Chapter XVI: At Greylands' Rest

"Now, mademoiselle, je n'eh veux pas."

"Because Ethel understands French as well as you do, that's no reason why I should. If you tell me in French what I have to do, of course I can't do it, for I don't know a word you say."

It was the first morning of the studies, Tuesday, Madame Guise having entered the previous day. She, Ethel, and Flora were seated round the table in the schoolroom, a small apartment looking to the kitchen-garden, with an old carpet on its floor, painted segged chairs, and a square piano against the wall opposite the fire. Ethel was copying music. Madame Guise was endeavouring to ascertain the advancement of Miss Flora in her studies, with a view to arranging their course in future, speaking in French, and requiring the replies to be in French. But the young lady obstinately persisted in making them in English.

"Whatever you do, Madame Guise, please speak always to Flora in French," had been Mrs. Castlemaine's first charge to the new governess. "Above all things, I wish her to be a good French scholar, and to speak it as fluently as Miss Reene does." But here, at the very outset, Miss Flora was demurring to the French, and protesting she could not understand it.

Madame Guise hesitated. She did not choose to be met by wilful disobedience; on the other hand, to issue her mandates in an unknown language would be simply waste of time. She turned her eyes questioningly on Ethel. "I am not quite sure, madame, one way or the other," said Ethel, replying in French. "Flora ought to be able to understand it; and to speak it a little too; but she has always been inattentive. Miss Oldham and the governesses who preceded her did not speak French as you do: perhaps they were not particular that Flora should speak it."

"How is it that you speak it so well?" asked Madame.

"I? Oh, I had a French nurse when I was a child, and then a French governess; and to finish my education I went to Paris for two years."

"All the three governesses I have had here did not speak French to me," interrupted Flora, resentfully. "Not one of them."

"Have you had three governesses? That is a great many, considering you are yet young," observed Madame, in English.

"They were all bad ones," said the girl.

"Or was it that you were a bad pupil You must be a better one with me."

Ethers shapely head, with its bright dark hair, was bent over her copying again: she said nothing. Madame Guise determined to speak in English to the child for at least this morning, until the studies should be put in train.

"We will begin with your English grammar"--taking up the dog-eared, untidy book. "How far have you advanced in it, Miss Flora?"

"I don't like grammar."

"How far have you advanced in it?" equably pursued Madame.

"I don't recollect."

"To begin English grammar again," spoke Madame, addressing herself, and making a note on paper with a pencil.

"I shan't begin it again."

"You will not say to me I shall or I shan't; you will do what I please," quietly corrected Madame. "This is your English History. What reign are you in?"

Miss Flora had her elbows on the table, her hands under her chin, and her pretty face pushed out defiantly opposite Madame. The patches of plaster were nearly all gone; her light curls tied back with a black ribbon, hang low behind. She wore a black frock and white pinafore.

"Which of the king's reigns are you in?" pursued Madame.

"Not in any. I know them all. Charles the Second was beheaded; and Henry the Eighth had ten wives: and Guy Faux blew up the gunpowder plot; and Elizabeth boxed people's ears."

"Oh," said Madame, "I think we shall have to begin that again. Are you good at spelling?"

"I can't spell at all. I hate it. Mamma says I need not learn to spell."

"I fancy that cannot be true. How will you write letters if you cannot spell?"

"Who wants to write letters?--I don't."

"Flora!" put in Ethel in a warning tone.

The girl turned angrily on Ethel. "Nobody asked you to speak: mind your copying."

"Mind your manners, said Ethel nodding to her.

"Not for you, or for anybody else in this room."

"It is very unpleasant to hear young ladies say these rude things," interposed Madame. "As your governess, Miss Flora, I shall not permit it."

"That's what my other governesses would say," retorted Flora. "It made no difference to me."

"If the other governesses did not do their duty by you, it is no reason why I should not do mine," said Madame. "Your papa has charged me with forming your manners; if I have trouble in doing it I am to appeal to him."

Flora was silent. The one only authority she feared, in the house or out of it, was her father's. He would not be trifled with, however her mother might be.

"I hate governesses, Madame Guise. I'd like to know what they were invented for?"

"To teach ignorant and refractory children to become good young ladies," spoke Madame, who did not seem in the least to lose her temper. Flora did not like the calmness: it augured badly for the future. It was so totally unlike her experience of former governesses. They were either driven wild, or had subsided into a state of apathy.

"I drove those other governesses away, and I'll drive you. I'll never do anything you tell me. I won't learn and I won't practise."

