Chapter VII: My Lady at the Red Court

At the end window of the corridor, looking towards the church and village, stood Mary Anne Thornycroft. Not yet had she recovered the recent stormy interview, and a resentful feeling in regard to it was rife within her. The conduct of her father and eldest brother appeared to have been so devoid of all reason in itself, and so gratuitously insulting to Robert Hunter, that Mary Anne, in the prejudice of her love for _him_, was wishing she could pay them off. It is the province of violent and unjust opposition to turn aside its own aim, just as it is the province of exaggeration to defeat itself; and Miss Thornycroft, conning over and over again in her mind the events of the day, wilfully persuaded herself that Mr. Kyne was right, her father wrong, and that smuggling of lace, or anything else that was valuable, _was_ carried on under (as may be said) the very face and front of their supine house.

Cyril came up the stairs--his book in his hand--saw her standing there, and came to her side. The short winter's day was already verging towards twilight, and the house seemed intensely still.

"Is it not a shame?" exclaimed Mary Anne, as Cyril put his arm about her.

"Is what not a shame? That the brightness of the day is gone?"

"_You know!_" she passionately exclaimed. "Where's the use of attempting subterfuge with me, Cyril? Cyril, on my word I thought for the moment that papa and Richard must have gone suddenly mad."

In Cyril Thornycroft's soft brown eyes, thrown out to the far distance, there was a strange look of apprehension, as if they saw an unwelcome thing approaching. Something was approaching in fact, but not quite in sight yet. He had a mild, gentle face; his temper was of the calmest, his voice sweet and low. And yet Cyril seemed to have a great care ever upon him;--his mother, whom he so greatly resembled, used to have the same. He was the only one of her children who, as yet, had profited much by her counsel and monition. In the last few years of her life her earnest daily efforts had been directed to draw her children to God, and on Cyril they had borne fruit.

In the German schools, to which he had been sent, in the Oxford University life that succeeded, Cyril Thornycroft had walked unscathed amidst the surging sea of surrounding sins and perils. Whatever temptation might assail him, he seemed, in the language of one who watched his career, only to come out of them more fit for God. Self-denying, walking not to do his own will, remembering always that he had been bought with a price and had a Master to serve, Cyril Thornycroft's daily life was one of patient endurance of a great inward suffering, and of active kindness. Where he could do good he did it; when others were tempted to say a harsh word he said a kind one. He had been brought up to no profession; his inclination led him to go into the Church; but some motive, of which he never spoke, seemed to hold him back. Meanwhile Mr. Thornycroft appeared quite content to let him stay on at the Red Court in idleness--idleness as the world called it. Save that he read a great deal, Cyril did no absolute work; but many in Coastdown blessed him. In sickness of body, in suffering of mind, there by the bed-side might be found Cyril Thornycroft, reading from the Book of Life--talking of good things in his low, earnest voice; and sometimes--if we may dare to write it--praying. Dare! For it is the fashion of the world to deride such things when spoken of--possibly to deride them also in reality.

And now that is all that will be said. It was well to say it for the satisfaction of the readers, as will be found presently, even though but one of those readers may be walking in a similar earnest path, the world lying on one hand, heaven on the other.

"Courtesy is certainly due to Mr. Hunter, and I am sorry that my father and Richard forgot it," resumed Cyril. "When does he leave?"

"On Saturday," she answered, sullenly.

"Then--endeavour to let things go on peaceably until that time. Do not excite him by any helping word on your part to oppose home prejudices. Believe me, Mary Anne, my advice is good. Another such scene as there was to-day, and I should be afraid of the ending."

"What ending?"

"That Richard might turn him out of the house."

Miss Thornycroft tossed her head. "Richard would be capable of it."

"Let us have peace for the rest of his sojourn here, forgetting this morning's episode. And--Mary Anne--do not ask him to prolong his visit beyond Saturday."

He looked with kindly earnestness into her eyes for a moment as if wishing to give impression to the concluding words, and then left her to digest them: which Miss Thornycroft was by no means inclined to do pleasantly. She was picking up the notion that she would be required to give way to her brothers on all occasions; here was even Cyril issuing his orders now! Not ask Robert Hunter to stay over Saturday!--when her whole heart had been set upon his doing it!

