The Light of Scarthey Part 20

When later on Madeleine joined her sister, she found her standing by the deep recessed window, the curtains of which were drawn back, resting her head on her hand against the wainscot, and gazing abroad into the night.

She approached, and pa.s.sing her hand round Molly's waist looked out also.

"Again at your window?"

"It is a beautiful night, and the view very lovely," said Molly. And indeed the moon was riding high in a deep blue starry heaven, and s.h.i.+mmered on the strip of distant sea visible from the windows.

"Yes, but yesterday the night was not fine, and nothing was to be seen but blackness; and it was the same the day before, and yet you stared out of this window, as you have every night since our coming. It is strange to see _you_ so. What is it, why don't you tell me?"

"Madeleine," said Molly, suddenly, after a lengthy pause, "I am simply _haunted_ by that light over yonder, the Light of Scarthey. There is a mystery about those ruins, on which I keep meditating all day long. I want to know more. It draws me. I would give anything to be able, now, to set sail and land there all unknown to any one, and see what manner of life is led where that light is burning."

But Madeleine merely gave a pout of little interest. "What do you think you would find? A half-witted middle-aged man, mooning among a litter of books, with an old woman, and a little Frenchman to look after him. Why, Mr. Landale himself takes no trouble to conceal that his poor brother is an almost hopeless lunatic."

"Mr. Landale--" Molly began, with much contempt; but she interrupted herself, and went on simply, "Mr. Landale is a very fine gentleman, with very superior manners. He speaks like a printed book--but for all that I _would_ like to know."

Madeleine laughed. "The demon of curiosity has a hold of you, Molly; remember the fable they made us repeat: _De loin c'est quelque chose, et de pres ce n'est rien._ Now you shall go straight into your bed, and not take cold."

And Miss Madeleine, after authoritatively closing the curtains, kissed her sister, and was about to commence immediate disrobing, when she caught sight of the s.h.a.green-covered book, lying open on the table.

"So your headache was your diary--how I should like to have a peep."

"I daresay!" said Molly, sarcastically, and then sat down and, pen in hand, began to re-read her night's entry, now and then casting a tantalising glance over her shoulder at her sister. The lines, in the flowing convent hand, ran thus:

"Aunt O'Donoghue left us this morning, and so here we are, planted in Pulwick; and she has achieved her plan, fully. But what is odd is that neither Madeleine nor I seem to mind it, now. What has come over Madeleine is her secret, and she keeps it close; but that _I_ should like being here is strange indeed.

"And yet, every day something happens to make me feel connected with Pulwick--something more, I mean, than the mere fact that we were born here. So many of the older people greet me, at first, as if they knew me--they all say I am so like 'the Madam;' they don't see the same likeness in Madeleine for all her _grand air_. There was Mrs. Mearson, the gatekeeper, was struck in amazement. And the old housekeeper, whenever she has an opportunity tries to entertain me about the beautiful foreign lady and the grand times they had at Pulwick when she was here, and 'Sir Tummas' was still alive.

"But, though we are made to feel that we are more than ordinary guests, it is not on account of Mr. Landale, but _on account of Sir Adrian_--the Master, as they call him, whom we never see, and whom his brother would make out to be mad. Why is he so anxious that Sir Adrian should not know that Aunt Rose has brought us here? He seemed willing enough to please her, and yet nothing that she could say of her wish could induce him even to send a messenger over to the rock. And now we may be here all these two months and never even have caught a sight of the _Master_. I wonder if he is still like that portrait--whether he bears that face still as he now sits, all alone, brooding as his brother says, up in those ruined chambers, while the light burns calm and bright in the tower! What can this man of his have to say to me?"

Molly dotted her last forgotten "i," blotted it, closed and carefully locked the book. Then, rising, she danced over to her sister, and forced her into a pirouette.

"And now," she cried gaily, "our dear old Tanty is pulling on her nightcap and weeping over her posset in the stuffy room at Lancaster regretting _me_; and I should be detesting her with all my energies for leaving me behind her, were it not that, just at present, I actually find Pulwick more interesting than Bath."

