AN UNEXPECTED MEETING
It was evident that Sir Gilbert Clare was very much put out by the
scene just enacted on the terrace. As soon as the last of the servants
had gone back indoors he re-entered the drawing-room, where Trant now
proceeded to light the centre lamp and the candles in the girandoles,
and resumed his seat by Lady Pell. Luigi and Ethel, at the opposite end
of the long room, were engaged in turning over a book of foreign
photographs. He was always glad to put as wide a space as possible
between his “grandfather” and himself, and she had tact enough to be
aware that after so untoward an interruption, the baronet might not be
in the humour for any more music.
“Now, who,” said Sir Gilbert, “can have put the notion into that silly
girl’s head about the so-called Grey Brother? (Of course _you_ know the
family legend, Louisa.) She has only been about half-a-year in my
service, and, if I remember aright, she came to us all the way from
Sussex.”
“But she did not mention the Grey Brother by name, did she?” queried
her ladyship. “As I understood her, what she said was, that when
opposite the drawing-room windows she was confronted by a tall, dark,
hooded figure—nothing more specific than that.”
“And what could such a description refer to, pray, except to the Grey
Brother? I suppose that in the servants’ hall such legends die hard,
and that any story, or incident which savours of the supernatural, is
handed down from one generation of domestics to another. If we could
get to the bottom of the affair, I have no doubt we should find that
this Sussex girl has had the legend recounted to her by somebody, and
that it so impressed her imagination that the first time she finds
herself alone in the grounds in the dusk of evening, she is prepared to
distort every queer-looking shrub or bush into a semblance of the
family apparition, and, indeed, would feel herself rather aggrieved
than otherwise should it fail to appear to her. You may rely upon it,
that girl Ogden will be the heroine of the servants’ hall for half a
year to come.”
“Still, it seems clear to me that she saw _something_. I never
witnessed a more genuine case of fright. But of course the question is
what that something was.”
“Had there been a moon, I should have said that what frightened her was
nothing more substantial than her own shadow. In all likelihood it was
a poacher, or a tramp, or some other vagabond who was prowling about
where he had no business to be. And that reminds me of something.”
He rose and rang the bell, and then to Trant, who responded to the
summons, he said: “Send for Bostock, and bid him and his man keep a
sharp lookout to-night. I have reason to suppose that there are one or
more bad characters lurking about the grounds.”
Bostock was the keeper who, some years before, had succeeded Martin
Rigg, the latter having been permanently disabled in a poaching affray.
Martin Rigg, it may be remembered, was the last to bid God-speed to
Alec Clare on that night when Sir Gilbert pronounced sentence of
banishment on his eldest son.
“I presume from what you said just now,” remarked Lady Pell when Trant
had come and gone, “that of late years you have not been troubled by
any of these visitations, or appearances, or whatever is the proper
term for them?”
“Not for twenty years, or more, so that I felt myself justified in
hoping that the Grey Brother had died a natural death and been buried
out of sight for ever. Now I come to think, it was a little while
before Alec left home—um—um—for the last time that we were bothered and
annoyed with quite a series of appearances, or what were said to be
such.”
“Ah, poor Alec—poor boy—what a fate was his!” exclaimed her ladyship
with a sigh. “The apparition has never manifested itself to you, Cousin
Gilbert?”
“Certainly not,” replied Sir Gilbert with emphasis. “Nor to my father
before me. My mother _fancied_ that she caught a glimpse of the figure
on several occasions, not outside the house where it is generally said
to be seen, but indoors, in the picture-gallery, or on the stairs, or
elsewhere; but she was an excitable woman—excitable in more ways than
one—and my father always pooh-poohed her statements of what she
professed to have seen as so many hallucinations, although, as a matter
of course, he wholly failed in converting her to his own point of
view.”
Next morning, on coming down to breakfast, Lady Pell found by her plate
a black-bordered letter bearing a French postmark. At sight of it she
exclaimed: “Then the poor child is dead! What a pity! And he was the
only grandson.”
Sir Gilbert, who was already seated at table, glanced inquiringly at
her.
“I think I told you,” she said in answer to the look, “that it was
originally my intention, after leaving the Shrublands, to have gone
direct to France, there to stay till well on for Christmas with a very
old friend of mine, indeed, the only one of my school companions whose
friendship I have retained till now. On the eve of starting I received
a letter from Julie in which she asked me, in consequence of her
grandson’s illness, to put off my visit till I should hear from her
again. It was merely a feverish cold, she wrote, and not the slightest
danger was apprehended. But this black-bordered missive, even before I
open it, tells me but too surely what has happened.”
She said no more, but opened the letter. Tears were in her eyes when
she laid it down a couple of minutes later. For awhile the meal
progressed in silence.
Sir Gilbert was the first to speak. “Am I right, Louisa, in supposing
that, owing to your friend’s loss, your visit to France will have to be
postponed indefinitely?” he asked.
