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(The New York Public Library)
BLACK SHEEP.
A Novel.
BY
EDMUND YATES,
AUTHOR OF "THE ROCK AHEAD," "THE FORLORN HOPE," ETC.
"Love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave."
New Edition.
LONDON:
TINSLEY BROTHERS, 18, CATHERINE ST., STRAND.
1868.
[_All Rights reserved_.]
In Memory
OF
"THE GROWLERY."
CONTENTS.
CHAP.
I. IN THE AVENUE.
II. IN THE HOUSEKEEPER'S ROOM.
III. THE PHILISTINES.
IV. IN THE BALANCE.
V. GOING DOWN.
VI. DELAY.
VII. AMONG THE BEECHES.
VIII. GLAMOUR.
IX. TIDED OVER.
X. DISPOSED OF.
XI. AT POYNINGS.
XII. CONFERENCE.
XIII. THE SHADOW OF DEATH.
XIV. THE SHADOW LIGHTENED.
XV. IN THE MUIDERSTRAAT.
XVI. IDLESSE.
XVII. A DILEMMA.
XVIII. ON THE DEFENSIVE.
XIX. CLEARED UP.
XX. ONCE MORE TIDED OVER.
XXI. THE AMERICAN LETTERS.
XXII. LOOKING OUT ON THE TAUNUS.
XXIII. MRS IRETON P. BEMBRIDGE.
XXIV. ON THE BALCONY.
XXV. THE SWORD OF DAMOCLES.
XXVI. RECOGNITION.
XXVII. A FIRST APPEAL.
XXVIII. DURING THE LULL.
XXIX. THE SEVERING OF THE HAIR.
XXX. MOVING ON.
XXXI. PAUL WARD.
XXXII. ANOTHER RECOGNITION.
XXXIII. THE FALLING OF THE SWORD.
XXXIV. "CRUEL AS THE GRAVE."
XXXV. "INFORMATION RECEIVED."
XXXVI. AT THE TIDAL TRAIN.
XXXVII. "STRONG AS DEATH."
BLACK SHEEP.
CHAPTER I.
IN THE AVENUE.
"I'm to keep to the right?"
"Keep on a bearin' to the right, sir, 'cross Watch Common, and down
One Ash Hill, and that'll bring you straight on to Poynings, sir! No
luggage, sir?"
"None, thank you!"
"Luggage! no! I should think not! party's without a overcoat, don't
you see, Thomas?--without a overcoat, and it freezin' like mad!
Poynings, indeed! What's he doin' there? He don't look much like one
of the company! More like after the spoons, I should say!"
The polite porter who had made the inquiry, and the satirical
station-master who had commented on the reply, remained gazing for a
minute or two at the stranger who had just arrived at the Amherst
station of the South-Eastern Railway, and then went back to the
occupations from which the premonitory whistle had called them; which,
in the porter's case, consisted of a retirement to a little wooden
watch-box where, surrounded by oil-cans, grease-boxes, dirty swabs of
cloth, and luggage-barrows reared on end and threatening with their
fore-feet, he proceeded to the mending of his shoes with a bit of tin
and a few tacks, while the stationmaster turned to the accounts which
extracted the marrow from his very soul, and carried on what he called
the "tottle" of a drove of two hundred and sixty oxen, conveyed at per
head.
"Freezing like mad." The station-master was right. The frost, which of
late years holds aloof, utterly destroying the pictorial prophecies of
the artists of the illustrated periodicals regarding Christmas Day,
and which, with the exception of a two days' light rime, had left
January a moist and muggy month, had set in with the commencement of
February, hard, black, and evidently lasting. The iron-bound roads
rang again, even under the thin boots of the stranger, who hurried
over them with a light and fleeting step. The sharp keen air whirling
over bleak Watch Common so penetrated his light, Londonish clothing,
that he shivered horribly, and, stopping for an instant, beat his
sides with his hands in an awkward manner, as one to whom the process
was new, and who was vainly endeavouring to imitate some action he had
seen. Then he hurried on with a short rapid jerking step, essentially
different from the league-swallowing swinging pace of the regular
pedestrian accustomed to exercise; stumbling over the frozen solid
ruts made by the heavy cart-wheels, slipping on the icy puddles, and
ever and anon pausing to take fresh breath, or to place his hand
against his loudly-beating heart. As he skirted the further edge of
the common, and arrived at the brow of the hill which the porter had
mentioned to him, and which he recognized by the solitary tree whose
branches rustled above him in the night wind, he heard, by the chimes
of a distant church, ten o'clock rung out sharp and clear through the
frosty air. He stopped, counted each chime, and then set off again at
a quickened pace, his progress down the descent being easier now,
muttering to himself as he went:
"Ten o'clock! I must press on, or they'll all be in bed, I suppose.
