CHAPTER XX.

VISITORS.

"THAT is it!" said Mr. Cheriton, striking his hand on the table, while Amabel and I stood as if dumb. "She told me when I would not come to her card parties on Sunday, that she would send me a bull's head. * And to think of the hours that I have wasted, and worse than wasted in that woman's house—dishonoring my Master's livery. It is a judgment upon me, but this child—what has she done?"

* Alluding to the old Scottish and Northumbrian custom of placing a bull's head before guests, whose death was determined on.

"Hush, Walter, do not speak rashly, nor talk of judgments!" said Amabel, speaking quite calmly, though she was pale as death. "We will not talk of judgments, but of chastenings."

"Of persecutions, rather!" I added. "Blessed are they who are persecuted for righteousness' sake! If you had kept on flattering her, she would not have been your enemy."

"If I had never begun it, she could not have found occasion against me!" returned Mr. Cheriton. "My sin hath found me out."

"Hush!" said Mrs. Deborah, raising her hand. "You young people think you have all to bear. Is it nothing to me to have that woman come into my place,—knowing her as I do? To see my only brother besotted with a—Oh me, oh me! How shall I ever tell Chloe?"

And Mrs. Deborah broke down in a burst of bitter weeping, dreadful to see in one usually so self-restrained. We were all about her in a moment. She clasped Amabel in her arms, and laying her head on her shoulder as she knelt on the floor, she sobbed bitterly.

As for me, I was too fiercely angry to cry. Mr. Cheriton, who had in some degree regained his self-control, at the sight of Mrs. Deborah's distress, now spoke in his deep voice—

"Let us pray!"

I shall never forget that prayer, nor how it sustained and comforted us all. We knelt in silence for some moments, and then Mrs. Deborah rose—

"Children, we must consider what is to be done!" said she. "It is evident that my brother has been set against Mr. Cheriton, by somebody interested in preventing this marriage. Be quiet while I read you his letter, or that part of it which relates to you."

We listened accordingly. The letter was a repetition, for the most part, of what Sir Julius had written to Mr. Cheriton, only that it entered more into particulars, accusing Mr. Cheriton of low intrigues, and conduct unbecoming a gentleman, and concluded by saying—

"I will never give my daughter to a canting Methodist. Let Mr. Cheriton give up his irregular practices—his field preaching and class-meetings, let him apologize to my wife for his affronts to her, and show by his conduct that he regrets them, and I may possibly be induced to overlook the natural irregularities of a young man. I say possibly, for I may have other and higher views for my daughter."

"He is very good!" said Mr. Cheriton, with a look on his face and a tone of bitterness in his voice, which I never witnessed or heard before. "If I will give up preaching to the poor and seeking the lost, that is to say, if I will give up the work I am doing for the Lord, he will possibly overlook what I am said to have done for the devil. As to Lady Throckmorton, as I have never affronted her, I owe her no apology. What say you, Amabel? Shall I give up my preaching to the colliers and ballast men, for your sake?"

"Never!" said Amabel firmly. "I would rather never see you more in this world, than that you should swerve one hair's breadth from your duty for my sake."

"Besides, it would be only a chance!" said I. "Do you not see, that Sir Julius says he may have other and higher views for his daughter?"

"Let us say no more at present, my children!" said Mrs. Deborah. "But take time to think. Mr. Cheriton, you are much in need of refreshment. Lucy, will you order something? Amabel, my love, you had better retire to your room and compose your spirits. We will talk of this matter again."

But a sad interval was to pass before the matter was again discussed. We had not yet separated, when Jenny came in all haste to say, that Mrs. Chloe had fallen into a fainting-fit, and her woman could not bring her to, with all she could do.

"It was just that grinning fool Richard!" said Jenny in great wrath. "He must come in with a basket of sticks, for Mrs. Chloe wanted a bright fire, and what must he do, but congratulate her on the happy news as he called it, and when Mrs. Chloe asked what it meant, he said master was married to Lady Throckmorton, and poor Mrs. Chloe, she just gave one mournful cry and sunk back like one dead."

