“That is just what I wished,” said Miss Vernon.
But Darkdale did not seem to care very much for her sanction, and in fact had not waited for it. He was now talking to the drivers, and the hall-door had been shut. He returned, and said, at the window:
“Your boxes shall be taken up to your room, Miss Vernon, and as the night is so fine, you will have no objection, I dare say, to walk round to the entrance to which I will conduct you and Mercy Creswell.”
He opened the carriage-door, and the young lady got out and found herself in the courtyard. Looking along the face of the great house to the right, a mass of stables and other offices closed the view, behind a broken screen of fine old elms; and to the left it was blocked by dark and thicker masses of towering trees.
In this latter direction, along the front of the house, Mr. Darkdale led the way. In the still air his swift steps sounded sharp on the hard ground. He did not seem to care whether she liked his pace or not.
As she hurried after him, from the open windows, whose blinds, transparent with the lights within, were down, she heard, it seemed to her, very fine voices singing, as she thought, that brilliant staccato air, Quest un’ Nodo, &c., from Cenerentola, and so unusually well that she was almost tempted to pause and listen.
But Mr. Darkdale did not consult her, but glided on to the extremity of the house, where a high wall confronted them, and with a latchkey opened a door, beside which he stood, holding it wide, for Miss Vernon and her attendant, and shutting it immediately on their passing in.
They were now in the great quadrangle which lies against the side of the house, with the quaint Dutch flowerbeds, like fanciful carpet pattern, surrounding it, and the tall yew hedges giving it a cloister-like seclusion. Miss Vernon easily recognised this by the description; the trim yew hedges were visible, overtopped by a dense screen of trees at the other side, every distance marked by the thin mist of night; and in the centre stretched the smooth carpet of grass, in the midst of which stood the old mulberry-tree.
“Oh! This is the croquet-ground?” said Miss Vernon to her attendant, as they passed on.
“Ay, that will be the croquet-ground,” answered her maid, a little absently, as if a gloom and suspicion had come over her. Her fat face had grown more than usually putty-coloured, and she was screwing her lips together, and frowning hard.
Mr. Darkdale spoke never a word until he had reached the door through which Antomarchi, some nights before, had admitted himself and Doctor Malkin to the selfsame house.
A servant, not in livery, stood by this door, which was ajar, and opened it wide at their approach.
Darkdale whispered a few words to him, the purport of which Maud did not catch, and was not meant to hear, and in this same tone the man replied a word or two.
It was rather a chill reception. But then her hostess was absent, and certainly was not accountable for the uncomfortable ways of the odd attendants whom it had pleased her mother to assign her.
The servant hied away into the door; it seemed to execute some behest of Darkdale’s in haste; and Darkdale himself stood at it instead, to receive them.
“So, in Carsbrook at last,” said Maud, with a smile, as she placed her foot on the oak flooring of the very long passage with which we are already acquainted.
Mercy Creswell screwed her lips harder, and raised her eyebrows, “pulling,” as they say, in her abstraction, an old and dismal grimace.
“Now, miss? Oh, ay to be sure,” said Mercy Creswell, as it were, half awaking, and looking vaguely about her.
Mr. Darkdale shut the heavy door, which closed by a spring bolt, with a clang that boomed through the long passage, and then, with an odd familiarity with internal arrangements, he drew the bolts with noisy rapidity, and turned the key which was in the lock, and drew it out.
“Now, miss, you’ll not be long getting to your room,” said Mercy Creswell, her eyes wandering along the wall, and something sunken and weary in her unwholesome face.
“Well, I should hope not,” thought Maud, a little surprised.
Darkdale was walking along the passage with rapid strides, having merely beckoned to them to follow.
Miss Maud was a good deal disgusted at this procedure. She was obliged, in order to keep this man in view, to follow at a rapid pace, and as he turned a corner, which she had not yet reached, Maud saw a person emerge from a side-door in the perspective of the passage, the sight of whom very much surprised her.