"The less you learn, the more persistently I will stay on to make you," said Madame, quite unruffled. "A lesson that you do not get by heart to-day, you will have to get to-morrow: the studies broken off this week, must be completed next. As to your trying to drive me away, it will be labour lost; I simply tell you I am not to be driven. If there is anything I like, and for which I think I have an especial fitness, it is the ruling of refractory children. We shall see which will be strongest, Miss Flora, you or I."

"Once, when one of my governesses wanted to make me learn, I had a fever. Mamma said it was all her fault."

"Very good," said Madame. "We will risk the fever. If you get one I will nurse you through it. I am a capital nurse."

Ethel burst out laughing. "The fever was a headache, Flora; you brought it on with crying."

"You ugly story-teller! I did have a fever. I lay in bed and had broth."

"Yes, for a day. Why, you have never had a fever in your life. Mr. Parker saw you and brought some medicine; you would not take it and got up."

"Ugh! you old tell-tale!"

"Come to my side, Miss Flora," spoke Madame. "You will stand here and read a little of French and of English that I may see how you read. And I must tell you that if we have not got through this morning what we want to get through and put the studies en train, I shall not allow you to go out this afternoon, and I shall request that you have no dinner. Instead of that, you will stay in this room with me. Mind! I never break my word."

After a few moments' delay, the young lady moved round. Probably she saw that her new mistress was not one to break her word. And, thus, a beginning made, the morning wore away rather better than its commencement had promised. Never was there a child with better abilities than Flora Castlemaine: it was only the will to use them that was lacking. She had been brought up to exercise her own will and disobey that of others. Bad training! bad training for a child.

Putting aside the difficulties attending the instruction and management of Miss Flora, Madame Guise found the residence at Greylands' Rest not at all an unpleasant one. The routine of the day was this. Breakfast--which meal was taken all together in the red parlour--at eight o'clock. Flora until dinner-time; half-past one. Ethel's music lesson of an hour, was given during the afternoon: Flora being generally out with her mamma or racing about the premises and grounds on her own account. Tea at five; one hour given to Flora afterwards, to help her to prepare her lessons or exercises for the following day: and then Madame's duties were over.

Little did Mr. Castlemaine imagine that the pleasant, though always sad young lady, who was so efficient an instructress for the young plague of the house, was his ill-fated nephew's widow. He was somewhat taken aback when he heard that Madame Guise had placed her child at the Grey Nunnery, and knitted his brow in displeasure. However, the child's being there, so long as the ladies were, could make no difference to him; it was the Sisterhood he wanted away, not the child.

Charlotte Guise never went out during the day--except on Sundays to church. Ethel would try to coax her abroad in the afternoons, but hitherto she had not succeeded. In the evening, after Flora was done with, Madame would put her bonnet on and stroll alone: sometimes to the Nunnery to see her child, whose enforced absence only made her the dearer to her mother's heart.

"Why will you not go out with me?" asked Ethel one afternoon, when she and Madame Guise rose from the piano in the red parlour--for the old square piano in the schoolroom was for the benefit of the unskilled fingers of Miss Flora only. "See how pleasant everything looks! It is quite spring weather now."

"Yes, it is spring weather, but I feel a little cold always, and I don't care to go," answered Madame Guise. "I will go when summer comes."

They sat down before the French window, Ethel opening it to the pleasant air. Madame Guise had been wishing ever since she was in the house to put a question to this fair young girl, whom she had already learned to love. But she had not yet dared to do it: conscience was always suggesting fears of her true identity being discovered: and now that she did speak it was abruptly.

"Have any tidings been heard yet of the young man said to have been lost in the Friar's Keep?"

"No, not any," replied Ethel.

"Is it true, think you, that he was killed?"

Ethel Reene flushed painfully: she could not forget what she had overheard John Bent say.

"Oh, I hope not. Of course, his disappearance is very strange; more than strange. But if--if anything did happen to him that night, it might have been by accident."

"I heard about the matter when I was at the Dolphin," observed Madame Guise, as if wishing to account for speaking of it. "It took much hold upon my interest; it seemed so strange and sad. Did you ever see that Mr. Anthony, Ethel?"

"Yes, I saw him twice. I was prejudiced against him at first, but I grew to like him. I should have liked him very much had he lived; I am sure of it: quite as a brother. Miss Castlemaine of Stilborough liked him: and I think the mystery of his loss has lain heavily upon her."

"What prejudiced you against him?" asked Charlotte.

Ethel smiled, and told the tale. She gave the history of their two meetings; gave it in detail. The tongue is ready when it has a sympathetic hearer: never a more rapt one than she who listened now.

