, and can't
+turn up to scold me, I think I'll run up stairs and make an exploration,
+and find poor Mr. Charke's skeleton in a closet.'
+
+'Oh, law, Miss Maud, how can you say such things!' exclaimed good old
+Quince, lifting up her honest grey head and round eyes from her knitting.
+
+I had grown so familiar with the frightful tradition of Mr. Charke and his
+suicide, that I could now afford to frighten old Quince with him.
+
+'I am quite serious. I am going to have a ramble up-stairs and down-stairs,
+like goosey-goosey-gander; and if I do light upon his chamber, it is all
+the more interesting. I feel so like Adelaide, in the "Romance of the
+Forest," the book I was reading to you last night, when she commenced her
+delightful rambles through the interminable ruined abbey in the forest.'
+
+'Shall I go with you, Miss?'
+
+'No, Quince; stay there; keep a good fire, and make some tea. I suspect I
+shall lose heart and return very soon;' and with a shawl about me, cowl
+fashion, over my head, I stole up-stairs.
+
+I shall not recount with the particularity of the conscientious heroine of
+Mrs. Ann Radcliffe, all the suites of apartments, corridors, and lobbies,
+which I threaded in my ramble. It will be enough to mention that I lighted
+upon a door at the end of a long gallery, which, I think, ran parallel with
+the front of the house; it interested me because it had the air of having
+been very long undisturbed. There were two rusty bolts, which did not
+evidently belong to its original securities, and had been, though very long
+ago, somewhat clumsily superadded. Dusty and rusty they were, but I had no
+difficulty in drawing them back. There was a rusty key, I remember it well,
+with a crooked handle in the lock; I tried to turn it, but could not.
+My curiosity was piqued. I was thinking of going back and getting Mary
+Quince's assistance. It struck me, however, that possibly it was not
+locked, so I pulled the door and it opened quite easily. I did not find
+myself in a strangely-furnished suite of apartments, but at the entrance
+of a gallery, which diverged at right angles from that through which I had
+just passed; it was very imperfectly lighted, and ended in total darkness.
+
+I began to think how far I had already come, and to consider whether I
+could retrace my steps with accuracy in case of a panic, and I had serious
+thoughts of returning.
+
+The idea of Mr. Charke was growing unpleasantly sharp and menacing; and
+as I looked down the long space before me, losing itself among ambiguous
+shadows, lulled in a sinister silence, and as it were inviting my entrance
+like a trap, I was very near yielding to the cowardly impulse.
+
+But I took heart of grace and determined to see a little more. I opened a
+side-door, and entered a large room, where were, in a corner, some rusty
+and cobwebbed bird-cages, but nothing more. It was a wainscoted room, but
+a white mildew stained the panels. I looked from the window: it commanded
+that dismal, weed-choked quadrangle into which I had once looked from
+another window. I opened a door at its farther end, and entered another
+chamber, not quite so large, but equally dismal, with the same prison-like
+look-out, not very easily discerned through the grimy panes and the sleet
+that was falling thickly outside. The door through which I had entered made
+a little accidental creak, and, with my heart at my lips, I gazed at it,
+expecting to see Charke, or the skeleton of which I had talked so lightly,
+stalk in at the half-open aperture. But I had an odd sort of courage which
+was always fighting against my cowardly nerves, and I walked to the door,
+and looking up and down the dismal passage, was reassured.
+
+Well, one room more--just that whose deep-set door fronted me, with a
+melancholy frown, at the opposite end of the chamber. So to it I glided,
+shoved it open, advancing one step, and the great bony figure of Madame de
+la Rougierre was before me.
+
+I could see nothing else.
+
+The drowsy traveller who opens his sheets to slip into bed, and sees a
+scorpion coiled between them, may have experienced a shock the same in
+kind, but immeasurably less in degree.
+
+She sat in a clumsy old arm-chair, with an ancient shawl about her, and
+her bare feet in a delft tub. She looked a thought more withered. Her wig
+shoved back disclosed her bald wrinkled forehead, and enhanced the ugly
+effect of her exaggerated features and the gaunt hollows of her face. With
+a sense of incredulity and terror I gazed, freezing, at this evil phantom,
+who returned my stare for a few seconds with a shrinking scowl, dismal and
+grim, as of an evil spirit detected.
+
+The meeting, at least then and there, was as complete a surprise for her as
+for me. She could not tell how I might take it; but she quickly rallied,
+burst into a loud screeching laugh, and, with her old Walpurgis gaiety,
+danced some fantastic steps in her bare wet feet, tracking the floor with
+water, and holding out with finger and thumb, in dainty caricature, her
+slammakin old skirt, while she sang some of her nasal patois with an
+abominable hilarity and emphasis.
+
+With a gasp, I too recovered from the fascination of the surprise. I could
+not speak though for some seconds, and Madame was first.
+
+'Ah, dear Maud, what surprise! Are we not overjoy, dearest, and cannot
+speak? I am full of joy--quite charmed--_ravie_--of seeing you. So are you
+of me, your face betray. Ah! yes, thou dear little baboon! here is poor
+Madame once more! Who could have imagine?'
+
+'I thought you were in France, Madame,' I said, with a dismal effort.
+
+'And so I was, dear Maud; I 'av just arrive. Your uncle Silas he wrote to
+the superioress for gouvernante to accompany a young lady--that is you,
+Maud--on her journey, and she send me; and so, ma chere, here is poor
+Madame arrive to charge herself of that affair.'
+
+'How soon do we leave for France, Madame?' I asked.
+
+'I do not know, but the old women--wat is her name?'
+
+'Wyat,' I suggested.
+
+'Oh! oui, Waiatt;--she says two, three week. And who conduct you to poor
+Madame's apartment, my dear Maud?' She inquired insinuatingly.
+
+'No one, I answered promptly: 'I reached it quite accidentally, and I
+can't imagine why you should conceal yourself.' Something like indignation
+kindled in my mind as I began to wonder at the sly strategy which had been
+practised upon me.
+
+'I 'av not conceal myself, Mademoiselle,' retorted the governness. 'I 'av
+act precisally as I 'av been ordered. Your uncle, Mr. Silas Ruthyn, he is
+afraid, Waiatt says, to be interrupted by his creditors, and everything
+must be done very quaitly. I have been commanded to avoid _me faire voir_,
+you know, and I must obey my employer--voila tout!'
+
+'And for how long have you been residing here?' I persisted, in the same
+resentful vein.
+
+''Bout a week. It is soche triste place! I am so glad to see you, Maud!
+I've been so isolee, you dear leetle fool!'
+
+'You are _not_ glad, Madame; you don't love me--you never did,' I exclaimed
+with sudden vehemence.
+
+'Yes, I am _very_ glad; you know not, chere petite _niaise_, how I 'av
+desire to educate you a leetle more. Let us understand one another. You
+think I do not love you, Mademoiselle, because you have mentioned to your
+poor papa that little _dereglement_ in his library. I have repent very
+often that so great indiscretion of my life. I thought to find some letters
+of Dr. Braierly. I think that man was trying to get your property, my dear
+Maud, and if I had found something I would tell you all about. But it was
+very great _sottise_, and you were very right to denounce me to Monsieur.
+Je n'ai point de rancune contre vous. No, no, none at all. On the contrary,
+I shall be your _gardienne tutelaire_--wat you call?--guardian angel--ah,
+yes, that is it. You think I speak _par derision_; not at all. No, my dear
+cheaile, I do not speak _par moquerie_, unless perhaps the very least
+degree in the world.'
+
+And with these words Madame laughed unpleasantly, showing the black caverns
+at the side of her mouth, and with a cold, steady malignity in her gaze.
+
+'Yes,' I said; 'I know what you mean, Madame--you _hate_ me.'
+
+'Oh! wat great ogly word! I am shock! _vous me faites honte_. Poor Madame,
+she never hate any one; she loves all her friends, and her enemies she
+leaves to Heaven; while I am, as you see, more gay, more _joyeuse_ than
+ever, they have not been 'appy--no, they have not been fortunate these
+others. Wen I return, I find always some of my enemy they 'av die, and some
+they have put themselves into embarrassment, or there has arrived to them
+some misfortune;' and Madame shrugged and laughed a little scornfully.
+
+A kind of horror chilled my rising anger, and I was silent.
+
+'You see, my dear Maud, it is very natural you should think I hate you.
+When I was with Mr. Austin Ruthyn, at Knowl, you know you did not like a
+me--never. But in consequence of our intimacy I confide you that which I
+'av of most dear in the world, my reputation. It is always so. The pupil
+can _calomniate_, without been discover, the gouvernante. 'Av I not been
+always kind to you, Maud? Which 'av I use of violence or of sweetness the
+most? I am, like other persons, _jalouse de ma reputation_; and it was
+difficult to suffer with patience the banishment which was invoked by you,
+because chiefly for your good, and for an indiscretion to which I was
+excited by motives the most pure and laudable. It was you who spied so
+cleverly--eh! and denounce me to Monsieur Ruthyn? Helas! wat bad world it
+is!'
+
+'I do not mean to speak at all about that occurrence, Madame; I will not
+discuss it. I dare say what you tell me of the cause of your engagement
+here is true, and I suppose we must travel, as you say, in company; but
+you must know that the less we see of each other while in this house the
+better.'
+
+'I am not so sure of that, my sweet little _bete_; your education has been
+neglected, or rather entirely abandoned, since you 'av arrive at this
+place, I am told. You must not be a _bestiole_. We must do, you and I, as
+we are ordered. Mr. Silas Ruthyn he will tell us.'
+
+All this time Madame was pulling on her stockings, getting her boots on,
+and otherwise proceeding with her dowdy toilet. I do not know why I stood
+there talking to her. We often act very differently from what we would
+have done upon reflection. I had involved myself in a dialogue, as wiser
+generals than I have entangled themselves in a general action when they
+meant only an affair of outposts. I had grown a little angry, and would
+not betray the least symptom of fear, although I felt that sensation
+profoundly.
+
+'My beloved father thought you so unfit a companion for me that he
+dismissed you at an hour's notice, and I am very sure that my uncle will
+think as he did; you are _not_ a fit companion for me, and had my
+uncle known what had passed he would never have admitted you to this
+house--never!'
+
+'Helas! _Quelle disgrace_! And you really think so, my dear Maud,'
+exclaimed Madame, adjusting her wig before her glass, in the corner of
+which I could see half of her sly, grinning face, as she ogled herself in
+it.
+
+'I do, and so do you, Madame,' I replied, growing more frightened.
+
+'It may be--we shall see; but everyone is not so cruel as you, _ma chere
+petite calomniatrice_.'
+
+'You shan't call me those names,' I said, in an angry tremor.
+
+'What name, dearest cheaile?'
+
+'_Calomniatrice_--that is an insult.'
+
+'Why, my most foolish little Maud, we may say rogue, and a thousand other
+little words in play which we do not say seriously.
+
+'You are not playing--you never play--you are angry, and you hate me,' I
+exclaimed, vehemently.
+
+'Oh, fie!--wat shame! Do you not perceive, dearest cheaile, how much
+education you still need? You are proud, little demoiselle; you must
+become, on the contrary, quaite humble. Je ferai baiser le babouin a
+vous--ha, ha, ha! I weel make a you to kees the monkey. You are too proud,
+my dear cheaile.'
+
+'I am not such a fool as I was at Knowl,' I said; 'you shall not terrify me
+here. I will tell my uncle the whole truth,' I said.
+
+'Well, it may be that is the best,' she replied, with provoking coolness.
+
+'You think I don't mean it?'
+
+'Of course you _do_,' she replied.
+
+'And we shall see what my uncle thinks of it.'
+
+'We shall see, my dear,' she replied, with an air of mock contrition.
+
+'Adieu, Madame!'
+
+'You are going to Monsieur Ruthyn?--very good!'
+
+I made her no answer, but more agitated than I cared to show her, I left
+the room. I hurried along the twilight passage, and turned into the long
+gallery that opened from it at right angles. I had not gone half-a-dozen
+steps on my return when I heard a heavy tread and a rustling behind me.
+
+'I am ready, my dear; I weel accompany you,' said the smirking phantom,
+hurrying after me.
+
+'Very well,' was my reply; and threading our way, with a few hesitations
+and mistakes, we reached and descended the stairs, and in a minute more
+stood at my uncle's door.
+
+My uncle looked hard and strangely at us as we entered. He looked, indeed,
+as if his temper was violently excited, and glared and muttered to himself
+for a few seconds; and treating Madame to a stare of disgust, he asked
+peevishly--
+
+'Why am I disturbed, pray?'
+
+'Miss Maud a Ruthyn, she weel explain,' replied Madame, with a great
+courtesy, like a boat going down in a ground swell.
+
+'_Will_ you explain, my dear?' he asked, in his coldest and most sarcastic
+tone.
+
+I was agitated, and I am sure my statement was confused. I succeeded,
+however, in saying what I wanted.
+
+'Why, Madame, this is a grave charge! Do you admit it, pray?'
+
+Madame, with the coolest possible effrontery, denied it all; with the most
+solemn asseverations, and with streaming eyes and clasped hands, conjured
+me melodramatically to withdraw that intolerable story, and to do her
+justice. I stared at her for a while astounded, and turning suddenly to my
+uncle, as vehemently asserted the truth of every syllable I had related.
+
+'You hear, my dear child, you hear her deny everything; what am I to think?
+You must excuse the bewilderment of my old head. Madame de la--that lady
+has arrived excellently recommended by the superioress of the place where
+dear Milly awaits you, and such persons are particular. It strikes me, my
+dear niece, that you must have made a mistake.'
+
+I protested here. But he went on without seeming to hear the parenthesis--
+
+'I know, my dear Maud, that you are quite incapable of wilfully deceiving
+anyone; but you are liable to be deceived like other young people. You
+were, no doubt, very nervous, and but half awake when you fancied you saw
+the occurrence you describe; and Madame de--de--'
+
+'De la Rougierre,' I supplied.
+
+'Yes, thank you--Madame de la Rougierre, who has arrived with excellent
+testimonials, strenuously denies the whole thing. Here is a conflict, my
+dear--in my mind a presumption of mistake. I confess I should prefer that
+theory to a peremptory assumption of guilt.'
+
+I felt incredulous and amazed; it seemed as if a dream were being enacted
+before me. A transaction of the most serious import, which I had witnessed
+with my own eyes, and described with unexceptionable minuteness and
+consistency, is discredited by that strange and suspicious old man with
+an imbecile coolness. It was quite in vain my reiterating my statement,
+backing it with the most earnest asseverations. I was beating the air. It
+did not seem to reach his mind. It was all received with a simper of feeble
+incredulity.
+
+He patted and smoothed my head--he laughed gently, and shook his while
+I insisted; and Madame protested her purity in now tranquil floods
+of innocent tears, and murmured mild and melancholy prayers for my
+enlightenment and reformation. I felt as if I should lose my reason.
+
+'There now, dear Maud, we have heard enough; it is, I do believe, a
+delusion. Madame de la Rougierre will be your companion, at the utmost, for
+three or four weeks. Do exercise a little of your self-command and
+good sense--you know how I am tortured. Do not, I entreat, add to my
+perplexities. You may make yourself very happy with Madame if you will, I
+have no doubt.'
+
+'I propose to Mademoiselle,' said Madame, drying her eyes with a gentle
+alacrity, 'to profit of my visit for her education. But she does not seem
+to weesh wat I think is so useful.'
+
+'She threatened me with some horrid French vulgarism--_de faire baiser le
+babouin a moi_, whatever that means; and I know she hates me,' I replied,
+impetuously.
+
+'Doucement--doucement!' said my uncle, with a smile at once amused and
+compassionate. 'Doucement! ma chere.'
+
+With great hands and cunning eyes uplifted, Madame tearfully--for her tears
+came on short notice--again protested her absolute innocence. She had never
+in all her life so much as heard one so villain phrase.
+
+'You see, my dear, you have misheard; young people never attend. You will
+do well to take advantage of Madame's short residence to get up your French
+a little, and the more you are with her the better.'
+
+'I understand then, Mr. Ruthyn, you weesh I should resume my instructions?'
+asked Madame.
+
+'Certainly; and converse all you can in French with Mademoiselle Maud. You
+will be glad, my dear, that I've insisted on it,' he said, turning to me,
+'when you have reached France, where you will find they speak nothing else.
+And now, dear Maud--no, not a word more--you must leave me. Farewell,
+Madame!'
+
+And he waved us out a little impatiently; and I, without one look toward
+Madame de la Rougierre, stunned and incensed, walked into my room and shut
+the door.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LV
+
+_THE FOOT OF HERCULES_
+
+
+I stood at the window--still the same leaden sky and feathery sleet before
+me--trying to estimate the magnitude of the discovery I had just made.
+Gradually a kind of despair seized me, and I threw myself passionately on
+my bed, weeping aloud.
+
+Good Mary Quince was, of course, beside me in a moment, with her pale,
+concerned face.
+
+'Oh, Mary, Mary, she's come--that dreadful woman, Madame de la Rougierre,
+has come to be my governess again; and Uncle Silas won't hear or believe
+anything about her. It is vain talking; he is prepossessed. Was ever so
+unfortunate a creature as I? Who could have fancied or feared such a thing?
+Oh, Mary, Mary, what am I to do? what is to become of me? Am I never to
+shake off that vindictive, terrible woman?'
+
+Mary said all she could to console me. I was making too much of her. What
+was she, after all, more than a governess?--she could not hurt me. I was
+not a child no longer--she could not bully me now; and my uncle, though he
+might be deceived for a while, would not be long finding her out.
+
+Thus and soforth did good Mary Quince declaim, and at last she did impress
+me a little, and I began to think that I had, perhaps, been making too much
+of Madame's visit. But still imagination, that instrument and mirror
+of prophecy, showed her formidable image always on its surface, with a
+terrible moving background of shadows.
+
+In a few minutes there was a knock at my door, and Madame herself entered.
+She was in walking costume. There had been a brief clearing of the weather,
+and she proposed our making a promenade together.
+
+On seeing Mary Quince she broke into a rapture of compliment and greeting,
+and took what Mr. Richardson would have called her passive hand, and
+pressed it with wonderful tenderness.
+
+Honest Mary suffered all this somewhat reluctantly, never smiling, and, on
+the contrary, looking rather ruefully at her feet.
+
+'Weel you make a some tea? When I come back, dear Mary Quince, I 'av so
+much to tell you and dear Miss Maud of all my adventures while I 'av been
+away; it will make a you laugh ever so much. I was--what you theenk?--near,
+ever so near to be married!' And upon this she broke into a screeching
+laugh, and shook Mary Quince merrily by the shoulder.
+
+I sullenly declined going out, or rising; and when she had gone away, I
+told Mary that I should confine myself to my room while Madame stayed.