It was Doctor Malkin who stepped forth under the lamp which overhung that door, his bald head flushed, and his disagreeable countenance smiling grimly.
With the smile still on his thin lips he turned his head and saw Miss Vernon.
He thought, I dare say, that she had not seen him, for he instantly drew back into the recess of the doorway.
Perhaps he had not recognised her, perhaps he did not choose to be recognised in this part of the house. But a few days ago he certainly was not even acquainted with Lady Mardykes. But he had a good many friends, and she an infinitude, and an introduction might, of course, have been very easily managed.
This all passed in her mind nearly momentarily, as she walked quickly into the side passage after Darkdale, Mercy Creswell keeping hardly a foot behind, and a little to the other side.
The impression this odd little incident left upon her mind was, notwithstanding, unpleasant.
Having turned to the left she saw the large screen I mentioned on a former occasion, that protected the door at which Darkdale was now tapping. It was hardly opened when Maud reached it.
“Can my room be on this floor?” she wondered.
No, it was no such thing. Mr. Drummond, short, serious, and benevolent, with rosy cheeks and brown eyes, and bald head, and a pen behind his ear, was standing in a short office coat at the threshold.
“This is Miss Maud Vernon, daughter of Lady Vernon, of Roydon Hall,” said Darkdale, performing this odd office of introduction in a dry, rapid way.
“Half an hour later than we expected,” said Mr. Drummond, pulling out a large oldfashioned silver watch by the chain, from which dangled a bunch of seals and keys on his comfortable paunch; and then glancing back, it was to be presumed at a clock, in the interior, “no, twenty-five, precisely five-and-twenty minutes late,” and he turned from the corners of his eyes upon Miss Vernon a shrewd glance, and quickly made her a respectful bow.
“I’ll tell you about that by-and-bye,” said Darkdale.
“I hope the young lady will find everything to her liking, I’m sure.”
“Miss Vernon’s come for a short visit to Lady Mardykes here, a few weeks or so,” interrupted Darkdale. “And there are two boxes, largest size, and two middle size, and a dressing-case, and a bonnet-box, and here’s Lady Vernon’s list of the jewels she’s brought; and — come here Miss Creswell — she’s to wait on Miss Vernon. Which is Miss Vernon’s room?”
He dived into the room, and returned in a moment with a big book like a ledger.
“Miss Vernon? Yes. Here it is. This will be it — A A, Fourteen.”
“A A, Fourteen,” repeated Darkdale, musing. “That is at the west side of the cross-door, eh?”
“Yes, so it is.”
“I — I didn’t think that,” said Darkdale, drawing nearer to him, with an inquiring glance and a dubious frown of thought.
“Yes, it’s all right; and here’s the voucher and ‘question’ wrote with his own hand across it.”
Darkdale read the paper, and returned it to the plump fingers of the secretary.
“It is — that’s it,” he said.
“I’m a little tired. I should like to get to my room, please. I suppose my maid knows where it is?” said Miss Vernon, who was beginning to lose patience.
“In one moment, presently, please, Miss Vernon.” Darkdale whispered a word in the ear of Mercy Creswell. “Now, Miss Vernon, please, we have only a moment to delay on the way, and then your maid shall show you to your room.”
At the same quick p
ace he led her through a passage or two, and opened a door, which she entered after him.
“You shan’t be detained a moment here, Miss Vernon,” he repeated.
It is a spacious oval room, panelled massively up to the ceiling, and surrounded, as it seems, with doors all alike in very heavy casings. It is rather bare of furniture. A thick Turkey carpet covers the floor. There are four enormous armchairs on castors, and a square table, covered with stamped leather, and with legs as thick as cannons on castors, stands in the centre of the room. A ponderous oak desk lies upon the table, and is, in fact, attached to it, the whole heavy structure forming one massive piece. Except these articles of furniture, there is not a movable thing in the room.
The chamber is lighted from the ceiling, over the table, by a small oval line of gas-jets, which looks like a continuous ribbon of flame.
There is something queer, and almost dismaying, in the effect of this bare and massive room, with its four huge, modern, purple leather chairs.
