AN UNPLEASANT EXPOSURE.
Egerton's countenance grew pale as death when he beheld that carriage
hastening through the Park towards the entrance of the Hall.
Dunstable perceived and understood his fear; and he himself experienced
no little dread lest the approaching vehicle should contain Lady
Ravensworth. But, in the next moment, this suspicion vanished; for it
did not seem probable that her ladyship would return to a mansion
totally unprepared to receive her.
The old gardener was, however, now shaking with a new alarm; and the
departure was hurried as much as possible: but the travelling barouche
had stopped near the entrance of the Hall ere Egerton's party had
reached the bottom of the great staircase.
There was no male domestic in attendance upon the carriage: the
postillion accordingly alighted from his horse, opened the door, and
assisted two females, both clad in deep mourning, to descend.
Of those females, one was evidently a lady, and the other her maid.
The former raised her black veil, immediately upon alighting, and gazed
in astonishment upon the three vehicles which had prevented her own from
drawing-up immediately against the steps of the principal entrance.
By this time Egerton's party, followed by the old gardener, who was
doing his best to hurry the intruders away, had reached the portico; and
it was at this precise moment that the lady raised her veil on
descending from the barouche.
Cholmondeley and Dunstable started; and the former exclaimed, "Lady
Ravensworth!"
Then, recovering his wonted self-command, he advanced towards Adeline,
raised his hat, and said, "Your ladyship is doubtless astonished to see
so large a party at Ravensworth Hall; but if you will permit me to speak
to you five words in private—"
"I have no secrets to discuss with Colonel Cholmondeley," interrupted
Adeline, in a tone of freezing hauteur and yet of deep dejection: then,
turning towards Mrs. Bustard, who had thrust herself forward to learn
why the arrival of a barouche containing a lady and her female attendant
had produced such a singular excitement amongst the gentlemen of the
party, she said, "May I be permitted to inquire, madam, the meaning of
this assembly on the day of my return?"
"If you'll tell me fust, ma'am, who you are," replied Mrs. Bustard, "may
be I'll satisfy you."
"I am Lady Ravensworth," was the dignified answer.
"Well then, my lady, all I can say is—and which I do on the part of my
nephew Albert—that you're quite welcome to occupy a room or two in this
edifisk until such times as you can provide yourself with another
place——"
"My dear aunt, allow me to explain myself to Lady Ravensworth,"
exclaimed Egerton, now stepping forward.
"Eh—do, my boy," cried Mrs. Bustard, whose voice was somewhat husky with
champagne, and whose sight, from the same cause, was a little dizzy—so
that she did not perceive the glance of mingled anger and astonishment
which Adeline threw upon her while she was so politely offering her
ladyship the use of apartments in Ravensworth Hall.
"Lady Ravensworth, permit me—one word, I implore you!" said Lord
Dunstable, in an under tone, as he advanced before Egerton.
"Is this mystery to be explained to me at all?" cried Adeline. "Lord
Dunstable, I have no better reason to grant a private interview to you
than to your friend Colonel Cholmondeley: I therefore hope that, without
farther delay, you will inform me to what circumstance I am to attribute
the honour which my poor mansion has experienced by receiving so large a
party during my absence."
[Illustration]
"_Her_ mansion, indeed!" said Mrs. Bustard, with an indignant toss of
the head, as she turned towards her daughters and Mr. Tedworth Jones,
all of whom remained mute spectators of a scene which was to them
totally inexplicable.
"Upon me must the weight of your ladyship's anger fall," said Egerton,
again advancing, and mustering up all his courage to afford the
requisite explanation.
"No such a thing!" cried Mrs. Bustard. "What right has the lady to be
angry? Because her house was put up for sale, and you bought it——"
"Abraham, will _you_ explain this enigma?" exclaimed Adeline, turning
impatiently towards the gardener, whom she suddenly discovered peering
from behind Sir Rupert Harborough.
