A MOMENT OF MADNESS.
A MOMENT OF MADNESS,
_AND OTHER STORIES_.
BY
FLORENCE MARRYAT,
AUTHOR OF ‘PHYLLIDA,’ ‘FACING THE FOOTLIGHTS,’ ETC., ETC.
_IN THREE VOLUMES._
VOL. III.
LONDON: F. V. WHITE & CO.,
31 SOUTHAMPTON STREET, STRAND, W.C.
1883.
[_All Rights reserved._]
_CHEAP EDITION OF_
FLORENCE MARRYAT’S POPULAR NOVELS.
_Crown 8vo, cloth, 3s. 6d._
_At all Booksellers in Town and Country, and at all Railway Bookstalls._
=MY SISTER THE ACTRESS.= By FLORENCE MARRYAT, Author of ‘A Broken
Blossom,’ ‘Phyllida,’ ‘How They Loved Him,’ etc., etc.
=PHYLLIDA.= By FLORENCE MARRYAT, Author of ‘My Sister the Actress,’ ‘A
Broken Blossom,’ etc., etc., etc.
=THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL.= By FLORENCE MARRYAT, Author of ‘Love’s Conflict,’
‘Phyllida,’ ‘A Broken Blossom,’ etc., etc., etc.
=A BROKEN BLOSSOM.= By FLORENCE MARRYAT, Author of ‘Phyllida,’ ‘Facing
the Footlights,’ etc., etc.
F. V. White & Co., 31 Southampton Street, Strand.
COLSTON AND SON, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.
[Illustration]
_CONTENTS._
PAGE
LITTLE WHITE SOULS—_Continued_, 1
STILL WATERS, 21
CHIT-CHAT FROM ANDALUSIA, 59
THE SECRET OF ECONOMY, 75
‘MOTHER,’ 93
IN THE HEART OF THE ARDENNES, 133
A MIDSUMMER’S NIGHTMARE, 165
THE GHOST OF CHARLOTTE CRAY, 203
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
LITTLE WHITE SOULS
(_Continued_).
Ethel calls the woman some opprobrious epithet, but walks away
nevertheless, and lets her do as she will; only the next day she writes
a full account to Charlie of what she has gone through, and tells him
she thinks all the servants are going mad. In which opinion he entirely
agrees with her.
‘For “mad” read “bad,”’ he writes back again, ‘and I’m with you. There is
no doubt upon the matter, my dear girl. The brutes don’t like the cold,
and are playing tricks upon you to try and force you to return to the
plains. It is a common thing in this country. Don’t give way to them, but
tell them I’ll stop their pay all round if anything unpleasant happens
again. I think now you must confess it would have been better to take my
advice and try a trip home instead. However, as you are at Mandalinati,
don’t come back until your object in going there is accomplished. I wish
I could join you, but it is impossible just yet. Jack Lawless is obliged
to go north on business, and I have promised to accompany him. Keep up a
good heart, dearest, and don’t let those brutes think they have any power
to annoy or frighten you.’
‘Going north on business!’ exclaims Ethel bitterly; ‘and she is going
too, I suppose; and Charlie can find time to go with them, though he
cannot come to me. Oh, it is too hard! It is more than any woman can be
expected to bear! I’m sure I wish I had gone to England instead. Then I
should at least have had my dear sister to tell my troubles to, and he—he
would have been free to flirt with that wretched woman as much as ever he
chose.’
And the poor wife lies in her bed that night too unhappy to sleep, while
she pictures her husband doing all sorts of dishonourable things, instead
of snoring, as he really is, in his own deserted couch. Her room adjoins
that in which the Dye is sleeping with her little girl, and the door
between them stands wide open. From where she lies, Ethel can see part
of the floor of Katie’s bedroom, from which the moonlight is excluded in
consequence of the great black shawl which the nurse continues to pin
nightly across the window-pane. Suddenly, as she watches the shaded floor
without thinking of it, a streak of moonshine darts right athwart it,
as if a corner of the curtain had been raised. Always full of fears for
her child, Ethel slips off her own bed, and with noiseless, unslippered
feet runs into the next room, only in time to see part of a white dress
upon the terrace as some unseen hand hastily drops the shawl again. She
crosses the floor, and opening the window, looks out. Nobody is in sight.
From end to end of the broad terraces the moonlight lies undisturbed
by any shadow, though she fancies her ear can discern the rustling of
a garment sweeping the stone foundation. As she turns to the darkened
chamber again, she finds the Dye is sitting up, awake and trembling.
‘Who raised that shawl just now, Dye? Tell me—I will know!’ says Mrs
Dunstan.
‘Oh, mam! How can poor Dye tell? Perhaps it was the English lady come to
take my little missy! Oh! when shall we go back to Mudlianah and be safe
again?’
‘English fiddlesticks! Don’t talk such rubbish to me. I am up to all your
tricks, but you won’t frighten me, and so you may tell the others. And I
shall not go back to Mudlianah one day sooner for anything you may say or
do—’
Yet Mrs Ethel does not feel quite comfortable, even though her words
are so brave. But shortly afterwards her thoughts are turned into
another direction, whether agreeably or otherwise, we shall see. As she
is sitting at breakfast the next morning, a shouting of natives and a
commotion in the courtyard warns her of a new arrival. She imagines it is
her husband, and rushes to meet him. But, to her surprise and chagrin,
the figure that emerges from the transit is that of Mrs Lawless looking
as lovely in her travelling dress and rumpled hair as ever she did in the
most extravagant _costume de bal_.
