MY LADY'S CHAMBER.
The seashore in late November is never cheerful. The gray, downcast
skies sadden the sympathetic ocean; the winds cut to the marrow, and the
yellow grass and bare trees make the land as sad-colored as the sea. But
even at this season a walk along the cliff upon which Ripon House stands
is invigorating, if the walker's blood is young. The outlook toward the
water is bluff and bold and the descent sheer.
A neat, gravelled path conforming to the line of the coast divides the
precipice from the smooth, closely-cropped lawn which sweeps down from
the terrace of the ancient mansion. Ripon House is an imposing, spacious
pile. It bears marks of the tampering of the last century when the
resuscitated architecture of Queen Anne threatened to become ubiquitous.
A vast plantation of stately trees originally shut out the buildings on
three sides from the common gaze, but the exigencies of the lawn-tennis
court and the subsequent destitution of the late earl, who renounced his
wood fire the last of all the luxuries then appurtenant to a noble
lineage, have sadly thinned the splendid grove. Nor is the domain void
of historic interest. Here was the scene of the crowning festivity of
the pleasure-loving Victorian era when the nobility of the United
Kingdom gathered to listen to a masque by Sir William Gilbert and Sir
Arthur Sullivan in aid of a fund to erect a statue to the memory of one
John Brown, a henchman of the sovereign.
But what boots in this age of earnest activity more than a trivial
reference to the selfish splendor of a superstitious past? To-day is
to-day, and the nails on the coffin-lid of the last Hanoverian would
scarcely be of silver, so many hungry mouths are to be fed.
Geoffrey Ripon on the morning following his reflections was sauntering
along the gravel path which bordered the cliff. He was reading the
half-penny morning paper, in which he had just come upon a paragraph
describing the discovery by the police of a batch of infernal machines
supposed to have been sent over from America by friends of the
Royalists. Among the emissaries captured he read the name of Cedric
Ruskin, an old schoolfellow and great-grandson to an art critic of that
surname who flourished in former days by force of his own specific
gravity. Pained at the intelligence, he sighed heavily, and was on the
point of sitting down upon a rustic bench close at hand when a
melodious, gladsome voice hallooing his name broke in upon his
meditation. He looked up and perceived Miss Maggie Windsor skipping down
the lawn with charming unconventionality.
"Lord Brompton, Lord Brompton."
He raised his hat and stood waiting for the girl, whose motions were
marvellously graceful, especially if her large and vigorous physique be
considered. No sylph could have glided with less awkwardness, and yet a
spindle more closely resembles the bole of a giant oak than Maggie
Windsor the frail damsels who bent beneath the keen blasts of New
England a hundred years ago. Her countenance disclosed all the sprightly
intelligence which her great-grandmother may have possessed, but her
glowing cheeks and bright blue eyes told of a constitution against which
nervous prostration fulminated in vain. Nor were the bang or bangle of a
former generation visible in her composition. But here a deceptive
phrase deserves an explanation. "Composition" is an epithet which, least
of all, is applicable. Miss Windsor's perfections of whatever kind were
wholly natural.
A St. Bernard dog of superb proportions gambolled at her side.
"I thought it was you," she said. "I am very glad to see you again."
"And I, Miss Windsor, to see you." They shook hands with cordiality.
"And how do you like your new lodgings?" he inquired.
"Ah, Lord Brompton, I was afraid you would feel nettled that we
capitalists should possess your grand old homestead. My purpose in
swooping down upon you in this unceremonious style was to ask you to
make yourself quite at home in the place. Consider it your own if you
will."
"What would your father say to such an arrangement, I wonder?" he asked,
glancing at her.
"Oh," she laughed, "papa monopolizes everybody and everything else, but
I monopolize him. But you look serious, Lord Brompton, and less
complacent, if I may use the expression, than when we met last. Dear old
Paris. That was two years ago."
"Ought I to look complacent after reading in the newspaper that my old
schoolmate, Cedric Ruskin, has been arrested on a charge of high
treason?"
"Alas! poor Cedric!--no, that was Yorick. Down, Bayard, down," she cried
to her dog.
"A great many things may happen in two years, Miss Windsor. When chance
first brought us together, I was a landed proprietor, and the heir of a
noble lineage. To-day I am a beggar at the feet of fatherless wealth."
"Excuse me, Lord Brompton, I have a father."
"Did I say I was at your feet, Miss Windsor?"
