Mount Royal: A Novel. Volume 3 of 3

Braddon M. E. Mary Elizabeth

Mount Royal: A Novel. Volume 3 of 3

CHAPTER I

"WITH SUCH REMORSELESS SPEED STILL COME NEW WOES."

The next morning was damp, and grey, and mild, no autumn wind stirring the long sweeping branches of the cedars on the lawn, the dead leaves falling silently, the world all sad and solemn, clad in universal greyness. Christabel was up early, with her boy, in the nursery – watching him as he splashed about his bath, and emerged rosy and joyous, like an infant river-god sporting among the rushes; early at family prayers in the dining room, a ceremony at which Mr. Tregonell rarely assisted, and to which Dopsy and Mopsy came flushed and breathless with hurry, anxious to pay all due respect to a hostess whom they hoped to visit again, but inwardly revolting against the unreasonableness of eight-o'clock prayers.

Angus, who was generally about the gardens before eight, did not appear at all this morning. The other men were habitually late – breakfasting together in a free-and-easy manner when the ladies had left the dining-room – so Christabel, Miss Bridgeman, and the Miss Vandeleurs sat down to breakfast alone, Dopsy giving little furtive glances at the door every now and then, expectant of Mr. Hamleigh's entrance.

That expectancy became too painful for the damsel's patience, by-and-by, as the meal advanced.

"I wonder what has become of Mr. Hamleigh," she said. "This is the first time he has been late at breakfast."

"Perhaps he is seeing to the packing of his portmanteau," said Miss Bridgeman. "Some valets are bad packers, and want superintendence."

"Packing!" cried Dopsy, aghast. "Packing! What for?"

"He is going to London this afternoon. Didn't you know?"

Dopsy grew pale as ashes. The shock was evidently terrible, and even Jessie pitied her.

"Poor silly Dop," she thought. "Could she actually suppose that she stood the faintest chance of bringing down her bird?"

"Going away? For good?" murmured Miss Vandeleur faintly – all the flavour gone out of the dried salmon, the Cornish butter, the sweet home-baked bread.

"I hope so. He is going to the South of France for the winter. Of course, you know that he is consumptive, and has not many years to live," answered Miss Bridgeman.

"Poor fellow!" sighed Dopsy, with tears glittering upon her lowered eyelids.

She had begun the chase moved chiefly by sordid instincts; her tenderest emotions had been hacked and vulgarized by long experience in flirtation – but at this moment she believed that never in her life had she loved before, and that never in her life could she love again.

"And if he dies unmarried what will become of his property?" inquired Mopsy, whose feelings were not engaged.

"I haven't the faintest idea," answered Miss Bridgeman. "He has no near relations. I hope he will leave his money to some charitable institution."

"What time does he go?" faltered Dopsy, swallowing her tears.

"Mr. Hamleigh left an hour ago, Madam," said the butler, who had been carving at the side-board during this conversation. "He has gone shooting. The dog-cart is to pick him up at the gate leading to St. Nectan's Kieve at eleven o'clock."

"Gone shooting on his last morning at Mount Royal!" exclaimed Jessie. "That's a new development of Mr. Hamleigh's character. I never knew he had a passion for sport."

"I believe there is a note for you, ma'am," said the butler to his mistress.

He went out into the hall, and returned in a minute or two carrying a letter upon his official salver, and handing it with official solemnity to Mrs. Tregonell.

The letter-was brief and commonplace enough —

"Dear Mrs. Tregonell, —

"After all I am deprived of the opportunity of wishing you good-by this morning, by the temptation of two or three hours' woodcock shooting about St. Nectan's Kieve. I shall drive straight from there to Launceston in Mr. Tregonell's dog-cart, for the use of which I beg to thank him in advance. I have already thanked you and Miss Bridgeman for your goodness to me during my late visit to Mount Royal, and can only say that my gratitude lies much deeper, and means a great deal more, than such expressions of thankfulness are generally intended to convey.

"Ever sincerely yours,"Angus Hamleigh."

"Then this was what Leonard and he were settling last night," thought Christabel. "Your master went out with Mr. Hamleigh, I suppose," she said to the servant.

"No, ma'am, my master is in his study. I took him his breakfast an hour ago. He is writing letters, I believe."

