The Reluctant Widow

Chapter VI

Shortly after noon, resigned but by no means reconciled, Mrs. Cheviot was driven to Highnoons by her host. They went in his lordship’s carriage, very sedately, and his lordship beguiled the tedium by pointing out to the lady various landmarks, happy falls of country, or glimpses of woodland, which, he told her, would later on be carpeted with bluebells. Mrs. Cheviot responded with cold civility and inaugurated no topic of conversation.

“This country is not in the grand style,” said Carlyon, “but there are some very pretty rides near Highnoons which I will show you one day.”

“Indeed?” she said.

“Certainly—when you have recovered from your sulks.”

“I am not in the sulks,” she said tartly. “Anyone with the least sensibility would feel for me in this pass you “have brought me to! How can you expect me to be in spirits? You have no sensibility at all, my lord!”

“No, I am afraid that is so,” he replied seriously. “It is an accusation which has often been cast at me, and I believe it to be true.”

She turned her head to look at him in some little curiosity. “Pray, who has accused you of it, sir?” she asked suspiciously.

“My sisters, when I have been unable to enter into their feelings upon-certain events.”

“I am surprised. I had collected that your brothers and sisters were all devoted to you.”

He smiled. “You would wish me to understand, I dare say, that the strong degree of attachment which exists between us has aggravated a naturally overbearing disposition.”

She was obliged to laugh. “I must tell you, my lord, that I find this habit you have got into of reducing to the most uncompromising terms what has been expressed with the utmost delicacy quite odious! What is more, I am much disposed to think that if I had the toothache, and told you I was dying of the pain, you would be at pains to announce to me that one does not die of the toothache!”

“Undoubtedly I should,” he agreed, “if I thought you entertained any fears on that score.”

“Odious!” she said.

They had by this time reached Highnoons, and were driving up the neglected carriage way between dense thickets of overgrown shrubs and trees whose branches almost met over their heads.

“How forcibly it puts one in mind of all one’s favorite romances!” remarked Mrs. Cheviot affably.

“The greater part of those bushes should be cleared away, and the rest pruned,” he responded. “Some of these branches need lopping, and I have seen at least three trees which are dead and must be cut down.”

“Cut down? My dear sir, you will destroy the whole character of the place! I hope there may be a blasted oak. I do not ask if a specter walks the passages with its head under its arm. That would be a great piece of folly!”

“It would,” he agreed, smiling.

“Naturally! The house is clearly haunted. I have not the least doubt that that is why only two sinister retainers can be brought to remain in it. I dare say I shall be found, after a night spent within these walls, a witless wreck whom you will be obliged to convey to Bedlam without more ado.”

“I have a greater dependence on the fortitude of your mind, ma’am.”

The carriage had drawn to a standstill before the house by this time. Elinor allowed herself to be handed out of it, and stood for a moment critically surveying her surroundings.

As much of the pleasure gardens as she could see were overgrown with weeds, and she gave them scant attention. The house itself, now that she saw it in the daylight, she found to be a beautiful building, two hundred years old, with chamfered windows and tall chimneys. It was perhaps built in too long and rambling a style for modem taste, and much of its mellow brickwork was masked by thick tangles of creepers; but Elinor was obliged to own to herself that she was pleasantly surprised by it.

“All that ivy shall be stripped away” said Carlyon, also surveying the frontage.,

“No such thing!” said Elinor. “Only see how it overhangs some of the windows! I dare say one can scarcely see to set a stitch in those rooms on the brightest day! Then, too, consider how the least wind must set the tendrils tapping at the windowpanes like ghostly fingers! How can you talk of stripping it away? You are not at all romantic!”

“No, not at all. Come, you will take cold if you stand any longer in this east wind. Let us go in.”

The door had already been opened by old Barrow. It was apparent to Elinor that this was not Carlyon’s first visit to Highnoons since he had left it in her company on the previous evening. Barrow looked at her certainly with curiosity, but there was no surprise in his face; and a glance round the hall showed Elinor that an attempt had been made to render it habitable.

