Lost Sir Ma.s.singberd.

by James Payn.

VOL 2.

CHAPTER I.

OUT OF MIND, OUT OF SIGHT.

Notwithstanding the baronet's polite invitation, and although Mr. Long did not return, as expected, upon the ensuing morning, I felt no inclination to exchange my solitude for the society of Mr. Gilmore at bowls. I was, indeed, rather curious to see the bowling-green, which I had heard from my tutor was one of the very finest in England, fenced in by wondrous walls of yew; but, to arrive there, it was necessary to pa.s.s close to the Hall, and, consequently, to run great risk of meeting Sir Ma.s.singberd, my repugnance to whom had returned with tenfold strength since the preceding day. My reason, it is true, could suggest no possible harm from my having enclosed his letter to Marmaduke, but still an indefinable dread of what I had done oppressed me. I could not imagine in what manner I could have been outwitted; but a certain malignant exultation in Sir Ma.s.singberd's face when he was taking his leave, haunted my memory, and rendered hateful the idea of meeting it again. Moreover, the companionship of Gilmore, the butler, was not attractive. He bore a very bad character with the villagers, among whom he was said to emulate in a humble manner the vices of his lord and master; he had been his companion and confidential servant for a great number of years, and it was not to be wondered at, even supposing that he commenced that servitude as an honest man, that his principles should have been sapped by the communication.

Those who had known Richard Gilmore best and longest, however, averred that his nature had not been the least impaired by this companionship, inasmuch as it had been always as bad as bad could be. I never saw his pale secretive face, with the thin lips tightly closed, as if to prevent the escape of one truant word, without reflecting what a repository of dark and wicked deeds that keeper of Sir Ma.s.singberd's conscience needs must be. Such men usually hold such masters in their own hands; for they know too much about them, and it is that species of knowledge which, above all others, is power. But it was not so in this case; the antecedents of Gilmore's master were probably as evil as those of any person who has ever kept a valet, but there was this peculiarity about the baronet--that he cared little or nothing whether people knew them or not. When a thoroughly unprincipled man has arrived at the stage of being entirely indifferent to what his fellow-creatures think of him, he has touched his zenith; he is as much a hero to his _valet-de-chambre_ as to anybody else. It was Gilmore's nature to be reticent; but, for all Sir Ma.s.singberd cared, he might have ascended the steps at the stone-cross at Crittenden upon market-day, and held forth upon the subject of his master's peccadillos. Sir Ma.s.singberd stood no more in fear of him than of any other man; otherwise, he would scarcely have used such frightful language to him as he did whenever the spirit-case had not been properly replenished, or he happened to mislay the key of his own cigar-chest. It was no delicate tending that the lord of Fairburn Hall required; no accurate arrangement of evening garments ere he returned from shooting; no slippers placed in front of the fire. As he was attired in the morning, so he remained throughout the day, and, if it were the poaching season, throughout the night also. He never was ill, and only very rarely was he so overcome with liquor as to require any a.s.sistance in retiring. The putting Sir Ma.s.singberd to bed must have been a bad quarter of an hour for Mr. Gilmore. I have mentioned that when I paid my only visit to the Hall, the front-door bell was answered by the butler with very commendable swiftness, under the impression that it was his master; and, indeed, it was rumoured that, on more than one occasion, the baronet had felled his faithful domestic like an ox, for dilatoriness. Wonder was sometimes expressed that Mr. Gilmore, who was supposed, as the phrase goes, to have feathered his nest very agreeably during his master's prosperous days, should cleave to him in his present poverty--the mere sentiment of attachment being deemed scarcely strong enough to retain his gratuitous services; but the reply commonly made to this was, I have no doubt, correct--namely, that, however matters might seem, Mr. Richard Gilmore, we might be well a.s.sured, knew his own business best, and on which side his bread was b.u.t.tered.