Playing with her neck-chain, tossing it hither and thither, she at length saw Robert Hunter come strolling home from the village, his air listless, his steps slow; just like a man who is finding time heavy on his hands.

"And not one of them to be with him!" came her passionate thought. "It _is_ a shame. Bears! Why! who's _this?_"

The exclamation--cutting short the complimentary epithet on her brothers, though it could not apply with any sort of justice to Cyril, who had been prevented by his father from following Robert Hunter--related to a Jutpoint fly and pair. Driving in at the gates, it directly faced Mary Anne Thornycroft; she bent her eyes to peer into it, and started with surprise.

"Good gracious! What can bring _her_ here?"

For she recognised Lady Ellis; with a maid beside her. And yet, in that pale, haggard, worn woman, who seemed scarcely able to sit upright, there was not much trace of the imperious face of her who had made for so brief a period the Red Court her home. Illness--long-continued illness, its termination of necessity fatal--changes both the looks and the spirit.

The chaise had passed Robert Hunter at right angles: had my lady recognised him?

But a moment must be given to Cyril. On descending the stairs, he saw Richard striding out at the front door, and hastened after him.

"Where are you going, Richard?"

"Where am I going?" retorted Richard. "To Tomlett's, if you must know. Something must be done."

Cyril laid his calm hand on his brother's restless one, and led him off towards the plateau.

"Do nothing, Richard. You are hasty and incautious. They cannot make any discovery."

"And that fellow talking of going to sound the rocks, with his boasted engineering experience?"

"Let him go. If the square sounds as hollow as his head, what then? They can make nothing else of it. No discovery can be made from the outside; you know it _can not_; and care must be taken that they don't get in."

"Perhaps you would not care if they did," spoke Richard in his unjust passion.

"You know better," said Cyril, sadly. "However I may have wished that certain circumstances did not exist, I would so far act with you now as to ward off discovery. I would give my life, Richard, to avert pain from you all, and disgrace from the Red Court's good name. Believe me, nothing bad will come of this, if you are only cautious. But your temper is enough to ruin all--to set Hunter's suspicions on you. You should have treated it derisively, jokingly, as I did."

Richard, never brooking interference, despising all advice, flung Cyril's arm aside, and turned off swearing, meeting Isaac, who was coming round by the plateau.

"Isaac, we are dropped upon."

"What?"

"We are dropped upon, I say."

"How? Who has done it?"

"That cursed fellow Mary Anne brought here--Hunter. He and Kyne have been putting their heads together; and, by all that's true, they have hit it hard. They had got up a suspicion of the rocks; been sounding the square rock, and found it hollow. Kyne has scented the cargo that's lying off now."

The corners of Isaac Thornycroft's mouth fell considerably. "We must get _that_ in," he exclaimed. "It is double the usual value."

"I wish Hunter and the gauger were both hanging from the cliffs together!" was Richard's charitable conclusion, as he strode onwards. "It was a bad day's work for us when they moved Dangerfield. I'm on my way now to consult with Tomlett; will you come?"

Isaac turned with him. Bearing towards the plateau, but leaving it to the right--a road to the village rarely taken by any but the Thornycroft family, as indeed nobody else had a right to take it, the waste land belonging to Mr. Thornycroft--they went on to Tomlett's, meeting Mr. Kyne en route, with whom Isaac, sunny-mannered ever, exchanged a few gay words.

Cyril meanwhile strolled across the lawn as far as the railings, and watched them away. He was deep in thought; his eyes were sadder than usual, his high, square brow was troubled.

"If this incident could but turn out a blessing!" he half murmured. "Acted upon by the fear of discovery through Kyne's suspicions, if my father would but make it a plea for bringing things to a close, while quiet opportunity remains to him! But for Richard he would have done so, as I believe, long ago."

Turning round at the sound of wheels, Cyril saw the fly drive in. Reaching it as it drew up to the door, he recognised his stepmother. Mary Anne came out, and they helped her to alight. Hyde, every atom of surprise he possessed showing itself in his countenance, flung wide the great door. She leaned on Cyril's arm, and walked slowly. Her cheeks were hollow, her black eyes were no longer fierce, but dim; her gown sat about her thin form in folds.

"My dears, I thought your father would have had the carriage waiting for me at Jutpoint."

"My dears!" from the once cold and haughty Lady Ellis! It was spoken in a meek, loving tone, too. Mary Anne glanced at Cyril.

