“They was only finished this morning, miss,” said Mercy, also turning round slowly, with a fat smile of complacency, for she participated in the distinction.
“Was all this done for me?” Maud inquired at last.
“Every bit, miss,” rejoined her maid.
“How extremely kind! What taste! What beautiful combinations of colour!”
Maud ran on in inexhaustible admiration for some time, examining now, bit by bit, the details of her sitting-room.
“Lady Mardykes will be here tomorrow morning,” said Maud, at last; “it really will be a relief to me to thank her. I hardly know what to say.”
Her eloquence was interrupted by the arrival of luncheon, served on beautiful china and silver.
When she had had her luncheon, she began to question Mercy about the people whom she had seen in the croquet-ground under the windows.
“Do you know the appearance of the Spanish minister?” she asked.
“Spanish hambassador? Oh! La, yes, miss. Don Ferdnando Tights they calls him in the servants’ hall.”
“What kind of person is he?”
“Well, he’s a quiet creature; there’s no harm in him, only, they say, he is woundy proud.”
“That is pretty plain. And the Duchess of Falconbury? She was talking to me a good deal of Lady Mardykes. Are they good friends?”
“Oh! bless you, that’s a troublesome one. Never a good word for no one has she. I would not advise no one that’s here to make a companion of that lass; she has got many a light head into trouble, not that there’s nothing dangerous about her, only this, that she is always atrying to make mischief.”
“That is a good deal, however. Do you mean that she tells untruths?”
“Well, no; I do believe she really half thinks what she says, but her head is always running on mischief, and that’s the sort she is.”
“How do you mean that she has got people into trouble?”
“Well, I mean by putting mischievous thoughts in their heads, you see, and breeding doubt and ill-will.”
“Do you recollect any particular thing she said, of that kind?” asked Maud, curiously.
“Not I, miss. Ho! bless you, miss, she’d talk faster than the river runs, or the mill turns. That’s the sort she is with her airs and her grandeur, fit to burst with pride.”
Miss Vernon was pleased at this testimony to the dubious nature of this great lady’s scandal. A mist, however, not quite comfortable, still remained. She wished very much that she had never heard her stories.
Maud had still a slight flicker of her nervous headache, and was really tired besides, and not sorry of an excuse to spend the rest of the day quietly with her pleasant books and music, for a piano had been placed in her sitting-room, now and then relieved by so much of Mercy Creswell’s gossip as she cared to call for, and, in this way, before she was well aware, the curtain of night descended upon her first day.
CHAPTER LXVIII.
THE THIEF.
It was past nine o’clock next morning, notwithstanding her resolution to be up and stirring early, when Maud got up.
Lady Mardykes was expected, as we know, to arrive that morning; and Maud peeped often from the window, as she sat at her dressing-table near it.
In her dressing-gown and slippers, she went into the sitting-room on hearing the maid arrive with her breakfast things.
“Can you tell me,” asked Maud, “whether Lady Mardykes has arrived?”
“Please ‘m, is that the lady that is coming from — — “
“No matter where she’s coming from,” interrupted Mercy Creswell, sharply; “it is Lady Mardykes, the lady that came yesterday, and is expected again this morning. She’s a new servant, not a week in the house,” says the femme de chambre to Maud, in a hasty aside. “I think you might know whether her ladyship’s harrived or no,” and she darted at the maid a look black as thunder.
“Yes ‘m, I’m quite new here, please. I don’t half know the ways of the ‘ouse yet. I was ‘ired by — — “
“Don’t you mind who you was ‘ired by. I’ll make out all about it, miss, myself, if you please, just now,” again interposed Mercy.
And before she had time to reflect upon this odd dialogue between the maids, Miss Vernon’s attention was pleasantly engaged by satisfactory evidence on the subject of her inquiry, for she saw Lady Mardykes enter the now quiet croquet-ground from the further side, in company with Antomarchi. Except for these two figures the large quadrangle was deserted.
Antomarchi was speaking earnestly to her; she was looking down upon the walk. The distance was too great to read faces at; but Maud saw Lady Mardykes apply her handkerchief once or twice to her eyes. She was evidently weeping.
Her father had not died. Her dress was as brilliant as good taste would allow, and the morning paper said that there were no longer any grounds for uneasiness about him. Had Maud’s eye accidentally lighted on a scene? Was this strange, and as she thought, repulsive man, urging his suit upon this lady over whom he had succeeded, possibly, in establishing a mysterious influence?
Lady Mardykes glanced up suddenly towards this long line of windows, as if suddenly recollecting that she may be observed.
Then she walked with more of her accustomed air; and she and Antomarchi crossing the grass-plot, ascended the broad flight of steps that scale the terrace, at its middle point, exactly opposite to the door in the side of the house, nearly under Maud’s window. Through this door they entered the house, and Miss Vernon, for the present, lost sight of them.
On the breakfast table by the Morning Post, where, among other interesting pieces of news, she read: “Lady Mardykes is at present entertaining a distinguished circle of friends at Carsbrook;” and then followed a selection from the names. Her interest more than revived as she read this long list of names, containing so much that was distinguished. There was one omission. The Honourable Charles Marston did not figure with other honourables in the list. But that list was but a selection, and Charles Marston had not yet made his mark in the world, and might easily be omitted, and be at Carsbrook, notwithstanding.
