Someone must suffer. A romance

Front matter

VOL §t Romance BY H. CLIFFE HALLIDAY AUTHOR OF THE WILD WARRINGTONS," " LIKE LOST SHEEP," " PERIWINKLE, ' "A HAPPY WOOING," ETC. " We are the voices of the wandering wind, Which moan for rest, and rest can never find. Lo ! as the wind is, so is mortal life — A moan, a sigh, a sob, a storm, a strife !" " Love is strong as death ; jealousy is cruel as the grave." IN THREE VOLUMES VOL. III. LONDON: CHAPMAN AND HALL Limited 1891 [All Rights reserved] Richard Clay & Sons, Limited, London & Bungay.

Chapter I

One afternoon, during the time that David and Mr. Ullathorne were away on board the house-boat at Meadowsweir, Mercy and I were sitting together, not exactly busy, and not exactly idle, in our pretty boudoir in the tower. The air out-of-doors was sultry and still ; and, as Anna Maria said, felt " thundery." The sun was sullen and had a brazen glow ; the dun clouds, which hid it occasionally, took menacing and fantastic animal-like shapes as they travelled heavily onward athwart the sky. The old-fashioned flowers in Dame Lameth's VOL. III. B *»<garden looked limp and arid from the long drought, and the note of a robin perched solitary there on the garlanded sun-dial sounded shrill and thin and peevish, lacking its customary sweetness, as if the small feathered creature were half timorous of the threatened storm.

No sound that we could hear, save the pipe of the robin, disturbed the brooding hot noon silence out-of-doors. Mercy sat at the davenport near the open window, with her back towards me. Her head rested in her left hand ; in her right she held a pen. Now and then she yawned ; or perchance sighed; and now and then I heard the listless scratching of her quill as it moved over the note-paper upon the desk before her. "Bah — poof!" she said presently, without looking round, " the weather makes me dull and sleepy, I suppose. What do you think I am doing, Lameth ; or rather trying to do ? " " I am sure I cannot guess, darling, if you are not writing a letter," I said. " I'm composing," was Mercy's extraordinary rejoinder, uttered in a tired sing-song sort of tone — " concocting an advertisement, that is, to send to the Times and the Morning Post.

But somehow I can't say precisely what I wish, in the way I wish, don't you know? My ideas are sluggish this afternoon. Yet listen ! How will this do ? ' Wanted, at an early date, by a young ' " I gasped then, and found my tongue again. I rose swiftly, ran OAer to the daA-enport, and dropped on my knees by Mercy's chair. " Mercy," I cried, looking earnestly, search ingly, into her rather pale and weary face, " what nonsense are you talking — what on earth do you mean ? Mercy, I do belieA'e you have been crying! Tell me eA'erything this minute!" And she calmly did so, after dabbing her eyes a little roughly with her pocket-handkerchief as if in irritation at her own weakness. She said that she had been thinking of it, day and night, for a considerable while past, although she had said nothing to anyone ; and at length had determined to think and waA-er no more, but to be up and doing, braAre and energetic, as a sensible person in her circumstances should.

Her conscience, she said, told her that she had already been too long a guest at Saxon Holt ; that it Avas unpardonably ill bred, a matter indeed of questionable delicacy and fine feeling, to go on thus, day after day, week after week, month after month, trespassing upon the hospitality, taking mean adA-antage of the good-nature, of Mr. Ravensbourne, the master of the house. " I detest a sponge ! " said Mercy gloomily, mechanically tracing droll, ghoul-like faces on her blotting-pad. Then she drew what was plainly intended for a sponge, and gave the thing some dots to represent eyes and mouth, with two little legs and two little arms to com plete the absurd picture. " There — that's me ! " said she with a wry smile. " Take a good look at me — there's the real Mercy Chance!" " Go on," said I ironically.