+
+But self-denying ordinances self-imposed are not always long observed by
+youth. Madame de la Rougierre laid herself out to be agreeable; she had no
+end of stories--more than half, no doubt, pure fictions--to tell, but all,
+in that triste place, amusing. Mary Quince began to entertain a better
+opinion of her. She actually helped to make beds, and tried to be in
+every way of use, and seemed to have quite turned over a new leaf; and so
+gradually she moved me, first to listen, and at last to talk.
+
+On the whole, these terms were better than a perpetual skirmish; but,
+notwithstanding all her gossip and friendliness, I continued to have a
+profound distrust and even terror of her.
+
+She seemed curious about the Bartram-Haugh family, and all their ways, and
+listened darkly when I spoke. I told her, bit by bit, the whole story of
+Dudley, and she used, whenever there was news of the Seamew, to read the
+paragraph for my benefit; and in poor Milly's battered little Atlas she
+used to trace the ship's course with a pencil, writing in, from point to
+point, the date at which the vessel was 'spoken' at sea. She seemed amused
+at the irrepressible satisfaction with which I received these minutes of
+his progress; and she used to calculate the distance;--on such a day he was
+two hundred and sixty miles, on such another five hundred; the last point
+was more than eight hundred--good, better, best--best of all would be those
+'deleecious antipode, w'ere he would so soon promener on his head twelve
+thousand mile away;' and at the conceit she would fall into screams of
+laughter.
+
+Laugh as she might, however, there was substantial comfort in thinking
+of the boundless stretch of blue wave that rolled between me and that
+villainous cousin.
+
+I was now on very odd terms with Madame. She had not relapsed into her
+favourite vein of oracular sarcasm and menace; she had, on the contrary,
+affected her good-humoured and genial vein. But I was not to be deceived
+by this. I carried in my heart that deep-seated fear of her which her
+unpleasant good-humour and gaiety never disturbed for a moment. I was very
+glad, therefore, when she went to Todcaster by rail, to make some purchases
+for the journey which we were daily expecting to commence; and happy in the
+opportunity of a walk, good old Mary Quince and I set forth for a little
+ramble.
+
+As I wished to make some purchases in Feltram, I set out, with Mary Quince
+for my companion. On reaching the great gate we found it locked. The key,
+however, was in it, and as it required more than the strength of my hand to
+turn, Mary tried it. At the same moment old Crowle came out of the sombre
+lodge by its side, swallowing down a mouthful of his dinner in haste. No
+one, I believe, liked the long suspicious face of the old man, seldom shorn
+or washed, and furrowed with great, grimy perpendicular wrinkles. Leering
+fiercely at Mary, not pretending to see me, he wiped his mouth hurriedly
+with the back of his hand, and growled--
+
+'Drop it.'
+
+'Open it, please, Mr. Crowle,' said Mary, renouncing the task.
+
+Crowle wiped his mouth as before, looking inauspicious; shuffling to the
+spot, and muttering to himself, he first satisfied himself that the lock
+was fast, and then lodged the key in his coat-pocket, and still muttering,
+retraced his steps.
+
+'We want the gate open, please,' said Mary.
+
+No answer.
+
+'Miss Maud wants to go into the town,' she insisted.
+
+'We wants many a thing we can't get,' he growled, stepping into his
+habitation.
+
+'Please open the gate,' I said, advancing.
+
+He half turned on his threshold, and made a dumb show of touching his hat,
+although he had none on.
+
+'Can't, ma'am; without an order from master, no one goes out here.'
+
+'You won't allow me and my maid to pass the gate?' I said.
+
+''Tisn't _me_, ma'am,' said he; 'but I can't break orders, and no one goes
+out without the master allows.'
+
+And without awaiting further parley, he entered, shutting his hatch behind
+him.
+
+So Mary and I stood, looking very foolish at one another. This was the
+first restraint I had experienced since Milly and I had been refused a
+passage through the Windmill paling. The rule, however, on which Crowle
+insisted I felt confident could not have been intended to apply to me. A
+word to Uncle Silas would set all right; and in the meantime I proposed to
+Mary that we should take a walk--my favourite ramble--into the Windmill
+Wood.
+
+I looked toward Dickon's farmstead as we passed, thinking that Beauty might
+have been there. I did see the girl, who was plainly watching us. She stood
+in the doorway of the cottage, withdrawn into the shade, and, I fancied,
+anxious to escape observation. When we had passed on a little, I was
+confirmed in that belief by seeing her run down the footpath which led from
+the rear of the farm-yard in the direction contrary to that in which we
+were moving.
+
+'So,' I thought, 'poor Meg falls from me!'
+
+Mary Quince and I rambled on through the wood, till we reached the windmill
+itself, and seeing its low arched door open, we entered the chiaro-oscuro
+of its circular basement. As we did so I heard a rush and the creak of a
+plank, and looking up, I saw just a foot--no more--disappearing through the
+trap-door.
+
+In the case of one we love or fear intensely, what feats of comparative
+anatomy will not the mind unconsciously perform? Constructing the whole
+living animal from the turn of an elbow, the curl of a whisker, a segment
+of a hand. How instantaneous and unerring is the instinct!
+
+'Oh, Mary, what have I seen!' I whispered, recovering from the fascination
+that held my gaze fast to the topmost rounds of the ladder, that
+disappeared in the darkness above the open door in the loft. 'Come,
+Mary--come away.'
+
+At the same instant appeared the swarthy, sullen face of Dickon Hawkes in
+the shadow of the aperture. Having but one serviceable leg, his descent
+was slow and awkward, and having got his head to the level of the loft he
+stopped to touch his hat to me, and to hasp and lock the trap-door.
+
+When this was done, the man again touched his hat, and looked steadily and
+searchingly at me for a second or so, while he got the key into his pocket.
+
+'These fellahs stores their flour too long 'ere, ma'am. There's a deal o'
+trouble a-looking arter it. I'll talk wi' Silas, and settle that.'
+
+By this time he had got upon the worn-tiled floor, and touching his hat
+again, he said--
+
+'I'm a-goin' to lock the door, ma'am!'
+
+So with a start, and again whispering--
+
+'Come, Mary--come away'--
+
+With my arm fast in hers, we made a swift departure.
+
+'I feel very faint, Mary,' said I. 'Come quickly. There's nobody following
+us?'
+
+'No, Miss, dear. That man with the wooden leg is putting a padlock on the
+door.'
+
+'Come _very_ fast,' I said; and when we had got a little farther, I said,
+'Look again, and see whether anyone is following.'
+
+'No one, Miss,' answered Mary, plainly surprised. 'He's putting the key in
+his pocket, and standin' there a-lookin' after us.'
+
+'Oh, Mary, did not you see it?'
+
+'What, Miss?' asked Mary, almost stopping.
+
+'Come on, Mary. Don't pause. They will observe us,' I whispered, hurrying
+her forward.
+
+'What did you see, Miss?' repeated Mary.
+
+'_Mr. Dudley_,' I whispered, with a terrified emphasis, not daring to turn
+my head as I spoke.
+
+'Lawk, Miss!' remonstrated honest Quince, with a protracted intonation
+of wonder and incredulity, which plainly implied a suspicion that I was
+dreaming.
+
+'Yes, Mary. When we went into that dreadful room--that dark, round place--I
+saw his foot on the ladder. _His_ foot, Mary I can't be mistaken. _I won't
+be questioned_. You'll _find_ I'm right. He's _here_. He never went in
+that ship at all. A fraud has been practised on me--it is infamous--it
+is terrible. I'm frightened out of my life. For heaven's sake, look back
+again, and tell me what you see.'
+
+'_Nothing_, Miss,' answered Mary, in contagious whispers, 'but that
+wooden-legged chap, standin' hard by the door.'
+
+'And no one with him?'
+
+'No one, Miss.'
+
+We got without pursuit through the gate in the paling. I drew breath so
+soon as we had reached the cover of the thicket near the chestnut hollow,
+and I began to reflect that whoever the owner of the foot might be--and
+I was still instinctively certain that it was no other than
+Dudley--concealment was plainly his object. I need not, then, be at all
+uneasy lest he should pursue us.
+
+As we walked slowly and in silence along the grassy footpath, I heard a
+voice calling my name from behind. Mary Quince had not heard it at all, but
+I was quite certain.
+
+It was repeated twice or thrice, and, looking in considerable doubt and
+trepidation under the hanging boughs, I saw Beauty, not ten yards away,
+standing among the underwood.
+
+I remember how white the eyes and teeth of the swarthy girl looked, as with
+hand uplifted toward her ear, she watched us while, as it seemed, listening
+for more distant sounds.
+
+Beauty beckoned eagerly to me, advancing, with looks of great fear and
+anxiety, two or three short steps toward me.
+
+'_She_ baint to come,' said Beauty, under her breath, so soon as I had
+nearly reached her, pointing without raising her hand at Mary Quince.
+
+'Tell her to sit on the ash-tree stump down yonder, and call ye as loud as
+she can if she sees any fellah a-comin' this way, an' rin ye back to me;'
+and she impatiently beckoned me away on her errand.
+
+When I returned, having made this dispositions, I perceived how pale the
+girl was.
+
+'Are you ill, Meg?' I asked.
+
+'Never ye mind. Well enough. Listen, Miss; I must tell it all in a crack,
+an' if she calls, rin awa' to her, and le' me to myself, for if fayther or
+t'other un wor to kotch me here, I think they'd kill me a'most. Hish!'
+
+She paused a second, looking askance, in the direction where she fancied
+Mary Quince was. Then she resumed in a whisper--
+
+'Now, lass, mind ye, ye'll keep what I say to yourself. You're not to tell
+that un nor any other for your life, mind, a word o' what I'm goin' to tell
+ye.'
+
+'I'll not say a word. Go on.'
+
+'Did ye see Dudley?'
+
+'I think I saw him getting up the ladder.'
+
+'In the mill? Ha! that's him. He never went beyond Todcaster. He staid in
+Feltram after.'
+
+It was my turn to look pale now. My worst conjecture was established.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVI
+
+_I CONSPIRE_
+
+
+'That's a bad un, he is--oh, Miss, Miss Maud! It's nout that's good as
+keeps him an' fayther--(mind, lass, ye promised you would not tell no
+one)--as keeps them two a-talkin' and a-smokin' secret-like together in the
+mill. An' fayther don't know I found him out. They don't let me into the
+town, but Brice tells me, and he knows it's Dudley; and it's nout that's
+good, but summat very bad. An' I reckon, Miss, it's all about you. Be ye
+frightened, Miss Maud?'
+
+I felt on the point of fainting, but I rallied.
+
+'Not much, Meg. Go on, for Heaven's sake. Does Uncle Silas know he is
+here?'
+
+'Well, Miss, they were with him, Brice told me, from eleven o'clock to nigh
+one o' Tuesday night, an' went in and come out like thieves, 'feard ye'd
+see 'em.'
+
+'And how does Brice know anything bad?' I asked, with a strange freezing
+sensation creeping from my heels to my head and down again--I am sure
+deadly pale, but speaking very collectedly.
+
+'Brice said, Miss, he saw Dudley a-cryin' and lookin' awful black, and says
+he to fayther, "'Tisn't in my line nohow, an' I can't;" and says fayther
+to he, "No one likes they soart o' things, but how can ye help it? The old
+boy's behind ye wi' his pitchfork, and ye canna stop." An' wi' that he
+bethought him o' Brice, and says he, "What be ye a-doin' there? Get ye down
+wi' the nags to blacksmith, do ye." An' oop gits Dudley, pullin' his hat
+ower his brows, an' says he, "I wish I was in the _Seamew_. I'm good for
+nout wi' this thing a-hangin' ower me." An' that's all as Brice heard. An'
+he's afeard o' fayther and Dudley awful. Dudley could lick him to pot if
+he crossed him, and he and fayther 'ud think nout o' havin' him afore the
+justices for poachin', and swearin' him into gaol.'
+
+'But why does he think it's about _me_?'
+
+'Hish!' said Meg, who fancied she heard a sound, but all was quiet. 'I
+can't say--we're in danger, lass. I don't know why--but _he_ does, an' so
+do I, an', for that matter, so do _ye_.'
+
+'Meg, I'll leave Bartram.'
+
+'Ye can't.'
+
+'Can't. What do you mean, girl?'
+
+'They won't let ye oot. The gates is all locked. They've dogs--they've
+bloodhounds, Brice says. Ye _can't_ git oot, mind; put that oot o' your
+head.
+
+'I tell ye what ye'll do. Write a bit o' a note to the lady yonder at
+Elverston; an' though Brice be a wild fellah, and 'appen not ower good
+sometimes, he likes me, an' I'll make him take it. Fayther will be grindin'
+at mill to-morrow. Coom ye here about one o'clock--that's if ye see the
+mill-sails a-turnin'--and me and Brice will meet ye here. Bring that old
+lass wi' ye. There's an old French un, though, that talks wi' Dudley. Mind
+ye, that un knows nout o' the matter. Brice be a kind lad to me, whatsoe'er
+he be wi' others, and I think he won't split. Now, lass, I must go. God
+help ye; God bless ye; an', for the world's wealth, don't ye let one o'
+them see ye've got ought in your head, not even that un.'
+
+Before I could say another word, the girl had glided from me, with a wild
+gesture of silence, and a shake of her head.
+
+I can't at all account for the state in which I was. There are resources
+both of energy and endurance in human nature which we never suspect until
+the tremendous voice of necessity summons them into play. Petrified with a
+totally new horror, but with something of the coldness and impassiveness of
+the transformation, I stood, spoke, and acted--a wonder, almost a terror,
+to myself.
+
+I met Madame on my return as if nothing had happened. I heard her ugly
+gabble, and looked at the fruits of her hour's shopping, as I might hear,
+and see, and talk, and smile, in a dream.
+
+But the night was dreadful. When Mary Quince and I were alone, I locked
+the door. I continued walking up and down the room, with my hands clasped,
+looking at the inexorable floor, the walls, the ceiling, with a sort
+of imploring despair. I was afraid to tell my dear old Mary. The least
+indiscretion would be failure, and failure destruction.
+
+I answered her perplexed solicitudes by telling her that I was not very
+well--that I was uneasy; but I did not fail to extract from her a promise
+that she would not hint to mortal, either my suspicions about Dudley, or
+our rencontre with Meg Hawkes.
+
+I remember how, when, after we had got, late at night, into bed, I sat up,
+shivering with horror, in mine, while honest Mary's tranquil breathing told
+how soundly she slept. I got up, and looked from the window, expecting to
+see some of those wolfish dogs which they had brought to the place prowling
+about the court-yard. Sometimes I prayed, and felt tranquillised, and
+fancied that I was perhaps to have a short interval of sleep. But the
+serenity was delusive, and all the time my nerves were strung hysterically.
+Sometimes I felt quite wild, and on the point of screaming. At length that
+dreadful night passed away. Morning came, and a less morbid, though hardly
+a less terrible state of mind. Madame paid me an early visit. A thought
+struck me. I knew that she loved shopping, and I said, quite carelessly--
+
+'Your yesterday's shopping tempts me, Madame, and I must get a few things
+before we leave for France. Suppose we go into Feltram to-day, and make my
+purchases, you and I?'
+
+She looked from the corner of her cunning eye in my face without answering.
+I did not blench, and she said--
+
+'Vary good. I would be vary 'appy,' and again she looked oddly at me.
+
+'Wat hour, my dear Maud? One o'clock? I think that weel de very well, eh?'
+
+I assented, and she grew silent.
+
+I wonder whether I did look as careless as I tried. I do not know. Through
+the whole of this awful period I was, I think, supernatural; and I even now
+look back with wonder upon my strange self-command.
+
+Madame, I hoped, had heard nothing of the order which prohibited my exit
+from the place. She would herself conduct me to Feltram, and secure, by
+accompanying me, my free egress.
+
+Once in Feltram, I would assert my freedom, and manage to reach my dear
+cousin Knollys. Back to Bartram no power should convey me. My heart swelled
+and fluttered in the awful suspense of that hour.
+
+Oh, Bartram-Haugh! how came you by those lofty walls? Which of my ancestors
+had begirt me with an impassable barrier in this horrible strait?
+
+Suddenly I remembered my letter to Lady Knollys. If I were disappointed in
+effecting my escape through Feltram, all would depend upon it.
+
+Having locked my door, I wrote as follows:--
+
+'Oh, my beloved cousin, as you hope for comfort in _your_ hour of fear, aid
+me now. Dudley has returned, and is secreted somewhere about the grounds.
+It is a _fraud_. They all pretend to me that he is gone away in the
+_Seamew_; and he or they had his name published as one of the passengers.
+Madame de la Rougierre has appeared! She is here, and my uncle insists on
+making her my close companion. I am at my wits' ends. I cannot escape--the
+walls are a prison; and I believe the eyes of my gaolers are always upon
+me. Dogs are kept for pursuit--yes, _dogs_! and the gates are locked
+against my escape. God help me! I don't know where to look, or whom to
+trust. I fear my uncle more than all. I think I could bear this better if I
+knew what their plans are, even the worst. If ever you loved or pitied me,
+dear cousin, I conjure you, help me in this extremity. Take me away from
+this. Oh, darling, for God's sake take me away!
+
+'Your distracted and terrified cousin,
+
+MAUD'
+
+'Bartram-Haugh.'
+
+I sealed this letter jealously, as if the inanimate missive would burst its
+cerements, and proclaim my desperate appeal through all the chambers and
+passages of silent Bartram.
+
+Old Quince, greatly to cousin Monica's amusement, persisted in furnishing
+me with those capacious pockets which belonged to a former generation. I
+was glad of this old-world eccentricity now, and placed my guilty letter,
+that, amidst all my hypocrisies, spoke out with terrible frankness, deep
+in this receptacle, and having hid away the pen and ink, my accomplices, I
+opened the door, and resumed my careless looks, awaiting Madame's return.
+
+'I was to demand to Mr. Ruthyn the permission to go to Feltram, and I think
+he will allow. He want to speak to you.'
+
+With Madame I entered my uncle's room. He was reclining on a sofa, his back
+towards us, and his long white hair, as fine as spun glass, hung over the
+back of the couch.
+
+'I was going to ask you, dear Maud, to execute two or three little
+commissions for me in Feltram.'
+
+My dreadful letter felt lighter in my pocket, and my heart beat violently.
+
+'But I have just recollected that this is a market-day, and Feltram will
+be full of doubtful characters and tipsy persons, so we must wait till
+to-morrow; and Madame says, very kindly, that she will, as she does not
+so much mind, make any little purchases to-day which cannot conveniently
+wait.'
+
+Madame assented with a courtesy to Uncle Silas, and a great hollow smile to
+me.
+
+By this time Uncle Silas had raised himself from his reclining posture, and
+was sitting, gaunt and white, upon the sofa.
+
+'News of my prodigal to-day,' he said, with a peevish smile, drawing the
+newspaper towards him. 'The vessel has been spoken again. How many miles
+away, do you suppose?'
