BLACKLADIES.
I wasted no long time in London, you may be sure, but leaving Ashlock
at the Hercules' Pillars in Piccadilly, went down with my letter to
Richmond. On my return I supplied myself with a wardrobe better suited
to my present state and set out for the north.
The mansion of Blackladies lies off Borrowdale upon the flank of Green
Comb. I got my first view of it from the top of Coldbarrow Fell; for
on coming to Grasmere, Ashlock had informed me of a bridle-path
leading by Harrop Tarn and Watendlath, which would greatly shorten the
journey, and since my impatience had grown hotter with every mile we
had traversed, I despatched my baggage by the roundabout high-road
through Keswick, and myself took horse in company with Ashlock.
It was noonday when we came to the ridge of the fell, and the valley
lay beneath us shimmering in a blue haze, very lonely and very quiet.
Now and again the thin sharp cry of a pee-wit came to our ears. Now
and again our voices waked a sleepy echo. A little hamlet of white
cottages--Stonethwaite they called it--was clustered within view, and
towards the centre of Borrowdale, but so small was it and so still
that it seemed not so much a living village as a group of huts upon
some remote island which a captain, putting in by chance for water,
may discover, long since built by castaways long since perished.
"Look, sir!" cried Ashlock, pointing downwards with his whip. "That is
your house of Blackladies."
It lay in the hollow at my feet, fronting Langstrath and endwise to
me; so that I only saw the face of it obliquely, and got no very clear
idea of that beyond that it was pierced with an infinity of windows,
for a score of mimic suns were ablaze in the panes. It was a long
house with many irregular gables, built in three stories, of grey
stone, though this I could hardly make sure of at the time, for the
purple bloom of a wisteria draped the walls close and clambered about
the roof. What attracted my eyes, however, far more than the house,
was the garden, of which I had the plainest view, since it was built
up from the slope at the east end of Blackladies, and not so much on
account of its beauty as because of the laborious care which had been
bestowed upon it. It was laid out in the artificial fashion of half a
century ago, with terraces and stone staircases, and the lawns cut
into quincunces and etoiles, and I know not what geometrical figures.
The box-trees, too, were fashioned into the likeness of animals; here
and there were statues. I could see the spray of a fountain sparkling
in the sun, and on the level below the first terrace, a great white
grotto and an embroidered parterre like a fine lady's petticoat.
Nature sprawls naked hereabouts; only at this one point had it been
trimmed and dressed, and that with so quaint an extravagance as to
make me conjecture whether I had not been suddenly translated within
sight of some fairy pleasaunce of the Arabian Nights.
I sat in my saddle, gazing at the house silently, and bethinking me of
what service it might prove in the enterprise on which I was embarked.
"It is a handsome property, sir," said Ashlock, from just behind my
elbow, and he spoke in a tone of anxious inquiry, as though he would
fain discover what effect the glimpse of it had wrought in me.
"With a handsome rent-roll to match?" I asked no less eagerly, as I
looked downwards.
A shadow fell sharply along the neck of my horse. I turned and saw
Ashlock's face stretched forward, and peering into mine with startled
eyes.
"A very handsome rent-roll, sir," he replied; "so handsome that a
plain man finds it difficult to understand how the heir could
sacrifice it for any cause." He dropped the words very slowly one
after the other.
I understood the fellow's suspicion, and I swung my horse round with a
jerk, so as to look him squarely between the eyes. He drew himself
straight on the instant, and it seemed to me that his hand tightened
insolently upon his whip.
"Ashlock!" I exclaimed, "before we go down to Blackladies, I will say
a word to you. In Paris you showed me a way by which I could hold this
estate fairly and honourably."
"It was at your own wish, sir, that I spoke," he interrupted
hurriedly, "and because I saw that you meant to refuse it."
"Yes, yes," I went on. "But I thanked you then for the readiness of
your wits, and there was an end of your concern in the matter. I hold
Blackladies in trust for this cousin of mine, Mr. Jervas Rookley. I
have said so, and I need no mentor at my elbow to remind me of a
pledge I gave to myself. Least of all will I permit my servant"--and
in my heat I threw an ungenerous scorn into the term--"to take that
office on himself. If he does, his first word sends him packing."
