OPENING THE BUREAU.
Greylands' Cliff was a high cliff: and the huts of the fishermen,
nestling in nooks on its side, rendered it very picturesque. Many a
lover of art and nature, seeking a subject for his pencil, had
sketched this cliff; some few had made it into a grand painting and
sent it forth to charm the world.
The two highest cottages on it were of a superior order. Even they
were not built on the top; but close under it. They stood nearly side
by side; a jutting of rock stretching out between them. The walls were
white: and to the side of one of these dwellings--the one nearest the
sea--there was a small square piece of sunk level that served now for
a little garden. Miss Hallet, to whom the cottage belonged, had caused
some loads of good earth to be brought up; she planted a few flowers,
a few shrubs, a few sweet herbs, and so nursed the little spot into a
miniature garden. Miss Hallet herself was seated just within the open
door of the dwelling, darning a rent in a pillow-case. The door opened
straight upon this room; a pretty parlour, very well furnished. The
kitchen was behind; and two good bedchambers and a smaller room were
above. Not a large house, thinks the reader. No: but it was regarded
as large by the poorer dwellers on the cliff, and Miss Hallet was
looked up to by them as a lady. Having a small but sufficient income,
she lived quietly and peaceably, mixing but little with other people.
Through family misfortunes she had been deprived of a home in early
life, and she took a situation, half companion, half lady's-maid. The
lady she served bequeathed her by will enough money to live upon. Miss
Hallet had then saved money of her own; she came to Greylands, her
native place, bought the cottage on the cliff, and settled herself in
it. Her brother, like herself, had had to turn to and support himself.
He went to sea in the merchant service, passed in time the
examinations before the Board of Trade, and rose to command a vessel
trading to the coast of Spain. But he never got beyond that: and one
stormy night the unfortunate vessel sunk with himself and all hands.
He left two orphan children, a son and daughter, not provided for;
Miss Hallet adopted them, and they came home to her at Greylands. The
boy, George, she sent to a good school at Stilborough; he had to walk
to and fro night and morning: Jane went to the Grey Sisters. George
took to the sea; in spite of all his aunt could say or do. Perhaps the
liking for it was innate, and he was always about in boats and on the
beach when at Greylands. He at length put himself on board Tom Dance's
boat, and said he would be a fisherman, and nothing else. In vain Miss
Hallet pointed out to him that he was superior to anything of the
kind, and ought to look out for a higher calling in life. George would
not listen. Quitting his aunt's roof--for he grew tired of the
continual contentions she provoked--he went to lodge in the village,
and made apparently a good living. But the treacherous sea took him,
just as it had in like manner taken his father. One night during a
storm, a ship was sighted in distress: Tom Dance, who was as
good-hearted as he was reckless, put off in his boat with George Hallet
to the rescue, and George never came back again. Handsome,
light-hearted, well-mannered George Hallet was drowned. That was nearly
two years ago. He was just twenty years of age; and was said to have
already been given a share in Tom Dance's earnings. Tom Dance owned
his own substantial boat; and his hauls of fish were good; no doubt
profitable also, for he was always flush of money. His son, a silent
kind of young man, was his partner now, and went out in the boat with
him as George Hallet used to do. They lived in one of the cottages on
the beach. Old Mrs. Dance, Tom's mother, had her dwelling in a
solitary place underneath the perpendicular cliff: not on the village
side of it, as the other dwellings were, but facing the sea. It was a
lonely spot, inaccessible at times when the tides were high. Tom
Dance, who was generous to his mother, and kept her well, would have
had her quit it for a more sociably situated habitation: but the old
woman was attached to her many-years homestead, and would not listen
to him. When we have grown old in a home, we like it better than any
other, no matter what may be its drawbacks.
Miss Hallet finished the darn, and turned the pillow-case about to
look for another. She was a tall, fair, angular lady of fifty, with a
cold, hard countenance; three or four prim flat curls of grey hair
peeped out on her forehead from beneath her cap; tortoiseshell
spectacles were stretched across her well-shaped nose. She had a
fawn-coloured woollen shawl crossed about her for warmth--for, though a
nice spring day, it was hardly the weather yet for one of her age to
sit exposed to the open air.