"And the other two gentlemen?"

"Started for Bodmin in the wagonette at six o'clock this morning."

"They are going to see that unhappy man hanged," said Miss Bridgeman. "Congenial occupation. Mr. Montagu told me all about it at dinner yesterday, and asked me if I wasn't sorry that my sex prevented my joining the party. 'It would be a new sensation,' he said, 'and to a woman of your intelligence that must be an immense attraction.' I told him I had no hankering after new sensations of that kind."

"And he is really gone – without saying good-by to any of us," said Dopsy, still harping on the departed guest.

"Yes, he is really gone," echoed Jessie, with a sigh.

Christabel had been silent and absent-minded throughout the meal. Her mind was troubled – she scarcely knew why; disturbed by the memory of her husband's manner as he parted with Angus in the corridor; disturbed by the strangeness of this lonely expedition after woodcock, in a man who had always shown himself indifferent to sport. As usual with her when she was out of spirits, she went straight to the nursery for comfort, and tried to forget everything in life except that Heaven had given her a son whom she adored.

Her boy upon this particular morning was a little more fascinating and a shade more exacting than usual; the rain, soft and gentle as it was – rather an all-pervading moisture than a positive rainfall – forbade any open-air exercise for this tenderly reared young person – so he had to be amused indoors. He was just of an age to be played with, and to understand certain games which called upon the exercise of a dawning imagination; so it was his mother's delight to ramble with him in an imaginary wood, and to fly from imaginary wolves, lurking in dark caverns, represented by the obscure regions underneath a table-cover – or to repose with him on imaginary mountain-tops on the sofa – or be engulfed with him in sofa pillows, which stood for whelming waves. Then there were pictures to be looked at, and little Leo had to be lovingly instructed in the art of turning over a leaf without tearing it from end to end – and the necessity for restraining an inclination to thrust all his fingers into his mouth between whiles, and sprawl them admiringly on the page afterwards.

Time so beguiled, even on the dullest morning, and with a lurking, indefinite sense of trouble in her mind all the while, went rapidly with Christabel. She looked up with surprise when the stable clock struck eleven.

"So late? Do you know if the dog-cart has started yet, Carson?"

"Yes, ma'am, I heard it drive out of the yard half an hour ago," answered the nurse, looking up from her needlework.

"Well, I must go. Good-by, Baby. I think, if you are very good, you might have your dinner with mamma. Din-din – with – mum – mum – mum" – a kiss between every nonsense syllable. "You can bring him down, nurse. I shall have only the ladies with me at luncheon." There were still further leave-takings, and then Christabel went downstairs. On her way past her husband's study she saw the door standing ajar.

"Are you there, Leonard, and alone?"

"Yes."

She went in. He was sitting at his desk – his cheque-book open, tradesmen's accounts spread out before him – all the signs and tokens of business-like occupation. It was not often that Mr. Tregonell spent a morning in his study. When he did, it meant a general settlement of accounts, and usually resulted in a surly frame of mind, which lasted, more or less, for the rest of the day.

"Did you know that Mr. Hamleigh had gone woodcock shooting?"

"Naturally, since it was I who suggested that he should have a shy at the birds before he left," answered Leonard, without looking up.

He was filling in a cheque, with his head bent over the table.

"How strange for him to go alone, in his weak health, and with a fatiguing journey before him."

"What's the fatigue of lolling in a railway carriage? Confound it, you've made me spoil the cheque!" muttered Leonard, tearing the oblong slip of coloured paper across and across, impatiently.

"How your hand shakes! Have you been writing all the morning?"

"Yes – all the morning," absently, turning over the leaves of his cheque-book.

"But you have been out – your boots are all over mud."

"Yes, I meant to have an hour or so at the birds. I got as far as Willapark, and then remembered that Clayton wanted the money for the tradesmen to-day. One must stick to one's pay-day, don't you know, when one has made a rule."

"Of course. Oh, there are the new Quarterlies!" said Christabel, seeing a package on the table. "Do you mind my opening them here?"

"No; as long as you hold your tongue, and don't disturb me when I'm at figures."

