THE CHAPLAIN'S ARRIVAL AT MORLEY COURT--THE KEY--AND THE BOOZE IN THE
BOUDOIR.
The hall door was opened to the summons of the two gentlemen by no less
a personage than Nicholas Blarden himself, who, having carefully locked
it again, handed the key to his accomplice, Gordon Chancey.
"Here, take it, Gordy, boy," exclaimed he, "I make you porter for the
term of the honeymoon. Keep the gates well, old boy, and never let the
keys out of your pocket unless I tell you. And so," continued he,
treating the Reverend Ebenezer Shycock to a stare which took in his
whole person, "you have caught the doctor and landed him fairly.
Doctor--what's your name? no matter--it's a delightful turn-up for a
sinner like me to have the heavenly consolation of your pious company.
Follow me in here; I dare say your reverence would not object to a
short interview with the brandy flask, or something of the kind--even
saints must wet their whistles now and again."
So saying, Blarden led the way into the parlour.
"Here, guzzle away, old gentleman, there's plenty of the stuff here,"
said Blarden, "only beware how you make a beast of yourself. You
mustn't tie up your red rag, do you mind? We'll want you to stand and
read; and if you just keep senses enough for that, you may do whatever
you like with the rest."
The clergyman nodded, and with a single sweep of his grey eyes, took in
the contents of the whole table. His shaking hand quickly grasped the
neck of the brandy flask, and he filled out and quaffed a comforting
bumper.
"Now, take it easy, do, or, by Jove, you'll not _keep_ till evening,"
said Blarden. "Chancey, have an eye on the parson, for his mind's so
intent on heaven that he may possibly forget where he is and what he's
doing. After dinner, Ashwoode and I have to go into town--some matters
that must be wound up before the evening's entertainment begins--we'll
be out, however, at eight o'clock or so. And mind this," he continued,
gripping the barrister's shoulder in his hand with an energizing
pressure, and speaking into his ear to secure attention, "you know that
little room upstairs wherein we had the bit of chat with my lady
love--the--the boudoir, I think they call it--now, mind me well--when
the dusk comes on, do you and his reverence there take your pipes and
your brandy, or whatever else you're amusing yourselves with at the
time, and sit in that same room together, so that not a mouse can cross
the floor unknown to you. Don't forget this, for we can't be too sharp.
Do you hear me, old Lucifer?"
"Never fear, never fear," rejoined Mr. Chancey. "The Reverend Ebenezer
and I will spend the evening there--and, indeed, I declare to God, it's
a very neat little room, so it is, for a quiet pipe and a pot of sack."
"Well, that's a point settled," rejoined Blarden. "And do you mind me,
don't let that beastly old sot knock himself up before we come home. Do
you hear me, old scarecrow," he continued, poking the reverend doctor
somewhere about the region of the abdomen with the hilt of his sword,
which he was adjusting at his side, and addressing himself to that
gentleman, "if I find you drunk when I return this evening, I'll make
it your last bout--I'll tap the brandy, old tickle pitcher, and stave
the cask, and send you to seek your fortune in the other world. Mind my
words--I'm not given to joking when I have real business on hand; and
faith, you'll find me as ready to _do_ as to promise."
So saying, he left the room.
"A rum cove, that, upon my little word," said the Reverend Ebenezer
Shycock, filling out another bumper of his beloved cordial. "Take the
bottle away at once; lock it up, my fellow-worm, lock it up, or I'll be
at it again. Lock it up while I have this glass in my hand, or I must
have another, and that might be--_might_, I say--_possibly_ might--but
d----n it, no, it can't--I will have one more." And so saying, with
desperate resolution, he quaffed what he had already in his hand and
filled out another.
Chancey did not wait till he had repeated his mandate, but quietly
removed the seductive flask and placed it beyond the reach and the
sight of his clerical friend, who, feeling himself a little pleasant,
sat down before the hearth, and in a voice whose tone nearly resembled
that of a raven labouring under an affection of the chest, he chaunted
through his nose, with many significant winks and grimaces, a ditty at
that time in high acceptance among the votaries of vice and license,
and whose words were such as even the 'Old St. Columbkill' would hardly
have tolerated. This performance over--which, by the way, Chancey
relished in his own quiet way with intense enjoyment--the reverend
gentleman, composed himself for a doze for several hours, from which he
aroused himself to eat and to drink a little more.
Thus pleasantly the day wore on, until at length the sun descended in
glory behind the far-off blue hills, and the pale twilight began to
herald the approach of night.