“Barrow, here is your mistress,” Carlyon said, laying his hat down on the table. “Mrs. Cheviot, you will find Barrow very attentive to your comfort. You will wish to see Mrs. Barrow presently, I dare say, and to give her your orders. Meanwhile, I will conduct you over the house, if you are not too tired by the drive.”

“Not at all,” said Elinor feebly.

“Mrs. Barrow and the young wench your lordship fetched over from the Hall have redded up the Yellow Room for the mistress,” disclosed the retainer. “Them not thinking mistress would care to sleep in poor Mr. Eustace’s room, not but what he didn’t take and die there, when all’s said. Howsever—”

“Yes, that will do!” interrupted Carlyon. “Mrs. Cheviot, the bookroom you have seen already. The dining parlor is here.” He opened the door into a room on the left of the entrance” lobby. “It is not handsome—none of the rooms here are large, and the pitch is everywhere low—but I have known it when it has looked very pretty.”

“Ay, that you have, my lord,” agreed Barrow with a reminiscent sigh.

“Barrow, be so good as to go and desire Mrs. Barrow to send some coffee to the bookroom for Mrs. Cheviot!”

The retainer having been thus shaken off, Carlyon led Elinor over the rest of the house. She found it rather bewildering, for it was made up of what seemed to be a multitude of small rooms and very long passages. Many of the rooms were wainscoted to the ceiling, and the furniture was all old-fashioned and more often than not coated with dust.

“Most of these apartments have not been in use since my aunt died,” Carlyon explained.

“Why in the name of heaven did no one put the chairs under holland covers?” exclaimed Elinor, her housewifely instincts quite revolted. “Good God, what a task you have set me, my lord!”

“I know very little about these matters, but I imagine you will have your hands full.” He added, “That may keep you from indulging your fancy with thoughts of headless specters.”—She cast him a very speaking look and preceded him into the apartment which had been prepared for her use. This at least showed signs of having been scrubbed and polished, and, since it faced south, the pale spring sunlight came in through the leaded windowpanes and gave it a cheerful aspect. Elinor took off her bonnet and her pelisse and laid them down on the bed. “Well, at all events, Mrs. Barrow showed her good sense in her choice of bedchamber for me,” she observed. “And who, by the by, is the young wench you brought over from the Hall, my lord?”

“I do not know her name, but Mrs. Rugby thought that she would prove a suitable and an obliging maid for you. You will of course engage what servants you deem necessary, but in the meantime this girl is here to wait on you.”

She was touched by this thought for her comfort, but merely said, “You are very good, my lord. But, regarding the servants you have recommended me to engage, pray, how are their wages to be paid?”

“They will be paid out of the estate,” he returned indifferently.

“But, as I collect, sir, that the estate is already grossly encumbered—”

“It need not concern you. There will be funds enough to cover such necessary expense.”

“Oh!” she said, a little doubtfully.

They were interrupted. “There had ought to be the hatchment up over the door,” said Barrow severely.

Carlyon turned quickly. The retainer was standing on the threshold, gloomily surveying them. “Hatchment,” he repeated.

“Nonsense!” Carlyon said impatiently. “Situated as this place is in the country, I see not the least need for—such a display.”

“When mistress took and died,” said Barrow obstinately, “we had the hatchment set up in proper style.”

“Then pray set it up over the door again!” said Elinor.

Barrow regarded her with approval. “And the knocker tied up with crape, missus?” he asked.

“By all means!”

“That’ll be primer-looking, that will,” nodded Barrow, and went off to attend to these matters.

“You are a woman of decision,” remarked Carlyon.

“I trust I have my wits about me, my lord. No good purpose could be served by offending the notions of these people.”

“My cousin had so cut himself off from county society that I doubt of your being troubled by visitors.”

“Indeed, I hope you may be right, sir!” was all that she replied.

