The love child, p.8
The Love Child, page 8
“Well, I hope we have had enough of that,” Lady Henrietta murmured to Lord Cawley, as the others rested, laughing at one another’s exhaustion.
“Are you fatigued, madam?” Cawley inquired, forever as polite as his sister was impertinent. “I shall suggest we go directly to the inn.”
“Ah, not on my account,” poor Henrietta forestalled him. Nothing appealed to her more than the idea of a speedy retreat from the scene, but she did not care to spoil the amusement of the others—even if their behaviour did suit their costumes far better than their true estates.
“If not on yours, then on mine,” Roger Cawley answered gallantly. “I think my sister has seen sufficient of Goose-Fair—and you may be certain I have.”
She smiled at him gratefully while he went off to consult with Karr and the others. Jessica called him a great boor for insisting on departing when they’d only just come, but her brother prevailed. The small group set off down the street toward the carriages, Jessica trailing sadly after them. They had nearly achieved their goal when an incident took place that went at first unnoticed by anyone but Lotta: Miss Cawley was several yards behind the company now, gazing longingly back now and then at the revelry they were leaving, when a miserably bent woman—evidently a gipsy—accosted her and drew her aside. Jessica was not at all opposed to the notion of having just one more adventure before going home, so she stopped with the woman and spoke to her. Lotta watched them from a little ways off, confident that no mishap could occur while she kept an eye on them, and much diverted by Miss Cawley’s evident absorption in the gipsy’s words. She had given her hand to the woman, and was obviously being promised a long life filled with happiness, when all at once an unmistakable look of alarm settled on her features, and she stared at the gipsy in good earnest. Miss Chilton drew near them until she could hear what was being said, and was nearly as startled as Jessica.
“You have stolen this ring,” the crone was saying, in a deep voice thick with foreign intonations and harsh accusation. “Where did you find it? Where?”
Miss Cawley said nothing; she was too surprised.
“Where did you steal it? It belongs to the gipsies; it has always belonged to the King of the Gipsies. Give it to me!”
At this she recovered her voice. “I will not,” Lotta heard her say, quite distinctly.
“You will not! You—wicked girl! You steal and stand there, brazen in your guilt. Much evil will come of this—to you and to everyone,” the old woman muttered.
“Who are you that you dare to accuse me?” Jessica suddenly flared up, forgetting her humble disguise. The gipsy’s head and most of her face were covered by a dirty scarf, over which a deep hood was thrown. “Show me your face, my good woman; I’ll take you to a magistrate for this.”
But the gipsy only drew her cloak more closely round her, laughing with a sharp, unpleasant bark. “Very well, keep it, my young lady. My young lady is so proud, so proud of her pretty bauble! We will see how she likes it when its spell begins to work.” Before she had finished this speech Miss Cawley had pulled away from her, and had begun moving toward Lotta. The gipsy continued to call names after her, but she ignored them.
“Filthy woman,” she said, gaining Miss Chilton’s side. “Fancy a woman like that abusing me!”
“She was certainly horrid,” Lotta agreed, “but you must recall she had no reason to believe you were anything but a plain country girl.”
“Even so,” Jessica replied, her voice trembling slightly, “I would take her to a magistrate, if I had got a better look at her face. As it was I could barely see her nose, what with the dirt streaked on her skin, and her hood and scarf.” Miss Chilton had offered her an arm to lean upon, and Miss Cawley availed herself of it eagerly: the incident had been quite nasty, and had shaken her considerably.
“Should you like a vinaigrette?”
“No, thank you. I shall be right as a trivet in a moment,” she said. They stopped for a moment (the gipsy had run off and was out of sight) while Jessica endeavoured to calm herself, inhaling deeply and saying nothing. “A perfect witch,” she breathed at last.
“Absolutely.” Miss Chilton saw the others looking back for them from the carriages, and signalled that they would join them shortly.
