THE QUARREL.
The following day was charmingly fine: the sun brilliant, the air warm
as summer. In the afternoon Lady Level went out to take a walk. Lord
Level was not up that day, but would be, all being well, on the
morrow. It was the injury to the knee more than his general health
that was keeping him in bed now.
Outside the gate Blanche looked about her, and decided to take the way
towards the railway station. Upper Marshdale lay close beyond it, and
she thought she would see what the little town was like. If she felt
tired after exploring it, she could engage the solitary railway fly
to bring her home again.
She went along the deserted road, passing a peasant's cottage now and
then. Very near to the station she met the surly boy. He was coming
along with a leap and a whistle, and stopped dead at sight of Lady
Level.
"I say," said he, in a low tone, all his glee and his impudence gone
out of him, "be you going _there_?"
"Yes," answered Lady Level, half smiling, for the boy amused her. He
had pointed to indicate the station, but so awkwardly that she thought
he pointed to the roofs and chimneys beyond it. "Yes, I am. Why?"
His face fell. "Not to tell of _me_?" he gasped.
"To tell of you! What should I have to tell of you?"
"About that there half-crown. You _give_ him to me, mind; I never
asked. You can't see the station-master if you try: he's a gone to his
tea."
"Oh, I won't tell of that," said Lady Level. "I am going to the
village, not to the station."
"They'd make such a row," said the boy, somewhat relieved. "The
porter'd be mad that it wasn't given to him; he might get me sent away
perhaps for't. It's such a lot, you see: a whole half-crown: when
anything is given, it's a sixpence. But 'tain't nothing that's given
mostly; _nothing_."
The intense resentment thrown into the last word made Lady Level
laugh.
"It's a sight o' time, weeks and weeks, since I've had anything given
me afore, barring the three penny pieces from Mr. Snow," went on the
grumbling boy. "And what's three penny pieces?"
"Mr. Snow?" repeated Lady Level. "Who is he?"
"He is Lord Level's head gardener, he be. He comes up here to the
station one day, not long afore you come down; and he collars the fly
for the next down-train. The next down-train comes in and brings my
lord and a lady with him. Mr. Snow, he puts the lady inside, and he
puts what luggage there were outside. 'Twasn't much, and I helps him,
and he dives into his pockets and brings out three penny pieces. And
I'll swear that for weeks afore nobody had never given me a single
farthing."
Lady Level changed colour. "What's your name?" she suddenly asked the
boy, to cover her confusion.
"It be Sam Doughty. That there lady----"
"Oh, I know the lady," she carelessly interrupted, hating herself at
the same time for pursuing the subject and the questions. "A lady with
black hair and eyes, was it not, and long gold earrings?"
"Well, it were. I noticed the earrings, d'ye see, the sun made 'em
sparkle so. Handsome earrings they was; as handsome as she were."
"And Lord Level took her home with him in the fly, did he?"
"That he didn't. She went along of herself, Mr. Snow a-riding on the
box. My lord walked across the fields. The station-master telled him
to mind the bull, but my lord called back that he warn't afraid."
There was nothing more to ask; nothing more that she could ask. But
Lady Level had heard enough to disturb her equanimity, and she turned
without going on to Upper Marshdale. That the lady with the gold
earrings was either in the house, or in its East Wing, and that that
was why she was wanted out of it, seemed clearer to her than the sun
at noonday.
That same evening, Lady Level's servants were at supper in the large
kitchen: where, as no establishment was kept up in the house, they
condescended to take their meals. Deborah was partly waiting on them,
partly gossiping, and partly dressing veal cutlets and bacon in the
Dutch oven for what she called the upstairs supper. The cook had gone
to bed early with a violent toothache.
"You have enough there, I hope," cried Timms, as Deborah brought the
Dutch oven to the table to turn the cutlets.
"Old Mr. Drewitt has such an appetite; leastways at his supper,"
answered Deborah.
