Chapter VIII · MARY'S MISTAKE.

She regretted that she had permitted her emotions to overpower her so much in the presence of the Doctor, and that hence he had been allowed to depart without further questioning when she had so many inquiries to make. From Alison Home and her other domestic she could gather nothing, save that on the same Wednesday, at midnight, they had both heard the swiftly-ridden horse pass along the roadway, and also the strange cry of the rider.

Could it be possible, she was ever asking of herself, that they would meet no more? Never more in the thicket, never more at the stile in the lane at the end of the Lee? that she should never again be gathered to his breast so kindly and so tenderly?

Cyril's love had made her very happy; so much so that it often inspired her with gratitude to God for blessing her so, and no shadow had ever rested upon it, save the secrecy they were compelled to practise, as they hoped, for a time only, and being both proudly spirited, they had felt that necessity a degradation and source of irritation. Now all that and the love itself had passed away, and a cloud of thought and gloom black as midnight, seemed to envelop the pale girl as she sat alone in the little chamber, gazing listlessly at the sunlit scenery, and with no sound in her ears save the beating of her heart.

Oh, had her brother Harry been spared to her, thought she, Cyril's friend and comrade in India, how differently might she have been situated! How she longed to rush to Willowdean and prosecute inquiries there, but dared not even give expression to the thought!

Only lately she had been anticipating in dread the withdrawal or expiry of his short leave of absence, and his departure to Turkey with the proposed Allied Army. Now she felt that to see him going forth even to face the perils and chances of the threatened Russian war would be a welcome exchange for the present doubt and horror she endured.

All that day no food passed her lips, and as evening drew on the dread of enduring another night without some further intelligence proved too much for her grief and impatience; so the craving to go forth and inquire personally—she could not trust to the discretion of her servants, and shrunk instinctively from their morbid surmises—became so strong, that on finding her father sleeping calmly and peacefully after the slight repast he deemed a dinner, she dressed herself in haste to go out—but for where and to whom were her next thoughts?

The nearest house was Chesterhaugh; it was little more than four miles distant, and though she shrunk from the idea of seeing or being seen by Captain Chesters, she resolved, come what might, to question his gatekeeper, as if casually, about the last he had seen of Cyril Wedderburn; for as the coldness between the two families was pretty well known in that secluded district, she felt assured that the man would imagine her to be prompted by the merest curiosity.

As she set forth on foot, she sighed when passing the empty coachhouse and the stables where the hoofs of horses and the rattle of their stall collars were heard no more. She was young, active, and would walk the distance in an hour; yet not to repine a little when she thought of all that should and might have been, was perhaps impossible.

She did not anticipate that the gatekeeper could add much to the alarming details already furnished by the Doctor, yet she longed to see him as one who, however humble, had been the last who looked on Cyril's winning face and heard his cheerful voice; moreover, the utter solitude of her home had proved on this day intolerable. She dared not speak of the occurrence to her father, for he would be the last perhaps to express genuine sympathy; so the desire to move abroad, to speak to some one, to be doing anything but sitting still and brooding, became an irresistible impulse.

Full of her own thoughts as she walked on, she did not perceive how stormy clouds had enveloped the afternoon sun; that the dull grey mist was rolling swiftly along the grassy glens and upward to the slopes of the Lammermuirs, and with how melancholy a sound the wind shook in gusts the leafless trees of the old wood near the Tower, while on the hill sides the shepherds were driving fast their flocks to the thatched bughts, or sheepfold in sheltered places. Neither was she aware that her chief domestic, old Alison Home, looked after her with mingled admiration and compassion, as if reading something of her secret, when she passed out upon the highway; for Mary Lennox, though charming at times, was looking unusually handsome, graceful, and compact in her smart velvet hat and plume—the wing of a golden pheasant shot for her by Cyril—her cuffs and muff of grey Iceland duck, her jacket of sealskin (imitation, we are sorry to say), her veil drawn tightly over her pretty face and ears, and her skirts looped up, less to show the scarlet petticoat, taper ankles, and balmorals, than for activity, as she set forth.

