A CRISIS AT REDMOOR.
When Mrs. Hammond left the dinner-table on the evening destined to add
a new sorrow to Georgie Mitford's sorely-troubled lot, she really had
gone, as she had announced her intention of going, to her husband's
room. The old man was lying in his bed, propped up with pillows, his
face turned to the large window, through which the rays of the moon
were shining, and mingling in a cold and ghastly manner with the light
in the room. The invalid had a fancy for seeing the dark clumps of
trees on the rising grounds, and the cold moon shining over their
heads. Gifford, his confidential servant, sat at the bed's head, and
had been reading to his master. Mrs. Hammond asked him several
questions in a tone of interest which sounded almost genuine as to how
Mr. Hammond had been; and then saying she meant to remain with the
invalid for a while, she dismissed him, and took her seat by the
window, in a position enabling her to see quite distinctly a portion
of the broad carriage-drive to the right of the entrance, across which
the rays of the moon flung their uninterrupted radiance. Laura did not
exert herself much for the amusement of the invalid. The few questions
he asked her she answered listlessly, then sunk into silence. After a
short time her stepdaughter came softly into the room to bid her
father goodnight.
"You are rather late, Alice; where have you been?" said Laura, without
turning her head towards the child, still looking fixedly at the patch
of ground in the moonlight.
"With Lady Mitford, mamma," answered Alice.
"Have the gentlemen left the dining-room?"
"Lord Dollamore came into the drawing-room, and I saw Sir Charles
crossing the hall into the library; but I don't know about the
others," answered Alice.
Mrs. Hammond said no more; and Alice, having received an affectionate
embrace from her father, and the coldest conceivable touch of Mrs.
Hammond's lips on the edge of her cheek, went off to bed. The silence
continued in the sick man's room, and Laura's gaze never turned from
the window. At length a figure passed across the moonlit space, and
was instantly lost in the darkness beyond. Then Mrs. Hammond drew down
the blind, and changed her seat to a chair close by the bedside. She
took up the book which Gifford had laid down, and asked her husband if
he would like her to read on.
"If you please, my dear," said Mr. Hammond, "if it won't tire you; and
you won't mind my falling asleep, which I may do, for I feel very
drowsy."
Laura was quite sure it would not tire her to read, and she would be
delighted if her reading should have so soothing an effect.
"If I do fall asleep, you must not stay with me, Laura; you must go
downstairs again. Promise me you will; and you need not call
Gifford,--I don't require any one; I am much better to-night."
Very well; Laura would promise not to stay in his room if he should
fall asleep; and as she really did think him very much better, she
would not summon Gifford.
Mrs. Hammond possessed several useful and attractive accomplishments;
among others, that of reading aloud to perfection. She did not exhibit
her skill particularly on this occasion--her voice was languid and
monotonous; and the author would have had ample reason to complain had
he heard his sentences rendered so expressionless. She read on and on,
in a sullen monotone; and after a quarter of an hour had elapsed, she
had the pleasure of seeing that her kind intention was fulfilled. Her
voice had been very soothing, and her husband had fallen into a
profound sleep. Then she passed through an open door into her
dressing-room, and reappeared, wrapped in a dark warm cloak, the hood
thrown over her head. If any one had taken the place she had so lately
occupied at the window, that person would have seen, after the lapse
of a few moments, a second figure flit across the moonlit space, and
disappear into the darkness beyond.
About half an hour later Banks tapped at the door of the smoking-room,
and was gruffly bidden to "come in" by Captain Bligh.
"If you please, Captain," said Banks, upon whom the atmosphere of that
particular apartment always produced a distressingly-choky and
eye-smarting effect,--"if you please, Captain, I can't find Sir
Charles. He ain't in the library, nor yet in the droring-room, and
he's wanted very particular."
"Perhaps he has gone up to see Mr. Hammond," suggested Bligh.
"No, Captain, he ain't; I've bin and ast Gifford, and he says as his
missis has been along o' the old gentleman since dinner-time, and
she's there now, and nobody ain't with them."
"That's odd," said Captain Bligh; "but who wants him? Perhaps I might
do."
