As the evening wore on, the storm increased in violence, the reverberations of one crash of thunder hardly dying away before another, and even more severe clatter, seeming to roll round the sky above the Castle, succeeded it. Powerful gusts of wind buffeted the windows, and drove the smoke downwards in the chimneys; the howl of the gusts, sweeping round the many angles of the Castle, rose sometimes to a shriek which could be heard through the loudest peals of the thunder.
The Chaplain having meekly retired to bed when his patroness sought her own couch, the Earl and his cousin were left to amuse themselves as best they might. The Earl lit one of his cigarillos, but Theo declined joining him. ‘And I wish you may not repent your temerity, when my aunt detects – as I promise you she will! – the aroma of tobacco in this room tomorrow!’ he added.
Gervase laughed. ‘Will she give me one of her tremendous scolds, do you think? I shall shake in my shoes: she is the most terrifying woman!’
His cousin smiled. ‘What a complete hand you are, St Erth! Much you care for her scolds! All this mild compliance is nothing but a take-in: you engage her at every turn!’
‘Military training, Theo: a show of strength to deceive the enemy!’ said Gervase firmly. ‘But the room will reek of woodsmoke in the morning, and my iniquity may be undiscovered. It is a very bad habit, however: one that I learned in Spain, and have tried in vain to abandon. I don’t find that snuff answers the purpose at all. Good God, what a gust! You will be blown out of your turret!’
‘Not I! The walls are so thick I shall spend the night very much more snugly than you will, I daresay.’
‘Don’t think it! I became inured to this kind of thing in Spain, and very soon learned to sleep peacefully through a veritable tornado – in a draughty billet, too, with no glass in the windows, but only a few boards nailed across them to protect us from the worst of the weather. I have taken the precaution, too, of telling Turvey to let the fire die down in my room, and thus need not fear to be smothered by smoke. Like her ladyship, I guessed how it would be!’
‘At all events, there is a very good chance that it will blow itself out, and we may expect better weather after it. You need not despair of your ball! But it is not, I fancy, so violent a storm as you might suppose from the way the wind screeches round us. I am accustomed to it, but, after so long an absence, you, I imagine, might well believe yourself to be listening to the screams of souls in torment.’
‘No, I well recall the discomforts of Stanyon in inclement weather. I shall go to bed. I am sure I know not how it is, but an evening spent in the company of my Mama-in-law fatigues me more than a dozen cavalry charges!’
‘To that also I am accustomed,’ Theo said gravely.
They left the Saloon together, the Earl’s hand tucked lightly into his cousin’s arm. The candles and the lamps were still burning in the galleries and on the Grand Staircase, the Earl having, in the gentlest manner possible, informed his household that, since it was not his habit to retire at ten o’clock, he did not wish to find the Castle plunged in darkness at this hour. A couple of footmen were hovering about in a disinterested way, their purpose being to extinguish the lights as soon as he should have shut his bedchamber-door. The Earl smiled faintly, and murmured: ‘My poor Turvey! He cannot reconcile himself to the rigours of life in the country, and wonders that he should be required to grope his way to bed by the light of a single candle. I wish he may not leave my service, as a result of all these discomforts! He understands my boots as no other valet has ever done.’
‘And your neckcloths?’ said Theo quizzically.
‘No, no, how can you do me such an injustice? Mine is the only hand employed in their arrangement! But you have set my doubts at rest, Theo! This Oriental style, which you so rightly deprecate, is too high – by far too high! You shall see tomorrow how beautifully I am able to tie a trône d’amour!’
‘Go to bed! It is by far too late for your funning!’ Theo said, laughing at him. ‘Sleep well!’
‘No fear I shall not: I have been yawning this hour past! Good-night!’
The Earl passed into his bedchamber, where Turvey awaited him by the embers of a dying fire. ‘A rough night!’ he remarked.
‘Extremely so, my lord.’
‘My cousin, however, believes that we may not indulge our optimism too far in expecting a period of better weather after the storm.’
‘Indeed, my lord?’