"Why, this must have been cut!"
The spectacles had rested upon an almost imperceptible fray, whose
edges were so keen and close as to impart a suspicion that it had
never come by natural wear and tear. Miss Hallet drew in her thin lips
grimly.
"And since the wash too!" she continued, when the gaze was over. "Jane
must know something of this: she helped the woman to fold. Jane is
frightfully heedless."
Threading a fresh needleful of the soft, fine darning cotton, she was
applying herself to repair the damage, when footsteps were heard
ascending the narrow zigzag path. Another minute, and Tom Dance's son
loomed into view; a short, sturdy, well-meaning, but shy and silent
youth of twenty.
"Father's duty, Miss Hallet, and he has sent up this fish, if you'd be
pleased to accept him," said the young man, showing a good-sized fish
with large scales, resting on a wicker-tray. Miss Hallet was charmed.
Her hard face relaxed into as much of a smile as it could relax.
"Dear me, what a beautiful fish! How good your father is, Wally!
Always thinking of somebody! Give him my best thanks back again. You
have just got in, I suppose?"
"Just ten minutes ago," responded Wally. "Been out two tides."
"Well, I wonder your father does not begin to think more of his
ease--and so well off as he must be! The night seems the same to him
for work as the day."
"One catches the best fish under the moon," shortly remarked the young
man, as he handed over the wicker-tray.
Miss Hallet took it into the house, and brought it back to him without
the fish. Mr. Walter Dance caught the tray with a silent nod, and sped
down the steep path at a rate, that, to unaccustomed eyes, might have
seemed to put his neck in peril.
Barely had Miss Hallet taken up her sewing again, when another visitor
appeared. This one's footsteps were lighter and softer than the young
man's, and she was seen almost as soon as heard. A dark-haired,
quick-speaking young woman in black. It was Harriet, waiting-maid to
Mrs. Castlemaine.
"Is your niece at home, Miss Hallet?"
"No. She's gone to Stilborough. How are you, Harriet?"
"Oh, I'm all right, thank you. What a cliff this is to climb
up!--a'most takes one's breath away. Gone to Stilborough, is she? Well,
that's a bother!"
"What did you want with her?"
"Has she done any of them han'kerchers, do you know?" returned the
young woman, without replying to the direct question.
"I can't say. I know she has begun them. Would you like to come in and
sit down?"
"I've no time for sitting down. My missis has sent me off here on the
spur of the moment: and when she sends one out on an errand for
herself one had best not linger, you know. Besides, I must get back to
dress my ladies."
"Oh, must you," indifferently remarked Miss Hallet; who rarely evinced
curiosity as to her neighbours' doings, or encouraged gossip upon
trifles.
"They are all going off to a dinner party at Stilborough; and missis
took it into her head just now that she'd use one of her new fine
cambric han'kerchers," continued Harriet. "So she sent me off here to
get one."
"But Mrs. Castlemaine is surely not short of fine handkerchiefs!"
cried Miss Hallet.
"Short of fine han'kerchers!--why, she's got a drawer fall. It was
just a freak for a new thing; that's all."
"Well, I do not know whether one is done, Harriet. Jane has been
working at one; she was at it last night; but I did not notice whether
she finished it."
"Can't you look, please, Miss Hallet?"
Miss Hallet rose from her chair and went upstairs. She came back
empty-handed.
"I don't see the handkerchiefs anywhere in Jane's room, Harriet. I
daresay she has locked them up in her work-drawer: she has taken to
lock up the drawer lately, I've noticed. If you could wait a few
minutes she might be in: she'll not be long now."
"But I can't wait; they start off at five," was the girl's answer:
"and the missis and Miss Ethel have both got to be dressed. So I'll
say good afternoon, ma'am."
"Good afternoon," repeated Miss Hallet. "Should Jane return in time,
if she happens to have finished one of the handkerchiefs, she shall
bring it up."
The young woman turned away with a brisk step, but not at the speed
Walter Dance had used. By-and-by, quite an hour later, Jane Hallet
came in.