That day Mary Ashwoode appeared to have lost all energy of thought and
feeling; she lay pale and silent upon her bed, seeming scarcely
conscious even of the presence of her faithful attendant. From the
moment of her yesterday's interview with Blarden, and the meeting with
her brother, she had been thus despairing and stupefied. Flora Guy sat
in the window, sometimes watching the pale face of the wretched lady,
and at others looking out upon the old woodlands and the great avenue,
darkened among its double rows of huge old limes. As the day wore on
she suddenly exclaimed,--
"Oh, my lady, here's a gentleman coming with Mr. Chancey up the avenue,
I see them between the trees, and the coach driving away."
"Can it--_can_ it be?" exclaimed Mary, starting wildly up in the
bed--"is it he?"
"It's a little stout gentleman, with a red pimply face--they're talking
under the window now, my lady; he has a band on, and a black gown
across his arm--as sure as daylight, my lady--he is--blessed hour; he
_is_ a parson."
Mary Ashwoode did not speak, but the momentary flash of hope faded from
her face, and was succeeded by a paleness so deadly that lips and
cheeks looked bloodless as the marble lineaments of a statue; in dull
and silent despair she sank again where she had lain before.
"Don't fear them, my lady," said the poor girl, placing herself by the
bedside where, more like a corpse than a living being, her hapless
mistress lay; "I will not leave you, and though they may threaten, they
dare not hurt you--don't fear them, my lady."
The blanched cheeks and evident excitement of the honest maiden,
however, too clearly belied her words of encouragement.
Twice or thrice the girl, in the course of the day, locking the door of
her mistress's chamber, according to the orders of Nicholas Blarden and
his confederates, but less in obedience to them than for the sake of
_her_ security, ran downstairs to learn whatever could be gathered from
the servants of the intended movements of the conspirators; each time,
as she descended the stairs, the parlour bell was rung, and a servant
encountered her before she had well reached the hall; and Mr. Chancey,
too, with his hands in his pockets, and his cunning eyes glittering
suspiciously through their half-closed lids, would meet and question
her before she passed: were ever sentinels more vigilant--was ever
_surveillance_ more jealous and complete?
During these excursions she picked up whatever was to be learned of the
intentions of those in whose power her young mistress now helplessly
and despairingly lay.
"Sir Henry Ashwoode and Mr. Blarden is gone to town together, my lady,"
said the maid, in a whisper, for she felt the vigilance of Chancey and
his creatures might pursue her even to the chamber where she stood;
"they'll not be out till about eight o'clock, my lady, at the soonest,
maybe not till near nine or ten; at any rate it will be dark long
before they come, and God knows what may turn up before then--don't
lose heart, my lady--don't give up."
In vain, entirely in vain, however, were the words of hope and courage
spoken; they fell cold and dead upon the palsied senses and stricken
heart of despairing terror. Mary Ashwoode scarcely understood, and
seemed not even to have heard them.
As the evening approached the poor girl made another exploring ramble,
in the almost desperate speculation that she might possibly hit upon
something which might suggest even a hint of some mode of escape.
Having encountered Chancey and one of the serving men, as usual, and
passed her examination, she crossed the large old hall, and without any
definite pre-determination, entered Sir Henry's study, where he and
Blarden had been sitting, and carelessly thrown upon the table a large
key. For a moment she could scarcely believe her eyes, and her heart
bounded high with hope as she grasped it quickly and rolled it in her
apron--"Could it be the key of one of the doors through which alone
liberty was to be regained?" With a deliberate step, which strangely
belied her restless anxiety, she passed the door within which Chancey
was sitting, and ascended to the young lady's chamber.
"My lady, is this it?" exclaimed she, almost breathless with
excitement, and holding the key before the lady's face.
Mary Ashwoode with a momentary eagerness glanced at it.
"No, no," said she, faintly, "I know all the keys of the outer doors;
it was I who brought them to my father every night; but this is none of
them--no, no, no, no." There was a dulness and apathy upon the young
lady, and a seeming insensibility to everything--to hope, to danger--to
all, in short, which had intensely interested every faculty of mind and
feeling but the day before--which frightened and dismayed her humble
friend.
"Don't, my lady--don't give up--oh, sure you won't lose heart entirely;
see if I won't think of something--never mind, if I don't think of some
way or another yet."
The red discoloured tints of evening were now fading from the
landscape, and rapidly giving place to the dim twilight--the harbinger
of a night of dangers, terrors, and adventures; and as the poor maiden
sat by the young lady's side, with a heart full of dark and ominous
foreboding, she heard the door of the outer chamber--the little boudoir
which we have often had occasion to mention--opened, and two persons
entered it.
