CHAPTER XIV.

AN UNDESIRABLE ACQUAINTANCE.

"This ghost from the past I tremble to see Behind me I cast This ghost from the past, Life's pleasant at last, So let there not be This ghost from the past I tremble to see."

Errington Hall, hidden in the green heart of its noble woods, was a building of very mixed architecture, displaying in its incongruities the various dispositions and tastes of the different owners who had lived therein. The original structure was evidently the large hall (from whence the building took its name) which had been erected by the first Errington after the Battle of Bosworth Field, when England was once more settling down to domesticity, after the tumult and strife of the Wars of the Roses. To this noble room, lofty, majestic, and sombre, the various masters of the Hall had added other and smaller rooms, long, winding corridors, and innumerable outhouses, as the fancy took them, or as their needs required them, so that the centre apartment was quite lost amid the huge wings and gables which surrounded it on all sides. The result was a bizarre combination which made the old mansion wonderfully attractive to architects and archeologists, while the lapse of centuries had mellowed the whole mass into one delicate tone of warm-hued loveliness.

From the central hall, with its carven roof, its long narrow windows, and quaint oaken gallery, ran many crooked corridors, full of unexpected angles, queer corners, sudden depressions, and shallow flights of steps, leading to long ranges of bedrooms, to the kitchen and the servants' wing. This portion was Elizabethan and the outside presented the usual Tudoresque aspect of battlements, venerable walls of grey stone, covered with ivy, diamond-paned windows, and grotesque gargoyles. After the building of this, the Erringtons were evidently too busy with the Parliamentary Wars to attend to their home, for the next portion added to the original fabric was of Queen Anne date, of dark-hued red brick, wide casements and heavy doors. Again there was an architectural interval, as the Hanoverian Erringtons were engaged in making their peace with the new German sovereigns of England for suspected Jacobite practices, and the last notable addition took place in the reign of the third George, when the front wing was added to the house, a vast façade of dull white stone with innumerable windows, ranges of heavy balustrades, and confused decorations in the Renaissance style, of nude figures, fantastic flowers, birds, scrolls and such-like dainty devices. A balustrade ran along the front of the roof, hiding the leads, and in the centre an elaborate carving of the Errington coat-of-arms, supported by two greyhounds, with the motto, "Curro, Capio, Teneo." A broad terrace, with statues and urns thereon, stretched from end to end, and a double flight of marble steps led downward to the smooth, green lawn, from whence the great white pile standing on its hill presented a noble appearance. The Victorian Erringtons added but little to the house, for the simple reason, that the builder of the Renaissance wing had not only exhausted the family resources in doing so, but had encumbered the estate with heavy mortgages, which his descendants had not yet paid off. Sir Frederick Errington had a turn for amateur gardening, and added long lines of hot-houses to the side of the house, and also a kind of winter garden, while Sir Guy had done his share in the adornment of the place, by building a handsome range of stables. Altogether it was a wonderfully fine place, but far too expensive and costly for the Errington rent-roll, which was not particularly large. So there it stood, a monument of vanity and folly, which often made its present possessor curse his bad luck in owning such a white elephant.

The interior was quite in keeping with the palatial exterior, for the state apartments, situated in the front wing, were of enormous size, splendidly furnished, but which looked lonely in the extreme unless full of company, a gaily-dressed crowd being needed to set them off to advantage. The Errington family were proud of these state-rooms, which were really wonderfully imposing, but, except on grand occasions, when they were thrown open to the county gentry, preferred to inhabit a smaller range of rooms on the western side, which were more comfortable, both as regards size and furniture, than the chilly splendours of the great apartments.

One of these rooms had been especially fitted up for Alizon by her husband, a charming octagon-shaped apartment with windows looking on to a quaint garden set forth in the Dutch fashion, with trim symmetrical lines of box and sombre yew trees clipped into fantastic shapes, known by the name of "My Lady's Pleasaunce."

"I think this is delightful, Guy," said Alizon, as she stood in the garden with her husband; "it is so shut out from the world."

They were amusing themselves by exploring the great house, and Alizon was quite overwhelmed by the size and magnificence of everything. Range after range of splendidly furnished rooms shut up and left to the dust and spiders, lofty wide passages with figures in armour on either side, stained glass windows here and there in which blushed the Errington escutcheon. It was all angles, and turrets, and gables, and crooked windings, so that Alizon clung closely to Guy as they wandered through the lonely rooms, feeling quite afraid of the vastness of the building.

