Uncle Silas

Le Fanu, Joseph Sheridan

Published: 1864
Categorie(s): Fiction, Mystery & Detective, Romance, Gothic
Source: http://gutenberg.org

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About Le Fanu:
Sheridan Le Fanu was born at No. 45 Lower Dominick Steet, Dublin,
into a literary family of Huguenot origins. Both his grandmother Alicia
Sheridan Le Fanu and his great-uncle Richard Brinsley Sheridan were
playwrights. His niece Rhoda Broughton would become a very success-
ful novelist. Within a year of his birth his family moved to the Royal
Hibernian Military School in Phoenix Park, where his father, an Anglican
clergyman, was the chaplain of the establishment. Phoenix Park and the
adjacent village and parish church of Chapelizod were to feature in Le
Fanu's later stories. Le Fanu studied law at Trinity College in Dublin,
where he was elected Auditor of the College Historical Society. He was
called to the bar in 1839, but he never practised and soon abandoned law
for journalism. In 1838 he began contributing stories to the Dublin
University Magazine, including his first ghost story, entitled "A Strange
Event in the Life of Schalken the Painter" (1839). He became owner of
several newspapers from 1840, including the Dublin Evening Mail and
the Warder. In 1844 Le Fanu married Susanna Bennett, the daughter of a
leading Dublin barrister. In 1847 he supported John Mitchell and Tho-
mas Meagher in their campaign against the indifference of the Govern-
ment to the Irish Famine. His support cost him the nomination as Tory
MP for County Carlow in 1852. His personal life also became difficult at
this time, as his wife Susanna suffered from increasing neurotic symp-
toms. She died in 1858 in unclear circumstances, and anguished excerpts
from Le Fanu's diaries suggest that he felt guilt as well as loss. However,
it was only after her death that, becoming something of a recluse, he de-
voted himself full time to writing. In 1861 he became the editor and pro-
prietor of the Dublin University Magazine and he began exploiting
double exposure: serializing in the Dublin University Magazine and then
revising for the English market. The House by the Churchyard and
Wylder's Hand were both published in this way. After the lukewarm re-
views of the former novel, set in the Phoenix Park area of Dublin, Le
Fanu signed a contract with Richard Bentley, his London publisher,
which specified that future novels be stories "of an English subject and of
modern times", a step Bentley thought necessary in order for Le Fanu to
satisfy the English audience. Le Fanu succeeded in this aim in 1864, with
the publication of Uncle Silas, which he set in Derbyshire. In his very last
short stories, however, Le Fanu returned to Irish folklore as an inspira-
tion and encouraged his friend Patrick Kennedy to contribute folklore to
the D.U.M. Le Fanu died in his native Dublin on February 7, 1873. Today

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there is a road in Ballyfermot, near his childhood home in south-west
Dublin, named after him. Source: Wikipedia

Also available on Feedbooks for Le Fanu:

• A Stable for Nightmares (1896)
• Carmilla (1871)
• The Child That Went With The Fairies (1870)
• An Account of Some Strange Disturbances in Aungier Street (1853)
• An Authentic Narrative of a Haunted House (1862)
• Ghost Stories of Chapelizod (1851)
• The House by the Church-Yard (1863)
• The Evil Guest (1851)
• The Mysterious Lodger (1850)
• Green Tea (1872)

Note: This book is brought to you by Feedbooks

http://www.feedbooks.com
Strictly for personal use, do not use this file for commercial purposes.

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TO THE RIGHT HON. THE COUNTESS OF GIFFORD, AS A TOKEN
OF RESPECT, SYMPATHY, AND ADMIRATION This Tale IS
INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR

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A PRELIMINARY WORD
The writer of this Tale ventures, in his own person, to address a very few
words, chiefly of explanation, to his readers. A leading situation in this
'Story of Bartram-Haugh' is repeated, with a slight variation, from a
short magazine tale of some fifteen pages written by him, and published
long ago in a periodical under the title of 'A Passage in the Secret History
of an Irish Countess,' and afterwards, still anonymously, in a small
volume under an altered title. It is very unlikely that any of his readers
should have encountered, and still more so that they should remember,
this trifle. The bare possibility, however, he has ventured to anticipate by
this brief explanation, lest he should be charged with plagiar-
ism—always a disrespect to a reader.
May he be permitted a few words also of remonstrance against the
promiscuous application of the term 'sensation' to that large school of fic-
tion which transgresses no one of those canons of construction and mor-
ality which, in producing the unapproachable 'Waverley Novels,' their
great author imposed upon himself? No one, it is assumed, would de-
scribe Sir Walter Scott's romances as 'sensation novels;' yet in that mar-
vellous series there is not a single tale in which death, crime, and, in
some form, mystery, have not a place.
Passing by those grand romances of 'Ivanhoe,' 'Old Mortality,' and
'Kenilworth,' with their terrible intricacies of crime and bloodshed, con-
structed with so fine a mastery of the art of exciting suspense and horror,
let the reader pick out those two exceptional novels in the series which
profess to paint contemporary manners and the scenes of common life;
and remembering in the 'Antiquary' the vision in the tapestried chamber,
the duel, the horrible secret, and the death of old Elspeth, the drowned
fisherman, and above all the tremendous situation of the tide-bound
party under the cliffs; and in 'St. Ronan's Well,' the long-drawn mystery,
the suspicion of insanity, and the catastrophe of suicide;—determine
whether an epithet which it would be a profanation to apply to the struc-
ture of any, even the most exciting of Sir Walter Scott's stories, is fairly
applicable to tales which, though illimitably inferior in execution, yet ob-
serve the same limitations of incident, and the same moral aims.
The author trusts that the Press, to whose masterly criticism and gen-
erous encouragement he and other humble labourers in the art owe so
much, will insist upon the limitation of that degrading term to the pecu-
liar type of fiction which it was originally intended to indicate, and pre-
vent, as they may, its being made to include the legitimate school of

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tragic English romance, which has been ennobled, and in great measure
founded, by the genius of Sir Walter Scott.

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Chapter 1
AUSTIN RUTHYN, OF KNOWL, AND HIS
DAUGHTER
It was winter—that is, about the second week in November—and great
gusts were rattling at the windows, and wailing and thundering among
our tall trees and ivied chimneys—a very dark night, and a very cheerful
fire blazing, a pleasant mixture of good round coal and spluttering dry
wood, in a genuine old fireplace, in a sombre old room. Black wainscot-
ing glimmered up to the ceiling, in small ebony panels; a cheerful clump
of wax candles on the tea-table; many old portraits, some grim and pale,
others pretty, and some very graceful and charming, hanging from the
walls. Few pictures, except portraits long and short, were there. On the
whole, I think you would have taken the room for our parlour. It was not
like our modern notion of a drawing-room. It was a long room too, and
every way capacious, but irregularly shaped.
A girl, of a little more than seventeen, looking, I believe, younger still;
slight and rather tall, with a great deal of golden hair, dark grey-eyed,
and with a countenance rather sensitive and melancholy, was sitting at
the tea-table, in a reverie. I was that girl.
The only other person in the room—the only person in the house re-
lated to me—was my father. He was Mr. Ruthyn, of Knowl, so called in
his county, but he had many other places, was of a very ancient lineage,
who had refused a baronetage often, and it was said even a viscounty,
being of a proud and defiant spirit, and thinking themselves higher in
station and purer of blood than two-thirds of the nobility into whose
ranks, it was said, they had been invited to enter. Of all this family lore I
knew but little and vaguely; only what is to be gathered from the fireside
talk of old retainers in the nursery.
I am sure my father loved me, and I know I loved him. With the sure
instinct of childhood I apprehended his tenderness, although it was nev-
er expressed in common ways. But my father was an oddity. He had
been early disappointed in Parliament, where it was his ambition to

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succeed. Though a clever man, he failed there, where very inferior men
did extremely well. Then he went abroad, and became a connoisseur and
a collector; took a part, on his return, in literary and scientific institu-
tions, and also in the foundation and direction of some charities. But he
tired of this mimic government, and gave himself up to a country life,
not that of a sportsman, but rather of a student, staying sometimes at one
of his places and sometimes at another, and living a secluded life.
Rather late in life he married, and his beautiful young wife died, leav-
ing me, their only child, to his care. This bereavement, I have been told,
changed him—made him more odd and taciturn than ever, and his tem-
per also, except to me, more severe. There was also some disgrace about
his younger brother—my uncle Silas—which he felt bitterly.
He was now walking up and down this spacious old room, which, ex-
tending round an angle at the far end, was very dark in that quarter. It
was his wont to walk up and down thus, without speaking—an exercise
which used to remind me of Chateaubriand's father in the great chamber
of the Château de Combourg. At the far end he nearly disappeared in the
gloom, and then returning emerged for a few minutes, like a portrait
with a background of shadow, and then again in silence faded nearly out
of view.
This monotony and silence would have been terrifying to a person less
accustomed to it than I. As it was, it had its effect. I have known my fath-
er a whole day without once speaking to me. Though I loved him very
much, I was also much in awe of him.
While my father paced the floor, my thoughts were employed about
the events of a month before. So few things happened at Knowl out of
the accustomed routine, that a very trifling occurrence was enough to set
people wondering and conjecturing in that serene household. My father
lived in remarkable seclusion; except for a ride, he hardly ever left the
grounds of Knowl; and I don't think it happened twice in the year that a
visitor sojourned among us.
There was not even that mild religious bustle which sometimes besets
the wealthy and moral recluse. My father had left the Church of England
for some odd sect, I forget its name, and ultimately became, I was told, a
Swedenborgian. But he did not care to trouble me upon the subject. So
the old carriage brought my governess, when I had one, the old house-
keeper, Mrs. Rusk, and myself to the parish church every Sunday. And
my father, in the view of the honest rector who shook his head over
him—'a cloud without water, carried about of winds, and a wandering
star to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness'—corresponded with

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the 'minister' of his church, and was provokingly contented with his own
fertility and illumination; and Mrs. Rusk, who was a sound and bitter
churchwoman, said he fancied he saw visions and talked with angels
like the rest of that 'rubbitch.'
I don't know that she had any better foundation than analogy and con-
jecture for charging my father with supernatural pretensions; and in all
points when her orthodoxy was not concerned, she loved her master and
was a loyal housekeeper.
I found her one morning superintending preparations for the recep-
tion of a visitor, in the hunting-room it was called, from the pieces of
tapestry that covered its walls, representing scenes à la Wouvermans, of
falconry, and the chase, dogs, hawks, ladies, gallants, and pages. In the
midst of whom Mrs. Rusk, in black silk, was rummaging drawers, count-
ing linen, and issuing orders.
'Who is coming, Mrs. Rusk?'
Well, she only knew his name. It was a Mr. Bryerly. My papa expected
him to dinner, and to stay for some days.
'I guess he's one of those creatures, dear, for I mentioned his name just
to Dr. Clay (the rector), and he says there is a Doctor Bryerly, a great con-
jurer among the Swedenborg sect—and that's him, I do suppose.'
In my hazy notions of these sectaries there was mingled a suspicion of
necromancy, and a weird freemasonry, that inspired something of awe
and antipathy.
Mr. Bryerly arrived time enough to dress at his leisure, before dinner.
He entered the drawing-room—a tall, lean man, all in ungainly black,
with a white choker, with either a black wig, or black hair dressed in im-
itation of one, a pair of spectacles, and a dark, sharp, short visage, rub-
bing his large hands together, and with a short brisk nod to me, whom
he plainly regarded merely as a child, he sat down before the fire,
crossed his legs, and took up a magazine.
This treatment was mortifying, and I remember very well the resent-
ment of which he was quite unconscious.
His stay was not very long; not one of us divined the object of his visit,
and he did not prepossess us favourably. He seemed restless, as men of
busy habits do in country houses, and took walks, and a drive, and read
in the library, and wrote half a dozen letters.
His bed-room and dressing-room were at the side of the gallery, dir-
ectly opposite to my father's, which had a sort of ante-room en suite, in
which were some of his theological books.

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 The day after Mr. Bryerly's arrival, I was about to see whether my
father's water caraffe and glass had been duly laid on the table in this
ante-room, and in doubt whether he was there, I knocked at the door.
I suppose they were too intent on other matters to hear, but receiving
no answer, I entered the room. My father was sitting in his chair, with
his coat and waistcoat off, Mr. Bryerly kneeling on a stool beside him,
rather facing him, his black scratch wig leaning close to my father's
grizzled hair. There was a large tome of their divinity lore, I suppose,
open on the table close by. The lank black figure of Mr. Bryerly stood up,
and he concealed something quickly in the breast of his coat.
My father stood up also, looking paler, I think, than I ever saw him till
then, and he pointed grimly to the door, and said, 'Go.'
Mr. Bryerly pushed me gently back with his hands to my shoulders,
and smiled down from his dark features with an expression quite unin-
telligible to me.
I had recovered myself in a second, and withdrew without a word.
The last thing I saw at the door was the tall, slim figure in black, and the
dark, significant smile following me: and then the door was shut and
locked, and the two Swedenborgians were left to their mysteries.
I remember so well the kind of shock and disgust I felt in the certainty
that I had surprised them at some, perhaps, debasing incantation—a sus-
picion of this Mr. Bryerly, of the ill-fitting black coat, and white
choker—and a sort of fear came upon me, and I fancied he was asserting
some kind of mastery over my father, which very much alarmed me.
I fancied all sorts of dangers in the enigmatical smile of the lank high-
priest. The image of my father, as I had seen him, it might be, confessing
to this man in black, who was I knew not what, haunted me with the dis-
agreeable uncertainties of a mind very uninstructed as to the limits of the
marvellous.
I mentioned it to no one. But I was immensely relieved when the sinis-
ter visitor took his departure the morning after, and it was upon this oc-
currence that my mind was now employed.
Some one said that Dr. Johnson resembled a ghost, who must be
spoken to before it will speak. But my father, in whatever else he may
have resembled a ghost, did not in that particular; for no one but I in his
household—and I very seldom—dared to address him until first ad-
dressed by him. I had no notion how singular this was until I began to go
out a little among friends and relations, and found no such rule in force
anywhere else.

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 As I leaned back in my chair thinking, this phantasm of my father
came, and turned, and vanished with a solemn regularity. It was a pecu-
liar figure, strongly made, thick-set, with a face large, and very stern; he
wore a loose, black velvet coat and waistcoat. It was, however, the figure
of an elderly rather than an old man—though he was then past sev-
enty—but firm, and with no sign of feebleness.
I remember the start with which, not suspecting that he was close by
me, I lifted my eyes, and saw that large, rugged countenance looking fix-
edly on me, from less than a yard away.
After I saw him, he continued to regard me for a second or two; and
then, taking one of the heavy candlesticks in his gnarled hand, he
beckoned me to follow him; which, in silence and wondering, I accord-
ingly did.
He led me across the hall, where there were lights burning, and into a
lobby by the foot of the back stairs, and so into his library.
It is a long, narrow room, with two tall, slim windows at the far end,
now draped in dark curtains. Dusky it was with but one candle; and he
paused near the door, at the left-hand side of which stood, in those days,
an old-fashioned press or cabinet of carved oak. In front of this he
stopped.
He had odd, absent ways, and talked more to himself, I believe, than
to all the rest of the world put together.
'She won't understand,' he whispered, looking at me enquiringly. 'No,
she won't. Will she?'
Then there was a pause, during which he brought forth from his breast
pocket a small bunch of some half-dozen keys, on one of which he
looked frowningly, every now and then balancing it a little before his
eyes, between his finger and thumb, as he deliberated.
I knew him too well, of course, to interpose a word.
'They are easily frightened—ay, they are. I'd better do it another way.'
And pausing, he looked in my face as he might upon a picture.
'They are—yes—I had better do it another way—another way;
yes—and she'll not suspect—she'll not suppose.'
Then he looked steadfastly upon the key, and from it to me, suddenly
lifting it up, and said abruptly, 'See, child,' and, after a second or two,
'Remember this key.'
It was oddly shaped, and unlike others.
'Yes, sir.' I always called him 'sir.'

11
 'It opens that,' and he tapped it sharply on the door of the cabinet. 'In
the daytime it is always here,' at which word he dropped it into his pock-
et again. 'You see?—and at night under my pillow—you hear me?'
'Yes, sir.'
'You won't forget this cabinet—oak—next the door—on your left—you
won't forget?'
'No, sir.'
'Pity she's a girl, and so young—ay, a girl, and so young—no
sense—giddy. You say, you'll remember?'
'Yes, sir.'
'It behoves you.'
He turned round and looked full upon me, like a man who has taken a
sudden resolution; and I think for a moment he had made up his mind to
tell me a great deal more. But if so, he changed it again; and after another
pause, he said slowly and sternly—'You will tell nobody what I have
said, under pain of my displeasure.'
'Oh! no, sir!'
'Good child!'
'Except,' he resumed, 'under one contingency; that is, in case I should
be absent, and Dr. Bryerly—you recollect the thin gentleman, in spec-
tacles and a black wig, who spent three days here last month—should
come and enquire for the key, you understand, in my absence.'
'Yes, sir.'
So he kissed me on the forehead, and said—
'Let us return.'
Which, accordingly, we did, in silence; the storm outside, like a dirge
on a great organ, accompanying our flitting.

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Chapter 2
UNCLE SILAS
When we reached the drawing-room, I resumed my chair, and my father
his slow and regular walk to and fro, in the great room. Perhaps it was
the uproar of the wind that disturbed the ordinary tenor of his thoughts;
but, whatever was the cause, certainly he was unusually talkative that
night.
After an interval of nearly half an hour, he drew near again, and sat
down in a high-backed arm-chair, beside the fire, and nearly opposite to
me, and looked at me steadfastly for some time, as was his wont, before
speaking; and said he—
'This won't do—you must have a governess.'
In cases of this kind I merely set down my book or work, as it might
be, and adjusted myself to listen without speaking.
'Your French is pretty well, and your Italian; but you have no German.
Your music may be pretty good—I'm no judge—but your drawing might
be better—yes—yes. I believe there are accomplished ladies—finishing
governesses, they call them—who undertake more than any one teacher
would have professed in my time, and do very well. She can prepare
you, and next winter, then, you shall visit France and Italy, where you
may be accomplished as highly as you please.'
'Thank you, sir.'
'You shall. It is nearly six months since Miss Ellerton left you—too
long without a teacher.'
Then followed an interval.
'Dr. Bryerly will ask you about that key, and what it opens; you show
all that to him, and no one else.'
'But,' I said, for I had a great terror of disobeying him in ever so
minute a matter, 'you will then be absent, sir—how am I to find the key?'
He smiled on me suddenly—a bright but wintry smile—it seldom
came, and was very transitory, and kindly though mysterious.

13
 'True, child; I'm glad you are so wise; that, you will find, I have
provided for, and you shall know exactly where to look. You have re-
marked how solitarily I live. You fancy, perhaps, I have not got a friend,
and you are nearly right—nearly, but not altogether. I have a very sure
friend—one—a friend whom I once misunderstood, but now appreciate.'
I wondered silently whether it could be Uncle Silas.
'He'll make me a call, some day soon; I'm not quite sure when. I won't
tell you his name—you'll hear that soon enough, and I don't want it
talked of; and I must make a little journey with him. You'll not be afraid
of being left alone for a time?'
'And have you promised, sir?' I answered, with another question, my
curiosity and anxiety overcoming my awe. He took my questioning very
good-humouredly.
'Well—promise?—no, child; but I'm under condition; he's not to be
denied. I must make the excursion with him the moment he calls. I have
no choice; but, on the whole, I rather like it—remember, I say, I rather
like it.'
And he smiled again, with the same meaning, that was at once stern
and sad. The exact purport of these sentences remained fixed in my
mind, so that even at this distance of time I am quite sure of them.
A person quite unacquainted with my father's habitually abrupt and
odd way of talking, would have fancied that he was possibly a little dis-
ordered in his mind. But no such suspicion for a moment troubled me. I
was quite sure that he spoke of a real person who was coming, and that
his journey was something momentous; and when the visitor of whom
he spoke did come, and he departed with him upon that mysterious ex-
cursion, I perfectly understood his language and his reasons for saying
so much and yet so little.
You are not to suppose that all my hours were passed in the sort of
conference and isolation of which I have just given you a specimen; and
singular and even awful as were sometimes my tête-a-têtes with my fath-
er, I had grown so accustomed to his strange ways, and had so unboun-
ded a confidence in his affection, that they never depressed or agitated
me in the manner you might have supposed. I had a great deal of quite a
different sort of chat with good old Mrs. Rusk, and very pleasant talks
with Mary Quince, my somewhat ancient maid; and besides all this, I
had now and then a visit of a week or so at the house of some one of our
country neighbours, and occasionally a visitor—but this, I must own,
very rarely—at Knowl.

14
 There had come now a little pause in my father's revelations, and my
fancy wandered away upon a flight of discovery. Who, I again thought,
could this intending visitor be, who was to come, armed with the prerog-
ative to make my stay-at-home father forthwith leave his household
goods—his books and his child—to whom he clung, and set forth on an
unknown knight-errantry? Who but Uncle Silas, I thought—that mysteri-
ous relative whom I had never seen—who was, it had in old times been
very darkly hinted to me, unspeakably unfortunate or unspeakably vi-
cious—whom I had seldom heard my father mention, and then in a hur-
ried way, and with a pained, thoughtful look. Once only he had said
anything from which I could gather my father's opinion of him, and then
it was so slight and enigmatical that I might have filled in the character
very nearly as I pleased.
It happened thus. One day Mrs. Rusk was in the oak-room, I being
then about fourteen. She was removing a stain from a tapestry chair, and
I watched the process with a childish interest. She sat down to rest her-
self—she had been stooping over her work—and threw her head back,
for her neck was weary, and in this position she fixed her eyes on a por-
trait that hung before her.
It was a full-length, and represented a singularly handsome young
man, dark, slender, elegant, in a costume then quite obsolete, though I
believe it was seen at the beginning of this century—white leather panta-
loons and top-boots, a buff waistcoat, and a chocolate-coloured coat, and
the hair long and brushed back.
There was a remarkable elegance and a delicacy in the features, but
also a character of resolution and ability that quite took the portrait out
of the category of mere fops or fine men. When people looked at it for
the first time, I have so often heard the exclamation—'What a wonder-
fully handsome man!' and then, 'What a clever face!' An Italian grey-
hound stood by him, and some slender columns and a rich drapery in
the background. But though the accessories were of the luxurious sort,
and the beauty, as I have said, refined, there was a masculine force in
that slender oval face, and a fire in the large, shadowy eyes, which were
very peculiar, and quite redeemed it from the suspicion of effeminacy.
'Is not that Uncle Silas?' said I.
'Yes, dear,' answered Mrs. Rusk, looking, with her resolute little face,
quietly on the portrait.
'He must be a very handsome man, Mrs. Rusk. Don't you think so?' I
continued.

15
 'He was, my dear—yes; but it is forty years since that was painted—the
date is there in the corner, in the shadow that comes from his foot, and
forty years, I can tell you, makes a change in most of us;' and Mrs. Rusk
laughed, in cynical good-humour.
There was a little pause, both still looking on the handsome man in
top-boots, and I said—
'And why, Mrs. Rusk, is papa always so sad about Uncle Silas?'
'What's that, child?' said my father's voice, very near. I looked round,
with a start, and flushed and faltered, receding a step from him.
'No harm, dear. You have said nothing wrong,' he said gently, ob-
serving my alarm. 'You said I was always sad, I think, about Uncle Silas.
Well, I don't know how you gather that; but if I were, I will now tell you,
it would not be unnatural. Your uncle is a man of great talents, great
faults, and great wrongs. His talents have not availed him; his faults are
long ago repented of; and his wrongs I believe he feels less than I do, but
they are deep. Did she say any more, madam?' he demanded abruptly of
Mrs. Rusk.
'Nothing, sir,' with a stiff little courtesy, answered Mrs. Rusk, who
stood in awe of him.
'And there is no need, child,' he continued, addressing himself to me,
'that you should think more of him at present. Clear your head of Uncle
Silas. One day, perhaps, you will know him—yes, very well—and under-
stand how villains have injured him.
Then my father retired, and at the door he said—
'Mrs. Rusk, a word, if you please,' beckoning to that lady, who trotted
after him to the library.
I think he then laid some injunction upon the housekeeper, which was
transmitted by her to Mary Quince, for from that time forth I could never
lead either to talk with me about Uncle Silas. They let me talk on, but
were reserved and silent themselves, and seemed embarrassed, and Mrs.
Rusk sometimes pettish and angry, when I pressed for information.
Thus curiosity was piqued; and round the slender portrait in the leath-
er pantaloons and top-boots gathered many-coloured circles of mystery,
and the handsome features seemed to smile down upon my baffled curi-
osity with a provoking significance.
Why is it that this form of ambition—curiosity—which entered into
the temptation of our first parent, is so specially hard to resist? Know-
ledge is power—and power of one sort or another is the secret lust of hu-
man souls; and here is, beside the sense of exploration, the undefinable

16
interest of a story, and above all, something forbidden, to stimulate the
contumacious appetite.

17
Chapter 3
A NEW FACE
I think it was about a fortnight after that conversation in which my father
had expressed his opinion, and given me the mysterious charge about
the old oak cabinet in his library, as already detailed, that I was one night
sitting at the great drawing-room window, lost in the melancholy rever-
ies of night, and in admiration of the moonlighted scene. I was the only
occupant of the room; and the lights near the fire, at its farther end,
hardly reached to the window at which I sat.
The shorn grass sloped gently downward from the windows till it met
the broad level on which stood, in clumps, or solitarily scattered, some of
the noblest timber in England. Hoar in the moonbeams stood those
graceful trees casting their moveless shadows upon the grass, and in the
background crowning the undulations of the distance, in masses, were
piled those woods among which lay the solitary tomb where the remains
of my beloved mother rested.
The air was still. The silvery vapour hung serenely on the far horizon,
and the frosty stars blinked brightly. Everyone knows the effect of such a
scene on a mind already saddened. Fancies and regrets float mistily in
the dream, and the scene affects us with a strange mixture of memory
and anticipation, like some sweet old air heard in the distance. As my
eyes rested on those, to me, funereal but glorious woods, which formed
the background of the picture, my thoughts recurred to my father's mys-
terious intimations and the image of the approaching visitor; and the
thought of the unknown journey saddened me.
In all that concerned his religion, from very early association, there
was to me something of the unearthly and spectral.
When my dear mamma died I was not nine years old; and I remember,
two days before the funeral, there came to Knowl, where she died, a thin
little man, with large black eyes, and a very grave, dark face.
He was shut up a good deal with my dear father, who was in deep af-
fliction; and Mrs. Rusk used to say, 'It is rather odd to see him praying

18
with that little scarecrow from London, and good Mr. Clay ready at call,
in the village; much good that little black whipper-snapper will do him!'
With that little black man, on the day after the funeral, I was sent out,
for some reason, for a walk; my governess was ill, I know, and there was
confusion in the house, and I dare say the maids made as much of a holi-
day as they could.
I remember feeling a sort of awe of this little dark man; but I was not
afraid of him, for he was gentle, though sad—and seemed kind. He led
me into the garden—the Dutch garden, we used to call it—with a balus-
trade, and statues at the farther front, laid out in a carpet-pattern of
brilliantly-coloured flowers. We came down the broad flight of Caen
stone steps into this, and we walked in silence to the balustrade. The
base was too high at the spot where we reached it for me to see over; but
holding my hand, he said, 'Look through that, my child. Well, you can't;
but I can see beyond it—shall I tell you what? I see ever so much. I see a
cottage with a steep roof, that looks like gold in the sunlight; there are
tall trees throwing soft shadows round it, and flowering shrubs, I can't
say what, only the colours are beautiful, growing by the walls and win-
dows, and two little children are playing among the stems of the trees,
and we are on our way there, and in a few minutes shall be under those
trees ourselves, and talking to those little children. Yet now to me it is
but a picture in my brain, and to you but a story told by me, which you
believe. Come, dear; let us be going.'
So we descended the steps at the right, and side by side walked along
the grass lane between tall trim walls of evergreens. The way was in
deep shadow, for the sun was near the horizon; but suddenly we turned
to the left, and there we stood in rich sunlight, among the many objects
he had described.
'Is this your house, my little men?' he asked of the children—pretty
little rosy boys—who assented; and he leaned with his open hand
against the stem of one of the trees, and with a grave smile he nodded
down to me, saying—
'You see now, and hear, and feel for yourself that both the vision and
the story were quite true; but come on, my dear, we have further to go.'
And relapsing into silence we had a long ramble through the wood,
the same on which I was now looking in the distance. Every now and
then he made me sit down to rest, and he in a musing solemn sort of way
would relate some little story, reflecting, even to my childish mind, a
strange suspicion of a spiritual meaning, but different from what honest

19
Mrs. Rusk used to expound to me from the Parables, and, somehow,
startling in its very vagueness.
Thus entertained, though a little awfully, I accompanied the dark mys-
terious little 'whipper-snapper' through the woodland glades. We came,
to me quite unexpectedly, in the deep sylvan shadows, upon the grey,
pillared temple, four-fronted, with a slanting pedestal of lichen-stained
steps, the lonely sepulchre in which I had the morning before seen poor
mamma laid. At the sight the fountains of my grief reopened, and I cried
bitterly, repeating, 'Oh! mamma, mamma, little mamma!' and so went on
weeping and calling wildly on the deaf and the silent. There was a stone
bench some ten steps away from the tomb.
'Sit down beside me, my child,' said the grave man with the black eyes,
very kindly and gently. 'Now, what do you see there?' he asked, pointing
horizontally with his stick towards the centre of the opposite structure.
'Oh, that—that place where poor mamma is?'
'Yes, a stone wall with pillars, too high for either you or me to see over.
But——'
Here he mentioned a name which I think must have been Swedenborg,
from what I afterwards learnt of his tenets and revelations; I only know
that it sounded to me like the name of a magician in a fairy tale; I fancied
he lived in the wood which surrounded us, and I began to grow
frightened as he proceeded.
'But Swedenborg sees beyond it, over, and through it, and has told me
all that concerns us to know. He says your mamma is not there.'
'She is taken away!' I cried, starting up, and with streaming eyes, gaz-
ing on the building which, though I stamped my feet in my distraction, I
was afraid to approach. 'Oh, is mamma taken away? Where is she?
Where have they brought her to?'
I was uttering unconsciously very nearly the question with which
Mary, in the grey of that wondrous morning on which she stood by the
empty sepulchre, accosted the figure standing near.
'Your mamma is alive but too far away to see or hear us. Swedenborg,
standing here, can see and hear her, and tells me all he sees, just as I told
you in the garden about the little boys and the cottage, and the trees and
flowers which you could not see. You believed in when I told you. So I
can tell you now as I did then; and as we are both, I hope, walking on to
the same place just as we did to the trees and cottage. You will surely see
with your own eyes how true the description is which I give you.'

20
 I was very frightened, for I feared that when he had done his narrative
we were to walk on through the wood into that place of wonders and of
shadows where the dead were visible.
He leaned his elbow on his knee, and his forehead on his hand, which
shaded his downcast eyes. In that attitude he described to me a beautiful
landscape, radiant with a wondrous light, in which, rejoicing, my mother
moved along an airy path, ascending among mountains of fantastic
height, and peaks, melting in celestial colouring into the air, and peopled
with human beings translated into the same image, beauty, and splend-
our. And when he had ended his relation, he rose, took my hand, and
smiling gently down on my pale, wondering face, he said the same
words he had spoken before—
'Come, dear, let us go.'
'Oh! no, no, no—not now,' I said, resisting, and very much frightened.
'Home, I mean, dear. We cannot walk to the place I have described.
We can only reach it through the gate of death, to which we are all tend-
ing, young and old, with sure steps.'
'And where is the gate of death?' I asked in a sort of whisper, as we
walked together, holding his hand, and looking stealthily. He smiled
sadly and said—
'When, sooner or later, the time comes, as Hagar's eyes were opened in
the wilderness, and she beheld the fountain of water, so shall each of us
see the door open before us, and enter in and be refreshed.'
For a long time following this walk I was very nervous; more so for the
awful manner in which Mrs. Rusk received my statement—with stern
lips and upturned hands and eyes, and an angry expostulation: 'I do
wonder at you, Mary Quince, letting the child walk into the wood with
that limb of darkness. It is a mercy he did not show her the devil, or
frighten her out of her senses, in that lonely place!'
Of these Swedenborgians, indeed, I know no more than I might learn
from good Mrs. Rusk's very inaccurate talk. Two or three of them
crossed in the course of my early life, like magic-lantern figures, the disk
of my very circumscribed observation. All outside was and is darkness. I
once tried to read one of their books upon the future state—heaven and
hell; but I grew after a day or two so nervous that I laid it aside. It is
enough for me to know that their founder either saw or fancied he saw
amazing visions, which, so far from superseding, confirmed and inter-
preted the language of the Bible; and as dear papa accepted their ideas, I
am happy in thinking that they did not conflict with the supreme author-
ity of holy writ.

21
 Leaning on my hand, I was now looking upon that solemn wood,
white and shadowy in the moonlight, where, for a long time after that
ramble with the visionary, I fancied the gate of death, hidden only by a
strange glamour, and the dazzling land of ghosts, were situate; and I
suppose these earlier associations gave to my reverie about my father's
coming visitor a wilder and a sadder tinge.

22
Chapter 4
MADAME DE LA ROUGIERRE
On a sudden, on the grass before me, stood an odd figure—a very tall
woman in grey draperies, nearly white under the moon, courtesying ex-
traordinarily low, and rather fantastically.
I stared in something like a horror upon the large and rather hollow
features which I did not know, smiling very unpleasantly on me; and the
moment it was plain that I saw her, the grey woman began gobbling and
cackling shrilly—I could not distinctly hear what through the win-
dow—and gesticulating oddly with her long hands and arms.
As she drew near the window, I flew to the fireplace, and rang the bell
frantically, and seeing her still there, and fearing that she might break in-
to the room, I flew out of the door, very much frightened, and met Bran-
ston the butler in the lobby.
'There's a woman at the window!' I gasped; 'turn her away, please.'
If I had said a man, I suppose fat Branston would have summoned and
sent forward a detachment of footmen. As it was, he bowed gravely,
with a—
'Yes,'m—shall,'m.'
And with an air of authority approached the window.
I don't think that he was pleasantly impressed himself by the first sight
of our visitor, for he stopped short some steps of the window, and de-
manded rather sternly—
'What ye doin' there, woman?'
To this summons, her answer, which occupied a little time, was inaud-
ible to me. But Branston replied—
'I wasn't aware, ma'am; I heerd nothin'; if you'll go round that way,
you'll see the hall-door steps, and I'll speak to the master, and do as he
shall order.'
The figure said something and pointed.
'Yes, that's it, and ye can't miss the door.'

23
 And Mr. Branston returned slowly down the long room, and halted
with out-turned pumps and a grave inclination before me, and the
faintest amount of interrogation in the announcement—
'Please,'m, she says she's the governess.'
'The governess! What governess?'
Branston was too well-bred to smile, and he said thoughtfully—
'P'raps,'m, I'd best ask the master?'
To which I assented, and away strode the flat pumps of the butler to
the library.
I stood breathless in the hall. Every girl at my age knows how much is
involved in such an advent. I also heard Mrs. Rusk, in a minute or two
more, emerge I suppose from the study. She walked quickly, and
muttered sharply to herself—an evil trick, in which she indulged when
much 'put about.' I should have been glad of a word with her; but I fan-
cied she was vexed, and would not have talked satisfactorily. She did
not, however, come my way; merely crossing the hall with her quick, en-
ergetic step.
Was it really the arrival of a governess? Was that apparition which had
impressed me so unpleasantly to take the command of me—to sit alone
with me, and haunt me perpetually with her sinister looks and shrilly
gabble?
I was just making up my mind to go to Mary Quince, and learn
something definite, when I heard my father's step approaching from the
library: so I quietly re-entered the drawingroom, but with an anxious
and throbbing heart.
When he came in, as usual, he patted me on the head gently, with a
kind of smile, and then began his silent walk up and down the room. I
was yearning to question him on the point that just then engrossed me so
disagreeably; but the awe in which I stood of him forbade.
After a time he stopped at the window, the curtain of which I had
drawn, and the shutter partly opened, and he looked out, perhaps with
associations of his own, on the scene I had been contemplating.
It was not for nearly an hour after, that my father suddenly, after his
wont, in a few words, apprised me of the arrival of Madame de la Rougi-
erre to be my governess, highly recommended and perfectly qualified.
My heart sank with a sure presage of ill. I already disliked, distrusted,
and feared her.
I had more than an apprehension of her temper and fear of possibly
abused authority. The large-featured, smirking phantom, saluting me so

24
oddly in the moonlight, retained ever after its peculiar and unpleasant
hold upon my nerves.
'Well, Miss Maud, dear, I hope you'll like your new governess—for it's
more than I do, just at present at least,' said Mrs. Rusk, sharply—she was
awaiting me in my room. 'I hate them French-women; they're not natur-
al, I think. I gave her her supper in my room. She eats like a wolf, she
does, the great raw-boned hannimal. I wish you saw her in bed as I did. I
put her next the clock-room—she'll hear the hours betimes, I'm thinking.
You never saw such a sight. The great long nose and hollow cheeks of
her, and oogh! such a mouth! I felt a'most like little Red Riding-Hood—I
did, Miss.'
Here honest Mary Quince, who enjoyed Mrs. Rusk's satire, a weapon
in which she was not herself strong, laughed outright.
'Turn down the bed, Mary. She's very agreeable—she is, just now—all
new-comers is; but she did not get many compliments from me,
Miss—no, I rayther think not. I wonder why honest English girls won't
answer the gentry for governesses, instead of them gaping, scheming,
wicked furriners? Lord forgi' me, I think they're all alike.'
Next morning I made acquaintance with Madame de la Rougierre. She
was tall, masculine, a little ghastly perhaps, and draped in purple silk,
with a lace cap, and great bands of black hair, too thick and black, per-
haps, to correspond quite naturally with her bleached and sallow skin,
her hollow jaws, and the fine but grim wrinkles traced about her brows
and eyelids. She smiled, she nodded, and then for a good while she
scanned me in silence with a steady cunning eye, and a stern smile.
'And how is she named—what is Mademoiselle's name?' said the tall
stranger.
'Maud, Madame.'
'Maud!—what pretty name! Eh bien! I am very sure my dear Maud she
will be very good little girl—is not so?—and I am sure I shall love you
vary moche. And what 'av you been learning, Maud, my dear
cheaile—music, French, German, eh?'
'Yes, a little; and I had just begun the use of the globes when my gov-
erness went away.'
I nodded towards the globes, which stood near her, as I said this.
'Oh! yes—the globes;' and she spun one of them with her great hand.
'Je vous expliquerai tout cela à fond.'
Madame de la Rougierre, I found, was always quite ready to explain
everything 'à fond;' but somehow her 'explications,' as she termed them,

25
were not very intelligible, and when pressed her temper woke up; so that
I preferred, after a while, accepting the expositions just as they came.
Madame was on an unusually large scale, a circumstance which made
some of her traits more startling, and altogether rendered her, in her
strange way, more awful in the eyes of a nervous child, I may say, such as
I was. She used to look at me for a long time sometimes, with the peculi-
ar smile I have mentioned, and a great finger upon her lip, like the
Eleusinian priestess on the vase.
She would sit, too, sometimes for an hour together, looking into the
fire or out of the window, plainly seeing nothing, and with an odd, fixed
look of something like triumph—very nearly a smile—on her cunning
face.
She was by no means a pleasant gouvernante for a nervous girl of my
years. Sometimes she had accesses of a sort of hilarity which frightened
me still more than her graver moods, and I will describe these by-and-
by.

26
Chapter 5
SIGHTS AND NOISES
There is not an old house in England of which the servants and young
people who live in it do not cherish some traditions of the ghostly.
Knowl has its shadows, noises, and marvellous records. Rachel Ruthyn,
the beauty of Queen Anne's time, who died of grief for the handsome
Colonel Norbrooke, who was killed in the Low Countries, walks the
house by night, in crisp and sounding silks. She is not seen, only heard.
The tapping of her high-heeled shoes, the sweep and rustle of her bro-
cades, her sighs as she pauses in the galleries, near the bed-room doors;
and sometimes, on stormy nights, her sobs.
There is, beside, the 'link-man', a lank, dark-faced, black-haired man,
in a sable suit, with a link or torch in his hand. It usually only smoulders,
with a deep red glow, as he visits his beat. The library is one of the
rooms he sees to. Unlike 'Lady Rachel,' as the maids called her, he is seen
only, never heard. His steps fall noiseless as shadows on floor and car-
pet. The lurid glow of his smouldering torch imperfectly lights his figure
and face, and, except when much perturbed, his link never blazes. On
those occasions, however, as he goes his rounds, he ever and anon whirls
it around his head, and it bursts into a dismal flame. This is a fearful
omen, and always portends some direful crisis or calamity. It occurs,
only once or twice in a century.
I don't know whether Madame had heard anything of these phenom-
ena; but she did report which very much frightened me and Mary
Quince. She asked us who walked in the gallery on which her bed-room
opened, making a rustling with her dress, and going down the stairs,
and breathing long breaths here and there. Twice, she said, she had
stood at her door in the dark, listening to these sounds, and once she
called to know who it was. There was no answer, but the person plainly
turned back, and hurried towards her with an unnatural speed, which
made her jump within her door and shut it.

27
 When first such tales are told, they excite the nerves of the young and
the ignorant intensely. But the special effect, I have found, soon wears
out The tale simply takes it's place with the rest. It was with Madame's
narrative.
About a week after its relation, I had my experience of a similar sort.
Mary Quince went down-stairs for a night-light, leaving me in bed, a
candle burning in the room, and being tired. I fell asleep before her re-
turn. When I awoke the candle had been extinguished. But I heard a step
softly approaching. I jumped up—quite forgetting the ghost, and think-
ing only of Mary Quince—and opened the door, expecting to see the
light of her candle. Instead, all was dark, and near me I heard the fall of a
bare foot on the oak floor. It was as if some one had stumbled. I said,
'Mary,' but no answer came, only a rustling of clothes and a breathing at
the other side of the gallery, which passed off towards the upper stair-
case. I turned into my room, freezing with horror, and clapt my door.
The noise wakened Mary Quince, who had returned and gone to her bed
half an hour before.
About a fortnight after this, Mary Quince, a very veracious spinster,
reported to me, that having got up to fix the window, which was rattling,
at about four o'clock in the morning, she saw a light shining from the lib-
rary window. She could swear to its being a strong light, streaming
through the chinks of the shutter, and moving. No doubt the link was
waved about his head by the angry 'link-man.'
These strange occurrences helped, I think, just then to make me
nervous, and prepared the way for the odd sort of ascendency which,
through my sense of the mysterious and super-natural, that repulsive
Frenchwoman was gradually, and it seemed without effort, establishing
over me.
Some dark points of her character speedily emerged from the prismat-
ic mist with which she had enveloped it.
Mrs. Rusk's observation about the agreeability of new-comers I found
to be true; for as Madame began to lose that character, her good-humour
abated very perceptibly, and she began to show gleams of another sort of
temper, that was lurid and dangerous.
Notwithstanding this, she was in the habit of always having her Bible
open by her, and was austerely attentive at morning and evening ser-
vices, and asked my father, with great humility, to lend her some transla-
tions of Swedenborg's books, which she laid much to heart.
When we went out for our walk, if the weather were bad we generally
made our promenade up and down the broad terrace in front of the

28
windows. Sullen and malign at times she used to look, and as suddenly
she would pat me on the shoulder caressingly, and smile with a grot-
esque benignity, asking tenderly, 'Are you fatigue, ma chère?' or 'Are
you cold-a, dear Maud?'
At first these abrupt transitions puzzled me, sometimes half frightened
me, savouring, I fancied, of insanity. The key, however, was accidentally
supplied, and I found that these accesses of demonstrative affection were
sure to supervene whenever my father's face was visible through the lib-
rary windows.
I did not know well what to make of this woman, whom I feared with
a vein of superstitious dread. I hated being alone with her after dusk in
the school-room. She would sometimes sit for half an hour at a time,
with her wide mouth drawn down at the corners, and a scowl, looking
into the fire. If she saw me looking at her, she would change all this on
the instant, affect a sort of languor, and lean her head upon her hand,
and ultimately have recourse to her Bible. But I fancied she did not read,
but pursued her own dark ruminations, for I observed that the open
book might often lie for half an hour or more under her eyes and yet the
leaf never turned.
I should have been glad to be assured that she prayed when on her
knees, or read when that book was before her; I should have felt that she
was more canny and human. As it was, those external pieties made a
suspicion of a hollow contrast with realities that helped to scare me; yet
it was but a suspicion—I could not be certain.
Our rector and the curate, with whom she was very gracious, and
anxious about my collects and catechism, had an exalted opinion of her.
In public places her affection for me was always demonstrative.
In like manner she contrived conferences with my father. She was al-
ways making excuses to consult him about my reading, and to confide in
him her sufferings, as I learned, from my contumacy and temper. The
fact is, I was altogether quiet and submissive. But I think she had a wish
to reduce me to a state of the most abject bondage. She had designs of
domination and subversion regarding the entire household, I now be-
lieve, worthy of the evil spirit I sometimes fancied her.
My father beckoned me into the study one day, and said he—
'You ought not to give poor Madame so much pain. She is one of the
few persons who take an interest in you; why should she have so often to
complain of your ill-temper and disobedience?—why should she be
compelled to ask my permission to punish you? Don't be afraid, I won't
concede that. But in so kind a person it argues much. Affection I can't

29
command—respect and obedience I may—and I insist on your rendering
both to Madame.'
'But sir,' I said, roused into courage by the gross injustice of the charge,
'I have always done exactly as she bid me, and never said one disrespect-
ful word to Madame.'
'I don't think, child, you are the best judge of that. Go, and amend.' And
with a displeased look he pointed to the door. My heart swelled with the
sense of wrong, and as I reached the door I turned to say another word,
but I could not, and only burst into tears.
'There—don't cry, little Maud—only let us do better for the future.
There—there—there has been enough.'
And he kissed my forehead, and gently put me out and closed the
door.
In the school-room I took courage, and with some warmth upbraided
Madame.
'Wat wicked cheaile!' moaned Madame, demurely. 'Read aloud those
three—yes, those three chapters of the Bible, my dear Maud.'
There was no special fitness in those particular chapters, and when
they were ended she said in a sad tone—
'Now, dear, you must commit to memory this pretty priaire for umility
of art.'
It was a long one, and in a state of profound irritation I got through
the task.
Mrs. Rusk hated her. She said she stole wine and brandy whenever the
opportunity offered—that she was always asking her for such stimulants
and pretending pains in her stomach. Here, perhaps, there was exaggera-
tion; but I knew it was true that I had been at different times despatched
on that errand and pretext for brandy to Mrs. Rusk, who at last came to
her bedside with pills and a mustard blister only, and was hated irrevoc-
ably ever after.
I felt all this was done to torture me. But a day is a long time to a child,
and they forgive quickly. It was always with a sense of danger that I
heard Madame say she must go and see Monsieur Ruthyn in the library,
and I think a jealousy of her growing influence was an ingredient in the
detestation in which honest Mrs. Rusk held her.

30
Chapter 6
A WALK IN THE WOOD
Two little pieces of by-play in which I detected her confirmed my un-
pleasant suspicion. From the corner of the gallery I one day saw her,
when she thought I was out and all quiet, with her ear at the keyhole of
papa's study, as we used to call the sitting-room next his bed-room. Her
eyes were turned in the direction of the stairs, from which only she ap-
prehended surprise. Her great mouth was open, and her eyes absolutely
goggled with eagerness. She was devouring all that was passing there. I
drew back into the shadow with a kind of disgust and horror. She was
transformed into a great gaping reptile. I felt that I could have thrown
something at her; but a kind of fear made me recede again toward my
room. Indignation, however, quickly returned, and I came back, treading
briskly as I did so. When I reached the angle of the gallery again. Ma-
dame, I suppose, had heard me, for she was half-way down the stairs.
'Ah, my dear Cheaile, I am so glad to find you, and you are dress to
come out. We shall have so pleasant walk.'
At that moment the door of my father's study opened, and Mrs. Rusk,
with her dark energetic face very much flushed, stepped out in high
excitement.
'The Master says you may have the brandy-bottle, Madame and I'm
glad to be rid of it—I am.'
Madame courtesied with a great smirk, that was full of intangible hate
and insult.
'Better your own brandy, if drink you must!' exclaimed Mrs. Rusk.
'You may come to the store-room now, or the butler can take it.'
And off whisked Mrs. Rusk for the back staircase.
There had been no common skirmish on this occasion, but a pitched
battle.
Madame had made a sort of pet of Anne Wixted, an underchamber-
maid, and attached her to her interest economically by persuading me to

31
make her presents of some old dresses and other things. Anne was such
an angel!
But Mrs. Rusk, whose eyes were about her, detected Anne, with a
brandy-bottle under her apron, stealing up-stairs. Anne, in a panic, de-
clared the truth. Madame had commissioned her to buy it in the town,
and convey it to her bed-room. Upon this, Mrs. Rusk impounded the
flask; and, with Anne beside her, rather precipitately appeared before
'the Master.' He heard and summoned Madame. Madame was cool,
frank, and fluent. The brandy was purely medicinal. She produced a
document in the form of a note. Doctor Somebody presented his compli-
ments to Madame de la Rougierre, and ordered her a table-spoonful of
brandy and some drops of laudanum whenever the pain of stomach re-
turned. The flask would last a whole year, perhaps two. She claimed her
medicine.
Man's estimate of woman is higher than woman's own. Perhaps in
their relations to men they are generally more trustworthy—perhaps
woman's is the juster, and the other an appointed illusion. I don't know;
but so it is ordained.
Mrs. Rusk was recalled, and I saw, as you are aware, Madame's pro-
cedure during the interview.
It was a great battle—a great victory. Madame was in high spirits. The
air was sweet—the landscape charming—I, so good—everything so
beautiful! Where should we go? this way?
I had made a resolution to speak as little as possible to Madame, I was
so incensed at the treachery I had witnessed; but such resolutions do not
last long with very young people, and by the time we had reached the
skirts of the wood we were talking pretty much as usual.
'I don't wish to go into the wood, Madame.
'And for what?'
'Poor mamma is buried there.'
'Is there the vault?' demanded Madame eagerly.
I assented.
'My faith, curious reason; you say because poor mamma is buried
there you will not approach! Why, cheaile, what would good Monsieur
Ruthyn say if he heard such thing? You are surely not so unkain', and I
am with you. Allons. Let us come—even a little part of the way.'
And so I yielded, though still reluctant.
There was a grass-grown road, which we easily reached, leading to the
sombre building, and we soon arrived before it.

32
 Madame de la Rougierre seemed rather curious. She sat down on the
little bank opposite, in her most languid pose—her head leaned upon the
tips of her fingers.
'How very sad—how solemn!' murmured Madame. 'What noble tomb!
How triste, my dear cheaile, your visit 'ere must it be, remembering a so
sweet maman. There is new inscription—is it not new?' And so, indeed,
it seemed.
'I am fatigue—maybe you will read it aloud to me slowly and sol-
emnly, my dearest Maud?'
As I approached, I happened to look, I can't tell why, suddenly, over
my shoulder; I was startled, for Madame was grimacing after me with a
vile derisive distortion. She pretended to be seized with a fit of coughing.
But it would not do: she saw that I had detected her, and she laughed
aloud.
'Come here, dear cheaile. I was just reflecting how foolish is all this
thing—the tomb—the epitaph. I think I would 'av none—no, no epitaph.
We regard them first for the oracle of the dead, and find them after only
the folly of the living. So I despise. Do you think your house of Knowl
down there is what you call haunt, my dear?'
'Why?' said I, flushing and growing pale again. I felt quite afraid of
Madame, and confounded at the suddenness of all this.
'Because Anne Wixted she says there is ghost. How dark is this place!
and so many of the Ruthyn family they are buried here—is not so? How
high and thick are the trees all round! and nobody comes near.'
And Madame rolled her eyes awfully, as if she expected to see
something unearthly, and, indeed, looked very like it herself.
'Come away, Madame,' I said, growing frightened, and feeling that if I
were once, by any accident, to give way to the panic that was gathering
round me, I should instantaneously lose all control of myself. 'Oh, come
away! do, Madame—I'm frightened.'
'No, on the contrary, sit here by me. It is very odd, you will think, ma
chêre—un goût bizarre, vraiment!—but I love very much to be near to
the dead people—in solitary place like this. I am not afraid of the dead
people, nor of the ghosts. 'Av you ever see a ghost, my dear?'
'Do, Madame, pray speak of something else.'
'Wat little fool! But no, you are not afraid. I 'av seen the ghosts myself.
I saw one, for example, last night, shape like a monkey, sitting in the
corner, with his arms round his knees; very wicked, old, old man his face
was like, and white eyes so large.'

33
 'Come away, Madame! you are trying to frighten me,' I said, in the
childish anger which accompanies fear. Madame laughed an ugly laugh,
and said—
'Eh bien! little fool!—I will not tell the rest if you are really frightened;
let us change to something else.'
'Yes, yes! oh, do—pray do.'
'Wat good man is your father!'
'Very—the kindest darling. I don't know why it is, Madame, I am so
afraid of him, and never could tell him how much I love him.'
This confidential talking with Madame, strange to say, implied no con-
fidence; it resulted from fear—it was deprecatory. I treated her as if she
had human sympathies, in the hope that they might be generated
somehow.
'Was there not a doctor from London with him a few months ago? Dr.
Bryerly, I think they call him.'
'Yes, a Doctor Bryerly, who remained a few days. Shall we begin to
walk towards home, Madame? Do, pray.'
'Immediately, cheaile; and does your father suffer much?'
'No—I think not.'
'And what then is his disease?'
'Disease! he has no disease. Have you heard anything about his health,
Madame?' I said, anxiously.
'Oh no, ma foi—I have heard nothing; but if the doctor came, it was
not because he was quite well.'
'But that doctor is a doctor in theology, I fancy. I know he is a Sweden-
borgian; and papa is so well, he could not have come as a physician.'
'I am very glad, ma chère, to hear; but still you know your father is old
man to have so young cheaile as you. Oh, yes—he is old man, and so un-
certain life is. 'As he made his will, my dear? Every man so rich as he, es-
pecially so old, aught to 'av made his will.'
'There is no need of haste, Madame; it is quite time enough when his
health begins to fail.'
'But has he really compose no will?'
'I really don't know, Madame.'
'Ah, little rogue! you will not tell—but you are not such fool as you
feign yourself. No, no; you know everything. Come, tell me all about—it
is for your advantage, you know. What is in his will, and when he
wrote?'
'But, Madame, I really know nothing of it. I can't say whether there is a
will or not. Let us talk of something else.'

34
 'But, cheaile, it will not kill Monsieur Ruthyn to make his will; he will
not come to lie here a day sooner by cause of that; but if he make no will,
you may lose a great deal of the property. Would not that be pity?'
'I really don't know anything of his will. If papa has made one, he has
never spoken of it to me. I know he loves me—that is enough.'
'Ah! you are not such little goose—you do know everything, of course.
Come tell me, little obstinate, otherwise I will break your little finger.
Tell me everything.'
'I know nothing of papa's will. You don't know, Madame, how you
hurt me. Let us speak of something else.'
'You do know, and you must tell, petite dure-tête, or I will break a
your little finger.'
With which words she seized that joint, and laughing spitefully, she
twisted it suddenly back. I screamed while she continued to laugh.
'Will you tell?'
'Yes, yes! let me go,' I shrieked.
She did not release it immediately however, but continued her torture
and discordant laughter. At last she finally released my finger.
'So she is going to be good cheaile, and tell everything to her affection-
ate gouvernante. What do you cry for, little fool?'
'You've hurt me very much—you have broken my finger,' I sobbed.
'Rub it and blow it and give it a kiss, little fool! What cross girl! I will
never play with you again—never. Let us go home.'
Madame was silent and morose all the way home. She would not an-
swer my questions, and affected to be very lofty and offended.
This did not last very long, however, and she soon resumed her
wonted ways. And she returned to the question of the will, but not so
directly, and with more art.
Why should this dreadful woman's thoughts be running so continu-
ally upon my father's will? How could it concern her?

35
Chapter 7
CHURCH SCARSDALE
I think all the females of our household, except Mrs. Rusk, who was at
open feud with her and had only room for the fiercer emotions, were
more or less afraid of this inauspicious foreigner.
Mrs. Rusk would say in her confidences in my room—
'Where does she come from?—is she a French or a Swiss one, or is she
a Canada woman? I remember one of them when I was a girl, and a nice
limb she was, too! And who did she live with? Where was her last fam-
ily? Not one of us knows nothing about her, no more than a child; ex-
cept, of course, the Master—I do suppose he made enquiry. She's always
at hugger-mugger with Anne Wixted. I'll pack that one about her busi-
ness, if she doesn't mind. Tattling and whispering eternally. It's not
about her own business she's a-talking. Madame de la Rougepot, I call
her. She does know how to paint up to the ninety-nines—she does, the
old cat. I beg your pardon, Miss, but that she is—a devil, and no mistake.
I found her out first by her thieving the Master's gin, that the doctor
ordered him, and filling the decanter up with water—the old villain; but
she'll be found out yet, she will; and all the maids is afraid on her. She's
not right, they think—a witch or a ghost—I should not wonder. Cather-
ine Jones found her in her bed asleep in the morning after she sulked
with you, you know, Miss, with all her clothes on, what-ever was the
meaning; and I think she has frightened you, Miss and has you as
nervous as anythink—I do,' and so forth.
It was true. I was nervous, and growing rather more so; and I think this
cynical woman perceived and intended it, and was pleased. I was always
afraid of her concealing herself in my room, and emerging at night to
scare me. She began sometimes to mingle in my dreams, too—always
awfully; and this nourished, of course, the kind of ambiguous fear in
which, in waking hours, I held her.
I dreamed one night that she led me, all the time whispering
something so very fast that I could not understand her, into the library,

36
holding a candle in her other hand above her head. We walked on tiptoe,
like criminals at the dead of night, and stopped before that old oak cab-
inet which my father had indicated in so odd a way to me. I felt that we
were about some contraband practice. There was a key in the door,
which I experienced a guilty horror at turning, she whispering in the
same unintelligible way, all the time, at my ear. I did turn it; the door
opened quite softly, and within stood my father, his face white and ma-
lignant, and glaring close in mine. He cried in a terrible voice, 'Death!'
Out went Madame's candle, and at the same moment, with a scream, I
waked in the dark—still fancying myself in the library; and for an hour
after I continued in a hysterical state.
Every little incident about Madame furnished a topic of eager discus-
sion among the maids. More or less covertly, they nearly all hated and
feared her. They fancied that she was making good her footing with 'the
Master;' and that she would then oust Mrs. Rusk—perhaps usurp her
place—and so make a clean sweep of them all. I fancy the honest little
housekeeper did not discourage that suspicion.
About this time I recollect a pedlar—an odd, gipsified-looking
man—called in at Knowl. I and Catherine Jones were in the court when
he came, and set down his pack on the low balustrade beside the door.
All sorts of commodities he had—ribbons, cottons, silks, stockings,
lace, and even some bad jewellry; and just as he began his display—an
interesting matter in a quiet country house—Madame came upon the
ground. He grinned a recognition, and hoped 'Madamasel' was well, and
'did not look to see her here.'
'Madamasel' thanked him. 'Yes, vary well,' and looked for the first
time decidedly 'put out.'
'Wat a pretty things!' she said. 'Catherine, run and tell Mrs. Rusk. She
wants scissars, and lace too—I heard her say.'
So Catherine, with a lingering look, departed; and Madame said—
'Will you, dear cheaile, be so kind to bring here my purse, I forgot on
the table in my room; also, I advise you, bring your.'
Catherine returned with Mrs. Rusk. Here was a man who could tell
them something of the old Frenchwoman, at last! Slyly they dawdled
over his wares, until Madame had made her market and departed with
me. But when the coveted opportunity came, the pedlar was quite im-
penetrable. 'He forgot everything; he did not believe as he ever saw the
lady before. He called a Frenchwoman, all the world over, Madam-
asel—that wor the name on 'em all. He never seed her in partiklar afore,

37
as he could bring to mind. He liked to see 'em always, 'cause they makes
the young uns buy.'
This reserve and oblivion were very provoking, and neither Mrs. Rusk
nor Catherine Jones spent sixpence with him;—he was a stupid fellow, or
worse.
Of course Madame had tampered with him. But truth, like murder,
will out some day. Tom Williams, the groom, had seen her, when alone
with him, and pretending to look at his stock, with her face almost bur-
ied in his silks and Welsh linseys, talking as fast as she could all the time,
and slipping money, he did suppose, under a piece of stuff in his box.
In the mean time, I and Madame were walking over the wide, peaty
sheep-walks that lie between Knowl and Church Scarsdale. Since our
visit to the mausoleum in the wood, she had not worried me so much as
before. She had been, indeed, more than usually thoughtful, very little
talkative, and troubled me hardly at all about French and other accom-
plishments. A walk was a part of our daily routine. I now carried a tiny
basket in my hand, with a few sandwiches, which were to furnish our
luncheon when we reached the pretty scene, about two miles away,
whither we were tending.
We had started a little too late; Madame grew unwontedly fatigued
and sat down to rest on a stile before we had got half-way; and there she
intoned, with a dismal nasal cadence, a quaint old Bretagne ballad, about
a lady with a pig's head:—
'This lady was neither pig nor maid, And so she was not of human
mould; Not of the living nor the dead. Her left hand and foot were warm
to touch; Her right as cold as a corpse's flesh! And she would sing like a
funeral bell, with a ding-dong tune. The pigs were afraid, and viewed
her aloof; And women feared her and stood afar. She could do without
sleep for a year and a day; She could sleep like a corpse, for a month and
more. No one knew how this lady fed— On acorns or on flesh. Some say
that she's one of the swine-possessed, That swam over the sea of Gen-
nesaret. A mongrel body and demon soul. Some say she's the wife of the
Wandering Jew, And broke the law for the sake of pork; And a swinish
face for a token doth bear, That her shame is now, and her punishment
coming.'
And so it went on, in a gingling rigmarole. The more anxious I seemed
to go on our way, the more likely was she to loiter. I therefore showed no
signs of impatience, and I saw her consult her watch in the course of her
ugly minstrelsy, and slyly glance, as if expecting something, in the direc-
tion of our destination.

38
 When she had sung to her heart's content, up rose Madame, and began
to walk onward silently. I saw her glance once or twice, as before, to-
ward the village of Trillsworth, which lay in front, a little to our left, and
the smoke of which hung in a film over the brow of the hill. I think she
observed me, for she enquired—
'Wat is that a smoke there?'
'That is Trillsworth, Madame; there is a railway station there.'
'Oh, le chemin de fer, so near! I did not think. Where it goes?'
I told her, and silence returned.
Church Scarsdale is a very pretty and odd scene. The slightly
undulating sheep-walk dips suddenly into a wide glen, in the lap of
which, by a bright, winding rill, rise from the sward the ruins of a small
abbey, with a few solemn trees scattered round. The crows' nests hung
untenanted in the trees; the birds were foraging far away from their
roosts. The very cattle had forsaken the place. It was solitude itself.
Madame drew a long breath and smiled.
'Come down, come down, cheaile—come down to the churchyard.'
As we descended the slope which shut out the surrounding world,
and the scene grew more sad and lonely. Madame's spirits seemed to
rise.
'See 'ow many grave-stones—one, two hundred. Don't you love the
dead, cheaile? I will teach you to love them. You shall see me die here to-
day, for half an hour, and be among them. That is what I love.'
We were by this time at the little brook's side, and the low churchyard
wall with a stile, reached by a couple of stepping-stones, across the
stream, immediately at the other side.
'Come, now!' cried Madame, raising her face, as if to sniff the air; 'we
are close to them. You will like them soon as I. You shall see five of them.
Ah, ça ira, ça ira, ça ira! Come cross quickily! I am Madame la
Morgue—Mrs. Deadhouse! I will present you my friends, Monsieur Ca-
davre and Monsieur Squelette. Come, come, leetle mortal, let us play.
Ouaah!' And she uttered a horrid yell from her enormous mouth, and
pushing her wig and bonnet back, so as to show her great, bald head.
She was laughing, and really looked quite mad.
'No, Madame, I will not go with you,' I said, disengaging my hand
with a violent effort, receding two or three steps.
'Not enter the churchyard! Ma foi—wat mauvais goût! But see, we are
already in shade. The sun he is setting soon—where well you remain,
cheaile? I will not stay long.'

39
 'I'll stay here,' I said, a little angrily—for I was angry as well as
nervous; and through my fear was that indignation at her extravagances
which mimicked lunacy so unpleasantly, and were, I knew, designed to
frighten me.
Over the stepping-stones, pulling up her dress, she skipped with her
long, lank legs, like a witch joining a Walpurgis. Over the stile she
strode, and I saw her head wagging, and heard her sing some of her ill-
omened rhymes, as she capered solemnly, with many a grin and cour-
tesy, among the graves and headstones, towards the ruin.

40
Chapter 8
THE SMOKER
Three years later I learned—in a way she probably little expected, and
then did not much care about—what really occurred there. I learned
even phrases and looks—for the story was related by one who had heard
it told—and therefore I venture to narrate what at the moment I neither
saw nor suspected. While I sat, flushed and nervous, upon a flat stone by
the bank of the little stream, Madame looked over her shoulder, and per-
ceiving that I was out of sight, she abated her pace, and turned sharply
towards the ruin which lay at her left. It was her first visit, and she was
merely exploring; but now, with a perfectly shrewd and businesslike air,
turning the corner of the building, she saw, seated upon the edge of a
grave-stone, a rather fat and flashily-equipped young man, with large,
light whiskers, a jerry hat, green cutaway coat with gilt buttons, and
waistcoat and trousers rather striking than elegant in pattern. He was
smoking a short pipe, and made a nod to Madame, without either re-
moving it from his lips or rising, but with his brown and rather good-
looking face turned up, he eyed her with something of the impudent and
sulky expression that was habitual to it.
'Ha, Deedle, you are there! an' look so well. I am here, too, quite alon;
but my friend, she wait outside the churchyard, by-side the leetle river,
for she must not think I know you—so I am come alon.'
'You're a quarter late, and I lost a fight by you, old girl, this morning,'
said the gay man, and spat on the ground; 'and I wish you would not call
me Diddle. I'll call you Granny if you do.'
'Eh bien! Dud, then. She is vary nice—wat you like. Slim waist, wite
teeth, vary nice eyes—dark—wat you say is best—and nice leetle foot
and ankle.'
Madame smiled leeringly.
Dud smoked on.
'Go on,' said Dud, with a nod of command.
'I am teach her to sing and play—she has such sweet voice!

41
 There was another interval here.
'Well, that isn't much good. I hate women's screechin' about fairies and
flowers. Hang her! there's a scarecrow as sings at Curl's Divan. Such a
caterwauling upon a stage! I'd like to put my two barrels into her.'
By this time Dud's pipe was out, and he could afford to converse.
'You shall see her and decide. You will walk down the river, and pass
her by.'
'That's as may be; howsoever, it would not do, nohow, to buy a pig in
a poke, you know. And s'pose I shouldn't like her, arter all?'
Madame sneered, with a patois ejaculation of derision.
'Vary good! Then some one else will not be so 'ard to please—as you
will soon find.'
'Some one's bin a-lookin' arter her, you mean?' said the young man,
with a shrewd uneasy glance on the cunning face of the French lady.
'I mean precisely—that which I mean,' replied the lady, with a teazing
pause at the break I have marked.
'Come, old 'un, none of your d—— old chaff, if you want me to stay
here listening to you. Speak out, can't you? There's any chap as has bin a-
lookin' arter her—is there?'
'Eh bien! I suppose some.'
'Well, you suppose, and I suppose—we may all suppose, I guess; but
that does not make a thing be, as wasn't before; and you tell me as how
the lass is kep' private up there, and will be till you're done educating
her—a precious good 'un that is!' And he laughed a little lazily, with the
ivory handle of his cane on his lip, and eyeing Madame with indolent
derision.
Madame laughed, but looked rather dangerous.
'I'm only chaffin', you know, old girl. You've bin chaffin'—w'y
shouldn't I? But I don't see why she can't wait a bit; and what's all the
d——d hurry for? I'm in no hurry. I don't want a wife on my back for a
while. There's no fellow marries till he's took his bit o' fun, and seen
life—is there! And why should I be driving with her to fairs, or to
church, or to meeting, by jingo!—for they say she's a Quaker—with a
babby on each knee, only to please them as will be dead and rotten when
I'm only beginning?'
'Ah, you are such charming fellow; always the same—always sensible.
So I and my friend we will walk home again, and you go see Maggie
Hawkes. Good-a-by, Dud—good-a-by.'
'Quiet, you fool!—can't ye?' said the young gentleman, with the sort of
grin that made his face vicious when a horse vexed him. 'Who ever said I

42
wouldn't go look at the girl? Why, you know that's just what I come here
for—don't you? Only when I think a bit, and a notion comes across me,
why shouldn't I speak out? I'm not one o' them shilly-shallies. If I like the
girl, I'll not be mug in and mug out about it. Only mind ye, I'll judge for
myself. Is that her a-coming?'
'No; it was a distant sound.'
Madame peeped round the corner. No one was approaching.
'Well, you go round that a-way, and you only look at her, you know,
for she is such fool—so nairvous.'
'Oh, is that the way with her?' said Dud, knocking out the ashes of his
pipe on a tombstone, and replacing the Turkish utensil in his pocket.
'Well, then, old lass, good-bye,' and he shook her hand. 'And, do ye see,
don't ye come up till I pass, for I'm no hand at play-acting; an' if you
called me "sir," or was coming it dignified and distant, you know, I'd be
sure to laugh, a'most, and let all out. So good-bye, d'ye see, and if you
want me again be sharp to time, mind.
From habit he looked about for his dogs, but he had not brought one.
He had come unostentatiously by rail, travelling in a third-class carriage,
for the advantage of Jack Briderly's company, and getting a world of use-
ful wrinkles about the steeplechase that was coming off next week.
So he strode away, cutting off the heads of the nettles with his cane as
he went; and Madame walked forth into the open space among the
graves, where I might have seen her, had I stood up, looking with the ab-
sorbed gaze of an artist on the ruin.
In a little while, along the path, I heard the clank of a step, and the
gentleman in the green cutaway coat, sucking his cane, and eyeing me
with an offensive familiar sort of stare the while, passed me by, rather
hesitating as he did so. I was glad when he turned the corner in the little
hollow close by, and disappeared. I stood up at once, and was reassured
by a sight of Madame, not very many yards away, looking at the ruin,
and apparently restored to her right mind. The last beams of the sun
were by this time touching the uplands, and I was longing to recom-
mence our walk home. I was hesitating about calling to Madame, be-
cause that lady had a certain spirit of opposition within her, and to dis-
close a small wish of any sort was generally, if it lay in her power, to pre-
vent its accomplishment.
At this moment the gentleman in the green coat returned, approaching
me with a slow sort of swagger.
'I say, Miss, I dropped a glove close by here. May you have seen it?'

43
 'No, sir,' I said, drawing back a little, and looking, I dare say, both
frightened and offended.
'I do think I must 'a dropped it close by your foot, Miss.'
'No, sir,' I repeated.
'No offence, Miss, but you're sure you didn't hide it?'
I was beginning to grow seriously uncomfortable.
'Don't be frightened, Miss; it's only a bit o' chaff. I'm not going to
search.'
I called aloud, 'Madame, Madame!' and he whistled through his fin-
gers, and shouted, 'Madame, Madame,' and added, 'She's as deaf as a
tombstone, or she'll hear that. Gi'e her my compliments, and say I said
you're a beauty, Miss;' and with a laugh and a leer he strode off.
Altogether this had not been a very pleasant excursion. Madame
gobbled up our sandwiches, commending them every now and then to
me. But I had been too much excited to have any appetite left, and very
tired I was when we reached home.
'So, there is lady coming to-morrow?' said Madame, who knew
everything. 'Wat is her name? I forget.'
'Lady Knollys,' I answered.
'Lady Knollys—wat odd name! She is very young—is she not?'
'Past fifty, I think.'
'Hélas! She's vary old, then. Is she rich?'
'I don't know. She has a place in Derbyshire.'
'Derbyshire—that is one of your English counties, is it not?'
'Oh yes, Madame,' I answered, laughing. 'I have said it to you twice
since you came;' and I gabbled through the chief towns and rivers as
catalogued in my geography.
'Bah! to be sure—of course, cheaile. And is she your relation?'
'Papa's first cousin.'
'Won't you present-a me, pray?—I would so like!'
Madame had fallen into the English way of liking people with titles, as
perhaps foreigners would if titles implied the sort of power they do gen-
erally with us.
'Certainly, Madame.'
'You will not forget?'
'Oh no.'
Madame reminded me twice, in the course of the evening, of my
promise. She was very eager on this point. But it is a world of disap-
pointment, influenza, and rheumatics; and next morning Madame was

44
prostrate in her bed, and careless of all things but flannel and James's
powder.
Madame was désolée; but she could not raise her head. She only mur-
mured a question.
'For 'ow long time, dear, will Lady Knollys remain?'
'A very few days, I believe.'
'Hélas! 'ow onlucky! maybe to-morrow I shall be better Ouah! my ear.
The laudanum, dear cheaile!'
And so our conversation for that time ended, and Madame buried her
head in her old red cashmere shawl.

45
Chapter 9
MONICA KNOLLYS
Punctually Lady Knollys arrived. She was accompanied by her nephew,
Captain Oakley.
They arrived a little before dinner; just in time to get to their rooms
and dress. But Mary Quince enlivened my toilet with eloquent descrip-
tions of the youthful Captain whom she had met in the gallery, on his
way to his room, with the servant, and told me how he stopped to let her
pass, and how 'he smiled so 'ansom.'
I was very young then, you know, and more childish even than my
years; but this talk of Mary Quince's interested me, I must confess, con-
siderably. I was painting all sort of portraits of this heroic soldier, while
affecting, I am afraid, a hypocritical indifference to her narration, and I
know I was very nervous and painstaking about my toilet that evening.
When I went down to the drawing-room, Lady Knollys was there, talk-
ing volubly to my father as I entered—a woman not really old, but such
as very young people fancy aged—energetic, bright, saucy, dressed
handsomely in purple satin, with a good deal of lace, and a rich point—I
know not how to call it—not a cap, a sort of head-dress—light and
simple, but grand withal, over her greyish, silken hair.
Rather tall, by no means stout, on the whole a good firm figure, with
something kindly in her look. She got up, quite like a young person, and
coming quickly to meet me with a smile—
'My young cousin!' she cried, and kissed me on both cheeks. 'You
know who I am? Your cousin Monica—Monica Knollys—and very glad,
dear, to see you, though she has not set eyes on you since you were no
longer than that paper-knife. Now come here to the lamp, for I must look
at you. Who is she like? Let me see. Like your poor mother, I think, my
dear; but you've the Aylmer nose—yes—not a bad nose either, and,
come I very good eyes, upon my life—yes, certainly something of her
poor mother—not a bit like you, Austin.'

46
 My father gave her a look as near a smile as I had seen there for a long
time, shrewd, cynical, but kindly too, and said he—
'So much the better, Monica, eh?'
'It was not for me to say—but you know, Austin, you always were an
ugly creature. How shocked and indignant the little girl looks! You must
not be vexed, you loyal little woman, with Cousin Monica for telling the
truth. Papa was and will be ugly all his days. Come, Austin, dear, tell
her—is not it so?'
'What! depose against myself! That's not English law, Monica.'
'Well, maybe not; but if the child won't believe her own eyes, how is
she to believe me? She has long, pretty hands—you have—and very nice
feet too. How old is she?'
'How old, child?' said my father to me, transferring the question.
She recurred again to my eyes.
'That is the true grey—large, deep, soft—very peculiar. Yes, dear, very
pretty—long lashes, and such bright tints! You'll be in the Book of
Beauty, my dear, when you come out, and have all the poet people writ-
ing verses to the tip of your nose—and a very pretty little nose it is!'
I must mention here how striking was the change in my father's spirit
while talking and listening to his odd and voluble old Cousin Monica.
Reflected from bygone associations, there had come a glimmer of
something, not gaiety, indeed, but like an appreciation of gaiety. The
gloom and inflexibility were gone, and there was an evident encourage-
ment and enjoyment of the incessant sallies of his bustling visitor.
How morbid must have been the tendencies of his habitual solitude, I
think, appeared from the evident thawing and brightening that accom-
panied even this transient gleam of human society. I was not a compan-
ion—more childish than most girls of my age, and trained in all his
whimsical ways, never to interrupt a silence, or force his thoughts by un-
expected question or remark out of their monotonous or painful channel.
I was as much surprised at the good-humour with which he submitted
to his cousin's saucy talk; and, indeed, just then those black-panelled and
pictured walls, and that quaint, misshapen room, seemed to have ex-
changed their stern and awful character for something wonderfully
pleasanter to me, notwithstanding the unpleasantness of the personal
criticism to which the plain-spoken lady chose to subject me.
Just at that moment Captain Oakley joined us. He was my first actual
vision of that awful and distant world of fashion, of whose splendours I
had already read something in the three-volumed gospel of the circulat-
ing library.

47
 Handsome, elegant, with features almost feminine, and soft, wavy,
black hair, whiskers and moustache, he was altogether such a knight as I
had never beheld, or even fancied, at Knowl—a hero of another species,
and from the region of the demigods. I did not then perceive that cold-
ness of the eye, and cruel curl of the voluptuous lip—only a suspicion,
yet enough to indicate the profligate man, and savouring of death unto
death.
But I was young, and had not yet the direful knowledge of good and
evil that comes with years; and he was so very handsome, and talked in
a way that was so new to me, and was so much more charming than the
well-bred converse of the humdrum county families with whom I had
occasionally sojourned for a week at a time.
It came out incidentally that his leave of absence was to expire the day
after to-morrow. A Lilliputian pang of disappointment followed this an-
nouncement. Already I was sorry to lose him. So soon we begin to make
a property of what pleases us.
I was shy, but not awkward. I was flattered by the attention of this
amusing, perhaps rather fascinating, young man of the world; and he
plainly addressed himself with diligence to amuse and please me. I dare
say there was more effort than I fancied in bringing his talk down to my
humble level, and interesting me and making me laugh about people
whom I had never heard of before, than I then suspected.
Cousin Knollys meanwhile was talking to papa. It was just the conver-
sation that suited a man so silent as habit had made him, for her frolic
fluency left him little to supply. It was totally impossible, indeed, even in
our taciturn household, that conversation should ever flag while she was
among us.
Cousin Knollys and I went into the drawing-room together, leaving
the gentlemen—rather ill-assorted, I fear—to entertain one another for a
time.
'Come here, my dear, and sit near me,' said Lady Knollys, dropping in-
to an easy chair with an energetic little plump, 'and tell me how you and
your papa get on. I can remember him quite a cheerful man once, and
rather amusing—yes, indeed—and now you see what a bore he is—all
by shutting himself up and nursing his whims and fancies. Are those
your drawings, dear?'
'Yes, very bad, I'm afraid; but there are a few, better, I think in the port-
folio in the cabinet in the hall.'
'They are by no means bad, my dear; and you play, of course?'
'Yes—that is, a little—pretty well, I hope.'

48
 'I dare say. I must hear you by-and-by. And how does your papa
amuse you? You look bewildered, dear. Well, I dare say, amusement is
not a frequent word in this house. But you must not turn into a nun, or
worse, into a puritan. What is he? A Fifth-Monarchy-man, or
something—I forget; tell me the name, my dear.'
'Papa is a Swedenborgian, I believe.'
'Yes, yes—I forgot the horrid name—a Swedenborgian, that is it. I
don't know exactly what they think, but everyone knows they are a sort
of pagans, my dear. He's not making one of you, dear—is he?'
'I go to church every Sunday.'
'Well, that's a mercy; Swedenborgian is such an ugly name, and be-
sides, they are all likely to be damned, my dear, and that's a serious con-
sideration. I really wish poor Austin had hit on something else; I'd much
rather have no religion, and enjoy life while I'm in it, than choose one to
worry me here and bedevil me hereafter. But some people, my dear,
have a taste for being miserable, and provide, like poor Austin, for its
gratification in the next world as well as here. Ha, ha, ha! how grave the
little woman looks! Don't you think me very wicked? You know you do;
and very likely you are right. Who makes your dresses, my dear? You are
such a figure of fun!'
'Mrs. Rusk, I think, ordered this dress. I and Mary Quince planned it. I
thought it very nice. We all like it very well.'
There was something, I dare say, very whimsical about it, probably
very absurd, judged at least by the canons of fashion, and old Cousin
Monica Knollys, in whose eye the London fashions were always fresh,
was palpably struck by it as if it had been some enormity against ana-
tomy, for she certainly laughed very heartily; indeed, there were tears on
her cheeks when she had done, and I am sure my aspect of wonder and
dignity, as her hilarity proceeded, helped to revive her merriment again
and again as it was subsiding.
'There, you mustn't be vexed with old Cousin Monica,' she cried,
jumping up, and giving me a little hug, and bestowing a hearty kiss on
my forehead, and a jolly little slap on my cheek. 'Always remember your
cousin Monica is an outspoken, wicked old fool, who likes you, and nev-
er be offended by her nonsense. A council of three—you all sat upon
it—Mrs. Rusk, you said, and Mary Quince, and your wise self, the weird
sisters; and Austin stepped in, as Macbeth, and said, 'What is't ye do?'
you all made answer together, 'A something or other without a name!'
Now, seriously, my dear, it is quite unpardonable in Austin—your papa,
I mean—to hand you over to be robed and bedizened according to the

49
whimsies of these wild old women—aren't they old? If they know better,
it's positively fiendish. I'll blow him up—I will indeed, my dear. You
know you're an heiress, and ought not to appear like a jack-pudding.'
'Papa intends sending me to London with Madame and Mary Quince,
and going with me himself, if Doctor Bryerly says he may make the jour-
ney, and then I am to have dresses and everything.'
'Well, that is better. And who is Doctor Bryerly—is your papa ill?'
'Ill; oh no; he always seems just the same. You don't think him
ill-looking ill, I mean?' I asked eagerly and frightened.
'No, my dear, he looks very well for his time of life; but why is Doctor
What's-his-name here? Is he a physician, or a divine, or a horse-doctor?
and why is his leave asked?'
'I—I really don't understand.'
'Is he a what d'ye call'em—a Swedenborgian?'
'I believe so.'
'Oh, I see; ha, ha, ha! And so poor Austin must ask leave to go up to
town. Well, go he shall, whether his doctor likes it or not, for it would
not do to send you there in charge of your Frenchwoman, my dear.
What's her name?'
'Madame de la Rougierre.'

50
Chapter 10
LADY KNOLLYS REMOVES A COVERLET
Lady Knollys pursued her enquiries.
'And why does not Madame make your dresses, my dear? I wager a
guinea the woman's a milliner. Did not she engage to make your
dresses?'
'I—I really don't know; I rather think not. She is my governess—a fin-
ishing governess, Mrs. Rusk says.'
'Finishing fiddle! Hoity-toity! and my lady's too grand to cut out your
dresses and help to sew them? And what does she do? I venture to say
she's fit to teach nothing but devilment—not that she has taught you
much, my dear—yet at least. I'll see her, my dear; where is she? Come, let
us visit Madame. I should so like to talk to her a little.'
'But she is ill,' I answered, and all this time I was ready to cry for vexa-
tion, thinking of my dress, which must be very absurd to elicit so much
unaffected laughter from my experienced relative, and I was only long-
ing to get away and hide myself before that handsome Captain returned.
'Ill! is she? what's the matter?'
'A cold—feverish and rheumatic, she says.'
'Oh, a cold; is she up, or in bed?'
'In her room, but not in bed.'
'I should so like to see her, my dear. It is not mere curiosity, I assure
you. In fact, curiosity has nothing on earth to do with it. A governess
may be a very useful or a very useless person; but she may also be about
the most pernicious inmate imaginable. She may teach you a bad accent,
and worse manners, and heaven knows what beside. Send the house-
keeper, my dear, to tell her that I am going to see her.'
'I had better go myself, perhaps,' I said, fearing a collision between
Mrs. Rusk and the bitter Frenchwoman.
'Very well, dear.'
And away I ran, not sorry somehow to escape before Captain Oakley
returned.

51
 As I went along the passage, I was thinking whether my dress could
be so very ridiculous as my old cousin thought it, and trying in vain to
recollect any evidence of a similar contemptuous estimate on the part of
that beautiful and garrulous dandy. I could not—quite the reverse, in-
deed. Still I was uncomfortable and feverish—girls of my then age will
easily conceive how miserable, under similar circumstances, such a mis-
giving would make them.
It was a long way to Madame's room. I met Mrs. Rusk bustling along
the passage with a housemaid.
'How is Madame?' I asked.
'Quite well, I believe,' answered the housekeeper, drily. 'Nothing the
matter that I know of. She eat enough for two to-day. I wish I could sit in
my room doing nothing.'
Madame was sitting, or rather reclining, in a low arm-chair, when I
entered the room, close to the fire, as was her wont, her feet extended
near to the bars, and a little coffee equipage beside her. She stuffed a
book hastily between her dress and the chair, and received me in a state
of langour which, had it not been for Mrs. Rusk's comfortable assur-
ances, would have frightened me.
'I hope you are better, Madame,' I said, approaching.
'Better than I deserve, my dear cheaile, sufficiently well. The people
are all so good, trying me with every little thing, like a bird; here is
café—Mrs. Rusk-a, poor woman, I try to swallow a little to please her.'
'And your cold, is it better?'
She shook her head languidly, her elbow resting on the chair, and
three finger-tips supporting her forehead, and then she made a little
sigh, looking down from the corners of her eyes, in an interesting
dejection.
'Je sens des lassitudes in all the members—but I am quaite 'appy, and
though I suffer I am console and oblige des bontés, ma chère, que vous
avez tous pour moi;' and with these words she turned a languid glance
of gratitude on me which dropped on the ground.
'Lady Knollys wishes very much to see you, only for a few minutes, if
you could admit her.'
'Vous savez les malades see never visitors,' she replied with a startled
sort of tartness, and a momentary energy. 'Besides, I cannot converse; je
sens de temps en temps des douleurs de tête—of head, and of the ear,
the right ear, it is parfois agony absolutely, and now it is here.'
And she winced and moaned, with her eyes closed and her hand
pressed to the organ affected.

52
 Simple as I was, I felt instinctively that Madame was shamming. She
was over-acting; her transitions were too violent, and beside she forgot
that I knew how well she could speak English, and must perceive that
she was heightening the interest of her helplessness by that pretty tessel-
lation of foreign idiom. I there-fore said with a kind of courage which
sometimes helped me suddenly—
'Oh, Madame, don't you really think you might, without much incon-
venience, see Lady Knollys for a very few minutes?'
'Cruel cheaile! you know I have a pain of the ear which makes me
'orribly suffer at this moment, and you demand me whether I will not
converse with strangers. I did not think you would be so unkain, Maud;
but it is impossible, you must see—quite impossible. I never, you know,
refuse to take trouble when I am able—never—never.'
And Madame shed some tears, which always came at call, and with
her hand pressed to her ear, said very faintly,
'Be so good to tell your friend how you see me, and how I suffer, and
leave me, Maud, for I wish to lie down for a little, since the pain will not
allow me to remain longer.'
So with a few words of comfort which could not well be refused, but I
dare say betraying my suspicion that more was made of her sufferings
than need be, I returned to the drawing-room.
'Captain Oakley has been here, my dear, and fancying, I suppose, that
you had left us for the evening, has gone to the billiard-room, I think,'
said Lady Knollys, as I entered.
That, then, accounted for the rumble and smack of balls which I had
heard as I passed the door.
'I have been telling Maud how detestably she is got up.'
'Very thoughtful of you, Monica!' said my father.
'Yes, and really, Austin, it is quite clear you ought to marry; you want
some one to take this girl out, and look after her, and who's to do it?
She's a dowdy—don't you see? Such a dust! And it is really such a pity;
for she's a very pretty creature, and a clever woman could make her
quite charming.'
My father took Cousin Monica's sallies with the most wonderful good-
humour. She had always, I fancy, been a privileged person, and my fath-
er, whom we all feared, received her jolly attacks, as I fancy the grim
Front-de-Boeufs of old accepted the humours and personalities of their
jesters.
'Am I to accept this as an overture?' said my father to his voluble
cousin.

53
 'Yes, you may, but not for myself, Austin—I'm not worthy. Do you re-
member little Kitty Weadon that I wanted you to marry eight-and-
twenty years ago, or more, with a hundred and twenty thousand
pounds? Well, you know, she has got ever so much now, and she is
really a most amiable old thing, and though you would not have her
then, she has had her second husband since, I can tell you.'
'I'm glad I was not the first,' said my father.
'Well, they really say her wealth is absolutely immense. Her last hus-
band, the Russian merchant, left her everything. She has not a human re-
lation, and she is in the best set.'
'You were always a match-maker, Monica,' said my father, stopping,
and putting his hand kindly on hers. 'But it won't do. No, no, Monica; we
must take care of little Maud some other way.'
I was relieved. We women have all an instinctive dread of second mar-
riages, and think that no widower is quite above or below that danger;
and I remember, whenever my father, which indeed was but seldom,
made a visit to town or anywhere else, it was a saying of Mrs. Rusk—
'I shan't wonder, neither need you, my dear, if he brings home a young
wife with him.'
So my father, with a kind look at her, and a very tender one on me,
went silently to the library, as he often did about that hour.
I could not help resenting my Cousin Knollys' officious recommenda-
tion of matrimony. Nothing I dreaded more than a step-mother. Good
Mrs. Rusk and Mary Quince, in their several ways, used to enhance, by
occasional anecdotes and frequent reflections, the terrors of such an in-
trusion. I suppose they did not wish a revolution and all its con-
sequences at Knowl, and thought it no harm to excite my vigilance.
But it was impossible long to be vexed with Cousin Monica.
'You know, my dear, your father is an oddity,' she said. 'I don't mind
him—I never did. You must not. Cracky, my dear, cracky—decidedly
cracky!'
And she tapped the corner of her forehead, with a look so sly and
comical, that I think I should have laughed, if the sentiment had not been
so awfully irreverent.
'Well, dear, how is our friend the milliner?'
'Madame is suffering so much from pain in her ear, that she says it
would be quite impossible to have the honour—'
'Honour—fiddle! I want to see what the woman's like. Pain in her ear,
you say? Poor thing! Well, dear, I think I can cure that in five minutes. I

54
have it myself, now and then. Come to my room, and we'll get the
bottles.
So she lighted her candle in the lobby, and with a light and agile step
she scaled the stairs, I following; and having found the remedies, we ap-
proached Madame's room together.
I think, while we were still at the end of the gallery, Madame heard
and divined our approach, for her door suddenly shut, and there was a
fumbling at the handle. But the bolt was out of order.
Lady Knollys tapped at the door, saying—'we'll come in, please, and
see you. I've some remedies, which I'm sure will do you good.'
There was no answer; so she opened the door, and we both entered.
Madame had rolled herself in the blue coverlet, and was lying on the
bed, with her face buried in the pillow, and enveloped in the covering.
'Perhaps she's asleep?' said Lady Knollys, getting round to the side of
the bed, and stooping over her.
Madame lay still as a mouse. Cousin Monica set down her two little vi-
als on the table, and, stooping again over the bed, began very gently with
her fingers to lift the coverlet that covered her face. Madame uttered a
slumbering moan, and turned more upon her face, clasping the coverlet
faster about her.
'Madame, it is Maud and Lady Knollys. We have come to relieve your
ear. Pray let me see it. She can't be asleep, she's holding the clothes so
fast. Do, pray, allow me to see it.'

55
Chapter 11
LADY KNOLLYS SEES THE FEATURES
Perhaps, if Madame had murmured, 'It is quite well—pray permit me to
sleep,' she would have escaped an awkwardness. But having adopted
the rôle of the exhausted slumberer, she could not consistently speak at
the moment; neither would it do by main force, to hold the coverlet
about her face, and so her presence of mind forsook her. Cousin Monica
drew it back and hardly beheld the profile of the sufferer, when her
good-humoured face was lined and shadowed with a dark curiosity and
a surprise by no means pleasant. She stood erect beside the bed, with her
mouth firmly shut and drawn down at the corners, in a sort of recoil and
perturbation, looking down upon the patient.
'So that's Madame de la Rougierre?' at length exclaimed Lady Knollys,
with a very stately disdain. I think I never saw anyone look more
shocked.
Madame sat up, very flushed. No wonder, for she had been wrapped
so close in the coverlet. She did not look quite at Lady Knollys, but
straight before her, rather downward, and very luridly.
I was very much frightened and amazed, and felt on the point of
bursting into tears.
'So, Mademoiselle, you have married, it seems, since I had last the
honour of seeing you? I did not recognise Mademoiselle under her new
name.'
'Yes—I am married, Lady Knollys; I thought everyone who knew me
had heard of that. Very respectably married, for a person of my rank. I
shall not need long the life of a governess. There is no harm, I hope?'
'I hope not,' said Lady Knollys, drily, a little pale, and still looking
with a dark sort of wonder upon the flushed face and forehead of the
governess, who was looking downward, straight before her, very sulkily
and disconcerted.
'I suppose you have explained everything satisfactorily to Mr. Ruthyn,
in whose house I find you?' said Cousin Monica.

56
 'Yes, certainly, everything he requires—in effect there is nothing to ex-
plain. I am ready to answer to any question. Let him demand me.'
'Very good, Mademoiselle.'
'Madame, if you please.'
'I forgot—Madame—yes, I shall apprise him of everything.'
Madame turned upon her a peaked and malign look, smiling askance
with a stealthy scorn.
'For myself, I have nothing to conceal. I have always done my duty.
What fine scene about nothing absolutely—what charming remedies for
a sick person! Ma foi! how much oblige I am for these so amiable
attentions!'
'So far as I can see, Mademoiselle—Madame, I mean—you don't stand
very much in need of remedies. Your ear and head don't seem to trouble
you just now. I fancy these pains may now be dismissed.'
Lady Knollys was now speaking French.
'Mi ladi has diverted my attention for a moment, but that does not pre-
vent that I suffer frightfully. I am, of course, only poor governess, and
such people perhaps ought not to have pain—at least to show when they
suffer. It is permitted us to die, but not to be sick.'
'Come, Maud, my dear, let us leave the invalid to her repose and to
nature. I don't think she needs my chloroform and opium at present.'
'Mi ladi is herself a physic which chases many things, and powerfully
affects the ear. I would wish to sleep, notwithstanding, and can but gain
that in silence, if it pleases mi ladi.'
'Come, my dear,' said Lady Knollys, without again glancing at the
scowling, smiling, swarthy face in the bed; 'let us leave your instructress
to her concforto.'
'The room smells all over of brandy, my dear—does she drink?' said
Lady Knollys, as she closed the door, a little sharply.
I am sure I looked as much amazed as I felt, at an imputation which
then seemed to me so entirely incredible.
'Good little simpleton!' said Cousin Monica, smiling in my face, and
bestowing a little kiss on my cheek; 'such a thing as a tipsy lady has nev-
er been dreamt of in your philosophy. Well, we live and learn. Let us
have our tea in my room—the gentlemen, I dare say, have retired.'
I assented, of course, and we had tea very cosily by her bedroom fire.
'How long have you had that woman?' she asked suddenly, after, for
her, a very long rumination.
'She came in the beginning of February—nearly ten months ago—is
not it?'

57
 'And who sent her?'
'I really don't know; papa tells me so little—he arranged it all himself, I
think.'
Cousin Monica made a sound of acquiescence—her lips closed and a
nod, frowning hard at the bars.
'It is very odd!' she said; 'how people can be such fools!' Here there
came a little pause. 'And what sort of person is she—do you like her?'
'Very well—that is, pretty well. You won't tell?—but she rather fright-
ens me. I'm sure she does not intend it, but somehow I am very much
afraid of her.'
'She does not beat you?' said Cousin Monica, with an incipient frenzy
in her face that made me love her.
'Oh no!'
'Nor ill-use you in any way?'
'No.'
'Upon your honour and word, Maud?'
'No, upon my honour.'
'You know I won't tell her anything you say to me; and I only want to
know, that I may put an end to it, my poor little cousin.'
'Thank you, Cousin Monica very much; but really and truly she does
not ill-use me.'
'Nor threaten you, child?'
'Well, no—no, she does not threaten.'
'And how the plague does she frighten you, child?'
'Well, I really—I'm half ashamed to tell you—you'll laugh at me—and
I don't know that she wishes to frighten me. But there is something, is
not there, ghosty, you know, about her?'
'Ghosty—is there? well, I'm sure I don't know, but I suspect there's
something devilish—I mean, she seems roguish—does not she? And I
really think she has had neither cold nor pain, but has just been sham-
ming sickness, to keep out of my way.'
I perceived plainly enough that Cousin Monica's damnatory epithet
referred to some retrospective knowledge, which she was not going to
disclose to me.
'You knew Madame before,' I said. 'Who is she?'
'She assures me she is Madame de la Rougierre, and, I suppose, in
French phrase she so calls herself,' answered Lady Knollys, with a laugh,
but uncomfortably, I thought.
'Oh, dear Cousin Monica, do tell me—is she—is she very wicked? I am
so afraid of her!'

58
 'How should I know, dear Maud? But I do remember her face, and I
don't very much like her, and you may depend on it. I will speak to your
father in the morning about her, and don't, darling, ask me any more
about her, for I really have not very much to tell that you would care to
hear, and the fact is I won't say any more about her—there!'
And Cousin Monica laughed, and gave me a little slap on the cheek,
and then a kiss.
'Well, just tell me this——'
'Well, I won't tell you this, nor anything—not a word, curious little wo-
man. The fact is, I have little to tell, and I mean to speak to your father,
and he, I am sure, will do what is right; so don't ask me any more, and
let us talk of something pleasanter.'
There was something indescribably winning, it seemed to me, in Cous-
in Monica. Old as she was, she seemed to me so girlish, compared with
those slow, unexceptionable young ladies whom I had met in my few
visits at the county houses. By this time my shyness was quite gone, and
I was on the most intimate terms with her.
'You know a great deal about her, Cousin Monica, but you won't tell
me.'
'Nothing I should like better, if I were at liberty, little rogue; but you
know, after all, I don't really say whether I do know anything about her
or not, or what sort of knowledge it is. But tell me what you mean by
ghosty, and all about it.'
So I recounted my experiences, to which, so far from laughing at me,
she listened with very special gravity.
'Does she write and receive many letters?'
I had seen her write letters, and supposed, though I could only recol-
lect one or two, that she received in proportion.
'Are you Mary Quince?' asked my lady cousin.
Mary was arranging the window-curtains, and turned, dropping a
courtesy affirmatively toward her.
'You wait on my little cousin, Miss Ruthyn, don't you?'
'Yes,'m,' said Mary, in her genteelest way.
'Does anyone sleep in her room?'
'Yes,'m, I—please, my lady.'
'And no one else?'
'No,'m—please, my lady.'
'Not even the governess, sometimes?
'No, please, my lady.'

