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Chapter Fifteen
“Doing” Romary

 
“She told the tale with bated breath —
‘A sad old story; is it true?’”
 

There was no good, there seldom is any, in crying about it. And Mary’s tears were those rather of anger and indignation than of sorrow. The sorrow was there, but it lay a good deal lower down, and she had no intention of letting any one suspect its existence, nor that of her present discomfort, in any way. So she soon left off crying, and tried to rally again the temporarily scattered forces of her philosophy.

“Well,” she reflected, “it has been a failure, and perhaps it was a mistake. I must put it away among the good intentions that had better have remained such. I must try to think I have at worst done Lilias’s cause no harm – honestly I don’t think I have – nothing that I could say would move that man one way or the other. And any way I meant well – my darling! – I would do it all over again for you, would I not? My poor Lily – to think how happy she might have been but for him. As for what he thinks of me I do not care, deliberately and decidedly I do not care, though just now it makes me feel hot,” – for the colour had mounted in her face even while she was asserting her indifference – “or perhaps, to be quite truthful, I should say I shall not care, very soon I shall not, I know. I shall not even care what he says of me – except – it would be rather dreadful if Lilias ever heard of it! but I do not think he will ever speak of it – he has what people call the instincts of a gentleman, I suppose.”

Mary walked on, she was close to the lodge gates now. Suddenly a quick clatter behind her made her look round – a girl on horseback followed by a groom was passing her, and as Mary glanced up she caught sight of the bright, sweet face of Alys Cheviott. One instant she turned in Mary’s direction, and, it seemed to Mary – conscious of red eyes and a half guilty sensation of having no business within the gates – eyed her curiously. But she did not stop, or even slacken her pace. “She cannot have recognised me,” said Mary.

“And to-morrow,” she thought, with a sigh, half of relief, half of despair, “I shall be home again, and Lilias will be asking me if I came across any of the Romary people, or heard anything about Arthur Beverley.”

And when she got back to Uxley and Mrs Greville’s afternoon tea, she had to say how very much she had enjoyed her walk, and how pretty Romary Park looked from the road.

“Only,” repeated Mrs Greville, “I do so wish the Cheviotts had been away, and that I could have taken you all to see through the house and gardens and everything,” and Mary agreed that it was a great pity the Cheviotts had not been away, thinking in her heart that it was perhaps a greater pity than Mrs Greville had any idea of.

How seldom to-morrow fulfills the predictions of today! On Wednesday evening Mary was so sure she was going back to Hathercourt on Thursday morning, and on Thursday morning a letter from Lilias upset all her plans. It had been arranged that Mr Western should walk over to Uxley on Thursday to lunch there, and be driven home with Mary in Mrs Greville’s pony-carriage; but Wednesday had brought news to Hathercourt of the visit of a school inspector, and Mr Western’s absence was not to be thought of.

“So,” wrote Lilias, “mother and I have persuaded him to go on Friday instead, if it will suit Mrs Greville equally well. If not, we shall expect you home to-morrow, but do stay till Friday, if you can, Mary, for I can see that poor papa has been rather looking forward to the little change of a day at Uxley, and he has so few changes.”

Mary was longing to be home again, but her longings were not the question, and as Friday proved to be equally convenient to Mrs Greville, the matter was decided as Lilias wished.

“But you look rather melancholy about it, Mary,” said Mrs Greville. “Are you homesick already?”

Mary smiled. Mr Morpeth was looking at her with some curiosity.

“Not exactly,” she said, honestly.

She glanced up and saw a smile pass round the table.

“What are you all laughing at me for?” she said, smiling herself.

“You are so dreadfully honest,” said Mrs Greville.

“And unsophisticated, I suppose,” said Mary, “to own to the possibility of anything so old-fashioned as homesickness.”

“It must be rather a nice feeling, I think,” said Mr Morpeth. “I mean to say it must be nice to have one place in the world one really longs for. I have never known what that was – we were all at school for so many years after our father’s death – and since we have been together we have been knocking about so, there was no chance of feeling anywhere at home.”

“It must be dreadful to be homesick when one is very ill and has small chance of ever seeing home again,” said Cecilia Morpeth. “We used to see so much of that at Mentone and those places. Invalids who had not many days to live, just praying for home. Do you remember that poor young Brooke, last winter, Frances?”

“That’s it,” exclaimed the elder Miss Morpeth, emphatically.

Everybody stared at her.

“What is the matter? What are you talking about, Frances?” asked her brother and sister.

Miss Morpeth laughed.

“You must have thought I was going out of my mind,” she said, “but it has bothered me so, and when Cecilia mentioned the Brookes, it flashed before me in a moment.”

“What?” repeated Cecilia.

