CHAPTER VII.
RELATING HOW A LONDON GENTLEMAN APPEARED IN REDMAN'S DELL.
I believe the best rule in telling a story is to follow eventschronologically. So let me mention that just about the time when Wylderand I were filming the trunks of the old trees with wreaths of lingeringperfume, Miss Rachel Lake had an unexpected visitor.
There is, near the Hall, a very pretty glen, called Redman's Dell, verysteep, with a stream running at the bottom of it, but so thickly woodedthat in summer time you can only now and then catch a glimpse of thewater gliding beneath you. Deep in this picturesque ravine, buried amongthe thick shadows of tall old trees, runs the narrow mill-road, whichlower down debouches on the end of the village street. There, in thetransparent green shadow, stand the two mills--the old one with A.D.1679, and the Wylder arms, and the eternal 'resurgam' projecting over itsdoor; and higher up, on a sort of platform, the steep bank rising highbehind it, with its towering old wood overhanging and surrounding, upon asite where one of king Arthur's knights, of an autumn evening, as he rodesolitary in quest of adventures, might have seen the peeping, gray gableof an anchorite's chapel dimly through the gilded stems, and heard thedrowsy tinkle of his vesper-bell, stands an old and small two-storiedbrick and timber house; and though the sun does not very often glimmer onits windows, it yet possesses an air of sad, old-world comfort--a littleflower-garden lies in front with a paling round it. But not every kind offlowers will grow there, under the lordly shadow of the elms andchestnuts.
This sequestered tenement bears the name of Redman's Farm; and itsoccupant was that Miss Lake whom I had met last night at Brandon Hall,and whose pleasure it was to live here in independent isolation.
There she is now, busy in her tiny garden, with the birds twitteringabout her, and the yellow leaves falling; and her thick gauntlets on herslender hands. How fresh and pretty she looks in that sad, sylvansolitude, with the background of the dull crimson brick and the climbingroses. Bars of sunshine fall through the branches above, across the thicktapestry of blue, yellow, and crimson, that glow so richly upon theirdeep green ground.
There is not much to be done just now, I fancy, in the gardening way; butwork is found or invented--for sometimes the hour is dull, and thatbright, spirited, and at heart, it may be, bitter exile, will make outlife somehow. There is music, and drawing. There are flowers, as we see,and two or three correspondents, and walks into the village; and her darkcousin, Dorcas, drives down sometimes in the pony-carriage, and is notalways silent; and indeed, they are a good deal together.
This young lady's little Eden, though overshadowed and encompassed withthe solemn sylvan cloister of nature's building, and vocal with sounds ofinnocence--the songs of birds, and sometimes those of its youngmistress--was no more proof than the Mesopotamian haunt of our firstparents against the intrusion of darker spirits. So, as she worked, shelifted up her eyes, and beheld a rather handsome young man standing atthe little wicket of her garden, with his gloved hand on the latch. A manof fashion--a town man--his dress bespoke him: smooth cheeks, light browncurling moustache, and eyes very peculiar both in shape and colour, andsomething of elegance of finish in his other features, and of generalgrace in the _coup d'oeil_, struck one at a glance. He was smilingsilently and slily on Rachel, who, with a little cry of surprise, said--
'Oh, Stanley! is it you?'
And before he could answer, she had thrown her arms about his neck andkissed him two or three times. Laughingly, half-resisting, the young manwaited till her enthusiastic salutation was over, and with one glovedhand caressingly on her shoulder, and with the other smoothing hisruffled moustache, he laughed a little more, a quiet low laugh. He wasnot addicted to stormy greetings, and patted his sister's shouldergently, his arm a little extended, like a man who tranquillises afrolicsome pony.
'Yes, Radie, you see I've found you out;' and his eye wandered, stillsmiling oddly, over the front of her quaint habitation.
'And how have you been, Radie?'
'Oh, very well. No life like a gardener's--early hours, work, air, andplenty of quiet.' And the young lady laughed.
'You are a wonderful lass, Radie.'
'Thank you, dear.'
'And what do you call this place?'
'"The Happy Valley," _I_ call it. Don't you remember "Rasselas?"'
'No,' he said, looking round him; 'I don't think I was ever there.'
