Lost Sir Massingberd: A Romance of Real Life. v. 2/2

OUT OF MIND, OUT OF SIGHT.

Notwithstanding the baronet's polite invitation, and although Mr. Long did not return, as expected, upon the ensuing morning, I felt no inclination to exchange my solitude for the society of Mr. Gilmore at bowls. I was, indeed, rather curious to see the bowling-green, which I had heard from my tutor was one of the very finest in England, fenced in by wondrous walls of yew; but, to arrive there, it was necessary to pass close to the Hall, and, consequently, to run great risk of meeting Sir Massingberd, my repugnance to whom had returned with tenfold strength since the preceding day. My reason, it is true, could suggest no possible harm from my having enclosed his letter to Marmaduke, but still an indefinable dread of what I had done oppressed me. I could not imagine in what manner I could have been outwitted; but a certain malignant exultation in Sir Massingberd's face when he was taking his leave, haunted my memory, and rendered hateful the idea of meeting it again. Moreover, the companionship of Gilmore, the butler, was not attractive. He bore a very bad character with the villagers, among whom he was said to emulate in a humble manner the vices of his lord and master; he had been his companion and confidential servant for a great number of years, and it was not to be wondered at, even supposing that he commenced that servitude as an honest man, that his principles should have been sapped by the communication.

Those who had known Richard Gilmore best and longest, however, averred that his nature had not been the least impaired by this companionship, inasmuch as it had been always as bad as bad could be. I never saw his pale secretive face, with the thin lips tightly closed, as if to prevent the escape of one truant word, without reflecting what a repository of dark and wicked deeds that keeper of Sir Massingberd's conscience needs must be. Such men usually hold such masters in their own hands; for they know too much about them, and it is that species of knowledge which, above all others, is power. But it was not so in this case; the antecedents of Gilmore's master were probably as evil as those of any person who has ever kept a valet, but there was this peculiarity about the baronet--that he cared little or nothing whether people knew them or not. When a thoroughly unprincipled man has arrived at the stage of being entirely indifferent to what his fellow-creatures think of him, he has touched his zenith; he is as much a hero to his valet-de-chambre as to anybody else. It was Gilmore's nature to be reticent; but, for all Sir Massingberd cared, he might have ascended the steps at the stone-cross at Crittenden upon market-day, and held forth upon the subject of his master's peccadillos. Sir Massingberd stood no more in fear of him than of any other man; otherwise, he would scarcely have used such frightful language to him as he did whenever the spirit-case had not been properly replenished, or he happened to mislay the key of his own cigar-chest. It was no delicate tending that the lord of Fairburn Hall required; no accurate arrangement of evening garments ere he returned from shooting; no slippers placed in front of the fire. As he was attired in the morning, so he remained throughout the day, and, if it were the poaching season, throughout the night also. He never was ill, and only very rarely was he so overcome with liquor as to require any assistance in retiring. The putting Sir Massingberd to bed must have been a bad quarter of an hour for Mr. Gilmore. I have mentioned that when I paid my only visit to the Hall, the front-door bell was answered by the butler with very commendable swiftness, under the impression that it was his master; and, indeed, it was rumoured that, on more than one occasion, the baronet had felled his faithful domestic like an ox, for dilatoriness. Wonder was sometimes expressed that Mr. Gilmore, who was supposed, as the phrase goes, to have feathered his nest very agreeably during his master's prosperous days, should cleave to him in his present poverty--the mere sentiment of attachment being deemed scarcely strong enough to retain his gratuitous services; but the reply commonly made to this was, I have no doubt, correct--namely, that, however matters might seem, Mr. Richard Gilmore, we might be well assured, knew his own business best, and on which side his bread was buttered.

Sagacious, however, as this gentleman doubtless was, I did not fancy him as a companion to play bowls with; and, instead of going in the direction of the bowling-green, I took my way to Fairburn Chase. I had not set foot within it for more than a year, and the season was much further advanced then when I had last been there. The stillness which pervaded it in summertime was now broken by the flutter of the falling leaf and the plash of the chestnuts on the moist and sodden ground; the autumn rains had long set in; there was that "drip, drip, drip" in the woods which so mournfully reminds us that the summer, with all its life and warmth, has passed away; and the dank earth was sighing from beneath its load of tangled leaves, which, "hanging so light and hanging so high," but lately danced in the sunny air. The presentiment of evil which overshadowed me was deepened by the melancholy of Nature. I moved slowly through the drippling fern towards the heronry; from the little island suddenly flew forth, not the stately birds who ordinarily reigned there, but a pair of ravens. I knew that such had taken up their residence in the old church tower, for I had seen them flying in and out of its narrow ivied window-slits; but their appearance in the present locality was most unexpected. I was far from being superstitious, but I would rather have seen any other birds just then. A few steps further brought me to that bend in the stream which had been such a favourite haunt of mine before I had dreamed there so unpleasantly. The lime-trees stood ragged and bare, and weeping silently, deprived of their summer bee-music; the sparkling sand, wherein I had seen the mysterious footprints, was dark and damp; a few steps further brought me to the stepping-stones, by which that unknown visitant must have crossed over, if she were indeed of mortal mould; the wood upon the other side was no longer impenetrable to sight; and through its skeleton arms I could see some building of considerable size at no great distance. I knew where such of the keepers and gardeners as lived upon the estate resided, and it puzzled me to imagine to what purpose this cottage was assigned.

