Under Lock and Key. A story

Front matter

UNDER LOCK AND KEY VOL. I UNDER LOCK AND KEY. 1* .Stcrrg. BY T. W. SPEIGHT, AUTHOR Or " BKOUGHT TO LIGHT," " POOLISH MARGAfiET," etc. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON : TINSLEY BROTHERS, 18, CATHERINE STREET, STRAND. 1869. [All rights of Translation and Reproduction are rsservedP] LONDON: SATILL, EDWARDS AND CO., PRINTERS, CHANDOS STREET, COVENT GARDEN TN justice to himself the author thinks it requisite to state that the entire plan of this story was sketched out, and several of the chap ters -written, before the first lines of Mr. Wilkie Collins's " Moonstone " had been given to the Public. He has further denied himself the pleasure of reading " The Moonstone " till after the com pletion of his own story, so as to preclude any possible charge of having derived the outHne of his plot from the work of another writer.

London, February, 1869. CONTENTS or THE FIRST VOLUME. CHAP. PAGB I. MY ARRIVAL AT DUPLEY WALLS ... 1 II. THE MISTRESS OF DUPLEY WALLS . . 18 III. A VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY 36 IV. SCARSDALE WEIR 50 V. AT ROSE COTTAGE 70 VI. THE GROWTH OF A MYSTERY ... 86 VII. EXIT JANET HOLME 104 VIII. BY THE SCOTCH EXPRESS 119 IX. AT THE " GOLDEN GRIFFIN " . . . . 137 X. THE STOLEN MANUSCRIPT 150 XI. BON REPOS 169 XII. THE AMSTERDAM EDITION OF 1698 . . CONTENTS. VIII CHAP. PAGE XIII. M. PLATZOFFJS SECRET CAPTAIN DUCIE'S TRANSLATION OF M. PAUL PLATZOFF'S MS. 200 XIV. DRASHKIL-SMOKING 207 XV. THE DIAMOND 227 xvi. janet's return 250 >, XVII. DUPLEY WALLS AFTER SEVEN YEARS . . UNDER LOCK AND KEY.

Chapter I. My Arrival At Dupley Walls

" Miss Janet Holme, To the care of Lady Pollexfen, Dupley Walls, near Tydsbury, Midlandshire." " There, miss, I'm sure that wdl do famously," said Chirper, the overworked oldish young person whose duty it was to attend to the innumerable wants of the young-lady boarders of Park Hill Seminary. She had just written out, in a large sprawling hand, a card as above, which card was presently to be naded on to the one small box that held the whole of my worldly belongings. " And I think, miss," added Chirper, medita tively, as she held out the card at arm's length vol. i. and gazed at it admiringly, " that if I was to write out another card similar, and tie it round your arm, it would mayhap help you in getting safe to your journey's end." I, a girl of twelve, was the Janet Holme in dicated above, and I had been looking over Chirper's shoulder with wondering eyes while she addressed the card.

"But who is Lady Pollexfen, and where is Dupley Walls ? and what have I to do with either, Chirper, please ?" I asked. " If there is one thing in little girls more hateful than another, it is curiosity," answered Chirper, with her mouth half full of nails. " Curiosity has been the bane of many of our sex. Witness Bluebeard's unhappy wife. If you want to know more, you must ask Mrs. Whitehead. I have my instructions, and I acts on them." Meeting Mrs. Whitehead half an hour later as she was coming down the stone corridor that led from the refectory, I did ask that lady precisely the same questions that I had put to Chirper. Her frosty glance, filled with a cold surprise, smote me even through her spectacles, and I .slirank a little, abashed at my own boldness. " The habit of asking questions elsewhere than in the class-room should not be encouraged in young ladies," said Mrs. Whitehead, with a sort of prim severity.

" The other young ladies are gone home ; you are about to follow their example." " But, Mrs. Whitehead— Madam," I pleaded, " I never had any other home than Park Hill." " More questioning, Miss Holme ? Fie ! Fie !" And with a lean forefinger uplifted in menacing reproval, Mrs. Whitehead sailed on her way, nor deigned me another word. I stole out into the playground, wondering, wretched, and yet smitten through with faint de licious thrillings of a new-found happiness such as I had often dreamed of, but had scarcely dared hope ever to realize. I, Janet Holme, going home ! It was almost too incredible for belief. I wandered about like one mazed — like one who stepping suddenly out of darkness into sunshine is dazzled by an intolerable brightness whichever way he turns his eyes. And yet I was wretched : for was not Miss Chinfeather dead ?

