by Ellen Wood
Catching the name, Lady Level looked out more closely. She saw a tall, strong, respectable woman of middle age, with a smiling, happy face, and laughing hazel eyes. She wore a neat white cap, a clean cotton gown and gray-checked apron.
“Yes, cook,” was the answer, given in a merry voice. “I want you to give me a handful of candied peel. I am preparing a batch of cakes for my old man, never supposing I had not all the ingredients at hand, and I find I have no peel. I’m sure I had some; and I tell John he must have stolen it.”
“What a shame!” cried the cook, taking the words more literally than they were intended. Mrs. Snow laughed.
“Fact is, I suppose I used the last of it in the bread-and-butter pudding I made last week,” said she.
“You are always making cakes for that man o’ yours, seems to me, Hannah,” grumbled the cook. “We can smell them over here when they’re baking, and that’s pretty often.”
“Seems I am: he’s always asking for them,” assented Hannah. “He likes to eat one now and then between meals, you see.
“Well, he’s a rare one for his inside,” retorted the cook, as she went in for the candied peel.
“They seem to do very much as they like here,” was the only thought that crossed Lady Level.
On this same day Lord Level, who had grown so much better as to be out of danger, dismissed his doctor. Presenting him with a handsome cheque, he told him that he required no further attendance. Blanche received the news from Mrs. Edwards.
“But is he so well as that?” she asked, in surprise.
“Well, my lady, he is very much better, there’s no doubt of that. He will be out of bed to-morrow or the next day, and, if he takes care, will have no relapse,” was the housekeeper’s answer. “No doubt it might be safer for the doctor to continue to come a little longer, if it were only to enjoin strict quiet; but you see my lord does not like him.”
“I fancied he did not.”
“He is not our own doctor, as perhaps your ladyship has heard,” pursued Mrs. Edwards. “He is a Mr. Hill: a clever, pleasant man, of a certain age, who was very intimate with the late lord. They were close friends, I may say. When his lordship met with this accident, it put him out uncommonly that we had to send for the young man, Dr. Macferraty, Mr. Hill being away.”
“If Lord Level is so well as to do without a doctor, I might go into his room. Don’t you think so, Mrs. Edwards?”
“Better not for a day or two, my lady; better not, indeed. I’m afraid my lord will be angry at your having stayed here — there being no fitting establishment or accommodation for your ladyship; and — —”
“That is such nonsense!” interrupted Lady Level. “With Sanders and Timms here, I am more attended to than is really necessary. And even if I had to put up with discomfort for a short time, I dare say I should survive it.”
“And it might cause his lordship excitement, I was about to say,” quickly continued Mrs. Edwards. “A very little thing would bring the fever back again.”
Blanche sighed rebelliously, but recognised the obligation to condemn herself a little longer to this dreary existence.
CHAPTER XI.
THE QUARREL.
The following day was charmingly fine: the sun brilliant, the air warm as summer. In the afternoon Lady Level went out to take a walk. Lord Level was not up that day, but would be, all being well, on the morrow. It was the injury to the knee more than his general health that was keeping him in bed now.
Outside the gate Blanche looked about her, and decided to take the way towards the railway station. Upper Marshdale lay close beyond it, and she thought she would see what the little town was like. If she felt tired after exploring it, she could engage the solitary railway fly to bring her home again.
She went along the deserted road, passing a peasant’s cottage now and then. Very near to the station she met the surly boy. He was coming along with a leap and a whistle, and stopped dead at sight of Lady Level.
“I say,” said he, in a low tone, all his glee and his impudence gone out of him, “be you going there?”
“Yes,” answered Lady Level, half smiling, for the boy amused her. He had pointed to indicate the station, but so awkwardly that she thought he pointed to the roofs and chimneys beyond it. “Yes, I am. Why?”
His face fell. “Not to tell of me?” he gasped.
“To tell of you! What should I have to tell of you?”
“About that there half-crown. You give him to me, mind; I never asked. You can’t see the station-master if you try: he’s a gone to his tea.”