Beastly respectable, old Carruthers, from what I can make out from my
mother, and what little I saw of him! Servants up to prayers and all
that kind of thing. No chance of getting hold of her, if I can't make
her know I am there, before those prayers come off. Glass of cold
water and flat candlestick directly they're over, I suppose, and a
kiss to Missy and God bless you all round, and off to bed! By George,
what a life! What an infernal, moping, ghostly, dreary existence! And
yet they've got money, these scoundrels, and old Carruthers could give
you a cheque that would make you wink. Could! Yes, but wouldn't,
especially to me! Ba, ba, black sheep, and all the rest of it! Here's
a poor tainted mutton for you, without the wind being in the least
tempered to him! Jove, it goes through me like a knife! There'll be a
public somewhere near, I suppose, and when I have seen my mother, I'll
step off there and have some hot rum-and-water before turning in. Hold
up, there, you hawbuck brute, pull your other rein! What's the use of
your lamps, if they don't show you people in the road?"
He had sprung aside as he spoke, and now stood flat against and
pushing into the leafless hedge as a carriage with flashing lamps and
steaming horses whirled so closely by him as almost to brush his arm.
The coachman paid no attention to his outcry, nor did the footman,
who, almost hidden in overcoats, was fast asleep in the rumble behind.
The next instant the carriage was whirling away; but the pedestrian,
seeing the condition of the footman, had swung himself on to the hind
step, and, crouching down behind the rumble and its unconscious
occupant, obtained a shelter from the bitter wind, and simultaneously
a lift on his road. There he crouched, clinging firmly with both
hands in close proximity to the enshrouded knees of the unconscious
footman--knees which, during their owner's sleep, were very helpless
and rather comic, which smote each other in the passage of every rut,
and occasionally parted and displayed a dreary gulf of horsecloth
between them, to be brought together at the next jolt with a very
smart concussion--and there he remained until the stopping of the
carriage, and a sharp cry of "Gate" from the coachman, induced him to
descend from his perch, and to survey the state of affairs from that
side of the carriage most removed from a certain light and bustle into
which they had entered. For, on the other side of the carriage to that
on which the stranger stood, was an old-fashioned stone lodge with
twinkling lights in its little mullioned windows, and all its thousand
ivy-leaves gleaming in the carriage-lamps, and happy faces grouped
around its door. There was the buxom lodge-keeper the centre of the
group, with her comely red face all aglow with smiles; and there was
her light-haired, sheep-faced husband standing by the swinging iron
gates; and there were the sturdy children, indulged with the unwonted
dissipation of "sitting up;" and there was the gardener's wife
awaiting to see company come in, while her master had gone up to look
at fires in hothouses; and there were Kidd, the head keeper, and
little Tom, his poor idiot boy, who clapped his hands at the whirling
lights of the carriages, and kept up an incessant boom of imbecile
happiness. Sheep-faced male lodge-keeper bobbing so furiously as to
insist on recognition, down goes window of carriage furthest from the
stranger, and crisp on the night air cries a sharp curt voice,
"How do, Bulger? Not late, eh? hum--ah! not late?"
To which Bulger, pulling at invisible lock of hair on forehead:
"No, Sir Thomas! Lots company, Sir Thomas! Seasonable weather, Sir--"
But the carriage was whirled away before Bulger could conclude, and
before the stranger could resume his place under the sheltering lee of
the now conscious footman. He shrank back into the darkness--darkness
deeper and thicker than ever under the shadow of the tall elms forming
the avenue leading to the house, and remained for a minute buried in
thought.
