The Master of Greylands: A Novel

by Mrs. Henry Wood

Descending onwards--an abrupt descent--past the church, the cliffs on the right soon ended abruptly; and the whole village, lying in its hollow, seemed to burst upon you all at once. It was very open, very wide just there. The beach lay flat and bare to the sea, sundry fishing-boats being high and dry there: others would be out at sea, catching fish. Huts and cottages were built on the side of the rocks; and some few on the beach. On the left stood the Dolphin Inn, looking straight across the wide road to the beach and the sea; past which inn the coach-road branched off inland again.

The village street--if it could be called a street--continued to wind on, up the village, the Dolphin Inn making a corner, as it were, between the street and the inland coach-road. Let us follow this street. It is steep and winding, and for a short distance solitary. Halfway up the ascent, on the left, and built on the sea-coast, rises the pile of old buildings called the Grey Nunnery. This pile stands back from the road across a narrow strip of waste land on which grass grows. The cliff is low there, understand, and the Grey Nunnery's built right at the edge, so that the waves dash against its lower walls at high water. The back of the building is to the road, the front to the sea. A portion of it is in ruins; but this end is quite habitable, and in it live some ladies, twelve, who are called the Grey Sisters, or sometimes the Grey Ladies, and who devote themselves to charity and to doing good. In spite of the appellation, they are of the Reformed Faith; strict, sound Protestants: a poor community as to funds, but rich in goodness. They keep a few beds for the sick among the villagers, or for accidents; and they have a day school for the village children. If they could get better children to educate, they would be glad; and some of the ladies are accomplished gentlewomen. Mr. Castlemaine, who is, so to say, head and chief of the village of Greylands, looking down on it from his mansion, Greylands' Rest, does not countenance these Sisters: he discountenances them, in fact, and has been heard to ridicule the ladies. The Master of Greylands, the title generally accorded him, is no unmeaning appellation, for in most things his will is law. Beyond the part of the building thus inhabited, there is a portion that lies in complete ruin; it was the chapel in the days of the monks, but its walls are but breast-high now; and beyond it comes another portion, still in tolerable preservation, called the Friar's Keep. The Friar's Keep was said to have gained its appellation from the fact that the confessor to the convent lived in it, together with some holy men, his brethren. A vast pile of buildings it must have been in its prime; and some of the traditions said that this Friar's Keep was in fact a monastery, divided from the nunnery by the chapel. A wild, desolate, grand place it must have been, looking down on the turbulent sea. Tales and stories were still told of those days: of the jolly monks, of the secluded nuns, some tales good, some bad--just as tales in the generations to come will be told of the present day. But, whatever scandal may have been whispered, whatever dark deeds of the dark and rude ages gone by, none could be raised of the building now. The only inhabited part of it, that occupied by the good Sisters, who were blameless and self-denying in their lives, who lived but to do good, was revered by all. That portion of it was open, and fair, and above-board; but some mysterious notions existed in regard to the other portion--the Friar's Keep. It was said to be haunted.

Now, this report, attaching to a building of any kind, would be much laughed at in these later times. For one believer in the superstition (however well it may be authenticated), ten, ay twenty, would ridicule it. The simple villagers around believed it religiously: it was said that the Castlemaines, who were educated gentlemen, and anything but simple, believed it too. The Friar's Keep was known to be entirely uninhabited, and part of it abandoned to the owls and bats. This was indisputable; nevertheless, now and again glimpses of a light would be seen within the rooms by some benighted passer-by, and people were not wanting to assert that a ghostly form, habited in a friar's light grey cowl and skirts, would appear at the casement windows, bearing a lamp. Strange noises had also been heard--or were said to have been. There was not one single inhabitant of the village, man or woman, who would have dared to cross the chapel ruins and enter the Friar's Keep alone after nightfall, had it been to save their lives. It did not lack a foundation, this superstition. Tales were whispered of a dreadful crime that had been committed by one of the monks: it transpired abroad; and, to avoid the consequences of being punished by his brethren--who of course only could punish him after public discovery, whatever they might have done without it--he had destroyed himself in a certain room, in the grey habit of his order, and was destined to "come abroad" for ever. So the story ran, and so it was credited. The good ladies at the Nunnery were grieved and vexed when allusion was made to the superstition in their presence, and would have put it down entirely if they could. They did not see anything themselves, were never disturbed by sounds: but, as the credulous villagers would remark to one another in private, the Sisters were the very last people who would be likely to see and hear. They were not near enough to the Friar's Keep for that, and the casements in the Keep could not be seen from their casements.

The narrow common, or strip of waste land, standing between the street and the Grey Nunnery is enclosed by somewhat high palings. They run along the entire length of the building, from end to end, and have two gates of ingress. The one gate is opposite the porch door of the Grey Nunnery; the other gate leads into the chapel ruins. It should be mentioned that there was no door or communication of any kind between the Nunnery and the site of the chapel, and it did not appear that there ever had been: so that, if anyone required to pass from the Nunnery to the ruins or to the Friar's Keep, they must go round by the road and enter in at the other gate. The chapel wall, breast-high still, extended down to the palings, cutting off the Nunnery and its waste ground from the ruins.

