CHAPTER THIRTEEN.
CONCERNING ONE CLAIM.
"A matter of urgent importance," read the Squire again from a card justhanded him by a servant, and which bore the inscription: "Miss Calmour."
"What on earth can the girl want next? She's got her money--far morethan any court would have awarded her. What the deuce is she botheringus further for?"
"I can't imagine. Still, I'll see her, if you like."
"I wish you would, Wagram. The fact is, I'm sick of the very sound ofthe name."
It was the middle of the afternoon, and the two were strolling togetherin the shrubbery. Both were, not unnaturally, somewhat annoyed.
"The young lady's in the morning room, sir," said the footman. "I puther in there, sir, because she said she'd come on a matter of business,and hoped no one else would come in."
"Quite right," said Wagram.
Delia rose as he entered. She did not put forth her hand, and did notseem to expect him to. She was busying herself extracting somethingfrom an envelope, and he noticed that her hands shook.
"I would have been over about this the first thing this morning," shebegan, speaking quickly, "but my tyres were punctured. I did not wantto lose a moment. But"--looking up--"it was not you I came to see, itwas your father."
"Won't I do as well, Miss Calmour? Any matter of business is all withinmy province."
"Well, then, it is about this," exhibiting the letter of demand and thecheque. Wagram felt himself growing grim.
"Has any mistake been made in the drawing of it?" he asked, bending overto look at it. She caught at the word.
"Mistake? The whole thing is a mistake, and worse. Mr Wagram, will youbelieve me when I assure you upon my honour that until I received thesetwo enclosures this morning I knew no more about this than--than, well--than if I had never been born?"
"I'm afraid I don't quite understand."
"Don't you? Oh, you do make it hard," with a little stamp of the foot."Well, then, this claim was never made by me--never--and until thismorning I did not know it had been made at all."
"Well, but--if you were hurt that time why not accept a little--er--compensation?"
"Hurt that time? I would be hurt now, if I were not too ashamed, thatyou should think me capable of such a thing. Even if I had been halfkilled I would not have--have--done--what has been done. Compensation!Look!"
She tore the cheque twice across, and laid the fragments on the tablebefore him, together with the letter of demand.
"Now, will you believe that my hands are entirely clean in the matter?The moment I received this I never had a moment's doubt as to the courseI should pursue. That is the outcome." And she pointed to the torncheque.
She looked very pretty standing there--her breast heaving in herexcitement, her eyes brightened, and the colour coming and going in herface--very pretty and appealing.
"Certainly I believe you," said Wagram, who now, as by an inspiration,saw through the whole sordid affair; "and I don't think you need go tothe trouble of explaining it any further, for I can quite see how ithappened."
"But I must explain a little. Oh, Mr Wagram, my father is not well, notalways quite responsible. His health is weak, and he has had a greatdeal of trouble, and might do what he would never have dreamed of doingwhen he was a younger and stronger man; and the temptation, I suppose,was too great."
Her voice tailed off into a sob, and Wagram felt a great wave of pityoverwhelm him as he looked at this girl, who now more than ever struckhim as far too good for her sordid surroundings. Her laboured apologyfor her rascally old parent, too, had sent her up a hundred per cent, inhis estimation, but as an excuse for the old sot it weighed not with himat all. The attempted blackmailing had been too flagrant, toooutrageous, but to find that Delia was entirely innocent of it affordedhim more satisfaction than he could have believed.
"Sit down, sit down. Why have you been standing all this time?" he saidgently; and the tone was too much for poor Delia, who broke downutterly, and wept.
"There, there, now. Don't give way over nothing," he went on. "Amistake has been made, and put right again, that's all. Meanwhile youmust accept my sincere apologies for my side of it."
"Apologies! Mr Wagram, don't. Apologies! Why, I have been feeling asif I could never look you in the face again."
"But you don't feel that any more, of course not. Now, I know my fatherwould like to see you, so I will let him know you are here, if you willexcuse me for a minute or two."
