Chapter XVII: Opening the Bureau

Greylands' Cliff was a high cliff: and the huts of the fishermen, nestling in nooks on its side, rendered it very picturesque. Many a lover of art and nature, seeking a subject for his pencil, had sketched this cliff; some few had made it into a grand painting and sent it forth to charm the world.

The two highest cottages on it were of a superior order. Even they were not built on the top; but close under it. They stood nearly side by side; a jutting of rock stretching out between them. The walls were white: and to the side of one of these dwellings--the one nearest the sea--there was a small square piece of sunk level that served now for a little garden. Miss Hallet, to whom the cottage belonged, had caused some loads of good earth to be brought up; she planted a few flowers, a few shrubs, a few sweet herbs, and so nursed the little spot into a miniature garden. Miss Hallet herself was seated just within the open door of the dwelling, darning a rent in a pillow-case. The door opened straight upon this room; a pretty parlour, very well furnished. The kitchen was behind; and two good bedchambers and a smaller room were above. Not a large house, thinks the reader. No: but it was regarded as large by the poorer dwellers on the cliff, and Miss Hallet was looked up to by them as a lady. Having a small but sufficient income, she lived quietly and peaceably, mixing but little with other people.

Through family misfortunes she had been deprived of a home in early life, and she took a situation, half companion, half lady's-maid. The lady she served bequeathed her by will enough money to live upon. Miss Hallet had then saved money of her own; she came to Greylands, her native place, bought the cottage on the cliff, and settled herself in it. Her brother, like herself, had had to turn to and support himself. He went to sea in the merchant service, passed in time the examinations before the Board of Trade, and rose to command a vessel trading to the coast of Spain. But he never got beyond that: and one stormy night the unfortunate vessel sunk with himself and all hands. He left two orphan children, a son and daughter, not provided for; Miss Hallet adopted them, and they came home to her at Greylands. The boy, George, she sent to a good school at Stilborough; he had to walk to and fro night and morning: Jane went to the Grey Sisters. George took to the sea; in spite of all his aunt could say or do. Perhaps the liking for it was innate, and he was always about in boats and on the beach when at Greylands. He at length put himself on board Tom Dance's boat, and said he would be a fisherman, and nothing else. In vain Miss Hallet pointed out to him that he was superior to anything of the kind, and ought to look out for a higher calling in life. George would not listen. Quitting his aunt's roof--for he grew tired of the continual contentions she provoked--he went to lodge in the village, and made apparently a good living. But the treacherous sea took him, just as it had in like manner taken his father. One night during a storm, a ship was sighted in distress: Tom Dance, who was as good-hearted as he was reckless, put off in his boat with George Hallet to the rescue, and George never came back again. Handsome, light-hearted, well-mannered George Hallet was drowned. That was nearly two years ago. He was just twenty years of age; and was said to have already been given a share in Tom Dance's earnings. Tom Dance owned his own substantial boat; and his hauls of fish were good; no doubt profitable also, for he was always flush of money. His son, a silent kind of young man, was his partner now, and went out in the boat with him as George Hallet used to do. They lived in one of the cottages on the beach. Old Mrs. Dance, Tom's mother, had her dwelling in a solitary place underneath the perpendicular cliff: not on the village side of it, as the other dwellings were, but facing the sea. It was a lonely spot, inaccessible at times when the tides were high. Tom Dance, who was generous to his mother, and kept her well, would have had her quit it for a more sociably situated habitation: but the old woman was attached to her many-years homestead, and would not listen to him. When we have grown old in a home, we like it better than any other, no matter what may be its drawbacks.

Miss Hallet finished the darn, and turned the pillow-case about to look for another. She was a tall, fair, angular lady of fifty, with a cold, hard countenance; three or four prim flat curls of grey hair peeped out on her forehead from beneath her cap; tortoiseshell spectacles were stretched across her well-shaped nose. She had a fawn-coloured woollen shawl crossed about her for warmth--for, though a nice spring day, it was hardly the weather yet for one of her age to sit exposed to the open air.