‘Are you surprised to see me?’ she cried, as she jumps to the ground.
‘Well, my dear, you can hardly be more surprised than I am to find
myself here. But the fact is, Jack and the colonel are off to Hoolabad on
business, so I thought I would take advantage of their absence to pay you
a visit. And I hope you are glad to see me?’
Of course Mrs Dunstan says she _is_ glad, and in a measure her words are
true. She is glad to keep this fascinating wicked flirt under her eye,
where it is impossible she can tamper with the affections of her beloved
Charlie, and she is glad of her company and conversation, which is as
sociable and bright as a clever little woman can make it. Mrs Lawless is
full of sympathy, too, with Mrs Dunstan’s fears and the bad behaviour of
her servants, and being a very good linguist, she promises to obtain all
the information she can from them, and make them fully understand their
mistress’s intentions in return.
‘It’s lucky I came, my dear,’ she says brightly, ‘or they might have made
themselves still more offensive to you. But you have the dear colonel and
Jack to thank for that, for I shouldn’t have left home if they had not
done so.’
‘Ah, just as I imagined,’ thinks Ethel, ‘she would not have left him
unless she had been obliged, and she has the impudence to tell me so to
my very face. However, she is here, and I must make the best of it, and
be thankful it has happened so.’ And so she lays herself out to please
her guest in order to keep her by her as long as she possibly can.
But a few days after Cissy’s arrival she receives a letter that evidently
discomposes her. She keeps on exclaiming, ‘How provoking!’ and ‘How
annoying!’ as she peruses it, and folds it up with an unmistakable frown
on her brow.
‘What is the matter?’ demands Ethel. ‘I hope it is not bad news.’
‘Yes, it is very bad news. They have never gone after all, Mrs Dunstan,
and Jack is so vexed I should have left Mudlianah before he started.’
‘But now you are here, you will not think of returning directly, I hope,’
says Ethel, in an anxious voice.
‘Oh no, I suppose not—it would be so childish—that is, unless Jack wishes
me to do so. But I have hardly recovered from the effects of the journey
yet; those transits shake so abominably. No, I shall certainly stay here
for a few weeks, unless my husband orders me to return.’
Yet Mrs Lawless appears undecided and restless from that moment, which
Mrs Dunstan ascribes entirely to her wish to return to Mudlianah, and
her flirtation with the colonel, and the suspicion makes her receive
any allusions to such a contingency with marked coolness. Cissy Lawless
busies herself going amongst the natives, and talking with them about the
late disturbances at the castle, and her report is not satisfactory.
‘Are you easily frightened, Mrs Dunstan?’ she asks her one day suddenly.
‘No, I think not. Why?’
‘Because you must think me a fool if you like, but I am; and the stories
your servants have told me have made me quite nervous of remaining at the
castle.’
‘A good excuse to leave me and go back to Mudlianah,’ thinks Mrs Dunstan;
and then she draws herself up stiffly, and says, ‘Indeed! You must be
very credulous if you believe what natives say. What may these dreadful
stories consist of?’
‘Oh! I daresay you will turn them into ridicule, because, perhaps, you
don’t believe in ghosts.’
‘Ghosts! I should think not, indeed. Who does?’
‘I do, Mrs Dunstan, and for the good reason that I have seen more than
one.’
‘You have seen a spirit? What will you tell me next?’
‘That I hope you never may, for it is not a pleasant sight. But that has
nothing to do with the present rumours. I find that your servants are
really frightened of remaining at the castle. They say there is not a
native in the villages round about who would enter it for love or money,
and that the reason the Rajah Mati Singh has deserted it is on account of
its reputation for being haunted.’
‘Every one has heard of that,’ replies Ethel, with a heightened colour,
‘but no one believes it. Who should it be haunted by?’
‘You know what a bad character the rajah bears for cruelty and
oppression. They say he built this castle for a harem, and kidnapped a
beautiful English woman, a soldier’s daughter, and confined her here
for some years. But, finding one day that she had been attempting to
communicate with her own people, he had her most barbarously put to
death, with her child and the servants he suspected of conniving with
her. Then he established a native harem here, but was obliged to remove
it, for no infant born in the house ever lived. They say that as soon as
a child is born under this roof, the spirit of the white woman appears
to carry it away in place of her own. But the natives declare that she
is not satisfied with the souls of black children, and that she will
continue to appear until she has secured a white child like the one that
was murdered before her eyes. And your servants assure me that she has
been seen by several of them since coming here, and they feel certain
that she is waiting for your baby to be born that she may carry it away.’
‘What folly!’ cries Mrs Dunstan, whose cheeks have nevertheless grown
very red. ‘It’s all a _ruse_ in order to make me go home again. In the
first place, I should be ashamed to believe in such nonsense, and in the
second, I do not expect my baby to be born until I am back in Mudlianah.’
‘But accidents happen some times, you know, dear Mrs Dunstan, and it
would be a terrible thing if you were taken ill up here. Don’t you think,
all things considered, it would be more prudent for you to go home
again?’
‘No, I do not,’ replied Mrs Dunstan, decidedly. ‘I came here for my
child’s health, and I shall stay until it is re-established.’
‘But you must feel so lonely by yourself.’
‘I have plenty to do and to think of,’ says Ethel, ‘and I never want
company whilst I am with my little Katie.’
She is determined to take neither pity nor advice from the woman who is
so anxious to join the colonel again.
