The Hand of Ethelberta Read Online

. . .  Why, what mighty ekkypage is this, come to town at such a purblinking time of day?’

‘’Tis what time only can tell—though ’twill not be long first,’ the hostler replied, as the driver of the pair of horses and carriage containing Sol and Mountclere slackened pace, and drew rein before the inn.

Fresh horses were immediately called for, and while they were being put in the two travellers walked up and down.

‘It is now a quarter to seven o’clock,’ said Mountclere; ‘and the question arises, shall I go on to Knollsea, or branch off at Corvsgate Castle for Enckworth?  I think the best plan will be to drive first to Enckworth, set me down, and then get him to take you on at once to Knollsea.  What do you say?’

‘When shall I reach Knollsea by that arrangement?’

‘By half-past eight o’clock.  We shall be at Enckworth before eight, which is excellent time.’

‘Very well, sir, I agree to that,’ said Sol, feeling that as soon as one of the two birds had been caught, the other could not mate without their knowledge.

The carriage and horses being again ready, away they drove at once, both having by this time grown too restless to spend in Anglebury a minute more than was necessary.

The hostler and his lad had taken the jaded Sandbourne horses to the stable, rubbed them down, and fed them, when another noise was heard outside the yard; the omnibus had returned from meeting the train.  Relinquishing the horses to the small stable-lad, the old hostler again looked out from the arch.

A young man had stepped from the omnibus, and he came forward.  ‘I want a conveyance of some sort to take me to Knollsea, at once.  Can you get a horse harnessed in five minutes?’

‘I’ll make shift to do what I can master, not promising about the minutes.  The truest man can say no more.  Won’t ye step into the bar, sir, and give your order?  I’ll let ye know as soon as ’tis ready.’

Christopher turned into a room smelling strongly of the night before, and stood by the newly-kindled fire to wait.  He had just come in haste from Melchester.  The upshot of his excitement about the wedding, which, as the possible hour of its solemnization drew near, had increased till it bore him on like a wind, was this unpremeditated journey.  Lying awake the previous night, the hangings of his bed pulsing to every beat of his heart, he decided that there was one last and great service which it behoved him, as an honest man and friend, to say nothing of lover, to render to Ethelberta at this juncture.  It was to ask her by some means whether or not she had engaged with open eyes to marry Lord Mountclere; and if not, to give her a word or two of enlightenment.  That done, she might be left to take care of herself.

His plan was to obtain an interview with Picotee, and learn from her accurately the state of things.  Should he, by any possibility, be mistaken in his belief as to the contracting parties, a knowledge of the mistake would be cheaply purchased by the journey.  Should he not, he would send up to Ethelberta the strong note of expostulation which was already written, and waiting in his pocket.  To intrude upon her at such a time was unseemly; and to despatch a letter by a messenger before evidence of its necessity had been received was most undesirable.  The whole proceeding at best was clumsy; yet earnestness is mostly clumsy; and how could he let the event pass without a protest?  Before daylight on that autumn morning he had risen, told Faith of his intention, and started off.

As soon as the vehicle was ready, Christopher hastened to the door and stepped up.  The little stable-boy led the horse a few paces on the way before relinquishing his hold; at the same moment a respectably dressed man on foot, with a small black bag in his hand, came up from the opposite direction, along the street leading from the railway.  He was a thin, elderly man, with grey hair; that a great anxiety pervaded him was as plainly visible as were his features.  Without entering the inn, he came up at once to old John.

‘Have you anything going to Knollsea this morning that I can get a lift in?’ said the pedestrian—no other than Ethelberta’s father.

‘Nothing empty, that I know of.’

‘Or carrier?’

‘No.’

‘A matter of fifteen shillings, then, I suppose?’

‘Yes—no doubt.  But yond there’s a young man just now starting; he might not take it ill if ye were to ask him for a seat, and go halves in the hire of the trap.  Shall I call out?’

‘Ah, do.’

The hostler bawled to the stable-boy, who put the question to Christopher.  There was room for two in the dogcart, and Julian had no objection to save the shillings of a fellow-traveller who was evidently not rich.  When Chickerel mounted to his seat, Christopher paused to look at him as we pause in some enactment that seems to have been already before us in a dream long ago.  Ethelberta’s face was there, as the landscape is in the map, the romance in the history, the aim in the deed: denuded, rayless, and sorry, but discernible.

For the moment, however, this did not occur to Julian.  He took the whip, the boy loosed his hold upon the horse, and they proceeded on their way.

‘What slap-dash jinks may there be going on at Knollsea, then, my sonny?’ said the hostler to the lad, as the dogcart and the backs of the two men diminished on the road.  ‘You be a Knollsea boy: have anything reached your young ears about what’s in the wind there, David Straw?’

‘No, nothing: except that ’tis going to be Christmas day in five weeks: and then a hide-bound bull is going to be killed if he don’t die afore the time, and gi’ed away by my lord in three-pound junks, as a reward to good people who never curse and sing bad songs, except when they be drunk; mother says perhaps she will have some, and ’tis excellent if well stewed, mother says.’

‘A very fair chronicle for a boy to give, but not what I asked for.  When you try to answer a old man’s question, always bear in mind what it was that old man asked.  A hide-bound bull is good when well stewed, I make no doubt—for they who like it; but that’s not it.  What I said was, do you know why three fokes, a rich man, a middling man, and a poor man, should want horses for Knollsea afore seven o’clock in the morning on a blinking day in Fall, when everything is as wet as a dishclout, whereas that’s more than often happens in fine summer weather?’

‘No—I don’t know, John hostler.’

‘Then go home and tell your mother that ye be no wide-awake boy, and that old John, who went to school with her father afore she was born or thought o’, says so. . . .  Chok’ it all, why should I think there’s sommat going on at Knollsea?  Honest travelling have been so rascally abused since I was a boy in pinners, by tribes of nobodies tearing from one end of the country to t’other, to see the sun go down in salt water, or the moon play jack-lantern behind some rotten tower or other, that, upon my song, when life and death’s in the wind there’s no telling the difference!’

‘I like their sixpences ever so much.’

‘Young sonny, don’t you answer up to me when you baint in the story—stopping my words in that fashion.  I won’t have it, David.  Now up in the tallet with ye, there’s a good boy, and down with another lock or two of hay—as fast as you can do it for me.’

The boy vanished under the archway, and the hostler followed at his heels.  Meanwhile the carriage bearing Mr. Mountclere and Sol was speeding on its way to Enckworth.  When they reached the spot at which the road forked into two, they left the Knollsea route, and keeping thence under the hills for the distance of five or six miles, drove into Lord Mountclere’s park.  In ten minutes the house was before them, framed in by dripping trees.

Mountclere jumped out, and entered without ceremony.  Sol, being anxious to know if Lord Mountclere was there, ordered the coachman to wait a few moments.  It was now nearly eight o’clock, and the smoke which ascended from the newly-lit fires of the Court painted soft blue tints upon the brown and golden leaves of lofty boughs adjoining.

‘O, Ethelberta!’ said Sol, as he regarded the fair prospect.

The gravel of the drive had been washed clean and smooth by the night’s rain, but there were fresh wheelmarks other than their own upon the track.  Yet the mansion seemed scarcely awake, and stillness reigned everywhere around.

Not more than three or four minutes had passed when the door was opened for Mountclere, and he came hastily from the doorsteps.

‘I must go on with you,’ he said, getting into the vehicle.  ‘He’s gone.’

‘Where—to Knollsea?’ said Sol.

‘Yes,’ said Mountclere.  ‘Now, go ahead to Knollsea!’ he shouted to the man.  ‘To think I should be fooled like this!  I had no idea that he would be leaving so soon!  We might perhaps have been here an hour earlier by hard striving.  But who was to dream that he would arrange to leave it at such an unearthly time of the morning at this dark season of the year?  Drive—drive!’ he called again out of the window, and the pace was increased.

‘I have come two or three miles out of my way on account of you,’ said Sol sullenly.  ‘And all this time lost.  I don’t see why you wanted to come here at all.  I knew it would be a waste of time.’

‘Damn it all, man,’ said Mountclere; ‘it is no use for you to be angry with me!’

‘I think it is, for ’tis you have brought me into this muddle,’ said Sol, in no sweeter tone.  ‘Ha, ha!  Upon my life I should be inclined to laugh, if I were not so much inclined to do the other thing, at Berta’s trick of trying to make close family allies of such a cantankerous pair as you and I!  So much of one mind as we be, so alike in our ways of living, so close connected in our callings and principles, so matched in manners and customs! ’twould be a thousand pities to part us—hey, Mr. Mountclere!’

Mountclere faintly laughed with the same hideous merriment at the same idea, and then both remained in a withering silence, meant to express the utter contempt of each for the other, both in family and in person.  They passed the Lodge, and again swept into the highroad.

‘Drive on!’ said Mountclere, putting his head again out of the window, and shouting to the man.  ‘Drive like the devil!’ he roared again a few minutes afterwards, in fuming dissatisfaction with their rate of progress.

‘Baint I doing of it?’ said the driver, turning angrily round.  ‘I ain’t going to ruin my governor’s horses for strangers who won’t pay double for ’em—not I.  I am driving as fast as I can.  If other folks get in the way with their traps I suppose I must drive round ’em, sir?’

There was a slight crash.

‘There!’ continued the coachman.  ‘That’s what comes of my turning round!’

Sol looked out on the other side, and found that the forewheel of their carriage had become locked in the wheel of a dogcart they had overtaken, the road here being very narrow.  Their coachman, who knew he was to blame for this mishap, felt the advantage of taking time by the forelock in a case of accusation, and began swearing at his victim as if he were the sinner.  Sol jumped out, and looking up at the occupants of the other conveyance, saw against the sky the back elevation of his father and Christopher Julian, sitting upon a little seat which they overhung, like two big puddings upon a small dish.

‘Father—what, you going?’ said Sol.  ‘Is it about Berta that you’ve come?’

