Anne Hereford: A Novel

by Mrs. Henry Wood

"Has he been concealed here always?"

"That would have been next to impossible," replied Mr. Chandos, with a half smile at my simplicity. "He has been here a short time: and no end of stratagems have we had to resort to, to conceal the fact. My mother has been compelled to feign illness, and remain in the west wing, that an excuse might be afforded for provisions and things being carried up. I have assumed to you the unenviable character of a sleepwalker; we have suffered the report that my dead father, Sir Thomas, haunted the pine-walk, without contradicting it——"

"And are you not a sleepwalker? and is there no ghost?" I breathlessly interrupted.

"The only ghost, the only sleepwalker, has been poor George," he sadly answered. "You saw him arrive, Anne."

"I!"

"Have you forgotten the night when you saw me—as you thought—dodging in and out of the trees, as if I wished to escape observation, and finally disappearing within the west wing? It was George. The next morning you accused me of having been there; I knew I had not, and positively denied it. Later I found that George had come: and then I amused you with a fable of my being addicted to sleepwalking. I knew not what else to invent; anything to cast off suspicion from the right quarter; and I feared you would be seeing him there again."

"But is it not highly dangerous for him to have ventured here?"

"Ay. After the misfortune happened he lay a short while concealed at Heneage Grange, where we then lived, and eventually escaped to the Prussian dominions. We heard nothing of him for some time, though we were in the habit of remitting him funds periodically for his support. But one night he made his appearance here; it was not long after we had settled at Chandos; startling my mother and Hill nearly out of their senses. They concealed him in the west wing, and Lady Chandos feigned illness and remained in it with him; as she has done this time. He did not stay long; but henceforth we could be at no certainty, and took to leaving the lower entrance door of the west wing unfastened at night, so that he might enter at once, should he arrive a second time. Three or four times in all has he come, including this."

"But it must surely be hazardous?"

"Nothing can be more so; not to speak of the constant state of suspense and anxiety it keeps us all in. He declares he is obliged to come, or die; that he is attacked with the mal du pays, the yearning for home, to such an extent that when the fit comes on him, he is forced to come and risk it. More dangerous, too, than his actually being here, is his walking out at night in the grounds; and he will do it in spite of remonstrance. George was always given to self-will."