‘I am glad to hear you say so,’ replied Mrs Lawless, somewhat timidly,
‘because it makes it easier for me to tell you that I am afraid I must
leave you. I daresay you will think me very foolish, but I am too nervous
to remain any longer at Mandalinati. I have not slept a wink for the last
three nights. I must go back to Jack.’
‘Oh! you must go back to Jack!’ repeats Mrs Dunstan, with a sneer at Mrs
Lawless. ‘I hate duplicity! Why can’t you tell the truth at once?’
‘Mrs Dunstan! What do you mean?’
‘I mean that I know why you are going back to Mudlianah as well as you
do yourself. It’s all very well to lay it upon “Jack,” or this ridiculous
ghost; but you don’t deceive me. I have known your treachery for a long
time past. It is not “Jack” you go back to cantonment for—but my husband,
and you are a bad, wicked woman.’
‘For your husband!’ cried Cissy Lawless, jumping to her feet. ‘How dare
you insult me in this manner! What have I ever done to make you credit
such an absurdity?’
‘You may call it an absurdity, madam, if you choose, but I call it a
diabolical wickedness. Haven’t you made appointments with him, and walked
at night in the garden with him, and done all you could to make him
faithless to his poor, trusting wife? And you a married woman, too. You
ought to be ashamed of yourself!’
‘Mrs Dunstan, I will not stand this language any longer. I flirt with
your husband!—a man old enough to be my father! You must be out of your
senses! Why, he must be fifty if he’s a day!’
‘He’s not fifty,’ screams Ethel, in her rage. ‘He was only forty-two last
birthday.’
‘I don’t believe it. His hair is as grey as a badger. Flirt with the
colonel, indeed. When I want to flirt I shall look for a younger and a
handsomer man than your husband, I can tell you.’
‘You’d flirt with him if he were eighty, you bold, forward girl, and
I shall take good care to inform Mr Lawless of the way you have been
carrying on with him.’
‘I shall go down at once, and tell him myself. You don’t suppose I would
remain your guest after what has happened for an hour longer than is
absolutely necessary. I wish you good morning, Mrs Dunstan, and a civil
tongue for the future.’
‘Oh, of course, you’ll go to Mudlianah. I was quite prepared for that,
and an excellent excuse you have found to get back again. Good day,
madam, and the less we meet before you start the better. Grey haired,
indeed! Why, many men are grey at thirty, and I’ve often been told that
he used to be called “Handsome Charlie” when he first joined the service.’
But the wife’s indignant protests do not reach the ears of Cissy Lawless,
who retires to her own apartments and does not leave them until she
gets into the transit again and is rattled back to Mudlianah. When
she is fairly off there is no denying that Ethel feels very lonely and
very miserable. She is not so brave as she pretends to be, and she is
conscious that she has betrayed her jealous feelings in a most unladylike
manner, which will make Charlie very angry with her when he comes to hear
of it. So what between her rage and her despair, she passes the afternoon
and evening in a very hysterical condition of weeping and moaning, and
the excitement and fatigue, added to terror at the stories she has heard,
bring on the very calamity against which Mrs Lawless warned her. In the
middle of the night she is compelled by illness to summon her Dye to her
assistance, and two frightened women do their best to alarm each other
still more, until with the morning’s light a poor little baby is born
into the world, who had no business, strictly speaking, to have entered
it till two months later, and the preparations for whose advent are
all down at Mudlianah. Poor Ethel has only strength after the event to
write a few faint lines in pencil to Colonel Dunstan, telling him she
is dying, and begging him to come to her at once, and then to lie down
in a state of utter despair, which would assail most women under the
circumstances. She has not sufficient energy even to reprove the Dye, who
laments over the poor baby as if it were a doomed creature, and keeps
starting nervously, as night draws on again, at every shadow, as though
she expected to see the old gentleman at her elbow.
She wears out Ethel’s patience at last, for the young mother is depressed
and feeble and longs for sleep. So she orders the nurse to lay her little
infant on her arm, and to go into the next room as usual and lie down
beside Katie’s cot; and after some expostulation, and many shakings
of her head, the Dye complies with her mistress’s request. For some
time after she is left alone, Ethel lies awake, too exhausted even to
sleep, and as she does so, her mind is filled with the stories she has
heard, and she clasps her little fragile infant closer to her bosom as
she recalls the history of the poor murdered mother, whose child was
barbarously slaughtered before her eyes. But she has too much faith in
the teaching of her childhood quite to credit such a marvellous story,
and she composes herself by prayer and holy thoughts until she sinks into
a calm and dreamless slumber. When she wakes some hours after, it is not
suddenly, but as though some one were pulling her back to consciousness.
Slowly she realises her situation, and feels that somebody, the Dye she
supposes, is trying to take the baby from her arms without disturbing her.
‘Don’t take him from me, Dye,’ she murmurs, sleepily; ‘he is so good—he
has not moved all night.’
But the gentle pressure still continues, and then Ethel opens her eyes
and sees not the Dye but a woman, tall and finely formed, and fair as the
day, with golden hair floating over her shoulders, and a wild, mad look
in her large blue eyes, who is quietly but forcibly taking the baby from
her. Already she has one bare arm under the child, and the other over
him—and her figure is bent forward, so that her beautiful face is almost
on a level with that of Mrs Dunstan’s.
‘Who are you? What are you doing?’ exclaims Ethel in a voice of
breathless alarm, although she does not at once comprehend why she should
experience it. The woman makes no answer, but with her eyes fixed on the
child with a sort of wild triumph draws it steadily towards her.