She said that she was no thrifty soul — alas ! she knew it; and her purse was getting lean — her small capital, she confessed, had by this time dwindled to something between twenty and thirty pounds. Of course she could not go out into the world without a penny in her pocket ; and therefore if so disastrous a state of things was to be avoided, the sooner she found something suitable in the way of a situation, and made a start in it, the better. " I have no doubt Mr. Ravensbourne will say a good word for me, and I know that Madame Le Sage will," said Mercy forlornly. " Yes, I dare say I shall ' worry along ' some how." " And pray, what kind of situation do you mean to get, dear ? " I inquired. I spoke quietly ; but in reality the feeling uppermost in my breast just then was one of mingled anger and im patience, to say nothing of dismay, at what, in these first moments of pained surprise, seemed to me downright selfishness on tlie part of Mercy in contemplating this sudden desertion of me and leaving me alone and friendless at Saxon Holt!

Oh, what should I do without her, I wondered, with a qualm of real alarm ! I should miss her horribly. I should be so lonely when she was gone. I should be nervous and frightened at night, I thought, all by myself in these remote western rooms of ours. I should be scared at shadows even in the twilight ; and in all probability Mercy however cut short these disquieting reflections by saying — " Oh, I predict that some hideous old woman, Avith huge false teeth and a false gingerbread front with a black-velvet band across it, and mauve ribbons in her cap, will eventually get hold of me as ' companion ' — HeaA'en pity me ! — for I haA-e resolved that I will neA-er be a poor drudge of a governess ; I would sooner be a housemaid and scrub stairs and floors — some nasty snarling rheumatic old wretch who will call me ' Chance ' perhaps, tout court, and be for ever losing her spectacles or her pocket handkerchief and expecting me to find them for her at a moment's notice, no matter when or where she may have happened to " " Mercy darling," I broke in piteously, putting my arms about her waist as I knelt there by her chair, " you shall not go ; I will not hear of it or allow it — I won't !

It is cruel of you to talk of leaving me — how can you find the heart to do it, Mercy ! " " Lameth sweet," she answered mournfully, " be reasonable. You seem to forget that I haA'e to earn my own hA-ing ; that I must set to work and earn money somehow — sooner or later. Why not make a beginning at once, then, and get the wrench over with as little delay as possible? Only the other day, from something she said — I forget what it was exactly, now — I gathered distinctly that the opinion of Mrs. Felix on the question is, that I have been here a great deal too long ; that, at any rate so far as she herself is concerned, I have out stayed my welcome at the Holt." "Mrs. Felix!" I exclaimed indignantly — "who is Mrs. Felix? It is Rivers, and not she, who is master at the Holt. And, Mercy, you know that he said when you first came that you were to remain our guest in this house just as long as ever you might feel inclined to.

You know he did ; and he would never have said it if he had not meant it." " But, darling," said Mercy sensibly ; " you must see this. Where is the good of my staying on with you in happy idleness, here at this grand old place, until all my money, every penny of it, is gone — eh ? " All on a sudden a bright thought came to me — it was an inspiration ; nothing less ! I sprang upright; my heart beating rapidly with suppressed excitement. "Mercy, you said just now that you meant to go and be ' companion ' to some disagreeable rheumatic old woman or other. Now wouldn't a young one do infinitely better, dear? — say, with out the rheumatism and the gingerbread front?" " Catch her, first," answered Mercy absently, drawing another ghoul on the blotting-pad, " and you'll pretty soon see." Before she could say more, or guess my intention, I had left the sitting-room and was out in the corridor.

Rivers, I knew, would be found alone in the library at this hour; and thither I made my way as fleetly as my feet could bear me. I knew also that if I gave myself time for cool reflection, and pondered the matter in hand before broaching it to my kinsman, I should lose my courage in the interim and probably be unable to find it again ; and then all opportunity and hope perhaps would likewise be gone for ever ! There is no time like the present, says the trite old maxim — and he who hesitates is lost! I had grown accustomed to the sad idea that the sight of me was painful to Rivers, my presence to him more than distasteful ; wi every wise so like the dead Jeannette, his "lost Lenore," was I! This then being un happily and irremediably so, the briefer the tete-a-tete interview between us two the more satisfactory to both of us!