‘Yes, I got your letter,’ said Chickerel, ‘and I felt I should like to come—that I ought to come, to save her from what she’ll regret.  Luckily, this gentleman, a stranger to me, has given me a lift from Anglebury, or I must have hired.’  He pointed to Christopher.

‘But he’s Mr. Julian!’ said Sol.

‘You are Mrs. Petherwin’s father?—I have travelled in your company without knowing it!’ exclaimed Christopher, feeling and looking both astonished and puzzled.  At first, it had appeared to him that, in direct antagonism to his own purpose, her friends were favouring Ethelberta’s wedding; but it was evidently otherwise.

‘Yes, that’s father,’ said Sol.  ‘Father, this is Mr. Julian.  Mr. Julian, this gentleman here is Lord Mountclere’s brother—and, to cut the story short, we all wish to stop the wedding.’

‘Then let us get on, in Heaven’s name!’ said Mountclere.  ‘You are the lady’s father?’

‘I am,’ said Chickerel.

‘Then you had better come into this carriage.  We shall go faster than the dogcart.  Now, driver, are the wheels right again?’

Chickerel hastily entered with Mountclere, Sol joined them, and they sped on.  Christopher drove close in their rear, not quite certain whether he did well in going further, now that there were plenty of people to attend to the business, but anxious to see the end.  The other three sat in silence, with their eyes upon their knees, though the clouds were dispersing, and the morning grew bright.  In about twenty minutes the square unembattled tower of Knollsea Church appeared below them in the vale, its summit just touching the distant line of sea upon sky.  The element by which they had been victimized on the previous evening now smiled falsely to the low morning sun.

They descended the road to the village at a little more mannerly pace than that of the earlier journey, and saw the rays glance upon the hands of the church clock, which marked five-and-twenty minutes to nine.

45. KNOLLSEA—THE ROAD THENCE—ENCKWORTH

All eyes were directed to the church-gate, as the travellers descended the hill.  No wedding carriages were there, no favours, no slatternly group of women brimming with interest, no aged pauper on two sticks, who comes because he has nothing else to do till dying time, no nameless female passing by on the other side with a laugh of indifference, no ringers taking off their coats as they vanish up a turret, no hobbledehoys on tiptoe outside the chancel windows—in short, none whatever of the customary accessories of a country wedding was anywhere visible.

‘Thank God!’ said Chickerel.

‘Wait till you know he deserves it,’ said Mountclere.

‘Nothing’s done yet between them.’

‘It is not likely that anything is done at this time of day.  But I have decided to go to the church first.  You will probably go to your relative’s house at once?’

Sol looked to his father for a reply.

‘No, I too shall go to the church first, just to assure myself,’ said Chickerel.  ‘I shall then go on to Mrs Petherwin’s.’

The carriage was stopped at the corner of a steep incline leading down to the edifice.  Mountclere and Chickerel alighted and walked on towards the gates, Sol remaining in his place.  Christopher was some way off, descending the hill on foot, having halted to leave his horse and trap at a small inn at the entrance to the village.

When Chickerel and Mountclere reached the churchyard gate they found it slightly open.  The church-door beyond it was also open, but nobody was near the spot.

‘We have arrived not a minute too soon, however,’ said Mountclere.  ‘Preparations have apparently begun.  It was to be an early wedding, no doubt.’

Entering the building, they looked around; it was quite empty.  Chickerel turned towards the chancel, his eye being attracted by a red kneeling-cushion, placed at about the middle of the altar-railing, as if for early use.  Mountclere strode to the vestry, somewhat at a loss how to proceed in his difficult task of unearthing his brother, obtaining a private interview with him, and then, by the introduction of Sol and Chickerel, causing a general convulsion.

‘Ha! here’s somebody,’ he said, observing a man in the vestry.  He advanced with the intention of asking where Lord Mountclere was to be found.  Chickerel came forward in the same direction.

‘Are you the parish clerk?’ said Mountclere to the man, who was dressed up in his best clothes.

‘I hev the honour of that calling,’ the man replied.

Two large books were lying before him on the vestry table, one of them being open.  As the clerk spoke he looked slantingly on the page, as a person might do to discover if some writing were dry.  Mountclere and Chickerel gazed on the same page.  The book was the marriage-register.

‘Too late!’ said Chickerel.

There plainly enough stood the signatures of Lord Mountclere and Ethelberta.  The viscount’s was very black, and had not yet dried.  Her strokes were firm, and comparatively thick for a woman’s, though paled by juxtaposition with her husband’s muddled characters.  In the space for witnesses’ names appeared in trembling lines as fine as silk the autograph of Picotee, the second name being that of a stranger, probably the clerk.

‘Yes, yes—we are too late, it seems,’ said Mountclere coolly.  ‘Who could have thought they’d marry at eight!’

Chickerel stood like a man baked hard and dry.  Further than his first two words he could say nothing.

‘They must have set about it early, upon my soul,’ Mountclere continued.  ‘When did the wedding take place?’ he asked of the clerk sharply.

‘It was over about five minutes before you came in,’ replied that luminary pleasantly, as he played at an invisible game of pitch-and-toss with some half-sovereigns in his pocket.  ‘I received orders to have the church ready at five minutes to eight this morning, though I knew nothing about such a thing till bedtime last night.  It was very private and plain, not that I should mind another such a one, sir;’ and he secretly pitched and tossed again.

Meanwhile Sol had found himself too restless to sit waiting in the carriage for more than a minute after the other two had left it.  He stepped out at the same instant that Christopher came past, and together they too went on to the church.

‘Father, ought we not to go on at once to Ethelberta’s, instead of waiting?’ said Sol, on reaching the vestry, still in ignorance.  ‘’Twas no use in coming here.’

‘No use at all,’ said Chickerel, as if he had straw in his throat.  ‘Look at this.  I would almost sooner have had it that in leaving this church I came from her grave—well, no, perhaps not that, but I fear it is a bad thing.’

Sol then saw the names in the register, Christopher saw them, and the man closed the book.  Christopher could not well command himself, and he retired.

‘I knew it.  I always said that pride would lead Berta to marry an unworthy man, and so it has!’ said Sol bitterly.  ‘What shall we do now?  I’ll see her.’

‘Do no such thing, young man,’ said Mountclere.  ‘The best course is to leave matters alone.  They are married.  If you are wise, you will try to think the match a good one, and be content to let her keep her position without inconveniencing her by your intrusions or complaints.  It is possible that the satisfaction of her ambition will help her to endure any few surprises to her propriety that may occur.  She is a clever young woman, and has played her cards adroitly.  I only hope she may never repent of the game!  A-hem.  Good morning.’  Saying this, Mountclere slightly bowed to his relations, and marched out of the church with dignity; but it was told afterwards by the coachman, who had no love for Mountclere, that when he stepped into the fly, and was as he believed unobserved, he was quite overcome with fatuous rage, his lips frothing like a mug of hot ale.

‘What an impertinent gentleman ’tis,’ said Chickerel.  ‘As if we had tried for her to marry his brother!’

‘He knows better than that,’ said Sol.  ‘But he’ll never believe that Berta didn’t lay a trap for the old fellow.  He thinks at this moment that Lord Mountclere has never been told of us and our belongings.’

‘I wonder if she has deceived him in anything,’ murmured Chickerel.  ‘I can hardly suppose it.  But she is altogether beyond me.  However, if she has misled him on any point she will suffer for it.’

‘You need not fear that, father.  It isn’t her way of working.  Why couldn’t she have known that when a title is to be had for the asking, the owner must be a shocking one indeed?’

‘The title is well enough.  Any poor scrubs in our place must be fools not to think the match a very rare and astonishing honour, as far as the position goes.  But that my brave girl will be miserable is a part of the honour I can’t stomach so well.  If he had been any other lord in the kingdom, we might have been merry indeed.  I believe he will ruin her happiness—yes, I do—not by any personal snubbing or rough conduct, but by other things, causing her to be despised; and that is a thing she can’t endure.’

‘She’s not to be despised without a deal of trouble—we must remember that.  And if he insults her by introducing new favourites, as they say he did his first wife, I’ll call upon him and ask his meaning, and take her away.’

‘Nonsense—we shall never know what he does, or how she feels; she will never let out a word.  However unhappy she may be, she will always deny it—that’s the unfortunate part of such marriages.’

‘An old chap like that ought to leave young women alone, damn him!’

The clerk came nearer.  ‘I am afraid I cannot allow bad words to be spoke in this sacred pile,’ he said.  ‘As far as my personal self goes, I should have no objection to your cussing as much as you like, but as a official of the church my conscience won’t allow it to be done.’

‘Your conscience has allowed something to be done that cussing and swearing are godly worship to.’

‘The prettiest maid is left out of harness, however,’ said the clerk.  ‘The little witness was the chicken to my taste—Lord forgive me for saying it, and a man with a wife and family!’

Sol and his father turned to withdraw, and soon forgot the remark, but it was frequently recalled by Christopher.

‘Do you think of trying to see Ethelberta before you leave?’ said Sol.

‘Certainly not,’ said Chickerel.  ‘Mr. Mountclere’s advice was good in that.  The more we keep out of the way the more good we are doing her.  I shall go back to Anglebury by the carrier, and get on at once to London.  You will go with me, I suppose?’

‘The carrier does not leave yet for an hour or two.’

‘I shall walk on, and let him overtake me.  If possible, I will get one glimpse of Enckworth Court, Berta’s new home; there may be time, if I start at once.’

‘I will walk with you,’ said Sol.

‘There is room for one with me,’ said Christopher.  ‘I shall drive back early in the afternoon.’

‘Thank you,’ said Sol.  ‘I will endeavour to meet you at Corvsgate.’

Thus it was arranged.  Chickerel could have wished to search for Picotee, and learn from her the details of this mysterious matter.  But it was particularly painful to him to make himself busy after the event; and to appear suddenly and uselessly where he was plainly not wanted to appear would be an awkwardness which the pleasure of seeing either daughter could scarcely counterbalance.  Hence he had resolved to return at once to town, and there await the news, together with the detailed directions as to his own future movements, carefully considered and laid down, which were sure to be given by the far-seeing Ethelberta.

