Chapter XII: Madame Guise

IT was the afternoon of this same day. The stage-coach, delayed by the snow, was very late when it was heard approaching. It's four well-fed horses drew lip at the Dolphin Lim, to set down Mr. Nettleby. The superintendent of the coastguard, who had been on some business a mile or two inland, had availed himself of the coach for returning. John Bent and his wife came running to the door. The guard, hoping, perhaps, for sixpence or a shilling gratuity, descended from his seat, and was extending a hand to help the officer down from the roof, when he found himself called to by a lady inside, who had been reconnoitring the inn, and the flaming dolphin on its signboard.

"What place is this, guard?"

"Greylands, ma'am."

"That seems a good hotel."

"It is a nice comfortable inn, ma'am."

"I will get out here. Please see to my luggage."

The guard was surprised. He thought the lady must have made a mistake.

"This is not Stilborough, ma'am. You are booked to Stilborough."

"But I will not go on to Stilborough: I will descend here instead. See my poor child"--showing the hot face of a little girl who lay half asleep upon her knee. "She has, I fear, the fever coming on, and she is so fatigued. This must be a healthy place; it has the sea, I perceive; and I think she shall rest here for a day or two before going on."

The landlord and his wife had heard this colloquy, for the lady spoke at the open window. They advanced, and the guard threw wide the door.

"Will you carry my little one?" said the lady to Mrs. Bent. "I fear she is going to be ill, and I do not care to take her on farther. Can I be accommodated with a good apartment here?"

"The best rooms we have, ma'am, are at your service; and you will find them excellent, though I say it myself," returned Mrs. Bent, receiving the child into her arms.

"Marie fatiguée," plaintively called out the little thing, who seemed about three years old. "Marie ne peut marcher."

The lady reassured her in the same language, and alighted. She was a tall, ladylike young woman of apparently some six-and-twenty years, with soft, fair hair, and a pleasing face that wore signs of care, or weariness: or perhaps both. Mrs. Bent carried the child into the parlour; John followed with a large hand-reticule made of plaited black-and-white straw, and the guard put two trunks in the passage, a large one and a small one.

"I am en voyage," said the lady, addressing Mrs. Bent--and it may be remarked that, though speaking English with fluency, and with very little foreign accent, she now and then substituted a French word, or a whole sentence as though the latter were more familiar to her in everyday life--and of which John Bent and his wife did not understand a syllable.

"But we have voyaged far, and the sea-crossing was frightfully rough, and I fear I have brought my little one on too quickly: so it may be well to halt here for a short time, and keep her quiet. I hope your hotel is not crowded with company?"

"There's nobody at all staying in it just now, ma'am," said Mrs. Bent. "We don't have many indoor visitors at the winter season."

"And this snow is not good," said the stranger; "I mean not good for voyagers. I might have put off my journey had I thought it would come. When I left my home, the warm spring sun was shining, and the trees were budding."

"We have had fine warm weather here, too," said Mrs. Bent; "it changed again a week ago to winter: not but what we had the sun out bright to-day. This dear little thing seems delicate, ma'am."

"Not generally. But she is fatigued, you see, and has a touch of fever. We must make her some tisane."

"We'll soon get her right again," said Mrs. Bent, gently; for with children, of whom she was very fond, she lost all her sharpness. "Poor little lamb! And so you've come from over the water, ma'am!--and the sea was rough!--and did this little one suffer?"

"Oh, pray do not talk of that terrible sea! I thought I must have died. To look at, nothing more beautiful; but to be on it--ah, Ciel!"

She shuddered and shrugged her shoulders with the recollection. There was something peculiarly soft and winning in the quiet tones of her voice; something attractive altogether in her features and their sad expression.

"I never was on the sea, thank goodness," said Mrs. Bent; "I have heard it's very bad. We get plenty of it as far as the looks go: and that's enough for us, ma'am. Many an invitation I've had in my life to go off sailing in people's boats--but no, not for me. One knows one's safe on land."

She had sat down, the child on her lap, and was taking off its blue woollen hood and warm woollen pelisse of fleecy grey cloth. The frock underneath was of fine black French merino. The lady wore the same kind of black dress under her cloak: it was evident that both were in mourning. Happening to look up from the semi-sleeping child, Mrs. Bent caught the traveller's eyes fixed attentively upon her, as if studying her face.

