Works of Ellen Wood

by Ellen Wood

  She distinctly heard his footsteps pass up the other garden; she distinctly heard the front door of the East Wing open to admit him, and close again. Prompted by idle curiosity, Blanche also approached the little door in the wall, found it shut, but not locked, opened it, went in, advanced to where she had full view of the wing, and stood gazing up at it. Like the other part of the house, it loomed out dark and gloomy: the upper windows appeared to have outer bars before them; at least, Blanche thought so. Only in one room was there any light.

  It was in a lower room, a sitting-room, no doubt. The lamp, standing on the centre table, was bright; the window was thrown up. Beside it sat someone at work; crochet-work, or knitting, or tatting; something or other done with the fingers. Mrs. Snow amusing herself, thought Blanche at first; but in a moment she saw that it was not Mrs. Snow. The face was dark and handsome, and the black hair was adorned with black lace. With a sensation as of some mortal agony rushing and whirling through her veins, Lady Level recognised her. It was Nina, the Italian.

  Nina, who had been the object of her suspicious jealousy; Nina, who was, beyond doubt, the attraction that drew her husband to Marshdale; and who, as she fully believed, had been the one to stab him a year ago!

  Blanche crept back to her own garden. Finding instinctively the darkest seat it contained, she sat down upon it with a faint cry of despair.

  CHAPTER XII.

  IN THE EAST WING.

  What will not a jealous and angry woman do? On the next morning (Friday) Blanche Level, believing herself to be more ignominiously treated than ever wife was yet, despatched a couple of telegrams to London, both of them slightly incomprehensible. One of the telegrams was to Charles Strange, the other to Arnold Ravensworth; and both were to the same effect — they must hasten down to Marshdale to her “protection” and “rescue.” And Mr. Ravensworth was requested to bring his wife.

  “She will be some little countenance for me; I’m sure I dare not think how I must be looked upon here,” mentally spoke my Lady Level in her glowing indignation.

  Lord Level was better. When Mr. Hill paid his early visit that Friday morning, he pronounced him to be very much better; and John Snow said his lordship had passed a quiet night. “If we can only keep him tranquil to-day and to-night again, there will be no further danger from the fever,” Mr. Hill then observed to Lady Level.

  The day went on, the reports from the sick-room continuing favourable: my lord was lying tranquil, his mind clear. My lady, down below, was anything but tranquil: rather she felt herself in a raging fever. In the evening, quite late, the two gentlemen arrived from London, not having been able to come earlier. Mrs. Ravensworth was not with them; she could not leave her delicate baby. Lady Level had given orders for chambers to be prepared.

  After they had partaken of refreshments, which brought the time to ten o’clock, Lady Level opened upon her grievances — past and present. Modest and reticent though her language still was, she contrived to convey sundry truths to them. From the early days of her marriage she had unfortunately had cause to suspect Lord Level of disloyalty to herself and of barefaced loyalty to another. Her own eyes had seen him more than once with the girl called Nina at Pisa; had seen him at her house, sitting side by side with her in her garden smoking and talking — had heard him address her by her Christian name. This woman, as she positively knew, had followed Lord Level to England; this woman was harboured at Marshdale. She was in the house now, in its East Wing. She, Blanche, had seen her there the previous evening.

  Mr. Ravensworth’s severe countenance took a stern expression as he listened; he believed every word. Charles Strange (I am not speaking just here in my own person) still thought there might be a mistake somewhere. He could not readily take up so bad an opinion of Lord Level, although circumstances did appear to tell against him. His incredulity irritated Blanche.

  “I will tell you, then, Charles, what I have never disclosed to mortal man,” she flashed forth, in a passionate whisper, bending forward her pretty face, now growing whiter than death. “You remember that attack upon Lord Level last autumn. You came down at the time, Arnold — —”

  “Yes, yes. What about it?”

  “It was that woman who stabbed him!”

  Neither spoke for a moment. “Nonsense, Blanche!” said Mr. Strange.

  “But I tell you that it was. She was in night-clothes, or something of that kind, and her black hair was falling about her; but I could not mistake her Italian face.”

