"DOING" ROMARY.
"She told the tale with bated breath--
`A sad old story; is it true?'"
There was no good, there seldom is any, in crying about it. And Mary's
tears were those rather of anger and indignation than of sorrow. The
sorrow was there, but it lay a good deal lower down, and she had no
intention of letting any one suspect its existence, nor that of her
present discomfort, in any way. So she soon left off crying, and tried
to rally again the temporarily scattered forces of her philosophy.
"Well," she reflected, "it has been a failure, and perhaps it was a
mistake. I must put it away among the good intentions that had better
have remained such. I must try to think I have at worst done Lilias's
cause no harm--honestly I don't think I have--nothing that I could say
would move that man one way or the other. And any way I meant well--my
darling!--I would do it all over again for you, would I not? My poor
Lily--to think how happy she might have been but for _him_. As for what
he thinks of me I do not care, deliberately and decidedly I do not care,
though just now it makes me feel hot,"--for the colour had mounted in
her face even while she was asserting her indifference--"or perhaps, to
be quite truthful, I should say I shall not care, very soon I shall not,
I know. I shall not even care what he says of me--except--it would be
rather dreadful if Lilias ever heard of it! but I do not think he will
ever speak of it--he has what people call the instincts of a gentleman,
I suppose."
Mary walked on, she was close to the lodge gates now. Suddenly a quick
clatter behind her made her look round--a girl on horseback followed by
a groom was passing her, and as Mary glanced up she caught sight of the
bright, sweet face of Alys Cheviott. One instant she turned in Mary's
direction, and, it _seemed_ to Mary--conscious of red eyes and a half
guilty sensation of having no business within the gates--eyed her
curiously. But she did not stop, or even slacken her pace. "She cannot
have recognised me," said Mary.
"And to-morrow," she thought, with a sigh, half of relief, half of
despair, "I shall be home again, and Lilias will be asking me if I came
across any of the Romary people, or heard anything about Arthur
Beverley."
And when she got back to Uxley and Mrs Greville's afternoon tea, she
had to say how very much she had enjoyed her walk, and how pretty Romary
Park looked from the road.
"Only," repeated Mrs Greville, "I do so wish the Cheviotts had been
away, and that I could have taken you all to see through the house and
gardens and everything," and Mary agreed that it was a great pity the
Cheviotts had not been away, thinking in her heart that it was perhaps a
greater pity than Mrs Greville had any idea of.
How seldom to-morrow fulfills the predictions of to-day! On Wednesday
evening Mary was so sure she was going back to Hathercourt on Thursday
morning, and on Thursday morning a letter from Lilias upset all her
plans. It had been arranged that Mr Western should walk over to Uxley
on Thursday to lunch there, and be driven home with Mary in Mrs
Greville's pony-carriage; but Wednesday had brought news to Hathercourt
of the visit of a school inspector, and Mr Western's absence was not to
be thought of.
"So," wrote Lilias, "mother and I have persuaded him to go on Friday
instead, if it will suit Mrs Greville equally well. If not, we shall
expect you home to-morrow, but do stay till Friday, if you can, Mary,
for I can see that poor papa has been rather looking forward to the
little change of a day at Uxley, and he has so few changes."
Mary was longing to be home again, but her longings were not the
question, and as Friday proved to be equally convenient to Mrs
Greville, the matter was decided as Lilias wished.
"But you look rather melancholy about it, Mary," said Mrs Greville.
"Are you homesick already?"
Mary smiled. Mr Morpeth was looking at her with some curiosity.
"Not exactly," she said, honestly.
She glanced up and saw a smile pass round the table.
"What are you all laughing at me for?" she said, smiling herself.
"You are so dreadfully honest," said Mrs Greville.
"And unsophisticated, I suppose," said Mary, "to own to the possibility
of anything so old-fashioned as homesickness."
"It must be rather a nice feeling, I think," said Mr Morpeth. "I mean
to say it must be nice to have one place in the world one really longs
for. I have never known what that was--we were all at school for so
many years after our father's death--and since we have been together we
have been knocking about so, there was no chance of feeling anywhere at
home."
"It must be dreadful to be homesick when one is very ill and has small
chance of ever seeing home again," said Cecilia Morpeth. "We used to
see so much of that at Mentone and those places. Invalids who had not
many days to live, just praying for home. Do you remember that poor
young Brooke, last winter, Frances?"
"_That's_ it," exclaimed the elder Miss Morpeth, emphatically.
Everybody stared at her.
"What _is_ the matter? What are you talking about, Frances?" asked her
brother and sister.
Miss Morpeth laughed.
"You must have thought I was going out of my mind," she said, "but it
has bothered me so, and when Cecilia mentioned the Brookes, it flashed
before me in a moment."
"_What_?" repeated Cecilia.