‘Leave my baby alone! How dare you touch him?’ cries Ethel, and then she
calls aloud, ‘Dye! Dye! come to me!’
But at the sound of her voice the woman draws the child hastily away,
and Ethel sees it reposing on her arm, whilst she slowly folds her white
robes about the little form, and hides it from view.
‘Dye! Dye!’ again screams the mother, and as the nurse rushes to her
assistance the spirit woman slowly fades away, with a smile of success
upon her lips.
‘Bring a light. Quick!’ cries Ethel. ‘The woman has been here; she has
stolen my baby. Oh, Dye, make haste! help me to get out of bed. I will
get it back again if I die in the attempt.’
The Dye runs for a lamp, and brings it to the bedside as Mrs Dunstan is
attempting to leave it.
‘Missus dreaming!’ she exclaims quickly, as the light falls on the
pillow. ‘The baby is there—safe asleep. Missus get into bed again, and
cover up well, or she will catch cold!’
‘Ah! my baby,’ cries Ethel, hysterically, as she seizes the tiny creature
in her arms, ‘is he really there? Thank God! It was only a dream. But,
Dye, what is the matter with him, and why is he so stiff and cold? He
cannot—he cannot be—dead!’
Yes, it was true! It was not a dream after all. The white woman has
carried the soul of the white child away with her, and left nothing but
the senseless little body behind. As Ethel realises the extent of her
misfortune, and the means by which it has been perpetrated, she sinks
back upon her pillow in a state of utter unconsciousness.
* * * * *
When she once more becomes aware of all that is passing around her, she
finds her husband by her bedside, and Cissy Lawless acting the part of
the most devoted of nurses.
‘It was so wrong of me to leave you, dear, in that hurried manner,’ she
whispers one day when Mrs Dunstan is convalescent, ‘but I was so angry
to think you could suspect me of flirting with your dear old husband.
I ought to have told you from the first what all those meetings and
letters meant, and I should have done so only they involved the character
of my darling Jack. The fact is, dear, my boy got into a terrible
scrape up country—and the colonel says the less we talk of it the
better—however, it had something to do with that horrid gambling that men
will indulge in, and it very nearly lost Jack his commission, and would
have done so if it hadn’t been for the dear colonel. But he and I plotted
and worked together till we got Jack out of his scrape, and now we’re as
happy as two kings; and you will be so too, won’t you dear Mrs Dunstan,
now that you are well again, and know that your Charlie has flirted no
more than yourself?’
‘I have been terribly to blame,’ replies poor Ethel. ‘I see that now, and
I have suffered for it too, bitterly.’
‘We have all suffered, my darling,’ says the colonel, tenderly; ‘but it
may teach us a valuable lesson, never to believe that which we have not
proved.’
‘And never to disbelieve that which we have not disproved,’ retorts
Ethel. ‘If I had only been a little more credulous and a little less
boastful of my own courage, I might not have lived to see my child torn
from my arms by the spirit of the white woman.’
And whatever Ethel Dunstan believed or not, I have only, in concluding
her story, to reiterate my assertion that the circumstances of it are
_strictly true_.
THE END.
[Illustration]
STILL WATERS.
I often wonder if when, as the Bible tells us, ‘the secrets of all hearts
shall be revealed,’ they will be revealed to our fellow-creatures as well
as to the Almighty Judge of men.
I am not usually given to philosophise, but the above remark was drawn
from me by the receipt of a letter this morning from my niece, Justina
Trevor, announcing the death of her ‘dear friend,’ Mrs Benson, which
recalled the remembrance of an incident that took place a few months
since, whilst I was staying at Durham Hall, in Derbyshire, the estate
of her late husband, Sir Harry Trevor. I am an old bachelor, though not
so old as I look; yet when I confess that I write ‘General’ before my
name, and have served most of my time in hot climates, it will readily
be believed that no one would take me for a chicken. It was after an
absence of fourteen years that, last November, I arrived in England, and
put up at an hotel near Covent Garden, which had been a favourite resort
of mine during my last stay in London. But I soon found that I had made
a great mistake, for town was dark, damp, dirty, deserted, detestable;
in fact, no adjective, however long and however strong, could convey an
adequate idea of the impression made upon me by a review of the great
metropolis; and it was with a feeling of intense relief that I perused a
letter from my niece Justina, to whom I had duly announced my advent, in
which she insisted that her ‘dear uncle’ must spend his first Christmas
in England nowhere but at Durham Hall, with Sir Harry and herself. Now
Justina, if not my only, is certainly my nearest relative, and _I_ knew
that _she_ knew that I was an old fellow on the shady side of sixty-five,
with a couple of pounds or so laid by in the Oriental Bank, and with no
one to leave them to but herself or her children; but I was not going
to let that fact interfere with my prospects of present comfort; and so,
ordering my servant to repack my travelling cases, the next day but one
saw us _en route_ for Derbyshire.
It was evening when I arrived at Durham Hall, but even on a first view
I could not help being struck with the munificent manner in which all
the arrangements of the household seemed to be conducted, and reflected
with shame on the unworthy suspicion I had entertained respecting those
two pounds of mine in the Oriental Bank, which I now felt would be but
as a drop in the ocean to the display of wealth which surrounded me. The
hall was full of guests, assembled to enjoy the hunting and shooting
season, and to spend the coming Christmas, and amongst them I heard
several persons of title mentioned; but my host and hostess paid as
much attention to me as though I had been the noblest there, and I felt
gratified by the reception awarded me.