“The likeness – don’t you remember we were talking about it, last night, in our own room? A curious likeness in Miss Western’s face to some one – I could not tell who. Don’t you see it, Cecilia? Not to Basil Brooke, but to the younger brother, Anselm – the one that used to ride with us.”

“Yes,” said Cecilia, “I see what you mean. It is especially when Miss Western looks at all anxious or thoughtful.”

“It is curious,” said Mary. “If we had any cousins, I should fancy these Brookes you are talking of must be relations. My eldest brother’s name is Basil, and the second one is George Anselm, and my mother’s name was Brooke. But I think she told me all her family had died out – anyway, your friends can only be very distant relations.”

“But the likeness,” said Miss Morpeth. “It is quite romantic isn’t it? I suppose you are like your mother, Miss Western?”

“Yes,” said Mary.

“It is to be hoped the likeness goes no further than the face,” said Cecilia, thoughtlessly. “These Brookes are frightfully consumptive. I beg your pardon,” she added, seeing that Mary looked grave, “I should not have said that.”

“I was not thinking of ourselves,” said Mary. “I know we are not consumptive. I was trying to remember if I had ever heard mother speak of any such cousins.”

“The consumption comes from their mother’s side,” said Miss Morpeth. “I remember their aunt, Mrs Brabazon, telling me so. She was a Brooke, and she was as strong as possible.”

“Basil Brooke is dead,” said Mr Morpeth. “I saw his death in the Times last week, poor fellow!”

“I will tell mother about them,” said Mary, and then the conversation went off to other subjects.

An hour or two later, when Mary and the Morpeths were sitting in the drawing-room together, and Mrs Greville was attending to her housekeeping for the day, she suddenly re-appeared, with a beaming face.

“Frances, Mary, Cecilia,” she exclaimed, “such a piece of good luck! Mr Petre, Mr Cheviott’s agent, has just been calling here to see Mr Greville about some parish business, and I happened to say to him that I had friends with me here who had such a wish to see Romary. And what do you think? Mr Cheviott and his sister are away! They went yesterday evening to pay a visit, somewhere in the neighbourhood, for three days. And Mr Petre was so nice about it – he says he has perfect carte blanche about showing the house when they are away, and Mrs Golding is always delighted to do the honours. So it is all fixed – we are to go this afternoon – we must have luncheon a little earlier than usual. So glad you are not going home to-day, Mary.”

Mary felt– afterwards she trusted she had not looked– aghast. What evil genii have conspired to bring about such a scheme? To go to see Romary – of all places on earth, the last she ever wished to re-enter – to go to admire the possessions of the man who had done her more injury and caused her deeper mortification than she had ever endured before!

“Oh, Mrs Greville,” she exclaimed, hastily. “It is very good of you, but I don’t think I care about going – you won’t mind if I stay at home?”

“If you stay at home!” said Mrs Greville, in amazement. “Of course I should mind. I made the plan quite as much for you as for Frances and Cecilia; and only yesterday – or day before, was it? – you seemed so interested in Romary, and so anxious to see it, you were asking ever so many questions about it. I did not think you were so changeable.”

Mary’s face flushed.

“I did not mean to be changeable or to vex you, dear Mrs Greville,” she began, “only – ”

“Only what?”

Mary had left her seat and come over to where Mrs Greville was standing.

“It is a very silly reason I was going to give,” she said in a low voice, trying to smile. “You remember my saying before how very much I dislike that Mr Cheviott.”

Mrs Greville could not help laughing.

“Is that all?” she said. “Come now, Mary, I had no idea you could be so silly. I have always looked upon you as such a model of good sense. I began to think there must be some mystery you had not explained to me about Lilias’s affairs, of course, I mean,” she added, in a whisper, glancing at Mary with re-awakened curiosity in her eyes.

Mary kept her countenance.

“It is just as I said,” she replied. “I can’t give you any better reason for not wanting to go than my dislike to that man.”

“Very well, then, you must come. That might prevent your liking to see him; it need not prevent your liking to see his house. Your not coming would quite spoil our pleasure.”

Mary hesitated. Suddenly there flashed into her mind some of Lilias’s last words of warning.

“Whatever you do, Mary,” she had said, “don’t let Mrs Greville get it into her head that there has been anything mortifying to us – that Arthur has behaved ill, I mean. I couldn’t stand that being said.”

And Mary turned to Mrs Greville with a smile.

“Very well,” she said. “I won’t be silly, and I will go.”

“That’s all right,” said Mrs Greville, and Mary wished she could have said so too.

After all, why not? It was entirely a matter of personal feeling on her part; there was nothing unladylike or unusual in her going with the others to see the show house of the neighbourhood; and yet the bare thought of her doing so by any possibility coming to Mr Cheviott’s ears made her cheeks burn.