The man bent his head so that I could no longer see his face, and
replied with all the confidence gone from his voice and manner.
"I came to Paris with no thought but of serving you as faithfully as I
endeavoured to serve Sir John before you. But it was your reluctance
that put the thought of Mr. Jervas into my head; and once it was
there, it stayed and grew; for I loved Mr. Jervas, sir. It was Mr.
Jervas I served in my heart, and not Sir John."
The fellow spoke with such evident contrition, and a devotion so
seemingly sincere, that I felt reproved for the severity I had used,
and I began to admire what sort of man my cousin must be who could
leave so clear an image of himself in the hearts of his dependents. I
was for saying something of the sort, when a movement which Ashlock
made arrested me. It was an insignificant movement--just the reaching
out of his hand to the snaffle of his bridle--but it woke all my
distrust of him; for I noted the quick play of his long, sinuous
fingers, and I recalled his stealthy advance from the tiller of the
pinnace to the bows, and the hovering of his hands above my chest.
"Get down from your horse!" I cried suddenly.
He looked in surprise at me, as well he might. I repeated the order;
he obeyed it.
"Are you Catholic or Protestant?" I asked.
Ashlock's surprise increased.
"Catholic, sir," he answered.
"Good! Now, understand this. Of the journey to Bar-le-Duc, of the
passage from Dunkirk, you must never speak, you must never think. So
much hangs on your silence and mine as you can have no notion of. You
came to Paris, and from Paris I returned with you. That is all you
know. Of the rest, whisper so much as a hint to the deafest yokel in
the valley, and it will go very ill with you."
"I promise," he answered.
"But I need more than a promise; I need an oath. You are Catholic, you
say, so there's better chance of your keeping it. Down on your knees
here, and swear to me that not a word, whatever you know, whatever you
believe, shall escape your lips."
Ashlock started back, looking about him, as though he would find some
diversion or excuse. But the blue, sunlit sky was above us, the brown
fells about us, and never a living soul beside us two.
"Come!" said I, insisting. "Swear it! Swear it by the Cross; swear it
by the Holy Virgin."
"I swear," he began, holding up his hand.
"Nay," I broke in upon him. "On your knees! on your knees!"
Again he looked about him, and then to my face. But I kept my eyes
stubbornly upon him. I would have him swear that oath, and I gathered
all my strength into the resolution, that I might compel him; for I
felt, in some strange way, that we were pitted in a contest for the
mastery of Blackladies, and I was minded to settle that contest before
I set foot across its door. I looked upon this oath that he would
swear before me on his knees chiefly as an emblem of his submission. I
might be to him a vicarious master; still, his master I would be, not
having that confidence in him that I could allow him to harbour doubts
upon the score.
Of a sudden his horse gave a startled plunge and broke away from him.
It ran past me, and, leaning over as it passed, I caught it by the
bridle and so held it.
"Come!" said I. "There will be many days on which I can see the sunset
from Coldbarrow Fell."
There was no escape for Ashlock except by a direct refusal, and that
he did not venture. So with a very ill grace he plumped down on his
knees upon the heather and grumbled out his oath.
"Now," said I, "we will ride down to Blackladies;" and I descended the
track mightily pleased with myself at the high way in which I had
carried it. But my elation was short-lived, for so engaged was I in
pluming myself, that I took little care of how my horse set his feet,
and in a short while he slips on a stone, shies of one side, and I--I
was lying with all the breath knocked out of my body on the grass.
I picked myself up on to my knees; I saw Ashlock sitting on his horse
in front of me, and he held my horse by the bridle. I remained on my
knees for a moment, recovering my breath and my wits. Then of a sudden
I realised that here was I kneeling before Ashlock as but a minute
since he had knelt before me; and here was Ashlock sitting his horse
and holding mine by the bridle, precisely as I had sat and held his.
In a word, we had just changed places, by the purest accident, no
doubt, but I had set such great store upon bringing about that earlier
position and relationship, that this complete reversal of it within
the space of a few moments filled me with the keenest humiliation. And
mingled with that humiliation was a certain fear that ran through my
veins, chilling my blood. I felt that the man mocked at me. I looked
into his face, expecting to discover on it a supercilious smile. But
there was no trace of such a thing.