And that, too, was a fact almost too incredible for belief. 1—3 As I wandered, this autumn morning, up and down the sobtary playground, I went back in memory as far as memory would carry me, but only to find that Miss Chinfeather and Park Hdl Seminary blocked up the way. Beyond them lay darkness and mystery. Any events in my child's life that might have happened before my arrival at Park Hill had for me no authentic existence. I had been part and parcel of Miss Chinfeather and the Seminary for so long a time that I could not dissociate myself from them even in thought. Other pupils had had holidays, and letters, and presents, and dear ones at home of whom they often talked ; but for me there had been none of these things. I knew that I had been placed at Park Hill when a very little girl by some, to me, mysterious and unknown person, but further than that I knew nothing.

The mistress of Park Hill had not treated me in any way differently from her other pupils ; but had not the bills contracted on my account been punc tullay paid by somebody, I am afraid that the even-handed justice on which she prided her self — which, in conjunction with her aquiline nose and a certain antique severity of deport ment, caused her to be known among us girls as The Roman Matron — would have been somewhat ruffled, and that sentence of expulsion from those classic walls would have been promptly pro nounced and as promptly carried into effect. Happily no such necessity had ever arisen ; and now the Roman Matron lay dead in the little corner room on the second floor, and had done with pupds, and half-yearly accounts, and antique deportment, for ever. In losing Miss Chinfeather I felt as though the corner-stone of my life had been rent away.

She was too cold, she was altogether too far re moved for me to regard her with love, or even with that modified feeling which we call affection. But then no such demonstration was looked for by Miss Chinfeather. It was a weakness above which she rose superior. But if my chdd's love was a gift which she would have despised, she looked for and claimed my obedience — the resig nation of my will to hers, the absorption of my individuality in her own, the gradual elimination from my life of all its colour and freshness. She strove earnestly, and with infinite patience, to chaDge me from a dreamy, passionate child — a child full of strange wild moods, capricious, and yet easdy touched either to laughter or tears — into a prim and elegant young lady, colourless and formal, and of the most orthodox boarding school pattern ; and if she did not quite succeed in the attempt, the fault, such as it was, must be set down to my obstinate disposition and not to any lack of effort on the part of Miss Chinfeather.

And now this powerful influence had vanished from my life, from the world itself, as swiftly and silently as a snowflake in the sun. The grasp of the hard but not unkindly hand, that had held me so firmly in the narrow groove in which it wished me to move, had been suddenly relaxed, and everything around me seemed tottering to its fall. Three nights ago Miss Chinfeather had retired to rest, as well, to all appearance, and as cheerful as ever she had been ; next morning she had been found dead in bed. This was what they told us pupils ; but so great was the awe in which I held the mistress of Park Hill Seminary that I could not conceive of Death even as venturing to behave disrespectfully towards her. I pictured him in my girlish fancy as knocking at her chamber door in the middle of the night, and after apologizing for the interruption, asking whether she was ready to accompany him.

Then would she who was thus addressed arise, and wrap an ample robe about her, and place her hand with solemn sweetness in that of the Great Cap tain, and the two would pass out together into the starlit night, and Miss Chinfeather would be seen of mortal eyes nevermore. Such was the picture that had haunted my brain for two days and as many nights, while I wandered forlorn through house and playground or lay awake on my little bed. I had said farewell to one pupil after another tiU all were gone, and the riddle which I had been putting to myself continually for the last forty-eight hours had now been solved for me by Mrs. Whitehead, and I had been told that I too was going home. " To the care of Lady Pollexfen, Dupley Walls, Midlandshire." The words repeated themselves again and again in my brain, and be came a greater puzzle with every repetition.

I had never to my knowledge heard of either the person or the place. I knew nothing of one or the other. I only knew that my heart thrilled strangely at the mention of the word Home ; that unbidden tears started to my eyes at the thought that perhaps — only perhaps — in that as yet unknown place there might be some one who would love me just a little. " Father— Mother." I spoke the words, but they sounded unreal to me, and as if uttered by another. I spoke them again, holding out my arms, and crying aloud. All my heart seemed to go out in the cry, but only the hollow winds answered me as they piped mournfully through the yellowing leaves, a throng of which went rustling down the walk as though stirred by the footsteps of a ghost. Then my eyes grew blind with tears, and I wept silently for a time as if my heart would break.

But tears were a forbidden luxury at Park Hill, and when, a little later on, I heard Chirper calling me by name, I made haste to dry my eyes and compose my features. She scanned me narrowly as I ran up to her. "You dear, soft-hearted little thing !" she said. And with that she stooped suddenly and gave me a hearty kiss that might have been heard a dozen yards away. I was about to fling my arms round her neck, but she stopped me, saying, " That will do, dear. Mrs. Whitehead is waiting for us at the door." Mrs. Whitehead was watching us through the glass door which led into the playground. " The coach wdl be here in half an hour, Miss Holme," she said ; " so that you have not much time for your preparations." I stood like one stunned for a moment or two. Then I said, " If you please, Mrs. Whitehead, may I see Miss Chinfeather before I go ?"

