Miss Neva Wynde, on finding herself confronted by Artress at the very
door of Mr. Black’s wild Highland retreat, comprehended in one swift
flash that she had been betrayed by her enemies, and caught in a snare,
as we have said--that, in short, she was virtually their prisoner.
But after her first wild start of amazement, after the first wild
glance at her enemies, she sternly repressed all signs of terror or
surprise, and although her pure, proud face was paler than usual, yet
she did not otherwise betray her fears.
“Mrs. Artress here!” she said. “This is a surprise. You said, Mrs.
Black, that she was staying with friends in London, did you not?”
An evil smile played about the full sensual lips of Octavia Black, and
she looked at Neva keenly as she answered, with affected carelessness:
“I did say so, I believe. But I intended to surprise you. You are so
fond of Mrs. Artress, Neva, that I wished her to be of our party. I am
glad you are so pleased.”
Neva did not reply, but she drew up her slight figure with a sudden
haughtiness, and her pale, proud face wore an expression of sternness
before which Mrs. Black ought to have quailed. But Octavia only
laughed, and as Neva thought, mockingly.
“Come into the drawing-room, good people,” cried Mrs. Artress. “I have
made the house habitable, and I want you to compliment me upon my
handiwork.”
Mrs. Black went into the room, and Neva followed her, Craven Black
coming last like a body-guard. Neva had an uncomfortable feeling that
she was already a prisoner.
The drawing-room at the Wilderness was a long barrack-like apartment,
with bare white walls, upon which were hung a few engravings. The
furniture was old, but well kept, being a combination of mahogany and
black haircloth. The six windows were curtained with faded damask of
the color of mahogany, and an old book-case, containing a few old and
worn volumes, completed the list of furniture.
“It’s a perfect old barrack, Craven!” said Mrs. Black, with a shudder.
“But I suppose it must be fearfully difficult to get furniture and such
things up the cliff. However, if we make a shooting box of this place,
decent furniture and pictures and things have got to be brought here.
This room is like a draughty old barn.”
“So is the whole house,” said Mrs. Artress. “But the place is so
delightfully romantic, and secluded and hidden, you know, that one can
put up with drawbacks. I have had my hands full, I assure you, since I
arrived here. How do you like the Wilderness, Miss Wynde?”
“It is romantic and secluded, as you say, Mrs. Artress,” answered Neva
quietly, yet with a shade of hauteur. “Have you been here long?”
“I came direct from Hawkhurst, stopping only a day in London,” said
Mrs. Artress. “I came by rail to Inverness, and there I chartered a
fishing smack and loaded her with provisions and furniture, and bed and
table-linen, and whatever else I fancied we were likely to need during
our stay here. I had visited the Wilderness once when I was a girl, and
knew about what we should require. I came on, sent away the sloop, and
put the house in order. I have two women servants in the house, of the
stolidest possible description. You will find it next to impossible to
make them comprehend your soft southern tongue, Miss Wynde.”
Neva wondered if the last sentence contained a hidden meaning.
“It is September at Hawkhurst,” continued Mrs. Artress, with a shiver,
“but here one might swear it was January, the mountain air is so cold.
Will you go up to your rooms?”
“Yes,” responded Mrs. Black. “When do we dine?”
Mrs. Artress consulted a tiny jewelled watch, one of her recent
acquisitions.
“A half an hour,” she said. “You won’t have time to dress. I’ll send
one of the servants down the cliff to guide up the sailors with the
luggage. But first I will show you to your rooms.”
She passed out into the hall, her train sweeping the floor with silken
rustle. Mrs. Black linked her arm in Neva’s, but the young girl quietly
withdrew her person from her enemy’s touch, and walked apart proudly,
and with a shade of defiance. Thus they passed up the wooden stairs,
Craven Black bringing up the rear.
The upper part of the house was very simply arranged, there being a
central hall, with chambers opening off it on either side. At the rear
end of the hall was a door opening upon a flight of steps, beyond which
lay the passage from which the servants’ rooms opened, and from which
the servants’ staircase led down to the kitchen.
“The room at the left is yours, Octavia,” said Mrs. Artress. “You will
find two dressing-rooms attached, such as they are. The chamber just
opposite, here upon the right, is Miss Wynde’s. Permit me to show you
into your room, Miss Neva.”
She opened a door upon her right, and ushered Neva into a long
ante-room, furnished as a bed-chamber. Beyond this ante-room, the door
open between them, was a large square bed-room, where candles were
burning in battered silver sconces.
“This ante-room was intended for the use of your maid,” remarked Mrs.
Artress, “but as you did not bring your maid, and as Celeste is to
attend upon you as well as upon Octavia and me, she may as well occupy
your ante-room. In fact, we are so cramped for habitable quarters, that
I have been compelled to assign it to her. How do you like your room?”
It was decently furnished, with a new carpet, curtains, and green
roller blinds. There was a wood fire on the broad, old-fashioned
hearth. The high-post bedstead, a modern armed chair and a low
chintz-covered couch were particularly noticeable.
