CHAPTER XII.
IN WHICH CLEVE VERNEY WAYLAYS AN OLD LADY.
CLEVE visited the old Priory next day, but there had been no one to lookat it since. He took a walk in the warren and killed some innocentrabbits, and returned an hour later. Still no one. He loitered about theruins for some time longer, but nothing came of it. The next day in likemanner, he again inspected the Priory, to the wonderment of Mrs. Hughes,who kept the keys, and his yacht was seen till sunset hovering aboutPenruthyn. He drove into the town also now and then, and looked in onthe shop-keepers, and was friendly as usual; and on these occasionsalways took a ramble either over the hill or by the old Malory road, inthe direction of the Dower House.
But the Malory people seemed to have grown still more cautious andreserved since the adventure of Penruthyn Priory. Sunday came, and MissAnne Sheckleton sat alone in the Malory pew.
Cleve, who had been early in his place, saw the old lady enter alone andthe door shut, and experienced a pang of disappointment--more thandisappointment, it amounted to pain.
If in the dim light of the Malory seat he had seen, once more, the Guidothat haunted him, he could with pleasure have sat out three services;with three of the longest of good Mr. Splayfoot's long sermons. But asit was, it dragged wofully--it made next to no way; the shrillyschool-children and the deep-toned Mr. Bray sang more verses than everto the solemn drone of the organ, and old Splayfoot preached as thoughhe'd preach his last. Even Cleve's watch, which he peeped at with afrequency he grew ashamed of, limped and loitered over the minutescruelly.
The service would not have seemed so nearly interminable if Cleve hadnot resolved to waylay and accost the lady at the other side--even atthe risk of being snubbed for his pains; and to him, full of thisresolve, the interval was miserable.
When the people stood up after the blessing, Cleve Verney had vanished.From the churchyard he had made his exit, by the postern door, fromwhich he and his enamoured friend, Sedley, had descended a week beforeto the narrow road, under the town wall, leading to Malory.
Down this he walked listlessly till he reached that lonely part of theroad which is over-arched by trees; and here, looking over the slopingfields toward the sea, as if at the distant mountains, he did actuallywaylay Miss Sheckleton.
The old lady seemed a little flurried and shy, and would, he fancied,have gladly been rid of him. But that did not weigh much with Cleve,who, smiling and respectful, walked by her side after he had made hispolite salutation. A few sentences having been first spoken aboutindifferent things, Cleve said--
"I have been to the old Priory twice since I met you there."
"Oh!" said Miss Anne Sheckleton, looking uneasily toward Malory. Hethought she was afraid that Sir Booth's eye might chance to be observingthem.
Cleve did not care. He rather enjoyed her alarm, and the chance ofbringing matters to a crisis. _She_ had not considered _him_ much in theincreased jealousy with which she had cloistered up her beautifulrecluse ever since that day which burned in his memory, and cast a trainof light along the darkness of the interval. Cleve would have been gladthat the old man had discovered and attacked him. He thought he couldhave softened and even made him his friend.
"Do you never purpose visiting the ruin again?" asked Cleve. "I hadhoped it interested you and Miss Fanshawe too much to be dropped on soslight an acquaintance."
"I don't know. Our little expeditions have been very few and veryuncertain," hesitated Miss Sheckleton.
"Pray, don't treat me _quite_ as a stranger," said Cleve, in a lone andearnest tone; "what I said the other day was not, I assure you, spokenupon a mere impulse. I hope, I am sure, that Miss Fanshawe gives mecredit at least for sincerity."
He paused.
"Oh! certainly, Mr. Verney, we do."
"And I so wish you would tell her that I have been ever since thinkinghow I can be of any real use--ever so little--if only to prove myanxiety to make her trust me even a little."
"I think, Mr. Verney, it is quite enough if we don't _dis_trust you; andI can assure you we do not," said the spinster.