"I wonder they don't take their meals below; it's a long way to carry
them up all them stairs," remarked Mr. Sanders, when Deborah was
placing her dish of cutlets on the tray prepared for it.
"Oh, I don't mind it; I'm used to it now," said the good-humoured
girl, as she went off with a quick step.
Deborah returned with a quieter step than she had departed. "They are
quarrelling like anything!" she exclaimed in a low, frightened voice.
"She's gone into my lord's room, and they are having it out over
something or other."
Timms, who was then engaged in eating some favourite custard pudding,
looked up. "What? Who? Do you mean my lord and my lady? How do you
know, Deborah?"
"I heard them wrangling as I went by. I have to pass their rooms, you
know, to get to Mr. Drewitt's rooms, and I heard them still louder as
I came back. They are quarrelling just like common people. Has she a
temper?"
"No," said Timms. "He has, though; that is, he can be frightfully
passionate at times."
"He is not thought so in this house," returned Deborah. "To hear my
master and mistress talk, my lord is just an angel upon earth."
"Ah!" said Timms, sniffing significantly.
Her supper ended, but not her curiosity, Timms stole a part of the way
upstairs, and listened. But she only came in for the end of the
dispute, as she related to Mr. Sanders on her return. Lady Level,
after some final speech of bitter reproach, passed into her room and
shut the door with a force that shook the walls, and probably shook
Lord Level, who relieved his wrath by a little delicate language. So
much Timms heard; but of what the quarrel had been about, she did not
gather the faintest glimmer.
The house went to rest. Silence, probably sleep, had reigned within it
for some two hours, and the clock had struck one, when wild calls of
alarm, coupled with the ringing of his bell, issued from Lord Level's
chamber. The servants rose hastily, in terror. Those cries of fear
came not from their lord, but from Lady Level.
Sanders, partly attired, hastened thither; Timms, in a huge shawl,
opened her door and stopped him; Deborah came flying down the long
corridor. Mrs. Edwards was already in Lord Level's chamber. Lady
Level, in a blue silk wrapping-gown, her cries of alarm over, lay
panting in a chair, extremely agitated; and Lord Level was in a
fainting-fit on his bed, with a stab in his arm, and another in his
side, from which blood was flowing.
* * * * *
Some hours later, Mr. and Mrs. Arnold Ravensworth were at breakfast in
Portland Place, when Major Carlen entered without ceremony. His
purple-and-scarlet cloak, without which he rarely stirred out, had
come unfastened and trailed behind him; his face looked scared and
crestfallen.
"I must see you, I must see you!" cried the Major, throwing up his
hands, as if apologizing for the intrusion. "It's on a matter of life
and death."
"We have finished breakfast," said Mrs. Ravensworth; and she rose and
left them together.
The Major strode up to Arnold, his teeth actually chattering. "I told
you what it would be," he muttered. "I warned you of the consequences,
if you helped Blanche to go down there. She has attempted his life."
Mr. Ravensworth gazed at him inquiringly.
"By George she has! They had a blowup last night, it seems, and she
has stabbed him. It can be no one else who has done it. When these
delicate girls are put up; made jealous, and that sort of thing; they
are as bad as their more furious sisters. Witness that character of
Scott's--what's her name?--Lucy, in the 'Bride of Lam----'"
"For pity's sake, Major Carlen, what are you saying?" interrupted Mr.
Ravensworth, scarcely knowing whether the Major was mad or sane, or
had been taking dinner in place of breakfast. "Don't introduce trashy
romance into the woes of real life! Has anything happened at Lord
Level's, or has it not?"
"He is stabbed, I tell you. One of Lord Level's servants, Sanders,
arrived before I was up, with a note from Blanche. Here, read it!" But
the Major's hand and the note shook together as he held it out.
Do, dear papa, hasten down! A shocking event has happened to
Lord Level. He has been stabbed in bed. I am terrified out of
my senses.
BLANCHE LEVEL.