"You are hurt, sir?" he asked gravely, and dismounted.
"No," said I, rising to my feet
Ashlock moved a few steps from me, and stooped down, parting the grass
with his hands.
"What is it?" I asked, setting a foot in the stirrup.
"Something, sir, that you dropped when you fell. It is too big for a
coin."
He was standing with his back to me, turning that something over in
his palms. I clapped my hand into my fob.
"It is mine, yes!" I cried, and I ran towards him. "Give it to me at
once;" and I made as though I would take it from him.
"You asked me what it was," said Ashlock, and he placed in my hands
the medal the King had given me. I looked it over carefully, noticing
certain scratches upon the King's face, and seeking to rub them out I
saw Ashlock looking at me shrewdly.
"I know," said I in a fluster; "but it has memories for me, and I
would not lose it;" and with that we got again to our horses, and so
down to the Blackladies.
The rest of that day I spent in examining the many corridors and
galleries of the house, and in particular the garden, which had
greatly whetted my curiosity. It had been laid out, Ashlock informed
me, by Sir John Rookley's father, and with a taste so fantastic as
would have gladdened Sir William Temple himself. There were three
terraces linked to each other by three stone staircases--one at each
of the two ends, and the third in the centre, and at the top of each
of these last flights were heavy iron gates. From the bottom of these
steps the parterre spread out, and beyond the parterre was a space of
meadow-land, fringed by a grove of trees which they called the
wilderness. The strangest device of all, however, was a sort of
labyrinth beyond the trees at the extreme end of the garden. The
labyrinth, in fact, was a number of little gardens, each with a tiny
plot of grass, and flowers planted about it, like so many rows of
buttons. These gardens were shut in by hedges of quickset ten feet or
more in height, and led from one to the other by such a perplexing
diversity of paths, that once you had entered deep among them it was
as much as you could do to find your way out of them again. Even
Ashlock, who guided me amongst them, ended by losing his way, so
nearly alike was one to the other; and I, not stopping to consider
that where he failed, I, a stranger, was little likely to succeed,
must needs separate from him and go a-searching on my own account,
with this very natural result--that I got more and more enmeshed in
the labyrinth, and was parted from Ashlock into the bargain.
"Ashlock!" I shouted, and again and again, with never a reply, for the
space of half an hour or more. At last, by the merest chance, I
happened upon the right path, and so came out upon that meadow-like
space they called the wilderness.
"Ashlock!" I called again, and again there was no answer. Had he got
himself free, I wondered, and gone quietly about his business, leaving
me there? I walked up the steps in an ill enough humour at the slight,
and passed through the parlour into the hall.
It was of a great size and height, with long, painted windows from the
ceiling to the ground; its roof, indeed, was the roof of the house,
and somehow it struck upon me as very empty and desolate.
"Ashlock!" I cried, and I heard my voice reverberating and dying away
down the corridors. Then came the sound of a man running from the
inner part of the house.
"Ashlock!" I repeated, and a servant appeared. He was a tall, spare
man, past the middle age, I should say, and was called Jonnage Aron. I
sent him to look for the steward, but it was evening before he found
him.
"I thought, sir, that you had hit upon the path before I did," Ashlock
explained.
"But you heard me shouting?"
"No, sir," said he. "I found the way out a few minutes after you had
parted from me, and thought that I was following you."
I bade him show me to his office and give me some account of the
estate, which he did, laying considerable stress upon the wad-mines,
from which some part of the revenue was derived.
"Sir John's attorney," said I, when he had finished, "lives at
Keswick. It will be well that I should see him to-morrow."
"It is but nine miles from here to Keswick," he assented, "and the
road is good."
"Then send a servant early in the morning to fetch him here." Ashlock
shot a quick glance at me. "We will go over these matters again," I
continued, "with his help--the three of us together."
Ashlock bent his head down upon the papers.
"Very well," he said, and seemed diligently to peruse them. Indeed, he
held one in his hand so long that I believed he must be learning it by
heart. "Very well," he repeated, in a tone of much thought.