She would not ask Mercy Creswell; for she did not choose Lady Vernon to hear anything that might awake her suspicions. And that reserved and prevaricating femme de chambre had written, she knew, the day before, to Lady Vernon, and considered herself as in her employment, and not in Maud’s. It behoved her, therefore, to be very much on her guard in talking to that person.
Maud never found Mercy Creswell so slow and clumsy in assisting at her toilet as this morning. There was very little to be done to equip her for her ramble in the croquet-ground; but that little was retarded by so many blunders, that Maud first laughed, and then stared and wondered.
She saw Mercy Creswell frequently look at her big watch, and not until after she had successfully repeated it pretty often, did she perceive that this sly young woman was pointing out to her in the quadrangle below, which was now beginning to fill, persons, and little incidents in succession, which tempted her again and again to look from the window, and delayed her. All this time the femme de chambre, affecting to laugh with her young mistress, and to be highly interested in the doings of the croquet-ground, was plainly thinking with some anxiety of something totally different, and watching the lapse of the minutes whenever she thought she could, unobserved, consult her watch.
Maud looking in the glass, saw her do this, with an anxious face, and then hold it to her ear, doubtful if it were going, time seemed, I suppose, to creep so slowly.
Why was it that this maid, this agent of her mother’s, seemed always occupied about something different from what she pretended to be about, and to have always something to conceal?
Another delay arose about the young lady’s boots. Her maid had put them out of her hand, she could not for the life of her remember where.
“It seems to me, Mercy, you have made up your mind not to let me out until your watch says I may go; so unless you find them in a minute more, I shall walk
out in my slippers.”
As the young lady half in jest said this, the great clock of the old house, which is fixed in that side of it that overlooks the croquet-ground, struck eleven. And the clang of its bell seemed to act like magic upon Mercy Creswell, for she instantly found the boots, and in a minute or two more had done all that was required of her, and her young mistress went out, full of excited expectation, and not a little curious to observe more closely the odd relations of confidence and sympathy which seemed to have established themselves between the wealthy lady of Carsbrook and the clever foreign adventurer who had, she fancied, marked her for his own.
The gallery that passes her door is a very long one, and exactly as she entered it from her dressing-room, there emerged from a side-door near the further extremity, to her great surprise, two persons, whom she saw to be Lady Mardykes and Doctor Antomarchi. The lady stepped out quickly; their way lay toward the head of the stairs. They were in low and earnest conversation, and plainly had not seen her.
Lady Mardykes walked with a quick and agitated step, intending, it seemed, to avoid observation. Had it been otherwise, Maud would have run to overtake her. What was she to think?
She would try to keep Lady Mardykes in sight, and when she got downstairs there would be no awkwardness in speaking to her.
Lady Mardykes and Antomarchi had but just appeared, and Maud had hardly made two steps toward them from her door, when Mercy Creswell peeped out.
“Lord! There’s her ladyship!” gasped the maid in unaccountable consternation, and with a stamp on the floor she called to her young mistress, still in a suppressed voice, as she tried to catch her dress in her hand. “Come back, miss, you must not follow her ladyship. It’s as much as my place is worth if you do.”
“What on earth do you mean? What can you mean?” said Maud, turning towards her for a moment in astonishment. “I’m going downstairs, I’m going to the croquet-ground. Go back to my room, please, and wait for me there.”
The femme de chambre glared on her irresolutely, with her fingertips to her underlip, and the other hand extended in the attitude in which she had grasped with it at the lady’s dress. Suddenly she drew back a step, with a look a little demure and frightened, and dropping a short curtsy, she dived back into the room again.
This woman, to whose care Lady Vernon had consigned her toilet, was becoming more and more unaccountable and unpleasant every day. But there were subjects of curiosity that piqued her too nearly to allow the image of Mercy Creswell a place in her thoughts just now.
As she moved along the gallery, she saw the door, through which Lady Mardykes and Antomarchi had just passed, open, and a man’s head and part of his figure protruded; it was only for a moment while he dropped a black leather bag at the side of the door next the stairs, and then withdrew, closing but not quite shutting the door; but she had no difficulty in recognising the peculiar countenance of Mr. Darkdale.
As she passed she heard a voice she recognised. It was the same she had heard from the carriage that passed them in the pine-wood on the night of her journey, and which, allowing for the hoarseness produced by shouting, so nearly resembled that of Captain Vivian.
“Imprisoned by Lady Mardykes, you know as well as I, I can’t get away, no one ever can from this house: I shall never leave this room alive — — “
These odd words reached her, and the door was shut, as they were rapidly spoken. It was not the voice of an angry man. It was spoken in a tone of utter despondency. Some people, however, have an exaggerated way of talking; and this was not worth a great deal.
Maud knew her way to the great staircase perfectly now. As she went down she met the Duchess of Falconbury coming up. This great lady was dressed, as usual, in very elegant taste, and looked quite charming. She stopped at the landing where she met Maud.