Sol and his father walked on together, Chickerel to meet the carrier just beyond Enckworth, Sol to wait for Christopher at Corvsgate.  His wish to see, in company with his father, the outline of the seat to which Ethelberta had been advanced that day, was the triumph of youthful curiosity and interest over dogged objection.  His father’s wish was based on calmer reasons.

Christopher, lone and out of place, remained in the church yet a little longer.  He desultorily walked round.  Reaching the organ chamber, he looked at the instrument, and was surprised to find behind it a young man.  Julian first thought him to be the organist; on second inspection, however, he proved to be a person Christopher had met before, under far different circumstances; it was our young friend Ladywell, looking as sick and sorry as a lily with a slug in its stalk.

The occasion, the place, and their own condition, made them kin.  Christopher had despised Ladywell, Ladywell had disliked Christopher; but a third item neutralized the other two—it was their common lot.

Christopher just nodded, for they had only met on Ethelberta’s stairs.  Ladywell nodded more, and spoke.  ‘The church appears to be interesting,’ he said.

‘Yes.  Such a tower is rare in England,’ said Christopher.

They then dwelt on other features of the building, thence enlarging to the village, and then to the rocks and marine scenery, both avoiding the malady they suffered from—the marriage of Ethelberta.

‘The village streets are very picturesque, and the cliff scenery is good of its kind,’ rejoined Ladywell.  ‘The rocks represent the feminine side of grandeur.  Here they are white, with delicate tops.  On the west coast they are higher, black, and with angular summits.  Those represent grandeur in its masculine aspect.  It is merely my own idea, and not very bright, perhaps.’

‘It is very ingenious,’ said Christopher, ‘and perfectly true.’

Ladywell was pleased.  ‘I am here at present making sketches for my next subject—a winter sea.  Otherwise I should not have—happened to be in the church.’

‘You are acquainted with Mrs. Petherwin—I think you are Mr. Ladywell, who painted her portrait last season?’

‘Yes,’ said Ladywell, colouring.

‘You may have heard her speak of Mr. Julian?’

‘O yes,’ said Ladywell, offering his hand.  Then by degrees their tongues wound closer round the subject of their sadness, each tacitly owning to what he would not tell.

‘I saw it,’ said Ladywell heavily.

‘Did she look troubled?’

‘Not in the least—bright and fresh as a May morning.  She has played me many a bitter trick, and poor Neigh too, a friend of mine.  But I cannot help forgiving her. . . .  I saw a carriage at the door, and strolled in.  The ceremony was just proceeding, so I sat down here.  Well, I have done with Knollsea.  The place has no further interest for me now.  I may own to you as a friend, that if she had not been living here I should have studied at some other coast—of course that’s in confidence.’

‘I understand, quite.’

‘I only arrived in the neighbourhood two days ago, and did not set eyes upon her till this morning, she has kept so entirely indoors.’

Then the young men parted, and half-an-hour later the ingenuous Ladywell came from the visitors’ inn by the shore, a man walking behind him with a quantity of artists’ materials and appliances.  He went on board the steamer, which this morning had performed the passage in safety.  Ethelberta single having been the loadstone in the cliffs that had attracted Ladywell hither, Ethelberta married was the negative pole of the same, sending him away.  And thus did a woman put an end to the only opportunity of distinction, on Art-exhibition walls, that ever offered itself to the tortuous ways, quaint alleys, and marbled bluffs of Knollsea, as accessories in the picture of a winter sea.

Christopher’s interest in the village was of the same evaporating nature.  He looked upon the sea, and the great swell, and the waves sending up a sound like the huzzas of multitudes; but all the wild scene was irksome now.  The ocean-bound steamers far away on the horizon inspired him with no curiosity as to their destination; the house Ethelberta had occupied was positively hateful; and he turned away to wait impatiently for the hour at which he had promised to drive on to meet Sol at Corvsgate.

Sol and Chickerel plodded along the road, in order to skirt Enckworth before the carrier came up.  Reaching the top of a hill on their way, they paused to look down on a peaceful scene.  It was a park and wood, glowing in all the matchless colours of late autumn, parapets and pediments peering out from a central position afar.  At the bottom of the descent before them was a lodge, to which they now descended.  The gate stood invitingly open.  Exclusiveness was no part of the owner’s instincts: one could see that at a glance.  No appearance of a well-rolled garden-path attached to the park-drive; as is the case with many, betokening by the perfection of their surfaces their proprietor’s deficiency in hospitality.  The approach was like a turnpike road full of great ruts, clumsy mendings; bordered by trampled edges and incursions upon the grass at pleasure.  Butchers and bakers drove as freely herein as peers and peeresses.  Christening parties, wedding companies, and funeral trains passed along by the doors of the mansion without check or question.  A wild untidiness in this particular has its recommendations; for guarded grounds ever convey a suspicion that their owner is young to landed possessions, as religious earnestnesss implies newness of conversion, and conjugal tenderness recent marriage.

Half-an-hour being wanting as yet to Chickerel’s time with the carrier, Sol and himself, like the rest of the world when at leisure, walked into the extensive stretch of grass and grove.  It formed a park so large that not one of its owners had ever wished it larger, not one of its owner’s rivals had ever failed to wish it smaller, and not one of its owner’s satellites had ever seen it without praise.  They somewhat avoided the roadway passing under the huge, misshapen, ragged trees, and through fern brakes, ruddy and crisp in their decay.  On reaching a suitable eminence, the father and son stood still to look upon the many-chimneyed building, or rather conglomeration of buildings, to which these groves and glades formed a setting.

‘We will just give a glance,’ said Chickerel, ‘and then go away.  It don’t seem well to me that Ethelberta should have this; it is too much.  The sudden change will do her no good.  I never believe in anything that comes in the shape of wonderful luck.  As it comes, so it goes.  Had she been brought home today to one of those tenant-farms instead of these woods and walls, I could have called it good fortune.  What she should have done was glorify herself by glorifying her own line of life, not by forsaking that line for another.  Better have been admired as a governess than shunned as a peeress, which is what she will be.  But it is just the same everywhere in these days.  Young men will rather wear a black coat and starve than wear fustian and do well.’

‘One man to want such a monstrous house as that!  Well, ’tis a fine place.  See, there’s the carpenters’ shops, the timber-yard, and everything, as if it were a little town.  Perhaps Berta may hire me for a job now and then.’

‘I always knew she would cut herself off from us.  She marked for it from childhood, and she has finished the business thoroughly.’

‘Well, it is no matter, father, for why should we want to trouble her?  She may write, and I shall answer; but if she calls to see me, I shall not return the visit; and if she meets me with her husband or any of her new society about her, I shall behave as a stranger.’

‘It will be best,’ said Chickerel.  ‘Well, now I must move.’

However, by the sorcery of accident, before they had very far retraced their steps an open carriage became visible round a bend in the drive.  Chickerel, with a servant’s instinct, was for beating a retreat.

‘No,’ said Sol.  ‘Let us stand our ground.  We have already been seen, and we do no harm.’

So they stood still on the edge of the drive, and the carriage drew near.  It was a landau, and the sun shone in upon Lord Mountclere, with Lady Mountclere sitting beside him, like Abishag beside King David.

Very blithe looked the viscount, for he rode upon a cherub to-day.  She appeared fresh, rosy, and strong, but dubious; though if mien was anything, she was a viscountess twice over.  Her dress was of a dove-coloured material, with a bonnet to match, a little tufted white feather resting on the top, like a truce-flag between the blood of noble and vassal.  Upon the cool grey of her shoulders hung a few locks of hair, toned warm as fire by the sunshiny addition to its natural hue.

Chickerel instinctively took off his hat; Sol did the same.

For only a moment did Ethelberta seem uncertain how to act.  But a solution to her difficulty was given by the face of her brother.  There she saw plainly at one glance more than a dozen speeches would have told—for Sol’s features thoroughly expressed his intention that to him she was to be a stranger.  Her eyes flew to Chickerel, and he slightly shook his head.  She understood them now.  With a tear in her eye for her father, and a sigh in her bosom for Sol, she bowed in answer to their salute; her husband moved his hat and nodded, and the carriage rolled on.  Lord Mountclere might possibly be making use of the fine morning in showing her the park and premises.  Chickerel, with a moist eye, now went on with his son towards the highroad.  When they reached the lodge, the lodge-keeper was walking in the sun, smoking his pipe.  ‘Good morning,’ he said to Chickerel.

‘Any rejoicings at the Court to-day?’ the butler inquired.

‘Quite the reverse.  Not a soul there.  ’Tisn’t knowed anywhere at all.  I had no idea of such a thing till he brought my lady here.  Not going off, neither.  They’ve come home like the commonest couple in the land, and not even the bells allowed to ring.’

They walked along the public road, and the carrier came in view.

‘Father,’ said Sol, ‘I don’t think I’ll go further with you.  She’s gone into the house; and suppose she should run back without him to try to find us?  It would be cruel to disappoint her.  I’ll bide about here for a quarter of an hour, in case she should.  Mr. Julian won’t have passed Corvsgate till I get there.’

‘Well, one or two of her old ways may be left in her still, and it is not a bad thought.  Then you will walk the rest of the distance if you don’t meet Mr. Julian?  I must be in London by the evening.’

‘Any time to-night will do for me.  I shall not begin work until to-morrow, so that the four o’clock train will answer my purpose.’

Thus they parted, and Sol strolled leisurely back.  The road was quite deserted, and he lingered by the park fence.

‘Sol!’ said a bird-like voice; ‘how did you come here?’

He looked up, and saw a figure peering down upon him from the top of the park wall, the ground on the inside being higher than the road.  The speaker was to the expected Ethelberta what the moon is to the sun, a star to the moon.  It was Picotee.

‘Hullo, Picotee!’ said Sol.

‘There’s a little gate a quarter of a mile further on,’ said Picotee.  ‘We can meet there without your passing through the big lodge.  I’ll be there as soon as you.’