But during the night I changed my mind, reasoning in this way. I
recognised clearly enough that the advice which King James had given
me--I mean that I should not disclose myself as a Jacobite--was due to
the promptings of Lord Bolingbroke, and those promptings in their turn
took their origin from a regard for my safety, rather than for the
King's interest I was, therefore, inclined to look upon the
recommendation as a piece of advice to be followed or not, as occasion
pointed, rather than as a command. On the whole, I believed that it
would be best, considering the ends I had in view, to express myself
moderately as favouring the Stuart claims. Moderately, I say, because
I could not avow myself an emissary of King James without stating the
special business on which I had come, and that I was forbidden to do.
At the same time, I had to carry that business to an issue, and with
as little delay as might be. Now, it was evident to me that I should
get little knowledge of the Jacobite resources, and less of their
genuine thoughts, if I were to sit down at Blackladies in this nook of
Borrowdale. I must go abroad to do that, and if I was to excite no
suspicion, I must have a simple and definite excuse. The attorney at
Keswick would, for the outset, at all events, serve my turn very well.
So the next morning I countermanded the order I had given to Ashlock,
and rode in past Castle Crag and Rosthwaite to Keswick. And this I did
on many a succeeding day, to the great perturbation of the little
attorney, who had never been so honoured before by the courtesy of his
clients. Also, I made it my business to attend the otter-hunts,
coursing matches, fairs, and wrestling-bouts, of which there were many
here and there about the country-side; so that in a short while I
became acquainted with the principal gentry, and got some insight,
moreover, into the dispositions of the ruder country folk.
Now amongst the gentry with whom I fell in, was my Lord Derwentwater
and his lady, who were then living in their great house upon Lord's
island of that lake, and from them I received great courtesy when they
came to know of my religion and yet more after that I had made avowal
of my politics; so that often I was rowed across and dined with them.
Upon one such occasion, some three weeks after I had come to
Blackladies, that is to say, about midway through August, Lord
Derwentwater showed to me a portrait of his wife, newly painted and
but that day brought to the house. I was much struck by the delicacy
of the craftsmanship, and stooped to examine the signature.
"You will not know the name," said Lord Derwentwater. "The man is
young and, as yet, of no repute--Anthony Herbert."
"Anthony Herbert," I repeated. "No, I have never heard the name,
though, were he better known, I should doubtless be as ignorant. For
this long while I have lived in France."
"It is very careful work," said I, looking closely at the picture.
"Indeed, it errs through excess of care," replied he, "for one's
attention is fixed thereby upon the details separately."
"One need have no fear of that," said I, with a bow to Lady
Derwentwater, "when such details are so faithfully represented."
The pair smiled at one another, and she laid her hand upon her
husband's arm in the prettiest way imaginable.
"The man is staying at Keswick," Lord Derwentwater continued. "That is
how I chanced on him. He came hither in the spring for the sake of the
landscapes."
"Oh," said I, "at Keswick? Is he, indeed?" and I spoke with something
of a start. For a new idea had been brought to me from his words. For,
having come clean to the end of my business with the attorney, I had
been casting about during the last few days for some fresh cloak and
pretext to cover my diurnal journeys from Blackladies, and here, it
seemed to me, was as good a solution of the difficulty as a man could
wish. It may be that I set too much stress on the need for such a
pretext; it may be that I could have ridden hither and thither about
the country without any one turning aside to busy himself about my
errand. But, in the first place, I was the youngest scholar of
conspiracy certainly in experience, if not quite in years, and I was
on that account inclined to exaggerate the value of a mysterious
secrecy. I took my responsibilities _au plus grand sérieux_, shrouding
them from gaze with an elaborate care, when no one suspected so much
as their existence. Moreover, it was the habit of the people in those
parts to stay much within their native boundaries; they rarely went
afield; indeed, I have heard a dalesman of Howray, by Keswick,
confidently assert that at Seatoller, a little village not two miles
from Blackladies, the sun never shone between the months of September
and March owing to the height of the circumjacent mountains. In a
word, those fells which these countrymen saw close before their eyes
each morning that they rose, enclosed their country; what lay beyond
was foreign land, wherein they had no manner of concern. And this same
habit of mind was repeated in their betters, though in a less rude
degree. Therefore I thought it did behove me to practise some
dissimulation lest either my friends or my enemies should get the wind
of my business. So again I said--
"The painter stays at Keswick. And where does he lodge?"
