That inclination or predilection of Westray's for Anastasia, which he
had been able to persuade himself was love, had passed away. His peace
of mind was now completely restored, and he discounted the humiliation
of refusal, by reflecting that the girl's affections must have been
already engaged at the time of his proposal. He was ready to admit that
Lord Blandamer would in any case have been a formidable competitor, but
if they had started for the race at the same time he would have been
quite prepared to back his own chances. Against his rival's position
and wealth, might surely have been set his own youth, regularity of
life, and professional skill; but it was a mere tilting against
windmills to try to win a heart that was already another's. Thus
disturbing influences were gradually composed, and he was able to devote
an undivided attention to his professional work.
As the winter evenings set in, he found congenial occupation in an
attempt to elucidate the heraldry of the great window at the end of the
south transept. He made sketches of the various shields blazoned in it,
and with the aid of a county history, and a manual which Dr Ennefer had
lent him, succeeded in tracing most of the alliances represented by the
various quarterings. These all related to marriages of the Blandamer
family, for Van Linge had filled the window with glass to the order of
the third Lord Blandamer, and the sea-green and silver of the nebuly
coat was many times repeated, beside figuring in chief at the head of
the window. In these studies Westray was glad to have Martin Joliffe's
papers by him. There was in them a mass of information which bore on
the subject of the architect's inquiries, for Martin had taken the
published genealogy of the Blandamer family, and elaborated and
corrected it by all kinds of investigation as to marriages and
collaterals.
The story of Martin's delusion, the idea of the doited grey-beard whom
the boys called "Old Nebuly," had been so firmly impressed on Westray's
mind, that when he first turned over the papers he expected to find in
them little more than the hallucinations of a madman. But by degrees he
became aware that however disconnected many of Martin's notes might
appear, they possessed a good deal of interest, and the coherence which
results from a particular object being kept more or less continuously in
view. Besides endless genealogies and bits of family history extracted
from books, there were recorded all kinds of personal impressions and
experiences, which Martin had met with in his journeyings. But in all
his researches and expeditions he professed to have but one object--the
discovery of his father's name; though what record he hoped to find, or
where or how he hoped to find it, whether in document or register or
inscription, was nowhere set out.
It was evident that the old fancy that he was the rightful owner of
Fording, which had been suggested to him in his Oxford days, had taken
such hold of his mind that no subsequent experience had been able to
dislodge it. Of half his parentage there was no doubt. His mother was
that Sophia Flannery who had married Yeoman Joliffe, had painted the
famous picture of the flowers and caterpillar, and done many other
things less reputable; but over his father hung a veil of obscurity
which Martin had tried all his life to lift. Westray had heard those
early stories from Clerk Janaway a dozen times, how that when Yeoman
Joliffe took Sophia to church she brought him a four-year-old son by a
former marriage. By a former _marriage_ Martin had always stoutly
maintained, as in duty bound, for any other theory would have
dishonoured himself. With his mother's honour he had little concern,
for where was the use of defending the memory of a mother who had made
shipwreck of her own reputation with soldiers and horse-copers? It was
this previous marriage that Martin had tried so hard to establish, tried
all the harder because other folk had wagged their heads and said there
was no marriage to discover, that Sophia was neither wife nor widow.
Towards the end of his notes it seemed as if he had found some clue--had
found some clue, or thought that he had found it. In this game of hunt
the slipper he had imagined that he was growing "hotter" and "hotter"
till death balked him at the finish. Westray recollected Mr Sharnall
saying more than once that Martin had been on the brink of solving the
riddle when the end overtook him. And Sharnall, too, had he not almost
grasped the Will-of-the-wisp when fate tripped _him_ on that windy
night? Many thoughts came to Westray's mind as he turned these papers,
many memories of others who had turned them before him. He thought of
clever, worthless Martin, who had wasted his days on their writing, who
had neglected home and family for their sake; he thought of the little
organist who had held them in his feverish hands, who had hoped by some
dramatic discovery to illumine the dark setting of his own life. And as
Westray read, the interest grew with him too, till it absorbed the
heraldry of the Blandamer window from which the whole matter had
started. He began to comprehend the vision that had possessed Martin,
that had so stirred the organist's feelings; he began to think that it
was reserved for himself to make the long-sought discovery, and that he
had in his own hand the clue to the strangest of romances.