“That horrible man-servant!” she said to herself – “supposing he recognises me!”

But there was no good in “supposings.” She determined to make the best of the unavoidable, though it was impossible altogether to refrain from fruitless regrets that her return home had been delayed.

Nothing came in the way of the expedition. The afternoon turned out very fine, remarkably fine and mild for February, and the little party that set out from the Vicarage would have struck any casual observer as cheerful and light-hearted in the extreme.

“Do you care about this sort of thing?” said Mr Morpeth to Mary, when in the course of the walk they happened to fall a little behind the others.

“About what?” said Mary, absently. Her thoughts had been far away from her companions; she now recalled them with some effort.

“Going to see other people’s houses,” replied the young man. “I hate it, though I have had more than my share of it, knocking about from place to place, as we have been doing for so long.”

“Why do you hate it?” inquired Mary, with more interest. The mere fact of Mr Morpeth’s aversion to such expeditions in general seemed congenial, smarting as she was with her own sore repugnance to this one in particular. And even a shadow of sympathy in her present discomfort was attractive to Mary to-day.

Mr Morpeth kicked a pebble or two out of his path with a sort of boyish impatience which made Mary smile.

“Oh, I don’t know,” he replied, vaguely, “I always think it is a snobbish sort of thing to do, going poking about people’s rooms, and all that. And if it’s a pretty house, it makes one envious, and if it’s ugly, what’s the good of seeing it?”

Mary laughed.

“I like seeing old houses – really old houses,” she said.

“Not ruins, but an old house still habitable enough to enable one to fancy what it must have really been like ‘once upon a time.’”

“Yes,” said Mr Morpeth, “I know how you mean. But even that interest goes off very quickly. We once lived near an old place that nearly took my breath away with awe and admiration the first time I went through it. But very soon it became as commonplace as anything, and I hated to hear people go off into rhapsodies about it.”

“What a pity!” said Mary. “I don’t know that I envy you people who have travelled everywhere and seen everything. You don’t enjoy little things as we do who have seen nothing.”

“But you don’t enjoy going to see this stupid place today,” persisted Mr Morpeth. “I know you don’t, for I was in the drawing-room this morning when you were all talking about it; I came in behind Mrs Greville, and sat down in the corner, though you didn’t see me.”

“Then if you heard all that was said you must have heard my reason for disliking to go to see Romary,” said Mary, in a tone of some annoyance.

“Yes,” said Mr Morpeth, coolly, “I did. I wonder why you dislike that unfortunate Mr What’s-his-name so? For before you came Mrs Greville entertained us with a wonderful story about a ball and a very grand gentleman who never looks at young ladies at all, having quite succumbed to – ”

“Mr Morpeth,” exclaimed Mary, stopping short and turning round on her companion with scarlet cheeks, “I shall be very angry if you speak like that, and I don’t think Mrs Greville should have – ”

“Please don’t be angry. I didn’t mean to vex you, and Mrs Greville was not telling any secrets,” said Mr Morpeth. “Only I have been wondering ever since why you should have taken such a dislike to the poor man. You must be very unlike other girls, Miss Western?”

He looked at her with a sort of half innocent, half mischievous curiosity, and somehow Mary could not keep up her indignation.

“Well, perhaps I am,” she said, good-naturedly. “All the same, Mr Morpeth, you have got quite a wrong idea about why I dislike Mr Cheviott. Don’t let us talk about him any more.”

“I don’t want to talk about him, I’m sure,” said Mr Morpeth. “I only wish he didn’t live here, or hadn’t a house which people insist on dragging me to see. I have no other ill-will at the unfortunate man.”

“Only you won’t leave off talking about him,” said Mary, “and we are close to Romary now. See, that is the lodge gate – on there just past the bend in the road.”

“Oh, you have been here before. I forgot,” said her companion, simply. But innocently as he spoke, his remark sent the blood flying again to Mary’s cheeks.

“What shall I do if that horrible footman opens the door?” she said to herself.

But things seldom turn out as bad as we picture them – or, rather, they seldom turn out as we picture them at all. The horrible footman did not make his appearance – men-servants of no kind were visible – the house seemed already in a half state of deshabille; only old Mrs Golding, the housekeeper, came forward, with many apologies and regrets that she had not known before of Mrs Greville’s and her friends’ coming. “Mr Petre had only just sent word,” and the carpets were up in the morning-room and library! So sorry, she chatted on, but she was thankful to take advantage of her master’s and Miss Cheviott’s absence, even for a day of two, to get some cleaning done.

“For a house like this takes a dell,” She added, pathetically, appealing to Mrs Greville, who answered good-humouredly that to be sure it must.

