[Illustration:
CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL
OF
POPULAR
LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART
Fifth Series
ESTABLISHED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, 1832
CONDUCTED BY R. CHAMBERS (SECUNDUS)
NO. 145.—VOL. III. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 9, 1886. PRICE 1½_d._]
HOUSES WITH SECRET CHAMBERS.
Though we have on former occasions referred to houses with
lurking-places, or secret chambers, the subject seems to be of such
interest as to warrant our giving some further examples.
Plowden Hall, county of Salop, with ‘its gable ends, high chimneys, its
floors, staircases, and doors of solid oak, and walls covered with oak
panelling,’ is described as being full of nooks and corners. There is
a hiding-hole in the closet of one of the bedrooms, where the boards
of the flooring are so arranged as to be easily moved; and underneath
is a trap-door, by which a small ladder leads down into a dark hole
where there is just room enough for a man to change his position with
ease from a standing to a sitting posture. There is a shelf, on which
the concealed person could eat his food. Tradition states that a priest
was actually concealed there for a fortnight whilst Cromwell’s soldiers
were posted outside the gates; and that these were obliged to leave
without having discovered him. Besides this hiding-place, there is an
escape about the width and form of a chimney, reaching from one of the
bedrooms down to the ground-floor of the house, to which a man might
be lowered by means of a rope. There is also an outlet over the chapel
through two trap-doors on to the roof, where a person might escape
between the eaves of the house; and a portion of the flooring of the
chapel is so formed as to lift up and cover a hiding-place below for
concealing the sacred vessels.
Raglan Castle, Hallam, Derbyshire; Maple-Durham House, Oxon; Oxburgh
Hall, Norfolk; Coughton Hall, Warwickshire; Harrowden, the seat of
the Lords Vaux; and the old Manor-house, Long Clawson, each has its
lurking-holes and secret chamber. That in the last named quaint, old,
picturesque-looking house is reached by the chimney of one of the
sitting-rooms.
‘White Welles House, which lies on the borders of Enfield Chase,
is said to have been’ full of holes, dark mysterious vaults, and
subterranean passages.
Recusants and priests found refuge in Little Malvern Court in the days
of their persecution, the position of one or two hiding-places in the
roof being still pointed out.
A secret chamber in Lowstock Hall, in the parish of Bolton, Lancashire,
which was pulled down in 1816, was associated with blood-stains on the
hearthstone of one of the rooms, and the supposed murder of a priest in
the troublous times.
In connection with Yorkshire, the old Red House is made mention of as
having had a secret chamber and gallery underneath the roof. These were
brought to light some years ago when workmen were employed in making
repairs and alterations on the mansion. The noted royalist, Sir Henry
Slingsby, lay for a time concealed in the hiding-place thus skilfully
contrived; but venturing forth one moonlight night to enjoy the freedom
of a walk in his garden, he was seen by a servant-man, who betrayed
him to his enemies; and soon after the gallant old colonel was seized,
conveyed to London, and beheaded on Tower Hill.
Kingerby Old Hall, situated in the same county, was also possessed of
one or more secret chambers.
Ashbourne Place, in Sussex, which was said to have been built by a
brother of Bishop Juxon, was often made use of as a place of refuge by
that persecuted prelate after the death of Charles I. At the time when
his royal master was beheaded, Juxon was Bishop of London and Clerk of
the Closet; and being implicitly trusted by his royal master, to whom
he was devotedly attached, he received his last confidences on the
scaffold, and his George, with the oft-referred-to word, ‘Remember!’
The father of the present proprietor of Ashbourne, in opening a
communication between the back and front chambers, discovered a room,
the existence of which was previously unknown, and to which access
could only have been gained through the chimney. In all probability,
this curious retreat was Bishop Juxon’s hiding-place.