"Why, this must have been cut!"

The spectacles had rested upon an almost imperceptible fray, whose edges were so keen and close as to impart a suspicion that it had never come by natural wear and tear. Miss Hallet drew in her thin lips grimly.

"And since the wash too!" she continued, when the gaze was over. "Jane must know something of this: she helped the woman to fold. Jane is frightfully heedless."

Threading a fresh needleful of the soft, fine darning cotton, she was applying herself to repair the damage, when footsteps were heard ascending the narrow zigzag path. Another minute, and Tom Dance's son loomed into view; a short, sturdy, well-meaning, but shy and silent youth of twenty.

"Father's duty, Miss Hallet, and he has sent up this fish, if you'd be pleased to accept him," said the young man, showing a good-sized fish with large scales, resting on a wicker-tray. Miss Hallet was charmed. Her hard face relaxed into as much of a smile as it could relax.

"Dear me, what a beautiful fish! How good your father is, Wally! Always thinking of somebody! Give him my best thanks back again. You have just got in, I suppose?"

"Just ten minutes ago," responded Wally. "Been out two tides."

"Well, I wonder your father does not begin to think more of his ease--and so well off as he must be! The night seems the same to him for work as the day."

"One catches the best fish under the moon," shortly remarked the young man, as he handed over the wicker-tray.

Miss Hallet took it into the house, and brought it back to him without the fish. Mr. Walter Dance caught the tray with a silent nod, and sped down the steep path at a rate, that, to unaccustomed eyes, might have seemed to put his neck in peril.

Barely had Miss Hallet taken up her sewing again, when another visitor appeared. This one's footsteps were lighter and softer than the young man's, and she was seen almost as soon as heard. A dark-haired, quick-speaking young woman in black. It was Harriet, waiting-maid to Mrs. Castlemaine.

"Is your niece at home, Miss Hallet?"

"No. She's gone to Stilborough. How are you, Harriet?"

"Oh, I'm all right, thank you. What a cliff this is to climb up!--a'most takes one's breath away. Gone to Stilborough, is she? Well, that's a bother!"

"What did you want with her?"

"Has she done any of them han'kerchers, do you know?" returned the young woman, without replying to the direct question.

"I can't say. I know she has begun them. Would you like to come in and sit down?"

"I've no time for sitting down. My missis has sent me off here on the spur of the moment: and when she sends one out on an errand for herself one had best not linger, you know. Besides, I must get back to dress my ladies."

"Oh, must you," indifferently remarked Miss Hallet; who rarely evinced curiosity as to her neighbours' doings, or encouraged gossip upon trifles.

"They are all going off to a dinner party at Stilborough; and missis took it into her head just now that she'd use one of her new fine cambric han'kerchers," continued Harriet. "So she sent me off here to get one."

"But Mrs. Castlemaine is surely not short of fine handkerchiefs!" cried Miss Hallet.

"Short of fine han'kerchers!--why, she's got a drawer fall. It was just a freak for a new thing; that's all."

"Well, I do not know whether one is done, Harriet. Jane has been working at one; she was at it last night; but I did not notice whether she finished it."

"Can't you look, please, Miss Hallet?"

Miss Hallet rose from her chair and went upstairs. She came back empty-handed.

"I don't see the handkerchiefs anywhere in Jane's room, Harriet. I daresay she has locked them up in her work-drawer: she has taken to lock up the drawer lately, I've noticed. If you could wait a few minutes she might be in: she'll not be long now."

"But I can't wait; they start off at five," was the girl's answer: "and the missis and Miss Ethel have both got to be dressed. So I'll say good afternoon, ma'am."

"Good afternoon," repeated Miss Hallet. "Should Jane return in time, if she happens to have finished one of the handkerchiefs, she shall bring it up."

The young woman turned away with a brisk step, but not at the speed Walter Dance had used. By-and-by, quite an hour later, Jane Hallet came in.