"I beg your pardon, Captain," said the peremptory Banks, "but nobody
won't do but Sir Charles hisself. It's a party as has been sent up
from Fishbourne, where my lady comes from, and his orders is to see
Sir Charles alone, and not to let out his message to nobody else."
The good-natured Captain looked extremely grave. Only one occurrence
could have rendered so much precaution necessary, and he conjectured
at once that that occurrence had taken place.
"I fear Mr. Stanfield is dead," he said to his companions. "I must go
and find Mitford. Just excuse me for a while, and make yourselves
comfortable here, will you?--Come with me, Banks, and take care your
mistress gets no hint of this person's being here."
"There ain't no fear of that, Captain," replied the man; "my lady's in
the droring-room, along o' Lord Dollamore; and I knew that Sir Charles
worn't there, so I didn't go to look for him."
The Captain found the messenger in the library, where Banks had sent
him to await Sir Charles's appearance. He was a respectable elderly
man, and he answered Captain Bligh's inquiry at once. He had been sent
by poor Georgie's old friend, the curate, to convey to Sir Charles
Mitford the melancholy intelligence of Mr. Stanfield's death, which
had taken place early that morning; and particulars of which event
were contained in a letter which he was charged to deliver to the
Baronet. He had received special injunctions to communicate the event
to Sir Charles alone, and leave it to be "broken" to Lady Mitford by
her husband. The simple curate had little thought how difficult Sir
Charles would find it to assume even a temporary sympathy with the
feelings of his wife.
Captain Bligh ordered refreshments to be served to the bringer of evil
tidings; requested him not to communicate with any of the other
servants; and strictly enjoining Banks to secrecy, went out of the
front door and into the shrubbery on the left of the house. Mitford
was not unaccustomed to take fits of sullen moodiness at times, and
the Captain thought that he might perhaps find him walking about and
smoking, in all the enjoyment of his ill-humour.
The intelligent Banks had asked Gifford if he thought it likely that
Sir Charles was in his master's room, in the presence of several of
the ladies and gentlemen of the household, assembled in a comfortable
and spacious apartment which the insolence of a dominant class caused
to be known as the servants'-hall. Among the number of those who heard
the question and its answer was Mademoiselle Marcelline, Mrs.
Hammond's "own maid." She was a trim-looking French girl, who had not
anything remarkable in her appearance except its neatness, or in her
manner except its quietness. She was seated at a large table, on which
a number of workboxes were placed, for the women-servants at Redmoor
greatly affected needlework, and had a good deal of time to devote to
it; and she was embroidering a collar with neatness, dexterity, and
rapidity, eminently French. Mademoiselle Marcelline made no
observation, and did not raise her eyes, or discontinue her work for a
moment, during the discussion as to where Sir Charles could be, which
had ensued upon Banks's inquiry. She had spoken only once indeed since
his entrance. When Gifford had said Sir Charles Mitford could not be
in Mr. Hammond's room, because her mistress had been, and was there
still, he had asked, "Isn't she there still, mam'selle?" Mam'selle
had answered, "Yes, Monsieur Giffore, madame is there still."
Mademoiselle Marcelline was so very quiet a little person, and
differed so much from French ladies'-maids in general, by the
unobtrusiveness of her manners and her extreme taciturnity--to be sure
she spoke very little English, but that circumstance is rarely found
to limit the loquacity of her class--that her exit from the
servants'-hall was scarcely noticed, when she presently looked at her
little Geneva watch, made up her embroidery into a tidy parcel, and
went away with her usual noiseless step. Mademoiselle Marcelline
mounted the stairs with great deliberation, and smiling a little,
until she reached the corridor into which the suite of apartments
occupied by the Hammonds opened. The rooms were five in number, and
each communicated with the other. They were two bed-rooms, two
dressing-rooms, and a bath-room. The latter occupied the central
space, and had no external door. Mademoiselle Marcelline entered
the last room of the suite, corresponding with that in which Mr.