"You are the same clever creature as ever," she answered. "But I am
beginning to believe you are in earnest. Is it possible that you are the
Lord Brompton who told me once that fate's quiver held no shaft to
terrify a philosopher? 'Dust to dust, and what matters it whether king
or chaos rule?' Those were your words. I warned you then, but you
laughed me to scorn--"
"And now you are deriding me."
"You are unjust. I met you with a proffer of hospitality, but you would
none of it."
"Am I not to dine with you this evening?"
"True. Then as a further instance that you are still a stoic, come now
and exhibit to me the treasures and secrets of Ripon House. I have got
no farther than the picture gallery as yet. There is an ancestor of
George the Third's time whose features are the prototype of yours--the
same dreamy eye--the same careless smile--the same look of being petted.
You remember I always said you had been spoiled by petting."
She led the way across the lawn, with Bayard bounding close at hand.
"I am sure there must be secret galleries and haunted chambers and all
sorts of dreadful places. I telephoned to Mr. Jawkins to inquire, but he
answered, 'Not as I know of, miss.' I suppose he is so fearfully
practical he wouldn't care if a real ghost met him in a remote wing."
"What a pity we didn't live in the last century when people still gave
ghosts the benefit of the doubt," said Lord Brompton, sadly. "Now we are
certain that there never were any."
"But we may still run across a skeleton in a closet," said the girl.
"Oh, yes. But who, by the way, is Mr. Jawkins?"
"Have you never heard of Mr. Jarley Jawkins, the famous country-house
agent and individual caterer?"
Lord Brompton shook his head.
"He is indeed a remarkable man," she continued. "When we decided to come
to England my father telephoned to Jawkins, who immediately sent out a
list of country-seats. We chose this and made arrangements with him to
supply us with guests at so much a head. A regular country-house
party--a duke and duchess, one or two financially embarrassed noblemen,
a disestablished bishop, a professional beauty, a poet-peer, and several
other attractions. Oh, Jawkins is wonderful. They are all coming to-day.
Won't it be fun? But it may seem rude to ask you to meet such people? I
am sorry. You will be almost the only guest not hired for the occasion.
It was very inconsiderate of me."
"That's all right," said the young lord. "Perhaps I may find an opening
here. I'm looking out for a job. Possibly you may not be aware, Miss
Windsor, that the porter's lodge, which I occupy at present, is my sole
piece of property. I will send my card to Jawkins. By the way, does he
conduct them in person?"
"Oh, yes. He comes on the first day to introduce them. Jawkins is a most
amusing man. He is enormously rich and a great _bon-vivant_. He has a
retinue of thoroughly trained servants whom he dispatches to his
customers, and everything he supplies is in the most perfect taste. He
has but one weakness: he loves a lord and is the sworn enemy of the new
_regime_. Don't you look forward with interest to the feast to-night? I
shall give you a professional beauty to take into dinner; and of course
I shall go in with the man of the highest rank. But here we are," she
said, as they reached the upper terrace in front of the house.
"What a superb dog you have, Miss Windsor. What is his name?" said Lord
Brompton, gazing with admiration at the noble creature, who stood on the
threshold, panting after his run.
"His name is Bayard."
"Ah, Miss Windsor, I perceive that you still recognize the glamour of a
lordly title in the matter of naming your pets. The Chevalier Bayard
smacks of royal prerogative."
"Pardon me; Bayard is named after an American statesman who was
contemporary with my great-grandfather. But isn't he a beauty? He cost
$1000. There is not another of his variety in the United States."
"I should like to go to America," said Lord Brompton, pensively, as he
entered the familiar library now renovated by the taste of Jawkins. "My
views have changed materially on many questions since we last met. I can
see that things here are likely to be in a chaotic state for a long
time to come, whereas your institutions have become permanent."
"But you ought to wish to remain and help your fellow-countrymen to
better things, Lord Brompton. Look at that line of ancestors," she
exclaimed. "You ought to do something worthy of them."
The ex-peer shook his head. "I have ambition, I think, thanks largely to
my friendship with you two summers ago; but the outlook is very gloomy.
England is in the hands of professional politicians. There is no chance
for gentlemen in political life."
"But the King may come to his own again," she murmured, in pity for his
mood. "Your title is unimpeached at his exiled court."