“Oh, I won’t tell of that,” said Lady Level. “I am going to the village, not to the station.”
“They’d make such a row,” said the boy, somewhat relieved. “The porter’d be mad that it wasn’t given to him; he might get me sent away perhaps for’t. It’s such a lot, you see: a whole half-crown: when anything is given, it’s a sixpence. But ‘tain’t nothing that’s given mostly; nothing.”
The intense resentment thrown into the last word made Lady Level laugh.
“It’s a sight o’ time, weeks and weeks, since I’ve had anything given me afore, barring the three penny pieces from Mr. Snow,” went on the grumbling boy. “And what’s three penny pieces?”
“Mr. Snow?” repeated Lady Level. “Who is he?”
“He is Lord Level’s head gardener, he be. He comes up here to the station one day, not long afore you come down; and he collars the fly for the next down-train. The next down-train comes in and brings my lord and a lady with him. Mr. Snow, he puts the lady inside, and he puts what luggage there were outside. ’Twasn’t much, and I helps him, and he dives into his pockets and brings out three penny pieces. And I’ll swear that for weeks afore nobody had never given me a single farthing.”
Lady Level changed colour. “What’s your name?” she suddenly asked the boy, to cover her confusion.
“It be Sam Doughty. That there lady — —”
“Oh, I know the lady,” she carelessly interrupted, hating herself at the same time for pursuing the subject and the questions. “A lady with black hair and eyes, was it not, and long gold earrings?”
“Well, it were. I noticed the earrings, d’ye see, the sun made ’em sparkle so. Handsome earrings they was; as handsome as she were.”
“And Lord Level took her home with him in the fly, did he?”
“That he didn’t. She went along of herself, Mr. Snow a-riding on the box. My lord walked across the fields. The station-master telled him to mind the bull, but my lord called back that he warn’t afraid.”
There was nothing more to ask; nothing more that she could ask. But Lady Level had heard enough to disturb her equanimity, and she turned without going on to Upper Marshdale. That the lady with the gold earrings was either in the house, or in its East Wing, and that that was why she was wanted out of it, seemed clearer to her than the sun at noonday.
That same evening, Lady Level’s servants were at supper in the large kitchen: where, as no establishment was kept up in the house, they condescended to take their meals. Deborah was partly waiting on them, partly gossiping, and partly dressing veal cutlets and bacon in the Dutch oven for what she called the upstairs supper. The cook had gone to bed early with a violent toothache.
“You have enough there, I hope,” cried Timms, as Deborah brought the Dutch oven to the table to turn the cutlets.
“Old Mr. Drewitt has such an appetite; leastways at his supper,” answered Deborah.
“I wonder they don’t take their meals below; it’s a long way to carry them up all them stairs,” remarked Mr. Sanders, when Deborah was placing her dish of cutlets on the tray prepared for it.
“Oh, I don’t mind it; I’m used to it now,” said the good-humoured girl, as she went off with a quick step.
Deborah returned with a quieter step than she had departed. “They are quarrelling like anything!” she exclaimed in a low, frightened voice. “She’s gone into my lord’s room, and they are having it out over
something or other.”
Timms, who was then engaged in eating some favourite custard pudding, looked up. “What? Who? Do you mean my lord and my lady? How do you know, Deborah?”
“I heard them wrangling as I went by. I have to pass their rooms, you know, to get to Mr. Drewitt’s rooms, and I heard them still louder as I came back. They are quarrelling just like common people. Has she a temper?”
“No,” said Timms. “He has, though; that is, he can be frightfully passionate at times.”
“He is not thought so in this house,” returned Deborah. “To hear my master and mistress talk, my lord is just an angel upon earth.”
“Ah!” said Timms, sniffing significantly.
Her supper ended, but not her curiosity, Timms stole a part of the way upstairs, and listened. But she only came in for the end of the dispute, as she related to Mr. Sanders on her return. Lady Level, after some final speech of bitter reproach, passed into her room and shut the door with a force that shook the walls, and probably shook Lord Level, who relieved his wrath by a little delicate language. So much Timms heard; but of what the quarrel had been about, she did not gather the faintest glimmer.
