Miss Maybell, as the carriage entered this melancholy pass, had grown more and more anxious; and pale and silent, was looking forward through the window, as they advanced. At sight of this vehicle, drawn up before them, a sudden fear chilled the young lady with, perhaps, a remote prescience.
CHAPTER III.
THE GRANGE.
The excited nerves of children people the darkness of the nursery with phantoms. The moral and mental darkness of suspense provokes, after its sort, a similar phantasmagoria. Alice Maybell’s heart grew still, and her cheeks paled as she looked with most unreasonable alarm upon the carriage, which had come to a standstill.
There was, however, the sense of a great stake, of great helplessness, of great but undefined possible mischiefs, such as to the “look-out” of a rich galleon in the old piratical days, would have made a strange sail, on the high seas, always an anxious object on the horizon.
And now Miss Alice Maybell was not reassured by observing the enemy’s driver get down, and taking the horses by the head, back the carriage far enough across the road, to obstruct their passage, and this had clearly been done by the direction of the lady in the carriage.
They had now reached the point of obstruction, the driver pulled up, Miss Maybell had lowered the chaise window and was peeping. She saw a tall woman, wrapped up and reclining, as I have said. Her face she could not see, for it was thickly veiled, but she held her hand, from which she had pulled her glove, to her ear, and it was not a young hand nor very refined, — lean and masculine, on the contrary, and its veins and sinews rather strongly marked. The woman was listening, evidently, with attention, and her face, veiled as it was, was turned away so as to bring her ear towards the speakers in the expected colloquy.
Miss Alice Maybell saw the driver exchange a look with hers that seemed to betoken old acquaintance.
“I say, give us room to pass, will ye?” said Miss Maybell’s man.
“Where will you be going to?” inquired the other, and followed the question with a jerk of his thumb over his shoulder, toward the lady in the tweed wrappers, putting out his tongue and winking at the same time.
“To Church Carwell,” answered the man.
“To Church Carwell, ma’am,” repeated the driver over his shoulder to the reclining figure.
“What to do there?” said she, in a sharp, under tone, and with a decided foreign accent.
“What to do there?” repeated the man.
“Change hosses, and go on.”
“On where?” repeated the lady to her driver.
“On where?” repeated he.
“Doughton,” fibbed Miss Maybell’s man, and the same repetition ensued.
“Not going to the Grange?” prompted the lady, in the same undertone and foreign accent, and the question was transmitted as before —
“What Grange?” demanded the driver.
“Carwell Grange.”
“No.”
Miss Alice Maybell was very much frightened as she heard this home-question put, and, relieved by the audacity of her friend on the box, who continued —
“Now then, you move out of that.”
The tall woman in the wrappers nodded, and her driver accordingly pulled the horses aside, with another grin and a wink to his friend, and Miss Maybell drove by to her own great relief.
The reclining figure did not care to turn her face enough to catch a passing sight of the people whom she had thus arbitrarily detained.
She went her way toward Gryce’s mill, and Miss Maybell pursuing hers toward Carwell Grange, was quickly out of sight.
A few minutes more and the glen expanded gently, so as to leave a long oval pasture of two or three acres visible beneath, with the little stream winding its way through the soft sward among scattered trees. Two or three cows were peacefully grazing there, and at the same point a converging hollow made its way into the glen at their right, and through this also spread the forest, under whose shadow they had already been driving for more than two miles.
Into this, from the main road, diverged a ruder track, with a rather steep ascent. This by-road leads up to the Grange, rather a stiff pull. The driver had to dismount and lead his horses, and once or twice expressed doubts as to whether they could pull their burden up the hill.
Alice Maybell, however, offered not to get out. She was nervous, and like a frightened child who gets its bedclothes about its head, the instinct of concealment prevailed, and she trembled lest some other inquirer should cross her way less easily satisfied than the first.
They soon reached a level platform, under the deep shadow of huge old trees, nearly meeting over head. The hoarse cawing of a rookery came mellowed by short distance on the air. For all else, the place was silence itself.
The man came to the door of the carriage to tell his “fare” that they had reached the Grange.
“Stay where you are, Dulcibella, I shan’t be away many minutes,” said the young lady, looking pale, as if she was going to execution.
“I will, Miss Alice; but you must get a bit to eat, dear, you’re hungry, I know by your looks; get a bit of bread and butter.”
“Yes, yes, Dulcie,” said the young lady, not having heard a syllable of this little speech, as looking curiously at the old place, under whose walls they had arrived, she descended from the chaise.
Under the leafy darkness stood two time-stained piers of stone, with a wicket open in the gate. Through this she peeped into a paved yard, all grass-grown, and surrounded by a high wall, with a fine mantle of ivy, through which showed dimly the neglected doors and windows of out-offices and stables. At the right rose, three stories high, with melancholy gables and tall chimneys, the old stone house.