Sol ascended the hill, passed through the second gate, and turned back again, when he met Picotee coming forward under the trees.  They walked together in this secluded spot.

‘Berta says she wants to see you and father,’ said Picotee breathlessly.  ‘You must come in and make yourselves comfortable.  She had no idea you were here so secretly, and she didn’t know what to do.’

‘Father’s gone,’ said Sol.

‘How vexed she will be!  She thinks there is something the matter—that you are angry with her for not telling you earlier.  But you will come in, Sol?’

‘No, I can’t come in,’ said her brother.

‘Why not?  It is such a big house, you can’t think.  You need not come near the front apartments, if you think we shall be ashamed of you in your working clothes.  How came you not to dress up a bit, Sol?  Still, Berta won’t mind it much.  She says Lord Mountclere must take her as she is, or he is kindly welcome to leave her.’

‘Ah, well!  I might have had a word or two to say about that, but the time has gone by for it, worse luck.  Perhaps it is best that I have said nothing, and she has had her way.  No, I shan’t come in, Picotee.  Father is gone, and I am going too.’

‘O Sol!’

‘We are rather put out at her acting like this—father and I and all of us.  She might have let us know about it beforehand, even if she is a lady and we what we always was.  It wouldn’t have let her down so terrible much to write a line.  She might have learnt something that would have led her to take a different step.’

‘But you will see poor Berta?  She has done no harm.  She was going to write long letters to all of you to-day, explaining her wedding, and how she is going to help us all on in the world.’

Sol paused irresolutely.  ‘No, I won’t come in,’ he said.  ‘It would disgrace her, for one thing, dressed as I be; more than that, I don’t want to come in.  But I should like to see her, if she would like to see me; and I’ll go up there to that little fir plantation, and walk up and down behind it for exactly half-an-hour.  She can come out to me there.’  Sol had pointed as he spoke to a knot of young trees that hooded a knoll a little way off.

‘I’ll go and tell her,’ said Picotee.

‘I suppose they will be off somewhere, and she is busy getting ready?’

‘O no.  They are not going to travel till next year.  Ethelberta does not want to go anywhere; and Lord Mountclere cannot endure this changeable weather in any place but his own house.’

‘Poor fellow!’

‘Then you will wait for her by the firs?  I’ll tell her at once.’

Picotee left him, and Sol went across the glade.

46. ENCKWORTH (continued)—THE ANGLEBURY HIGHWAY

He had not paced behind the firs more than ten minutes when Ethelberta appeared from the opposite side.  At great inconvenience to herself, she had complied with his request.

Ethelberta was trembling.  She took her brother’s hand, and said, ‘Is father, then, gone?’

‘Yes,’ said Sol.  ‘I should have been gone likewise, but I thought you wanted to see me.’

‘Of course I did, and him too.  Why did you come so mysteriously, and, I must say, unbecomingly?  I am afraid I did wrong in not informing you of my intention.’

‘To yourself you may have.  Father would have liked a word with you before—you did it.’

‘You both looked so forbidding that I did not like to stop the carriage when we passed you.  I want to see him on an important matter—his leaving Mrs. Doncastle’s service at once.  I am going to write and beg her to dispense with a notice, which I have no doubt she will do.’

‘He’s very much upset about you.’

‘My secrecy was perhaps an error of judgment,’ she said sadly.  ‘But I had reasons.  Why did you and my father come here at all if you did not want to see me?’

‘We did want to see you up to a certain time.’

‘You did not come to prevent my marriage?’

‘We wished to see you before the marriage—I can’t say more.’

‘I thought you might not approve of what I had done,’ said Ethelberta mournfully.  ‘But a time may come when you will approve.’

‘Never.’

‘Don’t be harsh, Sol.  A coronet covers a multitude of sins.’

‘A coronet: good Lord—and you my sister!  Look at my hand.’  Sol extended his hand.  ‘Look how my thumb stands out at the root, as if it were out of joint, and that hard place inside there.  Did you ever see anything so ugly as that hand—a misshaped monster, isn’t he?  That comes from the jackplane, and my pushing against it day after day and year after year.  If I were found drowned or buried, dressed or undressed, in fustian or in broadcloth, folk would look at my hand and say, “That man’s a carpenter.”  Well now, how can a man, branded with work as I be, be brother to a viscountess without something being wrong?  Of course there’s something wrong in it, or he wouldn’t have married you—something which won’t be righted without terrible suffering.’

‘No, no,’ said she.  ‘You are mistaken.  There is no such wonderful quality in a title in these days.  What I really am is second wife to a quiet old country nobleman, who has given up society.  What more commonplace?  My life will be as simple, even more simple, than it was before.’

‘Berta, you have worked to false lines.  A creeping up among the useless lumber of our nation that’ll be the first to burn if there comes a flare.  I never see such a deserter of your own lot as you be!  But you were always like it, Berta, and I am ashamed of ye.  More than that, a good woman never marries twice.’

‘You are too hard, Sol,’ said the poor viscountess, almost crying.  ‘I’ve done it all for you!  Even if I have made a mistake, and given my ambition an ignoble turn, don’t tell me so now, or you may do more harm in a minute than you will cure in a lifetime.  It is absurd to let republican passions so blind you to fact.  A family which can be honourably traced through history for five hundred years, does affect the heart of a person not entirely hardened against romance.  Whether you like the peerage or no, they appeal to our historical sense and love of old associations.’

‘I don’t care for history.  Prophecy is the only thing can do poor men any good.  When you were a girl, you wouldn’t drop a curtsey to ’em, historical or otherwise, and there you were right.  But, instead of sticking to such principles, you must needs push up, so as to get girls such as you were once to curtsey to you, not even thinking marriage with a bad man too great a price to pay for’t.’

‘A bad man?  What do you mean by that?  Lord Mountclere is rather old, but he’s worthy.  What did you mean, Sol?’

‘Nothing—a mere sommat to say.’

At that moment Picotee emerged from behind a tree, and told her sister that Lord Mountclere was looking for her.

‘Well, Sol, I cannot explain all to you now,’ she said.  ‘I will send for you in London.’  She wished him goodbye, and they separated, Picotee accompanying Sol a little on his way.

Ethelberta was greatly perturbed by this meeting.  After retracing her steps a short distance, she still felt so distressed and unpresentable that she resolved not to allow Lord Mountclere to see her till the clouds had somewhat passed off; it was but a bare act of justice to him to hide from his sight such a bridal mood as this.  It was better to keep him waiting than to make him positively unhappy.  She turned aside, and went up the valley, where the park merged in miles of wood and copse.

She opened an iron gate and entered the wood, casually interested in the vast variety of colours that the half-fallen leaves of the season wore: more, much more, occupied with personal thought.  The path she pursued became gradually involved in bushes as well as trees, giving to the spot the character rather of a coppice than a wood.  Perceiving that she had gone far enough, Ethelberta turned back by a path which at this point intersected that by which she had approached, and promised a more direct return towards the Court.  She had not gone many steps among the hazels, which here formed a perfect thicket, when she observed a belt of holly-bushes in their midst; towards the outskirts of these an opening on her left hand directly led, thence winding round into a clear space of greensward, which they completely enclosed.  On this isolated and mewed-up bit of lawn stood a timber-built cottage, having ornamental barge-boards, balconettes, and porch.  It was an erection interesting enough as an experiment, and grand as a toy, but as a building contemptible.

A blue gauze of smoke floated over the chimney, as if somebody was living there; round towards the side some empty hen-coops were piled away; while under the hollies were divers frameworks of wire netting and sticks, showing that birds were kept here at some seasons of the year.

Being lady of all she surveyed, Ethelberta crossed the leafy sward, and knocked at the door.  She was interested in knowing the purpose of the peculiar little edifice.

The door was opened by a woman wearing a clean apron upon a not very clean gown.  Ethelberta asked who lived in so pretty a place.

‘Miss Gruchette,’ the servant replied.  ‘But she is not here now.’

‘Does she live here alone?’

‘Yes—excepting myself and a fellow-servant.’

‘Oh.’

‘She lives here to attend to the pheasants and poultry, because she is so clever in managing them.  They are brought here from the keeper’s over the hill.  Her father was a fancier.’

‘Miss Gruchette attends to the birds, and two servants attend to Miss Gruchette?’

‘Well, to tell the truth, m’m, the servants do almost all of it.  Still, that’s what Miss Gruchette is here for.  Would you like to see the house?  It is pretty.’  The woman spoke with hesitation, as if in doubt between the desire of earning a shilling and the fear that Ethelberta was not a stranger.  That Ethelberta was Lady Mountclere she plainly did not dream.

‘I fear I can scarcely stay long enough; yet I will just look in,’ said Ethelberta.  And as soon as they had crossed the threshold she was glad of having done so.

The cottage internally may be described as a sort of boudoir extracted from the bulk of a mansion and deposited in a wood.  The front room was filled with nicknacks, curious work-tables, filigree baskets, twisted brackets supporting statuettes, in which the grotesque in every case ruled the design; love-birds, in gilt cages; French bronzes, wonderful boxes, needlework of strange patterns, and other attractive objects.  The apartment was one of those which seem to laugh in a visitor’s face and on closer examination express frivolity more distinctly than by words.

‘Miss Gruchette is here to keep the fowls?’ said Ethelberta, in a puzzled tone, after a survey.

‘Yes.  But they don’t keep her.’

Ethelberta did not attempt to understand, and ceased to occupy her mind with the matter.  They came from the cottage to the door, where she gave the woman a trifling sum, and turned to leave.  But footsteps were at that moment to be heard beating among the leaves on the other side of the hollies, and Ethelberta waited till the walkers should have passed.  The voices of two men reached herself and the woman as they stood.  They were close to the house, yet screened from it by the holly-bushes, when one could be heard to say distinctly, as if with his face turned to the cottage—

‘Lady Mountclere gone for good?’

‘I suppose so.  Ha-ha!  So come, so go.’

The speakers passed on, their backs becoming visible through the opening.  They appeared to be woodmen.

‘What Lady Mountclere do they mean?’ said Ethelberta.

