Lost Sir Massingberd: A Romance of Real Life. v. 2/2

by James Payn

  CHAPTER V.

  THE STONE GARDEN.

  When Mr. Long took his departure with Gilmore, he did not ask me toaccompany him, and assist in an undertaking which was likely to besomewhat laborious. Perhaps he wished if the baronet did chance toreturn in a fury, that he alone should bear the brunt of it. Perhaps hethought there might be things at the Hall I had better not see, orperhaps he wished to observe the butler's behaviour at leisure. I think,however, he could scarcely have expected me to stay at home with mybooks, while such doings as he had directed were on the point of takingplace. Euripides was doubtless in his day a sensation dramatist, butthe atrocities of Medea could not enchain me, with so much dreadfulmystery afoot in my immediate neighbourhood. Her departure through theair in a chariot drawn by winged dragons, was indeed a strikingcircumstance; but how much more wonderful was the disappearance of SirMassingberd, who had departed no man knew how!

  The news had spread like wildfire through the village. Numbers ofcountry folk were hanging about the great gates of the avenue, drinkingin the impromptu information of the lodge-keeper; but they did notventure to enter upon the forbidden ground. The universal belief amongthem was, I found, that their puissant lord would soon reveal himself.Doubting Castle, it was true, was for the present without its master;but it was too much to expect that he would not return to it. The wholecommunity resembled prisoners in that fortress, who, althoughtemporarily relieved of the tyrant's presence, had little hope but thathe was only gone forth upon a ramble, and would presently return withrenewed zest for human flesh. The general consternation, however, wasextreme, and such as would probably not have been excited by the suddenand unexplained removal of a far better man. The rumour had already gotabroad that there was to be an immediate search in the park, and thatOliver Bradford had been empowered to select such persons as he thoughtfit to assist in the same. There were innumerable volunteers for thisundertaking, principally on account of the excessive attraction of thework itself, which promised some ghastly revelation; and secondarily,for the mere sake of getting into Fairburn Chase at all--a demesne astotally unknown to the majority of those present as the Libyan Desert.The elders indeed remembered the time when a public footpath ran rightthrough the Chase, "close by the Heronry, and away under the Wolsey Oak,and so through Davit's Copse, into the high road to Crittenden," saidone, "whereby a mile and a half was wont to be saved." "Ay, or twomile," quoth another; "and Lawyer Moth always said as though the pathwas ours by right, until Sir Massingberd got his son made a king's clerkin London, which shut his mouth up and the path at the same time."

  "Ay," said a third, mysteriously, "and it ain't too late to try thematter again, in case the property has got _into other hands_."

  This remark brought back at once the immediate cause of their assemblingtogether, and I began to be made the victim of cross-examination. Toavoid being compelled to give my own opinion (which I had already begunto think a slander) upon the matter in hand, I took my leave as quietlyas could be, and escaped, whither they dared not follow me, through thegriffin-guarded gates. All within was, as usual, silent and deserted. Afew leaves were still left to flutter down in eddies from the trees, orhop and rustle on the frosty ground, but their scarcity looked moremournful than utter bareness would have done. It was now the saddesttime of all the year; the bleak east wind went wailing overhead; andunderneath, the soil was black with frost. Instead of pursuing theavenue to the frontdoor of the Hall, where, as it seemed, I was notwanted, I took a foot-track to the left, which I knew led to thatbowling-green whither I had been previously invited by Sir Massingberd,although I had not taken advantage of his rare courtesy. If he did nowappear, no matter in what state of mental irritation, he could scarcelyquarrel with me for doing the very thing he had asked me to do. Had Iknown, however, the character of the place in which I found myself, Ishould have reserved my visit for a less eerie and mysterious occasion.

  The time of year, it is true, had no unfavourable influence upon thescene that presented itself, for all was clothed in garments of thickestgreen. Vast walls of yew shut in on every side a lawn of perfectsmoothness; everything proclaimed itself to belong to that portion ofthe Hall property which was "kept up" by subsidy from without. Thequaint oak-seats, though old, were in good repair; the yew hedgesclipped to a marvel. Still nothing could exceed the sombre and funerealaspect of the spot. It seemed impossible that such a sober game asbowls could ever have been played there, or jest and laughter brokenthat awful stillness. The southern yew-screen was in a crescent form, atthe ends of which were openings unseen from within the enclosed space.Passing through one of these, I came upon what was called the StoneGarden. It took its name from four stone terraces, from the highest ofwhich I knew that there must be a very extensive view. This space waslikewise covered with yew trees, clipped and cut in every conceivableform, after the vile taste of the seventeenth century. There wassomething weird in the aspect of those towering Kings and Queens--easilyrecognizable, however, for what they were intended--and of those maidsof honour, with their gigantic ruffs and farthingales. One was almosttempted to imagine that they had been human once, and been turned intoyew trees for their sins. The whole area was black with them; and asense of positive oppression, notwithstanding the eager air which caughtme sharply whenever I lost the shelter of one of these ungainly forms,led me on to the top terrace, where one could breathe freely, and havesomething else than yews to look upon.