+
+He spoke in a plaintive key, looking at me, with hungry eyes, and a
+horribly smiling countenance.
+
+'How far do you suppose Dudley is to-day?' and he laid the palm of his hand
+on the paragraph as he spoke. _Guess_!'
+
+For a moment I fancied this was a theatric preparation to give point to the
+disclosure of Dudley's real whereabouts.
+
+'It was a very long way. Guess!' he repeated.
+
+So, stammering a little and pale, I performed the required hypocrisy, after
+which my uncle read aloud for my benefit the line or two in which were
+recorded the event, and the latitude and longitude of the vessel at the
+time, of which Madame made a note in her memory, for the purpose of making
+her usual tracing in poor Milly's Atlas.
+
+I cannot say how it really was, but I fancied that Uncle Silas was all
+the time reading my countenance, with a grim and practised scrutiny; but
+nothing came of it, and we were dismissed.
+
+Madame loved shopping, even for its own sake, but shopping with
+opportunities of peculation still more. She she had had her luncheon,
+and was dressed for the excursion, she did precisely what I now most
+desired--she proposed to take charge of my commissions and my money; and
+thus entrusted, left me at liberty to keep tryst at the Chestnut Hollow.
+
+So soon as I had seen Madame fairly off, I hurried Mary Quince, and got my
+things on quickly. We left the house by the side entrance, which I knew my
+uncle's windows did not command. Glad was I to feel a slight breeze, enough
+to make the mill-sails revolve; and as we got further into the grounds,
+and obtained a distant view of the picturesque old windmill, I felt
+inexpressibly relieved on seeing that it was actually working.
+
+We were now in the Chestnut Hollow, and I sent Mary Quince to her old point
+of observation, which commanded a view of the path in the direction of the
+Windmill Wood, with her former order to call 'I've found it,' as loudly as
+she could, in case she should see anyone approaching.
+
+I stopped at the point of our yesterday's meeting. I peered under the
+branches, and my heart beat fast as I saw Meg Hawkes awaiting me.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVII
+
+_THE LETTER_
+
+
+'Come away, lass,' whispered Beauty, very pale; 'he's here--Tom Brice.'
+
+And she led the way, shoving aside the leafless underwood, and we reached
+Tom. The slender youth, groom or poacher--he might answer for either--with
+his short coat and gaitered legs, was sitting on a low horizontal bough,
+with his shoulder against the trunk.
+
+'_Don't_ ye mind; sit ye still, lad,' said Meg, observing that he was
+preparing to rise, and had entangled his hat in the boughs. 'Sit ye still,
+and hark to the lady. He'll take it, Miss Maud, if he can; wi' na ye, lad?'
+
+'E'es, I'll take it,' he replied, holding out his hand.
+
+'Tom Brice, you won't deceive me?'
+
+'Noa, sure,' said Tom and Meg nearly in the same breath.
+
+'You are an honest English lad, Tom--you would not betray me?' I was
+speaking imploringly.
+
+'Noa, sure,' repeated Tom.
+
+There was something a little unsatisfactory in the countenance of this
+light-haired youth, with the sharpish up-turned nose. Throughout our
+interview he said next to nothing, and smiled lazily to himself, like a man
+listening to a child's solemn nonsense, and leading it on, with an amused
+irony, from one wise sally to another.
+
+Thus it seemed to me that this young clown, without in the least intending
+to be offensive, was listening to me with a profound and lazy mockery.
+
+I could not choose, however; and, such as he was, I must employ him or
+none.
+
+'Now, Tom Brice, a great deal depends on this.'
+
+'That's true for her, Tom Brice,' said Meg, who now and then confirmed my
+asseverations.
+
+'I'll give you a pound _now_, Tom,' and I placed the coin and the letter
+together in his hand. 'And you are to give this letter to Lady Knollys, at
+Elverston; you know Elverston, don't you?'
+
+'He does, Miss. Don't ye, lad?'
+
+'E'es.'
+
+'Well, do so, Tom, and I'll be good to you so long as I live.'
+
+'D'ye hear, lad?'
+
+'E'es,' said Tom; 'it's very good.'
+
+'You'll take the letter, Tom? 'I said, in much greater trepidation as to
+his answer than I showed.
+
+'E'es, I'll take the letter,' said he, rising, and turning it about in his
+fingers under his eye, like a curiosity.
+
+'Tom Brice,' I said, 'If you can't be true to me, say so; but don't take
+the letter except to give it to Lady Knollys, at Elverston. If you won't
+promise that, let me have the note back. Keep the pound; but tell me that
+you won't mention my having asked you to carry a letter to Elverston to
+anyone.'
+
+For the first time Tom looked perfectly serious. He twiddled the corner of
+my letter between his finger and thumb, and wore very much the countenance
+of a poacher about to be committed.
+
+'I don't want to chouce ye, Miss; but I must take care o' myself, ye see.
+The letters goes all through Silas's fingers to the post, and he'd know
+damn well this worn't among 'em. They do say he opens 'em, and reads 'em
+before they go; an' that's his diversion. I don't know; but I do believe
+that's how it be; an' if this one turned up, they'd all know it went be
+hand, and I'd be spotted for't.'
+
+'But you know who I am, Tom, and I'd save you,' said I, eagerly.
+
+'Ye'd want savin' yerself, I'm thinkin', if that feel oot,' said Tom,
+cynically. 'I don't say, though, I'll not take it--only this--I won't run
+my head again a wall for no one.'
+
+'Tom,' I said, with a sudden inspiration, 'give me back the letter,
+and take me out of Bartram; take me to Elverston; it will be the best
+thing--for _you_, Tom, I mean--it will indeed--that ever befell you.'
+
+With this clown I was pleading, as for my life; my hand was on his sleeve.
+I was gazing imploringly in his face.
+
+But it would not do; Tom Brice looked amused again, swung his head a little
+on one side, grinning sheepishly over his shoulder on the roots of the
+trees beside him, as if he were striving to keep himself from an uncivil
+fit of laughter.
+
+'I'll do what a wise lad may, Miss; but ye don't know they lads; they
+bain't that easy come over; and I won't get knocked on the head, nor sent
+to gaol 'appen, for no good to thee nor me. There's Meg there, she knows
+well enough I could na' manage that; so I won't try it, Miss, by no chance;
+no offence, Miss; but I'd rayther not, an' I'll just try what I can make
+o'this; that's all I can do for ye.'
+
+Tom Brice, with these words, stood up, and looked uneasily in the direction
+of the Windmill Wood.
+
+'Mind ye, Miss, coom what will, ye'll not tell o' me?'
+
+'Whar 'ill ye go now, Tom?' inquired Meg, uneasily.
+
+'Never ye mind, lass,' answered he, breaking his way through the thicket,
+and soon disappearing.
+
+'E'es that 'ill be it--he'll git into the sheepwalk behind the mound.
+They're all down yonder; git ye back, Miss, to the hoose--be the side-door;
+mind ye, don't go round the corner; and I'll jest sit awhile among the
+bushes, and wait a good time for a start. And good-bye, Miss; and don't ye
+show like as if there was aught out o' common on your mind. Hish!'
+
+There was a distant hallooing.
+
+'That be fayther!' she whispered, with a very blank countenance, and
+listened with her sunburnt hand to her ear.
+
+'Tisn't me, only Davy he'll be callin',' she said, with a great sigh, and a
+joyless smile. 'Now git ye away i' God's name.'
+
+So running lightly along the path, under cover of this thick wood, I
+recalled Mary Quince, and together we hastened back again to the house, and
+entered, as directed, by the side-door, which did not expose us to be
+seen from the Windmill Wood, and, like two criminals, we stole up by the
+backstairs, and so through the side-gallery to my room; and there sat down
+to collect my wits, and try to estimate the exact effect of what had just
+occurred.
+
+Madame had not returned. That was well; she always visited my room first,
+and everything was precisely as I had left it--a certain sign that her
+prying eyes and busy fingers had not been at work during my absence.
+
+When she did appear, strange to say, it was to bring me unexpected comfort.
+She had in her hand a letter from my dear Lady Knollys--a gleam of sunlight
+from the free and happy outer world entered with it. The moment Madame left
+me to myself, I opened it and read as follows:--
+
+'I am so happy, my dearest Maud, in the immediate prospect of seeing you. I
+have had a really kind letter from poor Silas--_poor_ I say, for I really
+compassionate his situation, about which he has been, I do believe, quite
+frank--at least Ilbury says so, and somehow he happens to know. I have had
+quite an affecting, changed letter. I will tell you all when I see you.
+He wants me ultimately to undertake that which would afford me the most
+unmixed happiness--I mean the care of you, my dear girl. I only fear lest
+my too eager acceptance of the trust should excite that vein of opposition
+which is in most human beings, and induce him to think over his offer less
+favourably again. He says I must come to Bartram, and stay a night, and
+promises to lodge me comfortably; about which last I honestly do not care a
+pin, when the chance of a comfortable evening's gossip with you is in view.
+Silas explains his sad situation, and must hold himself in readiness for
+early flight, if he would avoid the risk of losing his personal liberty. It
+is a sad thing that he should have so irretrievably ruined himself,
+that poor Austin's liberality seems to have positively precipitated his
+extremity. His great anxiety is that I should see you before you leave for
+your short stay in France. He thinks you must leave before a fortnight. I
+am thinking of asking you to come over here; I know you would be just as
+well at Elverston as in France; but perhaps, as he seems disposed to do
+what we all wish, it may be safer to let him set about it in his own way.
+The truth is, I have so set my heart upon it that I fear to risk it by
+crossing him even in a trifle. He says I must fix an early day next week,
+and talks as if he meant to urge me to make a longer visit than he defined.
+I shall be only too happy. I begin, my dear Maud, to think that there is no
+use in trying to control events, and that things often turn out best, and
+most exactly to our wishes, by being left quite to themselves. I think
+it was Talleyrand who praised the talent of _waiting_ so much. In high
+spirits, and with my head brimful of plans, I remain, dearest Maud, ever
+your affectionate cousin,
+
+MONICA.'
+
+Here was an inexplicable puzzle! A faint radiance of hope, however, began
+to overspread a landscape only a few minutes before darkened by total
+eclipse; but construct what theory I might, all were inconsistent with many
+well-established and awful incongruities, and their wrecks lay strown over
+the troubled waters of the gulf into which I gazed.
+
+Why was Madame here? Why was Dudley concealed about the place? Why was I a
+prisoner within the walls? What were those dangers which Meg Hawkes seemed
+to think so great and so imminent as to induce her to risk her lover's
+safety for my deliverance? All these menacing facts stood grouped together
+against the dark certainty that never were men more deeply interested in
+making away with one human being, than were Uncle Silas and Dudley in
+removing me.
+
+Sometimes to these dreadful evidences I abandoned my soul. Sometimes,
+reading Cousin Monica's sunny letter, the sky would clear, and my terrors
+melt away like nightmares in the morning. I never repented, however, that
+I had sent my letter by Tom Brice. Escape from Bartram-Haugh was my hourly
+longing.
+
+That evening Madame invited herself to tea with me. I did not object.
+It was better just then to be on friendly relations with everybody, if
+possible, even on their own terms. She was in one of her boisterous and
+hilarious moods, and there was a perfume of brandy.
+
+She narrated some compliments paid her that morning in Feltram by that
+'good crayature' Mrs. Litheways, the silk-mercer, and what ''ansom faylow'
+was her new foreman--(she intended plainly that I should 'queez' her)--and
+how 'he follow' her with his eyes wherever she went. I thought, perhaps, he
+fancied she might pocket some of his lace or gloves. And all the time her
+great wicked eyes were rolling and glancing according to her ideas of
+fascination, and her bony face grinning and flaming with the 'strong drink'
+in which she delighted. She sang twaddling chansons, and being, as was her
+wont under such exhilarating influences, in a vapouring mood, she vowed
+that I should have my carriage and horses immediately.
+
+'I weel try what I can do weeth your Uncle Silas. We are very good
+old friends, Mr. Ruthyn and I,' she said with a leer which I did not
+understand, and which yet frightened me.
+
+I never could quite understand why these Jezebels like to insinuate the
+dreadful truth against themselves; but they do. Is it the spirit of
+feminine triumph overcoming feminine shame, and making them vaunt their
+fall as an evidence of bygone fascination and existing power? Need we
+wonder? Have not women preferred hatred to indifference, and the reputation
+of witchcraft, with all its penalties, to absolute insignificance? Thus, as
+they enjoyed the fear inspired among simple neighbours by their imagined
+traffic with the father of ill, did Madame, I think, relish with a cynical
+vainglory the suspicion of her satanic superiority.
+
+Next morning Uncle Silas sent for me. He was seated at his table, and spoke
+his little French greeting, smiling as usual, pointing to a chair opposite.
+
+'How far, I forget,' he said, carelessly laying his newspaper on the table,
+'did you yesterday guess Dudley to be?'
+
+'Eleven hundred miles I thought it was.'
+
+'Oh yes, so it was;' and then there was an abstracted pause. 'I have been
+writing to Lord Ilbury, your trustee,' he resumed. I ventured to say, my
+dear Maud--(for having thoughts of a different arrangement for you, more
+suitable under my distressing circumstances, I do not wish to vacate
+without some expression of your estimate of my treatment of you while
+under my roof)--I ventured to say that you thought me kind, considerate,
+indulgent,--may I say so?'
+
+I assented. What could I say?
+
+'I said you had enjoyed our poor way of living here--our rough ways and
+liberty. Was I right?'
+
+Again I assented.
+
+'And, in fact, that you had nothing to object against your poor old uncle,
+except indeed his poverty, which you forgave. I think I said truth. Did I,
+dear Maud?'
+
+Again I acquiesced.
+
+All this time he was fumbling among the papers in his coatpocket.
+
+'That is satisfactory. So I expected you to say,' he murmured. 'I expected
+no less.'
+
+On a sudden a frightful change spread across his face. He rose like a
+spectre with a white scowl.
+
+'Then how do you account for that?' he shrieked in a voice of thunder, and
+smiting my open letter to Lady Knollys, face upward, upon the table.
+
+I stared at my uncle, unable to speak, until I seemed to lose sight of him;
+but his voice, like a bell, still yelled in my ears.
+
+'There! young hypocrite and liar! explain that farrago of slander which you
+bribed my servant to place in the hands of my kinswoman, Lady Knollys.'
+
+And so on and on it went, I gazing into darkness, until the voice itself
+became indistinct, grew into a buzz, and hummed away into silence.
+
+I think I must have had a fit.
+
+When I came to myself I was drenched with water, my hair, face, neck, and
+dress. I did not in the least know where I was. I thought my father was
+ill, and spoke to him. Uncle Silas was standing near the window, looking
+unspeakably grim. Madame was seated beside me, and an open bottle of ether,
+one of Uncle Silas's restoratives, on the table before me.
+
+'Who's that--who's ill--is anyone dead?' I cried.
+
+At last I was relieved by long paroxysms of weeping. When I was
+sufficiently recovered, I was conveyed into my own room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVIII
+
+_LADY KNOLLYS' CARRIAGE_
+
+
+Next morning--it was Sunday--I lay on my bed in my dressing-gown, dull,
+apathetic, with all my limbs sore, and, as I thought, rheumatic,
+and feeling so ill that I did not care to speak or lift my head. My
+recollection of what had passed in Uncle Silas's room was utterly confused,
+and it seemed to me as if my poor father had been there and taken a
+share--I could not remember how--in the conference.
+
+I was too exhausted and stupid to clear up this horrible muddle, and merely
+lay with my face toward the wall, motionless and silent, except for a great
+sigh every now and then.
+
+Good Mary Quince was in the room--there was some comfort in that; but I
+felt quite worn out, and had rather she did not speak to me; and indeed for
+the time I felt absolutely indifferent as to whether I lived or died.
+
+Cousin Monica this morning, at pleasant Elverston, all-unconscious of my
+sad plight, proposed to Lady Mary Carysbroke and Lord Ilbury, her
+guests, to drive over to church at Feltram, and then pay us a visit at
+Bartram-Haugh, to which they readily agreed.
+
+Accordingly, at about two o'clock, this pleasant party of three arrived at
+Bartram. They walked, having left the carriage to follow when the horses
+were fed; and Madame de la Rougierre, who was in my uncle's room when
+little Giblets arrived to say that the party were in the parlour, whispered
+for a little with my uncle, who then said--
+
+'Miss Maud Ruthyn has gone out to drive, but I shall be happy to see Lady
+Knollys here, if she will do me the favour to come upstairs and see me for
+a few moments; and you can mention that I am very far from well.'
+
+Madame followed him out upon the lobby, and added, holding him by the
+collar, and whispering earnestly in his ear--
+
+'Bring hair ladysheep up by the backstairs--mind, the _back_stairs.'
+
+And the next moment Madame entered my room, with long tiptoe steps, and
+looking, Mary Quince said, as if she were going to be hanged.
+
+On entering she looked sharply round, and being satisfied of Mary Quince's
+presence, she turned the key in the door, and made some affectionate
+enquiries about me in a whisper; and then she stole to the window and
+peeped out, standing back some way; after which she came to my bedside,
+murmured some tender sentences, drew the curtain a little, and making some
+little fidgety adjustments about the room; among the rest she took the key
+from the lock, quietly, and put it into her pocket.
+
+This was so odd a procedure that honest Mary Quince rose stoutly from her
+chair, pointing to the lock, with her frank little blue eyes fixed on
+Madame, and she whispered--'Won't you put the key in the lock, please?'
+
+'Oh, certainly, Mary Queence; but it is better it shall be locked, for I
+think her uncle he is coming to see her, and I am sure she would be very
+much frightened, for he is very much displease, don't you see? and we can
+tell him she is not well enough, or asleep, and so he weel go away again,
+without any trouble.'
+
+I heard nothing of this, which was conducted in close whispers; and Mary,
+although she did not give Madame credit for caring whether I was frightened
+or not, and suspected her motives in everything, acquiesced grudgingly,
+fearing lest her alleged reason might possibly be the true one.
+
+So Madame hovered about the door, uneasily; and of what went on elsewhere
+during that period Lady Knollys afterwards gave me the following account:--
+
+'We were very much disappointed; but of course I was glad to see Silas, and
+your little hobgoblin butler led me upstairs to his room a different way, I
+think, from that I came before; but I don't know the house of Bartram well
+enough to speak positively. I only know that I was conducted quite across
+his bedroom, which I had not seen on my former visit, and so into his
+sitting-room, where I found him.
+
+'He seemed very glad to see me, came forward smiling--I disliked his smile
+always--with both hands out, and shook mine with more warmth than I ever
+remembered in his greeting before, and said--
+
+'"My dear, _dear_ Monica, how _very_ good of you--the very person I longed
+to see! I have been miserably ill, the sad consequence of still more
+miserable anxiety. Sit down, pray, for a moment."
+
+'And he paid me some nice little French compliment in verse.
+
+'"And where is Maud?" said I.
