IN WHICH CLEVE VERNEY WAYLAYS AN OLD LADY.
CLEVE visited the old Priory next day, but there had been no one to look
at it since. He took a walk in the warren and killed some innocent
rabbits, and returned an hour later. Still no one. He loitered about the
ruins for some time longer, but nothing came of it. The next day in like
manner, he again inspected the Priory, to the wonderment of Mrs. Hughes,
who kept the keys, and his yacht was seen till sunset hovering about
Penruthyn. He drove into the town also now and then, and looked in on
the shop-keepers, and was friendly as usual; and on these occasions
always took a ramble either over the hill or by the old Malory road, in
the direction of the Dower House.
But the Malory people seemed to have grown still more cautious and
reserved since the adventure of Penruthyn Priory. Sunday came, and Miss
Anne Sheckleton sat alone in the Malory pew.
Cleve, who had been early in his place, saw the old lady enter alone and
the door shut, and experienced a pang of disappointment--more than
disappointment, it amounted to pain.
If in the dim light of the Malory seat he had seen, once more, the Guido
that haunted him, he could with pleasure have sat out three services;
with three of the longest of good Mr. Splayfoot's long sermons. But as
it was, it dragged wofully--it made next to no way; the shrilly
school-children and the deep-toned Mr. Bray sang more verses than ever
to the solemn drone of the organ, and old Splayfoot preached as though
he'd preach his last. Even Cleve's watch, which he peeped at with a
frequency he grew ashamed of, limped and loitered over the minutes
cruelly.
The service would not have seemed so nearly interminable if Cleve had
not resolved to waylay and accost the lady at the other side--even at
the risk of being snubbed for his pains; and to him, full of this
resolve, the interval was miserable.
When the people stood up after the blessing, Cleve Verney had vanished.
From the churchyard he had made his exit, by the postern door, from
which he and his enamoured friend, Sedley, had descended a week before
to the narrow road, under the town wall, leading to Malory.
Down this he walked listlessly till he reached that lonely part of the
road which is over-arched by trees; and here, looking over the sloping
fields toward the sea, as if at the distant mountains, he did actually
waylay Miss Sheckleton.
The old lady seemed a little flurried and shy, and would, he fancied,
have gladly been rid of him. But that did not weigh much with Cleve,
who, smiling and respectful, walked by her side after he had made his
polite salutation. A few sentences having been first spoken about
indifferent things, Cleve said--
"I have been to the old Priory twice since I met you there."
"Oh!" said Miss Anne Sheckleton, looking uneasily toward Malory. He
thought she was afraid that Sir Booth's eye might chance to be observing
them.
Cleve did not care. He rather enjoyed her alarm, and the chance of
bringing matters to a crisis. _She_ had not considered _him_ much in the
increased jealousy with which she had cloistered up her beautiful
recluse ever since that day which burned in his memory, and cast a train
of light along the darkness of the interval. Cleve would have been glad
that the old man had discovered and attacked him. He thought he could
have softened and even made him his friend.
"Do you never purpose visiting the ruin again?" asked Cleve. "I had
hoped it interested you and Miss Fanshawe too much to be dropped on so
slight an acquaintance."
"I don't know. Our little expeditions have been very few and very
uncertain," hesitated Miss Sheckleton.
"Pray, don't treat me _quite_ as a stranger," said Cleve, in a lone and
earnest tone; "what I said the other day was not, I assure you, spoken
upon a mere impulse. I hope, I am sure, that Miss Fanshawe gives me
credit at least for sincerity."
He paused.
"Oh! certainly, Mr. Verney, we do."
"And I so wish you would tell her that I have been ever since thinking
how I can be of any real use--ever so little--if only to prove my
anxiety to make her trust me even a little."
"I think, Mr. Verney, it is quite enough if we don't _dis_trust you; and
I can assure you we do not," said the spinster.