  Truly, from thence the scene was wide and fair. I stood at thatextremity of the pleasure-grounds most remote from the Hall, and with myback to it. Before me lay a solitary tract of wooded park, thicklyinterspersed with planted knolls and coppices. Immediately beneath mewas the thicket called the Home Spinney, the favourite haunt of hare andpheasant, and the spot in all the Chase most cherished by SirMassingberd. He would have resented a burglary, I do believe, with lessof fury than any trespass upon that sacred ground. Beyond the Spinney,and standing by itself, far removed from any other tree, was the famousWolsey Oak. Why called so, I have not the least idea, for it had thereputation of being a vast deal older than the days of the famousCardinal. Many a summer had it seen--

  "When the monk was fat, And issuing shorn and sleek, Would twist his girdle tight, and pat The girls upon the cheek; Ere yet, in scorn of Peter's Pence, And numbered bead and shrift, Bluff Harry broke into the spence, And turned the cowls adrift."

  Yet still was it said to be as whole and sound as a bell. It wascalculated to measure over fourteen yards in circumference, and that formany feet from its base; while its height, although it had lost some ofits upper branches, still far exceeded that of any other of itscompeers. Beyond this tree, but at another great interval, was the woodknown as the Old Plantation, where Oliver Bradford had last seen hismaster alive. I was looking down, then, upon the very route which SirMassingberd had been seen to commence, but which he had never ended. Itwas to the Home Spinney he had been apparently bound, whensomething--none knew what--had changed his purpose. He would probablyhave passed through it, and come up by that winding path yonder to thespot where I now stood; it was the nearest way home for him. Perhaps hehad done so, although it was unlikely, since the watcher had not seenhim. Perhaps those very yews behind me had concealed his murderers. Shutin by those unechoing walls of living green, no cry for aid would havebeen heard, even if Sir Massingberd had been the man to call for it; hewould most certainly have never asked for mercy. But hark! what wasthat sound that froze the current of my blood, and set my heart beatingand fluttering like the wings of a prisoned bird against its cage? Wasit a strangled cry for "Help!" repeated once, twice, thrice, or was itthe wintry wind clanging and grinding the naked branches of the Spinney?A voice had terrified me in Fairburn Chase once before, which had turnedout to be no mere fancy; but there was this horror about the presentsound, that I seemed to dimly recognize it. It was the voice of SirMassingberd Heath, with an awful change in it, as if a powerful handwere tightening upon his throat. It seemed, as
I have said, to come fromthe direction of the copse beneath, and yet I determined to descend intoit, rather than thread again the mazes of those melancholy yews. Theidea of my assistance being really required never entered into mythoughts; what I wanted was to escape from this solitude, peopled onlywith unearthly cries, and regain the companionship of myfellow-creatures. How I regretted having left the society of thosehonest folk outside the gates! To remain where I was, was impossible; Ishould have gone mad. Fortunately, the Spinney was well-nigh leafless,and a bright but wintry sun penetrated it completely. I fled over itswithered and frosted leaves, looking neither to left nor right, till Ileaped the deep ditch that formed its southern boundary, and foundmyself in the open; then I stopped indeed quite short, for, before me,not ten paces from the Spinney, from which he must have just emerged,lay the body of Grimjaw. It was still warm, but lifeless. There were nomarks of violence about him; the struggle to extricate himself from theditch, it is probable, had cost the wretched creature his littleremaining vitality, weakened as he must have doubtless been by hisprevious night's lodging on the cold stone steps. But how had he comethither, who never moved anywhere out of doors, except with SirMassingberd or Gilmore? and whither, led perhaps by some mysteriousinstinct, was he going when death had overtaken him--an easy task--andglazed that solitary eye, which had witnessed so much which was still amystery to man?

  Was it possible that he had perished in endeavouring to obey hismaster's cry for aid? that terrible "Help! help!" which rang in my earsa while ago, as I stood in the Stone Garden, and which rings, throughhalf a century, in them now?