"The likeness--don't you remember we were talking about it, last night,
in our own room? A curious likeness in Miss Western's face to some
one--I could not tell who. Don't you see it, Cecilia? Not to Basil
Brooke, but to the younger brother, Anselm--the one that used to ride
with us."
"Yes," said Cecilia, "I see what you mean. It is especially when Miss
Western looks at all anxious or thoughtful."
"It is curious," said Mary. "If we had any cousins, I should fancy
these Brookes you are talking of must be relations. My eldest brother's
name is Basil, and the second one is George Anselm, and my mother's name
was Brooke. But I think she told me all her family had died out--
anyway, your friends can only be very distant relations."
"But the likeness," said Miss Morpeth. "It is quite romantic isn't it?
I suppose you are like your mother, Miss Western?"
"Yes," said Mary.
"It is to be hoped the likeness goes no further than the face," said
Cecilia, thoughtlessly. "These Brookes are frightfully consumptive. I
beg your pardon," she added, seeing that Mary looked grave, "I should
not have said that."
"I was not thinking of ourselves," said Mary. "I know _we_ are not
consumptive. I was trying to remember if I had ever heard mother speak
of any such cousins."
"The consumption comes from their mother's side," said Miss Morpeth. "I
remember their aunt, Mrs Brabazon, telling me so. She was a Brooke,
and she was as strong as possible."
"Basil Brooke is dead," said Mr Morpeth. "I saw his death in the
_Times_ last week, poor fellow!"
"I will tell mother about them," said Mary, and then the conversation
went off to other subjects.
An hour or two later, when Mary and the Morpeths were sitting in the
drawing-room together, and Mrs Greville was attending to her
housekeeping for the day, she suddenly re-appeared, with a beaming face.
"Frances, Mary, Cecilia," she exclaimed, "_such_ a piece of good luck!
Mr Petre, Mr Cheviott's agent, has just been calling here to see Mr
Greville about some parish business, and I happened to say to him that I
had friends with me here who had such a wish to see Romary. And what
_do_ you think? Mr Cheviott and his sister _are_ away! They went
yesterday evening to pay a visit, somewhere in the neighbourhood, for
three days. And Mr Petre was so nice about it--he says he has perfect
_carte blanche_ about showing the house when they are away, and Mrs
Golding is always delighted to do the honours. So it is all fixed--we
are to go this afternoon--we must have luncheon a little earlier than
usual. So glad you are not going home to-day, Mary."
Mary _felt_--afterwards she trusted she had not _looked_--aghast. What
evil genii have conspired to bring about such a scheme? To go to see
Romary--of all places on earth, the last she ever wished to re-enter--to
go to admire the possessions of the man who had done her more injury and
caused her deeper mortification than she had ever endured before!
"Oh, Mrs Greville," she exclaimed, hastily. "It is very good of you,
but I don't think I care about going--you won't mind if I stay at home?"
"If you stay at home!" said Mrs Greville, in amazement. "Of _course_ I
should mind. I made the plan quite as much for you as for Frances and
Cecilia; and only yesterday--or day before, was it?--you seemed so
interested in Romary, and so anxious to see it, you were asking ever so
many questions about it. I did not think you were so changeable."
Mary's face flushed.
"I did not mean to be changeable or to vex you, dear Mrs Greville," she
began, "only--"
"Only what?"
Mary had left her seat and come over to where Mrs Greville was
standing.
"It is a very silly reason I was going to give," she said in a low
voice, trying to smile. "You remember my saying before how _very_ much
I dislike that Mr Cheviott."
Mrs Greville could not help laughing.
"Is that all?" she said. "Come now, Mary, I had no idea you could be so
silly. I have always looked upon you as such a model of good sense. I
began to think there must be some mystery you had not explained to me
about Lilias's affairs, of course, I mean," she added, in a whisper,
glancing at Mary with re-awakened curiosity in her eyes.
Mary kept her countenance.
"It is just as I said," she replied. "I can't give you any better
reason for not wanting to go than my dislike to that man."
"Very well, then, you _must_ come. That might prevent your liking to
see _him_; it need not prevent your liking to see his house. Your not
coming would quite spoil our pleasure."
Mary hesitated. Suddenly there flashed into her mind some of Lilias's
last words of warning.
"Whatever you do, Mary," she had said, "don't let Mrs Greville get it
into her head that there has been anything mortifying to us--that Arthur
has behaved ill, I mean. I couldn't stand that being said."
And Mary turned to Mrs Greville with a smile.
"Very well," she said. "I won't be silly, and I will go."
"That's all right," said Mrs Greville, and Mary wished she could have
said so too.
After all, why not? It was entirely a matter of personal feeling on her
part; there was nothing unladylike or unusual in her going with the
others to see the show house of the neighbourhood; and yet the bare
thought of her doing so by any possibility coming to Mr Cheviott's ears
made her cheeks burn.
