Chapter XIV: Superstitious Tales

With the morning Lady Ellis assumed her position as mistress of the Red Court. She took her breakfast in bed--a habit she favoured--but came down before ten, in a beautiful challi dress, delicate roses on a white ground, with some white net lace and pink ribbons in her hair. The usual breakfast hour was eight o'clock, at least it was always laid for that hour; and Mr. Thornycroft and his sons went out afterwards on their land.

Looking into the different rooms, my lady found no one, and found her way to the servants' offices.

The kitchen, a large square apartment, fitted up with every known apparatus for cooking, was the first room she came to. Its two sash windows looked on the side of the house towards the church. It had been built out, comparatively of late years, beyond the back of the dining-room, a sort of added wing, or projecting corner. But altogether the back of the house was irregular; a nook here, a projection there; rooms in angles; casements large or small as might happen. The sash windows of the kitchen alone were good and modern, but you could not see them from the back. Whatever the irregularity of the architecture, the premises were spacious; affording every accommodation necessary for a large household. A room near the kitchen was called the housekeeper's room; it was carpeted, and the servants sat in it when they pleased; but they were by no means fashionable servants, going in for style and ceremony, and as a rule preferred the kitchen. There were seven servants indoors; Sinnett being the housekeeper.

My lady--as she was to be called in the house--was gracious. The cook showed her the larder, the dairy, and anything else she chose to see, and then received the orders for dinner--a plain one--fish, a joint, pudding, and cream.

It was the intention of my lady to feel her way, rather than assume authority hurriedly. She saw, with some little surprise, that no remnant was left of the last day's dinner; at least none was to be seen. Not that day would she inquire after it, but keep a watchful eye on what went from table for the future. To say that her rule in the house was to have one guiding principle--economy--would be only stating the fact. There had been no marriage settlements, and my lady meant to line her pocket by dint of saving.

The rooms were still deserted when she returned to them. My lady stood a moment in the hall, wondering if everybody was out. The door at the end, shutting off the portion of the house used by the young men, caught her eye, and she resolved to go on an exploration tour. Opening the door softly, she saw Richard Thornycroft in the passage talking to Hyde. He raised his hat, as in courtesy bound; but his dark stern face never relaxed a muscle; and somehow it rather daunted her.

"My father's wife, I believe," said Richard. "To what am I indebted for the honour of this visit?"

Just as if the rooms at this end of the house were his! But my lady made the best of it.

"It is Mr. Richard, I am sure! Let us be friends." She held out her hand, and he touched the tips of her fingers.

"Certainly. If we are not friends the fault will lie on your side," he pointedly said. "I interfere with no one in the house. I expect no one to interfere with me. Let us observe this rule to each other, and I dare say we shall get on very well."

She gently slid her hand within his, encased in its rough coat. Hyde, recovering from his trance of amazement, touched his hat, and went out at the outer door.

"I have not been in this portion of the house. Will you show it to me?"

"I will show it to you with pleasure: what little there is of it to see," replied Richard. "But--once seen, I must request you to understand that these rooms are for gentlemen only. Ladies are out of place in them."

She had a great mind to ask why; but did not. Very poor rooms, as Richard said--one on either side the passage. Small and plain in comparison with the rest of the house. A strip of thick cocoa-nut matting ran along the passage to the outer door. It was open, and my lady advanced to it.

Looking at the most confined prospect she ever saw; in fact, at no prospect at all. A wall, in which there was a small door of egress, shut out all view of the sea and the plateau. Another wall, with wide gates of wood, hid the courtyard and the buildings beyond. Opposite, in almost close proximity, leaving just space for the dog-cart or other vehicles to come in and turn, was the room used as a coach-house, formerly part of the stables when the house was a castle. My lady walked across the gravel, and entered it. A half-smile crossed Richard's face.

"There's not much to see here," he said.