“But the best rooms are not dismantled, I suppose?” she inquired. “The great round drawing-room and the picture-gallery with the arched roof? Just like a Church,” she observed, parenthetically, to her companions; “that is what I want you so much to see. And the old part of the house, we are sure to see that, and it is really so curious.”

There was no “cleaning” going on in the great drawing-room, and Mrs Golding led the way to its splendours with unconcealed satisfaction. It was much like other big drawing-rooms, with an even greater air of formality and unusedness than is often seen.

Mary, who was not learned in old china, its chief attraction, turned away with little interest, and wished Mrs Greville would hasten her movements.

“What splendid old damask these curtains are,” she was saying to Mrs Golding. “One could not buy stuff like this nowadays.”

“No, indeed, ma’am,” said the housekeeper, shaking her head. “They must have been made many a long year ago. But they’re getting to look very dingy – Miss Alys’s always asking Mr Cheviott to refurnish this room. But it must have been handsome in its day – I remember being here once when I was a girl and seeing it all lighted up. I did think it splendid.”

“There are some very old rooms, are there not?” said Mary.

“Yes, miss, the tapestry rooms,” said Mrs Golding. “There’s a stair leading up to them that opens out of the picture-gallery – the only other way to them is through Mr Cheviott’s own rooms, and he always keeps that way locked, as no one else uses it. The stair runs right down to the side door on the terrace, so it’s a convenient way of getting in from the garden,” continued the communicative housekeeper. “But there’s not many in the house cares to go near those rooms, for they say the middle one’s haunted.”

“Dear me, this is getting interesting,” said Mr Morpeth. “What or whom is it haunted by, pray?”

Mrs Golding looked up at him sharply, then with a slight smile she shook her head.

“You would only make fun of it if I told you, sir,” she said, “and somehow one doesn’t care to have old stories made fun of, silly though they may be.”

“No,” said Mary, “one doesn’t. I think you are quite right,” and the old woman looked pleased.

“You won’t prevent my seeing the haunted room, though you won’t tell me its story?” said Mr Morpeth, good-naturedly. So Mrs Golding led the way.

They passed along the arched picture-gallery, which in itself merited Mrs Greville’s praises, though the pictures it contained were neither many nor remarkable.

“I like this room,” said Mary, approvingly. “It is much less commonplace than the drawing-room – not that I have seen many great houses,” she added, with a smile, to Mr Morpeth, who was walking beside her, “but this is a room one would remember wherever one went.”

“Yes,” said Mr Morpeth. “It is a room with a character of its own, certainly. Frances will be calling it romantic and picturesque and all the rest of it. I am so tired of all those words.”

“I am afraid you are tired of most things,” said Mary. “See what an advantage we dwellers at home have over you travelled people!”

Her spirits were rising. So far there had been nothing at all in the expedition to arouse her fears, and she began to think they had been exaggerated.

“Which is the way to the haunted room?” asked Mr Morpeth, when they were all tired of admiring the picture-gallery.

Mrs Golding replied by opening a door at the further end of the room from that at which they had entered. It led into a little vestibule up one side of which ran a narrow staircase.

“Up that stair, sir,” she said to Mr Morpeth, “you get into a passage with two doors, one of them leads into the new part of the house and one into the old tapestry rooms – it is one of those rooms that is haunted.”

“Let us see if we can guess which it is,” exclaimed Mr Morpeth, springing up the staircase. His sister and Mrs Greville followed him, but Mary lingered a little behind.

“What is the story of the haunted room?” she said, in a low voice, to the housekeeper.

Mrs Golding smiled. She had somehow taken a liking to this quietly-dressed, quietly-spoken young lady, with the pretty eyes and pleasant voice.

“To tell you the truth, miss,” she answered, “I do not very rightly know, it myself. It was something about a lady from foreign parts that was brought here sorely against her will by one of the old lords – I think I have heard said they were once lords – of Romary. He wanted her to marry him, but she would not. Whether he forced her to give in or not I can’t tell, but the end of it was she killed herself – I fancy she threw herself out of the window of the room where he had imprisoned her. And since then they say she is to be seen there now and then.”

“Was it very long ago?”

“I couldn’t say. It was at the time, I know, when there was wars in foreign parts, and that was how the squire of Romary had found the lady. Miss Alys knows all the story – that’s our young lady. Miss Cheviott I should say. It is a sad enough story anyway.”

“Yes,” said Mary, “ghost stories always are, I think. It is queer that the people who have been the most miserable in this world are always the ones who are supposed not to be able to rest without returning to it.”

But just then a voice from above interrupted them.

“Miss Western,” it said, “do come up. This is the jolliest place of the whole house.”

So Mary ran up the staircase. Mr Morpeth was waiting for her at the top.