59
 'Never, you are quite sure, my dear?' said Lady Knollys, transferring
the question to me.
'Oh, no, never,' I answered.
Cousin Monica mused gravely, I fancied even anxiously, into the
grate; then stirred her tea and sipped it, still looking into the same point
of our cheery fire.
'I like your face, Mary Quince; I'm sure you are a good creature,' she
said, suddenly turning toward her with a pleasant countenance. 'I'm
very glad you have got her, dear. I wonder whether Austin has gone to
his bed yet!'
'I think not. I am certain he is either in the library or in his private
room—papa often reads or prays alone at night, and—and he does not
like to be interrupted.'
'No, no; of course not—it will do very well in the morning.'
Lady Knollys was thinking deeply, as it seemed to me.
'And so you are afraid of goblins, my dear,' she said at last, with a
faded sort of smile, turning toward me; 'well, if I were, I know what I
should do—so soon as I, and good Mary Quince here, had got into my
bed-chamber for the night, I should stir the fire into a good blaze, and
bolt the door—do you see, Mary Quince?—bolt the door and keep a
candle lighted all night. You'll be very attentive to her, Mary Quince, for
I—I don't think she is very strong, and she must not grow nervous: so
get to bed early, and don't leave her alone—do you see?—and—and re-
member to bolt the door, Mary Quince, and I shall be sending a little
Christmas-box to my cousin, and I shan't forget you. Good-night.'
And with a pleasant courtesy Mary fluttered out of the room.

60
Chapter 12
A CURIOUS CONVERSATION
We each had another cup of tea, and were silent for awhile.
'We must not talk of ghosts now. You are a superstitious little woman,
you know, and you shan't be frightened.'
And now Cousin Monica grew silent again, and looking briskly
around the room, like a lady in search of a subject, her eye rested on a
small oval portrait, graceful, brightly tinted, in the French style, repres-
enting a pretty little boy, with rich golden hair, large soft eyes, delicate
features, and a shy, peculiar expression.
'It is odd; I think I remember that pretty little sketch, very long ago. I
think I was then myself a child, but that is a much older style of dress,
and of wearing the hair, too, than I ever saw. I am just forty-nine now.
Oh dear, yes; that is a good while before I was born. What a strange,
pretty little boy! a mysterious little fellow. Is he quite sincere, I wonder?
What rich golden hair! It is very clever—a French artist, I dare say—and
who is that little boy?'
'I never heard. Some one a hundred years ago, I dare say. But there is a
picture down-stairs I am so anxious to ask you about!'
'Oh!' murmured Lady Knollys, still gazing dreamily on the crayon.
'It is the full-length picture of Uncle Silas—I want to ask you about
him.'
At mention of his name, my cousin gave me a look so sudden and odd
as to amount almost to a start.
'Your uncle Silas, dear? It is very odd, I was just thinking of him;' and
she laughed a little.
'Wondering whether that little boy could be he.'
And up jumped active Cousin Monica, with a candle in her hand,
upon a chair, and scrutinised the border of the sketch for a name or a
date.
'Maybe on the back?' said she.

61
 And so she unhung it, and there, true enough, not on the back of the
drawing, but of the frame, which was just as good, in pen-and-ink round
Italian letters, hardly distinguishable now from the discoloured wood,
we traced—
'Silas Aylmer Ruthyn, AEtate viii. 15 May, 1779.'
'It is very odd I should not have been told or remembered who it was.
I think if I had ever been told I should have remembered it. I do recollect
this picture, though, I am nearly certain. What a singular child's face!'
And my cousin leaned over it with a candle on each side, and her hand
shading her eyes, as if seeking by aid of these fair and half-formed linea-
ments to read an enigma.
The childish features defied her, I suppose; their secret was unfathom-
able, for after a good while she raised her head, still looking at the por-
trait, and sighed.
'A very singular face,' she said, softly, as a person might who was
looking into a coffin. 'Had not we better replace it?'
So the pretty oval, containing the fair golden hair and large eyes, the
pale, unfathomable sphinx, remounted to its nail, and the funeste and
beautiful child seemed to smile down oracularly on our conjectures.
'So is the face in the large portrait—very singular—more, I think, than
that—handsomer too. This is a sickly child, I think; but the full-length is
so manly, though so slender, and so handsome too. I always think him a
hero and a mystery, and they won't tell me about him, and I can only
dream and wonder.'
'He has made more people than you dream and wonder, my dear
Maud. I don't know what to make of him. He is a sort of idol, you know,
of your father's, and yet I don't think he helps him much. His abilities
were singular; so has been his misfortune; for the rest, my dear, he is
neither a hero nor a wonder. So far as I know, there are very few sublime
men going about the world.'
'You really must tell me all you know about him, Cousin Monica. Now
don't refuse.'
'But why should you care to hear? There is really nothing pleasant to
tell.'
'That is just the reason I wish it. If it were at all pleasant, it would be
quite commonplace. I like to hear of adventures, dangers, and misfor-
tunes; and above all, I love a mystery. You know, papa will never tell
me, and I dare not ask him; not that he is ever unkind, but, somehow, I
am afraid; and neither Mrs. Rusk nor Mary Quince will tell me anything,
although I suspect they know a good deal.'

62
 'I don't see any good in telling you, dear, nor, to say the truth, any
great harm either.'
'No—now that's quite true—no harm. There can't be, for I must know it
all some day, you know, and better now, and from you, than perhaps
from a stranger, and in a less favourable way.'
'Upon my word, it is a wise little woman; and really, that's not such
bad sense after all.'
So we poured out another cup of tea each, and sipped it very comfort-
ably by the fire, while Lady Knollys talked on, and her animated face
helped the strange story.
'It is not very much, after all. Your uncle Silas, you know, is living?'
'Oh yes, in Derbyshire.'
'So I see you do know something of him, sly girl! but no matter. You
know how very rich your father is; but Silas was the younger brother,
and had little more than a thousand a year. If he had not played, and did
not care to marry, it would have been quite enough—ever so much more
than younger sons of dukes often have; but he was—well, a mauvais
sujet—you know what that is. I don't want to say any ill of him—more
than I really know—but he was fond of his pleasures, I suppose, like oth-
er young men, and he played, and was always losing, and your father for
a long time paid great sums for him. I believe he was really a most ex-
pensive and vicious young man; and I fancy he does not deny that now,
for they say he would change the past if he could.
I was looking at the pensive little boy in the oval frame—aged eight
years—who was, a few springs later, 'a most expensive and vicious
young man,' and was now a suffering and outcast old one, and wonder-
ing from what a small seed the hemlock or the wallflower grows, and
how microscopic are the beginnings of the kingdom of God or of the
mystery of iniquity in a human being's heart.
'Austin—your papa—was very kind to him—very; but then, you know,
he's an oddity, dear—he is an oddity, though no one may have told you
before—and he never forgave him for his marriage. Your father, I sup-
pose, knew more about the lady than I did—I was young then—but
there were various reports, none of them pleasant, and she was not vis-
ited, and for some time there was a complete estrangement between your
father and your uncle Silas; and it was made up, rather oddly, on the
very occasion which some people said ought to have totally separated
them. Did you ever hear anything—anything very remarkable—about
your uncle?'

63
 'No, never, they would not tell me, though I am sure they know. Pray
go on.'
'Well, Maud, as I have begun, I'll complete the story, though perhaps it
might have been better untold. It was something rather shock-
ing—indeed, very shocking; in fact, they insisted on suspecting him of
having committed a murder.'
I stared at my cousin for some time, and then at the little boy, so re-
fined, so beautiful, so funeste, in the oval frame.
'Yes, dear,' said she, her eyes following mine; 'who'd have supposed he
could ever have—have fallen under so horrible a suspicion?'
'The wretches! Of course, Uncle Silas—of course, he's innocent?' I said
at last.
'Of course, my dear,' said Cousin Monica, with an odd look; 'but you
know there are some things as bad almost to be suspected of as to have
done, and the country gentlemen chose to suspect him. They did not like
him, you see. His politics vexed them; and he resented their treatment of
his wife—though I really think, poor Silas, he did not care a pin about
her—and he annoyed them whenever he could. Your papa, you know, is
very proud of his family—he never had the slightest suspicion of your
uncle.'
'Oh no!' I cried vehemently.
'That's right, Maud Ruthyn,' said Cousin Monica, with a sad little
smile and a nod. 'And your papa was, you may suppose, very angry.'
'Of course he was,' I exclaimed.
'You have no idea, my dear, how angry. He directed his attorney to
prosecute, by wholesale, all who had said a word affecting your uncle's
character. But the lawyers were against it, and then your uncle tried to
fight his way through it, but the men would not meet him. He was quite
slurred. Your father went up and saw the Minister. He wanted to have
him a Deputy-Lieutenant, or something, in his county. Your papa, you
know, had a very great influence with the Government. Beside his
county influence, he had two boroughs then. But the Minister was afraid,
the feeling was so very strong. They offered him something in the Colon-
ies, but your father would not hear of it—that would have been a banish-
ment, you know. They would have given your father a peerage to make
it up, but he would not accept it, and broke with the party. Except in that
way—which, you know, was connected with the reputation of the fam-
ily—I don't think, considering his great wealth, he has done very much
for Silas. To say truth, however, he was very liberal before his marriage.
Old Mrs. Aylmer says he made a vow then that Silas should never have

64
more than five hundred a year, which he still allows him, I believe, and
he permits him to live in the place. But they say it is in a very wild, neg-
lected state.'
'You live in the same county—have you seen it lately, Cousin Monica?'
'No, not very lately,' said Cousin Monica, and began to hum an air
abstractedly.

65
Chapter 13
BEFORE AND AFTER BREAKFAST
Next morning early I visited my favourite full-length portrait in the
chocolate coat and top-boots. Scanty as had been my cousin Monica's
notes upon this dark and eccentric biography, they were everything to
me. A soul had entered that enchanted form. Truth had passed by with
her torch, and a sad light shone for a moment on that enigmatic face.
There stood the roué—the duellist—and, with all his faults, the hero
too! In that dark large eye lurked the profound and fiery enthusiasm of
his ill-starred passion. In the thin but exquisite lip I read the courage of
the paladin, who would have 'fought his way,' though single-handed,
against all the magnates of his county, and by ordeal of battle have
purged the honour of the Ruthyns. There in that delicate half-sarcastic
tracery of the nostril I detected the intellectual defiance which had polit-
ically isolated Silas Ruthyn and opposed him to the landed oligarchy of
his county, whose retaliation had been a hideous slander. There, too, and
on his brows and lip, I traced the patience of a cold disdain. I could now
see him as he was—the prodigal, the hero, and the martyr. I stood gazing
on him with a girlish interest and admiration. There was indignation,
there was pity, there was hope. Some day it might come to pass that I,
girl as I was, might contribute by word or deed towards the vindication
of that long-suffering, gallant, and romantic prodigal. It was a flicker of
the Joan of Arc inspiration, common, I fancy, to many girls. I little then
imagined how profoundly and strangely involved my uncle's fate would
one day become with mine.
I was interrupted by Captain Oakley's voice at the window. He was
leaning on the window-sill, and looking in with a smile—the window
being open, the morning sunny, and his cap lifted in his hand.
'Good-morning, Miss Ruthyn. What a charming old place! quite the
setting for a romance; such timber, and this really beautiful house. I do so
like these white and black houses—wonderful old things. By-the-by, you
treated us very badly last night—you did, indeed; upon my word, now,

66
it really was too bad—running away, and drinking tea with Lady
Knollys—so she says. I really—I should not like to tell you how very sav-
age I felt, particularly considering how very short my time is.'
I was a shy, but not a giggling country miss. I knew I was an heiress; I
knew I was somebody. I was not the least bit in the world conceited, but
I think this knowledge helped to give me a certain sense of security and
self-possession, which might have been mistaken for dignity or simpli-
city. I am sure I looked at him with a fearless enquiry, for he answered
my thoughts.
'I do really assure you, Miss Ruthyn, I am quite serious; you have no
idea how very much we have missed you.'
There was a little pause, and, like a fool, I lowered my eyes, and
blushed.
'I—I was thinking of leaving today; I am so unfortunate—my leave is
just out—it is so unlucky; but I don't quite know whether my aunt
Knollys will allow me to go.'
'I?—certainly, my dear Charlie, I don't want you at all,' exclaimed a
voice—Lady Knollys's—briskly, from an open window close by; 'what
could put that in your head, dear?'
And in went my cousin's head, and the window shut down.
'She is such an oddity, poor dear Aunt Knollys,' murmured the young
man, ever so little put out, and he laughed. 'I never know quite what she
wishes, or how to please her; but she's so good-natured; and when she
goes to town for the season—she does not always, you know—her house
is really very gay—you can't think——'
Here again he was interrupted, for the door opened, and Lady Knollys
entered. 'And you know, Charles,' she continued, 'it would not do to for-
get your visit to Snodhurst; you wrote, you know, and you have only to-
night and to-morrow. You are thinking of nothing but that moor; I heard
you talking to the gamekeeper; I know he is—is not he, Maud, the brown
man with great whiskers, and leggings? I'm very sorry, you know, but I
really must spoil your shooting, for they do expect you at Snodhurst,
Charlie; and do not you think this window a little too much for Miss
Ruthyn? Maud, my dear, the air is very sharp; shut it down, Charles, and
you'd better tell them to get a fly for you from the town after luncheon.
Come, dear,' she said to me. 'Was not that the breakfast bell? Why does
not your papa get a gong?—it is so hard to know one bell from another.'
I saw that Captain Oakley lingered for a last look, but I did not give it,
and went out smiling with Cousin Knollys, and wondering why old
ladies are so uniformly disagreeable.

67
 In the lobby she said, with an odd, goodnatured look—
'Don't allow any of his love-making, my dear. Charles Oakley has not
a guinea, and an heiress would be very convenient. Of course he has his
eyes about him. Charles is not by any means foolish; and I should not be
at all sorry to see him well married, for I don't think he will do much
good any other way; but there are degrees, and his ideas are sometimes
very impertinent.'
I was an admiring reader of the Albums, the Souvenirs, the Keepsakes,
and all that flood of Christmas-present lore which yearly irrigated Eng-
land, with pretty covers and engravings; and floods of elegant
twaddle—the milk, not destitute of water, on which the babes of literat-
ure were then fed. On this, my genius throve. I had a little album, en-
riched with many gems of original thought and observation, which I jot-
ted down in suitable language. Lately, turning over these faded leaves of
rhyme and prose, I lighted, under this day's date, upon the following
sage reflection, with my name appended:—
'Is there not in the female heart an ineradicable jealousy, which, if it
sways the passions of the young, rules also the advice of the aged? Do
they not grudge to youth the sentiments (though Heaven knows how
shadowed with sorrow) which they can no longer inspire, perhaps even ex-
perience; and does not youth, in turn, sigh over the envy which has power
to blight?
MAUD AYLMER RUTHYN.'
'He has not been making love to me,' I said rather tartly, 'and he does
not seem to me at all impertinent, and I really don't care the least wheth-
er he goes or stays.'
Cousin Monica looked in my face with her old waggish smile, and
laughed.
'You'll understand those London dandies better some day, dear Maud;
they are very well, but they like money—not to keep, of course—but still
they like it and know its value.'
At breakfast my father told Captain Oakley where he might have
shooting, or if he preferred going to Dilsford, only half an hour's ride, he
might have his choice of hunters, and find the dogs there that morning.
The Captain smiled archly at me, and looked at his aunt. There was a
suspense. I hope I did not show how much I was interested—but it
would not do. Cousin Monica was inexorable.
'Hunting, hawking, fishing, fiddle-de-dee! You know, Charlie, my
dear, it is quite out of the question. He is going to Snodhurst this after-
noon, and without quite a rudeness, in which I should be involved too,

68
he really can't—you know you can't, Charles! and—and he must go and
keep his engagement.'
So papa acquiesced with a polite regret, and hoped another time.
'Oh, leave all that to me. When you want him, only write me a note,
and I'll send him or bring him if you let me. I always know where to find
him—don't I, Charlie?—and we shall be only too happy.'
Aunt Monica's influence with her nephew was special, for she 'tipped'
him handsomely every now and then, and he had formed for himself
agreeable expectations, besides, respecting her will. I felt rather angry at
his submitting to this sort of tutelage, knowing nothing of its motive; I
was also disgusted by Cousin Monica's tyranny.
So soon as he had left the room, Lady Knollys, not minding me, said
briskly to papa, 'Never let that young man into your house again. I
found him making speeches, this morning, to little Maud here; and he
really has not two pence in the world—it is amazing impudence—and
you know such absurd things do happen.'
'Come, Maud, what compliments did he pay you?' asked my father.
I was vexed, and therefore spoke courageously. 'His compliments
were not to me; they were all to the house,' I said, drily.
'Quite as it should be—the house, of course; it is that he's in love with,'
said Cousin Knollys.
''Twas on a widow's jointure land, The archer, Cupid, took his stand.'
'Hey! I don't quite understand,' said my father, slily.
'Tut! Austin; you forget Charlie is my nephew.'
'So I did,' said my father.
'Therefore the literal widow in this case can have no interest in view
but one, and that is yours and Maud's. I wish him well, but he shan't put
my little cousin and her expectations into his empty pocket—not a bit of
it. And there's another reason, Austin, why you should marry—you have
no eye for these things, whereas a clever woman would see at a glance
and prevent mischief.'
'So she would,' acquiesced my father, in his gloomy, amused way.
'Maud, you must try to be a clever woman.'
'So she will in her time, but that is not come yet; and I tell you, Austin
Ruthyn, if you won't look about and marry somebody, somebody may
possibly marry you.'
'You were always an oracle, Monica; but here I am lost in total perplex-
ity,' said my father.

69
 'Yes; sharks sailing round you, with keen eyes and large throats; and
you have come to the age precisely when men are swallowed up alive
like Jonah.'
'Thank you for the parallel, but you know that was not a happy union,
even for the fish, and there was a separation in a few days; not that I
mean to trust to that; but there's no one to throw me into the jaws of the
monster, and I've no notion of jumping there; and the fact is, Monica,
there's no monster at all.'
'I'm not so sure.'
'But I'm quite sure,' said my father, a little drily. 'You forget how old I
am, and how long I've lived alone—I and little Maud;' and he smiled and
smoothed my hair, and, I thought, sighed.
'No one is ever too old to do a foolish thing,' began Lady Knollys.
'Nor to say a foolish thing, Monica. This has gone on too long. Don't
you see that little Maud here is silly enough to be frightened at your fun.'
So I was, but I could not divine how he guessed it.
'And well or ill, wisely or madly, I'll never marry; so put that out of
your head.'
This was addressed rather to me, I think, than to Lady Knollys, who
smiled a little waggishly on me, and said—
'To be sure, Maud; maybe you are right; a stepdame is a risk, and I
ought to have asked you first what you thought of it; and upon my hon-
our,' she continued merrily but kindly, observing that my eyes, I know
not exactly from what feeling, filled with tears, 'I'll never again advise
your papa to marry, unless you first tell me you wish it.'
This was a great deal from Lady Knollys, who had a taste for advising
her friends and managing their affairs.
'I've a great respect for instinct. I believe, Austin, it is truer than reas-
on, and yours and Maud's are both against me, though I know I have
reason on my side.'
My father's brief wintry smile answered, and Cousin Monica kissed
me, and said—
'I've been so long my own mistress that I sometimes forget there are
such things as fear and jealousy; and are you going to your governess,
Maud?'

70
Chapter 14
ANGRY WORDS
I was going to my governess, as Lady Knollys said; and so I went. The
undefinable sense of danger that smote me whenever I beheld that wo-
man had deepened since last night's occurrence, and was taken out of
the region of instinct or prepossession by the strange though slight indic-
ations of recognition and abhorrence which I had witnessed in Lady
Knollys on that occasion.
The tone in which Cousin Monica had asked, 'are you going to your
governess?' and the curious, grave, and anxious look that accompanied
the question, disturbed me; and there was something odd and cold in the
tone as if a remembrance had suddenly chilled her. The accent remained
in my ear, and the sharp brooding look was fixed before me as I glided
up the broad dark stairs to Madame de la Rougierre's chamber.
She had not come down to the school-room, as the scene of my studies
was called. She had decided on having a relapse, and accordingly had
not made her appearance down-stairs that morning. The gallery leading
to her room was dark and lonely, and I grew more nervous as I ap-
proached; I paused at the door, making up my mind to knock.
But the door opened suddenly, and, like a magic-lantern figure,
presented with a snap, appeared close before my eyes the great muffled
face, with the forbidding smirk, of Madame de la Rougierre.
'Wat you mean, my dear cheaile?' she inquired with a malevolent
shrewdness in her eyes, and her hollow smile all the time disconcerting
me more even than the suddenness of her appearance; 'wat for you ap-
proach so softly? I do not sleep, you see, but you feared, perhaps, to have
the misfortune of wakening me, and so you came—is it not so?—to
leesten, and looke in very gentily; you want to know how I was. Vous
êtes bien aimable d'avoir pensé à moi. Bah!' she cried, suddenly bursting
through her irony. 'Wy could not Lady Knollys come herself and leesten
to the keyhole to make her report? Fi donc! wat is there to conceal? Noth-
ing. Enter, if you please. Every one they are welcome!' and she flung the

71
door wide, turned her back upon me, and, with an ejaculation which I
did not understand, strode into the room.
'I did not come with any intention, Madame, to pry or to intrude—you
don't think so—you can't think so—you can't possibly mean to insinuate
anything so insulting!'
I was very angry, and my tremors had all vanished now.
'No, not for you, dear cheaile; I was thinking to miladi Knollys, who,
without cause, is my enemy. Every one has enemy; you will learn all that
so soon as you are little older, and without cause she is mine. Come,
Maud, speak a the truth—was it not miladi Knollys who sent you here
doucement, doucement, so quaite to my door—is it not so, little rogue?'
Madame had confronted me again, and we were now standing in the
middle of her floor.
I indignantly repelled the charge, and searching me for a moment with
her oddly-shaped, cunning eyes, she said—
'That is good cheaile, you speak a so direct—I like that, and am glad to
hear; but, my dear Maud, that woman——'
'Lady Knollys is papa's cousin,' I interposed a little gravely.
'She does hate a me so, you av no idea. She as tryed to injure me sever-
al times, and would employ the most innocent person, unconsciously
you know, my dear, to assist her malice.'
Here Madame wept a little. I had already discovered that she could
shed tears whenever she pleased. I have heard of such persons, but I
never met another before or since.
Madame was unusually frank—no one ever knew better when to be
candid. At present I suppose she concluded that Lady Knollys would
certainly relate whatever she knew concerning her before she left Knowl;
and so Madame's reserves, whatever they might be, were dissolving, and
she growing childlike and confiding.
'Et comment va monsieur votre père aujourd'hui?'
'Very well,' I thanked her.
'And how long miladi Knollys her visit is likely to be?'
'I could not say exactly, but for some days.'
'Eh bien, my dear cheaile, I find myself better this morning, and we
must return to our lessons. Je veux m'habiller, ma chère Maud; you will
wait me in the school-room.'
By this time Madame, who, though lazy, could make an effort, and
was capable of getting into a sudden hurry, had placed herself before her
dressing-table, and was ogling her discoloured and bony countenance in
the glass.

72
 'Wat horror! I am so pale. Quel ennui! wat bore! Ow weak av I grow in
two three days!'
And she practised some plaintive, invalid glances into the mirror. But
on a sudden there came a little sharp inquisitive frown as she looked
over the frame of the glass, upon the terrace beneath. It was only a
glance, and she sat down languidly in her arm-chair to prepare, I sup-
pose, for the fatigues of the toilet.
My curiosity was sufficiently aroused to induce me to ask—
'But why, Madame, do you fancy that Lady Knollys dislikes you?'
''Tis not fancy, my dear Maud. Ah ha, no! Mais c'est toute une his-
toire—too tedious to tell now—some time maybe—and you will learn
when you are little older, the most violent hatreds often they are the
most without cause. But, my dear cheaile, the hours they are running
from us, and I must dress. Vite, vite! so you run away to the school-
room, and I will come after.'
Madame had her dressing-case and her mysteries, and palpably stood
in need of repairs; so away I went to my studies. The room which we
called the school-room was partly beneath the floor of Madame's bed-
chamber, and commanded the same view; so, remembering my
governess's peering glance from her windows, I looked out, and saw
Cousin Monica making a brisk promenade up and down the terrace-
walk. Well, that was quite enough to account for it. I had grown very
curious, and I resolved when our lessons were over to join her and make
another attempt to discover the mystery.
As I sat over my books, I fancied I heard a movement outside the door.
I suspected that Madame was listening. I waited for a time, expecting to
see the door open, but she did not come; so I opened it suddenly myself,
but Madame was not on the threshold nor on the lobby. I heard a rust-
ling, however, and on the staircase over the banister I saw the folds of
her silk dress as she descended.
She is going, I thought, to seek an interview with Lady Knollys. She in-
tends to propitiate that dangerous lady; so I amused some eight or ten
minutes in watching Cousin Monica's quick march and right-about face
upon the parade-ground of the terrace. But no one joined her.
'She is certainly talking to papa,' was my next and more probable con-
jecture. Having the profoundest distrust of Madame, I was naturally ex-
tremely jealous of the confidential interviews in which deceit and malice
might make their representations plausibly and without answer.
'Yes, I'll run down and see—see papa; she shan't tell lies behind my
back, horrid woman!'

73
 At the study-door I knocked, and forthwith entered. My father was sit-
ting near the window, his open book before him, Madame standing at
the other side of the table, her cunning eyes bathed in tears, and her
pocket-handkerchief pressed to her mouth. Her eyes glittered stealthily
on me for an instant: she was sobbing—désolée, in fact—that grim gren-
adier lady, and her attitude was exquisitely dejected and timid. But she
was, notwithstanding, reading closely and craftily my father's face. He
was not looking at her, but rather upward toward the ceiling, reflectively
leaning on his hand, with an expression, not angry, but rather surly and
annoyed.
'I ought to have heard of this before, Madame,' my father was saying
as I came in; 'not that it would have made any difference—not the least;
mind that. But it was the kind of thing that I ought to have heard, and
the omission was not strictly right.'
Madame, in a shrill and lamentable key, opened her voluble reply, but
was arrested by a nod from my father, who asked me if I wanted
anything.
'Only—only that I was waiting in the school-room for Madame, and
did not know where she was.'
'Well, she is here, you see, and will join you up-stairs in a few
minutes.'
So back I went again, huffed, angry, and curious, and sat back in my
chair with a clouded countenance, thinking very little about lessons.
When Madame entered, I did not lift my head or eyes.
'Good cheaile! reading,' said she, as she approached briskly and
reassured.
'No,' I answered tartly; 'not good, nor a child either; I'm not reading,
I've been thinking.'
'Très-bien!' she said, with an insufferable smile, 'thinking is very good
also; but you look unhappy—very, poor cheaile. Take care you are not
grow jealous for poor Madame talking sometime to your papa; you must
not, little fool. It is only for a your good, my dear Maud, and I had no ob-
jection you should stay.'
'You! Madame!' I said loftily. I was very angry, and showed it through
my dignity, to Madame's evident satisfaction.
'No—it was your papa, Mr. Ruthyn, who weesh to speak alone; for me
I do not care; there was something I weesh to tell him. I don't care who
know, but Mr. Ruthyn he is deeferent.'
I made no remark.

74
 'Come, leetle Maud, you are not to be so cross; it will be much better
you and I to be good friends together. Why should a we quarrel?—wat
nonsense! Do you imagine I would anywhere undertake a the education
of a young person unless I could speak with her parent?—wat folly! I
would like to be your friend, however, my poor Maud, if you would al-
low—you and I together—wat you say?'
'People grow to be friends by liking, Madame, and liking comes of it-
self, not by bargain; I like every one who is kind to me.'
'And so I. You are like me in so many things, my dear Maud! Are you
quaite well to-day? I think you look fateague; so I feel, too, vary tire. I
think we weel put off the lessons to to-morrow. Eh? and we will come to
play la grace in the garden.'
Madame was plainly in a high state of exultation. Her audience had
evidently been satisfactory, and, like other people, when things went
well, her soul lighted up into a sulphureous good-humour, not very
genuine nor pleasant, but still it was better than other moods.
I was glad when our calisthenics were ended, and Madame had re-
turned to her apartment, so that I had a pleasant little walk with Cousin
Monica.
We women are persevering when once our curiosity is roused, but she
gaily foiled mine, and, I think, had a mischievous pleasure in doing so.
As we were going in to dress for dinner, however, she said, quite
gravely—
'I am sorry, Maud, I allowed you to see that I have any unpleasant im-
pressions about that governess lady. I shall be at liberty some day to ex-
plain all about it, and, indeed, it will be enough to tell your father, whom
I have not been able to find all day; but really we are, perhaps, making
too much of the matter, and I cannot say that I know anything against
Madame that is conclusive, or—or, indeed, at all; but that there are reas-
ons, and—you must not ask any more—no, you must not.'
That evening, while I was playing the overture to Cenerentola, for the
entertainment of my cousin, there arose from the tea-table, where she
and my father were sitting, a spirited and rather angry harangue from
Lady Knollys' lips; I turned my eyes from the music towards the speak-
ers; the overture swooned away with a little hesitating babble into si-
lence, and I listened.
Their conversation had begun under cover of the music which I was
making, and now they were too much engrossed to perceive its discon-
tinuance. The first sentence I heard seized my attention; my father had
closed the book he was reading, upon his finger, and was leaning back in

75
his chair, as he used to do when at all angry; his face was a little flushed,
and I knew the fierce and glassy stare which expressed pride, surprise,
and wrath.
'Yes, Lady Knollys, there's an animus; I know the spirit you speak
in—it does you no honour,' said my father.
'And I know the spirit you speak in, the spirit of madness,' retorted
Cousin Monica, just as much in earnest. 'I can't conceive how you can be
so demented, Austin. What has perverted you? are you blind?'
'You are, Monica; your own unnatural prejudice—unnatural prejudice,
blinds you. What is it all?—nothing. Were I to act as you say, I should be
a coward and a traitor. I see, I do see, all that's real. I'm no Quixote, to
draw my sword on illusions.'
'There should be no halting here. How can you—do you ever think? I
wonder if you can breathe. I feel as if the evil one were in the house.'
A stern, momentary frown was my father's only answer, as he looked
fixedly at her.
'People need not nail up horseshoes and mark their door-stones with
charms to keep the evil spirit out,' ran on Lady Knollys, who looked pale
and angry, in her way, 'but you open your door in the dark and invoke
unknown danger. How can you look at that child that's—she's not play-
ing,' said Knollys, abruptly stopping.
My father rose, muttering to himself, and cast a lurid glance at me, as
he went in high displeasure to the door. Cousin Monica, now flushed a
little, glanced also silently at me, biting the tip of her slender gold cross,
and doubtful how much I had heard.
My father opened the door suddenly, which he had just closed, and
looking in, said, in a calmer tone—
'Perhaps, Monica, you would come for a moment to the study; I'm sure
you have none but kindly feelings towards me and little Maud, there;
and I thank you for your good-will; but you must see other things more
reasonably, and I think you will.'
Cousin Monica got up silently and followed him, only throwing up
her eyes and hands as she did so, and I was left alone, wondering and
curious more than ever.

76
Chapter 15
A WARNING
I sat still, listening and wondering, and wondering and listening; but I
ought to have known that no sound could reach me where I was from
my father's study. Five minutes passed and they did not return. Ten, fif-
teen. I drew near the fire and made myself comfortable in a great arm-
chair, looking on the embers, but not seeing all the scenery and dramatis
personae of my past life or future fortunes, in their shifting glow, as
people in romances usually do; but fanciful castles and caverns in blood-
red and golden glare, suggestive of dreamy fairy-land, salamanders, sun-
sets, and palaces of fire-kings, and all this partly shaping and partly
shaped by my fancy, and leading my closing eyes and drowsy senses off
into dream-land. So I nodded and dozed, and sank into a deep slumber,
from which I was roused by the voice of my cousin Monica. On opening
my eyes, I saw nothing but Lady Knollys' face looking steadily into
mine, and expanding into a good-natured laugh as she watched the va-
cant and lack-lustre stare with which I returned her gaze.
'Come, dear Maud, it is late; you ought to have been in your bed an
hour ago.'
Up I stood, and so soon as I had begun to hear and see aright, it struck
me that Cousin Monica was more grave and subdued than I had seen
her.
'Come, let us light our candles and go together.'
Holding hands, we ascended, I sleepy, she silent; and not a word was
spoken until we reached my room. Mary Quince was in waiting, and tea
made.
'Tell her to come back in a few minutes; I wish to say a word to you,'
said Lady Knollys.
The maid accordingly withdrew.
Lady Knollys' eyes followed her till she closed the door behind her.
'I'm going in the morning.'
'So soon!'

77
 'Yes, dear; I could not stay; in fact, I should have gone tonight, but it
was too late, and I leave instead in the morning.'
'I am so sorry—so very sorry,' I exclaimed, in honest disappointment,
and the walls seemed to darken round me, and the monotony of the old
routine loomed more terrible in prospect.
'So am I, dear Maud.'
'But can't you stay a little longer; won't you?'
'No, Maud; I'm vexed with Austin—very much vexed with your fath-
er; in short, I can't conceive anything so entirely preposterous, and dan-
gerous, and insane as his conduct, now that his eyes are quite opened,
and I must say a word to you before I go, and it is just this:—you must
cease to be a mere child, you must try and be a woman, Maud: now don't
be frightened or foolish, but hear me out. That woman—what does she
call herself—Rougierre? I have reason to believe is—in fact, from circum-
stances, must be your enemy; you will find her very deep, daring, and
unscrupulous, I venture to say, and you can't be too much on your
guard. Do you quite understand me, Maud?'
'I do,' said I, with a gasp, and my eyes fixed on her with a terrified in-
terest, as if on a warning ghost.
'You must bridle your tongue, mind, and govern your conduct, and
command even your features. It is hard to practise reserve; but you
must—you must be secret and vigilant. Try and be in appearance just as
usual; don't quarrel; tell her nothing, if you do happen to know any-
thing, of your father's business; be always on your guard when with her,
and keep your eye upon her everywhere. Observe everything, disclose
nothing—do you see?'
'Yes,' again I whispered.
'You have good, honest servants about you, and, thank God, they
don't like her. But you must not repeat to them one word I am now say-
ing to you. Servants are fond of dropping hints, and letting things ooze
out in that way, and in their quarrels with her would compromise
you—you understand me?'
'I do,' I sighed, with a wild stare.
'And—and, Maud, don't let her meddle with your food.'
Cousin Monica gave me a pale little nod, and looked away.
I could only stare at her; and under my breath I uttered an ejaculation
of terror.
'Don't be so frightened; you must not be foolish; I only wish you to be
upon your guard. I have my suspicions, but I may be quite wrong; your
father thinks I am a fool; perhaps I am—perhaps not; maybe he may

78
come to think as I do. But you must not speak to him on the subject; he's
an odd man, and never did and never will act wisely, when his passions
and prejudices are engaged.'
'Has she ever committed any great crime?' I asked, feeling as if I were
on the point of fainting.
'No, dear Maud, I never said anything of the kind; don't be so
frightened: I only said I have formed, from something I know, an ill
opinion of her; and an unprincipled person, under temptation, is capable
of a great deal. But no matter how wicked she may be, you may defy her,
simply by assuming her to be so, and acting with caution; she is cunning
and selfish, and she'll do nothing desperate. But I would give her no
opportunity.'
'Oh, dear! Oh, Cousin Monica, don't leave me.'
'My dear, I can't stay; your papa and I—we've had a quarrel. I know
I'm right, and he's wrong, and he'll come to see it soon, if he's left to him-
self, and then all will be right. But just now he misunderstands me, and
we've not been civil to one another. I could not think of staying, and he
would not allow you to come away with me for a short visit, which I
wished. It won't last, though; and I do assure you, my dear Maud, I am
quite happy about you now that you are quite on your guard. Just act re-
specting that person as if she were capable of any treachery, without
showing distrust or dislike in your manner, and nothing will remain in
her power; and write to me whenever you wish to hear from me, and if I
can be of any real use, I don't care, I'll come: so there's a wise little wo-
man; do as I've said, and depend upon it everything will go well, and I'll
contrive before long to get that nasty creature away.'
Except a kiss and a few hurried words in the morning when she was
leaving, and a pencilled farewell for papa, there was nothing more from
Cousin Monica for some time.
Knowl was dark again—darker than ever. My father, gentle always to
me, was now—perhaps it was contrast with his fitful return to
something like the world's ways, during Lady Knollys' stay—more si-
lent, sad, and isolated than before. Of Madame de la Rougierre I had
nothing at first particular to remark. Only, reader, if you happen to be a
rather nervous and very young girl, I ask you to conceive my fears and
imaginings, and the kind of misery which I was suffering. Its intensity I
cannot now even myself recall. But it overshadowed me perpetually—a
care, an alarm. It lay down with me at night and got up with me in the
morning, tinting and disturbing my dreams, and making my daily life

79
terrible. I wonder now that I lived through the ordeal. The torment was
secret and incessant, and kept my mind in unintermitting activity.
Externally things went on at Knowl for some weeks in the usual
routine. Madame was, so far as her unpleasant ways were concerned,
less tormenting than before, and constantly reminded me of 'our leetle
vow of friendship, you remember, dearest Maud!' and she would stand
beside me, and looked from the window with her bony arm round my
waist, and my reluctant hand drawn round in hers; and thus she would
smile, and talk affectionately and even playfully; for at times she would
grow quite girlish, and smile with her great carious teeth, and begin to
quiz and babble about the young 'faylows,' and tell bragging tales of her
lovers, all of which were dreadful to me.
She was perpetually recurring, too, to the charming walk we had had
together to Church Scarsdale, and proposing a repetition of that delight-
ful excursion, which, you may be sure, I evaded, having by no means so
agreeable a recollection of our visit.
One day, as I was dressing to go out for a walk, in came good Mrs.
Rusk, the housekeeper, to my room.
'Miss Maud, dear, is not that too far for you? It is a long walk to
Church Scarsdale, and you are not looking very well.'
'To Church Scarsdale?' I repeated; 'I'm not going to Church Scarsdale;
who said I was going to Church Scarsdale? There is nothing I should so
much dislike.'
'Well, I never!' exclaimed she. 'Why, there's old Madame's been down-
stairs with me for fruit and sandwiches, telling me you were longing to
go to Church Scarsdale——'
'It's quite untrue,' I interrupted. 'She knows I hate it.'
'She does?' said Mrs. Rusk, quietly; 'and you did not tell her nothing
about the basket? Well—if there isn't a story! Now what may she be
after—what is it—what is she driving at?'
'I can't tell, but I won't go.'
'No, of course, dear, you won't go. But you may be sure there's some
scheme in her old head. Tom Fowkes says she's bin two or three times to
drink tea at Farmer Gray's—now, could it be she's thinking to marry
him?' And Mrs. Rusk sat down and laughed heartily, ending with a crow
of derision.
'To think of a young fellow like that, and his wife, poor thing, not dead
a year—maybe she's got money?'
'I don't know—I don't care—perhaps, Mrs. Rusk, you mistook Ma-
dame. I will go down; I am going out.'

80
 Madame had a basket in her hand. She held it quietly by her capacious
skirt, at the far side, and made no allusion to the preparation, neither to
the direction in which she proposed walking, and prattling artlessly and
affectionately she marched by my side.
Thus we reached the stile at the sheep-walk, and then I paused.
'Now, Madame, have not we gone far enough in this direc-
tion?—suppose we visit the pigeon-house in the park?'
'Wat folly! my dear a Maud—you cannot walk so far.'
'Well, towards home, then.'
'And wy not a this way? We ave not walk enough, and Mr. Ruthyn he
will not be pleased if you do not take proper exercise. Let us walk on by
the path, and stop when you like.'
'Where do you wish to go, Madame?'
'Nowhere particular—come along; don't be fool, Maud.'
'This leads to Church Scarsdale.'
'A yes indeed! wat sweet place! bote we need not a walk all the way to
there.'
'I'd rather not walk outside the grounds to-day, Madame.'
'Come, Maud, you shall not be fool—wat you mean, Mademoiselle?'
said the stalworth lady, growing yellow and greenish with an angry
mottling, and accosting me very gruffly.
'I don't care to cross the stile, thank you, Madame. I shall remain at this
side.'
'You shall do wat I tell you!' exclaimed she.
'Let go my arm, Madame, you hurt me,' I cried.
She had griped my arm very firmly in her great bony hand, and
seemed preparing to drag me over by main force.
'Let me go,' I repeated shrilly, for the pain increased.
'La!' she cried with a smile of rage and a laugh, letting me go and
shoving me backward at the same time, so that I had a rather dangerous
tumble.
I stood up, a good deal hurt, and very angry, notwithstanding my fear
of her.
'I'll ask papa if I am to be so ill-used.'
'Wat av I done?' cried Madame, laughing grimly from her hollow jaws;
I did all I could to help you over—'ow could I prevent you to pull back
and tumble if you would do so? That is the way wen you petites Ma-
demoiselles are naughty and hurt yourself they always try to make
blame other people. Tell a wat you like—you think I care?'
'Very well, Madame.'

81
 'Are a you coming?'
'No.'
She looked steadily in my face and very wickedly. I gazed at her as
with dazzled eyes—I suppose as the feathered prey do at the owl that
glares on them by night. I neither moved back nor forward, but stared at
her quite helplessly.
'You are nice pupil—charming young person! So polite, so obedient, so
amiable! I will walk towards Church Scarsdale,' she continued, suddenly
breaking through the conventionalism of her irony, and accosting me in
savage accents. 'You weel stay behind if you dare. I tell you to accom-
pany—do you hear?'
More than ever resolved against following her, I remained where I
was, watching her as she marched fiercely away, swinging her basket as
though in imagination knocking my head off with it.
She soon cooled, however, and looking over her shoulder, and seeing
me still at the other side of the stile, she paused, and beckoned me grimly
to follow her. Seeing me resolutely maintain my position, she faced
about, tossed her head, like an angry beast, and seemed uncertain for a
while what course to take with me.
She stamped and beckoned furiously again. I stood firm. I was very
much frightened, and could not tell to what violence she might resort in
her exasperation. She walked towards me with an inflamed countenance,
and a slight angry wagging of the head; my heart fluttered, and I
awaited the crisis in extreme trepidation. She came close, the stile only
separating us, and stopped short, glaring and grinning at me like a
French grenadier who has crossed bayonets, but hesitates to close.

82
Chapter 16
DOCTOR BRYERLY LOOKS IN
What had I done to excite this ungovernable fury? We had often before
had such small differences, and she had contented herself with being sar-
castic, teasing, and impertinent.
'So, for future you are gouvernante and I the cheaile for you to com-
mand—is not so?—and you must direct where we shall walk. Très-bien!
we shall see; Monsieur Ruthyn he shall know everything. For me I do
not care—not at all—I shall be rather pleased, on the contrary. Let him
decide. If I shall be responsible for the conduct and the health of Ma-
demoiselle his daughter, it must be that I shall have authority to direct
her wat she must do—it must be that she or I shall obey. I ask only witch
shall command for the future—voilà tout!'
I was frightened, but resolute—I dare say I looked sullen and uncom-
fortable. At all events, she seemed to think she might possibly succeed
by wheedling; so she tried coaxing and cajoling, and patted my cheek,
and predicted that I would be 'a good cheaile,' and not 'vex poor Ma-
dame,' but do for the future 'wat she tell a me.'
She smiled her wide wet grin, smoothed my hand, and patted my
cheek, and would in the excess of her conciliatory paroxysm have kissed
me; but I withdrew, and she commented only with a little laugh, and a
'Foolish little thing! but you will be quite amiable just now.'
'Why, Madame,' I asked, suddenly raising my head and looking her
straight in the face, 'do you wish me to walk to Church Scarsdale so
particularly to-day?'
She answered my steady look with a contracted gaze and an unpleas-
ant frown.
'Wy do I?—I do not understand a you; there is no particular day—wat
folly! Wy I like Church Scarsdale? Well, it is such pretty place. There is
all! Wat leetle fool! I suppose you think I want to keel a you and bury
you in the churchyard?'
And she laughed, and it would not have been a bad laugh for a ghoul.

83
 'Come, my dearest Maud, you are not a such fool to say, if you tell me
me go thees a way, I weel go that; and if you say, go that a way, I weel
go thees—you are rasonable leetle girl—come along—alons donc—we
shall av soche agreeable walk—weel a you?'
But I was immovable. It was neither obstinacy nor caprice, but a pro-
found fear that governed me. I was then afraid—yes, afraid. Afraid of
what? Well, of going with Madame de la Rougierre to Church Scarsdale
that day. That was all. And I believe that instinct was true.
She turned a bitter glance toward Church Scarsdale, and bit her lip.
She saw that she must give it up. A shadow hung upon her drab fea-
tures. A little scowl—a little sneer—wide lips compressed with a false
smile, and a leaden shadow mottling all. Such was the countenance of
the lady who only a minute or two before had been smiling and mur-
muring over the stile so amiably with her idiomatic 'blarney,' as the Irish
call that kind of blandishment.
There was no mistaking the malignant disappointment that hooked
and warped her features—my heart sank—a tremendous fear over-
powered me. Had she intended poisoning me? What was in that basket?
I looked in her dreadful face. I felt for a minute quite frantic. A feeling of
rage with my father, with my Cousin Monica, for abandoning me to this
dreadful rogue, took possession of me, and I cried, helplessly wringing
my hands—
'Oh! it is a shame—it is a shame—it is a shame!'
The countenance of the gouvernante relaxed. I think she in turn was
frightened at my extreme agitation. It might have worked unfavourably
with my father.
'Come, Maud, it is time you should try to control your temper. You
shall not walk to Church Scarsdale if you do not like—I only invite.
There! It is quite as you please, where we shall walk then? Here to the
peegeon-house? I think you say. Tout bien! Remember I concede you
everything. Let us go.'
We went, therefore, towards the pigeon-house, through the forest
trees; I not speaking as the children in the wood did with their sinister
conductor, but utterly silent and scared; she silent also, meditating, and
sometimes with a sharp side-glance gauging my progress towards
equanimity. Her own was rapid; for Madame was a philosopher, and
speedily accommodated herself to circumstances. We had not walked a
quarter of an hour when every trace of gloom had left her face, which
had assumed its customary brightness, and she began to sing with a
spiteful hilarity as we walked forward, and indeed seemed to be

84
approaching one of her waggish, frolicsome moods. But her fun in these
moods was solitary. The joke, whatever it was, remained in her own
keeping. When we approached the ruined brick tower—in old times a
pigeon-house—she grew quite frisky, and twirled her basket in the air,
and capered to her own singing.
Under the shadow of the broken wall, and its ivy, she sat down with a
frolicsome plump, and opened her basket, inviting me to partake, which I
declined. I must do her justice, however, upon the suspicion of poison,
which she quite disposed of by gobbling up, to her own share,
everything which the basket contained.
The reader is not to suppose that Madame's cheerful demeanour indic-
ated that I was forgiven. Nothing of the kind. One syllable more, on our
walk home, she addressed not to me. And when we reached the terrace,
she said—
'You will please, Maud, remain for two—three minutes in the Dutch
garden, while I speak with Mr. Ruthyn in the study.'
This was spoken with a high head and an insufferable smile; and I
more haughtily, but quite gravely, turned without disputing, and des-
cended the steps to the quaint little garden she had indicated.
I was surprised and very glad to see my father there. I ran to him, and
began, 'Oh! papa!' and then stopped short, adding only, 'may I speak to
you now?'
He smiled kindly and gravely on me.
'Well, Maud, say your say.'
'Oh, sir, it is only this: I entreat that our walks, mine and Madame's
may be confined to the grounds.'
'And why?'
'I—I'm afraid to go with her.'
'Afraid!' he repeated, looking hard at me. 'Have you lately had a letter
from Lady Knollys?'
'No, papa, not for two months or more.'
There was a pause.
'And why afraid, Maud?'
'She brought me one day to Church Scarsdale; you know what a solit-
ary place it is, sir; and she frightened me so that I was afraid to go with
her into the churchyard. But she went and left me alone at the other side
of the stream, and an impudent man passing by stopped and spoke to
me, and seemed inclined to laugh at me, and altogether frightened me
very much, and he did not go till Madame happened to return.'
'What kind of man—young or old?'

85
 'A young man; he looked like a farmer's son, but very impudent, and
stood there talking to me whether I would or not; and Madame did not
care at all, and laughed at me for being frightened; and, indeed, I am
very uncomfortable with her.'
He gave me another shrewd look, and then looked down cloudily and
thought.
'You say you are uncomfortable and frightened. How is this—what
causes these feelings?'
'I don't know, sir; she likes frightening me; I am afraid of her—we are
all afraid of her, I think. The servants, I mean, as well as I.'
My father nodded his head contemptuously, twice or thrice, and
muttered, 'A pack of fools!'
'And she was so very angry to-day with me, because I would not walk
again with her to Church Scarsdale. I am very much afraid of her. I—'
and quite unpremeditatedly I burst into tears.
'There, there, little Maud, you must not cry. She is here only for your
good. If you are afraid—even foolishly afraid—it is enough. Be it as you
say; your walks are henceforward confined to the grounds; I'll tell her
so.'
I thanked him through my tears very earnestly.
'But, Maud, beware of prejudice; women are unjust and violent in their
judgments. Your family has suffered in some of its members by such in-
justice. It behoves us to be careful not to practise it.'
That evening in the drawing-room my father said, in his usual abrupt
way—
'About my departure, Maud: I've had a letter from London this morn-
ing, and I think I shall be called away sooner than I at first supposed, and
for a little time we must manage apart from one another. Do not be
alarmed. You shall not be in Madame de la Rougierre's charge, but under
the care of a relation; but even so, little Maud will miss her old father, I
think.'
His tone was very tender, so were his looks; he was looking down on
me with a smile, and tears were in his eyes. This softening was new to
me. I felt a strange thrill of surprise, delight, and love, and springing up,
I threw my arms about his neck and wept in silence. He, I think, shed
tears also.
'You said a visitor was coming; some one, you mean, to go away with.
Ah, yes, you love him better than me.'
'No, dear, no; but I fear him; and I am sorry to leave you, little Maud.'
'It won't be very long,' I pleaded.

86
 'No, dear,' he answered with a sigh.
I was tempted almost to question him more closely on the subject, but
he seemed to divine what was in my mind, for he said—
'Let us speak no more of it, but only bear in mind, Maud, what I told
you about the oak cabinet, the key of which is here,' and he held it up as
formerly: 'you remember what you are to do in case Doctor Bryerly
should come while I am away?'
'Yes, sir.'
His manner had changed, and I had returned to my accustomed
formalities.
It was only a few days later that Dr. Bryerly actually did arrive at
Knowl, quite unexpectedly, except, I suppose, by my father. He was to
stay only one night.
He was twice closeted in the little study up-stairs with my father, who
seemed to me, even for him, unusually dejected, and Mrs. Rusk inveigh-
ing against 'them rubbitch,' as she always termed the Swedenborgians,
told me 'they were making him quite shaky-like, and he would not last
no time, if that lanky, lean ghost of a fellow in black was to keep prowl-
ing in and out of his room like a tame cat.'
I lay awake that night, wondering what the mystery might be that con-
nected my father and Dr. Bryerly. There was something more than the
convictions of their strange religion could account for. There was
something that profoundly agitated my father. It may not be reasonable,
but so it is. The person whose presence, though we know nothing of the
cause of that effect, is palpably attended with pain to anyone who is dear
to us, grows odious, and I began to detest Doctor Bryerly.
It was a grey, dark morning, and in a dark pass in the gallery, near the
staircase, I came full upon the ungainly Doctor, in his glossy black suit.
I think, if my mind had been less anxiously excited on the subject of
his visit, or if I had not disliked him so much, I should not have found
courage to accost him as I did. There was something sly, I thought, in his
dark, lean face; and he looked so low, so like a Scotch artisan in his
Sunday clothes, that I felt a sudden pang of indignation, at the thought
that a great gentleman, like my father, should have suffered under his in-
fluence, and I stopped suddenly, instead of passing him by with a mere
salutation, as he expected, 'May I ask a question, Doctor Bryerly?'
'Certainly'
'Are you the friend whom my father expects?'
'I don't quite see.'

87
 'The friend, I mean, with whom he is to make an expedition to some
distance, I think, and for some little time?'
'No,' said the Doctor, with a shake of his head.
'And who is he?'
'I really have not a notion, Miss.'
'Why, he said that you knew,' I replied.
The Doctor looked honestly puzzled.
'Will he stay long away? pray tell me.'
The Doctor looked into my troubled face with inquiring and darkened
eyes, like one who half reads another's meaning; and then he said a little
briskly, but not sharply—
'Well, I don't know, I'm sure, Miss; no, indeed, you must have mis-
taken; there's nothing that I know.'
There was a little pause, and he added—
'No. He never mentioned any friend to me.' I fancied that he was made
uncomfortable by my question, and wanted to hide the truth. Perhaps I
was partly right.
'Oh! Doctor Bryerly, pray, pray who is the friend, and where is he
going?'
'I do assure you,' he said, with a strange sort of impatience, 'I don't
know; it is all nonsense.'
And he turned to go, looking, I think, annoyed and disconcerted.
A terrific suspicion crossed my brain like lightning.
'Doctor, one word,' I said, I believe, quite wildly. 'Do you—do you
think his mind is at all affected?'
'Insane?' he said, looking at me with a sudden, sharp inquisitiveness,
that brightened into a smile. 'Pooh, pooh! Heaven forbid! not a saner
man in England.'
Then with a little nod he walked on, carrying, as I believed, notwith-
standing his disclaimer, the secret with him. In the afternoon Doctor Bry-
erly went away.

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Chapter 17
AN ADVENTURE
For many days after our quarrel, Madame hardly spoke to me. As for les-
sons, I was not much troubled with them. It was plain, too, that my fath-
er had spoken to her, for she never after that day proposed our extend-
ing our walks beyond the precincts of Knowl.
Knowl, however, was a very considerable territory, and it was possible
for a much better pedestrian than I to tire herself effectually, without
passing its limits. So we took occasionally long walks.
After some weeks of sullenness, during which for days at a time she
hardly spoke to me, and seemed lost in dark and evil abstraction, she
once more, and somewhat suddenly, recovered her spirits, and grew
quite friendly. Her gaieties and friendliness were not reassuring, and in
my mind presaged approaching mischief and treachery. The days were
shortening to the wintry span. The edge of the red sun had already
touched the horizon as Madame and I, overtaken at the warren by his
last beams, were hastening homeward.
A narrow carriage-road traverses this wild region of the park, to which
a distant gate gives entrance. On descending into this unfrequented
road, I was surprised to see a carriage standing there. A thin, sly pos-
tilion, with that pert, turned-up nose which the old caricaturist Wood-
ward used to attribute to the gentlemen of Tewkesbury, was leaning on
his horses, and looked hard at me as I passed. A lady who sat within
looked out, with an extra-fashionable bonnet on, and also treated us to a
stare. Very pink and white cheeks she had, very black glossy hair and
bright eyes—fat, bold, and rather cross, she looked—and in her bold way
she examined us curiously as we passed.
I mistook the situation. It had once happened before that an intending
visitor at Knowl had entered the place by that park-road, and lost several
hours in a vain search for the house.
'Ask him, Madame, whether they want to go to the house; I dare say
they have missed their way,' whispered I.

89
 'Eh bien, they will find again. I do not choose to talk to post-boys;
allons!'
But I asked the man as we passed, 'Do you want to reach the house?'
By this time he was at the horses' heads, buckling the harness.
'Noa,' he said in a surly tone, smiling oddly on the winkers, but, recol-
lecting his politeness, he added, 'Noa, thankee, misses, it's what they
calls a picnic; we'll be takin' the road now.'
He was smiling now on a little buckle with which he was engaged.
'Come—nonsense!' whispered Madame sharply in my ear, and she
whisked me by the arm, so we crossed the little stile at the other side.
Our path lay across the warren, which undulates in little hillocks. The
sun was down by this time, blue shadows were stretching round us,
colder in the splendid contrast of the burnished sunset sky.
Descending over these hillocks we saw three figures a little in advance
of us, not far from the path we were tracing. Two were standing smoking
and chatting at intervals: one tall and slim, with a high chimney-pot,
worn a little on one side, and a white great-coat buttoned up to the chin;
the other shorter and stouter, with a dark-coloured wrapper. These gen-
tlemen were facing rather our way as we came over the edge of the em-
inence, but turned their backs on perceiving our approach. As they did
so, I remember so well each lowered his cigar suddenly with the simul-
taneousness of a drill. The third figure sustained the picnic character of
the group, for he was repacking a hamper. He stood suddenly erect as
we drew near, and a very ill-looking person he was, low-browed,
square-chinned, and with a broad, broken nose. He wore gaiters, and
was a little bandy, very broad, and had a closely-cropped bullet head,
and deep-set little eyes. The moment I saw him, I beheld the living type
of the burglars and bruisers whom I had so often beheld with a kind of
scepticism in Punch. He stood over his hamper and scowled sharply at us
for a moment; then with the point of his foot he jerked a little fur cap that
lay on the ground into his hand, drew it tight over his lowering brows,
and called to his companions, just as we passed him—'Hallo! mister.
How's this?'
'All right,' said the tall person in the white great-coat, who, as he
answered, shook his shorter companion by the arm, I thought angrily.
This shorter companion turned about. He had a muffler loose about
his neck and chin. I thought he seemed shy and irresolute, and the tall
man gave him a great jolt with his elbow, which made him stagger, and I
fancied a little angry, for he said, as it seemed, a sulky word or two.

90
 The gentleman in the white surtout, however, standing direct in our
way, raised his hat with a mock salutation, placing his hand on his
breast, and forthwith began to advance with an insolent grin and an air
of tipsy frolic.
'Jist in time, ladies; five minutes more and we'd a bin off. Thankee,
Mrs. Mouser, ma'am, for the honour of the meetin', and more particular
for the pleasure of making your young lady's acquaintance—niece,
ma'am? daughter, ma'am? granddaughter, by Jove, is it? Hallo! there,
mild 'n, I say, stop packin'.' This was to the ill-favoured person with the
broken nose. 'Bring us a couple o' glasses and a bottle o' curaçoa; what
are you fear'd on, my dear? this is Lord Lollipop, here, a reg'lar charmer,
wouldn't hurt a fly, hey Lolly? Isn't he pretty, Miss? and I'm Sir Simon
Sugarstick—so called after old Sir Simon, ma'am; and I'm so tall and
straight, Miss, and slim—ain't I? and ever so sweet, my honey, when you
come to know me, just like a sugarstick; ain't I, Lolly, boy?'
'I'm Miss Ruthyn, tell them, Madame,' I said, stamping on the ground,
and very much frightened.
'Be quaite, Maud. If you are angry, they will hurt us; leave me to
speak,' whispered the gouvernante.
All this time they were approaching from separate points. I glanced
back, and saw the ruffianly-looking man within a yard or two, with his
arm raised and one finger up, telegraphing, as it seemed, to the gentle-
men in front.
'Be quaite, Maud,' whispered Madame, with an awful adjuration,
which I do not care to set down. 'They are teepsy; don't seem 'fraid.'
I was afraid—terrified. The circle had now so narrowed that they
might have placed their hands on my shoulders.
'Pray, gentlemen, wat you want? weel a you 'av the goodness to permit
us to go on?'
I now observed for the first time, with a kind of shock, that the shorter
of the two men, who prevented our advance, was the person who had
accosted me so offensively at Church Scarsdale. I pulled Madame by the
arm, whispering, 'Let us run.'
'Be quaite, my dear Maud,' was her only reply.
'I tell you what,' said the tall man, who had replaced his high hat more
jauntily than before on the side of his head, 'We've caught you now, fair
game, and we'll let you off on conditions. You must not be frightened,
Miss. Upon my honour and soul, I mean no mischief; do I, Lollipop? I
call him Lord Lollipop; it's only chaff, though; his name's Smith. Now,
Lolly, I vote we let the prisoners go, when we just introduce them to Mrs.

91
Smith; she's sitting in the carriage, and keeps Mr. S. here in precious
good order, I promise you. There's easy terms for you, eh, and we'll have
a glass o' curaçoa round, and so part friends. Is it a bargain? Come!'
'Yes, Maud, we must go—wat matter?' whispered Madame
vehemently.
'You shan't,' I said, instinctively terrified.
'You'll go with Ma'am, young 'un, won't you?' said Mr. Smith, as his
companion called him.
Madame was holding my arm, but I snatched it from her, and would
have run; the tall man, however, placed his arms round me and held me
fast with an affectation of playfulness, but his grip was hard enough to
hurt me a good deal. Being now thoroughly frightened, after an ineffec-
tual struggle, during which I heard Madame say, 'You fool, Maud, weel
you come with me? see wat you are doing,' I began to scream, shriek
after shriek, which the man attempted to drown with loud hooting, peals
of laughter, forcing his handkerchief against my mouth, while Madame
continued to bawl her exhortations to 'be quaite' in my ear.
'I'll lift her, I say!' said a gruff voice behind me.
But at this instant, wild with terror, I distinctly heard other voices
shouting. The men who surrounded me were instantly silent, and all
looked in the direction of the sound, now very near, and I screamed with
redoubled energy. The ruffian behind me thrust his great hand over my
mouth.
'It is the gamekeeper,' cried Madame. 'Two gamekeepers—we are
safe—thank Heaven!' and she began to call on Dykes by name.
I only remember, feeling myself at liberty—running a few
steps—seeing Dykes' white furious face—clinging to his arm, with which
he was bringing his gun to a level, and saying, 'Don't fire—they'll
murder us if you do.'
Madame, screaming lustily, ran up at the same moment.
'Run on to the gate and lock it—I'll be wi' ye in a minute,' cried he to
the other gamekeeper; who started instantly on this mission, for the three
ruffians were already in full retreat for the carriage.
Giddy—wild—fainting—still terror carried me on.
'Now, Madame Rogers—s'pose you take young Misses on—I must run
and len' Bill a hand.'
'No, no; you moste not,' cried Madame. 'I am fainting myself, and
more villains they may be near to us.'

92
 But at this moment we heard a shot, and, muttering to himself and
grasping his gun, Dykes ran at his utmost speed in the direction of the
sound.
With many exhortations to speed, and ejaculations of alarm, Madame
hurried me on toward the house, which at length we reached without
further adventure.
As it happened, my father met us in the hall. He was perfectly trans-
ported with fury on hearing from Madame what had happened, and set
out at once, with some of the servants, in the hope of intercepting the
party at the park-gate.
Here was a new agitation; for my father did not return for nearly three
hours, and I could not conjecture what might be occurring during the
period of his absence. My alarm was greatly increased by the arrival in
the interval of poor Bill, the under-gamekeeper, very much injured.
Seeing that he was determined to intercept their retreat, the three men
had set upon him, wrested his gun, which exploded in the struggle, from
him, and beat him savagely. I mention these particulars, because they
convinced everybody that there was something specially determined
and ferocious in the spirit of the party, and that the fracas was no mere
frolic, but the result of a predetermined plan.
My father had not succeeded in overtaking them. He traced them to
the Lugton Station, where they had taken the railway, and no one could
tell him in what direction the carriage and posthorses had driven.
Madame was, or affected to be, very much shattered by what had oc-
curred. Her recollection and mine, when my father questioned us
closely, differed very materially respecting many details of the personnel
of the villanous party. She was obstinate and clear; and although the
gamekeeper corroborated my description of them, still my father was
puzzled. Perhaps he was not sorry that some hesitation was forced upon
him, because although at first he would have gone almost any length to
detect the persons, on reflection he was pleased that there was not evid-
ence to bring them into a court of justice, the publicity and annoyance of
which would have been inconceivably distressing to me.
Madame was in a strange state—tempestuous in temper, talking in-
cessantly—every now and then in floods of tears, and perpetually on her
knees pouring forth torrents of thanksgiving to Heaven for our joint de-
liverance from the hands of those villains. Notwithstanding our com-
munity of danger and her thankfulness on my behalf, however, she
broke forth into wrath and railing whenever we were alone together.

93
 'Wat fool you were! so disobedient and obstinate; if you 'ad done wat I
say, then we should av been quaite safe; those persons they were tipsy,
and there is nothing so dangerous as to quarrel with tipsy persons; I
would 'av brought you quaite safe—the lady she seem so nice and
quaite, and we should 'av been safe with her—there would 'av been
nothing absolutely; but instead you would scream and pooshe, and so
they grow quite wild, and all the impertinence and violence follow of
course; and that a poor Bill—all his beating and danger to his life it is
cause entairely by you.'
And she spoke with more real virulence than that kind of upbraiding
generally exhibits.
'The beast!' exclaimed Mrs. Rusk, when she, I, and Mary Quince were
in my room together, 'with all her crying and praying, I'd like to know as
much as she does, maybe, about them rascals. There never was sich like
about the place, long as I remember it, till she came to Knowl, old witch!
with them unmerciful big bones of hers, and her great bald head, grin-
ning here, and crying there, and her nose everywhere. The old French
hypocrite!'
Mary Quince threw in an observation, and I believe Mrs. Rusk re-
joined, but I heard neither. For whether the housekeeper spoke with re-
flection or not, what she said affected me strangely. Through the smallest
aperture, for a moment, I had had a peep into Pandemonium. Were not
peculiarities of Madame's demeanour and advice during the adventure
partly accounted for by the suggestion? Could the proposed excursion to
Church Scarsdale have had any purpose of the same sort? What was pro-
posed? How was Madame interested in it? Were such immeasurable
treason and hypocrisy possible? I could not explain nor quite believe in
the shapeless suspicion that with these light and bitter words of the old
housekeeper had stolen so horribly into my mind.
After Mrs. Rusk was gone I awoke from my dismal abstraction with
something like a moan and a shudder, with a dreadful sense of danger.
'Oh! Mary Quince,' I cried, 'do you think she really knew?'
'Who, Miss Maud?'
'Do you think Madame knew of those dreadful people? Oh, no—say
you don't—you don't believe it—tell me she did not. I'm distracted, Mary
Quince, I'm frightened out of my life.'
'There now, Miss Maud, dear—there now, don't take on so—why
should she?—no sich a thing. Mrs. Rusk, law bless you, she's no more
meaning in what she says than the child unborn.'

94
 But I was really frightened. I was in a horrible state of uncertainty as to
Madame de la Rougierre's complicity with the party who had beset us at
the warren, and afterwards so murderously beat our poor gamekeeper.
How was I ever to get rid of that horrible woman? How long was she to
enjoy her continual opportunities of affrighting and injuring me?
'She hates me—she hates me, Mary Quince; and she will never stop
until she has done me some dreadful injury. Oh! will no one relieve
me—will no one take her away? Oh, papa, papa, papa! you will be sorry
when it is too late.'
I was crying and wringing my hands, and turning from side to side, at
my wits' ends, and honest Mary Quince in vain endevoured to quiet and
comfort me.

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Chapter 18
A MIDNIGHT VISITOR
The frightful warnings of Lady Knollys haunted me too. Was there no es-
cape from the dreadful companion whom fate had assigned me? I made
up my mind again and again to speak to my father and urge her remov-
al. In other things he indulged me; here, however, he met me drily and
sternly, and it was plain that he fancied I was under my cousin Monica's
influence, and also that he had secret reasons for persisting in an oppos-
ite course. Just then I had a gay, odd letter from Lady Knollys, from
some country house in Shropshire. Not a word about Captain Oakley.
My eye skimmed its pages in search of that charmed name. With a peev-
ish feeling I tossed the sheet upon the table. Inwardly I thought how ill-
natured and unwomanly it was.
After a time, however, I read it, and found the letter very good-
natured. She had received a note from papa. He had 'had the impudence
to forgive her for his impertinence.' But for my sake she meant, notwith-
standing this aggravation, really to pardon him; and whenever she had a
disengaged week, to accept his invitation to Knowl, from whence she
was resolved to whisk me off to London, where, though I was too young
to be presented at Court and come out, I might yet—besides having the
best masters and a good excuse for getting rid of Medusa—see a great
deal that would amuse and surprise me.
'Great news, I suppose, from Lady Knollys?' said Madame, who al-
ways knew who in the house received letters by the post, and by an intu-
ition from whom they came.
'Two letters—you and your papa. She is quite well, I hope?'
'Quite well, thank you, Madame.'
Some fishing questions, dropped from time to time, fared no better.
And as usual, when she was foiled even in a trifle, she became sullen and
malignant.
That night, when my father and I were alone, he suddenly closed the
book he had been reading, and said—

96
 'I heard from Monica Knollys to-day. I always liked poor Monnie; and
though she's no witch, and very wrong-headed at times, yet now and
then she does say a thing that's worth weighing. Did she ever talk to you
of a time, Maud, when you are to be your own mistress?'
'No,' I answered, a little puzzled, and looking straight in his rugged,
kindly face.
'Well, I thought she might—she's a rattle, you know—always was a
rattle, and that sort of people say whatever comes uppermost. But that's
a subject for me, and more than once, Maud, it has puzzled me.'
He sighed.
'Come with me to the study, little Maud.'
So, he carrying a candle, we crossed the lobby, and marched together
through the passage, which at night always seemed a little awesome,
darkly wainscoted, uncheered by the cross-light from the hall, which
was lost at the turn, leading us away from the frequented parts of the
house to that misshapen and lonely room about which the traditions of
the nursery and the servants' hall had had so many fearful stories to
recount.
I think my father had intended making some disclosure to me on
reaching this room. If so, he changed his mind, or at least postponed his
intention.
He had paused before the cabinet, respecting the key of which he had
given me so strict a charge, and I think he was going to explain himself
more fully than he had done. But he went on, instead, to the table where
his desk, always jealously locked, was placed, and having lighted the
candles which stood by it, he glanced at me, and said—
'You must wait a little, Maud; I shall have something to say to you.
Take this candle and amuse yourself with a book meanwhile.'
I was accustomed to obey in silence. I chose a volume of engravings,
and ensconced myself in a favourite nook in which I had often passed a
half-hour similarly. This was a deep recess by the fireplace, fenced on the
other side by a great old escritoir. Into this I drew a stool, and, with
candle and book, I placed myself snugly in the narrow chamber. Every
now and then I raised my eyes and saw my father either writing or ru-
minating, as it seemed to me, very anxiously at his desk.
Time wore on—a longer time than he had intended, and still he con-
tinued absorbed at his desk. Gradually I grew sleepy, and as I nodded,
the book and room faded away, and pleasant little dreams began to gath-
er round me, and so I went off into a deep slumber.

97
 It must have lasted long, for when I wakened my candle had burnt
out; my father, having quite forgotten me, was gone, and the room was
dark and deserted. I felt cold and a little stiff, and for some seconds did
not know where I was.
I had been wakened, I suppose, by a sound which I now distinctly
heard, to my great terror, approaching. There was a rustling; there was a
breathing. I heard a creaking upon the plank that always creaked when
walked upon in the passage. I held my breath and listened, and coiled
myself up in the innermost recess of my little chamber.
Sudden and sharp, a light shone in from the nearly-closed study door.
It shone angularly on the ceiling like a letter L reversed. There was a
pause. Then some one knocked softly at the door, which after another
pause was slowly pushed open. I expected, I think, to see the dreaded
figure of the linkman. I was scarcely less frightened to see that of Ma-
dame de la Rougierre. She was dressed in a sort of grey silk, which she
called her Chinese silk—precisely as she had been in the daytime. In fact,
I do not think she had undressed. She had no shoes on. Otherwise her
toilet was deficient in nothing. Her wide mouth was grimly closed, and
she stood scowling into the room with a searching and pallid scrutiny,
the candle held high above her head at the full stretch of her arm.
Placed as I was in a deep recess, and in a seat hardly raised above the
level of the floor, I escaped her, although it seemed to me for some
seconds, as I gazed on this spectre, that our eyes actually met.
I sat without breathing or winking, staring upon the formidable image
which with upstretched arm, and the sharp lights and hard shadows
thrown upon her corrugated features, looked like a sorceress watching
for the effect of a spell.
She was plainly listening intensely. Unconsciously she had drawn her
lower lip altogether between her teeth, and I well remember what a
deathlike and idiotic look the contortion gave her. My terror lest she
should discover me amounted to positive agony. She rolled her eyes
stealthily from corner to corner of the room, and listened with her neck
awry at the door.
Then to my father's desk she went. To my great relief, her back was to-
wards me. She stooped over it, with the candle close by; I saw her try a
key—it could be nothing else—and I heard her blow through the wards
to clear them.
Then, again, she listened at the door, candle in hand, and then with
long tiptoe steps came back, and papa's desk in another moment was
open, and Madame cautiously turning over the papers it contained.

98
 Twice or thrice she paused, glided to the door, and listened again in-
tently with her head near the ground, and then returned and continued
her search, peeping into papers one after another, tolerably methodic-
ally, and reading some quite through.
While this felonious business was going on, I was freezing with fear
lest she should accidentally look round and her eyes light on me; for I
could not say what she might not do rather than have her crime
discovered.
Sometimes she would read a paper twice over; sometimes a whisper
no louder than the ticking of a watch, sometimes a brief chuckle under
her breath, bespoke the interest with which here and there a letter or a
memorandum was read.
For about half an hour, I think, this went on; but at the time it seemed
to me all but interminable. On a sudden she raised her head and listened
for a moment, replaced the papers deftly, closed the desk without noise,
except for the tiny click of the lock, extinguished the candle, and rustled
stealthily out of the room, leaving in the darkness the malign and hag-
like face on which the candle had just shone still floating filmy in the
dark.
Why did I remain silent and motionless while such an outrage was be-
ing committed? If, instead of being a very nervous girl, preoccupied with
an undefinable terror of that wicked woman, I had possessed courage
and presence of mind, I dare say I might have given an alarm, and es-
caped from the room without the slightest risk. But so it was; I could no
more stir than the bird who, cowering under its ivy, sees the white owl
sailing back and forward under its predatory cruise.
Not only during her presence, but for more than an hour after, I re-
mained cowering in my hiding-place, and afraid to stir, lest she might
either be lurking in the neighborhood, or return and surprise me.
You will not be astonished, that after a night so passed I was ill and fe-
verish in the morning. To my horror, Madame de la Rougierre came to
visit me at my bedside. Not a trace of guilty consciousness of what had
passed during the night was legible in her face. She had no sign of late
watching, and her toilet was exemplary.
As she sat smiling by me, full of anxious and affectionate enquiry, and
smoothed the coverlet with her great felonious hand, I could quite com-
prehend the dreadful feeling with which the deceived husband in the
'Arabian Nights' met his ghoul wife, after his nocturnal discovery.

99
 Ill as I was, I got up and found my father in that room which adjoined
his bedchamber. He perceived, I am sure, by my looks, that something
unusual had happened. I shut the door, and came close beside his chair.
'Oh, papa, I have such a thing to tell you!' I forgot to call him 'Sir.' 'A
secret; and you won't say who told you? Will you come down to the
study?'
He looked hard at me, got up, and kissing my forehead, said—'Don't
be frightened, Maud; I venture to say it is a mare's nest; at all events, my
child, we will take care that no danger reaches you; come, child.'
And by the hand he led me to the study. When the door was shut, and
we had reached the far end of the room next the window, I said, but in a
low tone, and holding his arm fast—
'Oh, sir, you don't know what a dreadful person we have living with
us—Madame de la Rougierre, I mean. Don't let her in if she comes; she
would guess what I am telling you, and one way or another I am sure
she would kill me.'
'Tut, tut, child. You must know that's nonsense,' he said, looking pale
and stern.
'Oh no, papa. I am horribly frightened, and Lady Knollys thinks so
too.'
'Ha! I dare say; one fool makes many. We all know what Monica
thinks.'
'But I saw it, papa. She stole your key last night, and opened your desk,
and read all your papers.'
'Stole my key!' said my father, staring at me perplexed, but at the same
instant producing it. 'Stole it! Why here it is!'
'She unlocked your desk; she read your papers for ever so long. Open
it now, and see whether they have not been stirred.'
He looked at me this time in silence, with a puzzled air; but he did un-
lock the desk, and lifted the papers curiously and suspiciously. As he did
so he uttered a few of those inarticulate interjections which are made
with closed lips, and not always intelligible; but he made no remark.
Then he placed me on a chair beside him, and sitting down himself,
told me to recollect myself, and tell him distinctly all I had seen. This ac-
cordingly I did, he listening with deep attention.
'Did she remove any paper?' asked my father, at the same time making
a little search, I suppose, for that which he fancied might have been
stolen.
'No; I did not see her take anything.'

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 'Well, you are a good girl, Maud. Act discreetly. Say nothing to any-
one—not even to your cousin Monica.'
Directions which, coming from another person would have had no
great weight, were spoken by my father with an earnest look and a
weight of emphasis that made them irresistibly impressive, and I went
away with the seal of silence upon my lips.
'Sit down, Maud, there. You have not been very happy with Madame
de la Rougierre. It is time you were relieved. This occurrence decides it.'
He rang the bell.
'Tell Madame de la Rougierre that I request the honour of seeing her
for a few minutes here.'
My father's communications to her were always equally ceremonious.
In a few minutes there was a knock at the door, and the same figure,
smiling, courtesying, that had scared me on the threshold last night, like
the spirit of evil, presented itself.
My father rose, and Madame having at his request taken a chair op-
posite, looking, as usual in his presence, all amiability, he proceeded at
once to the point.
'Madame de la Rougierre, I have to request you that you will give me
the key now in your possession, which unlocks this desk of mine.'
With which termination he tapped his gold pencil-case suddenly on it.
Madame, who had expected something very different, became in-
stantly so pale, with a dull purplish hue upon her forehead, that, espe-
cially when she had twice essayed with her white lips, in vain, to answer,
I expected to see her fall in a fit.
She was not looking in his face; her eyes were fixed lower, and her
mouth and cheek sucked in, with a strange distortion at one side.
She stood up suddenly, and staring straight in his face, she succeeded
in saying, after twice clearing her throat—
'I cannot comprehend, Monsieur Ruthyn, unless you intend to insult
me.'
'It won't do, Madame; I must have that false key. I give you the oppor-
tunity of surrendering it quietly here and now.'
'But who dares to say I possess such thing?' demanded Madame, who,
having rallied from her momentary paralysis, was now fierce and vol-
uble as I had often seen her before.
'You know, Madame, that you can rely on what I say, and I tell you
that you were seen last night visiting this room, and with a key in your
possession, opening this desk, and reading my letters and papers con-
tained in it. Unless you forthwith give me that key, and any other false

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keys in your possession—in which case I shall rest content with dismiss-
ing you summarily—I will take a different course. You know I am a ma-
gistrate;—and I shall have you, your boxes, and places up-stairs,
searched forthwith, and I will prosecute you criminally. The thing is
clear; you aggravate by denying; you must give me that key, if you
please, instantly, otherwise I ring this bell, and you shall see that I mean
what I say.'
There was a little pause. He rose and extended his hand towards the
bell-rope. Madame glided round the table, extended her hand to arrest
his.
'I will do everything, Monsieur Ruthyn—whatever you wish.'
And with these words Madame de la Rougierre broke down altogeth-
er. She sobbed, she wept, she gabbled piteously, all manner of incompre-
hensible roulades of lamentation and entreaty; coyly, penitently, in a
most interesting agitation, she produced the very key from her breast,
with a string tied to it. My father was little moved by this piteous tem-
pest. He coolly took the key and tried it in the desk, which it locked and
unlocked quite freely, though the wards were complicated. He shook his
head and looked her in the face.
'Pray, who made this key? It is a new one, and made expressly to pick
this lock.'
But Madame was not going to tell any more than she had expressly
bargained for; so she only fell once more into her old paroxysm of
sorrow, self-reproach, extenuation, and entreaty.
'Well,' said my father,' I promised that on surrendering the key you
should go. It is enough. I keep my word. You shall have an hour and a
half to prepare in. You must then be ready to depart. I will send your
money to you by Mrs. Rusk; and if you look for another situation, you
had better not refer to me. Now be so good as to leave me.'
Madame seemed to be in a strange perplexity. She bridled up, dried
her eyes fiercely, and dropped a great courtesy, and then sailed away to-
wards the door. Before reaching it she stopped on the way, turning half
round, with a peaked, pallid glance at my father, and she bit her lip vi-
ciously as she eyed him. At the door the same repulsive pantomime was
repeated, as she stood for a moment with her hand upon the handle. But
she changed her bearing again with a sniff, and with a look of scorn, al-
most heightened to a sneer, she made another very low courtesy and a
disdainful toss of her head, and so disappeared, shutting the door rather
sharply behind her.

102
Chapter 19
AU REVOIR
Mrs. Rusk was fond of assuring me that Madame 'did not like a bone in
my skin.' Instinctively I knew that she bore me no good-will, although I
really believe it was her wish to make me think quite the reverse. At all
events I had no desire to see Madame again before her departure, espe-
cially as she had thrown upon me one momentary glance in the study,
which seemed to me charged with very peculiar feelings.
You may be very sure, therefore, that I had no desire for a formal
leave-taking at her departure. I took my hat and cloak, therefore, and
stole out quietly.
My ramble was a sequestered one, and well screened, even at this late
season, with foliage; the pathway devious among the stems of old trees,
and its flooring interlaced and groined with their knotted roots. Though
near the house, it was a sylvan solitude; a little brook ran darkling and
glimmering through it, wild strawberries and other woodland plants
strewed the ground, and the sweet notes and flutter of small birds made
the shadow of the boughs cheery.
I had been fully an hour in this picturesque solitude when I heard in
the distance the ring of carriage-wheels, announcing to me that Madame
de la Rougierre had fairly set out upon her travels. I thanked heaven; I
could have danced and sung with delight; I heaved a great sigh and
looked up through the branches to the clear blue sky.
But things are oddly timed. Just at this moment I heard Madame's
voice close at my ear, and her large bony hand was laid on my shoulder.
We were instantly face to face—I recoiling, and for a moment speechless
with fright.
In very early youth we do not appreciate the restraints which act upon
malignity, or know how effectually fear protects us where conscience is
wanting. Quite alone, in this solitary spot, detected and overtaken with
an awful instinct by my enemy, what might not be about to happen to
me at that moment?

103
 'Frightened as usual, Maud,' she said quietly, and eyeing me with a
sinister smile, 'and with cause you think, no doubt. Wat 'av you done to
injure poor Madame? Well, I think I know, little girl, and have quite dis-
cover the cleverness of my sweet little Maud. Eh—is not so? Petite caro-
gne—ah, ha, ha!'
I was too much confounded to answer.
'You see, my dear cheaile,' she said, shaking her uplifted finger with a
hideous archness at me, 'you could not hide what you 'av done from
poor Madame. You cannot look so innocent but I can see your pretty
little villany quite plain—you dear little diablesse.
'Wat I 'av done I 'av no reproach of myself for it. If I could explain,
your papa would say I 'av done right, and you should thank me on your
knees; but I cannot explain yet.'
She was speaking, as it were, in little paragraphs, with a momentary
pause between each, to allow its meaning to impress itself.
'If I were to choose to explain, your papa he would implore me to re-
main. But no—I would not—notwithstanding your so cheerful house,
your charming servants, your papa's amusing society, and your affec-
tionate and sincere heart, my sweet little maraude.
'I am to go to London first, where I 'av, oh, so good friends! next I will
go abroad for some time; but be sure, my sweetest Maud, wherever I
may 'appen to be, I will remember you—ah, ha! Yes; most certainly, I will
remember you.
'And although I shall not be always near, yet I shall know everything
about my charming little Maud; you will not know how, but I shall in-
deed, everything. And be sure, my dearest cheaile, I will some time be
able to give you the sensible proofs of my gratitude and affection—you
understand.
'The carriage is waiting at the yew-tree stile, and I must go on. You did
not expect to see me—here; I will appear, perhaps, as suddenly another
time. It is great pleasure to us both—this opportunity to make our
adieux. Farewell! my dearest little Maud. I will never cease to think of
you, and of some way to recompense the kindness you 'av shown for
poor Madame.'
My hand hung by my side, and she took, not it, but my thumb, and
shook it, folded in her broad palm, and looking on me as she held it, as if
meditating mischief. Then suddenly she said—
'You will always remember Madame, I think, and I will remind you of
me beside; and for the present farewell, and I hope you may be as 'appy
as you deserve.'

104
 The large sinister face looked on me for a second with its latent sneer,
and then, with a sharp nod and a spasmodic shake of my imprisoned
thumb, she turned, and holding her dress together, and showing her
great bony ankles, she strode rapidly away over the gnarled roots into
the perspective of the trees, and I did not awake, as it were, until she had
quite disappeared in the distance.
Events of this kind made no difference with my father; but every other
face in Knowl was gladdened by the removal. My energies had returned,
my spirits were come again. The sunlight was happy, the flowers inno-
cent, the songs and flutter of the birds once more gay, and all nature de-
lightful and rejoicing.
After the first elation of relief, now and then a filmy shadow of Ma-
dame de la Rougierre would glide across the sunlight, and the remem-
brance of her menace return with an unexpected pang of fear.
'Well, if there isn't impittens!' cried Mrs. Rusk. 'But never you trouble
your head about it, Miss. Them sort's all alike—you never saw a rogue
yet that was found out and didn't threaten the honest folk as he was
leaving behind with all sorts; there was Martin the gamekeeper, and Jer-
vis the footman, I mind well how hard they swore all they would not do
when they was a-going, and who ever heard of them since? They always
threatens that way—them sort always does, and none ever the
worse—not but she would if she could, mind ye, but there it is; she can't
do nothing but bite her nails and cuss us—not she—ha, ha, ha!'
So I was comforted. But Madame's evil smile, nevertheless, from time
to time, would sail across my vision with a silent menace, and my spirits
sank, and a Fate, draped in black, whose face I could not see, took me by
the hand, and led me away, in the spirit, silently, on an awful explora-
tion from which I would rouse myself with a start, and Madame was
gone for a while.
She had, however, judged her little parting well. She contrived to leave
her glamour over me, and in my dreams she troubled me.
I was, however, indescribably relieved. I wrote in high spirits to Cous-
in Monica; and wondered what plans my father might have formed
about me, and whether we were to stay at home, or go to London, or go
abroad. Of the last—the pleasantest arrangement, in some respects—I
had nevertheless an occult horror. A secret conviction haunted me that
were we to go abroad, we should there meet Madame, which to me was
like meeting my evil genius.
I have said more than once that my father was an odd man; and the
reader will, by this time, have seen that there was much about him not

105
easily understood. I often wonder whether, if he had been franker, I
should have found him less odd than I supposed, or more odd still. Th-
ings that moved me profoundly did not apparently affect him at all. The
departure of Madame, under the circumstances which attended it, ap-
peared to my childish mind an event of the vastest importance. No one
was indifferent to the occurrence in the house but its master. He never al-
luded again to Madame de la Rougierre. But whether connected with her
exposure and dismissal, I could not say, there did appear to be some new
care or trouble now at work in my father's mind.
'I have been thinking a great deal about you, Maud. I am anxious. I
have not been so troubled for years. Why has not Monica Knollys a little
more sense?'
This oracular sentence he spoke, having stopped me in the hall; and
then saying, 'We shall see,' he left me as abruptly as he appeared.
Did he apprehend any danger to me from the vindictiveness of
Madame?
A day or two afterwards, as I was in the Dutch garden, I saw him on
the terrace steps. He beckoned to me, and came to meet me as I
approached.
'You must be very solitary, little Maud; it is not good. I have written to
Monica: in a matter of detail she is competent to advise; perhaps she will
come here for a short visit.'
I was very glad to hear this.
'You are more interested than for my time I can be, in vindicating his
character.'
'Whose character, sir?' I ventured to enquire during the pause that
followed.
One trick which my father had acquired from his habits of solitude
and silence was this of assuming that the context of his thoughts was
legible to others, forgetting that they had not been spoken.
'Whose?—your uncle Silas's. In the course of nature he must survive
me. He will then represent the family name. Would you make some sac-
rifice to clear that name, Maud?'
I answered briefly; but my face, I believe, showed my enthusiasm.
He turned on me such an approving smile as you might fancy lighting
up the rugged features of a pale old Rembrandt.
'I can tell you, Maud; if my life could have done it, it should not have
been undone—ubi lapsus, quid feci. But I had almost made up my mind to
change my plan, and leave all to time—edax rerum—to illuminate or to
consume. But I think little Maud would like to contribute to the

106
restitution of her family name. It may cost you something—are you will-
ing to buy it at a sacrifice? Is there—I don't speak of fortune, that is not
involved—but is there any other honourable sacrifice you would shrink
from to dispel the disgrace under which our most ancient and honour-
able name must otherwise continue to languish?'
'Oh, none—none indeed, sir—I am delighted!'
Again I saw the Rembrandt smile.
'Well, Maud, I am sure there is no risk; but you are to suppose there is.
Are you still willing to accept it?'
Again I assented.
'You are worthy of your blood, Maud Ruthyn. It will come soon, and it
won't last long. But you must not let people like Monica Knollys frighten
you.'
I was lost in wonder.
'If you allow them to possess you with their follies, you had better re-
cede in time—they may make the ordeal as terrible as hell itself. You
have zeal—have you nerve?' I thought in such a cause I had nerve for
anything.
'Well, Maud, in the course of a few months—and it may be soon-
er—there must be a change. I have had a letter from London this morn-
ing that assures me of that. I must then leave you for a time; in my ab-
sence be faithful to the duties that will arise. To whom much is commit-
ted, of him will much be required. You shall promise me not to mention
this conversation to Monica Knollys. If you are a talking girl, and cannot
trust yourself, say so, and we will not ask her to come. Also, don't invite
her to talk about your uncle Silas—I have reasons. Do you quite under-
stand my conditions?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Your uncle Silas,' he said, speaking suddenly in loud and fierce tones
that sounded from so old a man almost terrible, 'lies under an intolerable
slander. I don't correspond with him; I don't sympathise with him; I nev-
er quite did. He has grown religious, and that's well; but there are things
in which even religion should not bring a man to acquiesce; and from
what I can learn, he, the person primarily affected—the cause, though
the innocent cause—of this great calamity—bears it with an easy apathy
which is mistaken, and liable easily to be mistaken, and such as no
Ruthyn, under the circumstances, ought to exhibit. I told him what he
ought to do, and offered to open my purse for the purpose; but he would
not, or did not; indeed, he never took my advice; he followed his own,
and a foul and dismal shoal he has drifted on. It is not for his sake—why

107
should I?-that I have longed and laboured to remove the disgraceful slur
under which his ill-fortune has thrown us. He troubles himself little
about it, I believe—he's meek, meeker than I. He cares less about his chil-
dren than I about you, Maud; he is selfishly sunk in futurity—a feeble
visionary. I am not so. I believe it to be a duty to take care of others be-
side myself. The character and influence of an ancient family is a peculiar
heritage—sacred but destructible; and woe to him who either destroys or
suffers it to perish!'
This was the longest speech I ever heard my father speak before or
after. He abruptly resumed—
'Yes, we will, Maud—you and I—we'll leave one proof on record,
which, fairly read, will go far to convince the world.'
He looked round, but we were alone. The garden was nearly always
solitary, and few visitors ever approached the house from that side.
'I have talked too long, I believe; we are children to the last. Leave me,
Maud. I think I know you better than I did, and I am pleased with you.
Go, child—I'll sit here.'
If he had acquired new ideas of me, so had I of him from that inter-
view. I had no idea till then how much passion still burned in that aged
frame, nor how full of energy and fire that face, generally so stern and
ashen, could appear. As I left him seated on the rustic chair, by the steps,
the traces of that storm were still discernible on his features. His
gathered brows, glowing eyes, and strangely hectic face, and the grim
compression of his mouth, still showed the agitation which, somehow, in
grey old age, shocks and alarms the young.

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Chapter 20
AUSTIN RUTHYN SETS OUT ON HIS JOURNEY
The Rev. William Fairfield, Doctor Clay's somewhat bald curate, a mild,
thin man, with a high and thin nose, who was preparing me for confirm-
ation, came next day; and when our catechetical conference was ended,
and before lunch was announced, my father sent for him to the study,
where he remained until the bell rang out its summons.
'We have had some interesting—I may say very interest-
ing—conversation, your papa and I, Miss Ruthyn,' said my reverend vis-
à-vis, so soon as nature was refreshed, smiling and shining, as he leaned
back in his chair, his hand upon the table, and his finger curled gently
upon the stem of his wine-glass. 'It never was your privilege, I believe, to
see your uncle, Mr. Silas Ruthyn, of Bartram-Haugh?'
'No—never; he leads so retired—so very retired a life.'
'Oh, no,—of course, no; but I was going to remark a likeness—I mean,
of course, a family likeness—only that sort of thing—you under-
stand—between him and the profile of Lady Margaret in the drawing-
room—is not it Lady Margaret?—which you were so good as to show me
on Wednesday last. There certainly is a likeness. I think you would agree
with me, if you had the pleasure of seeing your uncle.'
'You know him, then? I have never seen him.'
'Oh dear, yes—I am happy to say, I know him very well. I have that
privilege. I was for three years curate of Feltram, and I had the honour of
being a pretty constant visitor at Bartram-Haugh during that, I may say,
protracted period; and I think it really never has been my privilege and
happiness, I may say, to enjoy the acquaintance and society of so very ex-
perienced a Christian, as my admirable friend, I may call him, Mr.
Ruthyn, of Bartram-Haugh. I look upon him, I do assure you, quite in the
light of a saint; not, of course, in the Popish sense, but in the very
highest, you will understand me, which our Church allows,—a man built
up in faith—full of faith—faith and grace—altogether exemplary; and I
often ventured to regret, Miss Ruthyn, that Providence in its mysterious

109
dispensations should have placed him so far apart from his brother, your
respected father. His influence and opportunities would, no doubt, we
may venture to hope, at least have been blessed; and, perhaps, we—my
valued rector and I—might possibly have seen more of him at church,
than, I deeply regret, we have done.' He shook his head a little, as he
smiled with a sad complacency on me through his blue steel spectacles,
and then sipped a little meditative sherry.
'And you saw a good deal of my uncle?'
'Well, a good deal, Miss Ruthyn—I may say a good deal—principally at
his own house. His health is wretched—miserable health—a sadly afflic-
ted man he has been, as, no doubt, you are aware. But afflictions, my
dear Miss Ruthyn, as you remember Doctor Clay so well remarked on
Sunday last, though birds of ill omen, yet spiritually resemble the ravens
who supplied the prophet; and when they visit the faithful, come
charged with nourishment for the soul.
'He is a good deal embarrassed pecuniarily, I should say,' continued
the curate, who was rather a good man than a very well-bred one. 'He
found a difficulty—in fact it was not in his power—to subscribe gener-
ally to our little funds, and—and objects, and I used to say to him, and I
really felt it, that it was more gratifying, such were his feeling and his
power of expression, to be refused by him than assisted by others.'
'Did papa wish you to speak to me about my uncle?' I enquired, as a
sudden thought struck me; and then I felt half ashamed of my question.
He looked surprised.
'No, Miss Ruthyn, certainly not. Oh dear, no. It was merely a conversa-
tion between Mr. Ruthyn and me. He never suggested my opening that,
or indeed any other point in my interview with you, Miss Ruthyn—not
the least.'
'I was not aware before that Uncle Silas was so religious.'
He smiled tranquilly, not quite up to the ceiling, but gently upward,
and shook his head in pity for my previous ignorance, as he lowered his
eyes—
'I don't say that there may not be some little matters in a few points of
doctrine which we could, perhaps, wish otherwise. But these, you know,
are speculative, and in all essentials he is Church—not in the perverted
modern sense; far from it—unexceptionably Church, strictly so. Would
there were more among us of the same mind that is in him! Ay, Miss
Ruthyn, even in the highest places of the Church herself.'
The Rev. William Fairfield, while fighting against the Dissenters with
his right hand, was, with his left, hotly engaged with the Tractarians. A

110
good man I am sure he was, and I dare say sound in doctrine, though
naturally, I think, not very wise. This conversation with him gave me
new ideas about my uncle Silas. It quite agreed with what my father had
said. These principles and his increasing years would necessarily quiet
the turbulence of his resistance to injustice, and teach him to acquiesce in
his fate.
You would have fancied that one so young as I, born to wealth so vast,
and living a life of such entire seclusion, would have been exempt from
care. But you have seen how troubled my life was with fear and anxiety
during the residence of Madame de la Rougierre, and now there rested
upon my mind a vague and awful anticipation of the trial which my
father had announced, without defining it.
An 'ordeal' he called it, requiring not only zeal but nerve, which might
possibly, were my courage to fail, become frightful, and even intolerable.
What, and of what nature, could it be? Not designed to vindicate the fair
fame of the meek and submissive old man—who, it seemed, had ceased
to care for his bygone wrongs, and was looking to futurity—but the
reputation of our ancient family.
Sometimes I repented my temerity in having undertaken it. I distrus-
ted my courage. Had I not better retreat, while it was yet time? But there
was shame and even difficulty in the thought. How should I appear be-
fore my father? Was it not important—had I not deliberately undertaken
it—and was I not bound in conscience? Perhaps he had already taken
steps in the matter which committed him. Besides, was I sure that, even
were I free again, I would not once more devote myself to the trial, be it
what it might? You perceive I had more spirit than courage. I think I had
the mental attributes of courage; but then I was but a hysterical girl, and
in so far neither more nor less than a coward.
No wonder I distrusted myself; no wonder also my will stood out
against my timidity. It was a struggle, then; a proud, wild resolve against
constitutional cowardice.
Those who have ever had cast upon them more than their strength
seemed framed to bear—the weak, the aspiring, the adventurous and
self-sacrificing in will, and the faltering in nerve—will understand the
kind of agony which I sometimes endured.
But, again, consolation would come, and it seemed to me that I must
be exaggerating my risk in the coming crisis; and certain at least, if my
father believed it attended with real peril, he would never have wished
to see me involved in it. But the silence under which I was bound was

111
terrifying—double so when the danger was so shapeless and
undivulged.
I was soon to understand it all—soon, too, to know all about my
father's impending journey, whither, with what visitor, and why
guarded from me with so awful a mystery.
That day there came a lively and goodnatured letter from Lady
Knollys. She was to arrive at Knowl in two or three days' time. I thought
my father would have been pleased, but he seemed apathetic and
dejected.
'One does not always feel quite equal to Monica. But for you—yes,
thank God. I wish she could only stay, Maud, for a month or two; I may
be going then, and would be glad—provided she talks about suitable
things—very glad, Maud, to leave her with you for a week or so.'
There was something, I thought, agitating my father secretly that day.
He had the strange hectic flush I had observed when he grew excited in
our interview in the garden about Uncle Silas. There was something
painful, perhaps even terrible, in the circumstances of the journey he was
about to make, and from my heart I wished the suspense were over, the
annoyance past, and he returned.
That night my father bid me good-night early and went upstairs. After
I had been in bed some little time, I heard his hand-bell ring. This was
not usual. Shortly after I heard his man, Ridley, talking with Mrs. Rusk
in the gallery. I could not be mistaken in their voices. I knew not why I
was startled and excited, and had raised myself to listen on my elbow.
But they were talking quietly, like persons giving or taking an ordinary
direction, and not in the haste of an unusual emergency.
Then I heard the man bid Mrs. Rusk good-night and walk down the
gallery to the stairs, so that I concluded he was wanted no more, and all
must therefore be well. So I laid myself down again, though with a
throbbing at my heart, and an ominous feeling of expectation, listening
and fancying footsteps.
I was going to sleep when I heard the bell ring again; and, in a few
minutes, Mrs. Rusk's energetic step passed along the gallery; and, listen-
ing intently, I heard, or fancied, my father's voice and hers in dialogue.
All this was very unusual, and again I was, with a beating heart, leaning
with my elbow on my pillow.
Mrs. Rusk came along the gallery in a minute or so after, and stopping
at my door, began to open it gently. I was startled, and challenged my
visitor with—
'Who's there?'

