Project Gutenberg's Under Lock and Key, Volume I (of 3), by T. W. Speight This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. Title: Under Lock and Key, Volume I (of 3) A Story Author: T. W. Speight Release Date: June 9, 2018 [EBook #57294] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UNDER LOCK AND KEY, VOLUME I *** Produced by Charles Bowen from page scans provided by the Internet Archive (Library of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) Transcriber's Notes: 1. Page scan source: The Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/underlockkeystor01spei (Library of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) UNDER LOCK AND KEY. VOL. I. UNDER LOCK AND KEY. A Story. BY T. W. SPEIGHT, AUTHOR OF "BROUGHT TO LIGHT," "FOOLISH MARGARET," ETC. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON: TINSLEY BROTHERS, 18, CATHERINE STREET, STRAND. 1869. [All rights of Translation and Reproduction are reserved.] LONDON: SAVILL, EDWARDS AND CO., PRINTERS, CHANDOS STREET, COVENT GARDEN. In justice to himself the author thinks it requisite to state that the entire plan of this story was sketched out, and several of the chapters written, before the first lines of Mr. Wilkie Collins's "Moonstone" had been given to the Public. He has further denied himself the pleasure of reading "The Moonstone" till after the completion of his own story, so as to preclude any possible charge of having derived the outline of his plot from the work of another writer. LONDON, February, 1869. CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME. CHAP. I. MY ARRIVAL AT DUPLEY WALLS. II. THE MISTRESS OF DUPLEY WALLS. III. A VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY. IV. SCARSDALE WEIR. V. AT ROSE COTTAGE. VI. THE GROWTH OF A MYSTERY. VII. EXIT JANET HOLME. VIII. BY THE SCOTCH EXPRESS. IX. AT THE "GOLDEN GRIFFIN." X. THE STOLEN MANUSCRIPT. XI. BON REPOS. XII. THE AMSTERDAM EDITION OF 1698. XIII. M. PLATZOFF'S SECRET--CAPTAIN DUCIE'S TRANSLATION OF M. PAUL PLATZOFF'S MS. XIV. DRASHKIL-SMOKING. XV. THE DIAMOND. XVI. JANET'S RETURN. XVII. DUPLEY WALLS AFTER SEVEN YEARS. UNDER LOCK AND KEY. CHAPTER I. MY ARRIVAL AT DUPLEY WALLS. "Miss JANET HOLME, To the care of Lady Pollexfen, Dupley Walls, near Tydsbury, Midlandshire." "There, miss, I'm sure that will do famously," said Chirper, the overworked oldish young person whose duty it was to attend to the innumerable wants of the young-lady boarders of Park Hill Seminary. She had just written out, in a large sprawling hand, a card as above, which card was presently to be nailed on to the one small box that held the whole of my worldly belongings. "And I think, miss," added Chirper, meditatively, as she held out the card at arm's length and gazed at it admiringly, "that if I was to write out another card similar, and tie it round your arm, it would mayhap help you in getting safe to your journey's end." I, a girl of twelve, was the Janet Holme indicated above, and I had been looking over Chirper's shoulder with wondering eyes while she addressed the card. "But who is Lady Pollexfen, and where is Dupley Walls? and what have I to do with either, Chirper, please?" I asked. "If there is one thing in little girls more hateful than another, it is curiosity," answered Chirper, with her mouth half full of nails. "Curiosity has been the bane of many of our sex. Witness Bluebeard's unhappy wife. If you want to know more, you must ask Mrs. Whitehead. I have my instructions, and I acts on them." Meeting Mrs. Whitehead half an hour later as she was coming down the stone corridor that led from the refectory, I did ask that lady precisely the same questions that I had put to Chirper. Her frosty glance, filled with a cold surprise, smote me even through her spectacles, and I shrank a little, abashed at my own boldness. "The habit of asking questions elsewhere than in the class-room should not be encouraged in young ladies," said Mrs. Whitehead, with a sort of prim severity. "The other young ladies are gone home; you are about to follow their example." "But, Mrs. Whitehead--Madam," I pleaded, "I never had any other home than Park Hill." "More questioning, Miss Holme? Fie! Fie!" And with a lean forefinger uplifted in menacing reproval, Mrs. Whitehead sailed on her way, nor deigned me another word. I stole out into the playground, wondering, wretched, and yet smitten through with faint delicious thrillings of a new- found happiness such, as I had often dreamed of, but had scarcely dared hope ever to realize. I, Janet Holme, going home! It was almost too incredible for belief. I wandered about like one mazed--like one who stepping suddenly out of darkness into sunshine is dazzled by an intolerable brightness whichever way he turns his eyes. And yet I was wretched: for was not Miss Chinfeather dead? And that, too, was a fact almost too incredible for belief. As I wandered, this autumn morning, up and down the solitary playground, I went back in memory as far as memory would carry me, but only to find that Miss Chinfeather and Park Hill Seminary blocked up the way. Beyond them lay darkness and mystery. Any events in my child's life that might have happened before my arrival at Park Hill had for me no authentic existence. I had been part and parcel of Miss Chinfeather and the Seminary for so long a time that I could not dissociate myself from them even in thought. Other pupils had had holidays, and letters, and presents, and dear ones at home of whom they often talked; but for me there had been none of these things. I knew that I had been placed at Park Hill when a very little girl by some, to me, mysterious and unknown person, but further than that I knew nothing. The mistress of Park Hill had not treated me in any way differently from her other pupils; but had not the bills contracted on my account been punctually paid by somebody, I am afraid that the even-handed justice on which she prided herself--which, in conjunction with her aquiline nose and a certain antique severity of deportment, caused her to be known among us girls as _The Roman Matron_--would have been somewhat ruffled, and that sentence of expulsion from those