As the door closed on him Delia brushed away her tears, and then did aninexplicable, a foolish thing. She rose and pressed her lips to thetable, on the spot where his hand had rested during the interview.
"And they would have had me extort money from him, blackmail him!" shesaid to herself. "Faugh! what a horrible word. But the whole thing washorrible, shameful. Oh, but the tactfulness of him! It was wonderful.No wonder such people seem to reckon themselves a separate order ofbeing. They are."
Meanwhile Wagram had found the old Squire in the library.
"The poor girl had no hand in it after all," he said. "It appears sheknew nothing about it until this morning, when she received the cheque.The whole thing was got up by her rascally father without herknowledge."
"Of course. But now that it's within her knowledge she won't find athousand pounds come in badly," was the somewhat testy answer.
"She tore up the cheque of her own accord under my eyes."
"What? Did she? That looks genuine, Wagram. By George, that looksgenuine. Fancy anything Calmour refusing a thousand pounds--or even ahundred! Good heavens! is the world coming to an end?"
"Well, she's done it anyhow. I want you to come in and see her, father,and put her at her ease. She's genuinely distressed that we should havethought so badly of her, and all that."
"By the way, does she know of the trouncing you gave that preciousblackguard of a brother of hers?"
"I haven't told her. If she knows I expect she thinks he richlydeserved it. I fancy she's that sort of girl."
The blend of the courtly and the paternal in the old Squire's manner wascharming, and soon Delia was quite at ease with herself and hersurroundings. Then they showed her over the historic parts of thehouse, and she gazed with awed delight at the great staircase with itstwisted stone banister and the gallery hung with family portraits andold war trophies.
"Oh, but this is perfection," cried the girl as she leaned out of one ofthe high windows to gaze upon the panorama unfolded beneath. Miles andmiles of it lay outspread in the sunlight--green meadow and dark fircovert, cloud-like masses of feathery elms and hawthorn hedgerows, withhere and there a gleam of silver, as a winding of the river broke intoview. Then, from far and near, a chorus of song thrushes and the joyoussound of a cuckoo lent the finishing touch to this fairest of Englishlandscapes.
"That spire away there beyond the dark line is Fulkston, near Haldane'splace," went on Wagram, in the course of pointing out to her the variouslandmarks.
"Is it? What a delightful day that was. Isn't Miss Haldane perfectlysweet? By the way, Mr Wagram, I enjoyed hearing how you thrashed a cadfor insulting her."
If the faintest gleam of mirth came into the other's eyes Delia missedits point.
"Oh, I'm not proud of it, I assure you. If he had been impudent only tome I wouldn't have touched him, for he was no match for me. If it hadbeen any other girl I should have thought I had given the poor devil toomuch, but it being Yvonne Haldane he insulted it seemed as if hecouldn't have enough."
"I most heartily agree," said Delia, and again that curious gleam passedacross Wagram's face.
"Would you like to see a secret chamber?" he said.
"Wouldn't I? Is it a real secret chamber, opening with a sliding panel,and all that sort of thing?"
"You shall see."
He led the way to a high gallery in an unused part of the house, atrifle gloomy by reason of the few and narrow windows that lighted itfrom one side. Th
e old Squire had left them early in the investigation,declaring that he did not feel equal to going up and down so manystairs. The girl's nerves were athrill with the delightful air ofmystery suggested by the surroundings.
"You haven't asked as to the family ghosts yet," he said, "and it seemsstrange."
"Strange? Why?"
"Because you are the first within my knowledge to be shown over thehouse who has not asked about them long before this. Were you keepingit till we got down again?"
"No. I wouldn't have asked such a question. How could I tell but thatit might be an unwelcome one?"
It was a small thing, but somehow it seemed to Wagram to argue anuncommon thoughtfulness and delicacy of mind on the part of this girl--this daughter of a drunken, blackmailing, old ex-army vet.
"I won't insist on blindfolding you, Miss Calmour," he said, with asmile, "but I'll ask you just to look out of that window for a minute."