  Mr. Ravensworth did not forget Lady Level’s curious behaviour at the time; he had thought then she suspected someone in particular. “Are you sure?” he asked her now.

  “I am sure. And you must both see the danger I may be in whilst here,” she added, with a shiver. “That woman may try to stab me, as she stabbed him. She must have stabbed him out of jealousy, because I — her rival — was there.”

  “You had better quit the house the first thing in the morning, Lady Level, and return to London,” said Mr. Ravensworth.

  “That I will not do,” she promptly answered. “I will not leave Marshdale until these shameful doings are investigated; and I have sent for you to act on my behalf and bring them to light. No longer shall the reproach be perpetually cast upon me by papa and Charles Strange, that I complain of my husband without cause. It is my turn now.”

  That something must be done, in justice to Lady Level, or at least attempted, they both saw. But what, or how to set about it, neither of them knew. They remained in consultation together long after Blanche had retired to rest.

  “We will go out at daybreak and have a look at the windows of this East Wing,” finally observed Mr. Ravensworth.

  Perhaps that was easier said than done. With the gray light of early morning they were both out of doors; but they could not find any entrance to the East Wing. The door in the wall of the front garden was locked; the entrance gates from the road were locked also. In the garden at the back — it was more of a wilderness than a garden — they discovered a small gate in a corner. It was completely overgrown with trees and shrubs, and had evidently not been used for years and years. But the wood had become rotten, the fastenings loose; and by their united strength they opened it.

  They found themselves in a very large space of ground indeed. Grass was in the middle, quite a field of it; and round it a broad gravel walk. Encompassing all on three sides rose a wide bank of shrubs and overhanging trees. Beyond these again was a very high wall. On the fourth side stood the East Wing, high and gloomy. Its windows were all encased with iron bars, and the lower windows were whitened.

  Taking a survey of all this, one of them softly whispering in surprise, Mr. Ravensworth advanced to peer in at the windows. Of course, being whitened, he had his trouble for his pains.

  “It puts me in mind of a prison,” remarked Charles Strange.

  “It puts me in mind of a madhouse,” was the laconic rejoinder of Mr. Ravensworth.

  They passed back through the gate again, Mr. Ravensworth turning to take a last look. In that minute his eye was attracted to one of the windows on the ground floor. It opened down the middle, like a French one, and was being shaken, apparently with a view to opening it — and if you are well acquainted with continental windows, or windows made after their fashion, you may remember how long it has taken you to shake a refractory window before it will obey. It was at length effected, and in the opening, gazing with a vacant, silly expression through the close bars, appeared a face. It remained in view but a moment; the window was immediately closed again, Mr. Ravensworth thought by another hand. What was the mystery?

  That some mystery did exist at Marshdale, apart from any Italian ladies who might have no fair right to be there, was pretty evident. At breakfast the gentlemen related this little experience to Blanche.

  Madame Blanche tossed her head in incredulity. “Don’t be taken in,” she answered. “Windows whitened and barred, indeed! It is all done with a view to misleading people. She was sitting at the open wi
ndow at work on Thursday night.”

  After breakfast, resolved no longer to be played with, Blanche proceeded upstairs to Mr. Drewitt’s rooms, her friends following her, all three of them creeping by Lord Level’s chamber-door with noiseless steps. His lordship was getting better quite wonderfully, Mrs. Edwards had told them.

  The old gentleman, in his quaint costume, was in his sitting-room, taking his breakfast alone. Mrs. Edwards took her meals anywhere, and at any time, during her lord’s illness. Hearing strange footsteps in the corridor, he rose to see whose they were, and looked considerably astonished.

  “Does your ladyship want me?” he asked, bowing.

  “I — yes, I think I do,” answered Lady Level. “Who keeps the key of that door, Mr. Drewitt?” pointing to the strong oaken door at the end of the passage.

  “I keep it, my lady.”

  “Then will you be kind enough to unlock it for me? These gentlemen wish to examine the East Wing.”