They went downstairs again and to the bookroom, where a fire burned and the coffee cups had already been laid out. Carlyon declined partaking of this refreshment, but Elinor sat down by the table and poured out a cup for herself. He walked over to the desk and pulled a drawer open. It overflowed with papers, and after a cursory glance he shut it again, saying, “I must come here in a day or two with the lawyer and go through all these papers. It will be best, Mrs. Cheviot, if you leave any that you find for me to deal with.”

“Certainly,” she responded calmly. “If you are an executor of that infamous will, as I have little doubt you must be, you should lock up the desk, I believe.”

“I expect I should,” he agreed. “But as there does not appear to be a key to the desk, and I am persuaded I can trust you to keep all intact, I must dispense with that formality. I imagine there can be little here worthy of the trouble.” He left the desk and came to her, holding out his hand. “I shall leave you now, ma’am. Rest assured that your letter shall be conveyed to Miss Beccles without loss of time. I shall hope to see her safely installed here within a very few days.”

She took his hand, but said with a little loss of composure, “Thank you. But you will not leave me alone here for long?”

“No, indeed. If you should desire my attendance, send over to the Hall and I will come. This affair has cast a good deal of business upon me and I may be away from home for a day or two, but a message will soon bring me. I will send Nicky over in the morning to see how you go on. Good-by! Believe me, though, I have little sensibility I am fully conscious of the debt I owe you.”

He was gone, and she was left in some lowness of spirits, wondering how she should contrive and what would be the end of this strange adventure. A period of quiet reflection helped to calm the natural agitation of her mind. Since she had consented to take up her residence in this moldering house she must do as best she might. To this end she presently rang the bell, forgetting that the wire was broken. After an interval she was obliged to go in search of the servants, and so found her way for the first time to the kitchens.

These were old-fashioned, but she was glad to perceive that the floor and the table were both well scrubbed. Both the Barrows were there, with a respectable-looking abigail and a groom who lost no time in effacing himself. Mrs. Barrow was a woman of clean aspect and comfortable proportions. She at once rose to her feet and dropped a curtsy. Elinor thought it wisest to adopt an open manner with the Barrows, and she soon discovered that they were under no awkward misapprehensions as to the nature of her marriage. Mrs. Barrow, having presented the abigail to her, sent the girl off upon an errand and waited with her hands folded over her apron to hear what her new mistress had to say.

Elinor said with a little difficulty that she must think it strange to have an unknown mistress set over her in such circumstances, but Mrs. Barrow at once replied: “Oh, no, ma’am! Not if my lord thought it right!”

Such a dependence on Carlyon’s judgment in servants who were not his own seemed strange, but Mrs. Barrow’s acceptance of his infallibility was presently explained by her informing Elinor that she had been a housemaid up at the Hall until her marriage to Barrow. She was more genteel than her husband, whom she plainly kept in order, and seldom allowed her speech to lapse into the broad Sussex dialect which came ,most readily to Barrow’s tongue. She at once volunteered to conduct Elinor once more round the house and to show her in more detail than had Carlyon what could be cleaned or renovated and what must be thrown away. “For, questionless, ma’am, things come to a bad pass and such as must make my poor mistress turn in her grave, but what can one woman do when all’s said, and me with no help in the kitchen and not bred to kitchen work? But it was for my mistress’s sake me and Barrow has stayed with Mr. Eustace. Ah, there was a sainted lady, to be sure, and so nice in her ways—Well, there, it does no good to talk, but what we have always said and shall say is that Cheviot blood was never no good and never will be, and Mr. Eustace was all Cheviot! A Wincanton my late mistress was, and her late ladyship too, for they were sisters, and that attached you never saw the like! Her ladyship was younger than my mistress by two years, and old Mr. Wincanton, he left Highnoons to my mistress, and tied up, so they say, in his lordship.”

“Ay, old master, he never reckoned nowt to the Cheviots,” interpolated Barrow. “A foreigner, Mr. Cheviot was. Come out of Kent, so I believe.”

