The Master of Greylands: A Novel

by Mrs. Henry Wood

"Oh Anthony! my ill-fated, wronged husband!" she cried, raising her clasped hands upwards in her distress and speaking through her blinding tears, "may the good God help me to bring your fate to light!"

The shades of twilight were deepening. Fishermen, with their wives and children, were wending their way homewards after the Sunday evening's walk--the one walk taken together of the seven days. Two of the Grey Ladies came down from the cliff and went towards the Nunnery: Madame Guise, who by this time had made acquaintance with some of the inhabitants, wondered whether anybody was ill in the cottages there. A good many dwellings were scattered on this side of the cliff: some of them pretty, commodious homes, others mere huts.

Once more, as she stood there at the casement window, Charlotte Guise asked herself whether she was justified in thus entering Greylands' Rest under a false aspect--justified even by the circumstances. She had revolved the question in her mind many times during the past few days, and the answer had always been, as it was now, in the affirmative. And she was of a straightforward, honourable nature; although the reader may be disposed to judge the contrary. That Mr. Castlemaine had taken her husband's life; taken it in wilful malice and wickedness, that he might retain his usurpation of Greylands' Rest, she did not entertain a shade of doubt of: she believed, religiously believed, that the mission of tracking out this crime was laid upon her by Heaven: and she did consider herself justified in taking any steps that might forward her in it; any steps in the world, overhanded or underhanded, short of doing injury to any innocent person. Her original resolve had been, merely to stay in the village, seek out what information she could, and wait; but the opportunity having been offered her in so singularly marked a manner (as she looked upon it) of becoming an inmate of Mr. Castlemaine's home, she could not hesitate in embracing it. And yet, though she never faltered in her course, though an angel from Heaven would hardly have stopped her entrance, believing, as she did, that the entrance had been specially opened for her, every now and again qualms of conscience pricked her sharply, and she hated the whole proceeding.

"But I cannot leave Anthony alone in the unknown grave," she would piteously tell herself at these moments. "And I can see no other way to discovery; and I have no help from any one to aid me in it. If I entered upon the investigation openly, declaring who I am, that might be worse than fruitless: it would put Mr. Castlemaine on his guard; he is more clever than I, he has all power here, while I have none; and Anthony might remain where he is, unavenged, for ever. No, no, I must go on in my planned-out course."

The sea became more grey; the evening star grew bright in the sky; people had gone within their homes and the doors were shut. Madame Guise, tired with the wearily-passing hours, sick and sad at her own reflections, put on her bonnet and warm mantle to take a bit of a stroll over to the beach. Mrs. Bent happened to meet her as she gained the passage below. The landlady was looking so unusually cross that Madame Guise noticed it.

"I have been giving a word of a sort to Mr. Harry Castlemaine," she explained, as they entered her sitting-room. "You be quiet, John Bent: what I see right to do, I shall do. Mr. Harry will go too far in that quarter if he does not mind."

"Young men like to talk to pretty girls all the world over; they did in my time, I know, and they do in this," was John's peaceful answer, as he rose from his fire-side chair at his guest's entrance. "Bat I don't see, wife, that it's any good reason for your pouncing upon Mr. Harry as he was going by to his home and saying what you did."

"Prevention's better than cure," observed Mrs. Bent, in a short tone. "As to young men liking to talk to pretty girls, that's all very well when they are equals in life; but when it comes to a common sailor's daughter and a gentleman, it's a different thing."

"Jane Hallet's father was not a common sailor!"

"He was not over much above it," retorted Mrs. Bent. "Because the Grey Sisters educated her and made much of her, would you exalt her into a lady? you never had proper sense, John Bent, and never will have.