The woman blushed.  ‘They meant Miss Gruchette.’

‘Oh—a nickname.’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

The woman whispered why in a story of about two minutes’ length.  Ethelberta turned pale.

‘Is she going to return?’ she inquired, in a thin hard voice.

‘Yes; next week.  You know her, m’m?’

‘No.  I am a stranger.’

‘So much the better.  I may tell you, then, that an old tale is flying about the neighbourhood—that Lord Mountclere was privately married to another woman, at Knollsea, this morning early.  Can it be true?’

‘I believe it to be true.’

‘And that she is of no family?’

‘Of no family.’

‘Indeed.  Then the Lord only knows what will become of the poor thing.  There will be murder between ’em.’

‘Between whom?’

‘Her and the lady who lives here.  She won’t budge an inch—not she!’

Ethelberta moved aside.  A shade seemed to overspread the world, the sky, the trees, and the objects in the foreground.  She kept her face away from the woman, and, whispering a reply to her Good-morning, passed through the hollies into the leaf-strewn path.  As soon as she came to a large trunk she placed her hands against it and rested her face upon them.  She drew herself lower down, lower, lower, till she crouched upon the leaves.  ‘Ay—’tis what father and Sol meant!  O Heaven!’ she whispered.

She soon arose, and went on her way to the house.  Her fair features were firmly set, and she scarcely heeded the path in the concentration which had followed her paroxysm.  When she reached the park proper she became aware of an excitement that was in progress there.

Ethelberta’s absence had become unaccountable to Lord Mountclere, who could hardly permit her retirement from his sight for a minute.  But at first he had made due allowance for her eccentricity as a woman of genius, and would not take notice of the half-hour’s desertion, unpardonable as it might have been in other classes of wives.  Then he had inquired, searched, been alarmed: he had finally sent men-servants in all directions about the park to look for her.  He feared she had fallen out of a window, down a well, or into the lake.  The next stage of search was to have been drags and grapnels: but Ethelberta entered the house.

Lord Mountclere rushed forward to meet her, and such was her contrivance that he noticed no change.  The searchers were called in, Ethelberta explaining that she had merely obeyed the wish of her brother in going out to meet him.  Picotee, who had returned from her walk with Sol, was upstairs in one of the rooms which had been allotted to her.  Ethelberta managed to run in there on her way upstairs to her own chamber.

‘Picotee, put your things on again,’ she said.  ‘You are the only friend I have in this house, and I want one badly.  Go to Sol, and deliver this message to him—that I want to see him at once.  You must overtake him, if you walk all the way to Anglebury.  But the train does not leave till four, so that there is plenty of time.’

‘What is the matter?’ said Picotee.  ‘I cannot walk all the way.’

‘I don’t think you will have to do that—I hope not.’

‘He is going to stop at Corvsgate to have a bit of lunch: I might overtake him there, if I must!’

‘Yes.  And tell him to come to the east passage door.  It is that door next to the entrance to the stable-yard.  There is a little yew-tree outside it.  On second thoughts you, dear, must not come back.  Wait at Corvsgate in the little inn parlour till Sol comes to you again.  You will probably then have to go home to London alone; but do not mind it.  The worst part for you will be in going from the station to the Crescent; but nobody will molest you in a four-wheel cab: you have done it before.  However, he will tell you if this is necessary when he gets back.  I can best fight my battles alone.  You shall have a letter from me the day after to-morrow, stating where I am.  I shall not be here.’

‘But what is it so dreadful?’

‘Nothing to frighten you.’  But she spoke with a breathlessness that completely nullified the assurance.  ‘It is merely that I find I must come to an explanation with Lord Mountclere before I can live here permanently, and I cannot stipulate with him while I am here in his power.  Till I write, good-bye.  Your things are not unpacked, so let them remain here for the present—they can be sent for.’

Poor Picotee, more agitated than her sister, but never questioning her orders, went downstairs and out of the house.  She ran across the shrubberies, into the park, and to the gate whereat Sol had emerged some half-hour earlier.  She trotted along upon the turnpike road like a lost doe, crying as she went at the new trouble which had come upon Berta, whatever that trouble might be.  Behind her she heard wheels and the stepping of a horse, but she was too concerned to turn her head.  The pace of the vehicle slackened, however, when it was abreast of Picotee, and she looked up to see Christopher as the driver.

‘Miss Chickerel!’ he said, with surprise.

Picotee had quickly looked down again, and she murmured, ‘Yes.’

Christopher asked what he could not help asking in the circumstances, ‘Would you like to ride?’

‘I should be glad,’ said she, overcoming her flurry.  ‘I am anxious to overtake my brother Sol.’

‘I have arranged to pick him up at Corvsgate,’ said Christopher.

He descended, and assisted her to mount beside him, and drove on again, almost in silence.  He was inclined to believe that some supernatural legerdemain had to do with these periodic impacts of Picotee on his path.  She sat mute and melancholy till they were within half-a-mile of Corvsgate.

‘Thank you,’ she said then, perceiving Sol upon the road, ‘there is my brother; I will get down now.’

‘He was going to ride on to Anglebury with me,’ said Julian.

Picotee did not reply, and Sol turned round.  Seeing her he instantly exclaimed, ‘What’s the matter, Picotee?’

She explained to him that he was to go back immediately, and meet her sister at the door by the yew, as Ethelberta had charged her.  Christopher, knowing them so well, was too much an interested member of the group to be left out of confidence, and she included him in her audience.

‘And what are you to do?’ said Sol to her.

‘I am to wait at Corvsgate till you come to me.’

‘I can’t understand it,’ Sol muttered, with a gloomy face.  ‘There’s something wrong; and it was only to be expected; that’s what I say, Mr. Julian.’

‘If necessary I can take care of Miss Chickerel till you come,’ said Christopher.

‘Thank you,’ said Sol.  ‘Then I will return to you as soon as I can, at the “Castle” Inn, just ahead.  ’Tis very awkward for you to be so burdened by us, Mr. Julian; but we are in a trouble that I don’t yet see the bottom of.’

‘I know,’ said Christopher kindly.  ‘We will wait for you.’

He then drove on with Picotee to the inn, which was not far off, and Sol returned again to Enckworth.  Feeling somewhat like a thief in the night, he zigzagged through the park, behind belts and knots of trees, until he saw the yew, dark and clear, as if drawn in ink upon the fair face of the mansion.  The way up to it was in a little cutting between shrubs, the door being a private entrance, sunk below the surface of the lawn, and invisible from other parts of the same front.  As soon as he reached it, Ethelberta opened it at once, as if she had listened for his footsteps.

She took him along a passage in the basement, up a flight of steps, and into a huge, solitary, chill apartment.  It was the ball-room.  Spacious mirrors in gilt frames formed panels in the lower part of the walls, the remainder being toned in sage-green.  In a recess between each mirror was a statue.  The ceiling rose in a segmental curve, and bore sprawling upon its face gilt figures of wanton goddesses, cupids, satyrs with tambourines, drums, and trumpets, the whole ceiling seeming alive with them.  But the room was very gloomy now, there being little light admitted from without, and the reflections from the mirrors gave a depressing coldness to the scene.  It was a place intended to look joyous by night, and whatever it chose to look by day.

‘We are safe here,’ said she.  ‘But we must listen for footsteps.  I have only five minutes: Lord Mountclere is waiting for me.  I mean to leave this place, come what may.’

‘Why?’ said Sol, in astonishment.

‘I cannot tell you—something has occurred.  God has got me in his power at last, and is going to scourge me for my bad doings—that’s what it seems like.  Sol, listen to me, and do exactly what I say.  Go to Anglebury, hire a brougham, bring it on as far as Little Enckworth: you will have to meet me with it at one of the park gates later in the evening—probably the west, at half-past seven.  Leave it at the village with the man, come on here on foot, and stay under the trees till just before six: it will then be quite dark, and you must stand under the projecting balustrade a little further on than the door you came in by.  I will just step upon the balcony over it, and tell you more exactly than I can now the precise time that I shall be able to slip out, and where the carriage is to be waiting.  But it may not be safe to speak on account of his closeness to me—I will hand down a note.  I find it is impossible to leave the house by daylight—I am certain to be pursued—he already suspects something.  Now I must be going, or he will be here, for he watches my movements because of some accidental words that escaped me.’

‘Berta, I shan’t have anything to do with this,’ said Sol.  ‘It is not right!’

‘I am only going to Rouen, to Aunt Charlotte!’ she implored.  ‘I want to get to Southampton, to be in time for the midnight steamer.  When I am at Rouen I can negotiate with Lord Mountclere the terms on which I will return to him.  It is the only chance I have of rooting out a scandal and a disgrace which threatens the beginning of my life here!  My letters to him, and his to me, can be forwarded through you or through father, and he will not know where I am.  Any woman is justified in adopting such a course to bring her husband to a sense of her dignity.  If I don’t go away now, it will end in a permanent separation.  If I leave at once, and stipulate that he gets rid of her, we may be reconciled.’

‘I can’t help you: you must stick to your husband.  I don’t like them, or any of their sort, barring about three or four, for the reason that they despise me and all my sort.  But, Ethelberta, for all that I’ll play fair with them.  No half-and-half trimming business.  You have joined ’em, and ’rayed yourself against us; and there you’d better bide.  You have married your man, and your duty is towards him.  I know what he is and so does father; but if I were to help you to run away now, I should scorn myself more than I scorn him.’

‘I don’t care for that, or for any such politics!  The Mountclere line is noble, and how was I to know that this member was not noble, too?  As the representative of an illustrious family I was taken with him, but as a man—I must shun him.’

‘How can you shun him?  You have married him!’

‘Nevertheless, I won’t stay!  Neither law nor gospel demands it of me after what I have learnt.  And if law and gospel did demand it, I would not stay.  And if you will not help me to escape, I go alone.’

‘You had better not try any such wild thing.’

The creaking of a door was heard.  ‘O Sol,’ she said appealingly, ‘don’t go into the question whether I am right or wrong—only remember that I am very unhappy.  Do help me—I have no other person in the world to ask!  Be under the balcony at six o’clock.  Say you will—I must go—say you will!’

