CHAPTER XVIII.

Another Guest Prepares to Come.

Lady Alice was at that moment in her bonnet and ample black velvet cloak and ermines, and the rest of her travelling costume, seated in her stately parlour, which, like most parlours of tolerably old mansions in that part of the country, is wainscoted in very black oak. In her own way Lady Alice evinced at least as much impatience as her dependants out of doors; she tapped with her foot monotonously upon her carpet; she opened and shut her black shining leather bag, and plucked at and rearranged its contents; she tattooed with her pale prolix fingers on the table; sometimes she sniffed a little; sometimes she muttered. As often as she fancied a sound, she raised her chin imperiously, and with a supercilious fixity, stared at the door until expectation had again expired in disappointment, when she would pluck out her watch, and glancing disdainfully upon it, exclaim--

"Upon my life!" or, "Very pretty behaviour!"

At last, however, the sound of a vehicle--a "fly" it was--unmistakably made itself heard at the hall-door, and her ladyship, with a preparatory shake of her head, as a pugnacious animal shakes its ears, and a "hem," and a severe and pallid countenance, sat up, very high and stiffly, in her chair.

The door opened, and the splendid footman inquired whether her ladyship would please to see Mrs. Gwynn.

"Show her in," said Lady Alice with a high look and an awful quietude.

And our old friend, Donica, just as thin, pallid, and, in her own way, self-possessed, entered the room.

"Well, Donica Gwynn, you've come at _last_! you have kept my horses standing at the door--a thing I never do myself--for three-quarters of an hour and four minutes!"

Donica Gwynn was sorry; but she could not help it. She explained how the delay had occurred, and, though respectful, her explanation was curt and dry in proportion to the sharpness and dryness of her reception.

"Sit down, Donica," said the lady, relenting loftily. "How do you do?"

"Pretty well, I thank your ladyship; and I hope I see _you_ well, my lady."

"As well as I can ever be, Donica, and that is but poorly. I'm going, you know, to Marlowe."

"I'm rayther glad on it, my lady."

"And I wish to know _why_?" said Lady Alice.

"I wrote the why and the wherefore, my lady, in my letter," answered the ex-house-keeper, looking askance on the table, and closing her thin lips tightly when she had spoken.

"Your letter, my good Donica, it is next to impossible to read, and quite impossible to understand. What I want to know distinctly is, why you have urged me so vehemently to go to Marlowe."

"Well, my lady, I thought I said pretty plain it was about my Lady Jane, the pretty creature you had on visits here, and liked so well, poor thing; an' it seemed to me she's like to be in danger where she is. I can't explain how exactly; but General Lennox is gone up to London, and I think, my lady, you ought to get her out of that unlucky room, where he has put her; and, at all events, to keep as near to her as you can yourself, at _all_ times."

"I've listened to you, Donica, and I can't comprehend you. I see you are hinting at something; but unless you are explicit, I don't see that I can be of any earthly use."

"You can, my lady--that is, you _may_, if you only do as I say--I _can't_ explain it more, nor I _won't_," said Donica, peremptorily, perhaps bitterly.

"There can be no good reason, Donica, for reserve upon a point of so much moment as you describe this to be. Wherever reserve exists there is mystery, and wherever mystery--_guilt_."

So said Lady Alice, who was gifted with a spirit of inquiry which was impatient of disappointment.

"Guilt, indeed!" repeated Gwynn, in an under-key, with a toss of her head and a very white face; "there's secrets enough in the world, and no guilt along of 'em."

"What room is it you speak of--the green chamber, is not it?"

"Yes, sure, my lady."

"I think you are all crazed about ghosts and devils over there," exclaimed Lady Alice.

"Not much of ghosts, but devils, maybe," muttered Gwynn, oddly, looking sidelong over the floor.

"It is that room, you say," repeated Lady Alice.

"Yes, my lady, the green chamber."

"Well, what about it--come, woman, did not you sleep for years in that room?"

"Ay, my lady, a good while."

"And what did you see there?"

"A deal."

"_What_, I say?"

"Well, supposin' I was to say devils," replied Donica.

Lady Alice sneered.

"What did poor Lady Marlowe see there?" demanded Donica, looking with her odd eyes askance at Lady Alice's carpet, and backing her question with a nod.

"Well, you know I never heard exactly; but my darling creature was, as you remember, dying of a consumption at the time, and miserably nervous, and fancied things, no doubt, as people do."

"Well, she did; I knew it," said Donica.

"You may have conjectured--every one can do that; but I rather think my poor dear Amy would have told _me_, had she cared to divulge it to any living being. I am persuaded she herself suspected it was an illusion--fancy; but I know she had a horror of the room, and I am sure my poor girl's dying request ought to have been respected."