"Now, she has done it," whispered the Major again, his stony eyes
turned on Mr. Ravensworth in dread. "As sure as that her name's
Blanche Level, it is she who has done it!"
"Nonsense! Impossible. Have you learnt any of the details?"
"A few scraps. As much as the man knew. He says they were awakened by
cries in the middle of the night, and found Lord Level had been
stabbed; and her ladyship was with him, screaming, and fainting on a
chair. 'Who did it, Sanders?' said I. 'It's impossible to make out who
did it, sir,' said he; 'there was no one indoors to do it, and all the
house was in bed.' 'What do the police say?' I asked. 'The police are
not called in, sir,' returned he; 'my lord and my lady won't have it
done.' Now, Ravensworth, what can be clearer proof than that? I used
to think her mother had a tendency to insanity; I did, by Jove! she
went once or twice into such a tantrum with me. Though she had a soft,
sweet temper in general, mild as milk."
"Well, you must go down without delay."
The grim old fellow put up his hands, which were trembling visibly. "I
wouldn't go down if you gave me a hundred pounds a mile, poor as I
am, just now. Look what a state I'm in, as it is: I had to get Sanders
to hook my cloak for me, and he didn't half do it. I wouldn't
interfere between Blanche and Level for a gold-mine. You must go down
for me; I came to ask you to do so."
"It is impossible for me to go down today. I wish I knew more. How did
you hear there had been any disagreement between them?"
"Sanders let it out. He said the women-servants heard Level and his
wife hotly disputing."
"Where is Sanders?"
"In your hall. I brought him round with me."
The man was called in, and was desired to repeat what he knew of the
affair. It was not much, and it has been already stated.
"Someone must have got in, Sanders," observed Mr. Ravensworth, when he
had listened.
"Well, sir, I don't know," was the answer. "The curious thing is that
there are no signs of it. All the doors and windows had been fastened
before we went to bed, and they had not been, so far as we can
discover, in the least disturbed."
"Do you suspect anyone in the house?"
"Why--no, sir; there's no one we like to suspect," returned Sanders,
coughing dubiously.
"The servants----"
"Oh, none of the servants would do such a thing," interrupted Sanders,
very decidedly: and Mr. Ravensworth feared they might be getting upon
dangerous ground. He caught Major Carlen's significant glance. It
said, as plainly as glance ever yet spoke, "The man suspects his
mistress."
"Is Lord Level's bedroom isolated from the rest of the rooms?"
"Pretty well, sir, for that. No one sleeps near him but my lady. Her
room opens from his."
"Could he have done it himself, Sanders?" struck in Major Carlen. "He
has been light-headed from fever."
"Just at the first moment the same question occurred to me, sir; but
we soon saw that it was not at all likely. The fever had abated, my
lord was quite collected, and the stab in the arm could not have been
done by himself."
"Was any instrument found?"
"Yes, sir: a clasp-knife, with a small, sharp blade. It was found on
the floor of my lady's room."
An ominous silence ensued.
"Are the stabs dangerous?" inquired Mr. Ravensworth.
"It is thought they are only slight, sir. The danger will be if they
bring back the fever. His lordship will not have a doctor called
in----"
"Not have a doctor called in!"
"He forbids it absolutely, sir. When we reached his room, in answer to
my lady's cries, he had fainted; but he soon recovered, and hearing
Mrs. Edwards speak of the doctor, he refused to have him sent for."
"You ought to have sent, all the same," imperiously spoke Mr.
Ravensworth.
Sanders smiled. "Ah, sir, but my lord's will is law."
Mr. Ravensworth turned to a side-table. He wrote a rapid word to Lady
Level, promising to be with her that evening, gave it to Sanders, and
bade him make the best of his way back to Marshdale. Certain business
of importance was detaining him in town for the day.
"When you get down there, Ravensworth, you won't say that I wouldn't
go, you know," said the Major. "Say I couldn't."