I found my niece but little altered, considering the number of years
which had elapsed since I had last seen her; her children were a fine,
blooming set of boys and girls, whilst her husband, both in appearance
and manners, far exceeded my expectations. For it so happened that I
had not seen Sir Harry Trevor before, my niece’s marriage having taken
place during my absence from England; but Justina had never ceased to
correspond with me, and from her letters I knew that the union had been
as happy as it was prosperous. But now that I met him I was more than
pleased, and voted his wife a most fortunate woman. Of unusual height
and muscular build, Sir Harry Trevor possessed one of those fair, frank
Saxon faces which look as if their owners had never known trouble. His
bright blue eyes shone with careless mirth and his yellow beard curled
about a mouth ever ready to smile in unison with the outstretching of his
friendly hand.
He was a specimen of a free, manly, and contented Englishman, who had
everything he could desire in this world, and was thankful for it. As for
Justina, she seemed perfectly to adore him; her eyes followed his figure
wherever it moved; she hung upon his words, and refused to stir from
home, even to take a drive or walk, unless he were by her side.
‘I must congratulate you upon your husband,’ I said to her, as we sat
together on the second day of my visit. ‘I think he is one of the finest
fellows I ever came across, and seems as good as he is handsome.’
‘Ah, he is, indeed!’ she replied, with ready enthusiasm; ‘and you have
seen the least part of him, uncle. It would be impossible for me to tell
you how good he is in all things. We have been married now for more than
ten years, and during that time I have never had an unkind word from him,
nor do I believe he has ever kept a thought from me. He is as open as the
day, and could not keep a secret if he tried. Dear fellow!’ and something
very like a tear twinkled in the wife’s eyes.
‘Ay, ay,’ I replied, ‘that’s right. I don’t know much about matrimony, my
dear, but if man and wife never have a secret from one another they can’t
go far wrong. And now perhaps you will enlighten me a little about these
guests of yours, for there is such a number of them that I feel quite
confused.’
Justina passed her hand across her eyes and laughed.
‘Yes, that is dear Harry’s whim. He will fill the house at Christmas from
top to basement, and I let him have his way, though all my visitors are
not of my own choosing. With whom shall I commence, uncle?’
We were sitting on a sofa together during the half-hour before dinner,
and one by one the guests, amounting perhaps to fifteen or twenty, came
lounging into the drawing-room.
‘Who, then, is that very handsome woman with the scarlet flower in her
hair?’
‘Oh, do you call _her_ handsome?’ (I could tell at once from the tone of
Justina’s voice that the owner of the scarlet flower was no favourite of
hers.) ‘That is Lady Amabel Scott, a cousin of Harry’s: indeed, if she
were not, she should never come into _my_ house. Now, there’s a woman,
uncle, whom I can’t bear—a forward, presuming, flirting creature, with no
desire on earth but to attract admiration. Look how she’s dressed this
evening—absurd, for a home party. I wonder that her husband, Mr Warden
Scott (that is he looking over the photograph book), can allow her to go
on so! It is quite disgraceful. I consider a flirting married woman one
of the most dangerous members of society.’
‘But you can have no reason to fear her attacks,’ I said, confidently.
The colour mounted to her face. My niece is not a pretty woman—indeed,
I had already wondered several times what made Trevor fall in love with
her—but this little touch of indignation improved her.
‘_Of course not!_ But Lady Amabel spares no one, and dear Harry is so
good-natured that he refuses to see how conspicuous she makes both him
and herself. I have tried to convince him of it several times, but he is
too kind to think evil of any one, and so I must be as patient as I can
till she goes. Thank Heaven, she does not spend her Christmas with us!
For my part, I can’t understand how one can see any beauty in a woman
with a turned-up nose.’
‘Ho, ho!’ I thought to myself; ‘this is where the shoe pinches, is it?
And if a lady will secure an uncommonly good-looking and agreeable man
all to herself, she must expect to see others attempt to share the prize
with her.’
Poor Justina! With as many blessings as one would think heart could
desire, she was not above poisoning her life’s happiness by a touch of
jealousy; and so I pitied her. It is a terrible foe with which to contend.
‘But this is but one off the list,’ I continued, wishing to divert her
mind from the contemplation of Sir Harry’s cousin. ‘Who are those
two dark girls standing together at the side table? and who is that
quiet-looking little lady who has just entered with the tall man in
spectacles?’
‘Oh, those—the girls—are the Misses Rushton; they are pretty, are they
not?—were considered quite the belles of last season—and the old lady on
the opposite side of the fireplace is their mother: their father died
some years since.’
‘But the gentleman in spectacles? He looks quite a character.’
‘Yes, and is considered so, but he is very good and awfully clever.
That is Professor Benson: you must know him and his wife too, the
“quiet-looking little lady,” as you called her just now. They are the
greatest friends I have in the world, and it was at their house that I
first met Harry. I am sure you would like Mary Benson, uncle; she is shy,
but has an immense deal in her, and is the kindest creature I ever knew.
You would get on capitally together. I must introduce you to each other
after dinner. And the professor and she are so attached—quite a model
couple, I can assure you.’
‘Indeed! But whom have we here?’ as the door was thrown open to admit
five gentlemen and two ladies.
‘Lord and Lady Mowbray; Colonel Green and his son and daughter; Captain
Mackay and Mr Cecil St John,’ whispered Lady Trevor, and as she concluded
dinner was announced, and our dialogue ended.