There is a gallery situated in the attic story of the mansion at
Stanford Court, in Worcestershire, in which Arthur Salwin—an ancestor
of the present proprietor of the estate, who lived in the reigns of
Elizabeth and James I.—and his four sons and seven daughters, together
with others of their kindred, are portrayed on the oak-panelled walls
of the room in the costume of the day; the ladies in embroidered
dresses, with jewelled ornaments. Underneath each figure is a motto in
Latin. Behind the panels are secret passages, which, previous to the
alterations of modern times, extended over a great part of the mansion.
Sanston Hall, the seat of the ancient family of Huddlestone, in
Cambridgeshire, was destroyed on account of the owner’s adherence to
the ancient faith, and rebuilt in the time of Queen Mary, when the
precaution was taken to erect a chapel in the roof. It is approached
by a winding staircase, which also gives access to a secret chamber.
In the hiding-place near the chapel in the roof at the top of the old
winding staircase, there were found some oyster-shells; and a fowl’s
bone was picked up in the one belonging to Lydiate Hall—relics of some
poor prisoner’s solitary meal.
Upton Court, near Reading, the former residence of the Perkyns family,
has also its hidden retreat, which is difficult of access, being
approached by a trap-door in the midst of a chimney-stack near the
lesser Hall.
About the beginning of the present, or the end of last century, a
secret chamber was accidentally discovered in the ancient mansion
of Bourton-on-the-Water, a ‘large rambling house of many gables,’
situated in Gloucestershire. The door appeared on tearing off the
paper which was about to be removed. It was on the second (or upper)
floor landing-place, and opened into a small chamber about eight feet
square, containing a chair and a table. On the back of the former lay
a black robe; and the whole had the appearance as if some one had
recently risen from his seat and left the room. On the same floor there
were several other apartments, of which three only were in use, the
other (called the Dark Room) having been locked up for many years. Of
the three in use, one was styled the Chapel, and another the Priest’s
Room. The former had a vaulted roof or ceiling. All three were supposed
by the villagers to be haunted, and they had been known by the above
appellations in the family long anterior to the discovery of the door.
This interesting old mansion was sold in 1608 to Sir Thomas Edwards,
treasurer of the royal household, and subsequently privy-councillor
to Charles I., and it was probably during his occupancy that Charles
is said to have passed the first night there on his way from Oxford.
Since 1834, this house—except a small part of the south front—was
pulled down, the fine old trees in which it was embosomed felled,
the shrubberies made away with, the pleasure-grounds converted into
pasture, and the remains of the house into a dispensary!
The hiding-place in Heale House, near Amesbury, in Wilts, for several
days formed a retreat for King Charles II. after the battle of
Worcester.
In the course of this century, a movable panel was discovered in a
small panelled room in the old manor-house of Chelvey, county of
Somerset. This aperture, for some unexplained reason, was closed up
hastily, and the spring by which it was opened was said to be lost. In
an adjoining room, which was much larger, and panelled in a similar
manner, there was a cupboard, the floor of which—afterwards nailed
down—had been formerly movable. Underneath was a short flight of steps,
which again ascended, and led to a pretty long but very narrow room at
the back of the fireplace. This concealed chamber was furnished with an
iron sconce projecting from the wall, to hold a candle, and was also
provided with a small fireplace.
Parham, which belongs to the Curzon family, has a secret chamber close
to the chapel in the roof of the house, and the way down to it is
through a bench standing out from the wall.
Captain Duthy, in his _History of Hampshire_, says ‘that the old house
at Hinton-Ampner, in that county, was subjected to the evil report
of being haunted; that strange and unaccountable circumstances did
occur there, by which the peace and comfort of a most respectable and
otherwise strong-minded lady, at that time occupier of the mansion,
were essentially interfered with by noises and interruptions that to
her appeared awful and unearthly, and which finally led to her giving
up the house. Afterwards, on its being taken down, it was discovered
that in the thickness of the walls were secret passages and stairs not
generally known to exist, which afforded peculiar facilities for any
one carrying on without detection the mysteries of a haunted house.’