The immense solidity of the mouldings and panelling that surround it, as well as its peculiar shape, would reflect back and muffle any sound uttered within it. And, somehow, it suggests vaguely the idea of surgery, the strap, the knife, and all that therapeutic torture.
The effect of the mild equable light is odd, and the monotony with which the doors, or the sham doors, match one another all round, has something bewildering and portentous in it.
While she looks round at all this, Mr. Darkdale has left the room; and turning about she finds that Mercy Creswell, perhaps, never entered it. At all events, she certainly is not there now, and Maud is quite alone.
One thing is obvious. It certainly is pretty evident that Lady Mardykes is not at home. So at least Maud thinks.
“There must, however, be some servant, I think, who can show me my room. I’ll try,” she resolves.
Maud accordingly tries the handle of the particular door through which she thinks she had entered, but it will not turn; then another, with the same result. It is rather a disconcerting situation, for by this time she cannot tell by what door she had come in, or by which of all these Mr. Darkdale had gone out, each door is so like its neighbour.
She looks about for a bell, but she could discover nothing of the kind.
Before another minute had passed, however, one of the doors at the other side of the room opened noiselessly, and a marble-featured man, with strange eyes, and black, square beard, stood before the panel, like a picture. It was Antomarchi.
“Oh, I’m afraid the servant has made a mistake,” said Miss Vernon, who was vexed at her absurd situation. “He showed me in here as a room where I was to wait for my maid, till she returned to show me the way to my room.”
“She will be here in a moment, Miss Vernon; there has been no mistake. I hope your head is better?”
“Thanks, a great deal better.”
She was surprised at his knowing that she had complained of a slight headache on her journey.
“I’m glad of that. My friend, Lady Mardykes, will be here in the morning. I am a doctor, and I am held accountable for the health and spirits of all the inmates of this big house.”
The pallor and stillness of his face, the blackness of his hair and beard, and the strange metallic vibration of his bass tones, produced in Maud a sensation akin to fear, and made even his pleasantries formidable.
“Your maid must, by this time, be at the door.”
He opened a door, beckoned, and Mercy Creswell came into the room.
“If you permit me, Miss Vernon, I’ll try your pulse.” And he took the young lady’s wrist before she could decline. “You don’t often drive so far. You’ll be quite well in the morning; but you must not think of coming down to breakfast.”
“Is Miss Medwyn here?” inquired Maud, before committing herself to stay in her room all the morning.
“No, Miss Medwyn is not here.”
“I wonder what can have happened. Lady Mardykes wrote to me to say she would certainly be here, to stay some time, this morning.”
“An uncertain world!” he observed, with a hard smile. “But Lady Mardykes is seldom mistaken. Whatever she said one may be sure she believed; and what she thinks is generally very near the truth. You had an alarm on the way? But you did not mind it much?”
“It did startle me a good deal for the moment; but it was soon over. I think the whole party were startled.”
“I dare say; but you don’t feel it now? It won’t interfere with your sleep, eh?”
“Oh, no,” laughed the young lady; “I assure you I’m quite well — I’m not the least likely to be on your list of invalids, and so I think I’ll say goodnight.”
“Goodnight,” said he, with his peculiar smile, and a very ceremonious bow, and he opened the door and stood beside it, with the handle in his fingers.
Mercy Creswell took the bedroom candle that stood, lighted, on a table outside the door. The young lady walked on. Antomarchi’s smile was instantly gone, and the stern, waxen face was grave as before.
Antomarchi’s eyes rested for a moment on Mercy Creswell as she passed. He nodded, and made her a slight sign.
You would have judged by her face that she stood in great awe of this man. She positively winced; and with a frightened ogle, and very round eyes, and mouth down at the corners, made him a little curtsy.
He shut the door without waiting for that parting reverence, and she saw no more of him or the oval room for that night.
CHAPTER LXII.
MAUD’S BEDROOM.
