THE QUEEN ANNE WING AND GARDEN.
Nancy lay long awake that night. Her husband slept soundly by her side,
but sleep seemed determined not to visit her; she was agitated, alarmed,
depressed. All the glory of that summer moon through which she had lived
had faded not only into autumn, but into winter.
What were Adrian’s secrets? Why was he cruel to his own sister? What was
the mystery which hung over him? The burden Nance had herself to carry
was quite sufficiently heavy to daunt most women, but just at present
she seemed to have laid it aside. All her thoughts were for Adrian. She
loved him more deeply, more passionately than ever, but she found herself
not only anxious but curious. What did he mean by those dark hints?
Where she found him angel, why did other people think of him as fiend?
Towards morning the tired girl fell asleep. She slept until late, and
awoke to find a snow-covered world, but much comfort around her. A fire
had already been lighted in her room and her maid, Hester, was waiting to
attend on her.
“Is it late?” asked Mrs. Rowton, starting up in bed.
“Yes, ma’am,” said the girl, speaking in a certain prim, respectful
voice, which was rather aggravating to listen to: “it is nine o’clock,
but Mr. Rowton said you were not to be disturbed. Would you like
breakfast before you get up, ma’am?”
“No, indeed,” replied Nance. “I don’t think I ever breakfasted in bed in
my life; I will get up now if you will leave me, please.”
The girl raised her brows in some slight surprise.
“Just as you please, ma’am,” she said. “I have left everything in perfect
order in your dressing-room, and when you ring the bell I shall be ready
to arrange your hair.”
Nancy said nothing more and the girl retired.
“Why is it I don’t take to her?” thought Mrs. Rowton; “she seems a good
girl, clever and obliging, but she gives me an uncomfortable sensation.
Well, I need not keep her if she is not quite to my taste, and she
certainly need not trouble me now.”
Nance dressed herself quickly and ran downstairs. She did not ring for
Hester to arrange her hair. Her spirits rose as she dressed, and when she
entered the room where she and her husband had dined the night before,
she felt full of excitement and interest.
Rowton had promised to take her over the house, and she was all agog to
explore her new home without delay.
The servant who waited upon her told her that his master had breakfasted
nearly two hours ago; that he and Master Murray were out, but would be in
before long.
Nancy had scarcely finished her meal before they appeared.
The boy ran up to her, flung his arms round her neck and kissed her.
“Have you slept well?” he asked. “I hope you are not tired; there is so
much for you to see, and it is so interesting. Are you not very curious
to see everything?”
“Enough, Murray,” said his uncle; “you shall take Aunt Nancy round the
place this afternoon, but just at present she is my property. Run off to
your lessons, my lad; I saw your tutor coming up the avenue just now.”
“Bother lessons!” said the boy.
“Are you not fond of study?” asked Nancy.
“No, I hate it; I can’t think what use tiresome books are to anyone.”
“Make yourself scarce, chatterbox,” said his uncle again.
The boy laughed and ran off.
“He is quite a darling,” said Nancy; “what a difference he will make in
the house.”
“I am glad you have taken to him,” said Rowton; “he is a fine little
chap, only you must not let him gossip to you, Nance. The boy has a keen
vein of curiosity in him; he knows too much or thinks he does. Now, if
you have quite finished breakfast I will take you round.”
They began their exploration, going from room to room and from storey to
storey. The house was an old one, and as Rowton showed it to his wife he
gave her a brief history of it. It had belonged to his family for several
generations, but had been so eaten up by one mortgage after another, that
Rowton’s own father had declined to live in the old place.
“But is it mortgaged now?” asked Nancy.
“No,” was the brief response.
“And you are rich, very rich, and your father was poor?”
“Even so, Nancy,” was the somewhat curt reply.
Nancy glanced up at her husband. His eyes looked full into hers; there
was a sort of dare devil gleam in them, which she turned away from.
“I see,” she said after a pause, “I must not expect you to confide in me.”
“Forsooth, no,” he answered; “not on certain topics. We two married under
a condition; if there is to be a chance of peace between us, we must
keep to it. You must ask me no questions, my darling; I on my part will
ask you none. I frankly admit that there are pages in my life which I do
not wish you to know anything about, but on the other hand there are
fair white pages which only you shall read. Are you not content with me,
Nancy?”
“Yes, I am,” she answered. “I love you. I trust you too utterly to feel
anything but happiness when with you.”
They kissed each other, standing side by side in the long picture
gallery. Portraits of Rowton’s ancestors adorned the walls. There were
Holbeins, Van Dycks, Gainsboroughs, and Raeburns among them—in short,
a magnificent collection, which Nancy scarcely knew enough of art to
thoroughly appreciate.