"That horrible man-servant!" she said to herself--"supposing he
recognises me!"
But there was no good in "supposings." She determined to make the best
of the unavoidable, though it was impossible altogether to refrain from
fruitless regrets that her return home had been delayed.
Nothing came in the way of the expedition. The afternoon turned out
very fine, remarkably fine and mild for February, and the little party
that set out from the Vicarage would have struck any casual observer as
cheerful and light-hearted in the extreme.
"Do you care about this sort of thing?" said Mr Morpeth to Mary, when
in the course of the walk they happened to fall a little behind the
others.
"About what?" said Mary, absently. Her thoughts had been far away from
her companions; she now recalled them with some effort.
"Going to see other people's houses," replied the young man. "I hate
it, though I have had more than my share of it, knocking about from
place to place, as we have been doing for so long."
"Why do you hate it?" inquired Mary, with more interest. The mere fact
of Mr Morpeth's aversion to such expeditions in general seemed
congenial, smarting as she was with her own sore repugnance to this one
in particular. And even a shadow of sympathy in her present discomfort
was attractive to Mary to-day.
Mr Morpeth kicked a pebble or two out of his path with a sort of boyish
impatience which made Mary smile.
"Oh, I don't know," he replied, vaguely, "I always think it is a
snobbish sort of thing to do, going poking about people's rooms, and all
that. And if it's a pretty house, it makes one envious, and if it's
ugly, what's the good of seeing it?"
Mary laughed.
"I like seeing old houses--really old houses," she said.
"Not ruins, but an old house still habitable enough to enable one to
fancy what it must have really been like `once upon a time.'"
"Yes," said Mr Morpeth, "I know how you mean. But even that interest
goes off very quickly. We once lived near an old place that nearly took
my breath away with awe and admiration the first time I went through it.
But very soon it became as commonplace as anything, and I hated to hear
people go off into rhapsodies about it."
"What a pity!" said Mary. "I don't know that I envy you people who have
travelled everywhere and seen everything. You don't enjoy little things
as we do who have seen nothing."
"But you don't enjoy going to see this stupid place to-day," persisted
Mr Morpeth. "I know you don't, for I was in the drawing-room this
morning when you were all talking about it; I came in behind Mrs
Greville, and sat down in the corner, though you didn't see me."
"Then if you heard all that was said you must have heard my reason for
disliking to go to see Romary," said Mary, in a tone of some annoyance.
"Yes," said Mr Morpeth, coolly, "_I_ did. I wonder why you dislike
that unfortunate Mr What's-his-name so? For before you came Mrs
Greville entertained us with a wonderful story about a ball and a very
grand gentleman who never looks at young ladies at all, having quite
succumbed to--"
"Mr Morpeth," exclaimed Mary, stopping short and turning round on her
companion with scarlet cheeks, "I shall be _very_ angry if you speak
like that, and I don't think Mrs Greville should have--"
"Please don't be angry. I didn't mean to vex you, and Mrs Greville was
not telling any secrets," said Mr Morpeth. "Only I have been wondering
ever since why you should have taken such a dislike to the poor man.
You must be very unlike other girls, Miss Western?"
He looked at her with a sort of half innocent, half mischievous
curiosity, and somehow Mary could not keep up her indignation.
"Well, perhaps I am," she said, good-naturedly. "All the same, Mr
Morpeth, you have got _quite_ a wrong idea about why I dislike Mr
Cheviott. Don't let us talk about him any more."
"_I_ don't want to talk about him, I'm sure," said Mr Morpeth. "I only
wish he didn't live here, or hadn't a house which people insist on
dragging me to see. _I_ have no other ill-will at the unfortunate man."
"Only you won't leave off talking about him," said Mary, "and we are
close to Romary now. See, that is the lodge gate--on there just past
the bend in the road."
"Oh, you have been here before. I forgot," said her companion, simply.
But innocently as he spoke, his remark sent the blood flying again to
Mary's cheeks.
"What shall I do if that horrible footman opens the door?" she said to
herself.
But things seldom turn out as bad as we picture them--or, rather, they
seldom turn out as we picture them at all. The horrible footman did not
make his appearance--men-servants of no kind were visible--the house
seemed already in a half state of _deshabille_; only old Mrs Golding,
the housekeeper, came forward, with many apologies and regrets that she
had not known before of Mrs Greville's and her friends' coming. "Mr
Petre had only just sent word," and the carpets were up in the
morning-room and library! So sorry, she chatted on, but she was
thankful to take advantage of her master's and Miss Cheviott's absence,
even for a day of two, to get some cleaning done.
"For a house like this takes a dell," She added, pathetically, appealing
to Mrs Greville, who answered good-humouredly that to be sure it must.