"My uncle, though not the sort of man you may have been led to suppose
him--not at all an unkind man--is, I must allow, a little odd and
difficult sometimes--you see I'm not speaking to you as a stranger--and
he won't do things in a moment; still if I knew exactly what Sir Booth
expected from him--if you think I might venture to ask an interview----"
"Quite _impossible_! You must not _think_ of it," exclaimed the lady
with a look almost of terror, "just now, while all is so fresh, and
feelings so excited, he's in no mood to be reasonable, and no good
_could_ come of it."
"Well, _you_ know best, of course. But I expect to be called away, my
stay at Ware can't be much longer. My uncle writes as if he wants me;
and I wish so much, short as it is, that I could improve it to any
useful purpose. I can't tell you how very much I pity Miss Fanshawe,
immured in that gloomiest of all gloomy places. Such an unnatural and
terrifying seclusion for one so very young."
"It is certainly very _triste_," said Miss Sheckleton.
"She draws, you told me, and likes the garden, and reads; you must allow
me to lend you some books, won't you? _you_ I say; and _you_ can lend
them to her," he added, seeing a hesitation, "and you need take no
trouble about returning them. Just lock them up anywhere in the house
when you've done with them, and I'll get them when you leave Malory,
which I hope won't be for a long time, unless it be for a very much
pleasanter residence."
Here came a pause; the eyes of the two pedestrians were directed toward
Malory as they descended the road, but no sign of life was visible in
that quarter.
"You got home very well that day from the Priory; I watched you all the
way," said he at last.
"Oh! yes; the distance is nothing."
Another little pause followed.
"_You_'re not afraid, Miss Sheckleton, of venturing outside the walls. I
fear, however, I've a great deal to answer for in having alarmed Miss
Fanshawe, though quite unintentionally, for the safety of Sir Booth's
incognito. The secret is known to _no_ one but to _me_ and the persons
originally entrusted with it; I _swear_ to you it's _so_. There's no
reason on earth for your immuring yourselves as you do within those
melancholy precincts; it excites curiosity, on the contrary, and people
begin to pry and ask questions; and I trust you believe that I would not
trifle or mislead you upon such a subject."
"You are very good," answered Miss Sheckleton, looking down. "Yes, we
_are_ obliged to be very careful; but it is hardly worth breaking a
rule; we may possibly be here for so very short a time, you know. And
about the books----"
"Oh! about the books I'll hear nothing; there are books coming for me
to Ware, and I shan't be there to receive them. And I shall be, I assure
you, ever so much obliged if you'll only just give them
house-room--they'll be so much safer--at Malory; and you won't deny me
the pleasure of thinking that you and Miss Fanshawe will look over
them?"
He fancied she did not like this; and thought she seemed embarrassed to
find an evasion; but before she could speak, he continued, "and how is
the little squirrel I saw in the boat the other day; Miss Fanshawe's, I
suppose? Such a pretty little thing!"
"Oh! poor little Whisk. There has been a tragedy: some horrid thing, a
wild cat or an owl, killed him the other night, and mangled him so; poor
little, dear thing, you must not ask."
"Oh dear! I'm _so_ sorry; and Miss Fanshawe can so ill spare a companion
just now."
"Yes, it has been a great blow; and--and I think, Mr. Verney, I should
prefer bidding you good-bye _here_," said Miss Sheckleton, stopping
resolutely, and holding out her fingers for him to take; for she was on
odd terms of suspicion and confidence--something more than mere chance
acquaintance.
He looked towards the wood of Malory--now overlooking them, almost in
the foreground; and, I think, if he had seen Miss Fanshawe under its
shadows, nothing would have prevented his going right on--perhaps very
rashly--upon the chance of even a word from her. But the groves were
empty; neither "Erl King" nor his daughter were waiting for them. So,
for simply nothing, it would not do to vex the old lady, with whom, for
many reasons, it was desirable that he should continue upon good terms,
and with real regret he did _there_, as she desired, take his leave, and
slowly walk back to Cardyllian, now and then stealing a glance over the
old side-walk of the steep road, thinking that just possibly his Guido
might appear in the shadow to greet the old lady at the gate. But
nothing appeared--she went in, and the darkness received her.