An inquisitive glance she darted furtively at the young people, and I dare say she thought that she saw something unusual in their countenances.
As _they_ did not speak, Miss Sheckleton chatted on unheeded, till, on a sudden, Cleve interposed with--
"There"s an old person--an old lady, I may call her--named Rebecca Mervyn, who lives in the steward"s house, adjoining Malory, for whom I have a very old friendship; she was so kind to me, poor thing, when I was a boy. My grandmother has a very high opinion of her; and _she_ was never very easily pleased. I suppose you have seen Mrs. Mervyn; you"d not easily forget her, if you have. They tell me in the town that she is quite well; the same odd creature she always was, and living still in the steward"s house."
"I know--to be sure--I"ve seen her very often--that is, half-a-dozen times or more--and she _is_ a very odd old woman, like that benevolent enchantress in the "Magic Ring"--don"t you remember? who lived in the castle with white lilies growing all round the battlements," answered Miss Sheckleton.
"I know," said Cleve, who had never read it.
"And if you want to see her, _here_ she is, oddly enough," whispered Miss Sheckleton, as the old woman with whom Sedley had conferred on the sea-beach came round the corner of the boundary wall near the gateway by which they were now standing, in her grey cloak, with dejected steps, and looking, after her wont, seaward toward Pendillion.
"No," said Cleve, getting up a smile as he drew a little back into the shadow; "I"ll not speak to her now; I should have so many questions to answer, I should not get away from her for an hour."
Almost as he spoke the old woman pa.s.sed them, and entered the gate; as she did so, looking hard on the little party, and hesitating for a moment, as if she would have stopped outright. But she went on without any further sign.
"I breathe again," said Cleve; "I was so afraid she would know me again, and insist on a talk."
"Well, perhaps it is better she did not; it might not do, you know, if she mentioned your name, for _reasons_," whispered Miss Sheckleton, who was on a sudden much more intimate with Cleve, much more friendly, much more kind, and somehow pitying.
So he bade good-night. Miss Sheckleton gave him a little friendly pressure as they shook hands at parting. Miss Fanshawe neither gave nor refused her hand. He took it; he held it for a moment--that slender hand, all the world to him, clasped in his own, yet never to be his, lodged like a stranger"s for a moment there--then to go, for ever. The hand was carelessly drawn away; he let it go, and never a word spoke he.
The ladies entered the deep shadow of the trees. He listened to the light steps fainting into silent distance, till he could hear them no more.
Suspense--still suspense.
Those words spoken in her clear undertone--terrible words, that seemed at the moment to thunder in his ears, "loud as a trumpet with a silver sound"--were they, after all, words of despair, or words of hope?
"_One word more of this kind, to-night, you are not to say to me._"
How was he to translate the word "to-night" in this awful text? It seemed, as she spoke it, introduced simply to add peremptoriness to her forbiddance. But was that its fair meaning? Did it not imply that the prohibition was limited only to that night? Might it not mean that he was free to speak more--possibly to hear more--at a future time?
A riddle? Well! he would read it in the way most favourable to his hopes; and who will blame him? He would have no oracles--no ambiguities--nothing but sharply defined certainty.
With an insolent spirit, instinct with an impatience and impetuosity utterly intolerant of the least delay or obstruction, the interval could not be long.
CHAPTER XIX.
CLEVE VERNEY TAKES A BOLD STEP.
WHEN we seek danger he is sometimes--like death--hard to find. Cleve would not have disliked an encounter with Sir Booth Fanshawe; who could tell what might come of such a meeting? It was palpably so much the interest of that ruined gentleman to promote his wishes, that, if he would only command his temper and listen to reason, he had little doubt of enlisting him zealously in his favour. It was his own uncle who always appeared to him the really formidable obstacle.
Therefore, next night, Cleve fearlessly walked down to Malory. It was seven o"clock, and dark. It was a still, soft night. The moon not up yet, and all within the gate, dark as Erebus--silent, also, except for the fall of a dry leaf now and then, rustling sadly through the boughs.