Madeleine lifted her heavy-lidded eyes a little wonderingly to her sister's face, as she paused in her gyration.

"What fly stings thee now?" she inquired in French.

"You do not tell me about _your_ wounds, my dear, those wounds which little Dan Cupid has made upon your tender heart, with his naughty little arrow, and which give you such sweet pain, apparently, that you revel in the throes all day long. And yet, I am a good child; you shall guess. If you guess aright, I shall tell you. So now begin."

They stood before the fire, and the leaping tongues of light played upon their white garments, Madeleine's nightgear scarcely more treacherously tell-tale of her slender woman's loveliness than the evening robe that clung so closely to the vigorous grace of Molly's lithe young figure.

The elder, whose face bore a blush distinct from the reflected glow of the embers, fell to guessing, as commanded, a little wildly:

"You begin to find the _beau cousin_ Rupert a little more interesting than you antic.i.p.ated."

"Bah," cried Molly, with a stamp of her sandalled foot, "it is not possible to guess worse! He is more insufferable to me, hour by hour."

"I think him kind and pleasant," returned Madeleine simply.

"Ah, because he makes sweet eyes at you, I suppose--yet no--I express myself badly--he could not make anything sweet out of those hard, hard eyes of his, but he is very--what they call here in England--attentive to you. And he looks at you and ponders you over when you little think it--you poor innocent--lost in your dream of ... _Smith_! There, I will not tease you. Guess again."

"You are pleased to remain here because you are a true weather-c.o.c.k--because you like one thing one day another the next--because the country peace and quiet is soothing to you after the folly and noise of the great world of Bath and Dublin, and reminds you refres.h.i.+ngly, as it does me, of our happy convent days." The glimmer of a dainty malice lurked in the apparent candour of Madeleine's grave blue eyes, and from thence spread into her pretty smile at the sight of Molly's disdainful lip, "Well then, I give it up. You have some mischief on foot, of that at least I am sure."

"No mischief--a work of righteousness rather. Sister Madeleine, you heard all that that gallant gentleman you think so highly of--your cousin Rupert, my dear" (it was a little way of Molly's to throw the responsibility of anything she did not like, even to an obnoxious relations.h.i.+p, upon another person's shoulders), "narrated of his brother Sir Adrian, and how he persuaded Tanty that he was, as you said just now, a hopeless madman--"

"But yes--he does mad things," said the elder twin, a little wonderingly.

"Well, Madeleine, it is a vile lie. I am convinced of it."

"But, my darling----"

"Look here, Madeleine, there is something behind it all. I attacked that creature, that rag, you cannot call her a woman, that female cousin of yours, Sophia, and I pressed her hard too, but she could not give me a single instance about Sir Adrian that is really the least like insanity; and last night, when the young fool who escorted me to dinner, Coventry his name was, told me that every one says Sir Adrian is shut up on the island and that his French servant is really his keeper, and that it was a shame Rupert was not the eldest brother, I quite saw the sort of story Master Rupert likes to spread--don't interrupt, please! When you were wool-gathering over the fire last night (in the lively and companionable way, permit me to remark in parenthesis, that you have adopted of late), and you thought I was with Tanty, I had marched off with my flat candlestick to the picture gallery to have a good look at the so-called lunatic. I dragged over a chair and lit the candles in the candelabra each side of the chimney-piece, and then standing on my perch still, I held up my own torch and I saw the sailor really well. I think he has a beautiful face and that he is no more mad than I am. But he looks so sad, so sad! I longed to make those closed lips part and tell me their secret.