The night was clear, and even light, with the hard chilly light of
stars, and the air was full of cold--sharp, pitiless, and piercing.
The wind made itself heard but rarely, but spared the wayfarer not one
pang of its presence. He shrank and shivered, as he peered from under
the gaunt branches of the trees after the carriage with its glittering
lights.
"Just like my luck!" he thought bitterly. "Nothing is to be wanting to
make me feel myself the outcast that I am. A stranger in my mother's
house, disowned und proscribed by my mother's husband, slinking like a
thief behind the carriages of my mother's fine friends. I will see my
mother, I must see her; it is a desperate chance, but surely it must
succeed. I have no doubt of _her_, God bless her! but I have my doubts
of her power to do what I want."
He emerged from the shadow of the trees again, and struck into the
avenue. He quickened his pace, shivering, and seeing the long line of
way lying level before him in the sombre glimmer of the night, he went
on with a more assured step. Angry and bitter thoughts were keeping
the young man company, a gloomy wrath was in his dark, deep-set eyes,
and the hands which he thrust into his coat-pockets clenched
themselves with an almost fierce impatience. He strode on, muttering,
and trying to keep up an air of hardihood (though there was no one to
be deceived but himself), which was belied by the misgivings and
remorse at his heart.
"A fine place and a grand house, plenty of money, and all that money
gives, and no place for her only son! I wonder how she likes it all!
No, no, I don't; I know she is not happy, and it's my fault, and HIS."
His face grew darker and more angry, and he shook his clenched hand
towards a stately house, whose long lighted façade now became visible.
"And _his_--_his_ who married my mother and deceived her, who gave her
hopes he never intended to fulfil--my ill conduct the cause of his
forbidding her to bring me here!--he always hated me; he hated me
before he saw me, before he ever knew that I was not a sucking dove
for gentleness and a pattern of filial obedience and propriety; he
hated me because I existed--because I was my mother's son; and if I
had been the most amenable of stepsons, he would have hated me all the
same, only he would have shown his hatred differently, that's all. I
should have been brought here, and made to feel insignificance,
instead of being left to beg or starve, for all he cares. I am better
off as it is."
A harsh smile came over his face for a moment. "Quite a blackguard,
and all but a beggar. All but? No, quite a beggar, for I am coming to
beg of my mother--coming to your fine house, Capel Carruthers, like a
thief or a spy; slinking in at your gates, under cover of your fine
friends' fine carriages; a prodigal stepson, by Jove, without the
faintest chance of a welcome, and every probability of being turned
out, if discovered. Company here, too, of all nights in the year, to
make it more difficult to get hold of old Brookes unsuspected, but not
so unfortunate either, if I'm seen. Hangers about are to be found even
in the country, I suppose, on festive occasions. There's the house at
last! A grand place, grim as it is under the stars, with a twinkling
firmament of its own on the ground floor. The lights look warm. Good
God, how cold it is out here!" Again he drew back close to the tall
dark stems of the trees, to let a carriage pass; when it had
discharged its load under the portico, he emerged cautiously upon the
broad carriage sweep by which the company were arriving.
The house was an old one, and was surrounded by a narrow fosse or
ditch, which in former days might have been full of water, and used
for defensive purposes, but which was now drained and dry, and served
as a kind of area, looked into by the windows in the basement. Above
this fosse, and stretching away on either side of the heavy portico,
was a broad and handsome stone terrace, the left hand portion of which
lay in deep shadow, while the right hand portion was chequered with
occasional light, which made its way through the partially closed
shutters of the ball-room. Cautiously crossing the broad drive, and
slipping behind a carriage which was just discharging its load at the
hall door, George Dallas, the stranger whose fortunes we have so far
followed, crept into a dark angle of the porch until the crunching of
the gravel and the clanging of the door announced the departure of the
carriage, and then, climbing the balustrade of the terrace, and
carefully avoiding the lines of light, made his way to the window of
the room, and peered in. At first, he shook so with the cold, that he
could not concentrate his attention on what was passing before his
eyes; but having groped about and found a small tree which was
carefully protected with a large piece of matting, and which flanked
one end of the balustrade, he quietly removed the matting, and,
wrapping it round him, returned to his position, watching and
commenting on the scene of which he was a spectator.