Sagacious, however, as this gentleman doubtless was, I did not fancy him as a companion to play bowls with; and, instead of going in the direction of the bowling-green, I took my way to Fairburn Chase. I had not set foot within it for more than a year, and the season was much further advanced then when I had last been there. The stillness which pervaded it in summertime was now broken by the flutter of the falling leaf and the plash of the chestnuts on the moist and sodden ground; the autumn rains had long set in; there was that "drip, drip, drip" in the woods which so mournfully reminds us that the summer, with all its life and warmth, has pa.s.sed away; and the dank earth was sighing from beneath its load of tangled leaves, which, "hanging so light and hanging so high," but lately danced in the sunny air. The presentiment of evil which overshadowed me was deepened by the melancholy of Nature. I moved slowly through the drippling fern towards the heronry; from the little island suddenly flew forth, not the stately birds who ordinarily reigned there, but a pair of ravens. I knew that such had taken up their residence in the old church tower, for I had seen them flying in and out of its narrow ivied window-slits; but their appearance in the present locality was most unexpected. I was far from being superst.i.tious, but I would rather have seen any other birds just then. A few steps further brought me to that bend in the stream which had been such a favourite haunt of mine before I had dreamed there so unpleasantly. The lime-trees stood ragged and bare, and weeping silently, deprived of their summer bee-music; the sparkling sand, wherein I had seen the mysterious footprints, was dark and damp; a few steps further brought me to the stepping-stones, by which that unknown visitant must have crossed over, if she were indeed of mortal mould; the wood upon the other side was no longer impenetrable to sight; and through its skeleton arms I could see some building of considerable size at no great distance. I knew where such of the keepers and gardeners as lived upon the estate resided, and it puzzled me to imagine to what purpose this cottage was a.s.signed.

While I hesitated as to whether I should cross the turbid and swollen current, whose waters almost entirely covered the stepping-stones, a laugh prolonged and shrill burst forth from the very direction in which I was looking. It was the same mocking cry, never to be forgotten, which I had heard at that very spot some fifteen months before. Anywhere else, I should have recognized it; but in that place it was impossible to doubt its ident.i.ty. Knife-like, it clove the humid and unwilling air; and, before the sound had ceased, a short, sharp shriek succeeded it--the cry of a smitten human creature. In a moment I had crossed the stream, and was forcing my way through the wood. As I drew nearer, I perceived the edifice before me was of stone, and with a slated roof, instead of being built with clay, and thatched, as were the rest of Sir Ma.s.singberd's cottages. There was no attempt at ornamentation, but the place was unusually substantial for its size, the door being studded with nails, while the window upon either side of it was protected by iron bars.

I was just emerging from the fringe of the wood, when another sound smote on my ear, which caused me to pause at once, and remain where the trunk of an elm tree intervened between me and the cottage; it was merely the bark of a dog, but it checked my philanthropic enthusiasm upon the instant. There was no mistaking that wheezy note, telling of canine infirmity, and days prolonged far beyond the ordinary span of dogs. Besides there was but one dog permitted to be at large in Fairburn Chase. It was the execrable Gr.i.m.j.a.w. I could see him from my place of concealment turning his almost sightless eyes in my direction as he sat at the cottage door. Immediately afterwards, it opened, and out came Richard Gilmore; he looked about him suspiciously, but having convinced himself that there was n.o.body in the neighbourhood, he administered a kick to Gr.i.m.j.a.w's ribs, reproached him in strong language for having made a causeless disturbance, and turning the key, and pocketing it, walked away by a footpath that doubtless led, although by no means directly, to the Hall. He had a dog-whip in his hand when I first saw him, which I thought was an odd thing for a butler to carry, and he seemed to think so, too, for he put it in a side-pocket before he started, and b.u.t.toned it up. Gr.i.m.j.a.w, gathering his stiffened limbs together, slowly followed him, not without turning his grey head ever and anon towards my covert, but without venturing again to express his suspicions. I waited until the charming pair were out of sight, ere I advanced to the cottage.