classic walls would have been promptly pronounced and as promptly carried into effect. Happily no such necessity had ever arisen; and now the Roman Matron lay dead in the little corner room on the second floor, and had done with pupils, and half-yearly accounts, and antique deportment, for ever. In losing Miss Chinfeather I felt as though the corner-stone of my life had been rent away. She was too cold, she was altogether too far removed for me to regard her with love, or even with that modified feeling which we call affection. But then no such demonstration was looked for by Miss Chinfeather. It was a weakness above which she rose superior. But if my child's love was a gift which she would have despised, she looked for and claimed my obedience--the resignation of my will to hers, the absorption of my individuality in her own, the gradual elimination from my life of all its colour and freshness. She strove earnestly, and with infinite patience, to change me from a dreamy, passionate child--a child full of strange wild moods, capricious, and yet easily touched either to laughter or tears--into a prim and elegant young lady, colourless and formal, and of the most orthodox boarding-school pattern; and if she did not quite succeed in the attempt; the fault, such as it was, must be set down to my obstinate disposition and not to any lack of effort on the part of Miss Chinfeather. And now this powerful influence had vanished from my life, from the world itself, as swiftly and silently as a snowflake in the sun. The grasp of the hard but not unkindly hand, that had held me so firmly in the narrow groove in which it wished me to move, had been suddenly relaxed, and everything around me seemed tottering to its fall. Three nights ago Miss Chinfeather had retired to rest, as well, to all appearance, and as cheerful as ever she had been; next morning she had been found dead in bed. This was what they told us pupils; but so great was the awe in which I held the mistress of Park Hill Seminary that I could not conceive of Death even as venturing to behave disrespectfully towards her. I pictured him in my girlish fancy as knocking at her chamber door in the middle of the night, and after apologizing for the interruption, asking whether she was ready to accompany him. Then would she who was thus addressed arise, and wrap an ample robe about her, and place her hand with solemn sweetness in that of the Great Captain, and the two would pass out together into the starlit night, and Miss Chinfeather would be seen of mortal eyes nevermore. Such was the picture that had haunted my brain for two days and as many nights, while I wandered forlorn through house and playground or lay awake on my little bed. I had said farewell to one pupil after another till all were gone, and the riddle which I had been putting to myself continually for the last forty-eight hours had now been solved for me by Mrs. Whitehead, and had been told that I too was going home. "To the care of Lady Pollexfen, Dupley Walls, Midlandshire." The words repeated themselves again and again in my brain, and became a greater puzzle with every repetition. I had never to my knowledge heard of either the person or the place. I knew nothing of one or the other. I only knew that my heart thrilled strangely at the mention of the word _Home;_ that unbidden tears started to my eyes at the thought that perhaps--only perhaps--in that as yet unknown place there might be some one who would love me just a little. "Father--Mother." I spoke the words, but they sounded unreal to me, and as if uttered by another. I spoke them again, holding out my arms, and crying aloud. All my heart seemed to go out in the cry, but only the hollow winds answered me as they piped mournfully through the yellowing leaves, a throng of which went rustling down the walk as though stirred by the footsteps of a ghost. Then my eyes grew blind with tears, and I wept silently for a time as if my heart would break. But tears were a forbidden luxury at Park Hill, and when, a little later on, I heard Chirper calling me by name, I made haste to dry my eyes and compose my features. She scanned me narrowly as I ran up to her. "You dear, soft-hearted little thing!" she said. And with that she stooped suddenly and gave me a hearty kiss that might have been heard a dozen yards away. I was about to fling my arms round her neck, but she stopped me, saying, "That will do, dear. Mrs. Whitehead is waiting for us at the door." Mrs. Whitehead was watching us through the glass door which led into the playground. "The coach will be here in half an hour, Miss Holme," she said; "so that you have not much time for your preparations." I stood like one stunned for a moment or two. Then I said, "If you please, Mrs. Whitehead, may I see Miss Chinfeather before I go?" Her thin, straight lips quivered slightly, but in her eyes I read only cold disapproval of my request. "Really," she said, "what a singular child you must be. I scarcely know what to say." "Oh, if you please, Mrs. Whitehead!" I urged. "Miss Chinfeather was always kind to me. I remember her as long as I can remember anything. To see her once more--for the last time. It would seem to me cruel to go away without." "Follow me," she said, almost in a whisper. So I followed her softly upstairs into the little corner room where Miss Chinfeather lay in white and solemn state, grandly indifferent to all mundane matters. As I gazed, it seemed but an hour ago since I had heard those still lips conjugating the verb _mourir_ for the behoof of poor ignorant me, and the words came back to me, and I could not help repeating them to myself as I looked: _Je meurs_, _tu meurs_, &c. I bent over and kissed the marble-cold forehead, and said farewell in my heart, and went downstairs without a word. Half an hour later the district coach, a splendid vision, pulled up impetuously at the gates. I was ready to the moment. Mrs. Whitehead's frosty fingers touched mine for an instant; she imprinted a chill kiss on my check, and looked relieved. "Good-bye, my dear Miss Holme, and God bless you," she said. "Strive to bear in mind through after life the lessons that have