It is a long, narrow room, with two tall, slim windows at the far end, now draped in dark curtains. Dusky it was with but one candle; and he paused near the door, at the left-hand side of which stood, in those days, an old-fashioned press or cabinet of carved oak. In front of this he stopped.
He had odd, absent ways, and talked more to himself, I believe, than to all the rest of the world put together.
“She won’t understand,” he whispered, looking at me enquiringly. “No, she won’t. Will she?”
Then there was a pause, during which he brought forth from his breast pocket a small bunch of some half-dozen keys, on one of which he looked frowningly, every now and then balancing it a little before his eyes, between his finger and thumb, as he deliberated.
I knew him too well, of course, to interpose a word.
“They are easily frightened — ay, they are. I’d better do it another way.”
And pausing, he looked in my face as he might upon a picture.
“They are — yes — I had better do it another way — another way; yes — and she’ll not suspect — she’ll not suppose.”
Then he looked steadfastly upon the key, and from it to me, suddenly lifting it up, and said abruptly, “See, child,” and, after a second or two, “Remember this key.”
It was oddly shaped, and unlike others.
“Yes, sir.” I always called him “sir.”
“It opens that,” and he tapped it sharply on the door of the cabinet. “In the daytime it is always here,” at which word he dropped it into his pocket again. “You see? — and at night under my pillow — you hear me?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You won’t forget this cabinet — oak — next the door — on your left — you won’t forget?”
“No, sir.”
“Pity she’s a girl, and so young — ay, a girl, and so young — no sense — giddy. You say, you’ll remember?”
“Yes, sir.”
“It behoves you.”
He turned round and looked full upon me, like a man who has taken a sudden resolution; and I think for a moment he had made up his mind to tell me a great deal more. But if so, he changed it again; and after another pause, he said slowly and sternly —
“You will tell nobody what I have said, under pain of my displeasure.”
“Oh! no, sir!”
“Good child!”
“Except,” he resumed, “under one contingency; that is, in case I should be absent, and Dr. Bryerly — you recollect the tin gentleman, in spectacles and a black wig, who spent three days here last month — should come and enquire for the key, you understand, in my absence.”
“Yes, sir.”
So he kissed me on the forehead, and said —
“Let us return.”
Which, accordingly, we did, in silence; the storm outside, like a dirge on a great organ, accompanying our flitting.
Chapter 2.
Uncle Silas
WHEN WE REACHED the drawing-room, I resumed my chair, and my father his slow and regular walk to and fro, in the great room. Perhaps it was the uproar of the mind that disturbed the ordinary tenor of his thoughts; but, whatever was the cause, certainly he was unusually talkative that night.
After an interval of nearly half an hour, he drew near again, and sat down in a high-backed arm-chair, beside the fire, and nearly opposite to me, and looked at me steadfastly for some time, as was his wont, before speaking; and said he —
“This won’t do — you must have a governess.”
In cases of this kind I merely set down my book or work, as it might be, and adjusted myself to listen without speaking.
“Your French is pretty well, and you Italian; but you have no German. Your music may be pretty good — I’m no judge — but your drawing might be better — yes — yes. I believe there are accomplished ladies — finishing governesses, they call them — who undertake more than any one teacher would have professed in my time, and do very well. She can prepare you, and next winter, then, you shall visit France and Italy, where you may be accomplished as highly as you please.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“You shall. It is nearly six months since Miss Ellerton left you — too long without a teacher.”
Then followed an interval.
“Dr. Bryerly will ask you about that key, and what it opens; you show all that to him, and no one else.”
“But,” I said, for I had a great terror of disobeying him in even so minute a matter, “you will then be absent, sir — how am I to find the key?”
He smiled on me suddenly — a bight but wintry smile — it seldom came, and was very transitory, and kindly though mysterious.
“True, child; I’m glad you are so wise; that, you will find, I have provided for, and you shall know exactly where to look. You have remarked how solitary I live. You fancy, perhaps, I have not got a friend, and you are nearly right — nearly, but not altogether. I have a very sure friend — one — a friend whom I once misunderstood, but now appreciate.”
I wondered silently whether it could be Uncle Silas.
“He’ll make a call, some day soon; I’m not quite sure when. I won’t tell you his name — you’ll hear that soon enough, and I don’t want it talked of; and I must make a little journey with him. You’ll not be afraid of being left alone for a time?”
“And have you promised, sir?” I answered, with another question, my curiosity and anxiety overcoming my awe. He took my questioning very good-humouredly.
“Well — promise? — no, child; but I’m under condition; he’s not to be denied. I must make the excursion with him the moment he calls. I have no choice; but, on the whole, I rather like it — remember, I say, I rather like it.”
And he smiled again, with the same meaning, that was at once stern and sad. The exact purport of these sentences remained fixed in my mind, so that even at this distance of time I am quite sure of them.
A person quite unacquainted with my father’s habitually abrupt and odd way of talking, would have fancied that he was possibly a little disordered in his mind. But no such suspicion for a moment troubled me. I was quite sure that he spoke of a real person who was coming, and that his journey was something momentous; and when the visitor of whom he spoke did come, and he departed with him upon that mysterious excursion, I perfectly understood his language and his reasons for saying so much and yet so little.
You are not to suppose that all my hours were passed in the sort of conference and isolation of which I have just given you a specimen; and singular and even awful as were sometimes my tête-à-têtes with my father, I had grown so accustomed to his strange ways, and had so unbounded a confidence in his affection, that they never depressed or agitated me in the matter you might have supposed. I had a great deal of quite a different sort of chat with good old Mrs. Rusk, and very pleasant talks with Mary Quince, my somewhat ancient maid; and besides all this, I had now and then a visit of a week or so at the house of some one of our country neighbours, and occasionally a visitor — but this, I must own, very rarely — at Knowl.
There had come now a little pause in my father’s