This was not a very gracious permission to remain, but Christabel seated herself quietly by the fire, and began to explore the two treasuries of wisdom which the day's post had brought. Leonard's study looked into the stable-yard, a spacious quadrangle, with long ranges of doors and windows, saddle rooms, harness rooms, loose boxes, coachmen's and groom's quarters – a little colony complete in itself. From his open window the Squire could give his orders, interrogate his coachman as to his consumption of forage, have an ailing horse paraded before him, bully an underling, and bestow praise or blame all round, as it suited his humour. Here, too, were the kennels of the dogs, whose company Mr. Tregonell liked a little better than that of his fellow-men.

Leonard sat with his head bent over the table, writing, Christabel in her chair by the fire turning the leaves of her book in the rapture of a first skimming. They sat thus for about an hour, and then both looked up with a startled air, at the sound of wheels.

It was the dog-cart that was being driven into the yard, Mr. Hamleigh's servant sitting behind, walled in by a portmanteau and a Gladstone bag. Leonard opened the window, and looked out.

"What's up?" he asked "Has your master changed his mind?"

The valet alighted, and came across the yard to the window.

"We haven't seen Mr. Hamleigh, Sir. There must have been some mistake, I think. We waited at the gate for nearly an hour, and then Baker said we'd better come back, as we must have missed Mr. Hamleigh, somehow, and he might be here waiting for us to take him to Launceston."

"Baker's a fool. How could you miss him if he went to the Kieve? There's only one way out of that place – or only one way that Mr. Hamleigh could find. Did you inquire if he went to the Kieve?"

"Yes, Sir. Baker went into the farmhouse, and they told him that a gentleman had come with his gun and a dog, and had asked for the key, and had gone to the Kieve alone. They were not certain as to whether he'd come back or not, but he hadn't taken the key back to the house. He might have put it into his pocket, and forgotten all about it, don't you see, Sir, after he'd let himself out of the gate. That's what Baker said; and he might have come back here."

"Perhaps he has come back," answered Leonard, carelessly. "You'd better inquire."

"I don't think he can have returned," said Christabel, standing near the window, very pale.

"How do you know?" asked Leonard, savagely. "You've been sitting here for the last hour poring over that book."

"I think I should have heard – I think I should have known," faltered Christabel, with her heart beating strangely.

There was a mystery in the return of the carriage which seemed like the beginning of woe and horror – like the ripening of that strange vague sense of trouble which had oppressed her for the last few hours.

"You would have heard – you would have known," echoed her husband, with brutal mockery – "by instinct, by second sight, by animal magnetism, I suppose. You are just the sort of woman to believe in that kind of rot."

The valet had gone across the yard on his way round to the offices of the house. Christabel made no reply to her husband's sneering speech, but went straight to the hall, and rang for the butler.

"Have you – has any one seen Mr. Hamleigh come back to the house?" she asked.

"No, ma'am."

"Inquire, if you please, of every one. Make quite sure that he has not returned, and then let three or four men, with Nicholls at their head, go down to St. Nectan's Kieve and look for him. I'm afraid there has been an accident."

"I hope not, ma'am," answered the butler, who had known Christabel from her babyhood, who had looked on, a pleased spectator, at Mr. Hamleigh's wooing, and whose heart was melted with tenderest compassion to-day at the sight of her pallid face, and eyes made large with terror. "It's a dangerous kind of place for a stranger to go clambering about with a gun, but not for one that knows every stone of it, as Mr. Hamleigh do."

"Send, and at once, please. I do not think Mr. Hamleigh, having arranged for the dog-cart to meet him, would forget his appointment."

"There's no knowing, ma'am. Some gentlemen are so wrapt up in their sport."

Christabel sat down in the hall, and waited while Daniel, the butler, made his inquiries. No one had seen Mr. Hamleigh come in, and everybody was ready to aver on oath if necessary that he had not returned. So Nicholls, the chief coachman, a man of gumption and of much renown in the household, as a person whose natural sharpness had been improved by the large responsibilities involved in a well-filled stable, was brought to receive his orders from Mrs. Tregonell. Daniel admired the calm gravity with which she gave the man his instructions, despite her colourless cheek and the look of pain in every feature of her face.