"In the High Street," said Lady Derwentwater; and she named the house.
"But, Mr. Clavering," added the husband, with a laugh, "the painter
has a wife, very young and not ill-looking; and he is very jealous. I
would warn you to pay no such compliments to her as you have paid to
Lady Derwentwater." And he clapped me on the back, and so we went in
to dinner.
He was silent through the first courses, and his wife rallied him on
his reserve.
"I was thinking," said he, and he roused himself suddenly. "I was
thinking," and then he stopped with a whimsical glance at me. "But
perhaps I am forestalled."
Lady Derwentwater clapped her hands and gave a little laugh of
delight.
"I know," she said, and turned to me. "My husband is the most
inveterate match-maker in the kingdom, Mr. Clavering. He is like any
old maid that sits by the window planning matrimony for every couple
that passes in the streets. I should like to dress him up in a gown of
linsey-woolsey and lappets of bone-lace."
"That's unfair," he returned "For there is this difference between the
old maid and me--she is a match-maker by theory, I through
experience."
He spoke lightly, as befitted him in the presence of an acquaintance,
but his eyes were upon his wife's face, and her eyes met his. She
reddened ever so little, and looked at her plate. Then she sent a
shyish glance towards me, another to her husband--and all her heart
was pulsing in that--and so again to her plate, with a ripple of happy
laughter. I seemed to be trespassing upon the intimacy of a couple but
half an hour married--and there were children asleep in their cots
upstairs. A pang of genuine envy shot through me, the which Lady
Derwentwater remarked, though she misunderstood it For--
"James," she said, turning reproachfully to her husband, "there is Mr.
Clavering absolutely disconcerted, and no wonder. Darby and Joan may
be well enough by themselves, but with a guest they are the most
impertinent people in the world."
"True," said he, "and if Mr. Clavering patronises Herbert, he will
have enough of Darby and Joan to sicken him for his lifetime, though
it is a Darby and Joan in the April rather than the autumn of their
years," he added, with a smile.
"Nay," I interrupted, "to tell the truth, I was thinking of the big,
empty galleries of Blackladies."
"There!" he exclaimed, triumphantly, "Mr. Clavering justifies my
match-making. Out of his own mouth he justifies me. We must marry him.
Now, to whom?" and once or twice he patted the table with the flat of
his hand in a weighty deliberation.
His wife broke into a ringing laugh.
"James, you are incorrigible," says she,
"There is Miss Burthwaite," says he.
"Impossible," says I. "I have met her. She says nothing but 'O La!'
and 'Well, there!' and shakes her curls, and giggles."
"Her vocabulary is limited," he allowed "But there's the widow at
Portinscale."
"She swears," I objected.
"Only when she's coursing," he corrected. "But, no matter,
there's----"
"Nay," said I, interrupting his list. "This is no time, I take it, for
a man to think of marrying. For who knows but what the country may be
ablaze from sea to sea before we are three months older."
With that a sudden silence fell upon as all, and I sat inwardly
cursing myself for the heedlessness which had prompted so inopportune
a saying. Looking back upon that evening now, it seems to me as though
all the disaster with which that year of 1715 was heavy, and near its
time, for her, for him--ay, and for me, too, projected its shadow over
our heads. I looked into their faces, grown at once grave and
predestinate; the shadow was there, a cloud upon their brows, a veil
across the brightness of their eyes. And then very solemnly my Lord
Derwentwater rose from his chair, and lifted up his glass. The light
from candle and lamp flashed upon the goblet, turning the wine to a
ruby fire.
"The King!" he said simply, without passion, without heat. But the
simplicity had in it something august. We also rose to our feet.
"The King!" he said again, his eyes fixed and steady upon the dark
panels over against him, as though there he read the picture of his
destiny. And so he drained his glass, pledging his life and his home
in that wine he drank, making it sacramental.
We followed his example, and so sat ourselves down again. But, as you
may think, there was little talk of any kind between us after that
Lord Derwentwater made no effort at all that way, but remained
engrossed in silence, with all his thoughts turned inwards. Once or
twice his wife sought to break through the spell with some trivial
word about the country-side, but ever her eyes turned with concern
towards her husband's face, and ever the words flickered out upon her
lips. And for my part, being sensible that my indiscretion had brought
about this melancholy cloud, I seconded her but ill. At last, and just
as I was intending to rise up and take my leave, Lord Derwentwater
starts forward in his chair.