"I am sure my father knew nothing of your intended arrival," spoke Cyril; "otherwise some of us would certainly have been at Jutpoint."

"I wrote to tell him; he ought to have had the letter this morning. I have been a little better lately, Cyril; not really better, I know that, but more capable of exertion; and I thought I should like to have a look at you all once again. I stayed two days in London for rest, and wrote yesterday."

She passed the large drawing-rooms, and turned of her own accord into the small comfortable apartment that was formerly the school-room, and now the sitting-room of Mary Anne. Cyril drew an easy-chair to the fire, and she sat down in it, letting her travelling wraps fall from her. Sinnett, who had come in not less amazed than Hyde, picked them up.

"You are surprised to see me, Sinnett."

"Well--yes, I am, my lady," returned Sinnett, who did not add that she was shocked also. "I am sorry to see you looking so poorly."

"I have come for a few days to say good-bye to you all. You can take my bonnet as well."

Sinnett went out with the things. It was found afterwards that the letter, which ought to have announced her arrival, was delayed by some error on the part of the local carrier. It was delivered in the evening.

As she sat there facing the light, the ravages disease was making showed themselves all too plainly in her wasted countenance. In frame she was a very skeleton, her hands were painfully thin, her black silk gown hung in folds on her shrunken bosom. Mary Anne put a warm foot-stool under her feet, and wrapped a shawl about her shoulders; Cyril brought a glass of wine, which she drank.

"I have to take a great deal of it now, five or six glasses a day, and all kinds of strengthening nourishment," she said. "Thank you, Cyril. Sometimes I lie and think of those poor people whose case is similar to mine, and who cannot get it."

How strange the words sounded from her! Thinking for others! Miss Thornycroft, remembering her in the past, listened in a sort of amused incredulity, but a light as of some great gladness shone in the eyes of Cyril.

As he left the room to search for his father, who had gone out, Robert Hunter entered it. Seeing a stranger there, an apparent invalid, he was quitting it again hastily when Mary Anne arrested him.

"You need not go, Robert; it is my stepmother, Lady Ellis. Mr. Hunter."

At the first moment not a trace could he find of the handsome, haughty-faced woman who had beguiled him with her charms in the days gone by. Not a charm was left. She had left off using adjuncts, and her face was almost yellow; its roundness of contour had gone; the cheeks were hollow and wrinkled, the jaws angular. Only by the eyes, as they flashed for a moment into his with a sort of dismayed light, did he recognise her. Bowing coldly, he would have retreated, but she, recovering herself instantly, held out her hand.

"No wonder you have forgotten me; I am greatly changed."

Mary Anne Thornycroft looked on with astonishment. Had they ever met before?

"Yes," said Lady Ellis; "but he was mostly called Mr. Lake then."

A flush dyed Robert Hunter's brow. "I threw off the name years ago, when I threw off other things," he said.

"What other things did you throw off?" quickly asked Mary Anne.

"Oh, many," was the careless answer; "frivolity and idleness, amidst them."

Perhaps he remembered that his manner and words, in the view of that wasted face and form, were needlessly ungracious, for his tone changed; he sat down, and said he was sorry to see her looking ill.

"I have been ill now for a long while; I must have been ill when I knew you," she said; "that is, the disease was within me, but I did not suspect it. Had I taken heed of the symptoms, slight though they were and for that cause entirely unheeded, perhaps something might have been done for me; I don't know. As it is, I am slowly dying."

"I hope not," he said, in his humanity.

"You cannot hope it, Mr. Hunter. Look at me!"

Very true. Had she been all the world to him--had his whole happiness depended on his keeping her in life, he could not have hoped it. With her wan face, and eyes glistening with that peculiar glaze that tells of coming death; with her thin frame and deep, quick breath, that seemed to heave the body of her gown as though a furnace-bellows were underneath, there could be no thought of escape from the portals that were opening for her. As she sat before him leaning in the chair, the shawl thrown back from her chest, Robert Hunter looked at her and knew it.

There ensued a silence. He did not answer, and Mary Anne was much wondering at this suddenly-discovered past intimacy, never spoken of by either to her, and resenting it after the manner of women. The fire flickered its blaze aloft; the twilight deepened; but it was not yet so dark but that the plateau was distinct, and also the figure of the preventive man at the edge, pacing it. Lady Ellis suddenly broke the stillness.