‘I’ll think,’ said Sol, very much disturbed.  ‘There, don’t cry; I’ll try to be under the balcony, at any rate.  I cannot promise more, but I’ll try to be there.’

She opened in the panelling one of the old-fashioned concealed modes of exit known as jib-doors, which it was once the custom to construct without architraves in the walls of large apartments, so as not to interfere with the general design of the room.  Sol found himself in a narrow passage, running down the whole length of the ball-room, and at the same time he heard Lord Mountclere’s voice within, talking to Ethelberta.  Sol’s escape had been marvellous: as it was the viscount might have seen her tears.  He passed down some steps, along an area from which he could see into a row of servants’ offices, among them a kitchen with a fireplace flaming like an altar of sacrifice.  Nobody seemed to be concerned about him; there were workmen upon the premises, and he nearly matched them.  At last he got again into the shrubberies and to the side of the park by which he had entered.

On reaching Corvsgate he found Picotee in the parlour of the little inn, as he had directed.  Mr. Julian, she said, had walked up to the ruins, and would be back again in a few minutes.  Sol ordered the horse to be put in, and by the time it was ready Christopher came down from the hill.  Room was made for Sol by opening the flap of the dogcart, and Christopher drove on.

He was anxious to know the trouble, and Sol was not reluctant to share the burden of it with one whom he believed to be a friend.  He told, scrap by scrap, the strange request of Ethelberta.  Christopher, though ignorant of Ethelberta’s experience that morning, instantly assumed that the discovery of some concealed spectre had led to this precipitancy.

‘When does she wish you to meet her with the carriage?’

‘Probably at half-past seven, at the west lodge; but that is to be finally fixed by a note she will hand down to me from the balcony.’

‘Which balcony?’

‘The nearest to the yew-tree.’

‘At what time will she hand the note?’

‘As the Court clock strikes six, she says.  And if I am not there to take her instructions of course she will give up the idea, which is just what I want her to do.’

Christopher begged Sol to go.  Whether Ethelberta was right or wrong, he did not stop to inquire.  She was in trouble; she was too clear-headed to be in trouble without good reason; and she wanted assistance out of it.  But such was Sol’s nature that the more he reflected the more determined was he in not giving way to her entreaty.  By the time that they reached Anglebury he repented having given way so far as to withhold a direct refusal.

‘It can do no good,’ he said mournfully.  ‘It is better to nip her notion in its beginning.  She says she wants to fly to Rouen, and from there arrange terms with him.  But it can’t be done—she should have thought of terms before.’

Christopher made no further reply.  Leaving word at the ‘Red Lion’ that a man was to be sent to take the horse of him, he drove directly onwards to the station.

‘Then you don’t mean to help her?’ said Julian, when Sol took the tickets—one for himself and one for Picotee.

‘I serve her best by leaving her alone!’ said Sol.

‘I don’t think so.’

‘She has married him.’

‘She is in distress.’

‘She has married him.’

Sol and Picotee took their seats, Picotee upbraiding her brother.  ‘I can go by myself!’ she said, in tears.  ‘Do go back for Berta, Sol.  She said I was to go home alone, and I can do it!’

‘You must not.  It is not right for you to be hiring cabs and driving across London at midnight.  Berta should have known better than propose it.’

‘She was flurried.  Go, Sol!’

But her entreaty was fruitless.

‘Have you got your ticket, Mr. Julian?’ said Sol.  ‘I suppose we shall go together till we get near Melchester?’

‘I have not got my ticket yet—I’ll be back in two minutes.’

The minutes went by, and Christopher did not reappear.  The train moved off: Christopher was seen running up the platform, as if in a vain hope to catch it.

‘He has missed the train,’ said Sol.  Picotee looked disappointed, and said nothing.  They were soon out of sight.

‘God forgive me for such a hollow pretence!’ said Christopher to himself.  ‘But he would have been uneasy had he known I wished to stay behind.  I cannot leave her in trouble like this!’

He went back to the ‘Red Lion’ with the manner and movement of a man who after a lifetime of desultoriness had at last found something to do.  It was now getting late in the afternoon.  Christopher ordered a one-horse brougham at the inn, and entering it was driven out of the town towards Enckworth as the evening shades were beginning to fall.  They passed into the hamlet of Little Enckworth at half-past five, and drew up at a beer-house at the end.  Jumping out here, Julian told the man to wait till he should return.

Thus far he had exactly obeyed her orders to Sol.  He hoped to be able to obey them throughout, and supply her with the aid her brother refused.  He also hoped that the change in the personality of her confederate would make no difference to her intention.  That he was putting himself in a wrong position he allowed, but time and attention were requisite for such analysis: meanwhile Ethelberta was in trouble.  On the one hand was she waiting hopefully for Sol; on the other was Sol many miles on his way to town; between them was himself.

He ran with all his might towards Enckworth Park, mounted the lofty stone steps by the lodge, saw the dark bronze figures on the piers through the twilight, and then proceeded to thread the trees.  Among these he struck a light for a moment: it was ten minutes to six.  In another five minutes he was panting beneath the walls of her house.

Enckworth Court was not unknown to Christopher, for he had frequently explored that spot in his Sandbourne days.  He perceived now why she had selected that particular balcony for handing down directions; it was the only one round the house that was low enough to be reached from the outside, the basement here being a little way sunk in the ground.

He went close under, turned his face outwards, and waited.  About a foot over his head was the stone floor of the balcony, forming a ceiling to his position.  At his back, two or three feet behind, was a blank wall—the wall of the house.  In front of him was the misty park, crowned by a sky sparkling with winter stars.  This was abruptly cut off upward by the dark edge of the balcony which overhung him.

It was as if some person within the room above had been awaiting his approach.  He had scarcely found time to observe his situation when a human hand and portion of a bare arm were thrust between the balusters, descended a little way from the edge of the balcony, and remained hanging across the starlit sky.  Something was between the fingers.  Christopher lifted his hand, took the scrap, which was paper, and the arm was withdrawn.  As it withdrew, a jewel on one of the fingers sparkled in the rays of a large planet that rode in the opposite sky.

Light steps retreated from the balcony, and a window closed.  Christopher had almost held his breath lest Ethelberta should discover him at the critical moment to be other than Sol, and mar her deliverance by her alarm.  The still silence was anything but silence to him; he felt as if he were listening to the clanging chorus of an oratorio.  And then he could fancy he heard words between Ethelberta and the viscount within the room; they were evidently at very close quarters, and dexterity must have been required of her.  He went on tiptoe across the gravel to the grass, and once on that he strode in the direction whence he had come.  By the thick trunk of one of a group of aged trees he stopped to get a light, just as the Court clock struck six in loud long tones.  The transaction had been carried out, through her impatience possibly, four or five minutes before the time appointed.

The note contained, in a shaken hand, in which, however, the well-known characters were distinguishable, these words in pencil:

‘At half-past seven o’clock.  Just outside the north lodge; don’t fail.’

This was the time she had suggested to Sol as that which would probably best suit her escape, if she could escape at all.  She had changed the place from the west to the north lodge—nothing else.  The latter was certainly more secluded, though a trifle more remote from the course of the proposed journey; there was just time enough and none to spare for fetching the brougham from Little Enckworth to the lodge, the village being two miles off.  The few minutes gained by her readiness at the balcony were useful now.  He started at once for the village, diverging somewhat to observe the spot appointed for the meeting.  It was excellently chosen; the gate appeared to be little used, the lane outside it was covered with trees, and all around was silent as the grave.  After this hasty survey by the wan starlight, he hastened on to Little Enckworth.

An hour and a quarter later a little brougham without lamps was creeping along by the park wall towards this spot.  The leaves were so thick upon the unfrequented road that the wheels could not be heard, and the horse’s pacing made scarcely more noise than a rabbit would have done in limping along.  The vehicle progressed slowly, for they were in good time.  About ten yards from the park entrance it stopped, and Christopher stepped out.

‘We may have to wait here ten minutes,’ he said to the driver.  ‘And then shall we be able to reach Anglebury in time for the up mail-train to Southampton?’

‘Half-past seven, half-past eight, half-past nine—two hours.  O yes, sir, easily.  A young lady in the case perhaps, sir?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, I hope she’ll be done honestly by, even if she is of humble station.  ’Tis best, and cheapest too, in the long run.’  The coachman was apparently imagining the dove about to flit away to be one of the pretty maid-servants that abounded in Enckworth Court; such escapades as these were not unfrequent among them, a fair face having been deemed a sufficient recommendation to service in that house, without too close an inquiry into character, since the death of the first viscountess.

‘Now then, silence; and listen for a footstep at the gate.’

Such calmness as there was in the musician’s voice had been produced by considerable effort.  For his heart had begun to beat fast and loud as he strained his attentive ear to catch the footfall of a woman who could only be his illegally.

The obscurity was as great as a starry sky would permit it to be.  Beneath the trees where the carriage stood the darkness was total.

47. ENCKWORTH AND ITS PRECINCTS—MELCHESTER

To be wise after the event is often to act foolishly with regard to it; and to preserve the illusion which has led to the event would frequently be a course that omniscience itself could not find fault with.  Reaction with Ethelberta was complete, and the more violent in that it threatened to be useless.  Sol’s bitter chiding had been the first thing to discompose her fortitude.  It reduced her to a consciousness that she had allowed herself to be coerced in her instincts, and yet had not triumphed in her duty.  She might have pleased her family better by pleasing her tastes, and have entirely avoided the grim irony of the situation disclosed later in the day.

After the second interview with Sol she was to some extent composed in mind by being able to nurse a definite intention.  As momentum causes the narrowest wheel to stand upright, a scheme, fairly imbibed, will give the weakest some power to maintain a position stoically.

In the temporary absence of Lord Mountclere, about six o’clock, she slipped out upon the balcony and handed down a note.  To her relief, a hand received it instantly.