"How do you call this village, I was about to ask. Grey----"

"Greylands, ma'am. Stilborough is about three miles off. Are you going there?"

"Not to stay," said the lady, hastily. "I am come to England to see a relative, but my progress is not in any hurry. I must think first of my child: and this air seems good."

"None so good for miles and miles," returned Mrs. Bent. "A week of it will make this little lady quite another child. Pretty thing! What beautiful eyes!"

The child had woke up again in her restlessness; she was gazing up at her strange nurse with wide-open, dark brown eyes. They were not her mother's eyes, for those were blue. The hot little face was becoming paler.

"I mist make her some tisane" repeated the lady; "or show you how to make it. You have herbs, I presume. We had better get her to bed. Nothing will do her so much good as rest and sleep. Will Marie go to bed?" she said, addressing the little girl.

"Oui," replied the child, who appeared to understand English, but would not speak it. "Marie sommeil," she added in her childish patois. "Marie soif. Maman, donne Marie a boire."

"Will you take her, ma'am, for a few moments?" said Mrs. Bent, placing her in the mother's arms. "I will see after your room and make it ready."

The landlady left the parlour. The child, feverish and weary, soon began to cry. Her mother hushed her; and presently, not waiting for the reappearance of the landlady, carried her upstairs.

Which was the chamber? she wondered, on reaching the landing: but the half-open door of one, and some stir within, guided her thoughts to it, as the right. Mrs. Bent was bustling about it; and the landlord, who appeared to have been taking up the trunks, stood just inside the door. Some kind of dispute seemed to be going on, for Mrs. Bent's tones were shrill. The lady halted, not liking to intrude, and sat down on a short bench against the wall; the child, dozing again, was heavy for her.

"As if there was not another room in the house, but you must make ready this one!" John was saying in a voice of vexed remonstrance. "I told you, Dorothy, I'd never have this chamber used again until we had not space left elsewhere. What are you going to do with the things?"

"Now don't you fret yourself to fiddle-strings," retorted Mrs. Bent. "I am putting all the things into this linen-basket; his clothes and his little desk and all, even the square of scented soap he used, for he brought it with him in his portmanteau. They shall go into the small chest in our bedroom, and be locked up. And you may put a seal upon the top of it for safety."

"But I did not wish to have the things disturbed at all," urged John. "The lady might have had another room."

"The tap-room is your concern, the care of the chambers is mine, and I choose her to have this one," said independent Mrs. Bent. "As to keeping the best chamber out of use just because these things have remained in it unclaimed, is about as daft a notion as ever I heard of. If you don't take care, John, you'll go crazy over Anthony Castlemaine."

The mother outside, waiting, and hushing her child to her, had not been paying much attention: but at the last words she started, and gazed at the door. Her lips parted; her face turned white.

"Peace, wife," said the landlord. "What I say is right."

"Yes, crazy," persisted Mrs. Bent, who rarely dropped an argument of her own accord. "Look at what happened with Miss Ethel Reene to-day! I'm sure you are not in your senses on the subject, John Bent, or you'd never be so imprudent. You may believe Mr. Anthony was murdered by his uncle, but it does not do to turn yourself into a town-crier, and proclaim it."

Oh, more deadly white than before did these words turn the poor lady who was listening. Her face was as the face of one stricken with terror; her breath came in gasps; she clutched at her child, lest her trembling hands should let it fall. John Bent and his wife came forth, bearing between them the piled-up clothes-basket, a small mahogany desk on its top. She let her face drop upon her child's and kept it there, as though she too had fallen asleep.

"Dear me, there's the lady!" whispered John.

"And it's unbeknown what she has overheard," muttered Mrs. Bent. "I beg your pardon, ma'am; you'll be cold sitting there. Had you dropped asleep?"

The lady lifted her white face: fortunately the passage was in twilight: she passed a pocket-handkerchief over her brow as she spoke.

"My little child got so restless that I came up. Is the room ready?"

Letting fall her handle of the basket and leaving her husband to convey it into their chamber as he best could, Mrs. Bent took the child from the speaker's arms and preceded her into the room. A spacious, comfortable chamber, with a fine view over the sea, and a good fire burning up in the grate.