The door of course, was fast; so, approaching the right-hand window, I cautiously looked in through its iron bars; there was no cas.e.m.e.nt whatever, therefore all the objects which the room contained were as clear to me as though I were in it. I beheld a sitting-room, the furniture of which was costly, and had been evidently intended for a much larger apartment, but which in variety was scanty enough. At a mahogany table, which retained little more of polish than if it had just been sawn from its trunk in Honduras, sat an ancient female, with her back towards me, supporting her chin on both hands; a cold chicken in a metal dish was before her, but neither a plate nor knife and fork; she was muttering something in a low tone to herself, which, if it was a grace, must have been a very long one. Her hair was scanty, and white as snow, but hung down almost to the ground; she was miserably thin; and her clothes, although they had once been of rich material, were ragged and old.

I had made no noise, as I thought, in my approach; and the day was so dull and dark that she could scarcely have perceived my presence by any shadow of my eavesdropping self; but no sooner had I set my eyes on her than she began to speak, without looking round, imagining, doubtless, that I was Gilmore. "So you are there again, peeping and prying, are you, wicked thief," cried she. "Don't you know that a real lady should take her meals in peace without being interrupted, especially after she has been beaten? Think of that, you cur. Why, where's your whip?" She uttered these last words with a yell of scorn; and turning suddenly, with one arm raised as if to ward a blow, she met my unexpected face, and I saw hers. So remarkable was her appearance, that although it was she, not I, who was taken by surprise, I think I was the more astounded of the two. Her countenance was that of an old woman, so wrinkled, or rather shrivelled up, that the furrows might have represented the pa.s.sage of a century of time; yet the teeth were as white and regular as in a young beauty, and the black beaded eyes had a force and fire in them unquenched by age. In her thin puckered ears hung a pair of monstrous gilded ornaments, and round her skinny neck was a necklace such as a stage queen would wear; yet she had naked feet.

"Oh, it is you, is it?" observed she, with a grave distinctness, in strong contrast to her late excited and mocking tones. "If I had known that you were coming, young gentleman, I would have put on my bracelets.

The family jewels are not all gone to the p.a.w.nbroker's, as is generally believed. Besides, you should never insult people because they are poor, or mad; one would not be either one or the other, you know, if one could help it."

"Heaven forbid, madam, that I should offer you any insult," said I, touched by the evident misfortune of this poor creature. "I merely ran hither because I heard the cry, as I thought, of some one in distress."

"Ah, that was the dog, sir," replied the old woman cheerfully; "the butler was correcting his dog, and it howled a little. Of course it could not have been me--certainly not; Sir Ma.s.singberd is so excessively anxious that I should have everything that is good for me; he said that with his own lips. And what a handsome mouth he has, except when he looks at _you_."

"Why at me?" cried I. "He has no cause to dislike me, has he!"

"No cause!" cried the old woman, coming closer to the bars, and lowering her voice to a confidential whisper. "Oh no--not if you were dead. I never wished you worse than myself; no, not when my poor baby died, and I could not weep. I feel that now; if I could only weep, as in the good old times with my husband! There was plenty of good weeping then--plenty."

"But why should you wish me dead, madam, who have never done you any harm?"

"No harm? What not to have taken the t.i.tle from my boy? No harm, when but for you, he would have been the heir to house and land! Why, look you, if it had not been for something, I would have driven Gilmore's knife into you that day when you were sleeping under the limes. That was the very place where I used to meet my love--let me see, how many years ago?"

The eager eyes for one instant ceased to glitter; some fragment of a memory of the past claimed the restless brain; then once more she rambled on. "One, two, three, four--he never struck me more than four times; that's true, I swear."

"And what was the something that prevented you from killing me when I was asleep by the heron's island?" inquired I.

"What was it?" replied the old woman sadly. "Did you not cry, 'Mother, mother,' in your sleep, to make me think of my boy? I wept at that; just one tear. He might have been such another as yourself--with the same--Why, what's the matter with your forehead? What have you done with your horseshoe? Every Heath wears one of them; then why not you, young Marmaduke?"