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 'It's only Rusk, Miss. Dearie me! and are you awake still?'
'Is papa ill?'
'Ill! not a bit ill, thank God. Only there's a little black book as I took for
your prayer-book, and brought in here; ay, here it is, sure enough, and
he wants it. And then I must go down to the study, and look out this
one, "C, 15;" but I can't read the name, noways; and I was afraid to ask
him again; if you be so kind to read it, Miss—I suspeck my eyes is a-
going.'
I read the name; and Mrs. Rusk was tolerably expert at finding out
books, as she had often been employed in that way before. So she
departed.
I suppose that this particular volume was hard to find, for she must
have been a long time away, and I had actually fallen into a doze when I
was roused in an instant by a dreadful crash and a piercing scream from
Mrs. Rusk. Scream followed scream, wilder and more terror-stricken. I
shrieked to Mary Quince, who was sleeping in the room with
me:—'Mary, do you hear? what is it? It is something dreadful.'
The crash was so tremendous that the solid flooring even of my room
trembled under it, and to me it seemed as if some heavy man had burst
through the top of the window, and shook the whole house with his des-
cent. I found myself standing at my own door, crying, 'Help, help!
murder! murder!' and Mary Quince, frightened half out of her wits, by
my side.
I could not think what was going on. It was plainly something most
horrible, for Mrs. Rusk's screams pealed one after the other unabated,
though with a muffled sound, as if the door was shut upon her; and by
this time the bells of my father's room were ringing madly.
'They are trying to murder him!' I cried, and I ran along the gallery to
his door, followed by Mary Quince, whose white face I shall never for-
get, though her entreaties only sounded like unmeaning noises in my
ears.
'Here! help, help, help!' I cried, trying to force open the door.
'Shove it, shove it, for God's sake! he's across it,' cried Mrs. Rusk's
voice from within; 'drive it in. I can't move him.'
I strained all I could at the door, but ineffectually. We heard steps ap-
proaching. The men were running to the spot, and shouting as they did
so—
'Never mind; hold on a bit; here we are; all right;' and the like.
We drew back, as they came up. We were in no condition to be seen.
We listened, however, at my open door.

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 Then came the straining and bumping at the door. Mrs. Rusk's voice
subsided to a sort of wailing; the men were talking all together, and I
suppose the door opened, for I heard some of the voices, on a sudden, as
if in the room; and then came a strange lull, and talking in very low
tones, and not much even of that.
'What is it, Mary? what can it be?' I ejaculated, not knowing what hor-
ror to suppose. And now, with a counterpane about my shoulders, I
called loudly and imploringly, in my horror, to know what had
happened.
But I heard only the subdued and eager talk of men engaged in some
absorbing task, and the dull sounds of some heavy body being moved.
Mrs. Rusk came towards us looking half wild, and pale as a spectre,
and putting her thin hands to my shoulders, she said—'Now, Miss
Maud, darling, you must go back again; 'tisn't no place for you; you'll see
all, my darling, time enough—you will. There now, there, like a dear, do
get into your room.'
What was that dreadful sound? Who had entered my father's cham-
ber? It was the visitor whom we had so long expected, with whom he
was to make the unknown journey, leaving me alone. The intruder was
Death!

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Chapter 21
ARRIVALS
My father was dead—as suddenly as if he had been murdered. One of
those fearful aneurisms that lie close to the heart, showing no outward
sign of giving way in a moment, had been detected a good time since by
Dr. Bryerly. My father knew what must happen, and that it could not be
long deferred. He feared to tell me that he was soon to die. He hinted it
only in the allegory of his journey, and left in that sad enigma some
words of true consolation that remained with me ever after. Under his
rugged ways was hidden a wonderful tenderness. I could not believe
that he was actually dead. Most people for a minute or two, in the wild
tumult of such a shock, have experienced the same skepticism. I insisted
that the doctor should be instantly sent for from the village.
'Well, Miss Maud, dear, I will send to please you, but it is all to no use.
If only you saw him yourself you'd know that. Mary Quince, run you
down and tell Thomas, Miss Maud desires he'll go down this minute to
the village for Dr. Elweys.'
Every minute of the interval seemed to me like an hour. I don't know
what I said, but I fancied that if he were not already dead, he would lose
his life by the delay. I suppose I was speaking very wildly, for Mrs. Rusk
said—
'My dear child, you ought to come in and see him; indeed but you
should, Miss Maud. He's quite dead an hour ago. You'd wonder all the
blood that's come from him—you would indeed; it's soaked through the
bed already.'
'Oh, don't, don't, don't, Mrs. Rusk.'
'Will you come in and see him, just?
'Oh, no, no, no, no!'
'Well, then, my dear, don't of course, if you don't like; there's no need.
Would not you like to lie down, Miss Maud? Mary Quince, attend to her.
I must go into the room for a minute or two.'

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 I was walking up and down the room in distraction. It was a cool
night; but I did not feel it. I could only cry:—'Oh, Mary, Mary! what shall
I do? Oh, Mary Quince! what shall I do?'
It seemed to me it must be near daylight by the time the Doctor ar-
rived. I had dressed myself. I dared not go into the room where my be-
loved father lay.
I had gone out of my room to the gallery, where I awaited Dr. Elweys,
when I saw him walking briskly after the servant, his coat buttoned up
to his chin, his hat in his hand, and his bald head shining. I felt myself
grow cold as ice, and colder and colder, and with a sudden sten my heart
seemed to stand still.
I heard him ask the maid who stood at the door, in that low, decisive,
mysterious tone which doctors cultivate—
'In here?'
And then, with a nod, I saw him enter.
'Would not you like to see the Doctor, Miss Maud?' asked Mary
Quince.
The question roused me a little.
'Thank you, Mary; yes, I must see him.'
And so, in a few minutes, I did. He was very respectful, very sad,
semi-undertakerlike, in air and countenance, but quite explicit. I heard
that my dear father 'had died palpably from the rupture of some great
vessel near the heart.' The disease had, no doubt, been 'long established,
and is in its nature incurable.' It is 'consolatory in these cases that in the
act of dissolution, which is instantaneous, there can be no suffering.'
These, and a few more remarks, were all he had to offer; and having had
his fee from Mrs. Rusk, he, with a respectful melancholy, vanished.
I returned to my room, and broke into paroxysms of grief, and after an
hour or more grew more tranquil.
From Mrs. Rusk I learned that he had seemed very well—better than
usual, indeed—that night, and that on her return from the study with the
book he required, he was noting down, after his wont, some passages
which illustrated the text on which he was employing himself. He took
the book, detaining her in the room, and then mounting on a chair to
take down another book from a shelf, he had fallen, with the dreadful
crash I had heard, dead upon the floor. He fell across the door, which
caused the difficulty in opening it. Mrs. Rusk found she had not strength
to force it open. No wonder she had given way to terror. I think I should
have almost lost my reason.

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 Everyone knows the reserved aspect and the taciturn mood of the
house, one of whose rooms is tenanted by that mysterious guest.
I do not know how those awful days, and more awful nights, passed
over. The remembrance is repulsive. I hate to think of them. I was soon
draped in the conventional black, with its heavy folds of crape. Lady
Knollys came, and was very kind. She undertook the direction of all
those details which were to me so inexpressibly dreadful. She wrote let-
ters for me beside, and was really most kind and useful, and her society
supported me indescribably. She was odd, but her eccentricity was
leavened with strong common sense; and I have often thought since with
admiration and gratitude of the tact with which she managed my grief.
There is no dealing with great sorrow as if it were under the control of
our wills. It is a terrible phenomenon, whose laws we must study, and to
whose conditions we must submit, if we would mitigate it. Cousin Mon-
ica talked a great deal of my father. This was easy to her, for her early re-
collections were full of him.
One of the terrible dislocations of our habits of mind respecting the
dead is that our earthly future is robbed of them, and we thrown exclus-
ively upon retrospect. From the long look forward they are removed,
and every plan, imagination, and hope henceforth a silent and empty
perspective. But in the past they are all they ever were. Now let me ad-
vise all who would comfort people in a new bereavement to talk to them,
very freely, all they can, in this way of the dead. They will engage in it
with interest, they will talk of their own recollections of the dead, and
listen to yours, though they become sometimes pleasant, sometimes even
laughable. I found it so. It robbed the calamity of something of its super-
natural and horrible abruptness; it prevented that monotony of object
which is to the mind what it is to the eye, and prepared the faculty for
those mesmeric illusions that derange its sense.
Cousin Monica, I am sure, cheered me wonderfully. I grow to love her
more and more, as I think of all her trouble, care, and kindness.
I had not forgotten my promise to dear papa about the key, concerning
which he had evinced so great an anxiety. It was found in the pocket
where he had desired me to remember he always kept it, except when it
was placed, while he slept, under his pillow.
'And so, my dear, that wicked woman was actually found picking the
lock of your poor papa's desk. I wonder he did not punish her—you
know that is burglary.'
'Well, Lady Knollys, you know she is gone, and so I care no more
about her—that is, I mean, I need not fear her.'

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 'No, my dear, but you must call me Monica—do you mind—I'm your
cousin, and you call me Monica, unless you wish to vex me. No, of
course, you need not be afraid of her. And she's gone. But I'm an old
thing, you know, and not so tender-hearted as you; and I confess I
should have been very glad to hear that the wicked old witch had been
sent to prison and hard labour—I should. And what do you suppose she
was looking for—what did she want to steal? I think I can guess—what
do you think?'
'To read the papers; maybe to take bank-notes—I'm not sure,' I
answered.
'Well, I think most likely she wanted to get at your poor papa's
will—that's my idea.
'There is nothing surprising in the supposition, dear,' she resumed.
'Did not you read the curious trial at York, the other day? There is noth-
ing so valuable to steal as a will, when a great deal of property is to be
disposed of by it. Why, you would have given her ever so much money
to get it back again. Suppose you go down, dear—I'll go with you, and
open the cabinet in the study.'
'I don't think I can, for I promised to give the key to Dr. Bryerly, and
the meaning was that he only should open it.'
Cousin Monica uttered an inarticulate 'H'm!' of surprise or
disapprobation.
'Has he been written to?'
'No, I do not know his address.'
'Not know his address! come, that is curious,' said Knollys, a little
testily.
I could not—no one now living in the house could furnish even a con-
jecture. There was even a dispute as to which train he had gone
by—north or south—they crossed the station at an interval of five
minutes. If Dr. Bryerly had been an evil spirit, evoked by a secret incant-
ation, there could not have been more complete darkness as to the imme-
diate process of his approach.
'And how long do you mean to wait, my dear? No matter; at all events
you may open the desk; you may find papers to direct you—you may
find Dr. Bryerly's address—you may find, heaven knows what.'
So down we went—I assenting—and we opened the desk. How dread-
ful the desecration seems—all privacy abrogated—the shocking com-
pensation for the silence of death!
Henceforward all is circumstantial evidence—all conjectural—except
the litera scripta, and to this evidence every note-book, and every scrap of

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paper and private letter, must contribute—ransacked, bare in the light of
day—what it can.
At the top of the desk lay two notes sealed, one to Cousin Monica, the
other to me. Mine was a gentle and loving little farewell—nothing
more—which opened afresh the fountains of my sorrow, and I cried and
sobbed over it bitterly and long. The other was for 'Lady Knollys.' I did
not see how she received it, for I was already absorbed in mine. But in
awhile she came and kissed me in her girlish, goodnatured way. Her
eyes used to fill with tears at sight of my paroxysms of grief. Then she
would begin, 'I remember it was a saying of his,' and so she would re-
peat it—something maybe wise, maybe playful, at all events consolat-
ory—and the circumstances in which she had heard him say it, and then
would follow the recollections suggested by these; and so I was stolen
away half by him, and half by Cousin Monica, from my despair and
lamentation.
Along with these lay a large envelope, inscribed with the words
'Directions to be complied with immediately on my death.' One of which
was, 'Let the event be forthwith published in the county and principal Lon-
don papers.' This step had been already taken. We found no record of Dr.
Bryerly's address.
We made search everywhere, except in the cabinet, which I would on
no account permit to be opened except, according to his direction, by Dr.
Bryerly's hand. But nowhere was a will, or any document resembling
one, to be found. I had now, therefore, no doubt that his will was placed
in the cabinet.
In the search among my dear father's papers we found two sheafs of
letters, neatly tied up and labelled—these were from my uncle Silas.
My cousin Monica looked down upon these papers with a strange
smile; was it satire—was it that indescribable smile with which a mys-
tery which covers a long reach of years is sometimes approached?
These were odd letters. If here and there occurred passages that were
querulous and even abject, there were also long passages of manly and
altogether noble sentiment, and the strangest rodomontade and maun-
derings about religion. Here and there a letter would gradually trans-
form itself into a prayer, and end with a doxology and no signature; and
some of them expressed such wild and disordered views respecting reli-
gion, as I imagine he can never have disclosed to good Mr. Fairfield, and
which approached more nearly to the Swedenborg visions than to any-
thing in the Church of England.

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 I read these with a solemn interest, but my cousin Monica was not
similarly moved. She read them with the same smile—faint, serenely
contemptuous, I thought—with which she had first looked down upon
them. It was the countenance of a person who amusedly traces the work-
ing of a character that is well understood.
'Uncle Silas is very religious?' I said, not quite liking Lady Knollys'
looks.
'Very,' she said, without raising her eyes or abating her old bitter
smile, as she glanced over a passage in one of his letters.
'You don't think he is, Cousin Monica?' said I. She raised her head and
looked straight at me.
'Why do you say that, Maud?'
'Because you smile incredulously, I think, over his letters.'
'Do I?' said she; 'I was not thinking—it was quite an accident. The fact
is, Maud, your poor papa quite mistook me. I had no prejudice respect-
ing him—no theory. I never knew what to think about him. I do not
think Silas a product of nature, but a child of the Sphinx, and I never
could understand him—that's all.'
'I always felt so too; but that was because I was left to speculation, and
to glean conjectures as I might from his portrait, or anywhere. Except
what you told me, I never heard more than a few sentences; poor papa
did not like me to ask questions about him, and I think he ordered the
servants to be silent.'
'And much the same injunction this little note lays upon me—not
quite, but something like it; and I don't know the meaning of it.'
And she looked enquiringly at me.
'You are not to be alarmed about your uncle Silas, because your being
afraid would unfit you for an important service which you have under-
taken for your family, the nature of which I shall soon understand, and
which, although it is quite passive, would be made very sad if illusory
fears were allowed to steal into your mind.'
She was looking into the letter in poor papa's handwriting, which she
had found addressed to her in his desk, and emphasised the words, I
suppose, which she quoted from it.
'Have you any idea, Maud, darling, what this service may be?' she en-
quired, with a grave and anxious curiosity in her countenance.
'None, Cousin Monica; but I have thought long over my undertaking
to do it, or submit to it, be it what it may; and I will keep the promise I
voluntarily made, although I know what a coward I am, and often dis-
trust my courage.'

120
 'Well, I am not to frighten you.'
'How could you? Why should I be afraid? Is there anything frightful to
be disclosed? Do tell me—you must tell me.'
'No, darling, I did not mean that—I don't mean that;—I could, if I
would; I—I don't know exactly what I meant. But your poor papa knew
him better than I—in fact, I did not know him at all—that is, ever quite
understood him—which your poor papa, I see, had ample opportunities
of doing.' And after a little pause, she added—'So you do not know what
you are expected to do or to undergo.'
'Oh! Cousin Monica, I know you think he committed that murder,' I
cried, starting up, I don't know why, and I felt that I grew deadly pale.
'I don't believe any such thing, you little fool; you must not say such
horrible things, Maud,' she said, rising also, and looking both pale and
angry. 'Shall we go out for a little walk? Come, lock up these papers,
dear, and get your things on; and if that Dr. Bryerly does not turn up to-
morrow, you must send for the Rector, good Doctor Clay, and let him
make search for the will—there may be directions about many things,
you know; and, my dear Maud, you are to remember that Silas is my
cousin as well as your uncle. Come, dear, put on your hat.'
So we went out together for a little cloistered walk.

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Chapter 22
SOMEBODY IN THE ROOM WITH THE COFFIN
When we returned, a 'young' gentleman had arrived. We saw him in the
parlour as we passed the window. It was simply a glance, but such a one
as suffices to make a photograph, which we can study afterwards, at our
leisure. I remember him at this moment—a man of six-and-
thirty—dressed in a grey travelling suit, not over-well made; light-
haired, fat-faced, and clumsy; and he looked both dull and cunning, and
not at all like a gentleman.
Branston met us, announced the arrival, and handed me the stranger's
credentials. My cousin and I stopped in the passage to read them.
'That's your uncle Silas's,' said Lady Knollys, touching one of the two
letters with the tip of her finger.
'Shall we have lunch, Miss?'
'Certainly.' So Branston departed.
'Read it with me, Cousin Monica,' I said. And a very curious letter it
was. It spoke as follows:—
'How can I thank my beloved niece for remembering her aged and for-
lorn kinsman at such a moment of anguish?'
I had written a note of a few, I dare say, incoherent words by the next
post after my dear father's death.
'It is, however, in the hour of bereavement that we most value the ties
that are broken, and yearn for the sympathy of kindred.'
Here came a little distich of French verse, of which I could only read
ciel and l'amour.
'Our quiet household here is clouded with a new sorrow. How inscrut-
able are the ways of Providence! I—though a few years younger—how
much the more infirm—how shattered in energy and in mind—how
mere a burden—how entirely de trop—am spared to my sad place in a
world where I can be no longer useful, where I have but one busi-
ness—prayer, but one hope—the tomb; and he—apparently so ro-
bust—the centre of so much good—so necessary to you—so necessary,

122
alas! to me—is taken! He is gone to his rest—for us, what remains but to
bow our heads, and murmur, "His will be done"? I trace these lines with
a trembling hand, while tears dim my old eyes. I did not think that any
earthly event could have moved me so profoundly. From the world I
have long stood aloof. I once led a life of pleasure—alas! of wicked-
ness—as I now do one of austerity; but as I never was rich, so my worst
enemy will allow I never was avaricious. My sins, I thank my Maker,
have been of a more reducible kind, and have succumbed to the discip-
line which Heaven has provided. To earth and its interests, as well as to
its pleasures, I have long been dead. For the few remaining years of my
life I ask but quiet—an exemption from the agitations and distractions of
struggle and care, and I trust to the Giver of all Good for my deliver-
ance—well knowing, at the same time, that whatever befalls will, under
His direction, prove best. Happy shall I be, my dearest niece, if in your
most interesting and, in some respects, forlorn situation, I can be of any
use to you. My present religious adviser—of whom I ventured to ask
counsel on your behalf—states that I ought to send some one to repres-
ent me at the melancholy ceremony of reading the will which my be-
loved and now happy brother has, no doubt, left behind; and the idea
that the experience and professional knowledge possessed by the gentle-
man whom I have selected may possibly be of use to you, my dearest
niece, determines me to place him at your disposal. He is the junior part-
ner in the firm of Archer and Sleigh, who conduct any little business
which I may have from time to time; may I entreat your hospitality for
him during a brief stay at Knowl? I write, even for a moment, upon these
small matters of business with an effort—a painful one, but necessary.
Alas! my brother! The cup of bitterness is now full. Few and evil must
the remainder of my old days be. Yet, while they last, I remain always
for my beloved niece, that which all her wealth and splendour cannot
purchase—a loving and faithful kinsman and friend,
SILAS RUTHYN.'
'Is not it a kind letter?' I said, while tears stood in my eyes.
'Yes,' answered Lady Knollys, drily.
'But don't you think it so, really?'
'Oh! kind, very kind,' she answered in the same tone, 'and perhaps a
little cunning.'
'Cunning!—how?'
'Well, you know I'm a peevish old Tabby, and of course I scratch now
and then, and see in the dark. I dare say Silas is sorry, but I don't think
he is in sackcloth and ashes. He has reason to be sorry and anxious, and I

123
say I think he is both; and you know he pities you very much, and also
himself a good deal; and he wants money, and you—his beloved
niece—have a great deal—and altogether it is an affectionate and
prudent letter: and he has sent his attorney here to make a note of the
will; and you are to give the gentleman his meals and lodging; and Silas,
very thoughtfully, invites you to confide your difficulties and troubles to
his solicitor. It is very kind, but not imprudent.'
'Oh, Cousin Monica, don't you think at such a moment it is hardly nat-
ural that he should form such petty schemes, even were he capable at
other times of practising so low? Is it not judging him hardly? and you,
you know, so little acquainted with him.'
'I told you, dear, I'm a cross old thing—and there's an end; and I really
don't care two pence about him; and of the two I'd much rather he were
no relation of ours.'
Now, was not this prejudice? I dare say in part it was. So, too, was my
vehement predisposition in his favour. I am afraid we women are fac-
tionists; we always take a side, and nature has formed us for advocates
rather than judges; and I think the function, if less dignified, is more
amiable.
I sat alone at the drawing-room window, at nightfall, awaiting my
cousin Monica's entrance.
Feverish and frightened I felt that night. It was a sympathy, I fancy,
with the weather. The sun had set stormily. Though the air was still, the
sky looked wild and storm-swept. The crowding clouds, slanting in the
attitude of flight, reflected their own sacred aspect upon my spirits. My
grief darkened with a wild presaging of danger, and a sense of the super-
natural fell upon me. It was the saddest and most awful evening that had
come since my beloved father's death.
All kinds of shapeless fears environed me in silence. For the first time,
dire misgivings about the form of faith affrighted me. Who were these
Swedenborgians who had got about him—no one could tell how—and
held him so fast to the close of his life? Who was this bilious, bewigged,
black-eyed Doctor Bryerly, whom none of us quite liked and all a little
feared; who seemed to rise out of the ground, and came and went, no
one knew whence or whither, exercising, as I imagined, a mysterious au-
thority over him? Was it all good and true, or a heresy and a witchcraft?
Oh, my beloved father! was it all well with you?
When Lady Knollys entered, she found me in floods of tears, walking
distractedly up and down the room. She kissed me in silence; she walked
back and forward with me, and did her best to console me.

124
 'I think, Cousin Monica, I would wish to see him once more. Shall we
go up?'
'Unless you really wish it very much, I think, darling, you had better
not mind it. It is happier to recollect them as they were; there's a change,
you know, darling, and there is seldom any comfort in the sight.'
'But I do wish it very much. Oh! won't you come with me?'
And so I persuaded her, and up we went hand in hand, in the deepen-
ing twilight; and we halted at the end of the dark gallery, and I called
Mrs. Rusk, growing frightened.
'Tell her to let us in, Cousin Monica,' I whispered.
'She wishes to see him, my lady—does she?' enquired Mrs. Rusk, in an
under-tone, and with a mysterious glance at me, as she softly fitted the
key to the lock.
'Are you quite sure, Maud, dear?'
'Yes, yes.'
But when Mrs. Rusk entered bearing the candle, whose beam mixed
dismally with the expiring twilight, disclosing a great black coffin stand-
ing upon trestles, near the foot of which she took her stand, gazing
sternly into it, I lost heart again altogether and drew back.
'No, Mrs. Rusk, she won't; and I am very glad, dear,' she added to me.
'Come, Mrs. Rusk, come away. Yes, darling,' she continued to me, 'it is
much better for you;' and she hurried me away, and down-stairs again.
But the awful outlines of that large black coffin remained upon my ima-
gination with a new and terrible sense of death.
I had no more any wish to see him. I felt a horror even of the room,
and for more than an hour after a kind of despair and terror, such as I
have never experienced before or since at the idea of death.
Cousin Monica had had her bed placed in my room, and Mary
Quince's moved to the dressing-room adjoining it. For the first time the
superstitious awe that follows death, but not immediately, visited me.
The idea of seeing my father enter the room, or open the door and look
in, haunted me. After Lady Knollys and I were in bed, I could not sleep.
The wind sounded mournfully outside, and the small sounds, the rat-
tlings, and strainings that responded from within, constantly startled me,
and simulated the sounds of steps, of doors opening, of knockings, and
so forth, rousing me with a palpitating heart as often as I fell into a doze.
At length the wind subsided, and these ambiguous noises abated, and
I, fatigued, dropped into a quiet sleep. I was awakened by a sound in the
gallery—which I could not define. A considerable time had passed, for

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the wind was now quite lulled. I sat up in my bed a good deal scared,
listening breathlessly for I knew not what.
I heard a step moving stealthily along the gallery. I called my cousin
Monica softly; and we both heard the door of the room in which my
father's body lay unlocked, some one furtively enter, and the door shut.
'What can it be? Good Heavens, Cousin Monica, do you hear it?'
'Yes, dear; and it is two o'clock.'
Everyone at Knowl was in bed at eleven. We knew very well that Mrs.
Rusk was rather nervous, and would not, for worlds, go alone, and at
such an hour, to the room. We called Mary Quince. We all three listened,
but we heard no other sound. I set these things down here because they
made so terrible an impression upon me at the time.
It ended by our peeping out, all three in a body, upon the gallery.
Through each window in the perspective came its blue sheet of moon-
shine; but the door on which our attention was fixed was in the shade,
and we thought we could discern the glare of a candle through the key-
hole. While in whispers we were debating this point together, the door
opened, the dusky light of a candle emerged, the shadow of a figure
crossed it within, and in another moment the mysterious Doctor Bry-
erly—angular, ungainly, in the black cloth coat that fitted little better
than a coffin—issued from the chamber, candle in hand; murmuring, I
suppose, a prayer—it sounded like a farewell—as much frightened as if I
had just seen a sorcerer stealing stepped cautiously upon the gallery
floor, shutting and locking the door upon the dead; and then having
listened for a second, the saturnine figure, casting a gigantic and distor-
ted shadow upon the ceiling and side-wall from the lowered candle,
strode lightly down the long dark passage, away from us.
I can only speak for myself, and I can honestly say that I felt as much
frightened as if I had just seen a sorcerer stealing from his unhallowed
business. I think Cousin Monica was also affected in the same way, for
she turned the key on the inside of the door when we entered. I do not
think one of us believed at the moment that what we had seen was a
Doctor Bryerly of flesh and blood, and yet the first thing we spoke of in
the morning was Doctor Bryerly's arrival. The mind is a different organ
by night and by day.

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Chapter 23
I TALK WITH DOCTOR BRYERLY
Doctor Bryerly had, indeed, arrived at half-past twelve o'clock at night.
His summons at the hall-door was little heard at our remote side of the
old house of Knowl; and when the sleepy, half-dressed servant opened
the door, the lank Doctor, in glossy black clothing, was standing alone,
his portmanteau on its end upon the steps, and his vehicle disappearing
in the shadows of the old trees.
In he came, sterner and sharper of aspect than usual.
'I've been expected? I'm Doctor Bryerly. Haven't I? So, let whoever is
in charge of the body be called. I must visit it forthwith.'
So the Doctor sat in the back drawing-room, with a solitary candle;
and Mrs. Rusk was called up, and, grumbling much and very peevish,
dressed and went down, her ill-temper subsiding in a sort of fear as she
approached the visitor.
'How do you do, Madam? A sad visit this. Is anyone watching in the
room where the remains of your late master are laid?'
'No.'
'So much the better; it is a foolish custom. Will you please conduct me
to the room? I must pray where he lies—no longer he! And be good
enough to show me my bedroom, and so no one need wait up, and I
shall find my way.'
Accompanied by the man who carried his valise, Mrs. Rusk showed
him to his apartment; but he only looked in, and then glanced rapidly
about to take 'the bearings' of the door.
'Thank you—yes. Now we'll proceed, here, along here? Let me see. A
turn to the right and another to the left—yes. He has been dead some
days. Is he yet in his coffin?'
'Yes, sir; since yesterday afternoon.'
Mrs. Rusk was growing more and more afraid of this lean figure
sheathed in shining black cloth, whose eyes glittered with a horrible sort

127
of cunning, and whose long brown fingers groped before him, as if indic-
ating the way by guess.
'But, of course, the lid's not on; you've not screwed him down, hey?'
'No, sir.'
'That's well. I must look on the face as I pray. He is in his place; I here
on earth. He in the spirit; I in the flesh. The neutral ground lies there. So
are carried the vibrations, and so the light of earth and heaven reflected
back and forward—apaugasma, a wonderful though helpless engine, the
ladder of Jacob, and behold the angels of God ascending and descending
on it. Thanks, I'll take the key. Mysteries to those who will live altogether
in houses of clay, no mystery to such as will use their eyes and read what
is revealed. This candle, it is the longer, please; no—no need of a pair,
thanks; just this, to hold in my hand. And remember, all depends upon
the willing mind. Why do you look frightened? Where is your faith?
Don't you know that spirits are about us at all times? Why should you
fear to be near the body? The spirit is everything; the flesh profiteth
nothing.'
'Yes, sir,' said Mrs. Rusk, making him a great courtesy in the threshold.
She was frightened by his eerie talk, which grew, she fancied, more
voluble and energetic as they approached the corpse.
'Remember, then, that when you fancy yourself alone and wrapt in
darkness, you stand, in fact, in the centre of a theatre, as wide as the
starry floor of heaven, with an audience, whom no man can number, be-
holding you under a flood of light. Therefore, though your body be in
solitude and your mortal sense in darkness, remember to walk as being
in the light, surrounded with a cloud of witnesses. Thus walk; and when
the hour comes, and you pass forth unprisoned from the tabernacle of
the flesh, although it still has its relations and its rights'—and saying this,
as he held the solitary candle aloft in the doorway, he nodded towards
the coffin, whose large black form was faintly traceable against the shad-
ows beyond—'you will rejoice; and being clothed upon with your house
from on high, you will not be found naked. On the other hand, he that
loveth corruption shall have enough thereof. Think upon these things.
Good-night.'
And the Swedenborgian Doctor stepped into the room, taking the
candle with him, and closed the door upon the shadowy still-life there,
and on his own sharp and swarthy visage, leaving Mrs. Rusk in a sort of
panic in the dark alone, to find her way to her room the best way she
could.

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 Early in the morning Mrs. Rusk came to my room to tell me that Doc-
tor Bryerly was in the parlour, and begged to know whether I had not a
message for him. I was already dressed, so, though it was dreadful see-
ing a stranger in my then mood, taking the key of the cabinet in my
hand, I followed Mrs. Rusk downstairs.
Opening the parlour door, she stepped in, and with a little courtesy
said,—
'Please, sir, the young mistress—Miss Ruthyn.'
Draped in black and very pale, tall and slight, 'the young mistress'
was; and as I entered I heard a newspaper rustle, and the sound of steps
approaching to meet me.
Face to face we met, near the door; and, without speaking, I made him
a deep courtesy.
He took my hand, without the least indication on my part, in his hard
lean grasp, and shook it kindly, but familiarly, peering with a stern sort
of curiosity into my face as he continued to hold it. His ill-fitting, glossy
black cloth, ungainly presence, and sharp, dark, vulpine features had in
them, as I said before, the vulgarity of a Glasgow artisan in his Sabbath
suit. I made an instantaneous motion to withdraw my hand, but he held
it firmly.
Though there was a grim sort of familiarity, there was also decision,
shrewdness, and, above all, kindness, in his dark face—a gleam on the
whole of the masterly and the honest—that along with a certain pale-
ness, betraying, I thought, restrained emotion, indicated sympathy and
invited confidence.
'I hope, Miss, you are pretty well?' He pronounced 'pretty' as it is spelt.
'I have come in consequence of a solemn promise exacted more than a
year since by your deceased father, the late Mr. Austin Ruthyn of Knowl,
for whom I cherished a warm esteem, being knit besides with him in
spiritual bonds. It has been a shock to you, Miss?'
'It has, indeed, sir.'
'I've a doctor's degree, I have—Doctor of Medicine, Miss. Like St.
Luke, preacher and doctor. I was in business once, but this is better. As
one footing fails, the Lord provides another. The stream of life is black
and angry; how so many of us get across without drowning, I often won-
der. The best way is not to look too far before—just from one stepping-
stone to another; and though you may wet your feet, He won't let you
drown—He has not allowed me.'
And Doctor Bryerly held up his head, and wagged it resolutely.

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 'You are born to this world's wealth; in its way a great blessing, though
a great trial, Miss, and a great trust; but don't suppose you are destined
to exemption from trouble on that account, any more than poor Em-
manuel Bryerly. As the sparks fly upwards, Miss Ruthyn! Your cush-
ioned carriage may overturn on the highroad, as I may stumble and fall
upon the footpath. There are other troubles than debt and privation.
Who can tell how long health may last, or when an accident may happen
the brain; what mortifications may await you in your own high sphere;
what unknown enemies may rise up in your path; or what slanders may
asperse your name—ha, ha! It is a wonderful equilibrium—a marvellous
dispensation—ha, ha!' and he laughed with a shake of his head, I
thought a little sarcastically, as if he was not sorry my money could not
avail to buy immunity from the general curse.
'But what money can't do, prayer can—bear that in mind, Miss Ruthyn.
We can all pray; and though thorns and snares, and stones of fire lie
strewn in our way, we need not fear them. He will give His angels
charge over us, and in their hands they will bear us up, for He hears and
sees everywhere, and His angels are innumerable.'
He was now speaking gently and solemnly, and paused. But another
vein of thought he had unconsciously opened in my mind, and I said—
'And had my dear papa no other medical adviser?'
He looked at me sharply, and flushed a little under his dark tint. His
medical skill was, perhaps, the point on which his human vanity
vaunted itself, and I dare say there was something very disparaging in
my tone.
'And if he had no other, he might have done worse. I've had many crit-
ical cases in my hands, Miss Ruthyn. I can't charge myself with any mis-
carriage through ignorance. My diagnosis in Mr. Ruthyn's case has been
verified by the result. But I was not alone; Sir Clayton Barrow saw him,
and took my view; a note will reach him in London. But this, excuse me,
is not to the present purpose. The late Mr. Ruthyn told me I was to re-
ceive a key from you, which would open a cabinet where he had placed
his will—ha! thanks,—in his study. And, I think, as there may be direc-
tions about the funeral, it had better be read forthwith. Is there any gen-
tleman—a relative or man of business—near here, whom you would
wish sent for?'
'No, none, thank you; I have confidence in you, sir.'
I think I spoke and looked frankly, for he smiled very kindly, though
with closed lips.

130
 'And you may be sure, Miss Ruthyn, your confidence shall not be dis-
appointed.' Here was a long pause. 'But you are very young, and you
must have some one by in your interest, who has some experience in
business. Let me see. Is not the Rector, Dr. Clay, at hand? In the
town?—very good; and Mr. Danvers, who manages the estate, he must
come. And get Grimston—you see I know all the names—Grimston, the
attorney; for though he was not employed about this will, he has been
Mr. Ruthyn's solicitor a great many years: we must have Grimston; for,
as I suppose you know, though it is a short will, it is a very strange one. I
expostulated, but you know he was very decided when he took a view.
He read it to you, eh?'
'No, sir.'
'Oh, but he told you so much as relates to you and your uncle, Mr.
Silas Ruthyn, of Bartram-Haugh?'
'No, indeed, sir.'
'Ha! I wish he had.'
And with these words Doctor Bryerly's countenance darkened.
'Mr. Silas Ruthyn is a religious man?'
'Oh, very!' said I.
'You've seen a good deal of him?'
'No, I never saw him,' I answered.
'H'm? Odder and odder! But he's a good man, isn't he?'
'Very good, indeed, sir—a very religious man.'
Doctor Bryerly was watching my countenance as I spoke, with a sharp
and anxious eye; and then he looked down, and read the pattern of the
carpet like bad news, for a while, and looking again in my face, askance,
he said—
'He was very near joining us—on the point. He got into correspond-
ence with Henry Voerst, one of our best men. They call us Swedenborgi-
ans, you know; but I dare say that won't go much further, now. I sup-
pose, Miss Ruthyn, one o'clock would be a good hour, and I am sure, un-
der the circumstances, the gentlemen will make a point of attending.'
'Yes, Dr. Bryerly, the notes shall be sent, and my cousin, Lady Knollys,
would I am sure attend with me while the will is being read—there
would be no objection to her presence?'
'None in the world. I can't be quite sure who are joined with me as ex-
ecutors. I'm almost sorry I did not decline; but it is too late regretting.
One thing you must believe Miss Ruthyn: in framing the provisions of
the will I was never consulted—although I expostulated against the only
very unusual one it contains when I heard it. I did so strenuously, but in

131
vain. There was one other against which I protested—having a right to
do so—with better effect. In no other way does the will in any respect
owe anything to my advice or dissuasion. You will please believe this;
also that I am your friend. Yes, indeed, it is my duty.'
The latter words he spoke looking down again, as it were in soliloquy;
and thanking him, I withdrew.
When I reached the hall, I regretted that I had not asked him to state
distinctly what arrangements the will made so nearly affecting, as it
seemed, my relations with my uncle Silas, and for a moment I thought of
returning and requesting an explanation. But then, I bethought me, it
was not very long to wait till one o'clock—so he, at least, would think. I
went up-stairs, therefore, to the 'school-room,' which we used at present
as a sitting-room, and there I found Cousin Monica awaiting me.
'Are you quite well, dear?' asked Lady Knollys, as she came to meet
and kiss me.
'Quite well, Cousin Monica.'
'No nonsense, Maud! you're as white as that handkerchief—what's the
matter? Are you ill—are you frightened? Yes, you're trembling—you're
terrified, child.'
'I believe I am afraid. There is something in poor papa's will about
Uncle Silas—about me. I don't know—Doctor Bryerly says, and he seems
so uncomfortable and frightened himself, I am sure it is something very
bad. I am very much frightened—I am—I am. Oh, Cousin Monica! you
won't leave me?'
So I threw my arms about her neck, clasping her very close, and we
kissed one another, I crying like a frightened child—and indeed in exper-
ience of the world I was no more.

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Chapter 24
THE OPENING OF THE WILL
Perhaps the terror with which I anticipated the hour of one, and the dis-
closure of the unknown undertaking to which I had bound myself, was
irrational and morbid. But, honestly, I doubt it; my tendency has always
been that of many other weak characters, to act impetuously, and after-
wards to reproach myself for consequences which I have, perhaps, in
reality, had little or no share in producing.
It was Doctor Bryerly's countenance and manner in alluding to a par-
ticular provision in my father's will that instinctively awed me. I have
seen faces in a nightmare that haunted me with an indescribable horror,
and yet I could not say wherein lay the fascination. And so it was with
his—an omen, a menace, lurked in its sallow and dismal glance.
'You must not be so frightened, darling,' said Cousin Monica. 'It is
foolish; it is, really; they can't cut off your head, you know: they can't
really harm you in any essential way. If it involved a risk of a little
money, you would not mind it; but men are such odd creatures—they
measure all sacrifices by money. Doctor Bryerly would look just as you
describe, if you were doomed to lose 500l., and yet it would not kill you.'
A companion like Lady Knollys is reassuring; but I could not take her
comfort altogether to heart, for I felt that she had no great confidence in
it herself.
There was a little French clock over the mantelpiece in the school-
room, which I consulted nearly every minute. It wanted now but ten
minutes of one.
'Shall we go down to the drawing-room, dear?' said Cousin Knollys,
who was growing restless like me.
So down-stairs we went, pausing by mutual consent at the great win-
dow at the stair-head, which looks out on the avenue. Mr. Danvers was
riding his tall, grey horse at a walk, under the wide branches toward the
house, and we waited to see him get off at the door. In his turn he

133
loitered there, for the good Rector's gig, driven by the Curate, was ap-
proaching at a smart ecclesiastical trot.
Doctor Clay got down, and shook hands with Mr. Danvers; and after a
word or two, away drove the Curate with that upward glance at the win-
dows from which so few can refrain.
I watched the Rector and Mr. Danvers loitering on the steps as a pa-
tient might the gathering of surgeons who are to perform some unknown
operation. They, too, glanced up at the window as they turned to enter
the house, and I drew back. Cousin Monica looked at her watch.
'Four minutes only. Shall we go to the drawing-room?'
Waiting for a moment to let the gentlemen get by on the way to the
study, we, accordingly, went down, and I heard the Rector talk of the
dangerous state of Grindleston bridge, and wondered how he could
think of such things at a time of sorrow. Everything about those few
minutes of suspense remains fresh in my recollection. I remember how
they loitered and came to a halt at the corner of the oak passage leading
to the study, and how the Rector patted the marble head and smoothed
the inflexible tresses of William Pitt, as he listened to Mr. Danvers' de-
tails about the presentment; and then, as they went on, I recollect the
boisterous nose-blowing that suddenly resounded from the passage, and
which I then referred, and still refer, intuitively to the Rector.
We had not been five minutes in the drawing-room when Branston
entered, to say that the gentlemen I had mentioned were all assembled in
the study.
'Come, dear,' said Cousin Monica; and leaning on her arm I reached
the study door. I entered, followed by her. The gentlemen arrested their
talk and stood up, those who were sitting, and the Rector came forward
very gravely, and in low tones, and very kindly, greeted me. There was
nothing emotional in this salutation, for though my father never quar-
relled, yet an immense distance separated him from all his neighbours,
and I do not think there lived a human being who knew him at more
than perhaps a point or two of his character.
Considering how entirely he secluded himself, my father was, as many
people living remember, wonderfully popular in his county. He was
neighbourly in everything except in seeing company and mixing in soci-
ety. He had magnificent shooting, of which he was extremely liberal. He
kept a pack of hounds at Dollerton, with which all his side of the county
hunted through the season. He never refused any claim upon his purse
which had the slightest show of reason. He subscribed to every fund, so-
cial, charitable, sporting, agricultural, no matter what, provided the

134
honest people of his county took an interest in it, and always with a
princely hand; and although he shut himself up, no one could say that he
was inaccessible, for he devoted hours daily to answering letters, and his
checque-book contributed largely in those replies. He had taken his turn
long ago as High Sheriff; so there was an end of that claim before his
oddity and shyness had quite secluded him. He refused the Lord-Lieu-
tenancy of his county; he declined every post of personal distinction con-
nected with it. He could write an able as well as a genial letter when he
pleased; and his appearances at public meetings, dinners, and so forth
were made in this epistolary fashion, and, when occasion presented, by
magnificent contributions from his purse.
If my father had been less goodnatured in the sporting relations of his
vast estates, or less magnificent in dealing with his fortune, or even if he
had failed to exhibit the intellectual force which always characterised his
letters on public matters, I dare say that his oddities would have con-
demned him to ridicule, and possibly to dislike. But every one of the
principal gentlemen of his county, whose judgment was valuable, has
told me that he was a remarkably able man, and that his failure in public
life was due to his eccentricities, and in no respect to deficiency in those
peculiar mental qualities which make men feared and useful in
Parliament.
I could not forbear placing on record this testimony to the high mental
and the kindly qualities of my beloved father, who might have passed
for a misanthrope or a fool. He was a man of generous nature and
powerful intellect, but given up to the oddities of a shyness which grew
with years and indulgence, and became inflexible with his disappoint-
ments and affliction.
There was something even in the Rector's kind and ceremonious greet-
ing which oddly enough reflected the mixed feelings in which awe was
not without a place, with which his neighbours had regarded my dear
father.
Having done the honours—I am sure looking woefully pale—I had
time to glance quietly at the only figure there with which I was not toler-
ably familiar. This was the junior partner in the firm of Archer and
Sleigh who represented my uncle Silas—a fat and pallid man of six-and-
thirty, with a sly and evil countenance, and it has always seemed to me,
that ill dispositions show more repulsively in a pale fat face than in any
other.
Doctor Bryerly, standing near the window, was talking in a low tone
to Mr. Grimston, our attorney.

135
 I heard good Dr. Clay whisper to Mr. Danvers—
'Is not that Doctor Bryerly—the person with the black—the black—it's
a wig, I think—in the window, talking to Abel Grimston?'
'Yes; that's he.'
'Odd-looking person—one of the Swedenborg people, is not he?' con-
tinued the Rector.
'So I am told.'
'Yes,' said the Rector, quietly; and he crossed one gaitered leg over the
other, and, with fingers interlaced, twiddled his thumbs, as he eyed the
monstrous sectary under his orthodox old brows with a stern inquisitive-
ness. I thought he was meditating theologic battle.
But Dr. Bryerly and Mr. Grimston, still talking together, began to walk
slowly from the window, and the former said in his peculiar grim
tones—
'I beg pardon, Miss Ruthyn; perhaps you would be so good as to show
us which of the cabinets in this room your late lamented father pointed
out as that to which this key belongs.'
I indicated the oak cabinet.
'Very good, ma'am—very good,' said Doctor Bryerly, as he fumbled
the key into the lock.
Cousin Monica could not forbear murmuring—
'Dear! what a brute!'
The junior partner, with his dumpy hands in his pocket, poked his fat
face over Mr. Grimston's shoulder, and peered into the cabinet as the
door opened.
The search was not long. A handsome white paper enclosure, neatly
tied up in pink tape, and sealed with large red seals, was inscribed in my
dear father's hand:—'Will of Austin R. Ruthyn, of Knowl.' Then, in smal-
ler characters, the date, and in the corner a note—'This will was drawn
from my instructions by Gaunt, Hogg, and Hatchett, Solicitors, Great
Woburn Street, London, A.R.R.'
'Let me have a squint at that indorsement, please, gentlemen,' half
whispered the unpleasant person who represented my uncle Silas.
''Tisn't an indorsement. There, look—a memorandum on an envelope,'
said Abel Grimston, gruffly.
'Thanks—all right—that will do,' he responded, himself making a
pencil-note of it, in a long clasp-book which he drew from his coat-
pocket.
The tape was carefully cut, and the envelope removed without tearing
the writing, and forth came the will, at sight of which my heart swelled

136
and fluttered up to my lips, and then dropped down dead as it seemed
into its place.
'Mr. Grimston, you will please to read it,' said Doctor Bryerly, who
took the direction of the process. 'I will sit beside you, and as we go
along you will be good enough to help us to understand technicalities,
and give us a lift where we want it.' 'It's a short will,' said Mr. Grimston,
turning over the sheets 'very—considering. Here's a codicil.'
'I did not see that,' said Doctor Bryerly.
'Dated only a month ago.'
'Oh!' said Doctor Bryerly, putting on his spectacles. Uncle Silas's am-
bassador, sitting close behind, had insinuated his face between Doctor
Bryerly's and the reader's of the will.
'On behalf of the surviving brother of the testator,' interposed the del-
egate, just as Abel Grimston had cleared his voice to begin, 'I take leave
to apply for a copy of this instrument. It will save a deal of trouble, if the
young lady as represents the testator here has no objection.'
'You can have as many copies as you like when the will is proved,'
said Mr. Grimston.
'I know that; but supposing as all's right, where's the objection?'
'Just the objection there always is to acting irregular,' replied Mr.
Grimston.
'You don't object to act disobliging, it seems.'
'You can do as I told you,' replied Mr. Grimston.
'Thank you for nothing,' murmured Mr. Sleigh.
And the reading of the will proceeded, while he made elaborate notes
of its contents in his capacious pocket-book.
'I, Austin Alymer Ruthyn Ruthyn, being, I thank God, of sound mind
and perfect recollection,' &c, &c.; and then came a bequest of all his es-
tates real, chattels real, copyrights, leases, chattels, money, rights, in-
terests, reversions, powers, plate, pictures, and estates and possessions
whatsoever, to four persons—Lord Ilbury, Mr. Penrose Creswell of
Creswell, Sir William Aylmer, Bart., and Hans Emmanuel Bryerly, Doc-
tor of Medicine, 'to have and to hold,' &c. &c. Whereupon my Cousin
Monica ejaculated 'Eh?' and Doctor Bryerly interposed—
'Four trustees, ma'am. We take little but trouble—you'll see; go on.'
Then it came out that all this multifarious splendour was bequeathed
in trust for me, subject to a bequest of 15,000l. to his only brother, Silas
Aylmer Ruthyn, and 3,500l. each to the two children of his said brother;
and lest any doubt should arise by reason of his, the testator's decease as
to the continuance of the arrangement by way of lease under which he

137
enjoyed his present habitation and farm, he left him the use of the
mansion-house and lands of Bartram-Haugh, in the county of Derby-
shire, and of the lands of so-and-so and so-and-so, adjoining thereto, in
the said county, for the term of his natural life, on payment of a rent of
5s. per annum, and subject to the like conditions as to waste, &c., as are
expressed in the said lease.
'By your leave, may I ask is them dispositions all the devises to my cli-
ent, which is his only brother, as it seems to me you've seen the will be-
fore?' enquired Mr. Sleigh.
'Nothing more, unless there is something in the codicil,' answered Dr.
Bryerly.
But there was no mention of him in the codicil.
Mr. Sleigh threw himself back in his chair, and sneered, with the end
of his pencil between his teeth. I hope his disappointment was altogether
for his client. Mr. Danvers fancied, he afterwards said, that he had prob-
ably expected legacies which might have involved litigation, or, at all
events, law costs, and perhaps a stewardship; but this was very barren;
and Mr. Danvers also remarked, that the man was a very low practition-
er, and wondered how my uncle Silas could have commissioned such a
person to represent him.
So far the will contained nothing of which my most partial friend
could have complained. The codicil, too, devised only legacies to ser-
vants, and a sum of 1,000l., with a few kind words, to Monica, Lady
Knollys, and a further sum of 3,000l. to Dr. Bryerly, stating that the leg-
atee had prevailed upon him to erase from the draft of his will a bequest
to him to that amount, but that, in consideration of all the trouble de-
volving upon him as trustee, he made that bequest by his codicil; and
with these arrangements the permanent disposition of his property was
completed.
But that direction to which he and Doctor Bryerly had darkly alluded,
was now to come, and certainly it was a strange one. It appointed my
uncle Silas my sole guardian, with full parental authority over me until I
should have reached the age of twenty-one, up to which time I was to
reside under his care at Bartram-Haugh, and it directed the trustees to
pay over to him yearly a sum of 2,000l. during the continuance of the
guardianship for my suitable maintenance, education, and expenses.
You have now a sufficient outline of my father's will. The only thing I
painfully felt in this arrangement was, the break-up—the dismay that ac-
companies the disappearance of home. Otherwise, there was something
rather pleasurable in the idea. As long as I could remember, I had always

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cherished the same mysterious curiosity about my uncle, and the same
longing to behold him. This was about to be gratified. Then there was
my cousin Milicent, about my own age. My life had been so lonely, that I
had acquired none of those artificial habits that induce the fine-lady
nature—a second, and not always a very amiable one. She had lived a
solitary life, like me. What rambles and readings we should have togeth-
er! what confidences and castle-buildings! and then there was a new
country and a fine old place, and the sense of interest and adventure that
always accompanies change in our early youth.
There were four letters all alike with large, red seals, addressed re-
spectively to each of the trustees named in the will. There was also one
addressed to Silas Alymer Ruthyn, Esq., Bartram-Haugh Manor, &c. &c.,
which Mr. Sleigh offered to deliver. But Doctor Bryerly thought the post-
office was the more regular channel. Uncle Silas's representative was
questioning Doctor Bryerly in an under-tone.
I turned my eyes on my cousin Monica—I felt so inexpressibly re-
lieved—expecting to see a corresponding expression in her countenance.
But I was startled. She looked ghastly and angry. I stared in her face, not
knowing what to think. Could the will have personally disappointed
her? Such doubts, though we fancy in after-life they belong to maturity
and experience only, do sometimes cross our minds in youth. But the
suggestion wronged Lady Knollys, who neither expected nor wanted
anything, being rich, childless, generous, and frank. It was the unexpec-
ted character of her countenance that scared me, and for a moment the
shock called up corresponding moral images.
Lady Knollys, starting up, raised her head, so as to see over Mr.
Sleigh's shoulder, and biting her pale lip, she cleared her voice and
demanded—
'Doctor Bryerly, pray, sir, is the reading concluded?'
'Concluded? Quite. Yes, nothing more,' he answered with a nod, and
continued his talk with Mr. Danvers and Abel Grimston.
'And to whom,' said Lady Knollys, with an effort, 'will the property
belong, in case—in case my little cousin here should die before she
comes of age?'
'Eh? Well—wouldn't it go to the heir-at-law and next of kin?' said Doc-
tor Bryerly, turning to Abel Grimston.
'Ay—to be sure,' said the attorney, thoughtfully.
'And who is that?' pursued my cousin.
'Well, her uncle, Mr. Silas Ruthyn. He's both heir-at-law and next of
kin,' pursued Abel Grimston.

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 'Thank you,' said Lady Knollys.
Doctor Clay came forward, bowing very low, in his standing collar
and single-breasted coat, and graciously folded my hand in his soft
wrinkled grasp—
'Allow me, my dear Miss Ruthyn, while expressing my regret that we
are to lose you from among our little flock—though I trust but for a
short, a very short time—to say how I rejoice at the particular arrange-
ment indicated by the will we have just heard read. My curate, William
Fairfield, resided for some years in the same spiritual capacity in the
neighbourhood of your, I will say, admirable uncle, with occasional in-
tercourse with whom he was favoured—may I not say blessed?—a true
Christian Churchman—a Christian gentleman. Can I say more? A most
happy, happy choice.' A very low bow here, with eyes nearly closed, and
a shake of the head. 'Mrs. Clay will do herself the honour of waiting
upon you, to pay her respects, before you leave Knowl for your tempor-
ary sojourn in another sphere.'
So, with another deep bow—for I had become a great personage all at
once—he let go my hand cautiously and delicately, as if he were setting
down a curious china tea-cup. And I courtesied low to him, not knowing
what to say, and then to the assembly generally, who all bowed. And
Cousin Monica whispered, briskly, 'Come away,' and took my hand with
a very cold and rather damp one, and led me from the room.

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Chapter 25
I HEAR FROM UNCLE SILAS
Without saying a word, Cousin Monica accompanied me to the school-
room, and on entering she shut the door, not with a spirited clang, but
quietly and determinedly.
'Well, dear,' she said, with the same pale, excited countenance, 'that
certainly is a sensible and charitable arrangement. I could not have be-
lieved it possible, had I not heard it with my ears.'
'About my going to Bartram-Haugh?'
'Yes, exactly so, under Silas Ruthyn's guardianship, to spend
two—three—of the most important years of your education and your life
under that roof. Is that, my dear, what was in your mind when you were
so alarmed about what you were to be called upon to do, or undergo?'
'No, no, indeed. I had no notion what it might be. I was afraid of
something serious,' I answered.
'And, my dear Maud, did not your poor father speak to you as if it was
something serious?' said she. 'And so it is, I can tell you, something seri-
ous, and very serious; and I think it ought to be prevented, and I certainly
will prevent it if I possibly can.'
I was puzzled utterly by the intensity of Lady Knollys' protest. I
looked at her, expecting an explanation of her meaning; but she was si-
lent, looking steadfastly on the jewels on her right-hand fingers, with
which she was drumming a staccato march on the table, very pale, with
gleaming eyes, evidently thinking deeply. I began to think she had a pre-
judice against my uncle Silas.
'He is not very rich,' I commenced.
'Who?' said Lady Knollys.
'Uncle Silas,' I replied.
'No, certainly; he's in debt,' she answered. 'But then, how very highly
Doctor Clay spoke of him!' I pursued.
'Don't talk of Doctor Clay. I do think that man is the greatest goose I
ever heard talk. I have no patience with such men,' she replied.

141
 I tried to remember what particular nonsense Doctor Clay had uttered,
and I could recollect nothing, unless his eulogy upon my uncle were to
be classed with that sort of declamation.
'Danvers is a very proper man and a good accountant, I dare say; but
he is either a very deep person, or a fool—I believe a fool. As for your at-
torney, I suppose he knows his business, and also his interest, and I have
no doubt he will consult it. I begin to think he best man among them, the
shrewdest and the most reliable, is that vulgar visionary in the black wig.
I saw him look at you, Maud, and I liked his face, though it is abomin-
ably ugly and vulgar, and cunning, too; but I think he's a just man, and I
dare say with right feelings—I'm sure he has.'
I was quite at a loss to divine the gist of my cousin's criticism.
'I'll have some talk with Dr. Bryerly; I feel convinced he takes my view,
and we must really think what had best be done.'
'Is there anything in the will, Cousin Monica, that does not appear?' I
asked, for I was growing very uneasy. 'I wish you would tell me. What
view do you mean?'
'No view in particular; the view that a desolate old park, and the house
of a neglected old man, who is very poor, and has been desperately fool-
ish, is not the right place for you, particularly at your years. It is quite
shocking, and I will speak to Doctor Bryerly. May I ring the bell, dear?'
'Certainly;' and I rang it.
'When does he leave Knowl?'
I could not tell. Mrs. Rusk, however, was sent for, and she could tell us
that he had announced his intention of taking the night train from Drack-
leton, and was to leave Knowl for that station at half-past six o'clock.
'May Rusk give or send him a message from me, dear?' asked Lady
Knollys.
Of course she might.
'Then please let him know that I request he will be so good as to allow
me a very few minutes, just to say a word before he goes.'
'You kind cousin!' I said, placing my two hands on her shoulders, and
looking earnestly in her face; 'you are anxious about me, more than you
say. Won't you tell me why? I am much more unhappy, really, in ignor-
ance, than if I understood the cause.'
'Well, dear, haven't I told you? The two or three years of your life
which are to form you are destined to be passed in utter loneliness, and, I
am sure, neglect. You can't estimate the disadvantage of such an arrange-
ment. It is full of disadvantages. How it could have entered the head of
poor Austin—although I should not say that, for I am sure I do

142
understand it,—but how he could for any purpose have directed such a
measure is quite inconceivable. I never heard of anything so foolish and
abominable, and I will prevent it if I can.'
At that moment Mrs. Rusk announced that Doctor Bryerly would see
Lady Knollys at any time she pleased before his departure.
'It shall be this moment, then,' said the energetic lady, and up she
stood, and made that hasty general adjustment before the glass, which,
no matter under what circumstances, and before what sort of creature
one's appearance is to be made, is a duty that every woman owes to her-
self. And I heard her a moment after, at the stair-head, directing Bran-
ston to let Dr. Bryerly know that she awaited him in the drawing-room.
And now she was gone, and I began to wonder and speculate. Why
should my cousin Monica make all this fuss about, after all, a very natur-
al arrangement? My uncle, whatever he might have been, was now a
good man—a religious man—perhaps a little severe; and with this
thought a dark streak fell across my sky.
A cruel disciplinarian! had I not read of such characters?—lock and
key, bread and water, and solitude! To sit locked up all night in a dark
out-of-the-way room, in a great, ghosty, old-fashioned house, with no
one nearer than the other wing. What years of horror in one such night!
Would not this explain my poor father's hesitation, and my cousin
Monica's apparently disproportioned opposition? When an idea of terror
presents itself to a young person's mind, it transfixes and fills the vision,
without respect of probabilities or reason.
My uncle was now a terrible old martinet, with long Bible lessons, lec-
tures, pages of catechism, sermons to be conned by rote, and an awful
catalogue of punishments for idleness, and what would seem to him im-
piety. I was going, then, to a frightful isolated reformatory, where for the
first time in my life I should be subjected to a rigorous and perhaps bar-
barous discipline.
All this was an exhalation of fancy, but it quite overcame me. I threw
myself, in my solitude, on the floor, upon my knees, and prayed for de-
liverance—prayed that Cousin Monica might prevail with Doctor Bry-
erly, and both on my behalf with the Lord Chancellor, or the High Sher-
iff, or whoever else my proper deliverer might be; and when my cousin
returned, she found me quite in an agony.
'Why, you little fool! what fancy has taken possession of you now?' she
cried.
And when my new terror came to light, she actually laughed a little to
reassure me, and she said—

143
 'My dear child, your uncle Silas will never put you through your duty
to your neighbour; all the time you are under his roof you'll have idle-
ness and liberty enough, and too much, I fear. It is neglect, my dear, not
discipline, that I'm afraid of.'
'I think, dear Cousin Monica, you are afraid of something more than
neglect,' I said, relieved, however.
'I am afraid of more than neglect,' she replied promptly; 'but I hope my
fears may turn out illusory, and that possibly they may be avoided. And
now, for a few hours at least, let us think of something else. I rather like
that Doctor Bryerly. I could not get him to say what I wanted. I don't
think he's Scotch, but he is very cautious, and I am sure, though he
would not say so, that he thinks of the matter exactly as I do. He says
that those fine people, who are named as his co-trustees, won't take any
trouble, and will leave everything to him, and I am sure he is right. So
we must not quarrel with him, Maud, nor call him hard names, although
he certainly is intolerably vulgar and ugly, and at times very nearly im-
pertinent—I suppose without knowing, or indeed very much caring.'
We had a good deal to think of, and talked incessantly. There were
bursts and interruptions of grief, and my kind cousin's consolations. I
have often since been so lectured for giving way to grief, that I wonder at
the patience exercised by her during this irksome visit. Then there was
some reading of that book whose claims are always felt in the terrible
days of affliction. After that we had a walk in the yew garden, that
quaint little cloistered quadrangle—the most solemn, sad, and anti-
quated of gardens.
'And now, my dear, I must really leave you for two or three hours. I
have ever so many letters to write, and my people must think I'm dead
by this time.'
So till tea-time I had poor Mary Quince, with her gushes of simple
prattle and her long fits of vacant silence, for my companion. And such a
one, who can con over by rote the old friendly gossip about the dead,
talk about their ways, and looks, and likings, without much psychologic
refinement, but with a simple admiration and liking that never measured
them critically, but always with faith and love, is in general about as
comfortable a companion as one can find for the common moods of grief.
It is not easy to recall in calm and happy hours the sensations of an
acute sorrow that is past. Nothing, by the merciful ordinance of God, is
more difficult to remember than pain. One or two great agonies of that
time I do remember, and they remain to testify of the rest, and convince
me, though I can see it no more, how terrible all that period was.

144
 Next day was the funeral, that appalling necessity; smuggled away in
whispers, by black familiars, unresisting, the beloved one leaves home,
without a farewell, to darken those doors no more; henceforward to lie
outside, far away, and forsaken, through the drowsy heats of summer,
through days of snow and nights of tempest, without light or warmth,
without a voice near. Oh, Death, king of terrors! The body quakes and
the spirit faints before thee. It is vain, with hands clasped over our eyes,
to scream our reclamation; the horrible image will not be excluded. We
have just the word spoken eighteen hundred years ago, and our trem-
bling faith. And through the broken vault the gleam of the Star of
Bethlehem.
I was glad in a sort of agony when it was over. So long as it remained
to be done, something of the catastrophe was still suspended. Now it
was all over.
The house so strangely empty. No owner—no master! I with my
strange momentary liberty, bereft of that irreplaceable love, never quite
prized until it is lost. Most people have experienced the dismay that un-
derlies sorrow under such circumstances.
The apartment of the poor outcast from life is now dismantled. Beds
and curtains taken down, and furniture displaced; carpets removed, win-
dows open and doors locked; the bedroom and anteroom were hencefor-
ward, for many a day, uninhabited. Every shocking change smote my
heart like a reproach.
I saw that day that Cousin Monica had been crying for the first time, I
think, since her arrival at Knowl; and I loved her more for it, and felt
consoled. My tears have often been arrested by the sight of another per-
son weeping, and I never could explain why. But I believe that many
persons experience the same odd reaction.
The funeral was conducted, in obedience to his brief but peremptory
direction, very privately and with little expense. But of course there was
an attendance, and the tenants of the Knowl estate also followed the
hearse to the mausoleum, as it is called, in the park, where he was laid
beside my dear mother. And so the repulsive ceremonial of that dreadful
day was over. The grief remained, but there was rest from the fatigue of
agitation, and a comparative calm supervened.
It was now the stormy equinoctial weather that sounds the wild dirge
of autumn, and marches the winter in. I love, and always did, that grand
undefinable music, threatening and bewailing, with its strange soul of
liberty and desolation.

145
 By this night's mail, as we sat listening to the storm, in the drawing-
room at Knowl, there reached me a large letter with a great black seal,
and a wonderfully deep-black border, like a widow's crape. I did not re-
cognise the handwriting; but on opening the funereal missive, it proved
to be from my uncle Silas, and was thus expressed:—
'MY DEAREST NIECE,—This letter will reach you, probably, on the
day which consigns the mortal remains of my beloved brother, Austin,
your dear father, to the earth. Sad ceremony, from taking my mournful
part in which I am excluded by years, distance, and broken health. It
will, I trust, at this season of desolation, be not unwelcome to remember
that a substitute, imperfect—unworthy—but most affectionately zealous,
for the honoured parent whom you have just lost, has been appointed, in
me, your uncle, by his will. I am aware that you were present during the
reading of it, but I think it will be for our mutual satisfaction that our
new and more affectionate relations should be forthwith entered upon.
My conscience and your safety, and I trust convenience, will thereby be
consulted. You will, my dear niece, remain at Knowl, until a few simple
arrangements shall have been completed for your reception at this place.
I will then settle the details of your little journey to us, which shall be
performed as comfortably and easily as possible. I humbly pray that this
affliction may be sanctified to us all, and that in our new duties we may
be supported, comforted, and directed. I need not remind you that I now
stand to you in loco parentis, which means in the relation of father, and
you will not forget that you are to remain at Knowl until you hear fur-
ther from me.
'I remain, my dear niece, your most affectionate uncle and guardian,
SILAS RUTHYN.'
'P.S.—Pray present my respects to Lady Knollys, who, I understand, is
sojourning at Knowl. I would observe that a lady who cherishes, I have
reason to fear, unfriendly feelings against your uncle, is not the most de-
sirable companion for his ward. But upon the express condition that I am
not made the subject of your discussions—a distinction which could not
conduce to your forming a just and respectful estimate of me—I do not
interpose my authority to bring your intercourse to an immediate close.'
As I read this postscript, my cheek tingled as if I had received a box on
the ear. Uncle Silas was as yet a stranger. The menace of authority was
new and sudden, and I felt with a pang of mortification the full force of
the position in which my dear father's will had placed me.
I was silent, and handed the letter to my cousin, who read it with a
kind of smile until she came, as I supposed, to the postscript, when her

146
countenance, on which my eyes were fixed, changed, and with flushed
cheeks she knocked the hand that held the letter on the table before her,
and exclaimed—
'Did I ever hear! Well, if this isn't impertinence! What an old man that
is!'
There was a pause, during which Lady Knollys held her head high
with a frown, and sniffed a little.
'I did not intend to talk about him, but now I will. I'll talk away just
whatever I like; and I'll stay here just as long as you let me, Maud, and
you need not be one atom afraid of him. Our intercourse to an
"immediate close," indeed! I only wish he were here. He should hear
something!'
And Cousin Monica drank off her entire cup of tea at one draught, and
then she said, more in her own way—
'I'm better!' and drew a long breath, and then she laughed a little in a
waggish defiance. 'I wish we had him here, Maud, and would not we give
him a bit of our minds! And this before the poor will is so much as
proved!'
'I am almost glad he wrote that postscript; for although I don't think he
has any authority in that matter while I am under my own roof,' I said,
extemporising a legal opinion, 'and, therefore, shan't obey him, it has
somehow opened my eyes to my real situation.'
I sighed, I believe, very desolately, for Lady Knollys came over and
kissed me very gently and affectionately.
'It really seems, Maud, as if he had a supernatural sense, and heard
things through the air over fifty miles of heath and hill. You remember
how, just as he was probably writing that very postscript yesterday, I
was urging you to come and stay with me, and planning to move Dr.
Bryerly in our favour. And so I will, Maud, and to me you shall
come—my guest, mind—I should be so delighted; and really if Silas is
under a cloud, it has been his own doing, and I don't see that it is your
business to fight his battle. He can't live very long. The suspicion,
whatever it is dies with him, and what could poor dear Austin prove by
his will but what everybody knew quite well before—his own strong be-
lief in Silas's innocence? What an awful storm! The room trembles. Don't
you like the sound? What they used to call 'wolving' in the old organ at
Dorminster!'

147
Chapter 26
THE STORY OF UNCLE SILAS
And so it was like the yelling of phantom hounds and hunters, and the
thunder of their coursers in the air—a furious, grand and supernatural
music, which in my fancy made a suitable accompaniment to the discus-
sion of that enigmatical person—martyr—angel—demon—Uncle
Silas—with whom my fate was now so strangely linked, and whom I
had begun to fear.
'The storm blows from that point,' I said, indicating it with my hand
and eye, although the window shutters and curtains were closed. 'I saw
all the trees bend that way this evening. That way stands the great lonely
wood, where my darling father and mother lie. Oh, how dreadful on
nights like this, to think of them—a vault!—damp, and dark, and solit-
ary—under the storm.'
Cousin Monica looked wistfully in the same direction, and with a
short sigh she said—
'We think too much of the poor remains, and too little of the spirit
which lives for ever. I am sure they are happy.' And she sighed again. 'I
wish I dare hope as confidently for myself. Yes, Maud, it is sad. We are
such materialists, we can't help feeling so. We forget how well it is for us
that our present bodies are not to last always. They are constructed for a
time and place of trouble—plainly mere temporary machines that wear
out, constantly exhibiting failure and decay, and with such tremendous
capacity for pain. The body lies alone, and so it ought, for it is plainly its
good Creator's will; it is only the tabernacle, not the person, who is
clothed upon after death, Saint Paul says, "with a house which is from
heaven." So Maud, darling, although the thought will trouble us again
and again, there is nothing in it; and the poor mortal body is only the
cold ruin of a habitation which they have forsaken before we do. So this
great wind, you say, is blowing toward us from the wood there. If so,
Maud, it is blowing from Bartram-Haugh, too, over the trees and chim-
neys of that old place, and the mysterious old man, who is quite right in

148
thinking I don't like him; and I can fancy him an old enchanter in his
castle, waving his familiar spirits on the wind to fetch and carry tidings
of our occupations here.'
I lifted my head and listened to the storm, dying away in the distance
sometimes—sometimes swelling and pealing around and above us—and
through the dark and solitude my thoughts sped away to Bartram-
Haugh and Uncle Silas.
'This letter,' I said at last, 'makes me feel differently. I think he is a
stern old man—is he?'
'It is twenty years, now, since I saw him,' answered Lady Knollys. 'I
did not choose to visit at his house.'
'Was that before the dreadful occurrence at Bartram-Haugh?'
'Yes—before, dear. He was not a reformed rake, but only a ruined one
then. Austin was very good to him. Mr. Danvers says it is quite unac-
countable how Silas can have made away with the immense sums he got
from his brother from time to time without benefiting himself in the
least. But, my dear, he played; and trying to help a man who plays, and
is unlucky—and some men are, I believe, habitually unlucky—is like try-
ing to fill a vessel that has no bottom. I think, by-the-by, my hopeful
nephew, Charles Oakley, plays. Then Silas went most unjustifiably into
all manner of speculations, and your poor father had to pay everything.
He lost something quite astounding in that bank that ruined so many
country gentlemen—poor Sir Harry Shackleton, in Yorkshire, had to sell
half his estate. But your kind father went on helping him, up to his mar-
riage—I mean in that extravagant way which was really totally useless.'
'Has my aunt been long dead?'
'Twelve or fifteen years—more, indeed—she died before your poor
mamma. She was very unhappy, and I am sure would have given her
right hand she had never married Silas.'
'Did you like her?'
'No, dear; she was a coarse, vulgar woman.'
'Coarse and vulgar, and Uncle Silas's wife!' I echoed in extreme sur-
prise, for Uncle Silas was a man of fashion—a beau in his day—and
might have married women of good birth and fortune, I had no doubt,
and so I expressed myself. 'Yes, dear; so he might, and poor dear Austin
was very anxious he should, and would have helped him with a hand-
some settlement, I dare say, but he chose to marry the daughter of a Den-
bigh innkeeper.'
'How utterly incredible!' I exclaimed.

149
 'Not the least incredible, dear—a kind of thing not at all so uncommon
as you fancy.'
'What!—a gentleman of fashion and refinement marry a person—'
'A barmaid!—just so,' said Lady Knollys. 'I think I could count half a
dozen men of fashion who, to my knowledge, have ruined themselves
just in a similar way.'
'Well, at all events, it must be allowed that in this he proved himself al-
together unworldly.'
'Not a bit unworldly, but very vicious,' replied Cousin Monica, with a
careless little laugh. 'She was very beautiful, curiously beautiful, for a
person in her station. She was very like that Lady Hamilton who was
Nelson's sorceress—elegantly beautiful, but perfectly low and stupid. I
believe, to do him justice, he only intended to ruin her; but she was cun-
ning enough to insist upon marriage. Men who have never in all their
lives denied themselves the indulgence of a single fancy, cost what it
may, will not be baulked even by that condition if the penchant be only
violent enough.'
I did not half understand this piece of worldly psychology, at which
Lady Knollys seemed to laugh.
'Poor Silas, certainly he struggled honestly against the consequences,
for he tried after the honeymoon to prove the marriage bad. But the
Welsh parson and the innkeeper papa were too strong for him, and the
young lady was able to hold her struggling swain fast in that respectable
noose—and a pretty prize he proved!'
'And she died, poor thing, broken-hearted, I heard.'
'She died, at all events, about ten years after her marriage; but I really
can't say about her heart. She certainly had enough ill-usage, I believe, to
kill her; but I don't know that she had feeling enough to die of it, if it had
not been that she drank: I am told that Welsh women often do. There
was jealousy, of course, and brutal quarrelling, and all sorts of horrid
stories. I visited at Bartram-Haugh for a year or two, though no one else
would. But when that sort of thing began, of course I gave it up; it was
out of the question. I don't think poor Austin ever knew how bad it was.
And then came that odious business about wretched Mr. Charke. You
know he—he committed suicide at Bartram.'
'I never heard about that,' I said; and we both paused, and she looked
sternly at the fire, and the storm roared and ha-ha-ed till the old house
shook again.
'But Uncle Silas could not help that,' I said at last.
'No, he could not help it,' she acquiesced unpleasantly.

150
 'And Uncle Silas was'—I paused in a sort of fear.
'He was suspected by some people of having killed him'—she com-
pleted the sentence.
There was another long pause here, during which the storm outside
bellowed and hooted like an angry mob roaring at the windows for a vic-
tim. An intolerable and sickening sensation overpowered me.
'But you did not suspect him, Cousin Knollys?' I said, trembling very
much.
'No,' she answered very sharply. 'I told you so before. Of course I did
not.'
There was another silence.
'I wish, Cousin Monica,' I said, drawing close to her, 'you had not said
that about Uncle Silas being like a wizard, and sending his spirits on the
wind to listen. But I'm very glad you never suspected him.' I insinuated
my cold hand into hers, and looked into her face I know not with what
expression. She looked down into mine with a hard, haughty stare, I
thought.
'Of course I never suspected him; and never ask me that question again,
Maud Ruthyn.'
Was it family pride, or what was it, that gleamed so fiercely from her
eyes as she said this? I was frightened—I was wounded—I burst into
tears.
'What is my darling crying for? I did not mean to be cross. Was I
cross?' said this momentary phantom of a grim Lady Knollys, in an in-
stant translated again into kind, pleasant Cousin Monica, with her arms
about my neck.
'No, no, indeed—only I thought I had vexed you; and, I believe, think-
ing of Uncle Silas makes me nervous, and I can't help thinking of him
nearly always.' 'Nor can I, although we might both easily find something
better to think of. Suppose we try?' said Lady Knollys.
'But, first, I must know a little more about that Mr. Charke, and what
circumstances enabled Uncle Silas's enemies to found on his death that
wicked slander, which has done no one any good, and caused some per-
sons so much misery. There is Uncle Silas, I may say, ruined by it; and
we all know how it darkened the life of my dear father.'
'People will talk, my dear. Your uncle Silas had injured himself before
that in the opinion of the people of his county. He was a black sheep, in
fact. Very bad stories were told and believed of him. His marriage cer-
tainly was a disadvantage, you know, and the miserable scenes that went

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on in his disreputable house—all that predisposed people to believe ill of
him.'
'How long is it since it happened?'
'Oh, a long time; I think before you were born,' answered she.
'And the injustice still lives—they have not forgotten it yet?' said I, for
such a period appeared to me long enough to have consigned anything
in its nature perishable to oblivion.
Lady Knollys smiled.
'Tell me, like a darling cousin, the whole story as well as you can recol-
lect it. Who was Mr. Charke?'
'Mr. Charke, my dear, was a gentleman on the turf—that is the phrase,
I think—one of those London men, without birth or breeding, who
merely in right of their vices and their money are admitted to associate
with young dandies who like hounds and horses, and all that sort of
thing. That set knew him very well, but of course no one else. He was at
the Matlock races, and your uncle asked him to Bartram-Haugh; and the
creature, Jew or Gentile, whatever he was, fancied there was more hon-
our than, perhaps, there really was in a visit to Bartram-Haugh.'
'For the kind of person you describe, it was, I think, a rather unusual
honour to be invited to stay in the house of a man of Uncle Ruthyn's
birth.'
'Well, so it was perhaps; for though they knew him very well on the
course, and would ask him to their tavern dinners, they would not, of
course, admit him to the houses where ladies were. But Silas's wife was
not much regarded at Bartram-Haugh. Indeed, she was very little seen,
for she was every evening tipsy in her bedroom, poor woman!'
'How miserable!' I exclaimed.
'I don't think it troubled Silas very much, for she drank gin, they said,
poor thing, and the expense was not much; and, on the whole, I really
think he was glad she drank, for it kept her out of his way, and was
likely to kill her. At this time your poor father, who was thoroughly dis-
gusted at his marriage, had stopped the supplies, you know, and Silas
was very poor, and as hungry as a hawk, and they said he pounced upon
this rich London gamester, intending to win his money. I am telling you
now all that was said afterwards. The races lasted I forget how many
days, and Mr. Charke stayed at Bartram-Haugh all this time and for
some days after. It was thought that poor Austin would pay all Silas's
gambling debts, and so this wretched Mr. Charke made heavy wagers
with him on the races, and they played very deep, besides, at Bartram.
He and Silas used to sit up at night at cards. All these particulars, as I

152
told you, came out afterwards, for there was an inquest, you know, and
then Silas published what he called his "statement," and there was a
great deal of most distressing correspondence in the newspapers.'
'And why did Mr. Charke kill himself?' I asked.
'Well, I will tell you first what all are agreed about. The second night
after the races, your uncle and Mr. Charke sat up till between two and
three o'clock in the morning, quite by themselves, in the parlour. Mr.
Charke's servant was at the Stag's Head Inn at Feltram, and therefore
could throw no light upon what occurred at night at Bartram-Haugh; but
he was there at six o'clock in the morning, and very early at his master's
door by his direction. He had locked it, as was his habit, upon the inside,
and the key was in the lock, which turned out afterwards a very import-
ant point. On knocking he found that he could not awaken his master,
because, as it appeared when the door was forced open, his master was
lying dead at his bedside, not in a pool, but a perfect pond of blood, as
they described it, with his throat cut.'
'How horrible!' cried I.
'So it was. Your uncle Silas was called up, and greatly shocked of
course, and he did what I believe was best. He had everything left as
nearly as possible in the exact state in which it had been found, and he
sent his own servant forthwith for the coroner, and, being himself a
justice of the peace, he took the depositions of Mr. Charke's servant
while all the incidents were still fresh in his memory.'
'Could anything be more straightforward, more right and wise?' I said.
'Oh, nothing of course,' answered Lady Knollys, I thought a little drily.

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Chapter 27
MORE ABOUT TOM CHARKE'S SUICIDE
So the inquest was held, and Mr. Manwaring, of Wail Forest, was the
only juryman who seemed to entertain the idea during the inquiry that
Mr. Charke had died by any hand but his own.
'And how could he fancy such a thing?' I exclaimed indignantly.
'Well, you will see the result was quite enough to justify them in say-
ing as they did, that he died by his own hand. The window was found
fastened with a screw on the inside, as it had been when the chamber-
maid had arranged it at nine o'-clock; no one could have entered through
it. Besides, it was on the third story, and the rooms are lofty, so it stood
at a great height from the ground, and there was no ladder long enough
to reach it. The house is built in the form of a hollow square, and Mr.
Charke's room looked into the narrow court-yard within. There is but
one door leading into this, and it did not show any sign of having been
open for years. The door was locked upon the inside, and the key in the
lock, so that nobody could have made an entrance that way either, for it
was impossible, you see, to unlock the door from the outside.' 'And how
could they affect to question anything so clear?' I asked.
'There did come, nevertheless, a kind of mist over the subject, which
gave those who chose to talk unpleasantly an opportunity of insinuating
suspicions, though they could not themselves find the clue of the mys-
tery. In the first place, it appeared that he had gone to bed very tipsy,
and that he was heard sing ing and noisy in his room while getting to
bed—not the mood in which men make away with themselves. Then, al-
though his own razor was found in that dreadful blood (it is shocking to
have to hear all this) near his right hand, the fingers of his left were cut
to the bone. Then the memorandum book in which his bets were noted
was nowhere to be found. That, you know, was very odd. His keys were
there attached to a chain. He wore a great deal of gold and trinkets. I saw
him, wretched man, on the course. They had got off their horses. He and
your uncle were walking on the course.'

154
 'Did he look like a gentleman?' I inquired, as I dare say, other young
ladies would.
'He looked like a Jew, my dear. He had a horrid brown coat with a vel-
vet cape, curling black hair over his collar, and great whiskers, very high
shoulders, and he was puffing a cigar straight up into the air. I was
shocked to see Silas in such company.'
'And did his keys discover anything?' I asked.
'On opening his travelling desk and a small japanned box within it a
vast deal less money was found than was expected—in fact, very little.
Your uncle said that he had won some of it the night before at play, and
that Charke complained to him when tipsy of having had severe losses
to counterbalance his gains on the races. Besides, he had been paid but a
small part of those gains. About his book it appeared that there were
little notes of bets on the backs of letters, and it was said that he some-
times made no other memorandum of his wagers—but this was dis-
puted—and among those notes there was not one referring to Silas. But,
then, there was an omission of all allusion to his transactions with two
other well-known gentlemen. So that was not singular.'
'No, certainly; that was quite accounted for,' said I.
'And then came the question,' continued she, 'what motive could Mr.
Charke possibly have had for making away with himself.'
'But is not that very difficult to make out in many cases?' I interposed.
'It was said that he had some mysterious troubles in London, at which
he used to hint. Some people said that he really was in a scrape, but oth-
ers that there was no such thing, and that when he talked so he was only
jesting. There was no suspicion during the inquest that your uncle Silas
was involved, except those questions of Mr. Manwaring's.'
'What were they?' I asked.
'I really forget; but they greatly offended your uncle, and there was a
little scene in the room. Mr. Manwaring seemed to think that some one
had somehow got into the room. Through the door it could not be, nor
down the chimney, for they found an iron bar across the flue, near the
top in the masonry. The window looked into a court-yard no bigger than
a ball-room. They went down and examined it, but, though the ground
beneath was moist, they could not discover the slightest trace of a foot-
print. So far as they could make out, Mr. Charke had hermetically sealed
himself into his room, and then cut his throat with his own razor.'
'Yes,' said I, 'for it was all secured—that is, the window and the
door—upon the inside, and no sign of any attempt to get in.'

155
 'Just so; and when the walls were searched, and, as your uncle Silas
directed, the wainscoting removed, some months afterwards, when the
scandal grew loudest, then it was evident that there was no concealed ac-
cess to the room.'
'So the answer to all those calumnies was simply that the crime was
impossible,' said I. 'How dreadful that such a slander should have re-
quired an answer at all!'
'It was an unpleasant affair even then, although I cannot say that any-
one supposed Silas guilty; but you know the whole thing was disreput-
able, that Mr. Charke was a discreditable inmate, the occurrence was
horrible, and there was a glare of publicity which brought into relief the
scandals of Bartram-Haugh. But in a little time it became, all on a sud-
den, a great deal worse.'
My cousin paused to recollect exactly.
'There were very disagreeable whispers among the sporting people in
London. This person, Charke, had written two letters, Yes—two. They
were published about two months after, by the villain to whom they
were written; he wanted to extort money. They were first talked of a
great deal among that set in town; but the moment they were published
they produced a sensation in the country, and a storm of newspaper
commentary. The first of these was of no great consequence, but the
second was very startling, embarrassing, and even alarming.'
'What was it, Cousin Monica?' I whispered.
'I can only tell you in a general way, it is so very long since I read it;
but both were written in the same kind of slang, and parts as hard to un-
derstand as a prize fight. I hope you never read those things.'
I satisfied this sudden educational alarm, and Lady Knollys
proceeded.
'I am afraid you hardly hear me, the wind makes such an uproar. Well,
listen. The letter said distinctly, that he, Mr. Charke, had made a very
profitable visit to Bartram-Haugh, and mentioned in exact figures for
how much he held your uncle Silas's I.O.U.'s, for he could not pay him. I
can't say what the sum was. I only remember that it was quite frightful.
It took away my breath when I read it.'
'Uncle Silas had lost it?' I asked.
'Yes, and owed it; and had given him those papers called I.O.U.'s
promising to pay, which, of course, Mr. Charke had locked up with his
money; and the insinuation was that Silas had made away with him, to
get rid of this debt, and that he had also taken a great deal of his money.

156
 'I just recollect these points which were exactly what made the impres-
sion,' continued Lady Knollys, after a short pause; 'the letter was written
in the evening of the last day of the wretched man's life, so that there had
not been much time for your uncle Silas to win back his money; and he
stoutly alleged that he did not owe Mr. Charke a guinea. It mentioned an
enormous sum as being actually owed by Silas; and it cautioned the
man, an agent, to whom he wrote, not to mention the circumstance, as
Silas could only pay by getting the money from his wealthy brother, who
would have the management; and he distinctly said that he had kept the
matter very close at Silas's request. That, you know, was a very awkward
letter, and all the worse that it was written in brutally high spirits, and
not at all like a man meditating an exit from the world. You can't ima-
gine what a sensation the publication of these letters produced. In a mo-
ment the storm was up, and certainly Silas did meet it bravely—yes,
with great courage and ability. What a pity he did not early enter upon
some career of ambition! Well, well, it is idle regretting. He suggested
that the letters were forgeries. He alleged that Charke was in the habit of
boasting, and telling enormous falsehoods about his gambling transac-
tions, especially in his letters. He reminded the world how often men af-
fect high animal spirits at the very moment of meditating suicide. He al-
luded, in a manly and graceful way, to his family and their character. He
took a high and menacing tone with his adversaries, and he insisted that
what they dared to insinuate against him was physically impossible.'
I asked in what form this vindication appeared.
'It was a letter, printed as a pamphlet; everybody admired its ability,
ingenuity, and force, and it was written with immense rapidity.'
'Was it at all in the style of his letters?' I innocently asked.
My cousin laughed.
'Oh, dear, no! Ever since he avowed himself a religious character, he
had written nothing but the most vapid and nerveless twaddle. Your
poor dear father used to send his letters to me to read, and I sometimes
really thought that Silas was losing his faculties; but I believe he was
only trying to write in character.'
'I suppose the general feeling was in his favour?' I said.
'I don't think it was, anywhere; but in his own county it was certainly
unanimously against him. There is no use in asking why; but so it was,
and I think it would have been easier for him with his unaided strength
to uproot the Peak than to change the convictions of the Derbyshire gen-
tlemen. They were all against him. Of course there were predisposing
causes. Your uncle published a very bitter attack upon them, describing

157
himself as the victim of a political conspiracy: and I recollect he men-
tioned that from the hour of the shocking catastrophe in his house, he
had forsworn the turf and all pursuits and amusements connected with
it. People sneered, and said he might as well go as wait to be kicked out.'
'Were there law-suits about all this?' I asked.
'Everybody expected that there would, for there were very savage
things printed on both sides, and I think, too, that the persons who
thought worst of him expected that evidence would yet turn up to con-
vict Silas of the crime they chose to impute; and so years have glided
away, and many of the people who remembered the tragedy of Bartram-
Haugh, and took the strongest part in the denunciation, and ostracism
that followed, are dead, and no new light had been thrown upon the oc-
currence, and your uncle Silas remains an outcast. At first he was quite
wild with rage, and would have fought the whole county, man by man,
if they would have met him. But he had since changed his habits and, as
he says, his aspirations altogether.'
'He has become religious.'
'The only occupation remaining to him. He owes money; he is poor; he
is isolated; and he says, sick and religious. Your poor father, who was
very decided and inflexible, never helped him beyond the limit he had
prescribed, after Silas's mésalliance. He wanted to get him into Parlia-
ment, and would have paid his expenses, and made him an allowance;
but either Silas had grown lazy, or he understood his position better than
poor Austin, or he distrusted his powers, or possibly he really is in ill-
health; but he objected his religious scruples. Your poor papa thought
self-assertion possible, where an injured man has right to rely upon, but
he had been very long out of the world, and the theory won't do. Noth-
ing is harder than to get a person who has once been effectually slurred,
received again. Silas, I think, was right. I don't think it was practicable.
'Dear child, how late it is!' exclaimed Lady Knollys suddenly, looking
at the Louis Quatorze clock, that crowned the mantelpiece.
It was near one o'clock. The storm had a little subsided, and I took a
less agitated and more confident view of Uncle Silas than I had at an
earlier hour of that evening.
'And what do you think of him?' I asked.
Lady Knollys drummed on the table with her finger points as she
looked into the fire.
'I don't understand metaphysics, my dear, nor witchcraft. I sometimes
believe in the supernatural, and sometimes I don't. Silas Ruthyn is him-
self alone, and I can't define him, because I don't understand him.

158
Perhaps other souls than human are sometimes born into the world, and
clothed in flesh. It is not only about that dreadful occurrence, but nearly
always throughout his life; early and late he has puzzled me. I have tried
in vain to understand him. But at one time of his life I am sure he was
awfully wicked—eccentric indeed in his wickedness—gay, frivolous,
secret, and dangerous. At one time I think he could have made poor
Austin do almost anything; but his influence vanished with his marriage,
never to return again. No; I don't understand him. He always bewildered
me, like a shifting face, sometimes smiling, but always sinister, in an un-
pleasant dream.'

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Chapter 28
I AM PERSUADED
So now at last I had heard the story of Uncle Silas's mysterious disgrace.
We sat silent for a while, and I, gazing into vacancy, sent him in a chariot
of triumph, chapletted, ringed, and robed through the city of imagina-
tion, crying after him, 'Innocent! innocent! martyr and crowned!' All the
virtues and honesties, reason and conscience, in myriad shapes—tier
above tier of human faces—from the crowded pavement, crowded win-
dows, crowded roofs, joined in the jubilant acclamation, and trumpeters
trumpeted, and drums rolled, and great organs and choirs through open
cathedral gates, rolled anthems of praise and thanksgiving, and the bells
rang out, and cannons sounded, and the air trembled with the roaring
harmony; and Silas Ruthyn, the full-length portrait, stood in the burn-
ished chariot, with a proud, sad, clouded face, that rejoiced not with the
rejoicers, and behind him the slave, thin as a ghost, white-faced, and
sneering something in his ear: while I and all the city went on crying
'Innocent! innocent! martyr and crowned!' And now the reverie was
ended; and there were only Lady Knollys' stern, thoughtful face, with
the pale light of sarcasm on it, and the storm outside thundering and
lamenting desolately.
It was very good of Cousin Monica to stay with me so long. It must
have been unspeakably tiresome. And now she began to talk of business
at home, and plainly to prepare for immediate flight, and my heart sank.
I know that I could not then have defined my feelings and agitations. I
am not sure that I even now could. Any misgiving about Uncle Silas was,
in my mind, a questioning the foundations of my faith, and in itself an
impiety. And yet I am not sure that some such misgiving, faint, perhaps,
and intermittent, may not have been at the bottom of my tribulation.
I was not very well. Lady Knollys had gone out for a walk. She was
not easily tired, and sometimes made a long excursion. The sun was set-
ting now, when Mary Quince brought me a letter which had just arrived
by the post. My heart throbbed violently. I was afraid to break the broad

160
black seal. It was from Uncle Silas. I ran over in my mind all the unpleas-
ant mandates which it might contain, to try and prepare myself for a
shock. At last I opened the letter. It directed me to hold myself in readi-
ness for the journey to Bartram-Haugh. It stated that I might bring two
maids with me if I wished so many, and that his next letter would give
me the details of my route, and the day of my departure for Derbyshire;
and he said that I ought to make arrangements about Knowl during my
absence, but that he was hardly the person properly to be consulted on
that matter. Then came a prayer that he might be enabled to acquit him-
self of his trust to the full satisfaction of his conscience, and that I might
enter upon my new relations in a spirit of prayer.
I looked round my room, so long familiar, and now so endeared by the
idea of parting and change. The old house—dear, dear Knowl, how
could I leave you and all your affectionate associations, and kind looks
and voices, for a strange land!
With a great sigh I took Uncle Silas's letter, and went down stairs to
the drawing-room. From the lobby window, where I loitered for a few
moments, I looked out upon the well-known forest-trees. The sun was
down. It was already twilight, and the white vapours of coming night
were already filming their thinned and yellow foliage. Everything
looked melancholy. How little did those who envied the young inherit-
rex of a princely fortune suspect the load that lay at her heart, or, bating
the fear of death, how gladly at that moment she would have parted
with her life!
Lady Knollys had not yet returned, and it was darkening rapidly; a
mass of black clouds stood piled in the west, through the chasms of
which was still reflected a pale metallic lustre.
The drawing-room was already very dark; but some streaks of this
cold light fell upon a black figure, which would otherwise have been un-
seen, leaning beside the curtains against the window frame.
It advanced abruptly, with creaking shoes; it was Doctor Bryerly.
I was startled and surprised, not knowing how he had got there. I
stood staring at him in the dusk rather awkwardly, I am afraid.
'How do you do, Miss Ruthyn?' said he, extending his hand, long,
hard, and brown as a mummy's, and stooping a little so as to approach
more nearly, for it was not easy to see in the imperfect light. 'You're sur-
prised, I dare say, to see me here so soon again?'
'I did not know you had arrived. I am glad to see you, Doctor Bryerly.
Nothing unpleasant, I hope, has happened?'

161
 'No, nothing unpleasant, Miss. The will has been lodged, and we shall
have probate in due course; but there has been something on my mind,
and I'm come to ask you two or three questions which you had better an-
swer very considerately. Is Miss Knollys still here?'
'Yes, but she is not returned from her walk.'
'I am glad she is here. I think she takes a sound view, and women un-
derstand one another better. As for me, it is plainly my duty to put it be-
fore you as it strikes me, and to offer all I can do in accomplishing,
should you wish it, a different arrangement. You don't know your uncle,
you said the other day?'
'No, I've never seen him.'
'You understand your late father's intention in making you his ward?'
'I suppose he wished to show his high opinion of my uncle's fitness for
such a trust.'
'That's quite true; but the nature of the trust in this instance is
extraordinary.'
'I don't understand.'
'Why, if you die before you come to the age of twenty-one, the entire
of the property will go to him—do you see?—and he has the custody of
your person in the meantime; you are to live in his house, under his care
and authority. You see now, I think, how it is; and I did not like it when
your father read the will to me, and I said so. Do you?'
I hesitated to speak, not sure that I quite comprehended him.
'And the more I think of it, the less I like it, Miss,' said Doctor Bryerly,
in a calm, stern tone.
'Merciful Heaven! Doctor Bryerly, you can't suppose that I should not
be as safe in my uncle's house as in the Lord Chancellor's?' I ejaculated,
looking full in his face.
'But don't you see, Miss, it is not a fair position to put your uncle in,'
replied he, after a little hesitation.
'But suppose he does not think so. You know, if he does, he may de-
cline it.'
'Well that's true—but he won't. Here is his letter'—and he produced
it—'announcing officially that he means to accept the office; but I think
he ought to be told it is not delicate, under all circumstances. You know,
Miss, that your uncle, Mr. Silas Ruthyn, was talked about unpleasantly
once.'
'You mean'—I began.
'I mean about the death of Mr. Charke, at Bartram-Haugh.'
'Yes, I have heard that,' I said; he was speaking with a shocking aplomb.