The following extract, taken from a state paper in the public Record
Office, is preserved among others relating to the Rebellion of 1745,
and obviously has reference to the search that was being made all over
the country for suspected persons. Worksop Manor as it then stood is
said to have been burned down in 1761. Examination of Elizabeth Brown,
taken upon oath before Richard Bagshaw, the 24th November 1745—‘Who
says that nine years ago last spring, upon that Easter Monday, she,
Catherine Marshall, and another young woman, went to Worksop Manor to
see Elizabeth Walkden, who lived as a servant with the Duke of Norfolk
there; and desiring to look at the house, the said Elizabeth Walkden,
she believed, showed them most of the rooms of the house; and at last
coming upon the leads of the house, and walking and looking about
them, the said Elizabeth Walkden said she would let them see a greater
variety than they had yet seen; after which she raised up the ledge of
a sheet of lead with her knife till she got her fingers under it, and
then she desired them to assist her, which they did; and then under
that she took up a trap-door where there was a flight of stairs, which
they went down, into a little room which was all dark; that the said
Elizabeth Walkden opening the window-shutter, there was a fireplace, a
bed, and a few chairs in the said room; and asking her what use that
room was for, she said it was to hide people in trouble—sometimes.
Then the said Elizabeth Walkden went to the side of the room next to
the stair-foot, and opened a door in the wainscot about the middle of
the height of the room, which they looked into, but it being dark,
they could not see anything in it; but the said Elizabeth Walkden said
they could not go into it, as it was full of arms; upon which the said
Elizabeth Walkden shut the door, and they went up-stairs; and then she
shut the trap-door, and laid down the sheet of lead as it was before,
which was so nice she could not discern it from another part of the
leads, and believes she could not find it if she were there again.’
In a very old house entered from the High Street of Canterbury, and
nearly facing Mersey Lane, which leads straight to the cathedral, one
of the rooms had a window opening into an adjoining church. In the
thickness of the walls there were two or three secret stairs. It was
said to have been a nunnery formerly; and that a subterranean passage,
it was ascertained, used to unite it with the cathedral.
Woodcote, Hampshire; Coldham House, Suffolk; Watcomb and Maple-Durham,
Berkshire; Stonyhurst in Lancashire; Treago, Herefordshire; Harborough
Hall, situated midway between Hagley and Kidderminster, all had their
secret chambers; and the ancient seat of the Tichbornes was similarly
provided, together with a complication of secret passages and stairs.
Compton Wynyates, a remote and picturesque mansion belonging to the
Marquis of Northampton, has an upper chapel in the topmost gable,
with ancient wooden altar, three staircases leading to the Priest’s
room in the lower story, secret passages, and hiding-places behind
the wainscoting spacious enough to hold one hundred persons in case
of alarm. The existence of such a chapel sufficiently indicates that
the rites of the old religion were practised in private, although the
Protestant place of worship remained open below.
In Essex, the Wisemans of Braddox or Broadoaks were of the number of
those who suffered during the reigns of Elizabeth and James for their
noted ‘harbouring of priests.’ In _P. R. O. Dom. Elizabeth_, vol. 244,
n. 7, may be seen two forms of indictment of Richard Jackson, priest,
for saying mass at Braddox, and of various members of the Wiseman
family for being present at mass on the 25th August and the 8th of
September 1592. Again: ‘Mr Worseley and Mr Newall have been to Widow
Wiseman’s house in Essex, and found a mass preparing; but the priest
escaped.’ There were two hiding-places in Braddox: the most important
of these adjoined the chapel, and was constructed in a thick wall of
the chimney, behind a finely laid and carved mantel-piece.
In connection with the old mansion of the Carylls at West Grinstead,
the Abbé Denis tells us that it also has two hiding-places. ‘One of
these is between the mantel-piece and ceiling of the dining-room; and
the way to get to it is to go up the flue of the chimney as high as
the ceiling of the room on the second floor; and then, by an aperture
in the side of the chimney or flue, to drop down into the hiding-hole.
Another opening also exists in the chimney of the room above. The
second place of concealment is quite underneath the roof of the house.