So this was Carwell Grange. Nettles grew in the corners of the yard, and tufts of grass in the chinks of the stone steps, and the worn masonry was tinted with moss and lichens, and all around rose the solemn melancholy screen of darksome foliage, high over the surrounding walls, and outtopping the gray roof of the house.
She hesitated at the door, and then raised the latch; but a bolt secured it. Another hesitation, and she ventured to knock with a stone, that was probably placed there for the purpose.
A lean old woman, whose countenance did not indicate a pleasant temper, put out her head from a window, and asked:
“Well, an’ what brings you here?”
“I expected — to see a friend here,” she answered timidly; “and — and you are Mrs. Tarnley — I think?”
“I’m the person,” answered the woman.
“And I was told to show you this — and that you would admit me.”
And she handed her, through the iron bars of the window, a little oval picture in a shagreen case, hardly bigger than a pennypiece.
The old lady turned it to the light and looked hard at it, saying, “Ay — ay — my old eyes — they won’t see as they used to — but it is so — the old missus — yes — it’s all right, Miss,” and she viewed the young lady with some curiosity, but her tones were much more respectful as she handed her back the miniature.
“I’ll open the door, please ‘m.”
And almost instantly Miss Maybell heard the bolts withdrawn.
“Would you please to walk in — my lady? I can only bring ye into the kitchen. The apples is in the parlour, and the big room’s full o’ straw — and the rest o’ them is locked up. It’ll be Master I know who ye’ll be looking arter?”
The young lady blushed deeply — the question was hardly shaped in the most delicate way.
“There was a woman in a barooche, I think they call it, asking was any one here, and asking very sharp after Master, and I told her he wasn’t here this many a day, nor like to be — and ’twas that made me a bit shy o’ you; you’ll understand, just for a bit.”
“And is he — is your master?” — and she looked round the interior of the house.
“No, he b’aint come; but here’s a letter — what’s your name?” she added abruptly, with a sudden access of
suspicion.
“Miss Maybell,” answered she.
“Yes — well — you’ll excuse me, Miss, but I was told to be sharp, and wideawake, you see. Will you come into the kitchen?”
And without awaiting her answer the old woman led the way into the kitchen — a melancholy chamber, with two narrow windows, darkened by the trees not far off, that overshadowed the house.
A crooked little cur dog, with protruding ribs, and an air of starvation, flew furiously at Miss Maybell, as she entered, and was rolled over on his back by a lusty kick from the old woman’s shoe; and a cat sitting before the fire, bounced under the table to escape the chances of battle.
A little bit of fire smouldered in a corner of the grate. An oak stool, a deal chair, and a battered balloon-backed one, imported from better company, in a crazed and faded state, had grown weaker in the joints, and more ragged and dirty in its antique finery in its present fallen fortunes. There was some cracked delf on the dresser, and something was stewing in a tall saucepan, covered with a broken plate, and to this the old woman directed her attention first, stirring its contents, and peering into it for a while; and when she had replaced it carefully, she took the letter from her pocket, and gave it to Miss Maybell, who read it standing near the window.
As she read this letter, which was a short one, the young lady looked angry, with bright eyes and a brilliant flush, then pale, and then the tears started to her eyes, and turning quite away from the old woman, and still holding up the letter as if reading it, she wept in silence.
The old woman, if she saw this, evinced no sympathy, but continued to fidget about, muttering to herself, shoving her miserable furniture this way or that, arranging her crockery on the dresser, visiting the saucepan that sat patiently on the embers, and sometimes kicking the dog, with an unwomanly curse, when he growled. Drying her eyes, the young lady took her departure, and with a heavy heart left this dismal abode; but with the instinct of propitiation, strong in the unhappy, and with the melancholy hope of even buying a momentary sympathy, she placed some money in the dark hard hand of the crone, who made her a courtesy and a thankless “thankee, Miss,” on the step, as her eye counted over the silver with a greedy ogle, that lay on her lean palm.
“Nothing for nothing.” On the whole a somewhat mercenary type of creation is the human. The postboy reminded the young lady, as she came to the chaise-door, that she might as well gratify him, there and then, with the two pounds which she had promised. And this done, she took her place beside old Dulcibella, who had dropped into a reverie near akin to a doze, and so, without adventure they retraced their way, and once more passing under the shadow of Gryce’s mill, entered on their direct journey to Wyvern.
The sun was near the western horizon, and threw the melancholy tints of sunset over a landscape, undulating and wooded, that spread before them, as they entered the short, broad avenue that leads through two files of noble old trees, to the gray front of many-chimneyed Wyvern.
CHAPTER IV.
THE OLD SQUIRE AND ALICE MAYBELL.
Wyvern is a very pretty old house. It is built of a light gray stone, in the later Tudor style. A portion of it is overgrown with thick ivy. It stands not far away from the high road, among grand old trees, and is one of the most interesting features in a richly wooded landscape, that rises into little hills, and, breaking into rocky and forest-darkened glens, and sometimes into dimpling hollows, where the cattle pasture beside pleasant brooks, presents one of the prettiest countries to be found in England.
