Under Lock and Key: A Story. Volume 3 (of 3)

by T. W. Speight

With nerves unstrung, and a heart that was ill at ease, it is not to be wondered at that even from the very quest which George Strickland had gone upon her mind seemed to draw in and gather to itself certain premonitions, vague and faint, of further unhappiness to come. She longed for and yet dreaded the coming of each post. Major Strickland sometimes wrote to her, and any morsel of news was precious to her that had any reference, however remote, to Captain George. And yet she never opened one of the major's notes without trembling lest it might contain some news of a hitherto unknown father who might, perchance, come and claim her, and take her away for ever from a spot which her mother's memory made sacred to her, and from those faithful friends to whom her young affections clung so tenaciously.

Janet's life at Dupley Walls was one of which few people would have envied her. From the date of Sister Agnes's death, Lady Pollexfen had grown more exacting in her requirements, more capricious in her moods, more difficult to please than she had ever been before. There was a terrible wakefulness about her. What sleep she had was intermittent and of short duration; and Janet herself never got to bed without being wearied out both in body and spirit with her long attendance on the strange old woman. Often, when she had not been asleep more than a couple of hours, Lady Pollexfen's bell would ring violently, and then Janet had to rise and dress herself and hasten to the old woman's room, to find that she was wanted to read aloud, or, it might be, to play écarté, while her ladyship sat up in bed with a gay Indian shawl thrown round her shoulders, her withered face bent keenly over her cards, and an occasional hollow chuckle issuing from her lips. At the end of a couple of hours or so she would go off to sleep almost as suddenly as if she were an automaton whose eyes were made to shut at the touch of a spring. Then Janet would creep back shivering to bed, only to begin another day's dreary round a few hours later.

During the last few weeks Lady Pollexfen had seemed as if she could scarcely bear to let Janet out of her sight. Not that she was in any way more affectionate towards her than she had ever been. Her manner was still as hard, her tongue was still as caustic as of old. But she seemed now as if she could not bear to be alone: as if constant companionship with Janet's fresh and sweet young nature were needed to keep alive the slowly decaying embers of her life. Be that as it may, Janet's time was so fully occupied that it was all she could do to steal one short hour out of the twenty-four for a solitary ramble in the park: but without such a walk she felt that she should soon have broken down under the exactions of her life at Dupley Walls. A visit to Major Strickland at Tydsbury was now entirely out of the question. As already stated, the post now and then brought her a brief note from him. As the tenor of these notes was invariably affectionate and reassuring, they were cherished by her as the chiefest grains of comfort by which the dreary passage of time was brightened at Dupley Walls.

As previous chapters have already told us, George Strickland was still busy with his quest at the very time that Mr. Madgin was on his way back to Dupley Walls with the Great Mogul Diamond in his possession. Consequently, Captain Ducie was still among the living, and George Strickland had not yet left London in search of him, when on a certain morning a telegram sent by Mr. Madgin from Southampton was brought to Lady Pollexfen, it was brief and to the purpose:--

"Thoroughly successful. The Great Mogul is travelling with me. His Highness will reach Dupley Walls to-morrow."

Lady Pollexfen was sitting up in bed drinking her chocolate when the message was taken in to her. She requested Janet to read it aloud. The cup and saucer dropped from her fingers as Janet read. She turned quite white and faint, and for a minute or two was unable to speak. After smelling awhile at her salts she revived, and asked Janet to read the message a second time.

"That good Madgin!" she exclaimed. "What a thing it is to be served faithfully!" Then turning to Janet: "See, child, what can be accomplished by intelligence and perseverance!" she cried. "When Sergeant Nicholas came here and told his story, how hopeless it seemed to expect that my poor boy's Diamond would ever be recovered for me: and yet, behold, it is here, and the wicked are brought to confusion!"

During the whole of that day her ladyship was very much elated, and correspondingly gracious and good-tempered towards Janet. In the afternoon they drove to Tydsbury, and there her ladyship was pleased to buy a set of bog-oak ornaments for Miss Holme: an almost unprecedented piece of liberality on the part of the mistress of Dupley Walls.

Late the same night came a message from Mr. Madgin stating that he should be at Dupley Walls at ten o'clock the following morning.

By that hour next morning her ladyship was up and dressed, ready to receive company. Had Lady Pollexfen been going to a dinner party at Langley Castle she could not have been got up more elaborately than she was on the present occasion. Her choicest coiffure, her stiffest silk, her most ancient lace, her largest diamonds, together with an extra streak of rouge and an extra touch of the powder-puff, had all been employed to dignify and render memorable the approaching ceremonial. Her ladyship was too much excited to partake of breakfast, but when everything was ready she called for a small glass of curaçoa and cream, and then taking Janet's arm, and supported on the other side by her gold-headed malacca, she descended the shallow staircase with slow and stately steps, and reached the great hall just as the clocks were striking ten.