"You will take two or three of the stablemen with you, and go as fast as you can to the Kieve. You had better go in the light cart, and it would be as well to take a mattress, and some pillows. If – if there should have been an accident those might be useful. Mr. Hamleigh left the house early this morning with his gun to go to the Kieve, and he was to have met the dog-cart at eleven. Baker waited at the gate till twelve – but perhaps you have heard."

"Yes, ma'am, Baker told me. It's strange – but Mr. Hamleigh may have overlooked the time if he had good sport. Do you know which of the dogs he took with him?"

"No. Why do you ask?"

"Because I rather thought it was Sambo. Sambo was always a favourite of Mr. Hamleigh's, though he's getting rather too old for his work now. If it was Sambo the dog must have run away and left him, for he was back about the yard before ten o'clock. He'd been hurt somehow, for there was blood upon one of his feet. Master had the red setter with him this morning, when he went for his stroll, but I believe it must have been Sambo that Mr. Hamleigh took. There was only one of the lads about the yard when he left, for it was breakfast time, and the little guffin didn't notice."

"But if all the other dogs are in their kennels – "

"They aren't, ma'am, don't you see. The two gentlemen took a couple of 'em to Bodmin in the break – and I don't know which. Sambo may have been with them – and may have got tired of it and come home. He's not a dog to appreciate that kind of thing."

"Go at once, if you please, Nicholls. You know what to do."

"Yes, ma'am."

Nicholls went his way, and the gong began to sound for luncheon. Mr. Tregonell, who rarely honoured the family with his presence at the mid-day meal, came out of his den to-day in answer to the summons, and found his wife in the hall.

"I suppose you are coming in to luncheon," he said to her, in an angry aside. "You need not look so scared. Your old lover is safe enough, I daresay."

"I am not coming to luncheon," she answered, looking at him with pale contempt. "If you are not a little more careful of your words I may never break bread with you again."

The gong went on with its discordant clamour, and Jessie Bridgeman came out of the drawing-room with the younger Miss Vandeleur. Poor Dopsy was shut in her own room, with a headache. She had been indulging herself with the feminine luxury of a good cry. Disappointment, wounded vanity, humiliation, and a very real penchant for the man who had despised her attractions were the mingled elements in her cup of woe.

The nurse came down the broad oak staircase, baby Leonard toddling by her side, and making two laborious jumps at each shallow step – one on – one off. Christabel met him, picked him up in her arms, and carried him back to the nursery, where she ordered his dinner to be brought. He was a little inclined to resist this change of plan at the first, but was soon kissed into pleasantness, and then the nurse was despatched to the servants' hall, and Christabel had her boy to herself, and ministered to him and amused him for the space of an hour despite an aching heart. Then, when the nurse came back, Mrs. Tregonell went to her own room, and sat at the window watching the avenue by which the men must drive back to the house.

They did not come back till just when the gloom of the sunless day was deepening into starless night. Christabel ran down to the lobby that opened into the stable yard, and stood in the doorway waiting for Nicholls to come to her; but if he saw her, he pretended not to see her, and went straight to the house by another way, and asked to speak to Mr. Tregonell.

Christabel saw him hurry across the yard to that other door, and knew that her fears were realized. Evil of some kind had befallen. She went straight to her husband's study, certain that she would meet Nicholls there.

Leonard was standing by the fireplace, listening, while Nicholls stood a little way from the door, relating the result of his search, in a low agitated voice.

"Was he quite dead when you found him?" asked Leonard, when the man paused in his narration.

Christabel stood just within the doorway, half hidden in the obscurity of the room, where there was no light but that of the low fire. The door had been left ajar by Nicholls, and neither he nor his master was aware of her presence.

"Yes, Sir. Dr. Blake said he must have been dead some hours."

"Had the gun burst?"

"No, Sir. It must have gone off somehow. Perhaps the trigger caught in the hand-rail when he was crossing the wooden bridge – and yet that seemed hardly possible – for he was lying on the big stone at the other side of the bridge, with his face downwards close to the water."

"A horrible accident," said Leonard. "There'll be an inquest, of course. Will Blake give the coroner notice – or must I?"

"Dr. Blake said he'd see to that, Sir."

"And he is lying at the farm – "

"Yes, Sir. We thought it was best to take the body there – rather than to bring it home. It would have been such a shock for my mistress – and the other ladies. Dr. Blake said the inquest would be held at the inn at Trevena."