The old squire, Henry Fairfield, has seen his summer and his autumn days out. It is winter with him now.
He is not a pleasant picture of an English squire, but such, nevertheless, as the old portraits on the walls of Wyvern here and there testify, the family of Fairfield have occasionally turned out.
He is not cheery nor kindly. Bleak, dark, and austere as a northern winter, is the age of that gaunt old man.
He is too proud to grumble, and never asked any one for sympathy. But it is plain that he parts with his strength and his pleasures bitterly. Of course, seeing the old churchyard, down in the hollow at the left, as he stands of an evening on the steps, thoughts will strike him. He does not acquiesce in death. He resents the order of things. But he keeps his repinings to himself, and retaliates his mortification on the people about him.
Though his hair is snowy, and his shoulders stooped, there is that in his length of bone and his stature that accords with the tradition of his early prowess and activity.
He has long been a widower — fully thirty years. He has two sons, and no daughter. Two sons whom he does not much trust — neither of them young — Charles and Henry.
By no means young are they. The elder, now forty-three, the younger only a year or two less. Charles has led a wandering life, and tried a good many things. He had been fond of play, and other expensive follies. He had sobered, however, people thought, and it might be his mission, notwithstanding his wild and wasteful young days, to pay off the debts of the estate.
Henry, the younger son, a shrewd dealer in horses, liked being king of his company, condescended to strong ale, made love to the barmaid at the “George,” in the little town of Wyvern, and affected the conversation of dog-fanciers, horse-jockeys, wrestlers, and similar celebrities.
The old Squire was not much considered, and less beloved, by his sons. The gaunt old man was, however, more feared by these matured scions than their pride would have easily allowed. The fears of childhood survive its pleasures. Something of the ghostly terrors of the nursery haunt us through life, and the tyrant of early days maintains a strange and unavowed ascendancy over the imagination, long after his real power to inflict pain or privation has quite come to an end.
As this tall, grim, handsome old man moves about the room, as he stands, or sits down, or turns eastward at the Creed in church — as he marches slowly toppling along the terrace, with his goldheaded cane in his hand, surveying the long familiar scenes which will soon bloom and brown no more for him — with sullen eyes, thinking his solitary thoughts — as in the long summer evenings he dozes in the great chair by the fire, which even in the dog-days smoulders in the drawingroom grate — looking like a gigantic effigy of winter — a pair of large and soft gray eyes follow, or steal towards him — removed when observed — but ever and anon returning. People have remarked this, and talked it over, and laughed and shook their heads, and built odd speculations upon it.
Alice Maybell had grown up from orphan childhood under the roof of Wyvern. The old squire had been, after a fashion, kind to that pretty waif of humanity, which a chance wave of fortune had thrown at his door. She was the child of a distant cousin, who had happened, being a clergyman, to die in occupation of the vicarage of Wyvern. Her young mother lay, under the branches of the two great trees, in the lonely corner of the village churchyard; and not two years later the Vicar died, and was buried beside her.
Melancholy, gentle Vicar! Some good judges, I believe, pronounced his sermons admirable. Seedily clothed, with kindly patience visiting his poor; very frugal — his pretty young wife and he were yet happy in the light and glow of the true love that is eternal. He was to her the nonpareil of vicars — the loveliest, wisest, wittiest, and best of men. She to him — what shall I say? The same beautiful first love. Never a day older. Every summer threw new gold on her rich hair, and a softer and brighter bloom on her cheeks, and made her dearer and dearer than he could speak. He could only look and feel his heart swelling with a vain yearning to tell the love that lighted his face with its glory and called a mist to his kind eye.
And then came a time when she had a secret to tell her Willie. Full of a wild fear and delight, in their tiny drawingroom, clasped in each other’s arms, they wept for joy, and a kind of wonder and some dim unspoken tremblings of fear, and loved one another, it seemed, as it were more desperately than ever.
And then, as he read aloud to her in the evenings, her pretty fingers were busy with a new sort of work, f
ull of wonderful and delightful interest. A little guest was coming, a little creature with an immortal soul, that was to be as clever and handsome as Willie.
“And, oh, Willie, darling, don’t you hope I may live to see it? Ah, Willie, would not it be sad?”
And then the Vicar, smiling through tears, would put his arms round her, and comfort her, breaking into a rapturous castle-building and a painting of pictures of this great new happiness and treasure that was coming.
And so in due time the little caps and frocks and all the tiny wardrobe were finished; and the day came when the long-pictured treasure was to come. It was there; but its young mother’s eyes were dim, and the pretty hands that had made its little dress and longed to clasp it were laid beside her, never to stir again.
“The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away — blessed be the name of the Lord.” Yes, blessed be the name of the Lord for that love that outlives the separation of death — that saddens and glorifies memory with its melancholy light, and illuminates far futurity with a lamp whose trembling ray is the thread that draws us toward heaven. Blessed in giving and in taking — blessed for the yearning remembrances, and for the agony of hope.
Delphi Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu Page 481
