"No, not a single one."
"Ah, that"s a pity."
"Yes, that"s what I say. "Tis jest the house for a nice ghastly hair-on-end story, that would make the parish religious. Perhaps it will have one some day to make it complete; but there"s not a word of the kind now. There, I wouldn"t live there for all that. In fact, I couldn"t. O no, I couldn"t."
"Why couldn"t you?"
"The sounds."
"What are they?"
"One is the waterfall, which stands so close by that you can hear that there waterfall in every room of the house, night or day, ill or well.
"Tis enough to drive anybody mad: now hark."
He stopped the horse. Above the slight common sounds in the air came the unvarying steady rush of falling water from some spot unseen on account of the thick foliage of the grove.
"There"s something awful in the timing o" that sound, ain"t there, miss?"
"When you say there is, there really seems to be. You said there were two--what is the other horrid sound?"
"The pumping-engine. That"s close by the Old House, and sends water up the hill and all over the Great House. We shall hear that directly....
There, now hark again."
From the same direction down the dell they could now hear the whistling creak of cranks, repeated at intervals of half-a-minute, with a sousing noise between each: a creak, a souse, then another creak, and so on continually.
"Now if anybody could make shift to live through the other sounds, these would finish him off, don"t you think so, miss? That machine goes on night and day, summer and winter, and is hardly ever greased or visited.
Ah, it tries the nerves at night, especially if you are not very well; though we don"t often hear it at the Great House."
"That sound is certainly very dismal. They might have the wheel greased.
Does Miss Aldclyffe take any interest in these things?"
"Well, scarcely; you see her father doesn"t attend to that sort of thing as he used to. The engine was once quite his hobby. But now he"s getten old and very seldom goes there."
"How many are there in family?"
"Only her father and herself. He"s a" old man of seventy."
"I had thought that Miss Aldclyffe was sole mistress of the property, and lived here alone."
"No, m--" The coachman was continually checking himself thus, being about to style her miss involuntarily, and then recollecting that he was only speaking to the new lady"s-maid.
"She will soon be mistress, however, I am afraid," he continued, as if speaking by a spirit of prophecy denied to ordinary humanity. "The poor old gentleman has decayed very fast lately." The man then drew a long breath.
"Why did you breathe sadly like that?" said Cytherea.
"Ah!... When he"s dead peace will be all over with us old servants. I expect to see the old house turned inside out."
"She will marry, do you mean?"
"Marry--not she! I wish she would. No, in her soul she"s as solitary as Robinson Crusoe, though she has acquaintances in plenty, if not relations. There"s the rector, Mr. Raunham--he"s a relation by marriage--yet she"s quite distant towards him. And people say that if she keeps single there will be hardly a life between Mr. Raunham and the heirship of the estate. Dang it, she don"t care. She"s an extraordinary picture of womankind--very extraordinary."
"In what way besides?"
"You"ll know soon enough, miss. She has had seven lady"s-maids this last twelvemonth. I a.s.sure you "tis one body"s work to fetch "em from the station and take "em back again. The Lord must be a neglectful party at heart, or he"d never permit such overbearen goings on!"
"Does she dismiss them directly they come!"
"Not at all--she never dismisses them--they go theirselves. Ye see "tis like this. She"s got a very quick temper; she flees in a pa.s.sion with them for nothing at all; next mornen they come up and say they are going; she"s sorry for it and wishes they"d stay, but she"s as proud as a lucifer, and her pride won"t let her say, "Stay," and away they go.
"Tis like this in fact. If you say to her about anybody, "Ah, poor thing!" she says, "Pooh! indeed!" If you say, "Pooh, indeed!" "Ah, poor thing!" she says directly. She hangs the chief baker, as mid be, and restores the chief butler, as mid be, though the devil but Pharaoh herself can see the difference between "em."
Cytherea was silent. She feared she might be again a burden to her brother.
"However, you stand a very good chance," the man went on, "for I think she likes you more than common. I have never known her send the pony-carriage to meet one before; "tis always the trap, but this time she said, in a very particular ladylike tone, "Roobert, gaow with the pony-kerriage."... There, "tis true, pony and carriage too are getten rather shabby now," he added, looking round upon the vehicle as if to keep Cytherea"s pride within reasonable limits.
""Tis to be hoped you"ll please in dressen her to-night."
"Why to-night?"
"There"s a dinner-party of seventeen; "tis her father"s birthday, and she"s very particular about her looks at such times. Now see; this is the house. Livelier up here, isn"t it, miss?"
They were now on rising ground, and had just emerged from a clump of trees. Still a little higher than where they stood was situated the mansion, called Knapwater House, the offices gradually losing themselves among the trees behind.
2. EVENING
The house was regularly and substantially built of clean grey freestone throughout, in that plainer fashion of Greek cla.s.sicism which prevailed at the latter end of the last century, when the copyists called designers had grown weary of fantastic variations in the Roman orders.
