by Ellen Wood
“Of course I can have no objection to it,” replied Lionel. “You need not have lost an afternoon’s work, Roy, to come here to inquire that. You might have asked me when I saw you by the brick-field this morning. In fact, there was no necessity to mention it at all.”
“So I might, sir. But it didn’t come into my mind at the moment to do so. It’s poor Luke’s room, and the missis, she goes on continual about the state it’s in, if he should come home. The paper’s all hanging off it in patches, sir, as big as my two hands. It have got damp through not being used.”
“If it is in that state, and you like to find the time to hang the paper, you may purchase it at my cost,” said Lionel, who was of too just a nature to be a hard landlord.
“Thank ye, sir,” replied Roy, ducking his head. “It’s well for us, as I often says, that you be our master at last, instead of the Mr. Massingbirds.”
“There was a time when you did not think so, Roy, if my memory serves me rightly,” was the rebuke of Lionel.
“Ah, sir, there’s a old saying, ‘Live and learn.’ That was in the days when I thought you’d be a over strict master; we have got to know better now, taught from experience. It was a lucky day for the Verner Pride estate when that lost codicil was brought to light! The Mr. Massingbirds be dead, it’s true, but there’s no knowing what might have happened; the law’s full of quips and turns. With the codicil found, you can hold your own again’ the world.”
“Who told you anything about the codicil being found?” demanded Lionel.
“Why, sir, it was the talk of the place just about the time we heard of Mr. Fred Massingbird’s death. Folks said, whether he had died, or whether he had not, you’d have come in all the same. T’other day, too, I was talking of it to Lawyer Matiss, and he said what a good thing it was, that that there codicil was found.”
Lionel knew that a report of the turning up of the codicil had travelled to Deerham. It had never been contradicted. But he wondered to hear Roy say that Matiss had spoken of it. Matiss, himself, Tynn, and Mrs. Tynn, were the only persons who could have testified that the supposed codicil was nothing but a glove. From the finding of that, the story had originally got wind.
“I don’t know why Matiss should have spoken to you on the subject of the codicil,” he remarked to Roy.
“It’s not much that Matiss talks, sir,” was the man’s answer. “All he said was as he had got the codicil in safe keeping under lock and key. Just put to Matiss the simplest question, and he’ll turn round and ask what business it is of yours.”
“Quite right of him, too,” said Lionel. “Have you any news of your son yet, Roy?”
Roy shook his head. “No, sir. I’m a-beginning to wonder now whether there ever will be news of him.”
After the man had departed, Lionel looked at his watch. There was just time for a ride to Deerham Court before dinner. He ordered his horse, and mounted it, a cheque for three hundred pounds in his pocket.
He rode quickly, musing upon what Matiss had said about the codicil — as stated by Roy. Could the deed have been found? — and Matiss forgotten to acquaint him with it. He turned his horse down the Belvedere Road, telling his groom to wait at the corner, and stopped before the lawyer’s door. The latter came out.
“Matiss, is that codicil found?” demanded Lionel, bending down his head to speak.
“What codicil, Mr. Verner?” returned Matiss, looking surprised.
“The codicil. The one that gave me the estate. Roy was with me just now, and he said you stated to him that the codicil was found — that it was safe under lock and key.”
The lawyer’s countenance lighted up with a smile. “What a meddler the fellow is! To tell you the truth, sir, it rather pleases me to mislead Roy, and put him on the wrong scent. He comes here, pumping, trying to get what he can out of me: asking this, asking that, fishing out anything there is to fish. I recollect, he did say something about the codicil, and I replied, ‘Ay, it was a good thing it was found, and safe under lock and key.’ He tries at the wrong handle when he pumps at me.”
“What is his motive for pumping at all?” returned Lionel.
“There’s no difficulty in guessing at that, sir. Roy would give his two ears to get into place again; he’d like to fill the same post to you that he did to the late Mr. Verner. He thinks if he can hang about here and pick up any little bit of information that may be let drop, and carry it to you, that it might tell in his favour. He would like you to discover how useful he could be. That is the construction I put upon it.”