"Why, my lady," said the old man, twisting his paper cap over and over
in his hands as he dragged himself irresolutely forward, "your ladyship
sees these wery respectable folk—leastways, respectable as far as I know
anythink to the contrairey,—for my maxim is, my lady—as I often says to
my old 'ooman—says I—at such times when she says, says she——"
Adeline actually stamped her foot with impatience.
"I'm a-coming to the pint, my lady," continued the gardener, now
completely crushing the paper cap in his hand; "and in doing that, my
lady, I must ax your ladyship's pardon—'cos I'm a poor simple old man
which can't boast of much edication—leastways, as I says to my old
'ooman——"
"This is insupportable!" cried Adeline. "In one word, did you not
receive my letter stating that it was my intention to return to the Hall
this week?"
"No, my lady—no such a letter ever come," answered the gardener.
"But you can perhaps inform me in two words how these ladies and
gentlemen happened to honour my house with their presence?" said
Adeline, speaking in a severe tone.
"Your house, ma'am!" shouted Mrs. Bustard, her countenance becoming
purple with indignation: "no such a thing! It's my nephew's—he bought
it—and he is here to tell you so!"
Thus speaking, she thrust Egerton forward.
"My dear aunt," said the young man, tears starting into his eyes, "I
have deceived you! I am sorry for the cheat which I have practised upon
you: but the truth is——"
"Don't tell me no more!" cried Mrs. Bustard. "I see it all. It's a
hoax—a shameful hoax! And I shouldn't wonder if your Lord and your
Baronet and your Honourables are all as Brummagem as your title to this
edifisk. Come, Tedworth—come, gals: let's get back to the Pavement. This
is no place for us."
And having thus expressed herself, Mrs. Bustard bounced down the steps
and clambered like an irritated elephant into the glass-coach, followed
by her five daughters. Mr. Jones then mounted to the dickey; the seedy
coachman whipped the horses; and the crazy old vehicle rattled away.
Lady Ravensworth, attended by her maid, passed into the mansion without
bestowing any farther notice on the gentlemen who still lingered upon
the steps; and when she had thus disappeared, they hastened to take
their departure for London, Egerton in a state of mind enviable only by
a man about to be hanged.
For nearly two years had Adeline been a voluntary exile from her native
land; and, in the seclusion of a charming villa in the south of France,
she had devoted herself to the care of her child, whom the gipsy Morcar
had so miraculously saved from death. She also endeavoured, by the
exercise of charity and a constant attention to her devotions, to atone
for the crimes which she had committed; but, though deeply penitent, her
soul could not stifle the pangs of an intense remorse. And thus had
many—many sleepless nights—often rendered terrible by the shade of the
murdered Lydia—dimmed the fires of Adeline's eyes, and given to her
cheeks the pallor of marble!
Her only solace was her child, on whom she doated with all the affection
which can be bestowed by a heart that has nothing else to love—nothing
else to render existence even tolerable. The more she alienated her mind
from the frivolities and levities which had occupied her when she was a
brilliant star in the galaxy of London fashion,—and the more
successfully she wrestled with those burning passions which had rendered
her the willing victim of the seducer, even in her girlhood,—so much the
more profound became her affection for the infant Ferdinand. But that
consolation was not to endure. Five months before her return to England
the boy was snatched away from her,—suddenly snatched away by the rude
hand of Fever, as the rose-bud is cropped by the bleak north wind.
Then how desolate became the heart of Adeline! She felt that her
punishment had not yet ceased on earth.
No longer were there charms for her in a foreign land; and she panted to
return to her native clime. For some weeks she wrestled against this
inclination; but having imparted her desire to Eliza Sydney, with whom
she regularly corresponded, a letter from that excellent lady set her
mind at ease as to the expediency of revisiting England. Eliza offered
no argument against the project; and Lady Ravensworth accordingly
hastened her preparations for a departure from the south of France.
