SHE IS TAKEN TO CASTLE HALL.
The descendants of Martha Bevis, who had come from Castle Hall with Lady
Alice, had always kept up a correspondence with their relatives in
England, and also with the family of Mrs. Lacy and her mother, the
successive housekeepers of the Earls De Roland. They also kept up the
use of their mother tongue, although they married Germans, for the Grafs
von Hohenstein always had their children taught English; for the memory
of the beautiful Lady Alice was always kept up, and her portraits, and
the embroidery she had worked, were revered as hallowed relics.
Therefore English had been the chief language of the nursery for three
generations, and, until the accession of the last Earl, some of the
family had always visited Castle Hall every third year.
But the last Earl was, unfortunately, one of the bad type, and he
quarrelled with most of his relations. His brother died young, and, if
he left no children, the Earldom would become extinct; but an older
Barony would go in the female line, with the entailed estate, to the
representative of the Lady Alice, who married Graf von Hohenstein.
The Earl de Roland had taken a great dislike to his foreign relations,
and he was therefore most anxious for a son. But his first wife had only
a daughter, who died in her first year, and was soon followed to the
grave by the young mother. He then married a handsome young widow, who
had three sons--on purpose, his enemies said, to ensure an heir. But the
plan did not succeed, and just after his marriage, and about the time
when Dorina was beginning to recover her reason, Fräulein Marta received
a letter from Mrs. Lacy, to announce the Earl’s death.
The old housekeeper had, of course, heard several months before of
Dorina’s supposed death, and most bitter had been her lamentation at the
time; and now that the English property would have been inherited by
her at the Earl’s death, her sorrow was redoubled. From all that had
reached Mrs. Lacy’s ears, she fancied that the present heiress, Gräfinn
Cunigunda, would be little to her liking, and her only hope was that she
would never come to Castle Hall.
Frau Müller and her sister seemed of the same opinion, as they knew
Cunigunda could not endure a country life, and if she ever visited
Castle Hall it would probably be only from curiosity, just to see her
property. Many circumstances combined to form this opinion, for an agent
was sent by Count Rossi to transact the business in his wife’s name, and
he brought orders that the house was to be shut up, and only the old
housekeeper and one assistant was to remain in it.
Frau Müller possessed a good deal of the German _Schwärmerei_, mingled
with strong English common-sense, and as she watched by the bedside of
the still weak and suffering young lady, she thought over a plan which
at first startled her less imaginative sister, the Fräulein Marta, but
into which she was gradually persuaded to enter. The kind of veneration
all the descendants of Martha Bevis kept up for the old Castle Hall
inclined her at last to consent.
Frau Müller had been twice to England before the late Earl succeeded to
the estates, and she had a most perfect recollection of every hole and
corner in the beloved old place; and as Dorina persisted in her
determination to allow all the family to believe in her death, Frau
Müller became convinced that she could not do better than take her young
mistress over to England, and install her in a suite of rooms at Castle
Hall, to which no one had a clue except old Mrs. Lacy and Dame Bevis.
At first Dorina was frightened at the idea when it was proposed to her;
but a longing to see the old place, of which she had heard so much, was
soon awakened in her mind; and after they assured her that her secret
would be most scrupulously kept, she gave her consent.
Fräulein Marta went first, in order to make arrangements and consult old
Mrs. Lacy; and the result was that Dorina was soon afterwards taken to
Castle Hall by Frau Müller, and installed with her in the suite of
rooms on the upper floor of the half-ruined wing which communicates with
the high tower of the ancient Castle.
These were the very rooms which puzzled me on my expedition, and were
over the half-ruined ones into which I had contrived to climb. Their
sitting-room was at the top of the old tower, and its window was the
beautiful old oriel overhanging the deep ravine which I had endeavoured
to sketch. From these rooms there was a passage which led to the old
carved gallery of the chapel, which had been turned into a
banqueting-room by the wicked Baron Hugh, and was afterwards turned into
a ball-room by Cunigunda.
For many months Dorina remained undisturbed in her concealment,
attended on by Frau Müller; and when at length the news arrived that the
Count and Countess were coming to Castle Hall, Dorina resolved still to
remain. Perhaps a vague longing to see the Count from her concealment
may have inclined her to decide on the perilous plan. The first attempt
to see him from a safe hiding-place was made on the night when Cunigunda
first visited the ruined banqueting-hall. Dorina heard the sound of
voices from the end of the passage near the rooms, so she groped in the
dark to the door which opened in the gallery, and proceeding with
noiseless steps, looked cautiously down upon the party, who were
standing with candlesticks in their hands on the floor below. In her
eagerness to see if the Count was among them, she stepped forward for a
moment, and it unfortunately happened that Cunigunda was at that instant
looking up towards the gallery.
Cunigunda’s shriek of horror, and all that followed, has been already
described. Dorina drew back at once, without, as she thought, any one
else having seen her, and never made another attempt to see the Count
till the night of the ball, when she chanced for a moment to appear.
Then the light shone upon her face--the minute afterwards she saw the
floor give way, and Cunigunda was precipitated through the aperture,
with her partner.
After that she seemed spell-bound with horror, and, forgetting
everything else, she stood watching the efforts made to rescue the
unfortunate pair. The mystery of the apparent trap-door was afterwards
explained by Joe Naylor, who remembered that the joists which supported
the square of marqueterie work had been moved away when the thieves
entered the room from below, and quitting this in a hurry, they omitted
to replace them properly, or to fasten down the stone door, which, as
the reader will remember, opened by a spring in the floor.