been instilled into you at Park Hill Seminary. Present my respectful compliments to Lady Pollexfen, and do not forget your catechism." At this point the guard sounded an impatient summons on his bugle; Chirper picked up my box, seized me by the hand, and hurried with me to the coach. My luggage found a place on the roof; I was unceremoniously bundled inside; Chirper gave me another of her hearty kisses, and pressed a crooked sixpence into my hand "for luck," as she whispered. I am sure there was a real tear in her eye as she did so. Next moment we were off. I kept my eyes fixed on the Seminary as long as it remained in view, especially on the little corner room. It seemed to me that I must be a very wicked girl indeed, because I felt no real sorrow at quitting the place that had been my home for so many years. I could not feel anything but secretly glad, but furtively happy with a happiness which I felt ashamed of acknowledging even to myself. Miss Chinfeather's white and solemn face, as seen in her coffin, haunted my memory, but even of her I thought only with a sort of chastened regret. She had never touched my heart. There had been about her a bleakness of nature that effectually chilled any tender buds of liking or affection that might in the ordinary course of events have grown up and blossomed round her life. Therefore, in my child's heart there was no lasting sorrow for her death, no gracious memories of her that would stay with me, and smell sweet, long after she herself should be dust. My eight miles' ride by coach was soon over. It ended at the railway station of the county town. The guard of the coach had, I suppose, received his secret instructions. Almost before I knew what had happened, I found myself in a first- class carriage, with a ticket for Tydsbury in my hand, and committed to the care of another guard, he of the railway, this time--a fiery-faced man, with immense red whiskers, who came and surveyed me as though I were some contraband article, but finished by nodding his head and saying with a smile, "I dessay we shall be good friends, miss, before we get to the end of our journey." It was my first journey by rail, and the novelty of it filled me with wonder and delight. The train by which I travelled was a fast one, and after my first feeling of fright at the rapidity of the motion had merged into one of intense pleasure and exhilaration of mind, I could afford to look back on my recent coach experience with a sort of pitying superiority, as on a something that was altogether rococo and out of date. Already the rush of new ideas into my mind was so powerful that the old landmarks of my life seemed in danger of being swept clean away. Already it seemed days instead of only a brief hour or two since I had bidden Mrs. Whitehead farewell, and had taken my last look at Park Hill Seminary. The red-faced guard was as good as his word; he and I became famous friends before I reached the end of my journey. At every station at which we stopped he came to the window to see how I was getting on, and whether I was in want of anything, and was altogether so kind to me that I was quite sorry to part from him when the train reached Tydsbury, and left me, a minute later, standing, a solitary waif, on the little platform. The one solitary fly of which the station could boast was laid under contribution. My little box was tossed on to its roof; I myself was shut up inside; the word was given, "To Dupley Walls;" the station was left behind, and away we went, jolting and rumbling along the quiet country lanes, and under overarching trees, all aglow just now with autumn's swift- fading beauty. The afternoon was closing in, and the wind was rising, sweeping up with melancholy soughs from the dim wooded hollows where it had lain asleep till the sun went down; garnering up the fallen leaves like a cunning miser, wherever it could find a hiding-place for them, and then dying suddenly down, and seeming to hold its breath as if listening for the footsteps of the coming winter. In the western sky hung a huge tumbled wrack of molten cloud like the ruins of some vast temple of the gods of eld. Chasmed buttresses, battlements overthrown; on the horizon a press of giants, shoulder against shoulder, climbing slowly to the rescue; in mid-sky a praying woman; farther afield a huge head, and a severed arm the fingers of which were clenched in menace: all these things I saw, and a score others, as the clouds changed from minute to minute in form and brightness, while the stars began to glow out like clusters of silver lilies in the eastern sky. We kept jolting on for so long a time through the twilight lanes, and the evening darkened so rapidly, that I began to grow frightened. It was like being lifted out of a dungeon, when the old fly drew up with a jerk, and a shout of "House there!" and when I looked out and saw that we were close to the lodge entrance of some park. Presently a woman, with a child in her arms, came out of the lodge and proceeded to open the gate for us. Said the driver--"How's Tootlums to-night?" The woman shouted something in reply, but I don't think the old fellow heard her. "Ay, ay," he called out, "Tootlums will be a famous young shaver one of these days," and with that he whipped up his horse, and away we went. The drive up the avenue, for such at the time I judged it to be, and such it proved to be, did not occupy many minutes. The fly came to a stand, and the driver got down and opened the door. "Now, young lady, here you are," he said, and I found myself in front of the main entrance to Dupley Walls. It was too dark by this time for me to discern more than the merest outline of the place. I saw that it was very large, and I noticed that not even one of its hundred windows showed the least glimmer of light. It loomed vast, dark, and silent, as if deserted by every living thing. The old driver gave a hearty pull at the bell, and the muffled clamour reached me where I stood. I was quaking with fears and apprehensions of that unknown future on whose threshold I was standing. Would Love or Hate open for me the doors of Dupley Walls? I was strung to such a pitch