The hour and a half wanting to half-past seven she passed with great effort.  The main part of the time was occupied by dinner, during which she attempted to devise some scheme for leaving him without suspicion just before the appointed moment.

Happily, and as if by a Providence, there was no necessity for any such thing.

A little while before the half-hour, when she moved to rise from dinner, he also arose, tenderly begging her to excuse him for a few minutes, that he might go and write an important note to his lawyer, until that moment forgotten, though the postman was nearly due.  She heard him retire along the corridor and shut himself into his study, his promised time of return being a quarter of an hour thence.

Five minutes after that memorable parting Ethelberta came from the little door by the bush of yew, well and thickly wrapped up from head to heels.  She skimmed across the park and under the boughs like a shade, mounting then the stone steps for pedestrians which were fixed beside the park gates here as at all the lodges.  Outside and below her she saw an oblong shape—it was a brougham, and it had been drawn forward close to the bottom of the steps that she might not have an inch further to go on foot than to this barrier.  The whole precinct was thronged with trees; half their foliage being overhead, the other half under foot, for the gardeners had not yet begun to rake and collect the leaves; thus it was that her dress rustled as she descended the steps.

The carriage door was held open by the driver, and she entered instantly.  He shut her in, and mounted to his seat.  As they drove away she became conscious of another person inside.

‘O! Sol—it is done!’ she whispered, believing the man to be her brother.  Her companion made no reply.

Ethelberta, familiar with Sol’s moods of troubled silence, did not press for an answer.  It was, indeed, certain that Sol’s assistance would have been given under a sullen protest; even if unwilling to disappoint her, he might well have been taciturn and angry at her course.

They sat in silence, and in total darkness.  The road ascended an incline, the horse’s tramp being still deadened by the carpet of leaves.  Then the large trees on either hand became interspersed by a low brushwood of varied sorts, from which a large bird occasionally flew, in its fright at their presence beating its wings recklessly against the hard stems with force enough to cripple the delicate quills.  It showed how deserted was the spot after nightfall.

‘Sol?’ said Ethelberta again.  ‘Why not talk to me?’

She now noticed that her fellow-traveller kept his head and his whole person as snugly back in the corner, out of her way, as it was possible to do.  She was not exactly frightened, but she could not understand the reason.  The carriage gave a quick turn, and stopped.

‘Where are we now?’ she said.  ‘Shall we get to Anglebury by nine?  What is the time, Sol?’

‘I will see,’ replied her companion.  They were the first words he had uttered.

The voice was so different from her brother’s that she was terrified; her limbs quivered.  In another instant the speaker had struck a wax vesta, and holding it erect in his fingers he looked her in the face.

‘Hee-hee-hee!’  The laugher was her husband the viscount.

He laughed again, and his eyes gleamed like a couple of tarnished brass buttons in the light of the wax match.

Ethelberta might have fallen dead with the shock, so terrible and hideous was it.  Yet she did not.  She neither shrieked nor fainted; but no poor January fieldfare was ever colder, no ice-house more dank with perspiration, than she was then.

‘A very pleasant joke, my dear—hee-hee!  And no more than was to be expected on this merry, happy day of our lives.  Nobody enjoys a good jest more than I do: I always enjoyed a jest—hee-hee!  Now we are in the dark again; and we will alight and walk.  The path is too narrow for the carriage, but it will not be far for you.  Take your husband’s arm.’

While he had been speaking a defiant pride had sprung up in her, instigating her to conceal every weakness.  He had opened the carriage door and stepped out.  She followed, taking the offered arm.

‘Take the horse and carriage to the stables,’ said the viscount to the coachman, who was his own servant, the vehicle and horse being also his.  The coachman turned the horse’s head and vanished down the woodland track by which they had ascended.

The viscount moved on, uttering private chuckles as numerous as a woodpecker’s taps, and Ethelberta with him.  She walked as by a miracle, but she would walk.  She would have died rather than not have walked then.

She perceived now that they were somewhere in Enckworth wood.  As they went, she noticed a faint shine upon the ground on the other side of the viscount, which showed her that they were walking beside a wet ditch.  She remembered having seen it in the morning: it was a shallow ditch of mud.  She might push him in, and run, and so escape before he could extricate himself.  It would not hurt him.  It was her last chance.  She waited a moment for the opportunity.

‘We are one to one, and I am the stronger!’ she at last exclaimed triumphantly, and lifted her hand for a thrust.

‘On the contrary, darling, we are one to half-a-dozen, and you considerably the weaker,’ he tenderly replied, stepping back adroitly, and blowing a whistle.  At once the bushes seemed to be animated in four or five places.

‘John?’ he said, in the direction of one of them.

‘Yes, my lord,’ replied a voice from the bush, and a keeper came forward.

‘William?’

Another man advanced from another bush.

‘Quite right.  Remain where you are for the present.  Is Tomkins there?’

‘Yes, my lord,’ said a man from another part of the thicket.

‘You go and keep watch by the further lodge: there are poachers about.  Where is Strongway?’

‘Just below, my lord.’

‘Tell him and his brother to go to the west gate, and walk up and down.  Let them search round it, among the trees inside.  Anybody there who cannot give a good account of himself to be brought before me to-morrow morning.  I am living at the cottage at present.  That’s all I have to say to you.’  And, turning round to Ethelberta: ‘Now, dearest, we will walk a little further if you are able.  I have provided that your friends shall be taken care of.’  He tried to pull her hand towards him, gently, like a cat opening a door.

They walked a little onward, and Lord Mountclere spoke again, with imperturbable good-humour:

‘I will tell you a story, to pass the time away.  I have learnt the art from you—your mantle has fallen upon me, and all your inspiration with it.  Listen, dearest.  I saw a young man come to the house to-day.  Afterwards I saw him cross a passage in your company.  You entered the ball-room with him.  That room is a treacherous place.  It is panelled with wood, and between the panels and the walls are passages for the servants, opening from the room by doors hidden in the woodwork.  Lady Mountclere knew of one of these, and made use of it to let out her conspirator; Lord Mountclere knew of another, and made use of it to let in himself.  His sight is not good, but his ears are unimpaired.  A meeting was arranged to take place at the west gate at half-past seven, unless a note handed from the balcony mentioned another time and place.  He heard it all—hee-hee!

‘When Lady Mountclere’s confederate came for the note, I was in waiting above, and handed one down a few minutes before the hour struck, confirming the time, but changing the place.  When Lady Mountclere handed down her note, just as the clock was striking, her confederate had gone, and I was standing beneath the balcony to receive it.  She dropped it into her husband’s hands—ho-ho-ho-ho!

‘Lord Mountclere ordered a brougham to be at the west lodge, as fixed by Lady Mountclere’s note.  Probably Lady Mountclere’s friend ordered a brougham to be at the north gate, as fixed by my note, written in imitation of Lady Mountclere’s hand.  Lady Mountclere came to the spot she had mentioned, and like a good wife rushed into the arms of her husband—hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo!’

As if by an ungovernable impulse, Ethelberta broke into laughter also—laughter which had a wild unnatural sound; it was hysterical.  She sank down upon the leaves, and there continued the fearful laugh just as before.

Lord Mountclere became greatly frightened.  The spot they had reached was a green space within a girdle of hollies, and in front of them rose an ornamental cottage.  This was the building which Ethelberta had visited earlier in the day: it was the Petit Trianon of Enckworth Court.

The viscount left her side and hurried forward.  The door of the building was opened by a woman.

‘Have you prepared for us, as I directed?’

‘Yes, my lord; tea and coffee are both ready.’

‘Never mind that now.  Lady Mountclere is ill; come and assist her indoors.  Tell the other woman to bring wine and water at once.’

He returned to Ethelberta.  She was better, and was sitting calmly on the bank.  She rose without assistance.

‘You may retire,’ he said to the woman who had followed him, and she turned round.  When Ethelberta saw the building, she drew back quickly.

‘Where is the other Lady Mountclere?’ she inquired.

‘Gone!’

‘She shall never return—never?’

‘Never.  It was not intended that she should.’

‘That sounds well.  Lord Mountclere, we may as well compromise matters.’

‘I think so too.  It becomes a lady to make a virtue of a necessity.’

‘It was stratagem against stratagem.  Mine was ingenious; yours was masterly!  Accept my acknowledgment.  We will enter upon an armed neutrality.’

‘No.  Let me be your adorer and slave again, as ever.  Your beauty, dearest, covers everything!  You are my mistress and queen!  But here we are at the door.  Tea is prepared for us here.  I have a liking for life in this cottage mode, and live here on occasion.  Women, attend to Lady Mountclere.’

The woman who had seen Ethelberta in the morning was alarmed at recognizing her, having since been informed officially of the marriage: she murmured entreaties for pardon.  They assisted the viscountess to a chair, the door was closed, and the wind blew past as if nobody had ever stood there to interrupt its flight.

* * * * *

Full of misgivings, Christopher continued to wait at the north gate.  Half-past seven had long since been past, and no Ethelberta had appeared.  He did not for the moment suppose the delay to be hers, and this gave him patience; having taken up the position, he was induced by fidelity to abide by the consequences.  It would be only a journey of two hours to reach Anglebury Station; he would ride outside with the driver, put her into the train, and bid her adieu for ever.  She had cried for help, and he had heard her cry.

At last through the trees came the sound of the Court clock striking eight, and then, for the first time, a doubt arose in his mind whether she could have mistaken the gate.  She had distinctly told Sol the west lodge; her note had expressed the north lodge.  Could she by any accident have written one thing while meaning another?  He entered the carriage, and drove round to the west gate.  All was as silent there as at the other, the meeting between Ethelberta and Lord Mountclere being then long past; and he drove back again.

He left the carriage, and entered the park on foot, approaching the house slowly.  All was silent; the windows were dark; moping sounds came from the trees and sky, as from Sorrow whispering to Night.  By this time he felt assured that the scheme had miscarried.  While he stood here a carriage without lights came up the drive; it turned in towards the stable-yard without going to the door.  The carriage had plainly been empty.

Returning across the grass by the way he had come, he was startled by the voices of two men from the road hard by.