A slender, ladylike, nice-looking girl of nineteen; with a fair, soft, gentle face, mild blue eyes, hair light and bright, and almost child-like features. Jane's good looks, of which she was no doubt conscious, and Jane's propensity to dress too much were a source of continual vexation to Miss Hallet: so to say, a stumbling-block in her path. Jane wore a dark blue merino dress, a very pretty grey cloak, with a hood and tassels, and a straw bonnet trimmed with blue. Miss Hallet groaned.

"And you must walk off in all those best things to-day, Jane! Just to go to the wool shop at Stilborough! I wonder what will become of you!"

"It was so fine a day, aunt," came the cheerful, apologetic answer. "I have not hurt them.

"You've not done them good. Are any of those handkerchiefs of Mrs. Castlemaine's finished?" resumed the aunt, after a pause.

"One is."

"Then you must go up at once with it to Greylands' Rest. Don't take your cloak off--unless, indeed, you'd like to change it for your old one which would be the right thing to do," added Miss Hallet, snappishly. "And your bonnet, too!"

Jane stood still for a moment, and something like a cloud passed over her face. She did not particularly care to go to Greylands' Rest.

"I am tired with my walk, aunt."

"That can't be helped: you must take the handkerchief all the same," said Miss Hallet. And she explained the reason, and that she had promised to send one if it were done.

"You will be in time, Jane: it is hardly half-past four. The maid said the family were to start at five."

Jane went up to her chamber; a room that she took care to make look as pretty as she could. A chest of drawers stood by the bed. Taking a key from her pocket, she opened the top long drawer, the only one that was locked, and lifted out the paper of handkerchiefs. Half-a-dozen handkerchiefs of the finest and softest cambric, almost like a spider's web, that Mrs. Castlemaine had given to her to hem-stitch.

Any little job of this kind Jane Hallet was glad to undertake. The money helped to buy her clothes. Otherwise she was entirely dependent upon her aunt. The Grey Ladies had taught her all kinds of fine needlework. When she had none of that to do--and she did not have it often--she filled up her leisure time in knitting lambs' wool socks for a shop at Stilborough. There was no necessity for her to do this, and Miss Hallet did not cordially approve of it; but it gave Jane a feeling of independency.

Snatching a moment to look into the glass and put her hair in order, Jane went down with the handkerchief, neatly folded in thin white paper. All the girls instincts were nice: she was in fact too much of a lady for her position.

"I thought you might be changing those smart things for your everyday ones," crossly spoke Miss Hallet, as Jane went through the sitting-room. "Mrs. Castlemaine wall look askance at your finery."

"There was no time for it, aunt," replied Jane, a sudden blush dyeing her face, as she hastened out.

She ran down the cliff, went past the Grey Nunnery, and so up Chapel Lane--which was the back way to Greylands' Rest, and not the front. It was not her wish or intention to see Mrs. Castlemaine, if she could avoid it; or any of the family. Presenting herself at the back door, she asked for Harriet. One of the other servants took her into a small parlour, and said she would tell the lady's maid. Five o'clock had struck before Harriet bustled in.

"The han'kercher, is it? Mrs. Castlemaine'll be glad. When she sets her mind on a thing, she do set it. Come along, Jane Hallet, she wants to see you."

No opportunity was afforded to Jane of saying no, and she followed Harriet along the passages. Mrs. Castlemaine, her rich black silk dinner dress covered by a large warm shawl, stood in the hall. Ethel Reene, in black net and white ribbons, and wearing her scarlet cloak, was also there. The carriage waited outside. Jane went forward shrinkingly, her face turning pale and red alternately.

"I just want to see it before I take it," said Mrs. Castlemaine, holding out her hand for the handkerchief. "Is it tumbled much? Oh, I see; it is very nice, quite smooth. How well you have kept it, Jane Hallet! Here, Harriet, I don't want this one now."

She tossed back an embroidered handkerchief to the maid, and swept out to the carriage. Ethel smiled at Jane, as she followed her stepmother.