Which of all those hoof-marks she could trace upon the road were those of Cyril's fatal horse? How often had she walked along that road to church and to the nearest market town since they had lost their carriage, but never with a heart so heavy, and with such a sensation of being benumbed and stupefied with grief.

"Sorrow, misery, and horror!" she muttered from time to time. "Oh what a life is before me now! Cyril, Cyril!" and at the sound of his name, even on her own lips, the tears rolled forth beneath the closely drawn veil, and the little hands were wrung convulsively within her muff.

Every moment she thought that she must see him coming to meet her; it seemed impossible that he could be thus blotted out of existence! All appeared chaos and confusion to Mary as she walked on; the order of events and the course of time seemed to be alike inverted.

It appeared as if years had elapsed since she had last seen Cyril—last stood in his close embrace in yonder thicket, and heard his loving voice, while the events of years ago seemed to have happened yesterday; even his arrival from India, when she was much younger, with her dead brother's sword and watch, his rings and lock of hair, and the happy subsequent time when his and her secret intimacy began. How much had passed since then; they were lovers, and engaged, so solemnly too—and now—the mass of unuttered thoughts seemed to rend her heart!

Circumstances had given her few friends, and now she sorely felt the want of one.

School companions, girls from town and elsewhere, with gay and happy home circles, had occasionally broken the monotony of her life by becoming her guests; but she grew painfully conscious that owing to the dreary seclusion of the old Tower, where few sounds met the ear save the bleating of sheep or the whistle of the curlew, and also from her father's querulous eccentricity, they curtailed their visits, and seldom or never came again. Then, as he ailed so frequently and aged so fast, she could not accept invitations in return, even those given by neighbours so near as Lady Ernescleugh and others, who were disposed to be kind to the lonely little Chatelaine of Lonewoodlee.

Ere long she reached the handsome iron gate and grotesque little lodge of Chesterhaugh, beyond which she could see the sweep of the gravelled approach that led to the house. The park was perfectly bare and open now, as the thriftless Captain had long since converted into cash every tree on the estate; and the park itself, once his father's pride, was now let to a grazier of cattle.

Mary was flushed and breathless as she approached the gate. She had walked very quick that she might the sooner return, and she had not been insensible to the fast increasing coldness of the temperature, the howling of the March wind, and the gathering of dark masses of cloud in the east, hastening, or anticipating by nearly an hour, the shades of evening.

She was in the act of questioning old Tony Heron, the lodgekeeper, who approached her respectfully with a hand at his hat, "if the tidings were true that Captain Wedderburn"—how her voice faltered as her quivering lips pronounced the name—"had really suffered by some accident after leaving Chesterhaugh," when the sound of hoofs struck her ear, and before the man could fully reply, Captain Chesters—in nearly the same costume in which he had breakfasted at Willowdean—dashed up, accompanied by his favourite and only groom, Billy Trayner, to whom he at once threw the reins of his horse on dismounting.

"Good morning, Miss Lennox," said he, lifting his hat with profound courtesy.

"It is evening, rather," said Mary, covered with confusion and annoyance by this unexpected rencontre, "and I must not delay, lest poor papa——"

"Ah! to be sure; but the old gentleman was all right, fast asleep, Alison told me, as I stopped for a moment at the Tower to inquire for you in passing. But to what good fairy is the humble house of Chesterhaugh indebted for the honour of a visit from you, Miss Lennox, and alone too?" he added, as he led her very deliberately inside the gate, which the keeper shut; "and you have no demon of a duenna or chaperon. It beats cock-fighting, 'bangs Banagher,' as O'Grady of ours used to say."

"You make me feel more and more the extreme awkwardness of my situation by this banter, Captain Chesters," said Mary; "but—but——"

"Out with it. You came to ask about young Wedderburn!" exclaimed Chesters, bluntly.