“You have a dressing-room beyond, Miss Wynde,” said Mrs. Artress, as
Neva did not answer, pointing out a large light closet adjoining the
bedroom. “This is a dear, delightful, out-of-the-world place, is it
not?”
Neva deliberately looked into the closet, and surveyed the walls.
“I see no outlet from this room except through the ante-room,” she said
abruptly.
“There is none. Those queer old-fashioned architects were very
outlandish in their ideas; but then an ante-room is convenient, my
dear--”
Neva checked Mrs. Artress’ familiarity by a haughty gesture. She had
not liked the woman when Mrs. Artress had been Lady Wynde’s silent
and unobtrusive gray companion, and she liked her still less now that
she had bloomed into a devotee of fashion, and was obtrusively and
offensively familiar and patronizing.
“It strikes me, Mrs. Artress,” she said quietly, “that the marriage of
Lady Wynde to Mr. Black has completely transformed you. You do not seem
like the same person.”
“And I am not,” declared Mrs. Artress. “There is no use in keeping
the secret any longer, Miss Wynde. The whole world may know that I am
the cousin of Craven Black, and being his cousin, of course I am his
wife’s equal. I am going into society with Mrs. Craven Black during
the approaching season, and it is quite possible that I may make as
brilliant a marriage as Octavia Hathaway did when she married Sir
Harold Wynde.”
Neva started, those careless words bringing to her awakening mind a
crowd of new and strange suspicions. She remembered that Mrs. Artress
had been in Octavia Hathaway’s employ before the marriage of the
latter with Sir Harold. And Mrs. Artress was Craven Black’s cousin!
Perhaps it was through Mrs. Artress, and after the death of Sir Harold
Wynde in India, that Craven Black and Lady Wynde had become acquainted?
And perhaps Craven Black had known Octavia Hathaway before her marriage
to Sir Harold Wynde?
The thought--the doubt--was torture to her.
“I had not suspected your relationship to Mr. Black,” she said coldly;
“but I saw, upon the very morning after Mrs. Black’s marriage, that
your relations to her had changed.”
She longed to ask, directly or indirectly, how long Octavia had known
Craven Black, but her pride would not permit her to put the question.
She turned haughtily away from Mrs. Artress, signifying by her manner
that she desired to be alone.
The woman’s face reddened, and she turned away with scarcely smothered
anger.
“There is no bell in the room, Miss Wynde,” she said, halting an
instant at the door; “but you will hear the dinner bell, even in
here. There will be a servant in the hall to show you down to the
dining-room.”
She went out, closing the door behind her.
Neva’s first act, on being left alone, was to examine the two windows
under their roller blinds and chintz curtains. The windows were of
the quaint, old-fashioned sort, with tiny diamond panes set in heavy
divisions of lead. The windows were casements, opening like doors, upon
hinges, but the lock and fastening were intricate, and had they not
been, it would have been difficult to open the windows owing to the
presence of the inside blinds and curtains.
And even while Neva was tugging with all her strength at the cumbrous
fastenings, she heard the savage baying of dogs as they chased across
the grounds below, and knew that, whether intentionally or otherwise,
her escape by her windows, should she ever desire to escape in that
manner, would be utterly impracticable.
She retreated from the window and sat down for a few moments by her
fire, thinking.
“It will not do to show suspicion,” she decided at length. “Perhaps I
am alarmed without cause. Why can my father’s wife, whom my father so
loved, desire to harm me? Is she determined upon my marriage to Rufus
Black? How will such a marriage benefit her? I acquit Rufus of any
share in the conspiracy. They dared not bring him with them to this
place. He would not permit this oppression and wickedness. Can it be
that my fortune tempts Craven Black and his wife to force me into a
marriage that is repugnant to me, and that they count upon the weak
nature of Rufus, and that when they get me securely wedded to Rufus,
they will seize upon my income and divert it to their own use?”
She could not rid herself of this idea, which, as the reader is aware,
approached so nearly to the truth.
“I know that I am in the midst of enemies,” she said to herself
energetically. “There is no use in shutting my eyes to the truth. The
whole truth has come upon me to-night like a revelation. I must be on
my guard, brave and watchful. I must seem unsuspicious, to throw my
enemies off their guard. How strange it seems that I, who hate no one,
have enemies!”
She arose, not daring to give way further to the suspicions and
anxieties crowding upon her, and brushed her brown cloth traveling suit
and her red-brown hair, and washed her face and hands. A fresh collar
and cuffs were found in her dressing bag, and she had hardly put them
on when the loud clangor of a bell in the lower hall announced that
dinner was ready.
She went through the ante-room into the hall, and found Celeste, the
French maid, waiting to show her down to the dining-room.
“One moment,” said Neva in French, slipping a gold coin into the
woman’s hand. “How far is the nearest post-office, Celeste?”
“Fifteen miles across the mountains and lochs, Miss,” answered the
woman, pocketing the coin, with a courtesy. “There is a village, or
hamlet, fifteen miles from here, but it’s a day’s journey nearly to
reach it. It’s over twenty miles to Inverness, and that is a half
day by water, with a favorable wind, but Inverness is the family
post-office, Miss.”
