“A deadly silence step by step increased,
Until it seemed a horrid presence there.”
That idea of the Strangways had taken hold of the bride’s fancy.
She went into the hall with Godfrey after dinner, and they looked
together at the family group. The picture was a bishop’s half-length,
turned lengthwise, and the figures showed only the head and
shoulders. The girl stood between the two boys, her left arm round
her younger brother’s neck. He was a lad of eleven or twelve, in an
Eton jacket and broad white collar. The other boy was older than
the girl, and was dressed in dark green corduroy. The heads were
masterly, but the picture was uninteresting.
“Did you ever see three faces with so little fascination among the
three?” asked Godfrey. “The boys look arrant cubs; the girl has the
makings of a handsome woman, but the lines of her mouth and chin
have firmness enough for forty, and yet she could hardly have been
over fifteen when that picture was painted.”
“She has a lovely throat and lovely shoulders.”
“Yes, the painter has made the most of those.”
“And she has fine eyes.”
“Fine as to colour and shape, but as cold as a Toledo blade—and as
dangerous. I pity her husband.”
“That must be a waste of pity. If he had been good to her she would
not have run away from him.”
“I am not sure of that. A woman with that mouth and chin would go her
own gate if she trampled upon bleeding hearts. I wonder your father
keeps these shadows of a vanished race.”
“He would not part with them for worlds. They are like the peacock’s
feathers that he _will_ bring indoors. I sometimes think he has a
fancy for unlucky things. He says that as we have no ancestors of our
own—to speak of—I suppose we must _have_ ancestors, for everybody
must have come down from Adam somehow——”
“Naturally, or from Adam’s ancestor, the common progenitor of the
Darwinian thesis.”
“Don’t be horrid. Father’s idea is that as we have no ancestors of
our own, we may as well keep the Strangway portraits. The faces are
the history of the house, father said, when mother wanted those
dismal old pictures taken down to make way for a collection of
modern art. So there they are, and I can’t help thinking that they
_overlook_ us.”
They were still standing before the trio of young faces
contemplatively.
“Are they _all_ dead?” asked Juanita, after a pause.
“God knows. I believe it is a long time since any of them were heard
of. Jasper Blake talks to me about them sometimes. He was in service
here, you know, before he became my father’s bailiff. In fact, he
only left Cheriton after the old squire’s death. He is fond of
talking of the forgotten race, and it is from him that most of my
information is derived. He told me about that unlucky lad,”—pointing
to the younger boy. “He was in the navy, distinguished himself out in
China, and was on the high road to getting a ship when he got broke
for drunkenness—a flagrant case, which all but ended in a tremendous
disaster and the burning of a man-of-war. He went into the merchant
service—did well for a year or two, and then the old enemy took
hold of him again, and he got broke _there_. After that he dropped
through—disappeared in the great dismal swamp where the men who fail
in this world sink out of knowledge.”
“And the elder boy; what became of him?”
“He was in the army—a tremendous swell, I believe,—married Lord
Dangerfield’s youngest daughter, and cut a dash for two or three
years, and then disappeared from society, and took his wife to
Corsica, on the ground of delicate health. For anything I know to
the contrary they may still be living in that free-and-easy little
island. He was fond of sport, and liked a rough life. I fancy that
Ajaccio would suit him better than Purbeck or Pall Mall.”
“Poor things; I wonder if they ever long for Cheriton?”
“If old Jasper is to be believed, they were passionately fond of the
place, especially that girl. Jasper was groom in those days, and he
taught her to ride. She was a regular dare-devil, according to his
account, with a temper that no one had ever been able to control. But
she seems to have behaved pretty well to Jasper, and he was attached
to her. Her father couldn’t manage her anyhow. They were too much
alike. He sent her to a school at Lausanne soon after that picture
was painted, and she never came back to Cheriton. She ran away with
an English officer who was home from India on furlough, and was
staying at Ouchy for his health. She represented herself as of full
age, and contrived to get married at Geneva. The squire refused ever
to see her or her husband. She ran away from the husband afterwards,
as I told you. In fact, to quote Jasper, she was an incorrigible
bolter.”
“Poor, poor thing. It is all too sad,” sighed Juanita. “Let us go
into the library and forget them. There are no Strangways there,
thank Heaven.”
She put her arm through Godfrey’s and led him off, unresisting. He
was in that stage of devotion in which he followed her like a dog.
The library was one of the best rooms in the house, but the least
interesting from an archæologist’s point of view. It had been built
early in the eighteenth century for a ball-room, a long narrow room,
with five tall windows, and it had been afterwards known as the
music-room; but James Dalbrook had improved it out of its original
character by throwing out a large bay, with three windows opening
on to a semi-circular terrace, with marble balustrade and steps
leading down to the prettiest portion of that Italian garden which
was the crowning glory of Cheriton Manor, and which it had been
Lord Cheriton’s delight to improve. The spacious bay gave width
and dignity to the room, and it was in the space between the bay
and the fireplace that people naturally grouped themselves. It was
too large a room to be warmed by one fire of ordinary dimensions,
but the fireplace added by James Dalbrook was of abnormal width
and grandeur, while the chimney-piece was rich in coloured marbles
and massive sculpture. The room was lined with books from floor to
ceiling. Clusters of wax candles were burning on the mantelpiece,
and two large moderator lamps stood on a massive carved oak table
in the centre of the room—a table spacious enough to hold all the
magazines, reviews, and periodicals in three languages that were
worth reading—Quarterlies, _Revue des Deux Mondes_, _Rundschau_,
_Figaro_, _World_, _Saturday_, _Truth_, and the rest of them—as
well as guide-books, peerages, clergy and army lists—which made a
formidable range in the middle.