+
+'"I think Maud is by this time about halfway to Elverston," said the old
+gentleman. "I persuaded her to take a drive, and advised a call there,
+which seemed to please her, so I conjecture she obeyed."
+
+'"How _very_ provoking!" cried I.
+
+'"My poor Maud will be sadly disappointed, but you will console her by a
+visit--you have promised to come, and I shall try to make you comfortable.
+I shall be happier, Monica, with this proof of our perfect reconciliation.
+You won't deny me?"
+
+'"Certainly not. I am only too glad to come," said I; "and I want to thank
+you, Silas."
+
+'"For what?" said he.
+
+'"For wishing to place Maud in my care. I am very much obliged to you."
+
+'"I did not suggest it, I must say, Monica, with the least intention of
+obliging _you_," said Silas.
+
+'I thought he was going to break into one of his ungracious moods.
+
+'"But I _am_ obliged to you--very much obliged to you, Silas; and you
+sha'n't refuse my thanks."
+
+'"I am happy, at all events, Monica, in having won your good-will; we learn
+at last that in the affections only are our capacities for happiness; and
+how true is St. Paul's preference of love--the principle that abideth! The
+affections, dear Monica, are eternal; and being so, celestial, divine, and
+consequently happy, deriving happiness, and bestowing it."
+
+'I was always impatient of his or anybody else's metaphysics; but I
+controlled myself, and only said, with my customary impudence--
+
+'"Well, dear Silas, and when do you wish me to come?"
+
+'"The earlier the better," said he.
+
+'"Lady Mary and Ilbury will be leaving me on Tuesday morning. I can come to
+you in the afternoon, if you think Tuesday a good day."
+
+'"Thank you, dear Monica. I shall be, I trust, enlightened by that day as
+to my enemies' plans. It is a humiliating confession, Monica, but I am past
+feeling that. It is quite possible that an execution may be sent into
+this house to-morrow, and an end of all my schemes. It is not likely,
+however--hardly possible--before three weeks, my attorney tells me. I shall
+hear from him to-morrow morning, and then I shall ask you to name a very
+early day. If we are to have an unmolested fortnight certain, you shall
+hear, and name your own day."
+
+'Then he asked me who had accompanied me, and lamented ever so much his not
+being able to go down to receive them; and he offered luncheon, with a sort
+of Ravenswood smile, and a shrug, and I declined, telling him that we had
+but a few minutes, and that my companions were walking in the grounds near
+the house.
+
+'I asked whether Maud was likely to return soon?
+
+'"Certainly not before five o'clock." He thought we should probably meet
+her on our way back to Elverston; but could not be certain, as she might
+have changed her plans.
+
+'So then came--no more remaining to be said--a very affectionate parting. I
+believe all about his legal dangers was strictly true. How he could, unless
+that horrid woman had deceived him, with so serene a countenance tell me
+all those gross untruths about Maud, I can only admire.'
+
+In the meantime, as I lay in my bed, Madame, gliding hither and thither,
+whispering sometimes, listening at others, I suddenly startled them both by
+saying--
+
+'Whose carriage?'
+
+'What carriage, dear?' inquired Quince, whose ears were not so sharp as
+mine.
+
+Madame peeped from the window.
+
+''Tis the physician, Doctor Jolks. He is come to see your uncle, my dear,'
+said Madame.
+
+'But I hear a female voice,' I said, sitting up.
+
+'No, my dear; there is only the doctor,' said Madame. 'He is come to your
+uncle. I tell you he is getting out of his carriage,' and she affected to
+watch the doctor's descent.
+
+'The carriage is driving away!' I cried.
+
+'Yes, it is draiving away,' she echoed.
+
+But I had sprung from my bed, and was looking over her shoulder, before she
+perceived me.
+
+'It is Lady Knollys!' I screamed, seizing the window-frame to force it up,
+and, vainly struggling to open it, I cried--
+
+'I'm here, Cousin Monica. For God's sake, Cousin Monica--Cousin Monica!'
+
+'You are mad, Meess--go back,' screamed Madame, exerting her superior
+strength to force me back.
+
+But I saw deliverance and escape gliding away from my reach, and, strung
+to unnatural force by desperation, I pushed past her, and beat the window
+wildly with my hands, screaming--
+
+'Save me--save me! Here, here, Monica, here! Cousin, cousin, oh! save me!'
+
+Madame had seized my wrists, and a wild struggle was going on. A
+window-pane was broken, and I was shrieking to stop the carriage. The
+Frenchwoman looked black and haggard as a fury, as if she could have
+murdered me.
+
+Nothing daunted--frantic--I screamed in my despair, seeing the carriage
+drive swiftly away--seeing Cousin Monica's bonnet, as she sat chatting with
+her _vis-a-vis_.
+
+'Oh, oh, oh!' I shrieked, in vain and prolonged agony, as Madame, exerting
+her strength and matching her fury against my despair, forced me back in
+spite of my wild struggles, and pushed me sitting on the bed, where she
+held me fast, glaring in my face, and chuckling and panting over me.
+
+I think I felt something of the despair of a lost spirit.
+
+I remember the face of poor Mary Quince--its horror, its wonder--as she
+stood gaping into my face, over Madame's shoulder, and crying--
+
+'What is it, Miss Maud? What is it, dear?' And turning fiercely on Madame,
+and striving to force her grasp from my wrists, 'Are you hurting the child?
+Let her go--let her go.'
+
+'I _weel_ let her go. Wat old fool are you, Mary Queence! She is mad, I
+think. She 'as lost hair head.'
+
+'Oh, Mary, cry from the window. Stop the carriage!' I cried.
+
+Mary looked out, but there was by this time, of course, nothing in sight.
+
+'Why don't a you stop the carriage?' sneered Madame. 'Call a the coachman
+and the postilion. W'ere is the footman? Bah! _elle a le cerveau mal
+timbre_.'
+
+'Oh, Mary, Mary, is it gone--is it gone? Is there nothing there?' cried I,
+rushing to the window; and turning to Madame, after a vain straining of my
+eyes, my face against the glass--
+
+'Oh, cruel, cruel, wicked woman! why have you done this? What was it to
+you? Why do you persecute me? What good _can_ you gain by my ruin?'
+
+'Rueen! Par bleu! ma chere, you talk too fast. Did not a you see it, Mary
+Queence? It was the doctor's carriage, and Mrs. Jolks, and that eempudent
+faylow, young Jolks, staring up to the window, and Mademoiselle she come in
+soche shocking deshabille to show herself knocking at the window. 'Twould
+be very nice thing, Mary Queence, don't you think?'
+
+I was sitting now on the bedside, crying in mere despair. I did not care to
+dispute or to resist. Oh! why had rescue come so near, only to prove that
+it could not reach me? So I went on crying, with a clasping of my hands and
+turning up of my eyes, in incoherent prayer. I was not thinking of Madame,
+or of Mary Quince, or any other person, only babbling my anguish and
+despair helplessly in the ear of heaven.
+
+'I did not think there was soche fool. Wat _enfant gate_! My dear cheaile,
+wat a can you _mean_ by soche strange language and conduct? Wat for should
+a you weesh to display yourself in the window in soche 'orrible deshabille
+to the people in the doctor's coach?'
+
+'It was _Cousin Knollys_--Cousin Knollys. Oh, Cousin Knollys! You're
+gone--you're gone--you're _gone_!'
+
+'And if it was Lady Knollys' coach, there was certainly a coachman and a
+footman; and whoever has the coach there was young gentlemen in it. If it
+was Lady Knollys' carriage it would 'av been _worse_ than the doctor.'
+
+'It is no matter--it is all over. Oh, Cousin Monica, your poor Maud--where
+is she to turn? Is there no help?'
+
+That evening Madame visited me again, in one of her sedate and moral moods.
+She found me dejected and passive, as she had left me.
+
+'I think, Maud, there is news; but I am not certain.'
+
+I raised my head and looked at her wistfully.
+
+'I think there is letter of _bad_ news from the attorney in London.'
+
+'Oh!' I said, in a tone which I am sure implied the absolute indifference
+of dejection.
+
+'But, my dear Maud, if't be so, we shall go at once, you and me, to join
+Meess Millicent in France. La belle France! You weel like so moche! We
+shall be so gay. You cannot imagine there are such naice girl there. They
+all love a me so moche, you will be delight.'
+
+'How soon do we go?' I asked.
+
+'I do not know. Bote I was to bring in a case of eau de cologne that came
+this evening, and he laid down a letter and say:--"The blow has descended,
+Madame! My niece must hold herself in readiness." I said, "For what,
+Monsieur?" _twice_; bote he did not answer. I am sure it is _un proces_.
+They 'av ruin him. Eh bien, my dear. I suppose we shall leave this triste
+place immediately. I am so rejoice. It appears to me _un cimetiere_!'
+
+'Yes, I should like to leave it,' I said, sitting up, with a great sigh and
+sunken eyes. It seemed to me that I had quite lost all sense of resentment
+towards Madame. A debility of feeling had supervened--the fatigue, I
+suppose, and prostration of the passions.
+
+'I weel make excuse to go into his room again,' said Madame; 'and I weel
+endeavor to learn something more from him, and I weel come back again to
+you in half an hour.'
+
+She departed. But in half an hour did not return. I had a dull longing to
+leave Bartram-Haugh. For me, since the departure of poor Milly, it had
+grown like the haunt of evil spirits, and to escape on any terms from it
+was a blessing unspeakable.
+
+Another half-hour passed, and another, and I grew insufferably feverish.
+I sent Mary Quince to the lobby to try and see Madame, who, I feared, was
+probably to-ing and fro-ing in and out of Uncle Silas's room.
+
+Mary returned to tell me that she had seen old Wyat, who told her that she
+thought Madame had gone to her bed half an hour before.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIX
+
+_A SUDDEN DEPARTURE_
+
+
+'Mary,' said I, 'I am miserably anxious to hear what Madame may have to
+tell; she knows the state I am in, and she would not like so much trouble
+as to look in at my door to say a word. Did you hear what she told me?'
+
+'No, Miss Maud,' she answered, rising and drawing near.
+
+'She thinks we are going to France immediately, and to leave this place
+perhaps for ever.'
+
+'Heaven be praised for that, if it be so, Miss!' said Mary, with more
+energy than was common with her, 'for there is no luck about it, and I
+don't expect to see you ever well or happy in it.'
+
+'You must take your candle, Mary, and make out her room, upstairs; I found
+it accidentally myself one evening.'
+
+'But Wyat won't let us upstairs.'
+
+'Don't mind her, Mary; I tell you to go. You must try. I can't sleep till
+we hear.'
+
+'What direction is her room in, Miss?' asked Mary.
+
+'Somewhere in _that_ direction, Mary,' I answered, pointing. 'I cannot
+describe the turns; but I think you will find it if you go along the great
+passage to your left, on getting to the top of the stairs, till you come to
+the cross-galleries, and then turn to your left; and when you have passed
+four or perhaps five doors, you must be very near it, and I am sure she
+will hear if you call.'
+
+'But will she tell me--she _is_ such a rum un, Miss?' suggested Mary.
+
+'Tell her exactly what I have said to you, and when she learns that you
+already know as much as I do, she may--unless, indeed, she wishes to
+torture me. If she won't, perhaps at least you can persuade her to come to
+me for a moment. Try, dear Mary; we can but fail.'
+
+'Will you be very lonely, Miss, while I am away?' asked Mary, uneasily, as
+she lighted her candle.
+
+'I can't help it, Mary. Go. I think if I heard we were going, I could
+almost get up and dance and sing. I can't bear this dreadful uncertainty
+any longer.'
+
+'If old Wyat is outside, I'll come back and wait here a bit, till she's out
+o' the way,' said Mary; 'and, anyhow, I'll make all the haste I can. The
+drops and the sal-volatile is here, Miss, by your hand.'
+
+And with an anxious look at me, she made her exit, softly, and did not
+immediately return, by which I concluded that she had found the way clear,
+and had gained the upper story without interruption.
+
+This little anxiety ended, its subsidence was followed by a sense of
+loneliness, and with it, of vague insecurity, which increased at last to
+such a pitch, that I wondered at my own madness in sending my companion
+away; and at last my terrors so grew, that I drew back into the farthest
+corner of the bed, with my shoulders to the wall, and my bed-clothes
+huddled about me, with only a point open to peep at.
+
+At last the door opened gently.
+
+'Who's there?' I cried, in extremity of horror, expecting I knew not whom.
+
+'Me, Miss,' whispered Mary Quince, to my unutterable relief; and with her
+candle flared, and a wild and pallid face, Mary Quince glided into the
+room, locking the door as she entered.
+
+I do not know how it was, but I found myself holding Mary fast with both my
+hands as we stood side by side on the floor.
+
+'Mary, you are terrified; for God's sake, what is the matter?' I cried.
+
+'No, Miss,' said Mary, faintly, 'not much.'
+
+'I see it in your face. What is it?'
+
+'Let me sit down, Miss. I'll tell you what I saw; only I'm just a bit
+queerish.'
+
+Mary sat down by my bed.
+
+'Get in, Miss; you'll take cold. Get into bed, and I'll tell you. It is not
+much.'
+
+I did get into bed, and gazing on Mary's frightened face, I felt a
+corresponding horror.
+
+'For mercy's sake, Mary, say what it is?'
+
+So again assuring me 'it was not much,' she gave me in a somewhat diffuse
+and tangled narrative the following facts:--
+
+On closing my door, she raised her candle above her head and surveyed the
+lobby, and seeing no one there she ascended the stairs swiftly. She passed
+along the great gallery to the left, and paused a moment at the cross
+gallery, and then recollected my directions clearly, and followed the
+passage to the right.
+
+There are doors at each side, and she had forgotten to ask me at which
+Madame's was. She opened several. In one room she was frightened by a bat,
+which had very nearly put her candle out. She went on a little, paused, and
+began to lose heart in the dismal solitude, when on a sudden, a few doors
+farther on, she thought she heard Madame's voice.
+
+She said that she knocked at the door, but receiving no answer, and hearing
+Madame still talking within, she opened it.
+
+There was a candle on the chimneypiece, and another in a stable lantern
+near the window. Madame was conversing volubly on the hearth, with her face
+toward the window, the entire frame of which had been taken from its place:
+Dickon Hawkes, the Zamiel of the wooden leg, was supporting it with one
+hand, as it leaned imperfectly against the angle of the recess. There was
+a third figure standing, buttoned up in a surtout, with a bundle of tools
+under his arm, like a glazier, and, with a silent thrill of fear, she
+distinctly recognised the features as those of Dudley Ruthyn.
+
+''Twas him, Miss, so sure as I sit here! Well, like that, they were as mute
+as mice; three pairs of eyes were on me. I don't know what made me so study
+like, but som'at told me I should not make as though I knew any but Madame;
+and so I made a courtesy, as well as I could, and I said, "Might I speak a
+word wi' ye, please, on the lobby?"
+
+'Mr. Dudley was making belief be this time to look out at window, wi' his
+back to me, and I kept looking straight on Madame, and she said, "They're
+mendin' my broken glass, Mary," walking between them and me, and coming
+close up to me very quick; and so she marched me backward out o' the door,
+prating all the time.
+
+'When we were on the lobby, she took my candle from my hand, shutting the
+door behind her, and she held the light a bit behind her ear; so'twas full
+on my face, as she looked sharp into it; and, after a bit, she said again,
+in her queer lingo--there was two panes broke in her room, and men sent for
+to mend it.
+
+'I was awful frightened when I saw Mr. Dudley, for I could not believe any
+such thing before, and I don't know how I could look her in the face as I
+did and not show it. I was as smooth and cool as yonder chimneypiece, and
+she has an awful evil eye to stan' against; but I never flinched, and I
+think she's puzzled, for as cunning as she is, whether I believe all she
+said, or knowed 'twas a pack o' stories. So I told her your message, and
+she said she had not heard another word since; but she did believe we had
+not many more days here, and would tell you if she heard to-night, when she
+brought his soup to your uncle, in half an hour's time.'
+
+I asked her, as soon as I could speak, whether she was perfectly certain as
+to the fact that the man in the surtout was Dudley, and she made answer--
+
+'I'd swear to him on that Bible, Miss.'
+
+So far from any longer wishing Madame's return that night, I trembled at
+the idea of it. Who could tell who might enter the room with her when the
+door opened to admit her?
+
+Dudley, so soon as he recovered the surprise, had turned about, evidently
+anxious to prevent recognition; Dickon Hawkes stood glowering at her. Both
+might have hope of escaping recognition in the imperfect light, for the
+candle on the chimneypiece was flaring in the air, and the light from the
+lantern fell in spots, and was confusing.
+
+What could that ruffian, Hawkes, be doing in the house? Why was Dudley
+there? Could a more ominous combination be imagined? I puzzled my
+distracted head over all Mary Quince's details, but could make nothing of
+their occupation. I know of nothing so terrifying as this kind of perpetual
+puzzling over ominous problems.
+
+You may imagine how the long hours of that night passed, and how my heart
+beat at every fancied sound outside my door.
+
+But morning came, and with its light some reassurance. Early, Madame de la
+Rougierre made her appearance; she searched my eyes darkly and shrewdly,
+but made no allusion to Mary Quince's visit. Perhaps she expected some
+question from me, and, hearing none, thought it as well to leave the
+subject at rest.
+
+She had merely come in to say that she had heard nothing since, but was now
+going to make my uncle's chocolate; and that so soon as her interview was
+ended she would see me again, and let me hear anything she should have
+gleaned.
+
+In a little while a knock came to my door, and Mary Quince was ordered by
+old Wyat into my uncle's room. She returned flushed, in a huge fuss, to say
+that I was to be up and dressed for a journey in half an hour, and to go
+straight, when dressed, to my uncle's room.
+
+It was good news; at the same time it was a shock. I was glad. I was
+stunned. I jumped out of bed, and set about my toilet with an energy quite
+new to me. Good Mary Quince was busily packing my boxes, and consulting as
+to what I should take with me, and what not.
+
+Was Mary Quince to accompany me? He had not said a word on that point; and
+I feared from his silence she was to remain. There was comfort, however, in
+this--that the separation would not be for long; I felt confident of that;
+and I was about to join Milly, whom I loved better than I could have
+believed before our separation; but whatsoever the conditions might be,
+it was an indescribable relief to have done with Bartram-Haugh, and leave
+behind me its sinister lines of circumvallation, its haunted recesses, and
+the awful spectres that had lately appeared within its walls.
+
+I stood too much in awe of my uncle to fail in presenting myself punctually
+at the close of the half-hour. I entered his sitting-room under the shadow
+of sour old Wyat's high-cauled cap; she closed the door behind me, and the
+conference commenced.