Mercy Creswell led the young lady by a back stair. She was interested; everything was so unlike Roydon. As they traversed the passage leading to the hall, the sounds of music again swelled faintly on her ear; and she saw servants going to and fro, in the corridor, in the fuss and jostle of trays, ices, and claret-cup and glasses, soup and teacups.
Up the stair went Maud and her femme de chambre, and the sounds died out. The stairs and passages were lighted, rather dingily, by small muffed lamps, which seemed to be fixed in the ceilings. Only at two points, on the level which they had now reached, a yard or two apart, did they encounter a living being. They were a pair of strong middle-aged housemaids, who, each in turn, stopped and looked at Maud with a transitory and grave curiosity as she passed.
“Isn’t she pretty, poor little thing?” said the fatter of these two to her companion.
“Pretty and proud, I dare say; ’tis a good house she’s come to; it won’t do her no harm, I warrant you,” answered the darker-visaged and leaner woman, following the young lady with a half-cynical smile.
They were now in the long passage through which, a few nights before, Doctor Malkin had approached his room. A man in a waistcoat with black calico sleeves to it, seemed to be awaiting them at the other end, leaning against the great door that closed the perspective, with his arms folded, and one leg crossed over the other, an attitude in which we have seen ostlers smoking in inn-yards at stable-doors.
Seeing them, the man stood erect, with the key in his fingers.
“This way, please, Miss Maud,” said Mercy, pushing forward, as she observed the young lady hesitate, as if doubtful whether she was to pass that barrier.
“Miss Vernon, A A Fourteen,” said Mercy, briskly, to this janitor, who forthwith opened the heavy door.
They saw now before them the continuation of the long gallery which is interrupted by this massive door.
The man held out his hand as she gave him a little printed check; he looked at it, and said:
“Yes, all right, A A Fourteen.” And he opened the first door to the left.
On a little disk of ivory sunk in the doorpost, were the number and letters, but so small that you might not have observed them.
At home at last! There was Miss Vernon’s luggage on the carpet. A muffed glass lamp, the same as those she had observed in the lobbies, only much more powerful, shed a clear light over every object in the room, from the ceiling.
It was the same room which
had been assigned to Doctor Malkin, a short time before; but some alterations tending to improve the style and convenience of its arrangements had been made; and now it looked not only a spacious and comfortable, but even a handsome bedroom.
“Heaven defend us! What an awful picture that is!” exclaimed Maud, as she stood before the picture of the abbess, that was placed over the chimneypiece. “What a deathlike, dreadful countenance! Who is it? No relation of Lady Mardykes, I hope?”
“I don’t know, indeed, miss,” answered Mercy, thus appealed to. “I was never in this room before.”
The kreese, no suitable decoration for a lady’s apartment, had been removed.
Maud turned away.
“I wonder why Lady Mardykes lights her rooms and galleries so oddly,” she pursues, talking half to herself, as she looked up at the lamp in the centre of the ceiling; “I fancy myself in an immense railway carriage.”
A dressing-room opened from this apartment, to the right, and beyond that lay Mercy Creswell’s room, accessible in turn by a door from the dressing-room. Each of these rooms was lighted in the same way.
“Are all the bedrooms in this house marked with numbers and letters like this?”
“Every one, miss.”
“I can’t say I admire that arrangement, nor the lighting. One thinks of an hotel. If Miss Medwyn were here,” she added, more merrily. “I should certainly, late as it is, dress and go down to the concert. I should like to see the dresses and the people. I fancy the house is very full.”
“It is always that, miss; I never knew it hotherwise.”
“And a very gay house?”
“Too gay for me, miss. Always something going on. A too much of a racket. I don’t think it’s good for no one,” said Mercy, half stifling a dreary little yawn. She had not been laughing since their approach to the house, even at mention of Miss Medwyn’s name; but on the contrary, as she would have said herself, was “rather in the dismals.”
“Lady Mardykes’s aunt is here; Mrs. Pendel, of Pendel Woods? You have seen her often, of course?”
Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu (Illustrated) Page 601