"We were as quick as we could be," said Mrs. Bent, in apology for having kept her guest waiting; "but I had to empty the chamber first of some articles that were in it. I might have given you another room at once, ma'am, for we always keep them in readiness, you see; but this is the largest and has the pleasantest look-out; and I thought if the little girl was to be ill, you'd like it best."

"Articles belonging to a former traveller?" asked the lady, who was kneeling then before her trunk to get out her child's night-things.

"Yes, ma'am. A gentleman we had here a few short weeks ago."

"And he has left?"

"Oh yes," replied Mrs. Bent, gently combing back the child's soft brown hair, before she passed the sponge of warm water over her face.

"But why did he not take his things with him?"

"Well, ma'am, he--he left unexpectedly; and so they remained here."

Now, in making this somewhat evasive answer, Mrs. Bent had no particular wish to deceive. But, what with the work she had before her, and what with the fretful child on her knee, it was not exactly the moment for entering on gossip. The disappearance of Anthony Castlemaine was too public and popular a theme in the neighbourhood for any idea of concealment to be connected with it. The lady, however, thought she meant to evade the subject, and said no more. Indeed the child claimed all their attention.

"Marie soif," said the little one, as they put her into bed. "Maman, Marie soif."

"Thirsty, always thirsty!" repeated the mother in English. "I don't much like it; it bespeaks fever."

"I'll get some milk and water," said Mrs. Bent.

"No, no, not milk," interposed the lady. "Oui, ma chérie! A spoonful or two of sugar and water while maman makes the tisane. Madame has herbs, no doubt," she added, turning to the landlady. "I could make it soon myself at this good fire if I had a little casserole: a--what you call it?--saucepan."

Mrs. Bent promised the herbs, for she had a store-room fall of different kinds, and the saucepan. A little sugared water was given to the child, who lay quiet after drinking it, and closed her eyes. Moving noiselessly about the room, the lady happened to go near the window, and her eye caught the moving sea in the distance, on which some bright light yet lingered. Opening the casement window for a moment, she put her head out, and gazed around.

"The sea is very nice to see, but I don't like to think of being on it," she said as she shut the window. "What is that great building over yonder to the left?"

"It's the Grey Nunnery, ma'am."

"The Grey Nunnery! What, have you a nunnery here in this little place? I had no idea."

"It's not a real nunnery," said Mrs. Bent, as she proceeded to explain what it was, in the intervals of folding the child's clothes, and how good the ladies were who inhabited it. "We heard a bit of news about it this afternoon," she added, her propensity for talking creeping out. "Sister Ann ran over here to borrow a baking-dish--for their own came in two in the oven with all the baked apples in it--and she said she believed Miss Castlemaine was going to join them as the Lady Superior."

"Miss--who?" cried the stranger quickly.

"Miss Castlemaine. Perhaps, ma'am, you may have heard of the Castlemaines of Greylands' Rest. It is close by."

"I do not know them," said the traveller. "Is, then, a Miss Castlemaine, of Greylands' Rest, the Lady Superior of the Nunnery?"

"Miss Castlemaine of Stilborough, ma'am. There is no Miss Castlemaine of Greylands' Rest; save a tiresome little chit of twelve. She has not joined them yet; it is only in contemplation. Sister Ann was all cock-a-hoop about it: but I told her the young lady was too beautiful to hide her head under a muslin cap in a nunnery."

"It is a grand old building," said the traveller, "and must stand out well and nobly on the edge of the cliff. And what a length! I cannot see the other end."

"The other end is nearly in ruins--part of it, at least. The chapel quite so. That lies between the Nunnery and the Friar's Keep."

"The Friar's Keep!" repeated the lady. "You have odd names here. But I like this village. It is quiet: nobody seems to pass."

"There's hardly anybody in it to pass, for that matter," cried Mrs. Bent, with disparagement. "Just the fishermen and the Grey Sisters. But here I am, talking when I ought to be doing! What would you like to have prepared for dinner, ma'am?"

"I could not eat--I feel feverish, too," was the answer given, in an accent that had a ring of piteous wail. "I will take but some tea and a tartine when I have made the tisane."

Mrs. Bent opened her eyes. "Tea and a tart, did you say, ma'am?"

"I said--I mean bread and butter," explained the stranger, translating her French word.

