AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR.
"You must go round to the side-door if you have any business here,"
cried a shrill, angry, quavering voice, in answer to the loud knocking
of a stranger at the main entrance of Heron Dyke.
Edward Conroy--for he it was--could not at first make out where the
voice came from, but when he stepped from under the portico and
glanced upward, he saw a withered face protruded from one of the upper
windows, and a skinny hand and arm pointing in the direction of a door
which he now noticed for the first time in a corner of the right wing.
For the first time, too, he saw that the grim old door at which he had
been knocking looked as if it had not been opened for years, and that
the knocker itself was rusty from disuse. Even the steps that led up
to the portico were falling into disrepair, and through the cracks and
crevices tiny tufts of grass and patches of velvety moss showed
themselves here and there.
Conroy descended the steps slowly, and then turned to take another
look at the grey old house, which he had never seen before to-day. The
first view of it, as he crossed the bridge over the moat, had not
impressed him favourably. But now that he looked at it again, the
quaint formality of its lines seemed to please him better. It might
have few pretensions to architectural dignity; but, with the passage
of years, there had come to it a certain harmoniousness such as it had
never possessed when it was new. Summer sun and winter rain had not
been without their effect upon it. They had toned down the hardness of
its original outlines: its coldness seemed less cold, its formality
not so formal, as they must once have seemed. It was slowly mellowing
in the soft, sweet air of antiquity.
He noticed, as he walked along the front of the house from the main
entrance to the side-door, that the entire range of windows on the
ground floor had their shutters fastened, and those of the upper floor
their blinds drawn down. His heart chilled for a moment as the thought
struck him that some one might perhaps be lying dead inside the house.
But then he reflected that he should surely have heard such a thing
spoken of at the village inn, where he had slept last night. Was it
not, rather, that the house had always the same shut-up look that it
wore to-day?
Conroy knocked at the side-door, a heavy door also, and was answered
by the loud barking of a dog. After waiting for what seemed an
intolerable time, he heard footsteps in the distance, which slowly
drew nearer. The door was unbolted, and opened as far as the chain
inside would permit. Through this opening peered forth the crabbed,
wizened face of an old man--of a man with a pointed chin, and a long
nose, and eyes that were full of suspicion and ill-humour.
"And what may be your business at Heron Dyke?" he demanded, in a
harsh, querulous voice, after a look that took in the stranger from
head to foot.
"Be good enough to give this card to Mr. Denison, and if he can spare
two minutes----"
"He won't see any strangers without he knows their business first,"
interrupted the old man brusquely, as he turned the card to the light
that was streaming through the open doorway into the dim corridor in
which he stood, and read the name printed on it. "Never heard of you
before," he added. "Maybe you are a spy--a mean, dastardly spy," he
continued, after a pause, still eyeing the young man suspiciously from
under his thick white eyebrows.
"A spy! No, I am not a spy. Have you any spies in these parts?"
"Lots of them."
"And what do they come to spy out?"
"That's none of your business, sir, so long as you're not one--though
that has to be proved," answered the crusty old man, as he went away
with the card, leaving Conroy outside.
He turned, and began to pace the gravelled pathway in front of the
door.
"Is my sweet princess here, I wonder, and shall I succeed in
seeing her?" he said to himself. "Very like a wild-goose chase, this
errand of mine. To see her once in London for a couple of hours--to
fall in love with her then and there--to come racing down to this
out-of-the-world spot, weeks afterwards, on the bare possibility of
seeing her again--when she probably remembers no more of me than she
does of any other indifferent stranger--what can that be but the act
of a----"
Light footsteps were coming swiftly down the stone corridor. Conroy's
face flushed, and a strange eager light leapt into his eyes. There was
a rustle of garments, then the heavy chain dropped, the door swung
wide on its hinges, and Ella Winter stood revealed to Conroy's happy
gaze.