  “The East Wing is private to his lordship,” was the steward’s reply, addressing them all conjointly. “Without his authority I cannot open it to anyone.”

  They stood contending a little while: it was like a repetition of the scene that had been enacted there once before; and, like that, was terminated by the same individual — the surgeon.

  “It is all right, Mr. Drewitt.” he said; “you can open the door of the East Wing; I bear you my lord’s orders. I am going in there to see a patient,” he added to the rest.

  The steward produced a key from his pocket, and put it into the lock. It was surprising that so small a key should open so massive a door.

  They passed, wonderingly, through three rooms en suite: a sitting-room, a bedroom, and a bath-room. All these rooms looked to the back of the house. Other rooms there were on the same floor, which the visitors did not touch upon. Descending the staircase, they entered three similar rooms below. In the smaller one lay some garden-tools, but of a less size than a grown man in his strength would use, and by their side were certain toys: tops, hoops, ninepins, and the like. The middle room was a sitting-room; the larger room beyond had no furniture, and in that, standing over a humming-top, which he had just set to spin on the floor, bent the singular figure of a youth. He had a dark, vacant face, wild black eyes, and a mass of thick black hair, cut short. This figure, a child’s whip in his hand, was whipping the top, and making a noise with his mouth in imitation of its hum.

  Half madman, half idiot, he stood out, in all his deep misfortune, raising himself up and staring about him with a vacant stare. The expression of Mr. Ravensworth’s face changed to one of pity. “Who are you?” he exclaimed in kindly tones. “What is your name?”

  “Arnie!” was the mechanical answer, for brains and sense seemed to have little to do with it; and, catching up his top, he backed against the wall, and burst into a distressing laugh. Distressing to a listener; not distressing to him, poor fellow.

  “Who is he?” asked Mr. Ravensworth of the doctor.

  “An imbecile.”

  “So I see. But what connection has he with Lord Level’s family?”

  “He is a connection, or he would not be here.”

  “Can he be — be — a son of Lord Level’s?”

  “A son!” interposed the steward, “and my lord but just married! No, sir, he is not a son, he is none so near as that; he is but a connection of the Level family.”

  The lad came forward from the wall where he was standing, and held out his top to his old friend the doctor. “Do, do,” he cried, spluttering as he spoke.

  “Nay, Arnie, you can set it up better than I: my back won’t stoop well, Arnie.”

  “Do, do,” was the persistent request, the top held out still.

  Mr. Ravensworth took it and set it up again, he looking on in greedy eagerness, slobbering and making a noise with his mouth. Then his note changed to a hum, and he whipped away as before.

  “Why is he not put away in an asylum?” asked Mr. Ravensworth.

  “Put away in an asylum!” retorted the old steward indignantly. “Where could he be put to have the care and kindness that is bestowed upon him here? Imbecile though he is, madman though he may be, he is dear to me and my sister. We pass our lives tending him, in conjunction with Snow and his wife, doing for him, soothing him: where else could that be done? You don’t know what you are saying, sir. My lord, who received the charge from his father, comes down to see him: my lord orders that everything should be done for his comfort. And do you suppose it is fitting that his condition should be made public? The fact of one being so afflicted is slur enough upon the race of Level, without its being proclaimed abroad.”

  “It was he who attacked Lord Level last year?

  “Yes, it was; and how he could have escaped to our part of the house will be a marvel to me for ever. My sister says I could not have slipped the bolt of the passage door as usual, but I know I did bolt it. Arnie had been restless that day; he has restless fits; and I suppose he could not sleep, and must have risen from his bed and come to my sitting-room. On my table there I had left my pocket-knife, a new knife, the blades bright and sharp; and this he must have picked up and opened, and found his way with it to my lord’s chamber. Why he should have attacked him, or anyone else, I know not; he never had a ferocious fit before.”

  “Never,” assented Mr. Hill, in confirmation.

  Mr. Drewitt continued: “He has been imbecile and harmless as you see him now, but he has never disturbed us at night; he has, as I say, fits of restlessness when he cannot sleep, but he is sufficiently sensible to ring a bell communicating with Snow’s chamber if he wants anything. If ever he has rung, it has been to say he wants meat.”

