Mrs Molesworth (continued 4)

Mr Western was beginning to look, mystified, when Mary’s voice diverted his attention.

“I shall go,” she said, abruptly, “that is to say,” she added, colouring a little in her turn, “I should like to go, if I can.”

“Dear me,” said her father, “how the tables are turned! It used to be always Lilias who was eager to go, and Mary to stay at home.”

“But there is no objection to Mary’s going, if she likes,” interposed Mrs Western, hastily.

“Objection, of course not. There is no objection to their both going that I can see,” said Mr Western.

“Well, we’ll talk about it afterwards,” said Mrs Western. “Girls, you had better go to the school-room. We are later than usual this morning.”

They all rose, and Lilias was thankful to get away; but as Mary and she left the room together, they overheard a remark of their father to the effect that Lilias was not looking well, had not her mother observed it?

“I dare say she would be the better for a thorough change,” replied Mrs Western. “It is so long since she left home.”

“Oh, yes!” said her father, with a sigh. “They would all enjoy a change, and no one needs it more than yourself, Margaret. It makes me very anxious when I think about these girls sometimes.”

“But, at the worst, they are far better off in every other way than I was at their age,” said Mrs Western, “and see how happy I have been.”

“Ideas of happiness differ so,” said her husband. “I fear a quiet life in a country parsonage on limited means would hardly satisfy Lilias. As to Mary, I somehow feel less anxiety. She takes things so placidly.”

“Not always,” said Mrs Western, under her breath; but she was glad that her husband did not catch the words, and that little Brooke’s running in with some inquiry about his lessons interrupted the conversation—for it was trenching on dangerous ground.

“I am afraid papa thinks there is something vexing me,” said Lilias, when Mary and she were alone together for a little.

“You have yourself to blame for it,” said Mary, with some asperity; “why did you speak so indifferently of Mrs Greville’s invitation? Usually you would have been very pleased to go.”

“Oh, Mary, don’t scold me,” said Lilias, pathetically. “I couldn’t go to Uxley—you forget how near Romary it is—I should be sure to hear gossip about him—perhaps that he was going to be married, or some falsehood of the kind. I could not bear it. I almost wondered at your saying you would like to go.”

“It will only be for a couple of days,” said Mary.

“But you are not intending to make any plan with Mrs Greville for my leaving home, I hope, Mary?” said Lilias, anxiously. “It may be better for me to go away after a while, but not yet. And if you came upon the subject with Mrs Greville in the very least, she would suspect something. Promise me you will not do anything without telling me.”

“Of course not,” said Mary. “I would not dream of doing such a thing without telling you.”

But her conscience smote her slightly as she spoke. Why?

A design was slowly but steadily taking shape in her mind, and Mrs Greville’s note this morning had strangely forwarded and confirmed it. Practically speaking, indeed, it had done more than confirm it—it had rendered feasible what had before floated in Mary’s brain as an act of devotion scarcely more possible of achievement than poor Prascovia’s journey across Siberia. And though Mary was sensible and reasonable, there lay below this quiet surface stormy possibilities and an impressionability little suspected by those who knew her best. Her mind, too, from dwelling of late so incessantly on her sister’s affairs, had grown morbidly imaginative on the point, though to this she herself was hardly alive.

“I am not superstitious or fanciful—I know I am not. I never have been,” she argued, “yet it does seem as if this invitation to Uxley had come on purpose. If I were superstitious I should think it a ‘sign.’”

And who is not superstitious?—only for no other human weakness have we so many names, so many or such skilfully contrived disguises!

Two days later, “the day after to-morrow,” found Mary on her way to Uxley Vicarage. Mrs Greville had sent her pony-carriage to fetch her. The old man who drove it was very deaf and hopelessly irresponsive, therefore, to the young lady’s kindly-meant civilities in the shape of inquiries about the road and commendation of the fat pony, so before long she felt herself free to lapse into perfect silence, and as they jogged along the pretty country lanes—pretty to-day, though only February, for the sky was clear and the air mild with a faint odour of coming spring about it—Mary had plenty of time to think over her plan of action.

But thinking it over, after all, was not much good, till she knew more of her ground.

“I must to some extent be guided by circumstances,” she said to herself, but with a strong sense of confidence in her own ability to prevent circumstances being too much for her. She had never before felt so certain of herself as now, when about, for the first time in her life, to act entirely on her own responsibility, and the sensation brought with it a curious excitement and invigoration. She had not felt so hopeful or light-hearted since the day of the Brocklehurst bail, and she was thankful to feel so, and to be told by Mrs Greville, when she jumped out of the pony-carriage and was met by her hospitable hostess at the gate, that she had never seen her looking so well in her life.

“There is no fear of her suspecting anything about Lilias,” thought Mary, with relief, “if she thinks me in such good spirits.”

“And how are you all at home, my dear?” said Mrs Greville, as she led Mary into her comfortable drawing-room, and bade her “toast” herself a little before unfastening her wraps. “Your poor dear mother and all?”

“They are all very well, thank you,” Mary replied. “Mamma is quite well, and so pleased at Basil’s getting on so well—we have such good news of him.”

She always felt inclined to make the very best of the family chronicle in answer to Mrs Greville’s inquiries, for though unmistakably prompted by the purest kindness her want of tact often invested them with a slight tone of patronage which Lilias herself could scarcely have resented more keenly than her less impulsive sister. The “poor dear mother,” especially grated on Mary’s ears. “Mamma,” so pretty and young-looking, was no fit object for the “poor dears” of any one but themselves, thought Mrs Western’s tall sons and daughters.

But of course it would have been no less ungrateful than senseless to have taken amiss Mrs Greville’s well-meant interest and sympathy, even when they directed themselves to more delicate ground.

“And what about Lilias, Mary dear?” she inquired next. “I had been longing to hear all about it, and wishing so I had authority to contradict the absurd rumours that I have heard about Captain Beverley. I was dreadfully disappointed at Lilias’s not coming, but consoled myself by thinking you would tell me all about it.”

“But what are the rumours, and what have they to do with Lilias?” asked Mary.

“That’s just what I want to know,” replied Mrs Greville. “Captain Beverley has left Romary suddenly—of course you know that—and some people say he has made a vow never to return there because Miss Cheviott refused him the night of the Brocklehurst ball. That story I don’t believe, of course. Others say it was not Miss Cheviott, but another young lady, whose name no one about here seems to know, but whom he was seen to dance with tremendously that night, who refused him.”

Mrs Greville stopped and looked curiously at Mary, who smiled quietly, but said nothing, and felt increasingly thankful that Lilias had not accompanied her to Uxley.

“And there are stranger stories than these even,” pursued Mrs Greville. “You will think me a terrible gossip, Mary, but in a general way I really don’t listen to idle talk, only I felt so interested in Captain Beverley after what I saw, and I can’t believe any harm of him.”

“Who can have said any harm of him?” inquired Mary. “I should have thought him quite a general favourite; he is so bright, and kindly, and unaffected.”

“Yes, I thought him very nice,” said Mrs Greville. “But there are dreadful stories about, as to the reason of his leaving Romary so suddenly. One is that he has been gambling so furiously that he is embarrassed past redemption, and that he will only come into his property for it to be sold; and another is that Mr Cheviott found out that he had secretly made some low marriage, and turned him out of the house on that account, it having been always intended that he should marry Miss Cheviott.” Mary was standing by the fire looking down on it as Mrs Greville spoke—the reflection of its ruddy glow hid the intense paleness which came over her face, and explained, too, the burning flush which almost instantly succeeded it. She felt obliged to speak, for silence might have seemed suspicious.

“What a shame of people to say such things!” she exclaimed, looking up indignantly. “No, I certainly don’t believe them, but I am glad to know about it all, for it shows what disagreeable gossip there might have been about Lilias had her name been mixed up with it.”

“Yes, indeed, but my dear child, you are scorching your face to cinders—you should not play such pranks with your complexion, though that brawny pink skin of yours is a very good kind to wear, and quite as pretty in my opinion, as Lilias’s lilies and roses—but what was I saying? Oh, yes, by-the-bye, I do wish you would tell me—I shall be as discreet as possible—is Lilias engaged to him?”

Mary hesitated a moment, then she said, gently:

“Dear Mrs Greville, I wish you wouldn’t ask me, for I can’t tell you.”

“Ah, well, never mind,” said her hostess, good-naturedly. “You’ll tell me whenever you can, no doubt, and I hope it will all come right in the end, however it stands at present.”

“Thank you,” said Mary, with sincerity.

Then they went on to talk of other things. Mrs Greville described to Mary the “young people” who were staying with her, two girls and their brother, cousins of Mr Greville’s first wife, and counselled her to make herself as pretty and charming as possible, to fascinate young Morpeth, who would be a conquest by no means to be despised.

“He is nothing at present,” she said; “he has a thousand a year, and his sisters the same between them. They are orphans and have had no settled home since their mother’s death. Vance Morpeth is talking of going into the cavalry for a few years, but his elder sister is against it, and he will be too old if he isn’t quick about it. They have been abroad all the winter. Now remember, Mary, you are to do your best to captivate him, unless, indeed,” she went on, as Mary was turning to her with some smiling rejoinder—“unless you have some little secret of your own too, with that haughty-looking Mr Cheviott for its hero.”

The smile died out of Mary’s face.