As the only persons in whom my niece had expressed much interest were
Lady Amabel Scott and Mrs Benson, I took care to observe these two
ladies very narrowly during my leisure moments at the dinner-table,
and came to the conclusion that, so far as I could judge, her estimate
was not far wrong of either of them. Lady Amabel was a decided beauty,
notwithstanding the ‘turned-up nose’ of which her hostess had spoken
so contemptuously; it was also pretty evident that she was a decided
flirt. During my lengthened career of five-and-sixty years, I had always
been credited with having a keen eye for the good points of a woman or
a horse; but seldom had I met with such vivid colouring, such flashing
eyes, and such bright speaking looks as now shone upon me across the
table from the cousin of Sir Harry Trevor. She was a lovely blonde, in
the heyday of her youth and beauty, and she used her power unsparingly
and without reserve. My observation quickened by what Justina’s flash
of jealousy had revealed, I now perceived, or thought I perceived, that
our host was by no means insensible to the attractions of his fair
guest, for, after conducting her in to dinner and placing her by his
side, he devoted every second not demanded by the rights of hospitality
to her amusement. Yet, Lady Amabel seemed anything but desirous of
engrossing his attention; on the contrary, her arrows of wit flew far
and wide, and her bright glances flashed much in the same manner, some
of their beams descending even upon me, spite of my grey hairs and lack
of acquaintanceship. One could easily perceive that she was a universal
favourite; but as Mr Warden Scott seemed quite satisfied with the state
of affairs, and calmly enjoyed his dinner, whilst his wife’s admirers,
in their fervent admiration, neglected to eat theirs, I could not see
that any one had a right to complain, and came to the conclusion that my
niece, like many another of her sex, had permitted jealousy to blind her
judgment.
I felt still more convinced of this when I turned to the contemplation
of the other lady to whom she had directed my attention—the professor’s
wife, who was her dearest friend, and through whose means she had first
met Sir Harry Trevor. There was certainly nothing to excite the evil
passions of either man or woman in Mrs Benson. Small and insignificant
in figure, she was not even pleasing in countenance; indeed, I voted her
altogether uninteresting, until she suddenly raised two large brown eyes,
soft as a spaniel’s and shy as a deer’s, and regarded me. She dropped
them again instantly, but as she did so I observed that her lashes were
long and dark, and looked the longer and darker for resting on perfectly
pallid cheeks. _Au reste_, Mrs Benson had not a feature that would repay
the trouble of looking at twice, and the plain, dark dress she wore still
farther detracted from her appearance. But she looked a good, quiet,
harmless little thing, who, if she really possessed the sense Lady Trevor
attributed to her, might prove a very valuable and worthy friend. But she
was certainly not the style of woman to cause any one a heartache, or to
make a wife rue the day she met her.
And indeed, when, dinner being over, we joined the ladies in the
drawing-room, and I saw her surrounded by my grand-nephews and nieces,
who seemed by one accord to have singled her out for persecution, I
thought she looked much more like a governess or some one in a dependent
situation than the most welcome guest at Durham Hall. Sir Harry seemed
pleased with her notice of his children, for he took a seat by her side
and entered into conversation with her, the first time that I had seen
him pay his wife’s friend so open a compliment. Now I watched eagerly
for the ‘great deal’ that by Justina’s account was ‘in her;’ but I was
disappointed, for she seemed disinclined for a _tête-à-tête_, and after
a few futile attempts to draw her out, I was not surprised to see her
host quit his position and wander after Lady Amabel Scott into the back
drawing-room, whither my niece’s eyes followed him in a restless and
uneasy manner.
‘I promised to introduce you to Mrs Benson, uncle,’ she exclaimed, as she
perceived that I was watching her, and willy-nilly, I was taken forcible
possession of, and soon found myself occupying the chair left vacant by
Sir Harry.
‘We can so very seldom persuade Mary to stay with us; and when she does
come, her visits are so brief that we are obliged to make a great deal of
them whilst they last,’ was part of Justina’s introduction speech; and on
that hint I commenced to speak of the charms of the country and my wonder
that Mrs Benson did not oftener take occasion to enjoy them. But barely
an answer, far less an idea, could I extract from my niece’s valued
friend. Mrs Benson’s brown eyes were not once raised to meet mine, and
the replies which I forced from her lips came in monosyllables. I tried
another theme, but with no better success; and had just decided that she
was as stupid as she looked, when, to my great relief, the professor
arrived with a message from Lady Trevor, and bore his wife off into
another room.
Several days passed without bringing forth much incident. The gentlemen
spent most of their time in the shooting-covers or hunting-field, and did
not meet the ladies until evening re-assembled them in the drawing-room;
on which occasions I used to get as far as I could from Lady Trevor
and the professor’s wife, and in consequence generally found myself in
the vicinity of Sir Harry and Lady Amabel. Yet, free and intimate as
seemed their intercourse with one another, and narrowly as, in Justina’s
interest, I watched them, I could perceive nothing in their conduct which
was not justified by their relationship, and treated it as a matter of
the smallest consequence, until one afternoon about a fortnight after my
arrival at Durham Hall.
With the exception of Sir Harry himself, who had business to transact
with his bailiff, we had all been out shooting, and as, after a hard
day’s work, I was toiling up to my bedroom to dress for dinner, I had
occasion to pass the study appropriated to the master of the house, and
with a sudden desire to give him an account of our sport, incontinently
turned the handle of the door. As I did so I heard an exclamation and the
rustle of a woman’s dress, which were sufficient to make me halt upon the
threshold of the half-opened door, and ask if I might enter.
