What reasons can those be against my becoming her daughter-in-law, which are 'beyond any that I can guess?' If I could only get this proud dame beneath my thumb, then, indeed, I might recompense myself somewhat for having missed Sir Richard. To think that I should have lost a prize like that through mere humility of mind! 'Yet even if you succeed,' said she, 'you may not win all you dream of.' Those were her very words. 'Haste and trouble' alone could never have suggested them to her, although they may have made her indiscreet enough to utter them. What has put my Lady in such low spirits of late, and kept her so moped up within the Abbey walls? How came she alone here in this place, whither, as she says, 'No one ever comes?' She must have been hidden in yonder recess in the far corner, or we must needs have seen her, when my love-sick swain and I were walking up and down.
Swift and noiseless, like some beautiful wild beast upon the trail, Rose Aynton crossed the room, and scanned, with a cruel look in her dark eyes, the little study over which was printed Legal.
“I never heard that my Lady was given to law,” muttered she derisively. “True, she said that she had been sent to sleep, a thing which any one of these folios one might think would compass. But why did she come hither to read at all? There must have been something of interest to attract her. The books on this side do not seem to have been touched for ages; but here—yes, some one has been to these quite lately, for the dust has been disturbed, and here, if I mistake not, is the dainty print of my Lady's fingers. We are getting warm, as the children say at Hide-and-Seek. What have we here? A slip of paper for a marker, torn cross-wise from an envelope with Lad upon it. It was surely imprudent of my Lady to use her own address for such a purpose. Wills! Ah, she has been studying the art of making wills, I dare say. Considering Sir Richard is already so well off—and since I am not to be his wife—it is to be hoped she will leave her money to son Walter; and some, too, to poor dear Letty, for she is one who will never learn to help herself in this world. It is well for her that she has not to live by her wits. If she had been in my position, she would have been a governess. Yes, it's all about Wills this book. And why should not my Lady make a will, being of ripe age, and yet not old enough to sniff that smell of the charnel-house, which renders the operation so unpleasant a duty to the aged? I am afraid—unless, indeed, I could find the will itself—that I have but discovered a mare's nest after all. However, here are more book-markers; come, let us combine our information. Succession! That's only the same story. Illegitimacy! Great Heaven, but this is more than I had bargained for!”
The girl stepped swiftly to the open window, and pushed the heavy folds of hair behind her ears. “I feel my blood all rushing to my brain, and roaring 'Ruin!'” murmured she. “If this sudden fear has any real foundation, then indeed am I hoist with my own petard. No wonder she warned me against alliance with her race, if what I here suspect is true. They will need wellborn suitors themselves, she meant, to make up for what is lacking in their blood, and mayhap money too. The will of old Sir Robert may be disputed. The Succession—but no, I had forgotten—there is no one to succeed save her two sons, for they have not a relative beyond themselves in the world, these Lisgards; but the title—that would be lost, of course. That's what she hinted when she said I might not gain the thing I counted on, even though I won Sir Richard. He cannot know of it; he could not be so proud if he had the least suspicion of any blot in his own scutcheon. How he would wither if one said to him: 'Thou Bastard!' And yet I gravely doubt whether this discreet madam, his mother, has not one day tripped. 'What know you of my youth, girl?' cried she a while ago, white, as I thought, with anger; but it was fear, it seems. She comes here alone to find out for herself by study what secret course to follow, or what hidden dangers to avoid, having no counsellor in whom she can confide. That seems so far certain, or she would surely ask her son himself, being a lawyer, or that wise Mr Arthur Haldane, whom I so honestly dislike, for their advice. It may be all this bodes as ill for Walter as for his brother; it may be that it bodes the younger the best of fortune, and the elder the worst. That would be a brave day, indeed, for some one, on which the proud young baronet should sink to plain Mr Richard, and the poor captain rise to be Sir Walter Lisgard! And, again, there may be nothing in all this, after all. Time will doubtless shew, and it shall be my task to hurry Time's footsteps towards the discovery.”