“But I wonder how she knew about the ring?” Jessica took up. “That it wasn’t mine, I mean. Not that I believe it belongs to the gipsies, or any of that nonsense.”
“Perhaps she saw how ill it fit you, and guessed you had found it,” Lotta hazarded.
“Perhaps. Doubtless,” she amended. “What else could it have been?”
“What else indeed?” said Lotta. Miss Cawley had recovered herself almost completely by now, and they began again to walk toward the coaches. “It occurs to me, however,” Miss Chilton added, “that that woman may really be a lunatic. If she believes in her delusion—that the gipsies own the ring—she may try to follow us home, perhaps, and harass you again. It might be best to let His Grace put it away safely for you, just for caution’s sake.”
“Pooh,” Jessica dismissed her. “There was nothing mad about her; she was only greedy. Everyone seems to want me to part with my ring, but I won’t. I won’t be frightened by a silly old crone like that.” She was, as the reader will have seen, feeling quite herself again, and rather embarrassed at her temporary lapse into fear.
“Well, my dear young ladies,” Karr welcomed them as they finally regained the carriages, “I have no desire to match wits with a professional prognosticator, but I will say I foresee some dinner in your immediate futures. Won’t you step inside?” He helped them into a coach and climbed in himself afterwards, having permitted himself the luxury of assigning Roger and Cosmo to the task of diverting Lady Henrietta. On the way to the inn where they were to dine he pressed Miss Cawley for the details of her fortune; Jessica repeated what the gipsy had told her before seeing the gold band (long life, prosperity, and a husband with grey eyes) but concealed what had come later. Miss Chilton noticed the omission, of course, but refrained from saying anything in deference to Jessica’s wishes. No doubt her new friend preferred to say nothing to Karr for fear he would (as might have been wisest) insist on taking her prize away from her.
The inn proved to be ancient and comfortable, though the table was somewhat grudgingly laid. The poor inn-keeper did not know what to make of this party, which looked so common yet arrived in ornate, fashionable vehicles. He knew the duke, and had some suspicion this fellow might be a relation of his, or even the duke himself; but Karr said nothing, submitting to be called plain Sir and demanding no more than ordinary attention. Had he been certain they were Quality their meal would have been very different; as it was, he showed them hardly more deference than he would have shown the local apothecary, or a visiting merchant. Jessica distinctly enjoyed watching Lady Henrietta’s countenance when a servant referred to her as “Missy.” Jessica, it will have been noticed, had a streak of mischief in her which sometimes slipped out of the bounds of charity.
No other incident of note occurring, the small party quitted the inn, entered their carriages once more, and pursued their way home to Grasmere. Mr. Longstreth had arrived before them, and greeted them on the porch only to be told (by Jessica) that he had not in the least been missed. “You would have been quite de trop,” she informed him. “We were perfect as we were.”
“Ah, then it is well I did not disappoint my mother,” he replied. “At the Steptons’ I was not de trop at all, but just precisely what was needed.”
Miss Cawley gave him a sharp, quick look. “I thought you said their name was Stepney.”
“So I did,” he agreed, almost immediately. “What of it?”
“Just this moment you said Stepton!”
“Did I? No, I’m certain I can’t have.”
“But you did,” she insisted.
“Cosmo,” Algernon appealed, “did I say Stepton just now?”
“Not at all,” said he, in the act of having his coarse coat removed. “I d-didn’t hear it, if you did.”
“There, you see? Cosmo didn’t hear it,” Algernon told her. “Perhaps you are tired after all your merriment.”
“I’m not tired,” she objected. She never admitted to fatigue.
“Then perhaps your ears are playing tricks on you. That often happens to people who are haunted by spirits.”
“Not that again!” she groaned.
“That?” he inquired innocently. “Do you mean to say you are being haunted?”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake. Only by you, my dear Mr. Longstreth. Your conversation grows more spectral by the day: I see in it ghosts of what I saw an hour before, and hear the most tedious echoes.”
