Produced by Charles Bowen from page scans provided by the
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at Urbana-Champaign)
Transcriber's Notes:
1. Page scan source: The Internet Archive
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(Library of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
UNDER LOCK AND KEY.
---------
VOL. I.
UNDER LOCK AND KEY.
A Story.
BY
T. W. SPEIGHT,
AUTHOR OF "BROUGHT TO LIGHT," "FOOLISH MARGARET,"
ETC.
IN THREE VOLUMES,
VOL. I.
LONDON:
TINSLEY BROTHERS, 18, CATHERINE STREET, STRAND,
1869.
[_All rights of Translation and Reproduction are reserved_.]
LONDON:
SAVILL, EDWARDS AND CO., PRINTERS, CHANDOS STREET,
COVENT GARDEN.
In justice to himself the author thinks it requisite to state that the
entire plan of this story was sketched out, and several of the
chapters written, before the first lines of Mr. Wilkie Collins's
"Moonstone" had been given to the Public.
He has further denied himself the pleasure of reading "The Moonstone"
till after the completion of his own story, so as to preclude any
possible charge of having derived the outline of his plot from the
work of another writer.
London, _February_, 1869.
CONTENTS
OF
THE FIRST VOLUME.
CHAP.
I. MY ARRIVAL AT DUPLEY WALLS.
II. THE MISTRESS OF DUPLEY WALLS.
III. A VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY.
IV. SCARSDALE WEIR.
V. AT ROSE COTTAGE.
VI. THE GROWTH OF A MYSTERY.
VII. EXIT JANET HOLME.
VIII. BY THE SCOTCH EXPRESS.
IX. AT THE "GOLDEN GRIFFIN."
X. THE STOLEN MANUSCRIPT.
XI. BON REPOS.
XII. THE AMSTERDAM EDITION OF 1698.
XIII. M. PLATZOFF'S SECRET--CAPTAIN DUCIE'S
TRANSLATION OF M. PAUL PLATZOFF'S MS.
XIV. DRASHKIL-SMOKING.
XV. THE DIAMOND.
XVI. JANET'S RETURN.
XVII. DUPLEY WALLS AFTER SEVEN YEARS.
UNDER LOCK AND KEY.
CHAPTER I.
MY ARRIVAL AT DUPLEY WALLS.
"Miss JANET HOLME,
To the care of Lady Pollexfen,
Dupley Walls, near Tydsbury,
Midlandshire."
"There, miss, I'm sure that will do famously," said Chirper, the
overworked oldish young person whose duty it was to attend to the
innumerable wants of the young-lady boarders of Park Hill Seminary.
She had just written out, in a large sprawling hand, a card as above,
which card was presently to be nailed on to the one small box that
held the whole of my worldly belongings.
"And I think, miss," added Chirper, meditatively, as she held out the
card at arm's length and gazed at it admiringly, "that if I was to
write out another card similar, and tie it round your arm, it would
mayhap help you in getting safe to your journey's end."
I, a girl of twelve, was the Janet Holme indicated above, and I had
been looking over Chirper's shoulder with wondering eyes while she
addressed the card. "But who is Lady Pollexfen, and where is Dupley
Walls? and what have I to do with either, Chirper, please?" I asked.
"If there is one thing in little girls more hateful than another, it
is curiosity," answered Chirper, with her mouth half full of nails.
"Curiosity has been the bane of many of our sex. Witness Bluebeard's
unhappy wife. If you want to know more, you must ask Mrs. Whitehead. I
have my instructions, and I acts on them."
Meeting Mrs. Whitehead half an hour later as she was coming down the
stone corridor that led from the refectory, I did ask that lady
precisely the same questions that I had put to Chirper. Her frosty
glance, filled with a cold surprise, smote me even through her
spectacles, and I shrank a little, abashed at my own boldness.
"The habit of asking questions elsewhere than in the class-room should
not be encouraged in young ladies," said Mrs. Whitehead, with a sort
of prim severity. "The other young ladies are gone home; you are about
to follow their example."
"But, Mrs. Whitehead--Madam," I pleaded, "I never had any other home
than Park Hill."
"More questioning, Miss Holme? Fie! Fie!" And with a lean forefinger
uplifted in menacing reproval, Mrs. Whitehead sailed on her way, nor
deigned me another word.