It was an old room on which George Dallas looked--an old room with
panelled walls, surmounted by a curious carved frieze and stuccoed
roof, and hung round with family portraits, which gave it a certain
grim and stern air, and made the gay hothouse flowers, with which it
was lavishly decorated, seem out of keeping. Immediately opposite the
window stood the entrance door, wide open, and flanked by the usual
bevy of young men, who, from laziness or bashfulness, take some time
to screw their courage up to dancing-point. Close in front of them was
a group which at once arrested George Dallas's attention.
It consisted of three persons, of whom two were gentlemen; the third
was a young girl, whose small white-gloved hand rested on the arm of
the older of her companions, who, as George Dallas caught sight of
them, was in the act of presenting the younger to her. The girl was
tall, slight, very graceful and elegant, and extremely fair. Her
features were not clearly discernible, as she stood sideways towards
the window; but the pose of the head, the bend of the neck, the braids
of fair hair closely wound round the well-shaped head, and worn
without any ornament but its own golden gloss, the sweeping folds of
her soft white dress--all bore a promise of beauty, which indeed her
face, had he seen it, would have fully realized. He saw her bow, in
graceful acknowledgment of the introduction, and then linger for a few
minutes talking with the two gentlemen--to the younger of whom George
Dallas paid no attention whatever; after which she moved away with him
to join the dancers. The older man stood where she had left him, and
at him. George Dallas looked with the fixed intensity of anger and
hatred.
"There you are," he muttered, "you worthy, respectable, hard-hearted,
unblemished gentleman! There you are, with your clear complexion and
your iron-grey whiskers, with your cold blue eyes and your white
teeth, with your thin lips and your long chin, with your head just a
little bald, and your ears just a little shrivelled, but not much;
with your upright figure, and your nice cool hands, and your nice cool
heart, too, that never knew an ungratified lust, or a passion which
wasn't purely selfish. There you are, the model of respectability and
wealth, and the essence of tyranny and pride! There you are--and you
married my beautiful mother when she was poor, and when her son needed
all that she could give him, and more; and you gave her wealth, and a
fine house, and fine friends, and your not remarkably illustrious
name, and everything she could possibly desire, except the only thing
she wanted, and the only thing, as I believe, for which she married
you. That's your niece, of course, the precious heiress, the rich and
rare young lady who has a place in your house, though the son of its
mistress is banished from it. That's the heiress, who probably does
not know that I exist. I should not be surprised if he had ordered my
mother to conceal the disgraceful fact. Well, the girl is a nice
creature, I dare say; she looks like it. But where can my mother be?"
He approached the window still more closely; he ventured to place his
face close to the panes for a moment, as he peered anxiously into the
room. "Where is my mother?" he thought. "Good Heaven! if she did but
know that I am shivering here."
The strains of sweet clear music reached his ears, floods of light
streamed out from the ball-room, a throng of dancers whirled past the
window, he saw the soft fluttering dresses, he heard the rustle of the
robes, the sounds of the gay voices, and the ring of laughter, and
ever and anon, as a stray couple fell away from the dance, and
lingered near the window, a fair young face would meet his gaze, and
the happy light of its youth and pleasure would shine upon him. He
lingered, fascinated, in spite of the cold, the misery of his
situation, and the imminent risk of detection to which he was exposed.
He lingered, and looked, with the longing of youth for gaiety and
pleasure; in his case for a simple gaiety, a more sinless pleasure,
than any he was wont to know. Suddenly he shrank quickly back and
clutched hard at the covering of matting in which he had shrouded
himself. A figure had crossed the window, between him and the light--a
figure he knew well, and recognized with a beating heart--a figure
clad in purple velvet and decked with gleaming jewels; it was his
mother. She passed hastily, and went up to Mr. Carruthers, then
talking with another gentleman. She stretched out one jewelled arm,
and touched him on the shoulder with her fan. Mr. Carruthers turned,
and directly faced the window. Then George Dallas flung the matting
which had covered him away, and left his hiding-place with a curse in
his heart and on his lips.