"It puts me in mind of Mrs. Radcliffe's stories," she said with a shudder, "there's something quite awesome about the place."

"Awesome? not a bit of it," replied Guy cheerfully, opening a shutter and letting a flood of sunlight into a room, "it requires living in, that's all. You see, dear, my parents died ages ago, and I've been living here very little, so the whole place has got a little musty. But now we're here we'll have more servants, and a lot of people to come and see us. That will wake the place up a bit."

"But it's so large, Guy. Why was it built so large?"

"I'm sure I don't know," said the young man somewhat ruefully, "it's a deuce of a barn, isn't it? The Erringtons always had a mania for building, and whenever they'd nothing else to do they added wings. More fools they, as it ran away with all the money and put these confounded mortgages on the property. This is a dear old place, and I'm very fond of it, but it's miles too big for us, and is a regular white elephant."

"It must take a lot of money to keep it up."

"It does! So much that there's none left for anything else. I wish to heaven I wasn't sentimental, or I'd pull down a lot of it."

"Oh, Guy!"

"Well, what is the use of all these empty rooms? It takes an army of servants to keep them clean, and for no purpose. We haven't got enough money to keep open house, or I could fill all these rooms with people I know, but what with this place, and the mortgages, and bad tenants, it's a deuce of a nuisance altogether. I wish someone would take the Hall off my hands as a museum, or an almshouse, after the style of Hampton Court."

"You wouldn't sell it?"

"No, I daresay I wouldn't. I can't do with it, and I can't do without it. It's a dead lock. But, if Aunt Jelly would only give up the ghost and leave us her tin, we could keep the whole shop going beautifully."

"I'm afraid there's no chance of that."

"No, there isn't. Aunt Jelly is one of those aggravating old women who'll see the end of the present century."

"Well, that's not far off," said Alizon mischievously.

"Too far off for us to get her money, my dear," replied Guy candidly. "I believe she's immortal."

They left the room in which they were standing and resumed their walk through the house, stopping in the picture gallery which contained the Errington portraits, and also a number of celebrated pictures, all of which Guy contemplated ruefully.

"Can't even sell these," he said with a groan. "Fancy, what humbug--they're all heirlooms, and I'd have to apply to Chancery to get permission, which I daresay they'd refuse. It takes me all my time to keep up this place and live decently, yet all this money is hanging on the wall in the shape of these pictures. It's awful bosh, just like making a child the present of a shilling on condition he doesn't spend it. Humbug!"

"What! would you sell your ancestors, like Charles Surface?"

"No, I wouldn't go so far as that. But these pictures are wasting their sweetness on the desert air in being shut up here, and, as I need money more than pictures, I would sell them if I could. I don't see much chance of doing so, however, for the Errington cousins--and I've got about a hundred--would come down on me as a lunatic if I did so. Hang them! I wish they'd this place to keep up on a small income, they wouldn't be so anxious to keep these miles of painted canvas. But never mind, while there's Aunt Jelly there's hope, so come along and look at the hall from the gallery. It's the best place to see it."

So they went along a narrow passage into the older portion of the house, and soon found themselves in the wide gallery running round the hall at a height of about forty feet. A wonderfully impressive place it was, with its lance-shaped windows, filled with stained glass, through which the pale sunlight streamed, casting fantastic patterns on the oaken floor. Between every window, shields, spears and battle axes, with faded banners drooping above them, telling of ancient wars and the days of chivalry, when the deserted hall was filled with men-at-arms and bold knights in steel armour, before the invention of gunpowder relegated their iron panoply to the obscurity of country houses and museums. At the upper end of the room a raised dais, above which a royal canopy and the Errington arms flashing in gilt splendour from the dusky shadows, while high above arose the pointed roof with its great oaken rafters faintly seen in the gloom. It was certainly a fine specimen of the mediæval ages and doubtless many stirring tales could be told of the generations that had feasted under its lofty roof, or departed from thence to harry the lands of weaker neighbours, as was the kindly fashion in those misnamed good old days.