"What excuse can I make for you?"
"Any excuse that comes uppermost. Say I'm in bed with gout. I have
charged Sanders to hold his tongue."
The day had quite passed before Mr. Ravensworth was able to start on
his journey. It was dark when he reached Upper Marshdale. There he
found Sanders and the solitary fly.
"Is Lord Level better?" was his first question.
"A little better this evening, sir, I believe; but he has again been
off his head with fever, and Dr. Macferraty had, after all, to be
called in," replied the man. "My lady is pretty nearly beside herself
too."
"Have the police been called in yet?"
"No, sir; no chance of it; my lord and my lady won't have it done."
"It appears to be an old-fashioned place, Sanders," remarked Mr.
Ravensworth, when they had reached the house.
"It's the most awkward turn-about place inside, sir, you ever saw;
nothing but passages. But my lord never lives here; he only pays it
promiscuous visits now and then, and brings down no servants with him.
He was kept prisoner here, as may be said, through jamming his knee in
a gateway; and then my lady came down, and we are putting up with all
sorts of inconveniences."
"Who lives here in general?"
"Two old retainers of the Level family, sir: both of 'em sights to
look upon; she especially. She dresses up like an old picture."
Waiting within the doorway to receive Mr. Ravensworth was Mrs.
Edwards. He could not take his eyes from her. He had never seen one
like her in real life, and Sanders's words, "dresses up like an old
picture," recurred to him. He had thought this style of dress
completely gone out of date, _except_ in pictures; and here it was
before him, worn by a living woman! She dropped him a stately curtsey,
that would have served for the prelude to a Court minuet in the palmy
days of Queen Charlotte.
"Sir, you are the gentleman expected by my lady?"
"Yes--Mr. Ravensworth."
"I'll show you in myself, sir."
Taking up a candle from a marble slab--there was no other light to be
seen--she conducted him through the passage, and, turning down another
which stood at right angles with it, halted at the door of a room. In
answer to a question from Mr. Ravensworth, she said his lordship was
much better within the last hour--quite himself again. "What would you
be pleased to take, sir?" she added. "I will order it to be brought in
to you."
"I require nothing, thank you."
But quite a housekeeper of the old school, and essentially hospitable,
she would not take a refusal. "I hope you will, sir: tea--or
coffee--or supper----?"
"A little coffee, then."
She dropped another of her ceremonious curtseys, and threw open the
door. "The gentleman you expected, my lady."
It was another long, bare room, but not the one already mentioned.
Singularly bare and empty it looked to-night. A large fire burned in
the grate, halfway down the room, and in an easy-chair before it
reclined Lady Level--asleep. Two wax-candles stood on the high carved
mantelpiece, and the large oak table behind Lady Level was dark with
age. Everything about the room was dreary, excepting the fire, the
lights, and the sleeper.
Should he awaken her? He looked at Blanche Level and deliberated. Her
feet rested on a footstool, and her head lay on the low back of the
chair, a cushion under it. She wore an evening dress of light silk,
trimmed with white lace. Her neck and arms, only relieved by the lace,
looked cold and bare in the dreary room, for she wore no ornaments;
nothing of gold or silver was about her--except her wedding-ring. Was
it possible that she had attempted the life of him who had put on that
ring? There was a careworn look on her face as she slept, which
lessened her beauty, and two indented lines rose in her forehead, not
usual to a girl of twenty; her mouth, slightly open, showed her teeth;
and very pretty teeth were Lady Level's. No, thought Mr. Ravensworth,
guilty of that crime she never had been!
Should he arouse her? A coal fell on to the hearth with a rattle, and
settled the question, for Lady Level opened her eyes. A moment's
dreamy unconsciousness, and then she started up, her face flushing.
"Oh, Arnold, I beg your pardon! I must have dropped asleep. How good
of you to come!"
With a burst of tears she held out her hands; it seemed so glad a
relief to have a friend there.