‘Have ye zeed anybody?’

‘Not a soul.’

‘Shall we go across again?’

‘What’s the good? let’s home to supper.’

‘My lord must have heard somebody, or ’a wouldn’t have said it.’

‘Perhaps he’s nervous now he’s living in the cottage again.  I thought that fancy was over.  Well, I’m glad ’tis a young wife he’s brought us.  She’ll have her routs and her rackets as well as the high-born ones, you’ll see, as soon as she gets used to the place.’

‘She must be a queer Christian to pick up with him.’

‘Well, if she’ve charity ’tis enough for we poor men; her faith and hope may be as please God.  Now I be for on-along homeward.’

As soon as they had gone Christopher moved from his hiding, and, avoiding the gravel-walk, returned to his coachman, telling him to drive at once to Anglebury.

Julian was so impatient of the futility of his adventure that he wished to annihilate its existence.  On reaching Anglebury he determined to get on at once to Melchester, that the event of the night might be summarily ended; to be still in the neighbourhood was to be still engaged in it.  He reached home before midnight.

Walking into their house in a quiet street, as dissatisfied with himself as a man well could be who still retained health and an occupation, he found Faith sitting up as usual.  His news was simple: the marriage had taken place before he could get there, and he had seen nothing of either ceremony or viscountess.  The remainder he reserved for a more convenient season.

Edith looked anxiously at him as he ate supper, smiling now and then.

‘Well, I am tired of this life,’ said Christopher.

‘So am I,’ said Faith.  ‘Ah, if we were only rich!’

‘Ah, yes.’

‘Or if we were not rich,’ she said, turning her eyes to the fire.  ‘If we were only slightly provided for, it would be better than nothing.  How much would you be content with, Kit?’

‘As much as I could get.’

‘Would you be content with a thousand a year for both of us?’

‘I daresay I should,’ he murmured, breaking his bread.

‘Or five hundred for both?’

‘Or five hundred.’

‘Or even three hundred?’

‘Bother three hundred.  Less than double the sum would not satisfy me.  We may as well imagine much as little.’

Faith’s countenance had fallen.  ‘O Kit,’ she said, ‘you always disappoint me.’

‘I do.  How do I disappoint you this time?’

‘By not caring for three hundred a year—a hundred and fifty each—when that is all I have to offer you.’

‘Faith!’ said he, looking up for the first time.  ‘Ah—of course!  Lucy’s will.  I had forgotten.’

‘It is true, and I had prepared such a pleasant surprise for you, and now you don’t care!  Our cousin Lucy did leave us something after all.  I don’t understand the exact total sum, but it comes to a hundred and fifty a year each—more than I expected, though not so much as you deserved.  Here’s the letter.  I have been dwelling upon it all day, and thinking what a pleasure it would be; and it is not after all!’

‘Good gracious, Faith, I was only supposing.  The real thing is another matter altogether.  Well, the idea of Lucy’s will containing our names!  I am sure I would have gone to the funeral had I known.’

‘I wish it were a thousand.’

‘O no—it doesn’t matter at all.  But, certainly, three hundred for two is a tantalizing sum: not enough to enable us to change our condition, and enough to make us dissatisfied with going on as we are.’

‘We must forget we have it, and let it increase.’

‘It isn’t enough to increase much.  We may as well use it.  But how?  Take a bigger house—what’s the use?  Give up the organ?—then I shall be rather worse off than I am at present.  Positively, it is the most provoking amount anybody could have invented had they tried ever so long.  Poor Lucy, to do that, and not even to come near us when father died. . . .  Ah, I know what we’ll do.  We’ll go abroad—we’ll live in Italy.’

SEQUEL. ANGLEBURY—ENCKWORTH—SANDBOURNE

Two years and a half after the marriage of Ethelberta and the evening adventures which followed it, a man young in years, though considerably older in mood and expression, walked up to the ‘Red Lion’ Inn at Anglebury.  The anachronism sat not unbecomingly upon him, and the voice was precisely that of the Christopher Julian of heretofore.  His way of entering the inn and calling for a conveyance was more off-hand than formerly; he was much less afraid of the sound of his own voice now than when he had gone through the same performance on a certain chill evening the last time that he visited the spot.  He wanted to be taken to Knollsea to meet the steamer there, and was not coming back by the same vehicle.

It was a very different day from that of his previous journey along the same road; different in season; different in weather; and the humour of the observer differed yet more widely from its condition then than did the landscape from its former hues.  In due time they reached a commanding situation upon the road, from which were visible knots and plantations of trees on the Enckworth manor.  Christopher broke the silence.

‘Lord Mountclere is still alive and well, I am told?’

‘O ay.  He’ll live to be a hundred.  Never such a change as has come over the man of late years.’

‘Indeed!’

‘O, ’tis my lady.  She’s a one to put up with!  Still, ’tis said here and there that marrying her was the best day’s work that he ever did in his life, although she’s got to be my lord and my lady both.’

‘Is she happy with him?’

‘She is very sharp with the pore man—about happy I don’t know.  He was a good-natured old man, for all his sins, and would sooner any day lay out money in new presents than pay it in old debts.  But ’tis altered now.  ’Tisn’t the same place.  Ah, in the old times I have seen the floor of the servants’ hall over the vamp of your boot in solid beer that we had poured aside from the horns because we couldn’t see straight enough to pour it in.  See?  No, we couldn’t see a hole in a ladder!  And now, even at Christmas or Whitsuntide, when a man, if ever he desires to be overcome with a drop, would naturally wish it to be, you can walk out of Enckworth as straight as you walked in.  All her doings.’

‘Then she holds the reins?’

‘She do!  There was a little tussle at first; but how could a old man hold his own against such a spry young body as that!  She threatened to run away from him, and kicked up Bob’s-a-dying, and I don’t know what all; and being the woman, of course she was sure to beat in the long run.  Pore old nobleman, she marches him off to church every Sunday as regular as a clock, makes him read family prayers that haven’t been read in Enckworth for the last thirty years to my certain knowledge, and keeps him down to three glasses of wine a day, strict, so that you never see him any the more generous for liquor or a bit elevated at all, as it used to be.  There, ’tis true, it has done him good in one sense, for they say he’d have been dead in five years if he had gone on as he was going.’

‘So that she’s a good wife to him, after all.’

‘Well, if she had been a little worse ’twould have been a little better for him in one sense, for he would have had his own way more.  But he was a curious feller at one time, as we all know and I suppose ’tis as much as he can expect; but ’tis a strange reverse for him.  It is said that when he’s asked out to dine, or to anything in the way of a jaunt, his eye flies across to hers afore he answers: and if her eye says yes, he says yes: and if her eye says no, he says no.  ’Tis a sad condition for one who ruled womankind as he, that a woman should lead him in a string whether he will or no.’

‘Sad indeed!’

‘She’s steward, and agent, and everything.  She has got a room called “my lady’s office,” and great ledgers and cash-books you never see the like.  In old times there were bailiffs to look after the workfolk, foremen to look after the tradesmen, a building-steward to look after the foremen, a land-steward to look after the building-steward, and a dashing grand agent to look after the land-steward: fine times they had then, I assure ye.  My lady said they were eating out the property like a honeycomb, and then there was a terrible row.  Half of ’em were sent flying; and now there’s only the agent, and the viscountess, and a sort of surveyor man, and of the three she does most work so ’tis said.  She marks the trees to be felled, settles what horses are to be sold and bought, and is out in all winds and weathers.  There, if somebody hadn’t looked into things ’twould soon have been all up with his lordship, he was so very extravagant.  In one sense ’twas lucky for him that she was born in humble life, because owing to it she knows the ins and outs of contriving, which he never did.’

‘Then a man on the verge of bankruptcy will do better to marry a poor and sensible wife than a rich and stupid one.  Well, here we are at the tenth milestone.  I will walk the remainder of the distance to Knollsea, as there is ample time for meeting the last steamboat.’

When the man was gone Christopher proceeded slowly on foot down the hill, and reached that part of the highway at which he had stopped in the cold November breeze waiting for a woman who never came.  He was older now, and he had ceased to wish that he had not been disappointed.  There was the lodge, and around it were the trees, brilliant in the shining greens of June.  Every twig sustained its bird, and every blossom its bee.  The roadside was not muffled in a garment of dead leaves as it had been then, and the lodge-gate was not open as it always used to be.  He paused to look through the bars.  The drive was well kept and gravelled; the grass edgings, formerly marked by hoofs and ruts, and otherwise trodden away, were now green and luxuriant, bent sticks being placed at intervals as a protection.

While he looked through the gate a woman stepped from the lodge to open it.  In her haste she nearly swung the gate into his face, and would have completely done so had he not jumped back.

‘I beg pardon, sir,’ she said, on perceiving him.  ‘I was going to open it for my lady, and I didn’t see you.’

Christopher moved round the corner.  The perpetual snubbing that he had received from Ethelberta ever since he had known her seemed about to be continued through the medium of her dependents.

A trotting, accompanied by the sound of light wheels, had become perceptible; and then a vehicle came through the gate, and turned up the road which he had come down.  He saw the back of a basket carriage, drawn by a pair of piebald ponies.  A lad in livery sat behind with folded arms; the driver was a lady.  He saw her bonnet, her shoulders, her hair—but no more.  She lessened in his gaze, and was soon out of sight.

He stood a long time thinking; but he did not wish her his.

In this wholesome frame of mind he proceeded on his way, thankful that he had escaped meeting her, though so narrowly.  But perhaps at this remote season the embarrassment of a rencounter would not have been intense.  At Knollsea he entered the steamer for Sandbourne.

Mr. Chickerel and his family now lived at Firtop Villa, in that place, a house which, like many others, had been built since Julian’s last visit to the town.  He was directed to the outskirts, and into a fir plantation where drives and intersecting roads had been laid out, and where new villas had sprung up like mushrooms.  He entered by a swing gate, on which ‘Firtop’ was painted, and a maid-servant showed him into a neatly-furnished room, containing Mr.