‘I daresay,’ said the Earl, drawing the pin from the over-tall Oriental tie, and laying it down on his dressing-table, ‘that if you were to step out into the open you would not find the storm to be so severe as you might suppose.’
‘Unless your lordship particularly desires me to do so, I should prefer not to expose myself to the elements.’
‘My unreasonable demands of you fall short of that,’ said Gervase gravely.
Turvey bowed; it was plain that he was not to be won over, and his master abandoned the attempt, permitting himself to be undressed in silence. When he had been assisted to put on his dressing-gown, he told the man he might go, and sat down at his dressing-table to pare his nails. Turvey gathered up the discarded raiment, bade him a punctilious good-night, and withdrew into the adjoining dressing-room, where he could be heard moving about for some minutes, opening and shutting drawers, and brushing coats. Gervase, having critically regarded his slender fingertips, extinguished the candles in the brackets beside the mirror, forced a wedge of paper in the door on to the gallery, which showed a disagreeable tendency to rattle, and climbed into his formidable bed. It was hung with very heavy curtains of crimson velvet, fringed and tasselled with gold, but Gervase, in whom several years of campaigning had engendered a dislike of being shut in, would never permit his valet to draw these. He disposed himself on his pillows, shifted the position of his bedside candle, and, with some misgiving, opened the book which had been pressed on him by the Dowager, after he had very unwisely owned that it had never come in his way. It was entitled Self-Control, and since the Dowager had described it to him as a very pretty and improving book, and one which would do him a great deal of good to read, he had not much expectation of being amused. The thunder went on rumbling and crackling overhead, and the wind was now driving rain against the windows, but this continuous noise had as little power as Mrs Brunton’s moral tale to keep him awake. He very soon found that the printed words were running into one another, tossed the book aside, blew out his candle, and within ten minutes was soundly asleep.
He awoke very suddenly, he knew not how many hours later, as though some unusual sound, penetrating his dreams, had jerked him back to consciousness. The room was in dense darkness, the fire in the hearth having died quite away; and he could hear nothing but the rain beating against the windows, and the howl of the wind, more subdued now, round the corner of the building. Yet even as he wondered whether perhaps he had been awakened by the fall of a tile from the roof, or the slamming of a door left carelessly open, he received so decided an impression that he was not alone in the room, that he raised himself quickly on to one elbow, straining his eyes to see through the smothering darkness. He could hear nothing but the wind and the rain, but the impression that someone was in the room rather grew on him than abated, and he said sharply: ‘Who is there?’
There was no answer, nor was there any sound within the room to betray the presence of another, but he could not be satisfied. Grasping the bedclothes, he flung them aside in one swift movement, and leaped up. As his feet touched the floor, something creaked, and his quickened ears caught a sound which might have been made by a softly-closing door. He reached the windows, grazing his shin against the leg of the dressing-table, and dragged one of the curtains back. A faint, gray light was admitted into the room. He could perceive no one, and strode back to the bedside, groping on the table for his tinder-box. His candle lit, he held it up, keenly looking about him. He noticed that his wedge was still firm in the door lea
ding to the gallery; he glanced towards the door to his dressing-room, and saw that that too was shut. He set the candle down, thrust his feet into a pair of gay Morocco slippers, and shrugged himself into his dressing-gown, aware, as he did so, of the unlikelihood of anyone’s entering his room at such an advanced hour of the night, but still convinced that he had not imagined the whole.
A board cracked outside the room. He picked up the candlestick, and wrenched open his door, stepping out on to the gallery. He found himself staring at Martin, who, fully dressed, except for his shoes, and carrying a lantern, had halted in his tracks, just beyond his door, and was looking in a startled, defensive way over his shoulder. ‘Martin!’ he exclaimed. ‘What the devil – ?’
‘Don’t kick up such a dust!’ Martin begged him, in a savage but a lowered voice. ‘Do you want to wake my mother?’
‘What are you doing?’ Gervase demanded, more softly, but with a good deal of sternness in his tone. ‘Where have you been?’