All these particulars were given to us, for Mrs. Deborah had hurried to her sister. Poor Mrs. Chloe came out of her fainting-fit, only to have a dreadful bleeding from her lungs. An express was sent in all haste for the doctor, and another for Mrs. Philippa—Mrs. Brown, I should say. The doctor did not arrive till night, and then gave no hopes. Mrs. Chloe survived about a week, and then passed quietly away, in the comfort of a reasonable, religious, and holy hope. I suppose she could not have lived long at any rate; but there is no doubt that the news of her brother's marriage to a woman whom she disliked, and with the best of reasons, hastened her end. She gave Mrs. Deborah written directions as to the disposition of her affairs, and said that she had made her will, which was in the hands of Mr. Thirlwall, the family lawyer and man of business at Newcastle. I had supposed as much, knowing that he had paid her several visits during the winter.

An express had been sent to Sir Julius, as soon as Mrs. Chloe's case had been pronounced hopeless, and he arrived in time for the funeral without his wife, who he said was unfit for such a hasty journey.

I am not apt to take impressions at first sight. But when I do, though I may sometimes change them for awhile, I am very apt to return to them. My first sight of Sir Julius' picture, led me to think him a vain man, at once weak and obstinate. I have never seen cause to change my opinion.

Sir Julius greeted his sister with a great show of cordiality, but withal, much as if he had been an impudent lad caught robbing an orchard and determined to brave it out. He was very gracious to Amabel, and more condescending to me than I thought there was any call for, seeing that my family was as good as his own or better, and that he had all these years been pocketing the rents from my poor father's little estate of Black Lees. (So I had learned from Mrs. Chloe, though forgot to mention it in the right place.) However, I was determined to bear everything for Amabel's sake.

He could not well find fault with the arrangements for the funeral, seeing that Mrs. Chloe had ordered them all herself; but he frowned at the needless expense, as he called it, of giving new frieze coats to the poor men in the alm-houses, and new gray gowns to the old women; and swore roundly, when he heard that Mrs. Chloe had ordered Mr. Cheriton to officiate at her funeral, "that he would not have the canting Methodist enter his house."

"There will be no occasion for him to do so, since he will meet my poor sister's corpse at the church-yard!" replied Mrs. Deborah calmly. "Let me advise you, brother, to swear no rash oaths. There has been harm enough done that way in this family."

Sir Julius was silent, and made no more objection to Mr. Cheriton. I could not but see how Mrs. Deborah put him down, whenever they were together.

We had another very unexpected guest at the funeral. Notice of Mrs. Chloe's death had been sent to an aunt of Mrs. Deborah's who had married one of the Scots of Eskdale, and was called Lady Thornyhaugh, after the name of the estate, as the custom is in Scotland concerning landed proprietors. She was a widow of many years standing, and was about eighty-five years old, though no one would have taken her to be seventy. She arrived on horseback riding behind a trusty man-servant, and attended by her bower-woman, as she called her, as old, upright, and active as herself.

I fell in love with her at once, and she was kind enough to take equally to me. Her presence was a great comfort to us all, and especially to Mrs. Deborah. She was a beautiful old lady, with silvery white hair which would curl in spite of her, eyes the exact counterpart of Amabel's, and a perfectly refined and ladylike manner. She spoke with a very strong Scotch accent, but we had learned Scotch enough from Elsie, not to mind that.

The funeral was celebrated, and then came the reading of the will, at which all the family were present. It seemed that Mrs. Chloe was much richer than either of her sisters, since beside her share of her mother's fortune, which was not inconsiderable, she had inherited some five thousand pounds from a god-mother, for whom she was named.

This fortune, after a legacy of five hundred pounds apiece to her brother and Mrs. Brown, and the same to myself; was equally divided between Mrs. Deborah and Amabel. Mrs. Deborah's portion was also to be divided between Amabel and me after her death. Remembrances were left to Doctor Brown and Mr. Lethbridge, to the doctor and lawyer, and to each of the servants—even to the little girl who weeded the flower-beds.

I think, Mrs. Philippa—I shall never learn to write Mrs. Brown—was disappointed a little, but if so she was too proud to show it. Indeed, I must say that no one could have behaved better than she did throughout the whole affair. I should say that Mrs. Chloe left "my Sister Brown" all her ornaments, of which she had a great many, and a fine cupboard of blue china which she had been collecting all her life, and which Mrs. Philippa had always coveted.