“Don’t joke about that man, please, Mrs Greville,” she said, beseechingly. “You do not know how I dislike him. I have never regretted anything more in my whole life than dancing with him that night.”

And just then the time-piece striking five, she was glad to make the excuse that she would be late for dinner unless she hurried up-stairs to get her things unpacked, for fashionable hours had not yet penetrated to Uxley.

“Yes, go, my dear,” said Mrs Greville. “Fancy, we have been a whole hour talking over the fire. I hear the Morpeths coming in—they must have been a very long walk, and it’s quite dark outside. I cannot understand why people can’t go walks in the morning instead of putting off till late in the afternoon, and then catching colds and all sorts of disagreeables. Run off, Mary. I dare say you would rather not see them till you are dressed.”

Which Mary, who cared very little for seeing “them” at all, rightly interpreted as meaning, “I don’t want Mr Morpeth to see you till you are nicely dressed, and looking to the best advantage.”

Her powers of looking her best depended much more on herself than on her clothes, for her choice of attire was limited enough. But the suppressed excitement under which she was labouring had given unusual brilliance to Mary’s at all times beautiful brown eyes, and a certain vivacity to her manner, in general somewhat too staid and sober for her age. So she looked more than “pretty” this evening, though her dress was nothing but a many-times-washed white muslin, brightened up here and there by a little rose-coloured ribbon.

“I thought you told me that it was not the pretty Miss Western that you expected?” said Mr Morpeth to Mrs Greville in a low voice, after the introductions had been accomplished.

Mrs Greville glanced up to the young man as she answered. There was a puzzled expression in his innocent-looking eyes; she saw that he was quite in earnest, and, indeed, she felt sure he was too little, of a man of the world to have intended his inquiry for a compliment.

“Does that mean that you think this one pretty?” she asked.

“Of course it does. I think she’s awfully pretty, don’t you?” he said, frankly.

Mrs Greville felt well pleased, but the announcement of dinner interrupted any more talk between them. Mr Morpeth had to take Mrs Greville, but she took care that Mary should sit at his other side.

“How would you define ‘awfully pretty,’ Mary?” she said, mischievously, when they were all seated at table, and the grace had been said, and nobody seemed to have anything particular to talk about.

“Awfully pretty,” repeated Mary. “Awfully pretty what?”

“An ‘awfully pretty’ girl was the ‘what’ in question,” said Mr Morpeth, shielding himself by taking the bull by the horns, with more alertness than Mrs Greville had given him credit for.

Mary smiled.

“I could easily define, or point out to you rather, what, if I were a man, I should call an awfully pretty girl in this very neighbourhood,” she said, turning to Mrs Greville.

“I know whom you mean,” replied her hostess. “Miss Cheviott, is it not? Yes, she is exceedingly pretty. You have not seen her, Frances,” she went on to the eldest Miss Morpeth. “I wish you could.”

“Shall we not see her at church on Sunday?” said Miss Morpeth. “Are not the Cheviotts the principal people here, now?”

“Yes,” said Mrs Greville, “but they are a good deal away from home.” Here Mary’s heart almost stopped beating—this was what she had been longing yet dreaded to inquire about—what would become of all her plans should Mr Cheviott be away? But it was not so. “They are a good deal away from home,” Mrs Greville went on, “and there is another church nearer Romary than ours, where they go in the morning. But they very often—indeed, almost always the last few weeks, come to Uxley in the afternoon—Mr Cheviott likes Mr Greville’s preaching better than the old man’s at Romary Moor.”

“That’s not much of a compliment, my dear,” said Mr Greville from the end of the table, “considering that poor old Wells is so asthmatic that you can hardly catch a word he says now.”

A little laugh went round, and under cover of it Mary managed to say gently to Mr Greville:

“Then Mr Cheviott is at Romary now?”

“Oh, yes; saw him this morning riding past,” was the reply.

Mary gave a little sigh of relief, yet her heart beat faster for the rest of the evening.

“I wonder if I must do it to-morrow,” she said to herself, “or not till the day after. I have only the two days to count upon, and supposing he is out and I have to go again! I must try for to-morrow, I think.”

“Romary is just two miles from here, is it not?” she said, in a commonplace tone.

“Not so much,” replied Mr Greville. “Have you never seen it? It is quite a show place.”

“I was there once—some years ago,” said Mary.

“It is very much improved of late. If the family had been away we might easily have driven you over to see it,” said Mr Greville, good-naturedly. “However, some other time, perhaps, when your sister is here too. You must come over oftener this summer,” he added, utterly forgetting, if ever he had quite taken in, all his wife’s confidences about the Western girls’ wonderful successes at the Brocklehurst ball, and her more recent misgiving that something had “come between” Lilias and “that handsome Captain Beverley.”

“Thank you,” said Mary; and after this no more was said about Romary or the Cheviotts.

Chapter Fourteen.

Mr Cheviott’s Ultimatum.

”‘But methinks,’ quoth I, under my breath, ‘’Twas but cowardly work.’” Songs of Two Worlds.

The next morning gave promise of a fine day, and Mary felt that she must be in readiness to seize any favourable opportunity for her meditated expedition.

“For to-morrow,” she said to herself, while she was dressing, “may be wet and stormy, and I must not weaken my position by making myself look ridiculous, if I can help it. And I certainly should look the reverse of dignified if I trudged over to Romary in a waterproof and goloshes! I very much doubt if I should get a sight of Mr Cheviott at all in such a case.”

She was trying to laugh at herself, by way of keeping up her spirits, but of real laughter there was very little in her heart. Even yesterday’s excitement seemed to have deserted her, and but for a curious kind of self-reliance, self-trust rather, which Mary possessed a good deal of, the chances are that she would have given up her intention and returned to Hathercourt and to Lilias, feeling that the attempt to interfere had been impossible for her.

“But I foresaw this,” she said to herself, reassuringly. “I knew I should lose heart and courage when it came to close quarters—but close quarters is not the best position for deciding such an action as this. I must remember that I resolved upon what I am going to do deliberately and coolly. It seemed to me a right thing to do, and I must have faith in my own decision. At the worst, at the very worst, all that can happen to me will be that that man will think I am mad, or something like it, to take such a step—perhaps he will make a good story of it, and laugh me over with his friends—though I must say he hasn’t the look of being given to laugh at anything! But why need I care if he does? I care nothing, less than nothing, what he thinks of me. I can keep my own self-respect, and that is all I need to care about.”

And so speaking to herself, in all sincerity, with no bravado or exaggeration, Mary more firmly riveted her own decision, and determined to go back upon it no more.

But she was paler than usual this, morning when she made her appearance at Mrs Greville’s breakfast-table, and her eyes had an unmistakable look of anxiety and weariness.

“Have you not slept well, my dear Mary?” asked Mrs Greville, kindly. “You look so tired, and last night you looked so very well.”

Mary’s colour rose quickly at these words and under the consciousness of a somewhat searching glance from Mr Morpeth, who was seated opposite her.

“I am perfectly well, thank you,” she replied, to her hostess, “but somehow I don’t think I did sleep quite as soundly as usual.”

“Miss Western’s room is not haunted, surely?” said Mr Morpeth, laughing. “All this sounds so like the preamble to some ghostly revelation.”

“No, indeed. There is no corner of this house that we could possibly flatter ourselves was haunted. I wish there were—it is all so very modern,” said Mrs Greville. “At Romary, now, there is such an exquisite haunted room—or suite of rooms rather. They are never used, but I think them the prettiest rooms in the house. It is so provoking that the Cheviotts are at home just now. I should so have liked you and Cecilia to see the house, Frances—and you, too, Mary, as you had never been there, and we can get an order from the agent any time.”

“I think the outside of the house as well worth seeing as any part of it,” said Mr Greville. “It is so well situated, and seen from the high road it looks very well indeed. By-the-bye, I shall be driving that way this afternoon if any of you young ladies care to come with me in the dog-cart? I am going on to Little Bexton, but if you don’t care to come so far, I could drop you about Romary, and you could walk back. The country is not pretty after that. Would you like to come, Frances? Cecilia has a cold, I hear.”

“Yes,” said Cecilia, “but not a very bad one. But I don’t think either of us can go, Mr Greville, for Miss Bentley is coming to see us this afternoon, and we must not be out.”

“Mary, then?” said Mr Greville.

Mary’s heart was beating fast, and she was almost afraid that the tremble in her voice was perceptible as she replied that she would enjoy the drive very much, she was sure.

“But I will not go all the way to Little Bexton, I think, if you don’t mind dropping me on the road. I should like the walk home,” she said to Mr Greville, and so it was decided. And for a wonder nothing came in the way.

It was years and years since Mary had been at Romary. When Mr Greville “dropped her” on the road, at a point about half a mile beyond the lodge gates, all about her seemed so strange and unfamiliar that she could scarcely believe she had ever been there before. Strange and unfamiliar, even though she was not more than ten miles from her own home, and though the general features of the landscape were the same. For to a real dweller in the country, differences and variations, which by a casual visitor are unobservable, are extraordinarily obtrusive. Mary had lived all her life at Hathercourt, and knew its fields and its trees, its cottages and lanes, as accurately as the furniture of her mother’s drawing-room. It was strange to her to meet even a dog on the road whose ownership she was unacquainted with, and when a countryman or two passed her with half a stare of curiosity instead of the familiar “Good-day to you, Miss Mary,” she felt herself “very far west” indeed, and instinctively hastened her steps.