that it seemed impossible for any lesser passion to be handmaiden to my needs. What I saw when the massive door was at last opened was an aged woman, dressed like a superior domestic, who, in sharp accents, demanded to know what we meant by disturbing a quiet family in that unseemly way. She was holding one hand over her eyes, and trying to make out our appearance through the gathering darkness. I stepped close up to her. "I am Miss Janet Holme, from Park Hill Seminary," I said, "and I wish to speak with Lady Pollexfen." CHAPTER II. THE MISTRESS OF DUPLEY WALLS. The words were hardly out of my lips when the woman shrank suddenly back, as though struck by an invisible hand, and gave utterance to an inarticulate cry of wonder and alarm. Then, striding forward, she seized me by the wrist, and drew me into the lamp-lighted hall. "Child! child! why have you come here?" she cried, scanning my face with eager eyes. "In all the wide world this is the last place you should have come to." "Miss Chinfeather is dead, and all the young ladies have been sent to their homes. I have no home, so they have sent me here." "What shall I do? What will her ladyship say?" cried the woman, in a frightened voice, "how shall I ever dare to tell her?" "Who rang the bell, Dance, a few minutes ago? And to whom are you talking?" The voice sounded so suddenly out of the semi-darkness at the upper end of the large hall, which was lighted only by a small oil lamp, that both the woman and I started. Looking in the direction from which the sound had come, I could dimly make out, through the obscurity, the figures of two women who had entered without noise through the curtained doorway, close to which they were now standing. One of the two was very tall, and was dressed entirely in black. The second one, who was less tall, was also dressed in black, except that she seemed to have something white thrown over her head and shoulders; but I was too far away to make out any details. "Hush! don't you speak," whispered the woman warningly to me. "Leave me to break the news to her ladyship." With that she left me standing on the threshold, and hurried towards the upper end of the hall. The tall personage in black, then, with the harsh voice--high pitched, and slightly cracked--was Lady Pollexfen! How fast my heart beat! If only I could have slipped out unobserved I would never have braved my fortune within those walls again. She who had been called Dance went up to the two ladies, curtsied deeply, and began talking in a low earnest voice. Hardly, however, had she spoken a dozen words, when the lesser of the two ladies flung up her arms with a cry like that of some wounded creature, and would have fallen to the ground had not Dance caught her round the waist and so held her. "What folly is this?" cried Lady Pollexfen, sternly, striking the pavement of the ball sharply with the iron ferule of her cane. "To your room, Sister Agnes! For such poor weak fools as you solitude is the only safe companion. But, remember your oath! Not a word; not a word." With one lean hand uplifted, and menacing forefinger, she emphasized those last warning words. She who had been addressed as Sister Agnes raised herself with a deep sigh from the shoulder of Dance, cast one long look in the direction of the spot where I was standing, and vanished slowly through the curtained arch. Then Dance took up the broken thread of her narration, and Lady Pollexfen, grim and motionless, listened without a word. Even after Dance had done speaking her ladyship stood for some time looking straight before her, but saying nothing in reply. I felt intuitively that my fate was hanging on the decision of those few moments, but I neither stirred nor spoke. At length the silence was broken by Lady Pollexfen. "Take the child away," she said; "attend to her wants, make her presentable, and bring her to me in the Green Saloon after dinner. It will be time enough to-morrow to consider what must be done with her." Dance curtsied again. Her ladyship sailed slowly across the hall, and passed out through another curtained doorway. Dance's first act was to pay and dismiss the driver who had been waiting outside all this time. Then, taking me by the hand, "Come along with me, dear," she said. "Why, I declare, you look quite white and frightened! You have nothing to fear, child. We shall not eat you--at least, not just yet; not till we have fed you up a bit." At the end of a long corridor was Mrs. Dance's own room, into which I was now ushered. Scarcely had I made a few changes in my toilette when tea for two persons was brought in, and Mrs. Dance and I sat down to table. The old lady was well on with her second cup before she made any remark other than was required by the necessities of the occasion. I have called her an old woman, and such she looked in my youthful eyes, although her years were only about sixty. She wore a dark brown dress, and a black silk apron, and had on a cap with thick frilled borders, under which her grey hair was neatly snooded away. She looked ruddy and full of health. A shrewd sensible woman, evidently, yet with a motherly kindness about her that made me cling to her with a child's unerring instinct. "You look tired, poor thing," she said, as she leisurely stirred her tea; "and well you may, considering the long journey you have had to-day. I don't suppose that her ladyship will keep you more than ten minutes in the Green Saloon, and after that you can go to bed as soon as you like. What a surprise for all of us your coming has been! Dear, dear! who would have expected such a thing this morning? But I knew by the twitching of my corns that something uncommon was going to happen. I was really frightened of telling her ladyship that you were here. There's no knowing how she might have taken it; and there's no knowing what she will decide to do with you to-morrow." "But what has Lady Pollexfen to do with me in any way?" I asked. "Before this morning I never even heard her name, and now it seems that she is to do what she likes with me." "That she will do what she likes with you, you may depend, dear," said Mrs. Dance. "As to how she happens to