"I have been my own bitterest enemy, I fear. If I had been less insolent, less arrogant and sneering," with a dark look of hatred up at the sky, "I might have been the heir of Seven Oak Waaste at this present moment, instead--of where I am."
Margaret looked at him in a sort of horrified fascination. That he was carried out of himself and spoke of the dead, she was dimly conscious; that the malevolent power which brought him here as a suitor, might also make him master, became to her dimly conscious too. She trembled before the depths of a hideous possibility.
"But about this letter," said Colonel Brand, coming again out of his fog, and smoothing the ugly seams out of his face. "I do not feel inclined to leave the subject until I have set myself in at least a more tolerable light before your eyes."
He pulled his handkerchief with a flourish out of his pocket, to flick a cobweb off Margaret"s sleeve, which she had brushed from a bush twenty minutes since, and as he did so, a small note-book fell to the ground.
Why had he not brushed the cobweb off before?
"I am sure that you will acknowledge that under the circ.u.mstances,"--here he stopped to pick up the note-book--"disappointment might drive me to say anything,"--he idly leafed over the book as if searching for something--"and I was really so astonished at my grandmother"s will that surprise seemed to take away my senses. The idea of insinuating that you had stepped in fraudulently, and been the parasite which chocked her! And that allusion to Paolo Orsini strangling his wife--upon my honor as a gentleman, I humbly beg your pardon! Ah, that is what I was looking for, the autograph of General McClellan. Can you read characters by writing, or do you care to examine it, Miss Walsingham?"
She took the book from him at arm"s length, and looked silently at the name.
"The General wrote that in my memorandum-book as a pa.s.sword on one occasion when I was on a secret emba.s.sy. The rough scrawl has often saved my life since."
Margaret shut the memorandum-book, looked carefully at each cover, and handed it back.
"_Trap the first has failed!_" she thought. "He is too clever for me.
But, you wretch, I am not daunted yet. A green morocco cover with silver clasps, and the Brand crest in gilt. Yes I shall know it again, and some time I shall find out why you dropped it among the withered leaves, if woman"s wit can match man"s cunning."
"I can read characters very well sometimes," she replied to the watchful colonels last remark, "but not by their writing."
They were nearing the house, and Margaret turned aside from the main entrance to a gla.s.s door in the next wing.
"Now for _trap the second_."
"I am going into the library for a book," she said; "that is if the gla.s.s door is open."
Colonel Brand stepped gallantly to the door by which the heir-expectant had stood during the reading of the will, and shook it.
"Locked," he announced, smilingly.
"You ought to be master of the secret of that lock," returned Margaret, also smiling, but chilly as an Arctic glacier, "for if the legends of the place be not overdrawn, this suit of rooms was devoted exclusively to St. Udo Brand when a boy, and the gla.s.s entrance was used by him instead of the princ.i.p.al door. It is extraordinary that St. Udo when a man should have forgotten so completely the incidents of his childhood."
"I am ashamed of my stupidity in keeping a lady waiting so long in the cold wind," said the colonel, standing with his face to the door, "but before I spoke, I had remarked that the old lock of my childish memory had been removed, and some patent arrangement put in its place which resists my clumsy efforts.
"It is the same arrangement," retorted Margaret, with glittering eyes, "that has been upon the door for thirty years. Mrs. Brand said so, and Mr. Davenport can vouch for it. This is a strange mistake of yours, Colonel Brand!"
Again these spots appeared on the Colonel"s livid face, like finger-marks of the devil, and he stole a look of mingled fear and fury at his tormentor. Not trusting himself to speak he shook the door savagely.
"Still wrong," said Margaret, mercilessly. "Past experience ought to have taught you that shaking it only sends the bolts surer home. See."
She pressed the spring of the disputed lock, and the gla.s.s leaves slid open.
"_Trap the second successful._"
"Now," she said, turning within the room, and looking down on him with her pallid and scornful face, "I have a fancy to know how far this aberration of mind exists with you. Will you permit me to amuse myself with an experiment? Will you let me stand here while you stand without, and describe to me the scene which pa.s.sed upon the occasion of our first meeting in this room?"
She put a hand upon each leaf of the door, and formed of herself a barrier; as if her woman"s strength could shut him out of Castle Brand, and her gray eyes glowed with a new and fierce emotion which her simple heart had never known of before this man came home to his own.