162
 'We assume, of course, unjustly; but there are many who think quite
differently.'
'And possibly, Doctor Bryerly, it was for that very reason that my dear
papa made him my guardian.'
'There can be no doubt of that, Miss; it was to purge him of that
scandal.'
'And when he has acquitted himself honourably of that trust, don't
you think such a proof of confidence so honourably fulfilled must go far
to silence his traducers?'
'Why, if all goes well, it may do a little; but a great deal less than you
fancy. But take it that you happen to die, Miss, during your minority. We
are all mortal, and there are three years and some months to go; how will
it be then? Don't you see? Just fancy how people will talk.'
'I think you know that my uncle is a religious man?' said I.
'Well, Miss, what of that?' he asked again.
'He is—he has suffered intensely,' I continued. 'He has long retired
from the world; he is very religious. Ask our curate, Mr. Fairfield, if you
doubt it.'
'But I am not disputing it, Miss; I'm only supposing what may hap-
pen—an accident, we'll call it small-pox, diphtheria, that's going very
much. Three years and three months, you know, is a long time. You pro-
ceed to Bartram-Haugh, thinking you have much goods laid up for many
years; but your Creator, you know, may say, "Thou fool, this day is thy
soul required of thee." You go—and what pray is thought of your uncle,
Mr. Silas Ruthyn, who walks in for the entire inheritance, and who has
long been abused like a pickpocket, or worse, in his own county, I'm
told?'
'You are a religious man, Doctor Bryerly, according to your lights?' I
said.
The Swedenborgian smiled.
'Well, knowing that he is so too, and having yourself experienced the
power of religion, do not you think him deserving of every confidence?
Don't you think it well that he should have this opportunity of exhibiting
both his own character and the reliance which my dear papa reposed on
it, and that we should leave all consequences and contingencies in the
hands of Heaven?'
'It appears to have been the will of Heaven hitherto,' said Doctor Bry-
erly—I could not see with what expression of face, but he was looking
down, and drawing little diagrams with his stick on the dark carpet, and
spoke in a very low tone—'that your uncle should suffer under this ill

163
report. In countervailing the appointment of Providence, we must em-
ploy our reason, with conscientious diligence, as to the means, and if we
find that they are as likely to do mischief as good, we have no right to ex-
pect a special interposition to turn our experiment into an ordeal. I think
you ought to weigh it well—I am sure there are reasons against it. If you
make up your mind that you would rather be placed under the care, say
of Lady Knollys, I will endeavour all I can to effect it.'
'That could not be done without his consent, could it?' said I.
'No, but I don't despair of getting that—on terms, of course,' remarked
he.
'I don't quite understand,' I said.
'I mean, for instance, if he were allowed to keep the allowance for your
maintenance—eh?'
'I mistake my uncle Silas very much,' I said, 'if that allowance is any
object whatever to him compared with the moral value of the position. If
he were deprived of that, I am sure he would decline the other.'
'We might try him at all events,' said Doctor Bryerly, on whose dark
sinewy features, even in this imperfect light, I thought I detected a smile.
'Perhaps,' said I, 'I appear very foolish in supposing him actuated by
any but sordid motives; but he is my near relation, and I can't help it, sir.'
'That is a very serious thing, Miss Ruthyn,' he replied. 'You are very
young, and cannot see it at present, as you will hereafter. He is very reli-
gious, you say, and all that, but his house is not a proper place for you. It
is a solitude—its master an outcast, and it has been the repeated scene of
all sorts of scandals, and of one great crime; and Lady Knollys thinks
your having been domesticated there will be an injury to you all the days
of your life.'
'So I do, Maud,' said Lady Knollys, who had just entered the room un-
perceived,—'How do you do, Doctor Bryerly?—a serious injury. You
have no idea how entirely that house is condemned and avoided, and
the very name of its inmates tabooed.'
'How monstrous—how cruel!' I exclaimed.
'Very unpleasant, my dear, but perfectly natural. You are to recollect
that quite independently of the story of Mr. Charke, the house was
talked about, and the county people had cut your uncle Silas long before
that adventure was dreamed of; and as to the circumstance of your being
placed in his charge by his brother, who took, from strong family feeling,
a totally one-sided view of the affair from the first, having the slightest
effect in restoring his position in the county, you must quite give that up.
Except me, if he will allow me, and the clergyman, not a soul in the

164
country will visit at Bartram-Haugh. They may pity you, and think the
whole thing the climax of folly and cruelty; but they won't visit at
Bartram, or know Silas, or have anything to do with his household.'
'They will see, at all events, what my dear papa's opinion was.'
'They know that already,' answered she, 'and it has not, and ought not
to have, the slightest weight with them. There are people there who
think themselves just as great as the Ruthyns, or greater; and your poor
father's idea of carrying it by a demonstration was simply the dream of a
man who had forgotten the world, and learned to exaggerate himself in
his long seclusion. I know he was beginning himself to hesitate; and I
think if he had been spared another year that provision of his will would
have been struck out.'
Doctor Bryerly nodded, and he said—
'And if he had the power to dictate now, would he insist on that direc-
tion? It is a mistake every way, injurious to you, his child; and should
you happen to die during your sojourn under your uncle's care, it would
woefully defeat the testator's object, and raise such a storm of surmise
and inquiry as would awaken all England, and send the old scandal on
the wing through the world again.'
'Doctor Bryerly will, I have no doubt, arrange it all. In fact, I do not
think it would be very difficult to bring Silas to terms; and if you do not
consent to his trying, Maud, mark my words, you will live to repent it.'
Here were two persons viewing the question from totally different
points; both perfectly disinterested; both in their different ways, I be-
lieve, shrewd and even wise; and both honourable, urging me against it,
and in a way that undefinably alarmed my imagination, as well as
moved my reason. I looked from one to the other—there was a silence.
By this time the candles had come, and we could see one another.
'I only wait your decision, Miss Ruthyn,' said the trustee, 'to see your
uncle. If his advantage was the chief object contemplated in this arrange-
ment, he will be the best judge whether his interest is really best consul-
ted by it or no; and I think he will clearly see that it is not so, and will an-
swer accordingly.'
'I cannot answer now—you must allow me to think it over—I will do
my best. I am very much obliged, my dear Cousin Monica, you are so
very good, and you too, Doctor Bryerly.'
Doctor Bryerly by this time was looking into his pocket-book, and did
not acknowledge my thanks even by a nod.
'I must be in London the day after to-morrow. Bartram-Haugh is
nearly sixty miles from here, and only twenty of that by rail, I find. Forty

165
miles of posting over those Derbyshire mountains is slow work; but if
you say try, I'll see him to-morrow morning.'
'You must say try—you must, my dear Maud.'
'But how can I decide in a moment? Oh, dear Cousin Monica, I am so
distracted!'
'But you need not decide at all; the decision rests with him. Come; he is
more competent than you. You must say yes.'
Again I looked from her to Doctor Bryerly, and from him to her again.
I threw my arms about her neck, and hugging her closely to me, I cried—
'Oh, Cousin Monica, dear Cousin Monica, advise me. I am a wretched
creature. You must advise me.'
I did not know till now how irresolute a character was mine.
I knew somehow by the tone of her voice that she was smiling as she
answered—
'Why, dear, I have advised you; I do advise you;' and then she added,
impetuously, 'I entreat and implore, if you really think I love you, that
you will follow my advice. It is your duty to leave your uncle Silas, whom
you believe to be more competent than you are, to decide, after full con-
ference with Doctor Bryerly, who knows more of your poor father's
views and intentions in making that appointment than either you or I.'
'Shall I say, yes?' I cried, drawing her close, and kissing her helplessly.'
Oh, tell me—tell me to say, yes.'
'Yes, of course, yes. She agrees, Doctor Bryerly, to your kind proposal.'
'I am to understand so?' he asked.
'Very well—yes, Doctor Bryerly,' I replied.
'You have resolved wisely and well,' said he, briskly, like a man who
has got a care off his mind.
'I forgot to say, Doctor Bryerly—it was very rude—that you must stay
here to-night.'
'He can't, my dear,' interposed Lady Knolly's; 'it is a long way.'
'He will dine. Won't you, Doctor Bryerly?'
'No; he can't. You know you can't, sir,' said my cousin, peremptorily.
'You must not worry him, my dear, with civilities he can't accept. He'll
bid us good-bye this moment. Good-bye, Doctor Bryerly. You'll write im-
mediately; don't wait till you reach town. Bid him good-bye, Maud. I'll
say a word to you in the hall.'
And thus she literally hurried him out of the room, leaving me in a
state of amazement and confusion, not able to review my de-
cision—unsatisfied, but still unable to recall it.

166
 I stood where they had left me, looking after them, I suppose, like a
fool.
Lady Knollys returned in a few minutes. If I had been a little cooler I
was shrewd enough to perceive that she had sent poor Doctor Bryerly
away upon his travels, to find board and lodging half-way to Bartram, to
remove him forthwith from my presence, and thus to make my de-
cision—if mine it was—irrevocable.
'I applaud you, my dear,' said Cousin Knollys, in her turn embracing
me heartily. 'You are a sensible little darling, and have done exactly what
you ought to have done.'
'I hope I have,' I faltered.
'Hope? fiddle! stuff! the thing's as plain as a pikestaff.'
And in came Branston to say that dinner was served.

167
Chapter 29
HOW THE AMBASSADOR FARED
Lady Knollys, I could plainly see, when we got into the brighter lights at
the dinner table, was herself a good deal excited; she was relieved and
glad, and was garrulous during our meal, and told me all her early recol-
lections of dear papa. Most of them I had heard before; but they could
not be told too often.
Notwithstanding my mind sometimes wandered, often indeed, to the
conference so unexpected, so suddenly decisive, possibly so momentous;
and with a dismayed uncertainly, the question—had I done right?—was
always before me.
I dare say my cousin understood my character better, perhaps, after all
my honest self-study, then I do even now. Irresolute, suddenly reversing
my own decisions, impetuous in action as she knew me, she feared, I am
sure, a revocation of my commission to Doctor Bryerly, and thought of
the countermand I might send galloping after him.
So, kind creature, she laboured to occupy my thoughts, and when one
theme was exhausted found another, and had always her parry prepared
as often as I directed a reflection or an enquiry to the re-opening of the
question which she had taken so much pains to close.
That night I was troubled. I was already upbraiding myself. I could
not sleep, and at last sat up in bed, and cried. I lamented my weakness in
having assented to Doctor Bryerly's and my cousin's advice. Was I not
departing from my engagement to my dear papa? Was I not consenting
that my Uncle Silas should be induced to second my breach of faith by a
corresponding perfidy?
Lady Knollys had done wisely in despatching Doctor Bryerly so
promptly; for, most assuredly, had he been at Knowl next morning when
I came down I should have recalled my commission.
That day in the study I found four papers which increased my per-
turbation. They were in dear papa's handwriting, and had an indorse-
ment in these words—'Copy of my letter addressed to ——, one of the

168
trustees named in my will.' Here, then, were the contents of those four
sealed letters which had excited mine and Lady Knollys' curiosity on the
agitating day on which the will was read.
It contained these words:—
'I name my oppressed and unhappy brother, Silas Ruthyn, residing at
my house of Bartram-Haugh, as guardian of the person of my beloved
child, to convince the world if possible, and failing that, to satisfy at least
all future generations of our family, that his brother, who knew him best,
had implicit confidence in him, and that he deserved it. A cowardly and
preposterous slander, originating in political malice, and which never
have been whispered had he not been poor and imprudent, is best si-
lenced by this ordeal of purification. All I possess goes to him if my child
dies under age; and the custody of her person I commit meanwhile to
him alone, knowing that she is as safe in his as she could have been un-
der my own care. I rely upon your remembrance of our early friendship
to make this known wherever an opportunity occurs, and also to say
what your sense of justice may warrant.'
The other letters were in the same spirit. My heart sank like lead as I
read them. I quaked with fear. What had I done? My father's wise and
noble vindication of our dishonoured name I had presumed to frustrate.
I had, like a coward, receded from my easy share in the task; and, merci-
ful Heaven, I had broken my faith with the dead!
With these letters in my hand, white with fear, I flew like a shadow to
the drawing-room where Cousin Monica was, and told her to read them.
I saw by her countenance how much alarmed she was by my looks, but
she said nothing, only read the letters hurriedly, and then exclaimed—
'Is this all, my dear child? I really fancied you had found a second will,
and had lost everything. Why, my dearest Maud, we knew all this be-
fore. We quite understood poor dear Austin's motive. Why are you so
easily disturbed?'
'Oh, Cousin Monica, I think he was right; it all seems quite reasonable
now; and I—oh, what a crime!—it must be stopped.'
'My dear Maud, listen to reason. Doctor Bryerly has seen your uncle at
Bartram at least two hours ago. You can't stop it, and why on earth
should you if you could? Don't you think your uncle should be consul-
ted?' said she.
'But he has decided. I have his letter speaking of it as settled; and Doc-
tor Bryerly—oh, Cousin Monica, he's gone to tempt him.'
'Nonsense, girl! Doctor Bryerly is a good and just man, I do believe,
and has, beside, no imaginable motive to pervert either his conscience or

169
his judgment. He's not gone to tempt him—stuff!—but to unfold the
facts and invite his consideration; and I say, considering how thought-
lessly such duties are often undertaken, and how long Silas has been liv-
ing in lazy solitude, shut out from the world, and unused to discuss any-
thing, I do think it only conscientious and honourable that he should
have a fair and distinct view of the matter in all its bearings submitted to
him before he indolently incurs what may prove the worst danger he
was ever involved in.'
So Lady Knollys argued, with feminine energy, and I must confess,
with a good deal of the repetition which I have sometimes observed in
logicians of my own sex, and she puzzled without satisfying me.
'I don't know why I went to that room,' I said, quite frightened; 'or
why I went to that press; how it happened that these papers, which we
never saw there before, were the first things to strike my eye to-day.'
'What do you mean, dear?' said Lady Knollys.
'I mean this—I think I was brought there, and that there is poor papa's
appeal to me, as plain as if his hand came and wrote it upon the wall.' I
nearly screamed the conclusion of this wild confession.
'You are nervous, my darling; your bad nights have worn you out. Let
us go out; the air will do you good; and I do assure you that you will
very soon see that we are quite right, and rejoice conscientiously that you
have acted as you did.'
But I was not to be satisfied, although my first vehemence was
quieted. In my prayers that night my conscience upbraided me. When I
lay down in bed my nervousness returned fourfold. Everybody at all
nervously excitable has suffered some time or another by the appearance
of ghastly features presenting themselves in every variety of contortion,
one after another, the moment the eyes are closed. This night my dear
father's face troubled me—sometimes white and sharp as ivory, some-
times strangely transparent like glass, sometimes all hanging in cadaver-
ous folds, always with the same unnatural expression of diabolical fury.
From this dreadful vision I could only escape by sitting up and staring
at the light. At length, worn out, I dropped asleep, and in a dream I dis-
tinctly heard papa's voice say sharply outside the bed-curtain:—'Maud,
we shall be late at Bartram-Haugh.'
And I awoke in a horror, the wall, as it seemed, still ringing with the
summons, and the speaker, I fancied, standing at the other side of the
curtain.
A miserable night I passed. In the morning, looking myself like a
ghost, I stood in my night-dress by Lady Knollys' bed.

170
 'I have had my warning,' I said. 'Oh, Cousin Monica, papa has been
with me, and ordered me to Bartram-Haugh; and go I will.'
She stared in my face uncomfortably, and then tried to laugh the mat-
ter off; but I know she was troubled at the strange state to which agita-
tion and suspense had reduced me.
'You're taking too much for granted, Maud,' said she; 'Silas Ruthyn,
most likely, will refuse his consent, and insist on your going to Bartram-
Haugh.'
'Heaven grant!' I exclaimed; 'but if he doesn't, it is all the same to me,
go I will. He may turn me out, but I'll go, and try to expiate the breach of
faith that I fear is so horribly wicked.'
We had several hours still to wait for the arrival of the post. For both
of us the delay was a suspense; for me an almost agonising one. At
length, at an unlooked-for moment, Branston did enter the room with
the post-bag. There was a large letter, with the Feltram post-mark, ad-
dressed to Lady Knollys—it was Doctor Bryerly's despatch; we read it
together. It was dated on the day before, and its purport was thus:—
'RESPECTED MADAM,—I this day saw Mr. Silas Ruthyn at Bartram-
Haugh, and he peremptorily refuses, on any terms, to vacate the guardi-
anship, or to consent to Miss Ruthyn's residing anywhere but under his
own immediate care. As he bases his refusal, first upon a conscientious
difficulty, declaring that he has no right, through fear of personal contin-
gencies, to abdicate an office imposed in so solemn a way, and so natur-
ally devolving on him as only brother to the deceased; and secondly
upon the effect such a withdrawal, at the instance of the acting trustee,
would have upon his own character, amounting to a public self-condem-
nation; and as he refused to discuss these positions with me, I could
make no way whatsoever with him. Finding, therefore, that his mind
was quite made up, after a short time I took my leave. He mentioned that
preparations for his niece's reception are being completed, and that he
will send for her in a few days; so that I think it will be advisable that I
should go down to Knowl, to assist Miss Ruthyn with any advice she
may require before her departure, to discharge servants, get inventories
made, and provide for the care of the place and grounds during her
minority.
'I am, respected Madam, yours truly,
HANS E. BRYERLY.'
I can't describe to you how chapfallen and angry my cousin looked.
She sniffed once or twice, and then said, rather bitterly, in a subdued
tone:—

171
 'Well, now; I hope you are pleased?'
'No, no, no; you know I'm not—grieved to the heart, my only friend,
my dear Cousin Monica; but my conscience is at rest; you don't know
what a sacrifice it is; I am a most unhappy creature. I feel an indescrib-
able foreboding. I am frightened; but you won't forsake me, Cousin
Monica.'
'No, darling, never,' she said, sadly.
'And you'll come and see me, won't you, as often as you can?'
'Yes, dear; that is if Silas allows me; and I'm sure he will,' she added
hastily, seeing, I suppose, my terror in my face. 'All I can do, you may be
sure I will, and perhaps he will allow you to come to me, now and then,
for a short visit. You know I am only six miles away—little more than
half an hour's drive, and though I hate Bartram, and detest Silas—Yes, I
detest Silas,' she repeated in reply to my surprised gaze—'I will call at
Bartram—that is, I say, if he allows me; for, you know, I haven't been
there for a quarter of a century; and though I never understood Silas, I
fancy he forgives no sins, whether of omission or commission.'
I wondered what old grudge could make my cousin judge Uncle Silas
always so hardly—I could not suppose it was justice. I had seen my hero
indeed lately so disrespectfully handled before my eyes, that he had, as
idols will, lost something of his sacredness. But as an article of faith, I
still cultivated my trust in his divinity, and dismissed every intruding
doubt with an exorcism, as a suggestion of the evil one. But I wronged
Lady Knollys in suspecting her of pique, or malice, or anything more
than that tendency to take strong views which some persons attribute to
my sex.
So, then, the little project of Cousin Monica's guardianship, which, had
it been poor papa's wish, would have made me so very happy, was quite
knocked on the head, to revive no more. I comforted myself, however,
with her promise to re-open communications with Bartram-Haugh, and
we grew resigned.
I remember, next morning, as we sat at a very late breakfast, Lady
Knollys, reading a letter, suddenly made an exclamation and a little
laugh, and read on with increased interest for a few minutes, and then,
with another little laugh, she looked up, placing her hand, with the open
letter in it, beside her tea-cup.
'You'll not guess whom I've been reading about,' said she, with her
head the least thing on one side, and an arch smile.

172
 I felt myself blushing—cheeks, forehead, even down to the tips of my
fingers. I anticipated the name I was to hear. She looked very much
amused. Was it possible that Captain Oakley was married?
'I really have not the least idea,' I replied, with that kind of overdone
carelessness which betrays us.
'No, I see quite plainly you have not; but you can't think how prettily
you blush,' answered she, very much diverted.
'I really don't care,' I replied, with some little dignity, and blushing
deeper and deeper.
'Will you make a guess?' she asked.
'I can't guess.'
'Well, shall I tell you?'
'Just as you please.'
'Well, I will—that is, I'll read a page of my letter, which tells it all. Do
you know Georgina Fanshawe?' she asked.
'Lady Georgina? No.'
'Well, no matter; she's in Paris now, and this letter is from her, and she
says—let me see the place—"Yesterday, what do you think?—quite an
apparition!—you shall hear. My brother Craven yesterday insisted on
my accompanying him to Le Bas' shop in that odd little antique street
near the Grève; it is a wonderful old curiosity shop. I forget what they
call them here. When we went into this place it was very nearly deserted,
and there were so many curious things to look at all about, that for a
minute or two I did not observe a tall woman, in a grey silk and a black
velvet mantle, and quite a nice new Parisian bonnet. You will be charmed,
by-the-by, with the new shape—it is only out three weeks, and is quite
indescribably elegant, I think, at least. They have them, I am sure, by this
time at Molnitz's, so I need say no more. And now that I am on this sub-
ject of dress, I have got your lace; and I think you will be very ungrateful
if you are not charmed with it." Well, I need not read all that—here is the
rest;' and she read—
'"But you'll ask about my mysterious dame in the new bonnet and vel-
vet mantle; she was sitting on a stool at the counter, not buying, but
evidently selling a quantity of stones and trinkets which she had in a
card-box, and the man was picking them up one by one, and, I suppose,
valuing them. I was near enough to see such a darling little pearl cross,
with at least half a dozen really good pearls in it, and had begun to covet
them for my set, when the lady glanced over my shoulder, and she knew
me—in fact, we knew one another—and who do you think she was?
Well—you'll not guess in a week, and I can't wait so long; so I may as

173
well tell you at once—she was that horrid old Mademoiselle Blassemare
whom you pointed out to me at Elverston; and I never forgot her face
since—nor she, it seems, mine, for she turned away very quickly, and
when I next saw her, her veil was down."'
'Did not you tell me, Maud, that you had lost your pearl cross while
that dreadful Madame de la Rougierre was here?'
'Yes; but—'
'I know; but what has she to do with Mademoiselle de Blassemare, you
were going to say—they are one and the same person.'
'Oh, I perceive,' answered I, with that dim sense of danger and dismay
with which one hears suddenly of an enemy of whom one has lost sight
for a time.
'I'll write and tell Georgie to buy that cross. I wager my life it is yours,'
said Lady Knollys, firmly.
The servants, indeed, made no secret of their opinion of Madame de la
Rougierre, and frankly charged her with a long list of larcenies. Even
Anne Wixted, who had enjoyed her barren favour while the gouvernante
was here, hinted privately that she had bartered a missing piece of lace
belonging to me with a gipsy pedlar, for French gloves and an Irish
poplin.
'And so surely as I find it is yours, I'll set the police in pursuit.'
'But you must not bring me into court,' said I, half amused and half
alarmed.
'No occasion, my dear; Mary Quince and Mrs. Rusk can prove it
perfectly.'
'And why do you dislike her so very much?' I asked.
Cousin Monica leaned back in her chair, and searched the cornice from
corner to corner with upturned eyes for the reason, and at last laughed a
little, amused at herself.
'Well, really, it is not easy to define, and, perhaps, it is not quite charit-
able; but I know I hate her, and I know, you little hypocrite, you hate her
as much as I;' and we both laughed a little.
'But you must tell me all you know of her history.'
'Her history?' echoed she. 'I really know next to nothing about it; only
that I used to see her sometimes about the place that Georgina mentions,
and there were some unpleasant things said about her; but you know
they may be all lies. The worst I know of her is her treatment of you, and
her robbing the desk'—(Cousin Monica always called it her rob-
bery)—'and I think that's enough to hang her. Suppose we go out for a
walk?'

174
 So together we went, and I resumed about Madame; but no more
could I extract—perhaps there was not much more to hear.

175
Chapter 30
ON THE ROAD
All at Knowl was indicative of the break-up that was so near at hand.
Doctor Bryerly arrived according to promise. He was in a whirl of busi-
ness all the time. He and Mr. Danvers conferred about the management
of the estate. It was agreed that the grounds and gardens should be let,
but not the house, of which Mrs. Rusk was to take the care. The game-
keeper remained in office, and some out-door servants. But the rest were
to go, except Mary Quince, who was to accompany me to Bartram-
Haugh as my maid.
'Don't part with Quince,' said Lady Knollys, peremptorily 'they'll want
you, but don't.'
She kept harping on this point, and recurred to it half a dozen times
every day.
'They'll say, you know, that she is not fit for a lady's maid, as she cer-
tainly is not, if it in the least signified in such a wilderness as Bartram-
Haugh; but she is attached, trustworthy, and honest; and those are qual-
ities valuable everywhere, especially in a solitude. Don't allow them to
get you a wicked young French milliner in her stead.'
Sometimes she said things that jarred unpleasantly on my nerves, and
left an undefined sense of danger. Such as:—
'I know she's true to you, and a good creature; but is she shrewd
enough?'
Or, with an anxious look:—
'I hope Mary Quince is not easily frightened.'
Or, suddenly:—
'Can Mary Quince write, in case you were ill?'
Or,
'Can she take a message exactly?'
Or,
'Is she a person of any enterprise and resource, and cool in an
emergency?'

176
 Now, these questions did not come all in a string, as I write them
down here, but at long intervals, and were followed quickly by ordinary
talk; but they generally escaped from my companion after silence and
gloomy thought; and though I could extract nothing more defined than
these questions, yet they seemed to me to point at some possible danger
contemplated in my good cousin's dismal ruminations.
Another topic that occupied my cousin's mind a good deal was obvi-
ously the larceny of my pearl cross. She made a note of the description
furnished by the recollection, respectively, of Mary Quince, Mrs. Rusk,
and myself. I had fancied her little vision of the police was no more than
the result of a momentary impulse; but really, to judge by her methodical
examinations of us, I should have fancied that she had taken it up in
downright earnest.
Having learned that my departure from Knowl was to be so very soon,
she resolved not to leave me before the day of my journey to Bartram-
Haugh; and as day after day passed by, and the hour of our leave-taking
approached, she became more and more kind and affectionate. A fever-
ish and sorrowful interval it was to me.
Of Doctor Bryerly, though staying in the house, we saw almost noth-
ing, except for an hour or so at tea-time. He breakfasted very early, and
dined solitarily, and at uncertain hours, as business permitted.
The second evening of his visit, Cousin Monica took occasion to intro-
duce the subject of his visit to Bartram-Haugh.
'You saw him, of course?' said Lady Knollys.
'Yes, he saw me; he was not well. On hearing who I was, he asked me
to go to his room, where he sat in a silk dressing-gown and slippers.'
'About business principally,' said Cousin Monica, laconically.
'That was despatched in very few words; for he was quite resolved,
and placed his refusal upon grounds which it was difficult to dispute.
But difficult or no, mind you, he intimated that he would hear nothing
more on the subject—so that was closed.'
'Well; and what is his religion now?' inquired she, irreverently.
'We had some interesting conversation on the subject. He leans much
to what we call the doctrine of correspondents. He is read rather deeply
in the writings of Swedenborg, and seemed anxious to discuss some
points with one who professes to be his follower. To say truth, I did not
expect to find him either so well read or so deeply interested in the
subject.'
'Was he angry when it was proposed that he should vacate the
guardianship?'

177
 'Not at all. Contrariwise, he said he had at first been so minded him-
self. His years, his habits, and something of the unfitness of the situation,
the remoteness of Bartram-Haugh from good teachers, and all that, had
struck him, and nearly determined him against accepting the office. But
then came the views which I stated in my letter, and they governed him;
and nothing could shake them, he said, or induce him to re-open the
question in his own mind.'
All the time Doctor Bryerly was relating his conference with the head
of the family at Bartram-Haugh my cousin commented on the narrative
with a variety of little 'pishes' and sneers, which I thought showed more
of vexation than contempt.
I was glad to hear all that Doctor Bryerly related. It gave me a kind of
confidence; and I experienced a momentary reaction. After all, could
Bartram-Haugh be more lonely than I had found Knowl? Was I not sure
of the society of my Cousin Millicent, who was about my own age? Was
it not quite possible that my sojourn in Derbyshire might turn out a
happy though very quiet remembrance through all my after-life? Why
should it not? What time or place would be happy if we gave ourselves
over to dismal imaginations?
So the summons reached me from Uncle Silas. The hours at Knowl
were numbered.
The evening before I departed I visited the full-length portrait of Uncle
Silas, and studied it for the last time carefully, with deep interest, for
many minutes; but with results vaguer than ever.
With a brother so generous and so wealthy, always ready to help him
forward; with his talents; with his lithe and gorgeous beauty, the shadow
of which hung on that canvas—what might he not have accomplished?
whom might he not have captivated? And yet where and what was he?
A poor and shunned old man, occupying a lonely house and place that
did not belong to him, married to degradation, with a few years of sus-
pected and solitary life before him, and then swift oblivion his best
portion.
I gazed on the picture, to fix it well and vividly in my remembrance. I
might still trace some of its outlines and tints in its living original, whom
I was next day to see for the first time in my life.
So the morning came—my last for many a day at Knowl—a day of
partings, a day of novelty and regrets. The travelling carriage and post
horses were at the door. Cousin Monica's carriage had just carried her
away to the railway. We had embraced with tears; and her kind face was
still before me, and her words of comfort and promise in my ears. The

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early sharpness of morning was still in the air; the frosty dew still
glistened on the window-panes. We had made a hasty breakfast, my
share of which was a single cup of tea. The aspect of the house how
strange! Uncarpeted, uninhabited, doors for the most part locked, all the
servants but Mrs. Rusk and Branston departed. The drawing-room door
stood open, and a charwoman was washing the bare floor. I was looking
my last—for who could say how long?—on the old house, and lingered.
The luggage was all up. I made Mary Quince get in first, for every delay
was precious; and now the moment was come. I hugged and kissed Mrs.
Rusk in the hall.
'God bless you, Miss Maud, darling. You must not fret; mind, the time
won't be long going over—no time at all; and you'll be bringing back a
fine young gentleman—who knows? as great as the Duke of Wellington,
for your husband; and I'll take the best of care of everything, and the
birds and the dogs, till you come back; and I'll go and see you and Mary,
if you'll allow, in Derbyshire;' and so forth.
I got into the carriage, and bid Branston, who shut the door, good-bye,
and kissed hands to Mrs. Rusk, who was smiling and drying her eyes
and courtesying on the hall-door steps. The dogs, who had started glee-
fully with the carriage, were called back by Branston, and driven home,
wondering and wistful, looking back with ears oddly cocked and tails
dejected. My heart thanked them for their kindness, and I felt like a
stranger, and very desolate.
It was a bright, clear morning. It had been settled that it was not worth
the trouble changing from the carriage to the railway for sake of five-
and-twenty miles, and so the entire journey of sixty miles was to be
made by the post road—the pleasantest travelling, if the mind were free.
The grander and more distant features of the landscape we may see well
enough from the window of the railway-carriage; but it is the foreground
that interests and instructs us, like a pleasant gossiping history; and that
we had, in old days, from the post-chaise window. It was more than
travelling picquet. Something of all conditions of life—luxury and
misery—high spirits and low;—all sorts of costume, livery, rags, millin-
ery; faces buxom, faces wrinkled, faces kind, faces wicked;—no end of
interest and suggestion, passing in a procession silent and vivid, and all
in their proper scenery. The golden corn-sheafs—the old dark-alleyed
orchards, and the high streets of antique towns. There were few dreams
brighter, few books so pleasant.
We drove by the dark wood—it always looked dark to me—where the
'mausoleum' stands—where my dear parents both lay now. I gazed on

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its sombre masses not with a softened feeling, but a peculiar sense of
pain, and was glad when it was quite past.
All the morning I had not shed a tear. Good Mary Quince cried at leav-
ing Knowl; Lady Knollys' eyes were not dry as she kissed and blessed
me, and promised an early visit; and the dark, lean, energetic face of the
housekeeper was quivering, and her cheeks wet, as I drove away. But I,
whose grief was sorest, never shed a tear. I only looked about from one
familiar object to another, pale, excited, not quite apprehending my de-
parture, and wondering at my own composure.
But when we reached the old bridge, with the tall osiers standing by
the buttress, and looked back at poor Knowl—the places we love and are
leaving look so fairy-like and so sad in the clear distance, and this is the
finest view of the gabled old house, with its slanting meadow-lands and
noble timber reposing in solemn groups—I gazed at the receding vision,
and the tears came at last, and I wept in silence long after the fair picture
was hidden from view by the intervening uplands.
I was relieved, and when we had made our next change of horses, and
got into a country that was unknown to me, the new scenery and the
sense of progress worked their accustomed effects on a young traveller
who had lived a particularly secluded life, and I began to experience, on
the whole, a not unpleasurable excitement.
Mary Quince and I, with the hopefulness of inexperienced travellers,
began already to speculate about our proximity to Bartram-Haugh, and
were sorely disappointed when we heard from the nondescript couri-
er—more like a ostler than a servant, who sat behind in charge of us and
the luggage, and represented my guardian's special care—at nearly one
o'clock, that we had still forty miles to go, a considerable portion of
which was across the high Derbyshire mountains, before we reached
Bartram-Haugh.
The fact was, we had driven at a pace accommodated rather to the
convenience of the horses than to our impatience; and finding, at the
quaint little inn where we now halted, that we must wait for a nail or
two in a loose shoe of one of our relay, we consulted, and being both
hungry, agreed to beguile the time with an early dinner, which we en-
joyed very sociably in a queer little parlour with a bow window, and
commanding, with a litle garden for foreground, a very pretty landscape.
Good Mary Quince, like myself, had quite dried her tears by this time,
and we were both highly interested, and I a little nervous, too, about our
arrival and reception at Bartram. Some time, of course, was lost in this

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pleasant little parlour, before we found ourselves once more pursuing
our way.
The slowest part of our journey was the pull up the long mountain
road, ascending zig-zag, as sailors make way against a head-wind, by
tacking. I forget the name of the pretty little group of houses—it did not
amount to a village—buried in trees, where we got our four horses and
two postilions, for the work was severe. I can only designate it as the
place where Mary Quince and I had our tea, very comfortably, and
bought some gingerbread, very curious to look upon, but quite
uneatable.
The greater portion of the ascent, when we were fairly upon the moun-
tain, was accomplished at a walk, and at some particularly steep points
we had to get out and go on foot. But this to me was quite delightful. I
had never scaled a mountain before, and the ferns and heath, the pure
boisterous air, and above all the magnificent view of the rich country we
were leaving behind, now gorgeous and misty in sunset tints, stretching
in gentle undulations far beneath us, quite enchanted me.
We had just reached the summit when the sun went down. The low
grounds at the other side were already lying in cold grey shadow, and I
got the man who sat behind to point out as well as he could the site of
Bartram-Haugh. But mist was gathering over all by this time. The filmy
disk of the moon which was to light us on, so soon as twilight faded into
night, hung high in air. I tried to see the sable mass of wood which he
described. But it was vain, and to acquire a clear idea of the place, as of
its master, I must only wait that nearer view which an hour or two more
would afford me.
And now we rapidly descended the mountain side. The scenery was
wilder and bolder than I was accustomed to. Our road skirted the edge
of a great heathy moor. The silvery light of the moon began to glimmer,
and we passed a gipsy bivouac with fires alight and caldrons hanging
over them. It was the first I had seen. Two or three low tents; a couple of
dark, withered crones, veritable witches; a graceful girl standing behind,
gazing after us; and men in odd-shaped hats, with gaudy waistcoats and
bright-coloured neck-handkerchiefs and gaitered legs, stood lazily in
front. They had all a wild tawdry display of colour; and a group of alders
in the rear made a background of shade for tents, fires, and figures.
I opened a front window of the chariot, and called to the postboys to
stop. The groom from behind came to the window.
'Are not those gipsies?' I enquired.

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 'Yes, please'm, them's gipsies, sure, Miss,' he answered, glancing with
that odd smile, half contemptuous, half superstitious, with which I have
since often observed the peasants of Derbyshire eyeing those thievish
and uncanny neighbours.

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Chapter 31
BARTRAM-HAUGH
In a moment a tall, lithe girl, black-haired, black-eyed, and, as I thought,
inexpressibly handsome, was smiling, with such beautiful rings of pearly
teeth, at the window; and in her peculiar accent, with a suspicion of
something foreign in it, proposing with many courtesies to tell the lady
her fortune.
I had never seen this wild tribe of the human race before—children of
mystery and liberty. Such vagabondism and beauty in the figure before
me! I looked at their hovels and thought of the night, and wondered at
their independence, and felt my inferiority. I could not resist. She held
up her slim oriental hand.
'Yes, I'll hear my fortune,' I said, returning the sibyl's smile
instinctively.
'Give me some money, Mary Quince. No, not that,' I said, rejecting the
thrifty sixpence she tendered, for I had heard that the revelations of this
weird sisterhood were bright in proportion to the kindness of their cli-
ents, and was resolved to approach Bartram with cheerful auguries.
'That five-shilling piece,' I insisted; and honest Mary reluctantly sur-
rendered the coin.
So the feline beauty took it, with courtesies and 'thankees,' smiling
still, and hid it away as if she stole it, and looked on my open palm still
smiling; and told me, to my surprise, that there was somebody I liked very
much, and I was almost afraid she would name Captain Oakley; that he
would grow very rich, and that I should marry him; that I should move
about from place to place a great deal for a good while to come. That I
had some enemies, who should be sometimes so near as to be in the
same room with me, and yet they should not be able to hurt me. That I
should see blood spilt and yet not my own, and finally be very happy
and splendid, like the heroine of a fairy tale.
Did this strange, girlish charlatan see in my face some signs of shrink-
ing when she spoke of enemies, and set me down for a coward whose

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weakness might be profitable? Very likely. At all events she plucked a
long brass pin, with a round bead for a head, from some part of her
dress, and holding the point in her fingers, and exhibiting the treasure
before my eyes, she told me that I must get a charmed pin like that,
which her grandmother had given to her, and she ran glibly through a
story of all the magic expended on it, and told me she could not part
with it; but its virtue was that you were to stick it through the blanket,
and while it was there neither rat, nor cat, nor snake—and then came
two more terms in the catalogue, which I suppose belonged to the gipsy
dialect, and which she explained to mean, as well as I could understand,
the first a malevolent spirit, and the second 'a cove to cut your throat,'
could approach or hurt you.
A charm like that, she gave me to understand, I must by hook or by
crook obtain. She had not a second. None of her people in the camp over
there possessed one. I am ashamed to confess that I actually paid her a
pound for this brass pin! The purchase was partly an indication of my
temperament, which could never let an opportunity pass away irrevoc-
ably without a struggle, and always apprehended 'Some day or other I'll
reproach myself for having neglected it!' and partly a record of the trep-
idations of that period of my life. At all events I had her pin, and she my
pound, and I venture to say I was the gladder of the two.
She stood on the road-side bank courtseying and smiling, the first en-
chantress I had encountered, and I watched the receding picture, with its
patches of firelight, its dusky groups and donkey carts, white as skelet-
ons in the moonlight, as we drove rapidly away.
They, I suppose, had a wild sneer and a merry laugh over my pur-
chase, as they sat and ate their supper of stolen poultry, about their fire,
and were duly proud of belonging to the superior race.
Mary Quince, shocked at my prodigality, hinted a remonstrance.
'It went to my heart, Miss, it did. They're such a lot, young and old, all
alike thieves and vagabonds, and many a poor body wanting.'
'Tut, Mary, never mind. Everyone has her fortune told some time in
her life, and you can't have a good one without paying. I think, Mary, we
must be near Bartram now.'
The road now traversed the side of a steep hill, parallel to which, along
the opposite side of a winding river, rose the dark steeps of a corres-
ponding upland, covered with forest that looked awful and dim in the
deep shadow, while the moonlight rippled fitfully upon the stream
beneath.

184
 'It seems to be a beautiful country,' I said to Mary Quince, who was
munching a sandwich in the corner, and thus appealed to, adjusted her
bonnet, and made an inspection from her window, which, however, com-
manded nothing but the heathy slope of the hill whose side we were
traversing.
'Well, Miss, I suppose it is; but there's a deal o' mountains—is not
there?'
And so saying, honest Mary leaned back again, and went on with her
sandwich.
We were now descending at a great pace. I knew we were coming
near. I stood up as well as I could in the carriage, to see over the pos-
tilions' heads. I was eager, but frightened too; agitated as the crisis of the
arrival and meeting approached. At last, a long stretch of comparatively
level country below us, with masses of wood as well as I could see irreg-
ularly overspreading it, became visible as the narrow valley through
which we were speeding made a sudden bend.
Down we drove, and now I did perceive a change. A great grass-
grown park-wall, overtopped with mighty trees; but still on and on we
came at a canter that seemed almost a gallop. The old grey park-wall
flanking us at one side, and a pretty pastoral hedgerow of ash-trees, ir-
regularly on the other.
At last the postilions began to draw bridle, and at a slight angle, the
moon shining full upon them, we wheeled into a wide semicircle formed
by the receding park-walls, and halted before a great fantastic iron gate,
and a pair of tall fluted piers, of white stone, all grass-grown and ivy-
bound, with great cornices, surmounted with shields and supporters, the
Ruthyn bearings washed by the rains of Derbyshire for many a genera-
tion of Ruthyns, almost smooth by this time, and looking bleached and
phantasmal, like giant sentinels, with each a hand clasped in his
comrade's, to bar our passage to the enchanted castle—the florid tracery
of the iron gate showing like the draperies of white robes hanging from
their extended arms to the earth.
Our courier got down and shoved the great gate open, and we
entered, between sombre files of magnificent forest trees, one of those
very broad straight avenues whose width measures the front of the
house. This was all built of white stone, resembling that of Caen, which
parts of Derbyshire produce in such abundance.
So this was Bartram, and here was Uncle Silas. I was almost breathless
as I approached. The bright moon shining full on the white front of the
old house revealed not only its highly decorated style, its fluted pillars

185
and doorway, rich and florid carving, and balustraded summit, but also
its stained and moss-grown front. Two giant trees, overthrown at last by
the recent storm, lay with their upturned roots, and their yellow foliage
still flickering on the sprays that were to bloom no more, where they had
fallen, at the right side of the court-yard, which, like the avenue, was
studded with tufted weeds and grass.
All this gave to the aspect of Bartram a forlorn character of desertion
and decay, contrasting almost awfully with the grandeur of its propor-
tions and richness of its architecture.
There was a ruddy glow from a broad window in the second row, and
I thought I saw some one peep from it and disappear; at the same mo-
ment there was a furious barking of dogs, some of whom ran scampering
into the court-yard from a half-closed side door; and amid their uproar,
the bawling of the man in the back seat, who jumped down to drive
them off, and the crack of the postilions' whips, who struck at them, we
drew up before the lordly door-steps of this melancholy mansion.
Just as our attendant had his hand on the knocker the door opened,
and we saw, by a not very brilliant candle-light, three figures—a shabby
little old man, thin, and very much stooped, with a white cravat, and
looking as if his black clothes were too large, and made for some one
else, stood with his hand upon the door; a young, plump, but very pretty
female figure, in unusually short petticoats, with fattish legs, and nice
ankles, in boots, stood in the centre; and a dowdy maid, like an old char-
woman, behind her.
The household paraded for welcome was not certainly very brilliant.
Amid the riot the trunks were deliberately put down by our attendant,
who kept shouting to the old man at the door, and to the dogs in turn;
and the old man was talking and pointing stiffly and tremulously, but I
could not hear what he said.
'Was it possible—could that mean-looking old man be Uncle Silas?'
The idea stunned me; but I almost instantly perceived that he was
much too small, and I was relieved, and even grateful. It was certainly an
odd mode of procedure to devote primary attention to the trunks and
boxes, leaving the travellers still shut up in the carriage, of which they
were by this time pretty well tired. I was not sorry for the reprieve,
however: being nervous about first impressions, and willing to defer
mine, I sat shyly back, peeping at the candle and moonlight picture be-
fore me, myself unseen.
'Will you tell—yes or no—is my cousin in the coach?' screamed the
plump young lady, stamping her stout black boot, in a momentary lull.

186
 Yes, I was there, sure.
'And why the puck don't you let her out, you stupe, you?'
'Run down, Giblets, you never do nout without driving, and let Cous-
in Maud out. You're very welcome to Bartram.' This greeting was
screamed at an amazing pitch, and repeated before I had time to drop
the window, and say 'thank you.' 'I'd a let you out myself—there's a
good dog, you would na' bite Cousin' (the parenthesis was to a huge
mastiff, who thrust himself beside her, by this time quite pacified)—'only
I daren't go down the steps, for the governor said I shouldn't.'
The venerable person who went by the name of Giblets had by this
time opened the carriage door, and our courier, or 'boots'—he looked
more like the latter functionary—had lowered the steps, and in greater
trepidation than I experienced when in after-days I was presented to my
sovereign, I glided down, to offer myself to the greeting and inspection
of the plain-spoken young lady who stood at the top of the steps to re-
ceive me.
She welcomed me with a hug and a hearty buss, as she called that sa-
lutation, on each cheek, and pulled me into the hall, and was evidently
glad to see me.
'And you're tired a bit, I warrant; and who's the old 'un, who?' she
asked eagerly, in a stage whisper, which made my ear numb for five
minutes after. 'Oh, oh, the maid! and a precious old 'un—ha, ha, ha! But
lawk! how grand she is, with her black silk, cloak and crape, and I only
in twilled cotton, and rotten old Coburg for Sundays. Odds! it's a shame;
but you'll be tired, you will. It's a smartish pull, they do say, from Knowl.
I know a spell of it, only so far as the "Cat and Fiddle," near the Lunnon-
road. Come up, will you? Would you like to come in first and talk a bit
wi' the governor? Father, you know, he's a bit silly, he is, this while.' I
found that the phrase meant only bodily infirmity. 'He took a pain o' Fri-
day, newralgie—something or other he calls it—rheumatics it is when it
takes old "Giblets" there; and he's sitting in his own room; or maybe
you'd like better to come to your bedroom first, for it is dirty work trav-
elling, they do say.'
Yes; I preferred the preliminary adjustment. Mary Quince was stand-
ing behind me; and as my voluble kinswoman talked on, we had each
ample time and opportunity to observe the personnel of the other; and
she made no scruple of letting me perceive that she was improving it, for
she stared me full in the face, taking in evidently feature after feature;
and she felt the material of my mantle pretty carefully between her

187
finger and thumb, and manually examined my chain and trinkets, and
picked up my hand as she might a glove, to con over my rings.
I can't say, of course, exactly what impression I may have produced on
her. But in my cousin Milly I saw a girl who looked younger than her
years, plump, but with a slender waist, with light hair, lighter than mine,
and very blue eyes, rather round; on the whole very good-looking. She
had an odd swaggering walk, a toss of her head, and a saucy and imperi-
ous, but rather good-natured and honest countenance. She talked rather
loud, with a good ringing voice, and a boisterous laugh when it came.
If I was behind the fashion, what would Cousin Monica have thought
of her? She was arrayed, as she had stated, in black twilled cotton ex-
pressive of her affliction; but it was made almost as short in the skirt as
that of the prints of the Bavarian broom girls. She had white cotton
stockings, and a pair of black leather boots, with leather buttons, and, for
a lady, prodigiously thick soles, which reminded me of the navvy boots I
had so often admired in Punch. I must add that the hands with which she
assisted her scrutiny of my dress, though pretty, were very much sun-
burnt indeed.
'And what's her name?' she demanded, nodding to Mary Quince, who
was gazing on her awfully, with round eyes, as an inland spinster might
upon a whale beheld for the first time.
Mary courtesied, and I answered.
'Mary Quince,' she repeated. 'You're welcome, Quince. What shall I
call her? I've a name for all o' them. Old Giles there, is Giblets. He did
not like it first, but he answers quick enough now; and Old Lucy Wyat
there,' nodding toward the old woman, 'is Lucia de l'Amour.' A slightly
erroneous reading of Lammermoor, for my cousin sometimes made mis-
takes, and was not much versed in the Italian opera. 'You know it's a
play, and I call her L'Amour for shortness;' and she laughed hilariously,
and I could not forbear joining; and, winking at me, she called aloud,
'L'Amour.'
To which the crone, with a high-cauled cap, resembling Mother Hub-
bard, responded with a courtesy and 'Yes,'m.'
'Are all the trunks and boxes took up?'
They were.
'Well, we'll come now; and what shall I call you, Quince? Let me see.'
'According to your pleasure, Miss,' answered Mary, with dignity, and
a dry courtesy.
'Why, you're as hoarse as a frog, Quince. We'll call you Quinzy for the
present. That'll do. Come along, Quinzy.'

188
 So my Cousin Milly took me under the arm, and pulled me forward;
but as we ascended, she let me go, leaning back to make inspection of
my attire from a new point of view.
'Hallo, cousin,' she cried, giving my dress a smack with her open hand.
'What a plague do you want of all that bustle; you'll leave it behind, lass,
the first bush you jump over.'
I was a good deal astounded. I was also very near laughing, for there
was a sort of importance in her plump countenance, and an indescrib-
able grotesqueness in the fashion of her garments, which heightened the
outlandishness of her talk, in a way which I cannot at all describe.
What palatial wide stairs those were which we ascended, with their
prodigious carved banisters of oak, and each huge pillar on the landing-
place crowned with a shield and carved heraldic supporters; florid oak
panelling covered the walls. But of the house I could form no estimate,
for Uncle Silas's housekeeping did not provide light for hall and pas-
sages, and we were dependent on the glimmer of a single candle; but
there would be quite enough of this kind of exploration in the daylight.
So along dark oak flooring we advanced to my room, and I had now
an opportunity of admiring, at my leisure, the lordly proportions of the
building. Two great windows, with dark and tarnished curtains, rose
half as high again as the windows of Knowl; and yet Knowl, in its own
style, is a fine house. The door-frames, like the window-frames, were
richly carved; the fireplace was in the same massive style, and the man-
telpiece projected with a mass of very rich carving. On the whole I was
surprised. I had never slept in so noble a room before.
The furniture, I must confess, was by no means on a par with the ar-
chitectural pretensions of the apartment. A French bed, a piece of carpet
about three yards square, a small table, two chairs, a toilet table—no
wardrobe—no chest of drawers. The furniture painted white, and of the
light and diminutive kind, was particularly ill adapted to the scale and
style of the apartment, one end only of which it occupied, and that but
sparsely, leaving the rest of the chamber in the nakedness of a stately
desolation. My cousin Milly ran away to report progress to 'the
Governor,' as she termed Uncle Silas.
'Well, Miss Maud, I never did expect to see the like o' that!' exclaimed
honest Mary Quince, 'Did you ever see such a young lady? She's no more
like one o' the family than I am. Law bless us! and what's she dressed
like? Well, well, well!' And Mary, with a rueful shake of her head,
clicked her tongue pathetically to the back of her teeth, while I could not
forbear laughing.

189
 'And such a scrap o' furniture! Well, well, well!' and the same ticking
of the tongue followed.
But, in a few minutes, back came Cousin Milly, and, with a barbarous
sort of curiosity, assisted in unpacking my trunks, and stowing away the
treasures, on which she ventured a variety of admiring criticisms, in the
presses which, like cupboards, filled recesses in the walls, with great oak
doors, the keys of which were in them.
As I was making my hurried toilet, she entertained me now and then
with more strictly personal criticisms.
'Your hair's a shade darker than mine—it's none the better o' that
though—is it? Mine's said to be the right shade. I don't know—what do
you say?'
I conceded the point with a good grace.
'I wish my hands was as white though—you do lick me there; but it's
all gloves, and I never could abide 'em. I think I'll try though—they are
very white, sure.'
'I wonder which is the prettiest, you or me? I don't know, I'm
sure—which do you think?'
I laughed outright at this challenge, and she blushed a little, and for
the first time seemed for a moment a little shy.
'Well, you are a half an inch longer than me, I think—don't you?'
I was fully an inch taller, so I had no difficulty in making the proposed
admission.
'Well, you do look handsome! doesn't she, Quinzy, lass? but your frock
comes down almost to your heels—it does.'
And she glanced from mine to hers, and made a little kick up with the
heel of the navvy boot to assist her in measuring the comparative
distance.
'Maybe mine's a thought too short?' she suggested. 'Who's there? Oh!
it's you, is it?' she cried as Mother Hubbard appeared at the door. 'Come
in, L'Amour—don't you know, lass, you're always welcome?'
She had come to let us know that Uncle Silas would be happy to see
me whenever I was ready; and that my cousin Millicent would conduct
me to the room where he awaited me.
In an instant all the comic sensations awakened by my singular
cousin's eccentricities vanished, and I was thrilled with awe. I was about
to see in the flesh—faded, broken, aged, but still identical—that being
who had been the vision and the problem of so many years of my short
life.

190
Chapter 32
UNCLE SILAS
I thought my odd cousin was also impressed with a kind of awe, though
different in degree from mine, for a shade overcast her face, and she was
silent as we walked side by side along the gallery, accompanied by the
crone who carried the candle which lighted us to the door of that apart-
ment which I may call Uncle Silas's presence chamber.
Milly whispered to me as we approached—
'Mind how you make a noise; the governor's as sharp as a weasel, and
nothing vexes him like that.'
She was herself toppling along on tiptoe. We paused at a door near the
head of the great staircase, and L'Amour knocked timidly with her
rheumatic knuckles.
A voice, clear and penetrating, from within summoned us to enter.
The old woman opened the door, and the next moment I was in the pres-
ence of Uncle Silas.
At the far end of a handsome wainscoted room, near the hearth in
which a low fire was burning, beside a small table on which stood four
waxlights, in tall silver candlesticks, sat a singular-looking old man.
The dark wainscoting behind him, and the vastness of the room, in the
remoter parts of which the light which fell strongly upon his face and
figure expended itself with hardly any effect, exhibited him with the for-
cible and strange relief of a finely painted Dutch portrait. For some time I
saw nothing but him.
A face like marble, with a fearful monumental look, and, for an old
man, singularly vivid strange eyes, the singularity of which rather grew
upon me as I looked; for his eyebrows were still black, though his hair
descended from his temples in long locks of the purest silver and fine as
silk, nearly to his shoulders.
He rose, tall and slight, a little stooped, all in black, with an ample
black velvet tunic, which was rather a gown than a coat, with loose
sleeves, showing his snowy shirt some way up the arm, and a pair of

191
wrist buttons, then quite out of fashion, which glimmered aristocratically
with diamonds.
I know I can't convey in words an idea of this apparition, drawn as it
seemed in black and white, venerable, bloodless, fiery-eyed, with its sin-
gular look of power, and an expression so bewildering—was it derision,
or anguish, or cruelty, or patience?
The wild eyes of this strange old man were fixed upon me as he rose;
an habitual contraction, which in certain lights took the character of a
scowl, did not relax as he advanced toward me with his thin-lipped
smile. He said something in his clear, gentle, but cold voice, the import
of which I was too much agitated to catch, and he took both my hands in
his, welcomed me with a courtly grace which belonged to another age,
and led me affectionately, with many inquiries which I only half compre-
hended, to a chair near his own.
'I need not introduce my daughter; she has saved me that mortifica-
tion. You'll find her, I believe, good-natured and affectionate; au reste, I
fear a very rustic Miranda, and fitted rather for the society of Caliban
than of a sick old Prospero. Is it not so, Millicent?'
The old man paused sarcastically for an answer, with his eyes fixed
severely on my odd cousin, who blushed and looked uneasily to me for a
hint.
'I don't know who they be—neither one nor t'other.'
'Very good, my dear,' he replied, with a little mocking bow. 'You see,
my dear Maud, what a Shakespearean you have got for a cousin. It's
plain, however, she has made acquaintance with some of our dramatists:
she has studied the rôle of Miss Hoyden so perfectly.'
It was not a reasonable peculiarity of my uncle that he resented, with a
good deal of playful acrimony, my poor cousin's want of education, for
which, if he were not to blame, certainly neither was she.
'You see her, poor thing, a result of all the combined disadvantages of
want of refined education, refined companionship, and, I fear, naturally,
of refined tastes; but a sojourn at a good French conventual school will
do wonders, and I hope to manage by-and-by. In the meantime we jest at
our misfortunes, and love one another, I hope, cordially.'
He extended his thin, white hand with a chilly smile towards Milly,
who bounced up, and took it with a frightened look; and he repeated,
holding her hand rather slightly I thought, 'Yes, I hope, very cordially,'
and then turning again to me, he put it over the arm of his chair, and let
it go, as a man might drop something he did not want from a carriage
window.

192
 Having made this apology for poor Milly, who was plainly be-
wildered, he passed on, to her and my relief, to other topics, every now
and then expressing his fears that I was fatigued, and his anxiety that I
should partake of some supper or tea; but these solicitudes somehow
seemed to escape his remembrance almost as soon as uttered; and he
maintained the conversation, which soon degenerated into a close, and
to me a painful examination, respecting my dear father's illness and its
symptoms, upon which I could give no information, and his habits, upon
which I could.
Perhaps he fancied that there might be some family predisposition to
the organic disease of which his brother died, and that his questions
were directed rather to the prolonging of his own life than to the better
understanding of my dear father's death.
How little was there left to this old man to make life desirable, and yet
how keenly, I afterwards found, he clung to it. Have we not all of us seen
those to whom life was not only undesirable, but positively painful—a
mere series of bodily torments, yet hold to it with a desperate and piti-
able tenacity—old children or young, it is all the same.
See how a sleepy child will put off the inevitable departure for bed.
The little creature's eyes blink and stare, and it needs constant jogging to
prevent his nodding off into the slumber which nature craves. His wak-
ing is a pain; he is quite worn out, and peevish, and stupid, and yet he
implores a respite, and deprecates repose, and vows he is not sleepy,
even to the moment when his mother takes him in her arms, and carries
him, in a sweet slumber, to the nursery. So it is with us old children of
earth and the great sleep of death, and nature our kind mother. Just so
reluctantly we part with consciousness, the picture is, even to the last, so
interesting; the bird in the hand, though sick and moulting, so inestim-
ably better than all the brilliant tenants of the bush. We sit up, yawning,
and blinking, and stupid, the whole scene swimming before us, and the
stories and music humming off into the sound of distant winds and wa-
ters. It is not time yet; we are not fatigued; we are good for another hour
still, and so protesting against bed, we falter and drop into the dreamless
sleep which nature assigns to fatigue and satiety.
He then spoke a little eulogy of his brother, very polished, and, in-
deed, in a kind of way, eloquent. He possessed in a high degree that ac-
complishment, too little cultivated, I think, by the present generation, of
expressing himself with perfect precision and fluency. There was, too, a
good deal of slight illustrative quotation, and a sprinkling of French
flowers, over his conversation, which gave to it a character at once

193
elegant and artificial. It was all easy, light, and pointed, and being quite
new to me, had a wonderful fascination.
He then told me that Bartram was the temple of liberty, that the health
of a whole life was founded in a few years of youth, air, and exercise,
and that accomplishments, at least, if not education, should wait upon
health. Therefore, while at Bartram, I should dispose of my time quite as
I pleased, and the more I plundered the garden and gipsied in the wood-
lands, the better.
Then he told me what a miserable invalid he was, and how the doctors
interfered with his frugal tastes. A glass of beer and a mutton chop—his
ideal of a dinner—he dared not touch. They made him drink light wines,
which he detested, and live upon those artificial abominations all liking
for which vanishes with youth.
There stood on a side-table, in its silver coaster, a long-necked Rhenish
bottle, and beside it a thin pink glass, and he quivered his fingers in a
peevish way toward them.
But unless he found himself better very soon, he would take his case
into his own hands, and try the dietary to which nature pointed.
He waved his fingers toward his bookcases, and told me his books
were altogether at my service during my stay; but this promise ended, I
must confess, disappointingly. At last, remarking that I must be fatigued,
he rose, and kissed me with a solemn tenderness, placed his hand upon
what I now perceived to be a large Bible, with two broad silk markers,
red and gold, folded in it—the one, I might conjecture, indicating the
place in the Old, the other in the New Testament. It stood on the small
table that supported the waxlights, with a handsome cut bottle of eau-
de-cologne, his gold and jewelled pencil-case, and his chased repeater,
chain, and seals, beside it. There certainly were no indications of poverty
in Uncle Silas's room; and he said impressively—
'Remember that book; in it your father placed his trust, in it he found
his reward, in it lives my only hope; consult it, my beloved niece, day
and night, as the oracle of life.'
Then he laid his thin hand on my head, and blessed me, and then
kissed my forehead.
'No—a!' exclaimed Cousin Milly's lusty voice. I had quite forgotten her
presence, and looked at her with a little start. She was seated on a very
high old-fashioned chair; she had palpably been asleep; her round eyes
were blinking and staring glassily at us; and her white legs and navvy
boots were dangling in the air.

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 'Have you anything to remark about Noah?' enquired her father, with
a polite inclination and an ironical interest.
'No—a,' she repeated in the same blunt accents; 'I didn't snore; did I?
No—a.'
The old man smiled and shrugged a little at me—it was the smile of
disgust.
'Good night, my dear Maud;' and turning to her, he said, with a peculi-
ar gentle sharpness, 'Had not you better wake, my dear, and try whether
your cousin would like some supper?'
So he accompanied us to the door, outside which we found L'Amour's
candle awaiting us.
'I'm awful afraid of the Governor, I am. Did I snore that time?'
'No, dear; at least, I did not hear it,' I said, unable to repress a smile.
'Well, if I didn't, I was awful near it,' she said, reflectively.
We found poor Mary Quince dozing over the fire; but we soon had tea
and other good things, of which Milly partook with a wonderful
appetite.
'I was in a qualm about it,' said Milly, who by this time was quite her-
self again. 'When he spies me a-napping, maybe he don't fetch me a prod
with his pencil-case over the head. Odd! girl, it is sore.'
When I contrasted the refined and fluent old gentleman whom I had
just left, with this amazing specimen of young ladyhood, I grew sceptical
almost as to the possibility of her being his child.
I was to learn, however, how little she had, I won't say of his society,
but even of his presence—that she had no domestic companion of the
least pretensions to education—that she ran wild about the place—never,
except in church, so much as saw a person of that rank to which she was
born—and that the little she knew of reading and writing had been
picked up, in desultory half-hours, from a person who did not care a pin
about her manners or decorum, and perhaps rather enjoyed her grot-
esqueness—and that no one who was willing to take the least trouble
about her was competent to make her a particle more refined than I saw
her—the wonder ceased. We don't know how little is heritable, and how
much simply training, until we encounter some-such spectacle as that of
my poor cousin Milly.
When I lay down in my bed and reviewed the day, it seemed like a
month of wonders. Uncle Silas was always before me; the voice so sil-
very for an old man—so preternaturally soft; the manners so sweet, so
gentle; the aspect, smiling, suffering, spectral. It was no longer a shadow;
I had now seen him in the flesh. But, after all, was he more than a

195
shadow to me? When I closed my eyes I saw him before me still, in nec-
romantic black, ashy with a pallor on which I looked with fear and pain,
a face so dazzlingly pale, and those hollow, fiery, awful eyes! It some-
times seemed as if the curtain opened, and I had seen a ghost.
I had seen him; but he was still an enigma and a marvel. The living
face did not expound the past, any more than the portrait portended the
future. He was still a mystery and a vision; and thinking of these things I
fell asleep.
Mary Quince, who slept in the dressing-room, the door of which was
close to my bed, and lay open to secure me against ghosts, called me up;
and the moment I knew where I was I jumped up, and peeped eagerly
from the window. It commanded the avenue and court-yard; but we
were many windows removed from that over the hall-door, and immedi-
ately beneath ours lay the two giant lime trees, prostrate and uprooted,
which I had observed as we drove up the night before.
I saw more clearly in the bright light of morning the signs of neglect
and almost of dilapidation which had struck me as I approached. The
court-yard was tufted over with grass, seldom from year to year crushed
by the carriage-wheels, or trodden by the feet of visitors. This melan-
choly verdure thickened where the area was more remote from the
centre; and under the windows, and skirting the walls to the left, was re-
inforced by a thick grove of nettles. The avenue was all grass-grown, ex-
cept in the very centre, where a narrow track still showed the roadway
The handsome carved balustrade of the court-yard was discoloured with
lichens, and in two places gapped and broken; and the air of decay was
heightened by the fallen trees, among whose sprays and yellow leaves
the small birds were hopping.
Before my toilet was completed, in marched my cousin Milly. We were
to breakfast alone that morning, 'and so much the better,' she told me.
Sometimes the Governor ordered her to breakfast with him, and 'never
left off chaffing her' till his newspaper came, and 'sometimes he said
such things he made her cry,' and then he only 'boshed her more,' and
packed her away to her room; but she was by chalks nicer than him, talk
as he might. 'Was not she nicer? was not she? was not she?' Upon this
point she was so strong and urgent that I was obliged to reply by a
protest against awarding the palm of elegance between parent and child,
and declaring I liked her very much, which I attested by a kiss.
'I know right well which of us you do think's the nicest, and no mis-
take, only you're afraid of him; and he had no business boshing me last

196
night before you. I knew he was at it, though I couldn't twig him alto-
gether; but wasn't he a sneak, now, wasn't he?'
This was a still more awkward question; so I kissed her again, and said
she must never ask me to say of my uncle in his absence anything I could
not say to his face.
At which speech she stared at me for a while, and then treated me to
one of her hearty laughs, after which she seemed happier, and gradually
grew into better humour with her father.
'Sometimes, when the curate calls, he has me up—for he's as religious
as six, he is—and they read Bible and prays, ho—don't they? You'll have
that, lass, like me, to go through; and maybe I don't hate it; oh, no!'
We breakfasted in a small room, almost a closet, off the great parlour,
which was evidently quite disused. Nothing could be homelier than our
equipage, or more shabby than the furniture of the little apartment. Still,
somehow, I liked it. It was a total change; but one likes 'roughing it' a
little at first.

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Chapter 33
THE WINDMILL WOOD
I had not time to explore this noble old house as my curiosity prompted;
for Milly was in such a fuss to set out for the 'blackberry dell' that I saw
little more than just so much as I necessarily traversed in making my
way to and from my room.
The actual decay of the house had been prevented by my dear father;
and the roof, windows, masonry, and carpentry had all been kept in re-
pair. But short of indications of actual ruin, there are many manifesta-
tions of poverty and neglect which impress with a feeling of desolation.
It was plain that not nearly a tithe of this great house was inhabited; long
corridors and galleries stretched away in dust and silence, and were
crossed by others, whose dark arches inspired me in the distance with an
awful sort of sadness. It was plainly one of those great structures in
which you might easily lose yourself, and with a pleasing terror it re-
minded me of that delightful old abbey in Mrs. Radcliffe's romance,
among whose silent staircases, dim passages, and long suites of lordly,
but forsaken chambers, begirt without by the sombre forest, the family of
La Mote secured a gloomy asylum.
My cousin Milly and I, however, were bent upon an open-air ramble,
and traversing several passages, she conducted me to a door which led
us out upon a terrace overgrown with weeds, and by a broad flight of
steps we descended to the level of the grounds beneath. Then on, over
the short grass, under the noble trees, we walked; Milly in high good-hu-
mour, and talking away volubly, in her short garment, navvy boots, and
a weather-beaten hat. She carried a stick in her gloveless hand. Her con-
versation was quite new to me, and resembled very much what I would
have fancied the holiday recollections of a schoolboy; and the language
in which it was sustained was sometimes so outlandish, that I was forced
to laugh outright—a demonstration which she plainly did not like.

198
 Her talk was about the great jumps she had made—how she snow-
balled the chaps' in winter—how she could slide twice the length of her
stick beyond 'Briddles, the cow-boy.'
With this and similar conversation she entertained me.
The grounds were delightfully wild and neglected. But we had now
passed into a vast park beautifully varied with hollows and uplands, and
such glorious old timber massed and scattered over its slopes and levels.
Among these, we got at last into a picturesque dingle; the grey rocks
peeped from among the ferns and wild flowers, and the steps of soft
sward along its sides were dark in the shadows of silver-stemmed birch,
and russet thorn, and oak, under which, in the vaporous night, the Erl-
king and his daughter might glide on their aërial horses.
In the lap of this pleasant dell were the finest blackberry bushes, I
think, I ever saw, bearing fruit quite fabulous; and plucking these, and
chatting, we rambled on very pleasantly.
I had first thought of Milly's absurdities, to which, in description, I
cannot do justice, simply because so many details have, by distance of
time, escaped my recollection. But her ways and her talk were so indes-
cribably grotesque that she made me again and again quiver with sup-
pressed laughter.
But there was a pitiable and even a melancholy meaning underlying
the burlesque.
This creature, with no more education than a dairy-maid, I gradually
discovered had fine natural aptitudes for accomplishment—a very sweet
voice, and wonderfully delicate ear, and a talent for drawing which quite
threw mine into the shade. It was really astonishing.
Poor Milly, in all her life, had never read three books, and hated to
think of them. One, over which she was wont to yawn and sigh, and
stare fatiguedly for an hour every Sunday, by command of the Governor,
was a stout volume of sermons of the earlier school of George III., and a
drier collection you can't fancy. I don't think she read anything else. But
she had, notwithstanding, ten times the cleverness of half the circulating
library misses one meets with. Besides all this, I had a long sojourn be-
fore me at Bartram-Haugh, and I had learned from Milly, as I had heard
before, what a perennial solitude it was, with a ludicrous fear of learning
Milly's preposterous dialect, and turning at last into something like her.
So I resolved to do all I could for her—teach her whatever I knew, if she
would allow me—and gradually, if possible, effect some civilising
changes in her language, and, as they term it in boarding-schools, her
demeanour.

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 But I must pursue at present our first day's ramble in what was called
Bartram Chase. People can't go on eating blackberries always; so after a
while we resumed our walk along this pretty dell, which gradually ex-
panded into a wooded valley—level beneath and enclosed by irregular
uplands, receding, as it were, in mimic bays and harbours at some
points, and running out at others into broken promontories, ending in
clumps of forest trees.
Just where the glen which we had been traversing expanded into this
broad, but wooded valley, it was traversed by a high and close paling,
which, although it looked decayed, was still very strong.
In this there was a wooden gate, rudely but strongly constructed, and
at the side we were approaching stood a girl, who was leaning against
the post, with one arm resting on the top of the gate.
This girl was neither tall nor short—taller than she looked at a dis-
tance; she had not a slight waist; sooty black was her hair, with a broad
forehead, perpendicular but low; she had a pair of very fine, dark, lus-
trous eyes, and no other good feature—unless I may so call her teeth,
which were very white and even. Her face was rather short, and swarthy
as a gipsy's; observant and sullen too; and she did not move, only eyed
us negligently from under her dark lashes as we drew near. Altogether a
not unpicturesque figure, with a dusky, red petticoat of drugget, and
tattered jacket of bottle-green stuff, with short sleeves, which showed her
brown arms from the elbow.
'That's Pegtop's daughter,' said Milly.
'Who is Pegtop?' I asked.
'He's the miller—see, yonder it is,' and she pointed to a very pretty fea-
ture in the landscape, a windmill, crowning the summit of a hillock
which rose suddenly above the level of the treetops, like an island in the
centre of the valley.
'The mill not going to-day, Beauty?' bawled Milly.
'No—a, Beauty; it baint,' replied the girl, loweringly, and without
stirring.
'And what's gone with the stile?' demanded Milly, aghast. 'It's tore
away from the paling!'
'Well, so it be,' replied the wood nymph in the red petticoat, showing
her fine teeth with a lazy grin.
'Who's a bin and done all that?' demanded Milly.
'Not you nor me, lass,' said the girl.
''Twas old Pegtop, your father, did it,' cried Milly, in rising wrath.
''Appen it wor,' she replied.

200
 'And the gate locked.'
'That's it—the gate locked,' she repeated, sulkily, with a defiant side-
glance at Milly.
'And where's Pegtop?'
'At t'other side, somewhere; how should I know where he be?' she
replied.
'Who's got the key?'
'Here it be, lass,' she answered, striking her hand on her pocket. 'And
how durst you stay us here? Unlock it, huzzy, this minute!' cried Milly,
with a stamp.
Her answer was a sullen smile.
'Open the gate this instant!' bawled Milly.
'Well, I won't.'
I expected that Milly would have flown into a frenzy at this direct defi-
ance, but she looked instead puzzled and curious—the girl's unexpected
audacity bewildered her.
'Why, you fool, I could get over the paling as soon as look at you, but I
won't. What's come over you? Open the gate, I say, or I'll make you.'
'Do let her alone, dear,' I entreated, fearing a mutual assault. 'She has
been ordered, may be, not to open it. Is it so, my good girl?'
'Well, thou'rt not the biggest fool o' the two,' she observed, commend-
atively, 'thou'st hit it, lass.'
'And who ordered you?' exclaimed Milly.
'Fayther.'
'Old Pegtop. Well, that's summat to laugh at, it is—our servant a-shut-
ting us out of our own grounds.'
'No servant o' yourn!'
'Come, lass, what do you mean?'
'He be old Silas's miller, and what's that to thee?'
With these words the girl made a spring on the hasp of the padlock,
and then got easily over the gate.
'Can't you do that, cousin?' whispered Milly to me, with an impatient
nudge. 'I wish you'd try.'
'No, dear—come away, Milly,' and I began to withdraw.
'Lookee, lass, 'twill be an ill day's work for thee when I tell the
Governor,' said Milly, addressing the girl, who stood on a log of timber
at the other side, regarding us with a sullen composure.
'We'll be over in spite o' you,' cried Milly.
'You lie!' answered she.

201
 'And why not, huzzy?' demanded my cousin, who was less incensed at
the affront than I expected. All this time I was urging Milly in vain to
come away.
'Yon lass is no wild cat, like thee—that's why,' said the sturdy portress.
'If I cross, I'll give you a knock,' said Milly.
'And I'll gi' thee another,' she answered, with a vicious wag of the
head.
'Come, Milly, I'll go if you don't,' I said.
'But we must not be beat,' whispered she, vehemently, catching my
arm; 'and ye shall get over, and see what I will gi' her!'
'I'll not get over.'
'Then I'll break the door, for ye shall come through,' exclaimed Milly,
kicking the stout paling with her ponderous boot.
'Purr it, purr it, purr it!' cried the lass in the red petticoat with a grin.
'Do you know who this lady is?' cried Milly, suddenly.
'She is a prettier lass than thou,' answered Beauty.
'She's my cousin Maud—Miss Ruthyn of Knowl—and she's a deal rich-
er than the Queen; and the Governor's taking care of her; and he'll make
old Pegtop bring you to reason.'
The girl eyed me with a sulky listlessness, a little inquisitively, I
thought.
'See if he don't,' threatened Milly.
'You positively must come,' I said, drawing her away with me.
'Well, shall we come in?' cried Milly, trying a last summons.
'You'll not come in that much,' she answered, surlily, measuring an in-
finitesimal distance on her finger with her thumb, which she pinched
against it, the gesture ending with a snap of defiance, and a smile that
showed her fine teeth.
'I've a mind to shy a stone at you,' shouted Milly.
'Faire away; I'll shy wi' ye as long as ye like, lass; take heed o' yerself;'
and Beauty picked up a round stone as large as a cricket ball.
With difficulty I got Milly away without an exchange of missiles, and
much disgusted at my want of zeal and agility.
'Well, come along, cousin, I know an easy way by the river, when it's
low,' answered Milly. 'She's a brute—is not she?'
As we receded, we saw the girl slowly wending her way towards the
old thatched cottage, which showed its gable from the side of a little
rugged eminence embowered in spreading trees, and dangling and
twirling from its string on the end of her finger the key for which a battle
had so nearly been fought.

202
 The stream was low enough to make our flank movement round the
end of the paling next it quite easy, and so we pursued our way, and
Milly's equanimity returned, and our ramble grew very pleasant again.
Our path lay by the river bank, and as we proceeded, the dwarf timber
was succeeded by grander trees, which crowded closer and taller, and, at
last, the scenery deepened into solemn forest, and a sudden sweep in the
river revealed the beautiful ruin of a steep old bridge, with the fragments
of a gate-house on the farther side.
'Oh, Milly darling!' I exclaimed, 'what a beautiful drawing this would
make! I should so like to make a sketch of it.'
'So it would. Make a picture—do!—here's a stone that's pure and flat to
sit upon, and you look very tired. Do make it, and I'll sit by you.'
'Yes, Milly, I am tired, a little, and I will sit down; but we must wait for
another day to make the picture, for we have neither pencil nor paper.
But it is much too pretty to be lost; so let us come again to-morrow.'
'To-morrow be hanged! you'll do it to-day, bury-me-wick, but you
shall; I'm wearying to see you make a picture, and I'll fetch your conun-
drums out o' your drawer, for do't you shall.'

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Chapter 34
ZAMIEL
It was all vain my remonstrating. She vowed that by crossing the
stepping-stones close by she could, by a short cut, reach the house, and
return with my pencils and block-book in a quarter of an hour. Away
then, with many a jump and fling, scampered Milly's queer white stock-
ings and navvy boots across the irregular and precarious stepping-
stones, over which I dared not follow her; so I was fain to return to the
stone so 'pure and flat,' on which I sat, enjoying the grand sylvan
solitude, the dark background and the grey bridge mid-way, so tall and
slim, across whose ruins a sunbeam glimmered, and the gigantic forest
trees that slumbered round, opening here and there in dusky vistas, and
breaking in front into detached and solemn groups. It was the setting of
a dream of romance.
It would have been the very spot in which to read a volume of German
folk-lore, and the darkening colonnades and silent nooks of the forest
seemed already haunted with the voices and shadows of those charming
elves and goblins.
As I sat here enjoying the solitude and my fancies among the low
branches of the wood, at my right I heard a crashing, and saw a squat
broad figure in a stained and tattered military coat, and loose short
trousers, one limb of which flapped about a wooden leg. He was forcing
himself through. His face was rugged and wrinkled, and tanned to the
tint of old oak; his eyes black, beadlike, and fierce, and a shock of sooty
hair escaped from under his battered wide-awake nearly to his
shoulders. This forbidding-looking person came stumping and jerking
along toward me, whisking his stick now and then viciously in the air,
and giving his fell of hair a short shake, like a wild bull preparing to
attack.
I stood up involuntarily with a sense of fear and surprise, almost
fancying I saw in that wooden-legged old soldier, the forest demon who
haunted Der Freischütz.

204
 So he approached shouting—
'Hollo! you—how came you here? Dost 'eer?'
And he drew near panting, and sometimes tugging angrily in his haste
at his wooden leg, which sunk now and then deeper than was conveni-
ent in the sod. This exertion helped to anger him, and when he halted be-
fore me, his dark face smirched with smoke and dust, and the nostrils of
his flat drooping nose expanded and quivered as he panted, like the gills
of a fish; an angrier or uglier face it would not be easy to fancy.
'Ye'll all come when ye like, will ye? and do nout but what pleases
yourselves, won't you? And who'rt thou? Dost 'eer—who are ye, I say;
and what the deil seek ye in the woods here? Come, bestir thee!'
If his wide mouth and great tobacco-stained teeth, his scowl, and loud
discordant tones were intimidating, they were also extremely irritating.
The moment my spirit was roused, my courage came.
'I am Miss Ruthyn of Knowl, and Mr. Silas Ruthyn, your master, is my
uncle.'
'Hoo!' he exclaimed more gently, 'an' if Silas be thy uncle thou'lt be
come to live wi' him, and thou'rt she as come overnight—eh?'
I made no answer, but I believe I looked both angrily and disdainfully.
'And what make ye alone here? and how was I to know't, an' Milly not
wi' ye, nor no one? But Maud or no Maud, I wouldn't let the Dooke his-
self set foot inside the palin' without Silas said let him. And you may tell
Silas them's the words o' Dickon Hawkes, and I'll stick to'm—and what's
more I'll tell him myself—I will; I'll tell him there be no use o' my striving
and straining hee, day an' night and night and day, watchin' again
poachers, and thieves, and gipsies, and they robbing lads, if rules won't
be kep, and folk do jist as they pleases. Dang it, lass, thou'rt in luck I
didn't heave a brick at thee when I saw thee first.'
'I'll complain of you to my uncle,' I replied.
'So do, and and 'appen thou'lt find thyself in the wrong box, lass; thou
canst na' say I set the dogs arter thee, nor cau'd thee so much as a wry
name, nor heave a stone at thee—did I? Well? and where's the complaint
then?'
I simply answered, rather fiercely,
'Be good enough to leave me.'
'Well, I make no objections, mind. I'm takin' thy word—thou'rt Maud
Ruthyn—'appen thou be'st and 'appen thou baint. I'm not aweer on't, but
I takes thy word, and all I want to know's just this, did Meg open the
gate to thee?'

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 I made him no answer, and to my great relief I saw Milly striding and
skipping across the unequal stepping-stones.
'Hallo, Pegtop! what are you after now?' she cried, as she drew near.
'This man has been extremely impertinent. You know him, Milly?' I
said.
'Why that's Pegtop Dickon. Dirty old Hawkes that never was washed.
I tell you, lad, ye'll see what the Governor thinks o't—a-ha! He'll talk to
you.'
'I done or said nout—not but I should, and there's the fack—she can't
deny't; she hadn't a hard word from I; and I don't care the top o' that
thistle what no one says—not I. But I tell thee, Milly, I stopped some o'
thy pranks, and I'll stop more. Ye'll be shying no more stones at the
cattle.'
'Tell your tales, and welcome, cried Milly. 'I wish I was here when you
jawed cousin. If Winny was here she'd catch you by the timber toe and
put you on your back.'
'Ay, she'll be a good un yet if she takes arter thee,' retorted the old man
with a fierce sneer.
'Drop it, and get away wi' ye,' cried she, 'or maybe I'd call Winny to
smash your timber leg for you.'
'A-ha! there's more on't. She's a sweet un. Isn't she?' he replied
sardonically.
'You did not like it last Easter, when Winny broke it with a kick.'
''Twas a kick o' a horse,' he growled with a glance at me.
''Twas no such thing—'twas Winny did it—and he laid on his back for
a week while carpenter made him a new one.' And Milly laughed
hilariously.
'I'll fool no more wi' ye, losing my time; I won't; but mind ye, I'll speak
wi' Silas.' And going away he put his hand to his crumpled wide-awake,
and said to me with a surly difference—
'Good evening, Miss Ruthyn—good evening, ma'am—and ye'll please
remember, I did not mean nout to vex thee.'
And so he swaggered away, jerking and waddling over the sward, and
was soon lost in the wood.
'It's well he's a little bit frightened—I never saw him so angry, I think;
he is awful mad.'
'Perhaps he really is not aware how very rude he is,' I suggested.
'I hate him. We were twice as pleasant with poor Tom Driver—he nev-
er meddled with any one, and was always in liquor; Old Gin was the
name he went by. But this brute—I do hate him—he comes from Wigan,

206
I think, and he's always spoiling sport—and he whops Meg—that's
Beauty, you know, and I don't think she'd be half as bad only for him.
Listen to him whistlin'.'
'I did hear whistling at some distance among the trees.'
'I declare if he isn't callin' the dogs! Climb up here, I tell ye,' and we
climbed up the slanting trunk of a great walnut tree, and strained our
eyes in the direction from which we expected the onset of Pegtop's vi-
cious pack.
But it was a false alarm.
'Well, I don't think he would do that, after all—hardly; but he is a brute,
sure!'
'And that dark girl who would not let us through, is his daughter, is
she?'
'Yes, that's Meg—Beauty, I christened her, when I called him Beast; but
I call him Pegtop now, and she's Beauty still, and that's the way o't.'
'Come, sit down now, an' make your picture,' she resumed so soon as
we had dismounted from our position of security.
'I'm afraid I'm hardly in the vein. I don't think I could draw a straight
line. My hand trembles.'
'I wish you could, Maud,' said Milly, with a look so wistful and en-
treating, that considering the excursion she had made for the pencils, I
could not bear to disappoint her.
'Well, Milly, we must only try; and if we fail we can't help it. Sit you
down beside me and I'll tell you why I begin with one part and not an-
other, and you'll see how I make trees and the river, and—yes, that pen-
cil, it is hard and answers for the fine light lines; but we must begin at
the beginning, and learn to copy drawings before we attempt real views
like this. And if you wish it, Milly, I'm resolved to teach you everything I
know, which, after all, is not a great deal, and we shall have such fun
making sketches of the same landscapes, and then comparing.'
And so on, Milly, quite delighted, and longing to begin her course of
instruction, sat down beside me in a rapture, and hugged and kissed me
so heartily that we were very near rolling together off the stone on which
we were seated. Her boisterous delight and good-nature helped to re-
store me, and both laughing heartily together, I commenced my task.
'Dear me! who's that?' I exclaimed suddenly, as looking up from my
block-book I saw the figure of a slight man in the careless morning-dress
of a gentleman, crossing the ruinous bridge in our direction, with consid-
erable caution, upon the precarious footing of the battlement, which
alone offered an unbroken passage.

207
 This was a day of apparitions! Milly recognised him instantly. The
gentleman was Mr. Carysbroke. He had taken The Grange only for a
year. He lived quite to himself, and was very good to the poor, and was
the only gentleman, for ever so long, who had visited at Bartram, and
oddly enough nowhere else. But he wanted leave to cross through the
grounds, and having obtained it, had repeated his visit, partly induced,
no doubt, by the fact that Bartram boasted no hospitalities, and that there
was no risk of meeting the county folk there.
With a stout walking-stick in his hand, and a short shooting-coat, and
a wide-awake hat in much better trim than Zamiel's, he emerged from
the copse that covered the bridge, walking at a quick but easy pace.
'He'll be goin' to see old Snoddles, I guess,' said Milly, looking a little
frightened and curious; for Milly, I need not say, was a bumpkin, and
stood in awe of this gentleman's good-breeding, though she was as brave
as a lion, and would have fought the Philistines at any odds, with the
jawbone of an ass.
''Appen he won't see us,' whispered Milly, hopefully.
But he did, and raising his hat, with a cheerful smile, that showed very
white teeth, he paused.
'Charming day, Miss Ruthyn.'
I raised my head suddenly as he spoke, from habit appropriating the
address; it was so marked that he raised his hat respectfully to me, and
then continued to Milly—
'Mr. Ruthyn, I hope, quite well? but I need hardly ask, you seem so
happy. Will you kindly tell him, that I expect the book I mentioned in a
day or two, and when it comes I'll either send or bring it to him
immediately?'
Milly and I were standing, by this time, but she only stared at him,
tongue-tied, her cheeks rather flushed, and her eyes very round, and to
facilitate the dialogue, as I suppose, he said again—
'He's quite well, I hope?'
Still no response from Milly, and I, provoked, though myself a little
shy, made answer—
'My uncle, Mr. Ruthyn, is very well, thank you,' and I felt that I
blushed as I spoke.
'Ah, pray excuse me, may I take a great liberty? you are Miss Ruthyn,
of Knowl? Will you think me very impertinent—I'm afraid you will—if I
venture to introduce myself? My name is Carysbroke, and I had the hon-
our of knowing poor Mr. Ruthyn when I was quite a little boy, and he
has shown a kindness for me since, and I hope you will pardon the

208
liberty I fear I've taken. I think my friend, Lady Knollys, too, is a relation
of yours; what a charming person she is!'
'Oh, is not she? such a darling!' I said, and then blushed at my out-
spoken affection.
But he smiled kindly, as if he liked me for it; and he said—
'You know whatever I think, I dare not quite say that; but frankly I can
quite understand it. She preserves her youth so wonderfully, and her fun
and her good-nature are so entirely girlish. What a sweet view you have
selected,' he continued, changing all at once. 'I've stood just at this point
so often to look back at that exquisite old bridge. Do you ob-
serve—you're an artist, I see—something very peculiar in that tint of the
grey, with those odd cross stains of faded red and yellow?'
'I do, indeed; I was just remarking the peculiar beauty of the colour-
ing—was not I, Milly?'
Milly stared at me, and uttered an alarmed 'Yes,' and looked as if she
had been caught in a robbery.
'Yes, and you have so very peculiar a background,' he resumed. 'It was
better before the storm though; but it is very good still.'
Then a little pause, and 'Do you know this country at all?' rather
suddenly.
'No, not in the least—that is, I've only had the drive to this place; but
what I did see interested me very much.'
'You will be charmed with it when you know it better—the very place
for an artist. I'm a wretched scribbler myself, and I carry this little book
in my pocket,' and he laughed deprecatingly while he drew forth a thin
fishing-book, as it looked. 'They are mere memoranda, you see. I walk so
much and come unexpectedly on such pretty nooks and studies, I just try
to make a note of them, but it is really more writing than sketching; my
sister says it is a cipher which nobody but myself understands. However,
I'll try and explain just two—because you really ought to go and see the
places. Oh, no; not that,' he laughed, as accidentally the page blew over,
'that's the Cat and Fiddle, a curious little pot-house, where they gave me
some very good ale one day.'
Milly at this exhibited some uneasy tokens of being about to speak, but
not knowing what might be coming, I hastened to observe on the spir-
ited little sketches to which he meant to draw my attention.
'I want to show you only the places within easy reach—a short ride or
drive.'
So he proceeded to turn over two or three, in addition to the two he
had at first proposed, and then another; then a little sketch just tinted,

209
and really quite a charming little gem, of Cousin Monica's pretty gabled
old house; and every subject had its little criticism, or its narrative, or
adventure.
As he was about returning this little sketch-book to his pocket, still
chatting to me, he suddenly recollected poor Milly, who was looking
rather lowering; but she brightened a good deal as he presented it to her,
with a little speech which she palpably misunderstood, for she made one
of her odd courtesies, and was about, I thought, to put it into her large
pocket, and accept it as a present.
'Look at the drawings, Milly, and then return it,' I whispered.
At his request I allowed him to look at my unfinished sketch of the
bridge, and while he was measuring distances and proportions with his
eye, Milly whispered rather angrily to me.
'And why should I?'
'Because he wants it back, and only meant to lend it to you,' whispered
I.
'Lend it to me—and after you! Bury-me-wick if I look at a leaf of it,' she
retorted in high dudgeon. 'Take it, lass; give it him yourself—I'll not,'
and she popped it into my hand, and made a sulky step back.
'My cousin is very much obliged,' I said, returning the book, and smil-
ing for her, and he took it smiling also and said—
'I think if I had known how very well you draw, Miss Ruthyn, I should
have hesitated about showing you my poor scrawls. But these are not my
best, you know; Lady Knollys will tell you that I can really do better—a
great deal better, I think.'
And then with more apologies for what he called his impertinence, he
took his leave, and I felt altogether very much pleased and flattered.
He could not be more than twenty-nine or thirty, I thought, and he
was decidedly handsome—that is, his eyes and teeth, and clear brown
complexion were—and there was something distinguished and graceful
in his figure and gesture; and altogether there was the indescribable at-
traction of intelligence; and I fancied—though this, of course, was a
secret—that from the moment he spoke to us he felt an interest in me. I
am not going to be vain. It was a grave interest, but still an interest, for I
could see him studying my features while I was turning over his
sketches, and he thought I saw nothing else. It was flattering, too, his
anxiety that I should think well of his drawing, and referring me to Lady
Knollys. Carysbroke—had I ever heard my dear father mention that
name? I could not recollect it. But then he was habitually so silent, that
his not doing so argued nothing.

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Chapter 35
WE VISIT A ROOM IN THE SECOND STOREY
Mr. Carysbroke amused my fancy sufficiently to prevent my observing
Milly's silence, till we had begun our return homeward.
'The Grange must be a pretty house, if that little sketch be true; is it far
from this?'
''Twill be two mile.'
'Are you vexed, Milly?' I asked, for both her tone and looks were
angry.
'Yes, I am vexed; and why not lass?'
'What has happened?'
'Well, now, that is rich! Why, look at that fellow, Carysbroke: he took
no more notice to me than a dog, and kep' talking to you all the time of
his pictures, and his walks, and his people. Why, a pig's better manners
than that.'
'But, Milly dear, you forget, he tried to talk to you, and you would not
answer him,' I expostulated.
'And is not that just what I say—I can't talk like other folk—ladies, I
mean. Every one laughs at me; an' I'm dressed like a show, I am. It's a
shame! I saw Polly Shives—what a lady she is, my eyes!—laughing at me
in church last Sunday. I was minded to give her a bit of my mind. An' I
know I'm queer. It's a shame, it is. Why should I be so rum? it is a shame!
I don't want to be so, nor it isn't my fault.'
And poor Milly broke into a flood of tears, and stamped on the
ground, and buried her face in her short frock, which she whisked up to
her eyes; and an odder figure of grief I never beheld.
'And I could not make head or tail of what he was saying,' cried poor
Milly through her buff cotton, with a stamp; 'and you twigged every
word o't. An' why am I so? It's a shame—a shame! Oh, ho, ho! it's a
shame!'

211
 'But, my dear Milly, we were talking of drawing, and you have not
learned yet, but you shall—I'll teach you; and then you'll understand all
about it.'
'An' every one laughs at me—even you; though you try, Maud, you
can scarce keep from laughing sometimes. I don't blame you, for I know
I'm queer; but I can't help it; and it's a shame.'
'Well, my dear Milly, listen to me: if you allow me, I assure you, I'll
teach you all the music and drawing I know. You have lived very much
alone; and, as you say, ladies have a way of speaking of their own that is
different from the talk of other people.'
'Yes, that they have, an' gentlemen too—like the Governor, and that
Carysbroke; and a precious lingo it is—dang it—why, the devil himself
could not understand it; an' I'm like a fool among you. I could 'most
drown myself. It's a shame! It is—you know it is.—It's a shame!'
'But I'll teach you that lingo too, if you wish it, Milly; and you shall
know everything that I know; and I'll manage to have your dresses better
made.'
By this time she was looking very ruefully, but attentively, in my face,
her round eyes and nose swelled, and her cheeks all wet.
'I think if they were a little longer—yours is longer, you know;' and the
sentence was interrupted by a sob.
'Now, Milly, you must not be crying; if you choose you may be just as
the same as any other lady—and you shall; and you will be very much
admired, I can tell you, if only you will take the trouble to quite unlearn
all your odd words and ways, and dress yourself like other people; and I
will take care of that if you let me; and I think you are very clever, Milly;
and I know you are very pretty.'
Poor Milly's blubbered face expanded into a smile in spite of herself;
but she shook her head, looking down.
'Noa, noa, Maud, I fear 'twon't be.' And indeed it seemed I had pro-
posed to myself a labour of Hercules.
But Milly was really a clever creature, could see quickly, and when her
ungainly dialect was mastered, describe very pleasantly; and if only she
would endure the restraint and possessed the industry requisite, I did
not despair, and was resolved at least to do my part.
Poor Milly! she was really very grateful, and entered into the project of
her education with great zeal, and with a strange mixture of humility
and insubordination.
Milly was in favour of again attacking 'Beauty's' position on her re-
turn, and forcing a passage from this side; but I insisted on following the

212
route by which we had arrived, and so we got round the paling by the
river, and were treated to a provoking grin of defiance by 'Beauty,' who
was talking across the gate to a slim young man, arrayed in fustian, and
with an odd-looking cap of rabbit-skin on his head, which, on seeing us,
he pulled sheepishly to the side of his face next to us, as he lounged, with
his arm under his chin, on the top bar of the gate.
After our encounter of to-day, indeed, it was Miss 'Beauty's' wont to
exhibit a kind of jeering disdain in her countenance whenever we
passed.
I think Milly would have engaged her again, had I not reminded her of
her undertaking, and exerted my new authority.
'Look at that sneak, Pegtop, there, going up the path to the mill. He
makes belief now he does not see us; but he does, though, only he's
afraid we'll tell the Governor, and he thinks Governor won't give him his
way with you. I hate that Pegtop: he stopped me o' riding the cows a
year ago, he did.'
I thought Pegtop might have done worse. Indeed it was plain that a
total reformation was needed here; and I was glad to find that poor Milly
seemed herself conscious of it; and that her resolution to become more
like other people of her station was not a mere spasm of mortification
and jealousy, but a genuine and very zealous resolve.
I had not half seen this old house of Bartram-Haugh yet. At first, in-
deed, I had but an imperfect idea of its extent. There was a range of
rooms along one side of the great gallery, with closed window-shutters,
and the doors generally locked. Old L'Amour grew cross when we went
into them, although we could see nothing; and Milly was afraid to open
the windows—not that any Bluebeard revelations were apprehended,
but simply because she knew that Uncle Silas's order was that things
should be left undisturbed; and this boisterous spirit stood in awe of him
to a degree which his gentle manners and apparent quietude rendered
quite surprising.
There were in this house, what certainly did not exist at Knowl, and
what I have never observed, thought they may possibly be found in oth-
er old houses—I mean, here and there, very high hatches, which we
could only peep over by jumping in the air. They crossed the long cor-
ridors and great galleries; and several of them were turned across and
locked, so as to intercept the passage, and interrupt our explorations.
Milly, however, knew a queer little, very steep and dark back stair,
which reached the upper floor; so she and I mounted, and made a long
ramble through rooms much lower and ruder in finish than the lordly

213
chambers we had left below. These commanded various views of the
beautiful though neglected grounds; but on crossing a gallery we entered
suddenly a chamber, which looked into a small and dismal quadrangle,
formed by the inner walls of this great house, and of course designed
only by the architect to afford the needful light and air to portions of the
structure.
I rubbed the window-pane with my handkerchief and looked out. The
surrounding roof was steep and high. The walls looked soiled and dark.
The windows lined with dust and dirt, and the window-stones were in
places tufted with moss, and grass, and groundsel. An arched doorway
had opened from the house into this darkened square, but it was soiled
and dusty; and the damp weeds that overgrew the quadrangle drooped
undisturbed against it. It was plain that human footsteps tracked it little,
and I gazed into that blind and sinister area with a strange thrill and
sinking.
'This is the second floor—there is the enclosed court-yard'—I, as it
were, soliloquised.
'What are you afraid of, Maud? you look as ye'd seen a ghost,' ex-
claimed Milly, who came to the window and peeped over my shoulder.
'It reminded me suddenly, Milly, of that frightful business.'
'What business, Maud?—what a plague are ye thinking on?' deman-
ded Milly, rather amused.
'It was in one of these rooms—maybe this—yes, it certainly was
this—for see, the panelling has been pulled off the wall—that Mr. Charke
killed himself.'
I was staring ruefully round the dim chamber, in whose corners the
shadows of night were already gathering.
'Charke!—what about him?—who's Charke?' asked Milly.
'Why, you must have heard of him,' said I.
'Not as I'm aware on,' answered she. 'And he killed himself, did he,
hanged himself, eh, or blowed his brains out?'
'He cut his throat in one of these rooms—this one, I'm sure—for your
papa had the wainscoting stripped from the wall to ascertain whether
there was any second door through which a murderer could have come;
and you see these walls are stripped, and bear the marks of the wood-
work that has been removed,' I answered.
'Well, that was awful! I don't know how they have pluck to cut their
throats; if I was doing it, I'd like best to put a pistol to my head and fire,
like the young gentleman did, they say, in Deadman's Hollow. But the

214
fellows that cut their throats, they must be awful game lads, I'm thinkin',
for it's a long slice, you know.'
'Don't, don't, Milly dear. Suppose we come away,' I said, for the even-
ing was deepening rapidly into night.
'Hey and bury-me-wick, but here's the blood; don't you see a big black
cloud all spread over the floor hereabout, don't ye see?' Milly was stoop-
ing over the spot, and tracing the outline of this, perhaps, imaginary
mapping, in the air with her finger.
'No, Milly, you could not see it: the floor is too dark, and it's all in
shadow. It must be fancy; and perhaps, after all, this is not the room.'
'Well—I think, I'm sure it is. Stand—just look.'
'We'll come in the morning, and if you are right we can see it better
then. Come away,' I said, growing frightened.
And just as we stood up to depart, the white high-cauled cap and large
sallow features of old L'Amour peeped in at the door.
'Lawk! what brings you here?' cried Milly, nearly as much startled as I
at the intrusion.
'What brings you here, miss?' whistled L'Amour through her gums.
'We're looking where Charke cut his throat,' replied Milly.
'Charke the devil!' said the old woman, with an odd mixture of scorn
and fury. ''Tisn't his room; and come ye out of it, please. Master won't
like when he hears how you keep pulling Miss Maud from one room to
another, all through the house, up and down.'
She was gabbling sternly enough, but dropped a low courtesy as I
passed her, and with a peaked and nodding stare round the room, the
old woman clapped the door sharply, and locked it.
'And who has been a talking about Charke—a pack o lies, I warrant. I
s'pose you want to frighten Miss Maud here' (another crippled courtesy)
'wi' ghosts and like nonsense.'
'You're out there: 'twas she told me; and much about it. Ghosts, in-
deed! I don't vally them, not I; if I did, I know who'd frighten me,' and
Milly laughed.
The old woman stuffed the key in her pocket, and her wrinkled mouth
pouted and receded with a grim uneasiness.
'A harmless brat, and kind she is; but wild—wild—she will be wild.'
So whispered L'Amour in my ear, during the silence that followed,
nodding shakily toward Milly over the banister, and she courtesied
again as we departed, and shuffled off toward Uncle Silas's room.
The Governor is queerish this evening,' said Milly, when we were
seated at our tea. 'You never saw him queerish, did you?'