It had likewise two ways of access—the one from an attic, the other
from a closet or small room underneath.’ In Benton, the original seat
of the Carylls in Sussex, there is one on the ground-floor between two
kitchen chimneys, which is entered by an opening in the room at the
back. At New Building, a house more recently erected by the Carylls,
there are also two secret rooms; one on the second floor, formed in the
thickness of the wall between two chimneys, but entered by a concealed
door in one of the two adjoining rooms. The other is in the opposite
gable, and is entered from the room on the ground-floor below, through
the top of a cupboard which stands in the wall close to the chimney.
The walls of the ‘ancient moated and turreted mansion’ of Lyford,
Berks, were ‘pierced with concealed galleries and hiding-places;’ one
of the latter was excavated in the wall above the gateway.
Several ‘hiding-holes’ have also come to light in the fine old house
of Sutton Place, near Guildford, Surrey; and some years ago, a ‘most
beautifully embossed leather casket, iron-bound, containing relics of
some of the martyred priests,’ was found in one of these places of
concealment behind the wainscot panelling of the chapel. A curious
printed volume entitled _A Sure Haven against Shipwreck_ was found
concealed ‘between the floor and the ceiling.’ It would seem that
Brother Nicholas Owen, alias Little John, S.J., ‘that useful cunning
joiner of those times,’ was the constructer of many of these secret
rooms, to be found in the greater portion of our ‘stately homes of
England,’ for we read in _Records of the English Provinces_ that ‘he
was divers times hung upon a Topcliff rack in the Tower of London, to
compel him to betray the hiding-places he had made up and down the
land.’ This said ‘skilful architect’ was afterwards seized, according
to the same authority, in company with Fathers Garnet and Oldcorne, in
one of the numerous hiding-places in Hendlip House, near Worcester,
already referred to in No. 1040 of this _Journal_. The secret chamber
in which these Jesuit Fathers were concealed is thus described in
Lingard’s _England_: ‘The opening was from an upper room through the
fireplace. The wooden border of the hearth was made to take up and put
down like a trap-door, and the bricks were taken out and replaced in
their courses whenever it was used.’ The former Westons of Sutton Place
were well known to government as shelterers of priests. It was searched
on the 5th of November 1578, by order of the Privy-council, for ‘popish
priests;’ and again on the 14th of January 1591, for one Morgan, a
‘massing priest,’ supposed to be ‘lurking there in secret sort.’
The far-famed ‘Burleigh Park by Stamford Town’ is also in possession
of a secret chamber. This concealed apartment, of whose existence the
family were altogether unaware, was brought to light in the course of
this century through the instrumentality of the law agent, and was
found to contain furniture of an old-fashioned description, together
with several framed engravings. These latter, when agitated by the
wind, which found its way in through a broken window-pane, struck
against the wall, thereby producing a flapping noise, which had long
procured for the adjoining sleeping apartment the designation of ‘the
Haunted Room.’
The grand old historic mansion of Knebworth, Herts, like others of
similar age and importance, possessed trap-doors, hiding-places, &c.;
and underneath a room adjoining the so-styled ‘Haunted Chamber,’
and belonging to one of the square towers of the gateway, there was
a mysterious room or _oubliette_, of which the late Lord Lytton
thus speaks: ‘How could I help writing romances, when I had walked,
trembling at my own footsteps, through that long gallery with its
ghostly portraits, mused in these tapestry chambers, and passed with
bristling hair into the shadowy abysses’ of the secret chamber. This
portion of Knebworth was pulled down in 1812.
Referring to houses north of the Border having secret chambers,
Sir Walter Scott says: ‘There were few Scottish houses belonging
to families of rank which had not such contrivances, the political
incidents of the times often calling them into occupation.’ ‘The
concealed apartment opening by a sliding panel into the parlour,’ in
the old mansion-house of Swinton, is made good use of by Sir Walter in
his beautiful novel of _Peveril of the Peak_.