The faithful Quentin was still in her service; but the English
lady's-maid, who had followed Adeline to the Continent, had married and
settled in France. A French woman, therefore, supplied her place; and it
was this foreign servant who accompanied Lady Ravensworth on her return
to the Hall.
Adeline's desire was to retrace her way in privacy to the mansion which,
according to the conditions of her late husband's will, had become her
own—for there was now no male heir to the proud title and broad lands of
Ravensworth: and her intention was to dwell in the strictest retirement
at the mansion. She had written to the gardener to command him to
prepare for her return; but, by some accident, the letter had
miscarried—and hence the old man's ignorance of the approach of his
mistress.
On her arrival, by the Calais steam-packet, at London Bridge, Adeline
had left Quentin to clear the baggage at the Custom-House, and had
proceeded direct to the Hall. The incidents which immediately followed
her arrival are already known to the reader.
It may, however, appear strange that Adeline should come back to a
dwelling where she had suffered so much, and which could not fail to
recall to her with renewed force the black crime which lay so heavily
upon her conscience. But her mind was in that morbid state which is so
well calculated to engender idiosyncratic ideas; and she believed that
the very fact of her return to the scene of her enormity would prove a
penance most salutary to her soul. Such purely Roman Catholic sentiments
are frequently found exercising a deep influence over minds which
contrition for great crimes has disposed to superstitious tendencies.
There were also considerations of a more worldly nature which to some
extent urged Lady Ravensworth to return to the Hall. She loathed the
idea of dwelling amidst the noise, the din, and the crowds of the
metropolis: she craved for the retirement of the country. Whither, then,
could she repair save to the mansion which was her own? what excuse
could she offer to those who knew her, for settling in any other part of
the suburbs of London?—for _near_, though not _in_, the capital had she
resolved to dwell, in order to be enabled to see her parents
occasionally, and Eliza Sydney frequently.
In addition to all the influences, moral and worldly, now enumerated,
there was another which had confirmed Adeline in the idea of returning
to the Hall. But this was a secret influence for which she could not
account,—an influence that ever interposed amidst her waverings, to
settle them in favour of the project,—one of those influences to which
even the strongest minds are frequently subject, and for the existence
of which they can give no satisfactory reason. Such an influence as this
the Turk would denominate the irresistible current of Destiny; but the
pious Christian believes it to be the secret and all-powerful will of
heaven.
Let us, however, proceed with our narrative.
The intruders had departed; and Lady Ravensworth was as it were alone in
that vast mansion which had so many sad and gloomy memorials for her!
She entered the drawing-room where Egerton's party had banqueted; and,
seeing the table covered with the bottles and glasses, turned away in
disgust. Passing into the adjacent suite of apartments, she opened the
shutters, and gazed around the large and lonely rooms in which the
silence of death seemed to reign.
She looked at the pictures which hung upon the walls; and then it struck
her that some change had taken place in those rooms, each feature of
which she remembered well. The more earnestly she gazed about her, the
firmer became her conviction that every thing was not as she had left
it. At length she perceived that three or four of the most valuable
pictures had disappeared: a costly time-piece, too, was missing from the
mantel of one apartment: several ornaments were wanting in another.
Thinking that these objects might have been shifted from their usual
places, she entered another suite of rooms; and there, instead of
finding the things which were lost from the first, she perceived more
vacancies amongst the pictures and the ornaments.
The conduct of the old gardener in allowing a party of persons to use
the mansion, the care of which had been entrusted to him, recurred more
forcibly than at first to her mind: and what had hitherto appeared a
comparatively venial fault, now assumed a complexion, when coupled with
the disappearance of the pictures and ornaments above-mentioned, which
naturally created in her mind alarming suspicions of his honesty.
She rang the bell: her French servant responded to the summons; and
Adeline desired that the gardener might be immediately sent into her
presence.
The maid withdrew, and conveyed by signs the order which she had
received; for she was unable to speak a single word of English.