The house went to rest. Silence, probably sleep, had reigned within it for some two hours, and the clock had struck one, when wild calls of alarm, coupled with the ringing of his bell, issued from Lord Level’s chamber. The servants rose hastily, in terror. Those cries of fear came not from their lord, but from Lady Level.
Sanders, partly attired, hastened thither; Timms, in a huge shawl, opened her door and stopped him; Deborah came flying down the long corridor. Mrs. Edwards was already in Lord Level’s chamber. Lady Level, in a blue silk wrapping-gown, her cries of alarm over, lay panting in a chair, extremely agitated; and Lord Level was in a fainting-fit on his bed, with a stab in his arm, and another in his side, from which blood was flowing.
* * * * *
Some hours later, Mr. and Mrs. Arnold Ravensworth were at breakfast in Portland Place, when Major Carlen entered without ceremony. His purple-and-scarlet cloak, without which he rarely stirred out, had come unfastened and trailed behind him; his face looked scared and crestfallen.
“I must see you, I must see you!” cried the Major, throwing up his hands, as if apologizing for the intrusion. “It’s on a matter of life and death.”
“We have finished breakfast,” said Mrs. Ravensworth; and she rose and left them together.
The Major strode up to Arnold, his teeth actually chattering. “I told you what it would be,” he muttered. “I warned you of the consequences, if you helped Blanche to go down there. She has attempted his life.”
Mr. Ravensworth gazed at him inquiringly.
“By George she has! They had a blowup last night, it seems, and she has stabbed him. It can be no one else who has done it. When these delicate girls are put up; made jealous, and that sort of thing; they are as bad as their more furious sisters. Witness that character of Scott’s — what’s her name? — Lucy, in the ‘Bride of Lam — —’”
“For pity’s sake, Major Carlen, what are you saying?” interrupted Mr. Ravensworth, scarcely knowing whether the Major was mad or sane, or had been taking dinner in place of breakfast. “Don’t introduce trashy romance into the woes of real life! Has anything happened at Lord Level’s, or has it not?”
“He is stabbed, I tell you. One of Lord Level’s servants, Sanders, arrived before I was up, with a note from Blanche. Here, read it!” But the Major’s hand and the note shook together as he held it out.
Do, dear papa, hasten down! A shocking event has happened to
Lord Level. He has been stabbed in bed. I am terrified out of
my senses.
BLANCHE LEVEL.
“Now, she has done it,” whispered the Major again, his stony eyes turned on Mr. Ravensworth in dread. “As sure as that her name’s Blanche Level, it is she who has done it!”
“Nonsense! Impossible. Have you learnt any of the details?”
“A few scraps. As much as the man knew. He says they were awakened by cries in the middle of the night, and found Lord Level had been stabbed; and her ladyship was with him, screaming, and fainting on a chair. ‘Who did it, Sanders?’ said I. ‘It’s impossible to make out who did it, sir,’ said he; ‘there was no one indoors to do it, and all the house was in bed.’ ‘What do the police say?’ I asked. ‘The police are not called in, sir,’ returned he; ‘my lord and my lady won’t have it done.’ Now, Ravensworth, what can be clearer proof than that? I used to think her mother had a tendency to insanity; I did, by Jove! she went once or twice into such a tantrum with me. Though she had a soft, sweet temper in general, mild as milk.”
“Well, you must go down without delay.”
The grim old fellow put up his hands, which were trembling visibly. “I wouldn’t go down if you gave me a hundred pounds a mile, poor as I am, just now. Look what a state I’m in, as it is: I had to get Sanders to hook my cloak for me, and he didn’t half do it. I wouldn’t interfere between Blanche and Level for a gold-mine. You must go down for me; I came to ask you to do so.”
“It is impossible for me to go down today. I wish I knew more. How did you hear there had been any disagreement between them?”
“Sanders let it out. He said the women-servants heard Level and his wife hotly disputing.”
“Where is Sanders?”