"But the best rooms are not dismantled, I suppose?" she inquired. "The
great round drawing-room and the picture-gallery with the arched roof?
Just like a Church," she observed, parenthetically, to her companions;
"that is what I want you so much to see. And the old part of the house,
we are sure to see that, and it is really so curious."
There was no "cleaning" going on in the great drawing-room, and Mrs
Golding led the way to its splendours with unconcealed satisfaction. It
was much like other big drawing-rooms, with an even greater air of
formality and unusedness than is often seen.
Mary, who was not learned in old china, its chief attraction, turned
away with little interest, and wished Mrs Greville would hasten her
movements.
"What splendid old damask these curtains are," she was saying to Mrs
Golding. "One could not buy stuff like this nowadays."
"No, indeed, ma'am," said the housekeeper, shaking her head. "They must
have been made many a long year ago. But they're getting to look very
dingy--Miss Alys's always asking Mr Cheviott to refurnish this room.
But it must have been handsome in its day--I remember being here once
when I was a girl and seeing it all lighted up. I did think it
splendid."
"There are some _very_ old rooms, are there not?" said Mary.
"Yes, miss, the tapestry rooms," said Mrs Golding. "There's a stair
leading up to them that opens out of the picture-gallery--the only other
way to them is through Mr Cheviott's own rooms, and he always keeps
that way locked, as no one else uses it. The stair runs right down to
the side-door on the terrace, so it's a convenient way of getting in
from the garden," continued the communicative housekeeper. "But there's
not many in the house cares to go near those rooms, for they say the
middle one's haunted."
"Dear me, this is getting interesting," said Mr Morpeth. "What or whom
is it haunted by, pray?"
Mrs Golding looked up at him sharply, then with a slight smile she
shook her head.
"You would only make fun of it if I told you, sir," she said, "and
somehow one doesn't care to have old stories made fun of, silly though
they may be."
"No," said Mary, "one doesn't. I think you are quite right," and the
old woman looked pleased.
"You won't prevent my seeing the haunted room, though you won't tell me
its story?" said Mr Morpeth, good-naturedly. So Mrs Golding led the
way.
They passed along the arched picture-gallery, which in itself merited
Mrs Greville's praises, though the pictures it contained were neither
many nor remarkable.
"I like this room," said Mary, approvingly. "It is much less
commonplace than the drawing-room--not that I have seen many great
houses," she added, with a smile, to Mr Morpeth, who was walking beside
her, "but this is a room one would remember wherever one went."
"Yes," said Mr Morpeth. "It is a room with a character of its own,
certainly. Frances will be calling it romantic and picturesque and all
the rest of it. I am so tired of all those words."
"I am afraid you are tired of most things," said Mary. "See what an
advantage we dwellers at home have over you travelled people!"
Her spirits were rising. So far there had been nothing at all in the
expedition to arouse her fears, and she began to think they had been
exaggerated.
"Which is the way to the haunted room?" asked Mr Morpeth, when they
were all tired of admiring the picture-gallery.
Mrs Golding replied by opening a door at the further end of the room
from that at which they had entered. It led into a little vestibule up
one side of which ran a narrow staircase.
"Up that stair, sir," she said to Mr Morpeth, "you get into a passage
with two doors, one of them leads into the new part of the house and one
into the old tapestry rooms--it is one of those rooms that is haunted."
"Let us see if we can guess which it is," exclaimed Mr Morpeth,
springing up the staircase. His sister and Mrs Greville followed him,
but Mary lingered a little behind.
"What is the story of the haunted room?" she said, in a low voice, to
the housekeeper.
Mrs Golding smiled. She had somehow taken a liking to this
quietly-dressed, quietly-spoken young lady, with the pretty eyes and
pleasant voice.
"To tell you the truth, miss," she answered, "I do not very rightly
know, it myself. It was something about a lady from foreign parts that
was brought here sorely against her will by one of the old lords--I
think I have heard said they were once lords--of Romary. He wanted her
to marry him, but she would not. Whether he forced her to give in or
not I can't tell, but the end of it was she killed herself--I fancy she
threw herself out of the window of the room where he had imprisoned her.
And since then they say she is to be seen there now and then."
"Was it very long ago?"
"I couldn't say. It was at the time, I know, when there was wars in
foreign parts, and that was how the squire of Romary had found the lady.
Miss Alys knows all the story--that's our young lady. Miss Cheviott I
should say. It is a sad enough story anyway."
"Yes," said Mary, "ghost stories always are, I think. It is queer that
the people who have been the most miserable in this world are always the
ones who are supposed not to be able to rest without returning to it."
But just then a voice from above interrupted them.
"Miss Western," it said, "do come up. This is the jolliest place of the
whole house."
So Mary ran up the staircase. Mr Morpeth was waiting for her at the
top.