A Lady in Black
Shortly after this, there arrived at the George and Dragon a stranger.
He was a man somewhat past forty, embrowned by distant travel, and, his
years considered, wonderfully good-looking. He had good eyes; his
dark-brown hair had no sprinkling of gray in it; and his kindly smile
showed very white and even teeth. He made inquiries about neighbours,
especially respecting Mardykes Hall; and the answers seemed to interest
him profoundly. He inquired after Philip Feltram, and shed tears when he
heard that he was no longer at Mardykes Hall, and that Trebeck or other
friends could give him no tidings of him.
And then he asked Richard Turnbull to show him to a quiet room; and so,
taking the honest fellow by the hand, he said,
"Mr. Turnbull, don't you know me?"
"No, sir," said the host of the George and Dragon, after a puzzled
stare, "I can't say I do, sir."
The stranger smiled a little sadly, and shook his head: and with a
gentle laugh, still holding his hand in a very friendly way, he said, "I
should have known you anywhere, Mr. Turnbull--anywhere on earth or
water. Had you turned up on the Himalayas, or in a junk on the Canton
river, or as a dervish in the mosque of St. Sophia, I should have
recognised my old friend, and asked what news from Golden Friars. But of
course I'm changed. You were a little my senior; and one advantage among
many you have over your juniors is that you don't change as we do. I
have played many a game of hand-ball in the inn-yard of the George, Mr.
Turnbull. You often wagered a pot of ale on my play; you used to say I'd
make the best player of fives, and the best singer of a song, within ten
miles round the meer. You used to have me behind the bar when I was a
boy, with more of an appetite than I have now. I was then at Mardykes
Hall, and used to go back in old Marlin's boat. Is old Marlin still
alive?"
"Ay, that--he--is," said Turnbull slowly, as he eyed the stranger again
carefully. "I don't know who you can be, sir, unless you are--the
boy--William Feltram. La! he was seven or eight years younger than
Philip. But, lawk!--Well--By Jen, and _be_ you Willie Feltram? But no,
you can't!"
"Ay, Mr. Turnbull, that very boy--Willie Feltram--even he, and no other;
and now you'll shake hands with me, not so formally, but like an old
friend."
"Ay, that I will," said honest Richard Turnbull, with a great smile, and
a hearty grasp of his guest's hand; and they both laughed together, and
the younger man's eyes, for he was an affectionate fool, filled up with
tears.
"And I want you to tell me this," said William, after they had talked a
little quietly, "now that there is no one to interrupt us, what has
become of my brother Philip? I heard from a friend an account of his
health that has caused me unspeakable anxiety."
"His health was not bad; no, he was a hardy lad, and liked a walk over
the fells, or a pull on the lake; but he was a bit daft, every one said,
and a changed man; and, in troth, they say the air o' Mardykes don't
agree with every one, no more than him. But that's a tale that's neither
here nor there."
"Yes," said William, "that was what they told me--his mind affected. God
help and guard us! I have been unhappy ever since; and if I only knew it
was well with poor Philip, I think I should be too happy. And where is
Philip now?"
"He crossed the lake one night, having took leave of Sir Bale. They
thought he was going to old Trebeck's up the Fells. He likes the
Feltrams, and likes the folk at Mardykes Hall--though those two families
was not always o'er kind to one another. But Trebeck seed nowt o' him,
nor no one else; and what has gone wi' him no one can tell."
"_I_ heard that also," said William with a deep sigh. "But _I_ hoped it
had been cleared up by now, and something happier been known of the poor
fellow by this time. I'd give a great deal to know--I don't know what I
_would_ not give to know--I'm so unhappy about him. And now, my good old
friend, tell your people to get me a chaise, for I must go to Mardykes
Hall; and, first, let me have a room to dress in."
At Mardykes Hall a pale and pretty lady was looking out, alone, from the
stone-shafted drawing-room window across the courtyard and the
balustrade, on which stood many a great stone cup with flowers, whose
leaves were half shed and gone with the winds--emblem of her hopes. The
solemn melancholy of the towering fells, the ripple of the lonely lake,
deepened her sadness.
The unwonted sound of carriage-wheels awoke her from her reverie.
Before the chaise reached the steps, a hand from its window had seized
the handle, the door was thrown open, and William Feltram jumped out.
She was in the hall, she knew not how; and, with a wild scream and a
sob, she threw herself into his arms.
Here at last was an end of the long waiting, the dejection which had
reached almost the point of despair. And like two rescued from
shipwreck, they clung together in an agony of happiness.
William had come back with no very splendid fortune. It was enough, and
only enough, to enable them to marry. Prudent people would have thought
it, very likely, too little. But he was now home in England, with health
unimpaired by his long sojourn in the East, and with intelligence and
energies improved by the discipline of his arduous struggle with
fortune. He reckoned, therefore, upon one way or other adding something
to their income; and he knew that a few hundreds a year would make them
happier than hundreds of thousand could other people.