One evening as he sat by the fire, with a plan in his hands and a litter
of Martin's papers lying on a table at his side, there was a tap at the
door, and Miss Joliffe entered. They were still close friends in spite
of his leaving Bellevue Lodge. However sorry she had been at the time
to lose her lodger, she recognised that the course he had taken was
correct, and, indeed, obligatory. She was glad that he had seen his
duty in this matter; it would have been quite impossible for any man of
ordinary human feelings, to continue to live on in the same house under
such circumstances. To have made a bid for Anstice's hand, and to have
been refused, was a blow that moved her deepest pity, and she
endeavoured in many ways to show her consideration for the victim.
Providence had no doubt overruled everything for the best in ordaining
that Anstice should refuse Mr Westray, but Miss Joliffe had favoured
his suit, and had been sorry at the time that it was not successful. So
there existed between them that curious sympathy, which generally exists
between a rejected lover and a woman who has done her best to further
his proposal. They had since met not unfrequently, and the year which
had elapsed had sufficiently blunted the edge of Westray's
disappointment, to enable him to talk of the matter with equanimity. He
took a sad pleasure in discussing with Miss Joliffe the motives which
might have conduced to so inexplicable a refusal, and in considering
whether his offer would have been accepted if it had been made a little
sooner or in another manner. Nor was the subject in any way distasteful
to her, for she felt a reflected glory in the fact of her niece having
first refused a thoroughly eligible proposal, and having afterwards
accepted one transcendently better.
"Forgive me, sir--forgive me, Mr Westray," she corrected herself,
remembering that their relation was no longer one of landlady and
lodger. "I am sorry to intrude on you so late, but it is difficult to
find you in during the day. There is a matter that has been weighing
lately on my mind. You have never taken away the picture of the
flowers, which you and dear Mr Sharnall purchased of me. I have not
hurried in the matter, feeling I should like to see you nicely settled
in before it was moved, but now it is time all was set right, so I have
brought it over to-night."
If her dress was no longer threadbare, it was still of the neatest
black, and if she had taken to wearing every day the moss-agate brooch
which had formerly been reserved for Sundays, she was still the very
same old sweet-tempered, spontaneous, Miss Joliffe as in time past.
Westray looked at her with something like affection.
"Sit down," he said, offering her a chair; "did you say you had brought
the picture with you?" and he scanned her as if he expected to see it
produced from her pocket.
"Yes," she said; "my maid is bringing it upstairs"--and there was just a
suspicion of hesitation on the word "maid," that showed that she was
still unaccustomed to the luxury of being waited on.
It was with great difficulty that she had been persuaded to accept such
an allowance at Anastasia's hands, as would enable her to live on at
Bellevue Lodge and keep a single servant; and if it brought her infinite
relief to find that Lord Blandamer had paid all Martin's bills within a
week of his engagement, such generosity filled her at the same time with
a multitude of scruples. Lord Blandamer had wished her to live with
them at Fording, but he was far too considerate and appreciative of the
situation to insist on this proposal when he saw that such a change
would be uncongenial to her. So she remained at Cullerne, and spent her
time in receiving with dignity visits from the innumerable friends that
she found she now possessed, and in the fullest enjoyment of church
services, meetings, parish work, and other privileges.
"It is very good of you, Miss Joliffe," Westray said; "it is very kind
of you to think of the picture. But," he went on, with a too vivid
recollection of the painting, "I know how much you have always prized
it, and I could not bear to take it away from Bellevue Lodge. You see,
Mr Sharnall, who was part owner with me, is dead; I am only making you
a present of half of it, so you must accept that from me as a little
token of gratitude for all the kindness you have shown me. You _have_
been very kind to me, you know," he said with a sigh, which was meant to
recall Miss Joliffe's friendliness, and his own grief, in the affair of
the proposal.
Miss Joliffe was quick to take the cue, and her voice was full of
sympathy. "Dear Mr Westray, you know how glad I should have been if
all could have happened as you wished. Yet we should try to recognise
the ordering of Providence in these things, and bear sorrow with
meekness. But about the picture, you must let me have my own way this
once. There may come a time, and that before very long, when I shall be
able to buy it back from you just as we arranged, and then I am sure you
will let me have it. But for the present it must be with you, and if
anything should happen to me I should wish you to keep it altogether."
