‘Are you engaged to Miss Vanstone?’ he asked, suddenly.
‘No, sir,’ replied George. ‘I thought it due to your uniform kindness to me, to speak to you on the subject first.’
‘Much obliged, I’m sure. And you have put off speaking to me to the last moment, just as you put off everything else. Do you think Miss Vanstone will say Yes, when you ask her?’
George hesitated.
‘The devil take your modesty!’ shouted the admiral. ‘This is not a time for modesty – this is a time for speaking out. Will she or won’t she?’
‘I think she will, sir.’
The admiral laughed sardonically, and took another turn in the room. He suddenly stopped; put his hands in his pockets; and stood still in a corner, deep in thought. After an interval of a few minutes, his face cleared a little; it brightened with the dawning of a new idea. He walked round briskly to George’s side of the fire, and laid his hand kindly on his nephew’s shoulder.
‘You’re wrong, George,’ he said – ‘but it is too late now to set you right. On the sixteenth of next month, the Banns must be put up in Ossory church, or you will lose the money. Have you told Miss Vanstone the position you stand in? Or have you put that off to the eleventh hour, like everything else?’
‘The position is so extraordinary, sir, and it might lead to so much misapprehension of my motives, that I have felt unwilling to allude to it. I hardly know how I can tell her of it all.’
‘Try the experiment of telling her friends. Let them know it’s a question of money; and they will overcome her scruples, if you can’t. But that is not what I had to say to you. How long do you propose stopping here, this time?’
‘I thought of staying a few days, and then –’
‘And then of going back to London, and making your offer, I suppose? Will a week give you time enough to pick your opportunity with Miss Vanstone – a week out of the fortnight or so that you have to spare?’
‘I will stay here a week, admiral, with pleasure, if you wish it.’
‘I don’t wish it. I want you to pack up your traps, and be off tomorrow.’
George looked at his uncle, in silent astonishment.
‘You found some letters waiting for you, when you got here,’ proceeded the admiral. ‘Was one of those letters from my old friend, Sir Franklin Brock?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Was it an invitation to you to go and stay at the Grange?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘To go at once?’
‘At once, if I could manage it.’
‘Very good. I want you to manage it. I want you to start for the Grange to-morrow.’
George looked back at the fire, and sighed impatiently.
‘I understand you now, admiral,’ he said. ‘You are entirely mistaken in me. My attachment to Miss Vanstone is not to be shaken in that manner.’
Admiral Bartram took his quarter-deck walk again, up and down the room.
‘One good turn deserves another, George,’ said the old gentleman. ‘If I am willing to make concessions on my side, the least you can do is to meet me half-way, and make concessions on yours.’
‘I don’t deny it, sir.’
‘Very well. Now listen to my proposal. Give me a fair hearing, George – a fair hearing is every man’s privilege. I will be perfectly just to begin with. I won’t attempt to deny that you honestly believe Miss Vanstone is the only woman in the world who can make you happy. I don’t question that. What I do question is, whether you really know your own mind in this matter, quite so well as you think you know it yourself. You can’t deny, George, that you have been in love with a good many women in your time? Among the rest of them, you have been in love with Miss Brock. No longer ago than this time last year, there was a sneaking kindness between you and that young lady, to say the least of it. And quite right, too! Miss Brock is one of that round dozen of darlings I mentioned over our first glass of wine.’
‘You are confusing an idle flirtation, sir, with a serious attachment,’ said George. ‘You are altogether mistaken – you are indeed.’
‘Likely enough; I don’t pretend to be infallible – I leave that to my juniors. But I happen to have known you, George, since you were the height of my old telescope; and I want to have this serious attachment of yours put to the test. If you can satisfy me that your whole heart and soul are as strongly set on Miss Vanstone, as you suppose them to be – I must knock under to necessity, and keep my objections to myself. But I must be satisfied first. Go to the Grange to-morrow, and stay there a week in Miss Brock’s society. Give that charming girl a fair chance of lighting up the old flame again, if she can – and then come back to St Crux, and let me hear the result. If you tell me, as an honest man, that your attachment to Miss Vanstone still remains unshaken, you will have heard the last of my objections from that moment. Whatever misgivings I may feel in my own mind, I will say nothing, and do nothing, adverse to your wishes. There is my proposal. I dare say it looks like an old man’s folly, in your eyes. But the old man won’t trouble you much longer, George – and it may be a pleasant reflection when you have got sons of your own, to remember that you humoured him in his last days.’
He came back to the fireplace, as he said those words, and laid his hand once more on his nephew’s shoulder. George took the hand and pressed it affectionately. In the tenderest and best sense of the word, his uncle had been a father to him.
‘I will do what you ask me, sir,’ he replied, ‘if you seriously wish it. But it is only right to tell you that the experiment will be perfectly useless. However, if you prefer my passing a week at the Grange, to my passing it here – to the Grange I will go.’