His card was in her hand. She glanced from it to his face, and, a
momentary blush mounting to her cheek, she advanced a step or two, and
held out her hand.
"Mr. Conroy," she said, "I have not forgotten your sketches. Or you
either," she added, as if by an after-thought, a smile playing round
her lips by this time, coming and going like spring sunshine.
She led the way in, and he followed. The long, flagged corridor, with
its dim light, struck him with a chill, after coming out of the bright
air. Ella entered a small, oak-panelled room, plainly and heavily
furnished, and invited Mr. Conroy to sit down.
"We live mostly at the back of the house," she observed. "My uncle
prefers the rooms to those in front."
"It is a grand old house," answered Conroy. "And what might it not be
made!" he added to himself.
"You received your portfolio of sketches back safely, Mr. Conroy, I
hope. My aunt left them at your address that day when we went out for
our drive."
"Did you indeed leave them? Were you so good?"
"Sketches such as those are too valuable to be trusted to the chance
of loss," said Ella.
"I was so very sorry not to call again on Mrs. Carlyon, as I had
promised," he continued, "but the next day but one I had to leave
town. I wonder what she thought of me?"
"I don't think she thought at all," replied Ella, ingenuously--"though
she would, I am sure, have been glad to see you. Aunt Gertrude was too
full of her loss in those days to notice who visited her. On the
evening of the party she lost her jewels."
"Lost her jewels!" exclaimed Conroy. "Do you mean those she wore?"
"No, no. Her casket of jewels was stolen from her dressing-room. Some
of them were very valuable. The case was left on her dressing-table,
and it disappeared during the evening."
"Was the case itself stolen?"
"We thought so that night, but the next morning, when the housemaids
were sweeping her boudoir--the room in which we looked at your
sketches, if you remember--they found the case on the floor,
ingeniously hidden behind the window-curtain."
"Empty?"
"Oh, of course. The thief had taken the contents and left the case.
Aunt Gertrude can hear nothing of them."
"I hope and trust she will find them," was Mr. Conroy's warm answer.
And then he went on, after a perceptible pause: "I think you know
already, Miss Winter, that I am connected with the Press. The world
being quiet just now, my employers, having nothing better for me to
do, have found a very peaceful mission for me for the time being. They
have sent me into this part of the country to take sketches of
different old mansions and family seats, and I am here to-day to seek
Mr. Denison's permission to make a couple of drawings of Heron Dyke."
Ella hesitated for a moment or two, toying nervously with Conroy's
card, which she still held. Then she spoke:
"My uncle is a confirmed invalid, Mr. Conroy, and very much of a
recluse. Strangers, or indeed acquaintances whom he has not met for a
long time, are unwelcome to him, even when there is no need for him to
see them personally. Whether he will see you, or grant you the
permission you ask for, without seeing you, is more than I can tell. I
will, however, try my best to induce him to do so."
"Thank you very much," said Conroy. "I certainly should like to take
some sketches of this old house: but, rather than put Mr. Denison out
of the way, or cause the slightest annoyance in the matter, I will
forego----"
"Certainly not," Ella hastily interrupted: "at least, until I have
spoken to my uncle. If he would but see you it might rouse him from
the lethargy that seems to be gradually creeping over him, and would
do him good. To receive more visitors would be so much better for him!
You will excuse me for a few minutes, will you not?"
"What a life for this fair young creature to lead!" Conroy said to
himself as soon as she was gone. "To be shut up in this gloomy old
house with a querulous hypochondriac who suspects an enemy in every
stranger and dreads he knows not what; but it seems to me that women
can endure things that would drive a man crazy. Would that I were the
knight to rescue her from this wizard's grasp, and take her out into
the sweet sunlight!"
He stood gazing out of the window, tapping the panes lightly with his
fingers and smiling to himself, lost in dreams.
"My uncle will see you," said Ella, as she re-entered the room.
"Thank you for your kind intervention."