"I'm sure it is very good of you, Jane, to come up with it for mamma," she said, feeling in her sensitive heart that Mrs. Castlemaine had not given one word of thanks to the girl.

Mr. Castlemaine came downstairs, an overcoat on his arm. He nodded kindly to Jane as he passed, and inquired after Miss Hallet. Miles and Harriet stood in the porch, watching the carriage away. Jane was a little behind, just within the hall.

"I thought Mr. Harry was going," observed Harriet. "What has took him not to go?"

"Don't know," said Miles. "One never can be certain of Mr. Harry--whether he goes to a place or whether he doesn't go."

"Perhaps he has walked on," remarked Harriet carelessly, as she turned round. "I say, Jane Hallet, you'll stay and take a dish o' tea, now you are here. We are just going to have it."

But Jane hastily declined. No persuasion, apparently, would induce her to accept the invitation; and she departed at once. Half an hour later Madame Guise and her pupil came home: they had been out for a long walk.

"Have they all gone?" inquired Madame of one of the housemaids.

"Oh, dear, yes, ma'am. Half an hour ago."

Now, this answer deceived Charlotte Guise. She knew the dinner engagement had been accepted by Mr. and Mrs. Castlemaine, their son, and Ethel. She had no thought or idea but what they could collectively keep it: and in saying to the servant "Have they all gone," she comprised the four, and understood that she was answered accordingly.

She and Flora took tea together. The child was growing somewhat more tractable than she used to be. Not much as yet; it was just a little shade of improvement. Flora was always better when her mamma was away; and Madame Guise had no trouble with her on this night. She even went to bed at the appointed hour, eight o'clock, without rebellion, after a regalement of what she was particularly fond of--bread and jam.

"I will take a slice of this bread and butter and jam also," remarked Madame to Miles; "and then I shall not trouble you to bring in supper for me. It will be a nice change. We like this confiture much in my country."

So Madame took her light supper that evening with Flora, and afterwards wrote a letter. At nine o'clock she rang the bell to say she was going up to her room for the night, feeling tired, and should require nothing more. Miles, who had answered the bell, saw her go up with her candle. He put out the sitting-room lights for safety, and went back to the kitchen. His master and mistress were not expected home before hall-past eleven.

In her room stood Charlotte Guise, white as a sheet. She was contemplating a deed that night, from which, in spite of what she deemed her justification for it, she shrank in horror. It was no less a step than the opening with a false key the private bureau of Mr. Castlemaine.

Some little time the best part of a fortnight, had elapsed since that walk of hers to Stilborough and Marie had had the measles--"very kindly," as Mr. Parker and the Grey Sisters expressed it--and was well again. Telling a plausible story of the loss of her keys to a Stilborough locksmith that day, Madame had obtained from him--a key that would undo, if necessary, half the locks in Mr. Castlemaine's house. No opportunity had presented itself for using it until now. Such an occasion as this, when the house was deserted by all, save the servants, might not speedily occur again.

She stood in her chamber, trembling and nervous, the light from the candle reflected on her face. The staircase clock struck the quarter past nine, and her heart beat faster as she heard it. It was the signal she had been waiting for.

For the servants would now be settled at their supper, and were not likely soon to get up from it. Nine o'clock was the nominal hour for the meal: but, as she chanced to know, they rarely sat down to it much before a quarter past. With the house free and nothing to do, they would not hurry themselves over it to-night. Half an hour--nay, an hour, she knew she might freely reckon upon while they were shut up at table in the comfortable kitchen, talking and eating.

Charlotte Guise opened the door and stood to listen. Not a sound save the ticking of the clock broke the stillness. She was quite alone. Flora was fast asleep in her room in the front corridor, next to Mrs. Castlemaine's chamber, for she had been in to see, and she had taken the precaution of turning the key on the child for safety: it would not do to be interrupted by her. Yet another minute she stood listening, candle in hand. Then, swiftly crossing the corridor, she stole into the study through the double doors. A fear had been upon her that she might find the second door a stumbling block, as Mr. Castlemaine sometimes locked it when he went abroad. It was open to-night, and she whisked through it.