"Yes, curse you," he said, "you dress her in velvet and diamonds,
and make her splendid to entertain your company and flatter your
pride, and you condemn her to such misery as only soft-hearted,
strong-natured women such as she is can feel, all the time. But it
won't do, Carruthers; she's my mother, though she's your wife, and you
can't change her. I'll have some of your money, tyrant as you are, and
slave as she is, before this night is over. I'm a desperate man; you
can't make me more miserable than I am, and I _can_ bring you to
shame, and I _will_, too."
He stepped softly to the edge of the terrace, climbed the balustrade,
and sat down cautiously on the narrow strip of grass beyond; then felt
with his hands along the rough face of the wall which formed the front
of the area. He looked down between his feet, the depth was about ten
feet. He thought he might venture to let himself drop. He did so, and
came safely on his feet, on the smooth sanded ground. An angle of the
house was close to him; he turned it, and came upon a window whose
shutters, like those of the upper range, were unclosed, and through
which he could see into the comfortable room beyond. The room was low
but large, and the heavy carved presses, the table with green baize
cover, the arm-chairs, one at each side of the fire, the serviceable,
comfortable, and responsible appearance of the apartment, at once
indicated its true character. It could be nothing but the
housekeeper's room.
In the centre of the table stood an old-fashioned oil-lamp, no doubt
banished from the upper regions when the moderator made its appearance
in society; close to the stand was a large Bible open, a pair of
spectacles lying upon the page. A brass-bound desk, a file of
receipts, a Tunbridge-ware work-box, and a venerable inkstand, were
also symmetrically arranged upon the table. The room was empty, and
the observer at the window had ample leisure and opportunity to
scrutinize it.
"I am in luck," he said. "This is Nurse Ellen's room. There are the
dreadful old portraits which she always insisted on keeping over the
chimney-piece, and venerated, quite as much because she thought them
objects of art, as because she fancied them really like my father and
mother. There's her Bible, with the date of my birth and christening
in it. I dare say those are the identical spectacles which I broke,
playing Red Riding Hood's grandmother. I wish she would come in, and
come alone. What shall I do if she brings any one with her, and they
close the shutters? How delightful the fire looks! I have a great mind
to smash the window and get in. No one would hear the noise with all
that crashing music overhead, and there does not seem to be a soul on
this side of the house."
Xo sound of footsteps made itself audible on the terrace above his
head. He was sheltered a little more in his present position, but
still the cold was bitter, and he was shivering. The impulse to break
the window grew stronger. He thought how he should avoid cutting his
hand; his shabby gloves could not protect him, suppose he were to take
off his waistcoat, and twist it around his hand and arm. He had
unfastened one button of his coat, as the idea occurred to him, when a
sound overhead, on the house side, caught his ear. It was the click
produced by opening the fastening of a French window. Then came steps
upon the light balcony, which was one of the modern decorations of the
old building, and voices which reached him distinctly.
"Any influenza you may catch, or anything of that kind, you must
ascribe to yourself, Miss Carruthers. You would come out this--hum--by
Jove--awful night!"
"Oh, don't fear for me, Captain Marsh," said a light girlish voice,
laughingly, "I'm country bred, you know, and accustomed to be out in
all weathers, so that I run no risk; and though it is wintry enough
outside, the temperature of that room was becoming unbearable!"
"Think it must be caused by that old woman's red face that we noticed,
or the thingummy--paradise feather in her cap. She with the very thin
daughter. Don't you know?"
"Of course I know. The old lady is my aunt, Lady Boldero; the young
one is my cousin Blanche!"
"Haw, by Jove, sorry I spoke, haw! By-the-by, that was Sir Thomas
Boldero's park, where I met you riding on Friday, wasn't it, Miss
Carruthers?"
"Yes. I was taking a short cut home, as I thought I should be late for
dinner."
"You were going a rattling good pace, I noticed. Seemed quite to have
distanced your groom."
"My groom! That's a luxury I very seldom indulge in--never, when I
think I can dispense with it without my uncle's knowledge. It is
disagreeable to me to have a man perpetually at my heels!"
"You shouldn't say that, Miss Carruthers--shouldn't, indeed. You don't
know how pleasant it is--for the man."