"Arnold, I am so miserable--so frightened! Why did not papa come down
this morning?"
"He was----" Mr. Ravensworth searched for an excuse and did not find
one easily "Something kept him in town, and he requested me to come
down in his stead, and see if I could be of any use to you."
"Have you heard much about it?" she asked, in a whisper.
"Sanders told me and your father what little he knew. But it appeared
most extraordinary to both of us. Sit down, Lady Level," he continued,
drawing a chair nearer to hers. "You look ill and fatigued."
"I am not ill; unless uncertainty and anxiety can be called illness.
Have you dined?"
"Yes; but your housekeeper insists on hospitality, and will send me up
some coffee."
"Did you ever see so complete a picture as she is? Just like those
engravings we admire in the old frames."
"Will you describe to me this--the details of the business I came down
to hear?"
"I am trying to delay it," she said, with a forced laugh--a laugh that
caused Mr. Ravensworth involuntarily to knit his brow, for it spoke of
insincerity. "I think I will not tell you anything about it until
to-morrow morning."
"I must leave again to-night. The last up-train passes----"
"Oh, but you will stay all night," she interrupted nervously. "I
cannot be left alone. Mrs. Edwards is preparing a room for you
somewhere."
"Well, we will discuss that by-and-by. What is this unpleasant
business about Lord Level?"
"I don't know what it is," she replied. "He has been attacked and
stabbed. I only know that it nearly frightened me to death."
"By whom was it done?"
"I don't know," she repeated. "They say the doors and windows were all
fastened, and that no one could have got in."
Now, strange as it may appear, and firmly impressed as Mr. Ravensworth
was with the innocence of Lady Level, there was a tone in her voice, a
look in her countenance, as she spoke the last few sentences, that he
did not like. Her manner was evasive, and she did not meet his glance
openly.
"Were you in his room when it happened?"
"Oh dear no! Since I came down here I have occupied a room next to
his; his dressing-room, I believe, when he stays here at ordinary
times; and I was in bed and asleep at the time."
"Asleep?"
"Fast asleep. Until something woke me: and when I entered Lord Level's
room, I found--I found--what had happened."
"Had it just happened?"
"Just. I was terrified. After I had called the servants, I think I
nearly fainted. Lord Level quite fainted."
"But did you not see anyone in the room who could have attacked him?"
She shook her head.
"Nor hear any noise?"
"I--thought I heard a noise; I am positive I thought so. And I heard
Lord Level's voice."
"That you naturally would hear. A man whose life is being attempted
would not be likely to remain silent. But you must try and give me a
better explanation than this. You say something suddenly awoke you.
What was it?"
"I cannot tell you," repeated Lady Level.
"Was it a noise?"
"N--o; not exactly. I cannot say precisely what it was."
Mr. Ravensworth deliberated before he spoke again. "My dear Lady
Level, this will not do. If these questions are painful to you, if you
prefer not to trust me, they shall cease, and I will return to town as
wise as I came, without having been able to afford you any assistance
or advice. I think you could tell me more, if you would do so."
Lady Level burst into tears and grew agitated. A disagreeable
doubt--guilty or not guilty?--stole over Mr. Ravensworth. "Oh, heaven,
that it should be so!" he cried to himself, recalling how good and
gentle she had been through her innocent girlhood. "I came down,
hoping to be to you a true friend," he resumed in a low tone. "If you
will allow me to be so, if you will confide in me, Blanche, come what
may, I will stand by you."
There was a long silence. Mr. Ravensworth did not choose to break it.
He had said his say, and the rest remained with Lady Level.
"Lord Level has made me very angry indeed," she broke out, indignation
arresting her tears. "He has made me--almost--hate him."
"But you are not telling me what occurred."
"I have told you," she answered. "I was suddenly aroused from sleep,
and then I heard Lord Level's voice, calling 'Blanche! Blanche!' I
went into his room, ran up to him, and he put out his arms and caught
me to him. Then I saw blood upon his nightshirt, and he told me he had
been stabbed. Oh, how I shuddered! I cannot think of it now without
feeling sick and ill, without almost fainting," she added, a shiver
running through her frame.