“Then he wastes his time,” remarked Lionel, as he turned his horse. “I would not put power of any sort into Roy’s hands, if he paid me in diamonds to do it. You can tell him so, if you like, Matiss.”
Arrived at Deerham Court, Lionel left his horse with his groom, and entered. The first person to greet his sight in the hall was Lucy Tempest. She was in white silk; a low dress, somewhat richly trimmed with lace, and pearls in her hair. It was the first time that Lionel had seen her since his return from London. He had been at his mother’s once or twice, but Lucy did not appear. They met face to face. Lucy’s turned crimson, in spite of herself.
“Are you quite well?” asked Lionel, shaking hands, his own pulses beating. “You are going out this evening, I see?”
He made the remark as a question, noticing her dress; and Lucy, gathering her senses about her, and relapsing into her calm composure, looked somewhat surprised.
“We are going to dinner to Verner’s Pride; I and Decima. Did you not expect us?”
“I — did not know it,” he was obliged to answer. “Mrs. Verner mentioned that some friends would dine with us this evening, but I was not aware that you and Decima were part of them. I am glad to hear it.”
Lucy continued her way, wondering what sort of a household it could be where the husband remained in ignorance of his wife’s expected guests. Lionel passed on to the drawing-room.
Lady Verner sat in it. Her white gloves on her delicate hands as usual, her essence bottle and laced handkerchief beside her, Lionel offered her his customary fond greeting, and placed the cheque in her hands.
“Will that do, mother mine?”
“Admirably, Lionel. I am so much obliged to you. Things get behind-hand in the most unaccountable manner, and then Decima comes to me with a long face, and says here’s this debt and that debt. It is quite a marvel to me how the money goes. Decima would like to put her accounts into my hands that I may look over them. The idea of my taking upon myself to examine accounts! But how it is she gets into such debt, I cannot think.”
Poor Decima knew only too well. Lionel knew it also; though, in his fond reverence, he would not hint at such a thing to his mother. Lady Verner’s style of living was too expensive, and that was the cause.
“I met Lucy in the hall, dressed. She and Decima are coming to dine at Verner’s Pride, she tells me.”
“Did you not know it?”
“No. I have been out shooting all day. If Sibylla mentioned it to me, I forgot it.”
Sibylla had not mentioned it. But Lionel would rather take any blame to himself than suffer a shade of it to rest upon her.
“Mrs. Verner called yesterday, and invited us. I declined for myself. I should have declined for Decima, but I did not think it right to deprive Lucy of the pleasure, and she could not go alone. Ungrateful child!” apostrophised Lady Verner. “When I told her this morning I had accepted an invitation for her to Verner’s Pride, she turned the colour of scarlet, and said she would rather remain at home. I never saw so unsociable a girl; she does not care to go out, as it seems to me. I insisted upon it for this evening.”
“Mother, why don’t you come?”
Lady Verner half turned from him.
“Lionel, you must not forget our compact. If I visit your wife now and then, just to keep gossiping tongues quiet, from saying that Lady Verner and her son are estranged, I cannot do it often.”
“Were there any cause why you should
show this disfavour to Sibylla—”
“Our compact, our compact, my son! You are not to urge me upon this point, do you remember? I rarely break my resolutions, Lionel.”
“Or your prejudices either, mother.”
“Very true,” was the equable answer of Lady Verner.
Little more was said. Lionel found the time drawing on, and left. Lady Verner’s carriage was already at the door, waiting to convey Decima and Lucy Tempest to the dinner at Verner’s Pride. As he was about to mount his horse, Peckaby passed by, rolling a wheel before him. He touched his cap.
“Well,” said Lionel, “has the white donkey arrived yet?”
A contraction of anger, not, however, unmixed with mirth, crossed the man’s face.