"My name is not Heath," said I; "you are taking me for somebody else."

"Dear me--dear me, what a mistake! The fact is, that living in a house affects one's sight. Now, let me guess. If you are not Marmaduke Heath, you must be...--What a dark skin you have, and what kind eyes!" She looked suspiciously round the room, and laying her finger on her lip, observed beneath her breath: "You are not Stanley Carew, are you? They told me he was hung, but I know better than that. I have seen him since a hundred times. To be hung for nothing must be a terrible thing; but how much worse to be hung for love!"

"I am not Stanley Carew," said I; "I am Peter Meredith, who lives with Mr. Long at the Rectory."

"I never happen to have heard your name before, sir," replied the old woman, mincingly; "perhaps you have never heard mine. Permit me to introduce myself. Don't suppose that our people don't know good manners, I am Sinnamenta--Lady Heath."

"Madam," said I, deeply moved, "I apprehended as much. If I can do you any service, be sure that the will shall not be wanting. Pray, tell me what shall I do?"

"Well," returned the poor creature, quickly, "Marmaduke Heath should be killed at once, that is all important. We have been thinking of nothing else, my husband and I. But perhaps you have done it already." (How I shrank from that random shaft.) "If so, I have no further desire except to get out. If I could only be once more in the greenwood, my hair would rea.s.sume its natural colour. That is why Mr. Gilmore is so careful to keep me thus locked up. If my husband only saw me with my black hair again--it reached to the ground, sir--matters would be very different. I think I have already observed that it is not customary to watch a lady while she is partaking of refreshment."

With that, she once more seated herself at the table, with her back to me; and judging thereby that my presence was distasteful to her, and having no notion of how I could possibly give her any aid, I withdrew from the sad scene. I had not, however, gone many steps, when she called me back again through the iron bars.

"Mr. Meredith," said she, "you arrived somewhat unexpectedly. It is to that circ.u.mstance alone, I beg to repeat, that you must attribute the absence of bracelets. My very best regards to all your family.

Sinnamenta, you know--Lady Heath."

CHAPTER II.

HARLEY STREET.

While I was thus pa.s.sing my time at Fairburn, at work with my tutor, in rides rendered doubly lonesome by contrast with those made so enjoyable by the company of my friend, or in rambles about the solitary Chase, the course of true love was running more smoothly in Harley Street than it is fabled to do. During each of my visits there, I had perceived its silent increase even more clearly than those between whom it was growing up into the perfect flower, leaf by leaf, and bud by bud; they had tended it together--Marmaduke and Lucy--until it was well nigh in blossom, and yet they had not said to one another, and perhaps not even to themselves, "Why, this is surely Love." Mr. Gerard had watched it, not displeased, for he had found the young man all that my heart had foretold that he would; Mr. Clint had seen it, and won by the strong sense, as much as by the beauty of the gentle girl, forgot the revolutionary stock of which she came. This, thought he, is the wife for Marmaduke Heath; tender, but yet determined; dutiful, but indisposed to submit to unauthorized dictation; as fearless as kind. In her, once wedded to this young man, so morbid, so sensitive, so yielding, Sir Ma.s.singberd would find, if it should be necessary, not only a foe, resolute herself, but as firm as steel for him whom she had dowered with her love. What Marmaduke's nature wanted, hers would supply. The keen lawyer foresaw for that unhappy family, whose interests he and his had had in keeping so many scores of years, a future such as had never been promised before. It was an admission painful to me enough at that time, but which I could not conceal from myself, that the real obstacle which prevented the open recognition of attachment between these two young people was Marmaduke himself. No girl more modest or less forward than Lucy Gerard ever breathed, but I knew--ah, how well I knew!--that a word from him would have brought the love-light to her eyes, which now lay waiting but for it in the careful keeping of her maiden heart. But that word had not been spoken. Perfect love, Marmaduke did not yet feel, for he had not quite cast out fear. How can a man offer heart and hand to a woman whom he does not feel certain that he can protect? It is for this reason that marriage among slaves must for ever be a mockery. There was, of course, no danger to Lucy Gerard in her marrying with Marmaduke, although his uncle should storm "No" a thousand times; but the young man felt that he was unworthy of her, while he entertained any terror of him. It was wearing away; it was weakening day by day, through genial influences, and the absence of all things which reminded him of Fairburn and its master, but it was not dead yet. If by these words, I lead any of my readers to suppose that Marmaduke Heath had the least resemblance to that thing which is called a Coward, I have done my friend a grievous wrong. Let me do away with the possibility of this most mistaken notion, at once and for ever, by the recital of an event which, although it does not come within the scope of the present narrative, nearly concerns one of its most important characters.