I stole out into the playground, wondering, wretched, and yet smitten
through with faint delicious thrillings of a new-found happiness such,
as I had often dreamed of, but had scarcely dared hope ever to
realize. I, Janet Holme, going home! It was almost too incredible for
belief. I wandered about like one mazed--like one who stepping
suddenly out of darkness into sunshine is dazzled by an intolerable
brightness whichever way he turns his eyes. And yet I was wretched:
for was not Miss Chinfeather dead? And that, too, was a fact almost
too incredible for belief.
As I wandered, this autumn morning, up and down the solitary
playground, I went back in memory as far as memory would carry me, but
only to find that Miss Chinfeather and Park Hill Seminary blocked up
the way. Beyond them lay darkness and mystery. Any events in my
child's life that might have happened before my arrival at Park Hill
had for me no authentic existence. I had been part and parcel of Miss
Chinfeather and the Seminary for so long a time that I could not
dissociate myself from them even in thought. Other pupils had had
holidays, and letters, and presents, and dear ones at home of whom
they often talked; but for me there had been none of these things. I
knew that I had been placed at Park Hill when a very little girl by
some, to me, mysterious and unknown person, but further than that I
knew nothing. The mistress of Park Hill had not treated me in any way
differently from her other pupils; but had not the bills contracted on
my account been punctually paid by somebody, I am afraid that the
even-handed justice on which she prided herself--which, in conjunction
with her aquiline nose and a certain antique severity of deportment,
caused her to be known among us girls as _The Roman Matron_--would
have been somewhat ruffled, and that sentence of expulsion from those
classic walls would have been promptly pronounced and as promptly
carried into effect.
Happily no such necessity had ever arisen; and now the Roman Matron
lay dead in the little corner room on the second floor, and had done
with pupils, and half-yearly accounts, and antique deportment, for
ever.
In losing Miss Chinfeather I felt as though the corner-stone of my
life had been rent away. She was too cold, she was altogether too far
removed for me to regard her with love, or even with that modified
feeling which we call affection. But then no such demonstration was
looked for by Miss Chinfeather. It was a weakness above which she rose
superior. But if my child's love was a gift which she would have
despised, she looked for and claimed my obedience--the resignation of
my will to hers, the absorption of my individuality in her own, the
gradual elimination from my life of all its colour and freshness. She
strove earnestly, and with infinite patience, to change me from a
dreamy, passionate child--a child full of strange wild moods,
capricious, and yet easily touched either to laughter or tears--into a
prim and elegant young lady, colourless and formal, and of the most
orthodox boarding-school pattern; and if she did not quite succeed in
the attempt; the fault, such as it was, must be set down to my
obstinate disposition and not to any lack of effort on the part of
Miss Chinfeather. And now this powerful influence had vanished from my
life, from the world itself, as swiftly and silently as a snowflake in
the sun. The grasp of the hard but not unkindly hand, that had held me
so firmly in the narrow groove in which it wished me to move, had been
suddenly relaxed, and everything around me seemed tottering to its
fall. Three nights ago Miss Chinfeather had retired to rest, as well,
to all appearance, and as cheerful as ever she had been; next morning
she had been found dead in bed. This was what they told us pupils; but
so great was the awe in which I held the mistress of Park Hill
Seminary that I could not conceive of Death even as venturing to
behave disrespectfully towards her. I pictured him in my girlish fancy
as knocking at her chamber door in the middle of the night, and after
apologizing for the interruption, asking whether she was ready to
accompany him. Then would she who was thus addressed arise, and wrap
an ample robe about her, and place her hand with solemn sweetness in
that of the Great Captain, and the two would pass out together into
the starlit night, and Miss Chinfeather would be seen of mortal eyes
nevermore.
Such was the picture that had haunted my brain for two days and as
many nights, while I wandered forlorn through house and playground or
lay awake on my little bed. I had said farewell to one pupil after
another till all were gone, and the riddle which I had been putting to
myself continually for the last forty-eight hours had now been solved
for me by Mrs. Whitehead, and had been told that I too was going home.