It was five years since they had parted in France, where a journey of
importance to the Indian firm, whose right hand he was, had brought him.
The refined tastes that are supposed to accompany gentle blood, his love
of art, his talent for music and drawing, had accidentally attracted the
attention of the little travelling-party which old Lady Harbottle
chaperoned. Miss Janet, now Lady Mardykes, learning that his name was
Feltram, made inquiry through a common friend, and learned what
interested her still more about him. It ended in an acquaintance, which
his manly and gentle nature and his entertaining qualities soon improved
into an intimacy.
Feltram had chosen to work his own way, being proud, and also prosperous
enough to prevent his pride, in this respect, from being placed under
too severe a pressure of temptation. He heard not from but of his
brother, through a friend in London, and more lately from Gertrude,
whose account of him was sad and even alarming.
When Lady Mardykes came in, her delight knew no bounds. She had already
formed a plan for their future, and was not to be put off--William
Feltram was to take the great grazing farm that belonged to the Mardykes
estate; or, if he preferred it, to farm it for her, sharing the profits.
She wanted something to interest her, and this was just the thing. It
was hardly half-a-mile away, up the lake, and there was such a
comfortable house and garden, and she and Gertrude could be as much
together as ever almost; and, in fact, Gertrude and her husband could be
nearly always at Mardykes Hall.
So eager and entreating was she, that there was no escape. The plan was
adopted immediately on their marriage, and no happier neighbours for a
time were ever known.
But was Lady Mardykes content? was she even exempt from the heartache
which each mortal thinks he has all to himself? The longing of her life
was for children; and again and again had her hopes been disappointed.
One tiny pretty little baby indeed was born, and lived for two years,
and then died; and none had come to supply its place and break the
childless silence in the great old nursery. That was her sorrow; a
greater one than men can understand.
Another source of grief was this: that Sir Bale Mardykes conceived a
dislike to William Feltram that was unaccountable. At first suppressed,
it betrayed itself negatively only; but with time it increased; and in
the end the Baronet made little secret of his wish to get rid of him.
Many and ingenious were the annoyances he contrived; and at last he told
his wife plainly that he wished William Feltram to find some other abode
for himself.
Lady Mardykes pleaded earnestly, and even with tears; for if Gertrude
were to leave the neighbourhood, she well knew how utterly solitary her
own life would become.
Sir Bale at last vouchsafed some little light as to his motives. There
was an old story, he told her, that his estate would go to a Feltram. He
had an instinctive distrust of that family. It was a feeling not given
him for nothing; it might be the means of defeating their plotting and
strategy. Old Trebeck, he fancied, had a finger in it. Philip Feltram
had told him that Mardykes was to pass away to a Feltram. Well, they
might conspire; but he would take what care he could that the estate
should not be stolen from his family. He did not want his wife stript of
her jointure, or his children, if he had any, left without bread.
All this sounded very like madness; but the idea was propounded by
Philip Feltram. His own jealousy was at bottom founded on superstition
which he would not avow and could hardly define. He bitterly blamed
himself for having permitted William Feltram to place himself where he
was.
In the midst of these annoyances William Feltram was seriously thinking
of throwing up the farm, and seeking similar occupation somewhere else.
One day, walking alone in the thick wood that skirts the lake near his
farm, he was discussing this problem with himself; and every now and
then he repeated his question, "Shall I throw it up, and give him the
lease back if he likes?" On a sudden he heard a voice near him say:
"Hold it, you fool!--hold hard, you fool!--hold it, you fool!"
The situation being lonely, he was utterly puzzled to account for the
interruption, until on a sudden a huge parrot, green, crimson, and
yellow, plunged from among the boughs over his head to the ground, and
partly flying, and partly hopping and tumbling along, got lamely, but
swiftly, out of sight among the thick underwood; and he could neither
start it nor hear it any more. The interruption reminded him of that
which befel Robinson Crusoe. It was more singular, however; for he owned
no such bird; and its strangeness impressed the omen all the more.
He related it when he got home to his wife; and as people when living a
solitary life, and also suffering, are prone to superstition, she did
not laugh at the adventure, as in a healthier state of spirits, I
suppose, she would.