Some ten or twelve years ago, while workmen were employed in making
alterations at the house of Nunraw, near the village of Garvald,
Haddingtonshire, they came upon a secret chamber in the depth of one
of the walls, which on inspection was found to contain some mummies,
pictures, and other property. In olden times, Nunraw was a nunnery
belonging to the priory of Haddington, and though modernised, still
exhibits evident marks of great antiquity.
There is an apartment now used as a bedroom in Sir George Warrender’s
house at Bruntsfield, near Edinburgh, which, however, can hardly be
called a secret chamber, inasmuch as it possesses windows and two
external walls, but having the interior walls on both sides of the
entrance of great thickness. The history of this room is somewhat
obscure. It is said to have been used as a place of concealment for
certain Jacobites after the rebellion of 1745; and blood-stains,
which are still distinctly visible on the floor, point remotely to
this theory. Another story is that a cadet of the house of Warrender
returned from Carlisle about 1760, and shortly afterwards died in this
room, which was immediately bricked up, so that all evidences of the
event might be removed. In any case, the room had remained sealed up
beyond the recollection of any one familiar with the house, and the ivy
with which the walls were at this time covered, had almost entirely
obliterated any external traces. It was rediscovered about sixty
years ago by Lee, the English landscape painter, who, when sketching
the house, found himself putting in windows of which he could not
remember the rooms. When opened, the room presented the appearance of
having been left hurriedly, by a departing guest, everything being in
disorder, even to the ashes left undisturbed in the grate. Bruntsfield
House dates from 1605.
BY ORDER OF THE LEAGUE.
CHAPTER V.
The weeping woman looked up, and beheld the loveliest face she had
ever seen. The girl standing before her possessed all the attributes
of southern beauty. Her hair, which was long and luxuriant, hung
in one thick plait down her back, and lay in careless waves upon a
forehead pure as chiselled marble; her face was full, with deep red
flushed under the transparent skin; her features exquisitely moulded;
whilst her eyes, deep as running water, conveyed an air of pride and
power—a sense of passion equally capable of looking implacable hate or
fondest love. They were commanding now, as the woman looked up in the
stranger’s face.
‘Who are you?’ she asked wonderingly.
‘Men call me Isodore,’ the stranger replied in a voice singularly
sweet. ‘I have no other name. Will you let me look at the coin you have
in your hand?’
Never dreaming of refusing this request, the woman handed over the gold
piece to the girl, who looked at it long and intently. Her eyes were
hard and stern when she spoke again. ‘Where did you get this?’ she
asked.
‘It was given me to stake at the table. I noticed that it bore some
device, and I exchanged it for a coin of my own.’
‘It has no meaning to you! It is not possible you are one of us?’
‘I do not understand you,’ the woman replied. ‘It is a curious coin. I
have seen one once before—that is all I know of it.’
‘Listen!’ the girl said in a hushed voice. ‘You do not comprehend what
its possession means to you. It is the symbol, the sign of membership
of the strongest political Brotherhood in Europe. If it was known to
be in your possession, your life would pay the forfeit; it would be
regained at all hazards. If one of the Brotherhood knew another had
deliberately parted with it, I would not give a hair for his life.’
‘And he is in danger of his life!’ the woman cried, starting to her
feet. ‘Give it me, that I may return it to him.’
‘No!’ was the stern reply; ‘he does not get off so easily. We do not
temper the wind thus to traitors.—Woman! what is Hector le Gautier to
you, that you should do this favour for him?’
‘He is a man, and his life is in danger. It is my duty’——
‘Mark me!’ Isodore replied with stern emphasis. ‘I have not the eyes of
a hawk and the hearing of a hare for nothing. I was opposite you in the
saloon, and I know that something more than womanly sympathy prompts
you. I saw the struggle in Le Gautier’s face; I saw you start and
tremble as he spoke to you; I saw you change the coin for one of yours,
and I saw you weeping over it just now. Woman! I ask again what is he
to you?’
Slowly the words came from the other’s lips, as if forced from them by
some mesmeric influence. ‘You are right,’ she said; ‘for—heaven help
me—he is my husband! I am Valerie le Gautier.—Now, tell me who you are.’