"I have it!" he cried triumphantly, bringing his fist smack upon the
table.
"Well?" asked his wife, leaning forward.
"I have it!" he repeated, turning to me.
"What?" I asked anxiously.
"There's Dorothy Curwen, of Applegarth," said he, laying a finger on
my arm; and at that we all fell to laughing like children, as though
the unexpected rejoinder had been the wittiest sally in the world. "It
would be very appropriate, too," he continued, with a laugh, "for it
was rumoured that Mr. Jervas Rookley was paying his attentions in that
quarter at one time, and the girl deserves a better fate."
"Jervas Rookley?" said I, curiously. "You knew him, of course. What
sort of a man was he?"
For a moment there was a pause.
"The honestest man in the world," replied Lord Derwentwater--"to look
at. But there it ends. His honesty, Mr. Clavering, is all on the
outside of him, like the virtues of a cinnamon tree. He should have
been a sailor. It was ever his wish, and maybe the hindrance to its
fulfilment warped him."
How that evening lives again in my memories! Indeed, enough happened
not so long after its event to keep it for ever green within my
thoughts. I recalled Lord Derwentwater's solemn toasting of the King,
when, no later than the next February, he went, with the King's name
upon his tongue, to the block on Tower Hill. I recalled his wife's
loving glance and happy laugh--with what pity!--when, dressed as a
fishwife, she crept to Temple Bar and bribed the guardians of that
gate to drop into her apron his head fixed there on the spikes. And
more--that evening was a finger-post to me, pointing the road; but,
alas! a finger-post that I passed unheeding, and only remembered after
that I had gone astray into a slough.
For that device of a picture was fixed firmly in my mind, and I acted
in the consequence of the thought. I rode home to Blackladies that
night, and passed at once into the great hall. A fire of logs was
burning on the hearth--for even in August I felt at times the nights
fall chilly there--and the glow of the flames played upon the
portraits of the Rookleys, dancing them into frowns and smiles and
glances, as though the faces lived. Father and son, master and heir,
they were ranged orderly about the walls in a double row, the father
above the heir, who in his turn figured painted anew as the master. I
turned to the lackey, a roughish fellow named Luke Blacket who had
admitted me.
"Is Mr. Ashlock still up?"
"He is in the office, sir, I think," he answered in some doubt or
hesitation. "I will go and see."
"I will go myself." And I crossed the hall.
A man was sitting at the table with his wig off, and his head was
bald. His back was towards me, and he did not hear me enter, so
engrossed was he about his papers. His pen scratched and scratched as
if all time was against him. It was doubtless a fancy, but it seemed
to me to run ever quicker and quicker as I stood in the doorway.
Behind me the house was very dark and silent; only this pen was
scratching across the paper nimble like a live thing. I stepped
forward; I heard a startled cry, and Jonnage Aron stood facing me,
with his mouth dropping and a look of terror in his eyes.
I waited for him to speak, comprehending neither his fear nor his
business in my factor's office. At last in a jerky, trembling voice,
resting one hand upon the table to steady him, he asked wherein he
could serve me.
"It was Mr. Ashlock I needed," I replied.
"He is not here, sir," faltered Aron, looking about him like a trapped
beast.
"I can see that for myself, Where is he?"
"I don't know, sir," and his confusion increased, "in bed, maybe.
Shall I send him to you?"
He made a hasty movement as though he would escape from further
questioning.
"No," said I, "stay where you are," and I stepped forward to the
table. I took up the last paper he had been writing; the ink was still
wet upon it, and I saw that it was a letter to one of my tenants in
Johnny Wood concerning some improvements of which I had spoken to
Ashlock.
"You do the work I pay my steward for," I said. "And how comes that
about?"
"Very seldom, sir," he babbled out; "once or twice only, when Mr.
Ashlock has been busy. It is not well done," and he made as though he
would take the paper from my hands, "for I am no clerk, but he told me
the letter was not of the first importance."
I looked at the sharp, precise characters of the letter.