"So it ought, my lady," said Donica, turning up her eyes, and raising her lean hands together, while she slowly shook her head. "So I said to him, and in like manner his own father's dying _orders_, for such they was, my lady; and they may say what they will of Sir Harry, poor gentleman! But he was a kind man, and good to many that had not a good word for him after, though there may a' been many a little thing that was foolish or the like; but there is mercy above for all, and the bishop that is now, then he was the master of the great school where our young gentlemen used to go to, was with him."

"When he was dying?" said Lady Alice.

"Ay, my lady, a beautiful summer it was, and the doctor, nor I, thought it would be nothing to speak of; but he was anxious in his mind from the first, and he wrote for Doctor Wyndale--it was the holidays then--asking him to come to him; and he did, but Sir Harry had took an unexpected turn for the worse, and not much did he ever say, the Lord a' mercy on us, after that good gentleman, he's the bishop now, came to Marlowe, and he prayed by his bed, and closed his eyes; and I, in and out, and wanted there every minute, could not but hear some of what he said, which it was not much."

"He said something about that green chamber, as you call it, I always understood?" said Lady Alice, interrogatively.

"Yes, my lady, he wished it shut up, or taken down, or summat that way; but 'man proposes and God disposes,' and there's small affection and less gratitude to be met with now-a-days."

"I think, Donica Gwynn, and I always thought, that you knew a good deal more than you chose to tell me. Some people are reserved and secret, and I suppose it is your way; but I don't think it could harm you to treat me more as your friend."

Donica rose, and courtesied as she said--

"You have always treated me friendly, I'm sure, my lady, and I hope I am thankful; and this I know, I'll be a faithful servant to your ladyship so long as I continue in your ladyship's service."

"I know that very well; but I wish you were franker with me, that's all--here are the keys."

So Donica, with very little ceremony, assumed the keys of office.

"And pray what _do_ you mean exactly?" said Lady Alice, rising and drawing on her glove, and not looking quite straight at the housekeeper as she spoke; "do you mean to say that Lady Jane is giddy or imprudent? Come, be distinct."

"I can't say what she is, my lady, but she may be brought into folly some way. I only know this much, please my lady, it will be good for her you should be nigh, and your eye and thoughts about her, at least till the General returns."

"Well, Gwynn, I see you don't choose to trust me."

"I have, my lady, spoke that free to you as I would not to any other, I think, alive."

"No, Gwynn, you don't trust me; you have your reasons, I suppose; but I think you are a shrewd woman--shrewd and mean well. I don't suppose that you could talk as you do without a reason; and though I can't see any myself, not believing in apparitions or--or--"

She nearly lost the thread of her discourse at this point, for as she spoke the word apparition, the remembrance of the young gentleman whom she had seen in Wardlock Church rose in her memory--handsome, pale, with sealed lips, and great eyes--unreadable as night--the resurrection of another image. The old yearning and horror overpowered the train of her thoughts, and she floundered into silence, and coughed into her handkerchief, to hide her momentary confusion.

"What was I going to say?" she said, briskly, meaning to refer her break-down to that little fit of coughing, and throwing on Gwynn the onus of setting her speech in motion again.

"Oh! yes. I _don't_ believe in those things not a bit. But Jennie, poor thing, though she has not treated me quite as she might, is a young wife, and very pretty; and the house is full of wicked young men from London; and her old fool of a husband chooses to go about his business and leave her to her devices--_that's_ what you mean, Gwynn, and that's what I _understand_."

"I have said all I can, my lady; you can help her, and be near her night and day," said Donica.

"Sir Jekyl in his invitation bid me choose my own room--so I shall. I'll choose that oddly-shaped little room that opens into hers--if I remember rightly, the room that my poor dear Amy occupied in her last illness."

"And, my lady, do you take the key of the door, and keep it in your bag, please."

"Of the door of communication between the two rooms?"

"Yes, my lady."

"_Why_ should I take it; you would not have me lock her up?"

"Well, no, to be sure, my lady."

"Then _why_?"

"Because there is no bolt to her door, inside or out. You will see what I mean, my lady, when you are there."

"Because she can't secure her door without it, I'm to take possession of her key!" said Lady Alice, with a dignified sneer.

"Well, my lady, it may seem queer, but you'll see what I mean."

Lady Alice tossed her stately head.

"Any commands in particular, please, my lady, before you leave?" inquired Donica, with one of her dry little courtesies.

"No; and I must go. Just hand this pillow and bag to the man; and I suppose you wish your respects to Miss Beatrix?"

To all which, in her own way, Donica Gwynn assented; and the old lady, assisted by her footman, got into the carriage, and nodded a pale and silent farewell to her housekeeper; and away drove the old carriage at a brisk pace toward Marlowe Manor.