“It is a good thing no one does know me about here,” she said to herself; “but how strange it seems! What a different life we have led from most people nowadays! I dare say it would never occur to Miss Cheviott, for instance, to think it at all strange to meet people on the road whose names and histories she knew nothing of. Young as she is, I dare say she has more friends and acquaintances than she can remember. How different from Lilias and me—ah, yes, it is that that makes what her brother has done so awfully wrong—so mean—but will he understand? Shall I be able to show it him?”

Mary stopped short—she was close to the lodge gates now. She stood still for a moment in a sort of silence of excitement and determination—then resolutely walked on again and hesitated no more. These Romary lodge gates had become to her a Rubicon.

It was a quarter of a mile at least from the gates to the house, but to Mary it seemed scarcely half a dozen yards. As in a dream she walked on steadily, heedless of the scene around her, that at another time would have roused her keen admiration—the beautiful old trees, beautiful even in leafless February; the wide stretching park with its gentle ups and downs and far-off boundary of forestland; the wistful-eyed deer, too tame to be scared by her approach; the sudden vision of a rabbit scuttering across her path—Mary saw none of them. Only once as she stood still for an instant to unlatch a gate in the wire fence inclosing the grounds close to the house, she looked round her and her gaze rested on a cluster of oaks at a little distance.

“When I see that clump of trees next,” she said to herself, “it will be over, and I shall know Lilias’s fate.”

Then she walked on again.

The bell clanged loudly as she pulled it at the hall door—to Mary, at least, it sounded so, and the interval was very short between its tones fading away into silence and the door’s being flung open by a footman, who gave a little start of astonishment when Mary’s unfamiliar voice caught his ear.

“I thought it was Miss Cheviott; I beg your pardon, ma’am,” he said, civilly enough, and the civility was a relief to Mary. “Is it Miss Cheviott you wish to see?”

“No, thank you,” said Mary, quietly. “I want to see Mr Cheviott, if he is at home—on a matter of business, perhaps you will be good enough to say.”

The man looked puzzled, and, for a moment, hesitated.

“If it is anything I could say, perhaps,” he began. “Unless it was anything very particular. My master is very busy to-day, and gave orders not to be disturbed.”

“It is something particular—that is to say, I wish to see Mr Cheviott himself. Perhaps you will inquire if he is to be seen,” said Mary, more coldly.

The man looked at her again, and Mary felt glad she had not her old waterproof cloak on. As it was, she was prettily, at least not unbecomingly, dressed in a thick, rough tweed and small, close-fitting felt hat. Her boots were neat, and her gloves—the only new pair she had had this winter—fitted well. There was nothing about her attire plainer or poorer than what would be worn by many a girl of her age, “regardless of expense,” for a country ramble. And Mr Cheviott’s servant was not to know it was all her Sunday best! Then she was tall! An immense advantage, now and then, in life.

“Certainly, ma’am, I will inquire at once,” said the man. He was a new-comer who had served a town apprenticeship to the dangers of indiscriminate admittance, and felt, despite appearances, he must be on his guard against a young woman who so resolutely demanded a personal interview with a gentleman. A man in disguise—what might she not be? But something in Mary’s low-toned “thank you” re-assured him.

“Will you step into the library while I ask?” he said, amiably, and Mary judged it best to do as he proposed.

There was no one in the library, and one of Mary’s but half-acknowledged wild hopes faded away as she entered the empty room. She had had a dream of perhaps meeting with Alys in the first place—the girl with the beautiful face and bewitching smile—of her guessing her errand, and pleading on her side.

“She looked so sympathisingly at me that night at Brocklehurst,” thought Mary—“almost as if she suspected my anxiety. Oh! if only I could talk to her, instead of that proud, cold brother of hers!”

But there was no Alys in the library, and an instant’s thought reminded Mary that of course she, a stranger calling on “business,” would not have been ushered except by mistake into Miss Cheviott’s presence, and she gave a little sigh as she mechanically crossed the room and stood gazing out of the window.

The servant’s voice recalled her thoughts.

“Your name, if you please, ma’am?” he was asking.

Mary was prepared for this.

“It would be no use giving my name,” she said quietly. “If you will be so good as to say to Mr Cheviott that I am only in this neighbourhood for a day or two, and have called to see him purely on a matter of business, I shall be much obliged to you.”

The man left the room. He went into Mr Cheviott’s Study by another door than the one by which it communicated with the library, but through this last, firmly closed though it was, in a moment or two the murmur of voices caught Mary’s quick ears, then some words, spoken loudly enough for her to distinguish their Sense.

“Where, do you say—in the library? A lady! Nonsense, it must be some mistake.”

Then the servant’s voice again in explanation. Mary moved away from the vicinity of the treacherous door.

A minute or two passed. Then the man appeared again.

“I am sorry, ma’am,” he began, apologetically, “but particularly obliged by your sending my master your name. He is so much engaged to-day—would like to understand if it is anything very particular, and—” He hesitated, not liking to repeat his own suggestion to Mr Cheviott that very likely the young lady was collecting for the foreign missions, or a school treat, and might just as well as not send her message by him.

“It is something particular,” said Mary, chafing inwardly not a little at the difficulty of obtaining an audience of Mr Cheviott—“as if he were a royal personage almost,” she said to herself. “You can tell Mr Cheviott that the business on which I wish to see him is something particular; and my name is Miss Western.”

Again the envoy disappeared. Again the murmuring voices through the door, then a hasty sound as of some one pushing back a chair in impatience, and in another moment the door between the rooms opened, and some one came into the library. Not the man-servant this time, nor did he, lingering behind his master in the study in hopes of quenching his curiosity, obtain much satisfaction, for Mr Cheviott, advancing but one step into the library, and catching sight of its occupant, turned sharply and closed the door in the man’s face before giving any sign of recognition of his visitor—before, in fact, seeming to have perceived her at all. Then he came forward slowly.

Mary was still standing; as Mr Cheviott came nearer her, she bowed slightly, and began at once to speak.

“I can hardly expect you to recognise me,” she said, calmly. “I am Miss Western, the second Miss Western, from Hathercourt.”

Mr Cheviott bowed.

“I had the pleasure of being intro—I had the honour of meeting you at one of the Brocklehurst balls,” he said, inquiringly.

“Yes,” said Mary, “and once before—at Hathercourt Church one Sunday when you and your friends came over to the morning service. Before that day I do not think I ever heard your name, and yet I have come to your house to-day to say to you what it would be hard to say to an old friend—to ask you to listen while I try to make you see that you have been interfering unwarrantably in other people’s affairs; that what you have done is a cruel and bad thing, a thing you may sorely repent, that I believe you will repent, Mr Cheviott, if you are not already doing so?”

She raised her voice slightly to a tone of inquiry as she stopped, and, for the first time, looked up, straight into Mr Cheviott’s face. She had been speaking in a low tone, but with great distinctness and without hurry, yet when she left off it seemed as if her breath had failed her, as if her intense nervous resolution could carry her no further. Now she waited anxiously to see the effect of her words; she had determined beforehand to plunge at once, without preamble, into what she had to say, yet even now she was dissatisfied with what she had done. It seemed to her that she had made her appeal in an exaggerated and theatrical fashion; she wished she had waited for Mr Cheviott to speak first.

She looked at him, and for an instant there was silence. His countenance was not so stern and impassive as she had once before seen it, but its expression was even more unpromising. It bespoke extreme annoyance and surprise, “disgusted surprise,” said Mary to herself; “he thinks me lost to all sense of propriety, I can see.”

She could not see her own face; she was unconscious of the pale anxiety which overspread it, of the wistful questioning in the brown eyes which Mr Cheviott remembered so bright and sunny; she could not know that it would have needed a more than hard heart, an actually cruel one, not to be touched by the intensity in her young face—by the pathos of her position of appeal.

At first some instinct—a not unchivalrous instinct either—urged Mr Cheviott to refrain from a direct reply to Mary’s unmistakably direct attack.

“Will she not regret this fearfully afterwards?” he said to himself. “When she finds that I remain quite untouched, when she decides, as she must, that I am a brute! I will give her time to draw back by showing her the uselessness of all this before she commits herself further.”

But Mary saw his hesitation, and it deepened the resentment with which she heard his reply.

“Miss Western,” he said, “you must be under some extraordinary delusion. I will not pretend entire ignorance of what your words—words that, of course, from a lady I cannot resent—of what your words refer to, but pray stop before you say more. I ventured once before to try to warn you—or rather another through you, and this, I suppose, has led to your taking this—this very unusual step,” (“what a mean brute I am making of myself,” he said to himself, “but it is the kindest in the end to show her the hopelessness at once”)—“under, I must repeat, some delusion, or rather complete misapprehension of my possible influence in the matter.”

Mary was silent.

“You must allow me to remind you,” continued Mr Cheviott, hating himself, or the self he was obliged to make himself appear, more and more with each word he uttered, “that you are very young and inexperienced, and little attentions—passing trivialities, in fact, which more worldly-wise young ladies would attach no significance to, may have acquired a mistaken importance with you and your sister. I am very sorry—very sorry that any one connected with me should have acted so thoughtlessly; but you must allow, Miss Western, that I warned you—Went out of my way to warn you, as delicately as I knew how, when I saw the danger of—of—any mistake being made.”

Mary heard him out. Then she looked up again, with no appeal this time in her eyes, but in its stead righteous wrath and indignation.