Westray had meant to insist on her retaining the picture; he would not
for a second time submit to be haunted with the gaudy flowers and the
green caterpillar. But while she spoke, there fell upon him one of
those gusty changes of purpose to which he was peculiarly liable. There
came into his mind that strange insistence with which Sharnall had
begged him at all hazards to retain possession of the picture. It
seemed as if there might be some mysterious influence which had brought
Miss Joliffe with it just now, and that he might be playing false to his
trust with Sharnall if he sent it back again. So he did not remain
obdurate, but said: "Well, if you really wish it, I will keep the
picture for a time, and whenever you want it you can take it back
again." While he was speaking there was a sound of stumbling on the
stairs outside, and a bang as if something heavy had been let drop.
"It is that stupid girl again," Miss Joliffe said; "she is always
tumbling about. I am sure she has broken more china in the six months
she has been with me than was broken before in six years."
They went to the door, and as Westray opened it great red-faced and
smiling Anne Janaway walked in, bearing the glorious picture of the
flowers and caterpillar.
"What have you been doing now?" her mistress asked sharply.
"Very sorry, mum," said the maid, mingling some indignation with her
apology, "this here gurt paint tripped I up. I'm sure I hope I haven't
hurt un"--and she planted the picture on the floor against the table.
Miss Joliffe scanned the picture with an eye which was trained to detect
the very flakiest chip on a saucer, the very faintest scratch upon a
teapot.
"Dear me, dear me!" she said, "the beautiful frame is ruined; the bottom
piece is broken almost clean off."
"Oh, come," Westray said in a pacifying tone, while he lifted the
picture and laid it flat on the table, "things are not so bad as all
that."
He saw that the piece which formed the bottom of the frame was indeed
detached at both corners and ready to fall away, but he pushed it back
into position with his hand till it stuck in its place, and left little
damage apparent to a casual observer.
"See," he said, "it looks nearly all right. A little glue will quite
repair the mischief to-morrow I am sure I wonder how your servant
managed to get it up here at all--it is such a weight and size."
As a matter of fact, Miss Joliffe herself had helped Ann to carry the
picture as far as the Grands Mulets of the last landing. The final
ascent she thought could be accomplished in safety by the girl alone,
while it would have been derogatory to her new position of an
independent lady to appear before Westray carrying the picture herself.
"Do not vex yourself," Westray begged; "look, there is a nail in the
wall here under the ceiling which will do capitally for hanging it till
I can find a better place; the old cord is just the right length." He
climbed on a chair and adjusted the picture, standing back as if to
admire it, till Miss Joliffe's complacency was fairly restored.
Westray was busied that night long after Miss Joliffe had left him, and
the hands of the loud-ticking clock on the mantelpiece showed that
midnight was near before he had finished his work. Then he sat a little
while before the dying fire, thinking much of Mr Sharnall, whom the
picture had recalled to his mind, until the blackening embers warned him
that it was time to go to bed. He was rising from his chair, when he
heard behind him a noise as of something falling, and looking round, saw
that the bottom of the picture-frame, which he had temporarily pushed
into position, had broken away again of its own weight, and was fallen
on the floor. The frame was handsomely wrought with a peculiar
interlacing fillet, as he had noticed many times before. It was curious
that so poor a picture should have obtained a rich setting, and
sometimes he thought that Sophia Flannery must have bought the frame at
a sale, and had afterwards daubed the flower-piece to fill it.
The room had grown suddenly cold with the chill which dogs the heels of
a dying fire on an early winter's night. An icy breath blew in under
the door, and made something flutter that lay on the floor close to the
broken frame. Westray stooped to pick it up, and found that he had in
his hand a piece of folded paper.
He felt a curious reluctance in handling it. Those fantastic scruples
to which he was so often a prey assailed him. He asked himself had he
any right to examine this piece of paper? It might be a letter; he did
not know whence it had come, nor whose it was, and he certainly did not
wish to be guilty of opening someone else's letter. He even went so far
as to put it solemnly on the table, like a skipper on whose deck the
phantom whale-boat of the _Flying Dutchman_ has deposited a packet of
mails. After a few minutes, however, he appreciated the absurdity of
the situation, and with an effort unfolded the mysterious missive.