‘Thank you, George,’ said the admiral, bluntly. ‘I expected as much from you, and you have not disappointed me. If Miss Brock doesn’t get us out of this mess,’ thought the wily old gentleman, as he resumed his place at the table, ‘my nephew’s weathercock of a head has turned steady with a vengeance! We’ll consider the question settled for tonight, George,’ he continued aloud, ‘and call another subject. These family anxieties don’t improve the flavour of my old claret. The bottle stands with you. What are they doing at the theatres in London? We always patronized the theatres, in my time, in the Navy. We used to like a good tragedy to begin with, and a hornpipe to cheer us up at the end of the entertainment.’
For the rest of the evening, the talk flowed in the ordinary channels. Admiral Bartram only returned to the forbidden subject, when he and his nephew parted for the night.
‘You won’t forget to-morrow, George?’
‘Certainly not, sir. I’ll take the dog-cart, and drive myself over after breakfast.’
Before noon the next day, Mr George Bartram had left the house, and the last chance in Magdalen’s favour had left it with him.
Chapter Four
When the servants’ dinner-bell at St Crux rang as usual on the day of George Bartram’s departure, it was remarked that the new parlourmaid’s place at table remained empty. One of the inferior servants was sent to her room to make inquiries, and returned with the information that ‘Louisa’ felt a little faint, and begged that her attendance at table might be excused for that day. Upon this, the superior authority of the housekeeper was invoked; and Mrs Drake went upstairs immediately to ascertain the truth for herself. Her first look of inquiry satisfied her that the parlour-maid’s indisposition, whatever the cause of it might be, was certainly not assumed to serve any idle or sullen purpose of her own. She respectfully declined taking any of the remedies which the housekeeper offered, and merely requested permission to try the efficacy of a walk in the fresh air.
‘I have been accustomed to more exercise, ma’am, than I take here,’ she said. ‘Might I go into the garden, and try what the air will do for me?’
‘Certainly. Can you walk by yourself? or shall I send some one with you?’
‘I will go by myself, if you please, ma’am.’
‘Very well. Put on your bonnet and
shawl – and, when you get out, keep in the east garden. The admiral sometimes walks in the north garden, and he might feel surprised at seeing you there. Come to my room, when you have had air and exercise enough, and let me see how you are.’
In a few minutes more, Magdalen was out in the east garden. The sky was clear and sunny; but the cold shadow of the house rested on the garden-walk, and chilled the midday air. She walked towards the ruins of the old monastery, situated on the south side of the more modern range of buildings. Here, there were lonely open spaces to breathe in freely; here, the pale March sunshine stole through the gaps of desolation and decay, and met her invitingly with the genial promise of spring.
She ascended three or four riven stone steps, and seated herself on some ruined fragments beyond them, full in the sunshine. The place she had chosen had once been the entrance to the church. In centuries long gone by, the stream of human sin and human suffering had flowed, day after day, to the confessional, over the place where she now sat. Of all the miserable women who had trodden those old stones in the bygone time, no more miserable creature had touched them, than the woman whose feet rested on them now.
Her hands trembled as she placed them on either side of her, to support herself on the stone seat. She laid them on her lap – they trembled there. She held them out, and looked at them wonderingly – they trembled as she looked. ‘Like an old woman!’ she said faintly – and let them drop again at her side.
For the first time, that morning, the cruel discovery had forced itself on her mind – the discovery that her strength was failing her, at the time when she had most confidently trusted to it, at the time when she wanted it most. She had felt the surprise of Mr Bartram’s unexpected departure, as if it had been the shock of the severest calamity that could have befallen her. That one check to her hopes – a check which, at other times, would only have roused the resisting power in her to new efforts – had struck her with as suffocating a terror, had prostrated her with as all-mastering a despair, as if she had been overwhelmed by the crowning disaster of expulsion from St Crux. But one warning could be read, in such a change as this. Into the space of little more than a year, she had crowded the wearing and wasting emotions of a life. The bountiful gifts of health and strength, so prodigally heaped on her by Nature, so long abused with impunity, were failing her at last.
She looked up at the far faint blue of the sky. She heard the joyous singing of birds among the ivy that clothed the ruins. Oh, the cold distance of the heavens! Oh, the pitiless happiness of the birds! Oh, the lonely horror of sitting there, and feeling old and weak and worn, in the heyday of her youth! She rose with a last effort of resolution, and tried to keep back the hysterical passion swelling at her heart, by moving and looking about her. Rapidly and more rapidly, she walked to and fro in the sunshine. The exercise helped her, through the very fatigue that she felt from it. She forced the rising tears desperately back to their sources – she fought with the clinging pain, and wrenched it from its hold. Little by little, her mind began to clear again: the despairing fear of herself, grew less vividly present to her thoughts. There were reserves of youth and strength in her, still to be wasted – there was a spirit, sorely wounded, but not yet subdued.
She gradually extended the limits of her walk; she gradually recovered the exercise of her observation.
At the western extremity, the remains of the monastery were in a less ruinous condition than at the eastern. In certain places, where the stout old walls still stood, repairs had been made at some former time. Roofs of red tile had been laid roughly over four of the ancient cells; wooden doors had been added; and the old monastic chambers had been used as sheds to hold the multifarious lumber of St Crux. No padlocks guarded any of the doors. Magdalen had only to push them, to let the daylight in on the litter inside. She resolved to investigate the sheds, one after the other – not from curiosity; not with the idea of making discoveries of any sort. Her only object was to fill up the vacant time, and to keep the thoughts that unnerved her from returning to her mind.