Sir Julius, on the contrary, did not try to hide his vexation. It was plain that he had always counted on Mrs. Chloe's leaving all her money to himself, and I was wicked enough to be glad to see him disappointed. He swore roundly at Mr. Thirlwall for allowing Mrs. Chloe to make such an absurd will, and for not letting him know about it in time to have it altered.

The old gentleman took snuff, and answered quietly that it was not his place to betray the secrets of his clients, but that if Sir Julius was dissatisfied, he was quite welcome to employ any other lawyer he pleased; whereat Sir Julius drew in his horns, if I may be allowed the expression, and began to stammer some sort of apology.

"I am astonished at you, brother, I am, indeed!" said Mrs. Brown, with a great deal of real dignity. "My Sister Chloe had a right to dispose of her property as she pleased, and I for one am quite satisfied with the arrangement. Doctor Brown, are you not satisfied with my sister's disposition of her estate?"

"Certainly, my dear, certainly," replied the doctor; "and I should have been satisfied if the good lady had not left us a penny."

In which, I doubt not, he spoke the truth, for he was already rich, and love of money was not one of his faults.

Sir Julius stayed at home about a week, and went away in a much better humor than that he had brought with him. He was very proud of Amabel's beauty and accomplishments, and disarmed by her submission to his will. He had a long talk with Mr. Cheriton, and at last, of his own accord, he promised to put no force upon Amabel's inclinations for the present, though he insisted that the young people should neither see each other nor correspond till he gave them permission, and this they both promised.

"I would not have the lass build too much on her father's present mood," said the old lady from Thornyhaugh, as we two sat together in the little south room the evening after Sir Julius had departed. "I should not speak so of my nevoy belike, but he aye minds me of what was said of King James the Sixth by ane wha keened him weel. 'Do you ken a jackanape?' said he. 'If you hold Jocko by the chain you can make him bite me, but if I hold him by the chain I can make him bite you.'"

"That is just what I think, madam," said I. (As we were alone together I thought I might have the comfort of speaking my mind for once.) "I know Lady Throckmorton—Lady Leighton, I mean—a little, and from what I have seen of them both, I do not believe Sir Julius is likely to make any stand against her."

"Aye, and what do you know of her, my lass?"

In answer I gave her an account of our visit to Lady Throckmorton.

"Just like her!" was the comment. "What's bred in the bone stays long in the blood. I keened her mother before her, and she was just such another. A fine guardian, truly, to set over his daughter. Aweel, Lucy Corbet, I am no Papist nor favorer of Papists, or of them that would bring them back on this land, but, saving their religion, I would wish you and my niece were safe back yonder in your convent. Poor children! This world is a hard place for motherless lassies."

She stroked my head as I sat on a low seat to which she had called me beside her, and I kissed her beautiful withered hand, and felt comforted by her sympathy.

"What I most fear, if I may venture to say so, madam—" I began, and then stopped.

"Say what is in your mind, bairn," said the old lady, "I shall never repeat a word."

"What I fear for Amabel then is, that Lady Throckmorton—I mean Lady Leighton—will try to marry her up to some of the men who are always hanging about her—to Lord Bulmer, for instance. Do you think, madam, that in that case Amabel would be bound to obey?"

The old lady meditated for a moment before she spoke.

"No, bairn, I would not say so. If my nephew forbids his daughter to marry this minister—what is his name?"

"Mr. Cheriton."

"Aye, Mr. Cheriton. If my nevoy forbids his daughter to marry this man, though there be naught against him, doubtless his daughter is bound to obey her father, at least till she is of age. Children are to obey their parents in the Lord. But no parent has the right to make his child perjure herself by promising to love and honor a man whom she hates and despises, or to promise to love one man while her heart is another's. That such matches have sometimes turned out well to appearance is but saying that sin is sometimes overruled for good. Nay, I am as earnest as any one for obedience to parents, but if a father bids his child to bow down before an idol, she is not bound to obey."

We both started as Amabel came forward to the fire and spoke, for we had not heard her enter.