"My uncle, though not the sort of man you may have been led to supposehim--not at all an unkind man--is, I must allow, a little odd anddifficult sometimes--you see I'm not speaking to you as a stranger--andhe won't do things in a moment; still if I knew exactly what Sir Boothexpected from him--if you think I might venture to ask an interview----"
"Quite _impossible_! You must not _think_ of it," exclaimed the ladywith a look almost of terror, "just now, while all is so fresh, andfeelings so excited, he's in no mood to be reasonable, and no good_could_ come of it."
"Well, _you_ know best, of course. But I expect to be called away, mystay at Ware can't be much longer. My uncle writes as if he wants me;and I wish so much, short as it is, that I could improve it to anyuseful purpose. I can't tell you how very much I pity Miss Fanshawe,immured in that gloomiest of all gloomy places. Such an unnatural andterrifying seclusion for one so very young."
"It is certainly very _triste_," said Miss Sheckleton.
"She draws, you told me, and likes the garden, and reads; you must allowme to lend you some books, won't you? _you_ I say; and _you_ can lendthem to her," he added, seeing a hesitation, "and you need take notrouble about returning them. Just lock them up anywhere in the housewhen you've done with them, and I'll get them when you leave Malory,which I hope won't be for a long time, unless it be for a very muchpleasanter residence."
Here came a pause; the eyes of the two pedestrians were directed towardMalory as they descended the road, but no sign of life was visible inthat quarter.
"You got home very well that day from the Priory; I watched you all theway," said he at last.
"Oh! yes; the distance is nothing."
Another little pause followed.
"_You_'re not afraid, Miss Sheckleton, of venturing outside the walls. Ifear, however, I've a great deal to answer for in having alarmed MissFanshawe, though quite unintentionally, for the safety of Sir Booth'sincognito. The secret is known to _no_ one but to _me_ and the personsoriginally entrusted with it; I _swear_ to you it's _so_. There's noreason on earth for your immuring yourselves as you do within thosemelancholy precincts; it excites curiosity, on the contrary, and peoplebegin to pry and ask questions; and I trust you believe that I would nottrifle or mislead you upon such a subject."
"You are very good," answered Miss Sheckleton, looking down. "Yes, we_are_ obliged to be very careful; but it is hardly worth breaking arule; we may possibly be here for so very short a time, you know. Andabout the books----"
"Oh! about the books I'll hear nothing; there are books coming for meto Ware, and I shan't be there to receive them. And I shall be, I assureyou, ever so much obliged if you'll only just give themhouse-room--they'll be so much safer--at Malory; and you won't deny methe pleasure of thinking that you and Miss Fanshawe will look overthem?"
He fancied she did not like this; and thought she seemed embarrassed tofind an evasion; but before she could speak, he continued, "and how isthe little squirrel I saw in the boat the other day; Miss Fanshawe's, Isuppose? Such a pretty little thing!"
"Oh! poor little Whisk. There has been a tragedy: some horrid thing, awild cat or an owl, killed him the other night, and mangled him so; poorlittle, dear thing, you must not ask."
"Oh dear! I'm _so_ sorry; and Miss Fanshawe can so ill spare a companionjust now."
"Yes, it has been a great blow; and--and I think, Mr. Verney, I shouldprefer bidding you good-bye _here_," said Miss Sheckleton, stoppingresolutely, and holding out her fingers for him to take; for she was onodd terms of suspicion and confidence--something more than mere chanceacquaintance.
He looked towards the wood of Malory--now overlooking them, almost inthe foreground; and, I think, if he had seen Miss Fanshawe under itsshadows, nothing would have prevented his going right on--perhaps veryrashly--upon the chance of even a word from her. But the groves wereempty; neither "Erl King" nor his daughter were waiting for them. So,for simply nothing, it
would not do to vex the old lady, with whom, formany reasons, it was desirable that he should continue upon good terms,and with real regret he did _there_, as she desired, take his leave, andslowly walk back to Cardyllian, now and then stealing a glance over theold side-walk of the steep road, thinking that just possibly his Guidomight appear in the shadow to greet the old lady at the gate. Butnothing appeared--she went in, and the darkness received her.