The old man, who was deliberating with his wife upon the best means of
breaking to Lady Ravensworth the unpleasant fact of there being a putrid
corpse in the mansion at that very moment, received the command with a
ludicrous expression of fear and vexation on his countenance; and he
repaired to the presence of his mistress in a state of mind about as
agreeable as if he were on his road to an auto-da-fé.
"Abraham," said Lady Adeline, "there are certain circumstances which
render my return to this house far from pleasant. Almost heart-broken by
the loss of that dear, dear child who constituted my only earthly joy, I
come back to my native land with the hope of at least finding
tranquillity and peace in the retirement of Ravensworth Hall. But
scarcely do I alight from my carriage, when I encounter upon the very
threshold of my home a party of revellers whom your imprudence permitted
to celebrate their orgies within these walls. This fault I was inclined
to pardon: but when, upon the first superficial glance around the
principal apartments, I perceive that many valuable articles have
disappeared——"
"Disappeared, my lady!" cried the old man, starting in a manner rather
indicative of surprise than of guilt.
"Yes, Abraham," returned Lady Ravensworth, severely:
"pictures—ornaments—time-pieces—China bowls—and several objects of less
value are missing from these apartments. Have you removed them
elsewhere?"
"Oh! my lady," cried the gardener, "you can't think that I would rob
you! As God is my judge, neither me nor my wife has touched a single
thing in the place—leastways, unless it was to dust and clean 'em. The
doors has been kept locked——"
"But if you have been in the habit of allowing strangers the use of
these apartments——"
"No, my lady—this was the fust and the last time that me and my old
'ooman did such a thing," exclaimed the, gardener, emphatically: "and we
didn't know we was a-doing anythink so wery wrong—seeing your ladyship
wasn't here."
"And you have not even observed that certain pictures and ornaments had
disappeared?" inquired Adeline, who knew not what to conjecture—for the
manner and words of the old man were stamped with honesty.
"Never, my lady—we never noticed it," was the answer. "For my part, I
seldom come into these rooms at all: but my old 'ooman dusted 'em out
reglar once a month or so; and if she'd missed anythink I should have
knowed of it in a moment. But——"
"But what, Abraham?" said Lady Ravensworth, in a kinder tone.
"There's one circumstance that has troubled me and my wife more than
once—or twice—or a dozen times, my lady: and yet——"
"Speak candidly. Why do you hesitate?"
The old man cast a hurried glance around,—for it was now growing
dusk,—and, sinking his voice to a whisper, he said, "The Hall is
troubled, my lady."
"What do you mean?" exclaimed Adeline, starting from her seat, as if
those words had electrified her. "Explain yourself, old man—speak!"
"Ah! my lady—there's no doubt on it!" returned Abraham, again looking
suspiciously around. "Mr. Vernon can't rest in his grave—his sperret
walks——"
"A truce to this idle folly!" cried Lady Ravensworth, her tone once more
becoming severe.
Had the old man assured her that he had seen the spirit of Lydia
Hutchinson, she would have been suddenly overwhelmed by a feeling of
tremendous awe; and she would have sunk beneath the appalling weight of
an announcement the truth of which she would not have dared to question.
This influence, however, could only have been exercised over her by the
superstition associated with her own dread crime; and when, contrary to
her expectation, but greatly to her relief—the phantom she so much
dreaded was not the one of which the old man spoke, she immediately
rejected his tale as unworthy of credit.
"A truce to this idle folly!" she cried; "and prepare yourself to give
the explanations which my solicitor may require at your hands to-morrow.
Leave me."
"I hope your ladyship——"
"Leave me, I say; and send my maid up with lights."
