The Master of Greylands: A Novel

by Mrs. Henry Wood

"I call Miss Hallet a lady," said John.

"You might call the moon a lantern if you chose, but you couldn't make other folks do it. As to Jane, she is too pretty to be followed by Mr. Harry Castlemaine. Why, he must have been walking with her nearly ever since tea!"

"He intends no harm, Dorothy, I'll answer for it."

"Harm comes sometimes without intention, John Bent. Mr. Harry's as thoughtless and random as a March hare. I've seen what I have seen: and Jane Hallet had better keep herself in future out of his company."

"Well, your speaking to him did no good, wife. And it was not respectful."

"Good! it's not likely it would do good with him," conceded Mrs. Bent. "He turns everything into laughter. Did you hear how he began about my Sunday cap, asking for the pattern of it, and setting Molly off in a grin! She nearly dropped the scuttle of coals she was bringing in--good evening then, ma'am, for the present, if you are going for your little stroll."

Madame Guise, leaving her host and hostess to settle their difference touching Mr. Harry Castlemaine, went over to the beach and walked about there. The shades grew deeper; the stars came out brightly: night was upon the earth when she retraced her steps. Thinking of her little one, she did not go into the inn, but walked past the Grey Nunnery: she knew she should not see the child, but it was a satisfaction only to look at the window of the room that contained her. Soon Madame Guise came to the gate of the chapel ruins; and some impulse prompted her to open it and enter. But she first of all looked cautiously around to make sure she was not being watched: once let it be known that she held any particular interest in this place, and her connection with him who had been lost within it might be suspected! When we hold a dangerous secret, the conscience is more than sensitive: and Madame Guise was no exception to the rule.

She crossed the ruins, and stood looking out on the sea, so grand from thence. It was low water; she saw the rude steps by which the little beach below might be gained, but would not have liked to venture down. The steps were hazardous for even a strong man, and perhaps were not used from one month's end to another: the slime and sea-weed made them slippery. After she had gazed her fill, she turned to the Friar's Keep, and made her way into it by the gothic door between the once firm walls.

Oh, but it was dark here! By what she could make out, when her sight got used to the gloom, she seemed to be amidst the arches of some pillared cloisters. While looking on this side and that side, striving to pierce the mysteries, taking a step this way and a step that, and trembling all the while lest she should see the revenant, said to haunt the place, a dreadful sound, like the huge fluttering of large wings, arose above in the arches. Poor Charlotte Guise, superstitious by nature and education, and but young in years yet, was seized with a perfect acme of terror; of terror too great to scream. Was it the spirit of her husband, striving to communicate with her, she wondered--and oh blame her not too greatly. She had been reared in the fear of "revenants;" she earnestly believed that the dead were sometimes permitted to revisit the earth. Silence supervened, and her terror grew somewhat less intense. "Is your grave here, Anthony?" she murmured; "are you buried in some corner of this lonesome place, away from the eye of man? Oh, hear me while I repeat my vow to search out this dreadful mystery! To the utmost of the power that circumstances and secrecy leave me, will I strive to find you, Anthony; and bring home to Mr. Castlemaine----"

A worse noise than before; an awful fluttering and flapping right above her head. She screamed out now, terrified nearly to death. The echoes repeated her scream; and the rushing wings, with another kind of scream, not half so shrill as hers, went out through the broken wall and flew across the sea. She felt just as though she were dropping into her grave. Was it the revenant of the place?--or was it the revenant of her husband?--what was it? Cowering there, her face prone against a column, Charlotte asked herself these dread questions: and never once, until her alarm was somewhat subsiding, did she think of what her reason might have shown her at first--that it was an owl. An owl, angry at its precincts being invaded: or perhaps some large sea-bird.