"I have doubts as to the desirability of a return to the old order of
things, even if there were hopes of success. It is useless to fight
against the spirit of the age. The King is old and fat."
"I saw the King riding in a herdic in Boston a few days before we
sailed," said Maggie. "He was stopping at the old Province House. Poor
sovereign, he looked destitute."
"He is very poor. What was saved from the wreck is in the hands of
Bugbee, the London banker. The court has since been moved to the South
End. But a monarchy is surely vastly preferable to our present
administration. President Bagshaw is a disgrace to any civilized
community, to say nothing of an ideal republic."
"There is the ancestor who looks like you," said she, pointing to the
portrait of a cavalier wearing hat and plume and long mustaches. "But is
there no hope from the opposition?" she inquired.
"I cannot yet bring myself to sympathize with the Liberals, although
their leader, Richard Lincoln, is a great and upright man. While the
King lives I can no more be disloyal to the House of Hanover than my
namesake up there could have been to his master's cause. Still, I feel
we are living in an age when opinions are no more secure from revolution
than dynasties."
"Speaking just now of the Chevalier Bayard reminds me that Jawkins
mentioned as one of the guests he had procured for the occasion--"
"Like so much plate or china," interrupted the quondam peer, bitterly.
"Sir John Dacre," continued Miss Windsor, without regard to his
petulance.
"John Dacre?" he cried, with interest.
"Yes. Do you know him?"
"Know him! He was one of my dearest college friends. He is a man of the
utmost dignity of soul and consummate breeding."
"Jawkins spoke of him with positive awe as a gentleman of the old
school. 'He is a chevalier _sans peur et sans reproche_, miss,' said he,
'and one of my choicest specimens. He is more precious than Sevres
china; but at present he declines pay.'"
"St. George and the dragon!" cried Lord Brompton, "what would Dacre say
could he hear the comparison? Jawkins's life would not be worth an
hour's purchase. We regarded John Dacre at Oxford as the ideal of a
chivalric nature."
"You interest me greatly," said she. "But what has he been doing since
you graduated?"
"We have not met, but I have heard of him as loyal and devoted to the
royal cause when the outlook was darkest. I shall find him the same
noble, ardent soul as ever, I have not a doubt. Like enough his zeal
will be the needful spur to my flagging spirit."
They had been wandering through the spacious mansion as they talked, but
so absorbed were they in the conversation that the changes in the
arrangement of the ancient heirlooms of the once illustrious house of
Ripon made but little impression upon Lord Brompton. Weary at last with
their wanderings the twain seated themselves upon a broad leather couch,
from which they could command a view of a magnificent stained-glass
mullioned window, which dated back to the days of George the First. The
half light of the apartment was perhaps a begetter of remembrances, for
they began to talk of the past, if indeed so short a period back as two
summers deserves to be so entitled. Through Lord Brompton's thoughts
floated an inquiry as to whether he was not in love with his companion,
for, if not, why this joyous sense of re-acquisition on his part? He had
never forgotten the pleasant, happy hours passed in La Belle France, and
here they were come again, and he was visiting side by side with her
whose smile had been their harbinger.
"But I am forgetting, Lord Brompton, the object of our coming here," she
exclaimed at last. "I want to know the secrets of Ripon House. Where is
the haunted chamber?"
Geoffrey smiled, and rising from his seat walked to the other side of
the room and touched a spring in the wainscot. A panel flew to one side
and revealed a narrow aperture.
"Follow me if you have a brave heart," he cried, looking back.
The apartment in which they were sitting was the library and this exit
was a curious winding staircase, which gradually grew less dark as they
proceeded. At last they found themselves in a sort of antechamber,
scarcely large enough to turn about in, formed by a bay or projection.
There was an oak seat with the Ripon arms carved on the back. Above it a
tiny window, showing the great thickness of the wall, let in a few rays
of light.
"Sit down--sh!" said Lord Brompton, and he put his finger to his lips
and nodded toward a low door which was visible a few feet beyond. "It is
there."
"Oh, this is delightful. Is it a real, genuine, ancestral ghost?"
"In that chamber the Lady Marian Ripon, an ancestress of mine, is said
to have died of a broken heart. Her husband, the great-grandson of the
Lord Brompton whose portrait you think I resemble, was killed at Teb,
and three days after her body was borne to the tomb. This was her
private chamber, and here her spirit is said still to linger. It is not
a very original ghost, but its authenticity is unquestioned."