“So I have found my friend at last. Come to my arms, my long lost swain!” she exclaimed, and smiling placed her arms about her neck and kissed her, before Maud had well time to be even astonished. The duchess laughed a little silvery laugh. “I really began to fear I was never to see you again, and I have so much to tell you. So much more,” she whispered, “and you don’t know what it is to have a confidence to make, and no one with either honour or sympathy to hear it; and that was my sad case, until I met you. I forgot my watch in its case on my dressing-table. I don’t mind sending; I go myself. I lock up everything,” she said in a still lower whisper, and held up a little ormolu key, and she added significantly, “you had better do so, while you remain here. I used to lose something or other every day till I took that precaution; they steal all my penknives and scissors. Where are you going now?”
“I’m trying to find a friend.” (She did not care to mention Lady Mardykes particularly, as her name might easily set the duchess off upon one of her “hominies,” as they call such stories in the north country.) “I think I shall have no difficulty in finding her.”
“And then? Where shall I look for you?”
“I suppose I shall go where every one seems to go, here, to the croquet-ground.”
“Yes — the croquet-ground, that will do very nicely, and I will meet you there.”
She nodded, and smiled over her shoulder as she ran up the stairs, and Maud ran down, in hopes of recovering Lady Mardykes’s track, but, for the time, she had effectually lost sight of her.
There was no footman at this moment in the hall near the stairs. The servant who was at the hall-door had not seen her. She had probably taken the way to the croquet-ground, the general muster before luncheon.
She made a wrong turn in threading the long passages, and found herself at the door of the odd, oval room in which her interview with Doctor Antomarchi, on the night of her arrival, had taken place.
The door was a little open. It occurred to her that possibly Lady Mardykes might be there. She tapped at the door. There was no answer; she pushed it more, opened it, and stepped in.
This room had a peculiar character, as I have said. Something sternly official and mysterious. It might be the first audience-chamber, in a series, in the Inquisition. Maud looked about her. She was alone.
On the massive table I have mentioned, near the large desk which stood at one end of it, was spread a square piece of letter-paper, on which were laid, side by side, three trifling toys, of very little collective value, but which at once riveted the attention of Miss Vernon.
She stooped over them; there could be no doubt as to their identity. There was the tiny paper-cutter she had missed, with its one little steel blade in the handle. There were the scissors with the gold mounting of her dressing-case, from which they had been stolen, and there, finally, a little penknife, also stolen from her dressing-case, but which she had not missed. The pretty little penknife had her monogram, M. G. V., upon it. The paper-knife had this, and the device of the Rose and the Key beside; and about the scissors there could be no doubt whatever. If there had been any it would have been removed by a memorandum written in a clear, masculine hand, upon the sheet of paper on which they lay.
It was simply these words:
Septm. — th, 1864.
Miss Vernon.
Roydon Hall.
See K. L. L., vol iii., folio 378.
Three articles; viz. scissors, paper-cutter, penknife.
Questionable.
“Questionable! What can he mean? Is this a piece of insolence of that foreigner, about whom Lady Mardykes appears infatuated? Questionable? What on earth can he mean or suspect?”
Her first impulse was to seize her own property, and the paper, and bring the whole thing before Lady Mardykes. But her more dignified instincts told her differently. She would leave these stolen trifles where they were, and mention the discovery, perhaps, after consultation with her cousin Maximilla, whom she was sure to see in a day or two.
Maud turned about now, and walked out of the door, almost hoping to meet Doctor Antomarchi. She did not; for he returned through another door, and too late discovered his oversight. But
he little suspected that Miss Vernon had herself visited the room, and by a perverse accident had seen and recognised her missing property. He glanced jealously round the room, with eyes that, whenever he was roused, became wild and burning.
“Strange forgetfulness! But nothing has been stirred. That dear Lady Mardykes, she is so excitable! One can’t avoid being disturbed.”
He shut the door sharply, opened a large cabinet, and popped these trophies of larceny into one of a multitude of pigeon-holes.
“What will Damian say? What will Damian think? He’s past the age of thinking against a hard head like this,” and he tapped his square forehead with his pencil-case, smiling and musing.
CHAPTER LXIX.
A RIOT.
In the mean time, Maud had reached the steps of the door which opens on the terrace-walk of the quadrangle; and from that elevation she made a survey of the ground.
This fruitless pursuit of her hostess was beginning to grow ridiculous; she would have laughed, I dare say, if she had not been also very near crying. For her comprehensive survey was unrewarded by a sight of Lady Mardykes; and here was she already in the third day of her visit, without having yet exchanged a word with her hostess, or having been introduced to a single person; and were it not for the absurdly magnificent proofs of Lady Mardykes’s very marked attention to her comforts and luxuries, displayed in the number of rooms assigned to her use, and the exquisite taste in which they were furnished, she would have begun to suspect that Lady Mardykes had quite forgotten that she had ever invited her to Carsbrook. Occupied, somewhat uncomfortably, with these thoughts, Maud wandered across the croquet-ground, and up and down some of the shady alleys which lie beyond it. But her search was fruitless. Lady Mardykes was nowhere to be found.
Delphi Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu Page 605