"Very pretty indeed, Captain Marsh! And now that you've had the chance
of paying a compliment, and have done it so neatly, we will go back,
please. I begin to feel a little chilly."
As the speakers moved, something fell at George Dallas's feet. It was
so dark in the corner where he stood, that he could not distinguish
what it was, until the closing of the window above gave him assurance
that he might move in safety. Then he bent forward, and found it was a
sprig of myrtle. He picked it up, looked at it idly, and put it into
the breast-pocket of his coat.
"What a sweet voice she has!" he thought. "A sweet face too, I am
sure; it must be so, to match the voice and the hair. Well, she has
given me something, though she didn't intend it, and will probably
never know it. A spirited, plucky girl, I am sure, for all her grace
and her blonde style. Carries too many guns for the captain, that's
clear!"
He dived down in the midst of his thoughts, for the door of the room
into which he had been looking, opened quietly, and an elderly woman
in a black silk dress entered. After casting a glance round her,
she was about to seat herself at the table, when Dallas gave two
low taps in quick succession at the window. The woman started and
looked towards the spot whence the sound came with a half-keen,
half-frightened glance, which melted into unmixed astonishment when
Dallas placed his face close to the glass and beckoned to her with his
hand. Then she approached the window, shading her eyes from the
candlelight and peering straight before her. When she was close to the
window, she said, in a low firm voice:
"Who are you? Speak at once, or I'll call for help!"
"It's I, Nurse Ellen. I--"
"Good Heavens, Master George!"
"Yes, yes; open the window and let me in. I want to talk to you, and
I'm half dead with cold. Let me in. So. That's it."
The woman gently raised the sash, and so soon as the aperture admitted
of the passage of his body, he slipped through and entered the room,
taking no notice of his old nurse, but making straight for the fire,
before which he knelt, gazing hungrily at the flumes, and spreading
both his hands in eager welcome of the blaze. The old woman closed the
window and then came softly behind him, placed her hand on his head,
and, leaning over his shoulder and looking into his face, muttered:
"Good Lord, how changed you are, my boy! I should scarcely have known
you, except for your eyes, and they're just the same; but in
everything else, how changed!"
He was changed indeed. The last time George Dallas had taken farewell
of his old nurse, he had parted from her, a big strong healthy youth
of eighteen, with short curly brown hair, clear skin, bright
complexion, the incarnation of youth and strength and health. He knelt
before her now, a gaunt grisly man, with high cheek-bones and hollow
rings round his great brown eyes, with that dead sodden pallor which a
life of London dissipation always produces, and with long thin bony
hands with which he clutched hold of the old woman, who put her arms
round him and seemed about to burst into a fit of sobbing.
"Don't do that, nurse! don't do that! I'm weak myself, and seedy, and
couldn't stand it. Get me something to drink, will you? And, look
here! I must see my mother to-night, at once. I've come from town on
purpose, and I must see her."
"She does not know you are here!" asked Mrs. Brookes, while she gazed
mournfully at the young man, still kneeling before the fire. "But of
course she does not, or she would have told me."
"Of course, of course, Nurse Ellen," said George Dallas; "she knows
nothing about it. If I had asked her leave, she would not have dared
to give it. How is she, nurse? How does she like her life? She tells
me very little of herself when she writes to me, and that's not
often." He rose from his knees now, and pulled a ponderous black
horsehair chair close to the fire, seated himself in it, and sat
huddled together, as though cold even yet, with his feet on the broad
old-fashioned fender. "I had to come at any risk. You shall know all
about it, nurse; but now you must contrive to tell my mother I am
here."
"How can I do that, Master George?" asked the old woman, in a tone of
distress and perplexity. "She is in the ball-room, and all the grand
folk are looking at her and talking to her. I can't go in among them,
and if I could, she would be so frightened and put about, that master
would see in a moment that something had happened. He is never far
off were she is."
"Ha!" said George gloomily; "watches her, does he, and that kind of
thing?"
"Well, not exactly," said Mrs. Brookes; "not in a nasty sort of way. I
must say, to do him justice, though I don't much like him, that Mr.
Carruthers is a good husband; he's fond of her, and proud of her, and
he likes to see her admired."
The young man interrupted her with selfish heedlessness.