Certainly not much. The dog-cart stood in one corner; in another were some trusses of straw, and a dilapidated cart turned upside down. Adjoining was a stable for the two horses alternately used in the dog-cart. My lady stepped back to the house door, and took a deliberate survey of the whole.

"It strikes me as being the dreariest-looking spot possible," she said. "A dead wall on each side, and a shut-in coach-house opposite!"

"Yes. Those who planned it had not much regard to prospect," answered Richard. "But, then, prospect is not wanted here."

She turned into the rooms; the windows of both looking on this confined yard. In the one room, crowded with guns, fishing-rods, dog-collars, boxing gloves, and other implements used by the young men, she stood a minute, scanning it curiously. In the other, on the opposite side the passage, was a closed desk-table, a telescope and weather-glass, some armchairs, pipes, and tobacco.

"This is the room I have heard Mr. Thornycroft call his den," said she, quickly.

"It is. The other one is mine and my brother's."

A narrow twisting staircase led to the two rooms above. My lady, twisting up it, turned into one of the two--Richard's bed-chamber. The window looked to the dreary line of coast stretching forward in the distance.

"Who sleeps in the other room?" she asked.

"Hyde. This part of the house is lonely, and I choose to have him within call."

In her amazement to hear him say this--the brave strong man, whom no physical fear could daunt--a thought arose that the superstition obtaining at the Red Court, whatever it might be, was connected with these shut-in-rooms; shut in from within and without. Somehow the feeling was not pleasant to her, and she turned to descend the stairs.

"But, Mr. Richard, why do you sleep here yourself?"

"I would not change my room for another; I am used to it. At one time no one slept here, but my mother grew to think it was not safe at night. She was nervous at the last."

He held the passage-door open, and raised his hat, which he had worn all the while, as she went through it, then shut it with a loud, decisive click.

"A sort of intimation that I am not wanted there," thought she. "He need not fear; there's nothing so pleasant to go for, rather the contrary."

In the afternoon, tired of being alone, she put on her things to go out, and met Mr. Thornycroft. She began a shower of questions. Where had he been? What doing? Where were all of them--Isaac--Mary Anne? Not a soul had she seen the whole day, except Richard. Mr. Thornycroft lifted his finger to command attention, as he answered her.

It would be better that they should at once begin as they were to go on; and she, his lady wife, must not expect to get a categorical account of daily movements. He never presumed to ask his sons how their days were spent. Farmers--farming a large tract of land--had to be in fifty places at least in the course of the day; here, and there, and everywhere. This applied to himself as well as to his sons. When Cyril came home he could attend upon her; he had nothing to do with the out-door work, and never would have.

"Hyde said you rode out this morning."

"I had business at Dartfield: have just got home."

"Dartfield! where's that?"

"A place five or six miles away: with a dreary road to it, too," added the justice.

"Won't you walk with me?" she pleaded, in the soft manner that had, so attracted him before marriage.

"If you like. Let us go for a stroll on the heath."

"Where is Mary Anne?" she inquired, as they went on.

"Mary Anne is your concern now, not mine. Has she not been with you?"

"I have not seen her at all today. When I got down--it was before ten--all the world seemed flown. I found Richard. He took me over the rooms at the end of the passage; to your bureau (he called the room that, as the French do), and to his chamber and Hyde's, and to the place filled with their guns and things."

The justice gave a sort of grin. "That's quite a come-out for Dick. Showing you his chamber! You must have won his heart."

My lady's private opinion was that she had not won it; but she did not say so. Gracefully twitching up her expensive robe, lest it should gather harm in its contact with the common, she tripped on, and they reached the heath. Mr. Thornycroft proposed to make calls at the different houses in succession, beginning with Captain Copp's. She heard him with a little shriek of dismay. "It was not etiquette."

"Etiquette?" responded the justice.

"I am but just married. It is their place to call on me first."