“Fair dames, are they not?” asked Rowton, stopping under a celebrated
Gainsborough as he spoke. “Ah! now I know whom you reminded me of when
you wore that Gainsborough hat in Paris; you have got just the face of
that Dame Rowton; just that graceful turn of the neck. We will copy that
picture for your next ball dress; you will look, as the old saying is, as
if you had stepped out of the canvas.”
They both laughed and discussed the picture a little longer; then they
walked on to the extreme end of the gallery.
“This way now,” said Rowton, turning abruptly to his left.
“Why so?” she asked. “Why not go through this door? See! you must have
overlooked it; there is a door here, and it will take us out into another
wing of the house.”
“Not now,” said Rowton. “There is nothing of interest in that wing; come
into the old ball-room; it has been disused for some time, but we will
restore it. Look”—he flung open a door as he spoke—“look at this carved
oak; it covers the room from floor to ceiling, from ceiling to floor
again. This oak is hundreds of years old and of enormous value. Will you
believe me when I tell you that once such a Goth lived in the old place
that he painted the oak white? It took a whole year to get that paint
off; my grandfather had that done. The oak looks nearly as well as ever
now. Observe the delicacy of the carving. We will furnish this ball-room
again. What say you, Nancy, shall we give a ball as your house warming,
after the neighbours have called on you.”
“The neighbours!” she said in some alarm; “are people coming to call on
me?”
“My dear, darling little goose,” was the reply, “do you think you are
going to live here in solitude? This is Saturday, to-morrow will be
Sunday. You and I and Murray appear in church together—a picturesque
group; we sit in the old family pew. On Monday the callers begin to
arrive. We shall be invited out a good bit, and then we will give a ball
in this room and you shall be dressed as Gainsborough’s Dame Rowton.”
Nancy laughed; Rowton continued to talk further about this idea; and they
strolled out into the grounds. It was a lovely winter’s day towards the
end of January. The pair walked quickly, exploring the different gardens
and pleasure grounds. Suddenly they came straight up to a high wall which
ran parallel with the house.
“What is in there?” asked Nancy.
“Another garden,” said Rowton in a careless tone.
“What a heap of gardens,” she exclaimed with a laugh. “I am almost tired
of exploring them.”
“We will return to the house now,” he said; “we need not go any further
to-day.”
“Oh, yes, let me see the inside of this garden. What a high wall, and
broken glass all along the top! I cannot get even a peep within. I am
curious. Is it a very old-fashioned garden, Adrian?”
“Yes,” he said after a pause; “we call it the Queen Anne garden here.”
“How charming! Are the trees cut about in queer shapes?”
“Yes. Contorted into foxes and dogs and bears. I fancy there is a cock,
who looks exactly as if he meant to crow, just inside the entrance gate.”
Rowton’s face wore a quizzical expression.
“Where is the entrance?” asked Nancy. “I am dying to see the garden.”
“Not to-day,” replied her husband. He drew her hand through his arm.
They walked on in silence for a moment, then he bent down and looked at
her.
“Are you vexed, little woman?” he asked.
“I try not to be,” she answered; “but it seems a simple thing just to
show me that last garden. I have never seen a proper Queen Anne garden,
and this one——”
“You feel a pin prick of natural womanly curiosity,” said Rowton;
“suppress it, dearest. Now I am going to confide in you to a certain
extent. I did not mean to, but I see that it is necessary. I have
brought you to a beautiful home, have I not?”
“Lovely—a palace,” said Nancy.
“The whole place is yours,” continued her husband: “the house, the
ground, with—with a reservation.”
“Yes?” she asked, looking up at him with parted lips.
“With a reservation,” he continued. “There is a wing of the house which
you are never to enter. That wing looks into the Queen Anne garden—you
are, therefore, never to go into the Queen Anne garden.”
“Never, Adrian, never?”
“Never, darling.”
“Why so?”
“I meant to keep the reason from you,” said Rowton; “but I must tell
it—there is a reason.”
“Yes?” she said again. She began to tremble.
“You heard Murray speak of his mother last night,” continued the man,
standing very upright as he spoke, folding his arms and looking down at
Nancy’s slim young figure.
“Yes,” she replied.
“The boy’s mother lives in that wing.”
“What?” cried Nancy.
“She lives in the wing into which you are never to go,” continued Rowton.
“She takes exercise in the Queen Anne garden. You need not be afraid of
her, but you are never to see her.”
“Why, why?”
“Because she is mad.”