'You horrid dunce!--it's a book, but a stupid one--so no matter,' laughedMiss Rachel, giving him a little slap on the shoulder with her slenderfingers.
His reading, you see, lay more in circulating library lore, and he wasnot deep in Johnson--as few of us would be, I'm afraid, if it were notfor Boswell.
'It's a confounded deal more like the "Valley of the Shadow of Death," in"Pilgrim's Progress"--you remember--that old Tamar used to read to us inthe nursery,' replied Master Stanley, who had never enjoyed being quizzedby his sister, not being blessed with a remarkably sweet temper.
'If you don't like my scenery, come in, Stanley, and admire mydecorations. You must tell me all the news, and I'll show you my house,and amaze you with my housekeeping. Dear me, how long it is since I'veseen you.'
So she led him in by the arm to her tiny drawing-room; and he laid hishat and stick, and gray paletot, on her little marquetrie-table, and satdown, and looked languidly about him, with a sly smile, like a manamused.
'It is an odd fancy, living alone here.'
'An odd necessity, Stanley.'
'Aren't you afraid of being robbed and murdered, Radie?' he said, leaningforward to smell at the pretty bouquet in the little glass, and turningit listlessly round. 'There are lots of those burglar fellows goingabout, you know.'
'Thank you, dear, for reminding me. But, somehow, I'm not the leastafraid. There hasn't been a robbery in this neighbourhood, I believe, foreight hundred years. The people never think of shutting their doors herein summer time till they are going to bed, and then only for form's sake;and, beside, there's nothing to rob, and I really don't much mind beingmurdered.'
He looked round, and smiled on, as before, like a man contemptuouslyamused, but sleepily withal.
'You are very oddly housed, Radie.'
'I like it,' she said quietly, also with a glance round her homelydrawing-room.
'What do you call this, your boudoir or parlour?'
'I call it my drawing-room, but it's anything you please.'
'What very odd people our ancestors were,' he mused on. 'They lived, Isuppose, out of doors like the cows, and only came into their sheds atnight, when they could not see the absurd ugliness of the places theyinhabited. I could not stand upright in this room with my hat on. Lots ofrats, I fancy, Radie, behind that wainscoting? What's that horrid work ofart against the wall?'
'A shell-work cabinet, dear. It is not beautiful, I allow. If I werestrong enough, or poor old Tamar, I should have put it away; and now thatyou're here, Stanley, I think I'll make you carry it out to the lobby forme.'
'I should not like to touch it, dear Radie. And pray how do you amuseyourself here? How on earth do you get over the day, and, worse still,the evenings?'
'Very well--well enough. I make a very good sort of a nun, and a capitalhousemaid. I work in the garden, I mend my dresses, I drink tea, and whenI choose to be dissipated, I play and sing for old Tamar--why did not youask how she is? I do believe, Stanley, you care for no one, but' (she wasgoing to say yourself, she said instead, however, but) 'perhaps, theleast in the world for me, and that not very wisely,' she continued, alittle fiercely, 'for from the moment you saw me, you've done little elsethan try to disgust me more than I am with my penury and solitude. Whatdo you mean? You always have a purpose--will you ever learn to be frankand straightforward, and speak plainly to those whom you ought to trust,if not to love? What are you driving at, Stanley?'
He looked up with a gentle start, like one recovering from a reverie, andsaid, with his yellow eyes fixed for a moment on his sister, before theydropped again to the carpet.
/> 'You're miserably poor, Rachel: upon my word, I believe you haven't cleartwo hundred a year. I'll drink some tea, please, if you have got any, andit isn't too much trouble; and it strikes me as very curious you likeliving in this really very humiliating state.'
'I don't intend to go out for a governess, if that's what you mean; noris there any privation in living as I do. Perhaps you think I ought to goand housekeep for you.'
'Why--ha, ha!--I really don't know, Radie, where I shall be. I'm not ofany regiment now.'
'Why, you have not sold out?' She flushed and suddenly grew pale, for shewas afraid something worse might have happened, having no greatconfidence in her brother.
But she was relieved.
'I _have_ sold my commission.'
She looked straight at him with large eyes and compressed lips, andnodded her head two or three times, just murmuring, 'Well! well! well!'