"Yes, sir," said the lodgekeeper, officiously; "she was just asking me when you rode up, and I was about to tell her——"

"That according to our old Scottish proverb, 'a fu' man and a fasting horse go quickly home'—but, by Jove! Cyril Wedderburn went rather further than he quite reckoned on."

"I ask pardon, sir, but I think you are wrong," said the man, touching his hat; "the Captain was not the worse of wine, though his horse seemed mad."

"How the devil should you know anything about it? Silence, Tony!"

"I let him out, and shut the gate."

"Then shut your mouth now, or speak only when you are spoken to," said the Captain, furiously, on which the man slunk into his lodge, abashed.

"Poor Cyril Wedderburn!" said Mary, biting her nether lip to control her emotion.

"He left Chesterhaugh quietly enough, but his horse was disposed to be restive, straining hard on the curb, and so forth, and would seem to have run away with him. It is a very mysterious and melancholy affair," added Chesters, drawing off one of his riding gloves; "but if you will permit me to lead you into the house I shall then tell you all about it, at least, all that I can pretend to know."

"Thanks, no, excuse me," replied Mary, hurriedly, as she was nearly swept away by a sudden gust of wind, while hail and snow came on suddenly with great force and density "Good Heavens!" she exclaimed, "it is quite a storm. I must take shelter here a few minutes, if you will permit me."

"In my gate-lodge? Impossible! Absurd! Come with me into the house, and if the blast does not lull in a few minutes, I shall have the pleasure of driving you over to Lonewoodlee."

Mary looked rather despairingly through the bars of the handsome iron gate, and saw the bleak wide moorland waste she had traversed whitening fast, and that the road was becoming more and more obscure, as the snow covered and the darkness overshadowed it; and while her tears and her repugnance to accept the invitation increased, she said—

"Thank you, Captain Chesters; you are very kind. I was most rash to come; but I could scarcely walk back now, and alone too."

"To walk alone; the thing is not to be thought of. And do not talk of thanks, you owe me none. Do permit me." And taking her hand with all the suavity he could assume—for Chesters was harassed in aspect, having been questioned and cross-questioned by the Procurator Fiscal and the constabulary till he was sickened by the name of Cyril Wedderburn—he conducted Mary into the house of Chesterhaugh, where she had not been for several years, since she was a little girl and led by her father's hand.

Through the marble-floored and oak-panelled entrance-hall, which was hung with spoils of the field and chase—trophies of arms brought by Chesters from India, tiger skins, skulls and horns, with a multitude of whips and spurs, cloaks and riding-boots; thence through a long corridor, that in his father's time had been furnished by magnificent cabinets of buhl and marqueterie, and hung with fine old paintings, all of which had gone, like the trees of the park—he led her into a handsome and well-appointed dining-room.

Though the assurance given by Chesters that he had left her father asleep but a short time before was not strictly true, it tended to soothe Mary's mind a little till the shower of hail that crashed on the windows of the room disturbed her, all the more that the closely-drawn curtains, and the twelve waxlights in the chandelier of Florentine bronze, suggested ideas of nightfall, though the hour was barely six o'clock.

Chesters courteously drew a chair for her near the fire, and led her to it.

"Permit me to relieve you of your muff and hat. Wont you even lift your veil?" he entreated, as he leant, half caressingly, over her chair; but Mary was determined to remain in all her walking gear, to be ready for departure, and said—

"Captain Chesters, do kindly order Trayner to drive me home without delay."

"Why such haste?"

"I perceive that you are just going to dine."

"And will you not share my poor bachelor fare, and by your presence shed a light over my lonely board for an hour or so, and then I shall drive you home in person?"

But Mary was resolute. No food had passed her lips; but she had dined, she said, long ago, by her papa's bedside. Go she must, and at once, she added, and was only pleased that her tears and her blushes of irritation were hidden by her tightly drawn veil, as with a very peculiar expression in his face, Captain Chesters languidly rang the bell for Trayner.