“I wish it would come, sir, and bear her off on’t!” was his hearty response. “She’s more a fool nor ever over it, a-whining and a-pining all day long, ‘cause she ain’t at New Jerusalem. She wants to be in Bedlam, sir; that’s what she do! it ‘ud do her more good nor t’other.”
Lionel laughed, and Peckaby struck his wheel with such impetus that it went off at a tangent, and he had to follow it on the run.
CHAPTER XLVII.
THE YEW-TREE ON THE LAWN.
The rooms were lighted at Verner’s Pride; the blaze from the chandeliers fell on gay faces and graceful forms. The dinner was over, its scene “a banquet hall deserted”; and the guests were filling the drawing-rooms.
The centre of an admiring group, its chief attraction, sat Sibylla, her dress some shining material that glimmered in the light, and her hair confined with a band of diamonds. Inexpressibly beautiful by this light she undoubtedly was, but she would have been more charming had she less laid herself out for attraction. Lionel, Lord Garle, Decima, and young Bitterworth — he was generally called young Bitterworth, in contradistinction to his father, who was “old Bitterworth” — formed another group; Sir Rufus Hautley was talking to the Countess of Elmsley; and Lucy Tempest sat apart near the window.
Sir Rufus had but just moved away from Lucy, and for the moment she was alone. She sat within the embrasure of the window, and was looking on the calm scene outside. How different from the garish scene within! See the pure moonlight, side by side with the most brilliant light we earthly inventors can produce, and contrast them! Pure and fair as the moonlight looked Lucy, her white robes falling softly round her, and her girlish face wearing a thoughtful expression. It was a remarkably light night; the terrace, the green slopes beyond it, and the clustering trees far away, all standing out clear and distinct in the moon’s rays. Suddenly her eye rested on a particular spot. She possessed a very clear sight, and it appeared to detect something dark there; which dark something had not been there a few moments before.
Lucy strained her eyes, and shaded them, and gazed again. Presently she turned her head, and glanced at Lionel. An expression in her eyes seemed to call him, and he advanced.
“What is it, Lucy? We must have a set of gallant men here to-night, to leave you alone like this!”
The compliment fell unheeded on her ear. Compliments from him! Lionel only so spoke to hide his real feelings.
“Look on the lawn, right before us,” said Lucy to him, in a low tone. “Underneath the spreading yew-tree. Do you not fancy the trunk looks remarkably dark and thick?”
“The trunk remarkably dark and thick!” echoed Lionel. “What do you mean, Lucy?” For he judged by her tone that she had some hidden meaning.
“I believe that some man is standing there. He must be watching this room.”
Lionel could not see it. His eyes had not been watching so long as Lucy’s, consequently objects were less distinct. “I think you must be mistaken, Lucy,” he said. “No one would be at the trouble of standing there to watch the room. It is too far off to see much, whatever may be their curiosity.”
Lucy held her hands over her eyes, gazing attentively from beneath them. “I feel convinced of it now,” she presently said. “There is some one, and it looks like a man, standing behind the trunk, as if hiding himself. His head is pushed out on this side, certainly, as though he were watching these windows. I have seen the head move twice.”
Lionel placed his hands in the same position, and took a long gaze. “I do think you are right, Lucy!” he suddenly exclaimed. “I saw something move then. What business has any one to plant himself there?”
He stepped impulsively out as he spoke — the windows opened to the ground — crossed the terrace, descended the steps, and turned on the lawn, to the left hand. A minute, and he was up at the tree.
But he gained no satisfaction. The spreading tree, with its imposing trunk — which trunk was nearly as thick as a man’s body — stood all solitary on the smooth grass, no living thing being near it.
“We must have been mistaken, after all,” thought Lionel.
Nevertheless, he stood under the tree, and cast his keen glances around. Nothing could he see; nothing but what ought to be there. The wide lawn, the sweet flowers closed to the night, the remoter parts where the trees were thick, all stood cold and still in the white moonlight. But of human disturber there was none.