"Well, it's a pity he has the chance to-night; but, however it's
managed, I must see her. I have to go back to town to-morrow, and of
course I can't come about here safely in the daytime. Think of some
plan, nurse, and look sharp about it."
"I might go upstairs and join the servants--they are all about the
ball-room door--and watch for an opportunity as she passes."
"That will take time," said George, "but it's the best chance. Then do
it, nurse, and give me something to eat while you are away. Will any
of the servants come in here? They had better not see me, you know."
"No, you are quite safe; they are looking at the dancing," she
answered, absently, and closing as she spoke the shutters of the
window by which he had entered. She then left the room, but quickly
returned, bringing in a tray with cold meat, bread, and wine. He still
sat by the tire, now with his head thrown back against the high
straight back of his chair, and his hands thrust into his pockets.
"Very plain fare, Master George," said the housekeeper, "but I can't
find anything better without wasting time."
"Never mind, nurse. I'm not hungry, and I'm not above eating cold meat
if I were. Beggars must not be choosers, you know; and I'm little
better than a beggar, as you also know. Give me some wine. It isn't
felony, is it, though I have got into my stepfather's house through
the window, and am drinking his wine without his knowledge or
consent?"
His tone was very painful to the faithful old woman's ear. She looked
at him wistfully, but made no reply. He rose from the chair by the
fire, sullenly drew another chair to the table, and sat down by the
tray. Mrs. Brookes left the room, and took her way along the white
stone passage which led to the entrance hall of the mansion. Passing
through a swinging door covered with crimson cloth, she entered a
spacious square hall, decorated, after the fashion of country houses,
with stags' heads and antlers. The floor was of polished oak, and
uncarpeted, but at each of the six doors which opened into it lay a
soft white rug. A bright fire blazed in the ample grate; and through
the open door of the ballroom, light and the sound of music poured
into the hall. A number of servants were standing about, some
lingering by the fire, a few ranged close to the door of the
dancing-room, exchanging comments upon the performances with perfect
impunity. Under cover of the music Mrs. Brookes joined the group,
which respectfully gave way at her approach, and ceded to her the
front place. She looked anxiously, and for some time vainly, for her
mistress. At length she perceived her, but she was seated at the
further end of the room, in conversation with an elderly lady of
extraordinary magnificence in point of apparel, and who required to be
spoken to through an ear-trumpet. Mrs. Carruthers was not a skilful
performer upon that instrument, and was obliged to give her whole mind
to it, so that there was little chance of her looking in any other
direction than the uninviting one of Mrs. Chittenden's ear for the
present. Mrs. Brookes looked on impatiently, and longed for a break in
the dancing, and a consequent movement among the company. At length
the music ceased, the panting waltzers subsided into promenade, and
Mrs. Carruthers rose to place her chair at the disposal of a young
lady whose exertions had told upon her, and who breathlessly accepted
the boon. As she stood for a moment turned towards the door, she
caught sight of the housekeeper's face, and saw she looked pale and
agitated. Catching her mistress's eye, the housekeeper made a slight
stealthy sign. Very gracefully, and with perfect calm, the tall
figure, in its sweeping velvet dress, made its way through the
dispersed groups between it and the door, from which all the servants
had precipitately retreated at the cessation of the music. What was
wrong? Mrs. Carruthers thought. Something, she knew, must be wrong, or
Ellen would not be there beckoning to her. A second gesture, still
more stealthy and warning, caused her to pause when within reach of
the housekeeper's whisper, without turning her head towards her.
"What is it, Ellen?"
"Hush! where is master? Can he see you?"
"Yes, he is just beyond the screen. What is the matter?"
"Turn round, and stoop; let me tie your shoe--there!"
Mrs. Carruthers stood in the doorway, and bent her head, holding her
foot out, and lifting her dress. Mrs. Brookes fumbled with the shoe,
as she whispered rapidly:
"Come as soon as you can to my room. Be careful that you are not
missed. Some one is there who wants to see you."
"To see me, Ellen? On such a night, and at such an hour! What is
wrong? Who is there?"
The old woman looked earnestly into the frightened face, bending over
her, and said rather with her lips than with her voice: "Master
George!"