have the right so to do, that is another thing, and one about which it is not my place to talk nor yours to question me. That she possesses such a right you may make yourself certain. All that you have to do is to obey and to ask no questions." I sat in distressed and bewildered silence for a little while. Then I ventured to say: "Please not to think me rude, but I should like to know who Sister Agnes is." Mrs. Dance stirred uneasily in her chair and bent her eyes on the fire, but did not immediately answer my question. "Sister Agnes is Lady Pollexfen's companion," she said at last. "She reads to her, and writes her letters, and talks to her, and all that, you know. Sister Agnes is a Roman Catholic, and came here from the convent of Saint Ursula. However, she is not a nun, but something like one of those Sisters of Mercy in the large towns who go about among poor people, and visit the hospitals and prisons. She is allowed to live here always, and Lady Pollexfen would hardly know how to get through the day without her." "Is she not a relative of Lady Pollexfen?" I asked. "No--not a relative," answered Dance. "You must try to love her a great deal, my dear Miss Janet, for if angels are ever allowed to visit this vile earth, Sister Agnes is one of them. But there goes her ladyship's bell. She is ready to receive you." I had washed away the stains of travel, and had put on my best frock, and Dance was pleased to say that I looked very nice, "though, perhaps, a trifle more old-fashioned than a girl of your age ought to look." Then she laid down a few rules for my guidance when in the presence of Lady Pollexfen, and led the way to the Green Saloon, I following with a timorous heart. Dance flung open the folding doors of the big room. "Miss Janet Holme to see your ladyship," she called out, and next moment the doors closed behind me, and I was left standing there alone. "Come nearer--come nearer," said her ladyship's cracked voice, as with a long lean hand she beckoned me to approach. I advanced slowly up the room, stopped and curtsied. Lady Pollexfen pointed out a high footstool about three yards from her chair. I curtsied again, and sat down on it. During the interview that followed my quick eyes had ample opportunity for taking a mental inventory of Lady Pollexfen and her surroundings. She had exchanged the black dress in which I first saw her for one of green velvet, trimmed with ermine. This dress was made with short sleeves and low body, so as to leave exposed her ladyship's arms, long, lean, and skinny, and her scraggy neck. Her nose was hooked, and her chin pointed. Between the two shone a row of large white even teeth, which long afterwards I knew to be artificial. Equally artificial was the mass of short black frizzly curls that crowned her head, which was unburdened with cap or covering of any kind. Her eyebrows were dyed to match her hair. Her cheeks, even through the powder with which they were thickly smeared, showed two spots of brilliant red, which no one less ignorant than I would have accepted without question as the last genuine remains of the bloom of youth. But at that first interview I accepted everything _au pied de la letter_, without doubt or question of any kind. Her ladyship wore long earrings of filigree gold. Round her neck was a massive gold chain. On her fingers sparkled several rings of price--diamonds, rubies, and opals. In figure her ladyship was tall, and as upright as a dart. She was, however, slightly lame of one foot, which necessitated the use of a cane when walking. Lady Pollexfen's cane was ivory-headed, and had a gold plate let into it, on which was engraved her crest and initials. She was seated in an elaborately-carved high-backed chair, near a table on which were the remains of a dessert for one person. The Green Saloon was a large gloomy room; at least, it looked gloomy as I saw it for the first time, lighted up by four wax candles where twenty were needed. These four candles being placed close by where Lady Pollexfen was sitting, left the other end of the saloon in comparative darkness. The furniture was heavy, formal, and old-fashioned. Gloomy portraits of dead-and-gone Pollexfens lined the green walls, and this might be the reason why there always seemed to me a slight graveyard flavour--scarcely perceptible, but none the less surely there--about this room which caused me to shudder involuntarily whenever I crossed its threshold. Lady Pollexfen's black eyes--large, cold, and steady as Juno's own--had been bent upon me all this time, measuring me from head to foot with what I felt to be a slightly contemptuous scrutiny. "What is your name, and how old are you?" she asked, with startling abruptness, after a minute or two of silence. "Janet Holme, and twelve years," I answered, laconically. A feeling of defiance, of dislike to this bedizened old woman, began to gnaw my child's heart. Young as I was, I had learned, with what bitterness I alone could have told, the art of wrapping myself round with a husk of cold reserve, which no one uninitiated in the ways of children could penetrate, unless I were inclined to let them. Sulkiness was the generic name for this quality at school, but I dignified it with a different term. "How many years were you at Park Hill Seminary? and where did you live before you went there?" asked Lady Pollexfen. "I have lived at Park Hill ever since I can remember anything. I don't know where I lived before that time." "Are your parents alive or dead? If the latter, what do you remember of them?" A lump came into my throat, and tears into my eyes. For a moment or two I could not answer. "I don't know anything about my parents," I said. "I never remember seeing them. I don't know whether they are alive or dead." "Do you know why you were consigned by the Park Hill people to this particular house--to Dupley Walls--to Me, in fact?" Her voice was raised almost to a shriek as she said these last words, and she pointed to herself with one claw-like finger. "No, my lady, I don't know why I was sent here. I was told to come, and I came." "But you have no claim on me--none whatever," she continued, fiercely. "Bear that