+
+Madame de la Rougierre sat there, dressed and draped for a journey, and
+with a thick black lace veil on. My uncle rose, gaunt and venerable, and
+with a harsh and severe countenance. He did not offer his hand; he made me
+a kind of bow, more of repulsion than of respect. He remained in a standing
+position, supporting his crooked frame by his hand, which he leaned on a
+despatch-box; he glared on me steadily with his wild phosphoric eyes, from
+under the dark brows I have described to you, now corrugated in lines
+indescribably stern.
+
+'You shall join my daughter at the Pension, in France; Madame de la
+Rougierre shall accompany you,' said my uncle, delivering his directions
+with the stern monotony and the measured pauses of a person dictating an
+important despatch to a secretary.' Old Mrs. Quince shall follow with me,
+or, if alone, in a week. You shall pass to-night in London; to-morrow night
+you proceed thence to Dover, and cross by the mail-packet. You shall now
+sit down and write a letter to your cousin Monica Knollys, which I will
+first read and then despatch. Tomorrow you shall write a note to Lady
+Knollys, from _London_, telling her how you have got over so much of your
+journey, and that you cannot write from Dover, as you must instantly start
+by the packet on reaching it; and that until my affairs are a little
+settled, you cannot write to her from France, as it is of high importance
+to my safety that no clue should exist as to our address. Intelligence,
+however, shall reach her through my attorneys, Archer and Sleigh, and I
+trust we shall soon return. You will, please, submit that latter note to
+Madame de la Rougierre, who has my directions to see that it contains no
+_libels_ upon my character. Now, sit down.'
+
+So, with those unpleasant words tingling in my ears, I obeyed.
+
+'_Write_,' said he, when I was duly placed. 'You shall convey the substance
+of what I say in your own language. The immiment danger this morning
+announced of an execution--remember the word,' and he spelled it for
+me--'being put into this house either this afternoon or to-morrow, compels
+me to anticipate my plans, and despatch you for France this day. That you
+are starting with an attendant.' Here an uneasy movement from Madame,
+whose dignity was perhaps excited. 'An _attendant_,' he repeated, with a
+discordant emphasis; 'and you can, if you please--but I don't _solicit_
+that justice--say that you have been as kindly treated here as my
+unfortunate circumstances would permit. That is all. You have just fifteen
+minutes to write. Begin.'
+
+I wrote accordingly. My hysterical state had made me far less combative
+than I might have proved some months since, for there was much that was
+insulting as well as formidable in his manner. I completed my letter,
+however, to his satisfaction in the prescribed time; and he said, as he
+laid it and its envelope on the table--
+
+'Please to remember that this lady is not your attendant only, but that she
+has authority to direct every detail respecting your journey, and will make
+all the necessary payments on the way. You will please, then, implicitly to
+comply with her directions. The carriage awaits you at the hall-door.'
+
+Having thus spoken, with another grim bow, and 'I wish you a safe and
+pleasant journey,' he receded a step or two, and I, with an undefinable
+kind of melancholy, though also with a sense of relief, withdrew.
+
+My letter, I afterwards found, reached Lady Knollys, accompanied by one
+from Uncle Silas, who said--'Dear Maud apprises me that she has written
+to tell you something of our movements. A sudden crisis in my miserable
+affairs compels a break-up as sudden here. Maud joins my daughter at the
+Pension, in France. I purposely omit the address, because I mean to
+reside in its vicinity until this storm shall have blown over; and as the
+consequences of some of my unhappy entanglements might pursue me even
+there, I must only for the present spare you the pain and trouble of
+keeping a secret. I am sure that for some little time you will excuse
+the girl's silence; in the meantime you shall hear of them, and perhaps
+circuitously, from me. Our dear Maud started this morning _en route_ for
+her destination, very sorry, as am I, that she could not enjoy first a
+flying visit to Elverston, but in high spirits, notwithstanding, at the new
+life and sights before her.'
+
+At the door my beloved old friend, Mary Quince, awaited me.
+
+'Am I going with you, Miss Maud?'
+
+I burst into tears and clasped her in my arms.
+
+'I'm not,' said Mary, very sorrowfully; 'and I never was from you yet,
+Miss, since you wasn't the length of my arm.'
+
+And kind old Mary began to cry with me.
+
+'Bote you are coming in a few days, Mary Quince,' expostulated Madame. 'I
+wonder you are soche fool. What is two, three days? Bah! nonsense, girl.'
+
+Another farewell to poor Mary Quince, quite bewildered at the suddenness of
+her bereavement. A serious and tremulous bow from our little old butler on
+the steps. Madame bawling through the open window to the driver to make
+good speed, and remember that we had but nineteen minutes to reach the
+station. Away we went. Old Crowle's iron _grille_ rolled back before us.
+I looked on the receding landscape, the giant trees--the palatial,
+time-stained mansion. A strange conflict of feelings, sweet and bitter,
+rose and mingled in the reverie. Had I been too hard and suspicious with
+the inhabitants of that old house of my family? Was my uncle _justly_
+indignant? Was I ever again to know such pleasant rambles as some of those
+I had enjoyed with dear Millicent through the wild and beautiful woodlands
+I was leaving behind me? And there, with my latest glimpse of the front
+of Bartram-Haugh, I beheld dear old Mary Quince gazing after us. Again
+my tears flowed. I waved my handkerchief from the window; and now the
+park-wall hid all from view, and at a great pace, throught the steep wooded
+glen, with the rocky and precipitous character of a ravine, we glided; and
+when the road next emerged, Bartram-Haugh was a misty mass of forest and
+chimneys, slope and hollow, and we within a few minutes of the station.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LX
+
+_THE JOURNEY_
+
+
+Waiting for the train, as we stood upon the platform, I looked back again
+toward the wooded uplands of Bartram; and far behind, the fine range of
+mountains, azure and soft in the distance, beyond which lay beloved old
+Knowl, and my lost father and mother, and the scenes of my childhood, never
+embittered except by the sibyl who sat beside me.
+
+Under happier circumstances I should have been, at my then early age, quite
+wild with pleasurable excitement on entering London for the first time.
+But black Care sat by me, with her pale hand in mine: a voice of fear and
+warning, whose words I could not catch, was always in my ear. We drove
+through London, amid the glare of lamps, toward the West-end, and for a
+little while the sense of novelty and curiosity overcame my despondency,
+and I peeped eagerly from the window; while Madame, who was in high
+good-humour, spite of the fatigues of our long railway flight, screeched
+scraps of topographic information in my ear; for London was a picture-book
+in which she was well read.
+
+'That is Euston Square, my dear--Russell Square. Here is Oxford
+Street--Haymarket. See, there is the Opera House--Hair Majesty's Theatre.
+See all the carriages waiting;' and so on, till we reached at length a
+little narrow street, which she told me was off Piccadilly, where we drew
+up before a private house, as it seemed to me--a family hotel--and I was
+glad to be at rest for the night.
+
+Fatigued with the peculiar fatigue of railway travelling, dusty, a little
+chilly, with eyes aching and wearied, I ascended the stairs silently, our
+garrulous and bustling landlady leading the way, and telling her oft-told
+story of the house, its noble owner in old time, and how those fine
+drawing-rooms were taken every year during the Session by the Bishop of
+Rochet-on-Copeley, and at last into our double-bedded room.
+
+I would fain have been alone, but I was too tired and dejected to care very
+much for anything.
+
+At tea, Madame expanded in spirit, like a giant refreshed, and chattered
+and sang; and at last, seeing that I was nodding, advised my going to bed,
+while she ran across the street to see 'her dear old friend, Mademoiselle
+St. Eloi, who was sure to be up, and would be offended if she failed to
+make her ever so short a call.'
+
+I cared little what she said, and was glad to be rid of her even for a
+short time, and was soon fast asleep.
+
+I saw her, I know not how much later, poking about the room, like a figure
+in a dream, and taking off her things.
+
+She had her breakfast in bed next morning, and I was, to my comfort, left
+to take mine in solitary possession of our sitting-room; where I began to
+wonder how little annoyance I had as yet suffered from her company, and
+began to speculate upon the chances of my making the journey with tolerable
+comfort.
+
+Our hostess gave me five minutes of her valuable time. Her talk ran chiefly
+upon nuns and convents, and her old acquaintance with Madame; and it seemed
+to me that she had at one time driven a kind of trade, no doubt profitable
+enough, in escorting young ladies to establishments on the Continent; and
+although I did not then quite understand the tone in which she spoke to me,
+I often thought afterwards that Madame had represented me as a young person
+destined for the holy vocation of the veil.
+
+When she was gone, I sat listlessly looking out of the window, and saw some
+chance equipages drive by, and now and then a fashionable pedestrian; and
+wondered if this quiet thoroughfare could really be one of the arteries so
+near the heart of the tumultuous capital.
+
+I think my nervous vitality must have burnt very low just then, for I felt
+perfectly indifferent about all the novelty and world of wonders beyond,
+and should have hated to leave the dull tranquillity of my window for an
+excursion through the splendours of the unseen streets and palaces that
+surrounded me.
+
+It was one o'clock before Madame joined me; and finding me in this dull
+mood, she did not press me to accompany her in her drive, no doubt well
+pleased to be rid of me.
+
+After tea that evening, as we sat alone in our room, she entertained me
+with some very odd conversation--at the time unintelligible--but which
+acquired a tolerably distinct meaning from the events that followed.
+
+Two or three times that day Madame appeared to me on the point of saying
+something of grave import, as she scanned me with her bleak wicked stare.
+
+It was a peculiarity of hers, that whenever she was pressed upon by an
+anxiety that really troubled her, her countenance did not look sad or
+solicitous, as other people's would, but simply wicked. Her great gaunt
+mouth was compressed and drawn down firmly at the corners, and her eyes
+glared with a dismal scowl.
+
+At last she said suddenly--
+
+'Are you ever grateful, Maud?'
+
+'I hope so, Madame,' I answered.
+
+'And how do you show your gratitude? For instance, would a you do great
+deal for a person who would run _risque_ for your sake?'
+
+It struck me all at once that she was sounding me about poor Meg Hawkes,
+whose fidelity, notwithstanding the treason or cowardice of her lover, Tom
+Brice, I never doubted; and I grew at once wary and reserved.
+
+'I know of no opportunity, thank Heaven, for any such service, Madame. How
+can anyone serve me at present, by themselves incurring danger? What do you
+mean?'
+
+'Do you like, for example, to go to that French Pension? Would you not like
+better some other arrangement?'
+
+'Of course there are other arrangements I should like better; but I see no
+use in talking of them; they are not to be,' I answered.
+
+'What other arrangements do you mean, my dear cheaile?' enquired Madame.
+'You mean, I suppose, you would like better to go to Lady Knollys?'
+
+'My uncle does not choose it at present; and except with his consent
+nothing can be done!'
+
+'He weel never consent, dear cheaile.'
+
+'But he _has_ consented--not immediately indeed, but in a short time, when
+his affairs are settled.'
+
+'_Lanternes_! They will never be settle,' said Madame.
+
+'At all events, for the present I am to go to France. Milly seems very
+happy, and I dare say I shall like it too. I am very glad to leave
+Bartram-Haugh, at all events.'
+
+'But your uncle weel bring you back there,' said Madame, drily.
+
+'It is doubtful whether he will ever return to Bartram himself,' I said.
+
+'Ah!' said Madame, with a long-drawn nasal intonation, 'you theenk I hate
+you. You are quaite wrong, my dear Maud. I am, on the contrary, very much
+interested for you--I am, I assure you, dear a cheaile.'
+
+And she laid her great hand, with joints misshapen by old chilblains, upon
+the back of mine. I looked up in her face. She was not smiling. On the
+contrary, her wide mouth was drawn down at the corners ruefully, as before,
+and she gazed on my face with a scowl from her abysmal eyes.
+
+I used to think the flare of that irony which lighted her face so often
+immeasurably worse than any other expression she could assume; but this
+lack-lustre stare and dismal collapse of feature was more wicked still.
+
+'Suppose I should bring you to Lady Knollys, and place you in her charge,
+what would a you do then for poor Madame?' said this dark spectre.
+
+I was inwardly startled at these words. I looked into her unsearchable
+face, but could draw thence nothing but fear. Had she made the same
+overture only two days since, I think I would have offered her half my
+fortune. But circumstances were altered. I was no longer in the panic of
+despair. The lesson I had received from Tom Brice was fresh in my mind, and
+my profound distrust of her was uppermost. I saw before me only a tempter
+and betrayer, and said--
+
+'Do you mean to imply, Madame, that my guardian is not to be trusted, and
+that I ought to make my escape from him, and that you are really willing to
+aid me in doing so?'
+
+This, you see, was turning the tables upon her. I looked her steadily in
+the face as I spoke. She returned my gaze with a strange stare and a gape,
+which haunted me long after; and it seemed as we sat in utter silence that
+each was rather horribly fascinated by the other's gaze.
+
+At last she shut her mouth sternly, and eyes me with a more determined and
+meaning scowl, and then said in a low tone--
+
+'I believe, Maud, that you are a cunning and wicked little thing.'
+
+'Wisdom is not cunning, Madame; nor is it wicked to ask your meaning in
+explicit language,' I replied.
+
+'And so, you clever cheaile, we two sit here, playing at a game of chess,
+over this little table, to decide which shall destroy the other--is it not
+so?'
+
+'I will not allow you to destroy me,' I retorted, with a sudden flash.
+
+Madame stood up, and rubbed her mouth with her open hand. She looked to me
+like some evil being seen in a dream. I was frightened.
+
+'You are going to hurt me!' I ejaculated, scarce knowing what I said.
+
+'If I were, you deserve it. You are very _malicious_, ma chere: or, it may
+be, only very stupid.'
+
+A knock came to the door.
+
+'Come in,' I cried, with a glad sense of relief.
+
+A maid entered.
+
+'A letter, please, 'm,' she said, handing it to me.
+
+'For _me_,' snarled Madame, snatching it.
+
+I had seen my uncle's hand, and the Feltram post-mark.
+
+Madame broke the seal, and read. It seemed but a word, for she turned it
+about after the first momentary glance, and examined the interior of the
+envelope, and then returned to the line she had already read.
+
+She folded the letter again, drawing her nails in a sharp pinch along the
+creases, as she stared in a blank, hesitating way at me.
+
+'You are stupid little ingrate, I am employ by Monsieur Ruthyn, and of
+course I am faithful to my employer. I do not want to talk to you. _There_,
+you may read that.'
+
+She jerked the letter before me on the table. It contained but these
+words:--
+
+Bartram-Haugh:
+
+'_30th January, 1845_.
+
+'MY DEAR MADAME,
+
+'Be so good as to take the half-past eight o'clock train to _Dover_
+to-night. Beds are prepared.--Yours very truly,
+
+SILAS RUTHYN.'
+
+I cannot say what it was in this short advice that struck me with fear. Was
+it the thick line beneath the word 'Dover,' that was so uncalled for, and
+gave me a faint but terrible sense of something preconcerted?
+
+I said to Madame--
+
+'Why is "Dover" underlined?'
+
+'I do not know, little fool, no more than you. How can I tell what is
+passing in your oncle's head when he make that a mark?'
+
+'Has it not a meaning, Madame?'
+
+'How can you talk like that?' she answered, more in her old way. 'You are
+either mocking of me, or you are becoming truly a fool!'
+
+She rang the bell, called for our bill, saw our hostess; while I made a few
+hasty prepartions in my room.
+
+'You need not look after the trunks--they will follow us all right. Let us
+go, cheaile--we 'av half an hour only to reach the train.'
+
+No one ever fussed like Madame when occasion offered. There was a cab at
+the door, into which she hurried me. I assumed that she would give all
+needful directions, and leaned back, very weary and sleepy already, though
+it was so early, listening to her farewell screamed from the cab-step, and
+seeing her black cloak flitting and flapping this way and that, like the
+wings of a raven disturbed over its prey.
+
+In she got, and away we drove through a glare of lamps, and shop-windows,
+still open; gas everywhere, and cabs, busses, and carriages, still
+thundering through the streets. I was too tired and too depressed to look
+at those things. Madame, on the contrary, had her head out of the window
+till we reached the station.
+
+'Where are the rest of the boxes?' I asked, as Madame placed me in charge
+of her box and my bag in the office of the terminus.
+
+'They will follow with Boots in another cab, and will come safe with us in
+this train. Mind those two, we weel bring in the carriage with us.'
+
+So into a carriage we got; in came Madame's box and my bag; Madame stood at
+the door, and, I think, frightened away intending passengers, by her size
+and shrillness.
+
+At last the bell rang her into her place, the door clapt, the whistle
+sounded, and we were off.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXI
+
+_OUR BED-CHAMBER_
+
+
+I had passed a miserable night, and, indeed, for many nights had not had my
+due proportion of sleep. Still I sometimes fancy that I may have swallowed
+something in my tea that helped to make me so irresistibly drowsy. It was a
+very dark night--no moon, and the stars soon hid by the gathering clouds.
+Madame sat silent, and ruminating in her place, with her rugs about her.
+I, in my corner similarly enveloped, tried to keep awake. Madame plainly
+thought I was asleep already, for she stole a leather flask from her
+pocket, and applied it to her lips, causing an aroma of brandy.
+
+But it was vain struggling against the influence that was stealing over me,
+and I was soon in a profound and dreamless slumber.
+
+Madame awoke me at last, in a huge fuss. She had got out all our things and
+hurried them away to a close carriage which was awaiting us. It was still
+dark and starless. We got along the platform, I half asleep, the porter
+carrying our rugs, by the glare of a pair of gas-jets in the wall, and out
+by a small door at the end.
+
+I remember that Madame, contrary to her wont, gave the man some money. By
+the puzzling light of the carriage-lamps we got in and took our seats.
+
+'Go on,' screamed Madame, and drew up the window with a great chuck; and we
+were enclosed in darkness and silence, the most favourable conditions for
+thought.
+
+My sleep had not restored me as it might; I felt feverish, fatigued, and
+still very drowsy, though unable to sleep as I had done.
+
+I dozed by fits and starts, and lay awake, or half-awake, sometimes, not
+thinking but in a way imagining what kind of a place Dover would be; but
+too tired and listless to ask Madame any questions, and merely seeing the
+hedges, grey in the lamplight, glide backward into darkness, as I leaned
+back.
+
+We turned off the main road, at right angles, and drew up.
+
+'Get down and poosh it, it is open,' screamed Madame from the window.
+
+A gate, I suppose, was thus passed; for when we resumed our brisk trot,
+Madame bawled across the carriage--
+
+'We are now in the 'otel grounds.'
+
+And so all again was darkness and silence, and I fell into another doze,
+from which, on waking, I found that we had come to a standstill, and Madame
+was standing on the low step of an open door, paying the driver. She,
+herself, pulled her box and the bag in. I was too tired to care what had
+become of the rest of our luggage.
+
+I descended, glancing to the right and left, but there was nothing visible
+but a patch of light from the lamps on a paved ground and on the wall.
+
+We stepped into the hall or vestibule, and Madame shut the door, and I
+thought I heard the key turn in it. We were in total darkness.