"Madam," said the colonel, gnawing the head of his cane, like a dog at the end of his chain, "It is not all astonishing that I should have forgotten the peculiarities of an old gla.s.s door, even though I often used it in my boyhood; other and graver memories might easily displace such trivialities and I never professed to cherish the old a.s.sociations of Castle Brand with much reverence. But the scene of our first meeting can never escape my recollection. It is cruel of you to recall the most abject moment of my life, but since you insist upon it, I cannot choose but obey.
"You came out of the shadow of St. George, after the reading of the will by Davenport, and at the polite little doctor"s introduction, I was ungallant enough to indulge in unseemly laughter, and to exclaim: "Ye G.o.ds! What a Medusa!" at which--shall I ever forget your superb indignation!--you gathered your skirts and swept like a queen from the room. My dear madam, do I describe the scene accurately? It is not every woman who would have had the nerve to call up such a scene as that from the vast depths of memory; I must perforce admire your courage and--shall I say? your incredulity!"
He bowed sardonically. The ugly seams, so suggestive of crime and cunning, had come back upon his brow, and he doffed his hat; the twitching face bore a smile of triumph, which revealed how sure he felt of victory.
"_Trap the third has signally failed_," thought Margaret; "this part at least of St. Udo"s history has been well studied. Ah, he will be too clever for me!"
She dropped her hands from the leaves of the door and stood aside, while a slight increase of palor stole up to her face.
"You have satisfied me, Colonel Brand. Come in if you please."
He silently entered, and with one accord, these two people, who were tacitly drawing together their forces for a deadly conflict, turned and eyed each other; she with stern-unflinching defiance; he with a quailing, yet impudent look of confident success.
In that dumb scrutiny, they seemed to be measuring each other"s capabilities.
"Miss Walsingham?" said the colonel, after this strange pause, "I can see that you have taken a deep animosity against me, probably because of my treatment of my grandmother"s will; we shall suppose it is. Now, my dear young lady, I shall try to explain myself and to set myself right with you, so that in the future we may perfectly understand each other.
I have come back to my native land determined to obey, if possible, that part of the will which refers to me--determined to try my best to win Miss Walsingham"s regard--determined to make it no fault of mine if the name of Brand is forgotten. Knowing these three things to be my set purposes, are you willing to forgive generously what the meaner-minded of your s.e.x could not forgive, and to drop the past between us? Are you willing that we should be friends?"
With his head on one side, and his eyes watchfully taking note of his listener"s face, he bent forward with a certain vailed significance and clasped her hand.
"Away!" cried Margaret, shaking him off as she would have shaken off a reptile, and regarding him in a perfect pa.s.sion of horror, "do you dare to expect that I could enter into a compact with _you_?"
Something crept into his eyes which made her shudder.
"I have asked you to forgive my former insults, and you have refused,"
he said; "but remember, I asked you to enter into no compact with me.
All the world is at liberty to know that St. Udo Brand repented of his foolishness, and came home to carry out his grandmother"s will. If the world believes anything else of me, I shall know that Margaret Walsingham not only refused to be my friend, but cast off all obligations to the dead and became my enemy. The Brands of Brand Castle have ever been famous for their ferocity. I shall be sorry if a woman should fall a prey to it."
"I will never wrong St. Udo Brand," said the meek woman, suddenly withstanding him with blazing eyes, "but I will guard Ethel Brand"s dying wishes from being fraudulently represented, whoever dares to fraudulently represent them."
"And I, deeply impressed with the conviction that Seven-Oak Waaste will fall ultimately into the possession of its rightful heir--that is myself--intend to permit no fair lady"s frown to turn me from my ancestor"s doors."
Again they gazed at each other--deeper horror and pa.s.sionate determination in her eyes, darker folds of sin and cunning on his brow, while a smile played round his wicked mouth, fatal as the blasting lightning.
"You shall have to weather the frowns of more than me before you are master of this castle," said Margaret.
"Is that a declaration of war?"
He tried in his wrath and apprehension to catch her hand again, but she slid with a gasp out of his reach and pa.s.sed through the door.
"You ask if I have made a declaration of war," said Margaret, turning when the length of the hall was between them; "and I am not afraid to say--yes. If there be a hidden page in your life which you would keep from me, tremble for your chances of Brand Castle."
She vanished from his gaze, and the fitful wind swept from door to door of the library with the howl of a hundred furies.
Mrs. Chetwode, who was busy in the gla.s.s pantry which faced the library, thought to herself that she had never seen such an evil looking face as that which looked out of the half-closed door for full five minutes.
The eyes became small and crafty; the forehead receded and narrowed to a Mongolian size; the mouth drooped with a fang-like ferocity; infinitesimal wrinkles, not often seen there, dawned into view like the folds of the deadly cobra before its spring.