"A wonderful old place, isn't it?" said Guy, as they stood looking from the height of the gallery at the immense space below, "and genuine too. None of the sham antiquity of Abbotsford here. All this is the real thing, and just as it was in the old days when the Erringtons wore those absurd suits of armour, and poked their neighbours' eyes out with those long spears."

"You ought to be very proud of your race, Guy."

"I don't see much to be proud of in them," he replied candidly, throwing his arm round his wife's waist, "they were a humdrum lot at best the Erringtons. Went to church, minded their own business, and left other people's wives alone. They always seemed to have been on the safe side in keeping their property, however, and if it hadn't been for their building craze, I'd be decently off. According to their ideas there was no place like home, however, and that is why they spent such a lot of money over it. I am proud of the dear old Hall, but I do wish it wasn't quite so large."

"Do you use this place at all?" asked Alizon as they left the gallery.

"Only for dances, and tenants' dinners," he answered carelessly; "it looks very pretty when it's full, but at present one would think it was haunted. Quite a mistake, as there isn't a single ghost in the whole place. A pity, isn't it, for this queer old house just looks a fit place for shadowy figures and gruesome legends."

"I suppose there are plenty of stories about the Hall."

"Oh yes! but very mild stories, I'm afraid, not even equal to the average shilling shocker. Errington Hall has no history which would delight novelists or antiquaries. Queen Elizabeth didn't stop here on a royal progress, Oliver Cromwell's Ironsides didn't besiege the place, and though I think the Hanoverian Erringtons were mixed up in Jacobite plots they hid neither Prince James nor Prince Charlie. We are a very prosaic lot, my dear, and although the whole house is romantic enough in appearance, there isn't a story about it that would frighten a five-year-old child."

By this time they were on the terrace in the pale November sunlight, and could see below the smooth green lawn surrounding the house, girdled by the ancient trees of the park, which were now shedding their leaves for winter time. The carriage drive swept round the front of the terrace in a graceful curve, and then disappeared into the green wood, while beyond the tops of the trees appeared the grey square tower of Denfield Church, sombre against the dull sky. Some pigeons, white as milk, were whirling aloft in the moist air, and the sun, invisible behind the grey clouds, diffused a pale chilly radiance, which made Alizon long for the blue skies and burning heat of Italy.

"Come inside, Alizon," said Sir Guy, seeing his wife shivering, "this is cold after the South, and you'd better lie down for a time after luncheon, as I daresay for the next week or two you'll have quite enough to do in receiving our neighbours."

What Guy said was true enough, and for the next few weeks Alizon had as much as she could do in receiving the county magnates, all eager to see Lady Errington, of whom they had heard much, but of whose father they had heard still more. Despite Sir Guy's lack of ready money the Errington estates were very large, the Errington position a very high one in the county, and many a daughter of the Shires would have been pleased to have become the mistress of Errington Hall, particularly as its master, young, handsome and debonnaire, was favourite enough with the gentle sex independently of his rank and position.

When, however, it came to be known that this eligible bachelor had married Alizon Mostyn, the county, at least the female part of it, felt vexed that an outsider should have carried off the matrimonial prize, and the provincial belles felt none too well disposed towards the young wife, although they masked their real feelings under many sweet smiles and smooth words.

The "Pepper Box," with its customary good manners, had set forth in its columns the story of Gabriel Mostyn, and although there was nothing in it but what redounded to Alizon's credit, yet the fact that she had such a scamp for a father was not desirable in itself. Sir Guy managed to put an end to the "Pepper Box" chatter by threatening to thrash Billy Dolser, and as that gentleman was getting rather tired of being horsewhipped he held his tongue, so nothing more was revealed in that quarter, but Society having got a pretty good idea of the Mostyn history pursued the whole affair to the end, and found out all Gabriel's iniquities and Alizon's filial affection. When Lady Errington therefore received the county families, she knew perfectly well that all these smooth smiling people were well acquainted with her history, and although she had nothing personally to fear from their venomous tongues, yet the fact that the history of her iniquitous father was known to them down to the minutest detail, made her position anything but a pleasant one.

The county, however, made a virtue of necessity, and seeing that Lady Errington was of good birth, and that there was nothing against her, whatever there might have been against her scamp of a father, made her welcome among them in the heartiest manner, although a few wiseacres shook their heads doubtfully over Sir Guy's wife.