“You are not speaking the truth,” she said, “at least, what you are inferring is not the truth. If it were the case that Captain Beverley’s ‘attentions’ to my sister were so trifling and meaningless—such as he may have paid to other girls scores of times—why did you go out of your way to warn us? It could not possibly have been out of respect for us; you knew and cared as little about us as we about you, and if you had said it was out of any care for us, the saying so would have been an unwarrantable freedom. No, Mr Cheviott, you knew Captain Beverley was in earnest, and your pride took fright lest he should make so poor a marriage. That is the truth, but I wish you had not made matters worse by denying it.”

The blood mounted to Mr Cheviott’s forehead; his dark face looked darker. That last speech of his had been a false move, and Mary knew it, and he knew it; still his presence of mind did not desert him.

“Believing what you do, then, Miss Western—I shall not again trouble you to believe anything I say—may I ask how, supposing my cousin to have been, as you express it, in earnest, you explain his not having gone further?”

“How I explain it?” exclaimed Mary. “You ask me that? I explain it by the fact that brought me here; you stopped his going further.”

“Influenced, no doubt, by the pride you alluded to just now.”

“Yes, I suppose so,” said Mary, dejectedly. “Influenced, at least, by some motive that blinded you to what you were doing. A girl’s broken heart is a trifle, I know, but the loss of a good influence over a man’s life is not a trifle, even you will allow. Captain Beverley thinks he owes you a great deal; I strongly suspect he owes you a great deal more than he at present realises. Mr Cheviott, do you not know that what you have done is a wrong and bad thing?”

Again her eyes took the pleading expression. Mr Cheviott turned away to avoid it. Then he said, very coldly:

“It is extremely unpleasant to have to say unpleasant things, but you force me to it. Supposing, for argument’s sake—supposing things were as you believe, I should certainly act as you believe I have acted. I should by every means in my power, endeavour to prevent my cousin’s making a marriage which would be utterly ill-advised and unsuitable, which would destroy his happiness, and which I cannot believe would be for the happiness of any one concerned.”

Mary’s face grew white as death. It was all over, then. She had lowered herself to this man for nothing. In the misery of thoroughly realising her defeat—the downthrow of all the hopes which unconsciously she had been cherishing more fondly than she had had any idea of—she, for the moment, forgot to be angry—she lost sight, as it were, of Mr Cheviott; in the depth of her disappointment, he became simply the incarnation of a cruel fate.

But he, at this juncture, was very far from losing sight of Mary. Her silent pallor frightened him, he thought she was going to faint, and he felt as if he were a murderer. A rush of pity and compunction roused his instinct of hospitality.

“Miss Western,” he said, gently, and with a look in his eyes of which Mary, when she afterwards recalled it, could not altogether deny the kindness and sympathy, “I fear you have overtired yourself. This wretched business has been too much for you. Will you allow me to get you a glass of wine?”

Mary hastily shook her head, and the effort to recover her self-control—for she felt herself on the point of bursting into tears—brought back the colour to her cheeks.

“I will go now,” she said, turning towards the door.

Mr Cheviott interrupted her.

“Will you not allow me to say one word of regret for the pain I have caused you?” he said, anxiously, humbly almost, “will you not allow me to say how deeply I admire and—and respect your courage and sisterly devotion?”

Mary shook her head.

“No,” she said. “I could not believe you if you said anything of the kind, knowing you now as I do. And I earnestly hope I may never see you and never speak to you again.”

The words were childish, but the tone and manner gave them force, and their force went home. Mr Cheviott winced visibly. Yet once again he spoke.

“You may resent my saying so at present,” he said, “but afterwards you may be glad to recall my assurance that no one shall ever hear from me one word of what has been said just now.”

Mary turned upon him with ineffable contempt.

“I dare say not,” she said. “For your own sake you will do well to keep silence. For mine you may tell it where and to whom you choose.”

Again Mr Cheviott’s face flushed.

“You are a foolish child,” he said, under his breath. Whether Mary caught the words or not he could not tell, but in a gentler tone she added, as she was passing through the door-way, “I think, however, I should tell you that no one—my sister, of course not—no one knows of my coming here to-day.”

Mr Cheviott bowed.

“I am glad to hear it,” he said, with what Mary imagined to be extreme irony.

He crossed the hall with her, and opened the large door himself. But Mary did not look at him as she passed out. And, when she had got some way down the carriage-drive in sight of the dump of oak trees, she burst into a flood of bitter tears. Tears that Mr Cheviott suspected, though he did not see them.

“Poor child,” he said, as he returned to his study, “I trust she will meet no one in the park. Those gossiping servants—Well, surely I can never have a more wretched piece of work to go through than this! What a mean, despicable snob she thinks me!” he laughed, bitterly. “Why, I wonder, is it the fate of some people to be constantly doing other people’s dirty work? I have had my share of it, Heaven knows; but I think I am growing quite reckless to what people think of me. What eyes that child has—and how she must love that sister of hers! If it had been she that Arthur had made a fool of himself about—”

Chapter Fifteen.

“Doing” Romary.

“She told the tale with bated breath— ‘A sad old story; is it true?’”

There was no good, there seldom is any, in crying about it. And Mary’s tears were those rather of anger and indignation than of sorrow. The sorrow was there, but it lay a good deal lower down, and she had no intention of letting any one suspect its existence, nor that of her present discomfort, in any way. So she soon left off crying, and tried to rally again the temporarily scattered forces of her philosophy.

“Well,” she reflected, “it has been a failure, and perhaps it was a mistake. I must put it away among the good intentions that had better have remained such. I must try to think I have at worst done Lilias’s cause no harm—honestly I don’t think I have—nothing that I could say would move that man one way or the other. And any way I meant well—my darling!—I would do it all over again for you, would I not? My poor Lily—to think how happy she might have been but for him. As for what he thinks of me I do not care, deliberately and decidedly I do not care, though just now it makes me feel hot,”—for the colour had mounted in her face even while she was asserting her indifference—“or perhaps, to be quite truthful, I should say I shall not care, very soon I shall not, I know. I shall not even care what he says of me—except—it would be rather dreadful if Lilias ever heard of it! but I do not think he will ever speak of it—he has what people call the instincts of a gentleman, I suppose.”

Mary walked on, she was close to the lodge gates now. Suddenly a quick clatter behind her made her look round—a girl on horseback followed by a groom was passing her, and as Mary glanced up she caught sight of the bright, sweet face of Alys Cheviott. One instant she turned in Mary’s direction, and, it seemed to Mary—conscious of red eyes and a half guilty sensation of having no business within the gates—eyed her curiously. But she did not stop, or even slacken her pace. “She cannot have recognised me,” said Mary.

“And to-morrow,” she thought, with a sigh, half of relief, half of despair, “I shall be home again, and Lilias will be asking me if I came across any of the Romary people, or heard anything about Arthur Beverley.”

And when she got back to Uxley and Mrs Greville’s afternoon tea, she had to say how very much she had enjoyed her walk, and how pretty Romary Park looked from the road.

“Only,” repeated Mrs Greville, “I do so wish the Cheviotts had been away, and that I could have taken you all to see through the house and gardens and everything,” and Mary agreed that it was a great pity the Cheviotts had not been away, thinking in her heart that it was perhaps a greater pity than Mrs Greville had any idea of.

How seldom to-morrow fulfills the predictions of today! On Wednesday evening Mary was so sure she was going back to Hathercourt on Thursday morning, and on Thursday morning a letter from Lilias upset all her plans. It had been arranged that Mr Western should walk over to Uxley on Thursday to lunch there, and be driven home with Mary in Mrs Greville’s pony-carriage; but Wednesday had brought news to Hathercourt of the visit of a school inspector, and Mr Western’s absence was not to be thought of.

“So,” wrote Lilias, “mother and I have persuaded him to go on Friday instead, if it will suit Mrs Greville equally well. If not, we shall expect you home to-morrow, but do stay till Friday, if you can, Mary, for I can see that poor papa has been rather looking forward to the little change of a day at Uxley, and he has so few changes.”

Mary was longing to be home again, but her longings were not the question, and as Friday proved to be equally convenient to Mrs Greville, the matter was decided as Lilias wished.

“But you look rather melancholy about it, Mary,” said Mrs Greville. “Are you homesick already?”

Mary smiled. Mr Morpeth was looking at her with some curiosity.

“Not exactly,” she said, honestly.

She glanced up and saw a smile pass round the table.

“What are you all laughing at me for?” she said, smiling herself.

“You are so dreadfully honest,” said Mrs Greville.

“And unsophisticated, I suppose,” said Mary, “to own to the possibility of anything so old-fashioned as homesickness.”

“It must be rather a nice feeling, I think,” said Mr Morpeth. “I mean to say it must be nice to have one place in the world one really longs for. I have never known what that was—we were all at school for so many years after our father’s death—and since we have been together we have been knocking about so, there was no chance of feeling anywhere at home.”

“It must be dreadful to be homesick when one is very ill and has small chance of ever seeing home again,” said Cecilia Morpeth. “We used to see so much of that at Mentone and those places. Invalids who had not many days to live, just praying for home. Do you remember that poor young Brooke, last winter, Frances?”

“That’s it,” exclaimed the elder Miss Morpeth, emphatically.

Everybody stared at her.

“What is the matter? What are you talking about, Frances?” asked her brother and sister.