Mr. Thornycroft laughed. Etiquette was about as much understood as Greek at Coastdown. "Come along!" cried he, heartily. "There's the sailor and his wooden leg opening the door to welcome us."

The sailor was doing it in a sailorly fashion,--flourishing his wooden leg, waving his glazed hat round and round, cheering and beckoning. The bride made a merit of necessity, and went in. Here they had news of Mary Anne. Mrs. Copp, Mademoiselle Derode, and Miss Thornycroft had gone to Jutpoint by omnibus under Isaac's convoy.

"And the women are coming back here to a tea-fight," said the plain sea-captain; "cold mackerel and shrimps and hot cakes; that she-pirate of ours is baking the cakes in the oven; so you need not expect your daughter home, justice."

Mr. Thornycroft nodded in answer. His daughter was welcome to stay.

The dinner-party at the Red Court that evening consisted of five. Its master and mistress, the two sons, and a stranger named Hopley from Dartfield, whom Richard brought in. He was not much of a gentleman, and none of them had dressed. My lady thought she was going in for a prosy sort of life--not exactly the one she had anticipated.

Very much to her surprise she found the dinner-courses much augmented; quite a different dinner altogether from that which she had ordered. Boiled fowls, roast ducklings, tarts, ice-creams, macaroni--all sorts of additions. My lady compressed her lips, and came to the conclusion that her orders had been misunderstood. There is more to be said yet about the dinners at the Red Court Farm; not for the especial benefit of the reader, he is requested to take notice, but because they bear upon the story.

At its conclusion she left the gentlemen and sat alone at the open window of the drawing-room;--sat there until the shades of evening darkened; the flowers on the lawn sent up their perfume, the evening star came twinkling out, the beautiful sea beyond the plateau lay calm and still. She supposed they had all gone out, or else were smoking in the dining-room. When Sinnett brought her a cup of tea, presenting it on a silver waiter, she said, in answer to an inquiry, that the gentlemen as a rule had not taken tea since the late Mrs. Thornycroft's time. Miss Thornycroft and her governess had it served for themselves, with Mr. Cyril when he was at home from his tutor's.

"That is it," muttered my lady to herself, as Sinnett left the room. "Since their mother's death there has been no one to enforce order in the house, and they have had the run like wild animals. It's not likely they would care to be with the girl and that soft French governess."

It was dull, sitting there alone, and she wound an Indian shawl round her shoulders, went out across the lawn, and crossed the railings to the banned plateau.

It was very dreary. Not a soul was in sight; the landscape lay still and grey, the sea dull and silent. A mist seemed to have come on. This plateau, bare in places, was a small weary waste. Standing as near to the dangerous edge as she dared, my lady stretched her neck and saw the outline of the Half-moon underneath, surrounded by its waters, for the tide was nearly at its height. The projecting rocks right and left seemed to clip nearly round it, hiding it from the sea beyond. The cliff, as she looked over, was almost perpendicular, its surface jagged, altogether dangerous to look upon, and she drew back with a slight shudder--drew back to find Richard Thornycroft gazing at her from the plateau's railings, on which he leaned. They met halfway.

"Were you watching me, Mr. Richard?"

"I was," he gravely answered. "And not daring to advance or make the least sound, lest I should startle you."

"It is a dangerous spot. Mr. Thornycroft was saying so to me one day. But I had never been here, and I thought I would have a look at it; it was lonely indoors. So I came. Braving the ghost," she added, with a slight laugh.

Richard looked at her, as much as to ask what she knew, but did not speak.

"Last evening, when we were sitting in the drawing-room, the plateau in view, your sister's governess plunged into the superstitious, telling me of a 'revenant' that appears. I had heard somewhat of it before. She thinks you believe in it."

Richard Thornycroft extended his hand to help her over the railings. "Revenant, or no revenant, I would very strongly advise you not to frequent the plateau at night," he said, as they walked on to the house. "Do not be tempted to risk the danger."

"Are you advising me against the ghostly danger or the tangible?"