Hammond lay,--this was Laura's bed-room,--and gently locked the
door. She passed through the adjoining apartment--her mistress's
dressing-room--and paused before a large wardrobe, without shelves, in
which hung a number of dresses and cloaks. She opened the doors, but
held them one in each hand, looked in for a moment, and then shut
them, and smiled still more decidedly. Then she softly locked the door
of this room which opened into the corridor, and passing through the
bath-room secured that of Mr. Hammond's dressing-room also; after
which, with more precaution against noise than ever, she glided into
the old man's room. He was sleeping soundly still, and his face looked
wasted and ashen in the abstraction of slumber. Mademoiselle
Marcelline glanced at him, shrugged her shoulders, sat down on a couch
at the foot of the bed, where she was effectually screened from view
by the heavy carved bedpost and the voluminous folds of the purple
curtain, and waited.
Meantime, Captain Bligh had not succeeded in finding Sir Charles,
though he had sought for him in the shrubbery and in the stable-yard.
He could not make out whither he had gone, and returned to the house
to take counsel with Banks. That functionary suggested that Sir
Charles might have gone up to the keeper's house; and though the
Captain could not imagine why Sir Charles should have gone thither at
such an inconvenient time, as he had no other to offer, he accepted
this suggestion, and said he would go thither and look for him.
"Shall I go with you, Captain?" asked Banks, who felt curious to
discover what "Mitford was up to."
Since Mr. Effingham's visit, and the polite fiction of the
yacht--endeared to Mr. Banks by his own joke about the Fleet Prison,
which he considered so good that society was injured by its
suppression within his own bosom--the incredulous flunkey had
experienced an increased share of the curiosity with which their
masters' affairs invariably inspire servants. He was much pleased then
that Captain Bligh answered,
"Yes, yes, you can come with me."
The keeper's cottage was not very far from the great house, from
which, however, it was entirely hidden by a thick fir-plantation which
covered a long and wide space of undulating land, and through which
several narrow paths led to the open ground beyond. The Captain and
his attendant struck into one of those paths, which led directly in
the direction of the keeper's house.
"We can't miss Sir Charles, I think, if he really has gone up to
Hutton's," said the Captain.
"No, sir, I think not, unless he has taken a very roundabout way,"
answered Banks.
They walked quickly on for some distance, the Captain's impatience
momentarily increasing, and also his doubts that Mitford had gone in
this direction at all. At length they reached a point at which the
path, cutting the plantation from east to west, was intersected by one
running from north to south. Here they paused, and the Captain said
testily,
"By Jove, Banks, I hardly know what to do. The messenger from
Fishbourne's shut up in the library all this time, and all the
servants in a fuss, and Sir Charles not forthcoming! I wish I had
broken the news of her father's death to Lady Mitford before I came
out; it would have been by far the best plan. She's sure to hear it by
accident now."
The Captain spoke to himself rather than to the servant, and in a
particularly emphatic voice--a testimony to his vexation. Then he
strode onwards with increased speed, little knowing that he had spoken
within the startled hearing of the man whom he was seeking, and who
was so near him, as he stood where the paths met, that he could have
touched him by stretching out his arm,--touched him and his cowering
frightened companion.
They kept a breathless silence until the Captain and Banks were quite
out of hearing. Then Sir Charles said: "What is to be done? Did you
hear what Bligh said, Laura? Some one has been sent from Fishbourne to
tell me that Mr. Stanfield is dead, and they are searching for me
everywhere. What a cursed accident! There is not a chance of
concealing your absence. My darling, my life, what is to be done?"
She was very pale and trembling, and the words came hard and hoarse,
as she replied,
"I know not. If we must brave it out we must; but there is a chance
yet. Do you stay here, and meet Bligh as he comes back; you can be
strolling along the cross path. Have you a cigar? No; you are in
dinner-dress, of course. Stay; you have an overcoat on; search the
pockets. Yes, yes; what luck! Here's a cigar-case, and your light-box
hangs to your chain,--I'll never call it vulgar again,--light a cigar
at once, and contrive to show the light when you hear them. I will go
to the house. You left the side window open, did you not?"
"Yes, yes." His agitation was increasing; hers was subsiding.