+
+'Where are the lights, Madame--where are the people?' I asked, more awake
+than I had been.
+
+''Tis pass three o'clock, cheaile, bote there is always light here.' She
+was groping at the side; and in a moment more lighted a lucifer match, and
+so a bedroom candle.
+
+We were in a flagged lobby, under an archway at the right, and at the left
+of which opened long flagged passages, lost in darkness; a winding stair,
+barely wide enough to admit Madame, dragging her box, led upward under a
+doorway, in a corner at the right.
+
+'Come, dear cheaile, take your bag; don't mind the rugs, they are safe
+enough.'
+
+'But where are we to go? There is no one!' I said, looking round in wonder.
+It certainly was a strange reception at an hotel.
+
+'Never mind, my dear cheaile. They know me here, and I have always the same
+room ready when I write for it. Follow me quaitely.'
+
+So she mounted, carrying the candle. The stair was steep, and the march
+long. We halted at the second landing, and entered a gaunt, grimy passage.
+All the way up we had not heard a single sound of life, nor seen a human
+being, nor so much as passed a gaslight.
+
+'Viola! here 'tis, my dear old room. Enter, dearest Maud.'
+
+And so I did. The room was large and lofty, but shabby and dismal. There
+was a tall four-post bed, with its foot beside the window, hung with
+dark-green curtains, of some plush or velvet texture, that looked like
+a dusty pall. The remaining furniture was scant and old, and a ravelled
+square of threadbare carpet covered a patch of floor at the bedside. The
+room was grim and large, and had a cold, vault-like atmosphere, as if
+long uninhabited; but there were cinders in the grate and under it. The
+imperfect light of our mutton-fat candle made all this look still more
+comfortless.
+
+Madame placed the candle on the chimneypiece, locked the door, and put the
+key in her pocket.
+
+'I always do so in '_otel_' said she, with a wink at me.
+
+And, then with a long 'ha!' expressive of fatigue and relief, she threw
+herself into a chair.
+
+'So 'ere we are at last!' said she; 'I'm glad. _There's_ your bed, Maud.
+_Mine_ is in the dressing-room.'
+
+She took the candle, and I went in with her. A shabby press bed, a
+chair, and table were all its furniture; it was rather a closet than a
+dressing-room, and had no door except that through which we had entered. So
+we returned, and very tired, wondering, I sat down on the side of my bed
+and yawned.
+
+'I hope they will call us in time for the packet,' I said.
+
+'Oh yes, they never fail,' she answered, looking steadfastly on her box,
+which she was diligently uncording.
+
+Uninviting as was my bed, I was longing to lie down in it; and having made
+those ablutions which our journey rendered necessary, I at length lay
+down, having first religiously stuck my talismanic pin, with the head of
+sealing-wax, into the bolster.
+
+Nothing escaped the restless eye of Madame.
+
+'Wat is that, dear cheaile?' she enquired, drawing near and scrutinising
+the head of the gipsy charm, which showed like a little ladybird newly
+lighted on the sheet.
+
+'Nothing--a charm--folly. Pray, Madame, allow me to go to sleep.'
+
+So, with another look and a little twiddle between her finger and thumb,
+she seemed satisfied; but, unhappily for me, she did not seem at all
+sleepy. She busied herself in unpacking and displaying over the back of the
+chair a whole series of London purchases--silk dresses, a shawl, a sort of
+lace demi-coiffure then in vogue, and a variety of other articles.
+
+The vainest and most slammakin of women--the merest slut at home,
+a milliner's lay figure out of doors--she had one square foot of
+looking-glass upon the chimneypiece, and therein tried effects, and
+conjured up grotesque simpers upon her sinister and weary face.
+
+I knew that the sure way to prolong this worry was to express my uneasiness
+under it, so I bore it as quietly as I could; and at last fell fast asleep
+with the gaunt image of Madame, with a festoon of grey silk with a cerise
+stripe, pinched up in her finger and thumb, and smiling over her shoulder
+across it into the little shaving-glass that stood on the chimney.
+
+I awoke suddenly in the morning, and sat up in my bed, having for a moment
+forgotten all about our travelling. A moment more, however, brought all
+back again.
+
+'Are we in time, Madame?'
+
+'For the packet?' she enquired, with one of her charming smiles, and
+cutting a caper on the floor. 'To be sure; you don't suppose they would
+forget. We have two hours yet to wait.'
+
+'Can we see the sea from the window?'
+
+'No, dearest cheaile; you will see't time enough.
+
+'I'd like to get up,' I said.
+
+'Time enough, my dear Maud; you are fatigued; are you sure you feel quite
+well?'
+
+'Well enough to get up; I should be better, I think, out of bed.'
+
+'There is no hurry, you know; you need not even go by the next packet. Your
+uncle, he tell me, I may use my discretion.'
+
+'Is there any water?'
+
+'They will bring some.'
+
+'Please, Madame, ring the bell.'
+
+She pulled it with alacrity. I afterwards learnt that it did not ring.
+
+'What has become of my gipsy pin?' I demanded, with an unaccountable
+sinking of the heart.
+
+'Oh! the little pin with the red top? maybe it 'as fall on the ground; we
+weel find when you get up.'
+
+I suspected that she had taken it merely to spite me. It would have been
+quite the thing she would have liked. I cannot describe to you how the loss
+of this little 'charm' depressed and excited me. I searched the bed; I
+turned over all the bed-clothes; I searched in and outside; at last I gave
+up.
+
+'How odious!' I cried; 'somebody has stolen it merely to vex me.'
+
+And, like a fool as I was, I threw myself on my face on the bed and wept,
+partly in anger, partly in dismay.
+
+After a time, however, this blew over. I had a hope of recovering it.
+If Madame had stolen it, it would turn up yet. But in the meantime its
+disappearance troubled me like an omen.
+
+'I am afraid, my dear cheaile, you are not very well. It is really very odd
+you should make such fuss about a pin! Nobody would believe! Do you not
+theenk it would be a good plan to take a your breakfast in your bed?
+
+She continued to urge this point for some time. At last, however, having
+by this time quite recovered my self-command, and resolved to preserve
+ostensibly fair terms with Madame, who could contribute so essentially to
+make me wretched during the rest of my journey, and possibly to prejudice
+me very seriously on my arrival, I said quietly--
+
+'Well, Madame, I know it is very silly; but I had kept that foolish little
+pin so long and so carefully, that I had grown quite fond of it; but I
+suppose it is lost, and I must content myself, though I cannot laugh as you
+do. So I will get up now, and dress.'
+
+'I think you will do well to get all the repose you can,' answered Madame;
+'but as you please,' she added, observing that I was getting up.
+
+So soon as I had got some of my things on, I said--
+
+'Is there a pretty view from the window?'
+
+'No,' said Madame.
+
+I looked out and saw a dreary quadrangle of cut stone, in one side of which
+my window was placed. As I looked a dream rose up before me.
+
+'This hotel,' I said, in a puzzled way. '_Is_ it a hotel? Why this is just
+like--it _is_ the inner court of Bartram-Haugh!'
+
+Madame clapped her large hands together, made a fantastic _chasse_ on the
+floor, burst into a great nasal laugh like the scream of a parrot, and then
+said--
+
+'Well, dearest Maud, is not clever trick?'
+
+I was so utterly confounded that I could only stare about me in stupid
+silence, a spectacle which renewed Madame's peals of laughter.
+
+'We are at Bartram-Haugh!' I repeated, in utter consternation. 'How was
+this done?'
+
+I had no reply but shrieks of laughter, and one of those Walpurgis dances
+in which she excelled.
+
+'It is a mistake--is it? _What_ is it?'
+
+'All a mistake, of course. Bartram-Haugh, it is so like Dover, as all
+philosophers know.'
+
+I sat down in total silence, looking out into the deep and dark enclosure,
+and trying to comprehend the reality and the meaning of all this.
+
+'Well, Madame, I suppose you will be able to satisfy my uncle of your
+fidelity and intelligence. But to me it seems that his money has been
+ill-spent, and his directions anything but well observed.'
+
+'Ah, ha! Never mind; I think he will forgive me,' laughed Madame.
+
+Her tone frightened me. I began to think, with a vague but overpowering
+sense of danger, that she had acted under the Machiavellian directions of
+her superior.
+
+'You have brought me back, then, by my uncle's orders?'
+
+'Did I say so?'
+
+'No; but what you have said can have no other meaning, though I can't
+believe it. And why have I been brought here? What is the object of all
+this duplicity and trick. I _will_ know. It is not possible that my uncle,
+a gentleman and a kinsman, can be privy to so disreputable a manouvre.'
+
+'First you will eat your breakfast, dear Maud; next you can tell your story
+to your uncle, Monsieur Ruthyn; and then you shall hear what he thinks of
+my so terrible misconduct. What nonsense, cheaile! Can you not think how
+many things may 'appen to change a your uncle's plans? Is he not in danger
+to be arrest? Bah! You are cheaile still; you cannot have intelligence more
+than a cheaile. Dress yourself, and I will order breakfast.'
+
+I could not comprehend the strategy which had been practised on me. Why had
+I been so shamelessly deceived? If it were decided that I should remain
+here, for what imaginable reason had I been sent so far on my journey to
+France? Why had I been conveyed back with such mystery? Why was I removed
+to this uncomfortable and desolate room, on the same floor with the
+apartment in which Charke had met his death, and with no window commanding
+the front of the house, and no view but the deep and weed-choked court,
+that looked like a deserted churchyard in a city?
+
+'I suppose I may go to my own room?' I said.
+
+'Not to-day, my dear cheaile, for it was all disarrange when we go 'way;
+'twill be ready again in two three days.'
+
+'Where is Mary Quince?' I asked.
+
+'Mary Quince!--she has follow us to France,' said Madame, making what in
+Ireland they call a bull.
+
+'They are not sure where they will go or what will do for day or two more.
+I will go and get breakfast. Adieu for a moment.'
+
+Madame was out of the door as she said this, and I thought I heard the key
+turn in the lock.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXII
+
+_A WELL-KNOWN FACE LOOKS IN_
+
+
+You who have never experienced it can have no idea how angry and frightened
+you become under the sinister insult of being locked into a room, as on
+trying the door I found I was.
+
+The key was in the lock; I could see it through the hole. I called after
+Madame, I shook at the solid oak-door, beat upon it with my hands, kicked
+it--but all to no purpose.
+
+I rushed into the next room, forgetting--if indeed I had observed it, that
+there was no door from it upon the gallery. I turned round in an angry and
+dismayed perplexity, and, like prisoners in romances, examined the windows.
+
+I was shocked and affrighted on discovering in reality what they
+occasionally find--a series of iron bars crossing the window! They were
+firmly secured in the oak woodwork of the window-frame, and each window
+was, besides, so compactly screwed down that it could not open. This
+bedroom was converted into a prison. A momentary hope flashed on
+me--perhaps all the windows were secured alike! But it was no such thing:
+these gaol-like precautions were confined to the windows to which I had
+access.
+
+For a few minutes I felt quite distracted; but I bethought me that I must
+now, if ever, control my terrors and exert whatever faculties I possessed.
+
+I stood upon a chair and examined the oak-work. I thought I detected marks
+of new chiselling here and there. The screws, too, looked new; and they
+and the scars on the woodwork were freshly smeared over with some coloured
+stuff by way of disguise.
+
+While I was making these observations, I heard the key stealthily stirred.
+I suspect that Madame wished to surprise me. Her approaching step, indeed,
+was seldom audible; she had the soft tread of the feline tribe.
+
+I was standing in the centre of the room confronting her when she entered.
+
+'Why did you lock the door, Madame?' I demanded.
+
+She slipped in suddenly with an insidious smirk, and locked the door
+hastily.
+
+'Hish!' whispered Madame, raising her broad palm; and then screwing in her
+cheeks, she made an ogle over her shoulder in the direction of the passage.
+
+'Hish! be quiate, cheaile, weel you, and I weel tale you everything
+presently.'
+
+She paused, with her ear laid to the door.
+
+'Now I can speak, ma chere; I weel tale a you there is bailiff in the
+house, two, three, four soche impertinent fallows! They have another as bad
+as themselve to make a leest of the furniture: we most keep them out of
+these rooms, dear Maud.'
+
+'You left the key in the door on the outside,' I retorted; 'that was not to
+keep them out, but me in, Madame.'
+
+'_Deed_ I leave the key in the door?' ejaculated Madame, with both hands
+raised, and such a genuine look of consternation as for a moment shook me.
+
+It was the nature of this woman's deceptions that they often puzzled though
+they seldom convinced me.
+
+'I re-ally think, Maud, all those so frequent changes and excite-ments they
+weel overturn my poor head.'
+
+'And the windows are secured with iron bars--what are they for?' I
+whispered sternly, pointing with my finger at these grim securities.
+
+'That is for more a than forty years, when Sir Phileep Aylmer was to reside
+here, and had this room for his children's nursery, and was afraid they
+should fall out.'
+
+'But if you look you will find these bars have been put here very recently:
+the screws and marks are quite new.'
+
+'_Eendeed!_' ejaculated Madame, with prolonged emphasis, in precisely the
+same consternation. 'Why, my dear, they told a me down stair what I have
+tell a you, when I ask the reason! Late a me see.'
+
+And Madame mounted on a chair, and made her scrutiny with much curiosity,
+but could not agree with me as to the very recent date of the carpentry.
+
+There is nothing, I think, so exasperating as that sort of falsehood which
+affects not to see what is quite palpable.
+
+'Do you mean to say, Madame, that you really think those chisellings and
+screws are forty years old?'
+
+'How can I tell, cheaile? What does signify whether it is forty or only
+fourteen years? Bah! we av other theeng to theenk about. Those villain men!
+I am glad to see bar and bolt, and lock and key, at least, to our room, to
+keep soche faylows out!'
+
+At that moment a knock came to the door, and Madame's nasal 'in moment'
+answered promptly, and she opened the door, stealthily popping out her
+head.
+
+'Oh, that is all right; go you long, no ting more, go way.'
+
+'Who's there?' I cried.
+
+'Hold a your tongue,' said Madame imperiously to the visitor, whose voice I
+fancied I recognised--'_go_ way.'
+
+Out slipped Madame again, locking the door; but this time she returned
+immediately, bearing a tray with breakfast.
+
+I think she fancied that I would perhaps attempt to break away and escape;
+but I had no such thought at that moment. She hastily set down the tray on
+the floor at the threshold, locking the door as before.
+
+My share of breakfast was a little tea; but Madame's digestion was seldom
+disturbed by her sympathies, and she ate voraciously. During this process
+there was a silence unusual in her company; but when her meal was ended she
+proposed a reconnaissance, professing much uncertainty as to whether my
+Uncle had been arrested or not.
+
+'And in case the poor old gentleman be poot in what you call stone jug,
+where are _we_ to go my dear Maud--to Knowl or to Elverston? You must
+direct.'
+
+And so she disappeared, turning the key in the door as before. It was an
+old custom of hers, locking herself in her room, and leaving the key in the
+lock; and the habit prevailed, for she left it there again.
+
+With a heavy heart I completed my simple toilet, wondering all the while
+how much of Madame's story might be false and how much, if any, true. Then
+I looked out upon the dingy courtyard below, in its deep damp shadow, and
+thought, 'How could an assassin have scaled that height in safety, and
+entered so noiselessly as not to awaken the slumbering gamester?' Then
+there were the iron bars across my window. What a fool had I been to object
+to that security!
+
+I was labouring hard to reassure myself, and keep all ghastly suspicions at
+arm's length. But I wished that my room had been to the front of the house,
+with some view less dismal.
+
+Lost in these ruminations of fear, as I stood at the window I was startled
+by the sound of a sharp tread on the lobby, and by the key turning in the
+lock of my door.
+
+In a panic I sprang back into the corner, and stood with my eyes fixed
+upon the door. It opened a little, and the black head of Meg Hawkes was
+introduced.
+
+'Oh, Meg!' I cried; 'thank God!'
+
+'I guessed'twas you, Miss Maud. I am feared, Miss.'
+
+The miller's daughter was pale, and her eyes, I thought, were red and
+swollen.
+
+'Oh, Meg! for God's sake, what is it all?'
+
+'I darn't come in. The old un's gone down, and locked the cross-door, and
+left me to watch. They think I care nout about ye, no more nor themselves.
+I donna know all, but summat more nor her. They tell her nout, she's so
+gi'n to drink; they say she's not safe, an' awful quarrelsome. I hear a
+deal when fayther and Master Dudley be a-talkin' in the mill. They think,
+comin' in an' out, I don't mind; but I put one think an' t'other together.
+An' don't ye eat nor drink nout here, Miss; hide away this; it's black
+enough, but wholesome anyhow!' and she slipt a piece of a coarse loaf from
+under her apron. '_Hide_ it mind. Drink nout but the water in the jug
+there--it's clean spring.'
+
+'Oh, Meg! Oh, Meg! I know what you mean,' said I, faintly.
+
+'Ay, Miss, I'm feared they'll try it; they'll try to make away wi' ye
+somehow. I'm goin' to your friends arter dark; I darn't try it no sooner.
+I'll git awa to Ellerston, to your lady-cousin, and I'll bring 'em back wi'
+me in a rin; so keep a good hairt, lass. Meg Hawkes will stan' to ye. Ye
+were better to me than fayther and mother, and a';' and she clasped me
+round the waist, and buried her head in my dress; 'an I'll gie my life for
+ye, darling, and if they hurt ye I'll kill myself.'
+
+She recovered her sterner mood quickly--
+
+'Not a word, lass,' she said, in her old tone. 'Don't ye try to git
+away--they'll _kill_ ye--ye _can't_ do't. Leave a' to me. It won't be,
+whatever it is, till two or three o'clock in the morning. I'll ha'e them a'
+here long afore; so keep a brave heart--there's a darling.'
+
+I suppose she heard, or fancied she heard, a step approaching, for she
+said--
+
+'Hish!'
+
+Her pale wild face vanished, the door shut quickly and softly, and the key
+turned again in the lock.
+
+Meg, in her rude way, had spoken softly--almost under her breath; but no
+prophecy shrieked by the Pythoness ever thundered so madly in the ears of
+the hearer. I dare say that Meg fancied I was marvellously little moved by
+her words. I felt my gaze grow intense, and my flesh and bones literally
+freeze. She did not know that every word she spoke seemed to burst like a
+blaze in my brain. She had delivered her frightful warning, and told
+her story coarsely and bluntly, which, in effect, means distinctly and
+concisely; and, I dare say, the announcement so made, like a quick bold
+incision in surgery, was more tolerable than the slow imperfect mangling,
+which falters and recedes and equivocates with torture. Madame was long
+away. I sat down at the window, and tried to appreciate my dreadful
+situation. I was stupid--the imagery was all frightful; but I beheld it as
+we sometimes see horrors--heads cut off and houses burnt--in a dream, and
+without the corresponding emotions. It did not seem as if all this were
+really happening to me. I remember sitting at the window, and looking and
+blinking at the opposite side of the building, like a person unable but
+striving to see an object distinctly, and every minute pressing my hand to
+the side of my head and saying--
+
+'Oh, it won't be--it won't be--Oh no!--never!--it could not be!' And in
+this stunned state Madame found me on her return.
