“I don’t know where; and he is older by six years and a bit.”
By-and-by, when Milly was gesticulating to frighten some herons by the river’s brink into the air, Cousin Monica said confidentially to me —
“He has run away, I’m told — I wish I could believe it — and enlisted in a regiment going to India, perhaps the best thing for him. Did you see him here before his judicious self-banishment?”
“No.”
“Well, I suppose you have had no loss. Doctor Bryerly says from all he can learn he is a very bad young man. And now tell me, dear, is Silas kind to you?”
“Yes, always gentle, just as you saw him to-day; but we don’t see a great deal of him — very little, in fact.”
“And how do you like your life and the people?” she asked.
“My life, very well; and the people, pretty well. There’s an old woman we don’t like, old Wyat, she is cross and mysterious and tells untruths; but I don’t think she is dishonest — so Mary Quince says — and that, you know, is a point; and there is a family, father and daughter, called Hawkes, who live in the Windmill Wood, who are perfect savages, though my uncle says they don’t mean it; but they are very disagreeable, rude people; and except them we see very little of the servants or other people. But there has been a mysterious visit; some one came late at night, and remained for some days, though Milly and I never saw them, and Mary Quince saw a chaise at the side-door at two o’clock at night.”
Cousin Monica was so highly interested at this that she arrested her walk and stood facing me, with her hand on my arm, questioning and listening, and lost, as it seemed, in dismal conjecture.
“It is not pleasant, you know,” I said.
“No, it is not pleasant,” said Lady Knollys, very gloomily.
And just then Milly joined us, shouting to us to look at the herons flying; so Cousin Monica did, and smiled and nodded in thanks to Milly, and was again silent and thoughtful as we walked on.
“You are to come to me, mind, both of you girls,” she said, abruptly; “you shall. I’ll manage it.”
When silence returned, and Milly ran away once more to try whether the old grey trout was visible in the still water under the bridge, Cousin Monica said to me in a low tone, looking hard at me —
“You’ve not seen anything to frighten you, Maud? Don’t look so alarmed, dear,” she added with a little laugh, which was not very merry, however. “I don’t mean frighten in any awful sense — in fact, I did not mean frighten at all. I meant — I can’t exactly express it — anything to vex, or make you uncomfortable; have you?”
“No, I can’t say I have, except that room in which Mr. Clarke was found dead.”
“Oh! you saw that, did you? — I should like to see it so much. Your bedroom is not near it?”
“Oh, no; on the floor beneath, and looking to the front. And Doctor Bryerly talked a little to me, and there seemed to be something on his mind more than he chose to tell me; so that for some time after I saw him I really was, as you say, frightened; but except that, I really have had no cause. And what was in your mind when you asked me?”
“Well, you know, Maud, you are afraid of ghosts, banditti, and everything; and I wished to know whether you were uncomfortable, and what your particular bogle was just now — that, I assure you, was all; and I know,” she continued, suddenly changing her light tone and manner for one of pointed entreaty, “what Doctor Bryerly said; and I implore of you, Maud, to think of it seriously; and when you come to me, you shall do so with the intention of remaining at Elverston.”
“Now, Cousin Monica, is this fair? You and Doctor Bryerly both talk in the same awful way to me; and I assure you, you don’t know how nervous I am sometimes, and yet you won’t, either of you, say what you mean. Now, Monica, dear cousin, won’t you tell me?”
“You see, dear, it is so lonely; it’s a strange place, and he so odd. I don’t like the place, and I don’t like him. I’ve tried, but I can’t and I think I never shall. He may be a very — what was it that good little silly curate at Knowl used to call him? — a very advanced Christian — that is it, and I hope he is; but if he is only what he used to be, his utter seclusion from society removes the only check, except personal fear — and he never had much of that — upon a very bad man. And you must know, my dear Maud, what a prize you are, and what an immense trust it is.”
Suddenly Cousin Monica stopped short, and looked at me as if she had gone too far.
“But, you know, Silas may be very good now, although he was wild and selfish in his young days. Indeed I don’t know what to make of him; but I am sure when you have thought it over, you will agree with me and Doctor Bryerly, that you must not stay here.”
It was vain trying to induce my cousin to be more explicit.
“I hope to see you at Elverston in a very few days. I will shame Silas in to letting you come. I don’t like his reluctance.”
“But don’t you think he must know that Milly would require some little outfit before her visit?”
“Well, I can’t say. I hope that is all; but be it what it may, I’ll make him let you come, and immediately, too.”
After she had gone, I experienced a repetition of those undefined doubts which had tortured me for some time after my conversation with Dr. Bryerly. I had truly said, however, I was well enough contented with my mode of life here, for I had been trained at Knowl to a solitude very nearly as profound.
Chapter 40.
In which I Make Another Cousin’s Acquaintance
MY CORRESPONDENCE about this time was not very extensive. About once a fortnight a letter from honest Mrs. Rusk conveyed to me how the dogs and ponies were, in queer English, oddly spelt; some village gossip, a critique upon Doctor Clay’s or the Curate’s last sermon, and some severities generally upon the Dissenters’ doings, with loves to Mary Quince, and all good wishes to me. Sometimes a welcome letter from cheerful Cousin Monica; and now, to vary the series, a copy of complimentary verses, without a signature, very adoring — very like Byron, I then fancied, and now, I must confess, rather vapid. Could I doubt from whom they came?”
I had received, about a month after my arrival, a copy of verses in the same hand, in a plaintive ballad style, of the soldierly sort, in which the writer said, that as living his sole object was to please me, so dying I should be his latest thought; and some more poetic impieties, asking only in return that when the storm of battle had swept over, I should “shed a tear” on seeing “the oak lie, where it fell.” Of course, about this lugubrious pun, there could be no misconception. The Captain was unmistakably indicated; and I was so moved that I could no longer retain my secret; but walking with Milly that day, confided the little romance to that unsophisticated listener, under the chestnut trees. The lines were so amorously dejected, and yet so heroically redolent of blood and gunpowder, that Milly and I agreed that the writer must be on the verge of a sanguinary campaign.
It was not easy to get at Uncle Silas’s “Times” or “Morning Post,” which we fancied would explain these horrible allusions; but Milly bethought her of a sergeant in the militia, resident in Feltram, who knew the destination and quarters of every regiment in the service; and circuitously, from this authority, we learned, to my infinite relief, that Captain Oakley’s regiment had still two years to sojourn in England.