"Do the people believe in the ghost still, Mary Anne?"

"I suppose so. There has been no change that I know of."

"I meant--has anything been discovered?"

Mary Anne Thornycroft lifted her eyes. "How do you mean, discovered? What is there to discover?"

"Not anything, I dare say," she said. "But it used to strike me as very singular--this superstitious belief in these enlightened times--and a feeling was always on my mind that something would occur to explain it away. Have you heard of it?" she asked, directing her eyes to Robert Hunter.

"Somewhat. There is a difficulty, I hear, in keeping the preventive men on the plateau after dusk. What it is they precisely fear, I do not know."

"Neither did I ever know," she observed, dreamily. "The curious part of it to me always was, that Mr. Thornycroft and his sons appeared to fear it."

Before Miss Thornycroft, who sat in silence, the subject was not pursued. Lady Ellis started a more open one, and inquired after Mrs. Chester.

"She is living in Paris," said Robert Hunter. "At least--she has been living there; but I am not sure that she is still. A few days ago I had a letter from her, in which she said she was about to change her residence to Brussels."

He did not add that the letter was one of Mrs. Chester's usual ones--complaining grievously of hard times, and the impossibility of "getting along." Somehow she seemed not to be able to do that anywhere. She had two hundred a year, and was always plunging into schemes to increase her income. They would turn out well at first, according to her report, promising nothing less than a speedy fortune; and then would come a downfall. In this recent letter, she had implored of Robert Hunter to "lend" her fifty pounds to set her going in Brussels, to which capital she was on the wing, with an excellent opportunity of establishing a first-class school. He sent the money, never expecting to see it again.

"Are her children with her?" questioned Lady Ellis.

"Only Fanny. The boys are at school in England. And Anna--you remember Anna?"

"I should think I do, poor girl. The slave of the whole house."

"Anna is here on a visit."

"_Here!_"

"I mean at Coastdown. She is staying with a Captain and Mrs. Copp, who are some slight relatives of hers."

"I have thought of Anna as teacher in a school. Mrs. Chester said she should place her in one."

"She is a teacher. This visit is only a temporary one, prolonged on account of Anna's health. She was with Miss Jupp."

With the last word, all the reminiscences, as connected with that lady's name and the past, rose up in the mind of Robert Hunter--of a certain Christmas-day, when Mary Jupp had brought some shame home to him: perhaps also to her of the faded face sitting opposite. It brought shame to him still; but, seeing that faded face, he was vexed to have inadvertently mentioned it.

"Mary Anne, I think I will go to my room. The fire must have burnt up now. No, don't come with me; I would be quiet for a little while."

As she got up from the chair, she staggered. Robert Hunter, who was crossing the room to open the door for her, stopped and offered his arm. He could do no less in common pity: but the time had been when he registered a mental vow that never again should the arm of that woman rest within his.

"Thank you: just to the foot of the stairs. I have but little strength left, and the journey to-day has temporarily taken away that. Are you getting on well in your profession, Mr. Hunter?"

"Oh, yes. My prospects are very fair."

Sinnett happened to be in the hall; her mistress called to her, took her arm, and quitted that of Robert Hunter. He returned to Mary Anne, who was rather sulky still. What with the scene in the afternoon, with the unexpected and not over-welcome appearance of her stepmother, and with this mysterious acquaintanceship, about which nothing had been said to her, the young lady was not in so amiable a mood as usual.

"When did you know Lady Ellis?" she abruptly began after an interval of silence. "And where?"

"Some years ago; she was staying, for a few months with my half-sister, Mrs. Chester, at Guild."

"At Guild; yes, I know; I saw her there when I went over with papa. But I was not aware that you were intimate there."

Robert Hunter had never spoken of that past time in any way to Mary Anne. It happened that Anna Chester had not.

"I went over to Guild sometimes. I was living at Katterley, seven miles off."

"Was that in your wife's time?"

"Yes."

"It is strange you never told me you knew my stepmother."

"It never occurred to me to tell you. Business matters have so entirely occupied my thoughts since, that those old days seem well-nigh blotted out of them."

"Were she and your wife great friends?"

"No. My wife did not like her."