A slender, ladylike, nice-looking girl of nineteen; with a fair,
soft, gentle face, mild blue eyes, hair light and bright, and almost
child-like features. Jane's good looks, of which she was no doubt
conscious, and Jane's propensity to dress too much were a source of
continual vexation to Miss Hallet: so to say, a stumbling-block in her
path. Jane wore a dark blue merino dress, a very pretty grey cloak,
with a hood and tassels, and a straw bonnet trimmed with blue. Miss
Hallet groaned.
"And you must walk off in all those best things to-day, Jane! Just to
go to the wool shop at Stilborough! I wonder what will become of you!"
"It was so fine a day, aunt," came the cheerful, apologetic answer. "I
have not hurt them.
"You've not done them good. Are any of those handkerchiefs of Mrs.
Castlemaine's finished?" resumed the aunt, after a pause.
"One is."
"Then you must go up at once with it to Greylands' Rest. Don't take
your cloak off--unless, indeed, you'd like to change it for your old
one which would be the right thing to do," added Miss Hallet,
snappishly. "And your bonnet, too!"
Jane stood still for a moment, and something like a cloud passed over
her face. She did not particularly care to go to Greylands' Rest.
"I am tired with my walk, aunt."
"That can't be helped: you must take the handkerchief all the same,"
said Miss Hallet. And she explained the reason, and that she had
promised to send one if it were done.
"You will be in time, Jane: it is hardly half-past four. The maid said
the family were to start at five."
Jane went up to her chamber; a room that she took care to make look as
pretty as she could. A chest of drawers stood by the bed. Taking a key
from her pocket, she opened the top long drawer, the only one that was
locked, and lifted out the paper of handkerchiefs. Half-a-dozen
handkerchiefs of the finest and softest cambric, almost like a
spider's web, that Mrs. Castlemaine had given to her to hem-stitch.
Any little job of this kind Jane Hallet was glad to undertake. The
money helped to buy her clothes. Otherwise she was entirely dependent
upon her aunt. The Grey Ladies had taught her all kinds of fine
needlework. When she had none of that to do--and she did not have it
often--she filled up her leisure time in knitting lambs' wool socks
for a shop at Stilborough. There was no necessity for her to do this,
and Miss Hallet did not cordially approve of it; but it gave Jane a
feeling of independency.
Snatching a moment to look into the glass and put her hair in order,
Jane went down with the handkerchief, neatly folded in thin white
paper. All the girls instincts were nice: she was in fact too much of
a lady for her position.
"I thought you might be changing those smart things for your everyday
ones," crossly spoke Miss Hallet, as Jane went through the
sitting-room. "Mrs. Castlemaine wall look askance at your finery."
"There was no time for it, aunt," replied Jane, a sudden blush dyeing
her face, as she hastened out.
She ran down the cliff, went past the Grey Nunnery, and so up Chapel
Lane--which was the back way to Greylands' Rest, and not the front. It
was not her wish or intention to see Mrs. Castlemaine, if she could
avoid it; or any of the family. Presenting herself at the back door,
she asked for Harriet. One of the other servants took her into a small
parlour, and said she would tell the lady's maid. Five o'clock had
struck before Harriet bustled in.
"The han'kercher, is it? Mrs. Castlemaine'll be glad. When she sets
her mind on a thing, she do set it. Come along, Jane Hallet, she wants
to see you."
No opportunity was afforded to Jane of saying no, and she followed
Harriet along the passages. Mrs. Castlemaine, her rich black silk
dinner dress covered by a large warm shawl, stood in the hall. Ethel
Reene, in black net and white ribbons, and wearing her scarlet cloak,
was also there. The carriage waited outside. Jane went forward
shrinkingly, her face turning pale and red alternately.
"I just want to see it before I take it," said Mrs. Castlemaine,
holding out her hand for the handkerchief. "Is it tumbled much? Oh, I
see; it is very nice, quite smooth. How well you have kept it, Jane
Hallet! Here, Harriet, I don't want this one now."
She tossed back an embroidered handkerchief to the maid, and swept out
to the carriage. Ethel smiled at Jane, as she followed her stepmother.
"I'm sure it is very good of you, Jane, to come up with it for mamma,"
she said, feeling in her sensitive heart that Mrs. Castlemaine had not
given one word of thanks to the girl.
