A NOTE OF ALARM.
That strange scene in the old house at Fellside made a profound
impression upon Lord Hartfield. He tried to disguise his trouble, and
did all in his power to seem gay and at perfect ease in his wife's
company; but his mind was full of anxiety, and Mary loved him too well
to be for a moment in doubt as to his feelings.
'There is something wrong, Jack,' she said, while they were breakfasting
at a table in the verandah, with the lake and the bills in front of them
and the sweet morning air around them. 'You try to talk and to be
lively, but there is a little perpendicular wrinkle in your forehead
which I know as well as the letters of the alphabet, and that little
line means worry. I used to see it in the old days, when you were
breaking your heart for Lesbia. Why cannot you be frank and confide in
me. It is your duty, sir, as my husband.'
'Is it my duty to halve my burdens as well as my joys? How do I know if
those girlish shoulders are strong enough to bear the weight of them?'
'I can bear anything you can bear, and I won't be cheated out of my
share in your worries. If you were obliged to have a tooth out, I would
have one out too, for company.'
'I hope the dentist would be too conscientious to allow that.'
'Tell me your trouble, Hartfield,' she said, earnestly, leaning across
the table, bringing her grave intelligent face near to him.
They were quite alone, he and she. The servants had done their
ministering. Behind them there was the empty dining-room, in front of
them the sunlit panorama of lake and hill. There could not be a safer
place for telling secrets.
'Tell me what it is that worries you,' Mary pleaded again.
'I will, dear. After all perfect trust is the best; nay, it is your due,
for you are brave enough and true enough to be trusted with secrets that
mean life and death. In a word, then, Mary, the cause of my trouble is
that old man we saw the other night.'
'Steadman's uncle?'
'Do you really believe that he is Steadman's uncle?'
'My grandmother told me so,' answered Mary, reddening to the roots of
her hair.
To this girl, who was the soul of truth, there was deepest shame in the
idea that her kinswoman, the woman whom of all the world she most owed
reverence and honour, could be deemed capable of falsehood.
'Do you think my grandmother would tell me an untruth?'
'I do not believe that man is a poor dependent, an old servant's
kinsman, sheltered and cared for in this house for charity's sake.
Forgive me, Mary, if I doubt the word of one you love; but there are
positions in life in which a man must judge for himself. Would Mr.
Steadman's kinsman be lodged as that old man is lodged; would he talk as
that old man talks; and last and greatest perplexity of all, would he
possess a treasure of gold and jewels which must be worth many
thousands?'
'But you cannot know for certain that those things are valuable; they
may be rubbish that this poor old man has scraped together and hoarded
for years, glass jewels bought at country fairs. Those rouleaux may
contain lead or coppers.'
'I do not think so, Mary. The stones had all the brilliancy of valuable
gems, and then there were others in the finest filagree
settings--goldsmith's work which bore the stamp of an Eastern world.
Take my word for it, that treasure came from India; and it must have
been brought to England by Lord Maulevrier. It may have existed all
these years without your grandmother's knowledge. That is quite
possible; but it seems to me impossible that such wealth should be
within the knowledge and the power of a pauper lunatic.'
'But if that unhappy old man is not a relation of Steadman's supported
here by my grandmother's benevolence, who can he be, and why is he
here?' asked Mary.
'Oh, Molly dear, these are two questions which I cannot answer, and
which yet ought to be answered somehow. Since that night I have felt as
if there were a dark cloud lowering over this house--a cloud almost as
terrible in its menace of danger as the forshadowing of fate in a Greek
legend. For your sake, for the honour of your race, for my own
self-respect as your husband, I feel that this mystery ought to be
solved, and all dark things made light before your grandmother's death.
When she is gone the master-key to the past will be lost.'
'But she will be spared for many years, I hope, spared to sympathise
with my happiness, and with Lesbia's.'
My dearest girl, we cannot hope that. The thread of her life is worn
very thin. It may snap at any moment. You cannot look seriously in your
grandmother's face, and yet delude yourself with the hope that she has
years of life before her.'
'It will be very hard to part, just as she has begun to care for me,'
said Mary, with her eyes full of tears.
'All such partings are hard, and your grandmother's life has been so
lonely and joyless that the memory of it must always have a touch of
pain. One cannot say of her as we can of the happy; she has lived her
life--all things have been given to her, and she falls asleep at the
close of a long and glorious day. For some reason which I cannot
understand, Lady Maulevrier's life has been a prolonged sacrifice.'
'She has always given us to understand that she was fond of Fellside,
and that this secluded life suited her,' said Mary, meditatively.