“I am dreadfully sorry. I hadn’t realized I repeated myself so much. Tell me about your day; that way neither of us will be bored.”
Miss Cawley postponed the account requested until after she dressed herself in clothes more suitable to her surroundings. She did, though, meet Mr. Longstreth later, in a snug little sitting-room near the Rose Saloon. They were alone, so she was at liberty to embellish the delights they had seen and the adventures she had had to her heart’s content. She told a glowing story, but when she reached the episode of the gipsy she stopped, as she had with Karr, before mentioning the antique ring.
“And that is all she said to you?” Algernon took up. “Just longevity, prosperity, and a husband with grey eyes?”
“Don’t dwell too much on those eyes,” she broke in, challenging his own. “I know an hundred men with grey eyes. It needn’t mean you. Anyway, I don’t think of marrying.”
“My dear, no more do I!” he exclaimed, causing her to colour—a very rare event for Miss Cawley.
“Well, anyhow…I don’t see what’s wrong in such a fortune. What should she have told me?”
“I only thought that since we know you are well-to-do, and have every reason to expect you will live to a ripe old age, and are perfectly aware you may have any gentleman you chuse for a husband, it doesn’t seem much of a fortune.”
“You are too critical,” she told him.
He ignored this. “Besides, if you won’t believe in spirits, what can you make of palmistry?”
“I make nothing of it; I only allowed her to read my hand because she seemed set on it. It was amusing.”
“Sounds dull to me.”
“It wasn’t. Anyway, I don’t wish to speak of it,” she added, as the memory of how disagreeable the gipsy had become returned to her.
“Very well, we shan’t,” he assented.
They sat for a little time looking at the fire in the grate, neither of them speaking. Jessica felt somehow that she ought to leave, but it was really rather pleasant, being in company yet not obliged to talk. She reached for a magazine on a nearby table and began to leaf through it when Algernon interrupted her.
“There is a story I think you might like to hear,” he told her. “Do you mind if I ring for Frant?”
“Of course not. Why do you wish to?”
“It is his story,” he said, a trifle obscurely. Frant, who had been born and raised at Grasmere and served Her Grace as head-butler for decades, appeared presently and inquired what was wanted.
“Mr. Frant, I think you will recall the conversation we had yesterday, regarding the Earl of Huntingdon.”
“Yes, indeed, sir,” the butler replied, still standing in the doorway.
“Would you be so kind as to come in and repeat it to Miss Cawley? She will like to hear it.”
“It really is not necessary, Frant—” Jessica began to say.
“Sit down, please. Be comfortable,” Algernon interrupted. “Just tell her what you told me.”
The butler sat, a little nervously, on the edge of a small settee. He settled his hands, frail with age, on his knees, looked uncertainly from Longstreth to Miss Cawley, and began. “The Earl of Huntingdon was an outlaw,” said he, “whom people round these parts believe to have taken on the name Robin Hood, and made himself into a hero.”
“Ah, Mr. Longstreth, why do you torture me so?” Jessica exclaimed, with mock agony.
Frant was startled. “Shall I continue, sir?”
“Pray do.”
“If the lady doesn’t care for it—”
“Never mind the lady; she doesn’t know what she cares for.”
“If you say so, sir. Anyhow, the story is that Fitzooth—that’s the earl’s family name, miss—dined one Christmas Eve with the master of Grasmere. Of course, the castle has changed a great deal since then, but there was a Grasmere even in those days. The master, so they tell it, offered his guest a fine dinner, a seat at the top of the board, music to soothe him and dancers to entertain him—everything, in short, which the master of a castle could offer to a visitor in those days. Fitzooth ate and drank and enjoyed himself heartily, toasting master and mistress, and all their children; for though he mistrusted the rich he was willing, at Christmastide, to forgive for a moment and accept his host’s hospitality. The ladies retired, but the gentlemen sat awake till far into the night, drinking cup upon cup of wine and wassail. One by one they dropped to the floor, sleeping and—my lady will excuse me—drunk, until only the host and the outlaw remained. ‘Well,’ said Fitzooth, ‘I suppose we must follow the lead of our friends. Where is my bed?’ But the master surprised him. ‘You have no bed,’ said he, ‘save a bed of new-fallen snow. Go from here, and lie upon it.’ Fitzooth understood he had been duped. His host’s hospitality lasted only until he was thoroughly intoxicated and spent. Then he was to quit the fireside, and trudge through the snow and mid-night to shelter.