"If I can get into the house unseen, all is right. I can pass through
my own rooms into Hammond's. Send there for me if all is safe; the
servants think I am there."
She turned away to leave him; but he caught her in his arms, and said
in a tone of agony,
"Laura! Laura! if I have exposed you to danger--if--"
"Hush!" she said, disengaging herself; "you have not exposed me to
danger any more than I have exposed myself; but don't talk of this as
a hopeless scrape until we know that there is no way out of it." She
was out of sight in an instant.
Mademoiselle Marcelline sat at the foot of Mr. Hammond's bed without
the least impatience. She did not fidget, she did not look at the
clock, she did not doze. The time passed apparently to her perfect
satisfaction. The invalid slept on very peacefully, and the whole
scene wore an eminently comfortable aspect. At length her acute ears
discerned a light footfall at the end of the corridor, and then she
heard the handle of Mrs. Hammond's dressing-room door gently
turned--in vain. Then the footstep came on, and another door-handle
was turned, equally in vain.
Mademoiselle Marcelline smiled. "It would have been so convenient for
madame to have hung her cloak up and smoothed her hair before monsieur
should see her, after madame's promenade in the clear of the moon,"
thought Mademoiselle Marcelline. "What a pity that those tiresome
doors should unhappily be locked! What a sorrowful accident!"
The door opened, and Laura looked cautiously into the room. All was as
she had left it; the sleeping face of her husband was turned towards
her. The pathetic unconsciousness of sleep was upon it; she did not
heed the pathos, but the unconsciousness was convenient. The minutest
change that would have intimated that any one had entered the room
would not have escaped her notice, but there was no such thing. She
came in, and softly closed the heavy perfectly-hung door; she made a
few steps forward, uttered a deep sigh of relief, and said in an
involuntary whisper, "What a risk, and what an escape!"
Her heavy cloak hung upon her; she pushed back the hood, and her
chestnut hair, in wild disorder, shone with red gleams in the
firelight. She lifted her white hands and snatched impatiently at the
tasseled cord which held the garment at the throat; and Mademoiselle
Marcelline emerged from the shadow of the bed-curtains, and with
perfect propriety and an air of entire respect requested that madame
would permit her to remove the cloak which was so heavy, and also
madame's boots, which must be damp, for the promenade of evening had
inconveniences.
Laura started violently, and then stood looking at the demure figure
before her with a kind of incredulous terror. Mademoiselle Marcelline
composedly untied the refractory cords and removed the mantle, which
she immediately replaced in the wardrobe. Would Madame have the
goodness to consider what she had said about the boots, and to go into
her dressing-room? Madame followed her like one in a dream. She placed
a chair before the dressing-table, and Laura mechanically sat down;
she took off her boots and substituted slippers; she restored the
symmetry of the crushed dress; she threw a dressing-gown over the
beautiful shoulders, folded it respectfully over the bosom heaving
with terror and anger, and began to brush her mistress's hair with a
wholly unperturbed demeanour. Laura looked at the demure composed face
which appeared over her shoulder in the glass, and at length she said:
"How came you in that room?"
"Ah, madame, what a happy chance! One came to the salon of the
servants, and demanded of Monsieur Giffore if Sir Charles might be in
the chamber of monsieur. Then Monsieur Giffore say that no; that
madame was there, and is there. And Monsieur Giffore asked me if he
have reason; and I say, 'Certainly, madame is still in the chamber of
monsieur.'"
"Well," said Laura, for Mademoiselle Marcelline had paused, "what has
that to do with your being in that room?"
"It has much, if madame will take the trouble to listen. I know that
servants are curious,--ah, how curious servants are, my God!--and I
thought one of them might have curiosity enough to see for herself
madame, so affectionate, passing the long, long evening with poor
monsieur, who is not gay,--no, he is not gay, they say that in the
salon of the servants. So, as it is not agreeable to be listened and
spied, and as servants are so curious, I locked the doors of the rooms
consecrated to the privacy of madame, and rejoiced to know that madame
might read excellent books of exalted piety to monsieur, or refresh
her spirits, so tired by her solicitude, with a promenade in the clear
of the moon--madame is so poetic!--as she chose, without being teased
by observation. I respect also that good Monsieur Giffore, and I would
not have him disprove. 'Madame is still there, mam'sell?' he asks; and
I say, 'Yes; madame is still there.'"