  “Meat!”

  The steward nodded. “But it has never been given to him. He is cunning as a fox; they all are; and were we to begin giving him food in the middle of the night we must continue to do it, or have no peace. Eating is his one enjoyment in life, and he devours everything set before him — meat especially. If we have any particular dainty upstairs for dinner or supper, I generally take him in some. Deborah, I believe, thinks I eat all that comes up, and sets me down for a cannibal. He has a hot supper every night. About a year ago we got to think it might be better for him to have a lighter one, and we tried it for a week; but he moaned and cried all night long for his hot meat, and we had to give it him again. The night this happened we had veal cutlets and bacon, and he had the same. He asked for more, but I would not give it; perhaps that angered him, and he mistook my lord for me. Mr. Hill thought it might be so. I shall never be able to account for it.”

  The doctor nodded assent; and the speaker went on:

  “His hair was long then, and he must have looked just like a maniac when the fit of fury lay upon him. Little wonder that my lady was frightened at the sight of him. After he had done the deed he ran back to his own room; I, aroused by the commotion, found him in his bed. He burst out laughing when he saw me: ‘I got your knife, I got your knife,’ he called out, as if it were a feat to be proud of. His movements must have been silent and stealthy, for Snow had heard nothing.”

  At this moment there occurred an interruption. The Italian lady approached the room with timid, hesitating steps, and peeped in. “Ah, how do you do, doctor?” she said in a sweet, gentle voice, as she held out her hand to Mr. Hill. Her countenance was mild, open, and honest; and a conviction rushed on the instant into Blanche’s mind that she had been misjudging that foreign lady.

  “These good gentlepeople are come to see our poor patient?” she added, curtseying to them with native grace, her accent quite foreign. “The poor, poor boy,” tears filling her eyes. “And I foretell that this must be my lord’s wife!” addressing Blanche. “Will she permit a poor humble stranger to shake her by the hand for her lord’s sake — her lord, who has been so good to us?”

  “This lady is sister to the unfortunate boy’s mother,” said the doctor, in low tones to Blanche. “She is a good woman, and worthy to shake hands with yo
u, my lady.”

  “But who was his father?” whispered Blanche.

  “Mr. Francis Level; my lord’s dead brother.”

  Her countenance radiant, Blanche took the lady’s hand and warmly clasped it. “You live here to take care of the poor lad,” she said.

  “But no, madam. I do but come at intervals to see him, all the way from Pisa, in Italy. And also I have had to come to bring documents and news to my lord, respecting matters that concern him and the poor lad. But it is over now,” she added. “The week after the one next to come, Arnie goes back with me to Italy, his native country, and my journeys to this country will be ended. His mother, who is always ill and not able to travel, wishes now to have her afflicted son with her.”

  Back in the other house again, after wishing Nina Sparlati good-day, the astonished visitors gathered in Mr. Drewitt’s room to listen to the tale which had to be told them. Mrs. Edwards, who was awaiting them, and fonder of talking than her brother, was the principal narrator. Blanche went away, whispering to Charles Strange that she would hear it from him afterwards.

  “We were abroad in Italy,” Mrs. Edwards began: “it is many years ago. The late lord, our master then, went for his health, which was declining, though he was but a middle-aged man, and I and my brother were with him, his personal attendants, but treated more like friends. The present lord, Mr. Archibald, named after his father, was with us — he was the second son, not the heir; the eldest son, Mr. Level — Francis was his name — had been abroad for years, and was then in another part of Italy. He came to see his father when we first got out to Florence, but he soon left again. ‘He’ll die before my lord,’ I said to Mr. Archibald; for if ever I saw consumption on a man’s face, it was on Mr. Level’s. And I remember Mr. Archibald’s answer as if it was but yesterday: ‘That’s just one of your fancies, nurse: Frank tells me he has looked the last three years as he looks now.’ But I was right, sir; for shortly after that we received news of the death of Mr. Level; and then Mr. Archibald was the heir. My lord, who had grown worse instead of better, was very ill then.”