"He is in one of his more gracious moods to-day; but you must be
careful not to contradict him if you wish to obtain his sanction to
what you require. And now I will show you to his room."
After traversing two or three flagged passages, Conroy was ushered
into a room which might have been an enlarged copy of the one he had
just left. It was the same room in which Captain Lennox's interview
took place on the night of his return from London. Aaron Stone was
coming out as Conroy went in. The old man greeted him with a queer,
sour look, and some uncomplimentary remark, muttered to himself. Then
he went out, and banged the heavy door noisily behind him.
"S--s--s--s! That confounded door again!" exclaimed a rasping,
high-pitched voice from behind the screen at the farther end of the
room. "Will that old rapscallion never remember that I have nerves?
Ah--ha! if I could but cuff him as I used to do!" added the Squire,
breaking off with a fit of coughing.
Ella held up a warning finger, and waited without moving till all was
quiet again. She then glided across the polished, uncarpeted floor,
and passed in front of the screen. Conroy waited in the background.
"I have brought Mr. Conroy to see you, Uncle Gilbert--the gentleman
who wants to take some sketches of the Hall," said Ella, in tones a
little louder than ordinary.
"And who gave you leave, young lady, to introduce any strangers here?
You know--"
"You yourself gave me leave, uncle, not many minutes ago," she quietly
interposed. "You said that you would see Mr. Conroy."
"Did I, child?"
"Certainly you did."
"Then my memory must be failing me faster than I thought it was." Here
came a deep sigh, followed by a moment or two of silence. "You are
right, Ella. I remember it now. Let us see what this bold intruder is
like."
Conroy stepped forward in front of the screen, and saw before him the
Master of Heron Dyke. He looked to-day precisely as he had looked that
evening, now several weeks ago, when Captain Lennox called at the
Hall. It might be that his face was a little thinner and more worn,
but that was the only difference.
"So! You are the young jackanapes who wants to sketch my house--eh?"
said Mr. Denison, as he peered into Conroy's face with eager,
suspicious eyes. "How do I know that you are not a spy--a vile spy?"
He ground out the last word from beneath his teeth, and craned his
long neck forward so as to bring it closer to Conroy's face.
"Do I look like a spy, sir?" asked Conroy calmly, as he went a pace
nearer to the old man's chair.
"What have looks to do with it? There's many a false heart beneath a
fair-seeming face. Aye, many--many." He spoke the last words as if to
himself, and when he had ended he sat staring out of the window like
one who had become suddenly oblivious of everything around him. His
lips moved, but no sound came from them.
Mr. Denison's reverie was broken by the entrance of Aaron with letters
and newspapers. Then the Squire turned to Conroy. "So you're not a
spy, eh? Well, I don't know that you look like one. But pray what can
there be about a musty tumble-down old house, like this, that you
should want to make a sketch of it?"
"The Denisons are one of the oldest families in Norfolk. Surely, sir,
some account of the home of such a family would interest many people."
"And how come you to know so much about the Denisons?" shrewdly asked
the Squire. "But sit down. It worries me to see people standing at my
elbow."
"Such knowledge is a part of my stock-in-trade," said Conroy, as he
took a chair. "I have not only to make the sketches, but to tell the
public all about them. Both in Burke and the 'County History' I have
found many interesting particulars of the old family whose home is at
Heron Dyke."
"So--so! And pray, young sir, what other houses in the county have you
sketched before you found your way here?"
"None; I have come to you, sir, before going anywhere else."
"Well said, young man. The county can boast of finer houses by the
score, but what are the families who live in them? Mushrooms--mere
mushrooms in comparison with the Denisons. We might have been ennobled
centuries ago had we chosen to accept a title. But the Denisons always
thought themselves above such gewgaws."
"Was it not to the same purport, sir, that Colonel Denison answered
James the Second when his Majesty offered him a patent of nobility on
the eve of the Battle of the Boyne?"