All the time she was speaking, Mademoiselle Marcelline quietly pursued
her task. The long silken tresses lay now in a well-brushed shining
heap over her left arm, and she looked at them with complacent
admiration.
"Heaven! but madame has beautiful hair!" she went on, while Laura,
pale and motionless, at taking into her heart the full meaning of this
terrible complication of her position. "It is, however, fortunate that
she does not adopt the English style, for promenades at the clear of
the moon are enemy to curls--to those long curls which the young
ladies, lastly gone away, and who were so fond of madame, wore. They
avoided the damp of the forest in the evening, the young ladies; they
were careful of their curls. But madame has not need to be careful of
anything--nothing and nobody can hurt madame, who is so beloved by
monsieur. Ah, what a destiny! and monsieur so rich!"
She had by this time braided the shining hair, and was dexterously
folding the plaits round and round the small head, after a fashion
which Laura had lately adopted. Still her mistress sat silent, with
moody downcast eyes. As she interrupted her speech for a moment to
take a fresh handful of hair-pins from the dressing-table, Banks
knocked at the door of the adjoining room. Mademoiselle Marcelline did
not raise her voice to bid him enter; always considerate, she
remembered that an indiscreet sound might trouble the repose of the
invalid, so she stepped gently to the door and opened it.
"Is Mrs. Hammond here, mam'sell?" asked Banks.
"Oh, but yes, Monsieur Banks, madame is always here."
"Not exactly," thought Banks, puzzled by her idiom; but he merely
said, "Bad news has reached the family. My lady's father is dead,
which he was a good old gentleman indeed; and she ain't seen him
neither, not for some time; and my lady she's been a faintin' away in
the libery like anythin'; and Sir Charles, he's been a holdin' of her
hup, leastways him and Lord Dollamore, and there's the deuce to pay
down there."
Mademoiselle listened with polite attention to Mr. Banks's statement
of the condition of affairs; but she was not warmly interested.
"Monsieur Banks will pardon me," she said; "but at present I coif
madame; I think he demanded madame?"
"Yes, I did, marm'sell," said Banks, abashed and convicted by this
quiet little person of undue loquacity; "only I thought you'd like to
hear. Mostly servants does; but," here Mr. Banks floundered again,
"you ain't much like the rest of us, miss--mam'sell, I mean."
Mademoiselle Marcelline acknowledged the compliment with a very frigid
smile, and again inquired what she might have the pleasure of telling
madame, on the part of Monsieur Banks.
"Sir Charles begs Mrs. Hammond will come down to the libery if quite
convenient to her, as he wishes to speak to her about some necessary
arrangements."
Mr. Banks delivered his message with elaboration, and waited the reply
with dignity. Mademoiselle Marcelline repeated the communication to
her mistress, word for word, and did not suffer the slightest trace of
expression to appear in her face.
"Yes, I will go down immediately," said Laura, much relieved at the
prospect of escaping from the presence of her maid, and having time to
consider her position.
Mr. Banks went away to deliver Mrs. Hammond's message, and
mademoiselle, in perfect silence, removed the dressing-gown from her
mistress's shoulders; and Laura, her dress in complete order, and her
nerves to all appearance as well arranged, rose from her chair.
"Give me a lace shawl," she said, in her customary imperious manner;
"if Lady Mitford has lost her father, she will not be gratified by my
making my appearance in full-dress, and I have no time to change it."
"Madame is so considerate," remarked Mademoiselle Marcelline, as she
folded a web of fine black lace round Mrs. Hammond's form; "and Lady
Mitford owes her so much. Poor lady, she is sensitive; she has not the
courage of madame. Madame must form her."