Miss Morpeth laughed.

“You must have thought I was going out of my mind,” she said, “but it has bothered me so, and when Cecilia mentioned the Brookes, it flashed before me in a moment.”

“What?” repeated Cecilia.

“The likeness—don’t you remember we were talking about it, last night, in our own room? A curious likeness in Miss Western’s face to some one—I could not tell who. Don’t you see it, Cecilia? Not to Basil Brooke, but to the younger brother, Anselm—the one that used to ride with us.”

“Yes,” said Cecilia, “I see what you mean. It is especially when Miss Western looks at all anxious or thoughtful.”

“It is curious,” said Mary. “If we had any cousins, I should fancy these Brookes you are talking of must be relations. My eldest brother’s name is Basil, and the second one is George Anselm, and my mother’s name was Brooke. But I think she told me all her family had died out—anyway, your friends can only be very distant relations.”

“But the likeness,” said Miss Morpeth. “It is quite romantic isn’t it? I suppose you are like your mother, Miss Western?”

“Yes,” said Mary.

“It is to be hoped the likeness goes no further than the face,” said Cecilia, thoughtlessly. “These Brookes are frightfully consumptive. I beg your pardon,” she added, seeing that Mary looked grave, “I should not have said that.”

“I was not thinking of ourselves,” said Mary. “I know we are not consumptive. I was trying to remember if I had ever heard mother speak of any such cousins.”

“The consumption comes from their mother’s side,” said Miss Morpeth. “I remember their aunt, Mrs Brabazon, telling me so. She was a Brooke, and she was as strong as possible.”

“Basil Brooke is dead,” said Mr Morpeth. “I saw his death in the Times last week, poor fellow!”

“I will tell mother about them,” said Mary, and then the conversation went off to other subjects.

An hour or two later, when Mary and the Morpeths were sitting in the drawing-room together, and Mrs Greville was attending to her housekeeping for the day, she suddenly re-appeared, with a beaming face.

“Frances, Mary, Cecilia,” she exclaimed, “such a piece of good luck! Mr Petre, Mr Cheviott’s agent, has just been calling here to see Mr Greville about some parish business, and I happened to say to him that I had friends with me here who had such a wish to see Romary. And what do you think? Mr Cheviott and his sister are away! They went yesterday evening to pay a visit, somewhere in the neighbourhood, for three days. And Mr Petre was so nice about it—he says he has perfect carte blanche about showing the house when they are away, and Mrs Golding is always delighted to do the honours. So it is all fixed—we are to go this afternoon—we must have luncheon a little earlier than usual. So glad you are not going home to-day, Mary.”

Mary felt—afterwards she trusted she had not looked—aghast. What evil genii have conspired to bring about such a scheme? To go to see Romary—of all places on earth, the last she ever wished to re-enter—to go to admire the possessions of the man who had done her more injury and caused her deeper mortification than she had ever endured before!

“Oh, Mrs Greville,” she exclaimed, hastily. “It is very good of you, but I don’t think I care about going—you won’t mind if I stay at home?”

“If you stay at home!” said Mrs Greville, in amazement. “Of course I should mind. I made the plan quite as much for you as for Frances and Cecilia; and only yesterday—or day before, was it?—you seemed so interested in Romary, and so anxious to see it, you were asking ever so many questions about it. I did not think you were so changeable.”

Mary’s face flushed.

“I did not mean to be changeable or to vex you, dear Mrs Greville,” she began, “only—”

“Only what?”

Mary had left her seat and come over to where Mrs Greville was standing.

“It is a very silly reason I was going to give,” she said in a low voice, trying to smile. “You remember my saying before how very much I dislike that Mr Cheviott.”

Mrs Greville could not help laughing.

“Is that all?” she said. “Come now, Mary, I had no idea you could be so silly. I have always looked upon you as such a model of good sense. I began to think there must be some mystery you had not explained to me about Lilias’s affairs, of course, I mean,” she added, in a whisper, glancing at Mary with re-awakened curiosity in her eyes.

Mary kept her countenance.

“It is just as I said,” she replied. “I can’t give you any better reason for not wanting to go than my dislike to that man.”

“Very well, then, you must come. That might prevent your liking to see him; it need not prevent your liking to see his house. Your not coming would quite spoil our pleasure.”

Mary hesitated. Suddenly there flashed into her mind some of Lilias’s last words of warning.

“Whatever you do, Mary,” she had said, “don’t let Mrs Greville get it into her head that there has been anything mortifying to us—that Arthur has behaved ill, I mean. I couldn’t stand that being said.”

And Mary turned to Mrs Greville with a smile.

“Very well,” she said. “I won’t be silly, and I will go.”

“That’s all right,” said Mrs Greville, and Mary wished she could have said so too.

After all, why not? It was entirely a matter of personal feeling on her part; there was nothing unladylike or unusual in her going with the others to see the show house of the neighbourhood; and yet the bare thought of her doing so by any possibility coming to Mr Cheviott’s ears made her cheeks burn.

“That horrible man-servant!” she said to herself—“supposing he recognises me!”

But there was no good in “supposings.” She determined to make the best of the unavoidable, though it was impossible altogether to refrain from fruitless regrets that her return home had been delayed.

Nothing came in the way of the expedition. The afternoon turned out very fine, remarkably fine and mild for February, and the little party that set out from the Vicarage would have struck any casual observer as cheerful and light-hearted in the extreme.

“Do you care about this sort of thing?” said Mr Morpeth to Mary, when in the course of the walk they happened to fall a little behind the others.

“About what?” said Mary, absently. Her thoughts had been far away from her companions; she now recalled them with some effort.

“Going to see other people’s houses,” replied the young man. “I hate it, though I have had more than my share of it, knocking about from place to place, as we have been doing for so long.”

“Why do you hate it?” inquired Mary, with more interest. The mere fact of Mr Morpeth’s aversion to such expeditions in general seemed congenial, smarting as she was with her own sore repugnance to this one in particular. And even a shadow of sympathy in her present discomfort was attractive to Mary to-day.

Mr Morpeth kicked a pebble or two out of his path with a sort of boyish impatience which made Mary smile.

“Oh, I don’t know,” he replied, vaguely, “I always think it is a snobbish sort of thing to do, going poking about people’s rooms, and all that. And if it’s a pretty house, it makes one envious, and if it’s ugly, what’s the good of seeing it?”

Mary laughed.

“I like seeing old houses—really old houses,” she said.

“Not ruins, but an old house still habitable enough to enable one to fancy what it must have really been like ‘once upon a time.’”

“Yes,” said Mr Morpeth, “I know how you mean. But even that interest goes off very quickly. We once lived near an old place that nearly took my breath away with awe and admiration the first time I went through it. But very soon it became as commonplace as anything, and I hated to hear people go off into rhapsodies about it.”

“What a pity!” said Mary. “I don’t know that I envy you people who have travelled everywhere and seen everything. You don’t enjoy little things as we do who have seen nothing.”

“But you don’t enjoy going to see this stupid place today,” persisted Mr Morpeth. “I know you don’t, for I was in the drawing-room this morning when you were all talking about it; I came in behind Mrs Greville, and sat down in the corner, though you didn’t see me.”

“Then if you heard all that was said you must have heard my reason for disliking to go to see Romary,” said Mary, in a tone of some annoyance.

“Yes,” said Mr Morpeth, coolly, “I did. I wonder why you dislike that unfortunate Mr What’s-his-name so? For before you came Mrs Greville entertained us with a wonderful story about a ball and a very grand gentleman who never looks at young ladies at all, having quite succumbed to—”

“Mr Morpeth,” exclaimed Mary, stopping short and turning round on her companion with scarlet cheeks, “I shall be very angry if you speak like that, and I don’t think Mrs Greville should have—”

“Please don’t be angry. I didn’t mean to vex you, and Mrs Greville was not telling any secrets,” said Mr Morpeth. “Only I have been wondering ever since why you should have taken such a dislike to the poor man. You must be very unlike other girls, Miss Western?”

He looked at her with a sort of half innocent, half mischievous curiosity, and somehow Mary could not keep up her indignation.

“Well, perhaps I am,” she said, good-naturedly. “All the same, Mr Morpeth, you have got quite a wrong idea about why I dislike Mr Cheviott. Don’t let us talk about him any more.”

“I don’t want to talk about him, I’m sure,” said Mr Morpeth. “I only wish he didn’t live here, or hadn’t a house which people insist on dragging me to see. I have no other ill-will at the unfortunate man.”

“Only you won’t leave off talking about him,” said Mary, “and we are close to Romary now. See, that is the lodge gate—on there just past the bend in the road.”

“Oh, you have been here before. I forgot,” said her companion, simply. But innocently as he spoke, his remark sent the blood flying again to Mary’s cheeks.

“What shall I do if that horrible footman opens the door?” she said to herself.

But things seldom turn out as bad as we picture them—or, rather, they seldom turn out as we picture them at all. The horrible footman did not make his appearance—men-servants of no kind were visible—the house seemed already in a half state of deshabille; only old Mrs Golding, the housekeeper, came forward, with many apologies and regrets that she had not known before of Mrs Greville’s and her friends’ coming. “Mr Petre had only just sent word,” and the carpets were up in the morning-room and library! So sorry, she chatted on, but she was thankful to take advantage of her master’s and Miss Cheviott’s absence, even for a day of two, to get some cleaning done.