“In your hall. I brought him round with me.”
The man was called in, and was desired to repeat what he knew of the affair. It was not much, and it has been already stated.
“Someone must have got in, Sanders,” observed Mr. Ravensworth, when he had listened.
“Well, sir, I don’t know,” was the answer. “The curious thing is that there are no signs of it. All the doors and windows had been fastened before we went to bed, and they had not been, so far as we can discover, in the least disturbed.”
“Do you suspect anyone in the house?”
“Why — no, sir; there’s no one we like to suspect,” returned Sanders, coughing dubiously.
“The servants — —”
“Oh, none of the servants would do such a thing,” interrupted Sanders, very decidedly: and Mr. Ravensworth feared they might be getting upon dangerous ground. He caught Major Carlen’s significant glance. It said, as plainly as glance ever yet spoke, “The man suspects his mistress.”
“Is Lord Level’s bedroom isolated from the rest of the rooms?”
“Pretty well, sir, for that. No one sleeps near him but my lady. Her room opens from his.”
“Could he have done it himself, Sanders?” struck in Major Carlen. “He has been light-headed from fever.”
“Just at the first moment the same question occurred to me, sir; but we soon saw that it was not at all likely. The fever had abated, my lord was quite collected, and the stab in the arm could not have been done by himself.”
“Was any instrument found?”
“Yes, sir: a clasp-knife, with a small, sharp blade. It was found on the floor of my lady’s room.”
An ominous silence ensued.
“Are the stabs dangerous?” inquired Mr. Ravensworth.
“It is thought they are only slight, sir. The danger will be if they bring back the fever. His lordship will not have a doctor called in — —”
“Not have a doctor called in!”
“He forbids it absolutely, sir. When we reached his room, in answer to my lady’s cries, he had fainted; but he soon recovered, and hearing Mrs. Edwards speak of the doctor, he refused to have him sent for.”
“You ought to have sent, all the same,” imperiously spoke Mr. Ravensworth.
Sanders smiled. “Ah, sir, but my lord’s will is law.”
Mr. Ravensworth turned to a side-table. He wrote a rapid word to Lady Level, promising to be with her that evening, gave it to Sanders, and bade him make the best of his way back to Marshdale. Certain business of importance was detaining him in town for the day.
“When you get down there, Rave
nsworth, you won’t say that I wouldn’t go, you know,” said the Major. “Say I couldn’t.”
“What excuse can I make for you?”
“Any excuse that comes uppermost. Say I’m in bed with gout. I have charged Sanders to hold his tongue.”
The day had quite passed before Mr. Ravensworth was able to start on his journey. It was dark when he reached Upper Marshdale. There he found Sanders and the solitary fly.
“Is Lord Level better?” was his first question.
“A little better this evening, sir, I believe; but he has again been off his head with fever, and Dr. Macferraty had, after all, to be called in,” replied the man. “My lady is pretty nearly beside herself too.”
“Have the police been called in yet?”
“No, sir; no chance of it; my lord and my lady won’t have it done.”
“It appears to be an old-fashioned place, Sanders,” remarked Mr. Ravensworth, when they had reached the house.
“It’s the most awkward turn-about place inside, sir, you ever saw; nothing but passages. But my lord never lives here; he only pays it promiscuous visits now and then, and brings down no servants with him. He was kept prisoner here, as may be said, through jamming his knee in a gateway; and then my lady came down, and we are putting up with all sorts of inconveniences.”
“Who lives here in general?”
“Two old retainers of the Level family, sir: both of ’em sights to look upon; she especially. She dresses up like an old picture.”
Waiting within the doorway to receive Mr. Ravensworth was Mrs. Edwards. He could not take his eyes from her. He had never seen one like her in real life, and Sanders’s words, “dresses up like an old picture,” recurred to him. He had thought this style of dress completely gone out of date, except in pictures; and here it was before him, worn by a living woman! She dropped him a stately curtsey, that would have served for the prelude to a Court minuet in the palmy days of Queen Charlotte.
“Sir, you are the gentleman expected by my lady?”