Set in Silver
away down many a dark hill toward Bradford, as night gathered us in.
I may need all the courage that I have borrowed and cashed in advance,
because suspense is worse than the pain of any blow.
We leave here early to-morrow morning for Graylees Castle in
Warwickshire--and the tour is at an end.
Your Audrie, who loves and longs for you.
XL
AUDRIE BRENDON TO HER MOTHER
_Graylees Castle_,
_Night of September 12th_
Dearest and Wisest: I remember the first letter I wrote you (on
July Fourth) about the Ellaline business began with expressions
something like this: "Fireworks! Roman Candles!! Rockets!!!"
Well, my last letter about the Ellaline business begins with explosions,
too. A whole gunpowder plot has exploded: Dick's plot.
We got here in the afternoon; an uneventful run, for Sir Lionel was
always the same; cool but kind. I couldn't believe Dick had told him
anything.
Graylees is a place to be proud of, and you would never know there had
been a fire in the castle--but no injury was done to the oldest part.
Mrs. Norton says Graylees is called the "miniature Warwick," but it
doesn't look a miniature anything: it seems enormous. There's a great
hall, with suits of armour scattered about, and weapons of all periods
arranged in intricate patterns on the stone wall; and a minstrels'
gallery, and quantities of grand old Tudor and Stuart furniture; there's
a haunted picture-gallery where a murdered bride walks each Christmas
Eve, beautifully dressed; there's a suite of rooms in which kings and
queens have occasionally slept since the time when Henry Seventh
reigned; there's a priest's "hidie hole," and secret dungeons under the
big dining-hall where people used to revel while their prisoners
writhed; and--but I haven't seen nearly all yet.
The room allotted to me looks down from its high tower on to a mossy
moat choked with pink and white water lilies; on a stone terrace this
side of a sunken garden, a peacock plays sentinel, with his tail spread
like a jewelled shield; and against the sky dark, horizontal branches of
Lebanon cedars stretch, like arms of black-clad priests pronouncing a
blessing. May the blessing rest upon this house forever!
I hardly saw the country through which we came, though it was George
Eliot's country; and I half expected something to happen as soon as we
arrived; Sir Lionel perhaps turning on me at last, and saying icily: "I
know everything, but don't want a scandal. Go quietly, at once."
Nothing of the sort came to pass, however. We had tea in the great hall,
brought by an old butler who had known Sir Lionel when he visited the
uncle who left Graylees to him. Afterward, Mrs. Norton showed me "my
room," where already a maid engaged for "Miss Lethbridge" had unpacked
most of my things, the big luggage having arrived before us. My heart
gave a jump when I saw the drawers, and big cedar-lined wardrobes full
of finery; but settled down again when I remembered that almost
everything belonged to Ellaline, and that my legitimate possessions
could be packed again in about five minutes.
Before the change of friendship's weather at Chester, I think Sir Lionel
would have wanted to take me round his domain, indoors and out, but no
such suggestion was made. I was in my room, and there I stayed; but I
felt too restless to settle down and write to you. I kept waiting for
something, as you do for a clock to strike, when you know it is bound to
strike soon.
By and by it was time to dress for dinner. I couldn't bear to wear one
of the grand Ellaline dresses, so I put on the old black. I did look a
frump in it, in such a place as Graylees Castle, where everything ought
to be beautiful and rich, but I did my hair as nicely as I could, and
from the top of my head to my shoulders I wasn't so bad.
I went downstairs at eight o'clock, and Mrs. Senter was already in the
great hall, standing in front of the splendid stone fireplace, watching
her rings sparkle in the light of the wood fire, and resting one pretty
foot on a paw of the left-hand carved stone wolf that supports a ledge
of the mantelpiece--just as if it belonged to her and she had tamed it.
She glanced up when I appeared, and smiled vaguely, but didn't speak.
She seemed thoughtful.
After awhile, Emily came, swishing silkily. Mrs. Senter began to talk to
her, praising the place; and then, just before the quarter
past--dinner-time--Sir Lionel joined us, looking nice, but tired. Mrs.
Senter gave him a sweet smile, and he smiled back, absent-mindedly. He
gave her his arm in to dinner, and she did clever things with her
eyelashes, which made her seem to blush. She wore a white dress I'd not
seen yet, a simple string of pearls round her neck, and quite a maidenly
or bridal look. I couldn't wonder at Sir Lionel if he admired her! At
the dinner-table (which was beautiful with flowers, lots of silver, and
old crystal--a picture against the dark oak panelling) Mrs. Senter was
on his right hand, I on his left, his sister playing hostess. This was
as usual; but as it was the first time in his own house, somehow it made
Mrs. Senter seem of more importance. He and she talked together a good
deal, and she said some witty things, but spent herself mostly in
drawing him out. He didn't speak to me, except to deign a question about
my room, or ask whether I would have a certain thing to eat. I felt a
dreadful lump, and worth about "thirty cents," as Dad used to say.
After dinner, when Emily took us to a charming drawing-room, all white,
with an old spinet in one corner, Sir Lionel stopped away for a few
minutes; but when he came Mrs. Senter grabbed him immediately. She
wouldn't let him hear, when Emily inquired if I could sing, accompanying
myself on the spinet, but began asking him eagerly about the library,
which it seems is rather famous.
"You shall see it to-morrow, if you like," said he.
