With these words she left me, running away from my thanks for her present. I was very much pleased with her present, and even at that moment, when people might suppose I had more serious things to think of, I must say it did give me a flutter of gratification to find bracelets in the jewel-box. How kind and thoughtful it was of Aunt Milly! I wonder if she knew I hadn’t any? I showed them to Lizzie, who thought anything so grand had never been seen, and to baby, who would have liked to have them to play with, and finally to Harry when he came in, and I had to prepare for our drive. Harry found some fault (of course) with their style, but was quite as pleased as I was. And, indeed, it was very good of him to be pleased, for I had almost to go down on my knees to him to keep him from buying me something of the kind when we came to Chester, and he naturally grudged that any one should give them to me but himself.
To think of me saying so much about such a small affair as bracelets, when things so much more important were surrounding us on every side! I am afraid to say it, but it is true, that when I went down into the drawing-room that evening I was thinking too much about my beautiful scarf and these same bracelets to notice, at the first moment, who was there. The first thing that brought me to myself was hearing the voice of Miss Mortimer behind her screen. I was so amazed that, instinctively, without giving any reason to myself for it, I pushed forward to see her. There she sat, that dreadful, wonderful witch of a woman—so far from being moved by any feeling of nature which might have led her to avoid the strangers, as innocent Aunt Milly supposed—sitting there as if on a throne, entirely assuming the part of mistress of the house, and receiving the homage of her guests. Evidently everybody was surprised—everybody had understood Miss Mortimer to have withdrawn from any but the most secluded life and I do not think I ever felt such a thrill of wonder and pity, and almost horror, as when, after all I had seen and noted, after her convulsive trembling and watchful readiness for any attack, after the way in which, this very day, she had retreated, stubborn but exhausted, upstairs, I saw her sitting here, in full evening dress, with jewels and ornaments; her watchful eyes gleaming stealthily round, and her ears alive to every sound.
As I came forward I caught sight of Aunt Milly sitting silent by herself by a table, with a face full of the deepest perplexity and distress. She raised her troubled eyes to me, and grasped at my hand for a moment, as if to strengthen herself. She could not make it out—any attempt to decipher her sister’s purpose was in vain to Aunt Milly—the light might as well have tried to comprehend the darkness. But I had not time to say anything to her. Miss Mortimer had called Harry, who drew me along with him; and it was she who introduced us to the rector and his sister, and to that heavy old Sir George, and the Penrhyns of Eden Castle. I am sure I cannot tell what she said; it was principally Harry she spoke of, and I remember that she called him their heir and nearest relation, which gained us a very flattering reception from the strangers. But the mere fact of seeing her there, with her bare arms and shoulders shining thin through just such another scarf as I had on, and her eyes meeting everybody else’s with a certain wide-open vigilant stare, and her head held stiffly erect to dissemble that trembling, which, even still, she could not overcome, at once confounded and engrossed me so much that I could observe nothing else. Harry got into conversation with the gentlemen, and Miss Kate, from the Rectory, a woman evidently full of curiosity and enterprise, seized upon Miss Mortimer. I managed to get away to Aunt Milly; she took my hand again, and pressed it almost painfully. “My dear, what do you suppose this means?” said Aunt Milly, looking wistfully up in my face.
“To defy everybody,” I said, scarcely knowing what I was saying; “but, dear Aunt Milly, you warned me to be on my guard. You look so troubled, people will fancy something is wrong.”
When I said that, she got up hastily and joined the others. I can’t tell how the strangers felt; but for all of us who belonged to the house, it is impossible to imagine any scene more extraordinary. To see the dauntless, unnatural wickedness of that woman facing and defying everybody—to see her take the principal place, and ignore the troubled, terrified sister, whose guests these people really were—out of all the mysterious veil of secrecy and darkness in which she had been wrapped, to watch her emerging thus, not only as if nothing were wrong with her, but as if, in reality, she was the soul of everything, and dear Aunt Milly only her shadow and servant! When Miss Mortimer took the head of the table at dinner, and Aunt Milly astonished, and not knowing what to make of it, dropped into a seat near the foot, where Harry was, our dismay and wonder were nearly at their climax. Aunt Milly clasped my hands hard; she had got a chair placed in the corner beside me, and whispered—
“I don’t mind it, my dear, don’t think I mind it. If all was well, and I had known her meaning!”
I understood that perfectly; but then all was not well, and nobody had known the weird woman’s meaning. Now she had it all in her own hands. With her grey hair, and her thin bare aged shoulders peeping out of her scarf, she made a dreadful pretence of flirting with that old Sir George; and curious Miss Kate sat scrutinising her, and making perpetual remarks; and Aunt Milly and I looked on with awe and alarm which I could not describe. I could scarcely answer Mr. Penrhyn when he spoke to me. I fear he must have thought me a very poor representative of the Mortimers. But I could not keep my attention from that figure at the head of the table. I could not help wondering, did she see the writing and the man’s hand upon the wall? for in all her pretences, and affectations, and coquetries,—those strange coquetries, and gestures, and movements of the head and hands, which might have been pretty in a young beauty, but were so dismal in a white-haired old woman—remember, she never once forgot. I could see it plain in her eyes all the time. If the handwriting had come upon the wall, as it did in Belshazzar’s palace, it would not have surprised her. No allusion that could be made would shock or startle her. She knew everything that could come; and, in her devilish daring, she was prepared for all.
I hope it is not very wicked of me to use such words; indeed, I cannot tell what others I could use.
Things went on so till we got back to the drawing-room, which was a relief in its way. And by dint of continuing so long, the pressure had, of course, grown easier, and I had actually begun to make a little acquaintance with Mrs. Penrhyn, who was young, and had little children of her own, and quite insisted I should take her upstairs to see baby, when I was suddenly recalled from that very agreeable talk we were just falling into, by the sharp voice of Miss Kate.
“Have you heard any more of that young Italian, Miss Milly?” said Miss Kate; “he that struck me, you know, as having so odd a resemblance to your family?—very strange! and did you not perceive it yourself? I hear he has been seen about here again, and his servant, that stout person. Ah, how very sad he doesn’t know English, that poor fellow! perhaps he has picked up a little since. Of all the sad things in the world, I know nothing so melancholy as being in the midst of light, and yet, for such a trifling thing as the want of language, remaining in darkness. I have never forgiven myself for neglecting Italian since that day. Ah, I wish I knew Italian as you do, Miss Mortimer. Who can tell what use I might have been to that poor benighted man!”