Chapter XXIX: She Is Taken to Castle Hall

The descendants of Martha Bevis, who had come from Castle Hall with Lady Alice, had always kept up a correspondence with their relatives in England, and also with the family of Mrs. Lacy and her mother, the successive housekeepers of the Earls De Roland. They also kept up the use of their mother tongue, although they married Germans, for the Grafs von Hohenstein always had their children taught English; for the memory of the beautiful Lady Alice was always kept up, and her portraits, and the embroidery she had worked, were revered as hallowed relics. Therefore English had been the chief language of the nursery for three generations, and, until the accession of the last Earl, some of the family had always visited Castle Hall every third year.

But the last Earl was, unfortunately, one of the bad type, and he quarrelled with most of his relations. His brother died young, and, if he left no children, the Earldom would become extinct; but an older Barony would go in the female line, with the entailed estate, to the representative of the Lady Alice, who married Graf von Hohenstein.

The Earl de Roland had taken a great dislike to his foreign relations, and he was therefore most anxious for a son. But his first wife had only a daughter, who died in her first year, and was soon followed to the grave by the young mother. He then married a handsome young widow, who had three sons--on purpose, his enemies said, to ensure an heir. But the plan did not succeed, and just after his marriage, and about the time when Dorina was beginning to recover her reason, Fräulein Marta received a letter from Mrs. Lacy, to announce the Earl’s death.

The old housekeeper had, of course, heard several months before of Dorina’s supposed death, and most bitter had been her lamentation at the time; and now that the English property would have been inherited by her at the Earl’s death, her sorrow was redoubled. From all that had reached Mrs. Lacy’s ears, she fancied that the present heiress, Gräfinn Cunigunda, would be little to her liking, and her only hope was that she would never come to Castle Hall.

Frau Müller and her sister seemed of the same opinion, as they knew Cunigunda could not endure a country life, and if she ever visited Castle Hall it would probably be only from curiosity, just to see her property. Many circumstances combined to form this opinion, for an agent was sent by Count Rossi to transact the business in his wife’s name, and he brought orders that the house was to be shut up, and only the old housekeeper and one assistant was to remain in it.

Frau Müller possessed a good deal of the German _Schwärmerei_, mingled with strong English common-sense, and as she watched by the bedside of the still weak and suffering young lady, she thought over a plan which at first startled her less imaginative sister, the Fräulein Marta, but into which she was gradually persuaded to enter. The kind of veneration all the descendants of Martha Bevis kept up for the old Castle Hall inclined her at last to consent.

Frau Müller had been twice to England before the late Earl succeeded to the estates, and she had a most perfect recollection of every hole and corner in the beloved old place; and as Dorina persisted in her determination to allow all the family to believe in her death, Frau Müller became convinced that she could not do better than take her young mistress over to England, and install her in a suite of rooms at Castle Hall, to which no one had a clue except old Mrs. Lacy and Dame Bevis.

At first Dorina was frightened at the idea when it was proposed to her; but a longing to see the old place, of which she had heard so much, was soon awakened in her mind; and after they assured her that her secret would be most scrupulously kept, she gave her consent.

Fräulein Marta went first, in order to make arrangements and consult old Mrs. Lacy; and the result was that Dorina was soon afterwards taken to Castle Hall by Frau Müller, and installed with her in the suite of rooms on the upper floor of the half-ruined wing which communicates with the high tower of the ancient Castle.

These were the very rooms which puzzled me on my expedition, and were over the half-ruined ones into which I had contrived to climb. Their sitting-room was at the top of the old tower, and its window was the beautiful old oriel overhanging the deep ravine which I had endeavoured to sketch. From these rooms there was a passage which led to the old carved gallery of the chapel, which had been turned into a banqueting-room by the wicked Baron Hugh, and was afterwards turned into a ball-room by Cunigunda.

For many months Dorina remained undisturbed in her concealment, attended on by Frau Müller; and when at length the news arrived that the Count and Countess were coming to Castle Hall, Dorina resolved still to remain. Perhaps a vague longing to see the Count from her concealment may have inclined her to decide on the perilous plan. The first attempt to see him from a safe hiding-place was made on the night when Cunigunda first visited the ruined banqueting-hall. Dorina heard the sound of voices from the end of the passage near the rooms, so she groped in the dark to the door which opened in the gallery, and proceeding with noiseless steps, looked cautiously down upon the party, who were standing with candlesticks in their hands on the floor below. In her eagerness to see if the Count was among them, she stepped forward for a moment, and it unfortunately happened that Cunigunda was at that instant looking up towards the gallery.

Cunigunda’s shriek of horror, and all that followed, has been already described. Dorina drew back at once, without, as she thought, any one else having seen her, and never made another attempt to see the Count till the night of the ball, when she chanced for a moment to appear. Then the light shone upon her face--the minute afterwards she saw the floor give way, and Cunigunda was precipitated through the aperture, with her partner.

After that she seemed spell-bound with horror, and, forgetting everything else, she stood watching the efforts made to rescue the unfortunate pair. The mystery of the apparent trap-door was afterwards explained by Joe Naylor, who remembered that the joists which supported the square of marqueterie work had been moved away when the thieves entered the room from below, and quitting this in a hurry, they omitted to replace them properly, or to fasten down the stone door, which, as the reader will remember, opened by a spring in the floor.