215
 'You must say what you mean, more plainly, Milly. You don't mean ill,
I hope?'
'Well! I don't know what it is; but he does grow very queer some-
times—you'd think he was dead a'most, maybe two or three days and
nights together. He sits all the time like an old woman in a swound.
Well, well, it is awful!'
'Is he insensible when in that state?' I asked, a good deal alarmed.
'I don't know; but it never signifies anything. It won't kill him, I do be-
lieve; but old L'Amour knows all about it. I hardly ever go into the room
when he's so, only when I'm sent for; and he sometimes wakes up and
takes a fancy to call for this one or that. One day he sent for Pegtop all
the way to the mill; and when he came, he only stared at him for a
minute or two, and ordered him out o' the room. He's like a child a'most,
when he's in one o' them dazes.'
I always knew when Uncle Silas was 'queerish,' by the injunctions of
old L'Amour, whistled and spluttered over the banister as we came up-
stairs, to mind how we made a noise passing master's door; and by the
sound of mysterious to-ings and fro-ings about his room.
I saw very little of him. He sometimes took a whim to have us break-
fast with him, which lasted perhaps for a week; and then the order of our
living would relapse into its old routine.
I must not forget two kind letters from Lady Knollys, who was de-
tained away, and delighted to hear that I enjoyed my quiet life; and
promised to apply, in person, to Uncle Silas, for permission to visit me.
She was to be for the Christmas at Elverston, and that was only six
miles away from Bartram-Haugh, so I had the excitement of a pleasant
look forward.
She also said that she would include poor Milly in her invitation; and a
vision of Captain Oakley rose before me, with his handsome gaze turned
in wonder on poor Milly, for whom I had begun to feel myself
responsible.

216
Chapter 36
AN ARRIVAL AT DEAD OF NIGHT
I have sometimes been asked why I wear an odd little turquois
ring—which to the uninstructed eye appears quite valueless and alto-
gether an unworthy companion of those jewels which flash insultingly
beside it. It is a little keepsake, of which I became possessed about this
time.
'Come, lass, what name shall I give you?' cried Milly, one morning,
bursting into my room in a state of alarming hilarity.
'My own, Milly.'
'No, but you must have a nickname, like every one else.'
'Don't mind it, Milly.'
'Yes, but I will. Shall I call you Mrs. Bustle?'
'You shall do no such thing.'
'But you must have a name.'
'I refuse a name.'
'But I'll give you one, lass.'
'And I won't have it.'
'But you can't help me christening you.'
'I can decline answering.'
'But I'll make you,' said Milly, growing very red.
Perhaps there was something provoking in my tone, for I certainly was
very much disgusted at Milly's relapse into barbarism.
'You can't,' I retorted quietly.
'See if I don't, and I'll give ye one twice as ugly.'
I smiled, I fear, disdainfully.
'And I think you're a minx, and a slut, and a fool,' she broke out, flush-
ing scarlet.
I smiled in the same unchristian way.
'And I'd give ye a smack o' the cheek as soon as look at you.'
And she gave her dress a great slap, and drew near me, in her wrath. I
really thought she was about tendering the ordeal of single combat.

217
 I made her, however, a paralysing courtesy, and, with immense dig-
nity, sailed out of the room, and into Uncle Silas's study, where it
happened we were to breakfast that morning, and for several subsequent
ones.
During the meal we maintained the most dignified reserve; and I don't
think either so much as looked at the other.
We had no walk together that day.
I was sitting in the evening, quite alone, when Milly entered the room.
Her eyes were red, and she looked very sullen.
'I want your hand, cousin,' she said, at the same time taking it by the
wrist, and administering with it a sudden slap on her plump cheek,
which made the room ring, and my fingers tingle; and before I had re-
covered from my surprise, she had vanished.
I called after her, but no answer; I pursued, but she was running too;
and I quite lost her at the cross galleries.
I did not see her at tea, nor before going to bed; but after I had fallen
asleep I was awakened by Milly, in floods of tears.
'Cousin Maud, will ye forgi' me—you'll never like me again, will ye?
No—I know ye won't—I'm such a brute—I hate it—it's a shame. And
here's a Banbury cake for you—I sent to the town for it, and some
taffy—won't ye eat it? and here's a little ring—'tisn't as pretty as your
own rings; and ye'll wear it, maybe, for my sake—poor Milly's sake, be-
fore I was so bad to ye—if ye forgi' me; and I'll look at breakfast, and if
it's on your finger I'll know you're friends wi' me again; and if ye don't, I
won't trouble you no more; and I think I'll just drown myself out o' the
way, and you'll never see wicked Milly no more.'
And without waiting a moment, leaving me only half awake, and with
the sensations of dreaming, she scampered from the room, in her bare
feet, with a petticoat about her shoulders.
She had left her candle by my bed, and her little offerings on the cover-
let by me. If I had stood an atom less in terror of goblins than I did, I
should have followed her, but I was afraid. I stood in my bare feet at my
bedside, and kissed the poor little ring and put it on my finger, where it
has remained ever since and always shall. And when I lay down, longing
for morning, the image of her pale, imploring, penitential face was before
me for hours; and I repented bitterly of my cool provoking ways, and
thought myself, I dare say justly, a thousand times more to blame than
Milly.
I searched in vain for her before breakfast. At that meal, however, we
met, but in the presence of Uncle Silas, who, though silent and apathetic,

218
was formidable; and we, sitting at a table disproportionably large, under
the cold, strange gaze of my guardian, talked only what was inevitable,
and that in low tones; for whenever Milly for a moment raised her voice,
Uncle Silas would wince, place his thin white fingers quickly over his
ear, and look as if a pain had pierced his brain, and then shrug and smile
piteously into vacancy. When Uncle Silas, therefore, was not in the talk-
ing vein himself—and that was not often—you may suppose there was
very little spoken in his presence.
When Milly, across the table, saw the ring upon my finger, she, draw-
ing in her breath, said, 'Oh!' and, with round eyes and mouth, she looked
so delighted; and she made a little motion, as if she was on the point of
jumping up; and then her poor face quivered, and she bit her lip; and
staring imploringly at me, her eyes filled fast with tears, which rolled
down her round penitential cheeks.
I am sure I felt more penitent than she. I know I was crying and smil-
ing, and longing to kiss her. I suppose we were very absurd; but it is well
that small matters can stir the affections so profoundly at a time of life
when great troubles seldom approach us.
When at length the opportunity did come, never was such a hug out of
the wrestling ring as poor Milly bestowed on me, swaying me this way
and that, and burying her face in my dress, and blubbering—
'I was so lonely before you came, and you so good to me, and I such a
devil; and I'll never call you a name, but Maud—my darling Maud.'
'You must, Milly—Mrs. Bustle. I'll be Mrs. Bustle, or anything you like.
You must.' I was blubbering like Milly, and hugging my best; and, in-
deed, I wonder how we kept our feet.
So Milly and I were better friends than ever.
Meanwhile, the winter deepened, and we had short days and long
nights, and long fireside gossipings at Bartram-Haugh. I was frightened
at the frequency of the strange collapses to which Uncle Silas was sub-
ject. I did not at first mind them much, for I naturally fell into Milly's
way of talking about them.
But one day, while in one of his 'queerish' states, he called for me, and
I saw him, and was unspeakably scared.
In a white wrapper, he lay coiled in a great easy chair. I should have
thought him dead, had I not been accompanied by old L'Amour, who
knew every gradation and symptom of these strange affections.
She winked and nodded to me with a ghastly significance, and
whispered—
'Don't make no noise, miss, till he talks; he'll come to for a bit, anon.'

219
 Except that there was no sign of convulsions, the countenance was like
that of an epileptic arrested in one of his contortions.
There was a frown and smirk like that of idiotcy, and a strip of white
eyeball was also disclosed.
Suddenly, with a kind of chilly shudder, he opened his eyes wide, and
screwed his lips together, and blinked and stared on me with a fatuised
uncertainty, that gradually broke into a feeble smile.
'Ah! the girl—Austin's child. Well, dear, I'm hardly able—I'll speak to-
morrow—next day—it is tic—neuralgia, or something—torture—tell her.'
So, huddling himself together, he lay again in his great chair, with the
same inexpressible helplessness in his attitude, and gradually his face re-
sumed its dreadful cast.
'Come away, miss: he's changed his mind; he'll not be fit to talk to you
noways all day, maybe,' said the old woman, again in a whisper.
So forth we stole from the room, I unspeakably shocked. In fact, he
looked as if he were dying, and so, in my agitation, I told the crone, who,
forgetting the ceremony with which she usually treated me, chuckled out
derisively,
'A-dying is he? Well, he be like Saint Paul—he's bin a-dying daily this
many a day.'
I looked at her with a chill of horror. She did not care, I suppose, what
sort of feelings she might excite, for she went on mumbling sarcastically
to herself. I had paused, and overcame my reluctance to speak to her
again, for I was really very much frightened. 'Do you think he is in
danger? Shall we send for a doctor?' I whispered.
'Law bless ye, the doctor knows all about it, miss.' The old woman's
face had a gleam of that derision which is so shocking in the features of
feebleness and age.
'But it is a fit, it is paralytic, or something horrible—it can't be safe to
leave him to chance or nature to get through these terrible attacks.'
'There's no fear of him, 'tisn't no fits at all, he's nout the worse o't. Jest
silly a bit now and again. It's been the same a dozen year and more; and
the doctor knows all about it,' answered the old woman sturdily. 'And
ye'll find he'll be as mad as bedlam if ye make any stir about it.'
That night I talked the matter over with Mary Quince.
'They're very dark, miss; but I think he takes a deal too much laud-
lum,' said Mary.
To this hour I cannot say what was the nature of those periodical
seizures. I have often spoken to medical men about them, since, but nev-
er could learn that excessive use of opium could altogether account for

220
them. It was, I believe, certain, however, that he did use that drug in
startling quantities. It was, indeed, sometimes a topic of complaint with
him that his neuralgia imposed this sad necessity upon him.
The image of Uncle Silas, as I had seen him that day, troubled and af-
frighted my imagination, as I lay in my bed; I had slept very well since
my arrival at Bartram. So much of the day was passed in the open air,
and in active exercise, that this was but natural. But that night I was
nervous and wakeful, and it was past two o'clock when I fancied I heard
the sound of horses and carriage-wheels on the avenue.
Mary Quince was close by, and therefore I was not afraid to get up
and peep from the window. My heart beat fast as I saw a post-chaise ap-
proach the court-yard. A front window was let down, and the postilion
pulled up for a few seconds.
In consequence of some directions received by him, I fancied he re-
sumed his route at a walk, and so drew up at the hall-door, on the steps
of which a figure awaited his arrival. I think it was old L'Amour, but I
could not be quite certain. There was a lantern on the top of the balus-
trade, close by the door. The chaise-lamps were lighted, for the night was
rather dark. A bag and valise, as well as I could see, were pulled from
the interior by the post-boy, and a box from the top of the vehicle, and
these were carried into the hall.
I was obliged to keep my cheek against the window-pane to command
a view of the point of debarkation, and my breath upon the glass, which
dimmed it again almost as fast as I wiped it away, helped to obscure my
vision. But I saw a tall figure, in a cloak, get down and swiftly enter the
house, but whether male or female I could not discern.
My heart beat fast. I jumped at once to a conclusion. My uncle was
worse—was, in fact, dying; and this was the physician, too late
summoned to his bedside.
I listened for the ascent of the doctor, and his entrance at my uncle's
door, which, in the stillness of the night, I thought I might easily hear,
but no sound reached me. I listened so for fully five minutes, but without
result. I returned to the window, but the carriage and horses had
disappeared.
I was strongly tempted to wake Mary Quince, and take counsel with
her, and persuade her to undertake a reconnoissance. The fact is, I was
persuaded that my uncle was in extremity, and I was quite wild to know
the doctor's opinion. But, after all, it would be cruel to summon the good
soul from her refreshing nap. So, as I began to feel very cold, I returned
to my bed, where I continued to listen and conjecture until I fell asleep.

221
 In the morning, as was usual, before I was dressed, in came Milly.
'How is Uncle Silas?' I eagerly enquired.
'Old L'Amour says he's queerish still; but he's not so dull as yesterday,'
answered she.
'Was not the doctor sent for?' I asked.
'Was he? Well, that's odd; and she said never a word o't to me,'
answered she.
'I'm asking only,' said I.
'I don't know whether he came or no,' she replied; 'but what makes
you take that in your head?'
'A chaise arrived here between two and three o'clock last night.'
'Hey! and who told you?' Milly seemed all on a sudden highly
interested.
'I saw it, Milly; and some one, I fancy the doctor, came from it into the
house.'
'Fudge, lass! who'd send for the doctor? 'Twasn't he, I tell you. What
was he like?' said Milly.
'I could only see clearly that he, or she, was tall, and wore a cloak,' I
replied.
'Then 'twasn't him nor t'other I was thinking on, neither; and I'll be
hanged but I think it will be Cormoran,' cried Milly, with a thoughtful
rap with her knuckle on the table.
Precisely at this juncture a tapping came to the door.
'Come in,' said I.
And old L'Amour entered the room, with a courtesy.
'I came to tell Miss Quince her breakfast's ready,' said the old lady.
'Who came in the chaise, L'Amour?' demanded Milly.
'What chaise?' spluttered the beldame tartly.
'The chaise that came last night, past two o'clock,' said Milly.
'That's a lie, and a damn lie!' cried the beldame. 'There worn't no chaise
at the door since Miss Maud there come from Knowl.'
I stared at the audacious old menial who could utter such language.
'Yes, there was a chaise, and Cormoran, as I think, be come in it,' said
Milly, who seemed accustomed to L'Amour's daring address.
'And there's another damn lie, as big as the t'other,' said the crone, her
haggard and withered face flushing orange all over.
'I beg you will not use such language in my room,' I replied, very an-
grily. 'I saw the chaise at the door; your untruth signifies very little, but
your impertinence here I will not permit. Should it be repeated, I will as-
suredly complain to my uncle.'

222
 The old woman flushed more fiercely as I spoke, and fixed her bleared
glare on me, with a compression of her mouth that amounted to a
wicked grimace. She resisted her angry impulse, however, and only
chuckled a little spitefully, saying,
'No offence, miss: it be a way we has in Derbyshire o' speaking our
minds. No offence, miss, were meant, and none took, as I hopes,' and she
made me another courtesy. 'And I forgot to tell you, Miss Milly, the mas-
ter wants you this minute.'
So Milly, in mute haste, withdrew, followed closely by L'Amour.

223
Chapter 37
DOCTOR BRYERLY EMERGES
When Milly joined me at breakfast, her eyes were red and swollen. She
was still sniffing with that little sobbing hiccough, which betrays, even
were there no other signs, recent violent weeping. She sat down quite
silent.
'Is he worse, Milly?' I enquired, anxiously.
'No, nothing's wrong wi' him; he's right well,' said Milly, fiercely.
'What's the matter then, Milly dear?'
'The poisonous old witch! 'Twas just to tell the Gov'nor how I'd said
'twas Cormoran that came by the po'shay last night.'
'And who is Cormoran?' I enquired.
'Ay, there it is; I'd like to tell, and you want to hear—and I just daren't,
for he'll send me off right to a French school—hang it—hang them
all!—if I do.'
'And why should Uncle Silas care?' said I, a good deal surprised.
'They're a-tellin' lies.'
'Who?' said I.
'L'Amour—that's who. So soon as she made her complaint of me, the
Gov'nor asked her, sharp enough, did anyone come last night, or a
po'shay; and she was ready to swear there was no one. Are ye quite sure,
Maud, you really did see aught, or 'appen 'twas all a dream?'
'It was no dream, Milly; so sure as you are there, I saw exactly what I
told you,' I replied.
'Gov'nor won't believe it anyhow; and he's right mad wi' me; and he
threatens me he'll have me off to France; I wish 'twas under the sea. I
hate France—I do—like the devil. Don't you? They're always a-threaten-
ing me wi' France, if I dare say a word more about the po'shay, or—or
anyone.'
I really was curious about Cormoran; but Cormoran was not to be
defined to me by Milly; nor did she, in reality, know more than I respect-
ing the arrival of the night before.

224
 One day I was surprised to see Doctor Bryerly on the stairs. I was
standing in a dark gallery as he walked across the floor of the lobby to
my uncle's door, his hat on, and some papers in his hand.
He did not see me; and when he had entered Uncle Silas's door, I went
down and found Milly awaiting me in the hall.
'So Doctor Bryerly is here,' I said.
'That's the thin fellow, wi' the sharp look, and the shiny black coat, that
went up just now?' asked Milly.
'Yes, he's gone into your papa's room,' said I.
''Appen 'twas he come 'tother night. He may be staying here, though
we see him seldom, for it's a barrack of a house—it is.'
The same thought had struck me for a moment, but was dismissed im-
mediately. It certainly was not Doctor Bryerly's figure which I had seen.
So, without any new light gathered from this apparition, we went on
our way, and made our little sketch of the ruined bridge. We found the
gate locked as before; and, as Milly could not persuade me to climb it,
we got round the paling by the river's bank.
While at our drawing, we saw the swarthy face, sooty locks, and old
weather-stained red coat of Zamiel, who was glowering malignly at us
from among the trunks of the forest trees, and standing motionless as a
monumental figure in the side aisle of a cathedral. When we looked
again he was gone.
Although it was a fine mild day for the wintry season, we yet, cloaked
as we were, could not pursue so still an occupation as sketching for more
than ten or fifteen minutes. As we returned, in passing a clump of trees,
we heard a sudden outbreak of voices, angry and expostulatory; and
saw, under the trees, the savage old Zamiel strike his daughter with his
stick two great blows, one of which was across the head. 'Beauty' ran
only a short distance away, while the swart old wood-demon stumped
lustily after her, cursing and brandishing his cudgel.
My blood boiled. I was so shocked that for a moment I could not
speak; but in a moment more I screamed—
'You brute! How dare you strike the poor girl?'
She had only run a few steps, and turned about confronting him and
us, her eyes gleaming fire, her features pale and quivering to suppress a
burst of weeping. Two little rivulets of blood were trickling over her
temple.
'I say, fayther, look at that,' she said, with a strange tremulous smile,
lifting her hand, which was smeared with blood.

225
 Perhaps he was ashamed, and the more enraged on that account, for
he growled another curse, and started afresh to reach her, whirling his
stick in the air. Our voices, however, arrested him.
'My uncle shall hear of your brutality. The poor girl!'
'Strike him, Meg, if he does it again; and pitch his leg into the river to-
night, when he's asleep.'
'I'd serve you the same;' and out came an oath. 'You'd have her lick her
fayther, would ye? Look out!'
And he wagged his head with a scowl at Milly, and a flourish of his
cudgel.
'Be quiet, Milly,' I whispered, for Milly was preparing for battle; and I
again addressed him with the assurance that, on reaching home, I would
tell my uncle how he had treated the poor girl.
''Tis you she may thank for't, a wheedling o' her to open that gate,' he
snarled.
'That's a lie; we went round by the brook,' cried Milly.
I did not think proper to discuss the matter with him; and looking very
angry, and, I thought, a little put out, he jerked and swayed himself out
of sight. I merely repeated my promise of informing my uncle as he
went, to which, over his shoulder, he bawled—
'Silas won't mind ye that;' snapping his horny finger and thumb.
The girl remained where she had stood, wiping the blood off roughly
with the palm of her hand, and looking at it before she rubbed it on her
apron. 'My poor girl,' I said, 'you must not cry. I'll speak to my uncle
about you.'
But she was not crying. She raised her head, and looked at us a little
askance, with a sullen contempt, I thought.
'And you must have these apples—won't you?' We had brought in our
basket two or three of those splendid apples for which Bartram was
famous.
I hesitated to go near her, these Hawkeses, Beauty and Pegtop, were
such savages. So I rolled the apples gently along the ground to her feet.
She continued to look doggedly at us with the same expression, and
kicked away the apples sullenly that approached her feet. Then, wiping
her temple and forehead in her apron, without a word, she turned and
walked slowly away.
'Poor thing! I'm afraid she leads a hard life. What strange, repulsive
people they are!'

226
 When we reached home, at the head of the great staircase old L'Amour
was awaiting me; and with a courtesy, and very respectfully, she in-
formed me that the Master would be happy to see me.
Could it be about my evidence as to the arrival of the mysterious
chaise that he summoned me to this interview? Gentle as were his ways,
there was something undefinable about Uncle Silas which inspired fear;
and I should have liked few things less than meeting his gaze in the
character of a culprit.
There was an uncertainty, too, as to the state in which I might find
him, and a positive horror of beholding him again in the condition in
which I had last seen him.
I entered the room, then, in some trepidation, but was instantly re-
lieved. Uncle Silas was in the same health apparently, and, as nearly as I
could recollect it, in precisely the same rather handsome though negli-
gent garb in which I had first seen him.
Doctor Bryerly—what a marked and vulgar contrast, and yet, some-
how, how reassuring!—sat at the table near him, and was tying up pa-
pers. His eyes watched me, I thought, with an anxious scrutiny as I ap-
proached; and I think it was not until I had saluted him that he recollec-
ted suddenly that he had not seen me before at Bartram, and stood up
and greeted me in his usual abrupt and somewhat familiar way. It was
vulgar and not cordial, and yet it was honest and indefinably kind. Up
rose my uncle, that strangely venerable, pale portrait, in his loose Rem-
brandt black velvet. How gentle, how benignant, how unearthly, and
inscrutable!
'I need not say how she is. Those lilies and roses, Doctor Bryerly, speak
their own beautiful praises of the air of Bartram. I almost regret that her
carriage will be home so soon. I only hope it may not abridge her
rambles. It positively does me good to look at her. It is the glow of
flowers in winter, and the fragrance of a field which the Lord hath
blessed.'
'Country air, Miss Ruthyn, is a right good kitchen to country fare. I like
to see young women eat heartily. You have had some pounds of beef and
mutton since I saw you last,' said Dr. Bryerly.
And this sly speech made, he scrutinised my countenance in silence
rather embarrassingly.
'My system, Doctor Bryerly, as a disciple of Aesculapius you will ap-
prove—health first, accomplishment afterwards. The Continent is the
best field for elegant instruction, and we must see the world a little, by-
and-by, Maud; and to me, if my health be spared, there would be an

227
unspeakable though a melancholy charm in the scenes where so many
happy, though so many wayward and foolish, young days were passed;
and I think I should return to these picturesque solitudes with, perhaps,
an increased relish. You remember old Chaulieu's sweet lines—
Désert, aimable solitude, Séjour du calme et de la paix, Asile où
n'entrèrent jamais Le tumulte et l'inquiétude.
I can't say that care and sorrow have not sometimes penetrated these
sylvan fastnesses; but the tumults of the world, thank Heaven!—never.'
There was a sly scepticism, I thought, in Doctor Bryerly's sharp face;
and hardly waiting for the impressive 'never,' he said—
'I forgot to ask, who is your banker?'
'Oh! Bartlet and Hall, Lombard Street,' answered Uncle Silas, dryly
and shortly.
Dr. Bryerly made a note of it, with an expression of face which
seemed, with a sly resolution, to say, 'You shan't come the anchorite over
me.'
I saw Uncle Silas's wild and piercing eye rest suspiciously on me for a
moment, as if to ascertain whether I felt the spirit of Doctor Bryerly's al-
most interruption; and, nearly at the same moment, stuffing his papers
into his capacious coat pockets, Doctor Bryerly rose and took his leave.
When he was gone, I bethought me that now was a good opportunity
of making my complaint of Dickon Hawkes. Uncle Silas having risen, I
hesitated, and began,
'Uncle, may I mention an occurrence—which I witnessed?'
'Certainly, child,' he answered, fixing his eye sharply on me. I really
think he fancied that the conversation was about to turn upon the
phantom chaise.
So I described the scene which had shocked Milly and me, an hour or
so ago, in the Windmill Wood.
'You see, my dear child, they are rough persons; their ideas are not
ours; their young people must be chastised, and in a way and to a degree
that we would look upon in a serious light. I've found it a bad plan inter-
fering in strictly domestic misunderstandings, and should rather not.'
'But he struck her violently on the head, uncle, with a heavy cudgel,
and she was bleeding very fast.'
'Ah?' said my uncle, dryly.
'And only that Milly and I deterred him by saying that we would cer-
tainly tell you, he would have struck her again; and I really think if he
goes on treating her with so much violence and cruelty he may injure her
seriously, or perhaps kill her.'

228
 'Why, you romantic little child, people in that rank of life think abso-
lutely nothing of a broken head,' answered Uncle Silas, in the same way.
'But is it not horrible brutality, uncle?'
'To be sure it is brutality; but then you must remember they are brutes,
and it suits them,' said he.
I was disappointed. I had fancied that Uncle Silas's gentle nature
would have recoiled from such an outrage with horror and indignation;
and instead, here he was, the apologist of that savage ruffian, Dickon
Hawkes.
'And he is always so rude and impertinent to Milly and to me,' I con-
tinued. 'Oh! impertinent to you—that's another matter. I must see to that.
Nothing more, my dear child?'
'Well, there was nothing more.'
'He's a useful servant, Hawkes; and though his looks are not prepos-
sessing, and his ways and language rough, yet he is a very kind father,
and a most honest man—a thoroughly moral man, though severe—a
very rough diamond though, and has no idea of the refinements of polite
society. I venture to say he honestly believes that he has been always un-
exceptionably polite to you, so we must make allowances.'
And Uncle Silas smoothed my hair with his thin aged hand, and
kissed my forehead.
'Yes, we must make allowances; we must be kind. What says the
Book?—"Judge not, that ye be not judged." Your dear father acted upon
that maxim—so noble and so awful—and I strive to do so. Alas! dear
Austin, longo intervalle, far behind! and you are removed—my example
and my help; you are gone to your rest, and I remain beneath my bur-
den, still marching on by bleak and alpine paths, under the awful night.
O nuit, nuit douloureuse! O toi, tardive aurore! Viens-tu? vas-tu venir?
es-tu bien loin encore?
And repeating these lines of Chenier, with upturned eyes, and one
hand lifted, and an indescribable expression of grief and fatigue, he sank
stiffly into his chair, and remained mute, with eyes closed for some time.
Then applying his scented handkerchief to them hastily, and looking
very kindly at me, he said—
'Anything more, dear child?'
'Nothing, uncle, thank you, very much, only about that man, Hawkes;
I dare say that he does not mean to be so uncivil as he is, but I am really
afraid of him, and he makes our walks in that direction quite
unpleasant.'

229
 'I understand quite, my dear. I will see to it; and you must remember
that nothing is to be allowed to vex my beloved niece and ward during
her stay at Bartram—nothing that her old kinsman, Silas Ruthyn, can
remedy.'
So with a tender smile, and a charge to shut the door 'perfectly, but
without clapping it,' he dismissed me. Doctor Bryerly had not slept at
Bartram, but at the little inn in Feltram, and he was going direct to Lon-
don, as I afterwards learned.
'Your ugly doctor's gone away in a fly,' said Milly, as we met on the
stairs, she running up, I down.
On reaching the little apartment which was our sitting-room, however,
I found that she was mistaken; for Doctor Bryerly, with his hat and a
great pair of woollen gloves on, and an old Oxford grey surtout that
showed his lank length to advantage, buttoned all the way up to his
chin, had set down his black leather bag on the table, and was reading at
the window a little volume which I had borrowed from my uncle's
library.
It was Swedenborg's account of the other worlds, Heaven and Hell.
He closed it on his finger as I entered, and without recollecting to re-
move his hat, he made a step or two towards me with his splay, creaking
boots. With a quick glance at the door, he said—
'Glad to see you alone for a minute—very glad.'
But his countenance, on the contrary, looked very anxious.

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Chapter 38
A MIDNIGHT DEPARTURE
'I'm going this minute—I—I want to know'—another glance at the
door—'are you really quite comfortable here?'
'Quite,' I answered promptly.
'You have only your cousin's company?' he continued, glancing at the
table, which was laid for two.
'Yes; but Milly and I are very happy together.'
'That's very nice; but I think there are no teachers, you see—painters,
and singers, and that sort of thing that is usual with young ladies. No
teachers of that kind—of any kind—are there?' 'No; my uncle thinks it
better I should lay in a store of health, he says.'
'I know; and the carriage and horses have not come; how soon are they
expected?'
'I really can't say, and I assure you I don't much care. I think running
about great fun.'
'You walk to church?'
'Yes; Uncle Silas's carriage wants a new wheel, he told me.'
'Ay, but a young woman of your rank, you know, it is not usual she
should be without the use of a carriage. Have you horses to ride?'
I shook my head.
'Your uncle, you know, has a very liberal allowance for your mainten-
ance and education.'
I remembered something in the will about it, and Mary Quince was
constantly grumbling that 'he did not spend a pound a week on our
board.'
I answered nothing, but looked down.
Another glance at the door from Doctor Bryerly's sharp black eyes.
'Is he kind to you?'
'Very kind—most gentle and affectionate.'
'Why doesn't he keep company with you? Does he ever dine with you,
or drink tea, or talk to you? Do you see much of him?'

231
 'He is a miserable invalid—his hours and regimen are peculiar. Indeed
I wish very much you would consider his case; he is, I believe, often in-
sensible for a long time, and his mind in a strange feeble state
sometimes.'
'I dare say—worn out in his young days; and I saw that preparation of
opium in his bottle—he takes too much.'
'Why do you think so, Doctor Bryerly?'
'It's made on water: the spirit interferes with the use of it beyond a cer-
tain limit. You have no idea what those fellows can swallow. Read the
"Opium Eater." I knew two cases in which the quantity exceeded De
Quincy's. Aha! it's new to you?' and he laughed quietly at my simplicity.
'And what do you think his complaint is?' I asked.
'Pooh! I haven't a notion; but, probably, one way or another, he has
been all his days working on his nerves and his brain. These men of
pleasure, who have no other pursuit, use themselves up mostly, and pay
a smart price for their sins. And so he's kind and affectionate, but hands
you over to your cousin and the servants. Are his people civil and
obliging?'
'Well, I can't say much for them; there is a man named Hawkes, and
his daughter, who are very rude, and even abusive sometimes, and say
they have orders from my uncle to shut us out from a portion of the
grounds; but I don't believe that, for Uncle Silas never alluded to it when
I was making my complaint of them to-day.'
'From what part of the grounds is that?' asked Doctor Bryerly, sharply.
I described the situation as well as I could.
'Can we see it from this?' he asked, peeping from the window.
'Oh, no.'
Doctor Bryerly made a note in his pocket-book here, and I said—
'But I am really quite sure it was a story of Dickon's, he is such a surly,
disobliging man.'
'And what sort is that old servant that came in and out of his room?'
'Oh, that is old L'Amour,' I answered, rather indirectly, and forgetting
that I was using Milly's nickname.
'And is she civil?' he asked.
No, she certainly was not; a most disagreeable old woman, with a vein
of wickedness. I thought I had heard her swearing.
'They don't seem to be a very engaging lot,' said Doctor Bryerly;' but
where there's one, there will be more. See here, I was just reading a pas-
sage,' and he opened the little volume at the place where his finger

232
marked it, and read for me a few sentences, the purport of which I well
remember, although, of course, the words have escaped me.
It was in that awful portion of the book which assumes to describe the
condition of the condemned; and it said that, independently of the phys-
ical causes in that state operating to enforce community of habitation,
and an isolation from superior spirits, there exist sympathies, aptitudes,
and necessities which would, of themselves, induce that depraved
gregariousness, and isolation too. 'And what of the rest of the servants,
are they better?' he resumed.
We saw little or nothing of the others, except of old 'Giblets,' the but-
ler, who went about like a little automaton of dry bones, poking here and
there, and whispering and smiling to himself as he laid the cloth; and
seeming otherwise quite unconscious of an external world.
'This room is not got up like Mr. Ruthyn's: does he talk of furnishings
and making things a little smart? No! Well, I must say, I think he might.'
Here there was a little silence, and Doctor Bryerly, with his accus-
tomed simultaneous glance at the door, said in low, cautious tones, very
distinctly—
'Have you been thinking at all over that matter again, I mean about
getting your uncle to forego his guardianship? I would not mind his first
refusal. You could make it worth his while, unless he—that is—unless
he's very unreasonable indeed; and I think you would consult your in-
terest, Miss Ruthyn, by doing so and, if possible, getting out of this
place.'
'But I have not thought of it at all; I am much happier here than I had
at all expected, and I am very fond of my cousin Milly.'
'How long have you been here exactly?'
I told him. It was some two or three months.
'Have you seen your other cousin yet—the young gentleman?'
'No.'
'H'm! Aren't you very lonely?' he enquired.
'We see no visitors here; but that, you know, I was prepared for.'
Doctor Bryerly read the wrinkles on his splay boot intently and peev-
ishly, and tapped the sole lightly on the ground.
'Yes, it is very lonely, and the people a bad lot. You'd be pleasanter
somewhere else—with Lady Knollys, for instance, eh?'
'Well, there certainly. But I am very well here: really the time passes
very pleasantly; and my uncle is so kind. I have only to mention any-
thing that annoys me, and he will see that it is remedied: he is always
impressing that on me.'

233
 'Yes, it is not a fit place for you,' said Doctor Bryerly. 'Of course, about
your uncle,' he resumed, observing my surprised look, 'it is all right: but
he's quite helpless, you know. At all events, think about it. Here's my ad-
dress—Hans Emmanuel Bryerly, M.D., 17 King Street, Covent Garden,
London—don't lose it, mind,' and he tore the leaf out of his note-book.
'Here's my fly at the door, and you must—you must' (he was looking
at his watch)—'mind you must think of it seriously; and so, you see, don't
let anyone see that. You'll be sure to leave it throwing about. The best
way will be just to scratch it on the door of your press, inside, you know;
and don't put my name—you'll remember that—only the rest of the ad-
dress; and burn this. Quince is with you?'
'Yes,' I answered, glad to have a satisfactory word to say.
'Well, don't let her go; it's a bad sign if they wish it. Don't consent,
mind; but just tip me a hint and you'll have me down. And any letters
you get from Lady Knollys, you know, for she's very plain-spoken, you'd
better burn them off-hand. And I've stayed too long, though; mind what
I say, scratch it with a pin, and burn that, and not a word to a mortal
about it. Good-bye; oh, I was taking away your book.'
And so, in a fuss, with a slight shake of the hand, getting up his um-
brella, his bag, and tin box, he hurried from the room; and in a minute
more, I heard the sound of his vehicle as it drove away.
I looked after it with a sigh; the uneasy sensations which I had experi-
enced respecting my sojourn at Bartram-Haugh were re-awakened.
My ugly, vulgar, true friend was disappearing beyond those gigantic
lime trees which hid Bartram from the eyes of the outer world. The fly,
with the doctor's valise on top, vanished, and I sighed an anxious sigh.
The shadow of the over-arching trees contracted, and I felt helpless and
forsaken; and glancing down the torn leaf, Doctor Bryerly's address met
my eye, between my fingers.
I slipt it into my breast, and ran up-stairs stealthily, trembling lest the
old woman should summon me again, at the head of the stairs, into
Uncle Silas's room, where under his gaze, I fancied, I should be sure to
betray myself.
But I glided unseen and safely by, entered my room, and shut my
door. So listening and working, I, with my scissors' point, scratched the
address where Doctor Bryerly had advised. Then, in positive terror, lest
some one should even knock during the operation, I, with a match, con-
sumed to ashes the tell-tale bit of paper.
Now, for the first time, I experienced the unpleasant sensations of hav-
ing a secret to keep. I fancy the pain of this solitary liability was

234
disproportionately acute in my case, for I was naturally very open and
very nervous. I was always on the point of betraying it apropos des
bottes—always reproaching myself for my duplicity; and in constant ter-
ror when honest Mary Quince approached the press, or good-natured
Milly made her occasional survey of the wonders of my wardrobe. I
would have given anything to go and point to the tiny inscription, and
say:—'This is Doctor Bryerly's address in London. I scratched it with my
scissors' point, taking every precaution lest anyone—you, my good
friends, included—should surprise me. I have ever since kept this secret
to myself, and trembled whenever your frank kind faces looked into the
press. There—you at last know all about it. Can you ever forgive my
deceit?'
But I could not make up my mind to reveal it; nor yet to erase the in-
scription, which was my alternative thought. Indeed I am a wavering, ir-
resolute creature as ever lived, in my ordinary mood. High excitement or
passion only can inspire me with decision. Under the inspiration of
either, however, I am transformed, and often both prompt and brave.
'Some one left here last night, I think, Miss,' said Mary Quince, with a
mysterious nod, one morning. ''Twas two o'clock, and I was bad with the
toothache, and went down to get a pinch o' red pepper—leaving the
candle a-light here lest you should awake. When I was coming up—as I
was crossing the lobby, at the far end of the long gallery—what should I
hear, but a horse snorting, and some people a-talking, short and quiet
like. So I looks out o' the window; and there surely I did see two horses
yoked to a shay, and a fellah a-pullin' a box up o' top; and out comes a
walise and a bag; and I think it was old Wyat, please'm, that Miss Milly
calls L'Amour, that stood in the doorway a-talking to the driver.'
'And who got into the chaise, Mary?' I asked.
'Well, Miss, I waited as long as I could; but the pain was bad, and me
so awful cold; I gave it up at last, and came back to bed, for I could not
say how much longer they might wait. And you'll find, Miss,'twill be
kep' a secret, like the shay as you saw'd, Miss, last week. I hate them
dark ways, and secrets; and old Wyat—she does tell stories, don't
she?—and she as ought to be partickler, seein' her time be short now,
and she so old. It is awful, an old un like that telling such crams as she
do.'
Milly was as curious as I, but could throw no light on this. We both
agreed, however, that the departure was probably that of the person
whose arrival I had accidentally witnessed. This time the chaise had

235
drawn up at the side door, round the corner of the left side of the house;
and, no doubt, driven away by the back road.
Another accident had revealed this nocturnal move. It was very pro-
voking, however, that Mary Quince had not had resolution to wait for
the appearance of the traveller. We all agreed, however, that we were to
observe a strict silence, and that even to Wyat—L'Amour I had better
continue to call her—Mary Quince was not to hint what she had seen. I
suspect, however, that injured curiosity asserted itself, and that Mary
hardly adhered to this self-denying resolve.
But cheerful wintry suns and frosty skies, long nights, and brilliant
starlight, with good homely fires in our snuggery—gossipings, stories,
short readings now and then, and brisk walks through the always beau-
tiful scenery of Bartram-Haugh, and, above all, the unbroken tenor of
our life, which had fallen into a serene routine, foreign to the idea of
danger or misadventure, gradually quieted the qualms and misgivings
which my interview with Doctor Bryerly had so powerfully resuscitated.
My cousin Monica, to my inexpressible joy, had returned to her
country-house; and an active diplomacy, through the post-office, was ne-
gotiating the re-opening of friendly relations between the courts of Elver-
ston and of Bartram.
At length, one fine day, Cousin Monica, smiling pleasantly, with her
cloak and bonnet on, and her colour fresh from the shrewd air of the
Derbyshire hills, stood suddenly before me in our sitting-room. Our
meeting was that of two school-companions long separated. Cousin
Monica was always a girl in my eyes.
What a hug it was; what a shower of kisses and ejaculations, enquiries
and caresses! At last I pressed her down into a chair, and, laughing, she
said—
'You have no idea what self-denial I have exercised to bring this visit
about. I, who detest writing, have actually written five letters to Silas;
and I don't think I said a single impertinent thing in one of them! What a
wonderful little old thing your butler is! I did not know what to make of
him on the steps. Is he a struldbrug, or a fairy, or only a ghost? Where on
earth did your uncle pick him up? I'm sure he came in on All Hallows
E'en, to answer an incantation—not your future husband, I hope—and
he'll vanish some night into gray smoke, and whisk sadly up the chim-
ney. He's the most venerable little thing I ever beheld in my life. I leaned
back in the carriage and thought I should absolutely die of laughing.
He's gone up to prepare your uncle for my visit; and I really am very

236
glad, for I'm sure I shall look as young as Hebe after him. But who is this?
Who are you, my dear?'
This was addressed to poor Milly, who stood at the corner of the
chimney-piece, staring with her round eyes and plump cheeks in fear
and wonder upon the strange lady.
'How stupid of me,' I exclaimed. 'Milly, dear, this is your cousin, Lady
Knollys.'
'And so you are Millicent. Well, dear, I am very glad to see you.' And
Cousin Monica was on her feet again in an instant, with Milly's hand
very cordially in hers; and she gave her a kiss upon each cheek, and pat-
ted her head.
Milly, I must mention, was a much more presentable figure than when
I first encountered her. Her dresses were at least a quarter of a yard
longer. Though very rustic, therefore, she was not so barbarously grot-
esque, by any means.

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Chapter 39
COUSIN MONICA AND UNCLE SILAS MEET
Cousin Monica, with her hands upon Milly's shoulders, looked
amusedly and kindly in her face. 'And,' said she, 'we must be very good
friends—you funny creature, you and I. I'm allowed to be the most saucy
old woman in Derbyshire—quite incorrigibly privileged; and nobody is
ever affronted with me, so I say the most shocking things constantly.'
'I'm a bit that way, myself; and I think,' said poor Milly, making an ef-
fort, and growing very red; she quite lost her head at that point, and was
incompetent to finish the sentiment she had prefaced.
'You think? Now, take my advice, and never wait to think my dear;
talk first, and think afterwards, that is my way; though, indeed, I can't
say I ever think at all. It is a very cowardly habit. Our cold-blooded cous-
in Maud, there, thinks sometimes; but it is always such a failure that I
forgive her. I wonder when your little pre-Adamite butler will return. He
speaks the language of the Picts and Ancient Britons, I dare say, and
your father requires a little time to translate him. And, Milly dear, I am
very hungry, so I won't wait for your butler, who would give me, I sup-
pose, one of the cakes baked by King Alfred, and some Danish beer in a
skull; but I'll ask you for a little of that nice bread and butter.'
With which accordingly Lady Knollys was quickly supplied; but it did
not at all impede her utterance.
'Do you think, girls, you could be ready to come away with me, if Silas
gives leave, in an hour or two? I should so like to take you both home
with me to Elverston.'
'How delightful! you darling,' cried I, embracing and kissing her; 'for
my part, I should be ready in five minutes; what do you say, Milly?'
Poor Milly's wardrobe, I am afraid, was more portable than handsome;
and she looked horribly affrighted, and whispered in my ear—
'My best petticoat is away at the laundress; say in a week, Maud.'
'What does she say?' asked Lady Knollys.
'She fears she can't be ready,' I answered, dejectedly.

238
 'There's a deal of my slops in the wash,' blurted out poor Milly, staring
straight at Lady Knollys.
'In the name of wonder, what does my cousin mean?' asked Lady
Knollys.
'Her things have not come home yet from the laundress,' I replied; and
at this moment our wondrous old butler entered to announce to Lady
Knollys that his master was ready to receive her, whenever she was dis-
posed to favour him; and also to make polite apologies for his being
compelled, by his state of health, to give her the trouble of ascending to
his room.
So Cousin Monica was at the door in a moment, over her shoulder
calling to us, 'Come, girls.'
'Please, not yet, my lady—you alone; and he requests the young ladies
will be in the way, as he will send for them presently.'
I began to admire poor 'Giblets' as the wreck of a tolerably respectable
servant.
'Very good; perhaps it is better we should kiss and be friends in
private first,' said Cousin Knollys, laughing; and away she went under
the guidance of the mummy.
I had an account of this tête-à-tête afterwards from Lady Knollys.
'When I saw him, my dear,' she said, 'I could hardly believe my eyes;
such white hair—such a white face—such mad eyes—such a death-like
smile. When I saw him last, his hair was dark; he dressed himself like a
modern Englishman; and he really preserved a likeness to the full-length
portrait at Knowl, that you fell in love with, you know; but, angels and
ministers of grace! such a spectre! I asked myself, is it necromancy, or is
it delirium tremens that has reduced him to this? And said he, with that
odious smile, that made me fancy myself half insane—
'"You see a change, Monica."
'What a sweet, gentle, insufferable voice he has! Somebody once told
me about the tone of a glass flute that made some people hysterical to
listen to, and I was thinking of it all the time. There was always a peculi-
ar quality in his voice.
'"I do see a change, Silas," I said at last; "and, no doubt, so do you in
me—a great change."
'"There has been time enough to work a greater than I observe in you
since you last honoured me with a visit," said he.
'I think he was at his old sarcasms, and meant that I was the same im-
pertinent minx he remembered long ago, uncorrected by time; and so I
am, and he must not expect compliments from old Monica Knollys.

239
 '"It is a long time, Silas; but that, you know, is not my fault," said I.
'"Not your fault, my dear—your instinct. We are all imitative
creatures: the great people ostracised me, and the small ones followed.
We are very like turkeys, we have so much good sense and so much gen-
erosity. Fortune, in a freak, wounded my head, and the whole brood
were upon me, pecking and gobbling, gobbling and pecking, and you
among them, dear Monica. It wasn't your fault, only your instinct, so I
quite forgive you; but no wonder the peckers wear better than the
pecked. You are robust; and I, what I am."
'"Now, Silas, I have not come here to quarrel. If we quarrel now, mind,
we can never make it up—we are too old, so let us forget all we can, and
try to forgive something; and if we can do neither, at all events let there
be truce between us while I am here."
'"My personal wrongs I can quite forgive, and I do, Heaven knows,
from my heart; but there are things which ought not to be forgiven. My
children have been ruined by it. I may, by the mercy of Providence, be
yet set right in the world, and so soon as that time comes, I will remem-
ber, and I will act; but my children—you will see that wretched girl, my
daughter—education, society, all would come too late—my children
have been ruined by it."
'"I have not done it; but I know what you mean," I said. "You menace
litigation whenever you have the means; but you forget that Austin
placed you under promise, when he gave you the use of this house and
place, never to disturb my title to Elverston. So there is my answer, if
you mean that."
'"I mean what I mean," he replied, with his old smile.
'"You mean then," said I, "that for the pleasure of vexing me with litig-
ation, you are willing to forfeit your tenure of this house and place."
'"Suppose I did mean precisely that, why should I forfeit anything? My
beloved brother, by his will, has given me a right to the use of Bartram-
Haugh for my life, and attached no absurd condition of the kind you
fancy to his gift."
'Silas was in one of his vicious old moods, and liked to menace me. His
vindictiveness got the better of his craft; but he knows as well as I do that
he never could succeed in disturbing the title of my poor dear Harry
Knollys; and I was not at all alarmed by his threats; and I told him so, as
coolly as I speak to you now.
'"Well, Monica," he said, "I have weighed you in the balance, and you
are not found wanting. For a moment the old man possessed me: the
thought of my children, of past unkindness, and present affliction and

240
disgrace, exasperated me, and I was mad. It was but for a moment—the
galvanic spasm of a corpse. Never was breast more dead than mine to
the passions and ambitions of the world. They are not for white locks
like these, nor for a man who, for a week in every month, lies in the gate
of death. Will you shake hands? Here—I do strike a truce; and I do forget
and forgive everything."
'I don't know what he meant by this scene. I have no idea whether he
was acting, or lost his head, or, in fact, why or how it occurred; but I am
glad, darling, that, unlike myself, I was calm, and that a quarrel has not
been forced upon me.'
When our turn came and we were summoned to the presence, Uncle
Silas was quite as usual; but Cousin Monica's heightened colour, and the
flash of her eyes, showed plainly that something exciting and angry had
occurred.
Uncle Silas commented in his own vein upon the effect of Bartram air
and liberty, all he had to offer; and called on me to say how I liked them.
And then he called Milly to him, kissed her tenderly, smiled sadly upon
her, and turning to Cousin Monica, said—
'This is my daughter Milly—oh! she has been presented to you down-
stairs, has she? You have, no doubt, been interested by her. As I told her
cousin Maud, though I am not yet quite a Sir Tunbelly Clumsy, she is a
very finished Miss Hoyden. Are not you, my poor Milly? You owe your
distinction, my dear, to that line of circumvallation which has, ever since
your birth, intercepted all civilisation on its way to Bartram. You are
much obliged, Milly, to everybody who, whether naturally or un-natur-
ally, turned a sod in that invisible, but impenetrable, work. For your ac-
complishments—rather singular than fashionable—you are indebted, in
part, to your cousin, Lady Knollys. Is not she, Monica? Thank her, Milly.'
'This is your truce, Silas,' said Lady Knollys, with a quiet sharpness. 'I
think, Silas Ruthyn, you want to provoke me to speak in a way before
these young creatures which we should all regret.'
'So my badinage excites your temper, Monnie. Think how you would
feel, then, if I had found you by the highway side, mangled by robbers,
and set my foot upon your throat, and spat in your face. But—stop this.
Why have I said this? simply to emphasize my forgiveness. See, girls,
Lady Knollys and I, cousins long estranged, forget and forgive the past,
and join hands over its buried injuries.'
'Well, be it so; only let us have done with ironies and covert taunts.'

241
 And with these words their hands were joined; and Uncle Silas, after
he had released hers, patted and fondled it with his, laughing icily and
very low all the time.
'I wish so much, dear Monica,' he said, when this piece of silent by-
play was over, 'that I could ask you to stay to-night; but absolutely I have
not a bed to offer, and even if I had, I fear my suit would hardly prevail.'
Then came Lady Knollys' invitation for Milly and me. He was very
much obliged; he smiled over it a great deal, meditating. I thought he
was puzzled; and amid his smiles, his wild eyes scanned Cousin
Monica's frank face once or twice suspiciously.
There was a difficulty—an undefined difficulty—about letting us go
that day; but on a future one—soon—very soon—he would be most
happy.
Well, there was an end of that little project, for to-day at least; and
Cousin Monica was too well-bred to urge it beyond a certain point.
'Milly, my dear, will you put on your hat and show me the grounds
about the house? May she, Silas? I should like to renew my
acquaintance.'
'You'll see them sadly neglected, Monnie. A poor man's pleasure
grounds must rely on Nature, and trust to her for effects. Where there is
fine timber, however, and abundance of slope, and rock, and hollow, we
sometimes gain in picturesqueness what we lose by neglect in luxury.'
Then, as Cousin Monica said she would cross the grounds by a path,
and meet her carriage at a point to which we would accompany her, and
so make her way home, she took leave of Uncle Silas; a ceremony where-
at—without, I thought, much zeal at either side—a kiss took place.
'Now, girls!' said Cousin Knollys, when we were fairly in motion over
the grass, 'what do you say—will he let you come—yes or no? I can't say,
but I think, dear,'—this to Milly—' he ought to let you see a little more of
the world than appears among the glens and bushes of Bartram. Very
pretty they are, like yourself; but very wild, and very little seen. Where is
your brother, Milly; is not he older than you?'
'I don't know where; and he is older by six years and a bit.'
By-and-by, when Milly was gesticulating to frighten some herons by
the river's brink into the air, Cousin Monica said confidentially to me—
'He has run away, I'm told—I wish I could believe it—and enlisted in a
regiment going to India, perhaps the best thing for him. Did you see him
here before his judicious self-banishment?'
'No.'

242
 'Well, I suppose you have had no loss. Doctor Bryerly says from all he
can learn he is a very bad young man. And now tell me, dear, is Silas
kind to you?'
'Yes, always gentle, just as you saw him to-day; but we don't see a
great deal of him—very little, in fact.'
'And how do you like your life and the people?' she asked.
'My life, very well; and the people, pretty well. There's an old women
we don't like, old Wyat, she is cross and mysterious and tells untruths;
but I don't think she is dishonest—so Mary Quince says—and that, you
know, is a point; and there is a family, father and daughter, called
Hawkes, who live in the Windmill Wood, who are perfect savages,
though my uncle says they don't mean it; but they are very disagreeable,
rude people; and except them we see very little of the servants or other
people. But there has been a mysterious visit; some one came late at
night, and remained for some days, though Milly and I never saw them,
and Mary Quince saw a chaise at the side-door at two o'clock at night.'
Cousin Monica was so highly interested at this that she arrested her
walk and stood facing me, with her hand on my arm, questioning and
listening, and lost, as it seemed, in dismal conjecture.
'It is not pleasant, you know,' I said.
'No, it is not pleasant,' said Lady Knollys, very gloomily.
And just then Milly joined us, shouting to us to look at the herons fly-
ing; so Cousin Monica did, and smiled and nodded in thanks to Milly,
and was again silent and thoughtful as we walked on.
'You are to come to me, mind, both of you girls,' she said, abruptly;'
you shall. I'll manage it.'
When silence returned, and Milly ran away once more to try whether
the old gray trout was visible in the still water under the bridge, Cousin
Monica said to me in a low tone, looking hard at me—
'You've not seen anything to frighten you, Maud? Don't look so
alarmed, dear,' she added with a little laugh, which was not very merry,
however. 'I don't mean frighten in any awful sense—in fact, I did not
mean frighten at all. I meant—I can't exactly express it—anything to vex,
or make you uncomfortable; have you?'
'No, I can't say I have, except that room in which Mr. Charke was
found dead.'
'Oh! you saw that, did you?—I should like to see it so much. Your bed-
room is not near it?'
'Oh, no; on the floor beneath, and looking to the front. And Doctor
Bryerly talked a little to me, and there seemed to be something on his

243
mind more than he chose to tell me; so that for some time after I saw him
I really was, as you say, frightened; but, except that, I really have had no
cause. And what was in your mind when you asked me?'
'Well, you know, Maud, you are afraid of ghosts, banditti, and
everything; and I wished to know whether you were uncomfortable, and
what your particular bogle was just now—that, I assure you, was all; and
I know,' she continued, suddenly changing her light tone and manner for
one of pointed entreaty, 'what Doctor Bryerly said; and I implore of you,
Maud, to think of it seriously; and when you come to me, you shall do so
with the intention of remaining at Elverston.'
'Now, Cousin Monica, is this fair? You and Doctor Bryerly both talk in
the same awful way to me; and I assure you, you don't know how
nervous I am sometimes, and yet you won't, either of you, say what you
mean. Now, Monica, dear cousin, won't you tell me?'
'You see, dear, it is so lonely; it's a strange place, and he so odd. I don't
like the place, and I don't like him. I've tried, but I can't, and I think I
never shall. He may be a very—what was it that good little silly curate at
Knowl used to call him?—a very advanced Christian—that is it, and I
hope he is; but if he is only what he used to be, his utter seclusion from
society removes the only check, except personal fear—and he never had
much of that—upon a very bad man. And you must know, my dear
Maud, what a prize you are, and what an immense trust it is.'
Suddenly Cousin Monica stopped short, and looked at me as if she
had gone too far.
'But, you know, Silas may be very good now, although he was wild
and selfish in his young days. Indeed I don't know what to make of him;
but I am sure when you have thought it over, you will agree with me
and Doctor Bryerly, that you must not stay here.'
It was vain trying to induce my cousin to be more explicit.
'I hope to see you at Elverston in a very few days. I will shame Silas in-
to letting you come. I don't like his reluctance.'
'But don't you think he must know that Milly would require some
little outfit before her visit?'
'Well, I can't say. I hope that is all; but be it what it may, I'll make him
let you come, and immediately, too.' After she had gone, I experienced a
repetition of those undefined doubts which had tortured me for some
time after my conversation with Dr. Bryerly. I had truly said, however, I
was well enough contented with my mode of life here, for I had been
trained at Knowl to a solitude very nearly as profound.

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Chapter 40
IN WHICH I MAKE ANOTHER COUSIN'S
ACQUAINTANCE
My correspondence about this time was not very extensive. About once a
fortnight a letter from honest Mrs. Rusk conveyed to me how the dogs
and ponies were, in queer English, oddly spelt; some village gossip, a cri-
tique upon Doctor Clay's or the Curate's last sermon, and some severities
generally upon the Dissenters' doings, with loves to Mary Quince, and
all good wishes to me. Sometimes a welcome letter from cheerful Cousin
Monica; and now, to vary the series, a copy of complimentary verses,
without a signature, very adoring—very like Byron, I then fancied, and
now, I must confess, rather vapid. Could I doubt from whom they came?
I had received, about a month after my arrival, a copy of verses in the
same hand, in a plaintive ballad style, of the soldierly sort, in which the
writer said, that as living his sole object was to please me, so dying I
should be his latest thought; and some more poetic impieties, asking
only in return that when the storm of battle had swept over, I should
'shed a tear' on seeing 'the oak lie, where it fell.' Of course, about this
lugubrious pun, there could be no misconception. The Captain was un-
mistakably indicated; and I was so moved that I could no longer retain
my secret; but walking with Milly that day, confided the little romance to
that unsophisticated listener, under the chestnut trees. The lines were so
amorously dejected, and yet so heroically redolent of blood and gun-
powder, that Milly and I agreed that the writer must be on the verge of a
sanguinary campaign.
It was not easy to get at Uncle Silas's 'Times' or 'Morning Post,' which
we fancied would explain these horrible allusions; but Milly bethought
her of a sergeant in the militia, resident in Feltram, who knew the destin-
ation and quarters of every regiment in the service; and circuitously,
from this authority, we learned, to my infinite relief, that Captain
Oakley's regiment had still two years to sojourn in England.

245
 I was summoned one evening by old L'Amour, to my uncle's room. I
remember his appearance that evening so well, as he lay back in his
chair; the pillow; the white glare of his strange eye; his feeble, painful
smile.
'You'll excuse my not rising, dear Maud, I am so miserably ill this
evening.'
I expressed my respectful condolence.
'Yes; I am to be pitied; but pity is of no use, dear,' he murmured, peev-
ishly. 'I sent for you to make you acquainted with your cousin, my son.
Where are you Dudley?'
A figure seated in a low lounging chair, at the other side of the fire,
and which till then I had not observed, at these words rose up a little
slowly, like a man stiff after a day's hunting; and I beheld with a shock
that held my breath, and fixed my eyes upon him in a stare, the young
man whom I had encountered at Church Scarsdale, on the day of my un-
pleasant excursion there with Madame, and who, to the best of my belief,
was also one of that ruffianly party who had so unspeakably terrified me
in the warren at Knowl.
I suppose I looked very much affrighted. If I had been looking at a
ghost I could not have felt much more scared and incredulous.
When I was able to turn my eyes upon my uncle he was not looking at
me; but with a glimmer of that smile with which a father looks on a son
whose youth and comeliness he admires, his white face was turned to-
wards the young man, in whom I beheld nothing but the image of odi-
ous and dreadful associations.
'Come, sir,' said my uncle, we must not be too modest. Here's your
cousin Maud—what do you say?'
'How are ye, Miss?' he said, with a sheepish grin.
'Miss! Come, come. Miss us, no Misses,' said my uncle; 'she is Maud,
and you Dudley, or I mistake; or we shall have you calling Milly, ma-
dame. She'll not refuse you her hand, I venture to think. Come, young
gentleman, speak for yourself.'
'How are ye, Maud?' he said, doing his best, and drawing near, he ex-
tended his hand.' You're welcome to Bartram-Haugh, Miss.'
'Kiss your cousin, sir. Where's your gallantry? On my honour, I dis-
own you,' exclaimed my uncle, with more energy than he had shown
before.
With a clumsy effort, and a grin that was both sheepish and impudent,
he grasped my hand and advanced his face. The imminent salute gave
me strength to spring back a step or two, and he hesitated.

246
 My uncle laughed peevishly.
'Well, well, that will do, I suppose. In my time first-cousins did not
meet like strangers; but perhaps we were wrong; we are learning mod-
esty from the Americans, and old English ways are too gross for us.'
'I have—I've seen him before—that is;' and at this point I stopped.
My uncle turned his strange glare, in a sort of scowl of enquiry, upon
me.
'Oh!—hey! why this is news. You never told me. Where have you
met—eh, Dudley?'
'Never saw her in my days, so far as I'm aweer on,' said the young
man.
'No! Well, then, Maud, will you enlighten us?' said Uncle Silas, coldly.
'I did see that young gentleman before,' I faltered.
'Meaning me, ma'am?' he asked, coolly.
'Yes—certainly you. I did, uncle,' answered I.
'And where was it, my dear? Not at Knowl, I fancy. Poor dear Austin
did not trouble me or mine much with his hospitalities.'
This was not a pleasant tone to take in speaking of his dead brother
and benefactor; but at the moment I was too much engaged upon the one
point to observe it.
'I met'—I could not say my cousin—'I met him, uncle—your son—that
young gentleman—I saw him, I should say, at Church Scarsdale, and af-
terwards with some other persons in the warren at Knowl. It was the
night our gamekeeper was beaten.'
'Well, Dudley, what do you say to that?' asked Uncle Silas.
'I never was at them places, so help me. I don't know where they be;
and I never set eyes on the young lady before, as I hope to be saved, in
all my days,' said he, with a countenance so unchanged and an air so
confident that I began to think I must be the dupe of one of those strange
resemblances which have been known to lead to positive identification
in the witness-box, afterwards proved to be utterly mistaken.
'You look so—so uncomfortable, Maud, at the idea of having seen him
before, that I hardly wonder at the vehemence of his denial. There was
plainly something disagreeable; but you see as respects him it is a total
mistake. My boy was always a truth-telling fellow—you may rely impli-
citly on what he says. You were not at those places?'
'I wish I may——,' began the ingenuous youth, with increased
vehemence.
'There, there—that will do; your honour and word as a gentle-
man—and that you are, though a poor one—will quite satisfy your

247
cousin Maud. Am I right, my dear? I do assure you, as a gentleman, I
never knew him to say the thing that was not.'
So Mr. Dudley Ruthyn began, not to curse, but to swear, in the pre-
scribed form, that he had never seen me before, or the places I had
named, 'since I was weaned, by——'
'That's enough—now shake hands, if you won't kiss, like cousins,' in-
terrupted my uncle.
And very uncomfortably I did lend him my hand to shake.
'You'll want some supper, Dudley, so Maud and I will excuse your
going. Good-night, my dear boy,' and he smiled and waved him from
the room.
'That's as fine a young fellow, I think, as any English father can boast
for his son—true, brave, and kind, and quite an Apollo. Did you observe
how finely proportioned he is, and what exquisite features the fellow
has? He's rustic and rough, as you see; but a year or two in the mili-
tia—I've a promise of a commission for him—he's too old for the
line—will form and polish him. He wants nothing but manner; and I
protest when he has had a little drilling of that kind, I do believe he'll be
as pretty a fellow as you'd find in England.'
I listened with amazement. I could discover nothing but what was dis-
agreeable in the horrid bumpkin, and thought such an instance of the
blindness of parental partiality was hardly credible.
I looked down, dreading another direct appeal to my judgment; and
Uncle Silas, I suppose, referred those downcast looks to maiden mod-
esty, for he forbore to task mine by any new interrogatory.
Dudley Ruthyn's cool and resolute denial of ever having seen me or
the places I had named, and the inflexible serenity of his countenance
while doing so, did very much shake my confidence in my own identific-
ation of him. I could not be quite certain that the person I had seen at
Church Scarsdale was the very same whom I afterwards saw at Knowl.
And now, in this particular instance, after the lapse of a still longer peri-
od, could I be perfectly certain that my memory, deceived by some acci-
dental points of resemblance, had not duped me, and wronged my cous-
in, Dudley Ruthyn?
I suppose my uncle had expected from me some signs of acquiesence
in his splendid estimate of his cub, and was nettled at my silence. After a
short interval he said—
'I've seen something of the world in my day, and I can say without a
misgiving of partiality, that Dudley is the material of a perfect English
gentleman. I am not blind, of course—the training must be supplied; a

248
year or two of good models, active self-criticism, and good society. I
simply say that the material is there.'
Here was another interval of silence.
'And now tell me, child, what these recollections of
Church—Church—what?'
'Church Scarsdale,' I replied.
'Yes, thank you—Church Scarsdale and Knowl—are?'
So I related my stories as well as I could.
'Well, dear Maud, the adventure of Church Scarsdale is hardly so ter-
rific as I expected,' said Uncle Silas with a cold little laugh; 'and I don't
see, if he had really been the hero of it, why he should shrink from avow-
ing it. I know I should not. And I really can't say that your pic-nic party
in the grounds of Knowl has frightened me much more. A lady waiting
in the carriage, and two or three tipsy young men. Her presence seems to
me a guarantee that no mischief was meant; but champagne is the soul of
frolic, and a row with the gamekeepers a natural consequence. It
happened to me once—forty years ago, when I was a wild young
buck—one of the worst rows I ever was in.'
And Uncle Silas poured some eau-de-cologne over the corner of his
handkerchief, and touched his temples with it.
'If my boy had been there, I do assure you—and I know him—he
would say so at once. I fancy he would rather boast of it. I never knew
him utter an untruth. When you know him a little you'll say so.'
With these words Uncle Silas leaned back exhausted, and languidly
poured some of his favourite eau-de-cologne over the palms of his
hands, nodded a farewell, and, in a whisper, wished me good-night.
'Dudley's come,' whispered Milly, taking me under the arm as I
entered the lobby. 'But I don't care: he never gives me nout; and he gets
money from Governor, as much as he likes, and I never a sixpence. It's a
shame!'
So there was no great love between the only son and only daughter of
the younger line of the Ruthyns.
I was curious to learn all that Milly could tell me of this new inmate of
Bartram-Haugh; and Milly was communicative without having a great
deal to relate, and what I heard from her tended to confirm my own dis-
agreeable impressions about him. She was afraid of him. He was a
'woundy ugly customer in a wax, she could tell me.' He was the only one
'she ever knowed as had pluck to jaw the Governor.' But he was 'afeard
on the Governor, too.'

249
 His visits to Bartram-Haugh, I heard, were desultory; and this, to my
relief, would probably not outlast a week or a fortnight. 'He was such a
fashionable cove:' he was always 'a gadding about, mostly to Liverpool
and Birmingham, and sometimes to Lunnun, itself.' He was 'keeping
company one time with Beauty, Governor thought, and he was awfully
afraid he'd a married her; but that was all bosh and nonsense; and
Beauty would have none of his chaff and wheedling, for she liked Tom
Brice;' and Milly thought that Dudley never 'cared a crack of a whip for
her.' He used to go to the Windmill to have 'a smoke with Pegtop;' and
he was a member of the Feltram Club, that met at the 'Plume o' Feathers.'
He was 'a rare good shot,' she heard; and 'he was before the justices for
poaching, but they could make nothing of it.' And the Governor said 'it
was all through spite of him—for they hate us for being better blood
than they.' And 'all but the squires and those upstart folk loves Dudley,
he is so handsome and gay—though he be a bit cross at home.' And,
'Governor says, he'll be a Parliament man yet, spite o' them all.'
Next morning, when our breakfast was nearly ended, Dudley tapped
at the window with the end of his clay pipe—a 'churchwarden' Milly
called it—just such a long curved pipe as Joe Willet is made to hold
between his lips in those charming illustrations of 'Barnaby
Rudge'—which we all know so well—and lifting his 'wide-awake' with a
burlesque salutation, which, I suppose, would have charmed the 'Plume
of Feathers,' he dropped, kicked and caught his 'wide-awake,' with an
agility and gravity, as he replaced it, so inexpressibly humorous, that
Milly went off in a loud fit of laughter, with the ejaculation—
'Did you ever?'
It was odd how repulsively my confidence in my original identifica-
tion always revived on unexpectedly seeing Dudley after an interval.
I could perceive that this piece of comic by-play was meant to make a
suitable impression on me. I received it, however, with a killing gravity;
and after a word or two to Milly, he lounged away, having first broken
his pipe, bit by bit, into pieces, which he balanced in turn on his nose and
on his chin, from which features he jerked them into his mouth, with a
precision which, along with his excellent pantomime of eating them,
highly excited Milly's mirth and admiration.

250
Chapter 41
MY COUSIN DUDLEY
Greatly to my satisfaction, this engaging person did not appear again
that day. But next day Milly told me that my uncle had taken him to task
for the neglect with which he was treating us.
'He did pitch into him, sharp and short, and not a word from him,
only sulky like; and I so frightened, I durst not look up almost; and they
said a lot I could not make head or tail of; and Governor ordered me out
o' the room, and glad I was to go; and so they had it out between them.'
Milly could throw no light whatsoever upon the adventures at Church
Scarsdale and Knowl; and I was left still in doubt, which sometimes os-
cillated one way and sometimes another. But, on the whole, I could not
shake off the misgivings which constantly recurred and pointed very ob-
stinately to Dudley as the hero of those odious scenes.
Oddly enough, though, I now felt far less confident upon the point
than I did at first sight. I had begun to distrust my memory, and to sus-
pect my fancy; but of this there could be no question, that between the
person so unpleasantly linked in my remembrance with those scenes,
and Dudley Ruthyn, a striking, though possibly only a general resemb-
lance did exist.
Milly was certainly right as to the gist of Uncle Silas's injunction, for
we saw more of Dudley henceforward.
He was shy; he was impudent; he was awkward; he was con-
ceited;—altogether a most intolerable bumpkin. Though he sometimes
flushed and stammered, and never for a moment was at his ease in my
presence, yet, to my inexpressible disgust, there was a self-complacency
in his manner, and a kind of triumph in his leer, which very plainly told
me how satisfied he was as to the nature of the impression he was mak-
ing upon me.
I would have given worlds to tell him how odious I thought him.
Probably, however, he would not have believed me. Perhaps he fancied
that 'ladies' affected airs of indifference and repulsion to cover their real

251
feelings. I never looked at or spoke to him when I could avoid either, and
then it was as briefly as I could. To do him justice, however, he seemed
to have no liking for our society, and certainly never seemed altogether
comfortable in it.
I find it hard to write quite impartially even of Dudley Ruthyn's per-
sonal appearance; but, with an effort, I confess that his features were
good, and his figure not amiss, though a little fattish. He had light
whiskers, light hair, and a pink complexion, and very good blue eyes. So
far my uncle was right; and if he had been perfectly gentlemanlike, he
really might have passed for a handsome man in the judgment of some
critics.
But there was that odious mixture of mauvaise honte and impudence, a
clumsiness, a slyness, and a consciousness in his bearing and counten-
ance, not distinctly boorish, but low, which turned his good looks into an
ugliness more intolerable than that of feature; and a corresponding vul-
garity pervading his dress, his demeanour, and his very walk, marred
whatever good points his figure possessed. If you take all this into ac-
count, with the ominous and startling misgivings constantly recurring,
you will understand the mixed feelings of anger and disgust with which
I received the admiration he favoured me with.
Gradually he grew less constrained in my presence, and certainly his
manners were not improved by his growing ease and confidence.
He came in while Milly and I were at luncheon, jumped up, with a
'right-about face' performed in the air, sitting on the sideboard, whence
grinning slyly and kicking his heels, he leered at us.
'Will you have something, Dudley?' asked Milly.
'No, lass; but I'll look at ye, and maybe drink a drop for company.'
And with these words, he took a sportsman's flask from his pocket;
and helping himself to a large glass and a decanter, he compounded a
glass of strong brandy-and-water, as he talked, and refreshed himself
with it from time to time.
'Curate's up wi' the Governor,' he said, with a grin. 'I wanted a word
wi' him; but I s'pose I'll hardly git in this hour or more; they're a praying
and disputing, and a Bible-chopping, as usual. Ha, ha! But 'twon't hold
much longer, old Wyat says, now that Uncle Austin's dead; there's nout
to be made o' praying and that work no longer, and it don't pay of itself.'
'O fie! For shame, you sinner!' laughed Milly. 'He wasn't in a church
these five years, he says, and then only to meet a young lady. Now, isn't
he a sinner, Maud—isn't he?'

252
 Dudley, grinning, looked with a languishing slyness at me, biting the
edge of his wide-awake, which he held over his breast.
Dudley Ruthyn probably thought there was a manly and desperate
sort of fascination in the impiety he professed.
'I wonder, Milly,' said I, 'at your laughing. How can you laugh?'
'You'd have me cry, would ye?' answered Milly.
'I certainly would not have you laugh,' I replied.
'I know I wish some one 'ud cry for me, and I know who,' said Dudley,
in what he meant for a very engaging way, and he looked at me as if he
thought I must feel flattered by his caring to have my tears.
Instead of crying, however, I leaned back in my chair, and began
quietly to turn over the pages of Walter Scott's poems, which I and Milly
were then reading in the evenings.
The tone in which this odious young man spoke of his father, his
coarse mention of mine, and his low boasting of his irreligion, disgusted
me more than ever with him.
'They parsons be slow coaches—awful slow. I'll have a good bit to
wait, I s'pose. I should be three miles away and more by this time—drat
it!' He was eyeing the legging of the foot which he held up while he
spoke, as if calculating how far away that limb should have carried him
by this time. 'Why can't folk do their Bible and prayers o' Sundays, and
get it off their stomachs? I say, Milly lass, will ye see if Governor be done
wi' the Curate? Do. I'm a losing the whole day along o' him.'
Milly jumped up, accustomed to obey her brother, and as she passed
me, whispered, with a wink—
'Money.'
And away she went. Dudley whistled a tune, and swung his foot like a
pendulum, as he followed her with his side-glance.
'I say, it is a hard case, Miss, a lad o' spirit should be kept so tight. I
haven't a shilling but what comes through his fingers; an' drat the tizzy
he'll gi' me till he knows the reason why.'
'Perhaps,' I said, 'my uncle thinks you should earn some for yourself.'
'I'd like to know how a fella's to earn money now-a-days. You
wouldn't have a gentleman to keep a shop, I fancy. But I'll ha' a fistful jist
now, and no thanks to he. Them executors, you know, owes me a deal o'
money. Very honest chaps, of course; but they're cursed slow about pay-
ing, I know.'
I made no remark upon this elegant allusion to the executors of my
dear father's will.

253
 'An' I tell ye, Maud, when I git the tin, I know who I'll buy a farin' for. I
do, lass.'
The odious creature drawled this with a sidelong leer, which, I sup-
pose, he fancied quite irresistible.
I am one of those unfortunate persons who always blushed when I
most wished to look indifferent; and now, to my inexpressible chagrin,
with its accustomed perversity, I felt the blush mount to my cheeks, and
glow even on my forehead.
I saw that he perceived this most disconcerting indication of a senti-
ment the very idea of which was so detestable, that, equally enraged
with myself and with him, I did not know how to exhibit my contempt
and indignation.
Mistaking the cause of my discomposure, Mr. Dudley Ruthyn laughed
softly, with an insufferable suavity.
'And there's some'at, lass, I must have in return. Honour thy father,
you know; you would not ha' me disobey the Governor? No, you
wouldn't—would ye?'
I darted at him a look which I hoped would have quelled his impertin-
ence; but I blushed most provokingly—more violently than ever.
'I'd back them eyes again' the county, I would,' he exclaimed, with a
condescending enthusiasm. 'You're awful pretty, you are, Maud. I don't
know what came over me t'other night when Governor told me to buss
ye; but dang it, ye shan't deny me now, and I'll have a kiss, lass, in spite
o' thy blushes.'
He jumped from his elevated seat on the sideboard, and came swag-
gering toward me, with an odious grin, and his arms extended. I started
to my feet, absolutely transported with fury.
'Drat me, if she baint a-going to fight me!' he chuckled humorously.
'Come, Maud, you would not be ill-natured, sure? Arter all, it's only
our duty. Governor bid us kiss, didn't he?'
'Don't—don't, sir. Stand back, or I'll call the servants.'
And as it was I began to scream for Milly.
'There's how it is wi' all they cattle! You never knows your own
mind—ye don't,' he said, surlily. 'You make such a row about a bit o'
play. Drop it, will you? There's no one a-harming you—is there? I'm not,
for sartain.'
And, with an angry chuckle, he turned on his heel, and left the room.
I think I was perfectly right to resist, with all the vehemence of which I
was capable, this attempt to assume an intimacy which, notwithstanding
my uncle's opinion to the contrary, seemed to me like an outrage.

254
 Milly found me alone—not frightened, but very angry. I had quite
made up my mind to complain to my uncle, but the Curate was still with
him; and, by the time he had gone, I was cooler. My awe of my uncle had
returned. I fancied that he would treat the whole affair as a mere playful
piece of gallantry. So, with the comfortable conviction that he had had a
lesson, and would think twice before repeating his impertinence, I re-
solved, with Milly's approbation, to leave matters as they were.
Dudley, greatly to my comfort, was huffed with me, and hardly ap-
peared, and was sulky and silent when he did. I lived then in the pleas-
ant anticipation of his departure, which, Milly thought, would be very
soon.
My uncle had his Bible and his consolations; but it cannot have been
pleasant to this old roué, converted though he was—this refined man of
fashion—to see his son grow up an outcast, and a Tony Lumpkin; for
whatever he may have thought of his natural gifts, he must have known
how mere a boor he was.
I try to recall my then impressions of my uncle's character. Grizzly and
chaotic the image rises—silver head, feet of clay. I as yet knew little of
him.
I began to perceive that he was what Mary Quince used to call
'dreadful particular'—I suppose a little selfish and impatient. He used to
get cases of turtle from Liverpool. He drank claret and hock for his
health, and ate woodcock and other light and salutary dainties for the
same reason; and was petulant and vicious about the cooking of these,
and the flavour and clearness of his coffee.
His conversation was easy, polished, and, with a sentimental glazing,
cold; but across this artificial talk, with its French rhymes, racy phrases,
and fluent eloquence, like a streak of angry light, would, at intervals,
suddenly gleam some dismal thought of religion. I never could quite sat-
isfy myself whether they were affectations or genuine, like intermittent
thrills of pain.
The light of his large eyes was very peculiar. I can liken it to nothing
but the sheen of intense moonlight on burnished metal. But that cannot
express it. It glared white and suddenly—almost fatuous. I thought of
Moore's lines whenever I looked on it:—
Oh, ye dead! oh, ye dead! whom we know by the light you give From
your cold gleaming eyes, though you move like men who live.
I never saw in any other eye the least glimmer of the same baleful ef-
fulgence. His fits, too—his hoverings between life and death—between

255
intellect and insanity—a dubious, marsh-fire existence, horrible to look
on!
I was puzzled even to comprehend his feelings toward his children.
Sometimes it seemed to me that he was ready to lay down his soul for
them; at others, he looked and spoke almost as if he hated them. He
talked as if the image of death was always before him, yet he took a ter-
rible interest in life, while seemingly dozing away the dregs of his days
in sight of his coffin.
Oh! Uncle Silas, tremendous figure in the past, burning always in
memory in the same awful lights; the fixed white face of scorn and an-
guish! It seems as if the Woman of Endor had led me to that chamber
and showed me a spectre.
Dudley had not left Bartram-Haugh when a little note reached me
from Lady Knollys. It said—
'DEAREST MAUD,—I have written by this post to Silas, beseeching a
loan of you and my Cousin Milly. I see no reason your uncle can pos-
sibly have for refusing me; and, therefore, I count confidently on seeing
you both at Elverston to-morrow, to stay for at least a week. I have
hardly a creature to meet you. I have been disappointed in several visit-
ors; but another time we shall have a gayer house. Tell Milly—with my
love—that I will not forgive her if she fails to accompany you.
'Believe me ever your affectionate cousin,
'MONICA KNOLLYS.'
Milly and I were both afraid that Uncle Silas would refuse his consent,
although we could not divine any sound reason for his doing so, and
there were many in favour of his improving the opportunity of allowing
poor Milly to see some persons of her own sex above the rank of menials.
At about twelve o'clock my uncle sent for us, and, to our great delight,
announced his consent, and wished us a very happy excursion.

256
Chapter 42
ELVERSTON AND ITS PEOPLE
So Milly and I drove through the gabled high street of Feltram next day.
We saw my gracious cousin smoking with a man like a groom, at the
door of the 'Plume of Feathers.' I drew myself back as we passed, and
Milly popped her head out of the window.
'I'm blessed,' said she, laughing, 'if he hadn't his thumb to his nose,
and winding up his little finger, the way he does with old Wy-
at—L'Amour, ye know; and you may be sure he said something funny,
for Jim Jolliter was laughin', with his pipe in his hand.'
'I wish I had not seen him, Milly. I feel as if it were an ill omen. He al-
ways looks so cross; and I dare say he wished us some ill,' I said.
'No, no, you don't know Dudley: if he were angry, he'd say nothing
that's funny; no, he's not vexed, only shamming vexed.'
The scenery through which we passed was very pretty. The road
brought us through a narrow and wooded glen. Such studies of ivied
rocks and twisted roots! A little stream tinkled lonely through the hol-
low. Poor Milly! In her odd way she made herself companionable. I have
sometimes fancied an enjoyment of natural scenery not so much a fac-
ulty as an acquirement. It is so exquisite in the instructed, so strangely
absent in uneducated humanity. But certainly with Milly it was inborn
and hearty; and so she could enter into my raptures, and requite them.
Then over one of those beautiful Derbyshire moors we drove, and so
into a wide wooded hollow, where was our first view of Cousin
Monica's pretty gabled house, beautified with that indescribable air of
shelter and comfort which belongs to an old English residence, with old
timber grouped round it, and something in its aspect of the quaint old
times and bygone merrymakings, saying sadly, but genially, 'Come in: I
bid you welcome. For two hundred years, or more, have I been the home
of this beloved old family, whose generations I have seen in the cradle
and in the coffin, and whose mirth and sorrows and hospitalities I re-
member. All their friends, like you, were welcome; and you, like them,

257
will here enjoy the warm illusions that cheat the sad conditions of mor-
tality; and like them you will go your way, and others succeed you, till at
last I, too, shall yield to the general law of decay, and disappear.'
By this time poor Milly had grown very nervous; a state which she de-
scribed in such very odd phraseology as threw me, in spite of my-
self—for I affected an impressive gravity in lecturing her upon her lan-
guage—into a hearty fit of laughter.
I must mention, however, that in certain important points Milly was
very essentially reformed. Her dress, though not very fashionable, was
no longer absurd. And I had drilled her into speaking and laughing
quietly; and for the rest I trusted to the indulgence which is always, I
think, more honestly and easily obtained from well-bred than from
under-bred people.
Cousin Monica was out when we arrived; but we found that she had
arranged a double-bedded room for me and Milly, greatly to our con-
tent; and good Mary Quince was placed in the dressing-room beside us.
We had only just commenced our toilet when our hostess entered, as
usual in high spirits, welcomed and kissed us both again and again. She
was, indeed, in extraordinary delight, for she had anticipated some
stratagem or evasion to prevent our visit; and in her usual way she spoke
her mind as frankly about Uncle Silas to poor Milly as she used to do of
my dear father to me.
'I did not think he would let you come without a battle; and you know
if he chose to be obstinate it would not have been easy to get you out of
the enchanted ground, for so it seems to be with that awful old wizard in
the midst of it. I mean, Silas, your papa, my dear. Honestly, is not he
very like Michael Scott?'
'I never saw him,' answered poor Milly. 'At least, that I'm aware of,'
she added, perceiving us smile. 'But I do think he's a thought like old Mi-
chael Dobbs, that sells the ferrets, maybe you mean him?'
'Why, you told me, Maud, that you and Milly were reading Walter
Scott's poems. Well, no matter. Michael Scott, my dear, was a dead wiz-
ard, with ever so much silvery hair, lying in his grave for ever so many
years, with just life enough to scowl when they took his book; and you'll
find him in the "Lay of the Last Minstrel," exactly like your papa, my
dear. And my people tell me that your brother Dudley has been seen
drinking and smoking about Feltram this week. How long does he re-
main at home? Not very long, eh? And, Maud, dear, he has not been
making love to you? Well, I see; of course he has. And apropos of love-

258
making, I hope that impudent creature, Charles Oakley, has not been
teasing you with notes or verses.'
'Indeed but he has though,' interposed Miss Milly; a good deal to my
chagrin, for I saw no particular reason for placing his verses in Cousin
Monica's hands. So I confessed the two little copies of verses, with the
qualification, however, that I did not know from whom they came.
'Well now, dear Maud, have not I told you fifty times over to have
nothing to say to him? I've found out, my dear, he plays, and he is very
much in debt. I've made a vow to pay no more for him. I've been such a
fool, you have no notion; and I'm speaking, you know, against myself; it
would be such a relief if he were to find a wife to support him; and he
has been, I'm told, very sweet upon a rich old maid—a button-maker's
sister, in Manchester.'
This arrow was well shot.
'But don't be frightened: you are richer as well as younger; and, no
doubt, will have your chance first, my dear; and in the meantime, I dare
say, those verses, like Falstaff's billet-doux, you know, are doing double
duty.'
I laughed, but the button-maker was a secret trouble to me; and I
would have given I know not what that Captain Oakley were one of the
company, that I might treat him with the refined contempt which his
deserts and my dignity demanded.
Cousin Monica busied herself about Milly's toilet, and was a very use-
ful lady's maid, chatting in her own way all the time; and, at last, tapping
Milly under the chin with her finger, she said, very complacently—
'I think I have succeeded, Miss Milly; look in the glass. She really is a
very pretty creature.'
And Milly blushed, and looked with a shy gratification, which made
her still prettier, on the mirror.
Milly indeed was very pretty. She looked much taller now that her
dresses were made of the usual length. A little plump she was, beauti-
fully fair, with such azure eyes, and rich hair.
'The more you laugh the better, Milly, for you've got very pretty
teeth—very pretty; and if you were my daughter, or if your father would
become president of a college of magicians, and give you up to me, I
venture to say I would place you very well; and even as it is we must try,
my dear.'
So down to the drawing-room we went; and Cousin Monica entered,
leading us both by the hands.

259
 By this time the curtains were closed, and the drawing-room depend-
ent on the pleasant glow of the fire, and the slight provisional illumina-
tion usual before dinner.
'Here are my two cousins,' began Lady Knollys: 'this is Miss Ruthyn, of
Knowl, whom I take the liberty of calling Maud; and this is Miss Milli-
cent Ruthyn, Silas's daughter, you know, whom I venture to call Milly;
and they are very pretty, as you will see, when we get a little more light,
and they know it very well themselves.'
And as she spoke, a frank-eyed, gentle, prettyish lady, not so tall as I,
but with a very kind face, rose up from a book of prints, and, smiling,
took our hands.
She was by no means young, as I then counted youth—past thirty, I
suppose—and with an air that was very quiet, and friendly, and enga-
ging. She had never been a mere fashionable woman plainly; but she had
the ease and polish of the best society, and seemed to take a kindly in-
terest both in Milly and me; and Cousin Monica called her Mary, and
sometimes Polly. That was all I knew of her for the present.
So very pleasantly the time passed by till the dressing-bell rang, and
we ran away to our room.
'Did I say anything very bad?' asked poor Milly, standing exactly be-
fore me, so soon as our door was shut.
'Nothing, Milly; you are doing admirably.'
'And I do look a great fool, don't I?' she demanded.
'You look extremely pretty, Milly; and not a bit like a fool.'
'I watch everything. I think I'll learn it at last; but it comes a little
troublesome at first; and they do talk different from what I used—you
were quite right there.'
When we returned to the drawing-room, we found the party already
assembled, and chatting, evidently with spirit.
The village doctor, whose name I forget, a small man, grey, with
shrewd grey eyes, sharp and mulberry nose, whose conflagration exten-
ded to his rugged cheeks, and touched his chin and forehead, was con-
versing, no doubt agreeably, with Mary, as Cousin Monica called her
guest.
Over my shoulder, Milly whispered—
'Mr. Carysbroke.'
And Milly was quite right: that gentleman chatting with Lady Knollys,
his elbow resting on the chimney-piece, was, indeed, our acquaintance of
the Windmill Wood. He instantly recognised us, and met us with his
pleased and intelligent smile.

260
 'I was just trying to describe to Lady Knollys the charming scenery of
the Windmill Wood, among which I was so fortunate as to make your ac-
quaintance, Miss Ruthyn. Even in this beautiful county I know of noth-
ing prettier.'
Then he sketched it, as it were, with a few light but glowing words.
'What a sweet scene!' said Cousin Monica: 'only think of her never
bringing me through it. She reserves it, I fancy, for her romantic adven-
tures; and you, I know, are very benevolent, Ilbury, and all that kind of
thing; but I am not quite certain that you would have walked along that
narrow parapet, over a river, to visit a sick old woman, if you had not
happened to see two very pretty demoiselles on the other side.'
'What an ill-natured speech! I must either forfeit my character for dis-
interested benevolence, so justly admired, or disavow a motive that does
such infinite credit to my taste,' exclaimed Mr. Carysbroke. 'I think a
charitable person would have said that a philanthropist, in prosecuting
his virtuous, but perilous vocation, was unexpectedly rewarded by a vis-
ion of angels.'
'And with these angels loitered away the time which ought to have
been devoted to good Mother Hubbard, in her fit of lumbago, and re-
turned without having set eyes on that afflicted Christian, to amaze his
worthy sister with poetic babblings about wood-nymphs and such pagan
impieties,' rejoined Lady Knollys.
'Well, be just,' he replied, laughing; 'did not I go next day and see the
patient?'
'Yes; next day you went by the same route—in quest of the dryads, I
am afraid—and were rewarded by the spectacle of Mother Hubbard.'
'Will nobody help a humane man in difficulties?' Mr. Carysbroke
appealed.
'I do believe,' said the lady whom as yet I knew only as Mary, 'that
every word that Monica says is perfectly true.'
'And if it be so, am I not all the more in need of help? Truth is simply
the most dangerous kind of defamation, and I really think I'm most
cruelly persecuted.'
At this moment dinner was announced, and a meek and dapper little
clergyman, with smooth pink cheeks, and tresses parted down the
middle, whom I had not seen before, emerged from shadow.
This little man was assigned to Milly, Mr. Carysbroke to me, and I
know not how the remaining ladies divided the doctor between them.
That dinner, the first at Elverston, I remember as a very pleasant re-
past. Everyone talked—it was impossible that conversation should flag

261
where Lady Knollys was; and Mr. Carysbroke was very agreeable and
amusing. At the other side of the table, the little pink curate, I was happy
to see, was prattling away, with a modest fluency, in an under-tone to
Milly, who was following my instructions most conscientiously, and
speaking in so low a key that I could hardly hear at the opposite side one
word she was saying.
That night Cousin Monica paid us a visit, as we sat chatting by the fire
in our room; and I told her—
'I have just been telling Milly what an impression she has made. The
pretty little clergyman—il en est épris—he has evidently quite lost his
heart to her. I dare say he'll preach next Sunday on some of King
Solomon's wise sayings about the irresistible strength of women.'
'Yes,' said Lady Knollys,' or maybe on the sensible text, "Whoso finde-
th a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favour," and so forth. At all
events, I may say, Milly, whoso findeth a husband such as he, findeth a
tolerably good thing. He is an exemplary little creature, second son of Sir
Harry Biddlepen, with a little independent income of his own, beside his
church revenues of ninety pounds a year; and I don't think a more harm-
less and docile little husband could be found anywhere; and I think, Miss
Maud, you seemed a good deal interested, too.'
I laughed and blushed, I suppose; and Cousin Monica, skipping after
her wont to quite another matter, said in her odd frank way—
'And how has Silas been?—not cross, I hope, or very odd. There was a
rumour that your brother, Dudley, had gone a soldiering to India, Milly,
or somewhere; but that was all a story, for he has turned up, just as usu-
al. And what does he mean to do with himself? He has got some money
now—your poor father's will, Maud. Surely he doesn't mean to go on
lounging and smoking away his life among poachers, and prize-fighters,
and worse people. He ought to go to Australia, like Thomas Swain, who,
they say, is making a fortune—a great fortune—and coming home again.
That's what your brother Dudley should do, if he has either sense or
spirit; but I suppose he won't—too long abandoned to idleness and low
company—and he'll not have a shilling left in a year or two. Does he
know, I wonder, that his father has served a notice or something on Dr.
Bryerly, telling him to pay sixteen hundred pounds of poor Austin's leg-
acy to him, and saying that he has paid debts of the young man, and
holds his acknowledgments to that amount? He won't have a guinea in a
year if he stays here. I'd give fifty pounds he was in Van Diemen's
Land—not that I care for the cub, Milly, any more than you do; but I
really don't see any honest business he has in England.'

262
 Milly gaped in a total puzzle as Lady Knollys rattled on.
'You know, Milly, you must not be talking about this when you go
home to Bartram, because Silas would prevent your coming to me any
more if he thought I spoke so freely; but I can't help it: so you must
promise to be more discreet than I. And I am told that all kinds of claims
are about to be pressed against him, now that he is thought to have got
some money; and he has been cutting down oak and selling the bark,
Doctor Bryerly has been told, in that Windmill Wood; and he has kilns
there for burning charcoal, and got a man from Lancashire who under-
stands it—Hawk, or something like that.'
'Ay, Hawkes—Dickon Hawkes; that's Pegtop, you know, Maud,' said
Milly.
'Well, I dare say; but a man of very bad character, Dr. Bryerly says;
and he has written to Mr. Danvers about it—for that is what they call
waste, cutting down and selling the timber, and the oakbark, and burn-
ing the willows, and other trees that are turned into charcoal. It is all
waste, and Dr. Bryerly is about to put a stop to it.'
'Has he got your carriage for you, Maud, and your horses?' asked
Cousin Monica, suddenly.
'They have not come yet, but in a few weeks, Dudley says,
positively—'
Cousin Monica laughed a little and shook her head.
'Yes, Maud, the carriage and horses will always be coming in a few
weeks, till the time is over; and meanwhile the old travelling chariot and
post-horses will do very well;' and she laughed a little again.
'That's why the stile's pulled away at the paling, I suppose; and
Beauty—Meg Hawkes, that is—is put there to stop us going through; for
I often spied the smoke beyond the windmill,' observed Milly.
Cousin Monica listened with interest, and nodded silently.
I was very much shocked. It seemed to me quite incredible. I think
Lady Knollys read my amazement and my exalted estimate of the hein-
ousness of the procedure in my face, for she said—
'You know we can't quite condemn Silas till we have heard what he
has to say. He may have done it in ignorance; or, it is just possible, he
may have the right.'
'Quite true. He may have the right to cut down trees at Bartram-
Haugh. At all events, I am sure he thinks he has,' I echoed.
The fact was, that I would not avow to myself a suspicion of Uncle
Silas. Any falsehood there opened an abyss beneath my feet into which I
dared not look.

263
 'And now, dear girls, good-night. You must be tired. We breakfast at a
quarter past nine—not too early for you, I know.'
And so saying, she kissed us, smiling, and was gone.
I was so unpleasantly occupied, for some time after her departure,
with the knaveries said to be practised among the dense cover of the
Windmill Wood, that I did not immediately recollect that we had omit-
ted to ask her any particulars about her guests.
'Who can Mary be?' asked Milly.
'Cousin Monica says she's engaged to be married, and I think I heard
the Doctor call her Lady Mary, and I intended asking her ever so much
about her; but what she told us about cutting down the trees, and all
that, quite put it out of my head. We shall have time enough to-morrow,
however, to ask questions. I like her very much, I know.'
'And I think,' said Milly, 'it is to Mr. Carysbroke she's to be married.'
'Do you?' said I, remembering that he had sat beside her for more than
a quarter of an hour after tea in very close and low-toned conversation;
'and have you any particular reason?' I asked.
'Well, I heard her once or twice call him "dear," and she called him his
Christian name, just like Lady Knollys did—Ilbury, I think—and I saw
him gi' her a sly kiss as she was going up-stairs.'
I laughed.
'Well, Milly,' I said, 'I remarked something myself, I thought, like con-
fidential relations; but if you really saw them kiss on the staircase, the
question is pretty well settled.'
'Ay, lass.'
'You're not to say lass.'
'Well, Maud, then. I did see them with the corner of my eye, and my
back turned, when they did not think I could spy anything, as plain as I
see you now.'
I laughed again; but I felt an odd pang—something of mortifica-
tion—something of regret; but I smiled very gaily, as I stood before the
glass, un-making my toilet preparatory to bed.
'Maud—Maud—fickle Maud!—What, Captain Oakley already super-
seded! and Mr. Carysbroke—oh! humiliation—engaged.' So I smiled on,
very much vexed; and being afraid lest I had listened with too apparent
an interest to this impostor, I sang a verse of a gay little chanson, and
tried to think of Captain Oakley, who somehow had become rather silly.

264
Chapter 43
NEWS AT BARTRAM GATE
Milly and I, thanks to our early Bartram hours, were first down next
morning; and so soon as Cousin Monica appeared we attacked her.
'So Lady Mary is the fiancée of Mr. Carysbroke,' said I, very cleverly;
'and I think it was very wicked of you to try and involve me in a flirta-
tion with him yesterday.'
'And who told you that, pray?' asked Lady Knollys, with a pleasant
little laugh.
'Milly and I discovered it, simple as we stand here,' I answered.
'But you did not flirt with Mr. Carysbroke, Maud, did you?' she asked.
'No, certainly not; but that was not your doing, wicked woman, but
my discretion. And now that we know your secret, you must tell us all
about her, and all about him; and in the first place, what is her
name—Lady Mary what?' I demanded.
'Who would have thought you so cunning? Two country misses—two
little nuns from the cloisters of Bartram! Well, I suppose I must answer.
It is vain trying to hide anything from you; but how on earth did you
find it out?'
'We'll tell you that presently, but you shall first tell us who she is,' I
persisted.
'Well, that I will, of course, without compulsion. She is Lady Mary
Carysbroke,' said Lady Knollys.
'A relation of Mr. Carysbroke's,' I asserted.
'Yes, a relation; but who told you he was Mr. Carysbroke?' asked
Cousin Monica.
'Milly told me, when we saw him in the Windmill Wood.'
'And who told you, Milly?'
'It was L'Amour,' answered Milly, with her blue eyes very wide open.
'What does the child mean? L'Amour! You don't mean love?' exclaimed
Lady Knollys, puzzled in her turn.
'I mean old Wyat; she told me and the Governor.'