‘What’s that to you?’ Martin retorted. ‘I suppose I need not render you an account of my movements! I have been out!’
‘Out?’ Gervase repeated incredulously. ‘In this hurricane?’
‘Why shouldn’t I go out? I’m not afraid of a paltry thunderstorm!’
‘Be so good as to stop trying to humbug me!’ Gervase said, with more acidity in his voice than his brother had ever heard. ‘You had the head-ache! you went early to bed!’
‘Oh, well!’ Martin muttered, reddening a little. ‘I – I recalled that – that I had an appointment in the village!’
‘An appointment in the village! Pray, in which village?’
‘Cheringham – but it’s no concern of yours!’ said Martin sulkily.
‘It appears to me to be raining, but I observe that you are not at all wet!’ said Gervase sardonically.
‘Of course I am not! I had my driving-coat on, and I left it, with my boots, downstairs! There is no need for you to blab to my mother that I was out tonight – though I daresay that is just what you mean to do!’ He cast his brother a look of dislike, and said: ‘I suppose that curst door woke you! The wind blew it out of my hand.’
‘Which door?’
‘Oh, the one into the court, of course!’ He jerked his head towards a door at the end of the gallery, which, as the Earl knew, led to a secondary flight of stairs. ‘I came in by that way: I often do!’
Gervase looked at him under slightly knit brows. ‘Very well, but what brought you to my room?’
‘Well, I am bound to pass your room, if I come up by that stairway!’
‘You are not bound to enter my room, however.’
‘Enter your room! That’s a loud one! As though I should wish to!’
‘Did you not, in fact, do so?’
‘Of course I did not! Why should I? I wish you will be a little less busy, St Erth! If I choose to go to Cheringham on affairs of my own –’
‘It is naturally no concern of mine,’ interposed Gervase. ‘You choose wild nights for your intrigues!’
‘My – ?’ Martin gave a crack of laughter, hurriedly smothered. ‘Ay, that’s it! Old Scrooby’s daughter, I daresay!’
‘I beg pardon. You will allow that if I am to be expected to swallow this story some explanation should be vouchsafed to me.’
‘Well, I ain’t going to explain it to you,’ said Martin, scowling at him.
A glimmer of light at the angle of the gallery in which they stood and that which ran along the north side of the court, caught the Earl’s eye. He took a quick step towards it, and Miss Morville, who, shrouded, lamp in hand, had been peeping cautiously round the corner of the wall, came forward, blushing in some confusion, but whispering: ‘Indeed, I beg your pardon, but I thought it must be housebreakers! I could not sleep for this horrid storm, and it seemed to me that I heard footsteps outside the house, and then a door slammed! I formed the intention of slipping upstairs to wake Abney, only then I heard voices, and thought I could recognize yours, my lord, so I crept along the gallery to see if it were indeed you.’ She looked at Martin. ‘Was it you who let the door slam into the court? Have you been out in this rain and wind?’
‘Yes, I have!’ said Martin, in a furious under-voice. ‘I have been down to the village, and pray, what have either of you to say to that?’
‘Only that I wish you will be more careful, and not give me such a fright!’ said Miss Morville, drawing her shawl more securely about her. ‘And, if I were you, Martin, I would not stand talking here, for if you do so much longer you will be bound to wake Lady St Erth.’
This common-sense reminder had the effect of sending him off on tiptoe. Miss Morville, conscious of her bare toes, which her nightdress very imperfectly concealed, and of the neat cap tied under her chin, would have followed him had she not happened to look into the Earl’s face. He was watching Martin’s retreat, and, after considering him for a moment, Miss Morville asked softly: ‘Pray, what has occurred, sir?’
He brought his eyes down to her face. ‘Occurred?’
‘You seem to be a good deal put-out. Is it because Martin stole away to the village? Boys will do so, you know!’
‘That! No! – if it was true!’
‘Oh, I expect it was!’ she said. ‘I thought, did not you? that he had been drinking what my brother Jack calls Old Tom.’
‘I know of no reason why he must go to the village to do so.’