“Fitzooth knew he had been played for a fool, but he forbore even then to repay the cruelty in kind. On another night the master would have got his due, but on the eve of our Saviour’s birth—no. The guest left as he had come, alone and with his honour intact, but betrayed. That’s all there is to the story, miss,” Frant added, looking into the fire.
“Ah, Frant, you wrong me!” cried Algernon. “What of his ghost?”
The butler assumed a low tone, and leaned toward the gentleman. “I thought perhaps you would not like to frighten the young lady…”
“On the contrary. Or rather, she is incapable of fright. Tell her, tell her,” said Longstreth with a smile.
“Very well, then. It is said that the ghost returns to Grasmere every year at Christmastide. He walks in the picture gallery—the banquet hall that was—and looks for the man who betrayed him. Yet still he forbears to harm him, being still a man—or rather, a spectre, as you might say—of honour.”
“Did you make this poor man go through that whole story only to end with this?” Miss Cawley inquired.
“Do you believe in the ghost?” Algernon asked him, ignoring her question completely.
Frant had stood and begun to go to the door, but he checked himself at once. “But of course I do, sir. Everyone does. There’s no question of believing, sir; you may hear him yourself, if you like. We all have—all the staff, I mean—though once was enough for me.”
“Mr. Frant, you can’t be serious,” Jessica objected.
“Begging your pardon, miss, I am quite serious. There’s no need to fear it—it never hurts a soul, as I say. Only it is a bit crawly, hearing those great footsteps and feeling that chill. I was twelve the last time I cared to listen, but I haven’t forgot it.”
“Really, Mr. Frant—” she began.
“Thank you, Frant,” Algernon broke in. “That will be all.”
The butler took one final glance at Miss Cawley, bowed his greying head, and retired. There was nothing in his manner, or in anything she knew of him, to suggest he was superstitious; on the contrary, he was a very gentle, well-spoken, deserving old man. In one of the under-maids Jessica could have comprehended such an unswerving belief in what could not possibly be, but Frant (who probably knew more of Grasmere than Karr himself, and had more to do with the household than the duchess) presented a puzzle.
Still, she shrugged and said lightly, “These old tales die hard. It was a curious story, however.”
“You do not believe him?” Mr. Longstreth inquired.
She looked annoyed. “Certainly not. Don’t you recall—he said the last time he had heard the ghost was when he was twelve years old. That is fifty years ago or more, I should guess. We heard only the testimony of an excited boy, whether Frant himself chuses to recognize that fact or not.”
Mr. Longstreth regarded her and shook his head sadly. “I worry for you, dear Miss Cawley; truly I do. With your blasphemy, and your ring…I only hope it brings you no evil.”
Evil! There was that word again. Jessica sprang up and shook out her skirts briskly, giving a nervous little laugh. “Mr. Longstreth, if you are half as silly as you pretend to be I can only hope that you will stay out of trouble. If you do, it will be through no virtue of your own.”
Algernon refused to laugh with her, but eyed her soberly. It was all too foolish, these vague warnings and whispers of misfortune; she curtsied to him in silence and started toward the drawing-room, where the others had gathered. Finding herself a bit tired, however, of a sudden, she changed the direction of her steps, repassed the door of the sitting-room, and went unannounced to bed.
5
“I trust your mother has not been revisited by her affliction,” Lord Wyborn intoned in the emphatic accents he appeared to think appropriate to an earl—an earl, moreover, whose person, rank, and fortune made him one of the most eligible partis in England.