265
 'You're not to say that,' I interposed.
'You mean your father?' suggested Lady Knollys.
'Well, yes; father told her, and so I knew him.'
'What could he mean?' exclaimed Lady Knollys, laughing, as it were,
in soliloquy; 'and I did not mention his name, I recollect now. He recog-
nised you, and you him, when you came into the room yesterday; and
now you must tell me how you discovered that he and Lady Mary were
to be married.'
So Milly restated her evidence, and Lady Knollys laughed unaccount-
ably heartily; and she said—
'They will be so confounded! but they deserve it; and, remember, I did
not say so.'
'Oh! we acquit you.'
'All I say is, such a deceitful, dangerous pair of girls—all things con-
sidered—I never heard of before,' exclaimed Lady Knollys. 'There's no
such thing as conspiring in your presence.'
'Good morning. I hope you slept well.' She was addressing the lady
and gentleman who were just entering the room from the conservatory.
'You'll hardly sleep so well to-night, when you have learned what eyes
are upon you. Here are two very pretty detectives who have found out
your secret, and entirely by your imprudence and their own cleverness
have discovered that you are a pair of betrothed lovers, about to ratify
your vows at the hymeneal altar. I assure you I did not tell of you; you
betrayed yourselves. If you will talk in that confidential way on sofas,
and call one another stealthily by your Christian names, and actually kiss
at the foot of the stairs, while a clever detective is scaling them, appar-
ently with her back toward you, you must only take the consequences,
and be known prematurely as the hero and heroine of the forthcoming
paragraph in the "Morning Post."'
Milly and I were horribly confounded, but Cousin Monica was re-
solved to place us all upon the least formal terms possible, and I believe
she had set about it in the right way.
'And now, girls, I am going to make a counter-discovery, which, I fear,
a little conflicts with yours. This Mr. Carysbroke is Lord Ilbury, brother
of this Lady Mary; and it is all my fault for not having done my honours
better; but you see what clever match-making little creatures they are.'
'You can't think how flattered I am at being made the subject of a the-
ory, even a mistaken one, by Miss Ruthyn.'
And so, after our modest fit was over, Milly and I were very merry,
like the rest, and we all grew a great deal more intimate that morning.

266
 I think altogether those were the pleasantest and happiest days of my
life: gay, intelligent, and kindly society at home; charming excur-
sions—sometimes riding—sometimes by carriage—to distant points of
beauty in the county. Evenings varied with music, reading, and spirited
conversation. Now and then a visitor for a day or two, and constantly
some neighbour from the town, or its dependencies, dropt in. Of these I
but remember tall old Miss Wintletop, most entertaining of rustic old
maids, with her nice lace and thick satin, and her small, kindly round
face—pretty, I dare say, in other days, and now frosty, but kindly—who
told us such delightful old stories of the county in her father's and
grandfather's time; who knew the lineage of every family in it, and could
recount all its duels and elopements; give us illustrative snatches from
old election squibs, and lines from epitaphs, and tell exactly where all the
old-world highway robberies had been committed: how it fared with the
chief delinquents after the assizes; and, above all, where, and of what
sort, the goblins and elves of the county had made themselves seen, from
the phantom post-boy, who every third night crossed Windale Moor, by
the old coach-road, to the fat old ghost, in mulberry velvet, who showed
his great face, crutch, and ruffles, by moonlight, at the bow window of
the old court-house that was taken down in 1803.
You cannot imagine what agreeable evenings we passed in this soci-
ety, or how rapidly my good Cousin Milly improved in it. I remember
well the intense suspense in which she and I awaited the answer from
Bartram-Haugh to kind Cousin Monica's application for an extension of
our leave of absence.
It came, and with it a note from Uncle Silas, which was curious, and,
therefore, is printed here:—
'MY DEAR LADY KNOLLYS,—To your kind letter I say yes (that is,
for another week, not a fortnight), with all my heart. I am glad to hear
that my starlings chatter so pleasantly; at all events the refrain is not that
of Sterne's. They can get out; and do get out; and shall get out as much as
they please. I am no gaoler, and shut up nobody but myself. I have al-
ways thought that young people have too little liberty. My principle has
been to make little free men and women of them from the first. In mor-
als, altogether—in intellect, more than we allow—self-education is that
which abides; and it only begins where constraint ends. Such is my the-
ory. My practice is consistent. Let them remain for a week longer, as you
say. The horses shall be at Elverston on Tuesday, the 7th. I shall be more
than usually sad and solitary till their return; so pray, I selfishly entreat,
do not extend their absence. You will smile, remembering how little my

267
health will allow me to see of them, even when at home; but as Chaulieu
so prettily says—I stupidly forget the words, but the sentiment is
this—"although concealed by a sylvan wall of leaves, impenetrable—(he
is pursuing his favourite nymphs through the alleys and intricacies of a
rustic labyrinth)—yet, your songs, your prattle, and your laughter, faint
and far away, inspire my fancy; and, through my ears, I see your unseen
smiles, your blushes, your floating tresses, and your ivory feet; and so,
though sad, am happy; though alone, in company;"—and such is my
case.
'One only request, and I have done. Pray remind them of a promise
made to me. The Book of Life—the fountain of life—it must be drunk of,
night and morning, or their spiritual life expires.
'And now, Heaven bless and keep you, my dear cousin; and with all
assurances of affection to my beloved niece and my child, believe me
ever yours affectionately.
'SILAS RUTHYN.'
Said Cousin Monica, with a waggish smile—
'And so, girls, you have Chaulieu and the evangelists; the French
rhymester in his alley, and Silas in the valley of the shadow of death;
perfect liberty, and a peremptory order to return in a week;—all illustrat-
ing one another. Poor Silas! old as he is, I don't think his religion fits
him.'
I really rather liked his letter. I was struggling hard to think well of
him, and Cousin Monica knew it; and I really think if I had not been by,
she would often have been less severe on him.
As we were all sitting pleasantly about the breakfast table a day or two
after, the sun shining on the pleasant wintry landscape, Cousin Monica
suddenly exclaimed—
'I quite forgot to tell you that Charles Oakley has written to say he is
coming on Wednesday. I really don't want him. Poor Charlie! I wonder
how they manage those doctors' certificates. I know nothing ails him,
and he'd be much better with his regiment.'
Wednesday!—how odd. Exactly the day after my departure. I tried to
look perfectly unconcerned. Lady Knollys had addressed herself more to
Lady Mary and Milly than to me, and nobody in particular was looking
at me. Notwithstanding, with my usual perversity, I felt myself blushing
with a brilliancy that may have been very becoming, but which was so
intolerably provoking that I would have risen and left the room but that
matters would have been so infinitely worse. I could have boxed my odi-
ous ears. I could almost have jumped from the window.

268
 I felt that Lord Ilbury saw it. I saw Lady Mary's eyes for a moment
resting gravely on my tell-tale—my lying cheeks—for I really had begun
to think much less celestially of Captain Oakley. I was angry with Cousin
Monica, who, knowing my blushing infirmity, had mentioned her neph-
ew so suddenly while I was strapped by etiquette in my chair, with my
face to the window, and two pair of most disconcerting eyes, at least, op-
posite. I was angry with myself—generally angry—refused more tea
rather dryly, and was laconic to Lord Ilbury, all which, of course, was
very cross and foolish; and afterwards, from my bed-room window, I
saw Cousin Monica and Lady Mary among the flowers, under the
drawing-room window, talking, as I instinctively knew, of that little in-
cident. I was standing at the glass.
'My odious, stupid, perjured face' I whispered, furiously, at the same
time stamping on the floor, and giving myself quite a smart slap on the
cheek. 'I can't go down—I'm ready to cry—I've a mind to return to
Bartram to-day; I am always blushing; and I wish that impudent Captain
Oakley was at the bottom of the sea.'
I was, perhaps, thinking more of Lord Ilbury than I was aware; and I
am sure if Captain Oakley had arrived that day, I should have treated
him with most unjustifiable rudeness.
Notwithstanding this unfortunate blush, the remainder of our visit
passed very happily for me. No one who has not experienced it can have
an idea how intimate a small party, such as ours, will grow in a short
time in a country house.
Of course, a young lady of a well-regulated mind cannot possibly care
a pin about any one of the opposite sex until she is well assured that he is
beginning, at least, to like her better than all the world beside; but I could
not deny to myself that I was rather anxious to know more about Lord Il-
bury than I actually did know.
There was a 'Peerage,' in its bright scarlet and gold uniform, corpulent
and tempting, upon the little marble table in the drawing-room. I had
many opportunities of consulting it, but I never could find courage to do
so.
For an inexperienced person it would have been a matter of several
minutes, and during those minutes what awful risk of surprise and de-
tection. One day, all being quiet, I did venture, and actually, with a beat-
ing heart, got so far as to find out the letter 'Il,' when I heard a step out-
side the door, which opened a little bit, and I heard Lady Knollys, luckily
arrested at the entrance, talk some sentences outside, her hand still upon
the door-handle. I shut the book, as Mrs. Bluebeard might the door of the

269
chamber of horrors at the sound of her husband's step, and skipped to a
remote part of the room, where Cousin Knollys found me in a mysteri-
ous state of agitation.
On any other subject I would have questioned Cousin Monica unhesit-
atingly; upon this, somehow, I was dumb. I distrusted myself, and
dreaded my odious habit of blushing, and knew that I should look so
horribly guilty, and become so agitated and odd, that she would have
reasonably concluded that I had quite lost my heart to him.
After the lesson I had received, and my narrow escape of detection in
the very act, you may be sure I never trusted myself in the vicinity of
that fat and cruel 'Peerage,' which possessed the secret, but would not
disclose without compromising me.
In this state of tantalizing darkness and conjecture I should have de-
parted, had not Cousin Monica quite spontaneously relieved me.
The night before our departure she sat with us in our room, chatting a
little farewell gossip.
'And what do you think of Ilbury?' she asked.
'I think him clever and accomplished, and amusing; but he sometimes
appears to me very melancholy—that is, for a few minutes togeth-
er—and then, I fancy, with an effort, re-engages in our conversation.'
'Yes, poor Ilbury! He lost his brother only about five months since, and
is only beginning to recover his spirits a little. They were very much at-
tached, and people thought that he would have succeeded to the title,
had he lived, because Ilbury is difficile—or a philosopher—or a Saint Kev-
in; and, in fact, has begun to be treated as a premature old bachelor.'
'What a charming person his sister, Lady Mary, is. She has made me
promise to write to her,' I said, I suppose—such hypocrites are we—to
prove to Cousin Knollys that I did not care particularly to hear anything
more about him.
'Yes, and so devoted to him. He came down here, and took The
Grange, for change of scene and solitude—of all things the worst for a
man in grief—a morbid whim, as he is beginning to find out; for he is
very glad to stay here, and confesses that he is much better since he
came. His letters are still addressed to him as Mr. Carysbroke; for he fan-
cied if his rank were known, that the county people would have been
calling upon him, and so he would have found himself soon involved in
a tiresome round of dinners, and must have gone somewhere else. You
saw him, Milly, at Bartram, before Maud came?'
Yes, she had, when he called there to see her father.

270
 'He thought, as he had accepted the trusteeship, that he could hardly,
residing so near, omit to visit Silas. He was very much struck and inter-
ested by him, and he has a better opinion of him—you are not angry,
Milly—than some ill-natured people I could name; and he says that the
cutting down of the trees will turn out to have been a mere slip. But
these slips don't occur with clever men in other things; and some persons
have a way of always making them in their own favour. And, to talk of
other things, I suspect that you and Milly will probably see Ilbury at
Bartram; for I think he likes you very much.'
You; did she mean both, or only me?
So our pleasant visit was over. Milly's good little curate had been
much thrown in her way by our deep and dangerous cousin Monica. He
was most laudably steady; and his flirtation advanced upon the field of
theology, where, happily, Milly's little reading had been concentrated. A
mild and earnest interest in poor, pretty Milly's orthodoxy was the lead-
ing feature of his case; and I was highly amused at her references to me,
when we had retired at night, upon the points which she had disputed
with him, and her anxious reports of their low-toned conferences, carried
on upon a sequestered ottoman, where he patted and stroked his crossed
leg, as he smiled tenderly and shook his head at her questionable doc-
trine. Milly's reverence for her instructor, and his admiration, grew daily;
and he was known among us as Milly's confessor.
He took luncheon with us on the day of our departure, and with an
adroit privacy, which in a layman would have been sly, presented her, in
right of his holy calling, with a little book, the binding of which was me-
diaeval and costly, and whose letter-press dealt in a way which he com-
mended, with some points on which she was not satisfactory; and she
found on the fly-leaf this little inscription:—'Presented to Miss Millicent
Ruthyn by an earnest well-wisher, 1st December 1844.' A text, very
neatly penned, followed this; and the 'presentation' was made unctiously
indeed, but with a blush, as well as the accustomed smile, and with eyes
that were lowered.
The early crimson sun of December had gone down behind the hills
before we took our seats in the carriage.
Lord Ilbury leaned with his elbow on the carriage window, looking in,
and he said to me—
'I really don't know what we shall do, Miss Ruthyn; we shall all feel so
lonely. For myself, I think I shall run away to Grange.'
This appeared to me as nearly perfect eloquence as human lips could
utter.

271
 His hand still rested on the window, and the Rev. Sprigge Biddlepen
was standing with a saddened smirk on the door steps, when the whip
smacked, the horses scrambled into motion, and away we rolled down
the avenue, leaving behind us the pleasantest house and hostess in the
world, and trotting fleetly into darkness towards Bartram-Haugh.
We were both rather silent. Milly had her book in her lap, and I saw
her every now and then try to read her 'earnest well-wisher's' little in-
scription, but there was not light to read by.
When we reached the great gate of Bartram-Haugh it was dark. Old
Crowl, who kept the gate, I heard enjoining the postilion to make no
avoidable noise at the hall-door, for the odd but startling reason that he
believed my uncle 'would be dead by this time.'
Very much shocked and frightened, we stopped the carriage, and
questioned the tremulous old porter.
Uncle Silas, it seemed, had been 'silly-ish' all yesterday, and 'could not
be woke this morning,' and 'the doctor had been here twice, being now
in the house.'
'Is he better?' I asked, tremblingly.
'Not as I'm aweer on, Miss; he lay at God's mercy two hours agone;
'appen he's in heaven be this time.'
'Drive on—drive fast,' I said to the driver. 'Don't be frightened, Milly;
please Heaven we shall find all going well.'
After some delay, during which my heart sank, and I quite gave up
Uncle Silas, the aged little servant-man opened the door, and trotted
shakily down the steps to the carriage side.
Uncle Silas had been at death's door for hours; the question of life had
trembled in the scale; but now the doctor said 'he might do.'
'Where was the doctor?'
'In master's room; he blooded him three hours agone.'
I don't think that Milly was so frightened as I. My heart beat, and I was
trembling so that I could hardly get upstairs.

272
Chapter 44
A FRIEND ARISES
At the top of the great staircase I was glad to see the friendly face of
Mary Quince, who stood, candle in hand, greeting us with many little
courtesies, and a very haggard and pallid smile.
'Very welcome, Miss, hoping you are very well.'
'All well, and you are well, Mary? and oh! tell us quickly how is Uncle
Silas?'
'We thought he was gone, Miss, this morning, but doing fairly now;
doctor says in a trance like. I was helping old Wyat most of the day, and
was there when doctor blooded him, an' he spoke at last; but he must be
awful weak, he took a deal o' blood from his arm, Miss; I held the basin.'
'And he's better—decidedly better?' I asked.
'Well, he's better, doctor says; he talked some, and doctor says if he
goes off asleep again, and begins a-snoring like he did before, we're to
loose the bandage, and let him bleed till he comes to his self again;
which, it seems to me and Wyat, is the same thing a'most as saying he's
to be killed off-hand, for I don't believe he has a drop to spare, as you'll
say likewise, Miss, if you'll please look in the basin.'
This was not an invitation with which I cared to comply. I thought I
was going to faint. I sat on the stairs and sipped a little water, and
Quince sprinkled a little in my face, and my strength returned.
Milly must have felt her father's danger more than I, for she was affec-
tionate, and loved him from habit and relation, although he was not kind
to her. But I was more nervous and more impetuous, and my feelings
both stimulated and overpowered me more easily. The moment I was
able to stand I said—thinking of nothing but the one idea—
'We must see him—come, Milly.'
I entered his sitting-room; a common 'dip' candle hanging like the
tower of Pisa all to one side, with a dim, long wick, in a greasy candle-
stick, profaned the table of the fastidious invalid. The light was little

273
better than darkness, and I crossed the room swiftly, still transfixed by
the one idea of seeing my uncle.
His bed-room door beside the fireplace stood partly open, and I
looked in.
Old Wyat, a white, high-cauled ghost, was pottering in her slippers in
the shadow at the far side of the bed. The doctor, a stout little bald man,
with a paunch and a big bunch of seals, stood with his back to the fire-
place, which corresponded with that in the next room, eyeing his patient
through the curtains of the bed with a listless sort of importance.
The head of the large four-poster rested against the opposite wall. Its
foot was presented toward the fireplace; but the curtains at the side,
which alone I could see from my position, were closed.
The little doctor knew me, and thinking me, I suppose, a person of
consequence, removed his hands from behind him, suffering the skirts of
his coat to fall forward, and with great celerity and gravity made me a
low but important bow; then choosing more particularly to make my ac-
quaintance he further advanced, and with another reverence he intro-
duced himself as Doctor Jolks, in a murmured diapason. He bowed me
back again into my uncle's study, and the light of old Wyat's dreadful
candle.
Doctor Jolks was suave and pompous. I longed for a fussy practitioner
who would have got over the ground in half the time.
Coma, madam; coma. Miss Ruthyn, your uncle, I may tell you, has
been in a very critical state; highly so. Coma of the most obstinate type.
He would have sunk—he must have gone, in fact, had I not resorted to a
very extreme remedy, and bled him freely, which happily told precisely
as we could have wished. A wonderful constitution—a marvellous con-
stitution—prodigious nervous fibre; the greatest pity in the world he
won't give himself fair play. His habits, you know, are quite, I may say,
destructive. We do our best—we do all we can, but if the patient won't
cooperate it can't possibly end satisfactorily.'
And Jolks accompanied this with an awful shrug. 'Is there anything?
Do you think change of air? What an awful complaint it is,' I exclaimed.
He smiled, mysteriously looking down, and shook his head
undertaker-like.
'Why, we can hardly call it a complaint, Miss Ruthyn. I look upon it he
has been poisoned—he has had, you understand me,' he pursued, ob-
serving my startled look, 'an overdose of opium; you know he takes opi-
um habitually; he takes it in laudanum, he takes it in water, and, most
dangerous of all, he takes it solid, in lozenges. I've known people take it

274
moderately. I've known people take it to excess, but they all were partic-
ular as to measure, and that is exactly the point I've tried to impress upon
him. The habit, of course, you understand is formed, there's no uproot-
ing that; but he won't measure—he goes by the eye and by sensation,
which I need not tell you, Miss Ruthyn, is going by chance; and opium, as
no doubt you are aware, is strictly a poison; a poison, no doubt, which
habit will enable you to partake of, I may say, in considerable quantities,
without fatal consequences, but still a poison; and to exhibit a poison so,
is, I need scarcely tell you, to trifle with death. He has been so
threatened, and for a time he changes his haphazard mode of dealing
with it, and then returns; he may escape—of course, that is possible—but
he may any day overdo the thing. I don't think the present crisis will res-
ult seriously. I am very glad, independently of the honour of making
your acquaintance, Miss Ruthyn, that you and your cousin have re-
turned; for, however zealous, I fear the servants are deficient in intelli-
gence; and as in the event of a recurrence of the symptoms—which,
however, is not probable—I would beg to inform you of their nature,
and how exactly best to deal with them.'
So upon these points he delivered us a pompous little lecture, and
begged that either Milly or I would remain in the room with the patient
until his return at two or three o'clock in the morning; a reappearance of
the coma 'might be very bad indeed.'
Of course Milly and I did as we were directed. We sat by the fire,
scarcely daring to whisper. Uncle Silas, about whom a new and dreadful
suspicion began to haunt me, lay still and motionless as if he were actu-
ally dead.
'Had he attempted to poison himself?'
If he believed his position to be as desperate as Lady Knollys had de-
scribed it, was this, after all, improbable? There were strange wild theor-
ies, I had been told, mixed up in his religion.
Sometimes, at an hour's interval, a sign of life would come—a moan
from that tall sheeted figure in the bed—a moan and a pattering of the
lips. Was it prayer—what was it? who could guess what thoughts were
passing behind that white-fillited forehead?
I had peeped at him: a white cloth steeped in vinegar and water was
folded round his head; his great eyes were closed, so were his marble
lips; his figure straight, thin, and long, dressed in a white dressing-gown,
looked like a corpse 'laid out' in the bed; his gaunt bandaged arm lay
outside the sheet that covered his body.

275
 With this awful image of death we kept our vigil, until poor Milly
grew so sleepy that old Wyat proposed that she should take her place
and watch with me.
Little as I liked the crone with the high-cauled cap, she would, at all
events, keep awake, which Milly could not. And so at one o'clock this
new arrangement began.
'Mr. Dudley Ruthyn is not at home?' I whispered to old Wyat.
'He went away wi' himself yesternight, to Cloperton, Miss, to see the
wrestling; it was to come off this morning.'
'Was he sent for?'
'Not he.'
'And why not?'
'He would na' leave the sport for this, I'm thinking,' and the old wo-
man grinned uglily.
'When is he to return?'
'When he wants money.'
So we grew silent, and again I thought of suicide, and of the unhappy
old man, who just then whispered a sentence or two to himself with a
sigh.
For the next hour he had been quite silent, and old Wyat informed me
that she must go down for candles. Ours were already burnt down to the
sockets.
'There's a candle in the next room,' I suggested, hating the idea of be-
ing left alone with the patient.
'Hoot! Miss. I dare na' set a candle but wax in his presence,' whispered
the old woman, scornfully.
'I think if we were to stir the fire, and put on a little more coal, we
should have a great deal of light.'
'He'll ha' the candles,' said Dame Wyat, doggedly; and she tottered
from the chamber, muttering to herself; and I heard her take her candle
from the next room and depart, shutting the outer door after her.
Here was I then alone, but for this unearthly companion, whom I
feared inexpressibly, at two o'clock, in the vast old house of Bartram.
I stirred the fire. It was low, and would not blaze. I stood up, and, with
my hand on the mantelpiece, endeavoured to think of cheerful things.
But it was a struggle against wind and tide—vain; and so I drifted away
into haunted regions.
Uncle Silas was perfectly still. I would not suffer myself to think of the
number of dark rooms and passages which now separated me from the

276
other living tenants of the house. I awaited with a false composure the
return of old Wyat.
Over the mantelpiece was a looking-glass. At another time this might
have helped to entertain my solitary moments, but now I did not like to
venture a peep. A small thick Bible lay on the chimneypiece, and leaning
its back against the mirror, I began to read in it with a mind as attent-
ively directed as I could. While so engaged in turning over the leaves, I
lighted upon two or three odd-looking papers, which had been folded
into it. One was a broad printed thing, with names and dates written into
blank spaces, and was about the size of a quarter of a yard of very broad
ribbon. The others were mere scraps, with 'Dudley Ruthyn' penned in
my cousin's vulgar round-hand at the foot. While I folded and replaced
these, I really don't know what caused me to fancy that something was
moving behind me, as I stood with my back toward the bed. I do not re-
collect any sound whatever; but instinctively I glanced into the mirror,
and my eyes were instantly fixed by what I saw.
The figure of Uncle Silas rose up, and dressed in a long white morning
gown, slid over the end of the bed, and with two or three swift noiseless
steps, stood behind me, with a death-like scowl and a simper. Preternat-
urally tall and thin, he stood for a moment almost touching me, with the
white bandage pinned across his forehead, his bandaged arm stiffly by
his side, and diving over my shoulder, with his long thin hand he
snatched the Bible, and whispered over my head—'The serpent beguiled
her and she did eat;' and after a momentary pause, he glided to the
farthest window, and appeared to look out upon the midnight prospect.
It was cold, but he did not seem to feel it. With the same inflexible
scowl and smile, he continued to look out for several minutes, and then
with a great sigh, he sat down on the side of his bed, his face immovably
turned towards me, with the same painful look.
It seemed to me an hour before old Wyat came back; and never was
lover made happier at sight of his mistress than I to behold that withered
crone.
You may be sure I did not prolong my watch. There was now plainly
no risk of my uncle's relapsing into lethargy. I had a long hysterical fit of
weeping when I got into my room, with honest Mary Quince by my side.
Whenever I closed my eyes, the face of Uncle Silas was before me, as I
had seen it reflected in the glass. The sorceries of Bartram were envelop-
ing me once more.

277
 Next morning the doctor said he was quite out of danger, but very
weak. Milly and I saw him; and again in our afternoon walk we saw the
doctor marching under the trees in the direction of the Windmill Wood.
'Going down to see that poor girl there?' he said, when he had made
his salutation, prodding with his levelled stick in the direction. 'Hawke,
or Hawkes, I think.'
'Beauty's sick, Maud,' exclaimed Milly.
'Hawkes. She's upon my dispensary list. Yes,' said the doctor, looking
into his little note-book—'Hawkes.'
'And what is her complaint?'
'Rheumatic fever.'
'Not infectious?'
'Not the least—no more, as we say, Miss Ruthyn, than a broken leg,'
and he laughed obligingly.
So soon as the doctor had departed, Milly and I agreed to follow to
Hawkes' cottage and enquire more particularly how she was. To say
truth, I am afraid it was rather for the sake of giving our walk a purpose
and a point of termination, than for any very charitable interest we might
have felt in the patient.
Over the inequalities of the upland slope, clumped with trees, we
reached the gabled cottage, with its neglected little farm-yard. A rheum-
atic old woman was the only attendant; and, having turned her ear in an
attitude of attention, which induced us in gradually exalted keys to en-
quire how Meg was, she informed us in very loud tones that she had
long lost her hearing and was perfectly deaf. And added considerately—
'When the man comes in, 'appen he'll tell ye what ye want.'
Through the door of a small room at the further end of that in which
we were, we could see a portion of the narrow apartment of the patient,
and hear her moans and the doctor's voice.
'We'll see him, Milly, when he comes out. Let us wait here.'
So we stood upon the door-stone awaiting him. The sounds of suffer-
ing had moved my compassion and interested us for the sick girl.
'Blest if here isn't Pegtop,' said Milly.
And the weather-stained red coat, the swarthy forbidding face and
sooty locks of old Hawkes loomed in sight, as he stumped, steadying
himself with his stick, over the uneven pavement of the yard. He
touched his hat gruffly to me, but did not seem half to like our being
where we were, for he looked surlily, and scratched his head under his
wide-awake.
'Your daughter is very ill, I'm afraid,' said I.

278
 'Ay—she'll be costin' me a handful, like her mother did,' said Pegtop.
'I hope her room is comfortable, poor thing.'
'Ay, that's it; she be comfortable enough, I warrant—more nor I. It be
all Meg, and nout o' Dickon.'
'When did her illness commence?' I asked.
'Day the mare wor shod—Saturday. I talked a bit wi' the workus folk,
but they won't gi'e nout—dang 'em—an' how be I to do't? It be all'ays
hard bread wi' Silas, an' a deal harder now she' ta'en them pains. I won't
stan' it much longer. Gammon! If she keeps on that way I'll just cut. See
how the workus fellahs 'ill like that!'
'The Doctor gives his services for nothing,' I said.
'An' does nothin', bless him! ha, ha. No more nor that old deaf gammon
there that costs me three tizzies a week, and haint worth a h'porth—no
more nor Meg there, that's making all she can o' them pains. They be all
a foolin' o' me, an' thinks I don't know't. Hey? we'll see.'
All this time he was cutting a bit of tobacco into shreds on the
window-stone.
'A workin' man be same as a hoss; if he baint cared, he can't
work—'tisn't in him:' and with these words, having by this time stuffed
his pipe with tobacco, he poked the deaf lady, who was pattering about
with her back toward him, rather viciously with the point of his stick,
and signed for a light.
'It baint in him, you can't get it out o' 'im, no more nor ye'll draw
smoke out o' this,' and he raised his pipe an inch or two, with his thumb
on the bowl, 'without backy and fire. 'Tisn't in it.'
'Maybe I can be of some use?' I said, thinking.
'Maybe,' he rejoined.
By this time he received from the old deaf abigail a flaming roll of
brown paper, and, touching his hat to me, he withdrew, lighting his pipe
and sending up little white puffs, like the salute of a departing ship.
So he did not care to hear how his daughter was, and had only come
here to light his pipe!
Just then the Doctor emerged.
'We have been waiting to hear how your poor patient is to-day?' I said.
'Very ill, indeed, and utterly neglected, I fear. If she were equal to
it—but she's not—I think she ought to be removed to the hospital
immediately.'
'That poor old woman is quite deaf, and the man is so surly and
selfish! Could you recommend a nurse who would stay here till she's

279
better? I will pay her with pleasure, and anything you think might be
good for the poor girl.'
So this was settled on the spot. Doctor Jolks was kind, like most men
of his calling, and undertook to send the nurse from Feltram with a few
comforts for the patient; and he called Dickon to the yard-gate, and I
suppose told him of the arrangement; and Milly and I went to the poor
girl's door and asked, 'May we come in?'
There was no answer. So, with the conventional construction of si-
lence, we entered. Her looks showed how ill she was. We adjusted her
bed-clothes, and darkened the room, and did what we could for
her—noting, beside, what her comfort chiefly required. She did not an-
swer any questions. She did not thank us. I should almost have fancied
that she had not perceived our presence, had I not observed her dark,
sunken eyes once or twice turned up towards my face, with a dismal
look of wonder and enquiry.
The girl was very ill, and we went every day to see her. Sometimes she
would answer our questions—sometimes not. Thoughtful, observant,
surly, she seemed; and as people like to be thanked, I sometimes wonder
that we continued to throw our bread upon these ungrateful waters.
Milly was specially impatient under this treatment, and protested
against it, and finally refused to accompany me into poor Beauty's bed-
room.
'I think, my good Meg,' said I one day, as I stood by her bed—she was
now recovering with the sure reascent of youth—'that you ought to
thank Miss Milly.'
'I'll not thank her,' said Beauty, doggedly.
'Very well, Meg; I only thought I'd ask you, for I think you ought.'
As I spoke, she very gently took just the tip of my finger, which hung
close to her coverlet, in her fingers, and drew it beneath, and before I was
aware, burying her head in the clothes, she suddenly clasped my hand in
both hers to her lips, and kissed it passionately, again and again, sob-
bing. I felt her tears.
I tried to withdraw my hand, but she held it with an angry pull, con-
tinuing to weep and kiss it.
'Do you wish to say anything, my poor Meg?' I asked.
'Nout, Miss,' she sobbed gently; and she continued to kiss my hand
and weep. But suddenly she said, 'I won't thank Milly, for it's a' you; it
baint her, she hadn't the thought—no, no, it's a' you, Miss. I cried hearty
in the dark last night, thinkin' o' the apples, and the way I knocked them
awa' wi' a pur o' my foot, the day father rapped me ower the head wi' his

280
stick; it was kind o' you and very bad o' me. I wish you'd beat me, Miss;
ye're better to me than father or mother—better to me than a'; an' I wish I
could die for you, Miss, for I'm not fit to look at you.'
I was surprised. I began to cry. I could have hugged poor Meg.
I did not know her history. I have never learned it since. She used to
talk with the most utter self-abasement before me. It was no religious
feeling—it was a kind of expression of her love and worship of me—all
the more strange that she was naturally very proud. There was nothing
she would not have borne from me except the slightest suspicion of her
entire devotion, or that she could in the most trifling way wrong or de-
ceive me.
I am not young now. I have had my sorrows, and with them all that
wealth, virtually unlimited, can command; and through the retrospect a
few bright and pure lights quiver along my life's dark stream—dark, but
for them; and these are shed, not by the splendour of a splendid fortune,
but by two or three of the simplest and kindest remembrances, such as
the poorest and homeliest life may count up, and beside which, in the
quiet hours of memory, all artificial triumphs pale, and disappear, for
they are never quenched by time or distance, being founded on the affec-
tions, and so far heavenly.

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Chapter 45
A CHAPTER-FULL OF LOVERS
We had about this time a pleasant and quite unexpected visit from Lord
Ilbury. He had come to pay his respects, understanding that my uncle
Silas was sufficiently recovered to see visitors. 'And I think I'll run up-
stairs first, and see him, if he admits me, and then I have ever so long a
message from my sister, Mary, for you and Miss Millicent; but I had bet-
ter dispose of my business first—don't you think so?—and I shall return
in a few minutes.'
And as he spoke our tremulous old butler returned to say that Uncle
Silas would be happy to see him. So he departed; and you can't think
how pleasant our homely sitting-room looked with his coat and stick in
it—guarantees of his return.
'Do you think, Milly, he is going to speak about the timber, you know,
that Cousin Knollys spoke of? I do hope not.'
'So do I,' said Milly. 'I wish he'd stayed a bit longer with us first, for if
he does, father will sure to turn him out of doors, and we'll see no more
of him.'
'Exactly, my dear Milly; and he's so pleasant and good-natured.'
'And he likes you awful well, he does.'
'I'm sure he likes us both equally, Milly; he talked a great deal to you
at Elverston, and used to ask you so often to sing those two pretty Lan-
cashire ballads,' I said; 'but you know when you were at your controver-
sies and religious exercises in the window, with that pillar of the church,
the Rev. Spriggs Biddlepen—'
'Get awa' wi' your nonsense, Maud; how could I help answering when
he dodged me up and down my Testament and catechism?—an I 'most
hate him, I tell you, and Cousin Knollys, you're such fools, I do. And
whatever you say, the lord likes you uncommon, and well you know it,
ye hussy.'

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 'I know no such thing; and you don't think it, you hussy, and I really
don't care who likes me or who doesn't, except my relations; and I make
the lord a present to you, if you'll have him.'
In this strain were we talking when he re-entered the room, a little
sooner than we had expected to see him.
Milly, who, you are to recollect, was only in process of reformation,
and still retained something of the Derbyshire dairymaid, gave me a
little clandestine pinch on the arm just as he made his appearance.
'I just refused a present from her,' said odious Milly, in answer to his
enquiring look, 'because I knew she could not spare it.'
The effect of all this was that I blushed one of my overpowering
blushes. People told me they became me very much; I hope so, for the
misfortune was frequent; and I think nature owed me that
compensation.
'It places you both in a most becoming light,' said Lord Ilbury, quite
innocently. 'I really don't know which most to admire—the generosity of
the offer or of the refusal.'
'Well, it was kind, if you but knew. I'm 'most tempted to tell him,' said
Milly.
I checked her with a really angry look, and said, 'Perhaps you have not
observed it; but I really think, for a sensible person, my cousin Milly here
talks more nonsense than any twenty other girls.'
'A twenty-girl power! That's an immense compliment. I've the greatest
respect for nonsense, I owe it so much; and I really think if nonsense
were banished, the earth would grow insupportable.'
'Thank you, Lord Ilbury,' said Milly, who had grown quite easy in his
company during our long visit at Elverston; 'and I tell you, Miss Maud, if
you grow saucy, I'll accept your present, and what will you say then?'
'I really don't know; but just now I want to ask Lord Ilbury how he
thinks my uncle looks; neither I nor Milly have seen him since his
illness.'
'Very much weaker, I think; but he may be gaining strength. Still, as
my business was not quite pleasant, I thought it better to postpone it,
and if you think it would be right, I'll write to Doctor Bryerly to ask him
to postpone the discussion for a little time.'
I at once assented, and thanked him; indeed, if I had had my way, the
subject should never have been mentioned, I felt so hardhearted and ra-
pacious; but Lord Ilbury explained that the trustees were constrained by
the provisions of the will, and that I really had no power to release them;
and I hoped that Uncle Silas also understood all this.

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 'And now,' said he, 'we've returned to Grange, my sister and I, and it is
nearer than Elverston, so that we are really neighbours; and Mary wants
Lady Knollys to fix a time she owes us a visit, you know—and you really
must come at the same time; it will be so very pleasant, the same party
exactly meeting in a new scene; and we have not half explored our
neighbourhood; and I've got down all those Spanish engravings I told
you of, and the Venetian missals, and all the rest. I think I remember
very accurately the things you were most interested by, and they're all
there; and really you must promise, you and Miss Millicent Ruthyn. And
I forgot to mention—you know you complained that you were ill sup-
plied with books, so Mary thought you would allow her to share her
supply—they are the new books, you know—and when you have read
yours, you and she can exchange.'
What girl was ever quite frank about her likings? I don't think I was
more of a cheat than others; but I never could tell of myself. It is quite
true that this duplicity and reserve seldom deceives. Our hypocrisies are
forced upon some of our sex by the acuteness and vigilance of all in this
field of enquiry; but if we are sly, we are also lynx-eyed, capital detect-
ives, most ingenious in fitting together the bits and dovetails of a cumu-
lative case; and in those affairs of love and liking, have a terrible explor-
atory instinct, and so, for the most part, when detected we are found out
not only to be in love, but to be rogues moreover.
Lady Mary was very kind; but had Lady Mary of her own mere mo-
tion taken all this trouble? Was there no more energetic influence at the
bottom of that welcome chest of books, which arrived only half an hour
later? The circulating library of those days was not the epidemic and ubi-
quitous influence to which it has grown; and there were many places
where it could not find you out.
Altogether that evening Bartram had acquired a peculiar beauty—a
bright and mellow glow, in which even its gate-posts and wheelbarrow
were interesting, and next day came a little cloud—Dudley appeared.
'You may be sure he wants money,' said Milly. 'He and father had
words this morning.'
He took a chair at our luncheon, found fault with everything in his
own laconic dialect, ate a good deal notwithstanding, and was sulky, and
with Milly snappish. To me, on the contrary, when Milly went into the
hall, he was mild and whimpering, and disposed to be confidential.
'There's the Governor says he hasn't a bob! Danged if I know how an
old fellah in his bed-room muddles away money at that rate. I don't sup-
pose he thinks I can git along without tin, and he knows them trustees

284
won't gi'e me a tizzy till they get what they calls an opinion—dang 'em!
Bryerly says he doubts it must all go under settlement. They'll settle me
nicely if they do; and Governor knows all about it, and won't gi'e me a
danged brass farthin', an' me wi' bills to pay, an' lawyers—dang
'em—writing letters. He knows summat o' that hisself, does Governor;
and he might ha' consideration a bit for his own flesh and blood, I say.
But he never does nout for none but hisself. I'll sell his books and his jew-
els next fit he takes—that's how I'll fit him.'
This amiable young man, glowering, with his elbows on the table and
his fingers in his great whiskers, followed his homily, where clergymen
append the blessing, with a muttered variety of very different matter.
'Now, Maud,' said he, pathetically, leaning back suddenly in his chair,
with all his conscious beauty and misfortunes in his face, 'is not it hard
lines?'
I thought the appeal was going to shape itself into an application for
money; but it did not.
'I never know'd a reel beauty—first-chop, of course, I mean—that
wasn't kind along of it, and I'm a fellah as can't git along without sym-
pathy—that's why I say it—an' isn't it hard lines? Now, say it's hard
lines—haint it, Maud?'
I did not know exactly what hard lines meant, but I said—
'I suppose it is very disagreeable.'
And with this concession, not caring to hear any more in the same
vein, I rose, intending to take my departure.
'No, that's jest it. I knew ye'd say it, Maud. Ye're a kind lass—ye
be—'tis in yer pretty face. I like ye awful, I do—there's not a handsomer
lass in Liverpool nor Lunnon itself—no where.'
He had seized my hand, and trying to place his arm about my waist,
essayed that salute which I had so narrowly escaped on my first
introduction.
'Don't, sir,' I exclaimed in high indignation, escaping at the same mo-
ment from his grasp.
'No offence, lass; no harm, Maud; you must not be so shy—we're cous-
ins, you know—an' I wouldn't hurt ye, Maud, no more nor I'd knock my
head off. I wouldn't.'
I did not wait to hear the rest of his tender protestations, but, without
showing how nervous I was, I glided out of the room quietly, making an
orderly retreat, the more meritorious as I heard him call after me per-
suasively—'Come back, Maud. What are ye afeard on, lass? Come back, I
say—do now; there's a good wench.'

285
 As Milly and I were taking our walk that day, in the direction of the
Windmill Wood, to which, in consequence perhaps of some secret order,
we had now free access, we saw Beauty, for the first time since her ill-
ness, in the little yard, throwing grain to the poultry.
'How do you find yourself to-day, Meg? I am very glad to see you able
to be about again; but I hope it is not too soon.'
We were standing at the barred gate of the little enclosure, and quite
close to Meg, who, however, did not choose to raise her head, but, con-
tinuing to shower her grain and potato-skins among her hens and chick-
ens, said in a low tone—
'Father baint in sight? Look jist round a bit and say if ye see him.'
But Dickon's dusky red costume was nowhere visible.
So Meg looked up, pale and thin, and with her old grave, observant
eyes, and she said quietly—
''Tisn't that I'm not glad to see ye; but if father was to spy me talking
friendly wi' ye, now that I'm hearty, and you havin' no more call to me,
he'd be all'ays a watching and thinkin' I was tellin' o' tales, and 'appen
he'd want me to worrit ye for money, Miss Maud; an' 'tisn't here he'd
spend it, but in the Feltram pottusses, he would, and we want for nothin'
that's good for us. But that's how 'twould be, an' he'd all'ays be a jawing
and a lickin' of I; so don't mind me, Miss Maud, and 'appen I might do ye
a good turn some day.'
A few days after this little interview with Meg, as Milly and I were
walking briskly—for it was a clear frosty day—along the pleasant slopes
of the sheep-walk, we were overtaken by Dudley Ruthyn. It was not a
pleasant surprise. There was this mitigation, however: we were on foot,
and he driving in a dog-cart along the track leading to the moor, with his
dogs and gun. He brought his horse for a moment to a walk, and with a
careless nod to me, removing his short pipe from his mouth, he said—
'Governor's callin' for ye, Milly; and he told me to send you slick home
to him if I saw you, and I think he'll gi'e ye some money; but ye better
take him while he's in the humour, lass, or mayhap ye'll go long
without.'
And with those words, apparently intent on his game, he nodded
again, and, pipe in mouth, drove at a quick trot over the slope of the hill,
and disappeared.
So I agreed to await Milly's return while she ran home, and rejoined
me where I was. Away she ran, in high spirits, and I wandered listlessly
about in search of some convenient spot to sit down upon, for I was a
little tired.

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 She had not been gone five minutes, when I heard a step approaching,
and looking round, saw the dog-cart close by, the horse browsing on the
short grass, and Dudley Ruthyn within a few paces of me.
'Ye see, Maud, I've bin thinkin' why you're so vexed wi' me, an' I
thought I'd jest come back an' ask ye what I may a' done to anger ye so;
there's no sin in that, I think—is there?'
'I'm not angry. I did not say so. I hope that's enough,' I said, startled;
and, notwithstanding my speech, very angry, for I felt instinctively that
Milly's despatch homeward was a mere trick, and I the dupe of this
coarse stratagem.
'Well then, if ye baint angry, so much the better, Maud. I only want to
know why you're afeard o' me. I never struck a man foul, much less hurt
a girl, in my days; besides, Maud, I likes ye too well to hurt ye. Dang it,
lass, you're my cousin, ye know, and cousins is all'ays together and lov-
in' like, an' none says again' it.'
'I've nothing to explain—there is nothing to explain. I've been quite
friendly,' I said, hurriedly.
'Friendly! Well, if there baint a cram! How can ye think it friendly,
Maud, when ye won't a'most shake hands wi' me? It's enough to make a
fellah sware, or cry a'most. Why d'ye like aggravatin' a poor devil? Now
baint ye an ill-natured little puss, Maud, an' I likin' ye so well? You're the
prettiest lass in Derbyshire; there's nothin' I wouldn't do for ye.'
And he backed his declaration with an oath.
'Be so good, then, as to re-enter your dog-cart and drive away,' I
replied, very much incensed.
'Now, there it is again! Ye can't speak me civil. Another fellah'd fly out,
an' maybe kiss ye for spite; but I baint that sort, I'm all for coaxin' and
kindness, an' ye won't let me. What be you drivin' at, Maud?'
'I think I've said very plainly, sir, that I wish to be alone. You've noth-
ing to say, except utter nonsense, and I've heard quite enough. Once for
all, I beg, sir, that you will be so good as to leave me.'
'Well, now, look here, Maud; I'll do anything you like—burn me if I
don't—if you'll only jest be kind to me, like cousins should. What did I
ever do to vex you? If you think I like any lass better than you—some fel-
lah at Elverston's bin talkin', maybe—it's nout but lies an' nonsense. Not
but there's lots o' wenches likes me well enough, though I be a plain lad,
and speaks my mind straight out.'
'I can't see that you are so frank, sir, as you describe; you have just
played a shabby trick to bring about this absurd and most disagreeable
interview.'

287
 'And supposin' I did send that fool, Milly, out o' the way, to talk a bit
wi' you here, where's the harm? Dang it, lass, ye mustn't be too hard.
Didn't I say I'd do whatever ye wished?'
'And you won't,' said I.
'Ye mean to get along out o' this? Well, now, I will. There! No use, of
course, askin' you to kiss and be friends, before I go, as cousins should.
Well, don't be riled, lass, I'm not askin' it; only mind, I do like you awful,
and 'appen I'll find ye in better humour another time. Good-bye, Maud;
I'll make ye like me at last.'
And with these words, to my comfort, he addressed himself to his
horse and pipe, and was soon honestly on his way to the moor.

288
Chapter 46
THE RIVALS
All the time that Dudley chose to persecute me with his odious society, I
continued to walk at a brisk pace toward home, so that I had nearly
reached the house when Milly met me, with a note which had arrived for
me by the post, in her hand.
'Here, Milly, are more verses. He is a very persevering poet, whoever
he is.' So I broke the seal; but this time it was prose. And the first words
were 'Captain Oakley!'
I confess to an odd sensation as these remarkable words met my eye. It
might possibly be a proposal. I did not wait to speculate, however, but
read these sentences traced in the identical handwriting which had
copied the lines with which I had been twice favoured.
'Captain Oakley presents his compliments to Miss Ruthyn, and trusts
she will excuse his venturing to ask whether, during his short stay in Fel-
tram, he might be permitted to pay his respects at Bartram-Haugh. He
has been making a short visit to his aunt, and could not find himself so
near without at least attempting to renew an acquaintance which he has
never ceased to cherish in memory. If Miss Ruthyn would be so very
good as to favour him with ever so short a reply to the question he ven-
tures most respectfully to ask, her decision would reach him at the Hall
Hotel, Feltram.'
'Well, he's a roundabout fellah, anyhow. Couldn't he come up and see
you if he wanted to? They poeters, they do love writing long
yarns—don't they?' And with this reflection, Milly took the note and
read it through again.
'It's jolly polite anyhow, isn't it Maud?' said Milly, who had conned it
over, and accepted it as a model composition.
I must have been, I think, naturally a rather shrewd girl; and consider-
ing how very little I had seen of the world—nothing in fact—I often
wonder now at the sage conclusions at which I arrived.

289
 Were I to answer this handsome and cunning fool according to his
folly, in what position should I find myself? No doubt my reply would
induce a rejoinder, and that compel another note from me, and that in-
vite yet another from him; and however his might improve in warmth,
they were sure not to abate. Was it his impertinent plan, with this show
of respect and ceremony, to drag me into a clandestine correspondence?
Inexperienced girl as I was, I fired at the idea of becoming his dupe, and
fancying, perhaps, that there was more in merely answering his note
than it would have amounted to, I said—
'That kind of thing may answer very well with button-makers, but
ladies don't like it. What would your papa think of it if he found that I
had been writing to him, and seeing him without his permission? If he
wanted to see me he could have'—(I really did not know exactly what he
could have done)—'he could have timed his visit to Lady Knollys differ-
ently; at all events, he has no right to place me in an embarrassing situ-
ation, and I am certain Cousin Knollys would say so; and I think his note
both shabby and impertinent.'
Decision was not with me an intellectual process. When quite cool I
was the most undecided of mortals, but once my feelings were excited I
was prompt and bold.
'I'll give the note to Uncle Silas,' I said, quickening my pace toward
home; 'he'll know what to do.'
But Milly, who, I fancy, had no objection to the little romance which
the young officer proposed, told me that she could not see her father,
that he was ill, and not speaking to anyone.
'And arn't ye making a plaguy row about nothin'? I lay a guinea if ye
had never set eyes on Lord Ilbury you'd a told him to come, and see ye,
an' welcome.'
'Don't talk like a fool, Milly. You never knew me do anything deceitful.
Lord Ilbury has no more to do with it, you know very well, than the man
in the moon.'
I was altogether very indignant. I did not speak another word to Milly.
The proportions of the house are so great, that it is a much longer walk
than you would suppose from the hall-door to Uncle Silas's room. But I
did not cool all that way; and it was not till I had just reached the lobby,
and saw the sour, jealous face, and high caul of old Wyat, and felt the in-
fluence of that neighbourhood, that I paused to reconsider. I fancied
there was a cool consciousness of success behind all the deferential
phraseology of Captain Oakley, which nettled me extremely. No; there
could be no doubt. I tapped softly at the door.

290
 'What is it now, Miss?' snarled the querulous old woman, with her
shrivelled fingers on the door-handle.
'Can I see my uncle for a moment?'
'He's tired, and not a word from him all day long.'
'Not ill, though?'
'Awful bad in the night,' said the old crone, with a sudden savage
glare in my face, as if I had brought it about.
'Oh! I'm very sorry. I had not heard a word of it.'
'No one does but old Wyat. There's Milly there never asks neither—his
own child!'
'Weakness, or what?'
'One o' them fits. He'll slide awa' in one o' them some day, and no one
but old Wyat to know nor ask word about it; that's how 'twill be.'
'Will you please hand him this note, if he is well enough to look at it,
and say I am at the door?'
She took it with a peevish nod and a grunt, closing the door in my
face, and in a few minutes returned—
'Come in wi' ye,' said Dame Wyat, and I appeared.
Uncle Silas, who, after his nightly horror or vision, lay extended on a
sofa, with his faded yellow silk dressing-gown about him, his long white
hair hanging toward the ground, and that wild and feeble smile lighting
his face—a glimmer I feared to look upon—his long thin arms lay by his
sides, with hands and fingers that stirred not, except when now and
then, with a feeble motion, he wet his temples and forehead with eau de
Cologne from a glass saucer placed beside him.
'Excellent girl! dutiful ward and niece!' murmured the oracle; 'heaven
reward you—your frank dealing is your own safety and my peace. Sit
you down, and say who is this Captain Oakley, when you made his ac-
quaintance, what his age, fortune, and expectations, and who the aunt he
mentions.'
Upon all these points I satisfied him as fully as I was able.
'Wyat—the white drops,' he called, in a thin, stern tone. 'I'll write a line
presently. I can't see visitors, and, of course, you can't receive young cap-
tains before you've come out. Farewell! God bless you, dear.'
Wyat was dropping the 'white' restorative into a wine-glass and the
room was redolent of ether. I was glad to escape. The figures and whole
mise en scène were unearthly.
'Well, Milly,' I said, as I met her in the hall, 'your papa is going to write
to him.'

291
 I sometimes wonder whether Milly was right, and how I should have
acted a few months earlier.
Next day whom should we meet in the Windmill Wood but Captain
Oakley. The spot where this interesting rencontre occurred was near that
ruinous bridge on my sketch of which I had received so many compli-
ments. It was so great a surprise that I had not time to recollect my indig-
nation, and, having received him very affably, I found it impossible, dur-
ing our brief interview, to recover my lost altitude.
After our greetings were over, and some compliments neatly made, he
said—
'I had such a curious note from Mr. Silas Ruthyn. I am sure he thinks
me a very impertinent fellow, for it was really anything but invit-
ing—extremely rude, in fact. But I could not quite see that because he
does not want me to invade his bed-room—an incursion I never
dreamed of—I was not to present myself to you, who had already hon-
oured me with your acquaintance, with the sanction of those who were
most interested in your welfare, and who were just as well qualified as
he, I fancy, to say who were qualified for such an honour.'
'My uncle, Mr. Silas Ruthyn, you are aware, is my guardian; and this is
my cousin, his daughter.'
This was an opportunity of becoming a little lofty, and I improved it.
He raised his hat and bowed to Milly.
'I'm afraid I've been very rude and stupid. Mr. Ruthyn, of course, has a
perfect right to—to—in fact, I was not the least aware that I had the hon-
our of so near a relation's—a—a—and what exquisite scenery you have! I
think this country round Feltram particularly fine; and this Bartram-
Haugh is, I venture to say, about the very most beautiful spot in this
beautiful region. I do assure you I am tempted beyond measure to make
Feltram and the Hall Hotel my head-quarters for at least a week. I only
regret the foliage; but your trees show wonderfully, even in winter, so
many of them have got that ivy about them. They say it spoils trees, but
it certainly beautifies them. I have just ten days' leave unexpired; I wish I
could induce you to advise me how to apply them. What shall I do, Miss
Ruthyn?'
'I am the worst person in the world to make plans, even for myself, I
find it so troublesome. What do you say? Suppose you try Wales or Scot-
land, and climb up some of those fine mountains that look so well in
winter?'
'I should much prefer Feltram. I so wish you would recommend it.
What is this pretty plant?'

292
 'We call that Maud's myrtle. She planted it, and it's very pretty when
it's full in blow,' said Milly.
Our visit to Elverston had been of immense use to us both.
'Oh! planted by you?' he said, very softly, with a momentary corres-
ponding glance. 'May I—ever so little—just a leaf?'
And without waiting for permission, he held a sprig of it next his
waistcoat.
'Yes, it goes very prettily with those buttons. They are very pretty but-
tons; are not they, Milly? A present, a souvenir, I dare say?'
This was a terrible hit at the button-maker, and I thought he looked a
little oddly at me, but my countenance was so 'bewitchingly simple' that
I suppose his suspicions were allayed.
Now, it was very odd of me, I must confess, to talk in this way, and to
receive all those tender allusions from a gentleman about whom I had
spoken and felt so sharply only the evening before. But Bartram was ab-
ominably lonely. A civilised person was a valuable waif or stray in that
region of the picturesque and the brutal; and to my lady reader espe-
cially, because she will probably be hardest upon me, I put it—can you
not recollect any such folly in your own past life? Can you not in as
many minutes call to mind at least six similar inconsistencies of your
own practising? For my part, I really can't see the advantage of being the
weaker sex if we are always to be as strong as our masculine neighbours.
There was, indeed, no revival of the little sentiment which I had once
experienced. When these things once expire, I do believe they are as hard
to revive as our dead lap-dogs, guinea-pigs, and parrots. It was my per-
fect coolness which enabled me to chat, I flatter myself, so agreeably
with the refined Captain, who plainly thought me his captive, and was
probably now and then thinking what was to be done to utilise that little
bit of Bartram, or to beautify some other, when he should see fit to be-
come its master, as we rambled over these wild but beautiful grounds.
It was just about then that Milly nudged me rather vehemently, and
whispered 'Look there!'
I followed with mine the direction of her eyes, and saw my odious
cousin, Dudley, in a flagrant pair of cross-barred peg-tops, and what
Milly before her reformation used to call other 'slops' of corresponding
atrocity, approaching our refined little party with great strides. I really
think that Milly was very nearly ashamed of him. I certainly was. I had
no apprehension, however, of the scene which was imminent.
The charming Captain mistook him probably for some rustic servant
of the place, for he continued his agreeable remarks up to the very

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moment when Dudley, whose face was pale with anger, and whose rap-
id advance had not served to cool him, without recollecting to salute
either Milly or me, accosted our elegant companion as follows:—
'By your leave, master, baint you summat in the wrong box here, don't
you think?'
He had planted himself directly in his front, and looked unmistakably
menacing.
'May I speak to him? Will you excuse me?' said the Captain blandly.
'Ow—ay, they'll excuse ye ready enough, I dessay; you're to deal wi'
me though. Baint ye in the wrong box now?'
'I'm not conscious, sir, of being in a box at all,' replied the Captain,
with severe disdain. 'It strikes me you are disposed to get up a row. Let
us, if you please, get a little apart from the ladies if that is your purpose.'
'I mean to turn you out o' this the way ye came. If you make a row, so
much the wuss for you, for I'll lick ye to fits.'
'Tell him not to fight,' whispered Milly; 'he'll a no chance wi' Dudley.'
I saw Dickon Hawkes grinning over the paling on which he leaned.
'Mr. Hawkes,' I said, drawing Milly with me toward that unpromising
mediator, 'pray prevent unpleasantness and go between them.'
'An' git licked o' both sides? Rather not, Miss, thank ye,' grinned Dick-
on, tranquilly.
'Who are you, sir?' demanded our romantic acquaintance, with milit-
ary sternness.
'I'll tell you who you are—you're Oakley, as stops at the Hall, that
Governor wrote, over-night, not to dare show your nose inside the
grounds. You're a half-starved cappen, come down here to look for a
wife, and——'
Before Dudley could finish his sentence, Captain Oakley, than whose
face no regimentals could possibly have been more scarlet, at that mo-
ment, struck with his switch at Dudley's handsome features.
I don't know how it was done—by some 'devilish cantrip slight.' A
smack was heard, and the Captain lay on his back on the ground, with
his mouth full of blood.
'How do ye like the taste o' that?' roared Dickon, from his post of
observation.
In an instant Captain Oakley was on his feet again, hatless, looking
quite frantic, and striking out at Dudley, who was ducking and dipping
quite coolly, and again the same horrid sound, only this time it was
double, like a quick postman's knock, and Captain Oakley was on the
grass again.

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 'Tapped his smeller, by—!' thundered Dickon, with a roar of laughter.
'Come away, Milly—I'm growing ill,' said I.
'Drop it, Dudley, I tell ye; you'll kill him,' screamed Milly.
But the devoted Captain, whose nose, and mouth, and shirt-front
formed now but one great patch of blood, and who was bleeding beside
over one eye, dashed at him again.
I turned away. I felt quite faint, and on the point of crying, with mere
horror.
'Hammer away at his knocker,' bellowed Dickon, in a frenzy of
delight.
'He'll break it now, if it ain't already,' cried Milly, alluding, as I after-
wards understood, to the Captain's Grecian nose.
'Brayvo, little un!' The Captain was considerably the taller.
Another smack, and, I suppose, Captain Oakley fell once more.
'Hooray! the dinner-service again, by ——,' roared Dickon. 'Stick to
that. Over the same ground—subsoil, I say. He han't enough yet.'
In a perfect tremor of disgust, I was making as quick a retreat as I
could, and as I did, I heard Captain Oakley shriek hoarsely—
'You're a d—— prizefighter; I can't box you.'
'I told ye I'd lick ye to fits,' hooted Dudley.
'But you're the son of a gentleman, and by —— you shall fight me as a
gentleman.'
A yell of hooting laughter from Dudley and Dickon followed this
sally.
'Gi'e my love to the Colonel, and think o' me when ye look in the
glass—won't ye? An' so you're goin' arter all; well, follow what's left o'
yer nose. Ye forgot some o' yer ivories, didn't ye, on th' grass?'
These and many similar jibes followed the mangled Captain in his
retreat.

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Chapter 47
DOCTOR BRYERLY REAPPEARS
No one who has not experienced it can imagine the nervous disgust and
horror which such a spectacle as we had been forced in part to witness
leaves upon the mind of a young person of my peculiar temperament.
It affected ever after my involuntary estimate of the principal actors in
it. An exhibition of such thorough inferiority, accompanied by such a
shock to the feminine sense of elegance, is not forgotten by any woman.
Captain Oakley had been severely beaten by a smaller man. It was piti-
able, but also undignified; and Milly's anxieties about his teeth and nose,
though in a certain sense horrible, had also a painful suspicion of the
absurd.
People say, on the other hand, that superior prowess, even in such bar-
barous contests, inspires in our sex an interest akin to admiration. I can
positively say in my case it was quite the reverse. Dudley Ruthyn stood
lower than ever in my estimation; for though I feared him more, it was
by reason of these brutal and cold-blooded associations.
After this I lived in constant apprehension of being summoned to my
uncle's room, and being called on for an explanation of my meeting with
Captain Oakley, which, notwithstanding my perfect innocence, looked
suspicious, but no such inquisition resulted. Perhaps he did not suspect
me; or, perhaps, he thought, not in his haste, all women are liars, and did
not care to hear what I might say. I rather lean to the latter interpretation.
The exchequer just now, I suppose, by some means, was replenished,
for next morning Dudley set off upon one of his fashionable excursions,
as poor Milly thought them, to Wolverhampton. And the same day Dr.
Bryerly arrived.
Milly and I, from my room window, saw him step from his vehicle to
the court-yard.
A lean man, with sandy hair and whiskers, was in the chaise with him.
Dr. Bryerly descended in the unchangeable black suit that always looked
new and never fitted him.

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 The Doctor looked careworn, and older, I thought, by several years,
than when I last saw him. He was not shown up to my uncle's room; on
the contrary, Milly, who was more actively curious than I, ascertained
that our tremulous butler informed him that my uncle was not suffi-
ciently well for an interview. Whereupon Dr. Bryerly had pencilled a
note, the reply to which was a message from Uncle Silas, saying that he
would be happy to see him in five minutes.
As Milly and I were conjecturing what it might mean, and before the
five minutes had expired, Mary Quince entered.
'Wyat bid me tell you, Miss, your uncle wants you this minute.'
When I entered his room, Uncle Silas was seated at the table, with his
desk before him. He looked up. Could anything be more dignified, suf-
fering, and venerable?
'I sent for you, dear,' he said very gently, extending his thin, white
hand, and taking mine, which he held affectionately while he spoke,
'because I desire to have no secrets, and wish you thoroughly to know all
that concerns your own interests while subject to my guardianship; and I
am happy to think, my beloved niece, that you requite my candour. Oh,
here is the gentleman. Sit down, dear.'
Doctor Bryerly was advancing, as it seemed, to shake hands with
Uncle Silas, who, however, rose with a severe and haughty air, not the
least over-acted, and made him a slow, ceremonious bow. I wondered
how the homely Doctor could confront so tranquilly that astounding
statue of hauteur.
A faint and weary smile, rather sad than comtemptuous, was the only
sign he showed of feeling his repulse.
'How do you do, Miss?' he said, extending his hand, and greeting me
after his ungallant fashion, as if it were an afterthought.
'I think I may as well take a chair, sir,' said Doctor Bryerly, sitting
down serenely, near the table, and crossing his ungainly legs.
My uncle bowed.
'You understand the nature of the business, sir. Do you wish Miss
Ruthyn to remain?' asked Doctor Bryerly.
'I sent for her, sir,' replied my uncle, in a very gentle and sarcastic tone,
a smile on his thin lips, and his strangely-contorted eyebrows raised for a
moment contemptuously. 'This gentleman, my dear Maud, thinks proper
to insinuate that I am robbing you. It surprises me a little, and, no doubt,
you—I've nothing to conceal, and wished you to be present while he fa-
vours me more particularly with his views. I'm right, I think, in describ-
ing it as robbery, sir?'

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 'Why,' said Doctor Bryerly thoughtfully, for he was treating the matter
as one of right, and not of feeling, 'it would be, certainly, taking that
which does not belong to you, and converting it to your own use; but, at
the worst, it would more resemble thieving, I think, than robbery.'
I saw Uncle Silas's lip, eyelid, and thin cheek quiver and shrink, as if
with a thrill of tic-douloureux, as Doctor Bryerly spoke this uncon-
sciously insulting answer. My uncle had, however, the self-command
which is learned at the gaming-table. He shrugged, with a chilly, sarcast-
ic, little laugh, and a glance at me.
'Your note says waste, I think, sir?'
'Yes, waste—the felling and sale of timber in the Windmill Wood, the
selling of oak bark and burning of charcoal, as I'm informed,' said Bry-
erly, as sadly and quietly as a man might relate a piece of intelligence
from the newspaper.
'Detectives? or private spies of your own—or, perhaps, my servants,
bribed with my poor brother's money? A very high-minded procedure.'
'Nothing of the kind, sir.'
My uncle sneered.
'I mean, sir, there has been no undue canvass for evidence, and the
question is simply one of right; and it is our duty to see that this inexper-
ienced young lady is not defrauded.'
'By her own uncle?'
'By anyone,' said Doctor Bryerly, with a natural impenetrability that
excited my admiration.
'Of course you come armed with an opinion?' said my smiling uncle,
insinuatingly.
'The case is before Mr. Serjeant Grinders. These bigwigs don't return
their cases sometimes so quickly as we could wish.'
'Then you have no opinion?' smiled my uncle.
'My solicitor is quite clear upon it; and it seems to me there can be no
question raised, but for form's sake.'
'Yes, for form's sake you take one, and in the meantime, upon a nice
question of law, the surmises of a thick-headed attorney and of an in-
genious apoth—I beg pardon, physician—are sufficient warrant for
telling my niece and ward, in my presence, that I am defrauding her!'
My uncle leaned back in his chair, and smiled with a contemptuous
patience over Doctor Bryerly's head, as he spoke.
'I don't know whether I used that expression, sir, but I am speaking
merely in a technical sense. I mean to say, that, whether by mistake or
otherwise, you are exercising a power which you don't lawfully possess,

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and that the effect of that is to impoverish the estate, and, by so much as
it benefits you, to wrong this young lady.'
'I'm a technical defrauder, I see, and your manner conveys the rest. I
thank my God, sir, I am a very different man from what I once was.'
Uncle Silas was speaking in a low tone, and with extraordinary delibera-
tion. 'I remember when I should have certainly knocked you down, sir,
or tried it, at least, for a great deal less.'
'But seriously, sir, what do you propose?' asked Doctor Bryerly, sternly
and a little flushed, for I think the old man was stirred within him; and
though he did not raise his voice, his manner was excited.
'I propose to defend my rights, sir,' murmured Uncle Silas, very grim.
'I'm not without an opinion, though you are.'
You seem to think, sir, that I have a pleasure in annoying you; you are
quite wrong. I hate annoying anyone—constitutionally—I hate it; but
don't you see, sir, the position I'm placed in? I wish I could please every-
one, and do my duty.'
Uncle Silas bowed and smiled.
'I've brought with me the Scotch steward from Tolkingden, your estate,
Miss, and if you let us we will visit the spot and make a note of what we
observe, that is, assuming that you admit waste, and merely question
our law.'
'If you please, sir, you and your Scotchman shall do no such thing; and,
bearing in mind that I neither deny nor admit anything, you will please
further never more to present yourself, under any pretext whatsoever,
either in this house or on the grounds of Bartram-Haugh, during my
lifetime.'
Uncle Silas rose up with the same glassy smile and scowl, in token that
the interview was ended.
'Good-bye, sir,' said Doctor Bryerly, with a sad and thoughtful air, and
hesitating for a moment, he said to me, 'Do you think, Miss, you could
afford me a word in the hall?'
'Not a word, sir,' snarled Uncle Silas, with a white flash from his eyes.
There was a pause.
'Sit where you are, Maud.'
Another pause.
'If you have anything to say to my ward, sir, you will please to say it
here.'
Doctor Bryerly's dark and homely face was turned on me with an ex-
pression of unspeakable compassion.

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 'I was going to say, that if you think of any way in which I can be of
the least service, Miss, I'm ready to act, that's all; mind, any way.'
He hesitated, looking at me with the same expression as if he had
something more to say; but he only repeated—
'That's all, Miss.'
'Won't you shake hands, Doctor Bryerly, before you go?' I said, eagerly
approaching him.
Without a smile, with the same sad anxiety in his face, with his mind,
as it seemed to me, on something else, and irresolute whether to speak it
or be silent, he took my fingers in a very cold hand, and holding it so,
and slowly shaking it, his grave and troubled glance unconsciously res-
ted on Uncle Silas's face, while in a sad tone and absent way he said—
'Good-bye, Miss.'
From before that sad gaze my uncle averted his strange eyes quickly,
and looked, oddly, to the window.
In a moment more Doctor Bryerly let my hand go with a sigh, and
with an abrupt little nod to me, he left the room; and I heard that dismal-
lest of sounds, the retreating footsteps of a true friend, lost.
'Lead us not into temptation; if we pray so, we must not mock the
eternal Majesty of Heaven by walking into temptation of our own
accord.'
This oracular sentence was not uttered by my uncle until Doctor Bry-
erly had been gone at least five minutes.
'I've forbid him my house, Maud—first, because his perfectly uncon-
scious insolence tries my patience nearly beyond endurance; and again,
because I have heard unfavourable reports of him. On the question of
right which he disputes, I am perfectly informed. I am your tenant, my
dear niece; when I am gone you will learn how scrupulous I have been;
you will see how, under the pressure of the most agonising pecuniary
difficulties, the terrific penalty of a misspent youth, I have been careful
never by a hair's breadth to transgress the strict line of my legal priv-
ileges; alike, as your tenant, Maud, and as your guardian; how, amid
frightful agitations, I have kept myself, by the miraculous strength and
grace vouchsafed me—pure.
'The world,' he resumed after a short pause, 'has no faith in any man's
conversion; it never forgets what he was, it never believes him anything
better, it is an inexorable and stupid judge. What I was I will describe in
blacker terms, and with more heartfelt detestation, than my traducers—a
reckless prodigal, a godless profligate. Such I was; what I am, I am. If I

300
had no hope beyond this world, of all men most miserable; but with that
hope, a sinner saved.'
Then he waxed eloquent and mystical. I think his Swedenborgian
studies had crossed his notions of religion with strange lights. I never
could follow him quite in these excursions into the region of symbolism.
I only recollect that he talked of the deluge and the waters of Mara, and
said, 'I am washed—I am sprinkled,' and then, pausing, bathed his thin
temples and forehead with eau de Cologne; a process which was, per-
haps, suggested by his imagery of sprinkling and so forth.
Thus refreshed, he sighed and smiled, and passed to the subject of
Doctor Bryerly.
'Of Doctor Bryerly, I know that he is sly, that he loves money, was
born poor, and makes nothing by his profession. But he possesses many
thousand pounds, under my poor brother's will, of your money; and he
has glided with, of course a modest "nolo episcopari," into the acting
trusteeship, with all its multitudinous opportunities, of your immense
property. That is not doing so badly for a visionary Swedenborgian.
Such a man must prosper. But if he expected to make money of me, he is
disappointed. Money, however, he will make of his trusteeship, as you
will see. It is a dangerous resolution. But if he will seek the life of Dives,
the worst I wish him is to find the death of Lazarus. But whether, like
Lazarus, he be borne of angels into Abraham's bosom, or, like the rich
man, only dies and is buried, and the rest, neither living nor dying do I
desire his company.'
Uncle Silas here seemed suddenly overtaken by exhaustion. He leaned
back with a ghastly look, and his lean features glistened with the dew of
faintness. I screamed for Wyat. But he soon recovered sufficiently to
smile his odd smile, and with it and his frown, nodded and waved me
away.

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Chapter 48
QUESTION AND ANSWER
My uncle, after all, was not ill that day, after the strange fashion of his
malady, be it what it might. Old Wyat repeated in her sour laconic way
that there was 'nothing to speak of amiss with him.' But there remained
with me a sense of pain and fear. Doctor Bryerly, notwithstanding my
uncle's sarcastic reflections, remained, in my estimation, a true and wise
friend. I had all my life been accustomed to rely upon others, and here,
haunted by many unavowed and ill-defined alarms and doubts, the dis-
appearance of an active and able friend caused my heart to sink.
Still there remained my dear Cousin Monica, and my pleasant and
trusted friend, Lord Ilbury; and in less than a week arrived an invitation
from Lady Mary to the Grange, for me and Milly, to meet Lady Knollys.
It was accompanied, she told me, by a note from Lord Ilbury to my
uncle, supporting her request; and in the afternoon I received a message
to attend my uncle in his room.
'An invitation from Lady Mary Carysbroke for you and Milly to meet
Monica Knollys; have you received it?' asked my uncle, so soon as I was
seated. Answered in the affirmative, he continued—
'Now, Maud Ruthyn, I expect the truth from you; I have been frank, so
shall you. Have you ever heard me spoken ill of by Lady Knollys?'
I was quite taken aback.
I felt my cheeks flushing. I was returning his fierce cold gaze with a
stupid stare, and remained dumb.
'Yes, Maud, you have.'
I looked down in silence.
'I know it; but it is right you should answer; have you or have you not?'
I had to clear my voice twice or thrice. There was a kind of spasm in
my throat.
'I am trying to recollect,' I said at last.
'Do recollect,' he replied imperiously.

302
 There was a little interval of silence. I would have given the world to
be, on any conditions, anywhere else in the world.
'Surely, Maud, you don't wish to deceive your guardian? Come, the
question is a plain one, and I know the truth already. I ask you
again—have you ever heard me spoken ill of by Lady Knollys?'
'Lady Knollys,' I said, half articulately,' speaks very freely, and often
half in jest; but,' I continued, observing something menacing in his face, 'I
have heard her express disapprobation of some things you have done.'
'Come, Maud,' he continued, in a stern, though still a low key, 'did she
not insinuate that charge—then, I suppose, in a state of incubation, the
other day presented here full-fledged, with beak and claws, by that
scheming apothecary—the statement that I was defrauding you by cut-
ting down timber upon the grounds?'
'She certainly did mention the circumstance; but she also argued that it
might have been through ignorance of the extent of your rights.'
'Come, come, Maud, you must not prevaricate, girl. I will have it. Does
she not habitually speak disparagingly of me, in your presence, and to
you? Answer.'
I hung my head.
'Yes or no?'
'Well, perhaps so—yes,' I faltered, and burst into tears.
'There, don't cry; it may well shock you. Did she not, to your know-
ledge, say the same things in presence of my child Millicent? I know it, I
repeat—there is no use in hesitating; and I command you to answer.'
Sobbing, I told the truth.
'Now sit still, while I write my reply.'
He wrote, with the scowl and smile so painful to witness, as he looked
down upon the paper, and then he placed the note before me—
'Read that, my dear.'
It began—
'MY DEAR LADY KNOLLYS.—You have favoured me with a note,
adding your request to that of Lord Ilbury, that I should permit my ward
and my daughter to avail themselves of Lady Mary's invitation. Being
perfectly cognisant of the ill-feeling you have always and unaccountably
cherished toward me, and also of the terms in which you have had the
delicacy and the conscience to speak of me before and to my child and
my ward, I can only express my amazement at the modesty of your re-
quest, while peremptorily refusing it. And I shall conscientiously adopt
effectual measures to prevent your ever again having an opportunity of

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endeavouring to destroy my influence and authority over my ward and
my child, by direct or insinuated slander.
'Your defamed and injured kinsman,
SILAS RUTHYN.'
I was stunned; yet what could I plead against the blow that was to
isolate me? I wept aloud, with my hands clasped, looking on the marble
face of the old man.
Without seeming to hear, he folded and sealed his note, and then pro-
ceeded to answer Lord Ilbury.
When that note was written, he placed it likewise before me, and I
read it also through. It simply referred him to Lady Knollys 'for an ex-
planation of the unhappy circumstances which compelled him to decline
an invitation which it would have made his niece and his daughter so
happy to accept.'
'You see, my dear Maud, how frank I am with you,' he said, waving
the open note, which I had just read, slightly before he folded it. 'I think I
may ask you to reciprocate my candour.'
Dismissed from this interview, I ran to Milly, who burst into tears
from sheer disappointment, so we wept and wailed together. But in my
grief I think there was more reason.
I sat down to the dismal task of writing to my dear Lady Knollys. I im-
plored her to make her peace with my uncle. I told her how frank he had
been with me, and how he had shown me his sad reply to her letter. I
told her of the interview to which he had himself invited me with Dr.
Bryerly; how little disturbed he was by the accusation—no sign of guilt;
quite the contrary, perfect confidence. I implored of her to think the best,
and remembering my isolation, to accomplish a reconciliation with
Uncle Silas. 'Only think,' I wrote, 'I only nineteen, and two years of
solitude before me. What a separation!' No broken merchant ever signed
the schedule of his bankruptcy with a heavier heart than did I this letter.
The griefs of youth are like the wounds of the gods—there is an ichor
which heals the scars from which it flows: and thus Milly and I consoled
ourselves, and next day enjoyed our ramble, our talk and readings, with
a wonderful resignation to the inevitable.
Milly and I stood in the relation of Lord Duberly to Doctor Pangloss. I
was to mend her 'cackleology,' and the occupation amused us both. I
think at the bottom of our submission to destiny lurked a hope that
Uncle Silas, the inexorable, would relent, or that Cousin Monica, that
siren, would win and melt him to her purpose.

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 Whatever comfort, however, I derived from the absence of Dudley
was not to be of very long duration; for one morning, as I was amusing
myself alone, with a piece of worsted work, thinking, and just at that mo-
ment not unpleasantly, of many things, my cousin Dudley entered the
room.
'Back again, like a bad halfpenny, ye see. And how a' ye bin ever since,
lass? Purely, I warrant, be your looks. I'm jolly glad to see ye, I am; no
cattle going like ye, Maud.'
'I think I must ask you to let go my hand, as I can't continue my work,'
I said, very stiffly, hoping to chill his enthusiasm a little.
'Anything to pleasure ye, Maud, 'tain't in my heart to refuse ye nout. I
a'bin to Wolverhampton, lass—jolly row there—and run over to Leam-
ington; a'most broke my neck, faith, wi' a borrowed horse arter the dogs;
ye would na care, Maud, if I broke my neck, would ye? Well, 'appen, jest
a little,' he good-naturedly supplied, as I was silent.
'Little over a week since I left here, by George; and to me it's half the
almanac like; can ye guess the reason, Maud?'
'Have you seen your sister, Milly, or your father, since your return?' I
asked coldly.
'They'll keep, Maud, never mind 'em; it be you I want to see—it be you
I wor thinkin' on a' the time. I tell ye, lass, I'm all'ays a thinkin' on ye.'
'I think you ought to go and see your father; you have been away, you
say, some time. I don't think it is respectful,' I said, a little sharply.
'If ye bid me go I'd a'most go, but I could na quite; there's nout on
earth I would na do for you, Maud, excep' leaving you.'
'And that,' I said, with a petulant flush, 'is the only thing on earth I
would ask you to do.'
'Blessed if you baint a blushin', Maud,' he drawled, with an odious
grin.
His stupidity was proof against everything.
'It is too bad!' I muttered, with an indignant little pat of my foot and
mimic stamp.
'Well, you lasses be queer cattle; ye're angry wi' me now, cos ye think I
got into mischief—ye do, Maud; ye know't, ye buxsom little fool, down
there at Wolverhampton; and jest for that ye're ready to turn me off
again the minute I come back; 'tisn't fair.'
'I don't understand you, sir; and I beg that you'll leave me.'
'Now, didn't I tell ye about leavin' ye, Maud? 'tis the only thing I can't
compass for yer sake. I'm jest a child in yere hands, I am, ye know. I can
lick a big fellah to pot as limp as a rag, by George!'—(his oaths were not

305
really so mild)—'ye see summat o' that t'other day. Well, don't be vexed,
Maud; 'twas all along o' you; ye know, I wor a bit jealous, 'appen; but
anyhow I can do it; and look at me here, jest a child, I say, in yer hands.'
'I wish you'd go away. Have you nothing to do, and no one to see?
Why can't you leave me alone, sir?'
''Cos I can't, Maud, that's jest why; and I wonder, Maud, how can you
be so ill-natured, when you see me like this; how can ye?'
'I wish Milly would come,' said I peevishly, looking toward the door.
'Well, I'll tell you how it is, Maud. I may as well have it out. I like you
better than any lass that ever I saw, a deal; you're nicer by chalks; there's
none like ye—there isn't; and I wish you'd have me. I ha'n't much
tin—father's run through a deal, he's pretty well up a tree, ye know; but
though I baint so rich as some folk, I'm a better man, 'appen; and if ye'd
take a tidy lad, that likes ye awful, and 'id die for your sake, why here he
is.'
'What can you mean, sir?' I exclaimed, rising in indignant
bewilderment.
'I mean, Maud, if ye'll marry me, you'll never ha' cause to complain; I'll
never let ye want for nout, nor gi'e ye a wry word.'
'Actually a proposal!' I ejaculated, like a person speaking in a dream.
I stood with my hand on the back of a chair, staring at Dudley; and
looking, I dare say, as stupefied as I felt.
'There's a good lass, ye would na deny me,' said the odious creature,
with one knee on the seat of the chair behind which I was standing, and
attempting to place his arm lovingly round my neck.
This effectually roused me, and starting back, I stamped upon the
ground with actual fury.
'What has there ever been, sir, in my conduct, words, or looks, to war-
rant this unparalleled audacity? But that you are as stupid as you are im-
pertinent, brutal, and ugly, you must, long ago, sir, have seen how I dis-
like you. How dare you, sir? Don't presume to obstruct me; I'm going to
my uncle.'
I had never spoken so violently to mortal before.
He in turn looked a little confounded; and I passed his extended but
motionless arm with a quick and angry step.
He followed me a pace or two, however, before I reached the door,
looking horridly angry, but stopped, and only swore after me some of
those 'wry words' which I was never to have heard. I was myself,
however, too much incensed, and moving at too rapid a pace, to catch

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their import; and I had knocked at my uncle's door before I began to col-
lect my thoughts.
'Come in,' replied my uncle's voice, clear, thin, and peevish.
I entered and confronted him.
'Your son, sir, has insulted me.'
He looked at me with a cold curiosity steadly for a few seconds, as I
stood panting before him with flaming cheeks.
'Insulted you?' repeated he. 'Egad, you surprise me!'
The ejaculation savoured of 'the old man,' to borrow his scriptural
phrase, more than anything I had heard from him before.
'How?' he continued; 'how has Dudley insulted you, my dear child?
Come, you're excited; sit down; take time, and tell me all about it. I did
not know that Dudley was here.'
'I—he—it is an insult. He knew very well—he must know I dislike him;
and he presumed to make a proposal of marriage to me.'
'O—o—oh!' exclaimed my uncle, with a prolonged intonation which
plainly said, Is that the mighty matter?
He looked at me as he leaned back with the same steady curiosity, this
time smiling, which somehow frightened me, and his countenance
looked to me wicked, like the face of a witch, with a guilt I could not
understand.
'And that is the amount of your complaint. He made you a formal pro-
posal of marriage!'
'Yes; he proposed for me.'
As I cooled, I began to feel just a very little disconcerted, and a suspi-
cion was troubling me that possibly an indifferent person might think
that, having no more to complain of, my language was perhaps a little
exaggerated, and my demeanour a little too tempestuous.
My uncle, I dare say, saw some symptoms of this misgiving, for, smil-
ing still, he said—
'My dear Maud, however just, you appear to me a little cruel; you
don't seem to remember how much you are yourself to blame; you have
one faithful friend at least, whom I advise your consulting—I mean your
looking-glass. The foolish fellow is young, quite ignorant in the world's
ways. He is in love—desperately enamoured.
Aimer c'est craindre, et craindre c'est souffrir.
And suffering prompts to desperate remedies. We must not be too
hard on a rough but romantic young fool, who talks according to his
folly and his pain.'

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Chapter 49
AN APPARITION
'But, after all,' he suddenly resumed, as if a new thought had struck him,
'is it quite such folly, after all? It really strikes me, dear Maud, that the
subject may be worth a second thought. No, no, you won't refuse to hear
me,' he said, observing me on the point of protesting. 'I am, of course, as-
suming that you are fancy free. I am assuming, too, that you don't care
twopence about Dudley, and even that you fancy you dislike him. You
know in that pleasant play, poor Sheridan—delightful fellow!—all our
fine spirits are dead—he makes Mrs. Malaprop say there is nothing like
beginning with a little aversion. Now, though in matrimony, of course,
that is only a joke, yet in love, believe me, it is no such thing. His own
marriage with Miss Ogle, I know, was a case in point. She expressed a
positive horror of him at their first acquaintance; and yet, I believe, she
would, a few months later, have died rather than not have married him.'
I was again about to speak, but with a smile he beckoned me into
silence.
'There are two or three points you must bear in mind. One of the hap-
piest privileges of your fortune is that you may, without imprudence,
marry simply for love. There are few men in England who could offer
you an estate comparable with that you already possess; or, in fact, ap-
preciably increase the splendour of your fortune. If, therefore, he were in
all other respects eligible, I can't see that his poverty would be an objec-
tion to weigh for one moment. He is quite a rough diamond. He has
been, like many young men of the highest rank, too much given up to
athletic sports—to that society which constitutes the aristocracy of the
ring and the turf, and all that kind of thing. You see, I am putting all the
worst points first. But I have known so many young men in my day,
after a madcap career of a few years among prizefighters, wrestlers, and
jockeys—learning their slang and affecting their manners—take up and
cultivate the graces and the decencies. There was poor dear Newgate,
many degrees lower in that kind of frolic, who, when he grew tired of it,

308
became one of the most elegant and accomplished men in the House of
Peers. Poor Newgate, he's gone, too! I could reckon up fifty of my early
friends who all began like Dudley, and all turned out, more or less, like
Newgate.'
At this moment came a knock at the door, and Dudley put in his head
most inopportunely for the vision of his future graces and
accomplishments.
'My good fellow,' said his father, with a sharp sort of playfulness, 'I
happen to be talking about my son, and should rather not be overheard;
you will, therefore, choose another time for your visit.'
Dudley hesitated gruffly at the door, but another look from his father
dismissed him.
'And now, my dear, you are to remember that Dudley has fine qualit-
ies—the most affectionate son in his rough way that ever father was
blessed with; most admirable qualities—indomitable courage, and a high
sense of honour; and lastly, that he has the Ruthyn blood—the purest
blood, I maintain it, in England.'
My uncle, as he said this, drew himself up a little, unconsciously, his
thin hand laid lightly over his heart with a little patting motion, and his
countenance looked so strangely dignified and melancholy, that in ad-
miring contemplation of it I lost some sentences which followed next.
'Therefore, dear, naturally anxious that my boy should not be dis-
missed from home—as he must be, should you persevere in rejecting his
suit—I beg that you will reserve your decision to this day fortnight,
when I will with much pleasure hear what you may have to say on the
subject. But till then, observe me, not a word.'
That evening he and Dudley were closeted for a long time. I suspect
that he lectured him on the psychology of ladies; for a bouquet was laid
beside my plate every morning at breakfast, which it must have been
troublesome to get, for the conservatory at Bartram was a desert. In a
few days more an anonymous green parrot arrived, in a gilt cage, with a
little note in a clerk's hand, addressed to 'Miss Ruthyn (of Knowl),
Bartram-Haugh,' &c. It contained only 'Directions for caring green par-
rot,' at the close of which, underlined, the words appeared—'The bird's
name is Maud.'
The bouquets I invariably left on the table-cloth, where I found
them—the bird I insisted on Milly's keeping as her property. During the
intervening fortnight Dudley never appeared, as he used sometimes to
do before, at luncheon, nor looked in at the window as we were at break-
fast. He contented himself with one day placing himself in my way in the

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hall in his shooting accoutrements, and, with a clumsy, shuffling kind of
respect, and hat in hand, he said—
'I think, Miss, I must a spoke uncivil t'other day. I was so awful put
about, and didn't know no more nor a child what I was saying; and I
wanted to tell ye I'm sorry for it, and I beg your pardon—very humble, I
do.'
I did not know what to say. I therefore said nothing, but made a grave
inclination, and passed on.
Two or three times Milly and I saw him at a little distance in our
walks. He never attempted to join us. Once only he passed so near that
some recognition was inevitable, and he stopped and in silence lifted his
hat with an awkward respect. But although he did not approach us, he
was ostentatious with a kind of telegraphic civility in the distance. He
opened gates, he whistled his dogs to 'heel,' he drove away cattle, and
then himself withdrew. I really think he watched us occasionally to
render these services, for in this distant way we encountered him de-
cidedly oftener than we used to do before his flattering proposal of
marriage.
You may be sure that we discussed, Milly and I, that occurrence pretty
constantly in all sorts of moods. Limited as had been her experience of
human society, she very clearly saw now how far below its presentable
level was her hopeful brother.
The fortnight sped swiftly, as time always does when something we
dislike and shrink from awaits us at its close. I never saw Uncle Silas
during that period. It may seem odd to those who merely read the report
of our last interview, in which his manner had been more playful and his
talk more trifling than in any other, that from it I had carried away a pro-
founder sense of fear and insecurity than from any other. It was with a
foreboding of evil and an awful dejection that on a very dark day, in
Milly's room, I awaited the summons which I was sure would reach me
from my punctual guardian.
As I looked from the window upon the slanting rain and leaden sky,
and thought of the hated interview that awaited me, I pressed my hand
to my troubled heart, and murmured, 'O that I had wings like a dove!
then would I flee away, and be at rest.'
Just then the prattle of the parrot struck my ear. I looked round on the
wire cage, and remembered the words, 'The bird's name is Maud.'
'Poor bird!' I said. 'I dare say, Milly, it longs to get out. If it were a nat-
ive of this country, would not you like to open the window, and then the
door of that cruel cage, and let the poor thing fly away?'

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 'Master wants Miss Maud,' said Wyat's disagreeable tones, at the half-
open door.
I followed in silence, with the pressure of a near alarm at my heart,
like a person going to an operation.
When I entered the room, my heart beat so fast that I could hardly
speak. The tall form of Uncle Silas rose before me, and I made him a fal-
tering reverence.
He darted from under his brows a wild, fierce glance at old Wyat, and
pointed to the door imperiously with his skeleton finger. The door shut,
and we were alone.
'A chair?' he said, pointing to a seat.
'Thank you, uncle, I prefer standing,' I faltered.
He also stood—his white head bowed forward, the phosphoric glare of
his strange eyes shone upon me from under his brows—his finger-nails
just rested on the table.
'You saw the luggage corded and addressed, as it stands ready for re-
moval in the hall?' he asked.
I had. Milly and I had read the cards which dangled from the trunk-
handles and gun-case. The address was—'Mr. Dudley R. Ruthyn, Paris,
viâ Dover.'
'I am old—agitated—on the eve of a decision on which much depends.
Pray relieve my suspense. Is my son to leave Bartram to-day in sorrow,
or to remain in joy? Pray answer quickly.'
I stammered I know not what. I was incoherent—wild, perhaps; but
somehow I expressed my meaning—my unalterable decision. I thought
his lips grew whiter and his eyes shone brighter as I spoke.
When I had quite made an end, he heaved a great sigh, and turning his
eyes slowly to the right and the left, like a man in a helpless distraction,
he whispered—
'God's will be done.'
I thought he was upon the point of fainting—a clay tint darkened the
white of his face; and, seeming to forget my presence, he sat down, look-
ing with a despairing scowl on his ashy old hand, as it lay upon the
table.
I stood gazing at him, feeling almost as if I had murdered the old
man—he still gazing askance, with an imbecile scowl, upon his hand.
'Shall I go, sir?' I at length found courage to whisper.
'Go?' he said, looking up suddenly; and it seemed to me as if a stream
of cold sheet-lightning had crossed and enveloped me for a moment.

311
 'Go?—oh!—a—yes—yes, Maud—go. I must see poor Dudley before his
departure,' he added, as it were, in soliloquy.
Trembling lest he should revoke his permission to depart, I glided
quickly and noiselessly from the room.
Old Wyat was prowling outside, with a cloth in her hand, pretending
to dust the carved door-case. She frowned a stare of enquiry over her
shrunken arm on me, as I passed. Milly, who had been on the watch, ran
and met me. We heard my uncle's voice, as I shut the door, calling Dud-
ley. He had been waiting, probably, in the adjoining room. I hurried into
my chamber, with Milly at my side, and there my agitation found relief
in tears, as that of girlhood naturally does.
A little while after we saw from the window Dudley, looking, I
thought, very pale, get into a vehicle, on the top of which his luggage
lay, and drive away from Bartram.
I began to take comfort. His departure was an inexpressible relief. His
final departure! a distant journey!
We had tea in Milly's room that night. Firelight and candles are inspir-
ing. In that red glow I always felt and feel more safe, as well as more
comfortable, than in the daylight—quite irrationally, for we know the
night is the appointed day of such as love the darkness better than light,
and evil walks thereby. But so it is. Perhaps the very consciousness of ex-
ternal danger enhances the enjoyment of the well-lighted interior, just as
the storm does that roars and hurtles over the roof.
While Milly and I were talking, very cosily, a knock came to the room-
door, and, without waiting for an invitation to enter, old Wyat came in,
and glowering at us, with her brown claw upon the door-handle, she
said to Milly—
'Ye must leave your funnin', Miss Milly, and take your turn in your
father's room.'
'Is he ill?' I asked.
She answered, addressing not me, but Milly—
'A wrought two hours in a fit arter Master Dudley went. 'Twill be the
death o' him, I'm thinkin', poor old fellah. I wor sorry myself when I saw
Master Dudley a going off in the moist to-day, poor fellah. There's
trouble enough in the family without a' that; but 'twon't be a family long,
I'm thinkin'. Nout but trouble, nout but trouble, since late changes came.'
Judging by the sour glance she threw on me as she said this, I con-
cluded that I represented those 'late changes' to which all the sorrows of
the house were referred.

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 I felt unhappy under the ill-will even of this odious old woman, being
one of those unhappily constructed mortals who cannot be indifferent
when they reasonably ought, and always yearn after kindness, even that
of the worthless.
'I must go. I wish you'd come wi' me, Maud, I'm so afraid all alone,'
said Milly, imploringly.
'Certainly, Milly,' I answered, not liking it, you may be sure; 'you
shan't sit there alone.'
So together we went, old Wyat cautioning us for our lives to make no
noise.
We passed through the old man's sitting-room, where that day had oc-
curred his brief but momentous interview with me, and his parting with
his only son, and entered the bed-room at the farther end.
A low fire burned in the grate. The room was in a sort of twilight. A
dim lamp near the foot of the bed at the farther side was the only light
burning there. Old Wyat whispered an injunction not to speak above our
breaths, nor to leave the fireside unless the sick man called or showed
signs of weariness. These were the directions of the doctor, who had
been there.
So Milly and I sat ourselves down near the hearth, and old Wyat left
us to our resources. We could hear the patient breathe; but he was quite
still. In whispers we talked; but our conversation flagged. I was, after my
wont, upbraiding myself for the suffering I had inflicted. After about half
an hour's desultory whispering, and intervals, growing longer and
longer, of silence, it was plain that Milly was falling asleep.
She strove against it, and I tried hard to keep her talking; but it would
not do—sleep overcame her; and I was the only person in that ghastly
room in a state of perfect consciousness.
There were associations connected with my last vigil there to make my
situation very nervous and disagreeable. Had I not had so much to oc-
cupy my mind of a distinctly practical kind—Dudley's audacious suit,
my uncle's questionable toleration of it, and my own conduct throughout
that most disagreeable period of my existence,—I should have felt my
present situation a great deal more.
As it was, I thought of my real troubles, and something of Cousin
Knollys, and, I confess, a good deal of Lord Ilbury. When looking to-
wards the door, I thought I saw a human face, about the most terrible my
fancy could have called up, looking fixedly into the room. It was only a
'three-quarter,' and not the whole figure—the door hid that in a great
measure, and I fancied I saw, too, a portion of the fingers. The face gazed

313
toward the bed, and in the imperfect light looked like a livid mask, with
chalky eyes.
I had so often been startled by similar apparitions formed by accident-
al lights and shadows disguising homely objects, that I stooped forward,
expecting, though tremulously, to see this tremendous one in like man-
ner dissolve itself into its harmless elements; and now, to my unspeak-
able terror, I became perfectly certain that I saw the countenance of Ma-
dame de la Rougierre.
With a cry, I started back, and shook Milly furiously from her trance.
'Look! look!' I cried. But the apparition or illusion was gone.
I clung so fast to Milly's arm, cowering behind her, that she could not
rise.
'Milly! Milly! Milly! Milly!' I went on crying, like one struck with idi-
otcy, and unable to say anything else.
In a panic, Milly, who had seen nothing, and could conjecture nothing
of the cause of my terror, jumped up, and clinging to one another, we
huddled together into the corner of the room, I still crying wildly, 'Milly!
Milly! Milly!' and nothing else.
'What is it—where is it—what do you see?' cried Milly, clinging to me
as I did to her.
'It will come again; it will come; oh, heaven!'
'What—what is it, Maud?'
'The face! the face!' I cried. 'Oh, Milly! Milly! Milly!'
We heard a step softly approaching the open door, and, in a horrible
sauve qui peut, we rushed and stumbled together toward the light by
Uncle Silas's bed. But old Wyat's voice and figure reassured us.
'Milly,' I said, so soon as, pale and very faint, I reached my apartment,
'no power on earth shall ever tempt me to enter that room again after
dark.'
'Why, Maud dear, what, in Heaven's name, did you see?' said Milly,
scarcely less terrified.
'Oh, I can't; I can't; I can't, Milly. Never ask me. It is haunted. The room
is haunted horribly.'
'Was it Charke?' whispered Milly, looking over her shoulder, all
aghast.
'No, no—don't ask me; a fiend in a worse shape.' I was relieved at last
by a long fit of weeping; and all night good Mary Quince sat by me, and
Milly slept by my side. Starting and screaming, and drugged with sal-
volatile, I got through that night of supernatural terror, and saw the
blessed light of heaven again.

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 Doctor Jolks, when he came to see my uncle in the morning, visited me
also. He pronounced me very hysterical, made minute enquiries respect-
ing my hours and diet, asked what I had had for dinner yesterday. There
was something a little comforting in his cool and confident pooh-poo-
hing of the ghost theory. The result was, a regimen which excluded tea,
and imposed chocolate and porter, earlier hours, and I forget all beside;
and he undertook to promise that, if I would but observe his directions, I
should never see a ghost again.

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Chapter 50
MILLY'S FAREWELL
A few days' time saw me much better. Doctor Jolks was so contemptu-
ously sturdy and positive on the point, that I began to have comfortable
doubts about the reality of my ghost; and having still a horror indescrib-
able of the illusion, if such it were, the room in which it appeared, and
everything concerning it, I would neither speak, nor, so far as I could,
think of it.
So, though Bartram-Haugh was gloomy as well as beautiful, and some
of its associations awful, and the solitude that reigned there sometimes
almost terrible, yet early hours, bracing exercise, and the fine air that pre-
dominates that region, soon restored my nerves to a healthier tone.
But it seemed to me that Bartram-Haugh was to be to me a vale of
tears; or rather, in my sad pilgrimage, that valley of the shadow of death
through which poor Christian fared alone and in the dark.
One day Milly ran into the parlour, pale, with wet cheeks, and,
without saying a word, threw her arms about my neck, and burst into a
paroxysm of weeping.
'What is it, Milly—what's the matter, dear—what is it?' I cried aghast,
but returning her close embrace heartily.
'Oh! Maud—Maud darling, he's going to send me away.'
'Away, dear! where away? And leave me alone in this dreadful
solitude, where he knows I shall die of fear and grief without you? Oh!
no—no, it must be a mistake.'
'I'm going to France, Maud—I'm going away. Mrs. Jolks is going to
London, day ar'ter to-morrow, and I'm to go wi' her; and an old French
lady, he says, from the school will meet me there, and bring me the rest
o' the way.'
'Oh—ho—ho—ho—ho—o—o—o!' cried poor Milly, hugging me closer
still, with her head buried in my shoulder, and swaying me about like a
wrestler, in her agony.

