His reliance upon her compassion was not in vain. She was prompt in appearance when at last the long night and the slow day had passed. Taking pity, perhaps, on his haggard countenance, she was kind from the outset of their interview. Prudence attended, as before, but with instructions to be more certain before crying danger than she had been on the previous evening, when, as Georgiana now told Everell, the maid, in the novelty of her duty, had given the alarm at the mere sound of laughter in the house—the laughter of Foxwell and his visitors over their wine and cards.
But though this, the third clandestine meeting of these two young people, was not marred by any preliminary chill or by any waste of time, it was soon over. Georgiana herself had set the limit of half an hour, and, whatever it may have cost her of inner reluctance, she showed her resolution by breaking away at the end of that time, silencing her lover’s protests with a voluntary kiss so swiftly bestowed that, in his delighted surprise, he let her slip from his grasp. Again he stood alone in the garden while the dusk came on. Again that weary blank of lagging hours faced him, with the promise of such brief joy to compensate him at the end. He lingered late in the garden, now reviewing in his memory the delectable scene of the evening—delectable but too fleeting!—and now repining at the conditions under which his love had to subsist. “Oh, to be with her one whole day—one day as long as those I pass in waiting for the sunset!” was the burden of his thought.
He stood near the terrace steps, taking his last look at the house for the night. The lateness of the hour, the comparative darkness, and perhaps the petulance of his feelings, made him less than usually cautious against observation. Suddenly he heard a patter of feet on the terrace, and the voice of a maid servant calling, “Puss! puss! come, puss!—Devil take the cat!” Everell remained motionless, lest any sound might attract the girl’s attention. In a moment, a cat appeared at the head of the steps, glided along the top of the bank, and plunged amidst the shrubbery of the garden. It had no sooner disappeared than the girl in chase arrived at the edge of the terrace, where she stopped and peered down into the garden, launching imprecations at the animal that had eluded her. Her eyes fell upon Everell, and her wrath died upon her lips.
She stood gaping as if rendered powerless by fright, and Everell could think of nothing better than to continue perfectly still. Wrapped in his cloak, and with his face turned toward the maid, he did not move even his eyes, but appeared not to be aware of her presence. His thought was that this unlifelike behaviour might cause the rustic wench to take him for an apparition, or a trick of her fancy, the more so as the darkness would give vagueness to his figure. After a few seconds of this silent confrontation, the maid, uttering a faint wail of terror, apparently at the back of her mouth, turned and took to her heels. Everell profited by her flight to leave the garden instantly, and made his best speed for John Tarby’s castle. If the girl told of what she had seen, and brought investigators to the spot, who could find nothing to verify her account, they would doubtless believe she had suffered from a delusion. As she herself, whether she came to their conclusion or not, was likely to avoid the place after dark in future, Everell considered that the garden was not the less safe as a meeting-place for this occurrence.
When he met Georgiana the next evening, he expected some allusion by her to the incident, as he supposed the maid servant must have spread the tale through the household. But Georgiana said nothing of the matter. She had indeed heard nothing of it, for the isolation in which she dwelt in the house was copied by her maid, partly in imitation and partly because, with her Southern ideas of propriety, Prudence found herself as much antagonized by the rude Northern servants of the house as by the affected London attendants of the visitors. Thus she spent as much of her time as possible in her mistress’s apartments, big with the secret entrusted to her of the clandestine meetings. Being thus on sniffing terms with her equals in the servants’ hall, and out of their gossip, she remained in ignorance of the kitchen-maid’s adventure. From Georgiana’s silence on the subject, Everell inferred that the occurrence had created no talk in the house; and he did not mention it himself, lest Georgiana, in her scruples as to his safety and her own conduct, might lessen the frequency of their meetings. His periods of longing were sufficiently endless, his tastes of joy sufficiently brief, as they were.
But the kitchen-maid’s adventure had not really gone without circulation. “You never told us your house was haunted, Foxwell,” said Lady Strange, meeting her host at the breakfast-table, from which Georgiana had already gone. Mrs. Winter and Rashleigh were yet to appear.
“I never knew it—till this moment, at least,” replied Foxwell, stifling a yawn which owed itself, perhaps, to the punch or primero of the previous night. “Though every crumbling old brick-heap like this has its ghost or so, no doubt. But what do you mean?”
“My waiting-woman has been telling me of a strange figure that appeared to your scullery-maid the other night. In the sunken garden, I believe it was: a man in a cloak, wearing a sword.”
“It must have been a ghost, indeed,” said Foxwell, smiling. “There is certainly no such living man whose appearance in that garden is probable—unless Rashleigh has taken to mooning outdoors after bedtime.”
“Not I,” said Rashleigh, who had just entered. “What are you talking of?”