"Yes, my lady—certainly I will," returned the old man, without moving
from the place where he stood: "but before I go—I must acquaint your
ladyship—leastways, I must in dooty state that—though it ain't a wery
pleasant thing—still it wasn't my fault—as my old 'ooman can prove to
your ladyship——"
"Leave me!" cried Adeline, in a tone which showed that she was
determined to be obeyed. "If you have any apology to offer for your
conduct—which, I regret to say, is now placed beyond all doubt by the
confusion of your manner—you must satisfy my legal adviser upon that
head. Fear not, however, that I will seek to punish an old man who
cannot have many years to remain in this world: no—I am not
vindictive—my own sufferings," she added, with a profound sigh, "have
taught me to be merciful to others. But I do not desire to prolong this
conversation now. Leave me, I repeat—leave me!"
The gardener endeavoured to obtain a farther hearing—for he was most
anxious to communicate the fact of the dead body being in the house; but
Adeline waved her hand in a manner so authoritative, that the poor old
man had no alternative than to obey.
He accordingly left the room, quite bewildered by the injurious
suspicions which had arisen in the mind of his mistress against his
honesty; for he had spoken naught save the plain truth when he declared
that the disappearance of the pictures and ornaments had never been
observed by either himself or his wife.
The French maid carried lights up to the drawing-room, and received from
Lady Ravensworth instructions to prepare the bed-chamber situate in the
northern extremity of the building: this, in fact, was the same
apartment that Adeline had occupied after she had ceased to inhabit her
boudoir, and during the interval between the murder of Lydia Hutchinson
and the suicide of Gilbert Vernon.
The lady's-maid retired to fulfil her mistress's directions; and Adeline
was left once more alone.
The solemn silence that prevailed throughout the mansion added to the
depression of her spirits; and she could not combat against a vague
presentiment of approaching evil, which gradually acquired a greater
influence over her.
It is well known that many animals have an instinctive knowledge of
impending danger, even while its source remains as yet unseen. The noble
steed that bears the traveller through the forest, snuffs the air, paws
the ground, and swerves uneasily from his path, when in the vicinity of
the lair where the lion lies concealed: the little bird flutters wildly
above the thicket which hides the lurking snake;—and the buffalo
trembles through every limb as he approaches the tree from the dense
foliage of which, high over head, the terrible anaconda is prepared to
spring.
Is such a feeling as this never known to human beings?
We believe that it is.
And certain was it that Adeline became the prey of a similar
influence—vague, sinister, and undefined,—as she sate in the loneliness
of the large apartment around which her glances wandered with an
uneasiness that did not diminish.
She rose from her seat and walked to the window: it was now quite
dark—the sky was overclouded—and neither moon nor stars appeared.
"I could wish that the evening were less gloomy," she said to herself.
"And how long Quentin seems to be!"
Then she remembered that he had many purchases to make; for it was not
expected that the gardener would have provided the requisite stock of
provisions and necessaries, even if he had received the letter
announcing Lady Ravensworth's intended return.
"Still I wish he would come!" said Adeline. "He is a faithful
servant—and I should feel more secure were he near me. What _can_ be
this dreadful depression of spirits which I experience? Alas! happiness
and I have long been strangers to each other: but never—never have I
felt as I do to-night!"
She started: it struck her that the handle of the folding doors
communicating with the next room was agitated.
Yes: it was no delusion—some one was about to enter.
Yielding to fears which were the more intense because they were
altogether inexplicable, she leant against the wall for support—her eyes
fixed, under the influence of a species of fascination, upon the doors
at the farther extremity of the room.
Slowly did one of those folding-doors open; and for an instant, in the
wild turmoil of her feelings, the unhappy woman half expected to behold
the spectre of Lydia Hutchinson appear before her.
But—no: it was a man who entered.
The lights flared with the draught created by the opening of that door;
and for a few moments Adeline could only perceive the dark form, without
being able to distinguish his features.
Not long, however, did this painful uncertainty last; for as the
intruder advanced towards the almost fainting lady, the light suddenly
shone full upon his countenance;—and, with feelings of indescribable
horror, she once more found herself in the presence of the Resurrection
Man.