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 'I never wor away from home afore, except that little bit wi' you over
there at Elverston; and you wor wi' me then, Maud; an' I love ye—better
than Bartram—better than a'; an' I think I'll die, Maud, if they take me
away.'
I was just as wild in my woe as poor Milly; and it was not until we had
wept together for a full hour—sometimes standing—sometimes walking
up and down the room—sometimes sitting and getting up in turns to fall
on one another's necks,—that Milly, plucking her handkerchief from her
pocket, drew a note from it at the same time, which, as it fell upon the
floor, she at once recollected to be one from Uncle Silas to me.
It was to this effect:—
'I wish to apprise my dear niece and ward of my plans. Milly proceeds
to an admirable French school, as a pensionnaire, and leaves this on
Thursday next. If after three months' trial she finds it in any way objec-
tionable, she returns to us. If, on the contrary, she finds it in all respects
the charming residence it has been presented to me, you, on the expira-
tion of that period, join her there, until the temporary complication of my
affairs shall have been so far adjusted as to enable me to receive you once
more at Bartram. Hoping for happier days, and wishing to assure you
that three months is the extreme limit of your separation from my poor
Milly, I have written this, feeling alas! unequal to seeing you at present.
'Bartram, Tuesday.
'P.S.—I can have no objection to your apprising Monica Knollys of
these arrangements. You will understand, of course, not a copy of this
letter, but its substance.'
Over this document, scanning it as lawyers do a new Act of Parlia-
ment, we took comfort. After all, it was limited; a separation not to ex-
ceed three months, possibly much shorter. On the whole, too, I pleased
myself with thinking Uncle Silas's note, though peremptory, was kind.
Our paroxysms subsided into sadness; a close correspondence was ar-
ranged. Something of the bustle and excitement of change supervened. If
it turned out to be, in truth, a 'charming residence,' how very delightful
our meeting in France, with the interest of foreign scenery, ways, and
faces, would be!
So Thursday arrived—a new gush of sorrow—a new brightening
up—and, amid regrets and anticipations, we parted at the gate at the
farther end of the Windmill Wood. Then, of course, were more good-
byes, more embraces, and tearful smiles. Good Mrs. Jolks, who met us
there, was in a huge fuss; I believe it was her first visit to the metropolis,

317
and she was in proportion heated and important, and terrified about the
train, so we had not many last words.
I watched poor Milly, whose head was stretched from the window, her
hand waving many adieux, until the curve of the road, and the clump of
old ash-trees, thick with ivy, hid Milly, carriage and all, from view. My
eyes filled again with tears. I turned towards Bartram. At my side stood
honest Mary Quince.
'Don't take on so, Miss; 'twon't be no time passing; three months is
nothing at all,' she said, smiling kindly.
I smiled through my tears and kissed the good creature, and so side by
side we re-entered the gate.
The lithe young man in fustian, whom I had seen talking with Beauty
on the morning of our first encounter with that youthful Amazon, was
awaiting our re-entrance with the key in his hand. He stood half behind
the open wicket. One lean brown cheek, one shy eye, and his sharp up-
turned nose, I saw as we passed. He was treating me to a stealthy scru-
tiny, and seemed to shun my glance, for he shut the door quickly, and
busied himself locking it, and then began stubbing up some thistles
which grew close by, with the toe of his thick shoe, his back to us all the
time.
It struck me that I recognised his features, and I asked Mary Quince.
'Have you seen that young man before, Quince?'
'He brings up game for your uncle, sometimes, Miss, and lends a hand
in the garden, I believe.'
'Do you know his name, Mary?'
'They call him Tom, I don't know what more, Miss.'
'Tom,' I called; 'please, Tom, come here for a moment.'
Tom turned about, and approached slowly. He was more civil than the
Bartram people usually were, for he plucked off his shapeless cap of
rabbit-skin with a clownish respect.
'Tom, what is your other name,—Tom what, my good man?' I asked.
'Tom Brice, ma'am.'
'Haven't I seen you before, Tom Brice?' I pursued, for my curiosity was
excited, and with it much graver feelings; for there certainly was a re-
semblance in Tom's features to those of the postilion who had looked so
hard at me as I passed the carriage in the warren at Knowl, on the even-
ing of the outrage which had scared that quiet place.
''Appen you may have, ma'am,' he answered, quite coolly, looking
down the buttons of his gaiters.
'Are you a good whip—do you drive well?'

318
 'I'll drive a plough wi' most lads hereabout,' answered Tom.
'Have you ever been to Knowl, Tom?'
Tom gaped very innocently.
'Anan,' he said.
'Here, Tom, is half-a-crown.'
He took it readily enough.
'That be very good,' said Tom, with a nod, having glanced sharply at
the coin.
I can't say whether he applied that term to the coin, or to his luck, or to
my generous self.
'Now, Tom, you'll tell me, have you ever been to Knowl?'
'Maught a' bin, ma'am, but I don't mind no sich place—no.'
As Tom spoke this with great deliberation, like a man who loves truth,
putting a strain upon his memory for its sake, he spun the silver coin two
or three times into the air and caught it, staring at it the while, with all
his might.
'Now, Tom, recollect yourself, and tell me the truth, and I'll be a friend
to you. Did you ride postilion to a carriage having a lady in it, and, I
think, several gentlemen, which came to the grounds of Knowl, when the
party had their luncheon on the grass, and there was a—a quarrel with
the gamekeepers? Try, Tom, to recollect; you shall, upon my honour,
have no trouble about it, and I'll try to serve you.'
Tom was silent, while with a vacant gape he watched the spin of his
half-crown twice, and then catching it with a smack in his hand, which
he thrust into his pocket, he said, still looking in the same direction—
'I never rid postilion in my days, ma'am. I know nout o' sich a place,
though 'appen I maught a' bin there; Knowl, ye ca't. I was ne'er out o'
Derbyshire but thrice to Warwick fair wi' horses be rail, an' twice to
York.'
'You're certain, Tom?'
'Sartin sure, ma'am.'
And Tom made another loutish salute, and cut the conference short by
turning off the path and beginning to hollo after some trespassing cattle.
I had not felt anything like so nearly sure in this essay at identification
as I had in that of Dudley. Even of Dudley's identity with the Church
Scarsdale man, I had daily grown less confident; and, indeed, had it been
proposed to bring it to the test of a wager, I do not think I should, in the
language of sporting gentlemen, have cared to 'back' my original opin-
ion. There was, however, a sufficient uncertainty to make me

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uncomfortable; and there was another uncertainty to enhance the un-
pleasant sense of ambiguity.
On our way back we passed the bleaching trunks and limbs of several
ranks of barkless oaks lying side by side, some squared by the hatchet,
perhaps sold, for there were large letters and Roman numerals traced
upon them in red chalk. I sighed as I passed them by, not because it was
wrongfully done, for I really rather leaned to the belief that Uncle Silas
was well advised in point of law. But, alas! here lay low the grand old
family decorations of Bartram-Haugh, not to be replaced for centuries to
come, under whose spreading boughs the Ruthyns of three hundred
years ago had hawked and hunted!
On the trunk of one of these I sat down to rest, Mary Quince mean-
while pattering about in unmeaning explorations. While thus listlessly
seated, the girl Meg Hawkes, walked by, carrying a basket.
'Hish!' she said quickly, as she passed, without altering a pace or rais-
ing her eyes; 'don't ye speak nor look—fayther spies us; I'll tell ye next
turn.'
'Next turn'—when was that? Well, she might be returning; and as she
could not then say more than she had said, in merely passing without a
pause, I concluded to wait for a short time and see what would come of
it.
After a short time I looked about me a little, and I saw Dickon
Hawkes—Pegtop, as poor Milly used to call him—with an axe in his
hand, prowling luridly among the timber.
Observing that I saw him, he touched his hat sulkily, and by-and-by
passed me, muttering to himself. He plainly could not understand what
business I could have in that particular part of the Windmill Wood, and
let me see it in his countenance.
His daughter did pass me again; but this time he was near, and she
was silent. Her next transit occurred as he was questioning Mary Quince
at some little distance; and as she passed precisely in the same way, she
said—
'Don't you be alone wi' Master Dudley nowhere for the world's worth.'
The injunction was so startling that I was on the point of questioning
the girl. But I recollected myself, and waited in the hope that in her fu-
ture transits she might be more explicit. But one word more she did not
utter, and the jealous eye of old Pegtop was so constantly upon us that I
refrained.

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 There was vagueness and suggestion enough in the oracle to supply
work for many an hour of anxious conjecture, and many a horrible vigil
by night. Was I never to know peace at Bartram-Haugh?
Ten days of poor Milly's absence, and of my solitude, had already
passed, when my uncle sent for me to his room.
When old Wyat stood at the door, mumbling and snarling her mes-
sage, my heart died within me.
It was late—just that hour when dejected people feel their anxieties
most—when the cold grey of twilight has deepened to its darkest shade,
and before the cheerful candles are lighted, and the safe quiet of the
night sets in.
When I entered my uncle's sitting-room—though his window-shutters
were open and the wan streaks of sunset visible through them, like nar-
row lakes in the chasms of the dark western clouds—a pair of candles
were burning; one stood upon the table by his desk, the other on the
chimneypiece, before which his tall, thin figure stooped. His hand leaned
on the mantelpiece, and the light from the candle just above his bowed
head touched his silvery hair. He was looking, as it seemed, into the sub-
siding embers of the fire, and was a very statue of forsaken dejection and
decay.
'Uncle!' I ventured to say, having stood for some time unperceived
near his table.
'Ah, yes, Maud, my dear child—my dear child.'
He turned, and with the candle in his hand, smiling his silvery smile of
suffering on me. He walked more feebly and stiffly, I thought, than I had
ever seen him move before.
'Sit down, Maud—pray sit there.'
I took the chair he indicated.
'In my misery and my solitude, Maud, I have invoked you like a spirit,
and you appear.'
With his two hands leaning on the table, he looked across at me, in a
stooping attitude; he had not seated himself. I continued silent until it
should be his pleasure to question or address me.
At last he said, raising himself and looking upward, with a wild ador-
ation—his finger-tips elevated and glimmering in the faint mixed light—
'No, I thank my Creator, I am not quite forsaken.'
Another silence, during which he looked steadfastly at me, and
muttered, as if thinking aloud—
'My guardian angel!—my guardian angel! Maud, you have a heart.' He
addressed me suddenly—'Listen, for a few moments, to the appeal of an

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old and broken-hearted man—your guardian—your uncle—your suppli-
ant. I had resolved never to speak to you more on this subject. But I was
wrong. It was pride that inspired me—mere pride.'
I felt myself growing pale and flushed by turns during the pause that
followed.
'I'm very miserable—very nearly desperate. What remains for
me—what remains? Fortune has done her worst—thrown in the dust,
her wheels rolled over me; and the servile world, who follow her chariot
like a mob, stamp upon the mangled wretch. All this had passed over
me, and left me scarred and bloodless in this solitude. It was not my
fault, Maud—I say it was no fault of mine; I have no remorse, though
more regrets than I can count, and all scored with fire. As people passed
by Bartram, and looked upon its neglected grounds and smokeless chim-
neys, they thought my plight, I dare say, about the worst a proud man
could be reduced to. They could not imagine one half its misery. But this
old hectic—this old epileptic—this old spectre of wrongs, calamities, and
follies, had still one hope—my manly though untutored son—the last
male scion of the Ruthyns. Maud, have I lost him? His fate—my fate—I
may say Milly's fate;—we all await your sentence. He loves you, as none
but the very young can love, and that once only in a life. He loves you
desperately—a most affectionate nature—a Ruthyn, the best blood in
England—the last man of the race; and I—if I lose him I lose all; and you
will see me in my coffin, Maud, before many months. I stand before you
in the attitude of a suppliant—shall I kneel?'
His eyes were fixed on me with the light of despair, his knotted hands
clasped, his whole figure bowed toward me. I was inexpressibly shocked
and pained.
'Oh, uncle! uncle!' I cried, and from very excitement I burst into tears.
I saw that his eyes were fixed on me with a dismal scrutiny. I think he
divined the nature of my agitation; but he determined, notwithstanding,
to press me while my helpless agitation continued.
'You see my suspense—you see my miserable and frightful suspense.
You are kind, Maud; you love your father's memory; your pity your
father's brother; you would not say no, and place a pistol at his head?'
'Oh! I must—I must—I must say no. Oh! spare me, uncle, for Heaven's
sake. Don't question me—don't press me. I could not—I could not do
what you ask.'
'I yield, Maud—I yield, my dear. I will not press you; you shall have
time, your own time, to think. I will accept no answer now—no, none,
Maud.'

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 He said this, raising his thin hand to silence me.
'There, Maud, enough. I have spoken, as I always do to you, frankly,
perhaps too frankly; but agony and despair will speak out, and plead,
even with the most obdurate and cruel.'
With these words Uncle Silas entered his bed-chamber, and shut the
door, not violently, but with a resolute hand, and I thought I heard a cry.
I hastened to my own room. I threw myself on my knees, and thanked
Heaven for the firmness vouchsafed me; I could not believe it to have
been my own.
I was more miserable in consequence of this renewed suit on behalf of
my odious cousin than I can describe. My uncle had taken such a line of
importunity that it became a sort of agony to resist. I thought of the pos-
sibility of my hearing of his having made away with himself, and was
every morning relieved when I heard that he was still as usual. I have of-
ten wondered since at my own firmness. In that dreadful interview with
my uncle I had felt, in the whirl and horror of my mind, on the very
point of submitting, just as nervous people are said to throw themselves
over precipices through sheer dread of falling.

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Chapter 51
SARAH MATILDA COMES TO LIGHT
Some time after this interview, one day as I sat, sad enough, in my room,
looking listlessly from the window, with good Mary Quince, whom,
whether in the house or in my melancholy rambles, I always had by my
side, I was startled by the sound of a loud and shrill female voice, in viol-
ent hysterical action, gabbling with great rapidity, sobbing, and very
nearly screaming in a sort of fury.
I started up, staring at the door.
'Lord bless us!' cried honest Mary Quince, with round eyes and mouth
agape, staring in the same direction.
'Mary—Mary, what can it be?'
'Are they beating some one down yonder? I don't know where it
comes from,' gasped Quince.
'I will—I will—I'll see her. It's her I want.
Oo—hoo—hoo—hoo—oo—o—Miss Maud Ruthyn of Knowl. Miss
Ruthyn of Knowl. Hoo—hoo—hoo—hoo—oo!'
'What on earth can it be?' I exclaimed, in great bewilderment and
terror.
It was now plainly very near indeed, and I heard the voice of our mild
and shaky butler evidently remonstrating with the distressed damsel.
'I'll see her,' she continued, pouring a torrent of vile abuse upon me,
which stung me with a sudden sense of anger. What had I done to be
afraid of anyone? How dared anyone in my uncle's house—in my
house—mix my name up with her detestable scurrilities?
'For Heaven's sake, Miss, don't ye go out,' cried poor Quince; 'it's some
drunken creature.'
But I was very angry, and, like a fool as I was, I threw open the door,
exclaiming in a loud and haughty key—
'Here is Miss Ruthyn of Knowl. Who wants to see her?'
A pink and white young lady, with black tresses, violent, weeping,
shrill, voluble, was flouncing up the last stair, and shook her dress out on

324
the lobby; and poor old Giblets, as Milly used to call him, was following
in her wake, with many small remonstrances and entreaties, perfectly
unheeded.
The moment I looked at this person, it struck me that she was the
identical lady whom I had seen in the carriage at Knowl Warren. The
next moment I was in doubt; the next, still more so. She was decidedly
thinner, and dressed by no means in such lady-like taste. Perhaps she
was hardly like her at all. I began to distrust all these resemblances, and
to fancy, with a shudder, that they originated, perhaps, only in my own
sick brain.
On seeing me, this young lady—as it seemed to me, a good deal of the
barmaid or lady's-maid species—dried her eyes fiercely, and, with a
flaming countenance, called upon me peremptorily to produce her
'lawful husband.' Her loud, insolent, outrageous attack had the effect of
enhancing my indignation, and I quite forget what I said to her, but I
well remember that her manner became a good deal more decent. She
was plainly under the impression that I wanted to appropriate her hus-
band, or, at least, that he wanted to marry me; and she ran on at such a
pace, and her harangue was so passionate, incoherent, and unintelligible,
that I thought her out of her mind: she was far from it, however. I think
if she had allowed me even a second for reflection, I should have hit
upon her meaning. As it was, nothing could exceed my perplexity, until,
plucking a soiled newspaper from her pocket, she indicated a particular
paragraph, already sufficiently emphasised by double lines of red ink at
its sides. It was a Lancashire paper, of about six weeks since, and very
much worn and soiled for its age. I remember in particular a circular
stain from the bottom of a vessel, either of coffee or brown stout. The
paragraph was as follows, recording an event a year or more anterior to
the date of the paper:—
'MARRIAGE.—On Tuesday, August 7, 18—, at Leatherwig Church, by
the Rev. Arthur Hughes, Dudley R. Ruthyn, Esq., only son and heir of
Silas Ruthyn, Esq., of Bartram-Haugh, Derbyshire, to Sarah Matilda,
second daughter of John Mangles, Esq., of Wiggan, in this county.'
At first I read nothing but amazement in this announcement, but in an-
other moment I felt how completely I was relieved; and showing, I be-
lieve, my intense satisfaction in my countenance—for the young lady
eyed me with considerable surprise and curiosity—I said—
'This is extremely important. You must see Mr. Silas Ruthyn this mo-
ment. I am certain he knows nothing of it. I will conduct you to him.'

325
 'No more he does—I know that myself,' she replied, following me with
a self-asserting swagger, and a great rustling of cheap silk.
As we entered, Uncle Silas looked up from his sofa, and closed his
Revue des Deux Mondes.
'What is all this?' he enquired, drily.
'This lady has brought with her a newspaper containing an extraordin-
ary statement which affects our family,' I answered.
Uncle Silas raised himself, and looked with a hard, narrow scrutiny at
the unknown young lady.
'A libel, I suppose, in the paper?' he said, extending his hand for it.
'No, uncle—no; only a marriage,' I answered.
'Not Monica?' he said, as he took it. 'Pah, it smells all over of tobacco
and beer,' he added, throwing a little eau de Cologne over it.
He raised it with a mixture of curiosity and disgust, saying again 'pah,'
as he did so.
He read the paragraph, and as he did his face changed from white, all
over, to lead colour. He raised his eyes, and looked steadily for some
seconds at the young lady, who seemed a little awed by his strange
presence.
'And you are, I suppose, the young lady, Sarah Matilda née Mangles,
mentioned in this little paragraph?' he said, in a tone you would have
called a sneer, were it not that it trembled.
Sarah Matilda assented.
'My son is, I dare say, within reach. It so happens that I wrote to arrest
his journey, and summon him here, some days since—some days
since—some days since,' he repeated slowly, like a person whose mind
has wandered far away from the theme on which he is speaking.
He had rung his bell, and old Wyat, always hovering about his rooms,
entered.
'I want my son, immediately. If not in the house, send Harry to the
stables; if not there, let him be followed, instantly. Brice is an active fel-
low, and will know where to find him. If he is in Feltram, or at a dis-
tance, let Brice take a horse, and Master Dudley can ride it back. He must
be here without the loss of one moment.'
There intervened nearly a quarter of an hour, during which whenever
he recollected her, Uncle Silas treated the young lady with a hyper-re-
fined and ceremonious politeness, which appeared to make her uneasy,
and even a little shy, and certainly prevented a renewal of those lamenta-
tions and invectives which he had heard faintly from the stair-head.

326
 But for the most part Uncle Silas seemed to forget us and his book, and
all that surrounded him, lying back in the corner of his sofa, his chin
upon his breast, and such a fearful shade and carving on his features as
made me prefer looking in any direction but his.
At length we heard the tread of Dudley's thick boots on the oak
boards, and faint and muffled the sound of his voice as he cross-ex-
amined old Wyat before entering the chamber of audience.
I think he suspected quite another visitor, and had no expectation of
seeing the particular young lady, who rose from her chair as he entered,
in an opportune flood of tears, crying—
'Oh, Dudley, Dudley!—oh, Dudley, could you? Oh, Dudley, your own
poor Sal! You could not—you would not—your lawful wife!'
This and a good deal more, with cheeks that streamed like a window-
pane in a thunder-shower, spoke Sarah Matilda with all her oratory,
working his arm, which she clung to, up and down all the time, like the
handle of a pump. But Dudley was, manifestly, confounded and dumb-
foundered. He stood for a long time gaping at his father, and stole just
one sheepish glance at me; and, with red face and forehead, looked
down at his boots, and then again at his father, who remained just in the
attitude I have described, and with the same forbidding and dreary in-
tensity in his strange face.
Like a quarrelsome man worried in his sleep by a noise, Dudley sud-
denly woke up, as it were, with a start, in a half-suppressed exaspera-
tion, and shook her off with a jerk and a muttered curse, as she whisked
involuntarily into a chair, with more violence than could have been
pleasant.
'Judging by your looks and demeanour, sir, I can almost anticipate
your answers,' said my uncle, addressing him suddenly. 'Will you be
good enough—pray, madame (parenthetically to our visitor), command
yourself for a few moments. Is this young person the daughter of a Mr.
Mangles, and is her name Sarah Matilda?'
'I dessay,' answered Dudley, hurriedly.
'Is she your wife?'
'Is she my wife?' repeated Dudley, ill at ease.
'Yes, sir; it is a plain question.'
All this time Sarah Matilda was perpetually breaking into talk, and
with difficulty silenced by my uncle.
'Well, 'appen she says I am—does she?' replied Dudley.
'Is she your wife, sir?'

327
 'Mayhap she so considers it, after a fashion,' he replied, with an im-
pudent swagger, seating himself as he did so.
'What do you think, sir?' persisted Uncle Silas.
'I don't think nout about it,' replied Dudley, surlily.
'Is that account true?' said my uncle, handing him the paper.
'They wishes us to believe so, at any rate.'
'Answer directly, sir. We have our thoughts upon it. If it be true, it is
capable of every proof. For expedition's sake I ask you. There is no use in
prevaricating.'
'Who wants to deny it? It is true—there!'
'There! I knew he would,' screamed the young woman, hysterically,
with a laugh of strange joy.
'Shut up, will ye?' growled Dudley, savagely.
'Oh, Dudley, Dudley, darling! what have I done?'
'Bin and ruined me, jest—that's all.'
'Oh! no, no, no, Dudley. Ye know I wouldn't. I could not—could not
hurt ye, Dudley. No, no, no!'
He grinned at her, and, with a sharp side-nod, said—
'Wait a bit.'
'Oh, Dudley, don't be vexed, dear. I did not mean it. I would not hurt
ye for all the world. Never.'
'Well, never mind. You and yours tricked me finely; and now you've
got me—that's all.'
My uncle laughed a very odd laugh.
'I knew it, of course; and upon my word, madame, you and he make a
very pretty couple,' sneered Uncle Silas.
Dudley made no answer, looking, however, very savage.
And with this poor young wife, so recently wedded, the low villain
had actually solicited me to marry him!
I am quite certain that my uncle was as entirely ignorant as I of
Dudley's connection, and had, therefore, no participation in this ap-
palling wickedness.
'And I have to congratulate you, my good fellow, on having secured
the affections of a very suitable and vulgar young woman.'
'I baint the first o' the family as a' done the same,' retorted Dudley.
At this taunt the old man's fury for a moment overpowered him. In an
instant he was on his feet, quivering from head to foot. I never saw such
a countenance—like one of those demon-grotesques we see in the Gothic
side-aisles and groinings—a dreadful grimace, monkey-like and

328
insane—and his thin hand caught up his ebony stick, and shook it para-
lytically in the air.
'If ye touch me wi' that, I'll smash ye, by ——!' shouted Dudley, furi-
ous, raising his hands and hitching his shoulder, just as I had seen him
when he fought Captain Oakley.
For a moment this picture was suspended before me, and I screamed, I
know not what, in my terror. But the old man, the veteran of many a
scene of excitement, where men disguise their ferocity in calm tones, and
varnish their fury with smiles, had not quite lost his self-command. He
turned toward me and said—
'Does he know what he's saying?'
And with an icy laugh of contempt, his high, thin forehead still
flushed, he sat down trembling.
'If you want to say aught, I'll hear ye. Ye may jaw me all ye like, and
I'll stan' it.'
'Oh, I may speak? Thank you,' sneered Uncle Silas, glancing slowly
round at me, and breaking into a cold laugh.
'Ay, I don't mind cheek, not I; but you must not go for to do that, ye
know. Gammon. I won't stand a blow—I won't fro no one.
'Well, sir, availing myself of your permission to speak, I may remark,
without offence to the young lady, that I don't happen to recollect the
name Mangles among the old families of England. I presume you have
chosen her chiefly for her virtues and her graces.'
Mrs. Sarah Matilda, not apprehending this compliment quite as Uncle
Silas meant it, dropped a courtesy, notwithstanding her agitation, and,
wiping her eyes, said, with a blubbered smile—
'You're very kind, sure.'
'I hope, for both your sakes, she has got a little money. I don't see how
you are to live else. You're too lazy for a game-keeper; and I don't think
you could keep a pot-house, you are so addicted to drinking and quar-
relling. The only thing I am quite clear upon is, that you and your wife
must find some other abode than this. You shall depart this evening: and
now, Mr. and Mrs. Dudley Ruthyn, you may quit this room, if you
please.'
Uncle Silas had risen, and made them one of his old courtly bows,
smiling a death-like sneer, and pointing to the door with his trembling
fingers.
'Come, will ye?' said Dudley, grinding his teeth. 'You're pretty well
done here.'

329
 Not half understanding the situation, but looking woefully be-
wildered, she dropped a farewell courtesy at the door.
'Will ye cut?' barked Dudley, in a tone that made her jump; and sud-
denly, without looking about, he strode after her from the room.
'Maud, how shall I recover this? The vulgar villain—the fool! What an
abyss were we approaching! and for me the last hope gone—and for me
utter, utter, irretrievable ruin.'
He was passing his fingers tremulously back and forward along the
top of the mantelpiece, like a man in search of something, and continued
so, looking along it, feebly and vacantly, although there was nothing
there.
'I wish, uncle—you do not know how much I wish—I could be of any
use to you. Maybe I can?'
He turned, and looked at me sharply.
'Maybe you can,' he echoed slowly. 'Yes, maybe you can,' he repeated
more briskly.' Let us—let us see—let us think—that d—— fellow!—my
head!'
'You're not well, uncle?'
'Oh! yes, very well. We'll talk in the evening—I'll send for you.'
I found Wyat in the next room, and told her to hasten, as I thought he
was ill. I hope it was not very selfish, but such had grown to be my hor-
ror of seeing him in one of his strange seizures, that I hastened from the
room precipitately—partly to escape the risk of being asked to remain.
The walls of Bartram House are thick, and the recess at the doorway
deep. As I closed my uncle's door, I heard Dudley's voice on the stairs. I
did not wish to be seen by him or by his 'lady', as his poor wife called
herself, who was engaged in vehement dialogue with him as I emerged,
and not caring either to re-enter my uncle's room, I remained quietly en-
sconced within the heavy door-case, in which position I overheard Dud-
ley say with a savage snarl—
'You'll jest go back the way ye came. I'm not goin' wi' ye, if that's what
ye be drivin' at—dang your impitins!'
'Oh! Dudley, dear, what have I done—what have I done—ye hate me
so?'
'What a' ye done? Ye vicious little beast, ye! You've got us turned out
an' disinherited wi' yer d——d bosh, that's all; don't ye think it's
enough?'
I could only hear her sobs and shrill tones in reply, for they were des-
cending the stairs; and Mary Quince reported to me, in a horrified sort of
way, that she saw him bundle her into the fly at the door, like a truss of

330
hay into a hay-loft. And he stood with his head in at the window, scold-
ing her, till it drove away.
'I knew he wor jawing her, poor thing! By the way he kep' waggin' his
head—an' he had his fist inside, a shakin' in her face I'm sure he looked
wicked enough for anything; an' she a crying like a babby, an' lookin'
back, an' wavin' her wet hankicher to him—poor thing!—and she so
young! 'Tis a pity. Dear me! I often think, Miss, 'tis well for me I never
was married. And see how we all would like to get husbands for all that,
though so few is happy together. 'Tis a queer world, and them that's
single is maybe the best off after all.'

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Chapter 52
THE PICTURE OF A WOLF
I went down that evening to the sitting-room which had been assigned
to Milly and me, in search of a book—my good Mary Quince always at-
tending me. The door was a little open, and I was startled by the light of
a candle proceeding from the fireside, together with a considerable
aroma of tobacco and brandy.
On my little work-table, which he had drawn beside the hearth, lay
Dudley's pipe, his brandy-flask, and an empty tumbler; and he was sit-
ting with one foot on the fender, his elbow on his knee, and his head
resting in his hand, weeping. His back being a little toward the door, he
did not perceive us; and we saw him rub his knuckles in his eyes, and
heard the sounds of his selfish lamentation.
Mary and I stole away quietly, leaving him in possession, wondering
when he was to leave the house, according to the sentence which I had
heard pronounced upon him.
I was delighted to see old 'Giblets' quietly strapping his luggage in the
hall, and heard from him in a whisper that he was to leave that evening
by rail—he did not know whither.
About half an hour afterwards, Mary Quince, going out to reconnoitre,
heard from old Wyat in the lobby that he had just started to meet the
train.
Blessed be heaven for that deliverance! An evil spirit had been cast
out, and the house looked lighter and happier. It was not until I sat
down in the quiet of my room that the scenes and images of that agitat-
ing day began to move before my memory in orderly procession, and for
the first time I appreciated, with a stunning sense of horror and a perfect
rapture of thanksgiving, the value of my escape and the immensity of the
danger which had threatened me. It may have been miserable weak-
ness—I think it was. But I was young, nervous, and afflicted with a
troublesome sort of conscience, which occasionally went mad, and in-
sisted, in small things as well as great, upon sacrifices which my reason

332
now assures me were absurd. Of Dudley I had a perfect horror; and yet
had that system of solicitation, that dreadful and direct appeal to my
compassion, that placing of my feeble girlhood in the seat of the arbiter
of my aged uncle's hope or despair, been long persisted in, my resistance
might have been worn out—who can tell?—and I self-sacrificed! Just as
criminals in Germany are teased, and watched, and cross-examined, year
after year, incessantly, into a sort of madness; and worn out with the sus-
pense, the iteration, the self-restraint, and insupportable fatigue, they at
last cut all short, accuse themselves, and go infinitely relieved to the scaf-
fold—you may guess, then, for me, nervous, self-diffident, and alone,
how intense was the comfort of knowing that Dudley was actually mar-
ried, and the harrowing importunity which had just commenced for ever
silenced.
That night I saw my uncle. I pitied him, though I feared him. I was
longing to tell him how anxious I was to help him, if only he could point
out the way. It was in substance what I had already said, but now
strongly urged. He brightened; he sat up perpendicularly in his chair
with a countenance, not weak or fatuous now, but resolute and search-
ing, and which contracted into dark thought or calculation as I talked.
I dare say I spoke confusedly enough. I was always nervous in his
presence; there was, I fancy, something mesmeric in the odd sort of influ-
ence which, without effort, he exercised over my imagination.
Sometimes this grew into a dismal panic, and Uncle Silas—polished,
mild—seemed unaccountably horrible to me. Then it was no longer an
accidental fascination of electro-biology. It was something more. His
nature was incomprehensible by me. He was without the nobleness,
without the freshness, without the softness, without the frivolities of
such human nature as I had experienced, either within myself or in other
persons. I instinctively felt that appeals to sympathies or feelings could
no more affect him than a marble monument. He seemed to accommod-
ate his conversation to the moral structure of others, just as spirits are
said to assume the shape of mortals. There were the sensualities of the
gourmet for his body, and there ended his human nature, as it seemed to
me. Through that semi-transparent structure I thought I could now and
then discern the light or the glare of his inner life. But I understood it
not.
He never scoffed at what was good or noble—his hardest critic could
not nail him to one such sentence; and yet, it seemed somehow to me
that his unknown nature was a systematic blasphemy against it all. If
fiend he was, he was yet something higher than the garrulous, and

333
withal feeble, demon of Goethe. He assumed the limbs and features of
our mortal nature. He shrouded his own, and was a profoundly reticent
Mephistopheles. Gentle he had been to me—kindly he had nearly always
spoken; but it seemed like the mild talk of one of those goblins of the
desert, whom Asiatic superstition tells of, who appear in friendly shapes
to stragglers from the caravan, beckon to them from afar, call them by
their names, and lead them where they are found no more. Was, then, all
his kindness but a phosphoric radiance covering something colder and
more awful than the grave?
'It is very noble of you, Maud—it is angelic; your sympathy with a
ruined and despairing old man. But I fear you will recoil. I tell you
frankly that less than twenty thousand pounds will not extricate me from
the quag of ruin in which I am entangled—lost!'
'Recoil! Far from it. I'll do it. There must be some way.'
'Enough, my fair young protectress—celestial enthusiast, enough.
Though you do not, yet I recoil. I could not bring myself to accept this
sacrifice. What signifies, even to me, my extrication? I lie a mangled
wretch, with fifty mortal wounds on my crown; what avails the healing
of one wound, when there are so many beyond all cure? Better to let me
perish where I fall; and reserve your money for the worthier objects
whom, perhaps, hereafter may avail to save.'
'But I will do this. I must. I cannot see you suffer with the power in my
hands unemployed to help you,' I exclaimed.
'Enough, dear Maud; the will is here—enough: there is balm in your
compassion and good-will. Leave me, ministering angel; for the present I
cannot. If you will, we can talk of it again. Good-night.'
And so we parted.
The attorney from Feltram, I afterwards heard, was with him nearly all
that night, trying in vain to devise by their joint ingenuity any means by
which I might tie myself up. But there were none. I could not bind
myself.
I was myself full of the hope of helping him. What was this sum to me,
great as it seemed? Truly nothing. I could have spared it, and never felt
the loss.
I took up a large quarto with coloured prints, one of the few books I
had brought with me from dear old Knowl. Too much excited to hope
for sleep in bed, I opened it, and turned over the leaves, my mind still
full of Uncle Silas and the sum I hoped to help him with.
Unaccountably one of those coloured engravings arrested my atten-
tion. It represented the solemn solitude of a lofty forest; a girl, in Swiss

334
costume, was flying in terror, and as she fled flinging a piece of meat be-
hind her which she had taken from a little market-basket hanging upon
her arm. Through the glade a pack of wolves were pursuing her.
The narrative told, that on her return homeward with her marketing,
she had been chased by wolves, and barely escaped by flying at her ut-
most speed, from time to time retarding, as she did so, the pursuit, by
throwing, piece by piece, the contents of her basket, in her wake, to be
devoured and fought for by the famished beasts of prey.
This print had seized my imagination. I looked with a curious interest
on the print: something in the disposition of the trees, their great height,
and rude boughs, interlacing, and the awful shadow beneath, reminded
me of a portion of the Windmill Wood where Milly and I had often
rambled. Then I looked at the figure of the poor girl, flying for her life,
and glancing terrified over her shoulder. Then I gazed on the gaping,
murderous pack, and the hoary brute that led the van; and then I leaned
back in my chair, and I thought—perhaps some latent association sug-
gested what seemed a thing so unlikely—of a fine print in my portfolio
from Vandyke's noble picture of Belisarius. Idly I traced with my pencil,
as I leaned back, on an envelope that lay upon the table, this little in-
scription. It was mere fiddling; and, absurd as it looked, there was noth-
ing but an honest meaning in it:—'20,000l. Date Obolum Belisario!' My
dear father had translated the little Latin inscription for me, and I had
written it down as a sort of exercise of memory; and also, perhaps, as ex-
pressive of that sort of compassion which my uncle's fall and miserable
fate excited invariably in me. So I threw this queer little memorandum
upon the open leaf of the book, and again the flight, the pursuit, and the
bait to stay it, engaged my eye. And I heard a voice near the hearthstone,
as I thought, say, in a stern whisper, 'Fly the fangs of Belisarius!'
'What's that?' said I, turning sharply to Mary Quince.
Mary rose from her work at the fireside, staring at me with that odd
sort of frown that accompanies fear and curiosity.
'You spoke? Did you speak?' I said, catching her by the arm, very
much frightened myself.
'No, Miss; no, dear!' answered she, plainly thinking that I was a little
wrong in my head.
There could be no doubt it was a trick of the imagination, and yet to
this hour I could recognise that clear stern voice among a thousand, were
it to speak again.
Jaded after a night of broken sleep and much agitation, I was
summoned next morning to my uncle's room.

335
 He received me oddly, I thought. His manner had changed, and made
an uncomfortable impression upon me. He was gentle, kind, smiling,
submissive, as usual; but it seemed to me that he experienced henceforth
toward me the same half-superstitous repulsion which I had always felt
from him. Dream, or voice, or vision—which had done it? There seemed
to be an unconscious antipathy and fear. When he thought I was not
looking, his eyes were sometimes grimly fixed for a moment upon me.
When I looked at him, his eyes were upon the book before him; and
when he spoke, a person not heeding what he uttered would have fan-
cied that he was reading aloud from it.
There was nothing tangible but this shrinking from the encounter of
our eyes. I said he was kind as usual. He was even more so. But there
was this new sign of our silently repellant natures. Dislike it could not
be. He knew I longed to serve him. Was it shame? Was there not a shade
of horror in it?
'I have not slept,' said he. 'For me the night has passed in thought, and
the fruit of it is this—I cannot, Maud, accept your noble offer.'
'I am very sorry,' exclaimed I, in all honesty.
'I know it, my dear niece, and appreciate your goodness; but there are
many reasons—none of them, I trust, ignoble—and which together
render it impossible. No. It would be misunderstood—my honour shall
not be impugned.'
'But, sir, that could not be; you have never proposed it. It would be all,
from first to last, my doing.'
'True, dear Maud, but I know, alas! more of this evil and slanderous
world than your happy inexperience can do. Who will receive our testi-
mony? None—no, not one. The difficulty—the insuperable moral diffi-
culty is this—that I should expose myself to the plausible imputation of
having worked upon you, unduly, for this end; and more, that I could
not hold myself quite free from blame. It is your voluntary goodness,
Maud. But you are young, inexperienced; and it is, I hold it, my duty to
stand between you and any dealing with your property at so unripe an
age. Some people may call this Quixotic. In my mind it is an imperious
mandate of conscience; and I peremptorily refuse to disobey it, although
within three weeks an execution will be in this house!'
I did not quite know what an execution meant; but from two harrow-
ing novels, with whose distresses I was familiar, I knew that it indicated
some direful process of legal torture and spoliation.

336
 'Oh, uncle I—oh, sir!—you cannot allow this to happen. What will
people say of me? And—and there is poor Milly—and everything! Think
what it will be.'
'It cannot be helped—you cannot help it, Maud. Listen to me. There
will be an execution here, I cannot say exactly how soon, but, I think, in a
little more than a fortnight. I must provide for your comfort. You must
leave. I have arranged that you shall join Milly, for the present, in France,
till I have time to look about me. You had better, I think, write to your
cousin, Lady Knollys. She, with all her oddities, has a heart. Can you say,
Maud, that I have been kind?'
'You have never been anything but kind,' I exclaimed.
'That I've been self-denying when you made me a generous offer?' he
continued. 'That I now act to spare you pain? You may tell her, not as a
message from me, but as a fact, that I am seriously thinking of vacating
my guardianship—that I feel I have done her an injustice, and that, so
soon as my mind is a little less tortured, I shall endeavour to effect a re-
conciliation with her, and would wish ultimately to transfer the care of
your person and education to her. You may say I have no longer an in-
terest even in vindicating my name. My son has wrecked himself by a
marriage. I forgot to tell you he stopped at Feltram, and this morning
wrote to pray a parting interview. If I grant it, it shall be the last. I shall
never see him or correspond with him more.'
The old man seemed much overcome, and held his hankerchief to his
eyes.
'He and his wife are, I understand, about to emigrate; the sooner the
better,' he resumed, bitterly. 'Deeply, Maud, I regret having tolerated his
suit to you, even for a moment. Had I thought it over, as I did the whole
case last night, nothing could have induced me to permit it. But I have
lived for so long like a monk in his cell, my wants and observation lim-
ited to the narrow compass of this chamber, that my knowledge of the
world has died out with my youth and my hopes: and I did not, as I
ought to have done, consider many objections. Therefore, dear Maud, on
this one subject, I entreat, be silent; its discussion can effect nothing now.
I was wrong, and frankly ask you to forget my mistake.'
I had been on the point of writing to Lady Knollys on this odious sub-
ject, when, happily, it was set at rest by the disclosure of yesterday; and
being so, I could have no difficulty in acceding to my uncle's request. He
was conceding so much that I could not withhold so trifling a concession
in return.
'I hope Monica will continue to be kind to poor Milly after I am gone.'

337
 Here there were a few seconds of meditation.
'Maud, you will not, I think, refuse to convey the substance of what I
have just said in a letter to Lady Knollys, and perhaps you would have
no objection to let me see it when it is written. It will prevent the possib-
ility of its containing any misconception of what I have just spoken: and,
Maud, you won't forget to say whether I have been kind. It would be a
satisfaction to me to know that Monica was assured that I never either
teased or bullied my young ward.'
With these words he dismissed me; and forthwith I completed such a
letter as would quite embody what he had said; and in my own glowing
terms, being in high good-humour with Uncle Silas, recorded my estim-
ate of his gentleness and good-nature; and when I submitted it to him, he
expressed his admiration of what he was pleased to call my cleverness in
so exactly conveying what he wished, and his gratitude for the hand-
some terms in which I had spoken of my old guardian.

338
Chapter 53
AN ODD PROPOSAL
As I and Mary Quince returned from our walk that day, and had entered
the hall, I was surprised most disagreeably by Dudley's emerging from
the vestibule at the foot of the great staircase. He was, I suppose, in his
travelling costume—a rather soiled white surtout, a great coloured
muffler in folds about his throat, his 'chimney-pot' on, and his fur cap
sticking out from his pocket. He had just descended, I suppose, from my
uncle's room. On seeing me he stepped back, and stood with his
shoulders to the wall, like a mummy in a museum.
I pretended to have a few words to say to Mary before leaving the hall,
in the hope that, as he seemed to wish to escape me, he would take the
opportunity of getting quickly off the scene.
But he had changed his mind, it would seem, in the interval; for when
I glanced in that direction again he had moved toward us, and stood in
the hall with his hat in his hand. I must do him the justice to say he
looked horribly dismal, sulky, and frightened.
'Ye'll gi'e me a word, Miss—only a thing I ought to say—for your
good; by ——, mind, it's for your good, Miss.'
Dudley stood a little way off, viewing me, with his hat in both hands
and a 'glooming' countenance.
I detested the idea of either hearing or speaking to him; but I had no
resolution to refuse, and only saying 'I can't imagine what you can wish
to speak to me about,' I approached him. 'Wait there at the banister,
Quince.'
There was a fragrance of alcohol about the flushed face and gaudy
muffler of this odious cousin, which heightened the effect of his horribly
dismal features. He was speaking, besides, a little thickly; but his manner
was dejected, and he was treating me with an elaborate and discomfited
respect which reassured me.
'I'm a bit up a tree, Miss,' he said shuffling his feet on the oak floor. 'I
behaved a d—— fool; but I baint one o' they sort. I'm a fellah as 'ill fight

339
his man, an' stan' up to 'm fair, don't ye see? An' baint one o' they
sort—no, dang it, I baint.'
Dudley delivered his puzzling harangue with a good deal of under-
toned vehemence, and was strangely agitated. He, too, had got an un-
pleasant way of avoiding my eye, and glancing along the floor from
corner to corner as he spoke, which gave him a very hang-dog air.
He was twisting his fingers in his great sandy whisker, and pulling it
roughly enough to drag his cheek about by that savage purchase; and
with his other hand he was crushing and rubbing his hat against his
knee.
'The old boy above there be half crazed, I think; he don't mean half as
he says thof, not he. But I'm in a bad fix anyhow—a regular sell it's been,
and I can't get a tizzy out of him. So, ye see, I'm up a tree, Miss; and he
sich a one, he'll make it a wuss mull if I let him. He's as sharp wi' me as
one o' them lawyer chaps, dang 'em, and he's a lot of I O's and rubbitch
o' mine; and Bryerly writes to me he can't gi'e me my legacy, 'cause he's
got a notice from Archer and Sleigh a warnin' him not to gi'e me as much
as a bob; for I signed it away to governor, he says—which I believe's a
lie. I may a' signed some writing—'appen I did—when I was a bit cut one
night. But that's no way to catch a gentleman, and 'twon't stand. There's
justice to be had, and 'twon't stand, I say; and I'm not in 'is hands that
way. Thof I may be a bit up the spout, too, I don't deny; only I baint
agoin' the whole hog all at once. I'm none o' they sort. He'll find I baint.'
Here Mary Quince coughed demurely from the foot of the stair, to re-
mind me that the conversation was protracted.
'I don't very well understand,' I said gravely; 'and I am now going
upstairs.'
'Don't jest a minute, Miss; it's only a word, ye see. We'll be goin' t' Aus-
tralia, Sary Mangles, an' me, aboard the Seamew, on the 5th. I'm for
Liverpool to-night, and she'll meet me there, an'—an', please God
Almighty, ye'll never see me more; an I'd rather gi'e ye a lift, Maud, be-
fore I go: an' I tell ye what, if ye'll just gi'e me your written promise ye'll
gi'e me that twenty thousand ye were offering to gi'e the Governor, I'll
take ye cleverly out o' Bartram, and put ye wi' your cousin Knollys, or
anywhere ye like best.'
'Take me from Bartram—for twenty thousand pounds! Take me away
from my guardian! You seem to forget, sir,' my indignation rising as I
spoke, 'that I can visit my cousin, Lady Knollys, whenever I please.'
'Well, that is as it may be,' he said, with a sulky deliberation, scraping
about a little bit of paper that lay on the floor with the toe of his boot.

340
 'It is as it may be, and that is as I say, sir; and considering how you
have treated me—your mean, treacherous, and infamous suit, and your
cruel treason to your poor wife, I am amazed at your effrontery.'
I turned to leave him, being, in truth, in one of my passions.
'Don't ye be a flying' out,' he said peremptorily, and catching me
roughly by the wrist,' I baint a-going to vex ye. What a mouth you be, as
can't see your way! Can't ye speak wi' common sense, like a wo-
man—dang it—for once, and not keep brawling like a brat—can't ye see
what I'm saying? I'll take ye out o' all this, and put ye wi' your cousin, or
wheresoever you list, if ye'll gi'e me what I say.'
He was, for the first time, looking me in the face, but with contracted
eyes, and a countenance very much agitated.
'Money?' said I, with a prompt disdain.
'Ay, money—twenty thousand pounds—there. On or off?' he replied,
with an unpleasant sort of effort.
'You ask my promise for twenty thousand pounds, and you shan't
have it.'
My cheeks were flaming, and I stamped on the ground as I spoke.
If he had known how to appeal to my better feelings, I am sure I
should have done, perhaps not quite that, all at once at least, but
something handsome, to assist him. But this application was so shabby
and insolent! What could he take me for? That I should suppose his pla-
cing me with Cousin Monica constituted her my guardian? Why, he
must fancy me the merest baby. There was a kind of stupid cunning in
this that disgusted my good-nature and outraged my self-importance.
'You won't gi'e me that, then?' he said, looking down again, with a
frown, and working his mouth and cheeks about as I could fancy a man
rolling a piece of tobacco in his jaw.
'Certainly not, sir,' I replied.
'Take it, then,' he replied, still looking down, very black and
discontented.
I joined Mary Quince, extremely angry. As I passed under the carved
oak arch of the vestibule, I saw his figure in the deepening twilight. The
picture remains in its murky halo fixed in memory. Standing where he
last spoke in the centre of the hall, not looking after me, but downward,
and, as well as I could see, with the countenance of a man who has lost a
game, and a ruinous wager too—that is black and desperate. I did not ut-
ter a syllable on the way up. When I reached my room, I began to recon-
sider the interview more at my leisure. I was, such were my ruminations,
to have agreed at once to his preposterous offer, and to have been

341
driven, while he smirked and grimaced behind my back at his acquaint-
ances, through Feltram in his dog-cart to Elverston; and then, to the just
indignation of my uncle, to have been delivered up to Lady Knolly's
guardianship, and to have handed my driver, as I alighted, the hand-
some fare of 20.000l. It required the impudence of Tony Lumpkin,
without either his fun or his shrewdness, to have conceived such a prodi-
gious practical joke.
'Maybe you'd like a little tea, Miss?' insinuated Mary Quince.
'What impertinence!' I exclaimed, with one of my angry stamps on the
floor. 'Not you, dear old Quince,' I added. 'No—no tea just now.'
And I resumed my ruminations, which soon led me to this train of
thought—'Stupid and insulting as Dudley's proposition was, it yet in-
volved a great treason against my uncle. Should I be weak enough to be
silent, may he not, wishing to forestall me, misrepresent all that has
passed, so as to throw the blame altogether upon me?'
This idea seized upon me with a force which I could not withstand;
and on the impulse of the moment I obtained admission to my uncle,
and related exactly what had passed. When I had finished my narrative,
which he listened to without once raising his eyes, my uncle cleared his
throat once or twice, as if to speak. He was smiling—I thought with an
effort, and with elevated brows. When I concluded, he hummed one of
those sliding notes, which a less refined man might have expressed by a
whistle of surprise and contempt, and again he essayed to speak, but
continued silent. The fact is, he seemed to me very much disconcerted.
He rose from his seat, and shuffled about the room in his slippers, I be-
lieve affecting only to be in search of something, opening and shutting
two or three drawers, and turning over some books and papers; and at
length, taking up some loose sheets of manuscript, he appeared to have
found what he was looking for, and began to read them carelessly, with
his back towards me, and with another effort to clear his voice, he said at
last—
'And pray, what could the fool mean by all that?'
'I think he must have taken me for an idiot, sir,' I answered.
'Not unlikely. He has lived in a stable, among horses and ostlers; he
has always seemed to me something like a centaur—that is a centaur
composed not of man and horse, but of an ape and an ass.'
And upon this jibe he laughed, not coldly and sarcastically, as was his
wont, but, I thought, flurriedly. And, continuing to look into his papers,
he said, his back still toward me as he read—

342
 'And he did not favour you with an exposition of his meaning, which,
except in so far as it estimated his deserts at the modest sum you have
named, appears to me too oracular to be interpreted without a kindred
inspiration?'
And again he laughed. He was growing more like himself.
'As to your visiting your cousin, Lady Knollys, the stupid rogue had
only five minutes before heard me express my wish that you should do
so before leaving this. I am quite resolved you shall—that is, unless, dear
Maud, you should yourself object; but, of course, we must wait for an in-
vitation, which, I conjecture, will not be long in coming. In fact, your let-
ter will naturally bring it about, and, I trust, open the way to a perman-
ent residence with her. The more I think it over, the more am I con-
vinced, dear niece, that as things are likely to turn out, my roof would be
no desirable shelter for you; and that, under all circumstances, hers
would. Such were my motives, Maud, in opening, through your letter, a
door of reconciliation between us.'
I felt that I ought to have kissed his hand—that he had indicated pre-
cisely the future that I most desired; and yet there was within me a
vague feeling, akin to suspicion—akin to dismay which chilled and over-
cast my soul.
'But, Maud,' he said, 'I am disquieted to think of that stupid jackanapes
presuming to make you such an offer! A creditable situation
truly—arriving in the dark at Elverston, under the solitary escort of that
wild young man, with whom you would have fled from my guardian-
ship; and, Maud, I tremble as I ask myself the question, would he have
conducted you to Elverston at all? When you have lived as long in the
world as I, you will appreciate its wickedness more justly.' Here there
was a little pause.
'I know, my dear, that were he convinced of his legal marriage with
that young woman,' he resumed, perceiving how startled I looked, 'such
an idea, of course, would not have entered his head; but he does not be-
lieve any such thing. Contrary to fact and logic, he does honestly think
that his hand is still at his disposal; and I certainly do suspect that he
would have employed that excursion in endeavouring to persuade you
to think as he does. Be that how it may, however, it is satisfactory to me
to know that you shall never more be troubled by one word from that ill-
regulated young man. I made him my adieux, such as they were, this
evening; and never more shall he enter the walls of Bartram-Haugh
while we two live.'

343
 Uncle Silas replaced the papers which had ostensibly interested him so
much, and returned. There was a vein which was visible near the angle
of his lofty temple, and in moments of agitation stood out against the
surrounding pallor in a knotted blue cord; and as he came back smiling
askance, I saw this sign of inward tumult.
'We can, however, afford to despise the follies and knaveries of the
world, Maud, as long as we act, as we have hitherto done, with perfect
confidence in each other. Heaven bless you, dear Maud! Your report
troubled me, I believe, more than it need—troubled me a good deal; but
reflection assures me it is nothing. He is gone. In a few days' time he will
be on the sea. I will issue my orders to-morrow morning, and he will
never more, during his brief stay in England, gain admission to Bartram-
Haugh. Good-night, my good niece; I thank you.'
And so I returned to Mary Quince, on the whole happier than I had
left her, but still with the confused and jarring vision I could not inter-
pret perpetually rising before me; and as, from time to time, shapeless
anxieties agitated me, relieving them by appeals to Him who alone is
wise and strong.
Next day brought me a goodnatured gossiping letter from dear Milly,
written in compulsory French, which was, in some places, very difficult
to interpret. She gave me a very pleasant account of the place, and her
opinion of the girls who were inmates, and mentioned some of the nuns
with high commendation. The language plainly cramped poor Milly's
genius; but although there was by no means so much fun as an honest
English letter would have brought me, there could be no mistake about
her liking the place, and she expressed her honest longing to see me in
the most affectionate terms.
This letter came enclosed in one to my uncle, from the proper author-
ity in the convent; and as there was neither address within, nor post-
mark without, I was as much in the dark as ever as to poor Milly's
whereabouts.
Pencilled across the envelope of this letter, in my uncle's hand, were
the words, 'Let me have your answer when sealed, and I will transmit
it.—S.R.'
When, accordingly, some days later, I did place my letter to Milly in
my uncle's hands, he told me the reason of his reserves on the subject.
'I thought it best, dear Maud, not to plague you with a secret, and
Milly's present address is one. It will in a few weeks become the rallying-
point of our diverse routes, when you shall meet her, and I join you both.
Nobody, until the storm shall have blown over, must know where I am

344
to be found, except my lawyer; and I think you would prefer ignorance
to the trouble of keeping a secret on which so much may depend.'
This being reasonable, and even considerate, I acquiesced.
In that interval there reached me such a charming, gay, and affection-
ate letter—a very long letter, too—though the writer was scarcely seven
miles away, from dear Cousin Monica, full of pleasant gossip, and rose-
coloured and golden castles in the air, and the kindest interest in poor
Milly, and the warmest affection for me.
One other incident varied that interval, if possible more pleasantly
than those. It was the announcement, in a Liverpool paper, of the depar-
ture of the Seamew, bound for Melbourne; and among the passengers
were reported 'Dudley Ruthyn, Esquire, of Bartram-H., and Mrs. D.
Ruthyn.'
And now I began to breathe freely, I plainly saw the end of my proba-
tion approaching: a short excursion to France, a happy meeting with
Milly, and then a delightful residence with Cousin Monica for the re-
mainder of my nonage.
You will say then that my spirits and my serenity were quite restored.
Not quite. How marvellously lie our anxieties, in filmy layers, one over
the other! Take away that which has lain on the upper surface for so
long—the care of cares—the only one, as it seemed to you, between your
soul and the radiance of Heaven—and straight you find a new stratum
there. As physical science tells us no fluid is without its skin, so does it
seem with this fine medium of the soul, and these successive films of
care that form upon its surface on mere contact with the upper air and
light.
What was my new trouble? A very fantastic one, you will say—the il-
lusion of a self-tormentor. It was the face of Uncle Silas which haunted
me. Notwithstanding the old pale smile, there was a shrinking grimness,
and the always-averted look.
Sometimes I fancied his mind was disordered. I could not account for
the eerie lights and shadows that flickered on his face, except so. There
was a look of shame and fear of me, amazing as that seems, in the sheen
of his peaked smile.
I thought, 'Perhaps he blames himself for having tolerated Dudley's
suit—for having urged it on grounds of personal distress—for having al-
together lowered, though under sore temptation, both himself and his of-
fice; and he thinks that he has forfeited my respect.'

345
 Such was my analysis; but in the coup-d'oeil of that white face that
dazzled me in darkness, and haunted my daily reveries with a faded
light, there was an intangible character of the insidious and the terrible.

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Chapter 54
IN SEARCH OF MR. CHARKE'S SKELETON
On the whole, however, I was unspeakably relieved. Dudley Ruthyn,
Esq., and Mrs. D. Ruthyn, were now skimming the blue waves on the
wings of the Seamew, and every morning widened the distance between
us, which was to go on increasing until it measured a point on the anti-
podes. The Liverpool paper containing this golden line was carefully
preserved in my room; and like the gentleman who, when much tried by
the shrewish heiress whom he had married, used to retire to his closet
and read over his marriage settlement, I used, when blue devils haunted
me, to unfold my newspaper and read the paragraph concerning the
Seamew.
The day I now speak of was a dismal one of sleety snow. My own
room seemed to me cheerier than the lonely parlour, where I could not
have had good Mary Quince so decorously.
A good fire, that kind and trusty face, the peep I had just indulged in
at my favourite paragraph, and the certainty of soon seeing my dear
cousin Monica, and afterwards affectionate Milly, raised my spirits.
'So,' said I, 'as old Wyat, you say, is laid up with rheumatism, and can't
turn up to scold me, I think I'll run up stairs and make an exploration,
and find poor Mr. Charke's skeleton in a closet.'
'Oh, law, Miss Maud, how can you say such things!' exclaimed good
old Quince, lifting up her honest grey head and round eyes from her
knitting.
I had grown so familiar with the frightful tradition of Mr. Charke and
his suicide, that I could now afford to frighten old Quince with him.
'I am quite serious. I am going to have a ramble up-stairs and down-
stairs, like goosey-goosey-gander; and if I do light upon his chamber, it is
all the more interesting. I feel so like Adelaide, in the "Romance of the
Forest," the book I was reading to you last night, when she commenced
her delightful rambles through the interminable ruined abbey in the
forest.'

347
 'Shall I go with you, Miss?'
'No, Quince; stay there; keep a good fire, and make some tea. I suspect
I shall lose heart and return very soon;' and with a shawl about me, cowl
fashion, over my head, I stole up-stairs.
I shall not recount with the particularity of the conscientious heroine
of Mrs. Ann Radcliffe, all the suites of apartments, corridors, and lobbies,
which I threaded in my ramble. It will be enough to mention that I
lighted upon a door at the end of a long gallery, which, I think, ran paral-
lel with the front of the house; it interested me because it had the air of
having been very long undisturbed. There were two rusty bolts, which
did not evidently belong to its original securities, and had been, though
very long ago, somewhat clumsily superadded. Dusty and rusty they
were, but I had no difficulty in drawing them back. There was a rusty
key, I remember it well, with a crooked handle in the lock; I tried to turn
it, but could not. My curiosity was piqued. I was thinking of going back
and getting Mary Quince's assistance. It struck me, however, that pos-
sibly it was not locked, so I pulled the door and it opened quite easily. I
did not find myself in a strangely-furnished suite of apartments, but at
the entrance of a gallery, which diverged at right angles from that
through which I had just passed; it was very imperfectly lighted, and
ended in total darkness.
I began to think how far I had already come, and to consider whether I
could retrace my steps with accuracy in case of a panic, and I had serious
thoughts of returning.
The idea of Mr. Charke was growing unpleasantly sharp and men-
acing; and as I looked down the long space before me, losing itself
among ambiguous shadows, lulled in a sinister silence, and as it were in-
viting my entrance like a trap, I was very near yielding to the cowardly
impulse.
But I took heart of grace and determined to see a little more. I opened
a side-door, and entered a large room, where were, in a corner, some
rusty and cobwebbed bird-cages, but nothing more. It was a wainscoted
room, but a white mildew stained the panels. I looked from the window:
it commanded that dismal, weed-choked quadrangle into which I had
once looked from another window. I opened a door at its farther end,
and entered another chamber, not quite so large, but equally dismal,
with the same prison-like look-out, not very easily discerned through the
grimy panes and the sleet that was falling thickly outside. The door
through which I had entered made a little accidental creak, and, with my
heart at my lips, I gazed at it, expecting to see Charke, or the skeleton of

348
which I had talked so lightly, stalk in at the half-open aperture. But I had
an odd sort of courage which was always fighting against my cowardly
nerves, and I walked to the door, and looking up and down the dismal
passage, was reassured.
Well, one room more—just that whose deep-set door fronted me, with
a melancholy frown, at the opposite end of the chamber. So to it I glided,
shoved it open, advancing one step, and the great bony figure of Ma-
dame de la Rougierre was before me.
I could see nothing else.
The drowsy traveller who opens his sheets to slip into bed, and sees a
scorpion coiled between them, may have experienced a shock the same
in kind, but immeasurably less in degree.
She sat in a clumsy old arm-chair, with an ancient shawl about her,
and her bare feet in a delft tub. She looked a thought more withered. Her
wig shoved back disclosed her bald wrinkled forehead, and enhanced
the ugly effect of her exaggerated features and the gaunt hollows of her
face. With a sense of incredulity and terror I gazed, freezing, at this evil
phantom, who returned my stare for a few seconds with a shrinking
scowl, dismal and grim, as of an evil spirit detected.
The meeting, at least then and there, was as complete a surprise for her
as for me. She could not tell how I might take it; but she quickly rallied,
burst into a loud screeching laugh, and, with her old Walpurgis gaiety,
danced some fantastic steps in her bare wet feet, tracking the floor with
water, and holding out with finger and thumb, in dainty caricature, her
slammakin old skirt, while she sang some of her nasal patois with an ab-
ominable hilarity and emphasis.
With a gasp, I too recovered from the fascination of the surprise. I
could not speak though for some seconds, and Madame was first.
'Ah, dear Maud, what surprise! Are we not overjoy, dearest, and can-
not speak? I am full of joy—quite charmed—ravie—of seeing you. So are
you of me, your face betray. Ah! yes, thou dear little baboon! here is poor
Madame once more! Who could have imagine?'
'I thought you were in France, Madame,' I said, with a dismal effort.
'And so I was, dear Maud; I 'av just arrive. Your uncle Silas he wrote to
the superioress for gouvernante to accompany a young lady—that is
you, Maud—on her journey, and she send me; and so, ma chère, here is
poor Madame arrive to charge herself of that affair.'
'How soon do we leave for France, Madame?' I asked.
'I do not know, but the old women—wat is her name?'
'Wyat,' I suggested.

349
 'Oh! oui, Waiatt;—she says two, three week. And who conduct you to
poor Madame's apartment, my dear Maud?' She inquired insinuatingly.
'No one, I answered promptly: 'I reached it quite accidentally, and I
can't imagine why you should conceal yourself.' Something like indigna-
tion kindled in my mind as I began to wonder at the sly strategy which
had been practised upon me.
'I 'av not conceal myself, Mademoiselle,' retorted the governness. 'I 'av
act precisally as I 'av been ordered. Your uncle, Mr. Silas Ruthyn, he is
afraid, Waiatt says, to be interrupted by his creditors, and everything
must be done very quaitly. I have been commanded to avoid me faire voir,
you know, and I must obey my employer—voilà tout!'
'And for how long have you been residing here?' I persisted, in the
same resentful vein.
''Bout a week. It is soche triste place! I am so glad to see you, Maud!
I've been so isolée, you dear leetle fool!'
'You are not glad, Madame; you don't love me—you never did,' I ex-
claimed with sudden vehemence.
'Yes, I am very glad; you know not, chère petite niaise, how I 'av desire
to educate you a leetle more. Let us understand one another. You think I
do not love you, Mademoiselle, because you have mentioned to your
poor papa that little dérèglement in his library. I have repent very often
that so great indiscretion of my life. I thought to find some letters of Dr.
Braierly. I think that man was trying to get your property, my dear
Maud, and if I had found something I would tell you all about. But it
was very great sottise, and you were very right to denounce me to Mon-
sieur. Je n'ai point de rancune contre vous. No, no, none at all. On the
contrary, I shall be your gardienne tutelaire—wat you call?—guardian an-
gel—ah, yes, that is it. You think I speak par dérision; not at all. No, my
dear cheaile, I do not speak par moquerie, unless perhaps the very least
degree in the world.'
And with these words Madame laughed unpleasantly, showing the
black caverns at the side of her mouth, and with a cold, steady malignity
in her gaze.
'Yes,' I said; 'I know what you mean, Madame—you hate me.'
'Oh! wat great ogly word! I am shock! vous me faites honte. Poor Ma-
dame, she never hate any one; she loves all her friends, and her enemies
she leaves to Heaven; while I am, as you see, more gay, more joyeuse than
ever, they have not been 'appy—no, they have not been fortunate these
others. Wen I return, I find always some of my enemy they 'av die, and
some they have put themselves into embarrassment, or there has arrived

350
to them some misfortune;' and Madame shrugged and laughed a little
scornfully.
A kind of horror chilled my rising anger, and I was silent.
'You see, my dear Maud, it is very natural you should think I hate you.
When I was with Mr. Austin Ruthyn, at Knowl, you know you did not
like a me—never. But in consequence of our intimacy I confide you that
which I 'av of most dear in the world, my reputation. It is always so. The
pupil can calomniate, without been discover, the gouvernante. 'Av I not
been always kind to you, Maud? Which 'av I use of violence or of sweet-
ness the most? I am, like other persons, jalouse de ma réputation; and it
was difficult to suffer with patience the banishment which was invoked
by you, because chiefly for your good, and for an indiscretion to which I
was excited by motives the most pure and laudable. It was you who
spied so cleverly—eh! and denounce me to Monsieur Ruthyn? Helas!
wat bad world it is!'
'I do not mean to speak at all about that occurrence, Madame; I will
not discuss it. I dare say what you tell me of the cause of your engage-
ment here is true, and I suppose we must travel, as you say, in company;
but you must know that the less we see of each other while in this house
the better.'
'I am not so sure of that, my sweet little béte; your education has been
neglected, or rather entirely abandoned, since you 'av arrive at this place,
I am told. You must not be a bestiole. We must do, you and I, as we are
ordered. Mr. Silas Ruthyn he will tell us.'
All this time Madame was pulling on her stockings, getting her boots
on, and otherwise proceeding with her dowdy toilet. I do not know why
I stood there talking to her. We often act very differently from what we
would have done upon reflection. I had involved myself in a dialogue, as
wiser generals than I have entangled themselves in a general action
when they meant only an affair of outposts. I had grown a little angry,
and would not betray the least symptom of fear, although I felt that sen-
sation profoundly.
'My beloved father thought you so unfit a companion for me that he
dismissed you at an hour's notice, and I am very sure that my uncle will
think as he did; you are not a fit companion for me, and had my uncle
known what had passed he would never have admitted you to this
house—never!'
'Helas! Quelle disgrace! And you really think so, my dear Maud,' ex-
claimed Madame, adjusting her wig before her glass, in the corner of
which I could see half of her sly, grinning face, as she ogled herself in it.

351
 'I do, and so do you, Madame,' I replied, growing more frightened.
'It may be—we shall see; but everyone is not so cruel as you, ma chère
petite calomniatrice.'
'You shan't call me those names,' I said, in an angry tremor.
'What name, dearest cheaile?'
'Calomniatrice—that is an insult.'
'Why, my most foolish little Maud, we may say rogue, and a thousand
other little words in play which we do not say seriously.
'You are not playing—you never play—you are angry, and you hate
me,' I exclaimed, vehemently.
'Oh, fie!—wat shame! Do you not perceive, dearest cheaile, how much
education you still need? You are proud, little demoiselle; you must be-
come, on the contrary, quaite humble. Je ferai baiser le babouin à
vous—ha, ha, ha! I weel make a you to kees the monkey. You are too
proud, my dear cheaile.'
'I am not such a fool as I was at Knowl,' I said; 'you shall not terrify me
here. I will tell my uncle the whole truth,' I said.
'Well, it may be that is the best,' she replied, with provoking coolness.
'You think I don't mean it?'
'Of course you do,' she replied.
'And we shall see what my uncle thinks of it.'
'We shall see, my dear,' she replied, with an air of mock contrition.
'Adieu, Madame!'
'You are going to Monsieur Ruthyn?—very good!'
I made her no answer, but more agitated than I cared to show her, I
left the room. I hurried along the twilight passage, and turned into the
long gallery that opened from it at right angles. I had not gone half-a-
dozen steps on my return when I heard a heavy tread and a rustling be-
hind me.
'I am ready, my dear; I weel accompany you,' said the smirking
phantom, hurrying after me.
'Very well,' was my reply; and threading our way, with a few hesita-
tions and mistakes, we reached and descended the stairs, and in a
minute more stood at my uncle's door.
My uncle looked hard and strangely at us as we entered. He looked,
indeed, as if his temper was violently excited, and glared and muttered
to himself for a few seconds; and treating Madame to a stare of disgust,
he asked peevishly—
'Why am I disturbed, pray?'

352
 'Miss Maud a Ruthyn, she weel explain,' replied Madame, with a great
courtesy, like a boat going down in a ground swell.
'Will you explain, my dear?' he asked, in his coldest and most sarcastic
tone.
I was agitated, and I am sure my statement was confused. I succeeded,
however, in saying what I wanted.
'Why, Madame, this is a grave charge! Do you admit it, pray?'
Madame, with the coolest possible effrontery, denied it all; with the
most solemn asseverations, and with streaming eyes and clasped hands,
conjured me melodramatically to withdraw that intolerable story, and to
do her justice. I stared at her for a while astounded, and turning sud-
denly to my uncle, as vehemently asserted the truth of every syllable I
had related.
'You hear, my dear child, you hear her deny everything; what am I to
think? You must excuse the bewilderment of my old head. Madame de
la—that lady has arrived excellently recommended by the superioress of
the place where dear Milly awaits you, and such persons are particular.
It strikes me, my dear niece, that you must have made a mistake.'
I protested here. But he went on without seeming to hear the
parenthesis—
'I know, my dear Maud, that you are quite incapable of wilfully de-
ceiving anyone; but you are liable to be deceived like other young
people. You were, no doubt, very nervous, and but half awake when you
fancied you saw the occurrence you describe; and Madame de—de—'
'De la Rougierre,' I supplied.
'Yes, thank you—Madame de la Rougierre, who has arrived with ex-
cellent testimonials, strenuously denies the whole thing. Here is a con-
flict, my dear—in my mind a presumption of mistake. I confess I should
prefer that theory to a peremptory assumption of guilt.'
I felt incredulous and amazed; it seemed as if a dream were being en-
acted before me. A transaction of the most serious import, which I had
witnessed with my own eyes, and described with unexceptionable
minuteness and consistency, is discredited by that strange and suspi-
cious old man with an imbecile coolness. It was quite in vain my reiterat-
ing my statement, backing it with the most earnest asseverations. I was
beating the air. It did not seem to reach his mind. It was all received with
a simper of feeble incredulity.
He patted and smoothed my head—he laughed gently, and shook his
while I insisted; and Madame protested her purity in now tranquil
floods of innocent tears, and murmured mild and melancholy prayers

353
for my enlightenment and reformation. I felt as if I should lose my
reason.
'There now, dear Maud, we have heard enough; it is, I do believe, a de-
lusion. Madame de la Rougierre will be your companion, at the utmost,
for three or four weeks. Do exercise a little of your self-command and
good sense—you know how I am tortured. Do not, I entreat, add to my
perplexities. You may make yourself very happy with Madame if you
will, I have no doubt.'
'I propose to Mademoiselle,' said Madame, drying her eyes with a
gentle alacrity, 'to profit of my visit for her education. But she does not
seem to weesh wat I think is so useful.'
'She threatened me with some horrid French vulgarism—de faire baiser
le babouin à moi, whatever that means; and I know she hates me,' I
replied, impetuously.
'Doucement—doucement!' said my uncle, with a smile at once amused
and compassionate. 'Doucement! ma chère.'
With great hands and cunning eyes uplifted, Madame tearfully—for
her tears came on short notice—again protested her absolute innocence.
She had never in all her life so much as heard one so villain phrase.
'You see, my dear, you have misheard; young people never attend.
You will do well to take advantage of Madame's short residence to get
up your French a little, and the more you are with her the better.'
'I understand then, Mr. Ruthyn, you weesh I should resume my in-
structions?' asked Madame.
'Certainly; and converse all you can in French with Mademoiselle
Maud. You will be glad, my dear, that I've insisted on it,' he said, turning
to me, 'when you have reached France, where you will find they speak
nothing else. And now, dear Maud—no, not a word more—you must
leave me. Farewell, Madame!'
And he waved us out a little impatiently; and I, without one look to-
ward Madame de la Rougierre, stunned and incensed, walked into my
room and shut the door.

354
Chapter 55
THE FOOT OF HERCULES
I stood at the window—still the same leaden sky and feathery sleet be-
fore me—trying to estimate the magnitude of the discovery I had just
made. Gradually a kind of despair seized me, and I threw myself pas-
sionately on my bed, weeping aloud.
Good Mary Quince was, of course, beside me in a moment, with her
pale, concerned face.
'Oh, Mary, Mary, she's come—that dreadful woman, Madame de la
Rougierre, has come to be my governess again; and Uncle Silas won't
hear or believe anything about her. It is vain talking; he is prepossessed.
Was ever so unfortunate a creature as I? Who could have fancied or
feared such a thing? Oh, Mary, Mary, what am I to do? what is to be-
come of me? Am I never to shake off that vindictive, terrible woman?'
Mary said all she could to console me. I was making too much of her.
What was she, after all, more than a governess?—she could not hurt me.
I was not a child no longer—she could not bully me now; and my uncle,
though he might be deceived for a while, would not be long finding her
out.
Thus and soforth did good Mary Quince declaim, and at last she did
impress me a little, and I began to think that I had, perhaps, been making
too much of Madame's visit. But still imagination, that instrument and
mirror of prophecy, showed her formidable image always on its surface,
with a terrible moving background of shadows.
In a few minutes there was a knock at my door, and Madame herself
entered. She was in walking costume. There had been a brief clearing of
the weather, and she proposed our making a promenade together.
On seeing Mary Quince she broke into a rapture of compliment and
greeting, and took what Mr. Richardson would have called her passive
hand, and pressed it with wonderful tenderness.
Honest Mary suffered all this somewhat reluctantly, never smiling,
and, on the contrary, looking rather ruefully at her feet.

355
 'Weel you make a some tea? When I come back, dear Mary Quince, I
'av so much to tell you and dear Miss Maud of all my adventures while I
'av been away; it will make a you laugh ever so much. I was—what you
theenk?—near, ever so near to be married!' And upon this she broke into
a screeching laugh, and shook Mary Quince merrily by the shoulder.
I sullenly declined going out, or rising; and when she had gone away, I
told Mary that I should confine myself to my room while Madame
stayed.
But self-denying ordinances self-imposed are not always long ob-
served by youth. Madame de la Rougierre laid herself out to be agree-
able; she had no end of stories—more than half, no doubt, pure fic-
tions—to tell, but all, in that triste place, amusing. Mary Quince began to
entertain a better opinion of her. She actually helped to make beds, and
tried to be in every way of use, and seemed to have quite turned over a
new leaf; and so gradually she moved me, first to listen, and at last to
talk.
On the whole, these terms were better than a perpetual skirmish; but,
notwithstanding all her gossip and friendliness, I continued to have a
profound distrust and even terror of her.
She seemed curious about the Bartram-Haugh family, and all their
ways, and listened darkly when I spoke. I told her, bit by bit, the whole
story of Dudley, and she used, whenever there was news of the Seamew,
to read the paragraph for my benefit; and in poor Milly's battered little
Atlas she used to trace the ship's course with a pencil, writing in, from
point to point, the date at which the vessel was 'spoken' at sea. She
seemed amused at the irrepressible satisfaction with which I received
these minutes of his progress; and she used to calculate the distance;—on
such a day he was two hundred and sixty miles, on such another five
hundred; the last point was more than eight hundred—good, better,
best—best of all would be those 'deleecious antipode, w'ere he would so
soon promener on his head twelve thousand mile away;' and at the con-
ceit she would fall into screams of laughter.
Laugh as she might, however, there was substantial comfort in think-
ing of the boundless stretch of blue wave that rolled between me and
that villainous cousin.
I was now on very odd terms with Madame. She had not relapsed into
her favourite vein of oracular sarcasm and menace; she had, on the con-
trary, affected her good-humoured and genial vein. But I was not to be
deceived by this. I carried in my heart that deep-seated fear of her which
her unpleasant good-humour and gaiety never disturbed for a moment. I

356
was very glad, therefore, when she went to Todcaster by rail, to make
some purchases for the journey which we were daily expecting to com-
mence; and happy in the opportunity of a walk, good old Mary Quince
and I set forth for a little ramble.
As I wished to make some purchases in Feltram, I set out, with Mary
Quince for my companion. On reaching the great gate we found it
locked. The key, however, was in it, and as it required more than the
strength of my hand to turn, Mary tried it. At the same moment old
Crowle came out of the sombre lodge by its side, swallowing down a
mouthful of his dinner in haste. No one, I believe, liked the long suspi-
cious face of the old man, seldom shorn or washed, and furrowed with
great, grimy perpendicular wrinkles. Leering fiercely at Mary, not pre-
tending to see me, he wiped his mouth hurriedly with the back of his
hand, and growled—
'Drop it.'
'Open it, please, Mr. Crowle,' said Mary, renouncing the task.
Crowle wiped his mouth as before, looking inauspicious; shuffling to
the spot, and muttering to himself, he first satisfied himself that the lock
was fast, and then lodged the key in his coat-pocket, and still muttering,
retraced his steps.
'We want the gate open, please,' said Mary.
No answer.
'Miss Maud wants to go into the town,' she insisted.
'We wants many a thing we can't get,' he growled, stepping into his
habitation.
'Please open the gate,' I said, advancing.
He half turned on his threshold, and made a dumb show of touching
his hat, although he had none on.
'Can't, ma'am; without an order from master, no one goes out here.'
'You won't allow me and my maid to pass the gate?' I said.
''Tisn't me, ma'am,' said he; 'but I can't break orders, and no one goes
out without the master allows.'
And without awaiting further parley, he entered, shutting his hatch
behind him.
So Mary and I stood, looking very foolish at one another. This was the
first restraint I had experienced since Milly and I had been refused a pas-
sage through the Windmill paling. The rule, however, on which Crowle
insisted I felt confident could not have been intended to apply to me. A
word to Uncle Silas would set all right; and in the meantime I proposed

357
to Mary that we should take a walk—my favourite ramble—into the
Windmill Wood.
I looked toward Dickon's farmstead as we passed, thinking that
Beauty might have been there. I did see the girl, who was plainly watch-
ing us. She stood in the doorway of the cottage, withdrawn into the
shade, and, I fancied, anxious to escape observation. When we had
passed on a little, I was confirmed in that belief by seeing her run down
the footpath which led from the rear of the farm-yard in the direction
contrary to that in which we were moving.
'So,' I thought, 'poor Meg falls from me!'
Mary Quince and I rambled on through the wood, till we reached the
windmill itself, and seeing its low arched door open, we entered the
chiaro-oscuro of its circular basement. As we did so I heard a rush and
the creak of a plank, and looking up, I saw just a foot—no
more—disappearing through the trap-door.
In the case of one we love or fear intensely, what feats of comparative
anatomy will not the mind unconsciously perform? Constructing the
whole living animal from the turn of an elbow, the curl of a whisker, a
segment of a hand. How instantaneous and unerring is the instinct!
'Oh, Mary, what have I seen!' I whispered, recovering from the fascina-
tion that held my gaze fast to the topmost rounds of the ladder, that dis-
appeared in the darkness above the open door in the loft. 'Come,
Mary—come away.'
At the same instant appeared the swarthy, sullen face of Dickon
Hawkes in the shadow of the aperture. Having but one serviceable leg,
his descent was slow and awkward, and having got his head to the level
of the loft he stopped to touch his hat to me, and to hasp and lock the
trap-door.
When this was done, the man again touched his hat, and looked stead-
ily and searchingly at me for a second or so, while he got the key into his
pocket.
'These fellahs stores their flour too long 'ere, ma'am. There's a deal o'
trouble a-looking arter it. I'll talk wi' Silas, and settle that.'
By this time he had got upon the worn-tiled floor, and touching his hat
again, he said—
'I'm a-goin' to lock the door, ma'am!'
So with a start, and again whispering—
'Come, Mary—come away'—
With my arm fast in hers, we made a swift departure.

358
 'I feel very faint, Mary,' said I. 'Come quickly. There's nobody follow-
ing us?'
'No, Miss, dear. That man with the wooden leg is putting a padlock on
the door.'
'Come very fast,' I said; and when we had got a little farther, I said,
'Look again, and see whether anyone is following.'
'No one, Miss,' answered Mary, plainly surprised. 'He's putting the
key in his pocket, and standin' there a-lookin' after us.'
'Oh, Mary, did not you see it?'
'What, Miss?' asked Mary, almost stopping.
'Come on, Mary. Don't pause. They will observe us,' I whispered, hur-
rying her forward.
'What did you see, Miss?' repeated Mary.
'Mr. Dudley,' I whispered, with a terrified emphasis, not daring to turn
my head as I spoke.
'Lawk, Miss!' remonstrated honest Quince, with a protracted intona-
tion of wonder and incredulity, which plainly implied a suspicion that I
was dreaming.
'Yes, Mary. When we went into that dreadful room—that dark, round
place—I saw his foot on the ladder. His foot, Mary I can't be mistaken. I
won't be questioned. You'll find I'm right. He's here. He never went in that
ship at all. A fraud has been practised on me—it is infamous—it is ter-
rible. I'm frightened out of my life. For heaven's sake, look back again,
and tell me what you see.'
'Nothing, Miss,' answered Mary, in contagious whispers, 'but that
wooden-legged chap, standin' hard by the door.'
'And no one with him?'
'No one, Miss.'
We got without pursuit through the gate in the paling. I drew breath
so soon as we had reached the cover of the thicket near the chestnut hol-
low, and I began to reflect that whoever the owner of the foot might
be—and I was still instinctively certain that it was no other than Dud-
ley—concealment was plainly his object. I need not, then, be at all uneasy
lest he should pursue us.
As we walked slowly and in silence along the grassy footpath, I heard
a voice calling my name from behind. Mary Quince had not heard it at
all, but I was quite certain.
It was repeated twice or thrice, and, looking in considerable doubt and
trepidation under the hanging boughs, I saw Beauty, not ten yards away,
standing among the underwood.

359
 I remember how white the eyes and teeth of the swarthy girl looked,
as with hand uplifted toward her ear, she watched us while, as it
seemed, listening for more distant sounds.
Beauty beckoned eagerly to me, advancing, with looks of great fear
and anxiety, two or three short steps toward me.
'She baint to come,' said Beauty, under her breath, so soon as I had
nearly reached her, pointing without raising her hand at Mary Quince.
'Tell her to sit on the ash-tree stump down yonder, and call ye as loud
as she can if she sees any fellah a-comin' this way, an' rin ye back to me;'
and she impatiently beckoned me away on her errand.
When I returned, having made this dispositions, I perceived how pale
the girl was.
'Are you ill, Meg?' I asked.
'Never ye mind. Well enough. Listen, Miss; I must tell it all in a crack,
an' if she calls, rin awa' to her, and le' me to myself, for if fayther or
t'other un wor to kotch me here, I think they'd kill me a'most. Hish!'
She paused a second, looking askance, in the direction where she fan-
cied Mary Quince was. Then she resumed in a whisper—
'Now, lass, mind ye, ye'll keep what I say to yourself. You're not to tell
that un nor any other for your life, mind, a word o' what I'm goin' to tell
ye.'
'I'll not say a word. Go on.'
'Did ye see Dudley?'
'I think I saw him getting up the ladder.'
'In the mill? Ha! that's him. He never went beyond Todcaster. He staid
in Feltram after.'
It was my turn to look pale now. My worst conjecture was established.

360
Chapter 56
I CONSPIRE
'That's a bad un, he is—oh, Miss, Miss Maud! It's nout that's good as
keeps him an' fayther—(mind, lass, ye promised you would not tell no
one)—as keeps them two a-talkin' and a-smokin' secret-like together in
the mill. An' fayther don't know I found him out. They don't let me into
the town, but Brice tells me, and he knows it's Dudley; and it's nout
that's good, but summat very bad. An' I reckon, Miss, it's all about you.
Be ye frightened, Miss Maud?'
I felt on the point of fainting, but I rallied.
'Not much, Meg. Go on, for Heaven's sake. Does Uncle Silas know he
is here?'
'Well, Miss, they were with him, Brice told me, from eleven o'clock to
nigh one o' Tuesday night, an' went in and come out like thieves, 'feard
ye'd see 'em.'
'And how does Brice know anything bad?' I asked, with a strange
freezing sensation creeping from my heels to my head and down
again—I am sure deadly pale, but speaking very collectedly.
'Brice said, Miss, he saw Dudley a-cryin' and lookin' awful black, and
says he to fayther, "'Tisn't in my line nohow, an' I can't;" and says fayther
to he, "No one likes they soart o' things, but how can ye help it? The old
boy's behind ye wi' his pitchfork, and ye canna stop." An' wi' that he be-
thought him o' Brice, and says he, "What be ye a-doin' there? Get ye
down wi' the nags to blacksmith, do ye." An' oop gits Dudley, pullin' his
hat ower his brows, an' says he, "I wish I was in the Seamew. I'm good for
nout wi' this thing a-hangin' ower me." An' that's all as Brice heard. An'
he's afeard o' fayther and Dudley awful. Dudley could lick him to pot if
he crossed him, and he and fayther 'ud think nout o' havin' him afore the
justices for poachin', and swearin' him into gaol.'
'But why does he think it's about me?'

361
 'Hish!' said Meg, who fancied she heard a sound, but all was quiet. 'I
can't say—we're in danger, lass. I don't know why—but he does, an' so
do I, an', for that matter, so do ye.'
'Meg, I'll leave Bartram.'
'Ye can't.'
'Can't. What do you mean, girl?'
'They won't let ye oot. The gates is all locked. They've dogs—they've
bloodhounds, Brice says. Ye can't git oot, mind; put that oot o' your
head.
'I tell ye what ye'll do. Write a bit o' a note to the lady yonder at Elver-
ston; an' though Brice be a wild fellah, and 'appen not ower good some-
times, he likes me, an' I'll make him take it. Fayther will be grindin' at
mill to-morrow. Coom ye here about one o'clock—that's if ye see the
mill-sails a-turnin'—and me and Brice will meet ye here. Bring that old
lass wi' ye. There's an old French un, though, that talks wi' Dudley. Mind
ye, that un knows nout o' the matter. Brice be a kind lad to me,
whatsoe'er he be wi' others, and I think he won't split. Now, lass, I must
go. God help ye; God bless ye; an', for the world's wealth, don't ye let
one o' them see ye've got ought in your head, not even that un.'
Before I could say another word, the girl had glided from me, with a
wild gesture of silence, and a shake of her head.
I can't at all account for the state in which I was. There are resources
both of energy and endurance in human nature which we never suspect
until the tremendous voice of necessity summons them into play. Petri-
fied with a totally new horror, but with something of the coldness and
impassiveness of the transformation, I stood, spoke, and acted—a won-
der, almost a terror, to myself.
I met Madame on my return as if nothing had happened. I heard her
ugly gabble, and looked at the fruits of her hour's shopping, as I might
hear, and see, and talk, and smile, in a dream.
But the night was dreadful. When Mary Quince and I were alone, I
locked the door. I continued walking up and down the room, with my
hands clasped, looking at the inexorable floor, the walls, the ceiling, with
a sort of imploring despair. I was afraid to tell my dear old Mary. The
least indiscretion would be failure, and failure destruction.
I answered her perplexed solicitudes by telling her that I was not very
well—that I was uneasy; but I did not fail to extract from her a promise
that she would not hint to mortal, either my suspicions about Dudley, or
our rencontre with Meg Hawkes.

362
 I remember how, when, after we had got, late at night, into bed, I sat
up, shivering with horror, in mine, while honest Mary's tranquil breath-
ing told how soundly she slept. I got up, and looked from the window,
expecting to see some of those wolfish dogs which they had brought to
the place prowling about the court-yard. Sometimes I prayed, and felt
tranquillised, and fancied that I was perhaps to have a short interval of
sleep. But the serenity was delusive, and all the time my nerves were
strung hysterically. Sometimes I felt quite wild, and on the point of
screaming. At length that dreadful night passed away. Morning came,
and a less morbid, though hardly a less terrible state of mind. Madame
paid me an early visit. A thought struck me. I knew that she loved shop-
ping, and I said, quite carelessly—
'Your yesterday's shopping tempts me, Madame, and I must get a few
things before we leave for France. Suppose we go into Feltram to-day,
and make my purchases, you and I?'
She looked from the corner of her cunning eye in my face without an-
swering. I did not blench, and she said—
'Vary good. I would be vary 'appy,' and again she looked oddly at me.
'Wat hour, my dear Maud? One o'clock? I think that weel de very well,
eh?'
I assented, and she grew silent.
I wonder whether I did look as careless as I tried. I do not know.
Through the whole of this awful period I was, I think, supernatural; and
I even now look back with wonder upon my strange self-command.
Madame, I hoped, had heard nothing of the order which prohibited
my exit from the place. She would herself conduct me to Feltram, and se-
cure, by accompanying me, my free egress.
Once in Feltram, I would assert my freedom, and manage to reach my
dear cousin Knollys. Back to Bartram no power should convey me. My
heart swelled and fluttered in the awful suspense of that hour.
Oh, Bartram-Haugh! how came you by those lofty walls? Which of my
ancestors had begirt me with an impassable barrier in this horrible strait?
Suddenly I remembered my letter to Lady Knollys. If I were disap-
pointed in effecting my escape through Feltram, all would depend upon
it.
Having locked my door, I wrote as follows:—
'Oh, my beloved cousin, as you hope for comfort in your hour of fear,
aid me now. Dudley has returned, and is secreted somewhere about the
grounds. It is a fraud. They all pretend to me that he is gone away in the
Seamew; and he or they had his name published as one of the passengers.

363
Madame de la Rougierre has appeared! She is here, and my uncle insists
on making her my close companion. I am at my wits' ends. I cannot es-
cape—the walls are a prison; and I believe the eyes of my gaolers are al-
ways upon me. Dogs are kept for pursuit—yes, dogs! and the gates are
locked against my escape. God help me! I don't know where to look, or
whom to trust. I fear my uncle more than all. I think I could bear this bet-
ter if I knew what their plans are, even the worst. If ever you loved or
pitied me, dear cousin, I conjure you, help me in this extremity. Take me
away from this. Oh, darling, for God's sake take me away!
'Your distracted and terrified cousin,
MAUD'
'Bartram-Haugh.'
I sealed this letter jealously, as if the inanimate missive would burst its
cerements, and proclaim my desperate appeal through all the chambers
and passages of silent Bartram.
Old Quince, greatly to cousin Monica's amusement, persisted in fur-
nishing me with those capacious pockets which belonged to a former
generation. I was glad of this old-world eccentricity now, and placed my
guilty letter, that, amidst all my hypocrisies, spoke out with terrible
frankness, deep in this receptacle, and having hid away the pen and ink,
my accomplices, I opened the door, and resumed my careless looks,
awaiting Madame's return.
'I was to demand to Mr. Ruthyn the permission to go to Feltram, and I
think he will allow. He want to speak to you.'
With Madame I entered my uncle's room. He was reclining on a sofa,
his back towards us, and his long white hair, as fine as spun glass, hung
over the back of the couch.
'I was going to ask you, dear Maud, to execute two or three little com-
missions for me in Feltram.'
My dreadful letter felt lighter in my pocket, and my heart beat
violently.
'But I have just recollected that this is a market-day, and Feltram will
be full of doubtful characters and tipsy persons, so we must wait till to-
morrow; and Madame says, very kindly, that she will, as she does not so
much mind, make any little purchases to-day which cannot conveniently
wait.'
Madame assented with a courtesy to Uncle Silas, and a great hollow
smile to me.
By this time Uncle Silas had raised himself from his reclining posture,
and was sitting, gaunt and white, upon the sofa.

364
 'News of my prodigal to-day,' he said, with a peevish smile, drawing
the newspaper towards him. 'The vessel has been spoken again. How
many miles away, do you suppose?'
He spoke in a plaintive key, looking at me, with hungry eyes, and a
horribly smiling countenance.
'How far do you suppose Dudley is to-day?' and he laid the palm of
his hand on the paragraph as he spoke. Guess!'
For a moment I fancied this was a theatric preparation to give point to
the disclosure of Dudley's real whereabouts.
'It was a very long way. Guess!' he repeated.
So, stammering a little and pale, I performed the required hypocrisy,
after which my uncle read aloud for my benefit the line or two in which
were recorded the event, and the latitude and longitude of the vessel at
the time, of which Madame made a note in her memory, for the purpose
of making her usual tracing in poor Milly's Atlas.
I cannot say how it really was, but I fancied that Uncle Silas was all the
time reading my countenance, with a grim and practised scrutiny; but
nothing came of it, and we were dismissed.
Madame loved shopping, even for its own sake, but shopping with op-
portunities of peculation still more. She she had had her luncheon, and
was dressed for the excursion, she did precisely what I now most de-
sired—she proposed to take charge of my commissions and my money;
and thus entrusted, left me at liberty to keep tryst at the Chestnut
Hollow.
So soon as I had seen Madame fairly off, I hurried Mary Quince, and
got my things on quickly. We left the house by the side entrance, which I
knew my uncle's windows did not command. Glad was I to feel a slight
breeze, enough to make the mill-sails revolve; and as we got further into
the grounds, and obtained a distant view of the picturesque old wind-
mill, I felt inexpressibly relieved on seeing that it was actually working.
We were now in the Chestnut Hollow, and I sent Mary Quince to her
old point of observation, which commanded a view of the path in the
direction of the Windmill Wood, with her former order to call 'I've found
it,' as loudly as she could, in case she should see anyone approaching.
I stopped at the point of our yesterday's meeting. I peered under the
branches, and my heart beat fast as I saw Meg Hawkes awaiting me.

365
Chapter 57
THE LETTER
'Come away, lass,' whispered Beauty, very pale; 'he's here—Tom Brice.'
And she led the way, shoving aside the leafless underwood, and we
reached Tom. The slender youth, groom or poacher—he might answer
for either—with his short coat and gaitered legs, was sitting on a low ho-
rizontal bough, with his shoulder against the trunk.
'Don't ye mind; sit ye still, lad,' said Meg, observing that he was pre-
paring to rise, and had entangled his hat in the boughs. 'Sit ye still, and
hark to the lady. He'll take it, Miss Maud, if he can; wi' na ye, lad?'
'E'es, I'll take it,' he replied, holding out his hand.
'Tom Brice, you won't deceive me?'
'Noa, sure,' said Tom and Meg nearly in the same breath.
'You are an honest English lad, Tom—you would not betray me?' I
was speaking imploringly.
'Noa, sure,' repeated Tom.
There was something a little unsatisfactory in the countenance of this
light-haired youth, with the sharpish up-turned nose. Throughout our
interview he said next to nothing, and smiled lazily to himself, like a
man listening to a child's solemn nonsense, and leading it on, with an
amused irony, from one wise sally to another.
Thus it seemed to me that this young clown, without in the least in-
tending to be offensive, was listening to me with a profound and lazy
mockery.
I could not choose, however; and, such as he was, I must employ him
or none.
'Now, Tom Brice, a great deal depends on this.'
'That's true for her, Tom Brice,' said Meg, who now and then con-
firmed my asseverations.
'I'll give you a pound now, Tom,' and I placed the coin and the letter to-
gether in his hand. 'And you are to give this letter to Lady Knollys, at
Elverston; you know Elverston, don't you?'