‘Tell me something more. How long has he been your husband?’
‘Nine years—nine long, weary years of coldness and neglect, hard words,
and, to my shame, hard blows. But he tired of me, as he tires of all
his toys; he always tires when the novelty wears off.’
‘Yes,’ Isodore said softly, ‘as he tired of me.’
‘You!’ exclaimed Valerie le Gautier, starting—‘you! What! and have you,
too, fallen a victim to his treachery? If you have known him, been a
victim to his perfidy, then, from the bottom of my heart, I pity you.’
‘And I need pity.’
For a short space neither spoke, as they sat listening to the murmur
of the leaves in the trees, broken every now and then by the sounds of
play or laughter within the glittering saloon. Isodore’s face, sad and
downcast for a moment, gradually resumed its hard, proud look, and when
she spoke again, she was herself.
‘We have a sympathy in common,’ she said. ‘We have a debt to pay, and,
by your help, I will pay it. Justice, retribution is slow, but it is
certain. Tell me, Valerie—if I may call you by your name—how long is it
since you saw your husband till to-night?’
‘Seven years—seven years since he deserted me cruelly and heartlessly,
leaving me penniless in the streets of Rome. I had to live how I could;
I even begged sometimes, for he has squandered the little money I
brought to him.’
‘Do you think he knew you to-night?’ Isodore asked.
‘Knew me?’ was the bitter response. ‘No, indeed. Had he known I was so
near, he would have fled from my presence.’
‘He laughs at us, no doubt, as poor defenceless women. But time will
show. I can ever find an hour in the midst of my great work to watch
his movements. I have waited long; but the day is coming now.—Would you
know the latest ambition of your honourable husband? He intends to get
married again. He has dared to lift his eyes to Enid Charteris.’
‘Hector dares to marry again!’ Valerie exclaimed, ‘and I alive? Oh, I
must take vengeance, indeed, for this.’
She drew a long breath, shutting her lips tightly. The passion of
jealousy, long crushed down, rose with overwhelming force; she was no
longer a weak defenceless woman, but a fury, maddened and goaded to the
last extremity.
Isodore watched her, well pleased with this display of spirit. ‘Now you
speak,’ she said admiringly, ‘and I respect you. All your womanhood is
on fire within you to avenge the wrongs of years, and it shall be no
fault of mine if they slumber again. Yes, your perfect husband designs
to wed again.’
‘I believe you are a witch. You have roused my curiosity; you must tell
me more than this.’
‘Hector le Gautier is in love,’ Isodore replied, a world of quiet scorn
running through her words, ‘and, strange as it may seem, I believe
true. An English girl—Enid Charteris, with the blue eyes and fair
hair—has bewitched him, satiated as he is with southern beauty.—You
look surprised! I have the gift of fern-seed, and walk invisible.
All these things I know. The Order is to be betrayed when the pear
is ripe, and the traitor will be Hector le Gautier. The price of his
treachery will enable him to become respectable, and lead a quiet
life henceforward with his loving fair-haired bride. Poor, feeble,
calculating fool!’ The bitter scorn in these words was undescribable,
and round the speaker’s lips a smile was wreathed—a smile of placid
unrelenting hate and triumph strangely blended.
‘It shall never be,’ Valerie cried passionately, ‘while I can
raise my voice to save an innocent girl from the toils of such a
scoundrel!—Yes,’ she hissed out between her white clenched teeth, ‘it
will be a fitting revenge. It would be bliss indeed to me if I could
stand between them at the altar, and say that man is mine!’