"I think you are quite right, aunt," said she. "If my father requires me to give up Mr. Cheriton I will do so, at least till I am of age, but nothing shall ever make me marry any one else, while he lives—nothing!"

She spoke without excitement, but with the calm resolute air I knew so well.

"You are right, niece!" said Leddy Thornyhaugh. "So long as you hold that resolution, nobody can make you marry. But if you should ever, either of you, be driven to straits and need a friend, come to me at Thornyhaugh and you shall find one, if I am alive."

The good lady went away next day much regretted by us all. Elsie would fain have returned with her foster-sister, for such she was, but after some private conversation, she decided to remain.

Doctor and Mrs. Brown also took their departure, Mrs. Philippa—there it goes again—had made herself very agreeable during her stay. She seemed wonderfully well-pleased with her new state of life, and I suppose happiness agreed with her. She gave us all pressing invitations to come and visit her, and was very affectionate to Mrs. Deborah at parting. I believe she did really in some degree begin to appreciate her sister's forbearance toward her through all those weary years. As for her husband, he was always pleasant when he was pleased, and some people are not even that. He was just the husband for Mrs. Philippa for he was too easy-going to mind her little tempers, while he could be firm enough when once he set his foot down.

As soon as our company had departed, Mrs. Deborah set on foot a great house-cleaning and renovating. Sir Julius had intimated his intention to return to Highbeck Hall in the course of the summer with his wife and a party of friends, and Mrs. Deborah was determined to leave all in order for him. I say to leave advisedly, for nothing could shake her determination to depart from Highbeck Hall before Lady Leighton entered it.

"I will never see that woman in my honored mother's place!" she said. "If my brother had chosen to marry a sober respectable person like his second wife, though she had been even a grocer's daughter, I should have nothing to say; but I will never sleep under the same roof with that woman."

Amabel and I found in this cleaning and moving process some diversion at least. It was quite wonderful to me to see what hoards of curious things had accumulated in the house. Such heaps of old finery—silks and satins and laces—such odds and ends of gold and silver, and old-fashioned ornaments and what not. In turning out a chest of drawers one day, we came cross an old needlecase of gold with blue and white enamel, and seeing how much I admired it, Mrs. Deborah gave it to me. Carelessly enough I laid it on the top of a tall cabinet which stood in our bedroom, but when I went to look for it, it had disappeared.

"What can have become of it?" said I to Amabel. "I am sure I laid it here this morning."

"You should have put it carefully away in your work-bag, and then it would have been safe!" remarked Amabel, seeing an occasion which indeed she seldom wanted in my case, for a little homily on tidiness. "Perhaps it has rolled down behind the cabinet."

"I can see it!" said I peeping into the very narrow space between the cabinet and the wall. "But I cannot reach it. Let us try to move the cabinet out a little, Amabel."

To our agreeable surprise, the apparently heavy cabinet moved with a good deal of squeaking and creaking indeed but with tolerable ease, upon rollers concealed in the gilt griffin's claws which formed its feet. I recovered my needlecase and then began admiring the freshness and beauty of the hanging behind the cabinet.

"It is of a different pattern from the rest!" remarked Amabel. "It is like that in the little withdrawing-room down stairs."

"It is not fastened to the wall, either," said I.

I raised the long strip of hanging as I spoke, and to my surprise—to my alarm I might almost say—I discovered a bolted door behind it.

"See here, Amabel!" said I. "This door opens into the ghost room! Are you not afraid?"

"No, I don't know that I am!" replied Amabel. "There is a good substantial bolt, as you see, and as for the ghost I believe that sort of gentry do not need doors for their entrance and exit."

"Would you dare open it?" said I. "I have a curiosity to see how a room looks into which no one has set foot for two hundred years and more."

"Well, look then! What harm can it do! And yet after all I would let it alone, I think!" said Amabel. "Perhaps Mrs. Deborah would not like it."

At that moment Amabel was called down stairs to attend to some matter or other. I looked at the bolted door and my curiosity grew stronger. I could not think of any harm it would do to take a peep, and I wanted to see what a ghost's room looked like. So I pushed back the bolt and opened the door with less difficulty than I expected, rather dreading all the time, lest I should see the poor wolf-lady's green fiery eyes glaring at me through the darkness.