I found him reading in a chair so big and high and shadowy in outline that at first view of the wide dull room his figure in it was hardly distinguishable. Here in the dim old library, as in our own bright tower sitting room, the windows were open ; and the cluster ing wall-creepers, enfeebled in the windless heat, drooped by and over the tinted lattices pushed outward into their midst. I had knocked ; but had waited for no per mission to enter. " Lameth ! " "Yes — I." I spoke hurriedly — incoherently — I was trembling with nervousness and fright that were simply unconquerable. " I have a favour — a great favour — to ask. Rivers, do — do not deny it ! " " That is not likely. What is it, Lameth ? " How I performed my errand I do not know; I cannot remember; for the life of me I could not haA-e told afterwards.

But it was all over and settled in a few sharp, pregnant moments as it were ; and then I have a vivid recollection of snatching blindly at one of Rivers's hands, and kissing it boldly, to show my gratitude, though in a speechless, mumbling, imbecile sort of fashion, I fear — the next instant rushing headlong from my kinsman's presence to regain, breathless with joy and precipitation, our boudoir in the tower. Mercy now was crying quietly there ; with her arms stretched over the davenport and her face hidden upon them — an attitude of utter dejection. " Mercy, cheer up ! " I panted — " and look up too, darling ! I am the bearer of good tidings, Mercy ; because — because, if you will have it so, we never need be parted from each other — neA-er, after all ! Rh-ers says that I may ask you to stay on at Saxon Holt, and be my ' companion ' for ever and eA-er ! — and — and forgive me, Mercy dearest, for — for mention ing the horrid money part of it all, but RiA-ers says that, if the proposal is in eA-ery manner satisfactory to you, your salary here with me will be one hundred and twenty-fiA-e pounds :> a year.

When at last we were more composed, and could once more think and talk and comport ourselves generally like rational human beings, Mercy said solemnly — " Lameth, I hope and pray that I may not be tempted to make a fool of myself when Ave meet — Mr. Ravensbourne and I — in the hall or in the drawing-room by and by. It woulcl be shocking, would it not — and Avhat, I wonder, would Mrs. Felix say ? — if I were to fall upon his neck and kiss him outright ; and that is precisely how I feel towards him at the present moment, dear ! " "No; do not do that," I said, laughing a little hysterically still, and it might be not yet quite easy in mind on the score of my own rather intemperate behaviour down in the library a short while before — " he would not like it, I feel sure. Men hate scenes and sentiment, as everybody knows."

" HaA'e no fear," answered Mercy whimsically, though really grave and in earnest just now ; " I Avill curb all unseemly inclination, wildly as temptation may assail me. Yet, stay ! You are right after all, Lameth, my pet. Some men, I dare say, do heartily dislike scenes, and emotional young women, and being thanked for generous deeds, and being told that in nobility of soul at least they tower as kings aboA'e their fellows. I will at once write him a little note instead, and send it to the library by Anna Maria. Yes ! — that will be the better, the safer, the more delicate way altogether; will it not ? " 1 agreed with Mercy that it would ; and she, then reseating herself at the davenport, was as good as her word forthwith. When the note was finished and ready, Anna Maria was summoned with her salver ancl straightway carried Mercy's letter to the library ; and when our messenger had departed on her errand, and we were alone again, Mercy said thoughtfully — " I wonder how many forlorn souls, in his time, he has made happy and hopeful and in love with life, besides myself to-day !