Robert Hunter was standing at the window, looking out in the nearly faded twilight. He could not fail to perceive by the tone of her voice that Mary Anne was feeling displeased at something. But her better nature was returning to her, and she went and stood by him. He held out his arm, as he had done once or twice before when they were thus standing together: and she slipped her hand within it. The fire had burnt down to dulness, emitting scarcely any light: the preventive man could no longer be seen on the plateau.

"How dark it is getting, Robert!"

"Yes; but I think it will be a fine night. There's a star or two twinkling out."

Very, very conscious was each, as they stood there. In these silent moments, with the semi-darkness around, love, if it exists, must make itself felt. Love within, love around, love everywhere; the atmosphere teeming with it, the soul sick to trembling with its own bliss. It seemed to them that the beating of their own hearts was alone heard, and that too audibly. Thus they stood; how long it was hard to say. The room grew darker, the stars came out clearer. The softness of the hour was casting its spell on them both; never had love been so present and so powerful. In very desperation Mary Anne broke the silence, her tone sweet and low, her voice sunk to a half-whisper.

"Robert, how is it you have never spoken to me of your wife?"

"I did not know you would like it. And besides----"

"Besides what?"

"I have not cared to speak of her since her death. A feeling has been upon me that I never should speak of her again, except perhaps to one person."

"And that person?"

"My second wife. Should I be fortunate enough ever to marry one."

He turned involuntarily and looked at her. And then looked away again hastily. It might be dangerous just now. But that look, brief as it was, had shown him her glowing, downcast countenance.

"What was her name?"

"Clara. She was little more than a child--a gentle, loving child, unfit to encounter the blasts of the world. One, ruder than ordinary, struck her and carried her away."

"Did you love her very much?"

He paused, hesitated, and then turned to her again. "Am I to tell you, Mary Anne?"

"As you like," she whispered, the blushes deepening. "Of course not, if it be painful to you."

"I did not love her; taking the word in its truest extent. I thought I did, and it is only within a few months--yes, I may as well tell you all--that I have learnt my mistake."

Mary Anne Thornycroft glanced at him in surprise. "Only within a few months! How is that?"

"Because I have learnt to love another. To love--do you understand, Mary Anne?--to _love_. With my very heart and soul; with my best and entire being. Such love cannot come twice to any man, and it teaches him much. It has taught me, amidst other knowledge, that I liked my wife as one likes a dear child, but not otherwise."

Mary Anne Thornycroft's hand trembled as it lay upon his arm. In her bewilderment of feelings, in the tumultuous sensation born of this great love that was filling all her mind, she nearly lost command of her words, and spoke at random.

"But why should this be told only to your second wife?"

"Because I should wish to show her that my true love is hers; hers only in spite of my early marriage. The rest of the world it concerns not, and will never be spoken of to them."

"You assume confidently that you will feel this love for your second wife?"

"I shall if I marry her. _That_ is by no means sure. Unless I marry _her_, the one to whom my love is given, I shall never marry at all."

Ah, where was the use of keeping up this farce? It was like children playing at bo-peep with the handkerchief over the face. The other is there, but we pretend to know it not. With their hearts wildly beating in unison--with her hand shaking visibly in its emotion--with the consciousness that concealment was no longer concealment but full and perfect knowledge, stood they. Mary Anne rejoined, her words more and more at random, her wits utterly gone a-woolgathering.

"And why should you not marry her?"

"I am not in a position to ask for her of her father."

It was all over in a moment. Save that he turned suddenly to look at her, and laid his hand on hers as if to still its trembling, Mary Anne Thornycroft doubted ever after if she had not made the first movement. Only a moment, and her head was lying on his breast, his clasped arms were holding her there, their pulses were tingling with rapture, their lips clinging together in a long and ardent kiss.

"Dare I speak to you, Mary Anne?" he asked, hoarsely.

"You know you may."

"Oh, my love--my love! It is you I would, if possible, make my wife. None other. But I may not ask for you of Mr. Thornycroft. He would not deem my position justified it."

"I will wait for you, Robert."

Only by bending his head could he catch the low words. His cheek lay on hers; he strained her closer, if that were possible, to his beating heart.

"It may be for years!"

"Let it be years and years. I ask no better than to wait for you."

The stars shone out brighter in the sky; the fire in the room went quite down; and nothing more could be heard from those living in their new and pure dream, but snatches of the sweet refrain--

"My love, my love!"