The Grey Monk

by T. W. Speight

“Quite sure. As I said before, everybody is talking of it, but as to how it all came about nobody seems to rightly know. Down at Mapleford you’ll hear half-a-dozen versions of the affair in as many hours, but in my opinion they are one and all no better than guess-work, and so long as the few people who know the truth choose to keep their mouths shut, which so far they seem to have done, guess-work they are likely to remain.”

It was not till the afternoon of the following day that aunt and nephew met. Giovanna was intensely interested in all that Luigi had to tell her. She made him describe to her minutely what Ethel was like, and when she found that for a short time they had sojourned together under the same roof, she questioned him again and again about all the details relative to her with which his memory was stored.

Then there came over her an irresistible longing to see her daughter—just for once; just for once to gaze into her eyes, and, if it were possible, to hear her speak. After that, she felt as if she should not greatly care what became of her. She had settled on no plan for the future. Whether she should remain, a lost unit, in the huge wilderness of London, or whether she should go back to Catanzaro, where there still lived some who were related to her, was just now a matter of no moment. She was consumed with a great thirst, and till that should be slaked nothing else mattered.

On the opposite side of the park of Withington Chase to that on which Mapleford is situated, in a pleasantly wooded hollow, nestles the obscure hamlet of Chadswell. Here in an old farmhouse a lady who gave the name of Mrs. Lucas and her nephew engaged apartments. It was an unusual time of year for anyone to seek country lodgings, seeing that November was now well advanced, but that was a matter for those who took the lodgings, and not for those who let them. The hamlet lies about half-a-mile beyond the precincts of the Chase, and such of its inhabitants as are desirous of going to and fro between it and Mapleford on foot are in the habit of utilising a certain ancient right of way across the lower end of the park, which effects a considerable saving of distance, as compared with the high road, between the two places.

Aunt and nephew were of course none other than Giovanna and Luigi. The former had been brought to Chadswell by an inordinate longing to set eyes on her daughter (she could not have taken lodgings in Mapleford or its neighbourhood without running the risk of recognition, which, above all things, she was desirous of avoiding), and the latter had accompanied her at her special request. To Luigi the whole business was insufferably dull and wearisome.

Not till the short November days were closing in did Giovanna set foot outside her lodgings. Then, robed in black and thickly veiled, she made her way to the park, entering it by the stile made use of by the villagers; but instead of keeping to the public footpath, she turned sharply to the left in a straight line for the Hall. At such a season and such an hour there was no one to note her movements, and not till she reached the belt of shrubbery, intersected by numerous walks, which sheltered the house on two of its sides, did she deem it needful to exercise a little more circumspection. Luigi had given her to understand that Ethel was addicted to rambling about the grounds alone (in reality, he had known her too short a time to justify him in making any such statement), and her hope was that she might chance to encounter her while thus engaged.

And encounter her Giovanna did one dusky afternoon after she had been haunting the precincts of the Chase for more than a week. It was not in what was termed the shrubbery, but in the spinney that they met. News had been brought to the Hall that Dulcie Rigg was lying ill at the Tower, and after luncheon Ethel had walked across to inquire after the sick woman and make sure that she had all she needed. It was while on her way back that she came face to face with her mother.

Ethel could not help feeling somewhat startled when thus suddenly confronted by the figure of a tall stranger clothed from head to foot in funereal black. The stranger came to a halt full in front of her, and the path being of the narrowest Ethel could not but do the same. It seemed to her that through the interstices of the veil two eyes of a strangely penetrative quality were eagerly scanning every feature of her face.

“If I mistake not, you are Miss Ethel Clare, till lately known as Miss Ethel Thursby,” said the veiled woman in a low rich voice, which yet had in it a tone that thrilled the girl, she knew not why.

“That is my name,” replied Ethel with questioning eyes.