The same orderly, unlittered room that she had seen before. No papers lay about, no deeds were left out that could be of use to her. Three books were stacked upon the side table; a newspaper lay on a chair; and that was positively all. The fire had long ago gone out; on the mantelpiece was a box of matches.

Putting down the candle, Charlotte Guise took out her key, and tried the bureau. It opened at once. She swung back the heavy lid and waited a moment to recover herself: her lips were white, her breath came in gasps. Oh, apart from the baseness, the dishonour of the act, which was very present to her mind, what if she were to be caught at it?

Papers were there en masse. The drawers and pigeon-holes seemed to be full of them. So far as she could judge from a short examination--and she did not dare to give a long one--these papers had reference to business transactions, to sales of goods and commercial matters--which she rather wondered at, but did not understand. But of deeds she could see none.

What did Charlotte Guise expect to find? What did she promise herself by this secret search? In truth, she could not have told. She wanted to get some record of her husband's fate, some proof that should compromise the Master of Greylands. She would also have been glad to find some will, or deed of gift, that should show to her how Greyland's Rest had been really left by old Anthony Castlemaine: whether to his son Basil or to James. If to Basil, why there would be a proof--as she, poor thing, deemed it--of the manner in which James Castlemaine had dealt with his nephew, and its urging motive.

No, there was nothing. Opening this bundle of papers, rapidly glancing into that, turning over the other, she could find absolutely nothing to help her: and in the revulsion of feeling which the disappointment caused, she said to herself how worse than foolish she had been to expect to find anything: how utterly devoid of reason she must be, to suppose Mr. Castlemaine would preserve mementos of an affair so dangerous. And where he kept his law papers, or parchments relating to his estate, she could not tell, but certainly they were not in the bureau, unless there were secret receptacles to which she knew not how to penetrate.

Not daring to stay longer, for near upon half an hour must have elapsed, she replaced the things as she had found them, so far as she could remember. All was done save one drawer; a small drawer, at the foot, next the slab. It had but a few receipted bills in it: there was one from a saddler, one from a coach maker, and such like. The drawer was very shallow; and, in closing it, the bills were forced out again. Charlotte Guise, in her trepidation and hurry, pulled the drawer forwards too forcibly, and pulled it out of its frame.

Had it chanced by accident--this little contretemps? Ah, no. When do these strange trifles pregnant with events of moment, occur by chance? At the top of the drawer, itself in the drawer, appeared a narrow, closed compartment, opening with a slide. Charlotte drew the slide back, and saw within it a folded letter and some small article wrapped in paper.

The letter, which she opened and read, proved to be the one written by Basil Castlemaine on his death-bed--the same letter that had been brought over by young Anthony, and given to his uncle. There was nothing much to note in it--save that Basil assumed throughout it that the estate was his, and would be his son's after him. Folding it again, she opened the bit of paper: and there shone out a diamond ring that flashed in the candle's rays.

Charlotte Guise took it up and let it fall again. Let it fall in a kind of sick horror, and staggered to a chair and sat down half fainting. For it was her husband's ring.

The ring that Anthony had worn always on his left-hand little finger: the ring that he had on when he quitted Gap. It was the same ring that John Bent and his wife had often noticed and admired; the ring that was undoubtedly on his hand when he followed Mr. Castlemaine that ill-fated night into the Friar's Keep. His poor wife recognized it instantly: she knew it by its peculiar setting.

To her mind it was proof indisputable that he had indeed been put out out of the way for ever. Mr. Castlemaine must have possessed himself of the ring, unwilling that so valuable a jewel should be lost: perhaps had drawn it from Anthony's finger after death. She shuddered at the thought. But, in the midst of her distress, reason told her that this was only a negative proof, after all; not sufficient for her to act upon, to charge Mr. Castlemaine with the murder.