"Ah--ha! your reading has been to some purpose," said the old man,
with a dry chuckle. "That's the colonel's portrait over there in the
left-hand corner. They used to tell me that I was something like him
when I was a young spark."
Evidently he was pleased. He rubbed his lean, chilly fingers together,
and fell into another reverie. Conroy glanced round. Ella was sitting
at her little work-table busy with her crewels. What a sweet picture
she made in the young man's eyes as she sat there in her grey dress,
with the rich coils of her chestnut hair bound closely round her head,
and an agate locket set in gold suspended from her neck by a ribbon,
in which was a portrait of her dead mother. Not knowing that Conroy
was gazing at her, her eyes glanced up from her work and encountered
his. Next moment the long lashes hid them again, but the sweet
carnation in her cheeks betrayed that she had been taken unawares.
Then Gilbert Denison spoke again. "There's something about you, young
man," he said, "that seems to wake in my mind an echo of certain old
memories which I thought were dead and buried for ever. Whether it's
in your voice, or your eyes, or in the way you carry your head, or in
all of them together, I don't know. Very likely what I mean exists
only in my own imagination: I sometimes think I'm getting into my
dotage. What do you say your name is?" he asked abruptly.
"Conroy, sir. Edward Conroy."
Mr. Denison shook his head. "I never knew any family of that name."
"The Conroys have been settled in North Devon for the last three
hundred years."
"Never heard of 'em. But that's no matter. As I said before, there's
something about you that comes home to me and that I like, though I'll
be hanged if I know what it is, and I've no doubt I'm an old simpleton
for telling you as much. Anyhow, you may take what sketches of the
place you like. You have my free permission for that. And if you're
not above dining off boiled mutton--we are plain folk here now--you
may find your way back to this room at five sharp, and there will be a
knife and fork ready for you. Why not?"
The interview was over. Ella conducted Conroy into another room, and
then rang the bell. "There must be some magic about you," she said,
with a smile, "to have charmed my uncle as you have. You don't know
what a rarity it is for him to see a fresh face at Heron Dyke."
Aaron Stone answered the bell, Ella gave Conroy into his charge, with
instructions to show him all that there was to be seen, and to allow
him to sketch whatever he might choose. The old man received this with
a bad grace. He had become so thoroughly imbued with the fear of spies
and what they might do, that no courtesy was left in him. Growling
something under his breath about strangers on a Friday always bringing
ill-luck, he limped away to fetch his bunch of keys.
"What a capital subject for an etching," thought Conroy, as he looked
after the old man.
When five o'clock struck, Conroy shut up his sketch-book and retraced
his way to Mr. Denison's room. The dinner was almost as homely as the
host had divined that it would be. But if the viands were plain, the
wine was super-excellent, and as Conroy could see that he was expected
to praise it, he did not fail to do so. A basin of soup, followed by a
little jelly and a glass of Madeira, formed Mr. Denison's dinner. His
bodily weakness was evidently very great. It seemed to Conroy that the
man was upheld and sustained more by his indomitable energy of will
than by any physical strength he might be possessed of. "Heron Dyke
will want a new master before long," was Conroy's unspoken thought, as
he looked at the long-drawn, cadaverous face before him.
Ella would have left the room when the cloth was drawn, but her uncle
bade her stay; for which Conroy thanked him inwardly. The young
artist quickly found that if the evening were not to languish, perhaps
end in failure, he must do the brunt of the talking himself. Mr.
Denison was no great talker at the best of times, and Ella, from some
cause or another, was more reserved than usual; so Conroy plunged off
at a tangent, and did his best to interest his hearers with an account
of his experiences in Paris during the disastrous days of the Commune.
As Desdemona of old was thrilled by the story of Othello's adventures,
so was Ella thrilled this evening. Even Mr. Denison grew interested,
and for once let his mind wander for a little while from his own
interests and his own concerns.