'I cannot help doubting her sincerity on that point. Lady Maulevrier is
too clever a woman, and forgive me, dear, if I add too worldly a woman,
to be content to live out of the world. The bird must have chafed its
breast against the bars of the cage many and many a time when you
thought that all was peace. Be sure, Mary, that your grandmother had a
powerful motive for spending all her days in this place, and I can but
think that the old man we saw the other night had some part in that
motive. Do you remember telling me of her ladyship's vehement anger when
she heard you had made the acquaintance of her pensioner?'
'Yes, she was very angry,' Mary answered, with a troubled look. 'I
never saw her so angry--she was almost beside herself--said the harshest
things to me--talked as if I had done some dreadful mischief.'
'Would she have been so moved, do you think, unless there was some fatal
secret involved in that man's presence here?'
'I hardly know what to think. Tell me everything. What is it that you
fear?--what is it that you suspect?'
'To tell you my fears and suspicions is to tell you a family secret that
has been kept from you out of kindness all the years of your life--and I
hardly think I could bring myself to that if I did not know what the
world is, and how many good-natured friends Lady Hartfield will meet in
society, by-and-by, ready to tell her, by hints and innuendoes, that her
grandfather, the Governor of Madras, came back to England under a cloud
of disgrace.'
'My poor grandfather! How dreadful!' exclaimed Mary, pale with pity and
shame. 'Did he deserve his disgrace, poor unhappy creature--or was he
the victim of false accusation?'
'I can hardly tell you that, Mary, any more than I can tell whether
Warren Hastings deserved the abuse that was wreaked upon him at one
time, or the acquittal that gave the lie to his slanderers in after
years. The events occurred forty years ago--the story was only half
known then, and like all such stories formed the basis for every kind of
exaggeration and perversion.'
'Does Maulevrier know?' faltered Mary.
'Maulevrier knows all that is known by the general public, and no more.'
'And you have married the granddaughter of a disgraced man,' said Mary,
with a piteous look. 'Did you know--when you married me?'
'As much as I know now, dear love. If you had been Jonathan Wild's
granddaughter you would have been just as dear to me. I married _you_,
dearest; I love _you_; I believe in _you_. All the grandfathers in
Christendom would not shake my faith by one tittle.'
She threw herself into his arms, and sobbed upon his breast. But sweet
as this assurance of his love was to her, she was not the less stricken
by shame at the thought of possible infamy in the past, a shameful
memory for ever brooding over her name in the present.
'Society never forgets a scandal,' she said; 'I have heard Maulevrier
say that.'
'Society has a long memory for other people's sins, but it only avenges
its own wrongs. Give the wicked fairy Society a bad dinner, or leave her
out of your invitation list for a ball, and she will twit you with the
crimes or the misfortunes of a remote ancestor--she will go about
talking of your grandfather the leper, or your great aunt who ran away
with her footman. But so long as the wicked fairy gets all she wants out
of you, she cares not a straw for the misdeeds of past generations.'
He spoke lightly, laughingly almost, and then he ordered the dogcart to
be brought round immediately, and he drove Mary across the hills towards
Langdale, to bring the colour back to her blanched cheeks. He brought
her home in time to give her grandmother an hour for letter-writing
before luncheon, while he walked up and down the terrace below Lady
Maulevrier's windows, meditating the course he was to take.
He was to leave Westmoreland next day to take his place in the House of
Lords during the last important debate of the session. He made up his
mind that before he left he would seek an interview with Lady
Maulevrier, and boldly ask her to explain the mystery of that old man's
presence at Fellside. He was her kinsman by marriage, and he had sworn
to honour her and to care for her as a son; and as a son he would urge
her to confide in him, to unburden her conscience of any dark secret,
and to make the crooked things straight, before she was called away.
While he was forecasting this interview, meeting imaginary objections,
arguing points which might have to be argued, a servant came out to him
with an ochre envelope on a little silver tray--that unpleasant-looking
envelope which seems always a presage of trouble, great or small.
'Lord Maulevrier, Albany, to Lord Hartfield, Fellside, Grasmere.
'For God's sake come to me at once. I am in great trouble; not on my own
account, but about a relation.'
A relation--except his grandmother and his two sisters Maulevrier had no
relations for whom he cared a straw. This message must have relation to
Lesbia. Was she ill--dying, the victim of some fatal accident, runaway
horses, boat upset, train smashed? There was something; and Maulevrier
appealed to his nearest and best friend. There was no withstanding such
an appeal. It must be answered, and immediately.
Lord Hartfield went into the library and wrote his reply message, which
consisted of six words.
'Going to you by first train.'
The next train left Windermere at three. There was just time to get a
fresh horse put in the dogcart, and a Gladstone bag packed.