Mr. Castlemaine came downstairs, an overcoat on his arm. He nodded
kindly to Jane as he passed, and inquired after Miss Hallet. Miles and
Harriet stood in the porch, watching the carriage away. Jane was a
little behind, just within the hall.
"I thought Mr. Harry was going," observed Harriet. "What has took him
not to go?"
"Don't know," said Miles. "One never can be certain of Mr.
Harry--whether he goes to a place or whether he doesn't go."
"Perhaps he has walked on," remarked Harriet carelessly, as she turned
round. "I say, Jane Hallet, you'll stay and take a dish o' tea, now
you are here. We are just going to have it."
But Jane hastily declined. No persuasion, apparently, would induce her
to accept the invitation; and she departed at once. Half an hour later
Madame Guise and her pupil came home: they had been out for a long
walk.
"Have they all gone?" inquired Madame of one of the housemaids.
"Oh, dear, yes, ma'am. Half an hour ago."
Now, this answer deceived Charlotte Guise. She knew the dinner
engagement had been accepted by Mr. and Mrs. Castlemaine, their son,
and Ethel. She had no thought or idea but what they could collectively
keep it: and in saying to the servant "Have they all gone," she
comprised the four, and understood that she was answered accordingly.
She and Flora took tea together. The child was growing somewhat more
tractable than she used to be. Not much as yet; it was just a little
shade of improvement. Flora was always better when her mamma was away;
and Madame Guise had no trouble with her on this night. She even went
to bed at the appointed hour, eight o'clock, without rebellion, after
a regalement of what she was particularly fond of--bread and jam.
"I will take a slice of this bread and butter and jam also," remarked
Madame to Miles; "and then I shall not trouble you to bring in supper
for me. It will be a nice change. We like this confiture much in my
country."
So Madame took her light supper that evening with Flora, and
afterwards wrote a letter. At nine o'clock she rang the bell to say
she was going up to her room for the night, feeling tired, and should
require nothing more. Miles, who had answered the bell, saw her go up
with her candle. He put out the sitting-room lights for safety, and
went back to the kitchen. His master and mistress were not expected
home before hall-past eleven.
In her room stood Charlotte Guise, white as a sheet. She was
contemplating a deed that night, from which, in spite of what she
deemed her justification for it, she shrank in horror. It was no less
a step than the opening with a false key the private bureau of Mr.
Castlemaine.
Some little time the best part of a fortnight, had elapsed since that
walk of hers to Stilborough and Marie had had the measles--"very
kindly," as Mr. Parker and the Grey Sisters expressed it--and was well
again. Telling a plausible story of the loss of her keys to a
Stilborough locksmith that day, Madame had obtained from him--a key
that would undo, if necessary, half the locks in Mr. Castlemaine's
house. No opportunity had presented itself for using it until now.
Such an occasion as this, when the house was deserted by all, save the
servants, might not speedily occur again.
She stood in her chamber, trembling and nervous, the light from the
candle reflected on her face. The staircase clock struck the quarter
past nine, and her heart beat faster as she heard it. It was the
signal she had been waiting for.
For the servants would now be settled at their supper, and were not
likely soon to get up from it. Nine o'clock was the nominal hour for
the meal: but, as she chanced to know, they rarely sat down to it much
before a quarter past. With the house free and nothing to do, they
would not hurry themselves over it to-night. Half an hour--nay, an
hour, she knew she might freely reckon upon while they were shut up at
table in the comfortable kitchen, talking and eating.
Charlotte Guise opened the door and stood to listen. Not a sound save
the ticking of the clock broke the stillness. She was quite alone.
Flora was fast asleep in her room in the front corridor, next to Mrs.
Castlemaine's chamber, for she had been in to see, and she had taken
the precaution of turning the key on the child for safety: it would
not do to be interrupted by her. Yet another minute she stood
listening, candle in hand. Then, swiftly crossing the corridor, she
stole into the study through the double doors. A fear had been upon
her that she might find the second door a stumbling block, as Mr.
Castlemaine sometimes locked it when he went abroad. It was open
to-night, and she whisked through it.