“For a house like this takes a dell,” She added, pathetically, appealing to Mrs Greville, who answered good-humouredly that to be sure it must.

“But the best rooms are not dismantled, I suppose?” she inquired. “The great round drawing-room and the picture-gallery with the arched roof? Just like a Church,” she observed, parenthetically, to her companions; “that is what I want you so much to see. And the old part of the house, we are sure to see that, and it is really so curious.”

There was no “cleaning” going on in the great drawing-room, and Mrs Golding led the way to its splendours with unconcealed satisfaction. It was much like other big drawing-rooms, with an even greater air of formality and unusedness than is often seen.

Mary, who was not learned in old china, its chief attraction, turned away with little interest, and wished Mrs Greville would hasten her movements.

“What splendid old damask these curtains are,” she was saying to Mrs Golding. “One could not buy stuff like this nowadays.”

“No, indeed, ma’am,” said the housekeeper, shaking her head. “They must have been made many a long year ago. But they’re getting to look very dingy—Miss Alys’s always asking Mr Cheviott to refurnish this room. But it must have been handsome in its day—I remember being here once when I was a girl and seeing it all lighted up. I did think it splendid.”

“There are some very old rooms, are there not?” said Mary.

“Yes, miss, the tapestry rooms,” said Mrs Golding. “There’s a stair leading up to them that opens out of the picture-gallery—the only other way to them is through Mr Cheviott’s own rooms, and he always keeps that way locked, as no one else uses it. The stair runs right down to the side door on the terrace, so it’s a convenient way of getting in from the garden,” continued the communicative housekeeper. “But there’s not many in the house cares to go near those rooms, for they say the middle one’s haunted.”

“Dear me, this is getting interesting,” said Mr Morpeth. “What or whom is it haunted by, pray?”

Mrs Golding looked up at him sharply, then with a slight smile she shook her head.

“You would only make fun of it if I told you, sir,” she said, “and somehow one doesn’t care to have old stories made fun of, silly though they may be.”

“No,” said Mary, “one doesn’t. I think you are quite right,” and the old woman looked pleased.

“You won’t prevent my seeing the haunted room, though you won’t tell me its story?” said Mr Morpeth, good-naturedly. So Mrs Golding led the way.

They passed along the arched picture-gallery, which in itself merited Mrs Greville’s praises, though the pictures it contained were neither many nor remarkable.

“I like this room,” said Mary, approvingly. “It is much less commonplace than the drawing-room—not that I have seen many great houses,” she added, with a smile, to Mr Morpeth, who was walking beside her, “but this is a room one would remember wherever one went.”

“Yes,” said Mr Morpeth. “It is a room with a character of its own, certainly. Frances will be calling it romantic and picturesque and all the rest of it. I am so tired of all those words.”

“I am afraid you are tired of most things,” said Mary. “See what an advantage we dwellers at home have over you travelled people!”

Her spirits were rising. So far there had been nothing at all in the expedition to arouse her fears, and she began to think they had been exaggerated.

“Which is the way to the haunted room?” asked Mr Morpeth, when they were all tired of admiring the picture-gallery.

Mrs Golding replied by opening a door at the further end of the room from that at which they had entered. It led into a little vestibule up one side of which ran a narrow staircase.

“Up that stair, sir,” she said to Mr Morpeth, “you get into a passage with two doors, one of them leads into the new part of the house and one into the old tapestry rooms—it is one of those rooms that is haunted.”

“Let us see if we can guess which it is,” exclaimed Mr Morpeth, springing up the staircase. His sister and Mrs Greville followed him, but Mary lingered a little behind.

“What is the story of the haunted room?” she said, in a low voice, to the housekeeper.

Mrs Golding smiled. She had somehow taken a liking to this quietly-dressed, quietly-spoken young lady, with the pretty eyes and pleasant voice.

“To tell you the truth, miss,” she answered, “I do not very rightly know, it myself. It was something about a lady from foreign parts that was brought here sorely against her will by one of the old lords—I think I have heard said they were once lords—of Romary. He wanted her to marry him, but she would not. Whether he forced her to give in or not I can’t tell, but the end of it was she killed herself—I fancy she threw herself out of the window of the room where he had imprisoned her. And since then they say she is to be seen there now and then.”

“Was it very long ago?”

“I couldn’t say. It was at the time, I know, when there was wars in foreign parts, and that was how the squire of Romary had found the lady. Miss Alys knows all the story—that’s our young lady. Miss Cheviott I should say. It is a sad enough story anyway.”

“Yes,” said Mary, “ghost stories always are, I think. It is queer that the people who have been the most miserable in this world are always the ones who are supposed not to be able to rest without returning to it.”

But just then a voice from above interrupted them.

“Miss Western,” it said, “do come up. This is the jolliest place of the whole house.”

So Mary ran up the staircase. Mr Morpeth was waiting for her at the top.

Chapter Sixteen.

The Haunted Room.

“Startled by her own thoughts, she looked around: There was no fair fiend near her.” Shelley.

It was really a very respectable attempt at a haunted room.

“Something like, isn’t it?” said Mr Morpeth, looking round him with approval, while Miss Morpeth shivered and declared she would not care to spend a night in it, and Miss Cecilia laughed at her and said she would like nothing better than to stay there till to-morrow morning, to see what was to be seen.

“Nonsense, my dear,” said Mrs Greville. “You would be as frightened as possible long before it got dark.”

“She would be in hysterics in half an hour,” said her brother, politely.

“I am sure I wouldn’t,” protested Cecilia. “Miss Western, you wouldn’t be afraid to spend the night here, would you?”

“I don’t know,” said Mary, doubtfully. “I almost think I should be. Those faces in the tapestry are so ghostly. I suppose,” she went on, simply, “if I had to stay here—I mean if there were any good reason for it, I should not be frightened—but I shouldn’t feel inclined to try it just as a test of bravery.”

“As a piece of foolish bravado, I should call it,” said Mrs Greville.

“It would be an awkward place to be shut up in,” said Mrs Golding, “for the door is in the tapestry, you see, ladies,”—she closed it as she spoke—“and it opens with a spring, and unless one knows the exact spot to press, it would be very difficult to find. The other door, which leads into the new part of the house, is hidden in the same way.”

She crossed the room, and, almost without hesitation, pressed a spot in the wall, and a door flew open. It led into another room, something like the first, but rather more modern in its furniture. All the party pressed forward.

“There is nothing particular to see here,” said Mrs Golding, “but this room opens again into the white corridor, where my master’s own rooms are. There is a very pretty view from the window at the end, if you would come this way, and we can get round to the front of the house again.”

A sudden impulse seized Mary.

“Mrs Greville,” she said, “I would like to go out into the garden by the door at the foot of the stair we tame up. Mayn’t I go back? I will meet you at the front of the house.”

“Very well,” said Mrs Greville. “You are such an odd girl, Mary,” she added, in a lower voice, “I suppose your dislike to Mr Cheviott prevents your liking to see his rooms!”

Mary laughed, but coloured a little too.

“Then I’ll meet you at the front of the house,” she said, as she turned away.

“Let me go with you,” put in Mr Morpeth—the others, under Mrs Golding’s guidance, had already passed on—“it wouldn’t do for you to go prowling about those ghostly rooms all by yourself, Miss Western. Who knows what might happen to you?”

Mary laughed again—this time more heartily.

“It’s not dark enough yet to be frightened,” she said, as they re-entered the haunted chamber, where already the heavy old hangings had toned down the afternoon light into dimness.

“Hardly,” said Mr Morpeth, carelessly, stepping forward to the window as he spoke. Mary was following him when a slight sound arrested her.

“Mr Morpeth,” she exclaimed, “it is to be hoped we can get out by the other door, for the one we have just come in by was shut behind us; I heard it click; it is my fault. I never thought about its being a spring door, and I let it swing to.”

She looked startled and a little pale. Mr Morpeth was surprised at her seeming to take it so seriously, and felt half inclined to banter her.

“We never meant to go back by the door we came in by,” he said. “What would have been the good of that? We’ll find the other in a minute—sure to; don’t look so aghast, Miss Western. At the worst we can ring the bells and alarm the house till some one comes to let us out. You are surely not afraid that we shall have to get out by the window?”

As he spoke he crossed over to the side of the room where, to their knowledge, the second door was, if only they could find it! Mr Morpeth, at first, began feeling about in a vague way, as if expecting to light upon the spring by a happy accident. But no such result followed; he began to look a little more thoughtful.

“Let’s see,” he said, consideringly, “whereabouts was it we first came into the room?”

Mary stepped backwards close to the wall, and then moved slowly along, keeping her back to it.

“It must have been about here, I think,” she said, stopping short. “I remember the first thing I caught sight of was that cabinet, and it seemed just opposite me; and Mrs Greville standing in front of it seemed to shut out that narrow pane of the window. Yes,” as Mr Morpeth put himself in the position she described—“yes, she was standing just there; the door must be hereabouts.”

They turned to search more systematically, but in vain. Peer as they would into every square inch of the musty tapestry hangings within a certain radius, feel as they would, up and down, right and left, higher up than Mrs Golding could possibly have reached, lower down than any door within the memory of man ever locked; it was all in vain. Then they looked at each other.

“It must be a spring pressing inwards—flat on the surface,” said Mr Morpeth. “I thought there would have been a little knob of some kind. However, let’s try again.”

