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, Ravensworth, 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?"
"Yes—Mr. Ravensworth."
"I'll show you in myself, sir."
Taking up a candle from a marble slab—there was no other light to be seen—she conducted him through the passage, and, turning down another which stood at right angles with it, halted at the door of a room. In answer to a question from Mr. Ravensworth, she said his lordship was much better within the last hour—quite himself again. "What would you be pleased to take, sir?" she added. "I will order it to be brought in to you."
"I require nothing, thank you."
But quite a housekeeper of the old school, and essentially hospitable, she would not take a refusal. "I hope you will, sir: tea—or coffee—or supper——?"
"A little coffee, then."
She dropped another of her ceremonious curtseys, and threw open the door. "The gentleman you expected, my lady."
It was another long, bare room, but not the one already mentioned. Singularly bare and empty it looked to-night. A large fire burned in the grate, halfway down the room, and in an easy-chair before it reclined Lady Level—asleep. Two wax-candles stood on the high carved mantelpiece, and the large oak table behind Lady Level was dark with age. Everything about the room was dreary, excepting the fire, the lights, and the sleeper.
Should he awaken her? He looked at Blanche Level and deliberated. Her feet rested on a footstool, and her head lay on the low back of the chair, a cushion under it. She wore an evening dress of light silk, trimmed with white lace. Her neck and arms, only relieved by the lace, looked cold and bare in the dreary room, for she wore no ornaments; nothing of gold or silver was about her—except her wedding-ring. Was it possible that she had attempted the life of him who had put on that ring? There was a careworn look on her face as she slept, which lessened her beauty, and two indented lines rose in her forehead, not usual to a girl of twenty; her mouth, slightly open, showed her teeth; and very pretty teeth were Lady Level's. No, thought Mr. Ravensworth, guilty of that crime she never had been!
Should he arouse her? A coal fell on to the hearth with a rattle, and settled the question, for Lady Level opened her eyes. A moment's dreamy unconsciousness, and then she started up, her face flushing.
"Oh, Arnold, I beg your pardon! I must have dropped asleep. How good of you to come!"
With a burst of tears she held out her hands; it seemed so glad a relief to have a friend there.
"Arnold, I am so miserable—so frightened! Why did not papa come down this morning?"
"He was——" Mr. Ravensworth searched for an excuse and did not find one easily "Something kept him in town, and he requested me to come down in his stead, and see if I could be of any use to you."
"Have you heard much about it?" she asked, in a whisper.
"Sanders told me and your father what little he knew. But it appeared most extraordinary to both of us. Sit down, Lady Level," he continued, drawing a chair nearer to hers. "You look ill and fatigued."
"I am not ill; unless uncertainty and anxiety can be called illness. Have you dined?"
"Yes; but your housekeeper insists on hospitality, and will send me up some coffee."
"Did you ever see so complete a picture as she is? Just like those engravings we admire in the old frames."
"Will you describe to me this—the details of the business I came down to hear?"
"I am trying to delay it," she said, with a forced laugh—a laugh that caused Mr. Ravensworth involuntarily to knit his brow, for it spoke of insincerity. "I think I will not tell you anything about it until to-morrow morning."
"I must leave again to-night. The last up-train passes——"
"Oh, but you will stay all night," she interrupted nervously. "I cannot be left alone. Mrs. Edwards is preparing a room for you somewhere."
"Well, we will discuss that by-and-by. What is this unpleasant business about Lord Level?"
"I don't know what it is," she replied. "He has been attacked and stabbed. I only know that it nearly frightened me to death."
"By whom was it done?"
"I don't know," she repeated. "They say the doors and windows were all fastened, and that no one could have got in."
Now, strange as it may appear, and firmly impressed as Mr. Ravensworth was with the innocence of Lady Level, there was a tone in her voice, a look in her countenance, as she spoke the last few sentences, that he did not like. Her manner was evasive, and she did not meet his glance openly.
"Were you in his room when it happened?"
"Oh dear no! Since I came down here I have occupied a room next to his; his dressing-room, I believe, when he stays here at ordinary times; and I was in bed and asleep at the time."
"Asleep?"
"Fast asleep. Until something woke me: and when I entered Lord Level's room, I found—I found—what had happened."
"Had it just happened?"
"Just. I was terrified. After I had called the servants, I think I nearly fainted. Lord Level quite fainted."
"But did you not see anyone in the room who could have attacked him?"
She shook her head.
"Nor hear any noise?"
"I—thought I heard a noise; I am positive I thought so. And I heard Lord Level's voice."
"That you naturally would hear. A man whose life is being attempted would not be likely to remain silent. But you must try and give me a better explanation than this. You say something suddenly awoke you. What was it?"
"I cannot tell you," repeated Lady Level.
"Was it a noise?"
"N—o; not exactly. I cannot say precisely what it was."