‘Come in, by all means,’ exclaimed Sir Harry. He was lying back
indolently in his arm-chair beside a table strewn with books and
papers,—a little flushed, perhaps, but otherwise himself, and, to my
astonishment, quite alone. Yet I was positive that I had heard the
unmistakable sound of a woman’s dress sweeping the carpet. Involuntarily
I glanced around the room; but there was no egress.
Sir Harry caught my look of inquiry, and seemed annoyed. ‘What are you
staring at, Wilmer?’ he demanded, in the curtest tone I had yet heard
from him.
‘May I not glance round your den?’ I replied courteously. ‘I have not had
the honour of seeing it before.’
Then I entered into a few details with him concerning the day’s sport
we had enjoyed; but I took care to be brief, for I saw that my presence
there displeased him, and I could not get the rustle of that dress out
of my mind. As I concluded, and with some remark upon the lateness of
the hour, turned to leave the room, a cough sounded from behind a large
Indian screen which stood in one corner. It was the faintest, most
subdued of coughs, but sufficiently tangible to be sworn to; and as it
fell upon my ear I could not help a change of countenance.
‘All right!’ said my host, with affected nonchalance, as he rose and
almost backed me to the door. ‘We’ll have a talk over all this after
dinner, Wilmer; sorry I wasn’t with you; but, as you say, it’s late. _Au
revoir!_’ and simultaneously the study door closed upon me.
I was very much startled and very much shocked. I had not a doubt that
I was correct in my surmise that Sir Harry had some visitor in his room
whom he had thought it necessary to conceal from me; and though Hope
suggested that it might have been his wife, Common Sense rose up to
refute so absurd an idea. Added to which, I had not traversed twenty
yards after leaving him before I met Justina attired in her walking
things, and just returning from a stroll round the garden.
‘Is it very late, uncle?’ she demanded, with a smile, as we encountered
one another. ‘I have been out with the children. Have you seen Mary or
Lady Amabel? I am afraid they will think I have neglected them shamefully
this afternoon.’
I answered her questions indifferently, thinking the while that she had
no occasion to blame herself for not having paid sufficient attention to
Lady Amabel Scott, for that it was she whom I had surprised _tête-à-tête_
with Sir Harry Trevor, I had not a shadow of doubt.
Well, I was not the one to judge them, nor to bring them to judgment;
but I thought very hard things of Sir Harry’s cousin during the dressing
hour, and pitied my poor niece, who must some day inevitably learn that
it was a true instinct which had made her shrink from her beautiful
guest. And during the evening which followed my discovery, I turned
with disgust from the lightning glances which darted from Lady Amabel’s
blue eyes, and the arch smile which helped to make them so seductive. I
could no longer think her beauty harmless: the red curves of her mouth
were cruel serpents in my mind; poisoned arrows flew from her lips;
there was no innocence left in look, or word, or action; and I found
myself turning with a sensation of relief to gaze at the Quaker-like
attire, the downcast eyes, and modest appearance of the professor’s wife,
whilst I inwardly blamed myself for having ever been so foolish as to be
gulled into believing that the flaunting beauty of Lady Amabel Scott was
superior to Mrs Benson’s quiet graces.
I did not have much to say to Sir Harry Trevor during that evening:
indignation for his deception towards Justina made me disinclined to
speak to him, whilst he, for his part, seemed anxious to avoid me. For a
few days more all went on as usual: my host’s affability soon returned,
and every one, my niece included, appeared so smiling and contented, that
I almost began to think I must have been mistaken, and that there could
have been no real motive for concealing Lady Amabel in Sir Harry’s room,
except perhaps her own girlish love of fun. I tried to think the best I
could of both of them; and a day came but too soon when I was thankful
that I had so tried.
It was about a week after the little incident related above that Sir
Harry Trevor was shooting over his preserves, accompanied by his guests.
We had had a capital day’s sport and an excellent luncheon—at which
latter some of the ladies had condescended to join us—and were beating
the last cover preparatory to a return to Durham Hall, when the report of
a firearm was quickly followed by the news that Sir Harry Trevor had been
wounded.
I was separated from him by a couple of fields when I first heard of
the accident, but it did not take me long to reach his side, when I
perceived, to my horror, that he was fast bleeding to death, having been
shot through the lungs by the discharge of his own gun whilst getting
through the hedge. I had seen men die from gunshot wounds received
under various circumstances, and I felt sure that Sir Harry’s hours
were numbered; yet, of course, all that was possible was done at once,
and five minutes had not elapsed before messengers were flying in all
directions—one for the doctor, another for the carriage, a third for
cordials to support the sinking man; whilst I entreated Mr Warden Scott
and several others to walk back to the Hall as though nothing particular
had happened, and try to prevent the immediate circulation of the full
extent of the bad news. Meanwhile, I remained by the wounded man, who
evidently suspected, by the sinking within him, that he was dying.
‘Wilmer!’ he gasped, ‘old fellow, have I settled my hash?’
‘I trust not, Sir Harry,’ I commenced; but I suppose that my eyes
contradicted my words.
‘Don’t say any more,’ he replied, with difficulty. ‘My head a little
higher—thanks. I feel it will soon be over.’
And so he lay for a few moments, supported on my knee, with his fast
glazing eyes turned upward to the December sky, and his breath coming in
short, quick jerks.
The men who had remained with me seemed as though they could not endure
the sight of his sufferings; one or two gazed at him speechless and
almost as pale as himself; but the majority had turned away to hide their
feelings.