In their secluded home lived these blameless ladies, ever searching for good to do. In a degree they served to replace the loss of a resident pastor. Many a sick and dying bed that ought to have been Mr. Marston's care, had they soothed; more than one frail infant, passing away almost as soon as it had been born, had Sister Mildred, the pious Superioress, after a few moments spent on her bended knees in silent deprecatory prayer, taken upon herself to baptize, that it might be numbered as of the Fold of Christ. They regretted that the clergyman was not more among them, but there it ended: the clergy of those days were not the active pastors of these, neither were they expected to be. The Grey Ladies paid Mr. Marston the utmost respect, and encouraged others to do so; and they were strict attendants at his irregular services on Sundays.

The origin of the sisterhood was this. Many years before, a Miss Mildred Grant, being in poor health, had gone to Greylands for change of air. As she made acquaintance with the fishermen and other poor families, she was quite struck with their benighted condition, both as to spiritual and temporal need. She resolved to do what she could to improve this; she thought it might be a solemn duty laid purposely in her path; and, she took up her abode for good at one of the cottages, and was joined by her sister, Mary Grant. In course of time other ladies, wishing to devote their lives to good works joined them; at length a regular sisterhood of twelve was formed, and they took possession of that abandoned place, the old Grey Nunnery. Six of these ladies were gentlewomen by birth and breeding; and these six had brought some portion of means with them. Six were of inferior degree. These were received without money, and in lieu thereof made themselves useful, taking it in turns to see to the housekeeping, to do the domestic work, go on errands, make and mend the clothes, and the like. All were treated alike, wearing the same dress, and taking their meals together--save the two who might be on domestic duty for the week. At first the Sisterhood had attracted much attention and caused some public talk--for such societies were then almost entirely unknown; but Greylands was a secluded place, and this soon died away. Sister Mildred remained its head, and she was getting in years now. She was a clever, practical woman, without having received much education, though a lady by birth. Latterly she had been in very ill-health; and she had always laboured under a defect, that of partial deafness. Her sister Mary had died early.

Immediately beyond the Friar's Keep the rocks rose abruptly again, and the sight of the sea was there, and for some little way onwards, inaccessible to the eye. Further on, the heights were tolerably flat, and there the preventive men were enabled to pace--which they did assiduously: for those were the days of real smuggling, when fortunes were made by it and sometimes lives marred. The coastguard had a small station just beyond the village, and the officers looked pretty sharply after the beach and the doings of the fishermen.

Just opposite the Friar's Keep, on the other side the road, was a lane, called Chapel Lane, flanking a good-sized clump of trees, almost a grove; and within these trees rose a small, low, thatched-roof building, styled the Hutt. The gentleman inhabiting this dwelling, a slight, bronzed, upright, and active man, with black eyes and black hair, was named Teague. Formerly an officer on board a man-of-war, he had saved enough for a competency through prize money and else, and had also a pension. The village called him Commodore: he would have honestly told you himself that he had no right to that exalted rank--but he did not in the least object to the appellation. He was a vast favourite with the village, from the coastguardsmen to the poor fishermen, fond of treating them in his Hutt, or of giving them a sail in his boat, or a seat in his covered spring cart--both of which articles he kept for pleasure. In habits he was somewhat peculiar; living alone without a servant of any kind, male or female, and waiting entirely on himself.

Chapel Lane--a narrow, pleasant lane, with trees meeting overhead, and wild flowers adorning its banks and hedges in summer--led into the open country, and went directly past Greylands' Rest, the residence of the Castlemaines. This lane was not the chief approach to the house; that was by the high coach-road that branched off by the Dolphin Inn. And this brings us to speak of the Castlemaines.

Greylands' Rest, and the estate on which it stood, had been purchased and entered upon many years before by the then head and chief of the family, Anthony Castlemaine. His children grew up there. He had three sons--Basil, James, and Peter. Basil was three or four years the elder, for a little girl had died between him and James; and if he were living at the present time, he would be drawing towards sixty years of age. It was not known whether he was living or not. Anthony Castlemaine had been a harsh and hasty man; and Basil was wild and wilful. After a good deal of unpleasantness at home, and some bitter quarrelling between father and son, in which the two younger sons took part against their brother, Basil quitted his home and went abroad. He was twenty-two then, and had come into possession of a very fair sum of money, which fell to him from his late mother. The two other sons came into the same on attaining their majority. Besides this, Mr. Castlemaine handed over to Basil his portion, so that he went away rich. He went to seek his fortune and to get rid of his unnatural relatives, he informed his friends in Greylands and Stilborough, and he hoped never to come back again until Greylands' Rest was his. He never had come back all those years, something like five-and-twenty now, and they had never heard from him directly, though once or twice incidentally. The last time was about four years ago, when chance news came that he was alive and well.