in mind: remember it always. Whatever I may choose to do for you, will be done of my own free will, and not through compulsion of any kind. No claim whatever; remember that. None whatever." She was silent for some time after this, and sat with her cold steady eyes fixed intently on the fire. For my part, I sat as still as a mouse, afraid to stir, longing for my dismissal, and dreading to be questioned further. Lady Pollexfen roused herself at length with a deep sigh, and a few words muttered under her breath. "Here is a bunch of grapes for you, child," she said. "When you have eaten them it will be time for you to retire." I advanced timidly, and took the grapes, with a curtsey and a "Thank you, my lady," and then went back to my seat. As I sat eating my grapes my eyes went up to an oval mirror over the fire-place, in which were reflected the figures of Lady Pollexfen and myself. My momentary glance into its depths showed me how keenly but furtively her ladyship was watching me. But what interest could a great lady have in watching poor insignificant me? I ventured another glance into the mirror. Yes, she looked as if she were devouring me with her eyes. But hothouse grapes are nicer than mysteries, and how is it possible to give one's serious attention to two things at a time? When I had finished the grapes, I put my plate back on the table. "Ring that bell," said Lady Pollexfen. I rang it accordingly, and presently Dance made her appearance. "Miss Holme is ready to retire," said her ladyship. I arose, and going a step or two nearer to her, I made her my most elaborate curtsey, and said, "I wish your ladyship a very good night." The ghost of a smile flickered across her face. "I am pleased to find, child, that you are not entirely destitute of manners," she said, and with a stately wave of the arm I was dismissed. It was like an escape from slavery to hear the door of the Green Saloon shut behind me, and to get into the great corridors and passages outside. I could have capered for very glee; only Mrs. Dance was a staid sort of person, and might not have liked it. "Her ladyship is pleased with you, I'm sure," she remarked, as we went along. "That is more than I am with her," I answered, pertly. Mrs. Dance looked shocked. "You must not talk in that way, dear, not on any account," she said. "You must try to like Lady Pollexfen; it is to your interest to do so. But even should you never learn to like her, you must not let any one know it." "I'm sure that I shall like the lady you call Sister Agnes," I said. "When shall I see her? To-morrow?" Mrs. Dance looked at me sharply for a moment. "You think you shall like Sister Agnes, eh? When you come to know her, you will more than like her; you will love her. But perhaps Lady Pollexfen will not allow you to see her." "But why not?" I said, abruptly, and I could feel my eyes flash with anger. "The why not I am not at liberty to explain," said Mrs. Dance, drily. "And let me tell you, Miss Janet Holme, there are many things under this roof of which no explanation will be given you, and if you are a wise, good girl, you will not ask too many questions. I tell you this simply for your own good. Lady Pollexfen cannot abear people that are always prying and asking, What does this mean? and what does the other mean A still tongue is the sign of a wise head." Ten minutes later I had said my prayers, and was in bed. "Don't go without kissing me," I said to Dance, as she took up the candle. The old lady came back and kissed me tenderly. "Heaven bless you, and keep you, my dear!" she said, with solemn dignity. "There are those in the world who love you very dearly, and some day perhaps you will know all. I dare not say more. Good night, and God bless you." Mrs. Dance's words reached a chord in my heart that vibrated to the slightest touch. I cried myself silently to sleep. How long I had been asleep I had no means of knowing, but I was awakened sometime in the night by a rain of kisses, soft, warm, and light, on lips, cheeks, and forehead. The room was pitch dark, and for a second or two I thought I was still at Park Hill, and that Miss Chinfeather had come back from heaven to tell me how much she loved me. But this thought passed away like the slide of a magic lantern, and I knew that I was at Dupley Walls. The moment I knew this I put out my arms with the intention of clasping my unknown visitor round the neck. But I was not quick enough. The kisses ceased, my hands met each other in the empty air, and I heard a faint noise of garments trailing across the floor. I started up in bed, and called out, in a frightened voice, "Who's there?" "Hush! not a word!" whispered a voice out of the darkness. Then I heard the door of my room softly closed, and I felt that I was alone. I was left as wide awake as ever I had been in my life. My child's heart was filled with an unspeakable yearning, and yet the darkness and the mystery frightened me. It could not be Miss Chinfeather who had visited me, I argued with myself. The lips that had touched mine were not those of a corpse, but were instinct with life and love. Who, then, could my mysterious visitor be? Not Lady Pollexfen, surely! I half started up in bed at the thought. Just as I did so, without warning of any kind, a solemn muffled tramp became audible in the room immediately over mine. A tramp, slow, heavy, measured, from one end of the room to the other, and then back again. I slipped back into the bedclothes and buried myself up to the ears. I could hear the beating of my heart, oppressed now with a new terror before which the lesser one faded utterly. The very monotony of that dull measured walk was enough to unstring the nerves of a child, coming as it did in the middle of the night. I tried to escape from it by going still deeper under the clothes, but I could hear it even then. Since I could not escape it altogether, I had better listen to it with all my ears, for it was quite possible that it might come downstairs, and so into my room. Had such a thing happened, I think I should have died from sheer terror. Happily for me nothing of the kind took place; and, still listening, I fell asleep