‘He is ours,’ Isodore corrected sternly; ‘do not ignore that debt
entirely. Be content to leave the plot to me. I have worked out my
scheme, and we shall not fail. Five years ago, I was a child, happy on
the banks of my beloved Tiber. It was not far from Rome that we lived,
my old nurse and I, always happy till he came and stole away my heart
with his grand promises and sweet words. Six short months sufficed him,
for I was only a child then, and he threw away his broken plaything. It
made a woman of me, and it cost me a lover worth a world of men like
him. I told him I would have revenge. He laughed then; but the time is
coming surely. I have a powerful interest in the Brotherhood; he knows
me by name, but otherwise we are strangers. To-night, I saw my old
lover in his company. Ah, had he but known!—Come, Valerie; give me that
coin, the lucky piece of gold which shall lure him to destruction. Come
with me; I must say more to you.’
Mechanically, Valerie le Gautier followed her companion out of the
Kursaal gardens, through the streets, walking till they got a little
way out of the town. At a house there, a little back from the road,
Isodore stopped, and opened the door with a passkey. Inside, all was
darkness; but taking her friend by the hand, and bidding her not to
fear, Isodore led her forward along a flagged passage and up a short
flight of steps. Opening another door, and turning up the hanging lamp,
she smiled. ‘Sit down,’ she said, ‘my sister that is to be. You are
welcome.’
The apartment was somewhat large and lofty. By the light from the
silver lamp, suspended from the ceiling in an eagle’s beak, the
stranger noticed the room with its satin-wood panels running half
way up the walls, surmounted by crimson silk hangings, divided over
the three long windows by gold cords; a thread of the same material
running through the rich upholstery with which the place was garnished.
The floor was paved with bright coloured woodwork of some mysterious
design; and heavy rugs, thick and soft to the feet, scattered about
sufficient for comfort, but not enough to mar the beauty of the
inlaid floor. Pictures on china plates let into the hangings were
upon the walls; and in the windows were miniature ferneries, a little
fountain plashing in the midst of each. There was no table in the room,
nothing whereon to deposit anything, save three brass stands, high and
narrow; one a little larger than the rest, upon which stood a silver
spirit-lamp under a quaint-looking urn, a chocolate pot to match,
and three china cups. There were cosy-looking chairs of dark massive
oak, upholstered in red silk, with the same gold thread interwoven in
all. A marble clock, with a figure of Liberty thereon, stood on the
mantel-piece.
Isodore threw herself down in a chair. The other woman took in the
scene with speechless rapture; there was something soothing in the
harmonious place. ‘You are pleased,’ Isodore said with a little smile
of pleasure, as she surveyed the place. ‘This is my home, if I can call
any place a home for such a wanderer; but when I can steal a few days
from the cares of the cause, I come here. I need not ask you if you
like my apartments?’
‘Indeed, I do,’ Valerie replied, drawing a long breath of delight. ‘It
is absolutely perfect. The whole thing surprises and bewilders me. I
should not have thought there had been such a place in Homburg.’
‘I will give you another surprise,’ Isodore laughed, ‘before the
evening is over. I am the princess of surprises; I surprise even the
followers who owe me loyal submission.’
‘Ah! had I such a paradise as this, I should forswear political
intrigue. I should leave that to those who had more to gain or to lose
by such hazards. I should be content to let the world go on, so that I
had my little paradise.’
‘So I feel at times,’ Isodore observed with a little sigh. ‘But I am
too deeply pledged to draw my hand back now. Without me, the Order is
like an army deprived of its general; besides, I am the creature of
circumstance; I am the sworn disciple of those whose mission it is to
free the down-trodden from oppression and to labour in freedom’s name.’
As she said these words, the sad look upon her brow cleared away like
mist before the sun, and a proud light glistened in the wondrous eyes.
Half ashamed of her enthusiasm, she turned to the stand by her side,
and soon two cups of chocolate were frothed out of the pot, filling the
room with its fragrance. Crossing the floor, she handed one of the cups
to her new-found friend. For a moment they sat silent, then Isodore
turned to her companion smilingly.
‘How would you like to go with me to London?’ she asked.
‘I would follow you to the world’s end!’ was the fervid reply; ‘but
there are many difficulties in the way. I have my own living to get,
precarious as it is, and I dare not leave this place.’