At the gate for a moment he hesitated, and then with a sudden decision, pushed it open, entered, and the darkness received him. A little confused were his thoughts and feelings as he strode through that darkness and silence toward the old house. So dark it was, that to direct his steps, he had to look up for a streak of sky between the nearly meeting branches of the trees.
This trespa.s.s was not a premeditated outrage. It was a sudden inspiration of despair. He had thought of writing to Sir Booth. But to what mischief might not that fierce and impracticable old man apply his overt act? Suppose he were to send his letter on to the Hon. Kiffyn Fulke Verney? In that case Mr. Cleve Verney might moralise with an income of precisely two hundred a year, for the rest of his days, upon the transitory nature of all human greatness. At the next election he would say a compulsory farewell to the House. He owed too much money to remain pleasantly in England, his incensed uncle would be quite certain to marry, and with Cleve Verney--ex-M.P., and quondam man of promise, and presumptive Earl of Verney--_conclamatum foret_.
He had therefore come to the gate of Malory in the hope of some such happy chance as befel the night before. And now disappointed, he broke through all considerations, and was walking in a sort of desperation, right into the lion"s mouth.
He slackened his pace, however, and bethought him. Of course, he could not ask at this hour to see Miss Anne Sheckleton. Should he go and pay a visit to old Rebecca Mervyn? Hour and circ.u.mstances considered, would not that, also, be a liberty and an outrage? What would they think of it? What would _he_ say of it in another fellow"s case? Was he then going at this hour to pay his respects to Sir Booth Fanshawe, whom he had last seen and heard in the thunder and dust of the hustings, hurling language and grammar that were awful, at his head.
Cleve Verney was glad that he had pulled up before he stood upon the door steps; and he felt like an awakened somnambulist.
"I _can"t_ do this. It"s _impossible_. What a brute I am growing,"
thought Cleve, awaking to realities. "There"s nothing for it, I believe, but patience. If I were now to press for an answer, she would say "No;"
and were I to ask admission at the house at this hour, what would she--what would Miss Sheckleton, even, think of me? If I had nerve to go away and forget her, I should be happier--quite happy and quite good-for-nothing, and perfectly at my uncle"s disposal. As it is, I"m _miserable_--a miserable _fool_. Everything against it--even the girl, I believe; and I here--partly in a vision of paradise, partly in the torments of the d.a.m.ned, wasting my life in the dream of an opium-eater, and without power to break from it, and see the world as it is."
He was leaning with folded arms, like the melancholy Jacques against the trunk of a forest tree, as this sad soliloquy glided through his mind, and he heard a measured step approaching slowly from the house.
"This is Sir Booth coming," thought he, with a strange, sardonic gladness. "We shall see what will come of it. Let us hear the old gentleman, by all means."
The step was still distant.
It would have been easy for him to retrace his steps, and to avoid the encounter. But it seemed to him that to stir would have been like moving a mountain, and a sort of cold defiance kept him there, and an unspeakable interest in the story which he was enacting, and a longing to turn over the leaf, and read the next decisive page. So he waited.
His conjecture was right, but the antic.i.p.ated dialogue did not occur.
The tall figure of Sir Booth appeared; some wrappers thrown across his arm. He stalked on and pa.s.sed by Cleve, without observing, or rather, seeing him; for his eye had not grown like Cleve"s accustomed to the darkness.
Cleve stood where he was till the step was lost in silence, and waited for some time longer, and heard Sir Booth"s voice, as he supposed, hailing the boatmen from that solitary sh.o.r.e, and theirs replying, and he thought of the ghostly boat and boatmen that used to scare him in the "Tale of Wonder" beloved in his boyhood. For anything that remains to him in life, for any retrospect but one of remorse, he might as well be one of those phantom boatmen on the haunted lake. By this time he is gliding, in the silence of his secret thoughts, upon the dark sea outside Malory.