After the peace in 1815, there were more officers--English and French--killed in single combat in Paris than in any one of the most b.l.o.o.d.y battles of the late war. This desire to exterminate individual Englishmen extended over the whole of France. A certain gentleman of my acquaintance, then a very young man, chanced to be pa.s.sing through a town in Normandy, where an a.s.semblage was collected outside the office of the mayor. This arose from the very uncommon circ.u.mstance that that functionary had been appealed to by a post-captain in the English navy to punish a bullying Frenchman, who had striven to fasten a quarrel upon him, although entirely unprovoked on his part. Now-a-days, the captain would have been held to have behaved rightly enough, perhaps, but in those fire-eating times an honest man's life was at the mercy of every worthless ruffian who chose to run an equal risk with him from powder and bullet. The decision, wonderful to relate, was given by the mayor against his compatriot, and the crowd were correspondingly enraged. My friend, whose nationality was apparent, was hustled and ill-treated, and one person, well-dressed, and evidently of good position, knocked his hat off, observing at the same time: "You will complain of me to the mayor for that."

"Certainly not," returned the young Englishman quietly, picking his hat up, all broken and muddy, from the trampled ground: "I shall treat you very differently."

"You will fight, will you? Come--I challenge you. Let us fight to-morrow morning," exclaimed the bully, who was, as it turned out, a notorious provincial duellist.

"Not to-morrow, but now," rejoined my friend; "I have no time to wait here, for I must be in Paris on Tuesday."

"Then it will be in Pere la Chaise," responded the other brutally.

There was no difficulty in procuring seconds, which were even more plentiful in those parts than princ.i.p.als, and the whole party immediately left the town for a wood outside its suburbs. The choice of weapons of course lay with the Englishman.

"Which do you prefer," asked the Frenchman who acted as his friend upon the occasion--"the pistol or the sword?"

"I have never fired a pistol in my life," replied the Englishman, "nor handled a sword."

"Heavens!" cried his second, "what a barbarous education, what a stupendous ignorance! You are as good as dead, I fear. I know not which to recommend you. It is, however, at least sooner over with the pistol."

"The pistol be it then," said the Englishman coolly. "I elect that only one shall be loaded; and that we fire within four paces of one another.

We shall then have an equal chance."

The duellist turned pale as the death that threatened him, but he did not venture to make any objection. It was manifest no other proposal would have been fair. The seconds went apart, and placed powder and ball in one weapon, powder only in the other. The combatants drew lots for choice. The Frenchman won. The pistols were lying on a log of wood; he advanced towards them, took one up in his hand, and retired with it, then once more came back, and exchanged it for the other. He fancied that the weapon was lighter than it should have been if it had a ball within it. My friend's second objected strongly to this course; he called it even unfair and shameful; he protested that the pistol taken first ought to be retained. But the young Englishman, who was leaning carelessly against a tree, exclaimed, "Let the gentleman have which he likes. Whether he is right or not will be decided in a few seconds." So the combatants were placed opposite to one another, and advanced to within four paces. They raised their weapons; the word was given to fire, and the Frenchman fell, pierced through the heart.