at last from utter weariness, and knew nothing more till I was awoke by a stray sunbeam smiting me across the eyes. CHAPTER III. A VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY. A golden sunbeam was shining through a crevice in the blinds; the birds were twittering in the ivy outside; oxen were lowing to each other across the park. Morning, with all her music, was abroad. I started up in bed and rubbed my eyes. Within the house everything was as mute as the grave. That horrible tramping overhead had ceased--had ceased, doubtless, with the return of daylight, which would otherwise have shifted it from the region of the weird to that of the commonplace. I smiled to myself as I thought of my terrors of the past night, and felt brave enough just then to have faced a thousand ghosts. In another minute I was out of bed, and had drawn up my blind, and flung open my window, and was drinking in the sweet peaceful scene that stretched away before me in long level lines to the edge of a far-off horizon. My window was high up and looked out at the front of the hall. Immediately below me was a semicircular lawn, shut in from the park by an invisible fence, close shaven, and clumped with baskets of flowers glowing just now with all the brilliance of late autumn. The main entrance--a flight of shallow steps, and an Ionic portico, as I afterwards found--was at one end of the building, and was reached by a long straight carriage drive, the route of which could be traced across the park by the thicker growth of trees with which it was fringed. This park stretched to right and left for a mile either way. In front, it was bounded, a short half-mile away, by the high road, beyond which were level wide-stretching meadows through which the river Adair washed slow and clear. But chief of all this morning I wanted to be down among the flowers. I made haste to wash and dress, taking an occasional peep through the window as I did so, and trying to entice the birds from their hiding-places in the ivy. Then I opened my bedroom door, and then, in view of the great landing outside, I paused. Several doors, all except mine now closed, gave admittance from this landing to different rooms. Both landing and stairs were made of oak, black and polished with age. One broad flight of stairs, with heavy carved banisters, pointed the way below; a second and narrower flight led to the regions above. As a matter of course I chose the former, but not till after a minute's hesitation as to whether I should venture to leave my room at all before I should be called. But my desire to see the baskets of flowers prevailed over everything else. I closed my door gently and hurried down. I found myself in the entrance-hall of Dupley Walls, into which I had been ushered on my arrival. There were the two curtained doorways through which Lady Pollexfen had come and gone. For the rest, it was a gloomy place enough, with its flagged floor, and its diamond-paned windows high up in the semicircular roof. A few rusty full-lengths graced the walls; the stairs were guarded by two effigies in armour; a marble bust of one of the Cæsars stood on a high pedestal in the middle of the floor; and that was all. I was glad to get away from this dismal spot and to find myself in the passage which led to the housekeeper's room. I opened the door and looked in, but the room was vacant. Farther along the same passage I found the kitchen and other domestic offices. The kitchen clock was just on the point of six as I went in. One servant alone had come down. From her I enquired my way into the garden, and next minute I was on the lawn. The close-cropped grass was wet with the heavy dew; but my boots were thick and I heeded it not, for the flowers were there within my very grasp. Oh, those flowers! can I ever forget them? I have seen none so beautiful since. There can be none so beautiful out of Paradise. One spray of scarlet geranium was all that I ventured to pluck. But the odours and the colours were there for all comers, and were as much mine for the time being as if the flowers themselves had belonged to me. Suddenly I turned and glanced up at the many-windowed house with a sort of guilty consciousness that I might possibly be doing wrong. But the house was still asleep--closed shutters or down-drawn blind at every window. I saw before me a substantial- looking red-brick mansion, with a high slanting roof, of not undignified appearance now that it was mellowed by age, but with no pretensions to architectural beauty. The sole attempt at outside ornamentation consisted of a few flutings of white stone, reaching from the ground to the second floor, and terminating in oval shields of the same material, on which had originally been carved the initials of the builder and the date of erection; but the summer's sun and the winter's rain of many a long year had rubbed both letters and figures carefully out. Long afterwards I knew that Dupley Walls had been built in the reign of the Third William by a certain Squire Pollexfen of that date, "out of my own head," as he himself put it in a quaint document still preserved among the family archives; and rather a muddled head it must have been in matters architectural. After this, I ventured round by the main entrance, with its gravelled carriage sweep, to the other side of the house, where I found a long flagged terrace bordered with large evergreens in tubs placed at frequent intervals. On to this terrace several French windows opened--the windows, as I found later in the day, of Lady Pollexfen's private rooms. To the left of this terrace stood a plantation of young trees, through which a winding path that opened by a wicket into the private grounds, invited me to penetrate. Through the green gloom I advanced bravely, my heart beating with all the pleasure of one who was exploring some unknown land. I saw no living thing by the way, save two grey rabbits that scuttered across my path and vanished in the undergrowth on the other side. Pretty frisky creatures! how I should like to have caught them, and fed them, and made pets of them as long as they lived! Two or three hundred yards farther on