‘I permit no difficulties to stand in my way,’ Isodore said proudly;
‘to say a thing, with me, is to do it. Let me be candid with you,
Valerie. Providence has thrown you in my path, and you will be useful
to me; in addition, I have taken a fancy to you. Yes,’ she continued
fervently, ‘the time has come—the pear is ripe. You shall come with me
to London; you have a wrong as well as I, and you shall see the height
of Isodore’s vengeance.’ Saying these words in a voice quivering with
passionate intensity, she struck three times on the bell at her side.
Immediately, in answer to this, the heavy curtains over the door
parted, and a girl entered.
She was Isodore’s living image; the same style and passionate type of
face; but she lacked the other’s firm determined mouth and haughtiness
of features. She was what the lily is to the passion-flower. Her eyes
were bent upon her sister—for she was Lucrece—with the same love and
patient devotion one sees in the face of a dog.
‘You rang, Isodore?’ she asked; and again the stranger noticed the
great likeness in the voice, save as to the depth and ring of Isodore’s
tones.
‘Yes, Lucrece, I rang,’ the sister replied. ‘I have brought a visitor
to see you.—Lucrece, this lady is Hector le Gautier’s wife.’
‘Le Gautier’s wife?’ the girl asked with startled face. ‘Then what
brings her here? I should not have expected’——
‘You interrupt me, child, in the midst of my explanations. I should
have said Le Gautier’s deserted wife.’
‘Ah!’ Lucrece exclaimed, ‘I understand.—Isodore, if you collect under
your roof all the women he has wronged and deceived, you will have a
large circle. What is she worth to us?’
‘Child!’ Isodore returned with some marked emphasis on her words, ‘she
is my friend—the friend of Isodore should need no welcome here.’
A deep blush spread over the features of Lucrece at these words, as
she walked across the room to Valerie’s side. Her smile was one of
consolation and welcome as she stooped and kissed the other woman
lightly. ‘Welcome!’ she said. ‘We see both friends and foes here,
and it is hard sometimes to tell the grain from the chaff. You are
henceforward the friend of Lucrece too.’
‘Your kindness almost hurts me,’ Valerie replied in some agitation. ‘I
have so few friends, that a word of sympathy is strange to me. Whatever
you may want or desire, either of you, command me, and Valerie le
Gautier will not say you nay.’
‘Lucrece, listen to me,’ said Isodore in a voice of stern command.
‘To-morrow, we cross to London, and the time has come when you must be
prepared to assist in the cause.—See what I have here!’ Without another
word, she placed the gold moidore in her sister’s hand.
Lucrece regarded it with a puzzled air. To her simple mind, it merely
represented the badge of the Brotherhood.
‘You do not understand,’ Isodore continued, noticing the look of
bewilderment. ‘That coin, as you know, is the token of the Order, and
to part with it knowingly is serious’——
‘Yes,’ Lucrece interrupted; ‘the penalty is death.’
‘You are right, my sister. That is Le Gautier’s token. He staked it
yonder at the Kursaal, giving it to his own wife, though he did not
know it, to put upon the colour. The coin is in my hands, as you see.
Strange, how man becomes fortune’s fool!’
‘Then your revenge will be complete,’ Lucrece suggested simply. ‘You
have only to hand it over to the Council of Three, or even the Crimson
Nine, and in one hour’——
‘A dagger’s thrust will rid the world of a scoundrel.—Pah! you do
not seem to understand such feeling as mine. No, no; I have another
punishment for him. He shall live; he shall carry on his mad passion
for the fair-haired Enid till the last; and when his cup of joy shall
seem full, I will dash it from his lips.’
‘Your hate is horrible,’ Valerie exclaimed with an involuntary shudder.
‘I should not like to cross your path.’
‘My friends find me true,’ Isodore answered sadly; ‘it is only my
enemies that feel the weight of my arm.—But enough of this; we need
stout hearts and ready brains, for we have much work before us.’
Three days later, and the women drove through the roar and turmoil of
London streets. They were bent upon duty and revenge. One man in that
vast city of four or five million souls was their quarry.