However, I saw nothing of the kind. The door opened into a kind of closet or press, and that into a common-place looking room enough, with a bed hung with dark faded red stuff, and other furniture of the same sort. The windows were close shuttered, and overgrown with ivy, but a little light struggled through the round apertures in the top of the shutters.

Certainly, the room was dusty and smelled close, but for a room unused for two hundred years, it had a remarkably modern appearance. I guessed at once that I had intruded unwittingly into some family secret, and was not slow in coming to a conclusion as to its import. I drew back at once, and closing the door I pushed the cabinet back into its place, determining to tell Mrs. Deborah what I had done. I took an opportunity of doing so when we were together in the still-room next morning. Mrs. Deborah looked surprised but not offended.

"You are a bold girl, Lucy. Were you not afraid?"

"No, Aunt Deborah. I did not believe anything would hurt me, and I had a great desire to see what the place was like."

"And you did not find it at all what you expected. Well, my girl, since you have seen so much, I may as well tell you that those rooms have been used within forty years as a place of concealment for hunted loyalists. Their haunted reputation protects them from any curiosity on the part of the household, and there is a way of access to them from the garden, which I will show you sometime. It is perhaps as well that some one beside myself should be acquainted with the clue, as poor old Roberts cannot live many days. He is the only one who knows anything about the matter, and I may die at any time."

"Does not Sir Julius know?" I asked in surprise.

"No. The family rule has been that the secret should be told to the eldest child—whether son or daughter, unless the daughter be married. To-night, when the family are in bed, I will shew to you and Amabel the secret passage, but you must promise me, solemnly, never to communicate it, unless to Amabel's eldest child. It may come to be a weighty secret, but since you have unwittingly intruded into it, you must be content to bear your share. There, I am not blaming you. Finding that a door opened into your room, it was but natural that you should wish to see where it led."

That night, accordingly, when the rest of the household had gone to bed, Mrs. Deborah came to our room carrying a light in a lanthorn. Instantly I was reminded of the time when Mother Superior took us children into the vault to show us the danger we had escaped.

"I will never poke my nose into any more secrets!" I said to myself, for truth to tell, I did not relish the expedition at all.

I had been looking at the picture of the ghostly lady in the saloon, and I did not at all fancy meeting that fierce beautiful face at some turn or corner. I had always said to myself that I did not believe in her one bit, but it was one thing to say so in daylight, and another when I was intruding on her den in the night time, by the fitful light of a dark lantern.

However, if the lady were displeased, she did not show it.

Mrs. Deborah led us through the room into which I had peeped, and into another very much like it. Here she pushed aside a corner press which opened bodily like a door, and shewed a dark entry and a flight of steps, very narrow and rugged, which led down below the level of the ground floor, and then up again at a sharp angle, to a low door in the thickness of the outer wall. This she opened and we found ourselves in a small court not far from the stables.

"There is a ghost here too!" said she. "That of a horseman, who walks despairingly up and down, while his horse paws the stones in the corner yonder. Hark, don't you hear him?"

I certainly did hear the sound of a horse's hoof, as it seemed, near by. I suppose it was an echo from the stables.

"Not one of the servants will come hither after night fall, for their lives!" said Mrs. Deborah. "I may just tell you that poor McIntosh of Borlam, lay concealed in these rooms, for many a day, after Foster's treachery lost the day for us at Preston, and it was by this very door that he made his escape, at last, after the pursuit had in some degree cooled down. * But come, we must not linger here. Come to my room."

* The Jacobites firmly believed that the fatal defeat at Preston in 1715, was due to Foster's treachery. There is a curious old ballad concerning McIntosh's escape in "The Borderer's Table Book."

We retraced our steps carefully, noting by Mrs. Deborah's desire, every turn of the path, and found ourselves once more in our own room.

From thence, we proceeded to Mrs. Deborah's, where we found a nice little supper prepared for us, with a jug of hot elder wine to keep us from taking cold, as Mrs. Deborah said.