'Women never understand these things. The army is awfully expensive--Imean, of course, a regiment like ours; and the interest of the money isbetter to me than my pay; and see, Rachel, there's no use in lecturing_me_--so don't let us quarrel. We're not very rich, you and I; and weeach know our own affairs, you yours, and I mine, best.'
There was something by no means pleasant in his countenance when histemper was stirred, and a little thing sometimes sufficed to do so.
Rachel treated him with a sort of deference, a little contemptuousperhaps, such as spoiled children receive from indulgent elders; and shelooked at him steadily, with a faint smile and arched brows, for a littlewhile, and an undefinable expression of puzzle and curiosity.
'You are a very amusing brother--if not a very cheery or a very usefulone, Stanley.'
She opened the door, and called across the little hall into the homelykitchen of the mansion.
'Tamar, dear, Master Stanley's here, and wishes to see you.'
'Oh! yes, poor dear old Tamar; ha, ha!' says the gentleman, with a gentlelittle laugh, 'I suppose she's as frightful as ever, that worthy woman.Certainly she _is_ awfully like a ghost. I wonder, Radie, you're notafraid of her at night in this cheerful habitation. _I_ should, I know.'
'A ghost _indeed_, the ghost of old times, an ugly ghost enough for manyof us. Poor Tamar! she was always very kind to _you_, Stanley.'
And just then old Tamar opened the door. I must allow there was somethingvery unpleasant about that worthy old woman; and not being under anypersonal obligations to her, I confess my acquiescence in the spirit ofCaptain Lake's remarks.
She was certainly perfectly neat and clean, but white predominatedunpleasantly in her costume. Her cotton gown had once had a pale patternover it, but wear and washing had destroyed its tints, till it was nobetter than white, with a mottling of gray. She had a large whitekerchief pinned with a grisly precision across her breast, and a whitelinen cap tied under her chin, fitting close to her head, like a child'snightcap, such as they wore in my young days, and destitute of border orfrilling about the face. It was a dress very odd and unpleasant tobehold, and suggested the idea of an hospital, or a madhouse, or death,in an undefined way.
She was past sixty, with a mournful puckered and puffy face, tinted allover with a thin gamboge and burnt sienna glazing; and very blue underthe eyes, which showed a great deal of their watery whites. This oldwoman had in her face and air, along with an expression of suspicion andanxiety, a certain character of decency and respectability, which madeher altogether a puzzling and unpleasant apparition.
Being taciturn and undemonstrative, she stood at the door, looking withas pleased a countenance as so sad a portrait could wear upon the younggentleman.
He got up at his leisure and greeted 'old Tamar,' with his sleepy, amusedsort of smile, and a few trite words of kindness. So Tamar withdrew toprepare tea; and he said, all at once, with a sudden accession of energy,and an unpleasant momentary glare in his eyes--
'You know, Rachel, this sort of thing is all nonsense. You cannot go onliving like this; you must marry--you shall marry. Mark Wylder is downhere, and he has got an estate and a house, and it is time he shouldmarry you.'
'Mark Wylder is here to marry my cousin, Dorcas; and if he had no suchintention, and were as free as you are, and again to urge his foolishsuit upon his knees, Stanley, I would die rather than accept him.'
'It was not always so foolish a suit, Radie,' answered her brother, hiseyes once more upon the carpet. 'Why should not _he_ do as well asanother? You liked him well enough once.'
The young lady coloured rather fiercely.
'I am not a girl of seventeen now, Stanley; and--and, besides, I _hate_him.'
'What d--d nonsense! I really beg your pardon, Radie, but it _is_precious stuff. You are quite unreasonable; you've no cause to hate him;he dropped you because you dropped him. It was only prudent; he had not aguinea. But now it is different, and he _must_ marry you.'
The young lady stared with a haughty amazement upon her brother.
'I've made up my mind to speak to him; and if he won't I promise you heshall leave the country,' said the young man gently, just lifting hisyellow eyes for a second with another unpleasant glare.
'I almost think you're mad, Stanley; and if you do anything so insane,sure I am you'll rue it while you live; and wherever he is I'll find himout, and acquit myself, with the scorn I owe him, of any share in a plotso unspeakably mean and absurd.'
'Brava, brava! you're a heroine, Radie; and why the devil,' he continued,in a changed tone, 'do you apply those insolent terms to what I purposedoing?'