"And--what name--if I may ask, ma'am?" continued Mrs. Bent, as a final question.

"I am Madame Guise."

"Tea's best, after all, upon a day's travelling," were the landlady's final words as she descended the stairs. There she told her husband that the lady had rather a curious name, sounding like Madame Geese.

The small saucepan and the herbs were taken up immediately by Molly, who said she was to stay and help make the stuff, if the lady required her. The lady seemed to be glad of her help, and showed her how to pick the dried leaves from the thicker stalks.

"Do you have travellers staying here often?" asked Madame Guise, standing by Molly after she had asked her name, and doing her own portion of the work.

"A'most never in winter time," replied Molly--a round-eyed, red-cheeked, strong-looking damsel, attired in a blue linsey skirt and a cotton handkerchief crossed on her neck. "We had a gentleman for a week or two just at the turn o' January. He had this here same bedroom."

"They were his things, doubtless, that your mistress said she was removing to make space for me."

"In course they were," replied Molly. "Master said he'd not have this room used--that the coats and things should stay in it: but missis likes to take her own way. This here stalk, mum--is he too big to go in?"

"That is: we must have only the little ones. What was the gentleman's name, Mollee?"

"He was young Mr. Castlemaine: a foreign gentleman, so to say: nephew to the one at Greylands' Rest. He came over here to put in his claim to the money and lands."

"And where did he go?--where is he now?" questioned Madame Guise, with an eagerness that might have betrayed her painful interest, had the servant's suspicions been on the alert.

"It's what my master would just give his head to know," was the answer. "He went into the Friar's Keep one moon light night, and never came out on't again."

"Never came out of it again!" echoed Madame Guise "What do you mean?--How was that?"

Bit by bit Molly revealed the whole story, together with sundry items of the superstition attaching to the Friar's Keep. Very much gratified was she at the opportunity of doing it. The tale was encompassed by so many marvels, both of reality and imagination, by so much mystery, by so wide a field of wonder altogether, that others in Greylands, as well as Molly, thought it a red-letter day when they could find strange ears to impart it to.

Madame Guise sat down in a chair, her hands clasped before her, and forgetting the herbs. Molly saw how pale she looked; and felt prouder than any peacock at her own powers of narration.

"But what became of him, Mollee?" questioned the poor lady.

"Well, mum, that lies in doubt, you see. Some say he was spirited away by the Grey Monk."

Madame Guise shook her head. "That could not be," she said slowly, and somewhat in hesitation. "I don't like revenants myself--but that could not be."

"And others think," added Molly, dropping her voice, "that he was done away with by his uncle, Mr. Castlemaine. Master do, for one."

"Done away with! How?"

"Murdered," said the girl, plunging the herbs into the saucepan of water.

A shudder took Madame Guise from head to foot. Molly looked round at her: she was like one seized with ague.

"I am cold and fatigued with my long journey," she murmured, seeking to afford some plausible excuse to the round-eyed girl. "And it always startles one to hear talk of murder."

"So it do, mum," acquiesced Molly. "I dun'no which is worst to hear tell on; that or ghosts."

"But--this Friar's Keep that you talk of, Mollee--it may be that he fell from it by accident into the sea."

"Couldn't," shortly corrected Molly. "There ain't no way to fall--no opening. They be biling up beautiful, mum."

"And--was he never--never seen again since that night?" pursued Madame Guise, casting mechanically a glance on the steaming saucepan.

"Never seen nor heard on," protested Molly emphatically. "His clothes and his portmanteau and all his other things have stayed on here; but he has never come back to claim 'em."

Madame Guise put her hands on her pallid face, as if to hide the terror there. Molly, her work done, and about to depart, was sweeping the bits of stalks and herbs from the table into her clean check apron.

"Does the voisinage know all this?" asked Madame Guise, looking up. "Is it talked of openly? May I speak of it to monsieur and madame en bas--to the host and hostess, I would say?"

"Why bless you, mum, yes! There have been nothing else talked of in the place since. Nobody hardly comes in here but what begins upon it."

Molly left with the last words. Madame Guise sat on, she knew not how long, her face buried in her hands, and the tisane was boiled too much. The little girl, soothed perhaps by the murmur of voices, had fallen fast asleep. By-and-by Mrs. Bent came up, to know when her guest would be ready for tea.