‘Oh, no! I conjecture,’ said Miss Morville, with the air of one versed in these matters, ‘that it was to see some cocking that he went.’
‘Cocking!’
‘At the Red Lion. To own the truth, that was what I thought he meant to do when he said he had the head-ache and would go to bed.’
‘But, in God’s name, why could he not have told me so?’
‘They never do,’ she replied simply. ‘My brothers were just the same. In general, you know, one’s parents frown upon cocking, on account of the low company it takes a boy into. Depend upon it, that was why he would not tell you.’
‘My dear ma’am, Martin can hardly regard me in the light of a parent!’
‘No – at least, only in a disagreeable way,’ she said. ‘You are so much older than he, and have so much more experience besides, that I daresay the poor boy feels you are a great distance removed from him. Moreover, he resents you very much at present. If I were you, I would not mention his having gone out tonight.’
‘I shall certainly not do so. How deep is his resentment, Miss Morville? You seem to know so much that perhaps you know that too!’
‘Dear me, no! I daresay he will recover from it when he is better acquainted with you. I never heeded him very much, and I expect it will be better if you do not either.’
‘You are full of excellent advice, ma’am!’
‘Well, I am not clever, but I am thought to have a great deal of common-sense, though I can see that you mean to be satirical,’ she replied calmly. ‘Good-night! – I think the wind is less, and we may perhaps be able to sleep at last.’
She flitted away down the gallery, and the Earl returned to his bedchamber. Sleep was far from him, however, and after drawing the curtain across the window again he began to pace slowly about the room, thinking over all that had passed. The creak he had heard might, he supposed, have been caused merely by the settling of a chair; but he could not charge his nerves with having led him to imagine the closing of a door. He could have sworn that a latch had clicked very softly, and this sound was too distinctive to be confused with the many noises of the storm. He glanced towards the door into his dressing-room, and took a step towards it. Then he checked himself, reflecting that his silent visitor would scarcely return to his room that night. Instead of locking the door, he bent to pick up his handkerchief, which had fallen on the floor beside the bed, and stood for a moment, kneading it unconsciously between his hands, and wondering
whether the click he had heard had not been in the room after all, but had been caused by Martin’s closing of the door leading to the stairway down the gallery. He could not think it, but it was useless to cudgel his brain any further at that hour. He tossed the handkerchief on to his pillow, and took off his dressing-gown. Suddenly his abstracted gaze became intent. He picked the handkerchief up again, and held it near the candle, to perceive more clearly the monogram which had caught his eye. Delicately embroidered on the fine lawn were the interlinked initials, M and F.
Seven
A bright day succeeded the storm, with a fresh wind blowing, but the sun shining, and great cumulus clouds riding high in a blue sky. Some of the havoc wrought from the night’s tornado could be observed from the windows of the breakfast-parlour; and when Martin strode in presently, he reported that at least one tree had been struck in the Home Wood, and that shattered tiles from the roof of the Castle littered the courts.
‘I trust your lordship’s rest was not too much disturbed?’ Mr Clowne said solicitously. ‘It was indeed a tempestuous night!’
‘His lordship will tell you, sir,’ said Theo, ‘that, having bivouacked in Spain, an English thunderstorm has no power to disturb his rest. He was boasting of it to me last night. I daresay you never enjoyed a quieter sleep, eh, Gervase?’
‘Did I boast? Then I am deservedly set-down, for I must own that my rest was not quite undisturbed.’ He met his brother’s wary, kindling glance across the table, and added, meeting those dark eyes smilingly, but with irony in his own lazy gaze: ‘By the by, Martin, I fancy this must be yours!’
Martin caught the handkerchief, tossed to him, and inspected it casually. ‘Yes, it is. Did you find it amongst your own?’
‘No,’ said Gervase. ‘You dropped it.’
Martin looked up quickly, suspicion in his face. ‘Oh! I daresay I might have: it can easily happen, after all!’ He turned away, and began to tell his cousin about the damage caused by the storm which had so far been reported.