Mr. Ravensworth's opinion veered round again. "She do it--nonsense!"
Lady Level continued:
"'Don't scream; don't scream, Blanche,' he said. 'I am not much hurt,
and I will take care of you,' and he held me to him as though I were
in a vice. I thought he did not want me to alarm the house."
"Did he keep you there long?"
"It seemed long to me: I don't suppose it was more than a couple of
minutes. His hold gradually relaxed, and then I saw that he had
fainted. Oh, the terror of that moment! all the more intense that it
had been suppressed. I feared he might bleed to death. I opened the
door, and cried and screamed, and called for the servants; I rushed
back to the room and rang the bell; and then I fell back in the
easy-chair, and could do no more."
"Well, this is a better explanation than you gave me at first," said
Mr. Ravensworth encouragingly: and she had spoken more readily,
without appearance of disguise. "Then it was Lord Level's calling to
you that first aroused you?"
"No; oh no; it was not that. It----" she stopped in confusion. "At
least--perhaps it was. It--I can't say." She had relapsed into
evasion again, and once more Mr. Ravensworth was plunged in doubt. He
leaned towards her.
"I am going to ask you a question, Lady Level, and you must of course
answer it or not as you please. I can only repeat that any confidence
you repose in me shall never be betrayed. Did Lord Level inflict this
injury on himself?"
"No, that was impossible," she freely answered; "it must have been
done to him."
"The weapon, I hear, was found in your room."
"Yes."
"But how could it have come there?"
"As if I knew!"
"Why do you object to the police being called in?"
"It was Lord Level who objected. When he recovered from his faintness,
and heard them speaking of the police, he called Mr. Drewitt to
him--who is master of the house under Lord Level--and charged him
that nothing of the kind should be done. I would rather they were
here," she added after a pause. "I should feel safer. This morning I
went to my husband and told him if he would not have in the police,
the house searched, and the facts investigated, I should die with
terror. He replied, jestingly, then if I chose to be so foolish, I
must die: the hurt was his, not mine, and if he saw no occasion for
having in the police, and did not choose to have them in, surely I
need not want them. I was perfectly safe, and so was he, he continued,
and he would see that I was kept so. He would not even have the doctor
called in at first; but towards midday, when the fever returned and he
became delirious, Mr. Drewitt sent for him."
"That seems more strange than all--refusing to have a doctor. He----"
The arrival of coffee interrupted them. Sanders brought it in in a
silver coffeepot on a silver tray, with biscuits and other light
refreshments; and Mrs. Edwards attended to pour it out. Mr.
Ravensworth repeated to her what he had just said about the doctor.
"The fact is, sir, my lord does not like Dr. Macferraty," she
rejoined. "None of us in this house do like him; we cannot endure him.
He has not long been in practice, and we look upon him as an upstart.
It is a great misfortune that Mr. Hill is away just now."
"The usual attendant, I presume, Mrs. Edwards?"
"Yes, sir; and a friend besides. He and the late lord seemed almost
like brothers, so intimate were they. Mr. Hill's mother is going on
for ninety; she is beginning to break, and he has gone over to see
her. She lives in the Isle of Man. It is almost a month since he went
away."
"The late lord? Let me see. He was the present lord's uncle, was he
not?"
"Why, no, sir; he was his father," returned Mrs. Edwards, surprised at
the mistake. "The late peer, Archibald Lord Level, had two sons, Mr.
Francis the heir, and Mr. Archibald. Mr. Francis died of consumption,
and lies buried in the family vault in Marshdale Church; and Mr.
Archibald, the only son left, succeeded to his father."
"Yes, yes, I had forgotten," said Mr. Ravensworth. "An idea was
floating in my mind that the present peer had not been always the
heir-apparent."