The main block approximated to a square on the ground plan, having a projection in the centre of each side, surmounted by a pediment. From each angle of the inferior side ran a line of buildings lower than the rest, turning inwards again at their further end, and forming within them a s.p.a.cious open court, within which resounded an echo of astonishing clearness. These erections were in their turn backed by ivy-covered ice-houses, laundries, and stables, the whole ma.s.s of subsidiary buildings being half buried beneath close-set shrubs and trees.
There was opening sufficient through the foliage on the right hand to enable her on nearer approach to form an idea of the arrangement of the remoter or lawn front also. The natural features and contour of this quarter of the site had evidently dictated the position of the house primarily, and were of the ordinary, and upon the whole, most satisfactory kind, namely, a broad, graceful slope running from the terrace beneath the walls to the margin of a placid lake lying below, upon the surface of which a dozen swans and a green punt floated at leisure. An irregular wooded island stood in the midst of the lake; beyond this and the further margin of the water were plantations and greensward of varied outlines, the trees heightening, by half veiling, the softness of the exquisite landscape stretching behind.
The glimpses she had obtained of this portion were now checked by the angle of the building. In a minute or two they reached the side door, at which Cytherea alighted. She was welcomed by an elderly woman of lengthy smiles and general pleasantness, who announced herself to be Mrs.
Morris, the housekeeper.
"Mrs. Graye, I believe?" she said.
"I am not--O yes, yes, we are all mistresses," said Cytherea, smiling, but forcedly. The t.i.tle accorded her seemed disagreeably like the first slight scar of a brand, and she thought of Owen"s prophecy.
Mrs. Morris led her into a comfortable parlour called The Room. Here tea was made ready, and Cytherea sat down, looking, whenever occasion allowed, at Mrs. Morris with great interest and curiosity, to discover, if possible, something in her which should give a clue to the secret of her knowledge of herself, and the recommendation based upon it.
But nothing was to be learnt, at any rate just then. Mrs. Morris was perpetually getting up, feeling in her pockets, going to cupboards, leaving the room two or three minutes, and trotting back again.
"You"ll excuse me, Mrs. Graye," she said, "but "tis the old gentleman"s birthday, and they always have a lot of people to dinner on that day, though he"s getting up in years now. However, none of them are sleepers--she generally keeps the house pretty clear of lodgers (being a lady with no intimate friends, though many acquaintances), which, though it gives us less to do, makes it all the duller for the younger maids in the house." Mrs. Morris then proceeded to give in fragmentary speeches an outline of the const.i.tution and government of the estate.
"Now, are you sure you have quite done tea? Not a bit or drop more? Why, you"ve eaten nothing, I"m sure.... Well, now, it is rather inconvenient that the other maid is not here to show you the ways of the house a little, but she left last Sat.u.r.day, and Miss Aldclyffe has been making shift with poor old clumsy me for a maid all yesterday and this morning.
She is not come in yet. I expect she will ask for you, Mrs. Graye, the first thing.... I was going to say that if you have really done tea, I will take you upstairs, and show you through the wardrobes--Miss Aldclyffe"s things are not laid out for to-night yet."
She preceded Cytherea upstairs, pointed out her own room, and then took her into Miss Aldclyffe"s dressing-room, on the first-floor; where, after explaining the whereabouts of various articles of apparel, the housekeeper left her, telling her that she had an hour yet upon her hands before dressing-time. Cytherea laid out upon the bed in the next room all that she had been told would be required that evening, and then went again to the little room which had been appropriated to herself.
Here she sat down by the open window, leant out upon the sill like another Blessed Damozel, and listlessly looked down upon the brilliant pattern of colours formed by the flower-beds on the lawn--now richly crowded with late summer blossom. But the vivacity of spirit which had hitherto enlivened her, was fast ebbing under the pressure of prosaic realities, and the warm scarlet of the geraniums, glowing most conspicuously, and mingling with the vivid cold red and green of the verbenas, the rich depth of the dahlia, and the ripe mellowness of the calceolaria, backed by the pale hue of a flock of meek sheep feeding in the open park, close to the other side of the fence, were, to a great extent, lost upon her eyes. She was thinking that nothing seemed worth while; that it was possible she might die in a workhouse; and what did it matter? The petty, vulgar details of servitude that she had just pa.s.sed through, her dependence upon the whims of a strange woman, the necessity of quenching all individuality of character in herself, and relinquishing her own peculiar tastes to help on the wheel of this alien establishment, made her sick and sad, and she almost longed to pursue some free, out-of-doors employment, sleep under trees or a hut, and know no enemy but winter and cold weather, like shepherds and cowkeepers, and birds and animals--ay, like the sheep she saw there under her window.
She looked sympathizingly at them for several minutes, imagining their enjoyment of the rich gra.s.s.