AT THE THREE NUNS.
When Richard Marston left me, his chaise stood at the door, with a team
of four horses, quite necessary to pull a four-wheeled carriage over the
fells, through whose gorges the road to the nearest railway-station is
carried.
The pleasant setting sun flashed over the distant fells, and glimmered
on the pebbles of the courtyard, and cast a long shadow of Richard
Marston, as he stood upon the steps, looking down upon the yellow, worn
flags, in dark thought.
"Here, put this in," he said, handing his only piece of luggage, a black
leather travelling-bag, to one of the post-boys. "You know the town of
Golden Friars?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well, stop at Mr. Jarlcot's house."
Away went the chaise, with its thin roll of dust, like the smoke of a
hedge-fire, all along the road, till they pulled up at Mr. Jarlcot's
house.
Out jumped Mr. Marston, and knocked a sharp summons with the brass
knocker on the hall-door.
The maid opened the door, and stood on the step with a mysterious look
of inquiry in Mr. Marston's face. The rumour that was already slowly
spreading in Golden Friars had suddenly been made sure by a telegraphic
message from Lemuel Blount to Mr. Jarlcot. His good wife had read it
just five minutes before Mr. Marston's arrival.
"When is Mr. Jarlcot to be home again?"
"Day after to-morrow, please, sir."
"Well, when he comes, don't forget to tell him I called. No, this is
better," and he wrote in pencil on his card the date and the words,
"Called twice--most anxious to see Mr. Jarlcot;" and laid it on the
table. "Can I see Mr. Spaight?" he inquired.
Tall, stooping Mr. Spaight, the confidential man, with his bald head,
spectacles, and long nose, emerged politely, with a pen behind his ear,
at this question, from the door of the front room, which was Mr.
Jarlcot's office.
"Oh! Mr. Spaight," said Richard Marston, "have you heard from Mr.
Jarlcot to-day?"
"A short letter, Mr. Marston, containing nothing of business--only a few
items of news; he's in London till to-morrow--he saw Mr. Blount there."
"Then he has heard, of course, of our misfortune?"
"Yes, sir; and we all sympathise with you, Mr. Marston, deeply, sir, in
your affliction. Will you please to step in, sir, and look at the
letter?"
Mr. Marston accepted the invitation.
There were two or three sentences that interested him.
"I have had a conversation with Mr. Blount this morning. He fears very
much that Sir Harry did not execute the will. I saw Messrs. Hutt and
Babbage, who drafted the will; but they can throw no light upon the
matter, and say that the result of a search, only, can; which Mr. Blount
says won't take five minutes to make."
This was interesting; but the rest was rubbish. Mr. Marston took his
leave, got into the chaise again, and drove under the windows of the
"George and Dragon," along the already deserted road that ascends the
fells from the margin of the lake.
Richard Marston put his head from the window and looked back; there was
no living creature in his wake. Before him he saw nothing but the
post-boys' stooping backs, and the horses with their four patient heads
bobbing before him. The light was failing, still it would have served to
read by for a little while; and there was something he was very anxious
to read. He was irresolute--there was a risk in it--he could not make
up his mind.
He looked at his watch--it would take him nearly three hours to reach
the station at the other side of the fells. Unlucky the delay at
Dorracleugh!
The light failed. White mists began to crawl across the road, and were
spreading and rising fantastically on the hill-sides. The moon came out.
He was growing more impatient. In crossing a mountain the eye measures
so little distance gained for the time expended. The journey seemed, to
him, interminable.
At one of the zig-zag turns of the road, there rises a huge fragment of
white stone, bearing a rude resemblance to a horseman; a highwayman, you
might fancy him, awaiting the arrival of the travellers. In Richard's
eye it took the shape of old Sir Harry Rokestone, as he used to sit,
when he had reined in his tall iron-grey hunter, and was waiting to have
a word with some one coming up.
He muttered something as he looked sternly ahead at this fantastic
reminder. On they drove; the image resolved itself into its rude sides
and angles, and was passed; and the pale image of Sir Harry no longer
waylaid his nephew.
Slowly the highest point of the road was gained, and then begins the
flying descent; and the well-known landmarks, as he consults his watch,
from time to time, by the moonlight, assure him that they will reach the
station in time to catch the train.
He is there. He pays his post-boys, and with his black travelling-bag in
hand, runs out upon the gravelled front, from which the platform extends
its length.
"The up-train not come yet?" inquired the young man, looking down the
line eagerly.
"Not due for four minutes, Mr. Marston," said the station-master, with
officious politeness, "and we shall hardly have it up till some minutes
later. They are obliged to slacken speed in the Malwyn cutting at
present. Your luggage all right, I hope? Shall I get your ticket for
you, Mr. Marston?"
The extraordinary politeness of the official had, perhaps, some
connection with the fact that the rumour of Sir Harry's death was there
already, and the Rokestone estates extended beyond the railway. Richard
Marston was known to be the only nephew of the deceased baronet, and to
those who knew nothing of the interior politics of the family, his
succession appeared certain.
Mr. Marston thanked him, but would not give him the trouble; he fancied
that the station-master, who was perfectly innocent of any treacherous
design, wished to play the part of a detective, and find out all he
could about his movements and belongings.
Richard Marston got away from him as quickly as he civilly could,
without satisfying his curiosity on any point. The train was up, and the
doors clapping a few minutes later; and he, with his bag, rug, and
umbrella, got into his place with a thin, sour old lady in black,
opposite; a nurse at one side, with two children in her charge, who were
always jumping down on people's feet, or climbing up again, and running
to the window, and bawling questions with incessant clamour; and at his
other side, a mummy-coloured old gentleman with an olive-green cloth
cap, the flaps of which were tied under his chin, and a cream-coloured
muffler.
He had been hoping for a couple of hours' quiet--perhaps a tenantless
carriage. This state of things for a man in search of meditation was
disappointing.
They were now, at length, at Dykham. A porter in waiting, from the inn
called the "Three Nuns," took Marston's bag and rug, and led the way to
that house, only fifty yards off, where he took up his quarters for the
night.
He found Mr. Blount's promised letter from London there. He did not wait
for candles and his sitting-room. In his hat and overcoat, by the
gas-light at the bar, he read it breathlessly. It said substantially
what Mr. Jarlcot's letter had already told him, and nothing more. It was
plain, then, that Sir Harry had left every one in the dark as to whether
he had or had not executed the will.
In answer to the waiter's hospitable inquiries about supper, he said he
had dined late. It was not true; but it was certain that he had no
appetite.
He got a sitting-room to himself; he ordered a fire, for he thought the
night chilly. He had bought a couple of books, two or three magazines,
and as many newspapers. He had his window-curtains drawn; and their
agreeable smell of old tobacco smoke assured him that there would be no
objection to his cigar.
"I'll ring when I want anything," he said; "and, in the meantime, let me
be quiet."
It was here, when he had been negotiating for Sir Harry the renewal of
certain leases to a firm in Dykham, that the telegraph had brought him
the startling message, and Mr. Blount said in the same message that he
was writing particulars by that day's post.
Mr. Marston had not allowed grass to grow under his feet, as you see;
and he was now in the same quarters, about to put the case before
himself, with a thorough command of its facts.