"What's bred in the bone will come out in the flesh," they whispered one to the other, "and it's curious if she does not inherit some of her father's bad qualities as well as her mother's good ones."

Lady Errington guessed the somewhat unfriendly feeling they bore towards her because she had become mistress of Errington Hall, but spoke of it to no one, not even Guy, who never for a moment dreamt of such a thing, and was delighted to see how his neighbours seemed to like his wife. This calm, statuesque woman, with the impassive face, bore herself with stately grace towards the visitors that called at Errington Hall, and although they all respected her, yet her manner chilled them with its coldness, and no one professed any strong liking for her. The men admired her greatly, but thought her cold and haughty, while the ladies, finding she did not take an interest in their provincial frivolities, said disagreeable things behind her back, and smiled to her face, which did not for a moment deceive Alizon, as she knew what their friendship was worth.

No one could deny, however, that she was a beautiful woman, and filled her position admirably in every way, yet curiously enough everyone arrived at the same conclusion as Eustace, and pitied Sir Guy as a warm-hearted young man married to a statue. Lady Errington was not therefore an unqualified success, but her husband never perceived this and took all the lip service of his friends for gospel truth, while Alizon, although she guessed pretty well the true state of things, did not undeceive him.

She knew she was not disliked, as she had done her best to conciliate everyone, but on the other hand she knew perfectly well that a gulf lay between herself and these people which could not be bridged over in any way. They all wanted to take her to their bosom and gush over her, while she, cold, reserved and self-reliant, objected to the obvious hint of patronage in this desire; so although she received and made visits, went to all provincial gaities, and presided at her own dinner-table in returning hospitality, yet she felt she was an exile among these people, a stranger in a strange land, who could neither learn their ways nor make them understand her own.

In fact, now that the glamour of the honeymoon had worn off, there were times when even Sir Guy felt the chill of her manner towards him, and although he tried to analyse the feeling, never succeeded in doing so. She was perfect in every way, almost too perfect, and at times he had his doubts as to whether it would not have been wiser on his part to have married a common-place provincial belle than this ethereal creature, whose nature he vaguely perceived was utterly at variance with his own. Such ideas as these, however, he rejected as heretical against the woman he loved, and he assured himself with unnecessary vehemence that he had gained a woman who would be perfect in every way both as mother and wife. Therefore the county and Sir Guy were both pleased with Alizon in this somewhat doubtful fashion, and she, knowing the real mistrust she had innocently provoked by her icy reserve, did not trouble herself about it, but went calmly on her way, fulfilling her position as mistress of Errington Hall, and one of the great ladies of the place.

One event, however, took place which showed Guy that under her impassive demeanour there was a strong will and a considerable spice of temper, both of which came to light in the episode of Mrs. Veilsturm.

Everyone far and near had called at the Hall. Stalwart county squires with their comfortable wives and frivolous daughters, loud-voiced, hearty young men whose ideas rarely extended beyond the hunting-field, occasionally an effete inhabitant of Belgravia, whose ancestral acres were but rarely visited, meek curates who wanted Alizon to become the Lady Bountiful of the parish, and gay country damsels who revelled in lawn-tennis and slily copied Lady Errington's dresses with feminine subtlety--all these had called at the Hall and been received by Alizon with friendly reserve, after which she returned their visits in company with Guy, feeling she had done her duty. Nothing out of the way happened till Mrs. Veilsturm left her card.

They had been paying a visit to some county magnate, and on their return Alizon had gone inside, while Sir Guy remained without for a moment giving some directions to the grooms about the horses. Having done so he ran up the steps into the entrance-hall, to find his wife even paler than usual, standing by a small table looking at a card with a look of horror on her face.

"Why, what's the matter, dear?" he asked, coming forward anxiously, "is anything wrong?"

She handed him the card without a word, and having looked at the name, he glanced at her in puzzled surprise. "Well, what's wrong about Mrs. Veilsturm?" he said inquiringly. "She's a jolly sort of woman, isn't she?"

"Do you know her?" asked his wife coldly.

"No, I can't say I do personally. She came down while I was away and bought old Darton's place, about two miles from here. But what do you look so horrified at?"