And, as I was looking and dreaming, my dear, just as you might, I heard a little noise, and there was Rupert, only a few yards off, surveying me with such an angry gaze--Ugh!" (with a s.h.i.+ver) "I hate such ways. He came in upon me with soft steps like some animal. Look at his portrait there, Madeleine!--Stay! I shall hold up the light as I did last night to Sir Adrian--see, it flickers and glimmers and makes him seem as if he were alive--oh, I wish he were not hanging in front of our beds, staring out at us with those eyes! You think them very fine, I daresay, that is because his lashes are as thick and dark as a woman's--but the look in them, my dear--do you know what it reminds me of? Of the beautiful, cruel greyhound we saw at the coursing at that place near Bunratty (you remember, just before they started the hare), when he stood for a moment motionless, looking out across the plain. I can never forget the expression of those yellow-circled eyes. And, when I see Rupert look at you as if he were fixing something in the far distance, it gives me just the feeling of horror and sickness I had then. (You remember how dreadful it was?) Rupert makes me think of a greyhound, altogether he is so lithe and so clean-cut, and so full of eagerness, a sort of trembling eagerness underneath his seeming quiet, and I think he could be cruel."

Molly paused with an unusually grave and reflective look; Madeleine yawned a little, not at all impressed.

"How you exaggerate!" she said. "Well what happened when he came in and caught you? The poor man! I suppose, he thought you were setting the house on fire."

"My dear, I turned as red as a poppy and began blowing out all my illumination, feeling dreadfully guilty, and then he helped me off my chair with such an air of politeness that I could have struck him with pleasure, but I soon gathered my wits again. And, vexed with myself for being a ninny, I just dropped him a little curtsey and said, 'I've been examining my mad cousin.' 'Well, and what do you think of him?'

he asked me, smiling (his abominable smile!). But I can keep my thoughts to myself as well as other people. 'I think he is very handsome,' I answered, and then I wagged my head and added, 'Poor fellow,' just as if I thought he was really mad. 'Poor fellow!' said cousin Rupert, still with his smile. Whereupon we interchanged good-nights, and he ceremoniously reconducted me to my door. What was he spying after me for, like that? My dear, your cousin has a bad conscience.--But I can spy too--I have been questioning the servants to-day, and some of the people on the estate."

"Oh, Molly!"

"Come, don't be so shocked. It was diplomatically, of course, but I am determined to find out the truth. Well, so far from looking upon Sir Adrian as a lunatic, they all adore him, it seems to me. He comes here periodically--once every three months or so--and it is like the King's Justices, you know--St. Louis of France--he redresses all wrongs, and listens to grievances and gives alms and counsel, and every one can come with his story, down to the poorest wretch on the estate, and they certainly gave me to understand that they would fare pretty hardly under Mr. Landale if it were not for that mild beneficent restraining influence in his tower yonder. It is very romantic, do you know (you like romance, Madeleine). I wonder if Sir Adrian will come over while we are here. Oh, I hope, I hope he will. I shall never rest till I have seen him."

"Silly child," said Madeleine, "and so that is the reason you are glad to remain here?"

"Even so, my dear," answered the other, skipped into the big four-post bed, carefully ascertained and selected the softest pillow, and then, smiling sweetly at her sister from under a frame of dark curls, let her white lids drop over the l.u.s.tre of her eyes and so intimated she desired to sleep.

CHAPTER XIV

THE TOWER OF LIVERPOOL: MASTER AND MAN

A prison is a house of care, A place where none can thrive, A Touchstone True to try a friend, A Grave for man alive.

Sometimes a place of right, Sometimes a place of wrong, Sometimes a place of rogues and thieves, And honest men among.

_Old Inscription._

It was soon after sunrise--at that time of year an hour not exorbitantly early--when Molly awoke from a tangle of fantastic dreams in which the haunting figure of her waking thoughts, the hermit of Scarthey, appeared to her in varied shapes; as an awe-inspiring, saintly ascetic with long, white hair; as a young, beautiful, imprisoned prince; even as a ragged imbecile staring vacantly at a lantern, somewhere in a dismal sea-cave.

The last vision was uppermost in her mind when she opened her eyes; and the girl, under the impression of so disgusting a disillusion, remained for a while pondering and yawning, before making up her mind to exchange warmth and featherbed for her appointment without.

But the shafts of light growing through the c.h.i.n.ks in the shutters ever brighter and more full of dancing motes, decided her.