He moved his hand slowly around the wall, pressing carefully, anxiously endeavouring to detect the slightest inequality or indentation, and Mary followed his example till their patience was exhausted. Then again they stopped and looked at each other.

“Would it be any good trying to find the spring of the other door?” said Mary, at last.

“I don’t fancy it would,” said Mr Morpeth. “You see, we’re quite in the dark as to what sort of spring it is; we may have touched it twenty times, but not pushed or pressed it the right way. Don’t you think we’d better just not bother for a little? They’re sure to miss us before long, and then that old party will hunt us up.”

But Mary looked by no means disposed to take things so philosophically.

“I don’t know that they will miss us so quickly,” she said. “It will take them some time to go all over the front of the house, and if they don’t find us in the grounds they are sure just to think we have walked on. I am sure Mrs Greville will think so, any way; she always takes things so comfortably,” she added, with an uneasy reflection that Mrs Greville would probably be rejoicing at the success of her amiable scheme for throwing herself and “young Morpeth” together. “I wish I had not left the others.”

Mr Morpeth smiled.

“I really think you are wasting a great deal of unnecessary energy on our misadventure,” he said. “I don’t see anything so very desperate about it. If we were in a box now, like that girl at Modena, Guinevere—no, Genevieve—no, bless me, I can’t remember. You know whom I mean—we might be rather uneasy. But at the very worst we cannot be left here more than an hour or two. I dare say the housekeeper will be coming back to look for us immediately, for she will know how awkward these doors are.”

“Yes,” said Mary, “I do think that is not unlikely. She did not hear us speak of going back to the gardens though, did she? she had gone on in front.”

“But she is pretty sure to miss us, and ask what had become of us—she’s not a stupid old lady by any means. Just let’s wait here comfortably a few minutes, and see if she doesn’t come.”

Mary tried to take his advice, but as the minutes passed she grew more and more uncomfortable.

“I say,” exclaimed Mr Morpeth, “supposing we try to make ourselves heard somehow. I never thought of that. Very likely there are offices—pantries, or kitchens, and so on under these rooms. There’s no bell, but supposing we jump on the floor and scream—I’ll jump, if you will be so good as to scream—some one will be sure to hear us and rush up to see what’s happening in the haunted room.”

But at this proposal Mary grew literally white with anxiety.

“Oh, please don’t, Mr Morpeth,” she said, so beseechingly that the young man looked at her with more concern than he had yet shown.

“What a queer girl she must be to take it to heart so!” he said to himself.

“Please don’t,” she repeated. “It would make such a to-do. I should be so dreadfully annoyed—oh, please don’t.”

“That horrible footman” was the great terror in her mind; “if he came up and saw me he would be sure to tell his master. What would Mr Cheviott think of me if he heard of my being here, prying about his house the very day after?”

“Very well. I’m very comfortable. I’m quite content to wait till some one comes to let us out,” said Mr Morpeth. “It was you, Miss Western, that was in such a hurry.”

Which was true enough. Mary did not know what to say—only her uneasiness increased. It began to grow dusk too—outside among the trees it was getting to look decidedly dusk.

“What shall we do?” she exclaimed at last, in a sort of desperation. “Evidently they are not missing us, and will not do so till they get home, and then there will be such a fuss! Oh, Mr Morpeth,” she went on, as a new idea struck her, “do you think you could possibly get out of the window?”

She said it so simply, and was evidently so much in earnest, that Mr Morpeth gave up for once his habit of looking at the ludicrous side, and set to work to discover how this last suggestion could be carried out. The window was much more easy to deal with than the doors. It opened at once, and, leaning over, Mr Morpeth descried a little ledge below it, leading to the top of the porch above the side-door into the shrubbery.

“I can easily get out,” he said, turning back to Mary, “but once I am out what do you want me to do? You don’t want any fuss, but I must tell somebody to come and get you out.”

“Oh, yes, of course—if you could find Mrs Greville and ask her to tell the housekeeper of the door’s having shut to, she would come and open it,” said Mary. “If you could just tell her in a matter-of-fact way, you know. What I don’t want is a great rush of all the servants and people about the place to see me locked up here; it would be so uncomfortable. I’ll wait here quite patiently once I know you’ve gone, for you’ll be sure to find them.”

“I’ll do my best,” said Mr Morpeth, quietly, “and of course if I should break my neck or my arms or anything, there will be the satisfaction of knowing it was in a good cause.”

Mary started forward.

“You don’t mean that there is really any risk for you,” she exclaimed. “No, I am sure there isn’t,” she continued, after looking out of the window, and examining it for herself, “of course, if there was, I shouldn’t want you to go. You are laughing at me because you think me very silly—I am very sorry, but I can’t help it. I do so wish I hadn’t come here—I wish I could get out of the window too!”

“No, indeed, it would not be safe for you at all,” said Mr Morpeth, hastily, concealing his private opinion that the feat was not so easy as it looked. “I am a good climber and I’ve had plenty of practice. It is nothing for me, but it would be quite different for you—promise me, Miss Western, you will not try to get out of the window while I am away. I shall be as quick as I can, but I may not be able to find the others all at once.”

“Very well,” said Mary. “I do promise. Not that I ever meant to get out of the window, I assure you.”

Mr Morpeth clambered out successfully. Mary watched him groping along the ledge, holding on first by a projecting window sash, then by a water-pipe, then by what she could not tell—somehow or other he had made his way to the roof of the door porch, and was hidden from her sight. But, in a minute, a whistle and a low call of “all right” satisfied her as to his safety.

“He is very good-natured,” thought Mary. “He called out softly on purpose not to attract attention. What a silly girl he must think me, to make such a fuss about such a simple thing! But I can’t help it.”

She drew back from the window and sat down on one of the straight-backed, tapestry-cushioned chairs, and began to calculate how long she would probably have to wait. Ten minutes at most—it could not take longer to run round to the front of the house and find Mrs Golding.

“They will come back by that door,” said Mary, to herself, directing her eyes towards the invisible entrance by which she and Mr Morpeth had returned to the haunted room. “How glad I shall be when I see it open! How I wish I had a watch! It would pass the time to count the minutes till they come—but I could hardly see the minute hand on a watch even now. How dark it is getting! It is those great trees outside—in summer, no light at all can get in here I should think.”

She got up and turned again to the window, fancying that looking out would be a little less gloomy than sitting staring at the old furniture and the shadowy figures on the walls, growing more and more weird and gruesome as the light faded. But, standing there at the window, there returned to her mind the tragic story of which Mrs Golding had given, her the outlines, and, despite her endeavours to think of something else, her imagination persisted in filling in the details. “She had thrown herself out of the window in despair,” Mrs Golding had told of the unhappy prisoner, and Mary recalled it with a slight shudder.

Was it much to be wondered at? Any one would grow desperate shut up within these four gloomy walls—gloomy now, and gloomy then, no doubt, for the tapestry was very old—older, probably, than the date of the story—and the room had ever since been left much as it was at that time. It was a ghastly story, as much for what had preceded the final tragedy as for the catastrophe itself.

“It is so very horrible to think of any one’s having been shut up in this very room for days, and weeks, and months, perhaps,” thought Mary. “And to think that her only way out of it was to many a man she hated! Still, whoever she was, she must have been brave; the only inconsistent part of the story is her being supposed to haunt the place she must have had such a horror of. Dear me, how dark it is getting!—how I do wish they would come, and how I wish I had not heard that story!”

Mary left the window again, and sat down on one of the hard, high-backed chairs. In spite of her anxiety and excitement, she was growing very tired, and once or twice she almost felt as if she were getting sleepy. But she was determined not to yield to this.

“It would be far worse if I fell asleep, and woke to find myself all in the dark,” she said to herself. “If I have to stay all night, I must keep awake, and, indeed, it begins to look very like having to stay all night. What can have become of Mr Morpeth? I am sure he has been gone half an hour.”

She listened till her ears were strained, but there was no sound. Then again the confused, sleepy feeling came over her; she dozed unconsciously for a minute or two, to be awakened suddenly by what in her sleep had seemed a loud noise. Mary started up, her heart beating violently, but she heard nothing for a moment or two. Then there came a faint creaking sound, as of some one coming up the staircase and along the passage outside. It was not the side from which she was looking for assistance, and, besides, whoever it was was approaching in perfect silence.

“Mr Morpeth would be sure to call out if it was he,” she reflected; “besides, Mrs Golding would be with him, and they would come the other way. Who can it be? Oh! supposing—just supposing the ghost were to come in, what should I do? I should always be told it was a dream; but I am not dreaming. And something must have been seen, otherwise there would not be the story about it.”

All this flashed through her mind in an instant. She got up from her chair with a vague intention of escaping, hiding herself somewhere, anywhere, but sat down again, as the steps came nearer and nearer, with a feeling of hopelessness. How could she escape? Where could she hide herself? There was no cupboard or recess, not even a curtain, in the bare, half-furnished room; she must just wait where she was, whatever happened, and, as if fascinated, poor Mary sat gazing on that part of the wall where she knew the door to be. Another moment—it seemed to her hours—and she heard the slight click of the concealed spring, and, thank Heavens, it was no ghost in flowing white, but a gentleman in a great-coat! Thus much Mary could discern, dusk though it was, even at the first glance, to her inexpressible relief.

“Mr Morpeth,” she exclaimed, “is it you? Oh, I am so thankful! But why—”

The voice that interrupted her was not Mr Morpeth’s.