" " I only wish that we could see him looking happier himself, dear," I sighed involuntarily. To me it seemed a woful thing indeed, that some people in this world should be so glad, and others — like Rivers — so sorry ! Ah me, I sometimes fear that there is for us but little comfort in saying — " Heaven knows best ! " And so that was how Mercy Chance began life in earnest as "a salaried companion" to an old schoolfellow ; and she used to say lauohingly, in later years, that her situation in tlie RaA-ensbourne family was the only one she had ever had, and that she had never wanted an other — it was her first situation and her last. Which was true. Mrs. Felix on that memorable evening thought fit to appear in her place at the dinner-table ; and when she heard of our new arrangement respecting the future of Mercy, the expression of silent disgust which gathered on her stony pale face was something, as Mercy said gleefully afterwards, to note and remember for the rest of one's days !

Dinner at an end — seeing that Rivers limped off into the library again, and Mrs. Felix faded from view up the great old stairway in the barons' hall — we two girls, as we had so often been before, were left entirely to our own con trivances ; to amuse ourseh'es as best we might. It might be — and somehow I fancy it was really sc — that Rivers was then missing the society of Mr. Ullathorne and DaA-id every whit as much as were Mercy and I. He was silent on the subject neA-ertheless. It would have been unlike him to murmur or complain. Finding it dull and oppressive within the house, I and Mercy by and by together wandered out into the courtyard to obtain if possible a whiff of fresh air. But eA-en in the quad rangle, in the twilight by the lilied old fountain, no ghost of a breeze seemed to be stirring to night ; and the dark water gleaming beneath the flat wide leaves was as still and unwrinkled as the marble rim itself.

Hardly conscious whither our footsteps were guiding us, arm linked within arm we passed out of the courtyard by way of the old ruined archway, thus strolling onward into the park; but the giant trees around us were voiceless, like giants sleeping, no sigh or murmur of a summer night wind could be heard overhead amid the foliage which clad their mighty limbs. No star was visible in the sullen heaA-ens ; but a ragged bar of vermilion, lying low in the west, and looking like a fiery rent or slit in a canopy of gloom, marked the lurid region where the sun had dropped down. " It might be a letter-box in the sky for those who dwell in heaven," Mercy was saying idly, indicating that luminous scar which seamed the dismal west ; " might it not ? I mean, don't you know, for Look, do look, Lameth,'" she broke off in wonder at the sight — " what in creation are those queer objects leaping and capering like mad things, down yonder on the grass under the trees there ?

" I followed the direction of her fixed gaze, and in the gray, fast-glooming light I strained my own eyes also. We stood just then upon a knoll in the forest that was shadowed by one of its finest beeches — nearly a mile perhaps from the house, and somewhere, we fancied, in the neighbourhood of the scene of our painter-friends' recent encampment. My sight, I suppose, must have been stronger than Mercy's ; for hazy and storm-charged as was the evening VOL. III. c atmosphere, I could yet make out distinctly the nature of those capering objects which so puzzled the vision of my companion. " Is it a witches' frolic ? " said she. " No, dear. I should call it a catties' carnh-al of terror," I answered, laughing rather uneasily. " The thunder, it is true, has kept away until now ; but I believe that what we can now see yonder is a sure sign that we shall haA-e it badly before long."

Away down there along the dim valley slopes the terrified animals went plunging and bucking — oxen and heifers in the van, and ordinarily sedate, stout old mother cows, and a scattering of fat sheep, in the rear. The oxen dropped their horned heads Ioav and flung their sprawled heels high ; with stiffly hoisted tails curled and contorted like the tails of hunted wild - boars in a Transylvanian forest. Watching the antics of the poor beasts, each and all alike animated in their riotous train by the same invisible and unknown fear, one thought involuntarily of the biblical herd of swine, going violently — devil-driven — down the steep mountain side to be choked in the chasms of the sea. " I don't half like it," Mercy muttered. " They may wax dangerous in their mad fright, and perhaps come tearing up here " Even as she spoke, a sharp, quivering flash of steel-blue lightning lit up the whole land with awful unexpectedness ; and just for one vivid ghostly second or two we saw the inky shapes of the grotesquely bounding cattle as if by the white glare of electric light against a background of zinc.