The first shed she opened, contained the gardener’s utensils, large and small. The second was littered with fragments of broken furniture, empty picture-frames of worm-eaten wood, shattered vases, boxes without covers, and books torn from their bindings. As Magdalen turned to leave the shed, after one careless glance round her at the lumber that it contained, her foot struck something on the ground which tinkled against a fragment of china lying near it. She stooped, and discovered that the tinkling substance was a rusty key.
She picked up the key, and looked at it. She walked out into the air, and considered a little. More old forgotten keys were probably lying about among the lumber in the sheds. What, if she collected all she could find, and tried them, one after another, in the locks of the cabinets and cupboards now closed against her? Was there chance enough that any one of them might fit, to justify her in venturing on the experiment? If the locks at St Crux were as old-fashioned as the furniture – if there were no protective niceties of modern invention to contend against – there was chance enough beyond all question. Who could say whether the very key in her hand, might not be the lost duplicate of one of the keys on the admiral’s bunch? In the dearth of all other means of finding the way to her end, the risk was worth running. A flash of the old spirit sparkled in her weary eyes, as she turned, and re-entered the shed. .
Half an hour more brought her to the limits of the time which she could venture to allow herself in the open air. In that interval, she had searched the sheds from first to last, and had found five more keys. ‘Five more chances!’ she thought to herself, as she hid the keys, and hastily returned to the house.
After first reporting herself in the housekeeper’s room, she went upstairs to remove her bonnet and shawl; taking that opportunity to hide the keys in her bedchamber, until night came. They were crusted thick with rust and dirt; but she dared not attempt to clean them, until bedtime secluded her from the prying eyes of the servants, in the solitude of her room.
When the dinner-hour brought her, as usual, into personal contact with the admiral, she was at once struck by a change in him. For the first time in her experience, the old gentleman was silent and depressed. He ate less than usual, and he hardly said five words to her, from the beginning of the meal to the end. Some unwelcome subject of reflection had evidently fixed itself on his mind, and remained there persistently, in spite of his efforts to shake it off. At intervals through the evening, she wondered with an ever-growing perplexity what the subject could be.
At last, the lagging hours reached their end, and bed-time came. Before she slept that night, Magdalen had cleaned the keys from all impurities, and had oiled the wards, to help them smoothly into the locks. The last difficulty that remained, was the difficulty of choosing the time when the experiment might be tried, with the least risk of interruption and discovery. After carefully considering the question overnight, Magdalen could only resolve to wait and be guided by the events of the next day.
The morning came; and, for the first time at St Crux, events justified the trust she had placed in them. The morning came – and the one remaining difficulty that perplexed her, was unexpectedly smoothed away by no less a person than the admiral himself! To the surprise of every one in the house, he announced at breakfast, that he had arranged to start for London in an hour; that he should pass the night in town; and that he might be expected to return to St Crux in time for dinner on the next day. He volunteered no further explanations, to the housekeeper, or to any one else – but it was easy to see that his errand to London was of no ordinary importance in his own estimation. He swallowed his breakfast in a violent hurry; and he was impatiently ready for the carriage before it came to the door.
Experience had taught Magdalen to be cautious. She waited a little, after Admiral Bartram’s departure, before she ventured on trying her experiment with the keys. It was well she did so. Mrs Drake took advantage of the admiral’s absence to review the condition of the
apartments on the first floor. The results of the investigation by no means satisfied her; brooms and dusters were set to work; and the housemaids were in and out of the rooms perpetually, as long as the daylight lasted.
The evening passed; and still the safe opportunity for which Magdalen was on the watch never presented itself. Bed-time came again; and found her placed between the two alternatives of trusting to the doubtful chances of the next morning – or of trying the keys boldly in the dead of night. In former times, she would have made her choice without hesitation. She hesitated now – but the wreck of her old courage still sustained her, and she determined to make the venture at night.
They kept early hours at St Crux. If she waited in her room until half-past eleven, she would wait long enough. At that time, she stole out on to the staircase, with the keys in her pocket, and the candle in her hand.
On passing the entrance to the corridor on the bedroom floor, she stopped and listened. No sound of snoring, no shuffling of infirm footsteps, was to be heard on the other side of the screen. She looked round it distrustfully. The stone passage was a solitude, and the trucklebed was empty. Her own eyes had shown her old Mazey on his way to the upper regions, more than an hour since, with a candle in his hand. Had he taken advantage of his master’s absence, to enjoy the unaccustomed luxury of sleeping in a room? As the thought occurred to her, a sound from the farther end of the corridor just caught her ear. She softly advanced towards it; and heard through the door of the last and remotest of the spare bedchambers, the veteran’s lusty snoring in the room inside. The discovery was startling, in more senses than one. It deepened the impenetrable mystery of the truckle-bed; for it showed plainly that old Mazey had no barbarous preference of his own for passing his nights in the corridor – he occupied that strange and comfortless sleeping-place, purely and entirely on his master’s account.
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