"The tangible."

"What is the other tale? What gave rise to this superstition?"

Richard Thornycroft did not answer. He piloted her indoors as far as the drawing-room, all in silence. The room was so dusk now that she could scarcely see the outline of the furniture.

"Will you not tell it me, Mr. Richard? Mademoiselle's was but a lame tale."

"What was mademoiselle's tale?"

"That she saw a shadowy figure on the plateau, which disappeared almost as she looked at it. You gave her some explanation about a murderer that came again as a revenant, and she had lived in dread of seeing it ever since."

If my lady had expected Richard Thornycroft to laugh in answer to her laugh, she was entirely mistaken; his face remained stern, sad, solemn.

"I cannot tell you anything, Lady Ellis, that you might not hear from any soul at Coastdown," he said presently. "People, however, don't much care to talk of this."

"Why don't they?"

Richard lifted his dark eyebrows. "I scarcely know: a feeling undoubtedly exists against doing so. What is it you wish to hear?"

"All the story, from beginning to end. Was there a murder?"

"Yes; it took place on the plateau. I can give you no particulars, I was but a little fellow at the time, except that the man who committed the deed hung himself before the night was out. The superstition obtaining is, that he does not rest quietly in his unconsecrated grave, and comes abroad at times to haunt the plateau, especially the spot where the deed was done."

"And that spot?"

Richard extended his hand and pointed to the edge as nearly as possible in a line with the window.

"It was there; just above the place they call the Half-moon. The figure appears on the brink, and stands there looking out over the sea. I should have said is reported to appear," he corrected himself.

"Did you ever see it yourself?"

"I cannot tell you."

"Not tell me!"

"I have undoubtedly seen a figure hovering there; but whether ghostly or human it has never given me time to ascertain. Before I could well cross the railings even, it has gone."

"Gone where?"

"I never could detect where. And to tell you the truth, I have thought it strange."

"Have you seen it many times?"

"Three or four."

He was standing close against the side of the window as he spoke, his profile stern as ever, distinct in the nearly faded light. My lady sat and watched him.

"The superstition has caused an accident or two," he resumed. "A poor coastguard-man was on his beat there one moonlight night and discerned a figure coming towards him walking on the brink of the cliff, as he was. What he saw to induce him to take it for the apparition, or to impart fear, was never explained. With a wild cry he either leaped from the cliff in his fright, or fell from it."

"Was he killed on the spot?"

"So to say. He lived but a few minutes after help came: the tide was up, and they had to get to him in boats: just long enough to say some nearly incoherent words, to the effect of what I have told you. A night or two after that a man, living in the village, went on the plateau looking for the ghost, as was supposed, and he managed to miss his footing, fell over, and was killed. It was then that my father had the railings put; almost a superfluous caution, as it turned out, for the impression made on the neighbourhood by these two accidents was so great, and the plateau became so associated in men's minds with so much horror, that I think nobody would go on it at night unless compelled."

"Lest they should see three ghosts instead of one," interrupted a light, careless voice at the back of the room. My lady started, Richard turned.

It came from Isaac Thornycroft. He had come in unheard, the door was but half closed, and gathered the sense of what was passing.

"Quite an appropriate atmosphere for ghostly stories," he said; "you are all in the dark here. Shall I ring for lights?"

"Not yet," interposed my lady, hastily; "I want to hear more."

"There's no more to hear," said Richard.

"Yes there is. You cannot think how this interests me, Mr. Richard; but I want to know--I want to know what was the cause of the murder. _Can't_ you tell me?"

Isaac Thornycroft had perched himself on the music-stool, his fair, gay, open face a very contrast just now to his brother's grave one. In the uncertain light he fancied that my lady looked to him with the last question, as if in appeal, and he answered it.

"Richard can tell it if he likes."