366
 'He does, Miss. Don't ye, lad?'
'E'es.'
'Well, do so, Tom, and I'll be good to you so long as I live.'
'D'ye hear, lad?'
'E'es,' said Tom; 'it's very good.'
'You'll take the letter, Tom? 'I said, in much greater trepidation as to
his answer than I showed.
'E'es, I'll take the letter,' said he, rising, and turning it about in his fin-
gers under his eye, like a curiosity.
'Tom Brice,' I said, 'If you can't be true to me, say so; but don't take the
letter except to give it to Lady Knollys, at Elverston. If you won't promise
that, let me have the note back. Keep the pound; but tell me that you
won't mention my having asked you to carry a letter to Elverston to
anyone.'
For the first time Tom looked perfectly serious. He twiddled the corner
of my letter between his finger and thumb, and wore very much the
countenance of a poacher about to be committed.
'I don't want to chouce ye, Miss; but I must take care o' myself, ye see.
The letters goes all through Silas's fingers to the post, and he'd know
damn well this worn't among 'em. They do say he opens 'em, and reads
'em before they go; an' that's his diversion. I don't know; but I do believe
that's how it be; an' if this one turned up, they'd all know it went be
hand, and I'd be spotted for't.'
'But you know who I am, Tom, and I'd save you,' said I, eagerly.
'Ye'd want savin' yerself, I'm thinkin', if that feel oot,' said Tom, cynic-
ally. 'I don't say, though, I'll not take it—only this—I won't run my head
again a wall for no one.'
'Tom,' I said, with a sudden inspiration, 'give me back the letter, and
take me out of Bartram; take me to Elverston; it will be the best
thing—for you, Tom, I mean—it will indeed—that ever befell you.'
With this clown I was pleading, as for my life; my hand was on his
sleeve. I was gazing imploringly in his face.
But it would not do; Tom Brice looked amused again, swung his head
a little on one side, grinning sheepishly over his shoulder on the roots of
the trees beside him, as if he were striving to keep himself from an un-
civil fit of laughter.
'I'll do what a wise lad may, Miss; but ye don't know they lads; they
bain't that easy come over; and I won't get knocked on the head, nor sent
to gaol 'appen, for no good to thee nor me. There's Meg there, she knows
well enough I could na' manage that; so I won't try it, Miss, by no

367
chance; no offence, Miss; but I'd rayther not, an' I'll just try what I can
make o'this; that's all I can do for ye.'
Tom Brice, with these words, stood up, and looked uneasily in the dir-
ection of the Windmill Wood.
'Mind ye, Miss, coom what will, ye'll not tell o' me?'
'Whar 'ill ye go now, Tom?' inquired Meg, uneasily.
'Never ye mind, lass,' answered he, breaking his way through the
thicket, and soon disappearing.
'E'es that 'ill be it—he'll git into the sheepwalk behind the mound.
They're all down yonder; git ye back, Miss, to the hoose—be the side-
door; mind ye, don't go round the corner; and I'll jest sit awhile among
the bushes, and wait a good time for a start. And good-bye, Miss; and
don't ye show like as if there was aught out o' common on your mind.
Hish!'
There was a distant hallooing.
'That be fayther!' she whispered, with a very blank countenance, and
listened with her sunburnt hand to her ear.
'Tisn't me, only Davy he'll be callin',' she said, with a great sigh, and a
joyless smile. 'Now git ye away i' God's name.'
So running lightly along the path, under cover of this thick wood, I re-
called Mary Quince, and together we hastened back again to the house,
and entered, as directed, by the side-door, which did not expose us to be
seen from the Windmill Wood, and, like two criminals, we stole up by
the backstairs, and so through the side-gallery to my room; and there sat
down to collect my wits, and try to estimate the exact effect of what had
just occurred.
Madame had not returned. That was well; she always visited my room
first, and everything was precisely as I had left it—a certain sign that her
prying eyes and busy fingers had not been at work during my absence.
When she did appear, strange to say, it was to bring me unexpected
comfort. She had in her hand a letter from my dear Lady Knollys—a
gleam of sunlight from the free and happy outer world entered with it.
The moment Madame left me to myself, I opened it and read as
follows:—
'I am so happy, my dearest Maud, in the immediate prospect of seeing
you. I have had a really kind letter from poor Silas—poor I say, for I
really compassionate his situation, about which he has been, I do believe,
quite frank—at least Ilbury says so, and somehow he happens to know. I
have had quite an affecting, changed letter. I will tell you all when I see
you. He wants me ultimately to undertake that which would afford me

368
the most unmixed happiness—I mean the care of you, my dear girl. I
only fear lest my too eager acceptance of the trust should excite that vein
of opposition which is in most human beings, and induce him to think
over his offer less favourably again. He says I must come to Bartram, and
stay a night, and promises to lodge me comfortably; about which last I
honestly do not care a pin, when the chance of a comfortable evening's
gossip with you is in view. Silas explains his sad situation, and must
hold himself in readiness for early flight, if he would avoid the risk of
losing his personal liberty. It is a sad thing that he should have so irre-
trievably ruined himself, that poor Austin's liberality seems to have pos-
itively precipitated his extremity. His great anxiety is that I should see
you before you leave for your short stay in France. He thinks you must
leave before a fortnight. I am thinking of asking you to come over here; I
know you would be just as well at Elverston as in France; but perhaps, as
he seems disposed to do what we all wish, it may be safer to let him set
about it in his own way. The truth is, I have so set my heart upon it that I
fear to risk it by crossing him even in a trifle. He says I must fix an early
day next week, and talks as if he meant to urge me to make a longer visit
than he defined. I shall be only too happy. I begin, my dear Maud, to
think that there is no use in trying to control events, and that things often
turn out best, and most exactly to our wishes, by being left quite to them-
selves. I think it was Talleyrand who praised the talent of waiting so
much. In high spirits, and with my head brimful of plans, I remain,
dearest Maud, ever your affectionate cousin,
MONICA.'
Here was an inexplicable puzzle! A faint radiance of hope, however,
began to overspread a landscape only a few minutes before darkened by
total eclipse; but construct what theory I might, all were inconsistent
with many well-established and awful incongruities, and their wrecks
lay strown over the troubled waters of the gulf into which I gazed.
Why was Madame here? Why was Dudley concealed about the place?
Why was I a prisoner within the walls? What were those dangers which
Meg Hawkes seemed to think so great and so imminent as to induce her
to risk her lover's safety for my deliverance? All these menacing facts
stood grouped together against the dark certainty that never were men
more deeply interested in making away with one human being, than
were Uncle Silas and Dudley in removing me.
Sometimes to these dreadful evidences I abandoned my soul. Some-
times, reading Cousin Monica's sunny letter, the sky would clear, and
my terrors melt away like nightmares in the morning. I never repented,

369
however, that I had sent my letter by Tom Brice. Escape from Bartram-
Haugh was my hourly longing.
That evening Madame invited herself to tea with me. I did not object.
It was better just then to be on friendly relations with everybody, if pos-
sible, even on their own terms. She was in one of her boisterous and hil-
arious moods, and there was a perfume of brandy.
She narrated some compliments paid her that morning in Feltram by
that 'good crayature' Mrs. Litheways, the silk-mercer, and what ''ansom
faylow' was her new foreman—(she intended plainly that I should
'queez' her)—and how 'he follow' her with his eyes wherever she went. I
thought, perhaps, he fancied she might pocket some of his lace or gloves.
And all the time her great wicked eyes were rolling and glancing accord-
ing to her ideas of fascination, and her bony face grinning and flaming
with the 'strong drink' in which she delighted. She sang twaddling chan-
sons, and being, as was her wont under such exhilarating influences, in a
vapouring mood, she vowed that I should have my carriage and horses
immediately.
'I weel try what I can do weeth your Uncle Silas. We are very good old
friends, Mr. Ruthyn and I,' she said with a leer which I did not under-
stand, and which yet frightened me.
I never could quite understand why these Jezebels like to insinuate the
dreadful truth against themselves; but they do. Is it the spirit of feminine
triumph overcoming feminine shame, and making them vaunt their fall
as an evidence of bygone fascination and existing power? Need we won-
der? Have not women preferred hatred to indifference, and the reputa-
tion of witchcraft, with all its penalties, to absolute insignificance? Thus,
as they enjoyed the fear inspired among simple neighbours by their ima-
gined traffic with the father of ill, did Madame, I think, relish with a cyn-
ical vainglory the suspicion of her satanic superiority.
Next morning Uncle Silas sent for me. He was seated at his table, and
spoke his little French greeting, smiling as usual, pointing to a chair
opposite.
'How far, I forget,' he said, carelessly laying his newspaper on the
table, 'did you yesterday guess Dudley to be?'
'Eleven hundred miles I thought it was.'
'Oh yes, so it was;' and then there was an abstracted pause. 'I have
been writing to Lord Ilbury, your trustee,' he resumed. I ventured to say,
my dear Maud—(for having thoughts of a different arrangement for you,
more suitable under my distressing circumstances, I do not wish to va-
cate without some expression of your estimate of my treatment of you

370
while under my roof)—I ventured to say that you thought me kind, con-
siderate, indulgent,—may I say so?'
I assented. What could I say?
'I said you had enjoyed our poor way of living here—our rough ways
and liberty. Was I right?'
Again I assented.
'And, in fact, that you had nothing to object against your poor old
uncle, except indeed his poverty, which you forgave. I think I said truth.
Did I, dear Maud?'
Again I acquiesced.
All this time he was fumbling among the papers in his coatpocket.
'That is satisfactory. So I expected you to say,' he murmured. 'I expec-
ted no less.'
On a sudden a frightful change spread across his face. He rose like a
spectre with a white scowl.
'Then how do you account for that?' he shrieked in a voice of thunder,
and smiting my open letter to Lady Knollys, face upward, upon the
table.
I stared at my uncle, unable to speak, until I seemed to lose sight of
him; but his voice, like a bell, still yelled in my ears.
'There! young hypocrite and liar! explain that farrago of slander which
you bribed my servant to place in the hands of my kinswoman, Lady
Knollys.'
And so on and on it went, I gazing into darkness, until the voice itself
became indistinct, grew into a buzz, and hummed away into silence.
I think I must have had a fit.
When I came to myself I was drenched with water, my hair, face, neck,
and dress. I did not in the least know where I was. I thought my father
was ill, and spoke to him. Uncle Silas was standing near the window,
looking unspeakably grim. Madame was seated beside me, and an open
bottle of ether, one of Uncle Silas's restoratives, on the table before me.
'Who's that—who's ill—is anyone dead?' I cried.
At last I was relieved by long paroxysms of weeping. When I was suf-
ficiently recovered, I was conveyed into my own room.

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Chapter 58
LADY KNOLLYS' CARRIAGE
Next morning—it was Sunday—I lay on my bed in my dressing-gown,
dull, apathetic, with all my limbs sore, and, as I thought, rheumatic, and
feeling so ill that I did not care to speak or lift my head. My recollection
of what had passed in Uncle Silas's room was utterly confused, and it
seemed to me as if my poor father had been there and taken a share—I
could not remember how—in the conference.
I was too exhausted and stupid to clear up this horrible muddle, and
merely lay with my face toward the wall, motionless and silent, except
for a great sigh every now and then.
Good Mary Quince was in the room—there was some comfort in that;
but I felt quite worn out, and had rather she did not speak to me; and in-
deed for the time I felt absolutely indifferent as to whether I lived or
died.
Cousin Monica this morning, at pleasant Elverston, all-unconscious of
my sad plight, proposed to Lady Mary Carysbroke and Lord Ilbury, her
guests, to drive over to church at Feltram, and then pay us a visit at
Bartram-Haugh, to which they readily agreed.
Accordingly, at about two o'clock, this pleasant party of three arrived
at Bartram. They walked, having left the carriage to follow when the
horses were fed; and Madame de la Rougierre, who was in my uncle's
room when little Giblets arrived to say that the party were in the parlour,
whispered for a little with my uncle, who then said—
'Miss Maud Ruthyn has gone out to drive, but I shall be happy to see
Lady Knollys here, if she will do me the favour to come upstairs and see
me for a few moments; and you can mention that I am very far from
well.'
Madame followed him out upon the lobby, and added, holding him by
the collar, and whispering earnestly in his ear—
'Bring hair ladysheep up by the backstairs—mind, the backstairs.'

372
 And the next moment Madame entered my room, with long tiptoe
steps, and looking, Mary Quince said, as if she were going to be hanged.
On entering she looked sharply round, and being satisfied of Mary
Quince's presence, she turned the key in the door, and made some affec-
tionate enquiries about me in a whisper; and then she stole to the win-
dow and peeped out, standing back some way; after which she came to
my bedside, murmured some tender sentences, drew the curtain a little,
and making some little fidgety adjustments about the room; among the
rest she took the key from the lock, quietly, and put it into her pocket.
This was so odd a procedure that honest Mary Quince rose stoutly
from her chair, pointing to the lock, with her frank little blue eyes fixed
on Madame, and she whispered—'Won't you put the key in the lock,
please?'
'Oh, certainly, Mary Queence; but it is better it shall be locked, for I
think her uncle he is coming to see her, and I am sure she would be very
much frightened, for he is very much displease, don't you see? and we
can tell him she is not well enough, or asleep, and so he weel go away
again, without any trouble.'
I heard nothing of this, which was conducted in close whispers; and
Mary, although she did not give Madame credit for caring whether I was
frightened or not, and suspected her motives in everything, acquiesced
grudgingly, fearing lest her alleged reason might possibly be the true
one.
So Madame hovered about the door, uneasily; and of what went on
elsewhere during that period Lady Knollys afterwards gave me the fol-
lowing account:—
'We were very much disappointed; but of course I was glad to see
Silas, and your little hobgoblin butler led me upstairs to his room a dif-
ferent way, I think, from that I came before; but I don't know the house
of Bartram well enough to speak positively. I only know that I was con-
ducted quite across his bedroom, which I had not seen on my former vis-
it, and so into his sitting-room, where I found him.
'He seemed very glad to see me, came forward smiling—I disliked his
smile always—with both hands out, and shook mine with more warmth
than I ever remembered in his greeting before, and said—
'"My dear, dear Monica, how very good of you—the very person I
longed to see! I have been miserably ill, the sad consequence of still more
miserable anxiety. Sit down, pray, for a moment."
'And he paid me some nice little French compliment in verse.
'"And where is Maud?" said I.

373
 '"I think Maud is by this time about halfway to Elverston," said the old
gentleman. "I persuaded her to take a drive, and advised a call there,
which seemed to please her, so I conjecture she obeyed."
'"How very provoking!" cried I.
'"My poor Maud will be sadly disappointed, but you will console her
by a visit—you have promised to come, and I shall try to make you com-
fortable. I shall be happier, Monica, with this proof of our perfect recon-
ciliation. You won't deny me?"
'"Certainly not. I am only too glad to come," said I; "and I want to
thank you, Silas."
'"For what?" said he.
'"For wishing to place Maud in my care. I am very much obliged to
you."
'"I did not suggest it, I must say, Monica, with the least intention of ob-
liging you," said Silas.
'I thought he was going to break into one of his ungracious moods.
'"But I am obliged to you—very much obliged to you, Silas; and you
sha'n't refuse my thanks."
'"I am happy, at all events, Monica, in having won your good-will; we
learn at last that in the affections only are our capacities for happiness;
and how true is St. Paul's preference of love—the principle that abideth!
The affections, dear Monica, are eternal; and being so, celestial, divine,
and consequently happy, deriving happiness, and bestowing it."
'I was always impatient of his or anybody else's metaphysics; but I
controlled myself, and only said, with my customary impudence—
'"Well, dear Silas, and when do you wish me to come?"
'"The earlier the better," said he.
'"Lady Mary and Ilbury will be leaving me on Tuesday morning. I can
come to you in the afternoon, if you think Tuesday a good day."
'"Thank you, dear Monica. I shall be, I trust, enlightened by that day as
to my enemies' plans. It is a humiliating confession, Monica, but I am
past feeling that. It is quite possible that an execution may be sent into
this house to-morrow, and an end of all my schemes. It is not likely,
however—hardly possible—before three weeks, my attorney tells me. I
shall hear from him to-morrow morning, and then I shall ask you to
name a very early day. If we are to have an unmolested fortnight certain,
you shall hear, and name your own day."
'Then he asked me who had accompanied me, and lamented ever so
much his not being able to go down to receive them; and he offered
luncheon, with a sort of Ravenswood smile, and a shrug, and I declined,

374
telling him that we had but a few minutes, and that my companions
were walking in the grounds near the house.
'I asked whether Maud was likely to return soon?
'"Certainly not before five o'clock." He thought we should probably
meet her on our way back to Elverston; but could not be certain, as she
might have changed her plans.
'So then came—no more remaining to be said—a very affectionate
parting. I believe all about his legal dangers was strictly true. How he
could, unless that horrid woman had deceived him, with so serene a
countenance tell me all those gross untruths about Maud, I can only
admire.'
In the meantime, as I lay in my bed, Madame, gliding hither and thith-
er, whispering sometimes, listening at others, I suddenly startled them
both by saying—
'Whose carriage?'
'What carriage, dear?' inquired Quince, whose ears were not so sharp
as mine.
Madame peeped from the window.
''Tis the physician, Doctor Jolks. He is come to see your uncle, my
dear,' said Madame.
'But I hear a female voice,' I said, sitting up.
'No, my dear; there is only the doctor,' said Madame. 'He is come to
your uncle. I tell you he is getting out of his carriage,' and she affected to
watch the doctor's descent.
'The carriage is driving away!' I cried.
'Yes, it is draiving away,' she echoed.
But I had sprung from my bed, and was looking over her shoulder, be-
fore she perceived me.
'It is Lady Knollys!' I screamed, seizing the window-frame to force it
up, and, vainly struggling to open it, I cried—
'I'm here, Cousin Monica. For God's sake, Cousin Monica—Cousin
Monica!'
'You are mad, Meess—go back,' screamed Madame, exerting her su-
perior strength to force me back.
But I saw deliverance and escape gliding away from my reach, and,
strung to unnatural force by desperation, I pushed past her, and beat the
window wildly with my hands, screaming—
'Save me—save me! Here, here, Monica, here! Cousin, cousin, oh! save
me!'

375
 Madame had seized my wrists, and a wild struggle was going on. A
window-pane was broken, and I was shrieking to stop the carriage. The
Frenchwoman looked black and haggard as a fury, as if she could have
murdered me.
Nothing daunted—frantic—I screamed in my despair, seeing the car-
riage drive swiftly away—seeing Cousin Monica's bonnet, as she sat
chatting with her vis-à-vis.
'Oh, oh, oh!' I shrieked, in vain and prolonged agony, as Madame, ex-
erting her strength and matching her fury against my despair, forced me
back in spite of my wild struggles, and pushed me sitting on the bed,
where she held me fast, glaring in my face, and chuckling and panting
over me.
I think I felt something of the despair of a lost spirit.
I remember the face of poor Mary Quince—its horror, its wonder—as
she stood gaping into my face, over Madame's shoulder, and crying—
'What is it, Miss Maud? What is it, dear?' And turning fiercely on Ma-
dame, and striving to force her grasp from my wrists, 'Are you hurting
the child? Let her go—let her go.'
'I weel let her go. Wat old fool are you, Mary Queence! She is mad, I
think. She 'as lost hair head.'
'Oh, Mary, cry from the window. Stop the carriage!' I cried.
Mary looked out, but there was by this time, of course, nothing in
sight.
'Why don't a you stop the carriage?' sneered Madame. 'Call a the
coachman and the postilion. W'ere is the footman? Bah! elle a le cerveau
mal timbré.'
'Oh, Mary, Mary, is it gone—is it gone? Is there nothing there?' cried I,
rushing to the window; and turning to Madame, after a vain straining of
my eyes, my face against the glass—
'Oh, cruel, cruel, wicked woman! why have you done this? What was
it to you? Why do you persecute me? What good can you gain by my
ruin?'
'Rueen! Par bleu! ma chère, you talk too fast. Did not a you see it, Mary
Queence? It was the doctor's carriage, and Mrs. Jolks, and that eem-
pudent faylow, young Jolks, staring up to the window, and Mademois-
elle she come in soche shocking déshabille to show herself knocking at
the window. 'Twould be very nice thing, Mary Queence, don't you
think?'
I was sitting now on the bedside, crying in mere despair. I did not care
to dispute or to resist. Oh! why had rescue come so near, only to prove

376
that it could not reach me? So I went on crying, with a clasping of my
hands and turning up of my eyes, in incoherent prayer. I was not think-
ing of Madame, or of Mary Quince, or any other person, only babbling
my anguish and despair helplessly in the ear of heaven.
'I did not think there was soche fool. Wat enfant gaté! My dear cheaile,
wat a can you mean by soche strange language and conduct? Wat for
should a you weesh to display yourself in the window in soche 'orrible
déshabille to the people in the doctor's coach?'
'It was Cousin Knollys—Cousin Knollys. Oh, Cousin Knollys! You're
gone—you're gone—you're gone!'
'And if it was Lady Knollys' coach, there was certainly a coachman
and a footman; and whoever has the coach there was young gentlemen
in it. If it was Lady Knollys' carriage it would 'av been worse than the
doctor.'
'It is no matter—it is all over. Oh, Cousin Monica, your poor
Maud—where is she to turn? Is there no help?'
That evening Madame visited me again, in one of her sedate and mor-
al moods. She found me dejected and passive, as she had left me.
'I think, Maud, there is news; but I am not certain.'
I raised my head and looked at her wistfully.
'I think there is letter of bad news from the attorney in London.'
'Oh!' I said, in a tone which I am sure implied the absolute indifference
of dejection.
'But, my dear Maud, if't be so, we shall go at once, you and me, to join
Meess Millicent in France. La belle France! You weel like so moche! We
shall be so gay. You cannot imagine there are such naice girl there. They
all love a me so moche, you will be delight.'
'How soon do we go?' I asked.
'I do not know. Bote I was to bring in a case of eau de cologne that
came this evening, and he laid down a letter and say:—"The blow has
descended, Madame! My niece must hold herself in readiness." I said,
"For what, Monsieur?" twice; bote he did not answer. I am sure it is un
procès. They 'av ruin him. Eh bien, my dear. I suppose we shall leave this
triste place immediately. I am so rejoice. It appears to me un cimetière!'
'Yes, I should like to leave it,' I said, sitting up, with a great sigh and
sunken eyes. It seemed to me that I had quite lost all sense of resentment
towards Madame. A debility of feeling had supervened—the fatigue, I
suppose, and prostration of the passions.

377
 'I weel make excuse to go into his room again,' said Madame; 'and I
weel endeavor to learn something more from him, and I weel come back
again to you in half an hour.'
She departed. But in half an hour did not return. I had a dull longing
to leave Bartram-Haugh. For me, since the departure of poor Milly, it
had grown like the haunt of evil spirits, and to escape on any terms from
it was a blessing unspeakable.
Another half-hour passed, and another, and I grew insufferably fever-
ish. I sent Mary Quince to the lobby to try and see Madame, who, I
feared, was probably to-ing and fro-ing in and out of Uncle Silas's room.
Mary returned to tell me that she had seen old Wyat, who told her that
she thought Madame had gone to her bed half an hour before.

378
Chapter 59
A SUDDEN DEPARTURE
'Mary,' said I, 'I am miserably anxious to hear what Madame may have
to tell; she knows the state I am in, and she would not like so much
trouble as to look in at my door to say a word. Did you hear what she
told me?'
'No, Miss Maud,' she answered, rising and drawing near.
'She thinks we are going to France immediately, and to leave this place
perhaps for ever.'
'Heaven be praised for that, if it be so, Miss!' said Mary, with more en-
ergy than was common with her, 'for there is no luck about it, and I don't
expect to see you ever well or happy in it.'
'You must take your candle, Mary, and make out her room, upstairs; I
found it accidentally myself one evening.'
'But Wyat won't let us upstairs.'
'Don't mind her, Mary; I tell you to go. You must try. I can't sleep till
we hear.'
'What direction is her room in, Miss?' asked Mary.
'Somewhere in that direction, Mary,' I answered, pointing. 'I cannot de-
scribe the turns; but I think you will find it if you go along the great pas-
sage to your left, on getting to the top of the stairs, till you come to the
cross-galleries, and then turn to your left; and when you have passed
four or perhaps five doors, you must be very near it, and I am sure she
will hear if you call.'
'But will she tell me—she is such a rum un, Miss?' suggested Mary.
'Tell her exactly what I have said to you, and when she learns that you
already know as much as I do, she may—unless, indeed, she wishes to
torture me. If she won't, perhaps at least you can persuade her to come to
me for a moment. Try, dear Mary; we can but fail.'
'Will you be very lonely, Miss, while I am away?' asked Mary, uneas-
ily, as she lighted her candle.

379
 'I can't help it, Mary. Go. I think if I heard we were going, I could al-
most get up and dance and sing. I can't bear this dreadful uncertainty
any longer.'
'If old Wyat is outside, I'll come back and wait here a bit, till she's out
o' the way,' said Mary; 'and, anyhow, I'll make all the haste I can. The
drops and the sal-volatile is here, Miss, by your hand.'
And with an anxious look at me, she made her exit, softly, and did not
immediately return, by which I concluded that she had found the way
clear, and had gained the upper story without interruption.
This little anxiety ended, its subsidence was followed by a sense of
loneliness, and with it, of vague insecurity, which increased at last to
such a pitch, that I wondered at my own madness in sending my com-
panion away; and at last my terrors so grew, that I drew back into the
farthest corner of the bed, with my shoulders to the wall, and my bed-
clothes huddled about me, with only a point open to peep at.
At last the door opened gently.
'Who's there?' I cried, in extremity of horror, expecting I knew not
whom.
'Me, Miss,' whispered Mary Quince, to my unutterable relief; and with
her candle flared, and a wild and pallid face, Mary Quince glided into
the room, locking the door as she entered.
I do not know how it was, but I found myself holding Mary fast with
both my hands as we stood side by side on the floor.
'Mary, you are terrified; for God's sake, what is the matter?' I cried.
'No, Miss,' said Mary, faintly, 'not much.'
'I see it in your face. What is it?'
'Let me sit down, Miss. I'll tell you what I saw; only I'm just a bit
queerish.'
Mary sat down by my bed.
'Get in, Miss; you'll take cold. Get into bed, and I'll tell you. It is not
much.'
I did get into bed, and gazing on Mary's frightened face, I felt a corres-
ponding horror.
'For mercy's sake, Mary, say what it is?'
So again assuring me 'it was not much,' she gave me in a somewhat
diffuse and tangled narrative the following facts:—
On closing my door, she raised her candle above her head and sur-
veyed the lobby, and seeing no one there she ascended the stairs swiftly.
She passed along the great gallery to the left, and paused a moment at

380
the cross gallery, and then recollected my directions clearly, and fol-
lowed the passage to the right.
There are doors at each side, and she had forgotten to ask me at which
Madame's was. She opened several. In one room she was frightened by a
bat, which had very nearly put her candle out. She went on a little,
paused, and began to lose heart in the dismal solitude, when on a sud-
den, a few doors farther on, she thought she heard Madame's voice.
She said that she knocked at the door, but receiving no answer, and
hearing Madame still talking within, she opened it.
There was a candle on the chimneypiece, and another in a stable lan-
tern near the window. Madame was conversing volubly on the hearth,
with her face toward the window, the entire frame of which had been
taken from its place: Dickon Hawkes, the Zamiel of the wooden leg, was
supporting it with one hand, as it leaned imperfectly against the angle of
the recess. There was a third figure standing, buttoned up in a surtout,
with a bundle of tools under his arm, like a glazier, and, with a silent
thrill of fear, she distinctly recognised the features as those of Dudley
Ruthyn.
''Twas him, Miss, so sure as I sit here! Well, like that, they were as
mute as mice; three pairs of eyes were on me. I don't know what made
me so study like, but som'at told me I should not make as though I knew
any but Madame; and so I made a courtesy, as well as I could, and I said,
"Might I speak a word wi' ye, please, on the lobby?"
'Mr. Dudley was making belief be this time to look out at window, wi'
his back to me, and I kept looking straight on Madame, and she said,
"They're mendin' my broken glass, Mary," walking between them and
me, and coming close up to me very quick; and so she marched me back-
ward out o' the door, prating all the time.
'When we were on the lobby, she took my candle from my hand, shut-
ting the door behind her, and she held the light a bit behind her ear;
so'twas full on my face, as she looked sharp into it; and, after a bit, she
said again, in her queer lingo—there was two panes broke in her room,
and men sent for to mend it.
'I was awful frightened when I saw Mr. Dudley, for I could not believe
any such thing before, and I don't know how I could look her in the face
as I did and not show it. I was as smooth and cool as yonder chim-
neypiece, and she has an awful evil eye to stan' against; but I never
flinched, and I think she's puzzled, for as cunning as she is, whether I be-
lieve all she said, or knowed 'twas a pack o' stories. So I told her your
message, and she said she had not heard another word since; but she did

381
believe we had not many more days here, and would tell you if she
heard to-night, when she brought his soup to your uncle, in half an
hour's time.'
I asked her, as soon as I could speak, whether she was perfectly certain
as to the fact that the man in the surtout was Dudley, and she made
answer—
'I'd swear to him on that Bible, Miss.'
So far from any longer wishing Madame's return that night, I trembled
at the idea of it. Who could tell who might enter the room with her when
the door opened to admit her?
Dudley, so soon as he recovered the surprise, had turned about, evid-
ently anxious to prevent recognition; Dickon Hawkes stood glowering at
her. Both might have hope of escaping recognition in the imperfect light,
for the candle on the chimneypiece was flaring in the air, and the light
from the lantern fell in spots, and was confusing.
What could that ruffian, Hawkes, be doing in the house? Why was
Dudley there? Could a more ominous combination be imagined? I
puzzled my distracted head over all Mary Quince's details, but could
make nothing of their occupation. I know of nothing so terrifying as this
kind of perpetual puzzling over ominous problems.
You may imagine how the long hours of that night passed, and how
my heart beat at every fancied sound outside my door.
But morning came, and with its light some reassurance. Early, Ma-
dame de la Rougierre made her appearance; she searched my eyes
darkly and shrewdly, but made no allusion to Mary Quince's visit. Per-
haps she expected some question from me, and, hearing none, thought it
as well to leave the subject at rest.
She had merely come in to say that she had heard nothing since, but
was now going to make my uncle's chocolate; and that so soon as her in-
terview was ended she would see me again, and let me hear anything
she should have gleaned.
In a little while a knock came to my door, and Mary Quince was
ordered by old Wyat into my uncle's room. She returned flushed, in a
huge fuss, to say that I was to be up and dressed for a journey in half an
hour, and to go straight, when dressed, to my uncle's room.
It was good news; at the same time it was a shock. I was glad. I was
stunned. I jumped out of bed, and set about my toilet with an energy
quite new to me. Good Mary Quince was busily packing my boxes, and
consulting as to what I should take with me, and what not.

382
 Was Mary Quince to accompany me? He had not said a word on that
point; and I feared from his silence she was to remain. There was com-
fort, however, in this—that the separation would not be for long; I felt
confident of that; and I was about to join Milly, whom I loved better than
I could have believed before our separation; but whatsoever the condi-
tions might be, it was an indescribable relief to have done with Bartram-
Haugh, and leave behind me its sinister lines of circumvallation, its
haunted recesses, and the awful spectres that had lately appeared within
its walls.
I stood too much in awe of my uncle to fail in presenting myself punc-
tually at the close of the half-hour. I entered his sitting-room under the
shadow of sour old Wyat's high-cauled cap; she closed the door behind
me, and the conference commenced.
Madame de la Rougierre sat there, dressed and draped for a journey,
and with a thick black lace veil on. My uncle rose, gaunt and venerable,
and with a harsh and severe countenance. He did not offer his hand; he
made me a kind of bow, more of repulsion than of respect. He remained
in a standing position, supporting his crooked frame by his hand, which
he leaned on a despatch-box; he glared on me steadily with his wild
phosphoric eyes, from under the dark brows I have described to you,
now corrugated in lines indescribably stern.
'You shall join my daughter at the Pension, in France; Madame de la
Rougierre shall accompany you,' said my uncle, delivering his directions
with the stern monotony and the measured pauses of a person dictating
an important despatch to a secretary.' Old Mrs. Quince shall follow with
me, or, if alone, in a week. You shall pass to-night in London; to-morrow
night you proceed thence to Dover, and cross by the mail-packet. You
shall now sit down and write a letter to your cousin Monica Knollys,
which I will first read and then despatch. Tomorrow you shall write a
note to Lady Knollys, from London, telling her how you have got over so
much of your journey, and that you cannot write from Dover, as you
must instantly start by the packet on reaching it; and that until my affairs
are a little settled, you cannot write to her from France, as it is of high
importance to my safety that no clue should exist as to our address. Intel-
ligence, however, shall reach her through my attorneys, Archer and
Sleigh, and I trust we shall soon return. You will, please, submit that lat-
ter note to Madame de la Rougierre, who has my directions to see that it
contains no libels upon my character. Now, sit down.'
So, with those unpleasant words tingling in my ears, I obeyed.

383
 'Write,' said he, when I was duly placed. 'You shall convey the sub-
stance of what I say in your own language. The immiment danger this
morning announced of an execution—rememher the word,' and he
spelled it for me—'being put into this house either this afternoon or to-
morrow, compels me to anticipate my plans, and despatch you for
France this day. That you are starting with an attendant.' Here an uneasy
movement from Madame, whose dignity was perhaps excited. 'An at-
tendant,' he repeated, with a discordant emphasis; 'and you can, if you
please—but I don't solicit that justice—say that you have been as kindly
treated here as my unfortunate circumstances would permit. That is all.
You have just fifteen minutes to write. Begin.'
I wrote accordingly. My hysterical state had made me far less combat-
ive than I might have proved some months since, for there was much
that was insulting as well as formidable in his manner. I completed my
letter, however, to his satisfaction in the prescribed time; and he said, as
he laid it and its envelope on the table—
'Please to remember that this lady is not your attendant only, but that
she has authority to direct every detail respecting your journey, and will
make all the necessary payments on the way. You will please, then, im-
plicitly to comply with her directions. The carriage awaits you at the
hall-door.'
Having thus spoken, with another grim bow, and 'I wish you a safe
and pleasant journey,' he receded a step or two, and I, with an undefin-
able kind of melancholy, though also with a sense of relief, withdrew.
My letter, I afterwards found, reached Lady Knollys, accompanied by
one from Uncle Silas, who said—'Dear Maud apprises me that she has
written to tell you something of our movements. A sudden crisis in my
miserable affairs compels a break-up as sudden here. Maud joins my
daughter at the Pension, in France. I purposely omit the address, because
I mean to reside in its vicinity until this storm shall have blown over; and
as the consequences of some of my unhappy entanglements might pur-
sue me even there, I must only for the present spare you the pain and
trouble of keeping a secret. I am sure that for some little time you will ex-
cuse the girl's silence; in the meantime you shall hear of them, and per-
haps circuitously, from me. Our dear Maud started this morning en route
for her destination, very sorry, as am I, that she could not enjoy first a
flying visit to Elverston, but in high spirits, notwithstanding, at the new
life and sights before her.'
At the door my beloved old friend, Mary Quince, awaited me.
'Am I going with you, Miss Maud?'

384
 I burst into tears and clasped her in my arms.
'I'm not,' said Mary, very sorrowfully; 'and I never was from you yet,
Miss, since you wasn't the length of my arm.'
And kind old Mary began to cry with me.
'Bote you are coming in a few days, Mary Quince,' expostulated Ma-
dame. 'I wonder you are soche fool. What is two, three days? Bah! non-
sense, girl.'
Another farewell to poor Mary Quince, quite bewildered at the sud-
denness of her bereavement. A serious and tremulous bow from our
little old butler on the steps. Madame bawling through the open window
to the driver to make good speed, and remember that we had but nine-
teen minutes to reach the station. Away we went. Old Crowle's iron grille
rolled back before us. I looked on the receding landscape, the giant
trees—the palatial, time-stained mansion. A strange conflict of feelings,
sweet and bitter, rose and mingled in the reverie. Had I been too hard
and suspicious with the inhabitants of that old house of my family? Was
my uncle justly indignant? Was I ever again to know such pleasant
rambles as some of those I had enjoyed with dear Millicent through the
wild and beautiful woodlands I was leaving behind me? And there, with
my latest glimpse of the front of Bartram-Haugh, I beheld dear old Mary
Quince gazing after us. Again my tears flowed. I waved my handker-
chief from the window; and now the park-wall hid all from view, and at
a great pace, throught the steep wooded glen, with the rocky and precip-
itous character of a ravine, we glided; and when the road next emerged,
Bartram-Haugh was a misty mass of forest and chimneys, slope and hol-
low, and we within a few minutes of the station.

385
Chapter 60
THE JOURNEY
Waiting for the train, as we stood upon the platform, I looked back again
toward the wooded uplands of Bartram; and far behind, the fine range of
mountains, azure and soft in the distance, beyond which lay beloved old
Knowl, and my lost father and mother, and the scenes of my childhood,
never embittered except by the sibyl who sat beside me.
Under happier circumstances I should have been, at my then early age,
quite wild with pleasurable excitement on entering London for the first
time. But black Care sat by me, with her pale hand in mine: a voice of
fear and warning, whose words I could not catch, was always in my ear.
We drove through London, amid the glare of lamps, toward the West-
end, and for a little while the sense of novelty and curiosity overcame
my despondency, and I peeped eagerly from the window; while Ma-
dame, who was in high good-humour, spite of the fatigues of our long
railway flight, screeched scraps of topographic information in my ear; for
London was a picture-book in which she was well read.
'That is Euston Square, my dear—Russell Square. Here is Oxford
Street—Haymarket. See, there is the Opera House—Hair Majesty's
Theatre. See all the carriages waiting;' and so on, till we reached at length
a little narrow street, which she told me was off Piccadilly, where we
drew up before a private house, as it seemed to me—a family hotel—and
I was glad to be at rest for the night.
Fatigued with the peculiar fatigue of railway travelling, dusty, a little
chilly, with eyes aching and wearied, I ascended the stairs silently, our
garrulous and bustling landlady leading the way, and telling her oft-told
story of the house, its noble owner in old time, and how those fine
drawing-rooms were taken every year during the Session by the Bishop
of Rochet-on-Copeley, and at last into our double-bedded room.
I would fain have been alone, but I was too tired and dejected to care
very much for anything.

386
 At tea, Madame expanded in spirit, like a giant refreshed, and
chattered and sang; and at last, seeing that I was nodding, advised my
going to bed, while she ran across the street to see 'her dear old friend,
Mademoiselle St. Eloi, who was sure to be up, and would be offended if
she failed to make her ever so short a call.'
I cared little what she said, and was glad to be rid of her even for a
short time, and was soon fast asleep.
I saw her, I know not how much later, poking about the room, like a
figure in a dream, and taking off her things.
She had her breakfast in bed next morning, and I was, to my comfort,
left to take mine in solitary possession of our sitting-room; where I began
to wonder how little annoyance I had as yet suffered from her company,
and began to speculate upon the chances of my making the journey with
tolerable comfort.
Our hostess gave me five minutes of her valuable time. Her talk ran
chiefly upon nuns and convents, and her old acquaintance with Ma-
dame; and it seemed to me that she had at one time driven a kind of
trade, no doubt profitable enough, in escorting young ladies to establish-
ments on the Continent; and although I did not then quite understand
the tone in which she spoke to me, I often thought afterwards that Ma-
dame had represented me as a young person destined for the holy voca-
tion of the veil.
When she was gone, I sat listlessly looking out of the window, and
saw some chance equipages drive by, and now and then a fashionable
pedestrian; and wondered if this quiet thoroughfare could really be one
of the arteries so near the heart of the tumultuous capital.
I think my nervous vitality must have burnt very low just then, for I
felt perfectly indifferent about all the novelty and world of wonders bey-
ond, and should have hated to leave the dull tranquillity of my window
for an excursion through the splendours of the unseen streets and
palaces that surrounded me.
It was one o'clock before Madame joined me; and finding me in this
dull mood, she did not press me to accompany her in her drive, no doubt
well pleased to be rid of me.
After tea that evening, as we sat alone in our room, she entertained me
with some very odd conversation—at the time unintelligible—but which
acquired a tolerably distinct meaning from the events that followed.
Two or three times that day Madame appeared to me on the point of
saying something of grave import, as she scanned me with her bleak
wicked stare.

387
 It was a peculiarity of hers, that whenever she was pressed upon by an
anxiety that really troubled her, her countenance did not look sad or soli-
citous, as other people's would, but simply wicked. Her great gaunt
mouth was compressed and drawn down firmly at the corners, and her
eyes glared with a dismal scowl.
At last she said suddenly—
'Are you ever grateful, Maud?'
'I hope so, Madame,' I answered.
'And how do you show your gratitude? For instance, would a you do
great deal for a person who would run risque for your sake?'
It struck me all at once that she was sounding me about poor Meg
Hawkes, whose fidelity, notwithstanding the treason or cowardice of her
lover, Tom Brice, I never doubted; and I grew at once wary and reserved.
'I know of no opportunity, thank Heaven, for any such service, Ma-
dame. How can anyone serve me at present, by themselves incurring
danger? What do you mean?'
'Do you like, for example, to go to that French Pension? Would you
not like better some other arrangement?'
'Of course there are other arrangements I should like better; but I see
no use in talking of them; they are not to be,' I answered.
'What other arrangements do you mean, my dear cheaile?' enquired
Madame. 'You mean, I suppose, you would like better to go to Lady
Knollys?'
'My uncle does not choose it at present; and except with his consent
nothing can be done!'
'He weel never consent, dear cheaile.'
'But he has consented—not immediately indeed, but in a short time,
when his affairs are settled.'
'Lanternes! They will never be settle,' said Madame.
'At all events, for the present I am to go to France. Milly seems very
happy, and I dare say I shall like it too. I am very glad to leave Bartram-
Haugh, at all events.'
'But your uncle weel bring you back there,' said Madame, drily.
'It is doubtful whether he will ever return to Bartram himself,' I said.
'Ah!' said Madame, with a long-drawn nasal intonation, 'you theenk I
hate you. You are quaite wrong, my dear Maud. I am, on the contrary,
very much interested for you—I am, I assure you, dear a cheaile.'
And she laid her great hand, with joints misshapen by old chilblains,
upon the back of mine. I looked up in her face. She was not smiling. On

388
the contrary, her wide mouth was drawn down at the corners ruefully,
as before, and she gazed on my face with a scowl from her abysmal eyes.
I used to think the flare of that irony which lighted her face so often
immeasurably worse than any other expression she could assume; but
this lack-lustre stare and dismal collapse of feature was more wicked
still.
'Suppose I should bring you to Lady Knollys, and place you in her
charge, what would a you do then for poor Madame?' said this dark
spectre.
I was inwardly startled at these words. I looked into her unsearchable
face, but could draw thence nothing but fear. Had she made the same
overture only two days since, I think I would have offered her half my
fortune. But circumstances were altered. I was no longer in the panic of
despair. The lesson I had received from Tom Brice was fresh in my mind,
and my profound distrust of her was uppermost. I saw before me only a
tempter and betrayer, and said—
'Do you mean to imply, Madame, that my guardian is not to be trus-
ted, and that I ought to make my escape from him, and that you are
really willing to aid me in doing so?'
This, you see, was turning the tables upon her. I looked her steadily in
the face as I spoke. She returned my gaze with a strange stare and a
gape, which haunted me long after; and it seemed as we sat in utter si-
lence that each was rather horribly fascinated by the other's gaze.
At last she shut her mouth sternly, and eyes me with a more determ-
ined and meaning scowl, and then said in a low tone—
'I believe, Maud, that you are a cunning and wicked little thing.'
'Wisdom is not cunning, Madame; nor is it wicked to ask your mean-
ing in explicit language,' I replied.
'And so, you clever cheaile, we two sit here, playing at a game of
chess, over this little table, to decide which shall destroy the other—is it
not so?'
'I will not allow you to destroy me,' I retorted, with a sudden flash.
Madame stood up, and rubbed her mouth with her open hand. She
looked to me like some evil being seen in a dream. I was frightened.
'You are going to hurt me!' I ejaculated, scarce knowing what I said.
'If I were, you deserve it. You are very malicious, ma chère: or, it may
be, only very stupid.'
A knock came to the door.
'Come in,' I cried, with a glad sense of relief.
A maid entered.

389
 'A letter, please, 'm,' she said, handing it to me.
'For me,' snarled Madame, snatching it.
I had seen my uncle's hand, and the Feltram post-mark.
Madame broke the seal, and read. It seemed but a word, for she turned
it about after the first momentary glance, and examined the interior of
the envelope, and then returned to the line she had already read.
She folded the letter again, drawing her nails in a sharp pinch along
the creases, as she stared in a blank, hesitating way at me.
'You are stupid little ingrate, I am employ by Monsieur Ruthyn, and of
course I am faithful to my employer. I do not want to talk to you. There,
you may read that.'
She jerked the letter before me on the table. It contained but these
words:—
Bartram-Haugh:
'30th January, 1845.
'MY DEAR MADAME,
'Be so good as to take the half-past eight o'clock train to Dover to-night.
Beds are prepared.—Yours very truly,
SILAS RUTHYN.'
I cannot say what it was in this short advice that struck me with fear.
Was it the thick line beneath the word 'Dover,' that was so uncalled for,
and gave me a faint but terrible sense of something preconcerted?
I said to Madame—
'Why is "Dover" underlined?'
'I do not know, little fool, no more than you. How can I tell what is
passing in your oncle's head when he make that a mark?'
'Has it not a meaning, Madame?'
'How can you talk like that?' she answered, more in her old way. 'You
are either mocking of me, or you are becoming truly a fool!'
She rang the bell, called for our bill, saw our hostess; while I made a
few hasty prepartions in my room.
'You need not look after the trunks—they will follow us all right. Let
us go, cheaile—we 'av half an hour only to reach the train.'
No one ever fussed like Madame when occasion offered. There was a
cab at the door, into which she hurried me. I assumed that she would
give all needful directions, and leaned back, very weary and sleepy
already, though it was so early, listening to her farewell screamed from
the cab-step, and seeing her black cloak flitting and flapping this way
and that, like the wings of a raven disturbed over its prey.

390
 In she got, and away we drove through a glare of lamps, and shop-
windows, still open; gas everywhere, and cabs, busses, and carriages,
still thundering through the streets. I was too tired and too depressed to
look at those things. Madame, on the contrary, had her head out of the
window till we reached the station.
'Where are the rest of the boxes?' I asked, as Madame placed me in
charge of her box and my bag in the office of the terminus.
'They will follow with Boots in another cab, and will come safe with us
in this train. Mind those two, we weel bring in the carriage with us.'
So into a carriage we got; in came Madame's box and my bag; Madame
stood at the door, and, I think, frightened away intending passengers, by
her size and shrillness.
At last the bell rang her into her place, the door clapt, the whistle
sounded, and we were off.

391
Chapter 61
OUR BED-CHAMBER
I had passed a miserable night, and, indeed, for many nights had not had
my due proportion of sleep. Still I sometimes fancy that I may have swal-
lowed something in my tea that helped to make me so irresistibly
drowsy. It was a very dark night—no moon, and the stars soon hid by
the gathering clouds. Madame sat silent, and ruminating in her place,
with her rugs about her. I, in my corner similarly enveloped, tried to
keep awake. Madame plainly thought I was asleep already, for she stole
a leather flask from her pocket, and applied it to her lips, causing an
aroma of brandy.
But it was vain struggling against the influence that was stealing over
me, and I was soon in a profound and dreamless slumber.
Madame awoke me at last, in a huge fuss. She had got out all our
things and hurried them away to a close carriage which was awaiting us.
It was still dark and starless. We got along the platform, I half asleep, the
porter carrying our rugs, by the glare of a pair of gas-jets in the wall, and
out by a small door at the end.
I remember that Madame, contrary to her wont, gave the man some
money. By the puzzling light of the carriage-lamps we got in and took
our seats.
'Go on,' screamed Madame, and drew up the window with a great
chuck; and we were enclosed in darkness and silence, the most favour-
able conditions for thought.
My sleep had not restored me as it might; I felt feverish, fatigued, and
still very drowsy, though unable to sleep as I had done.
I dozed by fits and starts, and lay awake, or half-awake, sometimes,
not thinking but in a way imagining what kind of a place Dover would
be; but too tired and listless to ask Madame any questions, and merely
seeing the hedges, grey in the lamplight, glide backward into darkness,
as I leaned back.
We turned off the main road, at right angles, and drew up.

392
 'Get down and poosh it, it is open,' screamed Madame from the
window.
A gate, I suppose, was thus passed; for when we resumed our brisk
trot, Madame bawled across the carriage—
'We are now in the 'otel grounds.'
And so all again was darkness and silence, and I fell into another doze,
from which, on waking, I found that we had come to a standstill, and
Madame was standing on the low step of an open door, paying the
driver. She, herself, pulled her box and the bag in. I was too tired to care
what had become of the rest of our luggage.
I descended, glancing to the right and left, but there was nothing vis-
ible but a patch of light from the lamps on a paved ground and on the
wall.
We stepped into the hall or vestibule, and Madame shut the door, and
I thought I heard the key turn in it. We were in total darkness.
'Where are the lights, Madame—where are the people?' I asked, more
awake than I had been.
''Tis pass three o'clock, cheaile, bote there is always light here.' She was
groping at the side; and in a moment more lighted a lucifer match, and
so a bedroom candle.
We were in a flagged lobby, under an archway at the right, and at the
left of which opened long flagged passages, lost in darkness; a winding
stair, barely wide enough to admit Madame, dragging her box, led up-
ward under a doorway, in a corner at the right.
'Come, dear cheaile, take your bag; don't mind the rugs, they are safe
enough.'
'But where are we to go? There is no one!' I said, looking round in
wonder. It certainly was a strange reception at an hotel.
'Never mind, my dear cheaile. They know me here, and I have always
the same room ready when I write for it. Follow me quaitely.'
So she mounted, carrying the candle. The stair was steep, and the
march long. We halted at the second landing, and entered a gaunt, grimy
passage. All the way up we had not heard a single sound of life, nor seen
a human being, nor so much as passed a gaslight.
'Viola! here 'tis, my dear old room. Enter, dearest Maud.'
And so I did. The room was large and lofty, but shabby and dismal.
There was a tall four-post bed, with its foot beside the window, hung
with dark-green curtains, of some plush or velvet texture, that looked
like a dusty pall. The remaining furniture was scant and old, and a rav-
elled square of threadbare carpet covered a patch of floor at the bedside.

393
The room was grim and large, and had a cold, vault-like atmosphere, as
if long uninhabited; but there were cinders in the grate and under it. The
imperfect light of our mutton-fat candle made all this look still more
comfortless.
Madame placed the candle on the chimneypiece, locked the door, and
put the key in her pocket.
'I always do so in 'otel' said she, with a wink at me.
And, then with a long 'ha!' expressive of fatigue and relief, she threw
herself into a chair.
'So 'ere we are at last!' said she; 'I'm glad. There's your bed, Maud. Mine
is in the dressing-room.'
She took the candle, and I went in with her. A shabby press bed, a
chair, and table were all its furniture; it was rather a closet than a
dressing-room, and had no door except that through which we had
entered. So we returned, and very tired, wondering, I sat down on the
side of my bed and yawned.
'I hope they will call us in time for the packet,' I said.
'Oh yes, they never fail,' she answered, looking steadfastly on her box,
which she was diligently uncording.
Uninviting as was my bed, I was longing to lie down in it; and having
made those ablutions which our journey rendered necessary, I at length
lay down, having first religiously stuck my talismanic pin, with the head
of sealing-wax, into the bolster.
Nothing escaped the restless eye of Madame.
'Wat is that, dear cheaile?' she enquired, drawing near and scrutinising
the head of the gipsy charm, which showed like a little ladybird newly
lighted on the sheet.
'Nothing—a charm—folly. Pray, Madame, allow me to go to sleep.'
So, with another look and a little twiddle between her finger and
thumb, she seemed satisfied; but, unhappily for me, she did not seem at
all sleepy. She busied herself in unpacking and displaying over the back
of the chair a whole series of London purchases—silk dresses, a shawl, a
sort of lace demi-coiffure then in vogue, and a variety of other articles.
The vainest and most slammakin of women—the merest slut at home,
a milliner's lay figure out of doors—she had one square foot of looking-
glass upon the chimneypiece, and therein tried effects, and conjured up
grotesque simpers upon her sinister and weary face.
I knew that the sure way to prolong this worry was to express my un-
easiness under it, so I bore it as quietly as I could; and at last fell fast
asleep with the gaunt image of Madame, with a festoon of grey silk with

394
a cerise stripe, pinched up in her finger and thumb, and smiling over her
shoulder across it into the little shaving-glass that stood on the chimney.
I awoke suddenly in the morning, and sat up in my bed, having for a
moment forgotten all about our travelling. A moment more, however,
brought all back again.
'Are we in time, Madame?'
'For the packet?' she enquired, with one of her charming smiles, and
cutting a caper on the floor. 'To be sure; you don't suppose they would
forget. We have two hours yet to wait.'
'Can we see the sea from the window?'
'No, dearest cheaile; you will see't time enough.
'I'd like to get up,' I said.
'Time enough, my dear Maud; you are fatigued; are you sure you feel
quite well?'
'Well enough to get up; I should be better, I think, out of bed.'
'There is no hurry, you know; you need not even go by the next pack-
et. Your uncle, he tell me, I may use my discretion.'
'Is there any water?'
'They will bring some.'
'Please, Madame, ring the bell.'
She pulled it with alacrity. I afterwards learnt that it did not ring.
'What has become of my gipsy pin?' I demanded, with an unaccount-
able sinking of the heart.
'Oh! the little pin with the red top? maybe it 'as fall on the ground; we
weel find when you get up.'
I suspected that she had taken it merely to spite me. It would have
been quite the thing she would have liked. I cannot describe to you how
the loss of this little 'charm' depressed and excited me. I searched the
bed; I turned over all the bed-clothes; I searched in and outside; at last I
gave up.
'How odious!' I cried; 'somebody has stolen it merely to vex me.'
And, like a fool as I was, I threw myself on my face on the bed and
wept, partly in anger, partly in dismay.
After a time, however, this blew over. I had a hope of recovering it. If
Madame had stolen it, it would turn up yet. But in the meantime its dis-
appearance troubled me like an omen.
'I am afraid, my dear cheaile, you are not very well. It is really very
odd you should make such fuss about a pin! Nobody would believe! Do
you not theenk it would be a good plan to take a your breakfast in your
bed?

395
 She continued to urge this point for some time. At last, however, hav-
ing by this time quite recovered my self-command, and resolved to pre-
serve ostensibly fair terms with Madame, who could contribute so essen-
tially to make me wretched during the rest of my journey, and possibly
to prejudice me very seriously on my arrival, I said quietly—
'Well, Madame, I know it is very silly; but I had kept that foolish little
pin so long and so carefully, that I had grown quite fond of it; but I sup-
pose it is lost, and I must content myself, though I cannot laugh as you
do. So I will get up now, and dress.'
'I think you will do well to get all the repose you can,' answered Ma-
dame; 'but as you please,' she added, observing that I was getting up.
So soon as I had got some of my things on, I said—
'Is there a pretty view from the window?'
'No,' said Madame.
I looked out and saw a dreary quadrangle of cut stone, in one side of
which my window was placed. As I looked a dream rose up before me.
'This hotel,' I said, in a puzzled way. 'Is it a hotel? Why this is just
like—it is the inner court of Bartram-Haugh!'
Madame clapped her large hands together, made a fantastic chassé on
the floor, burst into a great nasal laugh like the scream of a parrot, and
then said—
'Well, dearest Maud, is not clever trick?'
I was so utterly confounded that I could only stare about me in stupid
silence, a spectacle which renewed Madame's peals of laughter.
'We are at Bartram-Haugh!' I repeated, in utter consternation. 'How
was this done?'
I had no reply but shrieks of laughter, and one of those Walpurgis
dances in which she excelled.
'It is a mistake—is it? What is it?'
'All a mistake, of course. Bartram-Haugh, it is so like Dover, as all
philosophers know.'
I sat down in total silence, looking out into the deep and dark enclos-
ure, and trying to comprehend the reality and the meaning of all this.
'Well, Madame, I suppose you will be able to satisfy my uncle of your
fidelity and intelligence. But to me it seems that his money has been ill-
spent, and his directions anything but well observed.'
'Ah, ha! Never mind; I think he will forgive me,' laughed Madame.
Her tone frightened me. I began to think, with a vague but overpower-
ing sense of danger, that she had acted under the Machiavellian direc-
tions of her superior.

396
 'You have brought me back, then, by my uncle's orders?'
'Did I say so?'
'No; but what you have said can have no other meaning, though I can't
believe it. And why have I been brought here? What is the object of all
this duplicity and trick. I will know. It is not possible that my uncle, a
gentleman and a kinsman, can be privy to so disreputable a manouvre.'
'First you will eat your breakfast, dear Maud; next you can tell your
story to your uncle, Monsieur Ruthyn; and then you shall hear what he
thinks of my so terrible misconduct. What nonsense, cheaile! Can you
not think how many things may 'appen to change a your uncle's plans?
Is he not in danger to be arrest? Bah! You are cheaile still; you cannot
have intelligence more than a cheaile. Dress yourself, and I will order
breakfast.'
I could not comprehend the strategy which had been practised on me.
Why had I been so shamelessly deceived? If it were decided that I should
remain here, for what imaginable reason had I been sent so far on my
journey to France? Why had I been conveyed back with such mystery?
Why was I removed to this uncomfortable and desolate room, on the
same floor with the apartment in which Charke had met his death, and
with no window commanding the front of the house, and no view but
the deep and weed-choked court, that looked like a deserted churchyard
in a city?
'I suppose I may go to my own room?' I said.
'Not to-day, my dear cheaile, for it was all disarrange when we go
'way; 'twill be ready again in two three days.'
'Where is Mary Quince?' I asked.
'Mary Quince!—she has follow us to France,' said Madame, making
what in Ireland they call a bull.
'They are not sure where they will go or what will do for day or two
more. I will go and get breakfast. Adieu for a moment.'
Madame was out of the door as she said this, and I thought I heard the
key turn in the lock.

397
Chapter 62
A WELL-KNOWN FACE LOOKS IN
You who have never experienced it can have no idea how angry and
frightened you become under the sinister insult of being locked into a
room, as on trying the door I found I was.
The key was in the lock; I could see it through the hole. I called after
Madame, I shook at the solid oak-door, beat upon it with my hands,
kicked it—but all to no purpose.
I rushed into the next room, forgetting—if indeed I had observed it,
that there was no door from it upon the gallery. I turned round in an
angry and dismayed perplexity, and, like prisoners in romances, ex-
amined the windows.
I was shocked and affrighted on discovering in reality what they occa-
sionally find—a series of iron bars crossing the window! They were
firmly secured in the oak woodwork of the window-frame, and each
window was, besides, so compactly screwed down that it could not
open. This bedroom was converted into a prison. A momentary hope
flashed on me—perhaps all the windows were secured alike! But it was
no such thing: these gaol-like precautions were confined to the windows
to which I had access.
For a few minutes I felt quite distracted; but I bethought me that I
must now, if ever, control my terrors and exert whatever faculties I
possessed.
I stood upon a chair and examined the oak-work. I thought I detected
marks of new chiselling here and there. The screws, too, looked new; and
they and the scars on the woodwork were freshly smeared over with
some coloured stuff by way of disguise.
While I was making these observations, I heard the key stealthily
stirred. I suspect that Madame wished to surprise me. Her approaching
step, indeed, was seldom audible; she had the soft tread of the feline
tribe.

398
 I was standing in the centre of the room confronting her when she
entered.
'Why did you lock the door, Madame?' I demanded.
She slipped in suddenly with an insidious smirk, and locked the door
hastily.
'Hish!' whispered Madame, raising her broad palm; and then screwing
in her cheeks, she made an ogle over her shoulder in the direction of the
passage.
'Hish! be quiate, cheaile, weel you, and I weel tale you everything
presently.'
She paused, with her ear laid to the door.
'Now I can speak, ma chère; I weel tale a you there is bailiff in the
house, two, three, four soche impertinent fallows! They have another as
bad as themselve to make a leest of the furniture: we most keep them out
of these rooms, dear Maud.'
'You left the key in the door on the outside,' I retorted; 'that was not to
keep them out, but me in, Madame.'
'Deed I leave the key in the door?' ejaculated Madame, with both hands
raised, and such a genuine look of consternation as for a moment shook
me.
It was the nature of this woman's deceptions that they often puzzled
though they seldom convinced me.
'I re-ally think, Maud, all those so frequent changes and excite-ments
they weel overturn my poor head.'
'And the windows are secured with iron bars—what are they for?' I
whispered sternly, pointing with my finger at these grim securities.
'That is for more a than forty years, when Sir Phileep Aylmer was to
reside here, and had this room for his children's nursery, and was afraid
they should fall out.'
'But if you look you will find these bars have been put here very re-
cently: the screws and marks are quite new.'
'Eendeed!' ejaculated Madame, with prolonged emphasis, in precisely
the same consternation. 'Why, my dear, they told a me down stair what I
have tell a you, when I ask the reason! Late a me see.'
And Madame mounted on a chair, and made her scrutiny with much
curiosity, but could not agree with me as to the very recent date of the
carpentry.
There is nothing, I think, so exasperating as that sort of falsehood
which affects not to see what is quite palpable.

399
 'Do you mean to say, Madame, that you really think those chisellings
and screws are forty years old?'
'How can I tell, cheaile? What does signify whether it is forty or only
fourteen years? Bah! we av other theeng to theenk about. Those villain
men! I am glad to see bar and bolt, and lock and key, at least, to our
room, to keep soche faylows out!'
At that moment a knock came to the door, and Madame's nasal 'in mo-
ment' answered promptly, and she opened the door, stealthily popping
out her head.
'Oh, that is all right; go you long, no ting more, go way.'
'Who's there?' I cried.
'Hold a your tongue,' said Madame imperiously to the visitor, whose
voice I fancied I recognised—'go way.'
Out slipped Madame again, locking the door; but this time she re-
turned immediately, bearing a tray with breakfast.
I think she fancied that I would perhaps attempt to break away and es-
cape; but I had no such thought at that moment. She hastily set down the
tray on the floor at the threshold, locking the door as before.
My share of breakfast was a little tea; but Madame's digestion was sel-
dom disturbed by her sympathies, and she ate voraciously. During this
process there was a silence unusual in her company; but when her meal
was ended she proposed a reconnaissance, professing much uncertainty
as to whether my Uncle had been arrested or not.
'And in case the poor old gentleman be poot in what you call stone
jug, where are we to go my dear Maud—to Knowl or to Elverston? You
must direct.'
And so she disappeared, turning the key in the door as before. It was
an old custom of hers, locking herself in her room, and leaving the key in
the lock; and the habit prevailed, for she left it there again.
With a heavy heart I completed my simple toilet, wondering all the
while how much of Madame's story might be false and how much, if
any, true. Then I looked out upon the dingy courtyard below, in its deep
damp shadow, and thought, 'How could an assassin have scaled that
height in safety, and entered so noiselessly as not to awaken the slum-
bering gamester?' Then there were the iron bars across my window.
What a fool had I been to object to that security!
I was labouring hard to reassure myself, and keep all ghastly suspi-
cions at arm's length. But I wished that my room had been to the front of
the house, with some view less dismal.

400
 Lost in these ruminations of fear, as I stood at the window I was
startled by the sound of a sharp tread on the lobby, and by the key turn-
ing in the lock of my door.
In a panic I sprang back into the corner, and stood with my eyes fixed
upon the door. It opened a little, and the black head of Meg Hawkes was
introduced.
'Oh, Meg!' I cried; 'thank God!'
'I guessed'twas you, Miss Maud. I am feared, Miss.'
The miller's daughter was pale, and her eyes, I thought, were red and
swollen.
'Oh, Meg! for God's sake, what is it all?'
'I darn't come in. The old un's gone down, and locked the cross-door,
and left me to watch. They think I care nout about ye, no more nor them-
selves. I donna know all, but summat more nor her. They tell her nout,
she's so gi'n to drink; they say she's not safe, an' awful quarrelsome. I
hear a deal when fayther and Master Dudley be a-talkin' in the mill.
They think, comin' in an' out, I don't mind; but I put one think an' t'other
together. An' don't ye eat nor drink nout here, Miss; hide away this; it's
black enough, but wholesome anyhow!' and she slipt a piece of a coarse
loaf from under her apron. 'Hide it mind. Drink nout but the water in the
jug there—it's clean spring.'
'Oh, Meg! Oh, Meg! I know what you mean,' said I, faintly.
'Ay, Miss, I'm feared they'll try it; they'll try to make away wi' ye
somehow. I'm goin' to your friends arter dark; I darn't try it no sooner.
I'll git awa to Ellerston, to your lady-cousin, and I'll bring 'em back wi'
me in a rin; so keep a good hairt, lass. Meg Hawkes will stan' to ye. Ye
were better to me than fayther and mother, and a';' and she clasped me
round the waist, and buried her head in my dress; 'an I'll gie my life for
ye, darling, and if they hurt ye I'll kill myself.'
She recovered her sterner mood quickly—
'Not a word, lass,' she said, in her old tone. 'Don't ye try to git
away—they'll kill ye—ye can't do't. Leave a' to me. It won't be, whatever
it is, till two or three o'clock in the morning. I'll ha'e them a' here long
afore; so keep a brave heart—there's a darling.'
I suppose she heard, or fancied she heard, a step approaching, for she
said—
'Hish!'
Her pale wild face vanished, the door shut quickly and softly, and the
key turned again in the lock.

401
 Meg, in her rude way, had spoken softly—almost under her breath;
but no prophecy shrieked by the Pythoness ever thundered so madly in
the ears of the hearer. I dare say that Meg fancied I was marvellously
little moved by her words. I felt my gaze grow intense, and my flesh and
bones literally freeze. She did not know that every word she spoke
seemed to burst like a blaze in my brain. She had delivered her frightful
warning, and told her story coarsely and bluntly, which, in effect, means
distinctly and concisely; and, I dare say, the announcement so made, like
a quick bold incision in surgery, was more tolerable than the slow imper-
fect mangling, which falters and recedes and equivocates with torture.
Madame was long away. I sat down at the window, and tried to appreci-
ate my dreadful situation. I was stupid—the imagery was all frightful;
but I beheld it as we sometimes see horrors—heads cut off and houses
burnt—in a dream, and without the corresponding emotions. It did not
seem as if all this were really happening to me. I remember sitting at the
window, and looking and blinking at the opposite side of the building,
like a person unable but striving to see an object distinctly, and every
minute pressing my hand to the side of my head and saying—
'Oh, it won't be—it won't be—Oh no!—never!—it could not be!' And in
this stunned state Madame found me on her return.
But the valley of the shadow of death has its varieties of dread. The
'horror of great darkness' is disturbed by voices and illumed by sights.
There are periods of incapacity and collapse, followed by paroxysms of
active terror. Thus in my journey during those long hours I found
it—agonies subsiding into lethargies, and these breaking again into
frenzy. I sometimes wonder how I carried my reason safely through the
ordeal.
Madame locked the door, and amused herself with her own business,
without minding me, humming little nasal snatches of French airs, as she
smirked on her silken purchases displayed in the daylight. Suddenly it
struck me that it was very dark, considering how early it was. I looked at
my watch; it seemed to me a great effort of concentration to understand
it. Four o'clock, it said. Four o'clock! It would be dark at five—night in
one hour!
'Madame, what o'clock is it? Is it evening?' I cried with my hand to my
forehead, like a person puzzled.
'Two three minutes past four. It had five minutes to four when I came
upstairs,' answered she, without interrupting her examination of a piece
of darned lace which she was holding close to her eyes at the window.

402
 'Oh, Madame! Madame! I'm frightened,' cried I, with a wild and
piteous voice, grasping her arm, and looking up, as shipwrecked people
may their last to heaven, into her inexorable eyes. Madame looked
frightened too, I thought, as she stared into my face. At last she said,
rather angrily, and shaking her arm loose—
'What you mean, cheaile?'
'Oh save me, Madame!—oh save me!—oh save me, Madame!' I
pleaded, with the wild monotony of perfect terror, grasping and clinging
to her dress, and looking up, with an agonised face, into the eyes of that
shadowy Atropos.
'Save a you, indeed! Save! What niaiserie!'
'Oh, Madame! Oh, dear Madame! for God's sake, only get me
away—get me from this, and I'll do everything you ask me all my life—I
will—indeed, Madame, I will! Oh save me! save me! save me!'
I was clinging to Madame as to my guardian angel in my agony.
'And who told you, cheaile, you are in any danger?' demanded Ma-
dame, looking down on me with a black and witchlike stare.
'I am, Madame—I am—in great danger! Oh, Madame, think of
me—take pity on me! I have none to help me—there is no one but God
and you!'
Madame all this time viewed me with the same dismal stare, like a sor-
ceress reading futurity in my face.
'Well, maybe you are—how can I tell? Maybe your uncle is
mad—maybe you are mad. You have been my enemy always—why
should I care?'
Again I burst into wild entreaty, and, clasping her fast, poured forth
my supplications with the bitterness of death.
'I have no confidence in you, little Maud; you are little rogue—petite
traîtresse! Reflect, if you can, how you 'av always treat Madame. You 'av
attempt to ruin me—you conspire with the bad domestics at Knowl to
destroy me—and you expect me here to take a your part! You would
never listen to me—you 'ad no mercy for me—you join to hunt me away
from your house like wolf. Well, what you expect to find me now? Bah!'
This terrific 'Bah!' with a long nasal yell of scorn, rang in my ears like a
clap of thunder.
'I say you are mad, petite insolente, to suppose I should care for you
more than the poor hare it will care for the hound—more than the bird
who has escape will love the oiseleur. I do not care—I ought not care. It
is your turn to suffer. Lie down on your bed there, and suffer quaitely.'

403
Chapter 63
SPICED CLARET
I did not lie down; but I despaired. I walked round and round the room,
wringing my hands in utter distraction. I threw myself at the bedside on
my knees. I could not pray; I could only shiver and moan, with hands
clasped, and eyes of horror turned up to heaven. I think Madame was, in
her malignant way, perplexed. That some evil was intended me I am
sure she was persuaded; but I dare say Meg Hawkes had said rightly in
telling me that she was not fully in their secrets.
The first paroxysm of despair subsided into another state. All at once
my mind was filled with the idea of Meg Hawkes, her enterprise, and
my chances of escape. There is one point at which the road to Elverston
makes a short ascent: there is a sudden curve there, two great ash-trees,
with a roadside stile between, at the right side, covered with ivy. Driving
back and forward, I did not recollect having particularly remarked this
point in the highway; but now it was before me, in the thin light of the
thinnest segment of moon, and the figure of Meg Hawkes, her back to-
ward me, always ascending towards Elverston. It was constantly the
same picture—the same motion without progress—the same dreadful
suspense and impatience.
I was now sitting on the side of the bed, looking wistfully across the
room. When I did not see Meg Hawkes, I beheld Madame darkly eyeing
first one then another point of the chamber, evidently puzzling over
some problem, and in one of her most savage moods—sometimes mut-
tering to herself, sometimes protruding, and sometimes screwing up her
great mouth.
She went into her own room, where she remained, I think, nearly ten
minutes, and on her return there was that in the flash of her eyes, the
glow of her face, and the peculiar fragrance that surrounded her, that
showed she had been partaking of her favourite restorative.
I had not moved since she left my room.

404
 She paused about the middle of the floor, and looked at me with what
I can only describe as her wild-beast stare.
'You are a very secrete family, you Ruthyns—you are so coning. I hate
the coning people. By my faith, I weel see Mr. Silas Ruthyn, and ask wat
he mean. I heard him tell old Wyat that Mr. Dudley is gone away to-
night. He shall tell me everything, or else I weel make echec et mat aussi
vrai que je vis.'
Madame's words had hardly ceased, when I was again watching Meg
Hawkes on the steep road, mounting, but never reaching, the top of the
acclivity, on the way to Elverston, and mentally praying that she might
be brought safely there. Vain prayer of an agonised heart! Meg's journey
was already frustrated: she was not to reach Elverston in time.
Madame revisited her apartment, and returned, not, I think, improved
in temper. She walked about the room, hustling the scanty furniture
hither and thither as she encountered it. She kicked her empty box out of
her way, with a horrid crash, and a curse in French. She strode and
swaggered round the room, muttering all the way, and turning the
corners of her course with a furious whisk. At last, out of the door she
went. I think she fancied she had not been sufficiently taken into confid-
ence as to what was intended for me.
It was now growing late, and yet no succour! I was seized, I remem-
ber, with a dreadful icy shivering.
I was listening for signals of deliverance. At ever distant sound, half
stifled with a palpitation, these sounds piercing my ear with a horrible
and exaggerated distinctness—'Oh Meg!—Oh cousin Monica!—Oh
come! Oh Heaven, have mercy!—Lord, have mercy!' I thought I heard a
roaring and jangle of voices. Perhaps it came from Uncle Silas's room. It
might be the tipsy violence of Madame. It might—merciful Heaven!—be
the arrival of friends. I started to my feet; I listened, quivering with atten-
tion. Was it in my brain?—was it real? I was at the door, and it seemed to
open of itself. Madame had forgotten to lock it; she was losing her head a
little by this time. The key stood in the gallery door beyond; it too, was
open. I fled wildly. There was a subsiding sound of voices in my uncle's
room. I was, I know not how, on the lobby at the great stair-head outside
my uncle's apartment. My hand was on the banisters, my foot on the first
step, when below me and against the faint light that glimmered through
the great window on the landing I saw a bulky human form ascending,
and a voice said 'Hush!' I staggered back, and at that instant fancied,
with a thrill of conviction, I heard Lady Knollys's voice in Uncle Silas'
room.

405
 I don't know how I entered the room; I was there like a ghost. I was
frightened at my own state.
Lady Knollys was not there—no one but Madame and my guardian.
I can never forget the look that Uncle Silas fixed on me as he cowered,
seemingly as appalled as I.
I think I must have looked like a phantom newly risen from the grave.
'What's that?—where do you come from?' whispered he.
'Death! death!' was my whispered answer, as I froze with terror where
I stood.
'What does she mean?—what does all this mean?' said Uncle Silas, re-
covering wonderfully, and turning with a withering sneer on Madame.
'Do you think it right to disobey my plain directions, and let her run
about the house at this hour?'
'Death! death! Oh, pray to God for you and me!' I whispered in the
same dreadful tones.
My uncle stared strangely at me again; and after several horrible
seconds, in which he seemed to have recovered himself, he said, sternly
and coolly—
'You give too much place to your imagination, niece. Your spirits are
in an odd state—you ought to have advice.'
'Oh, uncle, pity me! Oh, uncle, you are good! you're kind; you're kind
when you think. You could not—you could not—could not! Oh, think of
your brother that was always so good to you! He sees me here. He sees
us both. Oh, save me, uncle—save me!—and I'll give up everything to
you. I'll pray to God to bless you—I'll never forget your goodness and
mercy. But don't keep me in doubt. If I'm to go, oh, for God's sake, shoot
me now!'
'You were always odd, niece; I begin to fear you are insane,' he replied,
in the same stern icy tone.
'Oh, uncle—oh!—am I? Am I mad?'
'I hope not; but you'll conduct yourself like a sane person if you wish
to enjoy the privileges of one.'
Then, with his finger pointing at me, he turned to Madame, and said,
in a tone of suppressed ferocity—
'What's the meaning of this?—why is she here?'
Madame was gabbling volubly, but to me it was only a shrilly noise.
My whole soul was concentrated in my uncle, the arbiter of my life, be-
fore whom I stood in the wildest agony of supplication.

406
 That night was dreadful. The people I saw dizzily, made of smoke or
shining vapour, smiling or frowning, I could have passed my hand
through them. They were evil spirits.
'There's no ill intended you; by —— there's none,' said my uncle, for
the first time violently agitated. 'Madame told you why we've changed
your room. You told her about the bailiffs, did not you? 'with a stamp of
fury he demanded of Madame, whose nasal roullades of talk were run-
ning on like a accompaniment all the time. She had told me indeed only
a few hours since, and now it sounded to me like the echo of something
heard a month ago or more.
'You can't go about the house, d—n it, with bailiffs in occupation.
There now—there's the whole thing. Get to your room, Maud, and don't
vex me. There's a good girl.'
He was trying to smile as he spoke these last words, and, with quaver-
ing soft tones, to quiet me; but the old scowl was there, the smile was
corpse-like and contorted, and the softness of his tones was more dread-
ful than another man's ferocity.
'There, Madame, she'll go quite gently, and you can call if you want
help. Don't let it happen again.'
'Come, Maud,' said Madame, encircling but not hurting my arm with
her grip; 'let us go, my friend.'
I did go, you will wonder, as well you may—as you may wonder at
the docility with which strong men walk through the press-room to the
drop, and thank the people of the prison for their civility when they bid
them good-bye, and facilitate the fixing of the rope and adjusting of the
cap. Have you never wondered that they don't make a last battle for life
with the unscrupulous energy of terror, instead of surrendering it so
gently in cold blood, on a silent calculation, the arithmetic of despair?
I went upstairs with Madame like a somnambulist. I rather quickened
my step as I drew near my room. I went in, and stood a phantom at the
window, looking into the dark quadrange. A thin glimmering crescent
hung in the frosty sky, and all heaven was strewn with stars. Over the
steep roof at the other side spread on the dark azure of the night this
glorious blazonry of the unfathomable Creator. To me a dreadful
scroll—inexorable eyes—the cloud of cruel witnesses looking down in
freezing brightness on my prayers and agonies.
I turned about and sat down, leaning my head upon my arms. Then
suddenly I sat up, as for the first time the picture of Uncle Silas's littered
room, and the travelling bags and black boxes plied on the floor by his
table—the desk, hat-case, umbrella, coats, rugs, and mufflers, all ready

407
for a journey—reached my brain and suggested thought. The mise en
scène had remained in every detail fixed upon my retina; and how I
wondered—'When is he going—how soon? Is he going to carry me away
and place me in a madhouse?'
'Am I—am I mad?' I began to think. 'Is this all a dream, or is it real?'
I remembered how a thin polite gentleman, with a tall grizzled head
and a black velvet waistcoat, came into the carriage on our journey, and
said a few words to me; how Madame whispered him something, and he
murmured 'Oh!' very gently, with raised eyebrows, and a glance at me,
and thenceforward spoke no more to me, only to Madame, and at the
next station carried his hat and other travelling chattels into another car-
riage. Had she told him I was mad?
These horrid bars! Madame always with me! The direful hints that
dropt from my uncle! My own terrific sensations!—All these evidences
revolved in my brain, and presented themselves in turn like writings on
a wheel of fire.
There came a knock to the door—
Oh, Meg! Was it she? No; old Wyat whispered Madame something
about her room.
So Madame re-entered, with a little silver tray and flagon in her hands,
and a glass. Nothing came from Uncle Silas in ungentlemanlike fashion.
'Drink, Maud,' said Madame, raising the cover, and evidently enjoying
the fragrant steam.
I could not. I might have done so had I been able to swallow any-
thing—for I was too distracted to think of Meg's warning.
Madame suddenly recollected her mistake of that evening, and tried
the door; but it was duly locked. She took the key from her pocket and
placed it in her breast.
'You weel 'av these rooms to yourself, ma chère. I shall sleep
downstairs to-night.'
She poured out some of the hot claret into the glass abstractedly, and
drank it off.
''Tis very good—I drank without theenk. Bote 'tis very good. Why
don't you drink some?'
'I could not', I repeated. And Madame boldly helped herself.
'Vary polite, certally, to Madame was it to send nothing at all for hair'
(so she pronounced 'her'); 'bote is all same thing.' And so she ran on in
her tipsy vein, which was loud and sarcastic, with a fierce laugh now
and then.

408
 Afterwards I heard that they were afraid of Madame, who was given
to cross purposes, and violent in her cups. She had been noisy and quar-
relsome downstairs. She was under the delusion that I was to be con-
veyed away that night to a remote and safe place, and she was to be
handsomely compensated for services and evidence to be afterwards
given. She was not to be trusted, however, with the truth. That was to be
known but to three people on earth.
I never knew, but I believe that the spiced claret which Madame drank
was drugged. She was a person who could, I have been told. Drink a
great deal without exhibiting any change from it but an inflamed colour
and furious temper. I can only state for certain what I saw, and that was,
that shortly after she had finished the claret she laid down upon my bed,
and, I now know, fell asleep. I then thought she was feigning sleep only,
and that she was really watching me.
About an hour after this I suddenly heard a little clink in the yard be-
neath. I peeped out, but saw nothing. The sound was repeated,
however—sometimes more frequently, sometimes at long intervals. At
last, in the deep shadow next the farther wall, I thought I could discover
a figure, sometimes erect, sometimes stooping and bowing toward the
earth. I could see this figure only in the rudest outline mingling with the
dark.
Like a thunderbolt it smote my brain. 'They are making my grave!'
After the first dreadful stun I grew quite wild, and ran up and down
the room wringing my hands and gasping prayers to heaven. Then a
calm stole over me—such a dreadful calm as I could fancy glide over one
who floated in a boat under the shadow of the 'Traitor's Gate,' leaving
life and hope and trouble behind.
Shortly after there came a very low tap at my door; then another, like a
tiny post-knock. I could never understand why it was I made no answer.
Had I done so, and thus shown that I was awake, it might have sealed
my fate. I was standing in the middle of the floor staring at the door,
which I expected to see open, and admit I knew not what troop of
spectres.

409
Chapter 64
THE HOUR OF DEATH
It was a very still night and frosty. My candle had long burnt out. There
was still a faint moonlight, which fell in a square of yellow on the floor
near the window, leaving the rest of the room in what to an eye less ac-
customed than mine had become to that faint light would have been total
darkness. Now, I am sure, I heard a soft whispering outside my door. I
knew that I was in a state of siege! The crisis was come, and strange to
say, I felt myself grow all at once resolute and self-possessed. It was not a
subsidence, however, of the dreadful excitement, but a sudden screwing-
up of my nerves to a pitch such as I cannot describe.
I suppose the people outside moved with great caution; and the per-
fect solidity of the floor, which had not anywhere a creaking board in it,
favoured their noiseless movements. It was well for me that there were
in the house three persons whom it was part of their plan to mystify re-
specting my fate. This alone compelled the extreme caution of their pro-
ceedings. They suspected that I had placed furniture against the door,
and were afraid to force it, lest a crash, a scream, perhaps a long and
shrilly struggle, might follow.
I remained for a space which I cannot pretend to estimate in the same
posture, afraid to stir—afraid to move my eye from the door.
A very peculiar grating sound above my head startled me from my
watch—something of the character of sawing, only more crunching, and
with a faint continued rumble in it—utterly inexplicable. It sounded over
that portion of the roof which was farthest from the door, toward which I
now glided; and as I took my stand under cover of the projecting angle
of a clumsy old press that stood close by it, I perceived the room a little
darkened, and I saw a man descend and take his stand upon the
window-stone. He let go a rope, which, however, was still fast round his
body, and employed both his hands, with apparently some exertion,
about something at the side of the window, which in a moment more, in
one mass, bars and all, swung noiselessly open, admitting the frosty

410
night-air; and the man, whom I now distinctly saw to be Dudley Ruthyn,
kneeled on the sill, and stept, after a moment's listening, into the room.
His foot made no sound upon the floor; his head was bare, and he wore
his usual short shooting-jacket.
I cowered to the ground in my post of observation. He stood, as it
seemed to me irresolutely for a moment, and then drew from his pocket
an instrument which I distinctly saw against the faint moonlight. Ima-
gine a hammer, one end of which had been beaten out into a longish
tapering spike, with a handle something longer than usual. He drew
stealthily to the window, and seemed to examine this hurriedly, and
tested its strength with a twist or two of his hand. And then he adjusted
it very carefully in his grasp, and made two or three little experimental
picks with it in the air.
I remained perfectly still, with a terrible composure, crouched in my
hiding-place, my teeth clenched, and prepared to struggle like a tigress
for my life when discovered. I thought his next measure would be to
light a match. I saw a lantern, I fancied, on the window-sill. But this was
not his plan. He stole, in a groping way, which seemed strange to me,
who could distinguish objects in this light, to the side of my bed, the ex-
act position of which he evidently knew; he stooped over it. Madame
was breathing in the deep respiration of heavy sleep. Suddenly but softly
he laid, as it seemed to me, his left hand over her face, and nearly at the
same instant there came a scrunching blow; an unnatural shriek, begin-
ning small and swelling for two or three seconds into a yell such as are
imagined in haunted houses, accompanied by a convulsive sound, as of
the motion of running, and the arms drumming on the bed; and then an-
other blow—and with a horrid gasp he recoiled a step or two, and stood
perfectly still. I heard a horrible tremor quivering through the joints and
curtains of the bedstead—the convulsions of the murdered woman. It
was a dreadful sound, like the shaking of a tree and rustling of leaves.
Then once more he steps to the side of the bed, and I heard another of
those horrid blows—and silence—and another—and more silence—and
the diabolical surgery was ended. For a few seconds, I think, I was on the
point of fainting; but a gentle stir outside the door, close to my ear,
startled me, and proved that there had been a watcher posted outside.
There was a little tapping at the door.
'Who's that?' whispered Dudley, hoarsely.
'A friend,' answered a sweet voice.
And a key was introduced, the door quickly unlocked, and Uncle Silas
entered. I saw that frail, tall, white figure, the venerable silver locks that

411
resembled those upon the honoured head of John Wesley, and his thin
white hand, the back of which hung so close to my face that I feared to
breathe. I could see his fingers twitching nervously. The smell of per-
fumes and of ether entered the room with him.
Dudley was trembling now like a man in an ague-fit.
'Look what you made me do!' he said, maniacally.
'Steady, sir!' said the old man, close beside me.
'Yes, you damned old murderer! I've a mind to do for you.'
'There, Dudley, like a dear boy, don't give way; it's done. Right or
wrong, we can't help it. You must be quiet,' said the old man, with a
stern gentleness.
Dudley groaned.
'Whoever advised it, you're a gainer, Dudley,' said Uncle Silas.
Then there was a pause.
'I hope that was not heard,' said Uncle Silas.
Dudley walked to the window and stood there.
'Come, Dudley, you and Hawkes must use expedition. You know you
must get that out of the way.'
'I've done too much. I won't do nout; I'll not touch it. I wish my hand
was off first; I wish I was a soger. Do as ye like, you an' Hawkes. I won't
go nigh it; damn ye both—and that!' and he hurled the hammer with all
his force upon the floor.
'Come, come, be reasonable, Dudley, dear boy. There's nothing to fear
but your own folly. You won't make a noise?'
'Oh, oh, my God!' said Dudley, hoarsely, and wiped his forehead with
his open hand.
'There now, you'll be all well in a minute,' continued the old man.
'You said 'twouldn't hurt her. If I'd a known she'd a screeched like that
I'd never a done it. 'Twas a damn lie. You're the damndest villain on
earth.'
'Come, Dudley!' said the old man under his breath, but very sternly,
'make up your mind. If you don't choose to go on, it can't be helped; only
it's a pity you began. For you it is a good deal—it does not much matter
for me.'
'Ay, for you!' echoed Dudley, through his set teeth. 'The old talk!'
'Well, sir,' snarled the old man, in the same low tones, 'you should
have thought of all this before. It's only taking leave of the world a year
or two sooner, but a year or two's something. I'll leave you to do as you
please.'

412
 'Stop, will you? Stop here. I know it's a fixt thing now. If a fella does a
thing he's damned for, you might let him talk a bit anyhow. I don't care
much if I was shot.'
'There now—there—just stick to that, and don't run off again. There's a
box and a bag here; we must change the direction, and take them away.
The box has some jewels. Can you see them? I wish we had a light.'
'No, I'd rayther not; I can see well enough. I wish we were out o' this.
Here's the box.'
'Pull it to the window,' said the old man, to my inexpressible relief ad-
vancing at last a few steps.
Coolness was given me in that dreadful moment, and I knew that all
depended on my being prompt and resolute. I stood up swiftly. I often
thought if I had happened to wear silk instead of the cachmere I had on
that night, its rustle would have betrayed me.
I distinctly saw the tall stooping figure of my uncle, and the outline of
his venerable tresses, as he stood between me and the dull light of the
window, like a shape cut in card.
He was saying 'just to there,' and pointing with his long arm at that
contracting patch of moonlight which lay squared upon the floor. The
door was about a quarter open, and just as Dudley began to drag
Madame's heavy box, with my jewel-case in it, across the floor from her
room, inhaling a great breath—with a mental prayer for help—I glided
on tiptoe from the room and found myself on the gallery floor.
I turned to my right, simply by chance, and followed a long gallery in
the dark, not running—I was too fearful of making the least noise—but
walking with the tiptoe-swiftness of terror. At the termination of this
was a cross-gallery, one end of which—that to my left—terminated in a
great window, through which the dusky night-view was visible. With
the instinct of terror I chose the darker, and turned again to my right;
hurrying through this long and nearly dark passage, I was terrified by a
light, about thirty feet before me, emerging from the ceiling. In spotted
patches this light fell through the door and sides of a stable lantern, and
showed me a ladder, down which, from an open skylight I suppose for
the cool night-air floated in my face, came Dickon Hawkes notwithstand-
ing his maimed condition, with so much celerity as to leave me hardly a
moment for consideration.
He sat on the last round of the ladder, and tightened the strap of his
wooden leg.

413
 At my left was a door-case open, but no door. I entered; it was a short
passage about six feet long, leading perhaps to a backstair, but the door
at the end was locked.
I was forced to stand in this recess, then, which afforded no shelter,
while Pegtop stumped by with his lantern in his hand. I fancy he had
some idea of listening to his master unperceived, for he stopped close to
my hiding-place, blew out the candle, and pinched the long snuff with
his horny finger and thumb.
Having listened for a few seconds, he stumped stealthily along the gal-
lery which I had just traversed, and turned the corner in the direction of
the chamber where the crime had just been committed, and the discov-
ery was impending. I could see him against the broad window which in
the daytime lighted this long passage, and the moment he had passed
the corner I resumed my flight.
I descended a stair corresponding with that backstair, as I am told, up
which Madame had led me only the night before. I tried the outer door.
To my wild surprise it was open. In a moment I was upon the step, in the
free air, and as instantaneously was seized by the arm in the gripe of a
man.
It was Tom Brice, who had already betrayed me, and who was now, in
surtout and hat, waiting to drive the carriage with the guilty father and
son from the scene of their abhorred outrage.

414
Chapter 65
IN THE OAK PARLOUR
So it was vain: I was trapped, and all was over.
I stood before him on the step, the white moon shining on my face. I
was trembling so that I wonder I could stand, my helpless hands raised
towards him, and I looked up in his face. A long shuddering
moan—'Oh—oh—oh!' was all I uttered.
The man, still holding my arm, looked, I thought frightened, into my
white dumb face.
Suddenly he said, in a wild, fierce whisper—
'Never say another word' (I had not uttered one). 'They shan't hurt ye,
Miss; git ye in; I don't care a damn!'
It was an uncouth speech. To me it was the voice of an angel. With a
burst of gratitude that sounded in my own ears like a laugh, I thanked
God for those blessed words.
In a moment more he had placed me in the carriage, and almost in-
stantly we were in motion—very cautiously while crossing the court, un-
til he had got the wheels upon the grass, and then at a rapid pace, im-
proving his speed as the distance increased. He drove along the side of
the back-approach to the house, keeping on the grass; so that our pro-
gress, though swaying like that of a ship in a swell, was very nearly as
noiseless.
The gate had been left unlocked—he swung it open, and remounted
the box. And we were now beyond the spell of Bartram-Haugh, thunder-
ing—Heaven be praised!—along the Queen's highway, right in the route
to Elverston. It was literally a gallop. Through the chariot windows I saw
Tom stand as he drove, and every now and then throw an awful glance
over his shoulder. Were we pursued? Never was agony of prayer like
mine, as with clasped hands and wild stare I gazed through the win-
dows on the road, whose trees and hedges and gabled cottages were
chasing one another backward at so giddy a speed.

415
 We were now ascending that identical steep, with the giant ash-trees
at the right and the stile between, which my vision of Meg Hawkes had
presented all that night, when my excited eye detected a running figure
within the hedge. I saw the head of some one crossing the stile in pur-
suit, and I heard Brice's name shrieked.
'Drive on—on—on!' I screamed.
But Brice pulled up. I was on my knees on the floor of the carriage,
with clasped hands, expecting capture, when the door opened, and Meg
Hawkes, pale as death, her cloak drawn over her black tresses, looked in.
'Oh!—ho!—ho!—thank God!' she screamed. 'Shake hands, lass. Tom,
yer a good un! He's a good lad, Tom.'
'Come in, Meg—you must sit by me,' I said, recovering all at once.
Meg made no demur. 'Take my hand,' I said offering mine to her dis-
engaged one.
'I can't, Miss—my arm's broke.'
And so it was, poor thing! She had been espied and overtaken in her
errand of mercy for me, and her ruffian father had felled her with his
cudgel, and then locked her into the cottage, whence, however, she had
contrived to escape, and was now flying to Elverston, having tried in
vain to get a hearing in Feltram, whose people had been for hours in bed.
The door being shut upon Meg, the steaming horses were instantly at
a gallop again.
Tom was still watching as before, with many an anxious glance to
rearward, for pursuit. Again he pulled up, and came to the window.
'Oh, what is it?' cried I.
''Bout that letter, Miss; I couldn't help. 'Twas Dickon, he found it in my
pocket. That's a'.'
'Oh yes!—no matter—thank you—thank Heaven! Are we near
Elverston?'
''Twill be a mile, Miss: and please'm to mind I had no finger in't.'
'Thanks—thank you—you're very good—I shall always thank you,
Tom, as long as I live!'
At length we entered Elverston. I think I was half wild. I don't know
how I got into the hall. I was in the oak-parlour, I believe, when I saw
cousin Monica. I was standing, my arms extended. I could not speak; but
I ran with a loud long scream into her arms. I forget a great deal after
that.

416
Chapter 66
CONCLUSION
Oh, my beloved cousin Monica! Thank Heaven, you are living still, and
younger, I think, than I in all things but in years.
And Milly, my dear companion, she is now the happy wife of that
good little clergyman, Sprigge Biddlepen. It has been in my power to be
of use to them, and he shall have the next presentation to Dawling.
Meg Hawkes, proud and wayward, and the most affectionate creature
on earth, was married to Tom Brice a few months after these events; and,
as both wished to emigrate, I furnished them with the capital, and I am
told they are likely to be rich. I hear from my kind Meg often, and she
seems very happy.
My dear old friends, Mary Quince and Mrs. Rusk, are, alas! growing
old, but living with me, and very happy. And after long solicitation, I
persuaded Doctor Bryerly, the best and truest of ministers, with my
dearest friend's concurrence, to undertake the management of the Derby-
shire estates. In this I have been most fortunate. He is the very person for
such a charge—so punctual, so laborious, so kind, and so shrewd.
In compliance with medical advice, cousin Monica hurried me away to
the Continent, where she would never permit me to allude to the terrific
scenes which remain branded so awfully on my brain. It needed no con-
straint. It is a sort of agony to me even now to think of them.
The plan was craftily devised. Neither old Wyat nor Giles, the butler,
had a suspicion that I had returned to Bartram. Had I been put to death,
the secret of my fate would have been deposited in the keeping of four
persons only—the two Ruthyns, Hawkes, and ultimately Madame. My
dear cousin Monica had been artfully led to believe in my departure for
France, and prepared for my silence. Suspicion might not have been ex-
cited for a year after my death, and then would never, in all probability,
have pointed to Bartram as the scene of the crime. The weeds would
have grown over me, and I should have lain in that deep grave where

417
the corpse of Madame de la Rougierre was unearthed in the darksome
quadrangle of Bartram-Haugh.
It was more than two years after that I heard what had befallen at
Bartram after my flight. Old Wyat, who went early to Uncle Silas's room,
to her surprise—for he had told her that he was that night to accompany
his son, who had to meet the mailtrain to Derby at five o'clock in the
morning—saw her old master lying on the sofa, much in his usual
position.
'There was nout much strange about him,' old Wyat said, 'but that his
scent-bottle was spilt on its side over on the table, and he dead.'
She thought he was not quite cold when she found him, and she sent
the old butler for Doctor Jolks, who said he died of too much 'loddlum.'
Of my wretched uncle's religion what am I to say? Was it utter hypo-
crisy, or had it at any time a vein of sincerity in it? I cannot say. I don't
believe that he had any heart left for religion, which is the highest form
of affection, to take hold of. Perhaps he was a sceptic with misgivings
about the future, but past the time for finding anything reliable in it. The
devil approached the citadel of his heart by stealth, with many zigzags
and parallels. The idea of marrying me to his son by fair means, then by
foul, and, when that wicked chance was gone, then the design of seizing
all by murder, supervened. I dare say that Uncle Silas thought for a
while that he was a righteous man. He wished to have heaven and to es-
cape hell, if there were such places. But there were other things whose
existence was not speculative, of which some he coveted, and some he
dreaded more, and temptation came. 'Now if any man build upon this
foundation, gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble, every
man's work shall be made manifest; for the day shall declare it, because
it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of
what sort it is.' There comes with old age a time when the heart is no
longer fusible or malleable, and must retain the form in which it has
cooled down. 'He that is unjust, let him be unjust still; he which is filthy,
let him be filthy still.'
Dudley had disappeared; but in one of her letters, Meg, writing from
her Australian farm, says: 'There's a fella in toon as calls hisself Colbroke,
wi' a good hoose o' wood, 15 foot length, and as by 'bout as silling o' the
pearler o' Bartram—only lots o' rats, they do say, my lady—a bying and
sellin' of goold back and forred wi' the diggin foke and the marchants.
His chick and mouth be wry wi' scar o' burns or vitterel, an' no wiskers,
bless you; but my Tom ee toll him he knowed him for Master Doodley. I
ant seed him; but he sade ad shute Tom soon is look at 'im, an' denide it,

418
wi' mouthful o' curses and oaf. Tom baint right shure; if I seed un wons
i'd no for sartin; but 'appen,'twil best be let be.' This was all.
Old Hawkes stood his ground, relying on the profound cunning with
which their actual proceedings had been concealed, even from the suspi-
cions of the two inmates of the house, and on the mystery that habitually
shrouded Bartram-Haugh and all its belongings from the eyes of the out-
er world.
Strangely enough, he fancied that I had made my escape long before
the room was entered; and, even if he were arrested, there was no evid-
ence, he was certain, to connect him with the murder, all knowledge of
which he would stoutly deny.
There was an inquest on the body of my uncle, and Dr. Jolks was the
chief witness. They found that his death was caused by 'an excessive
dose of laudanum, accidentally administered by himself.'
It was not until nearly a year after the dreadful occurrences at Bartram
that Dickon Hawkes was arrested on a very awful charge, and placed in
gaol. It was an old crime, committed in Lancashire, that had found him
out. After his conviction, as a last chance, he tried a disclosure of all the
circumstances of the unsuspected death of the Frenchwoman. Her body
was discovered buried where he indicated, in the inner court of Bartram-
Haugh, and, after due legal enquiry, was interred in the churchyard of
Feltram.
Thus I escaped the horrors of the witness-box, or the far worse torture
of a dreadful secret.
Doctor Bryerly, shortly after Lady Knollys had described to him the
manner in which Dudley entered my room, visited the house of Bartram-
Haugh, and minutely examined the windows of the room in which Mr.
Charke had slept on the night of his murder. One of these he found
provided with powerful steel hinges, very craftily sunk and concealed in
the timber of the window-frame, which was secured by an iron pin out-
side, and swung open on its removal. This was the room in which they
had placed me, and this the contrivance by means of which the room had
been entered. The problem of Mr. Charke's murder was solved.

I have penned it. I sit for a moment breathless. My hands are cold and
damp. I rise with a great sigh, and look out on the sweet green landscape
and pastoral hills, and see the flowers and birds and the waving boughs
of glorious trees—all images of liberty and safety; and as the tremendous
nightmare of my youth melts into air, I lift my eyes in boundless gratit-
ude to the God of all comfort, whose mighty hand and outstretched arm

419
delivered me. When I lower my eyes and unclasp my hands, my cheeks
are wet with tears. A tiny voice is calling me 'Mamma!' and a beloved
smiling face, with his dear father's silken brown tresses, peeps in.
'Yes, darling, our walk. Come away!'
I am Lady Ilbury, happy in the affection of a beloved and noblehearted
husband. The shy useless girl you have known is now a mother—trying
to be a good one; and this, the last pledge, has lived.
I am not going to tell of sorrows—how brief has been my pride of
early maternity, or how beloved were those whom the Lord gave and the
Lord has taken away. But sometimes as, smiling on my little boy, the
tears gather in my eyes, and he wonders, I can see, why they come, I am
thinking—and trembling while I smile—to think, how strong is love,
how frail is life; and rejoicing while I tremble that, in the deathless love
of those who mourn, the Lord of Life, who never gave a pang in vain,
conveys the sweet and ennobling promise of a compensation by eternal
reunion. So, through my sorrows, I have heard a voice from heaven say,
'Write, from hencefore blessed are the dead that die in the Lord!'
This world is a parable—the habitation of symbols—the phantoms of
spiritual things immortal shown in material shape. May the blessed
second-sight be mine—to recognise under these beautiful forms of earth
the ANGELS who wear them; for I am sure we may walk with them if
we will, and hear them speak!

420
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