‘Wilmer,’ he whispered presently, but in a much fainter voice than
before, ‘it’s coming fast now;’ and then, to my surprise, just as I
thought he was about to draw his last breath, he suddenly broke into
speech that was almost a sob—‘Oh, if I could only have seen her again! I
wouldn’t mind it half so much if I could but have seen Pet again! Call
her, Wilmer; in God’s name, call her!—call Pet to me—only once again—only
once! Pet! Pet! Pet!’ And with that name upon his lips, each time uttered
in a shorter and fainter voice, and with a wild look of entreaty in his
eyes, Sir Harry Trevor let his head drop back heavily upon my knees and
died.
When the doctor and the carriage arrived, the only thing left for us to
do was to convey the corpse of its master back to Durham Hall.
For the first few hours I was too much shocked by the suddenness of the
blow which had descended on us to have leisure to think of anything else.
In one moment the house of feasting had been turned into the house of
mourning; and frightened guests were looking into each other’s faces,
and wondering what would be the correct thing for them to do. Of my poor
niece I saw nothing. The medical man had undertaken to break the news of
her bereavement to her, and I confess that I was sufficiently cowardly to
shrink from encountering the sorrow which I could do nothing to mitigate.
As I passed along the silent corridors (lately so full of mirth and
revelry) that evening, I met servants and travelling-cases at every turn,
by which I concluded, and rightly, that the Christmas guests were about
at once to take their departure; and on rising in the morning, I found
that, with the exception of Lady Amabel and Mr Warden Scott, who, as
relatives of the deceased, intended to remain until after the funeral,
and the professor and Mrs Benson, on whose delicate frame the shock of
Sir Harry’s death was said to have had such an effect as to render her
unfit for travelling, Durham Hall was clear.
Lady Amabel had wept herself almost dry: her eyes were swollen, her
features disfigured, her whole appearance changed from the violence of
her grief, and every ten minutes she was ready to burst out afresh.
We had not been together half-an-hour on the following morning before
she was sobbing by my side, entreating me to give her every particular
of ‘poor dear Harry’s’ death, and to say if there was anything she could
do for Justina or the children; and notwithstanding the repugnance with
which her conduct had inspired me, I could not repulse her then. However
she had sinned, the crime and its occasion were both past—Sir Harry was
laid out ready for his burial, and she was grieving for him.
I am an old man, long past such follies myself, and I hope I am a
virtuous man; but all my virtue could not prevent my pitying Lady Amabel
in her distress, and affording her such comfort as was possible. And so
(a little curiosity still mingling with my compassion) I related to her
in detail, whilst I narrowly watched her features, the last words which
had been spoken by her cousin. But if she guessed for whom that dying
entreaty had been urged, she did not betray herself.
‘Poor fellow!’ was her only remark as she wiped her streaming eyes—‘poor
dear Harry! Used he to call Justina “Pet?” I never heard him do so.’
Whereupon I decided that Lady Amabel was too politic to be very
miserable, and that my pity had been wasted on her.
Of Mrs Benson I saw nothing, but the professor talked about attending the
funeral, and therefore I concluded that my niece had invited them, being
such intimate friends, to remain for that ceremony.
On the afternoon of the same day I was told that Justina desired to speak
to me. I sought the room where she was sitting, with folded hands and
darkened windows, with nervous reluctance; but I need not have dreaded a
scene, for her grief was too great for outward show, and I found her in a
state which appeared to me unnaturally calm.
‘Uncle,’ she said, after a moment’s pause, during which we had silently
shaken hands, ‘will you take these keys and go down into—into—his study
for me, and bring up the desks and papers which you will find in the
escritoire? I do not like to send a servant.’
I took the keys which she extended to me, and, not able to trust myself
to answer, kissed her forehead and left the room again. As I turned the
handle of the study door I shuddered, the action so vividly recalled to
me the first and last occasion upon which I had done so. The afternoon
was now far advanced, and dusk was approaching: the blinds of the study
windows also were pulled down, which caused the room to appear almost
in darkness. As I groped my way toward the escritoire I stumbled over
some article lying across my path, something which lay extended on the
hearth-rug, and which even by that feeble light I could discern was a
prostrated body.
With my mind full of murderous accidents, I rushed to the window and drew
up the blind, when to my astonishment I found that the person over whom
I had nearly fallen was no other than poor little Mrs Benson, who was
lying in a dead faint before the arm-chair. Fainting women not being half
so much in my line as wounded men, I felt quite uncertain in this case
how to act, and without considering how the professor’s wife had come
to be in the study or for what reason, my first impulse was to ring for
assistance. But a second thought, which came I know not how or whence,
made me lift the fragile, senseless body in my arms and carry it outside
the study door into the passage before I called for help, which then I
did lustily, and female servants came and bore the poor ‘quiet-looking
little lady’ away to her own apartments and the care of her husband,
leaving me free to execute the errand upon which I had been sent. Still,
as I collected the desk and papers required by my niece, I could not help
reflecting on the circumstance I have related as being a strange one, and
could only account for it in my own mind by the probable fact that Mrs
Benson had required some book from the late Sir Harry’s shelves, and,
miscalculating her strength, had left her bedroom with the design of
fetching it, and failed before she could accomplish her purpose. I heard
several comments made on the occurrence, during the melancholy meal which
we now called ‘dinner,’ by her husband and Lady Amabel Scott, and they
both agreed with me as to the probable reason of it; and as soon as the
cloth was removed the professor left us to spend the evening with his
wife, who was considered sufficiently ill to require medical attendance.