Certainly, I did not sleep any better for it, nor for the images that haunted my mind of persecuted Jacobites, and possibly more desperate characters, finding refuge in the next room. However, one becomes used to anything. I never found in my life any particular difficulty in keeping secrets, nor did this one trouble me. I should not be telling it now, if there were any possible use in keeping it, or if these same rooms were still in existence.

Mrs. Deborah was the owner of a small but sufficiently convenient house, with an orchard and garden and a few acres of land, about half a mile from Highbeck church in the opposite direction to the Hall. This house it seems was a kind of heirloom, descending to the eldest unmarried or widowed daughter. It had stood empty for many years, save for the old man and woman who had lived in the kitchen. One day, we rode over to see it with Mrs. Deborah; it was rather forlorn in aspect certainly, but not badly out of repair.

"I shall have it put in order at once!" said Mrs. Deborah, surveying the little parlor. "I have saved money for that very purpose, and the furniture of my own rooms and that which my Sister Chloe left me, will go far toward making the place comfortable."

"Then you are determined to leave the Hall—and me!" said Amabel.

"Child, if I could do you any good by staying, I would never leave you, no, not if that woman humbled me in the dust!" was the reply. "But I should only do you harm. As my brother's wife, she has a right to rule, and I cannot live under her. There would be a constant clash, and I am no match for such as she. Besides, if worst comes to worst, I can make a home for you and Lucy."

There was no use in arguing with Mrs. Deborah, and besides, I felt that her course was a wise and dignified one. For myself, I was determined never to leave Amabel, come what might, unless I were absolutely driven away. I little knew then how I was to be tried, but I soon found out.

It was the middle of July, when letters were received from Sir Julius, or rather from his wife, saying that they would come to Highbeck Hall about the first of August. Lady Leighton wrote that a quantity of new furniture, etc., had already been sent by sea to Newcastle, and that her own housekeeper and other servants, would arrive about a week in advance of her, to attend to the disposition of the things. The old housekeeper was to be pensioned off, by Sir Julius' order. The other servants could remain for the present, if they chose to make themselves useful, and be amenable to the new housekeeper. Then came the sting of the letter, so far as I was concerned.

"As for the young woman, Lucy Corbet, if she chooses to take the place which belongs to her, and for which she was kindly educated by Sir Julius—that of our daughter's waiting-woman—I am content that she should remain for the present. But she must distinctly understand, that it is as a servant and not as an equal, that she is permitted to stay; otherwise, she must make up her mind to find another home. Moreover, if I find her abetting our daughter in her infatuation for that person in Newcastle, with whom she was so unhappily entangled, she will be dismissed at once; that affair Is entirely at an end, and Miss Leighton must hold herself like a dutiful child, at her parents' disposal."

"There shows the cloven foot!" said Mrs. Deborah.

"I am glad of it!" I answered. "I like to know what I have to expect."

"You need have to expect nothing of the sort, Niece Corbet!" said Mrs. Deborah. "You are quite welcome to a home with me so long as I have one, or till you can communicate with your kinsman in the South."

"Oh Lucy, you must not leave me—you will not leave me!" said Amabel imploringly, her eyes filling with tears. "Remember what you promised me before we came from France. I am selfish to wish to keep you here to be insulted, when you might have a happy home with Aunt Deborah, but how can I face life without you?"

"You shall not face it without me!" I answered. "My mind is made up about that. Dearly as I should love to live with Aunt Deborah, I can never leave you while it is possible for me to stay. When it is not, if dear aunt will take me in, I will gladly come to her."

"And will you—a Corbet of one of the best families of the South—will you take the place of a waiting-maid under this proud woman?" said Mrs. Deborah, her brows darkening.

"For Amabel's sake I will take any place, and endure any affront, Aunt Deborah!" I answered. "Where she goes I will go. The Lord do so to me, and more also, if aught but death or dire necessity part her and me."

I said these solemn words advisedly. I had said them in my own mind many times while thinking of this very thing. Mrs. Deborah's brows relaxed.

"You are your father's own child, Lucy. Have your way then, since I verily believe it to be the right one. When you can no longer stay here, then come to me both of you. If I am not living, go to your aunt at Thornyhaugh. Bless you, children, you do surely show forth your faith, not only in your lips but in your lives."

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