“Hush!” said his wife reprovingly. “Not but what it’s true enough, ma’am. No one hereabouts reckoned much to Mr. Cheviot, and it was for mistress’s sake we stayed here when she died.”

“Besides the pension,” Barrow assured Elinor.

Elinor allowed Mrs. Barrow to run on in this fashion while she went over the house with her, inspecting closets and linen cupboards, for she had no wish to alienate the good woman by snubbing her, and was, moreover, sufficiently curious not to object to listening to some gossip. She gathered that her late husband’s career had been one of ruinous dissipation, and that when he had visited his home, which was not often, it was usually in the company of a set of men—and sometimes not men only, said Mrs. Barrow repressively—association with whom could scarcely have been expected to improve the tone of his mind.

“And to think he should not have been in the house above a day when he should have met his end like he did!” Mrs. Barrow said. “And at Master Nicky’s hands, too, which does beat all, I will say! I was never more upset in my days, ma’am, me having known Master Nicky from the cradle. But his lordship will settle it!”

Elinor soon found that Carlyon was the great man of the neighborhood, a good landlord, as his father had been before him, and, in Mrs. Barrow’s estimation, a personage whose will was law and whose actions were above criticism. She had to suppress a smile as she listened, but while making every allowance for the loyalty of a woman born on his estate and attached to his family by every interest, she gained the impression of an estimable character who had the trick of endearing himself to his dependents.

The afternoon was soon gone, but not without certain plans having been made between the two women and decisions arrived at. By the time Elinor sat down to an early dinner it had been agreed that a niece of Mrs. Barrow’s should be engaged on the morrow and the old coachman’s wife summoned up from the lodge to scrub and to scour; and Elinor had found time to walk round the neglected gardens.’ There was a shrubbery which must once have made a pleasant winter walk but which was so overgrown that in some places it was almost impassable. Elinor made up her mind to set the groom to clear it, a resolve which was highly applauded by Barrow, who had had some qualms lest she should have settled on himself as being the properest person for the task.

She went back to the bookroom after dinner and sent Barrow for some working candles. The linen chest had yielded tasks enough for the most zealous needlewoman, and a formidable pile of sheets, towels, and tablecloths had been brought downstairs to be mended. Until Barrow presently brought in the tea tray, Elinor remained occupied with this work, her brain busy at once with schemes for the immediate future and with reflections upon all that had passed since she had come into Sussex. With the coming of the tea tray she laid aside her work and began to look along the dusty bookshelves in search of something to divert her mind for an hour. None of the books was of very recent date, and quite a large amount of space seemed to be devoted to collections of sermons, very dry histories, and the ancient classical authors, bound in crumbling calf. But after wandering round the shelves for some time in growing disappointment, she came upon some books clearly acquired by the late Mrs. Cheviot. Here, jumbled among some bound copies of the Lady’s Magazine, were all Elinor’s favorite poets and a number of novels in marbled boards. Most of these were already known to her, but just as she was hesitating between Mrs. Edgeworth’s Tales of Fashionable Life and a battered copy of Thaddeus of Warsaw, her eye was caught by a title which seemed so apposite to her situation that she could not help but be diverted. She drew The School for Widows out and stood for some moments turning over the pages. Unfortunately, too many were found to be missing to make the perusal of this work eligible. She restored it to its place and took out instead a promising but not so well-worn novel by the same author, entitled The Old English Baron. With this in her hand she retired again to her chair, put another log on the fire, and settled down to be cosy for an hour before retiring to bed.