Unlike her gloomy paternal residence, and unlike the more elegant and modern mansion of Willowdean, the house of Chesterhaugh had been built in the reign of George II., when art was at its lowest ebb in Scotland, and taste was studied less than solid comfort. It was a great square block, three stories in height, with all its chimneys clustered in the centre; the roof sloped down from them in the pavilion form, and the outside walls were roughcast with gravel and lime; and poor Mary thought sadly of her own older-fashioned and more sordid home, and of the few comforts that surrounded the declining days of her father, as she surveyed and contrasted with a rapid glance all the details of the spacious and lofty dining-room of Chesterhaugh—the walnut-wood furniture so elaborately carved, the chairs of green morocco, the crimson damask window-curtains with their gilded cornices, the many pictures in which horses seemed to predominate in place of men; the brilliant plate console mirrors, in which all these objects were reproduced in two endless perspectives; the elegant ironstone dinner-service of pink and gold, laid for Chesters; the massive plate; the claret airing near the fire—and she marvelled how all this luxury was supported, when remembering that the Captain had the reputation of being a spendthrift, a bankrupt, and worse.

She little knew that Cyril Wedderburn, when last he had been in that room, had sat in the very chair she now occupied; but Chesters remembered the circumstance, and a disdainful smile crossed his face as he did so.

Again and again he pressed her to take wine; but Mary steadily declined; and at last, after being rung for thrice, Mr. Bill Trayner appeared—a very good specimen of a smart but unscrupulous groom, small in stature, with a long body and short bandy legs, a mean and narrow forehead, sleek black hair, shorn short, with a circular lock or curl plastered on each prominent cheek-bone, and with sharp, cunning eyes.

Bill was a Scotchman of Newmarket growth, and to all the worst points of the national character, added the roguery that may be so easily gained in the atmosphere of the betting-house, the stable-yard, and training-ground. He kept a betting-book as well as his master, whom he was always ready to second in mischief, and to betray, if it suited his private interests to do so.

A perfect oracle on all matters pertaining to the turf, he knew by heart or rote all the entries and engagements made at the various race meetings throughout the country; and knew shrewdly which horses were the best to back and which were likely to be scratched.

"How about the waggonette, Trayner?" said Chesters. "You know I have no other carriage, Miss Lennox," he added, parenthetically, to Mary.

"The waggonette, sir," repeated Trayner, trying to fathom the meaning of a peculiar glance his master gave him.

"Yes, the waggonette with the patent springs," resumed Chesters, with a remarkably knowing wink.

"The springs is broke, sir," replied Trayner, with a similar mode of telegraph, when he glanced at Miss Lennox, and took in the whole situation.

"Broken—the devil they are!"

"All to smash, sir."

"Then the waggonette won't be in working order for——"

"Not for ever so long, sir."

"Then I must walk, and at once!" said Mary, rising from her chair. "I have not a moment to lose."

"Walk? Listen to the rising blast and the crash of the hailstones," urged Chesters.

"Ah, there's more there than hailstones, Miss," said Trayner. "It is a regular feeding storm. The snow is some inches deep already."

"Oh, my poor papa!" exclaimed Mary. "If he is awake and calling for me! Surely the lodgekeeper will accompany me?"

"The two old women at Lonewoodlee will surely suffice as attendants for a couple of hours."

"Hours! Impossible, Captain Chesters!"

"That will do, Trayner. You may go," said Chesters, and his fidus Achates vanished with a leer, which he conveyed to the servants in the hall below, together with the information that "the master had been and gone and done it again. Here's a lark! He's got that girl of old Lennox's, and means to keep her in Chesterhaugh all night if he can—only she seems spirited, and likely to kick over the traces."

Mary had seen something of the man's expression of face as he retired, and she felt that in her anxiety and grief for Cyril Wedderburn she had made a mistake it was too late to remedy now; but it was destined to have a fatal effect upon her interests and happiness at a future time.