But it seemed that Richard aid not like. He had said the neighbourhood cared not to speak of this; most certainly _he did not_. It was remembered afterwards, when years had passed; and the strange fact was regarded as some subtle instinct lying far beyond the ken of man. But there was my lady casting her exacting looks towards him.

"They were two brothers, the disputants, and the cause was said to be jealousy. Both loved the same woman, and she played them off one on the other. Hence the murder. Had I been the Nemesis I should have slain the woman after them."

"Brothers!" repeated Lady Ellis. "It was a dreadful thing."

Richard, quitting his place by the window, left the room. Isaac, who had been softly humming a tune to himself, brought it to a close. A broad smile sat on his face: it appeared evident to my lady that the superstition was regarded by him as fun rather than otherwise. She fell into thought.

"You do not believe in the ghost, Mr. Isaac?"

"I don't say that. I do not fear it."

"Did you ever see it?"

"Never so much as its shadow; but it is currently believed, you know, that some people are born without the gift of seeing ghosts."

He laughed a merry laugh. My lady resumed in a low tone.

"Is it not thought that your mother feared it? That it--it helped to kill her?"

As if by magic, changed the mood of Isaac Thornycroft. He rose from the stool, and stood for a moment at the window in the faint rays of the light; his face was little less dark than his brother's, his voice as stern.

"By your leave, madam, we will not bring my mother's name up in connexion with this subject."

"I beg your pardon; but--there is one thing I should like to ask you. Do not look upon me as a stranger, but as one of yourselves from henceforth; come here, I hope, to make life pleasanter to all of us," she continued, in her sweetest tone. "Those rooms at the end of the house, with the high walls on either side--is there any superstition connected with them?"

Isaac Thornycroft simply stared at her.

"I cannot tell _why_ I fancy it. To-day when Mr. Richard was showing me those rooms, the thought struck me that the superstition said to obtain at the Red Court Farm must be connected with them."

"Who says that superstition obtains at the Red Court Farm?" questioned Isaac sharply.

"I seem to have gathered that impression from one or another."

"Then I should think, for your own peace of mind, you had better ungather it--if you will allow me to coin a word," he answered. "The superstition of the plateau does not extend to the Red Court."

She gave a slight sniff. "Those rooms looked dull enough for it. And your brother--your strong, stern, resolute brother--confessed to feeling so lonely in them that he had Hyde to sleep in the chamber near him. There's not so much space between them and the plateau."

Isaac turned from the window and faced her; voice, eye, face resolute as Richard's.

"Mrs. Thornycroft--or Lady Ellis, whichever it may please you to be called--let me say a word of advice to you in all kindness. Forget these things; do not allow yourself to recur to them. For your own sake I would warn you never to go on the plateau after daylight; the edge is more treacherous than you imagine; and your roving there could not be meet or pleasant. As to the rooms you speak of, there is no superstition attaching to them that I am aware of; but there may be other reasons to render it inexpedient for ladies to enter them. They belong to me and my brother; to my father also, when he chooses to enter; and we like to know that they are private to us. Shall I ring for lights now?" he concluded, as he turned to quit the room.

"Yes, please. I wonder where Mr. Thornycroft can be?"

"Probably at the Mermaid," he stayed to say.

"At the Mermaid? Do you mean the public-house?"

"Yes. A smoking bout takes place in its best parlour occasionally. My father, Mr. Southall, Captain Copp, Dangerfield the superintendent of the coastguard, old Connaught, and a few other gentlemen, meet there."

"Oh!" she answered. "Where are you going?"

"To fetch my sister from Mrs. Copp's."

In the short interval that elapsed before the appearance of the lights, my lady took a rapid survey of matters in her mind. The conclusion she arrived at was, that there were some items of the recent conversation altogether curious; that a certain mysterious atmosphere enveloped the present as well as the past; not the least of which was Richard Thornycroft's manner and his too evident faith in mystery. Take it for all in all, the most incomprehensible place she had ever come in contact with was the Red Court Farm.