While I hesitated as to whether I should cross the turbid and swollen current, whose waters almost entirely covered the stepping-stones, a laugh prolonged and shrill burst forth from the very direction in which I was looking. It was the same mocking cry, never to be forgotten, which I had heard at that very spot some fifteen months before. Anywhere else, I should have recognized it; but in that place it was impossible to doubt its identity. Knife-like, it clove the humid and unwilling air; and, before the sound had ceased, a short, sharp shriek succeeded it--the cry of a smitten human creature. In a moment I had crossed the stream, and was forcing my way through the wood. As I drew nearer, I perceived the edifice before me was of stone, and with a slated roof, instead of being built with clay, and thatched, as were the rest of Sir Massingberd's cottages. There was no attempt at ornamentation, but the place was unusually substantial for its size, the door being studded with nails, while the window upon either side of it was protected by iron bars.

I was just emerging from the fringe of the wood, when another sound smote on my ear, which caused me to pause at once, and remain where the trunk of an elm tree intervened between me and the cottage; it was merely the bark of a dog, but it checked my philanthropic enthusiasm upon the instant. There was no mistaking that wheezy note, telling of canine infirmity, and days prolonged far beyond the ordinary span of dogs. Besides there was but one dog permitted to be at large in Fairburn Chase. It was the execrable Grimjaw. I could see him from my place of concealment turning his almost sightless eyes in my direction as he sat at the cottage door. Immediately afterwards, it opened, and out came Richard Gilmore; he looked about him suspiciously, but having convinced himself that there was nobody in the neighbourhood, he administered a kick to Grimjaw's ribs, reproached him in strong language for having made a causeless disturbance, and turning the key, and pocketing it, walked away by a footpath that doubtless led, although by no means directly, to the Hall. He had a dog-whip in his hand when I first saw him, which I thought was an odd thing for a butler to carry, and he seemed to think so, too, for he put it in a side-pocket before he started, and buttoned it up. Grimjaw, gathering his stiffened limbs together, slowly followed him, not without turning his grey head ever and anon towards my covert, but without venturing again to express his suspicions. I waited until the charming pair were out of sight, ere I advanced to the cottage.

The door of course, was fast; so, approaching the right-hand window, I cautiously looked in through its iron bars; there was no casement whatever, therefore all the objects which the room contained were as clear to me as though I were in it. I beheld a sitting-room, the furniture of which was costly, and had been evidently intended for a much larger apartment, but which in variety was scanty enough. At a mahogany table, which retained little more of polish than if it had just been sawn from its trunk in Honduras, sat an ancient female, with her back towards me, supporting her chin on both hands; a cold chicken in a metal dish was before her, but neither a plate nor knife and fork; she was muttering something in a low tone to herself, which, if it was a grace, must have been a very long one. Her hair was scanty, and white as snow, but hung down almost to the ground; she was miserably thin; and her clothes, although they had once been of rich material, were ragged and old.

I had made no noise, as I thought, in my approach; and the day was so dull and dark that she could scarcely have perceived my presence by any shadow of my eavesdropping self; but no sooner had I set my eyes on her than she began to speak, without looking round, imagining, doubtless, that I was Gilmore. "So you are there again, peeping and prying, are you, wicked thief," cried she. "Don't you know that a real lady should take her meals in peace without being interrupted, especially after she has been beaten? Think of that, you cur. Why, where's your whip?" She uttered these last words with a yell of scorn; and turning suddenly, with one arm raised as if to ward a blow, she met my unexpected face, and I saw hers. So remarkable was her appearance, that although it was she, not I, who was taken by surprise, I think I was the more astounded of the two. Her countenance was that of an old woman, so wrinkled, or rather shrivelled up, that the furrows might have represented the passage of a century of time; yet the teeth were as white and regular as in a young beauty, and the black beaded eyes had a force and fire in them unquenched by age. In her thin puckered ears hung a pair of monstrous gilded ornaments, and round her skinny neck was a necklace such as a stage queen would wear; yet she had naked feet.