CHAPTER XI. UP EARLY.
IT has been justly observed that one half of the world does not know how the other half lives. The statement is a very safe one, and might have been made a great deal more comprehensive by the philosopher who uttered it without risking his reputation for sagacity. We do not know how our next-door neighbour lives, except in the sense of what he has for dinner, which may indeed be discovered by the curious; nay, we often know not how our own household lives, how our very sons conduct themselves when not at meal-times and under our very eyes, what pursuits they really follow, what hopes, what fears, what ambitions they in secret entertain. It is well, indeed, and should be a matter of congratulation, if we are quite cognizant of the “goings on” of our wives and daughters. It is strange to think what a world in little lies under the roof of any great mansion, such as Mirk Abbey. How interesting would the genuine individual biographies—if one could only get at them—of such a household be, from that of the mistress of the establishment (whose troubles we are endeavouring to portray) down to that of the under kitchen-maid, concerning whom we have “no information,” but who has doubtless her own temptations, wrongs, and troubles also, which concern her with equal nearness, although they may not be so genteel! It is probable that the true history of the second gravedigger in Hamlet would be to the full as interesting as what we know of that philosophic Prince himself, though his father had not been murdered by his uncle, albeit even that may have been the case, for aught we know. But, alas! the novelist has not the power which the Devil on Two Sticks possessed of lifting the tiles off the attics; but has generally to content himself with such glimpses as he can obtain through the keyholes of the first and second floors.
Taking advantage of even this moderate privilege, we are sometimes rewarded with phenomena. Thus, it is little less than a portent to see Captain Walter Lisgard, who is not generally addicted to early rising, up and dressed upon a certain May morning before the clock on the great stairs has sounded three. True, he has been out of bed once or twice at such an hour on other occasions, but then it was because he had not retired to rest the night before. He has done that, however, this time, or, at all events, has exchanged his evening-dress for morning-costume. Some people do get up at the most premature hours, even in winter, and light their own fires, and retrim the midnight lamp to pursue literary or scientific labours; but if Captain Lisgard has got up to study, we will eat him. What can he be about? He gropes his way down the great staircase, where darkness is made visible by streaks of grayish light—which is not yet dawn—struggling through cracks and crannies; and he stumbles over the heavy rug beneath the bottom step, and swears with involuntary emphasis. Then he listens a while, to see what will come of that. The great clock on the hall-table ticks reprovingly: “Don't, don't—shame, shame!” as he never heard it tick before; and hear and there breaks forth an expostulatory creaking, as though from moral furniture, which has no such scruples in the daytime; but his ejaculation has aroused no living being.
Softly he turns the key of the frontdoor, softly withdraws the bolts, and would as softly have slipped out, but that there is suddenly a jar and a whir, and the opening door is held fast by an iron hand. “Confound the chain!” exclaims the captain. “It is as difficult to get out of this house as out of Newgate.” Then, when all is still quiet, he emerges upon the stone steps with an “I wonder, for my part, how burglars are ever discovered,” and takes his way towards the village. The gates are locked at the end of the avenue, and the porter and his wife are doubtless fast asleep, as well as fair-haired Polly—dreaming perhaps of himself, thinks the captain with, a half-contemptuous, half-complacent smile—but Master Walter, who is as active as a cat, climbs the stone pillar by help of the iron hinge, and “drops” noiselessly on to the road. He passes up the humble street, where each cottage is quiet as the grave—two blessed hours intervening yet between its inmates and their toil, and makes for the Lisgard Arms. The inn stands on a slight elevation, so that he sees it some time before he nears it. “Why, the place is on fire!” mutters the captain; and certainly there is some extraordinary illumination taking place in one of the apartments. A flood of light pours from it as from some Pharos, as though to beckon benighted folks whither good ale is to be found; and yet the house is always shut at eleven, in conformity with the squire's orders.