Godfrey flung himself into a long, low, arm-chair, and Juanita
perched herself lightly beside him on the cushioned arm, looking down
at him from that point of vantage. There was a wood fire here as well
as in the hall; but the rain was over now, the evening had grown
warmer, and the French windows in the bay stood open to the dull grey
night.
“What are you reading now, Godfrey?” asked Juanita, glancing at the
cosy double table in a corner by the chimney-piece, loaded with books
above and below.
“For duty reading Jones’ book on ‘Grattan and the Irish Parliament;’
for old books ‘Plato;’ for new ‘Wider Horizons.’”
He was an insatiable reader, and even in those long summer days of
honeymoon bliss he had felt the need of books, which were a habit of
his life.
“Is ‘Wider Horizons’ a good book?”
“It is full of imagination, and it carries one away; but one has
the same feeling as in ‘Esoteric Buddhism.’ It is a very comforting
theory, and it ought to be true; but by what authority is this gospel
preached to us, and on what evidence are we to believe?”
“‘Wider Horizons’ is about the life to come?”
“Yes; it gives us a very vivid picture of our existence in other
planets. The author writes as if he had been there.”
“And according to this theory you and I are to meet and be happy
again in some distant star?”
“In many stars—climbing from star to star, and achieving a higher
spirituality, a finer essence, with every new existence, until we
attain the everlasting perfection.”
“And we who are to die old and worn out here are to be young and
bright again there—in our next world?”
“Naturally.”
“And then we shall grow old again—go through the same slow decay—grey
hairs, fading sight, duller hearing?”
“Yes; as we blossom so must we fade. The withered husk of the old
life holds the seed from which the new flower must spring; and with
every incarnation the flower is to gain in vigour and beauty, and the
life period is to lengthen till it touches infinity.”
“I must read the book, Godfrey. It may be all a dream; but I love
even dreams that promise a future in which you and I shall always be
together—as we are now, as we are now.”
She repeated those last four words with infinite tenderness. The
beautiful head sank down to nestle upon his shoulder, and they were
silent for some minutes in a dreamy reverie, gazing into the fire,
where the logs had given out their last flame, and were slowly fading
from red to grey.
It was a quarter to eleven by the dial let into the marble of the
chimney-piece. The butler had brought a tray with wine and water
at ten o’clock, and had taken the final orders before retiring.
Juanita and her husband were alone amid the stillness of the sleeping
household. The night was close and dull, not a leaf stirring, and
only a few dim stars in the heavy sky.
As the clock told the third quarter with a small silvery chime, as if
it were a town clock in fairyland, Juanita started suddenly from her
half-reclining position, and listened intently, with her face towards
the open window.
“A footstep!” she exclaimed. “I heard a footstep on the terrace.”
“My dearest, I know your hearing is quicker than mine; but this time
it is your fancy that heard and not your ears. I heard nothing. And
who should be walking on the terrace at such an hour, do you suppose?”
“I don’t suppose anything about it, but I know there was some one.
I heard the steps, Godfrey. I heard them as distinctly as I heard
you speak just now; light footsteps—slow, very slow, and with that
cautious, treacherous sound which light, slow footsteps always have,
if one hears them in the silence of night.”
“You are very positive.”
“I know it, I heard it!” she cried, running to the window, and out
into the grey night.
She ran along the whole length of the terrace and back again, her
husband following her with slower steps, and they found no one, heard
nothing from one end to the other.
“You see, love, there was no one there,” said Godfrey.
“I see nothing of the kind—only that the some one who was there has
vanished very cleverly. An eavesdropper might hide easily enough
behind any one of those cypresses,” she said, pointing to the
obelisk-shaped trees which showed black against the dim grey of the
night.
“Why should there be any eavesdropper, love? What secrets have you
and I that any prowler should care to watch or listen. The only
person of the prowling kind to be apprehended would be a burglar; and
as Cheriton has been burglar-free all these years, I see no reason
for fear; so, unless your mysterious footfall belonged to one of the
servants or a servant’s follower, which is highly improbable on this
side of the house, I take it that you must have heard a ghost.”
He had his arm around her, and was leading her out of the misty night
into the warm, bright room, and his voice had the light sound of
laughter; but at that word ghost she started and trembled, and her
voice was very serious as she answered—
“A ghost, yes! It was just _like_ the footfall of a ghost—so slow, so
soft, so mysterious. I believe it was a ghost, Godfrey—a Strangway
ghost. Some of them _must_ revisit this house.”