+
+But the valley of the shadow of death has its varieties of dread. The
+'horror of great darkness' is disturbed by voices and illumed by sights.
+There are periods of incapacity and collapse, followed by paroxysms
+of active terror. Thus in my journey during those long hours I found
+it--agonies subsiding into lethargies, and these breaking again into
+frenzy. I sometimes wonder how I carried my reason safely through the
+ordeal.
+
+Madame locked the door, and amused herself with her own business, without
+minding me, humming little nasal snatches of French airs, as she smirked on
+her silken purchases displayed in the daylight. Suddenly it struck me that
+it was very dark, considering how early it was. I looked at my watch;
+it seemed to me a great effort of concentration to understand it. Four
+o'clock, it said. Four o'clock! It would be dark at five--_night_ in one
+hour!
+
+'Madame, what o'clock is it? Is it evening?' I cried with my hand to my
+forehead, like a person puzzled.
+
+'Two three minutes past four. It had five minutes to four when I came
+upstairs,' answered she, without interrupting her examination of a piece of
+darned lace which she was holding close to her eyes at the window.
+
+'Oh, Madame! _Madame!_ I'm frightened,' cried I, with a wild and piteous
+voice, grasping her arm, and looking up, as shipwrecked people may their
+last to heaven, into her inexorable eyes. Madame looked frightened too, I
+thought, as she stared into my face. At last she said, rather angrily, and
+shaking her arm loose--
+
+'What you mean, cheaile?'
+
+'Oh save me, Madame!--oh save me!--oh save me, Madame!' I pleaded, with the
+wild monotony of perfect terror, grasping and clinging to her dress, and
+looking up, with an agonised face, into the eyes of that shadowy Atropos.
+
+'Save a you, indeed! Save! What _niaiserie_!'
+
+'Oh, Madame! Oh, _dear_ Madame! for God's sake, only get me away--get me
+from this, and I'll do everything you ask me all my life--I will--_indeed_,
+Madame, I will! Oh save me! save me! _save_ me!'
+
+I was clinging to Madame as to my guardian angel in my agony.
+
+'And who told you, cheaile, you are in any danger?' demanded Madame,
+looking down on me with a black and witchlike stare.
+
+'I am, Madame--I am--in great danger! Oh, Madame, think of me--take pity on
+me! I have none to help me--there is no one but God and you!'
+
+Madame all this time viewed me with the same dismal stare, like a sorceress
+reading futurity in my face.
+
+'Well, maybe you are--how can I tell? Maybe your uncle is mad--maybe you
+are mad. You have been my enemy always--why should I care?'
+
+Again I burst into wild entreaty, and, clasping her fast, poured forth my
+supplications with the bitterness of death.
+
+'I have no confidence in you, little Maud; you are little rogue--petite
+traitresse! Reflect, if you can, how you 'av always treat Madame. You 'av
+attempt to ruin me--you conspire with the bad domestics at Knowl to destroy
+me--and you expect me here to take a your part! You would never listen to
+me--you 'ad no mercy for me--you join to hunt me away from your house like
+wolf. Well, what you expect to find me now? _Bah_!'
+
+This terrific 'Bah!' with a long nasal yell of scorn, rang in my ears like
+a clap of thunder.
+
+'I say you are mad, petite insolente, to suppose I should care for you more
+than the poor hare it will care for the hound--more than the bird who has
+escape will love the oiseleur. I do not care--I ought not care. It is your
+turn to suffer. Lie down on your bed there, and suffer quaitely.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXIII
+
+_SPICED CLARET_
+
+
+I did not lie down; but I despaired. I walked round and round the room,
+wringing my hands in utter distraction. I threw myself at the bedside on my
+knees. I could not pray; I could only shiver and moan, with hands clasped,
+and eyes of horror turned up to heaven. I think Madame was, in her
+malignant way, perplexed. That some evil was intended me I am sure she was
+persuaded; but I dare say Meg Hawkes had said rightly in telling me that
+she was not fully in their secrets.
+
+The first paroxysm of despair subsided into another state. All at once my
+mind was filled with the idea of Meg Hawkes, her enterprise, and my chances
+of escape. There is one point at which the road to Elverston makes a short
+ascent: there is a sudden curve there, two great ash-trees, with a roadside
+stile between, at the right side, covered with ivy. Driving back and
+forward, I did not recollect having particularly remarked this point in
+the highway; but now it was before me, in the thin light of the thinnest
+segment of moon, and the figure of Meg Hawkes, her back toward me, always
+ascending towards Elverston. It was constantly the same picture--the same
+motion without progress--the same dreadful suspense and impatience.
+
+I was now sitting on the side of the bed, looking wistfully across the
+room. When I did not see Meg Hawkes, I beheld Madame darkly eyeing first
+one then another point of the chamber, evidently puzzling over some
+problem, and in one of her most savage moods--sometimes muttering to
+herself, sometimes protruding, and sometimes screwing up her great mouth.
+
+She went into her own room, where she remained, I think, nearly ten
+minutes, and on her return there was that in the flash of her eyes, the
+glow of her face, and the peculiar fragrance that surrounded her, that
+showed she had been partaking of her favourite restorative.
+
+I had not moved since she left my room.
+
+She paused about the middle of the floor, and looked at me with what I can
+only describe as her wild-beast stare.
+
+'You are a very secrete family, you Ruthyns--you are so coning. I hate the
+coning people. By my faith, I weel see Mr. Silas Ruthyn, and ask wat he
+mean. I heard him tell old Wyat that Mr. Dudley is gone away to-night. He
+shall tell me everything, or else I weel make echec et mat aussi vrai que
+je vis.'
+
+Madame's words had hardly ceased, when I was again watching Meg Hawkes on
+the steep road, mounting, but never reaching, the top of the acclivity, on
+the way to Elverston, and mentally praying that she might be brought
+safely there. Vain prayer of an agonised heart! Meg's journey was already
+frustrated: she was not to reach Elverston in time.
+
+Madame revisited her apartment, and returned, not, I think, improved in
+temper. She walked about the room, hustling the scanty furniture hither and
+thither as she encountered it. She kicked her empty box out of her way,
+with a horrid crash, and a curse in French. She strode and swaggered round
+the room, muttering all the way, and turning the corners of her course with
+a furious whisk. At last, out of the door she went. I think she fancied she
+had not been sufficiently taken into confidence as to what was intended for
+me.
+
+It was now growing late, and yet no succour! I was seized, I remember, with
+a dreadful icy shivering.
+
+I was listening for signals of deliverance. At ever distant sound, half
+stifled with a palpitation, these sounds piercing my ear with a horrible
+and exaggerated distinctness--'Oh Meg!--Oh cousin Monica!--Oh come! Oh
+Heaven, have mercy!--Lord, have mercy!' I thought I heard a roaring and
+jangle of voices. Perhaps it came from Uncle Silas's room. It might be the
+tipsy violence of Madame. It might--merciful Heaven!--be the arrival of
+friends. I started to my feet; I listened, quivering with attention. Was
+it in my brain?--was it real? I was at the door, and it seemed to open of
+itself. Madame had forgotten to lock it; she was losing her head a little
+by this time. The key stood in the gallery door beyond; it too, was open.
+I fled wildly. There was a subsiding sound of voices in my uncle's room.
+I was, I know not how, on the lobby at the great stair-head outside my
+uncle's apartment. My hand was on the banisters, my foot on the first step,
+when below me and against the faint light that glimmered through the great
+window on the landing I saw a bulky human form ascending, and a voice said
+'Hush!' I staggered back, and at that instant fancied, with a thrill of
+conviction, I heard Lady Knollys's voice in Uncle Silas' room.
+
+I don't know how I entered the room; I was there like a ghost. I was
+frightened at my own state.
+
+Lady Knollys was not there--no one but Madame and my guardian.
+
+I can never forget the look that Uncle Silas fixed on me as he cowered,
+seemingly as appalled as I.
+
+I think I must have looked like a phantom newly risen from the grave.
+
+'What's that?--where do you come from?' whispered he.
+
+'Death! death!' was my whispered answer, as I froze with terror where I
+stood.
+
+'What does she mean?--what does all this mean?' said Uncle Silas,
+recovering wonderfully, and turning with a withering sneer on Madame. 'Do
+you think it right to disobey my plain directions, and let her run about
+the house at this hour?'
+
+'Death! death! Oh, pray to God for you and me!' I whispered in the same
+dreadful tones.
+
+My uncle stared strangely at me again; and after several horrible seconds,
+in which he seemed to have recovered himself, he said, sternly and coolly--
+
+'You give too much place to your imagination, niece. Your spirits are in an
+odd state--you ought to have advice.'
+
+'Oh, uncle, pity me! Oh, uncle, you are good! you're kind; you're kind
+when you think. You could not--you could not--could not! Oh, think of your
+brother that was always so good to you! He sees me here. He sees us both.
+Oh, save me, uncle--save me!--and I'll give up everything to you. I'll pray
+to God to bless you--I'll never forget your goodness and mercy. But don't
+keep me in doubt. If I'm to go, oh, for God's sake, shoot me now!'
+
+'You were always odd, niece; I begin to fear you are insane,' he replied,
+in the same stern icy tone.
+
+'Oh, uncle--oh!--am I? Am I _mad_?'
+
+'I hope not; but you'll conduct yourself like a sane person if you wish to
+enjoy the privileges of one.'
+
+Then, with his finger pointing at me, he turned to Madame, and said, in a
+tone of suppressed ferocity--
+
+'What's the meaning of this?--why is she here?'
+
+Madame was gabbling volubly, but to me it was only a shrilly noise. My
+whole soul was concentrated in my uncle, the arbiter of my life, before
+whom I stood in the wildest agony of supplication.
+
+That night was dreadful. The people I saw dizzily, made of smoke or shining
+vapour, smiling or frowning, I could have passed my hand through them. They
+were evil spirits.
+
+'There's no ill intended you; by ---- there's none,' said my uncle, for
+the first time violently agitated. 'Madame told you why we've changed your
+room. You told her about the bailiffs, did not you? 'with a stamp of fury
+he demanded of Madame, whose nasal roullades of talk were running on like a
+accompaniment all the time. She had told me indeed only a few hours since,
+and now it sounded to me like the echo of something heard a month ago or
+more.
+
+'You can't go about the house, d--n it, with bailiffs in occupation. There
+now--there's the whole thing. Get to your room, Maud, and don't vex me.
+There's a good girl.'
+
+He was trying to smile as he spoke these last words, and, with quavering
+soft tones, to quiet me; but the old scowl was there, the smile was
+corpse-like and contorted, and the softness of his tones was more dreadful
+than another man's ferocity.
+
+'There, Madame, she'll go quite gently, and you can call if you want help.
+Don't let it happen again.'
+
+'Come, Maud,' said Madame, encircling but not hurting my arm with her grip;
+'let us go, my friend.'
+
+I did go, you will wonder, as well you may--as you may wonder at the
+docility with which strong men walk through the press-room to the drop,
+and thank the people of the prison for their civility when they bid them
+good-bye, and facilitate the fixing of the rope and adjusting of the cap.
+Have you never wondered that they don't make a last battle for life with
+the unscrupulous energy of terror, instead of surrendering it so gently in
+cold blood, on a silent calculation, the arithmetic of despair?
+
+I went upstairs with Madame like a somnambulist. I rather quickened my
+step as I drew near my room. I went in, and stood a phantom at the window,
+looking into the dark quadrange. A thin glimmering crescent hung in the
+frosty sky, and all heaven was strewn with stars. Over the steep roof at
+the other side spread on the dark azure of the night this glorious blazonry
+of the unfathomable Creator. To me a dreadful scroll--inexorable eyes--the
+cloud of cruel witnesses looking down in freezing brightness on my prayers
+and agonies.
+
+I turned about and sat down, leaning my head upon my arms. Then suddenly I
+sat up, as for the first time the picture of Uncle Silas's littered
+room, and the travelling bags and black boxes plied on the floor by his
+table--the desk, hat-case, umbrella, coats, rugs, and mufflers, all ready
+for a journey--reached my brain and suggested thought. The _mise en
+scene_ had remained in every detail fixed upon my retina; and how I
+wondered--'When is he going--how soon? Is he going to carry me away and
+place me in a madhouse?'
+
+'Am I--am I mad?' I began to think. 'Is this all a dream, or is it real?'
+
+I remembered how a thin polite gentleman, with a tall grizzled head and a
+black velvet waistcoat, came into the carriage on our journey, and said a
+few words to me; how Madame whispered him something, and he murmured 'Oh!'
+very gently, with raised eyebrows, and a glance at me, and thenceforward
+spoke no more to me, only to Madame, and at the next station carried his
+hat and other travelling chattels into another carriage. Had she told him I
+was mad?
+
+These horrid bars! Madame always with me! The direful hints that dropt from
+my uncle! My own terrific sensations!--All these evidences revolved in my
+brain, and presented themselves in turn like writings on a wheel of fire.
+
+There came a knock to the door--
+
+Oh, Meg! Was it she? No; old Wyat whispered Madame something about her
+room.
+
+So Madame re-entered, with a little silver tray and flagon in her hands,
+and a glass. Nothing came from Uncle Silas in ungentlemanlike fashion.
+
+'Drink, Maud,' said Madame, raising the cover, and evidently enjoying the
+fragrant steam.
+
+I could not. I might have done so had I been able to swallow anything--for
+I was too distracted to think of Meg's warning.
+
+Madame suddenly recollected her mistake of that evening, and tried the
+door; but it was duly locked. She took the key from her pocket and placed
+it in her breast.
+
+'You weel 'av these rooms to yourself, ma chere. I shall sleep downstairs
+to-night.'
+
+She poured out some of the hot claret into the glass abstractedly, and
+drank it off.
+
+''Tis very good--I drank without theenk. Bote 'tis very good. Why don't you
+drink some?'
+
+'I could not', I repeated. And Madame boldly helped herself.
+
+'Vary polite, certally, to Madame was it to send nothing at all for _hair_'
+(so she pronounced 'her'); 'bote is all same thing.' And so she ran on in
+her tipsy vein, which was loud and sarcastic, with a fierce laugh now and
+then.
+
+Afterwards I heard that they were afraid of Madame, who was given to cross
+purposes, and violent in her cups. She had been noisy and quarrelsome
+downstairs. She was under the delusion that I was to be conveyed away that
+night to a remote and safe place, and she was to be handsomely compensated
+for services and evidence to be afterwards given. She was not to be
+trusted, however, with the truth. That was to be known but to three people
+on earth.
+
+I never knew, but I believe that the spiced claret which Madame drank was
+drugged. She was a person who could, I have been told, drink a great deal
+without exhibiting any change from it but an inflamed colour and furious
+temper. I can only state for certain what I saw, and that was, that shortly
+after she had finished the claret she laid down upon my bed, and, I now
+know, fell asleep. I then thought she was _feigning_ sleep only, and that
+she was really watching me.
+
+About an hour after this I suddenly heard a little _clink_ in the
+yard beneath. I peeped out, but saw nothing. The sound was repeated,
+however--sometimes more frequently, sometimes at long intervals. At last,
+in the deep shadow next the farther wall, I thought I could discover a
+figure, sometimes erect, sometimes stooping and bowing toward the earth. I
+could see this figure only in the rudest outline mingling with the dark.
+
+Like a thunderbolt it smote my brain. 'They are making my grave!'
+
+After the first dreadful stun I grew quite wild, and ran up and down the
+room wringing my hands and gasping prayers to heaven. Then a calm stole
+over me--such a dreadful calm as I could fancy glide over one who floated
+in a boat under the shadow of the 'Traitor's Gate,' leaving life and hope
+and trouble behind.
+
+Shortly after there came a very low tap at my door; then another, like a
+tiny post-knock. I could never understand why it was I made no answer. Had
+I done so, and thus shown that I was awake, it might have sealed my fate.
+I was standing in the middle of the floor staring at the door, which I
+expected to see open, and admit I knew not what troop of spectres.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXIV
+
+_THE HOUR OF DEATH_
+
+
+It was a very still night and frosty. My candle had long burnt out. There
+was still a faint moonlight, which fell in a square of yellow on the floor
+near the window, leaving the rest of the room in what to an eye less
+accustomed than mine had become to that faint light would have been total
+darkness. Now, I am sure, I heard a soft whispering outside my door. I knew
+that I was in a state of siege! The crisis was come, and strange to say,
+I felt myself grow all at once resolute and self-possessed. It was not a
+subsidence, however, of the dreadful excitement, but a sudden screwing-up
+of my nerves to a pitch such as I cannot describe.
+
+I suppose the people outside moved with great caution; and the perfect
+solidity of the floor, which had not anywhere a creaking board in it,
+favoured their noiseless movements. It was well for me that there were
+in the house three persons whom it was part of their plan to mystify
+respecting my fate. This alone compelled the extreme caution of their
+proceedings. They suspected that I had placed furniture against the door,
+and were afraid to force it, lest a crash, a scream, perhaps a long and
+shrilly struggle, might follow.
+
+I remained for a space which I cannot pretend to estimate in the same
+posture, afraid to stir--afraid to move my eye from the door.
+
+A very peculiar grating sound above my head startled me from my
+watch--something of the character of sawing, only more crunching, and with
+a faint continued rumble in it--utterly inexplicable. It sounded over that
+portion of the roof which was farthest from the door, toward which I now
+glided; and as I took my stand under cover of the projecting angle of a
+clumsy old press that stood close by it, I perceived the room a little
+darkened, and I saw a man descend and take his stand upon the window-stone.
+He let go a rope, which, however, was still fast round his body, and
+employed both his hands, with apparently some exertion, about something at
+the side of the window, which in a moment more, in one mass, bars and all,
+swung noiselessly open, admitting the frosty night-air; and the man, whom
+I now distinctly saw to be Dudley Ruthyn, kneeled on the sill, and stept,
+after a moment's listening, into the room. His foot made no sound upon the
+floor; his head was bare, and he wore his usual short shooting-jacket.
+
+I cowered to the ground in my post of observation. He stood, as it
+seemed to me irresolutely for a moment, and then drew from his pocket an
+instrument which I distinctly saw against the faint moonlight. Imagine a
+hammer, one end of which had been beaten out into a longish tapering spike,
+with a handle something longer than usual. He drew stealthily to the
+window, and seemed to examine this hurriedly, and tested its strength with
+a twist or two of his hand. And then he adjusted it very carefully in his
+grasp, and made two or three little experimental picks with it in the air.