the path ended with another wicket, now locked, which opened into the high road. About a mile away I could discern the roofs and chimneys of a little town. When I got back to the hall I found dear old Dance getting rather anxious at my long absence, but she brightened into smiles when I kissed her and told her where I had been. "You must have slept well, or you would hardly look so rosy this morning," she said, as we sat down to breakfast. "I should have slept very well if I had not been troubled by the ghosts." "Ghosts! my dear Miss Janet? You do not mean to say----" and the old lady's cheek paled suddenly, and her cup rattled in her saucer as she held it. "I mean to say that Dupley Walls is haunted by two ghosts, one of which came and kissed me last night when I was asleep; while the other one was walking nearly all night in the room over mine." Dance's face brightened, but still wore a puzzled expression. "You must have dreamed that some one kissed you, dear," she said. "If you were asleep you could not know anything about it." "But I was awakened by it, and I am positive that it was no dream." Then I told her what few particulars there were to tell. "For the future we must lock your bedroom door," she said. "Then I should be worse frightened than ever. Besides, a real ghost would not be kept out by locking the door." "Well, dear, tell me if you are disturbed in the same way again. But as for the tramping you heard in the room overhead, that is easily explained. It was no ghost that you heard walking, but Lady Pollexfen." Then, seeing my look of astonishment, she went on to explain. "You see, my dear Miss Janet, her ladyship is a very peculiar person, and does many things that to commonplace people like you and me may seem rather strange. One of these little peculiarities is her fondness for walking about the room over yours at night. Now, if she likes to do this, I know of no reason why she should not do it. It is a little whim that does no harm to anybody; and as the house and everything in it are her own, she may surely please herself in such a trifle." "But what is there in the room that she should prefer it to any other in the house for walking in by night?" I asked. "What--is--there--in the room?" said the old lady, staring at me across the table with a strange frightened look in her eyes. "What a curious question! The room is a common room, of course, with nothing in it out of the ordinary way; only, as I said before, it happens to be Lady Pollexfen's whim to walk there. So, if you hear the noise again, you will know how to account for it, and will have too much good sense to feel in the least afraid." I had a half consciousness that Dance was prevaricating with me in this matter, or hiding something from me; but I was obliged to accept her version as the correct one, especially as I saw that, any further questioning would be of no avail. I did not see Lady Pollexfen that day. She was reported to be unwell, and kept her own rooms. About noon a message came from Sister Agnes that she would like to see me in her room. When I entered she was standing by a square oak table, resting one hand on it while the other was pressed to her heart. Her face was very pale, but her dark eyes beamed on me with a veiled tenderness that I could not misinterpret. "Good morrow, Miss Holme," she said, offering a white slender hand for my acceptance. "I am afraid that you will find Dupley Walls even duller than Park Hill Seminary." Her tone was cold and constrained. I looked up earnestly into her face. Her lips began to quiver painfully. Suddenly she stooped and kissed me. "Child! child! you must not look at me in that way," she cried. Instinct whispered something in my ear. "You are the lady who came and kissed me when I was asleep!" I exclaimed. Her brow contracted for a moment as if she were in pain. A hectic spot came out suddenly on either cheek, and vanished almost as swiftly. "Yes, it was I who came to your room last night," she said. "You are not vexed with me for doing so?" "On the contrary, I love you for it." Her smile, the sweetest I ever saw, beamed out at this. Gently she stroked my hair. "You looked so forlorn and weary last night," she said, "that after I got to bed I could not help thinking about you. I was afraid you would not be able to sleep in a strange place, so I could not rest till I had visited you: but I never intended to awake you." "I do not mind how often I am awakened the same way," I said. "No one has ever seemed to love me but you, and I cannot help loving you back." "Ma pauvre petite!" was all she said. We had sat down by this time close to the window, and Sister Agnes was holding one of my hands in hers and caressing it gently as she gazed dreamily across the park. My eyes, childlike, wandered from her to the room and then back again. The picture still lives in my memory as fresh as though it had been limned but yesterday. A square whitewashed room, fitted up with furniture of unpolished oak. On the walls a few proof engravings of subjects taken from Sacred History. A small bookcase in one corner, and a _prie-dieu_ in another. The floor uncarpeted, but polished after the French fashion. A writing-table; a large workbox; a heap of clothing for the poor; and lastly, a stand for flowers. The features of Sister Agnes were as delicate and clearly cut as those of some antique statue, but their habitual expression was one of intense melancholy. Her voice was low and gracious: the voice of a refined and educated gentlewoman. Her hair was black, with here and there a faint silver streak; but the peculiar head-dress of white linen which she wore left very little of it visible. Disfiguring as this head-dress might have been to many people, in her case it served merely to enhance the marble whiteness and transparent purity of her complexion. Her eyebrows were black and well-defined; but as for the eyes themselves, I can only repeat what I said before, that their dark depths were full of tenderness and a sort of veiled enthusiasm difficult to describe in words. Her dress was black, soft, and coarse, relieved by deep cuffs of white linen. Her solitary ornament,...