"I'll tell you what is not well done, Aron," I cried in some heat,
"and that is your excuse. The handwriting here tells of practice, and
I see that you thrust your pen behind your ear."
Aron's yellow face flushed a dull red. He gave a start and plucked the
pen from behind his ear; and the impulsive movement ludicrously
betrayed his sense of detection.
"Ah!" said I with a sneer. "You had best ask Mr. Ashlock in the future
to provide you with the excuse at the same time that he provides you
with the work."
I bent over the table to examine the other papers which were littered
upon it I had just time to remark that they were all in Aron's
handwriting when a sharp click sounded through the silent house, not
loud, but very clear, like the cocking of a trigger. The door was
open; I stepped into the passage and peered along it. Aron moved
uneasily in the room at my side, and his movement brought him betwixt
me and the lamp, so that a shadow fell across my face and on the
passage wall. I realized that I had been standing visible and distinct
in a panel of light that was thrown from the open doorway. Aron moved
again out of the light. I took a couple of paces into the dark, and
again stretched forward, peering in front of me. I could see well nigh
the length of the house. The corridor in which I stood ran straight to
the hall. On the far side of the hall, opposite to me, there opened a
wide gallery, which was closed at the end by a parlour, and this
parlour lay at the east end of the house, and gave on to the topmost
terrace of the garden. The door of the parlour stood open, so that I
saw right through it to the moonlight shining white upon the
window-panes. But I saw more than this. I saw the window opening--it
was the catch of the window which I had heard--and a man, with his hat
pulled down upon his brows and a heavy cloak about him, stealing in. I
was the more astonished at the sight because Ashlock had informed me
that there was no outlet from the garden at all; and that I had
considered to be true, since on one side a cliff rose sheer above it,
while on the other side and at the end it was enclosed with a sunk
fence of stone. The intruder closed the window and came a-tiptoe down
the passage. I drew close against the wall and held my breath. He
passed by me insensible of my presence and walked into the room, and
as he came into the light I saw that he was holding the ends of his
peruke in his mouth. I did not, however, on that account fail to
recognise that the new-comer was my steward. I followed very softly
close upon his heels.
"Ashlock!" he began, and would have said more, but Aron held up a
finger to his lips and grimaced at him.
I closed the door behind me with a bang and leaned against its panels.
The steward swung round abruptly.
"And what stress of business keeps Mr. Ashlock so late from his bed?"
I asked; and added pleasantly, "By the way, which of you is Mr.
Ashlock?"
Seldom have I seen a man so completely taken aback, as my steward was
then, and I was in the mind to profit by his confusion.
"And which of you is Mr.----" I continued, and came all at once to a
dead stop. For the strangest suspicion flashed into my mind.
"I rode over to the farmer of Johnny Wood," explained the steward, and
Aron's brows went up into his forehead, as well they might, "thinking
that a word with him would expedite the business."
"It was a pity then," I returned, "that you kept Aron up so late
writing a letter on that very subject."
I picked up the paper from the table and placed it in his hands. His
face puckered for a second and then smoothed again. He read it through
from beginning to end with the completest nonchalance.
"It will do very well," he said easily to Aron, and then turned to me
with a smile. "The letter, of course, is a usual formality."
"Surely an unnecessary one," I insisted.
"Men of business," he returned suavely, "will hold it the reverse. I
presume, sir, that you have some urgent need of me."
I recovered myself with a laugh.
"Not urgent," I replied, "but since you are here----" I took up the
lamp from the table and went into the passage. The steward followed
me, and after him, though at some distance, Aron stumbled in the dark.
So we came into the hall. I held up the lamp above my head. At one
point, in the lower row of pictures, there was a gap; the oak panels
made as it were a black hollow amongst the bright colours of the
figures, and the hollow was just beneath the portrait of Sir John.
I pointed an arm to it.
"It is the one vacant space left in the hall."
Ashlock glanced sharply at me.
"Mr. Jervas Rookley's picture should have hung there," he replied in a
rising tone, which claimed the prerogative of that space still for Mr.
Jervas Rookley.
"But it did not," I replied. "The space is vacant, and since it is the
fashion of the house that the master's portrait should hang in the
hall, why, I will take my predecessors for my example."