For one who had had little leisure of late years to indulge a taste for light reading this was luxury indeed, and not even the desponding tone of Miss Clara Reeve’s story or the lachrymose behavior of her heroine had the power to disgust Elinor. She read on, heedless of the time, alternately amused and interested by the exploits of the perfect Orlando, and very wisely skimming over his Monimia’s all too frequent fainting fits. The guttering of one of the candles at last recalled her to a sense of the time. She glanced instinctively up at the bracket clock on the mantelpiece, but its hands still pointed mendaciously to a quarter to five. The candles, however, had burned so low in their sockets that it was evident the hour was far advanced. Elinor got up, feeling a little guilty, as though an irate employer might later demand of her why she had so grossly wasted the candles, and restored her novel to its place on the shelf. A slight sound, as of a creaking stair, made her start. She realized that all had been silent in the house for a long time, and had certainly supposed that the servants must long since have gone up to bed. For a moment she was frightened Then she recollected how old stairs would creak long after they had been trodden on, picked up the bedroom candlestick which Barrow had brought in to her, and kindled the wick at one of those still burning in the room. A glance at the grate to assure herself that there was no danger of the smoldering remnant of the log falling out to set the house on fire, and she snuffed the candles in the chandelier and walked over to the door. She opened it and stepped out into the hall, only to be brought up short by the unnerving sight of a complete stranger in the act of crossing it in the direction of the bookroom.

She gave a gasp of shock, and for an instant felt her heart stand still. But, unlike Miss Reeve’s Monimia, she did not suffer from an excess of sensibility, but was, on the contrary, a very levelheaded young woman, and it did not take her more than a moment to perceive that the stranger was looking quite as aghast as she herself felt.

The oil lamp left burning on the hall table showed him to be a gentlemanly looking young man dressed in riding breeches and a blue coat and with a drab benjamin over all. He had his hat on his head, but after the first few seconds’ astonished immobility he pulled this off and bowed, stammering, “I beg a thousand pardons! I did not know! I had no notion—Forgive, I beg!”

He spoke with the faintest trace of a foreign accent. The removal of his hat showed him to be dark-eyed and dark-haired. He looked, at the moment, to be extremely discomfited, but his air and manner were both good and the cast of his countenance spoke a reassuring degree of refinement. Elinor, feeling all the awkwardness of her own situation, blushed and replied, “I fear you must have come, sir, to see one who is no longer here. I do not know how it is that the servant should leave you standing in the hall. Indeed, I did not hear the doorbell ring, and had supposed Barrow to have gone to bed.” As she spoke, her eyes alighted on the tall-case clock and she perceived with a start that the time wanted but ten minutes to midnight. She turned her amazed gaze upon the unknown visitor.

He appeared to be fully conscious of the need for an explanation but in doubt as to how best to make it. After some hesitation he said, “I did not ring, madame. It is so late! Mr. Cheviot and I are friends of such long standing that I have been in the habit of walking into the house without announcement. In effect, knowing that the good Barrow must be in bed, I came in by a side door. But I did not know—I had not the least notion—”

“Came in by a side door!” she repeated in a blank tone.

His embarrassment increased. “I have been upon such terms with Mr. Cheviot, madame—and seeing a light burning in one of the parlors I made so bold—But had I known—You must understand that I am staying with friends in the neighborhood, and I had hoped—indeed, I had expected to have had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Cheviot at—at a little soiree this evening. He did not come, and so, fearing he might be perhaps indisposed, and not desiring to leave the neighborhood without seeing him—in short, madame, I rode over. But you said, I think, that he is not here?”

“Mr. Cheviot met with—with a fatal accident last night, sir and I regret to be obliged to inform you that he is dead,” said Elinor.

He looked thunderstruck, and almost incredulous. “Dead!” he ejaculated.

She bowed her head. There was silence for a moment. He broke it, saying in a voice which he strove to render calm, “If you please, how is this? I am very much shocked. I can scarcely believe it can be possible I”

“It is very true, however. Mr. Cheviot fell into a dispute at an inn last night and was accidentally killed.”

A flash of anger kindled his dark eyes. He exclaimed, “Oh, sapristi! He was drunk, in effect! The fool!”

She returned no answer. After another pause, during which he stayed frowning and jerking at the lash of his riding whip, he said, “This occurred last night, you say? It was in London, no doubt?”

“No, sir, it was here, at Wisborough Green.”