When somewhat recovered, she kissed the ring, and put it back into the small compartment with the letter. Pushing in the slide, she shut the drawer, and closed and locked the bureau; thus leaving all things as she had found them. Not very much result had been gained, it is true, but enough to spur her onwards on her future search. With her mind in a chaos of tumult,--with her brain in a whirl of pain,--with every vein throbbing and fevered, she left the candle on the ground where she had now lodged it, and went to the window, gasping for air.

The night was bright with stars; opposite to her, and seemingly at no distance at all, rose that dark building, the Friar's Keep. As she stood with her eyes strained upon it, though in reality not seeing it, but deep in inward thought, there suddenly shone a faint light at one of its casements. Her attention was awakened now; her heart began to throb.

The faint light grew brighter: and she distinctly saw a form in a monk's habit, the cowl drawn over his head, slowly pass the window; the light seeming to come from a lamp in his outstretched hand. All the superstitions tales she had heard of the place rushed into her mind: this must be the apparition of the Grey Friar. Charlotte Guise had an awful dread of revenants, and she turned sick and faint.

With a cry, only half suppressed, bursting from her parted lips, she caught up the candle, afraid to stay, and flew through the door into the narrow passage. The outer door was opening to her hand, when the voice of Harry Castlemaine was heard in the corridor, almost close to the door.

Ah, far more sick and faint did she turn now! Discovery seemed inevitable. Instinct led her to blow out the light and to push the door as close as she could push it. She dared not shut it: he might have heard the click of the latch. Had the others come home? Was Mr. Castlemaine ascending to his study to catch her there? Trembling, shaking, panting, the unhappy lady stood in this acme of terror, the ghost of the Friar's Keep behind her, the dread of detection before her. And the candle was making a dreadful smell!

That alone might betray her: Harry Castlemaine might push back the door to ascertain where the smell came from. Could the floor have opened and disclosed a yawning pit, the unhappy lady would thankfully have disappeared within it.

The minute seemed like an hour. Harry did not come on. He appeared to have halted close by to listen to something. Miles was speaking below.

"Thought I had gone with them to the dinner, and so put out the lights!" retorted Harry, in his, free, clear, good-natured tones. "You saw the carriage drive away, I suppose, without me. Well, light up again, and bring in some supper."

He came on now, and went into his chamber at the end of the corridor. Staying there a minute or two, as though changing his coat, he passed back, and down stairs again. Charlotte Guise, shaking, in every limb, stole out as the echo of his footsteps died away, closed the door and took refuge in her own room. There she went into hysterics: hysterics that she was totally unable to suppress, and muffled her head in a blanket to deaden the cry.

The next morning there was commotion in the house: Miss Flora Castlemaine had found herself locked in her bedroom. Given to take impromptu excursions in a morning en robe de nuit, after books, or the kitten, or into somebody's bedroom who was sure not to want her, the young lady for once found herself caged. Mrs. Castlemaine made an angry stir about it; locked doors were so dangerous in case of fire, she said. She accused the maid, Eliza, who attended on Miss Flora, and threatened her with dismissal.

"I can be upon my Bible oath that I never locked the door," cried the girl. "Why should I wish to lock it last night, more than any other night? I never touched the key. For the matter of that, I could not tell whether the key was outside or inside. You may send me away this hour, ma'am, but I am innocent, and I can't say more than that."

Poor Madame Guise, who was complaining of migrane this morning, and whose eyes were red and heavy, took the blame upon herself, to exculpate the wrongfully accused servant. In her terror of the previous night, she had totally forgotten to unlock Flora's door. She hastened now to say that she had looked in on the sleeping child when she herself went to bed: in coming out, it was possible she had turned the key. Many of the chamber doors in France shut and opened with the key only, she might have turned the key unthinkingly, meaning but to shut the door.

So the matter ended. But Charlotte Guise could not help feeling how painfully one deceit one wrong act, leads to another. And Mr. Harry, she found, had never been to the dinner at all. Some matter of business, or perhaps some whim, had led him to break his engagement, and to give due notice of it the day beforehand to the entertainers. As Miles had observed, one never could be certain of Harry Castlemaine.