Ashlock took a quick step forward as though pushed by some instinct to
get between me and the wall, and turned upon me such a look of
perplexity and distrust, that for a moment I was well-nigh dissuaded
from the project.
I heard a step behind me. It was Jonnage Aron drawing nearer. I turned
and gave the lamp to him to hold, bidding him stand further off, and I
said with a careless laugh, though I fixed my eyes significantly upon
Ashlock--
"My successor has full licence from me to displace it when his time
comes to inherit, but for the present my picture will hang there."
Ashlock looked me steadily In the eyes. The distrust faded out of his
face, but the perplexity remained and deepened.
"Your picture, sir?" he asked in a wondering tone, as though he would
be asking what in the devil's name I needed with a picture at all.
"Yes, Mr. Ashlock," said I with a swaggering air, which I doubt not
was vilely overdone, "my picture. And why not, if you please?"
"It must needs be painted first," he said.
"That is very true," I replied. "I had even thought of that myself,
and so apt an occasion has presented itself, that it would be folly to
disregard it. For a painter has but lately come to Keswick. My Lord
Derwentwater spoke of him to me, and indeed showed me some signal
evidence of his skill."
"Lord Derwentwater?" exclaimed Ashlock, In a curious change of tone.
The perplexity in its turn began to die off his face, and it was
succeeded by an eager curiosity. It seemed as though the name gave to
him a glimmering of comprehension. Though what it was that he
comprehended I could not tell.
"Yes, Lord Derwentwater told me of the man," I repeated, anxious to
colour my pretext with all the plausibility of which it was capable.
"Mr. Anthony Herbert----"
"Mr. Anthony Herbert?" questioned Ashlock, slowly.
"It is the painter's name," said I, and he seemed to be, as it were,
savouring it in his mind. "You will not have heard it before. Mr.
Herbert has painted a portrait of Lady Derwentwater," and I turned
away and got me to my room, with Aron to light the way. I left Ashlock
standing in the hall, and as I mounted the lower steps of the
staircase, I heard him murmur to himself in a tone of reflection--
"Mr. Anthony Herbert!"--and he shook his head and moved away.
Now, some half an hour afterwards, as I was lying in bed, a thought
occurred to me. I got me to the door and opened it. The house was
still as a pool. I took my candle in my hand and crept to the
stairhead. The moonlight pouring through the tall windows, lay in
great silver stripes upon the floor. I stood for a little and
listened. Once or twice a board of the staircase cracked; once or
twice an ember spurted into flame and chattered on the hearth, but
that was all. I stole downstairs, not without a queer shame that I
should be creeping about my own house. At the bottom I lighted my
candle, and shading it with my hand, crossed swiftly to the vacant
space among the portraits. I held the light close against the panels.
Yes, there were the splintered holes where the nails had been driven
in.
I lowered the candle till it was level with the lowest rim of the
picture-frames on either side of the space. Yes, there was a dimming
of the oak, like breath upon a window-pane, where the edge of a
picture had rubbed and rested against it. I rose upright, blew the
candle out, and stood in the dark, thinking. "Mr. Jervas Rookley's
portrait should have hung there," he had said. It _had_ hung
there--not a doubt of it. Was it destroyed, I wondered? Was it in some
lumber-room, hidden away? And I remembered a room in the upper part of
the house which I had found locked, and was told the key was lost. Why
had the picture been removed? Was it so that I might not recognize it?
Well, it did not matter so long as I never stumbled across it. I
groped my way up the staircase, repeating to myself one sentence from
the will, "I must not knowingly support Mr. Jervas Rookley." I did not
_know_, I said to myself. I might suspect, I might believe, but I had
no proof; I did not know. I clutched the phrase to my very heart. I
could keep my trust--the estate need not enrich the Hanoverian--Jervas
Rookley should come to his own, if God willed it, in his own time. For
I did not know. My steward was my steward--no more. What if he was
ever out of sight when a visitor reined in his horse at the door? He
might be busy in his office. What if another wrote his letters? There
was work enough for the steward, and who should blame him for that he
lightened his labours, so long as his work was done? I did not know.
Yet how the man must hate me, I thought, as I recalled that hour on
the ridge of Coldbarrow Fell.