The same orderly, unlittered room that she had seen before. No papers
lay about, no deeds were left out that could be of use to her. Three
books were stacked upon the side table; a newspaper lay on a chair;
and that was positively all. The fire had long ago gone out; on the
mantelpiece was a box of matches.
Putting down the candle, Charlotte Guise took out her key, and tried
the bureau. It opened at once. She swung back the heavy lid and waited
a moment to recover herself: her lips were white, her breath came in
gasps. Oh, apart from the baseness, the dishonour of the act, which was
very present to her mind, what if she were to be caught at it?
Papers were there en masse. The drawers and pigeon-holes seemed to be
full of them. So far as she could judge from a short examination--and
she did not dare to give a long one--these papers had reference to
business transactions, to sales of goods and commercial matters--which
she rather wondered at, but did not understand. But of deeds she could
see none.
What did Charlotte Guise expect to find? What did she promise herself
by this secret search? In truth, she could not have told. She wanted
to get some record of her husband's fate, some proof that should
compromise the Master of Greylands. She would also have been glad to
find some will, or deed of gift, that should show to her how
Greyland's Rest had been really left by old Anthony Castlemaine:
whether to his son Basil or to James. If to Basil, why there would be a
proof--as she, poor thing, deemed it--of the manner in which James
Castlemaine had dealt with his nephew, and its urging motive.
No, there was nothing. Opening this bundle of papers, rapidly glancing
into that, turning over the other, she could find absolutely nothing
to help her: and in the revulsion of feeling which the disappointment
caused, she said to herself how worse than foolish she had been to
expect to find anything: how utterly devoid of reason she must be, to
suppose Mr. Castlemaine would preserve mementos of an affair so
dangerous. And where he kept his law papers, or parchments relating to
his estate, she could not tell, but certainly they were not in the
bureau, unless there were secret receptacles to which she knew not how
to penetrate.
Not daring to stay longer, for near upon half an hour must have
elapsed, she replaced the things as she had found them, so far as she
could remember. All was done save one drawer; a small drawer, at the
foot, next the slab. It had but a few receipted bills in it: there was
one from a saddler, one from a coach maker, and such like. The drawer
was very shallow; and, in closing it, the bills were forced out again.
Charlotte Guise, in her trepidation and hurry, pulled the drawer
forwards too forcibly, and pulled it out of its frame.
Had it chanced by accident--this little contretemps? Ah, no. When do
these strange trifles pregnant with events of moment, occur by chance?
At the top of the drawer, itself in the drawer, appeared a narrow,
closed compartment, opening with a slide. Charlotte drew the slide
back, and saw within it a folded letter and some small article wrapped
in paper.
The letter, which she opened and read, proved to be the one written by
Basil Castlemaine on his death-bed--the same letter that had been
brought over by young Anthony, and given to his uncle. There was
nothing much to note in it--save that Basil assumed throughout it that
the estate was his, and would be his son's after him. Folding it
again, she opened the bit of paper: and there shone out a diamond ring
that flashed in the candle's rays.
Charlotte Guise took it up and let it fall again. Let it fall in a
kind of sick horror, and staggered to a chair and sat down half
fainting. For it was her husband's ring.
The ring that Anthony had worn always on his left-hand little finger:
the ring that he had on when he quitted Gap. It was the same ring that
John Bent and his wife had often noticed and admired; the ring that
was undoubtedly on his hand when he followed Mr. Castlemaine that
ill-fated night into the Friar's Keep. His poor wife recognized it
instantly: she knew it by its peculiar setting.
To her mind it was proof indisputable that he had indeed been put out
out of the way for ever. Mr. Castlemaine must have possessed himself
of the ring, unwilling that so valuable a jewel should be lost:
perhaps had drawn it from Anthony's finger after death. She shuddered
at the thought. But, in the midst of her distress, reason told her
that this was only a negative proof, after all; not sufficient for her
to act upon, to charge Mr. Castlemaine with the murder.