"Come in here, Guy, and I'll tell you," answered Alizon, with an effort, and walked into the drawing-room, followed by her husband in a state of wonder as to what could have occurred to upset his wife.

Alizon sat down under the window, twisting her gloves in her hands with a look of anger on her face, while Guy stood near her with his tall hat on the back of his head, looking at her in a state of bewilderment.

"I never saw you so upset before, Alizon," he said, with an uneasy laugh; "is there anything particularly wrong about Mrs. Veilsturm--is she a leper, or is her character no better than it should be?"

"Have you heard anything against her character?"

"Not a word," replied Guy, promptly. "She's a great favourite with everyone. Her husband was a captain in some regiment that was stationed out at the Bermudas or Jamaica, and I believe he married her out there. When he died he left her well off, and she's a lively sort of woman, but I never heard anything against her morals."

"What about Major Griff?"

"Major Griff!--oh, he was a friend of her husband's, I believe, and wants to marry her, only she won't accept him. I hear that he is her trustee, and looks after her property for her; but what on earth do you know about her, Alizon?"

"I know too much to allow her to visit here."

"The deuce you do," cried Sir Guy, taking a seat, "and who told you anything about her?"

"My father," she replied quickly, turning her pale face towards him.

Sir Guy whistled, and looked thoughtfully out of the window, knowing well enough that Gabriel Mostyn's name being mentioned did not bode any good to Mrs. Veilsturm. He said nothing, however, as he judged it best to let his wife tell the story her own way, and that this course was the right one was proved by what followed.

"As you know, I attended my father during those four years when he was dying, and although I don't want to say a word against him, seeing that after all he was my father, yet, I heard sufficient from his own lips to convince me that his life had been a vile one. Not even the fact that I was his child prevented him boasting in my presence of his horrible actions, and although I invariably left the room when he began to talk like this, I could not help overhearing more than I cared to."

"I wonder you did not leave him altogether," said Sir Guy indignantly.

"He was my father after all," she replied simply. "No one would stay by him except me, and I could not let him die alone, like a dog."

Sir Guy shifted uneasily in his seat, finding a difficulty in making an answer.

"No, I suppose you couldn't," he answered reluctantly; "blood's thicker than water, but still--you are a good woman, Alizon."

Lady Errington smiled faintly and shook her head.

"Don't put me on a pedestal," she said, a trifle bitterly, "or you will find your goddess has feet of clay after all. Well, about Mrs. Veilsturm. I need not tell you all I heard about her, but only this. That my father knew her--intimately--and that her life before she set up for a woman of fashion in England, was not all that could be desired."

"Where did he meet her?" demanded Sir Guy abruptly.

"In South America. She is a Creole, you know, and when my father knew her she was not married to Captain Veilsturm. She may have lived decently since she became wife and widow, for all I know, but when she was in South America----"

Lady Errington broke off abruptly, and rose quickly to her feet.

"How dare she call on me--how dare she?"

"I daresay she thinks you know nothing about her," said Sir Guy, rising also.

"She knows I am Gabriel Mostyn's daughter, and that ought to be enough to make her keep away from me."

"But of what do you accuse her?"

"I accuse her of nothing, at present," said Alizon, looking steadily at him. "I only tell you that she is not a fit woman to cross the threshold of Errington Hall, and she will not do so while I am mistress here."

"What are you going to do then?"

"I'm going to return the card she had the audacity to leave here, and write her a note forbidding her to call again."

Sir Guy thought for a moment, and then spoke out.

"You are the best judge as to whom you make your friends, Alizon, but if you do this Mrs. Veilsturm will demand an explanation, and there will be a row."

Lady Errington paused with her hand on the door and looked back.

"Mrs. Veilsturm will not demand an explanation," she said coldly, "but if she wishes for one I can easily satisfy her on that point. But while I am mistress of Errington Hall if that infamous woman dares to come here I'll have her turned out by my servants."

"But she----"

"She!" echoed his wife decisively. "She will take the hint conveyed by the return of this card and keep a wide distance between Gabriel Mostyn's daughter and herself."

The door closed after her, and Guy, after a pause of amazement at the change in his usually calm wife, turned towards the window with a half frown on his face.

"She's got a temper after all," he said to himself, thrusting his hands into his pockets. "I might have guessed it. Sleeping volcanoes are always the worst when they do start."