"Have you ever crossed the threshold?" asked the girl, with mock
solemnity.
"Not since childhood, and then only in fear and trembling."
"This is beginning to be positively weird and uncanny," she murmured,
"but I propose to defy the spectre and enter."
"Have a care--have a care. But you have no key, Miss Windsor."
She was shaking the handle, which seemed loose and flimsy. "Help me. It
is not fastened," she cried.
They bent their united strength upon the door, which creaked, groaned,
and finally burst open with a crash, causing the dust to fly so that
Maggie gave a little shriek of dismay. Complete silence and darkness
followed the onslaught, and then with a whisper of "Who's afraid?" she
drew forth a lamp of diminutive proportions and Etruscan design, and
turning the crank produced a brilliant electric flame, which permeated
the damp and gloom of the ghostly chamber.
Here was, indeed, a monument to decay and mould of the past. A room rife
with the cobwebs of ages met their vision where the moth-eaten remains
of once gorgeous hangings competed for utter fustiness with the odor of
the rotting beams and the dismal aspect of the furniture, some of which
had actually fallen to pieces, as though further stability had been
incompatible with the long absence of human life. The place seemed
almost too desolate for a ghost other than a very morbid spirit in
search of penance. In the centre of the room lay in hopeless confusion a
pile of all sorts and varieties of garments, many of them of most
antiquated description. Plumed hats and velvet knee-breeches of the
cavalier period, Jersey jackets and tea-gowns, with Watteau plaits, such
as were in fashion when Victoria was queen, were mingled with articles
of a more recent date. On the top lay an open volume, the pages of which
were brown with dust. Maggie picked it up and read:
"Howe'er it be, it seems to me
'Tis only noble to be good;
Kind hearts are more than coronets
And simple faith than Norman blood."
"By whom is that, Lord Brompton? Ah! I see, Lord d'Eyncourt. His name is
on the title-page."
"An eccentric Victorian poet," said the young man, "of much account in
his own day, if I mistake not."
"I never heard of him," said Maggie, "but I am little of an antiquarian.
It is pretty, though."
"I remember," said he, "that we as children used to act theatricals here
in those old clothes, duds we ransacked from the closets."
"But where is the ghost? I want to see the ghost!" cried the girl,
tossing aside the last bit of tarnished finery. "What is this?" she
continued, seizing the end of a beam which had become loosened and
projected from the wall.
"You will have the house about our ears if you persist," he cried, as a
shower of crumbled stone and mortar followed her investigation.
"Well, it is my house, Lord Brompton; I have the right if I choose to."
"Why remind me of my misfortunes, Miss Windsor?"
"Come and help me, then."
"I wish I might be your helpmate forever," he said. She turned and
looked at him, slightly disconcerted, and then said: "I was wrong. The
women of to-day need no help from any one."
She gave the beam a strong wrench, as though to vindicate her assertion.
It yielded and disclosed a kind of box or recess set into the wall. She
plunged therein her hand, and drew forth a handsome sword of rich and
subtle workmanship and antique design. "There," she cried, "am I not
right?"
Maggie took it to the light. Around the hilt was wrapped a scroll, which
she was about to read, when, with a sudden fancy, she paused and said,
"What am I doing? These are family secrets, and meant, perhaps, only for
your eyes, Lord Brompton."
"Read it, I beg," said he. She obeyed him. In a faint, feminine hand,
which resembled a field of corn bowed by the wind, were written these
words:
"My grandfather's sword. MARIAN RIPON."
"The ghost--it is the ghost's own work," they cried together.
"And this sword," said he, "belonged to my namesake, the cavalier."
"But look--look." Maggie had been staring at the opposite side of the
paper.
Geoffrey took it from her hand.
"Kind hearts are more than coronets
And simple faith than Norman blood."
For a moment they looked at one another in speechless surprise.
"Kneel, Lord Brompton," she said at length. He did so, and taking a
scarf from among the pile of vestments she girded the sword about him
with fantastic grace. "Rise, Geoffrey Ripon, knight, and Earl of
Brompton."
"You are forever my sovereign." He kissed her hand. She blushed sweetly,
and turning said, "Enough of the past and its customs. We each have a
present to face, and mine for the nonce is Jawkins. He must need my
directions."
Thus it happened that when Lord Brompton next entered the porter's lodge
in which he dwelt, he was girded with the sword of his ancestors.