"To the care of Lady Pollexfen, Dupley Walls, Midlandshire." The words
repeated themselves again and again in my brain, and became a greater
puzzle with every repetition. I had never to my knowledge heard of
either the person or the place. I knew nothing of one or the other. I
only knew that my heart thrilled strangely at the mention of the word
_Home;_ that unbidden tears started to my eyes at the thought that
perhaps--only perhaps--in that as yet unknown place there might be
some one who would love me just a little. "Father--Mother." I spoke
the words, but they sounded unreal to me, and as if uttered by
another. I spoke them again, holding out my arms, and crying aloud.
All my heart seemed to go out in the cry, but only the hollow winds
answered me as they piped mournfully through the yellowing leaves, a
throng of which went rustling down the walk as though stirred by the
footsteps of a ghost. Then my eyes grew blind with tears, and I wept
silently for a time as if my heart would break.
But tears were a forbidden luxury at Park Hill, and when, a little
later on, I heard Chirper calling me by name, I made haste to dry my
eyes and compose my features. She scanned me narrowly as I ran up to
her. "You dear, soft-hearted little thing!" she said. And with that
she stooped suddenly and gave me a hearty kiss that might have been
heard a dozen yards away. I was about to fling my arms round her neck,
but she stopped me, saying, "That will do, dear. Mrs. Whitehead is
waiting for us at the door."
Mrs. Whitehead was watching us through the glass door which led into
the playground. "The coach will be here in half an hour, Miss Holme,"
she said; "so that you have not much time for your preparations."
I stood like one stunned for a moment or two. Then I said, "If you
please, Mrs. Whitehead, may I see Miss Chinfeather before I go?"
Her thin, straight lips quivered slightly, but in her eyes I read only
cold disapproval of my request. "Really," she said, "what a singular
child you must be. I scarcely know what to say."
"Oh, if you please, Mrs. Whitehead!" I urged. "Miss Chinfeather was
always kind to me. I remember her as long as I can remember anything.
To see her once more--for the last time. It would seem to me cruel to
go away without."
"Follow me," she said, almost in a whisper. So I followed her softly
upstairs into the little corner room where Miss Chinfeather lay in
white and solemn state, grandly indifferent to all mundane matters. As
I gazed, it seemed but an hour ago since I had heard those still lips
conjugating the verb _mourir_ for the behoof of poor ignorant me, and
the words came back to me, and I could not help repeating them to
myself as I looked: _Je meurs_, _tu meurs_, &c.
I bent over and kissed the marble-cold forehead, and said farewell in
my heart, and went downstairs without a word.
Half an hour later the district coach, a splendid vision, pulled up
impetuously at the gates. I was ready to the moment. Mrs. Whitehead's
frosty fingers touched mine for an instant; she imprinted a chill kiss
on my check, and looked relieved. "Good-bye, my dear Miss Holme, and
God bless you," she said. "Strive to bear in mind through after life
the lessons that have been instilled into you at Park Hill Seminary.
Present my respectful compliments to Lady Pollexfen, and do not forget
your catechism."
At this point the guard sounded an impatient summons on his bugle;
Chirper picked up my box, seized me by the hand, and hurried with me
to the coach. My luggage found a place on the roof; I was
unceremoniously bundled inside; Chirper gave me another of her hearty
kisses, and pressed a crooked sixpence into my hand "for luck," as she
whispered. I am sure there was a real tear in her eye as she did so.
Next moment we were off.
I kept my eyes fixed on the Seminary as long as it remained in view,
especially on the little corner room. It seemed to me that I must be a
very wicked girl indeed, because I felt no real sorrow at quitting the
place that had been my home for so many years. I could not feel
anything but secretly glad, but furtively happy with a happiness which
I felt ashamed of acknowledging even to myself. Miss Chinfeather's
white and solemn face, as seen in her coffin, haunted my memory, but
even of her I thought only with a sort of chastened regret. She had
never touched my heart. There had been about her a bleakness of nature
that effectually chilled any tender buds of liking or affection that
might in the ordinary course of events have grown up and blossomed
round her life. Therefore, in my child's heart there was no lasting
sorrow for her death, no gracious memories of her that would stay with
me, and smell sweet, long after she herself should be dust.