As they sat thus, the September evening slowly darkened. The candles
were never lighted till the last moment. Conroy sat facing the windows
which opened into the private garden at the back of the Hall. The
boundary of this garden was an ivy-covered wall about six feet high. A
low-browed door in one corner gave access to the kitchen-garden,
beyond which was the orchard, and last of all a wide stretch of park.
There were flowers in the borders round the garden wall, but opposite
the windows grew two large yews, whose sombre foliage clouded much of
the light that would otherwise have crept in through the diamond-paned
windows, and made more gloomy still an apartment which, even on the
brightest of summer days, never looked anything but cheerless and
cold. On this overcast September eve the yew-trees outside blackened
slowly, and seemed to draw the darkness down from the sky. Aaron came
in at last with candles, and while he was disposing them Conroy rose,
crossed to one of the windows, and stood looking out into the garden.
It was almost dark by this time. While looking thus, he suddenly saw
the figure of a man emerge from behind one of the yews, stare intently
into the room for a moment, and then vanish behind the other yew.
Conroy was startled. Was there, then, really truth in the Squire's
assertion that spies were continually hovering round the Hall? Somehow
he had deemed it nothing more than the hallucination of a sick man's
fancy.
With what object could spies come to Heron Dyke? It was a mystery that
puzzled Conroy. He crossed over to Ella and told her in a low voice
what he had seen. She looked up with a startled expression in her
eyes.
"Don't say a word about it to my uncle," she whispered. "It would only
worry him, and could do no good. Both he and Aaron often assert that
they see strange people lurking about the house; but I myself have
never seen anyone."
The Squire began to talk again, and nothing more passed. When Conroy
rose to take his leave, his host held his hand and spoke to him
cordially.
"You will be in the neighbourhood for some days, you tell us, Mr.
Conroy. If you have nothing better to do on Tuesday than spend a few
hours with a half-doited old man and a country lassie, try and find
your way here again. Eh, now?"
This, nothing loth, Conroy promised to do; the more so as Ella's
needle was suspended in mid-air for a moment while she waited to hear
his answer. Conroy's eyes met hers for an instant as she gave him her
hand at parting, but she was on her guard this time, and nothing was
to be read there.
He had not gone many steps from the house when there was a rustle
amidst the trees he was passing; and a young and well-dressed man, so
far as Mr. Conroy could see, who had been apparently peering through
an opening in the trees, walked quickly away.
"He was watching the house," said Mr. Conroy to himself. "One of the
spies, I suppose. What on earth is it that they want to find out?"
Dull enough felt Ella after Conroy's departure.
"I'll get a book," she said, shaking off her thoughts, which had
turned on the man Conroy had seen behind the yew-tree: and she went to
a distant room in search of one. Coming back with it, she saw the two
housemaids, Martha and Ann, standing at the foot of the stairs which
led up to the north wing. One of them held a candle, the other clung
to her arm; both their faces were wearing an unmistakable look of
terror.
"What is the matter?" she asked, going towards them.
"We've just heard something, Miss Ella," whispered Ann. "One of the
bedroom-doors up there has just shut with a loud bang."
"And it sounded like the door of _her_ room," spoke the other from her
pale and frightened lips. "Miss Ella, I am _sure_ it was."
"The door of whose room?" asked Miss Winter sharply, her own heart
beating fast.
"Of Katherine's," answered both the maids together.
For a moment Ella could not command herself.
"What business had you in this part of the house at all?" she
questioned, after a pause.
"Mrs. Stone sent us after her spectacles," explained Ann. "She left
them in your sitting-room, ma'am, when she was up there seeing to the
curtains this afternoon. She sent us, Miss Ella; she'd not go up
herself at dark for the world."
"Did she send both of you?" was the almost sarcastic question.
"Ma'am, she knows neither one of us would dare to go alone."
"You are a pair of silly, superstitious girls," rebuked Miss Winter.
"What is there in the north wing to frighten you, more than in any
other part of the house? I am surprised at you; at you, Ann,
especially, knowing as I do how sensibly your mother brought you up."