Neva’s heart sank.
“Could I send a letter to Inverness, do you think?” she inquired.
“Oh yes, Miss. The sailors can go in the sloop. Mr. Black will send
them at your bidding, Miss.”
“I prefer a quicker mode,” said Neva, feeling not at all confident
that Mr. Black would accede to such a request from her. “I desire
to write to an old friend of my father, one of the guardians of my
estate--Sir John Freise. Is there no hanger-on about this place who
would go secretly and swiftly to Inverness for me? If you can find such
a person, I will give him five pounds, and also give you five pounds,
Celeste,” she added, carefully concealing her anxiety.
“I will do it, Miss,” exclaimed Celeste enthusiastically. “There is a
young man hanging about the kitchen, a relative of the old cook. I will
send him. Write your letter to-night, Miss Wynde, and I will send it
immediately.”
Neva expressed her satisfaction at this arrangement, and descended
the stairs to the lower hall, not seeing the singular gleam in the
French woman’s eyes, nor the treacherous smile on the French woman’s
countenance. Celeste guided her to the dining-room, a large, long,
low room, where Mr. and Mrs. Craven Black and Artress were already
gathered. The three greeted Neva courteously, and Craven Black came
forward to meet her, and conducted her to her seat at the table.
The dinner consisted of broiled birds upon toast, vegetables, coffee,
crystalized fruits, fresh grapes and other delicacies, some of which
had been brought up from the yacht. Neva was silent during the meal,
and very thoughtful during the subsequent hour she passed with her
enemies in the drawing-room. At a very early hour she retired to her
own room.
Her luggage had been brought up, and stood unstrapped in her chamber.
Neva closed her door, and discovered that there was no key in the
lock. She pushed one of her heavy trunks against the door to guard
against surprise, and unlocked another trunk, taking out from the tray
a dispatch box, upon which she proceeded to write a letter to Sir John
Freise.
This was no sooner begun than it was torn up.
“Sir John is too old to be distressed about me,” she thought. “I will
write to Arthur, who must be very anxious at not hearing from me. He
can consult with Mr. Atkins and Sir John about me if he chooses, or
come for me, as he thinks proper.”
She wrote a long letter to her lover, recounting her suspicions of
Craven Black and his wife, and declaring that, while she was not
locked in her room at the Wilderness, she nevertheless felt herself
a prisoner. She entreated her lover to come to her, but not to come
alone. She desired him to bring with him either Sir John or Mr. Atkins,
whose support of Lord Towyn’s claims to take her home might be
necessary. She declared that she was afraid, and that she should count
the days until his coming.
Neva sealed and addressed this letter to Lord Towyn, and then stamping
it, stole softly out into the ante-room. Celeste sat there sewing a
frill upon one of her mistress’ robes by the light of candles, but she
arose at Neva’s entrance.
“Celeste,” said the young girl, in a whisper, “here is my letter.
And here are five pounds for the boy, and five pounds for you,” and
she took out two crisp Bank of England notes from her well-filled
pocket-book. “When I receive the answer to this letter which I expect,
I will give you as much more. You must be very secret, and let no one
see you. Have you spoken to the boy?”
“Yes, Miss, and he has got a rough Highland pony, and he says he’ll
start for Inverness immediately.”
With a feeling of relief, Neva placed the two bank-notes and the money
in the hands of the French woman.
“Go,” she whispered. “And remember, let no one suspect your errand.”
The French woman assented, and putting the money and the letter in her
pocket, hurried away.
“I am forced to trust her, having no one else to trust,” said Neva to
herself, after a few minutes of reflection. “Surely she would not take
my money and deliberately betray me? She must know my position, but she
cannot be sure that I know it. The money must tempt her to be true to
me. But will the boy be true? I must see him--I will see him!”
She acted upon the impulse, going out into the hall, and softly
descending the stairs. Here she paused, uncertain whether to seek the
youth in the kitchen, or out at the stable. He was more likely to be at
the latter place, and she flitted along the hall, pausing abruptly as
a burst of laughter came from the drawing-room, the door of which was
ajar.
She had halted at a point which commanded a view of the interior of the
drawing-room, and involuntarily she looked in.
The sight she beheld absolutely transfixed her for the moment.
She beheld Craven Black seated at the centre-table, under a swinging
lamp whose light fell full upon him. His wife was looking over his
shoulder. Mrs. Artress and the treacherous French woman stood at a
little distance, looking also at Mr. Black. And he--and he--Neva could
scarcely believe the evidence of her senses--he was reading her letter
which she had written to her lover, and he twirled his waxed mustaches
and uttered little mocking sneers as some especially tender passage
came under his vision.
“By Jove, she’s sweet on Lord Towyn!” he muttered, with bitter envy,
and jealousy, his brows darkening. “But to go on. ‘Oh, my own Arthur--’”
With the spring of a leopardess, with her soul on fire, with her wild
eyes flaming, with a cry of awful indignation on her lips, Neva bounded
into the room, snatched the letter from the hands of Craven Black, and
retreated a few steps, clutching it to her bosom, and glaring around
her like some fierce wild creature turned at bay.