Ethel rose as she concluded it. The disappearance was a subject she did not care to speak of, or dwell upon. Unable to believe Mr. Castlemaine otherwise than innocent, she yet saw that a prejudice had arisen against him.

"Then you will not come out with me, madame?"

"Many thanks, but no."

"What will you do with yourself all day to-morrow?" asked Ethel.

"I shall take holiday," replied Madame Guise, with a flush of colour.

For on the morrow the whole of the family were going from home, having promised to spend the day with some friends who lived near Newerton.

The flush had been caused by Charlotte Guise's self-consciousness. True, she would take holiday on the morrow from her duties; that went as a matter of course; but she was purposing to use the day, or part of it, in endeavouring to make some discovery. These twelve days had she been in the house now, and she was no farther advanced than when she entered it. She had seen Mr. Castlemaine daily; she had conversed with him, dined and taken other meals in his company; but for all the enlightenment she had obtained, or the new ideas she had gathered of the doings of that ill-fated February night, he and she might as well have been far apart as are the two poles. It was not by going on in this tame way that she could hope to obtain any clue to the past: the past to which she had made a vow to devote herself.

The morning rose brightly, and the family went off after breakfast in the carriage, Harry sitting on the box with the coachman. Madame Guise was left alone.

A feverish desire had been upon her to enter Mr. Castlemaine's room upstairs; the study where he kept the accounts pertaining to the estate, and wrote his letters. In this room he passed many hours daily, sitting in it sometimes late into the night. Charlotte Guise held an impression that if she could find tokens or records of her lost husband, it would be there. But she had never yet obtained so much as a glimpse of its interior: the room was considered sacred to Mr. Castlemaine, and the family did not approach it.

Two or three of the women servants had obtained permission to absent themselves that day to visit their friends; and the house was comparatively deserted. Madame Guise, looking forth from her chamber, found all silent and still: the upstairs work was over; the servants, those who remained at home, were shut up in the remote kitchens. Now was her time; now, if ever.

The corridor was spacious. It ran along two sides of the house, and most of the bed chambers opened from it. Mr. Castlemaine's study was the middle room in the side corridor; Madame's bedroom was nearly opposite the room; the one beyond hers being Harry Castlemaine's.

Standing outside her door, in the still silence, with a flushed face and panting breath, not liking the work she was about to do, but believing it a necessity thrown upon her, she at length softly crossed the corridor and opened the outer door leading to the study. A short, dark, narrow passage not much more than a yard in length, and there was another door. This was locked, but the key was in it; she turned the key, and entered the room. Entered it with some undefined feeling of disappointment, for it was bare and empty.

We are all apt to form ideas of places and things as yet unseen. The picture of Mr. Castlemaine's study, in the mind of Charlotte Guise, had been of a spacious apartment filled with furniture, and littered with papers. What she saw was a small square room, and no earthly thing in it, papers or else, but two tables, some chairs, and a bureau against the wall: or what would have been called in her own land a large secretaire, or office desk. She gazed around her with a blank face.

The tables and chairs were bare: no opportunity there for anything concealed. The bureau was locked. She tried it; palled it, pushed it: but the closed-down lid was firm as adamant.

"If there exists any record of him, it is in here," she said, half aloud. "I must contrive means of opening it."

She could not do that to-day. It would have to be done with a false key, she supposed; and, that, she had not in her possession. Before quitting the room, she approached the window, and looked forth cautiously. At the sea rolling in the distance; at the Friars' Keep opposite; at the fair green lands lying between that and Greylands' Rest. Charlotte Guise shuddered at a thought that crossed her.

"If he did indeed kill my poor husband and has laid him to rest in the Friars' Keep, how can he bear to be in this room, with that building in front of him to remind him of the deed?"

The day was before her: it was not yet twelve o'clock. Blankly disappointed with her failure, she put on her things to go abroad: there was nothing to stay in for. At the last moment a thought struck her that she would go to Stilborough. She wanted to make some purchases; for the wardrobe brought over from France had not been extensive, either for herself or child. Hastily attiring herself, she told Miles she should not be in to dinner, and started.

And so, just as Anthony Castlemaine had once, and but once, set off to walk to the market-town, did his poor young wife--nay, his widow--set off now. She was a good walker, and, so far, enjoyed the journey and the sweet spring day. She saw the same objects of interest (or of non-interest, as people might estimate them) that he had seen: the tall, fine trees, now budding into life: the country carts and waggons; the clumsy milestones; the two or three farm houses lying back amid their barns and orchards. Thus she reached Stilborough, and did her commissions.