It was a long narrow piece of paper, yellowed with years, and lined with
the creases of a generation; and had on it both printed and written
characters. He recognised it instantly for a certificate of marriage--
those "marriage lines" on which so often hang both the law and the
prophets. There it was with all the little pigeon-holes duly filled in,
and set forth how that on "March 15, 1800, at the Church of Saint Medard
Within, one Horatio Sebastian Fynes, bachelor, aged twenty-one, son of
Horatio Sebastian Fynes, gentleman, was married to one Sophia Flannery,
spinster, aged twenty-one, daughter of James Flannery, merchant," with
witnesses duly attesting. And underneath an ill-formed straggling hand
had added a superscription in ink that was now brown and wasted: "Martin
born January 2, 1801, at ten minutes past twelve, night." He laid it on
the table and folded it out flat, and knew that he had under his eyes
that certificate of the first marriage (of the only true marriage) of
Martin's mother, which Martin had longed all his life to see, and had
not seen; that patent of legitimacy which Martin thought he had within
his grasp when death overtook him, that clue which Sharnall thought that
he had within his grasp when death overtook him also.
On March 15, 1800, Sophia Flannery was married by special licence to
Horatio Sebastian Fynes, gentleman, and on January 2, 1801, at ten
minutes past twelve, night, Martin was born. Horatio Sebastian--the
names were familiar enough to Westray. Who was this Horatio Sebastian
Fynes, son of Horatio Sebastian Fynes, gentleman? It was only a formal
question that he asked himself, for he knew the answer very well. This
document that he had before him might be no legal proof, but not all the
lawyers in Christendom could change his conviction, his intuition, that
the "gentleman" Sophia Flannery had married was none other than the
octogenarian Lord Blandamer deceased three years ago. There was to his
eyes an air of authenticity about that yellowed strip of paper that
nothing could upset, and the date of Martin's birth given in the
straggling hand at the bottom coincided exactly with his own
information. He sat down again in the cold with his elbows on the table
and his head between his hands while he took in some of the corollaries
of the position. If the old Lord Blandamer had married Sophia Flannery
on March 15, 1800, then his second marriage was no marriage at all, for
Sophia was living long after that, and there had been no divorce. But
if his second marriage was no marriage, then his son, Lord Blandamer,
who was drowned in Cullerne Bay, had been illegitimate, and his
grandson, Lord Blandamer, who now sat on the throne of Fording, was
illegitimate too. And Martin's dream had been true. Selfish,
thriftless, idle Martin, whom the boys called "Old Nebuly," had not been
mad after all, but had been Lord Blandamer.
It all hung on this strip of paper, this bolt fallen from the blue, this
message that had come from no one knew where. Whence _had_ it come?
Could Miss Joliffe have dropped it? No, that was impossible; she would
certainly have told him if she had any information of this kind, for she
knew that he had been trying for months to unravel the tangle of
Martin's papers. It must have been hidden behind the picture, and have
fallen out when the bottom piece of the frame fell.
He went to the picture. There was the vase of flaunting, ill-drawn
flowers, there was the green caterpillar wriggling on the table-top, but
at the bottom was something that he had never seen before. A long
narrow margin of another painting was now visible where the frame was
broken away; it seemed as if the flower-piece had been painted over some
other subject, as if Sophia Flannery had not even been at the pains to
take the canvas out, and had only carried her daub up to the edge of the
frame. There was no question that the flowers masked some better
painting, some portrait, no doubt, for enough was shown at the bottom to
enable him to make out a strip of a brown velvet coat, and even one
mother-of-pearl button of a brown velvet waistcoat. He stared at the
flowers, he held a candle close to them in the hope of being able to
trace some outline, to discover something of what lay behind. But the
colour had been laid on with no sparing hand, the veil was impenetrable.
Even the green caterpillar seemed to mock him, for as he looked at it
closely, he saw that Sophia in her wantonness had put some minute
touches of colour, which gave its head two eyes and a grinning mouth.
He sat down again at the table where the certificate still lay open
before him. That entry of Martin's birth must be in the handwriting of
Sophia Flannery, of faithless, irresponsible Sophia Flannery, flaunting
as her own flowers, mocking as the face of her own caterpillar.
There was a dead silence over all, the utter blank silence that falls
upon a country town in the early morning hours. Only the loud-ticking
clock on the mantelpiece kept telling of time's passage till the
carillon of Saint Sepulchre's woke the silence with New Sabbath. It was
three o'clock, and the room was deadly cold, but that chill was nothing
to the chill that was rising to his own heart. He knew it all now, he
said to himself--he knew the secret of Anastasia's marriage, and of
Sharnall's death, and of Martin's death.