My eight miles' ride by coach was soon over. It ended at the railway
station of the county town. The guard of the coach had, I suppose,
received his secret instructions. Almost before I knew what had
happened, I found myself in a first-class carriage, with a ticket for
Tydsbury in my hand, and committed to the care of another guard, he of
the railway, this time--a fiery-faced man, with immense red whiskers,
who came and surveyed me as though I were some contraband article, but
finished by nodding his head and saying with a smile, "I dessay we
shall be good friends, miss, before we get to the end of our journey."
It was my first journey by rail, and the novelty of it filled me with
wonder and delight. The train by which I travelled was a fast one, and
after my first feeling of fright at the rapidity of the motion had
merged into one of intense pleasure and exhilaration of mind, I could
afford to look back on my recent coach experience with a sort of
pitying superiority, as on a something that was altogether rococo and
out of date. Already the rush of new ideas into my mind was so
powerful that the old landmarks of my life seemed in danger of being
swept clean away. Already it seemed days instead of only a brief hour
or two since I had bidden Mrs. Whitehead farewell, and had taken my
last look at Park Hill Seminary.
The red-faced guard was as good as his word; he and I became famous
friends before I reached the end of my journey. At every station at
which we stopped he came to the window to see how I was getting on,
and whether I was in want of anything, and was altogether so kind to
me that I was quite sorry to part from him when the train reached
Tydsbury, and left me, a minute later, standing, a solitary waif, on
the little platform.
The one solitary fly of which the station could boast was laid under
contribution. My little box was tossed on to its roof; I myself was
shut up inside; the word was given, "To Dupley Walls;" the station was
left behind, and away we went, jolting and rumbling along the quiet
country lanes, and under overarching trees, all aglow just now with
autumn's swift-fading beauty. The afternoon was closing in, and the
wind was rising, sweeping up with melancholy soughs from the dim
wooded hollows where it had lain asleep till the sun went down;
garnering up the fallen leaves like a cunning miser, wherever it could
find a hiding-place for them, and then dying suddenly down, and
seeming to hold its breath as if listening for the footsteps of the
coming winter.
In the western sky hung a huge tumbled wrack of molten cloud like the
ruins of some vast temple of the gods of eld. Chasmed buttresses,
battlements overthrown; on the horizon a press of giants, shoulder
against shoulder, climbing slowly to the rescue; in mid-sky a praying
woman; farther afield a huge head, and a severed arm the fingers of
which were clenched in menace: all these things I saw, and a score
others, as the clouds changed from minute to minute in form and
brightness, while the stars began to glow out like clusters of silver
lilies in the eastern sky.
We kept jolting on for so long a time through the twilight lanes, and
the evening darkened so rapidly, that I began to grow frightened. It
was like being lifted out of a dungeon, when the old fly drew up with
a jerk, and a shout of "House there!" and when I looked out and saw
that we were close to the lodge entrance of some park.
Presently a woman, with a child in her arms, came out of the lodge and
proceeded to open the gate for us. Said the driver--"How's Tootlums
to-night?"
The woman shouted something in reply, but I don't think the old fellow
heard her.
"Ay, ay," he called out, "Tootlums will be a famous young shaver one
of these days," and with that he whipped up his horse, and away we
went.
The drive up the avenue, for such at the time I judged it to be, and
such it proved to be, did not occupy many minutes. The fly came to a
stand, and the driver got down and opened the door. "Now, young lady,
here you are," he said, and I found myself in front of the main
entrance to Dupley Walls.
It was too dark by this time for me to discern more than the merest
outline of the place. I saw that it was very large, and I noticed that
not even one of its hundred windows showed the least glimmer of light.
It loomed vast, dark, and silent, as if deserted by every living
thing.
The old driver gave a hearty pull at the bell, and the muffled clamour
reached me where I stood. I was quaking with fears and apprehensions
of that unknown future on whose threshold I was standing. Would Love
or Hate open for me the doors of Dupley Walls? I was strung to such a
pitch that it seemed impossible for any lesser passion to be
handmaiden to my needs.
What I saw when the massive door was at last opened was an aged woman,
dressed like a superior domestic, who, in sharp accents, demanded to
know what we meant by disturbing a quiet family in that unseemly way.
She was holding one hand over her eyes, and trying to make out our
appearance through the gathering darkness. I stepped close up to her.
"I am Miss Janet Holme, from Park Hill Seminary," I said, "and I wish
to speak with Lady Pollexfen."