Guy Deverell. Volume 1 of 2

"I like to be heathen, now and then," said Sir Jekyl, in a lower key; he was by this time beside Lady Jane. "I'd have been a most pious Pagan. As it is, I can't help worshipping in the Pantheon, and trying sometimes even to make a proselyte."

"Oh! you wicked creature!" cried little Mrs. Maberly. "I assure you, Lady Jane, his conversation is quite frightful."

Lady Jane glanced a sweet, rather languid, sidelong smile at the little lady.

"You'll not get Lady Jane to believe all that mischief of me, Mrs. Maberly. I appeal for my character to the General."

"But he's hundreds of miles away, and can't hear you," laughed little Mrs. Maberly, who really meant nothing satirical.

"I forgot; but he'll be back to-morrow or next day," replied Sir Jekyl, with rather a dry chuckle, "and in the meantime I must do without one, I suppose. Here we are, Mr. Strangways, all talking nonsense, the pleasantest occupation on earth. Do come and help us."

This was addressed to Guy Strangways, who with his brother angler, Captain Doocey, in the picturesque negligence and black wide-awakes of fishermen, with baskets and rods, approached.

"Only too glad to be permitted to contribute," said the young man, smiling, and raising his hat.

"And pray permit me, also," said courtly old Doocey. "I could talk it, I assure you, before he was born. I've graduated in the best schools, and was a doctor of nonsense before he could speak even a word of sense."

"Not a bad specimen to begin with. Leave your rods and baskets there; some one will bring them in. Now we are so large a party, you must come and look at my grapes. I am told my black Hamburgs are the finest in the world."

So, chatting and laughing, and some in other moods, toward those splendid graperies they moved, from which, as Sir Jekyl used to calculate, he had the privilege of eating black Hamburg and other grapes at about the rate of one shilling each.

"A grapery – how delightful!" cried little Mrs. Maberly.

"I quite agree with you," exclaimed Miss Blunket, who effervesced with a girlish enthusiasm upon even the most difficult subjects. "It is not the grapes, though they are so pretty, and a – bacchanalian – no, I don't mean that – why do you laugh at me so? – but the atmosphere. Don't you love it? it is so like Lisbon – at least what I fancy it, for I never was there; but at home, I bring my book there, and enjoy it so. I call it mock Portugal."

"It has helped to dry her," whispered Linnett so loud in Doocey's ear as to make that courteous old dandy very uneasy.

It was odd that Sir Jekyl showed no sort of discomfort at sight of Guy Strangways on his sudden appearance; a thrill he felt indeed whenever he unexpectedly beheld that handsome and rather singular-looking young man – a most unpleasant sensation – but although he moved about him like a resurrection of the past, and an omen of his fate, he yet grew in a sort of way accustomed to this haunting enigma, and could laugh and talk apparently quite carelessly in his presence. I have been told of men, the victims of a spectral illusion, who could move about a saloon, and smile, and talk, and listen, with their awful tormentor gliding always about them and spying out all their ways.

Just about this hour the clumsy old carriage of Lady Alice Redcliffe stood at her hall-door steps, in the small square courtyard of Wardlock Manor, and the florid iron gates stood wide open, resting on their piers. The coachman's purple visage looked loweringly round; the footman, with his staff of office in hand, leaning on the door-post, gazed with a peevish listlessness through the open gateway across the road; the near horse had begun to hang his head, and his off-companion had pawed a considerable hole in Lady Alice's nattily-kept gravel enclosure. From these signs one might have reasonably conjectured that these honest retainers, brute and human, had been kept waiting for their mistress somewhat longer than usual.

CHAPTER XVIII

Another Guest Prepares to Come

Lady Alice was at that moment in her bonnet and ample black velvet cloak and ermines, and the rest of her travelling costume, seated in her stately parlour, which, like most parlours of tolerably old mansions in that part of the country, is wainscoted in very black oak. In her own way Lady Alice evinced at least as much impatience as her dependants out of doors; she tapped with her foot monotonously upon her carpet; she opened and shut her black shining leather bag, and plucked at and rearranged its contents; she tattooed with her pale prolix fingers on the table; sometimes she sniffed a little; sometimes she muttered. As often as she fancied a sound, she raised her chin imperiously, and with a supercilious fixity, stared at the door until expectation had again expired in disappointment, when she would pluck out her watch, and glancing disdainfully upon it, exclaim —

"Upon my life!" or, "Very pretty behaviour!"

At last, however, the sound of a vehicle – a "fly" it was – unmistakably made itself heard at the hall-door, and her ladyship, with a preparatory shake of her head, as a pugnacious animal shakes its ears, and a "hem," and a severe and pallid countenance, sat up, very high and stiffly, in her chair.

The door opened, and the splendid footman inquired whether her ladyship would please to see Mrs. Gwynn.

"Show her in," said Lady Alice with a high look and an awful quietude.

And our old friend, Donica, just as thin, pallid, and, in her own way, self-possessed, entered the room.

"Well, Donica Gwynn, you've come at last! you have kept my horses standing at the door – a thing I never do myself – for three-quarters of an hour and four minutes!"

Donica Gwynn was sorry; but she could not help it. She explained how the delay had occurred, and, though respectful, her explanation was curt and dry in proportion to the sharpness and dryness of her reception.

"Sit down, Donica," said the lady, relenting loftily. "How do you do?"

"Pretty well, I thank your ladyship; and I hope I see you well, my lady."

"As well as I can ever be, Donica, and that is but poorly. I'm going, you know, to Marlowe."

"I'm rayther glad on it, my lady."

"And I wish to know why?" said Lady Alice.

"I wrote the why and the wherefore, my lady, in my letter," answered the ex-house-keeper, looking askance on the table, and closing her thin lips tightly when she had spoken.

"Your letter, my good Donica, it is next to impossible to read, and quite impossible to understand. What I want to know distinctly is, why you have urged me so vehemently to go to Marlowe."

"Well, my lady, I thought I said pretty plain it was about my Lady Jane, the pretty creature you had on visits here, and liked so well, poor thing; an' it seemed to me she's like to be in danger where she is. I can't explain how exactly; but General Lennox is gone up to London, and I think, my lady, you ought to get her out of that unlucky room, where he has put her; and, at all events, to keep as near to her as you can yourself, at all times."

"I've listened to you, Donica, and I can't comprehend you. I see you are hinting at something; but unless you are explicit, I don't see that I can be of any earthly use."

"You can, my lady – that is, you may, if you only do as I say – I can't explain it more, nor I won't," said Donica, peremptorily, perhaps bitterly.

"There can be no good reason, Donica, for reserve upon a point of so much moment as you describe this to be. Wherever reserve exists there is mystery, and wherever mystery —guilt."

So said Lady Alice, who was gifted with a spirit of inquiry which was impatient of disappointment.

"Guilt, indeed!" repeated Gwynn, in an under-key, with a toss of her head and a very white face; "there's secrets enough in the world, and no guilt along of 'em."

"What room is it you speak of – the green chamber, is not it?"

"Yes, sure, my lady."

"I think you are all crazed about ghosts and devils over there," exclaimed Lady Alice.

"Not much of ghosts, but devils, maybe," muttered Gwynn, oddly, looking sidelong over the floor.

"It is that room, you say," repeated Lady Alice.

"Yes, my lady, the green chamber."

"Well, what about it – come, woman, did not you sleep for years in that room?"

"Ay, my lady, a good while."

"And what did you see there?"

"A deal."

"What, I say?"