"Oh, mayn't I have a peep to-night?" she begged, prettily. "Do take me.
Just one peep."
So he took her, of course, and the peep prolonged itself indefinitely. I
had a sinking presentiment that my dreadful flare-up with Dick had been
in vain, and that after all she would inveigle him into proposing to her
this very night. Since I refused to tell him that her damask cheek was
being preyed upon by love of him, she would probably intimate as much
herself, and bury her head between her hands, looking incredibly sad and
lovable. Sir Lionel wouldn't be the man to fight such tactics as those!
I knew he didn't, wouldn't, and couldn't love her one little bit, but he
would be sorry for her, and sacrifice himself rather than she should
suffer for his sake, when he might make her happy.
Emily chatted to me pleasantly about the church, and the vicar at
Graylees, and family tombs, and such cheerful things, to which I said
"Yes" and "No" whenever she stopped; but a cold perspiration was coming
out on my forehead. I was just as sure as that I was alive, that Mrs.
Senter didn't mean to leave the library until Sir Lionel had made her a
present of himself, his books, and his castle. Probably my sub-conscious
self or astral body was there, hearing every word they said. Anyhow, I
_knew_. And I could do nothing. A thumb-screw or a rack would have been
a pleasant relief.
Suddenly we heard the sound of a carriage driving quickly up to the
house.
"Who can that be?" wondered Mrs. Norton. "It's after half-past nine."
"Very likely it's Mr. Burden," said I; the first moderately intelligent
remark I'd made since we were left together.
She agreed with me that this was probable; but when fifteen, twenty,
forty minutes passed by the clock, and Dick did not appear, she changed
her mind. It must have been someone to see Sir Lionel, she thought, on
business that wouldn't wait. I was not convinced of this, and longed for
her to ring and ask a footman who had come; but I couldn't very well
suggest it.
The house did sound so silent, that my ears rang, as they do when one
listens to a shell!
Ten; ten-fifteen; ten-thirty; a Louis Quatorze clock chimed. Hardly had
it got the last two strokes out of its mouth, when Sir Lionel opened the
door. He was pale, in that frightening way that tanned skins do turn
pale, and he didn't seem to see his sister. He looked straight past her
at me, and his eyes shone.
"I want very much to speak to you," he said. His voice shook ever so
slightly, as if he were going into a battle where he knew he would be
killed, and felt solemn about it, but otherwise was rather pleased than
not.
Then I knew my time had come. I almost looked for the steps of the
guillotine, but I was suddenly too blind to see them if they had been
under my nose.
"Very well," I said, and got up from my chair.
"Oh," exclaimed Emily, "don't go. If you have anything to say to
Ellaline, which you'd like to say to her alone, let me go. I am getting
sleepy, and was just thinking about bed. Perhaps I might say good-night
to you both?"
"Good-night, dear," answered Sir Lionel. I had never heard him call her
that before.
"Say good-night to Mrs. Senter for me," went on Emily to us both.
"Yes," said Sir Lionel. But I don't think he had heard.
Mrs. Norton swished silkily out. The door shut. I braced myself, and
looked up at him. His eyes were on my face, and they were full of light.
I supposed it must be righteous anger; but it was a beautiful look--too
good to waste on such a passion, even a righteous form of it.
"You poor child," he said in a low voice, standing quite near me. "You
have gone through a great deal."
I started as if he had shot me--that way of beginning was so different
from anything I had expected.
"Wh-what do you mean?" I stammered.
"That I always knew you were brave, but that you're a hundred times
braver than I thought you. Dick has come back. He has brought with him
a girl and a man from Scotland--bride and groom."
All the strength went out of me. I felt as if my body had turned to
liquid and left only my brain burning, and my heart throbbing. But I
didn't fall. I fancy I caught the back of a tall chair, and held on for
dear life.
"Ellaline," I murmured.
"Yes, Ellaline," he said. "Thank God, you are not Ellaline."
"Thank God?" I echoed in weak wonder.
"I thank God, yes, because it was killing me to believe that you were
Ellaline--to believe you false, and frivolous, and a flirt, just because
of the blood I thought you had in your veins. And I exaggerated
everything you did, till I made a mountain out of each fancied fault.
That fellow Burden brought Ellaline here--just married to her Frenchman
to-day--because he wanted to ruin you. He told me with pride how he'd
ferretted out the whole secret--traced you to your address in
Versailles, learned your real name--told everything, in fact, except
that he'd been blackmailing you, forcing you for your friend's sake to
actions you hated. He didn't tell me that part, naturally, but there was
no need, because I guessed----"
"What--what have you done to him?" The words came limping, because of
the look in his eyes, which shot forth a sword.
"Oh, unluckily it's under my own roof, so I could do no more than bid
him clear out if he didn't want to be kicked out!"
"Gone!" I whispered.
"Yes, gone. And as Mrs. Senter's very loyal to her nephew, she prefers
to leave with him, though she has had nothing to do with his
plottings--didn't even know, and I asked her to stay. She insists on
going to-night when he does. I'm sorry. But it can't be helped. I cannot
think of her now."
"Ellaline----" I began faintly; but he cut me short, with a kind of
generous impatience. "Yes, yes, you shall see her. She wants to see you,
now that she understands, but----"
"Understands?"
"Why, you see, that little beast, Dick Burden--whose mother's staying