"I can't help the feeling, miss, though I do strive against it," said
Ann, with a half sob. "I know it's wrong, but I can't help myself
turning cold when I have to come into this part of the house after
dark."
"We hear noises in the north wing as we don't hear elsewhere," said
Martha, shivering. "Miss Ella, it is true--if anything ever was true
in this world. It was the door of her room we heard just now--loud
enough too. Just as if the wind had blown it to, or as if somebody had
shut it in a temper."
"There is hardly enough wind this evening to stir a leaf," reproved
their young mistress. "And you know that every door in the north wing
is locked outside, except that of my sitting-room."
"No, Miss Ella, there's not enough wind, and the doors is locked, as
you say; but we heard one of 'em bang, for all that, and it sounded
like her door," answered Martha, with respectful persistency.
Ella looked at the young women. Could she cure them of this foolish
fear, she asked herself--or, at least, soften it?
"Come with me, both of you," she said, taking the candle into her
hand, and leading the way up the great oaken staircase.
Clinging to each other, the servants followed. This, the north wing,
was the oldest part of the house. Here and there a stair creaked
beneath their footsteps; at every corner there were fantastic shadows,
that seemed to lie in wait and then spring suddenly out. The squeaking
of a mouse and the pattering of light feet behind the wainscot made
the girls start and tremble; but Ella held lightly on her way till the
corridor that ran along the whole length of the upper floor of the
wing was reached. Into this corridor some dozen rooms opened. Here
Ella halted for a moment, and held the candle aloft.
"You shall see for yourselves that it could not be any of these doors
you heard. We will examine them one by one."
One after another, the doors were tried by Miss Winter. Each door was
found to be locked, its key on the outside. When she reached Number
Nine, she drew in her breath, and paused for a moment before turning
the handle: perhaps she did not like that room more than the girls
did. It was the room they had called "her room." But Number Nine was
locked as the others were locked, and Ella passed on.
When all the doors had been tried, Ella turned to the servants.
"You see now that you must have been mistaken," she said, speaking
very gravely; but in their own minds neither Martha nor Ann would have
admitted anything of the kind.
Ella saw that they were not satisfied. Leading the way back to Number
Nine, she turned the key, opened the door, and went in. The two girls
ventured no farther than the threshold. The room contained the
ordinary adjuncts of a bed-chamber, and of one apparently in use.
Across a chair hung a servant's muslin apron, on the chest of drawers
lay a servant's cap, a linen collar, and a lavender neck-ribbon.
Simple articles all, yet the two housemaids shuddered when their eyes
fell on them. In a little vase on the chimney-piece were a few
withered flowers--violets and snowdrops. The oval looking-glass on the
dressing-table was festooned with muslin, tied with bows of pink
ribbon. But Ella, as she held the candle aloft and gazed round the
room, saw something to-night that she had never noticed before. The
bows of ribbon had been untied, and the muslin drawn across the face
of the glass so as completely to cover it.
Ella had been in the room some weeks ago, and she felt sure that the
looking-glass was not covered then, It must have been done since; but
by whom, and why? That none of the servants would enter the room of
their own accord she knew quite well: yet whose fingers, save those of
a servant, could have done it? Despite her resolution to be calm, her
heart chilled as she asked herself these questions, and her eyes
wandered involuntarily to the bed, as though half expecting to see
there the dread outlines of a form that was still for ever. The same
idea struck the two girls.
"Look at that glass!" cried the one to the other, in a half-whisper.
"It is covered up as if there had been a death in the room."
Ella could bear no more. Motioning the servants from the room, she
passed out herself and relocked the door. But this time she took the
key with her instead of leaving it in the lock.
"You see there is nothing to be afraid of," she said to the girls, as
she gave them back the candle at the foot of the stairs. "Do not be so
foolish again."
But Ella Winter was herself more perplexed and shaken than she allowed
to appear, or would have cared to admit.