The Master of Greylands: A Novel

by Mrs. Henry Wood

Once more, by every argument in his power to call up, by the deep love and despair at his heart, he renewed his pleading. But it did not answer. The interview was prolonged to quite an unusual period, and was painful on both sides, but it terminated at length; and when William Blake-Gordon left her presence he left it as her lover for ever.

[CONCLUSION.]

Winter had passed: summer had come round again. Greylands basked in the light and heat of the June sun; the sea lay sleeping under the fishing boats.

There's not much to tell. Greylands' Rest had its new inmates: George Castlemaine and his wife. Ethel told her secrets to her husband now instead of to the sea: but they both were fond of sitting on the high cliffs together and watching its waves. Mr. and Mrs. Castlemaine were somewhere abroad, intending to stay there until autumn: and Miss Flora was where poor Harry always said she ought to be--at a good school. Mr. Castlemaine had carried his point, in spite of the opposition of his wife. It must be one of two things, he said: either that Mrs. Castlemaine stayed in England herself, or else that she disposed in some way of Flora; for Flora he was fully determined not to have abroad with him. So, being bent upon the foreign travel, Mrs. Castlemaine had to yield.

Jane Hallet--old names stand by us--had taken up her abode again with her aunt, in the pretty home on the cliff. It would probably be her dwelling-place for life. Unless, indeed, she carried out the project she had been heard once to mention--that, whenever her aunt should be called away, she hoped to join the community of the Grey Sisters. Very sad and gentle and subdued did Jane look in her widow's cap. There was a little stone now in the churchyard to the memory of "Jane, infant child of Harry Castlemaine:" it had been placed there, unasked, by the Master of Greylands; and just as Jane used to steal down the cliff in the dusk of evening to meet her husband, so did she now often steal down at the same silent hour to weep over the graves of her child and its father, lying side by side. Not yet did Greylands, as a rule, give her her true name: old names, it has been just observed, stand by us: and Hallet, as applied to Jane, was more familiar to the tongue than Castlemaine. The income settled on Jane was ample for every comfort: she and her aunt now lived as quiet gentle-people, keeping a good servant. Jane had dropped her intimacy with Miss Susan Pike, though she would stay and speak cordially to her when by chance they met. Which implied distance, or reserve, or whatever it might be, was not at all agreeable to that damsel, and she consoled herself by telling Greylands that Jane was "stuck-up." Little cared poor Jane. Her young life had always been a sad one: and now, before she was twenty years of age, its happiness had been blighted out of it. George Castlemaine and his wife, at Greylands' Rest, were becoming fond of Jane: Ethel had always liked her. Jane visited them now sometimes; and Greylands was shown that they respected and regarded her.

"It is as it should be: Jane's manners and ways were always too high for her pocket--as are Miss Hallet's, too, for that matter," remarked Mrs. Bent to her husband, one day that they sat sunning themselves on the bench outside the inn, and saw Jane pass with Ethel. John only nodded in reply. With the elucidation of the fate of Anthony Castlemaine, and the delivering over of his effects to his widow, Charlotte Guise, John's mind was at rest, and he had returned to his old easy apathy. By dint of much battling with strong impressions, John had come to the conclusion that the tall man he saw cross from the Chapel Lane to the ruins, that February night, might have been one of the smugglers on his way from the Hutt, who bore an extraordinary resemblance to the Master of Greylands. Jack Tuff held out still that it was he; but Jack Tuff was told his eyesight that night could not be trusted.

News came from Commodore Teague pretty often. He appeared to be flourishing in his new abode over the water, and had set up a pleasure-boat on the Scheldt. He sent pressing messages for Greylands to visit him and Tom Dance and his son intended to avail themselves of the invitation. The Commodore inquired after old friends, even to the ghost of the Grey Monk, whether it "walked" as much as it used to walk, or whether it didn't. The Hutt remained without a tenant. Not a soul would take it. Events had severely shaken the bravery of Greylands; the ghost had shown itself much in the last year, and the Hutt was too near its haunting place, the Friar's Keep, to render it a comfortable residence. So it remained untenanted, and was likely to remain so. Greylands would almost as soon have parted with its faith in the Bible as in the Grey Monk.

And the participation of the Master of Greylands in those illicit practices was not disclosed or suspected, and the name and reputation of the Castlemaines had never a tarnish on it. It was believed that he had behaved in a remarkably handsome and liberal manner to his nephew George, in giving up to him Greylands' Rest during his own lifetime: George himself spoke feelingly of it: and what with that, and what with the sympathy felt for the loss of his son, and what with regret for the suspicions cast on him in regard to Anthony, Mr. Castlemaine stood higher in men's estimation than ever he had stood originally. And that was saying a great deal.

And she--Mary Ursula! Some further good fortune had come to her in the shape of money. A heavy debt due to her father since long years, which had been looked upon as a total loss, was suddenly repaid. It amounted, with the interest, to many thousands of pounds. As Mr. Peter Castlemaine had himself not a creditor in the world, all his obligations having been paid in full, it lapsed of course to his daughter. So, even on the score of fortune, she might not have been so unequal a match for Sir William Blake-Gordon. Sir William, knowing how utterly at an end was all hope of Mary, had, after some tardy delay, renewed his engagement with Miss Mountsorrel: and this month, June, they had been married. Mary sent them a loving letter of good wishes, and a costly present: and she told them that she and they should always be the best of friends.

She was too rich now, she was wont to say, laughingly, to the Sisters: and she introduced some changes for comfort into the Nunnery. One of the rooms hitherto shut up, a spacious apartment with the lovely sea view, she had caused to be renovated and furnished for the Ladies, leaving the parlour still as the reception-room. A smaller apartment with the same sea aspect was fitted up for herself, and her own fine piano placed in it: the Superior's private sitting-room. Sister Mildred had neither the means nor had she been educated with the tastes of Mary Ursula. The door leading from the Nunnery into the secret passage was bricked-up for ever.