'I wish I could find words strong enough to express my horror of yourplot--a plot every way disgusting. You plainly know something to MarkWylder's discredit; and you mean, Stanley, to coerce him by fear into amarriage with your penniless sister, who _hates_ him. Sir, do you pretendto be a gentleman?'
'I rather think so,' he said, with a quiet sneer.
'Give up every idea of it this moment. Has it not struck you that MarkWylder may possibly know something of you, you would not have published?'
'I don't think he does. What do you mean?'
'On my life, Stanley, I'll acquaint Mr. Wylder this evening with what youmeditate, and the atrocious liberty you presume--yes, Sir, though you aremy brother, the _atrocious liberty_ you dare to take with my name--unlessyou promise, upon your honour, now and here, to dismiss for ever theodious and utterly resultless scheme.'
Captain Lake looked very angry after his fashion, but said nothing. Hecould not at any time have very well defined his feelings toward hissister, but mingling in them, certainly, was a vein of unacknowledgeddread, and, shall I say, respect. He knew she was resolute, fierce ofwill, and prompt in action, and not to be bullied.
'There's more in this, Stanley, than you care to tell me. You have nottroubled yourself a great deal about me, you know: and I'm no worse offnow than any time for the last three years. You've _not_ come down hereon _my_ account--that is, altogether; and be your plans what they may,you sha'n't mix my name in them. What you please--wise or foolish--you'lldo in what concerns yourself;--you always _have_--without consulting me;but I tell you again, Stanley, unless you promise, upon your honour, toforbear all mention of my name, I will write this evening to LadyChelford, apprising her of your plans, and of my own disgust andindignation; and requesting her son's interference. _Do_ you promise?'
'There's no such _haste_, Radie. I only mentioned it. If you don't likeit, of course it can lead to nothing, and there's no use in my speakingto Wylder, and so there's an end of it.'
'There _may_ be some use, a purpose in which neither my feelings norinterests have any part. I venture to say, Stanley, your plans are allfor _yourself_. You want to extort some advantage from Wylder; and youthink, in his present situation, about to marry Dorcas, you can use mefor the purpose. Thank Heaven! Sir, you committed for once the rareindiscretion of telling the truth; and unless you make me the promise Irequire, I will take, before evening, such measures as will completelyexculpate me. Once again, do you promise?'
'Yes, Radi
e; ha, ha! of course I promise.'
'Upon your honour?'
'Upon my honour--_there_.'
'I believe, you gentlemen dragoons observe that oath--I hope so. If youchoose to break it you may give me some trouble, but you sha'n'tcompromise me. And now, Stanley, one word more. I fancy Mr. Wylder is aresolute man--none of the Wylders wanted courage.'
Captain Lake was by this time smiling his sly, sleepy smile upon hisFrench boots.
'If you have formed any plan which depends upon frightening him, it is adesperate one. All I can tell you, Stanley, is this, that if I were aman, and an attempt made to extort from me any sort of concession byterror, I would shoot the miscreant who made it through the head, like ahighwayman.'
'What the devil are you talking about?' said he.
'About _your danger_,' she answered. 'For once in your life listen toreason. Mark Wylder is as prompt as you, and has ten times your nerve andsense; you are more likely to have committed yourself than he. Take care;he may retaliate your _threat_ by a counter move more dreadful. I knownothing of your doings, Stanley--Heaven forbid! but be warned, or you'llrue it.'
'Why, Radie, you know nothing of the world. Do you suppose I'm quitedemented? Ask a gentleman for his estate, or watch, because I knowsomething to his disadvantage! Why, ha, ha! dear Radie, every man who hasever been on terms of intimacy with another must know things to hisdisadvantage, but no one thinks of telling them. The world would nottolerate it. It would prejudice the betrayer at least as much as thebetrayed. I don't affect to be angry, or talk romance and heroics,because you fancy such stuff; but I assure you--when will that old womangive me a cup of tea?--I assure you, Radie, there's nothing in it.'
Rachel made no reply, but she looked steadfastly and uneasily upon theenigmatical face and downcast eyes of the young man.
'Well, I hope so,' she said at last, with a sigh, and a slight sense ofrelief.