+
+I remained perfectly still, with a terrible composure, crouched in my
+hiding-place, my teeth clenched, and prepared to struggle like a tigress
+for my life when discovered. I thought his next measure would be to light a
+match. I saw a lantern, I fancied, on the window-sill. But this was not his
+plan. He stole, in a groping way, which seemed strange to me, who could
+distinguish objects in this light, to the side of my bed, the exact
+position of which he evidently knew; he stooped over it. Madame was
+breathing in the deep respiration of heavy sleep. Suddenly but softly he
+laid, as it seemed to me, his left hand over her face, and nearly at the
+same instant there came a scrunching blow; an unnatural shriek, beginning
+small and swelling for two or three seconds into a yell such as are
+imagined in haunted houses, accompanied by a convulsive sound, as of the
+motion of running, and the arms drumming on the bed; and then another
+blow--and with a horrid gasp he recoiled a step or two, and stood perfectly
+still. I heard a horrible tremor quivering through the joints and curtains
+of the bedstead--the convulsions of the murdered woman. It was a dreadful
+sound, like the shaking of a tree and rustling of leaves. Then once more
+he steps to the side of the bed, and I heard another of those horrid
+blows--and silence--and another--and more silence--and the diabolical
+surgery was ended. For a few seconds, I think, I was on the point of
+fainting; but a gentle stir outside the door, close to my ear, startled me,
+and proved that there had been a watcher posted outside. There was a little
+tapping at the door.
+
+'Who's that?' whispered Dudley, hoarsely.
+
+'A friend,' answered a sweet voice.
+
+And a key was introduced, the door quickly unlocked, and Uncle Silas
+entered. I saw that frail, tall, white figure, the venerable silver locks
+that resembled those upon the honoured head of John Wesley, and his thin
+white hand, the back of which hung so close to my face that I feared to
+breathe. I could see his fingers twitching nervously. The smell of perfumes
+and of ether entered the room with him.
+
+Dudley was trembling now like a man in an ague-fit.
+
+'Look what you made me do!' he said, maniacally.
+
+'Steady, sir!' said the old man, close beside me.
+
+'Yes, you damned old murderer! I've a mind to do for you.'
+
+'There, Dudley, like a dear boy, don't give way; it's done. Right or wrong,
+we can't help it. You must be quiet,' said the old man, with a stern
+gentleness.
+
+Dudley groaned.
+
+'Whoever advised it, you're a gainer, Dudley,' said Uncle Silas.
+
+Then there was a pause.
+
+'I hope that was not heard,' said Uncle Silas.
+
+Dudley walked to the window and stood there.
+
+'Come, Dudley, you and Hawkes must use expedition. You know you must get
+that out of the way.'
+
+'I've done too much. I won't do nout; I'll not touch it. I wish my hand was
+off first; I wish I was a soger. Do as ye like, you an' Hawkes. I won't go
+nigh it; damn ye both--and _that_!' and he hurled the hammer with all his
+force upon the floor.
+
+'Come, come, be reasonable, Dudley, dear boy. There's nothing to fear but
+your own folly. You won't make a noise?'
+
+'Oh, oh, my God!' said Dudley, hoarsely, and wiped his forehead with his
+open hand.
+
+'There now, you'll be all well in a minute,' continued the old man.
+
+'You said 'twouldn't hurt her. If I'd a known she'd a screeched like that
+I'd never a done it. 'Twas a damn lie. You're the damndest villain on
+earth.'
+
+'Come, Dudley!' said the old man under his breath, but very sternly, 'make
+up your mind. If you don't choose to go on, it can't be helped; only it's
+a pity you began. For _you_ it is a good deal--it does not much matter for
+_me_.'
+
+'Ay, for _you_!' echoed Dudley, through his set teeth. 'The old talk!'
+
+'Well, sir,' snarled the old man, in the same low tones, 'you should have
+thought of all this before. It's only taking leave of the world a year or
+two sooner, but a year or two's something. I'll leave you to do as you
+please.'
+
+'Stop, will you? Stop here. I know it's a fixt thing now. If a fella does
+a thing he's damned for, you might let him talk a bit anyhow. I don't care
+much if I was shot.'
+
+'There now--_there_--just stick to that, and don't run off again. There's a
+box and a bag here; we must change the direction, and take them away. The
+box has some jewels. Can you see them? I wish we had a light.'
+
+'No, I'd rayther not; I can see well enough. I wish we were out o' this.
+_Here's_ the box.'
+
+'Pull it to the window,' said the old man, to my inexpressible relief
+advancing at last a few steps.
+
+Coolness was given me in that dreadful moment, and I knew that all depended
+on my being prompt and resolute. I stood up swiftly. I often thought if I
+had happened to wear silk instead of the cachmere I had on that night, its
+rustle would have betrayed me.
+
+I distinctly saw the tall stooping figure of my uncle, and the outline of
+his venerable tresses, as he stood between me and the dull light of the
+window, like a shape cut in card.
+
+He was saying 'just to _there_,' and pointing with his long arm at that
+contracting patch of moonlight which lay squared upon the floor. The door
+was about a quarter open, and just as Dudley began to drag Madame's heavy
+box, with my jewel-case in it, across the floor from her room, inhaling a
+great breath--with a mental prayer for help--I glided on tiptoe from the
+room and found myself on the gallery floor.
+
+I turned to my right, simply by chance, and followed a long gallery in the
+dark, not running--I was too fearful of making the least noise--but walking
+with the tiptoe-swiftness of terror. At the termination of this was a
+cross-gallery, one end of which--that to my left--terminated in a great
+window, through which the dusky night-view was visible. With the instinct
+of terror I chose the darker, and turned again to my right; hurrying
+through this long and nearly dark passage, I was terrified by a light,
+about thirty feet before me, emerging from the ceiling. In spotted patches
+this light fell through the door and sides of a stable lantern, and showed
+me a ladder, down which, from an open skylight I suppose for the cool
+night-air floated in my face, came Dickon Hawkes notwithstanding his
+maimed condition, with so much celerity as to leave me hardly a moment for
+consideration.
+
+He sat on the last round of the ladder, and tightened the strap of his
+wooden leg.
+
+At my left was a door-case open, but no door. I entered; it was a short
+passage about six feet long, leading perhaps to a backstair, but the door
+at the end was locked.
+
+I was forced to stand in this recess, then, which afforded no shelter,
+while Pegtop stumped by with his lantern in his hand. I fancy he had some
+idea of listening to his master unperceived, for he stopped close to my
+hiding-place, blew out the candle, and pinched the long snuff with his
+horny finger and thumb.
+
+Having listened for a few seconds, he stumped stealthily along the gallery
+which I had just traversed, and turned the corner in the direction of the
+chamber where the crime had just been committed, and the discovery was
+impending. I could see him against the broad window which in the daytime
+lighted this long passage, and the moment he had passed the corner I
+resumed my flight.
+
+I descended a stair corresponding with that backstair, as I am told, up
+which Madame had led me only the night before. I tried the outer door. To
+my wild surprise it was open. In a moment I was upon the step, in the free
+air, and as instantaneously was seized by the arm in the gripe of a man.
+
+It was Tom Brice, who had already betrayed me, and who was now, in surtout
+and hat, waiting to drive the carriage with the guilty father and son from
+the scene of their abhorred outrage.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXV
+
+_IN THE OAK PARLOUR_
+
+
+So it was vain: I was trapped, and all was over.
+
+I stood before him on the step, the white moon shining on my face. I was
+trembling so that I wonder I could stand, my helpless hands raised towards
+him, and I looked up in his face. A long shuddering moan--'Oh--oh--oh!' was
+all I uttered.
+
+The man, still holding my arm, looked, I thought frightened, into my white
+dumb face.
+
+Suddenly he said, in a wild, fierce whisper--
+
+'Never say another word' (I had not uttered one). 'They shan't hurt ye,
+Miss; git ye in; I don't care a damn!'
+
+It was an uncouth speech. To me it was the voice of an angel. With a burst
+of gratitude that sounded in my own ears like a laugh, I thanked God for
+those blessed words.
+
+In a moment more he had placed me in the carriage, and almost instantly we
+were in motion--very cautiously while crossing the court, until he had got
+the wheels upon the grass, and then at a rapid pace, improving his speed as
+the distance increased. He drove along the side of the back-approach to the
+house, keeping on the grass; so that our progress, though swaying like that
+of a ship in a swell, was very nearly as noiseless.
+
+The gate had been left unlocked--he swung it open, and remounted the box.
+And we were now beyond the spell of Bartram-Haugh, thundering--Heaven be
+praised!--along the Queen's highway, right in the route to Elverston. It
+was literally a gallop. Through the chariot windows I saw Tom stand as he
+drove, and every now and then throw an awful glance over his shoulder. Were
+we pursued? Never was agony of prayer like mine, as with clasped hands and
+wild stare I gazed through the windows on the road, whose trees and hedges
+and gabled cottages were chasing one another backward at so giddy a speed.
+
+We were now ascending that identical steep, with the giant ash-trees at the
+right and the stile between, which my vision of Meg Hawkes had presented
+all that night, when my excited eye detected a running figure within the
+hedge. I saw the head of some one crossing the stile in pursuit, and I
+heard Brice's name shrieked.
+
+'Drive on--on--on!' I screamed.
+
+But Brice pulled up. I was on my knees on the floor of the carriage, with
+clasped hands, expecting capture, when the door opened, and Meg Hawkes,
+pale as death, her cloak drawn over her black tresses, looked in.
+
+'Oh!--ho!--ho!--thank God!' she screamed. 'Shake hands, lass. Tom, yer a
+good un! He's a good lad, Tom.'
+
+'Come in, Meg--you must sit by me,' I said, recovering all at once.
+
+Meg made no demur. 'Take my hand,' I said offering mine to her disengaged
+one.
+
+'I can't, Miss--my arm's broke.'
+
+And so it was, poor thing! She had been espied and overtaken in her errand
+of mercy for me, and her ruffian father had felled her with his cudgel, and
+then locked her into the cottage, whence, however, she had contrived to
+escape, and was now flying to Elverston, having tried in vain to get a
+hearing in Feltram, whose people had been for hours in bed.
+
+The door being shut upon Meg, the steaming horses were instantly at a
+gallop again.
+
+Tom was still watching as before, with many an anxious glance to rearward,
+for pursuit. Again he pulled up, and came to the window.
+
+'Oh, what is it?' cried I.
+
+''Bout that letter, Miss; I couldn't help. 'Twas Dickon, he found it in my
+pocket. That's a'.'
+
+'Oh yes!--no matter--thank you--thank Heaven! Are we near Elverston?'
+
+''Twill be a mile, Miss: and please'm to mind I had no finger in't.'
+
+'Thanks--thank you--you're very good--I shall _always_ thank you, Tom, as
+long as I live!'
+
+At length we entered Elverston. I think I was half wild. I don't know how I
+got into the hall. I was in the oak-parlour, I believe, when I saw cousin
+Monica. I was standing, my arms extended. I could not speak; but I ran with
+a loud long scream into her arms. I forget a great deal after that.
+
+
+
+
+CONCLUSION
+
+
+Oh, my beloved cousin Monica! Thank Heaven, you are living still, and
+younger, I think, than I in all things but in years.
+
+And Milly, my dear companion, she is now the happy wife of that good little
+clergyman, Sprigge Biddlepen. It has been in my power to be of use to them,
+and he shall have the next presentation to Dawling.
+
+Meg Hawkes, proud and wayward, and the most affectionate creature on earth,
+was married to Tom Brice a few months after these events; and, as both
+wished to emigrate, I furnished them with the capital, and I am told they
+are likely to be rich. I hear from my kind Meg often, and she seems very
+happy.
+
+My dear old friends, Mary Quince and Mrs. Rusk, are, alas! growing old, but
+living with me, and very happy. And after long solicitation, I persuaded
+Doctor Bryerly, the best and truest of ministers, with my dearest friend's
+concurrence, to undertake the management of the Derbyshire estates. In this
+I have been most fortunate. He is the very person for such a charge--so
+punctual, so laborious, so kind, and so shrewd.
+
+In compliance with medical advice, cousin Monica hurried me away to the
+Continent, where she would never permit me to allude to the terrific scenes
+which remain branded so awfully on my brain. It needed no constraint. It is
+a sort of agony to me even now to think of them.
+
+The plan was craftily devised. Neither old Wyat nor Giles, the butler, had
+a suspicion that I had returned to Bartram. Had I been put to death, the
+secret of my fate would have been deposited in the keeping of four persons
+only--the two Ruthyns, Hawkes, and ultimately Madame. My dear cousin Monica
+had been artfully led to believe in my departure for France, and prepared
+for my silence. Suspicion might not have been excited for a year after my
+death, and then would never, in all probability, have pointed to Bartram as
+the scene of the crime. The weeds would have grown over me, and I should
+have lain in that deep grave where the corpse of Madame de la Rougierre was
+unearthed in the darksome quadrangle of Bartram-Haugh.
+
+It was more than two years after that I heard what had befallen at Bartram
+after my flight. Old Wyat, who went early to Uncle Silas's room, to her
+surprise--for he had told her that he was that night to accompany his son,
+who had to meet the mailtrain to Derby at five o'clock in the morning--saw
+her old master lying on the sofa, much in his usual position.
+
+'There was nout much strange about him,' old Wyat said, 'but that his
+scent-bottle was spilt on its side over on the table, and he dead.'
+
+She thought he was not quite cold when she found him, and she sent the old
+butler for Doctor Jolks, who said he died of too much 'loddlum.'
+
+Of my wretched uncle's religion what am I to say? Was it utter hypocrisy,
+or had it at any time a vein of sincerity in it? I cannot say. I don't
+believe that he had any heart left for religion, which is the highest form
+of affection, to take hold of. Perhaps he was a sceptic with misgivings
+about the future, but past the time for finding anything reliable in it.
+The devil approached the citadel of his heart by stealth, with many zigzags
+and parallels. The idea of marrying me to his son by fair means, then by
+foul, and, when that wicked chance was gone, then the design of seizing all
+by murder, supervened. I dare say that Uncle Silas thought for a while that
+he was a righteous man. He wished to have heaven and to escape hell, if
+there were such places. But there were other things whose existence was
+not speculative, of which some he coveted, and some he dreaded more, and
+temptation came. 'Now if any man build upon this foundation, gold, silver,
+precious stones, wood, hay, stubble, every man's work shall be made
+manifest; for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by
+fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is.' There
+comes with old age a time when the heart is no longer fusible or malleable,
+and must retain the form in which it has cooled down. 'He that is unjust,
+let him be unjust still; he which is filthy, let him be filthy still.'
+
+Dudley had disappeared; but in one of her letters, Meg, writing from her
+Australian farm, says: 'There's a fella in toon as calls hisself Colbroke,
+wi' a good hoose o' wood, 15 foot length, and as by 'bout as silling o' the
+pearler o' Bartram--only lots o' rats, they do say, my lady--a bying and
+sellin' of goold back and forred wi' the diggin foke and the marchants. His
+chick and mouth be wry wi' scar o' burns or vitterel, an' no wiskers, bless
+you; but my Tom ee toll him he knowed him for Master Doodley. I ant seed
+him; but he sade ad shute Tom soon is look at 'im, an' denide it, wi'
+mouthful o' curses and oaf. Tom baint right shure; if I seed un wons i'd no
+for sartin; but 'appen,'twil best be let be.' This was all.
+
+Old Hawkes stood his ground, relying on the profound cunning with which
+their actual proceedings had been concealed, even from the suspicions of
+the two inmates of the house, and on the mystery that habitually shrouded
+Bartram-Haugh and all its belongings from the eyes of the outer world.
+
+Strangely enough, he fancied that I had made my escape long before the room
+was entered; and, even if he were arrested, there was no evidence, he was
+certain, to connect _him_ with the murder, all knowledge of which he would
+stoutly deny.
+
+There was an inquest on the body of my uncle, and Dr. Jolks was the chief
+witness. They found that his death was caused by 'an excessive dose of
+laudanum, accidentally administered by himself.'
+
+It was not until nearly a year after the dreadful occurrences at Bartram
+that Dickon Hawkes was arrested on a very awful charge, and placed in gaol.
+It was an old crime, committed in Lancashire, that had found him out.
+After his conviction, as a last chance, he tried a disclosure of all the
+circumstances of the unsuspected death of the Frenchwoman. Her body was
+discovered buried where he indicated, in the inner court of Bartram-Haugh,
+and, after due legal enquiry, was interred in the churchyard of Feltram.
+
+Thus I escaped the horrors of the witness-box, or the far worse torture of
+a dreadful secret.
+
+Doctor Bryerly, shortly after Lady Knollys had described to him the manner
+in which Dudley entered my room, visited the house of Bartram-Haugh, and
+minutely examined the windows of the room in which Mr. Charke had slept on
+the night of his murder. One of these he found provided with powerful steel
+hinges, very craftily sunk and concealed in the timber of the window-frame,
+which was secured by an iron pin outside, and swung open on its removal.
+This was the room in which they had placed me, and this the contrivance
+by means of which the room had been entered. The problem of Mr. Charke's
+murder was solved.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I have penned it. I sit for a moment breathless. My hands are cold and
+damp. I rise with a great sigh, and look out on the sweet green landscape
+and pastoral hills, and see the flowers and birds and the waving boughs of
+glorious trees--all images of liberty and safety; and as the tremendous
+nightmare of my youth melts into air, I lift my eyes in boundless gratitude
+to the God of all comfort, whose mighty hand and outstretched arm delivered
+me. When I lower my eyes and unclasp my hands, my cheeks are wet with
+tears. A tiny voice is calling me 'Mamma!' and a beloved smiling face, with
+his dear father's silken brown tresses, peeps in.
+
+'Yes, darling, our walk. Come away!'
+
+I am Lady Ilbury, happy in the affection of a beloved and noblehearted
+husband. The shy useless girl you have known is now a mother--trying to be
+a good one; and this, the last pledge, has lived.
+
+I am not going to tell of sorrows--how brief has been my pride of early
+maternity, or how beloved were those whom the Lord gave and the Lord has
+taken away. But sometimes as, smiling on my little boy, the tears gather
+in my eyes, and he wonders, I can see, why they come, I am thinking--and
+trembling while I smile--to think, how strong is love, how frail is life;
+and rejoicing while I tremble that, in the deathless love of those who
+mourn, the Lord of Life, who never gave a pang in vain, conveys the sweet
+and ennobling promise of a compensation by eternal reunion. So, through
+my sorrows, I have heard a voice from heaven say, 'Write, from hencefore
+blessed are the dead that die in the Lord!'
+
+This world is a parable--the habitation of symbols--the phantoms of
+spiritual things immortal shown in material shape. May the blessed
+second-sight be mine--to recognise under these beautiful forms of earth the
+ANGELS who wear them; for I am sure we may walk with them if we will, and
+hear them speak!
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Uncle Silas, by J. S. LeFanu
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