"Well!" thought Cleve, with a sudden inspiration, "he will not return for two hours at least. I _will_ go on--no great harm in merely pa.s.sing the house--and we shall see whether anything turns up."
On went Cleve. The approach to the old house is not a very long one. On a sudden, through the boughs, the sight of lighted windows met his eyes, and through the open sash of one of them, he heard faintly the pleasant sound of female prattle.
He drew nearer. He stood upon the esplanade before the steps, under the well-known gray front of the whole house. A shadow crossed the window, and he heard Miss Anne Sheckleton"s merry voice speaking volubly, and then a little silence, of which he availed himself to walk with as distinct a tread as he could manage, at a little distance, in front of the windows, in the hope of exciting the attention of the inmates. He succeeded; for almost at the instant two shadowy ladies, the lights being within the room, and hardly any from without, appeared at the open window; Miss Sheckleton was in front, and Miss Fanshawe with her hand leaning upon her old cousin"s shoulder, looked out also.
Cleve stopped instantly, and approached, raising his hat. This young gentleman was also a mere dark outline, and much less distinct than those he recognised against the cheery light of the drawing-room candles. But I don"t think there was a moment"s doubt about his ident.i.ty. "Here I am, actually detected, trying to glide by unperceived," said Cleve, lying, as Mr. f.a.g says in the play, and coming up quickly to the open window. "You must think me quite mad, or the most impudent person alive; but what am I to do? I can"t leave Ware, without paying old Rebecca--Mrs. Mervyn, you know--a visit. Lady Verney blows me up so awfully about it, and has put it on me as a duty. She thinks there"s no one like old Rebecca; and really poor old Mervyn was always very kind to me when I was a boy. She lives, you know, in the steward"s house. I can"t come up here in daylight. I"m in such a dilemma. I must wait till Sir Booth has gone out in his boat, don"t you see? and so I did; and if I had just got round the corner there, without your observing me, I should have been all right. I"m really quite ashamed. I must look so like a trespa.s.ser--a poacher--everything that is suspicious; but the case, you see, is really so difficult. I"ve told you everything, and I do hope you quite acquit me."
"Oh, yes," said Miss Sheckleton. "We _must_, you know. It"s like a piece of a Spanish comedy; but what"s to be done? You must have been very near meeting. Booth has only just gone down to the boat."
"We did meet--that is, he actually pa.s.sed me by, but without seeing me.
I heard him coming, and just stood, taking my chance; it was very dark you know."
"Well, I forgive you," said Miss Sheckleton. "I must, you know; but the dogs won"t. You hear them in the yard. What good dear creatures they are; and when they hear us talking to you, they"ll grow quite quiet, and understand that all is well, they are _so_ intelligent. And there"s the boat; look, Margaret, through _that_ opening, you can just see it. When the moon gets up, it looks so pretty. I suppose it"s my bad taste, but those clumsy fishing boats seem to me so much more picturesque than your natty yachts, though, of course, _they_ are very nice in their way. Do you hear how _furious_ you have made our great dog, poor old Neptune! He looks upon us, Margaret and I, as in his special charge; but it does not do, making such an uproar."
I fancy she was thinking of Sir Booth, for she glanced toward the boat; and perhaps the kind old lady was thinking of somebody else, also.
"I"ll just run to the back window, and quiet him. I shan"t be away a moment, Margaret, dear."
And away went Miss Sheckleton, shutting the door. Miss Fanshawe had not said a word, but remained at the window looking out. You might have thought his being there, or not, a matter of entire indifference to her.
She had not said a word. She looked toward the point at which the rising splendour of the moon was already visible over the distant hills.
"Did you miss anything--I"m sure you did--yesterday? I found a pin at the jetty of Penruthyn. It is so pretty, I"ve been ever so much tempted to keep it; so very pretty, that somehow, I think it could not have belonged to any one but to you."
And he took the trinket from his waistcoat pocket.