Mr. Ravensworth deliberated before he spoke again. "My dear Lady Level, this will not do. If these questions are painful to you, if you prefer not to trust me, they shall cease, and I will return to town as wise as I came, without having been able to afford you any assistance or advice. I think you could tell me more, if you would do so."
Lady Level burst into tears and grew agitated. A disagreeable doubt—guilty or not guilty?—stole over Mr. Ravensworth. "Oh, heaven, that it should be so!" he cried to himself, recalling how good and gentle she had been through her innocent girlhood. "I came down, hoping to be to you a true friend," he resumed in a low tone. "If you will allow me to be so, if you will confide in me, Blanche, come what may, I will stand by you."
There was a long silence. Mr. Ravensworth did not choose to break it. He had said his say, and the rest remained with Lady Level.
"Lord Level has made me very angry indeed," she broke out, indignation arresting her tears. "He has made me—almost—hate him."
"But you are not telling me what occurred."
"I have told you," she answered. "I was suddenly aroused from sleep, and then I heard Lord Level's voice, calling 'Blanche! Blanche!' I went into his room, ran up to him, and he put out his arms and caught me to him. Then I saw blood upon his nightshirt, and he told me he had been stabbed. Oh, how I shuddered! I cannot think of it now without feeling sick and ill, without almost fainting," she added, a shiver running through her frame.
Mr. Ravensworth's opinion veered round again. "She do it—nonsense!" Lady Level continued:
"'Don't scream; don't scream, Blanche,' he said. 'I am not much hurt, and I will take care of you,' and he held me to him as though I were in a vice. I thought he did not want me to alarm the house."
"Did he keep you there long?"
"It seemed long to me: I don't suppose it was more than a couple of minutes. His hold gradually relaxed, and then I saw that he had fainted. Oh, the terror of that moment! all the more intense that it had been suppressed. I feared he might bleed to death. I opened the door, and cried and screamed, and called for the servants; I rushed back to the room and rang the bell; and then I fell back in the easy-chair, and could do no more."
"Well, this is a better explanation than you gave me at first," said Mr. Ravensworth encouragingly: and she had spoken more readily, without appearance of disguise. "Then it was Lord Level's calling to you that first aroused you?"
"No; oh no; it was not that. It——" she stopped in confusion. "At least—perhaps it was. It—I can't say." She had relapsed into evasion again, and once more Mr. Ravensworth was plunged in doubt. He leaned towards her.
"I am going to ask you a question, Lady Level, and you must of course answer it or not as you please. I can only repeat that any confidence you repose in me shall never be betrayed. Did Lord Level inflict this injury on himself?"
"No, that was impossible," she freely answered; "it must have been done to him."
"The weapon, I hear, was found in your room."
"Yes."
"But how could it have come there?"
"As if I knew!"
"Why do you object to the police being called in?"
"It was Lord Level who objected. When he recovered from his faintness, and heard them speaking of the police, he called Mr. Drewitt to him—who is master of the house under Lord Level—and charged him that nothing of the kind should be done. I would rather they were here," she added after a pause. "I should feel safer. This morning I went to my husband and told him if he would not have in the police, the house searched, and the facts investigated, I should die with terror. He replied, jestingly, then if I chose to be so foolish, I must die: the hurt was his, not mine, and if he saw no occasion for having in the police, and did not choose to have them in, surely I need not want them. I was perfectly safe, and so was he, he continued, and he would see that I was kept so. He would not even have the doctor called in at first; but towards midday, when the fever returned and he became delirious, Mr. Drewitt sent for him."
"That seems more strange than all—refusing to have a doctor. He——"
The arrival of coffee interrupted them. Sanders brought it in in a silver coffeepot on a silver tray, with biscuits and other light refreshments; and Mrs. Edwards attended to pour it out. Mr. Ravensworth repeated to her what he had just said about the doctor.
"The fact is, sir, my lord does not like Dr. Macferraty," she rejoined. "None of us in this house do like him; we cannot endure him. He has not long been in practice, and we look upon him as an upstart. It is a great misfortune that Mr. Hill is away just now."
"The usual attendant, I presume, Mrs. Edwards?"
"Yes, sir; and a friend besides. He and the late lord seemed almost like brothers, so intimate were they. Mr. Hill's mother is going on for ninety; she is beginning to break, and he has gone over to see her. She lives in the Isle of Man. It is almost a month since he went away."
"The late lord? Let me see. He was the present lord's uncle, was he not?"
"Why, no, sir; he was his father," returned Mrs. Edwards, surprised at the mistake. "The late peer, Archibald Lord Level, had two sons, Mr. Francis the heir, and Mr. Archibald. Mr. Francis died of consumption, and lies buried in the family vault in Marshdale Church; and Mr. Archibald, the only son left, succeeded to his father."
"Yes, yes, I had forgotten," said Mr. Ravensworth. "An idea was floating in my mind that the present peer had not been always the heir-apparent."