"Certainly," she said. "Why, this is more than interesting."
"That'll do. Thanks."
"Can I look?"
"Yes."
The inner wall of the gallery was patterned faintly in large squaresdiagonally divided, so that you might see in them squares or trianglesaccording to the caprice of the eye. Now, where one of these squareshad been Delia saw a dark aperture easily large enough to admit the bodyof a man. It was about a yard and a half from the ground.
"What was it used for?" she said, as her eyes becoming more accustomedto the gloom she made out a narrow, oblong chamber, or rather closet,about eight feet by four, and running parallel with the wall.
"A priest's hiding-place. There is still a sprinkling of them to beseen in our old country houses, more or less perfect still."
"This one seems perfect. But how did they get light and air?"
"They didn't get much of the first. For the last, there's a smallwinding shaft that opens under the roof."
"And did they spend days in here? It must have been dreadful."
"Not to them, because their mission was in its highest sense the reverseof dreadful. But there was a dreadful side to it, for at that timeevery one of them who came to this country came with the quarteringblock and boiling pitch before his eyes, as, sooner or later, hiscertain end. You can imagine, then, that to such men there would benothing very dreadful in spending a few days in a place like this."
"Of course not. What a stupid remark of mine."
"As a matter of fact, the last to use this place met with just thatfate. He was a relation, and was captured in that avenue which was theroute of the procession this day last week."
"How terrible," said Delia, gazing with renewed awe into the gloomychamber. "How you must venerate this place, Mr Wagram."
"Well, you can imagine we do; in fact, it isn't often shown."
"Oh, then I do feel honoured--I mean it seriously."
He smiled.
"Have you seen enough? because if so we'll shut it up again."
"One minute. How does it open and shut? Why, it isn't a mere panel,it's a solid block of stone."
"Ah, that's the secret of it. It is easily opened from within if youknow how; but from without--well, it has never been discovered. Thesecret has been handed down among ourselves. It is always known tothree persons, of which, needless to say, I am one."
"How interesting! But if I were in there, and you and the other twowere not get-at-able, what then?"
"You might as well be buried alive. Now, oblige me by looking out ofthat window once more."
"If I mayn't look, may I listen?"
"Certainly. Now you may turn again. Well, what did you hear?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing? Well, see if you can tell which of the squares it was thatopened."
"This one. No; it doesn't sound hollow. None of them do. I give itup."
"We'll be going down again, then. You'll be glad of tea."
She protested that such a thing was beyond her thoughts amid the wonderand delight of all she had seen. On the way he pointed out a few of themore prominent family portraits.
"That is our martyr relative."
A cry of surprise escaped Delia.
"That! Why, Mr Wagram, it might be yourself."
The portrait was quite a small one, and in a massive frame of stainedoak. It represented a man of about the same age, with the samethoughtful dark eyes, the same shaped face, and the same close-trimmed,pointed beard. The figure was gowned in black, and the head crownedwith a Spanish biretta with high-pointed corners. Attached to the framewas a Latin inscription.
"People do remark a likeness," he said; "but you can guess how we valuethat portrait for its own sake. It was painted at Salamanca just beforehe left for St Omer to start on the English mission."
"Is there any Spanish blood in your family, Mr Wagram?"
"A strain; but it dates rather far back. Aren't you more than everafraid of coming to our services now?" he added slily. "TheInquisition, you know."
"Afraid? If I didn't know you were chaffing me I would say that I wasthe more attracted after what you have shown and told me to-day."
The old Squire was waiting for them in the great hall, where they hadtea, and Delia, having now recovered her spirits completely, waschatting away as though the matter which had brought her there was butthe recollection of a half-faded nightmare--a very note of interest andadmiration concerning all she had just seen. Then, imperceptibly toher, they drew her on to talk about herself, and one point in the plaintale of real, plucky, hard work, which had come within her experiencesof late, Wagram made a mental note of for future use.