No thunder-clap or raindrop followed how ever ; but directly afterwards the air around us seemed to grow warmer and thicker than ever — smelt vaguely sulphurous, volcanic, in brief murderous. One felt stifled. " You are right," I said to Mercy. " I don't like it either. The cattle, in present circumstances, may be harmless — there's no telling ; but I am certain that these huge old trees are not; nothing indeed could be more dangerous. Let us run home " " As hard as we can go ! " ended Mercy with alacrity ; suiting the action to the word. I

Chapter II

Before we could reach the safe shelter of the Holt the raindrops fell heavily, as large as oak-apples ; and soon, as a matter of course, our thin summer frocks were drenched. So, meeting no one either in the quadrangle or in the hall, we ran on straightway up-stairs to our own rooms ; to exchange our wet garments for dry ones, and to find Anna Maria there in readiness to attend to us. She had heard from Norris the footman that we had gone out into the park ; and had sensibly guessed that we should be overtaken by the storm. But we saw nothing more of Mr. Ravensbourne that night. He did not know that we had left the house after dinner; and so naturally felt no anxiety concerning us when the storm-gloom deepened and the rain came down. " I pity Mrs. Felix to-night, miss," said Anna Maria in her simple way ; " don't you ?

" " Why ? " asked Mercy quickly, before I could put the question myself. "Well, miss, you see, because of that poor Miss Varley," was the reply ; " for whenever there's thunder in the air, they say it upsets her frightfully, and she suffers miseries untold with her nerves and that, poor lady ! They're safe to be up all night with her if the storm gets any worse ; and if she is strong enough to leave her bed, I shouldn't wonder if she walked." " Gracious," shuddered Mercy in mock dismay — " not this way, I hope." " Oh no, miss ! I meant in the great hall to the tune of the organ like. But the poor lady is so sadly weak and ill, from all accounts, that I should hardly expect she'd be able to manage that now." Anna Maria's explanation, and the queer phrases she employed in it, would doubtless haA-e much perplexed some people ; but Mercy and I, who were used to her, and who li\ed at Saxon Holt, understood.

EA-ery now and then the thunder grumbled afar, like the growl of some sullen saA-age beast in captivity; and at brief intervals, in the boudoir, where a solitary lamp was burning dimly, we saw the lightning, in flickers of silver-white, spasmodically playing over and glancing into the obscurest corners of the room — reminding one somewhat of the effects produced by the slides of a magic lantern. One of our long windoAvs was open ; and we could hear the steady smiting of the rain upon the leaA'es ; whilst there came stealing in to us upon the now cooler air that exquisite earthy fragrance — more exquisite still when mingled with the breath of wet roses — which tells of a thirsty and grateful garden-land. " After all, I don't think we shall have it very bad hereabout, miss," Anna Maria remarked cheerfully, when she presently left us for the night.

" That rumbling and grumbling seems a long way off, and dying away like. I expect they've got it mainly out Stopbridge and Oggles thwaite way." " Lameth, aren't you awake ! How soundly you sleep, Lameth ! " Startled and confused, I leaped up in bed and sat there blinking stupidly and owl like at Mercy ; who, clad in white dressing gown and slippers and wide-awake herself, for some reason or other had so appeared at my bedside. "What is the matter? Are you ill? Is — is the house on fire ? Have you seen a ghost — or what ? " I stammered, speaking as coherently as I could in my bewilderment. "Neither — nothing of the kind," Mercy answered rapidly. " But there is a lh-ing woman —no ghost — acting most extraordinarily in the barons' hall — a truly remarkable sight. I have just seen her !" " YouVe just seen her !

