Part 64

We leave here early to-morrow morning for Graylees Castle in Warwickshire--and the tour is at an end.

Your Audrie, who loves and longs for you.

AUDRIE BRENDON TO HER MOTHER

Graylees Castle, Night of September 12th

Dearest and Wisest: I remember the first letter I wrote you (on July Fourth) about the Ellaline business began with expressions something like this: "Fireworks! Roman Candles!! Rockets!!!"

Well, my last letter about the Ellaline business begins with explosions, too. A whole gunpowder plot has exploded: Dick's plot.

We got here in the afternoon; an uneventful run, for Sir Lionel was always the same; cool but kind. I couldn't believe Dick had told him anything.

Graylees is a place to be proud of, and you would never know there had been a fire in the castle--but no injury was done to the oldest part. Mrs. Norton says Graylees is called the "miniature Warwick," but it doesn't look a miniature anything: it seems enormous. There's a great hall, with suits of armour scattered about, and weapons of all periods arranged in intricate patterns on the stone wall; and a minstrels' gallery, and quantities of grand old Tudor and Stuart furniture; there's a haunted picture-gallery where a murdered bride walks each Christmas Eve, beautifully dressed; there's a suite of rooms in which kings and queens have occasionally slept since the time when Henry Seventh reigned; there's a priest's "hidie hole," and secret dungeons under the big dining-hall where people used to revel while their prisoners writhed; and--but I haven't seen nearly all yet.

The room allotted to me looks down from its high tower on to a mossy moat choked with pink and white water lilies; on a stone terrace this side of a sunken garden, a peacock plays sentinel, with his tail spread like a jewelled shield; and against the sky dark, horizontal branches of Lebanon cedars stretch, like arms of black-clad priests pronouncing a blessing. May the blessing rest upon this house forever!

I hardly saw the country through which we came, though it was George Eliot's country; and I half expected something to happen as soon as we arrived; Sir Lionel perhaps turning on me at last, and saying icily: "I know everything, but don't want a scandal. Go quietly, at once."

Nothing of the sort came to pass, however. We had tea in the great hall, brought by an old butler who had known Sir Lionel when he visited the uncle who left Graylees to him. Afterward, Mrs. Norton showed me "my room," where already a maid engaged for "Miss Lethbridge" had unpacked most of my things, the big luggage having arrived before us. My heart gave a jump when I saw the drawers, and big cedar-lined wardrobes full of finery; but settled down again when I remembered that almost everything belonged to Ellaline, and that my legitimate possessions could be packed again in about five minutes.

Before the change of friendship's weather at Chester, I think Sir Lionel would have wanted to take me round his domain, indoors and out, but no such suggestion was made. I was in my room, and there I stayed; but I felt too restless to settle down and write to you. I kept waiting for something, as you do for a clock to strike, when you know it is bound to strike soon.

By and by it was time to dress for dinner. I couldn't bear to wear one of the grand Ellaline dresses, so I put on the old black. I did look a frump in it, in such a place as Graylees Castle, where everything ought to be beautiful and rich, but I did my hair as nicely as I could, and from the top of my head to my shoulders I wasn't so bad.

I went downstairs at eight o'clock, and Mrs. Senter was already in the great hall, standing in front of the splendid stone fireplace, watching her rings sparkle in the light of the wood fire, and resting one pretty foot on a paw of the left-hand carved stone wolf that supports a ledge of the mantelpiece--just as if it belonged to her and she had tamed it. She glanced up when I appeared, and smiled vaguely, but didn't speak. She seemed thoughtful.

After awhile, Emily came, swishing silkily. Mrs. Senter began to talk to her, praising the place; and then, just before the quarter past--dinner-time--Sir Lionel joined us, looking nice, but tired. Mrs. Senter gave him a sweet smile, and he smiled back, absent-mindedly. He gave her his arm in to dinner, and she did clever things with her eyelashes, which made her seem to blush. She wore a white dress I'd not seen yet, a simple string of pearls round her neck, and quite a maidenly or bridal look. I couldn't wonder at Sir Lionel if he admired her! At the dinner-table (which was beautiful with flowers, lots of silver, and old crystal--a picture against the dark oak panelling) Mrs. Senter was on his right hand, I on his left, his sister playing hostess. This was as usual; but as it was the first time in his own house, somehow it made Mrs. Senter seem of more importance. He and she talked together a good deal, and she said some witty things, but spent herself mostly in drawing him out. He didn't speak to me, except to deign a question about my room, or ask whether I would have a certain thing to eat. I felt a dreadful lump, and worth about "thirty cents," as Dad used to say.

After dinner, when Emily took us to a charming drawing-room, all white, with an old spinet in one corner, Sir Lionel stopped away for a few minutes; but when he came Mrs. Senter grabbed him immediately. She wouldn't let him hear, when Emily inquired if I could sing, accompanying myself on the spinet, but began asking him eagerly about the library, which it seems is rather famous.

"You shall see it to-morrow, if you like," said he.

"Oh, mayn't I have a peep to-night?" she begged, prettily. "Do take me. Just one peep."

So he took her, of course, and the peep prolonged itself indefinitely. I had a sinking presentiment that my dreadful flare-up with Dick had been in vain, and that after all she would inveigle him into proposing to her this very night. Since I refused to tell him that her damask cheek was being preyed upon by love of him, she would probably intimate as much herself, and bury her head between her hands, looking incredibly sad and lovable. Sir Lionel wouldn't be the man to fight such tactics as those! I knew he didn't, wouldn't, and couldn't love her one little bit, but he would be sorry for her, and sacrifice himself rather than she should suffer for his sake, when he might make her happy.

Emily chatted to me pleasantly about the church, and the vicar at Graylees, and family tombs, and such cheerful things, to which I said "Yes" and "No" whenever she stopped; but a cold perspiration was coming out on my forehead. I was just as sure as that I was alive, that Mrs. Senter didn't mean to leave the library until Sir Lionel had made her a present of himself, his books, and his castle. Probably my sub-conscious self or astral body was there, hearing every word they said. Anyhow, I knew. And I could do nothing. A thumb-screw or a rack would have been a pleasant relief.

Suddenly we heard the sound of a carriage driving quickly up to the house.

"Who can that be?" wondered Mrs. Norton. "It's after half-past nine."

"Very likely it's Mr. Burden," said I; the first moderately intelligent remark I'd made since we were left together.

She agreed with me that this was probable; but when fifteen, twenty, forty minutes passed by the clock, and Dick did not appear, she changed her mind. It must have been someone to see Sir Lionel, she thought, on business that wouldn't wait. I was not convinced of this, and longed for her to ring and ask a footman who had come; but I couldn't very well suggest it.

The house did sound so silent, that my ears rang, as they do when one listens to a shell!

Ten; ten-fifteen; ten-thirty; a Louis Quatorze clock chimed. Hardly had it got the last two strokes out of its mouth, when Sir Lionel opened the door. He was pale, in that frightening way that tanned skins do turn pale, and he didn't seem to see his sister. He looked straight past her at me, and his eyes shone.

"I want very much to speak to you," he said. His voice shook ever so slightly, as if he were going into a battle where he knew he would be killed, and felt solemn about it, but otherwise was rather pleased than not.

Then I knew my time had come. I almost looked for the steps of the guillotine, but I was suddenly too blind to see them if they had been under my nose.