“Then he came here yesterday!”

“So I believe,” she concurred. His eyes wandered round the hall, as though in search of inspiration. He brought them back to her face and said with a forced smile, “Pardon! I am so much shocked! But you, madame? I do not perfectly understand—?”

She had foreseen this question, and now answered it as coolly as she might. “I am Mrs. Cheviot, sir.”

A look of the blankest amazement came into his face. He stood staring at her and could only repeat, “Mrs. Cheviot!”

“Yes,” said Elinor stonily. “But—you would say my friend’s wife?”

“His widow, sir.”

“Good God!”

“I dare say this news comes as a surprise to you, sir,” she said, “but it is true. My—my husband’s friends are of course welcome to his house, but you will readily understand, I am persuaded, that at this late hour, and under such circumstances, I am unable to extend to you that hospitality which—which—”

He pulled himself together, saying quickly, “Perfectly! I will instantly leave you, madame, and with the most profound apologies! But, forgive me! You are young and alone, is it not? And this terrible tragedy has come upon you with a suddenness one does not care to think of! As a close friend of this poor Cheviot I should wish to be of all possible service! Alas, I fear all will be found to be in great disorder, for well I know that he had not the habit of—In short, madame, if I could be of assistance to you I should count myself honored!”

“You are extremely obliging, sir, but Mr. Cheviot’s affairs are in the hands of his cousin, Lord Carlyon, and I hope not to want for assistance.”

“Ah, in that case—! That changes the affair, for Lord Carlyon, one is assured, will do all that one could wish. My poor friend’s papers, for instance, in such turmoil as they were—for you must know that I have been much in his confidence!—but Lord Carlyon will have taken all into his hands, I am assured.”

“He will certainly do so, sir,” she agreed. “If you are concerned in any of Mr. Cheviot’s affairs you should consult his lordship. I am sure you will find him very ready to oblige you. I believe he is at this present a good deal occupied with the—with the sad consequences of his cousin’s death, but I expect to see him here within the next day or so with Mr. Cheviot’s lawyer, to go through whatever papers Mr. Cheviot may have had.”

“Oh, no, no!” he said. “I am not concerned in that way, madame! It was merely that! wished, if I might, to be of assistance. But I perceive that you are left in good hands and I will leave you immediately, with renewed apologies for my intrusion upon you at such a time!”

She acknowledged his bow with an inclination of her head and went past him to the front door, to open it. The bolts were in place and the chain up, and the young man at once hurried to Elinor’s side to relieve her of the necessity of drawing the bolts back. He soon had the door open and was bowing gracefully over her hand, begging her not to stand in the cold night air. She was glad enough to shut the door upon him and to put the chain up again, for although his manner was unexceptionable she could not like to be alone with a complete stranger at this hour of night.

She was about to mount the stairs to her bedchamber when she recollected that the visitor had entered by a side door. She could not go to bed with any degree of comfort while a door stood unlocked into the house, so she turned back and went to see which door it might be.

But the most zealous search failed to discover any door that was unbolted, a circumstance that puzzled her sadly. It began to seem as though the gentleman had prevaricated a little and had in fact made his entrance by way of a window. But Elinor, going with her candle from room to room, could find none that was not secure, and her surprise gave place to a feeling of great uneasiness. Some natural explanation of the visitor’s presence there must be, she told herself, but she could not think of one, and at last went up to bed with a heart that beat rather fast. Had the young man been less amiable and apologetic she would have been much inclined to have roused the household, but she could not believe that his motive in entering so mysteriously had been sinister, and as he must by now have ridden away, there could be little object in waking Barrow to go after him. But however amiable he might be, it was no very pleasant thought that strangers could apparently enter the house at will and in despite of bolted doors and windows. Elinor was glad to see a key in the lock of her own bedroom door and had no hesitation in turning it.

She lay awake for some time in the firelight, listening intently, but no sound disturbed the silence of the house, and she fell asleep at last and slept soundly until morning.