"Go for Gifford to sit with Mr. Hammond," said Laura. "You can wait
for me in my room as usual;" and she walked out of the dressing-room,
having previously ordered her maid to unlock the door, without any
outward sign of disturbance. Slowly she went down the great staircase,
and as she went she asked herself, "Shall I tell Charles? Could any
worse complication arise out of my concealing this dreadful thing from
him?" At length she made up her mind, just as she reached the door of
the library. "No," she said, "I will not tell him. He has no nerve,
and would blunder, and the less one tells any man the better."
Poor Georgie, now indeed lonely and desolate, had been taken to her
room, and induced to lie down on her bed, by the housekeeper and her
maid, who proposed to watch by their unhappy mistress all night. She
and Sir Charles were to proceed to Fishbourne on the following day.
She had earnestly entreated her husband to take her with him, and he
had consented. She was quite worn-out and stupefied with grief, and
had hardly noticed Mrs. Hammond's presence in the library at all. It
was agreed that Lord. Dollamore should leave Redmoor on the following
day, a little later than Sir Charles and Lady Mitford, and that the
Hammonds should go to Torquay as soon as the physicians would permit
their patient to make so great an effort.
"It is impossible to say how soon I shall get back, or how long I may
be detained," said Sir Charles; "and it's a confounded nuisance having
to go."
Lord Dollamore looked at him with tranquil curiosity, and tapped first
his teeth and then his ear with his inseparable cane.
"I hope they will make you comfortable here. Bligh will see to
everything, I know. Perhaps they won't let Hammond move at all--very
likely, for there's an east wind--and you'll be here when we return."
Very gravely Mrs. Hammond answered him: "That will be impossible, Sir
Charles. Lady Mitford could not possibly be expected to have any one
in her house under such circumstances. Mr. Hammond _must_ be brought
to Torquay."
Sir Charles was puzzled; he could not quite understand her tone; he
did not think it was assumed entirely, owing to the presence of Lord
Dollamore, for that had seldom produced any effect on Laura. No, she
was completely in earnest. She gave her hand to each gentleman in
turn, but the clasp she bestowed on each was equally warm; and when
Sir Charles, as she passed out of the door, shot one passionate glance
at her, unseen by Dollamore, she completely ignored it, and walked
gracefully away.
"By Jove!" said Lord Dollamore, when he had gotten rid of Mitford and
was safe in his own room, "it was a lucky thing Buttons made his
appearance just when he did. I should have hopelessly committed myself
in another minute; and then, on the top of that fine piece of
sentiment, we should have had the scene of this evening's news. No
matter how she had taken it, I should have been in an awful scrape. If
she had taken it well, I should have had to do a frightful amount of
sympathy and condolence--the regular 'water-cart business' in fact;
and if she had taken it ill, egad, she's just the woman to blurt it
all out in a fit of conscience, and to believe that her father's death
is a judgment upon her for not showing me up to Mitford! As it is, the
matter remains in a highly-satisfactory condition; I am not committed
to anything: I might have been pleading my own cause, or a friend's,
or some wholly imaginary personage's; and I can either resume the
argument precisely where I dropped it, if I think proper, or I can cut
the whole affair. Bless you, my Buttons!"
As Georgie was driving over to the railway-station on the following
day,--her maid and she occupying the inside of the carriage, and Sir
Charles, availing himself of his well-known objection to allow any one
but himself to drive when he was present, to avoid a _tête-à-tête_
with his wife, on the box,--she raised her heavy veil for a while, and
drawing a letter from her pocket, read and re-read it through her
blinding tears. It was from Colonel Alsager. At length Georgie put it
away, and lay back in the carriage, with closed eyes, thinking of the
writer.
"He has suffered a great deal also," she thought; "and he has more to
suffer. How sorely he must repent his neglect of his father! as sorely
as I repent my neglect of mine." Here the tears, which had already
burned her eyelids into a state of excruciating soreness, burst forth
again. "What must he have felt when he read his father's letter!--the
letter written to be read after the writer's death,--the letter he
will show to me, he says, though to no one else in the world, except,
I suppose, the young lady whom Sir Peregrine entreated him in it to
marry. I wonder if he will,--I wonder if she is nice, and good, and
likely to make him happy! It is strange that a similar calamity should
have befallen him and me. He can feel for my grief now--I have always
felt for his!"