"They are here--they are come. Oh, God! they are here," exclaimed Mary
Ashwoode, clasping her small hand in terror round the girl's wrist.
"The door's locked, my lady," said the girl, scarcely less terrified
than her mistress; "they can't come in without letting us know first.'
So saying, she ran to the door and peeped through the keyhole, to
reconnoitre the party, and then stepping on tip-toe to the young lady,
who, more dead than alive, was sitting by the bed-side, she said in a
whisper,--
"Who do you think it is, ma'am? blessed hour! my lady, who should it be
but that lawyer gentleman--that Mr. Chancey, and the old parson--they
are settling themselves at the table."
Mr. Gordon Chancey and the Reverend Ebenezer Shycock were determined to
make themselves comfortable in their new quarters. Accordingly they
heaped wood and turf upon the expiring fire, and compelled the servant
to ply the kitchen bellows, until the hearth crackled and roared again;
then drawing the table to the fire-side--a pretty little work-table of
poor Mary's--now covered with brandy-flasks, pieces of tobacco, pipes,
and the other apparatus of their coarse debauch--the two worthies,
illuminated by a pair of ponderous wax-candles, and by the blaze of a
fire, and having drawn the curtains, sat themselves down and commenced
their jolly vigils.
Chancey possessed the rare faculty of preserving his characteristic
cunning throughout every phase and stage of intoxication short of
absolute insensibility; on the present occasion, however, he was
resolved not to put this convenient accomplishment to the test. The
goodwill of Nicholas Blarden was too lucrative a possession to be
lightly parted with, and he could not afford to hazard it by too free
an indulgence upon the present important occasion; he therefore
conducted his assaults upon the bottle with a very laudable
abstemiousness. Not so, however, his clerical companion; he, too, had,
in connection with his convivial frailties, a compensating gift of his
own; he possessed, in an eminent degree, the power of recovering his
intellects upon short notice from the influence of brandy, and of
descending almost at a single bound from the loftiest altitude of
drunken inspiration to the dull insipid level of ordinary sobriety; all
he asked was fifteen minutes to bring himself to. He used to say with
becoming pride--"If I could have done it in _ten_, I'd have been a
bishop by this time; but _dis aliter visum_; I had not time one
forenoon; being wapper-eyed, I was five minutes short of my allowance
to get right, consequently officiated oddly--fell on my back on the way
out, and couldn't get up; but what signifies it? I'm better off, as
matters stand, ten to one; so here goes, my fellow-sinner, to it again;
one brimmer more."
The reverend doctor, therefore, was much less cautious than his
companion, and soon began to exhibit very unequivocal symptoms of a
declension in his intellectual and physical energies, and a more than
corresponding elevation in his hilarious spirits.
"I say," said Chancey, "my good man, you'd better stop; you have too
much in as it is; they'll be here before half-an-hour, and if Mr.
Blarden finds you this way, I declare to God I think he'll crack your
neck down the staircase."
"Well, dearly beloved," said the clerical gentleman, "I believe you
_are_ right; I'll bring myself to. I _am_ a little heavy-eyed or so;
all I ask for is a towel and cold water." So saying, with many a screw
of the lips, and many a hiccough, he made an effort to rise, but
tumbled back--with an expression of the most heavenly benevolence--into
his chair, knocking his head with an audible sound upon the back of it,
and at the same time overturning one of the candles.
"Pull the bell, dearly beloved," said he, with a smile and a
hiccough--"a basin of water and a towel."
"Devil broil you, for a drunken beast," said Chancey, seriously alarmed
at the condition of the couple-beggar; "he'll never be fit for his work
to-night."
"Fifteen minutes, neither more nor less," hiccoughed the divine, with
the same celestial smile--"towel, basin of cold water, and fifteen
minutes."
Chancey did procure the cold water and a napkin, which, being laid
before the clergyman, he proceeded with much deliberation, while
various expressions of stupendous solemnity and beaming benevolence
flitted in beautiful alternations across his expressive countenance, to
prepare them for use. He doffed his wig, and first bathing his head,
face, and temples completely in the cool liquid, saturated the towel
likewise therein, and wound it round his shorn head in the fashion of a
Turkish turban; having accomplished which feat, he leaned back in his
chair, closed his eyes, and became, to all intents and purposes, for
the time being, stone dead.
Leaving his reverend companion undisturbed to the operation of his own
hydropathic treatment, Gordon Chancey drew his seat near to the fire,
and filling his pipe anew with tobacco, leaned back in the chair,
crossed his legs, and more than half closing his eyes, prepared himself
luxuriously for what he called "a raal elegant draw of particular
pigtail."