"I am ready now," was the lady's answer, after attending to the tisane. "And I wish that you and your husband, madame, would allow me to take the meal with you this one evening," added Madame Guise, with a slight shiver, as they descended the dark staircase. "I feel lonely and fatigued, and in want of companionship."

Mrs. Bent was gratified, rather than otherwise at the request. They descended; and she caused the tea-tray, already laid in their room, to be carried into the parlour. The same parlour, as the room above was the same bedroom, that had been occupied by the ill-fated Anthony Castlemaine.

"I hope you are a little less tired than you were when you arrived, madam," said John Bent, bowing, as he with deprecation took his seat at last, and stirred his tea.

"Thank you, I have been forgetting my fatigue in listening to the story of one Mr. Anthony Castlemaine's disappearance," replied Madams Guise, striving to speak with indifference. "The account is curious, and has interested me. Mollee thought you would give me the particulars."

"Oh, he'll do that, madam," put in Mrs. Bent sharply. "There's nothing he likes better than talking of that. Tell it, John."

John did as he was bid. But his account was in substance the same as Molly's. He could tell neither more nor less: some few additional small details perhaps, some trifling particulars; but of real information he could give none. The poor lady, hungering after a word of enlightenment that might tend to lessen her dread and horror, listened for it in vain.

"But what explanation can be given of it?" she urged, biting her dry lips to hide their trembling. "People cannot disappear without cause. Are you sure it was Mr. Castlemaine you saw go in at the gate, and thence into the Friar's Keep?"

"I am as sure of it, ma'am, as I am that this is a tea-cup before me. Mr. Castlemaine denies it, though."

"And you suspect--you suspect that he murdered him! That is a frightful word; I cannot bear to say it. Meurte!" she repeated in her own tongue, with a passing shiver. "Quelle chose affreuse! You suspect Mr. Castlemaine, sir, I say?"

John Bent shook his head. The encounter with Ethel had taught him caution. "I don't know, ma'am," he answered; "I can't say. That the young man was killed in some way, I have no doubt of--and I think Mr. Castlemaine must know something about it."

"Are there any places in this--what you call it?--Friar's Keep?--that he could be concealed in? Any dungeons?"

"He's not there, ma'am. The place is open enough for anybody to go in that likes. Mr. Castlemaine had a man over from Stilborough to help him search, and they went all about it together. I and Superintendent Nettleby also went over it one day, and some others with us. There wasn't a trace to be seen of young Mr. Anthony; nothing to show that he had been there."

"So it resolves itself into this much," said Madame Guise--"that you saw this Mr. Anthony Castlemaine go into the dark place, on that February night; and, so far as can be ascertained, he never came out again."

"Just that," said John Bent. "I'd give this right hand of mine"--lifting it--"to know what his fate has been. Something tells me that it will be brought to light."

Madame Guise went up to her room, and sat down there with her heavy burthen of terror and sorrow, wondering what would be the next scene in this strange mystery, and what she herself could best do towards unravelling it. Mrs. Bent, coming in by-and-by, found her weeping hysterically. Marie woke up at the moment, and they gave her some of the tisane.

"It is the reaction of the cold and long journey, ma'am," pronounced Mrs. Bent, in regard to the tears she had seen. "And perhaps the talking about this unaccountable business has startled you. You will be better after a night's rest."

"Yes, the coach was very cold. I will say goodnight to you and go to bed."

As Mrs. Bent retired, the lady sank on her knees by the side of her child, and buried her face in the white counterpane. There she prayed; prayed earnestly; for help from Above, for strength to bear.

"The good God grant that the enlightenment may be less terrible than are these my fears," she implored, with lifted hands and streaming eyes.

Back came Mrs. Bent, a wine-glass in one hand, and a hot-water bottle for the bed in the other. The glass contained some of her famous cordial--in her opinion a remedy for half the ills under the sun. Madame Guise was then quietly seated by the fire, gazing into it with a far-away look, her hands folded on her lap. She drank the glass of cordial with thanks: though it seemed of no moment what she drank or what she did not drink just then. And little Marie, her cheeks flushed, her rosy lips open sufficiently to show her pretty white teeth, had dropped off to sleep again.