"Well," said Leonard, with a shrug and a sigh, "it's an awful business, that's all that can be said about it. Lucky he has no wife or children – no near relations to feel the blow. All we can do is to show our respect for him, now he is gone. The body had better be brought home here, after the inquest. It will look more respectful for him to be buried from this house. Mrs. Tregonell's mind can be prepared by that time."

"It is prepared already," said a low voice out of the shadow. "I have heard all."

"Very sad, isn't it?" replied Leonard; "one of those unlucky accidents which occur every shooting season. He was always a little awkward with a gun – never handled one like a thoroughbred sportsman."

"Why did he go out shooting on the last morning of his visit?" asked Christabel. "It was you who urged him to do it – you who planned the whole thing."

"I! What nonsense you are talking. I told him there were plenty of birds about the Kieve – just as I told the other fellows. That will do, Nicholls. You did all that could be done. Go and get your dinner, but first send a mounted groom to Trevena to ask Blake to come over here."

Nicholls bowed and retired, shutting the door behind him.

"He is dead, then," said Christabel, coming over to the hearth where her husband was standing. "He has been killed."

"He has had the bad luck to kill himself, as many a better sportsman than he has done before now," answered Leonard, roughly.

"If I could be sure of that, Leonard, if I could be sure that his death was the work of accident – I should hardly grieve for him – knowing that he was reconciled to the idea of death – and that if God had spared him this sudden end, the close of his life must have been full of pain and weariness."

Tears were streaming down her cheeks – tears which she made no effort to restrain – such tears as friendship and affection give to the dead – tears that had no taint of guilt. But Leonard's jealous soul was stung to fury by those innocent tears.

"Why do you stand there snivelling about him," he exclaimed; "do you want to remind me how fond you were of him – and how little you ever cared for me. Do you suppose I am stone blind – do you suppose I don't know you to the core of your heart?"

"If you know my heart you must know that it is as guiltless of sin against you, and as true to my duty as a wife, as you, my husband, can desire. But you must know that, or you would not have brought Angus Hamleigh to this house."

"Perhaps I wanted to try you – to watch you and him together – to see if the old fire was quite burnt out."

"You could not be so base – so contemptible."

"There is no knowing what a man may be when he is used as I have been by you – looked down upon from the height of a superior intellect, a loftier nature – told to keep his distance, as a piece of vulgar clay – hardly fit to exist beside that fine porcelain vase, his wife. Do you think it was a pleasant spectacle for me to see you and Angus Hamleigh sympathizing and twaddling about Browning's last poem – or sighing over a sonata of Beethoven's – I who was outside all that kind of thing? – a boor – a dolt – to whom your fine sentiments and your flummery were an unknown language. But I was only putting a case, just now. I liked Hamleigh well enough – in his way – and I asked him here because I thought it was giving a chance to the Vandeleur girls. That was my motive – and my only motive."

"And he came – and he is dead," answered Christabel, in icy tones. "He went to that lonely place this morning – at your instigation – and he met his death there – no one knows how – no one ever will know."

"At my instigation? – confound it, Christabel – you have no right to say such things. I told him it was a good place for woodcock – and it pleased his fancy to try his luck there before he left. Lonely place, be hanged. It is a place to which every tourist goes – it is as well known as the road to this house."

"Yet he was lying there for hours and no one knew. If Nicholls had not gone he might be lying there still. He may have lain there wounded – his life-blood ebbing away – dying by inches – without help – without a creature to succour or comfort him. It was a cruel place – a place where no help could come."

"Fortune of war," answered Leonard, with a careless shrug. "A sportsman must die where his shot finds him. There's many a day I might have fallen in the Rockies, and lain there for the lynxes and the polecats to pick my bones; and I have walked shoulder to shoulder with death on mountain passes, when every step on the crumbling track might send me sliding down to the bottomless pit below. As for poor Hamleigh; well, as you say yourself, he was a doomed man – a little sooner or later could not make much difference."

"Perhaps not," said Christabel, gloomily, going slowly to the door; "but I want to know how he died."

"Let us hope the coroner's inquest will make your mind easy on that point," retorted her husband as she left the room.

CHAPTER II