They continued, however, to discuss the question together; and all the
more industriously as a farm of the same kind, only some fifteen miles
away, was now offered to all bidders, under another landlord. Gertrude,
who felt Sir Bale's unkindness all the more that she was a distant
cousin of his, as it had proved on comparing notes, was very strong in
favour of the change, and had been urging it with true feminine
ingenuity and persistence upon her husband. A very singular dream rather
damped her ardour, however, and it appeared thus:
She had gone to her bed full of this subject; and she thought, although
she could not remember having done so, had fallen asleep. She was still
thinking, as she had been all the day, about leaving the farm. It seemed
to her that she was quite awake, and a candle burning all the time in
the room, awaiting the return of her husband, who was away at the fair
near Haworth; she saw the interior of the room distinctly. It was a
sultry night, and a little bit of the window was raised. A very slight
sound in that direction attracted her attention; and to her surprise she
saw a jay hop upon the window-sill, and into the room.
Up sat Gertrude, surprised and a little startled at the visit of so
large a bird, without presence of mind for the moment even to frighten
it away, and staring at it, as they say, with all her eyes. A sofa stood
at the foot of the bed; and under this the bird swiftly hopped. She
extended her hand now to take the bell-rope at the left side of the bed,
and in doing so displaced the curtains, which were open only at the
foot. She was amazed there to see a lady dressed entirely in black, and
with the old-fashioned hood over her head. She was young and pretty, and
looked kindly at her, but with now and then a slight contraction of lips
and eyebrows that indicates pain. This little twitching was momentary,
and recurred, it seemed, about once or twice in a minute.
How it was that she was not frightened on seeing this lady, standing
like an old friend at her bedside, she could not afterwards understand.
Some influence besides the kindness of her look prevented any sensation
of terror at the time. With a very white hand the young lady in black
held a white handkerchief pressed to her bosom at the top of her bodice.
"Who are you?" asked Gertrude.
"I am a kinswoman, although you don't know me; and I have come to tell
you that you must not leave Faxwell" (the name of the place) "or Janet.
If you go, I will go with you; and I can make you fear me."
Her voice was very distinct, but also very faint, with something
undulatory in it, that seemed to enter Gertrude's head rather than her
ear.
Saying this she smiled horribly, and, lifting her handkerchief,
disclosed for a moment a great wound in her breast, deep in which
Gertrude saw darkly the head of a snake writhing.
Hereupon she uttered a wild scream of terror, and, diving under the
bed-clothes, remained more dead than alive there, until her maid,
alarmed by her cry, came in, and having searched the room, and shut the
window at her desire, did all in her power to comfort her.
If this was a nightmare and embodied only by a form of expression which
in some states belongs to the imagination, a leading idea in the
controversy in which her mind had long been employed, it had at least
the effect of deciding her against leaving Faxwell. And so that point
was settled; and unpleasant relations continued between the tenants of
the farm and the master of Mardykes Hall.
To Lady Mardykes all this was very painful, although Sir Bale did not
insist upon making a separation between his wife and her cousin. But to
Mardykes Hall that cousin came no more. Even Lady Mardykes thought it
better to see her at Faxwell than to risk a meeting in the temper in
which Sir Bale then was. And thus several years passed.
No tidings of Philip Feltram were heard; and, in fact, none ever reached
that part of the world; and if it had not been highly improbable that he
could have drowned himself in the lake without his body sooner or later
having risen to the surface, it would have been concluded that he had
either accidentally or by design made away with himself in its waters.
Over Mardykes Hall there was a gloom--no sound of children's voices was
heard there, and even the hope of that merry advent had died out.
This disappointment had no doubt helped to fix in Sir Bale's mind the
idea of the insecurity of his property, and the morbid fancy that
William Feltram and old Trebeck were conspiring to seize it; than which,
I need hardly say, no imagination more insane could have fixed itself in
his mind.
In other things, however, Sir Bale was shrewd and sharp, a clear and
rapid man of business, and although this was a strange whim, it was not
so unnatural in a man who was by nature so prone to suspicion as Sir
Bale Mardykes.
During the years, now seven, that had elapsed since the marriage of Sir
Bale and Miss Janet Feltram, there had happened but one event, except
the death of their only child, to place them in mourning. That was the
decease of Sir William Walsingham, the husband of Lady Mardykes' sister.
She now lived in a handsome old dower-house at Islington, and being
wealthy, made now and then an excursion to Mardykes Hall, in which she
was sometimes accompanied by her sister Lady Haworth. Sir Oliver being a
Parliament-man was much in London and deep in politics and intrigue, and
subject, as convivial rogues are, to occasional hard hits from gout.
But change and separation had made no alteration in these ladies' mutual
affections, and no three sisters were ever more attached.
Was Lady Mardykes happy with her lord? A woman so gentle and loving as
she, is a happy wife with any husband who is not an absolute brute.
There must have been, I suppose, some good about Sir Bale. His wife was
certainly deeply attached to him. She admired his wisdom, and feared his
inflexible will, and altogether made of him a domestic idol. To acquire
this enviable position, I suspect there must be something not
essentially disagreeable about a man. At all events, what her neighbours
good-naturedly termed her infatuation continued, and indeed rather
improved by time.