" I echoed, still dazed and blinking in the unwonted lamplight which at this hour brightly illumined my room — Mercy's doing of course. " Yes — Miss Varley, you know. And you must come and see her too — you may neA-er get such another opportunity," said Mercy in excited tones. " The spectacle is worth seeing, I assure you ! — here put on these ; anything '11 do ; make haste ; or it will all be over before we can get back there together." But imperfectly comprehending Mercy, and certainly not yet realizing what I was about to do under her guidance, I proceeded mechanically to don the garments she thrust as it were nolens nolens upon me ; Mercy meanwhile continuing her voluble explanation and hastening my slug gish movements. She could not get to sleep, she said, try how she would ; the growling of the distant thunder, and the pattering of the steady, heavy rain, kept her restless and wakeful — worse than all, glimpses of terrible zinc-blue lightning constantly played around the foot of her bed.

By and by the clocks struck tweh7e ; in due course chimed the quarter after; the half-hour after — this sleeplessness was dreadful, unen durable. Mercy determined that she Avould rise ; get more light for company's sake, and from the sitting-room a book that she was reading, at the same time. No sooner thought of than done ! But — hark ! What was that ? — that muffled roaring sound apparently afar ? — which yet seemed to vibrate in the A7ery walls and flooring around her, and to set trembling audibly, in almost earth quake fashion, the long and narrow lattices of the painted windows ? Was the thunder, then, returning; and Avculd the storm, after all, break crashing over the dark forest of Saxon Holt ? No. Mercy, recalling in a trice all that I had at different times told her lespecting the invisible Miss Varley and her dreadful affliction, knew directly that the dull trembling sound she was listening to was the sound of the organ in the gallery ; and that Mr. Ravensbourne must himself be there, playing to soothe the troubled spirit of Mrs. Felix's unhappy niece.

A desperate curiosity possessed the soul of Mercy; and she then and there resoh'ed that, happen what might, she would endeavour to see for herself what strange thing was going forward in the barons' hall at the ghostly hour of one o'clock in the morning! She had often longed to obtain a glimpse of the mysterious and suffering woman who lived apart from and unseen by the rest of the world shut up with Mrs. Felix in those far-away upper south rooms of theirs ; and lo ! here was a sudden opportunity of easing her curiosity that by Mercy's daring spirit at any rate was not to be despised ! Noiselessly she had slipped on a few clothes, and opened an outer door; and then having ascertained that I was still sleeping soundly, she stole cautiously forth into the corridor on her risky voyage of discovery.

Fh-e minutes afterwards she had rushed back to rouse me. What she herself had seen, said Mercy excitedly, I must see likewise. Come — hurry ! hurry ! there was no time to be lost ! And thus it was that I found myself literally tumbling out of bed ; automatically obeying my resolute companion ; more indeed as if I were dreaming than awake, or acting Avith senses sleep-bound. A shawl or something snatched haphazard by Mercy from the wardrobe completed my own scrappy toilette; and just as I was wondering where we were and in which direction we were moving, I realized that we were creeping, groping our way, along the broad dark winding corridor which would shortly bring us out into the gallery above the barons' hall. More than once we traversed a spacious corner landing or lobby lit by a large uncovered window, in at which the wan blue lightning quivered momen tarily, like vivid steel gleams shot from a burnished shield.

And all the while as we advanced thus carefully together, we were met by the grand A'oice of the organ, labouring, groaning out its awful music, like the deep, troubled roar of the storm-lashed sea when hurled into rocky caverns of perpetual night. Soon howeA-er we saw a light ahead — a per pendicular streak ; and by it Ave knew that we were nearing the archway at the corridor end, where hangings of tapestry, falling in massive folds, cut off all view of the gallery beyond. By degrees my clouded brain had been growing clearer ; and I now felt certain that Ave were acting wrongly. I halted — hung back. "Mercy, this is spying, eaA-esdropping — nothing short of it. It isn't right — it's under hand ! I shall go no further. I " But of course she pooh-poohed my scruples ; laughed at me ; refused to hear me ; her stronger will, as usual, dominating mine ; and so it ended by our parting breathlessly the hangings of the arched entry and crouching down there on the Indian matting, like the guilty creatures we were, behind the carved balustrade which bordered the gallery floor.