Lionel went back again, plucking a white geranium blossom and a sprig of sweet verbena on his way. Lucy was sitting alone, as he had left her.
“It was a false alarm,” he whispered. “Nothing’s there, except the tree.”
“It was not a false alarm,” she answered. “I saw him move away as you went on to the lawn. He drew back towards the thicket.”
“Are you sure?” questioned Lionel, his tone betraying that he doubted whether she was not mistaken.
“Oh, yes, I am sure,” said Lucy. “Do you know what my old nurse used to tell me when I was a child?” she asked, lifting her face to his. “She said I had the Indian sight, because I could see so far and so distinctly. Some of the Indians have the gift greatly, you know. I am quite certain that I saw the object — and it looked like the figure of a man — go swiftly away from the tree across the grass. I could not see him to the end of the lawn, but he must have gone into the plantation. I dare say he saw you coming towards him.”
Lionel smiled. “I wish I had caught the spy. He should have answered to me for being there. Do you like verbena, Lucy?”
He laid the verbena and geranium on her lap, and she took them up mechanically.
“I do not like spies,” she said, in a dreamy tone. “In India they have been known to watch the inmates of a house in the evening, and to bow-string one of those they were watching before the morning. You are laughing! Indeed, my nurse used to tell me tales of it.”
“We have no spies in England — in that sense, Lucy. When I used the word spy, it was with no meaning attached to it. It is not impossible but it may be a sweetheart of one of the maid-servants, come up from Deerham for a rendezvous. Be under no apprehension.”
At that moment, the voice of his wife came ringing through the room. “Mr. Verner!”
He turned to the call. Waiting to say another word to Lucy, as a thought struck him. “You would prefer not to remain at the window, perhaps. Let me take you to a more sheltered seat.”
“Oh, no, thank you,” she answered impulsively. “I like being at the window. It is not of myself that I am thinking.” And Lionel moved away.
“Is it not true that the fountains at Versailles played expressly for me?” eagerly asked Sibylla, as he approached her. “Sir Rufus won’t believe that they did. The first time we were in Paris, you know.”
Sir Rufus Hautley was by her side then. He looked at Lionel. “They never play for private individuals, Mr. Verner. At least, if they do, things have changed.”
“My wife thought they did,” returned Lionel, with a smile. “It was all the same.”
“They did, Lionel, you know they did,” vehemently asserted Sibylla. “De Coigny told me so; and he held authority in the Government.”
“I know that De Coigny told you so, and that you believed him,” answered Lionel, still smiling. “I did
not believe him.”
Sibylla turned her head away petulantly from her husband. “You are saying it to annoy me. I’ll never appeal to you again. Sir Rufus, they did play expressly for me.”
“It may be bad taste, but I’d rather see the waterworks at St. Cloud than at Versailles,” observed a Mr. Gordon, some acquaintance that they had picked up in town, and to whom it had been Sibylla’s pleasure to give an invitation. “Cannonby wrote me word last week from Paris—”
“Who?” sharply interrupted Sibylla.
Mr. Gordon looked surprised. Her tone had betrayed something of eager alarm, not to say terror.
“Captain Cannonby, Mrs. Verner. A friend of mine just returned from Australia. Business took him to Paris as soon as he landed.”
“Is he from the Melbourne port? Is his Christian name Lawrence?” she reiterated breathlessly.
“Yes — to both questions,” replied Mr. Gordon.
Sibylla shrieked, and lifted her handkerchief to her face. They gathered round her in consternation. One offering smelling-salts, one running for water. Lionel gently drew the handkerchief from her face. It was white as death.
“What ails you, my dear?” he whispered.
She seemed to recover her equanimity as suddenly as she had lost it, and the colour began to appear in her cheeks again.
“His name — Cannonby’s — puts me in mind of those unhappy days,” she said, not in the low tone used by her husband, but aloud — speaking, in fact, to all around her. “I did not know Captain Cannonby had returned. When did he come, Mr. Gordon?”