When somewhat recovered, she kissed the ring, and put it back into the
small compartment with the letter. Pushing in the slide, she shut the
drawer, and closed and locked the bureau; thus leaving all things as
she had found them. Not very much result had been gained, it is true,
but enough to spur her onwards on her future search. With her mind in
a chaos of tumult,--with her brain in a whirl of pain,--with every
vein throbbing and fevered, she left the candle on the ground where
she had now lodged it, and went to the window, gasping for air.
The night was bright with stars; opposite to her, and seemingly at no
distance at all, rose that dark building, the Friar's Keep. As she
stood with her eyes strained upon it, though in reality not seeing it,
but deep in inward thought, there suddenly shone a faint light at one
of its casements. Her attention was awakened now; her heart began to
throb.
The faint light grew brighter: and she distinctly saw a form in a
monk's habit, the cowl drawn over his head, slowly pass the window;
the light seeming to come from a lamp in his outstretched hand. All
the superstitions tales she had heard of the place rushed into her
mind: this must be the apparition of the Grey Friar. Charlotte Guise
had an awful dread of revenants, and she turned sick and faint.
With a cry, only half suppressed, bursting from her parted lips, she
caught up the candle, afraid to stay, and flew through the door into
the narrow passage. The outer door was opening to her hand, when the
voice of Harry Castlemaine was heard in the corridor, almost close to
the door.
Ah, far more sick and faint did she turn now! Discovery seemed
inevitable. Instinct led her to blow out the light and to push the
door as close as she could push it. She dared not shut it: he might
have heard the click of the latch. Had the others come home? Was Mr.
Castlemaine ascending to his study to catch her there? Trembling,
shaking, panting, the unhappy lady stood in this acme of terror, the
ghost of the Friar's Keep behind her, the dread of detection before
her. And the candle was making a dreadful smell!
That alone might betray her: Harry Castlemaine might push back the
door to ascertain where the smell came from. Could the floor have
opened and disclosed a yawning pit, the unhappy lady would thankfully
have disappeared within it.
The minute seemed like an hour. Harry did not come on. He appeared to
have halted close by to listen to something. Miles was speaking below.
"Thought I had gone with them to the dinner, and so put out the
lights!" retorted Harry, in his, free, clear, good-natured tones. "You
saw the carriage drive away, I suppose, without me. Well, light up
again, and bring in some supper."
He came on now, and went into his chamber at the end of the corridor.
Staying there a minute or two, as though changing his coat, he passed
back, and down stairs again. Charlotte Guise, shaking, in every limb,
stole out as the echo of his footsteps died away, closed the door and
took refuge in her own room. There she went into hysterics: hysterics
that she was totally unable to suppress, and muffled her head in a
blanket to deaden the cry.
The next morning there was commotion in the house: Miss Flora
Castlemaine had found herself locked in her bedroom. Given to take
impromptu excursions in a morning en robe de nuit, after books, or the
kitten, or into somebody's bedroom who was sure not to want her, the
young lady for once found herself caged. Mrs. Castlemaine made an
angry stir about it; locked doors were so dangerous in case of fire,
she said. She accused the maid, Eliza, who attended on Miss Flora, and
threatened her with dismissal.
"I can be upon my Bible oath that I never locked the door," cried the
girl. "Why should I wish to lock it last night, more than any other
night? I never touched the key. For the matter of that, I could not
tell whether the key was outside or inside. You may send me away this
hour, ma'am, but I am innocent, and I can't say more than that."
Poor Madame Guise, who was complaining of migrane this morning, and
whose eyes were red and heavy, took the blame upon herself, to
exculpate the wrongfully accused servant. In her terror of the previous
night, she had totally forgotten to unlock Flora's door. She hastened
now to say that she had looked in on the sleeping child when she
herself went to bed: in coming out, it was possible she had turned the
key. Many of the chamber doors in France shut and opened with the key
only, she might have turned the key unthinkingly, meaning but to
shut the door.
So the matter ended. But Charlotte Guise could not help feeling how
painfully one deceit one wrong act, leads to another. And Mr. Harry,
she found, had never been to the dinner at all. Some matter of
business, or perhaps some whim, had led him to break his engagement,
and to give due notice of it the day beforehand to the entertainers.
As Miles had observed, one never could be certain of Harry
Castlemaine.