It was late when she got back to Greylands; five o'clock, and she was dead tired. By the time she reached the Dolphin, she could hardly drag one foot before the other. To walk three miles on a fine day is not much; but to go about afterwards from shop to shop, and then to walk back again is something more. Mrs. Bent, standing at the inn door, saw her, brought her in, and set her down to a substantial tea-table. She told the landlady she had been to Stilborough to make purchases--which would come by the van for her on the morrow, and to be left at the Dolphin, if the Dolphin would kindly take them in.

"With pleasure," said Mrs. Bent. "Ned shall take the parcels up to Greylands' Rest."

What with the welcome rest to her tired limbs, and what with Mrs. Bent's hospitable tea and gossip, Madame Guise sat longer than she had intended. It was nearly dark when she went over to the Nunnery--for she had brought a toy and some bonbons for Marie. The Grey Sisters received her as kindly as usual; but they told her the little one did not seem very well; and Madame Guise went upstairs to look at her. Marie was in her little bed, by the side of Sister Betsey's. She seemed restless and feverish. Poor Charlotte Guise began to think that perhaps this climate did not agree with her so well as their own. Taking off her things, she sat down to stay with the child.

"Mrs. Castlemaine said it would be quite midnight before they got home, as they were to make a very long day, so I am in no hurry for an hour or two," she observed. "Miles will think I am lost; but I will tell him how it is."

"Has your little one ever had the measles?" asked Sister Mona.

"The measles?" repeated Madame Guise, puzzled for the moment. "Oh, lea rougeoles--pardon my forgetfulness--no she has not. She has never had anything."

"Then I think, but I am not sure, that she is sickening for the measles now."

"Mon Dieu!" cried the mother in consternation.

"It is nothing," said the Sister. "We have nursed dozens of children, and brought them well through it. In a week little Marie will be about again."

But Madame Guise, unused to these light ailments, and terribly anxious for her only child, whom she could but look upon, as separated from herself, in the light of a martyr, was not easily reassured. She stayed with the child as long as she dared, and begged that Mr. Parker might be sent for in the morning should Marie be no better.

It was late to go home; after eleven; but nevertheless Charlotte Guise took the lonely road past the Friars' Keep and up Chapel Lane. The way had a fascination for her. Since she had been at Greylands' Rest, in going home from the Nunnery in the evening she had always chosen it. What she expected to see or hear, that could bear upon her husband's fate, she knew not; but the vague idea ever lay upon her that she might light upon something. Could she have done it without suspicion, three parts of her time would have been spent pacing about before the chapel ruins, just as John Bent had paced the night he was waiting for his guest.

It was very lonely. All the village had long ago been in bed. The stars were bright; the night was light and clear. Looking over the chapel ruins, she could see the lights of a distant vessel out at sea. Under the hedge, in the very selfsame spot where her husband and John Bent had halted that fatal night, did she now halt, and gaze across at the Keep, Chapel Lane being close upon her left hand.

"No, they could not have been mistaken," ran her thoughts. "If Mr. Castlemaine came down the lane now and crossed over, I should know him unmistakably--and that night was lighter than this, almost like day, for the moon, they say, was never brighter. Then why, unless he were guilty, should Mr. Castlemaine deny that he was there?"

Glancing up at the windows with a shudder, almost fearing she might see the revenant of the Grey Monk pass them with his lamp, or some other revenant, Madame Guise turned up Chapel Lane. At such moments, trifles serve to unstring the nerves of a timorous woman. Sounds struck on Madame Guise's ear, and she drew back, trembling and shaking, amid the thick grove of shrubs and trees skirting one side of the lane.

"Gently, now; gently, Bess," cried a voice not far from her. "You shall go your own pace in less than five minutes, old girl. Gently now."

And to Charlotte Guise's astonishment, she saw Commodore Teague's spring-cart turn out of the dark turning that led from the Hutt, the Commodore driving. Its cover looked white in the starlight; Bess, the mare he thought so much of, had her best harness on. When nearly abreast of Madame Guise, the Commodore pulled up with an exclamation.

"The devil take it! I've forgot to lock the shed door. Stand still, old girl; stand still, Bess."

He got down and ran back. The well-trained animal stood perfectly still. In a few moments' time he was back again, had mounted, and was driving slowly away in the direction of Newerton.

"What can be taking him abroad at this night hour?" Madame said to herself in wonder.

But the encounter, though it had been a silent one, and on the man's part unsuspected, had served to restore somewhat of her courage: the proximity of a human being is so reassuring in the dark and lonely night, when superstitions fancies are running riot. And with a swift step, Charlotte Guise proceeded on her way up Chapel Lane.