“Who is there? Is it you, Mrs Golding? What is the matter?” exclaimed the some one whose approach had so terrified her.

An instant’s pause; Mary’s wits, beginning to recover themselves, were all but scattered again as a frightful suspicion dawned upon her. Was she dreaming, could it be that her very worst misgiving was realised? Who was it standing in frowning bewilderment before her? Ghost, indeed—at that moment it seemed to her she would rather have faced twenty ghosts than the living man before her.

“Mr Cheviott!” she ejaculated, feebly, hardly conscious of speaking.

Mr Cheviott came forward a little, but cautiously, and in evident astonishment and perplexity. Something in the tone of the half whisper struck him as familiar, though it was too dark for him to distinguish at once anything but the general outline of poor Mary’s figure.

“Who is it? I don’t understand; does Mrs Golding know of your being here?” he asked, confusedly, with a vague idea that possibly the mysterious visitor was some friend of the housekeeper.

“No—oh, yes, I mean,” replied Mary; “I got locked in by mistake, and—and—”

There was an end for the time of all explanation; Mary burst into unheroic tears; but not before an exclamation, to her ears fraught with inexpressible meaning, had reached her from Mr Cheviott.

“Miss Western, you here!” was all he said, but it was enough.

Though from the first of his entrance she had had no hope of escaping unperceived, yet the hearing his recognition expressed in words seemed to make things worse, and for the moment exaggerated almost beyond endurance the consciousness of her ignominious position. She cried as much from a sort of indignation at circumstances as from nervousness or timidity.

Mr Cheviott stood silent and motionless. Wild ideas were hurrying through his brain to the exclusion for the time of all reasonable conjecture. Had she been locked up here since the day before? Had she come with a frantic idea of winning him over even now to approve of an engagement between Arthur and her sister? If not, what was she doing here? And now that he had discovered her, what could he do or say that would not add to her distress?

Suddenly Mary looked up. Her tears somehow or other, had restored her self-control; the very shame she felt at Mr Cheviott’s hearing her sobs reacted so as to give her confidence.

“Why should I be ashamed? It is very natural I should cry after all the worry I have had the last few days; and who has caused it all? Who has broken Lily’s heart and made us all miserable? Why should I care what such a man as that thinks of me?”

She left off crying, and got up from the chair on which she had sunk down at the climax of her terror. She turned to Mr Cheviott, and said calmly, though not without the remains of an uncontrollable quaver in her voice:

“If you will be so good as to open the door, I should very much like to go.”

Mr Cheviott took up the cue with considerable relief. Any amount of formality was better than tears.

“Certainly,” he said, quietly. Then, almost to his own astonishment, the ludicrous side of the position suddenly presenting itself to him, a spirit of mischief incited him to add, “you must allow, Miss Western, I am in no way to blame for this disagreeable adventure of yours. And, if you will pardon my asking you, I must confess before I let you out I should very much like to know how you got in.”

Mary flamed up instantly.

“You have no right,” she began,—“no right,” she was going to say, “to ask me anything I have not chosen to tell you,” but she stopped short. She was in Mr Cheviott’s own house—how could she possibly refuse to tell him how she had got there? “I beg your pardon,” she said instead. “I—I came here with Mrs Greville and some people who wanted to see the house. I did not want to come,” she could not resist adding, with a curious little flash of defiance, “but I could not help it.”

“Ah! indeed, I understand,” said Mr Cheviott, turning to open the door, but to which part of her speech his observation was addressed, Mary was left in ignorance.

Mr Cheviott stopped.

“Which way do you wish to go out?” he asked.

“Out to the garden, if you please,” said Mary, eagerly. “That is the way Mr Morpeth—the gentleman that was with me, I mean—will be coming back. At least, I don’t know,” she went on, growing confused; “it depends on where he finds the housekeeper. But anyway, I would rather meet them all outside.”

“How on earth did ‘the gentleman that was with her’ get out?” thought Mr Cheviott—“or was it through some foolery of his that she got locked in?” But he was determined to ask no more questions.

He turned again to the wall, pressed the concealed spring without an instant’s hesitation, and the door flew open—flew open, and Mary, without a glance behind her, flew out.

Chapter Seventeen.

Mary Tells Stories.

Florizel—“Fortune speed us!— Thus we set on, Camillo, to the sea-side.” Camillo.—“The swifter speed the better.” Winter’s Tale.

She flew out of the room, across the passage, down the little stair, and out at the door, still standing slightly ajar, for a moment thinking of nothing but the delight of being liberated at last. But it was dusk outside among the trees, and her hesitation which way to go recalled her to herself. She stopped short, and then turned back again.

“I should have thanked him. He really must think me mad,” she said to herself, with a hot flush of shame, hardly knowing what she ought to do.

But she was not long left in doubt. Mr Cheviott had followed her down-stairs; he was standing at the door.

“I am ashamed of not thanking you for letting me out,” she said, hastily.

“I hardly see that I could have done less,” he replied, dryly. “I merely followed you now to direct you how to get round to the front, as I believe you wish. You must keep that path to the left till it meets a wider one, which will bring you out at the foot of a flight of stone steps. These will take you up to the side terrace, and you can then easily see your way to the front of the house. It is not really dark yet; it is only the trees here which make it seem so, even in winter. They are so thick.”

“Thank you,” said Mary. “I am very much obliged to you, and I should have said so before, but—I did not think I was so silly—the feeling of being shut up in that room must have made me forget, it was so horrible,” and she gave a little shiver.

Mr Cheviott stepped forward a little, but it was too dark for Mary to see the concern in his eyes.

“Would you like me to go with you till you meet your friends,” he said, very gently.

“Oh, no, thank you,” exclaimed Mary, with great vehemence.

Mr Cheviott drew back.

“I see,” he said, with the slightly satirical tone Mary seemed to know so well and hated so devoutly. “It is bad enough to be still in the precincts of the ogre’s castle, but the presence of the ogre himself is quite too much for your nerves. Good-evening Miss Western.”

He raised his hat and re-entered the house before Mary had time to reply. She stood still for a second.

“Have I been rude to him again?” she said to herself, with a little compunction. “However, it really does not matter. No two people could dislike and despise each other more thoroughly than he and I do. I could never, in any circumstances, have liked him; but still, for Lily’s sake, I could have been civil to him. But now! I only hope, oh, ever so earnestly, that I shall never see him again—and what he thinks or does not think of me really is of less than no consequence.”

Nevertheless, the thought of the afternoon’s adventure made her cheeks tingle hotly, and she hurried on as fast as she could in the uncertain light. Mary Western seemed strangely unlike her usual philosophical self. She even seemed to find a relief to her irritation in trampling unnecessarily on the dry brushwood lying about here and there—the “scrunch” worked off her disgust a little. Once, after jumping on the top of a small raked-up heap, she stood still and laughed at herself.

“What a baby I am! I need never laugh at poor Josey’s ‘tantrums’ again,” she said to herself. “But the truth is that man has thoroughly mortified me, and I can’t stand mortification. It is my thorn in the flesh.”

Just then it seemed to her that she heard a faint sound in the path behind her. It was too dark to see anything, but Mary’s heart began to beat faster, and jumping down from the heap she hurried on more quickly than before.

“I dare say it’s only a rabbit,” she thought; “but still all round here has a sort of haunted feeling to me.”

She was glad when at last she came upon the flight of steps Mr Cheviott had described. Running up them, the first object that met her sight was Mr Morpeth hastening towards her.

“Miss Western! did you get out of the window? It was frightfully rash,” he exclaimed.

“I did not get out of the window,” replied Mary, shortly. “But that I did not try to do so is no thanks to you, Mr Morpeth.”

“Why, what’s the matter? I have done my very best, I can assure you,” he replied good-naturedly. “I was as quick as I could be, considering all your directions—I don’t think it can be more than half an hour since I left you.”

“Half an hour,” repeated Mary, indignantly. “You talk coolly of not much more than half an hour, but just fancy what that seemed to me. Shut up alone in that horrible room, and in the dark, too!”

“I’m very sorry, but I couldn’t help it.”

“It would not have taken me half an hour, I know,” pursued Mary, “to have run round to the front of the house and find the housekeeper.”

“Yes,” replied Mr Morpeth, “it certainly would, if, when you had run round to the front of the house, you had not found the housekeeper, and had been told instead that she had had to hurry off to her master, who had arrived unexpectedly—and if you had had to explain all to Mrs Greville, and beg her not to rouse an alarm and so on—all this in deference to the special commands of a certain young lady, whom I mistakenly imagined I was trying to serve.”

Mary felt rather ashamed of herself.

“Did you not find the housekeeper after all?” she inquired, meekly.

“Yes, Mrs Greville managed it, but I would not let her go back through the house to let you out, as I knew you would so dislike possibly meeting that fellow—what’s his name?—the man himself, I mean, whom you hate so. So I got a key; look what a queer one,” holding out a quaint looking object, which Mary could, however, hardly distinguish, till she took it in her own hands, “it opens the spring door from the outside, you see.”

“But did you see Mr Cheviott?” asked Mary.

“Oh, no! he stopped at his bailiff’s, or somewhere, and sent on his groom to say he had come back about some business, and would stay all night. Then off flies Mrs Silver, or whatever her name is—and nobody thinks any more of us two unfortunate wretches.”