“Postponed till spring undoubtedly. Madame de Bellecour presses me to
go after a week or two, but at such a time I should feel myself little
better than an intruder.”
“In that case there can be no valid reason why you should not prolong
your visit at the Chase, and give to us the time you originally
intended to devote to your friend in France.”
Lady Pell in the act of helping herself to sugar considered for a few
moments. Then she said: “Thank you for your offer, Cousin Gilbert. I
will think it over and let you know my decision later on.”
After breakfast Lady Pell went to her room to write some letters. At
such times, as Ethel was aware, she preferred to be alone. So, it being
one of those lovely autumn mornings which are among the choicest of the
year, Ethel put on her hat and quitted the house with the intention of
exploring the grounds, and making herself better acquainted with the
Chase and its surroundings.
What the uppermost subject in her thoughts was as she went sauntering
along, careless whether she took this path or the other, she was never
afterwards able to remember. All she knew was that she was softly
crooning a lately-learnt ballad which had taken her fancy, and that she
felt quietly and sunnily happy, when all at once, without an instant’s
warning, and unknown to herself; she touched the turning-point of her
destiny.
Ethel, who had stopped in her walk, in order to inhale the fragrance of
some late-blooming roses, hearing the sound of approaching footsteps on
the gravel, turned her head to see who was coming, and a moment later,
round a clump of evergreens, appeared the unforgotten face and figure
of Everard Lisle, who was on his way to his daily duties at the Chase.
The two were within a dozen yards of each other, and the moment Lisle’s
eyes fell on Ethel, he came to an abrupt halt, paralysed as it were by
sheer amazement. Ethel’s heart seemed to stop beating for an instant or
two, and then went on with a bound, while a lovely flush suffused her
face and throat, and seemed to tingle down to her very fingertips.
Everard, on the contrary, had turned almost as pale as a corpse.
Ordinarily one of the most self-possessed of men, he had now to draw
three or four laboured breaths before a word would come.
After all, it was Ethel who first broke the silence. She advanced a
little way and held out her hand with a smile which to Everard seemed
little less than heavenly. “And is it really you, Mr. Lisle?” she said.
“I could scarcely believe at first that my eyes were not playing me
false. Withington Chase was the place, was it not, to which you told me
you had come when—when I saw you last? But I only heard the name once,
and that must be my excuse for having forgotten it. In any case, I am
very glad to meet you again. It is only three weeks since I left dear
St. Oswyth’s, and yet when I look back it seems like an age.”
By this time Lisle had hold of her hand, which he seemed in no hurry to
release.
“Yes, this is my home, Miss Ethel, and has been ever since I left my
father’s roof. Not the Chase itself, mind you,” he smilingly added,
“but a much humbler domicile just beyond the park. Sir Gilbert and my
father were at the same college somewhere about half a century ago, so
when the former found himself in want of an assistant—a sort of half
secretary and half bailiff—he called to mind the fact that the man
whose good fortune it had been in years gone by to save his life, and
whom he had never quite lost sight of since, had a son, and offered him
the post. And now that I have told you so much about myself, allow me
to ask, in the name of all that’s wonderful, how I happen to find you
here?”
“Oh, there’s nothing in the least wonderful about that,” replied Ethel,
who by this time had regained possession of her hand. “I am here as
companion, for the time being, to Lady Pell, who is a relative of Sir
Gilbert. Of course you have heard that my dear aunts have lost the
greater part of their fortune and have been compelled to leave their
old home?” Everard nodded. “Well, through Lady Pell, my aunts obtained
a tenant for Vale View House in the person of her stepdaughter, and
that was how she and they became acquainted. Her companion being away
on account of illness, I am filling the position _pro tem_.”
“I hope Lady Pell intends making a long stay at the Chase.”
“She came, intending to stay only a couple of days, but, as the result
of a letter she received this morning, it seems not unlikely that her
visit will be prolonged.”
“With all my heart I hope it may,” said Everard. There was a fervour in
his voice, and a fire in his eyes, which brought back the glow to
Ethel’s cheeks and recalled, as though they related to an event of
yesterday, every word and look of Lisle at that interview on her
birthday, when he pleaded his suit with so much earnestness, but
pleaded in vain. Well, Everard Lisle was not like some people.
Her heart whispered to her: “He loves you still. You are as dear to him
at this moment as you ever were.”
She did not speak, but turned away her head and gazed across the park.
“And now I must leave you—for the present,” said Everard. “I have my
morning’s work to attend to, and Sir Gilbert likes punctuality in
others if he does not always practise it himself. I often lunch and
dine at the Chase. Let us hope that the presence of Lady Pell will not
have the effect of depriving me of a privilege which I never valued so
highly as I do at this moment.”
He smiled, lifted his hat, and went his way.