Her thin, straight lips quivered slightly, but in her eyes I read only cold disapproval of my request. " Really," she said, " what a singular chdd you must be. I scarcely know what to say." " Oh, if you please, Mrs. Whitehead !" I urged. " Miss Chinfeather was always kind to me. I remember her as long as I can remember anything. To see her once more — for the last time. It would seem to me cruel to go away without." " Follow me," she said, almost in a whisper. So I followed her softly upstairs into the little corner room where Miss Chinfeather lay in white and solemn state, grandly indifferent to all mundane matters. As I gazed, it seemed but an hour ago since I had heard those still lips conjugating the verb mourir for the behoof of poor ignorant me, and the words came back to me, and I could not help repeating them to myself as I looked : Je meurs, tu meurs, &c. I bent over and kissed the marble-cold fore head, and said farewell in my heart, and went downstairs without a word.

Half an hour later the district coach, a splendid vision, pulled up impetuously at the gates. I was ready to the moment. Mrs. Whitehead's frosty fingers touched mine for an instant ; she imprinted a chill kiss on my cheek, and looked relieved. Good-bye, my dear Miss Holme, and God bless you," she said. " Strive to bear in mind through after life the lessons that have been instilled into you at Park Hill Seminarv. Present my respectful compliments to Lady Pollexfen, aud do not forget your catechism." At this point the guard sounded an impatient summons on his bugle ; Chirper picked up my box, seized me by the hand, and hurried with me to the coach. My luggage found a place on the roof ; I was unceremoniously bundled inside ; Chirper gave me another of her hearty kisses, and pressed a crooked sixpence into my hand " for luck," as she whispered.

I am sure there was a real tear in her eye as she did so. Next moment we were off. I kept my eyes fixed on the Seminary as long as it remained in view, especially on the little corner room. It seemed to me that I must be a very wicked girl indeed, because I felt no real sorrow at quitting the place that had been my home for so many years. I could not feel any thing but secretly glad, but furtively happy with a happiness which I felt ashamed of acknowledg ing even to myself. Miss Chinfeather's white and solemn face, as seen in her coffin, haunted my memory, but even of her I thought only with a sort of chastened regret. She had never touched my heart. There had been about her a bleakness of nature that effectually chilled any tender buds of liking or affection that might in the ordinary course of events have grown up and blossomed round her life.

Therefore, in my child's heart there was no lasting sorrow for her death, no gracious memories of her that would stay with me, and smell sweet, long after she herself should be dust. My eight miles' ride by coach was soon over. It ended at the railway station of the county town. The guard of the coach had, I suppose, received his secret instructions. Almost before I knew what had happened, I found myself in a first-class carriage, with a ticket for Tydsbury in my hand, and committed to the care of another guard, he of the railway, this time — a fiery-faced man, with immense red whiskers, who came and surveyed me as though I were some contraband article, but finished by nodding his head and saying with a smile, " I dessay we shall be good friends, miss, before we get to the end of our journey."

It was my first journey by rail, and the novelty of it filled me with wonder and delight. The train by which I travelled was a fast one, MY ARRIVAL AT DUFLEY WALLS. 13 and after my first feeling of fright at the rapidity of the motion had merged into one of intense pleasure and exhdaration of mind, I could afford to look back on my recent coach experience with a sort of pitying superiority, as on a something that was altogether rococo and out of date. Already the rush of new ideas into my mind was so powerful that the old landmarks of my life seemed in danger of being swept clean away. Already it seemed days instead of only a brief hour or two since I had bidden Mrs. Whitehead farewell, and had taken my last look at Park Hill Seminary. The red-faced guard was as good as his word ; he and I became famous friends before I reached the end of my journey.

At every station at which we stopped he came to the window to see how I was getting on, and whether I was in want of anything, and was altogether so kind to me that I was quite sorry to part from him when the train reached Tydsbury, and left me, a minute later, standing, a solitary waif, on the little platform. The one solitary fly of which the station could boast was laid under contribution. My little box was tossed on to its roof; I myself was shut up inside ; the word was given, " To Dupley Walls ;" the station was left behind, and away we went, jolting and rumbling along the quiet country lanes, and under overarching trees, all aglow just now with autumn's swift-fading beauty. The afternoon was closing in, and the wind was rising, sweeping up with melancholy soughs from the dim wooded hollows where it had lain asleep till the sun went down ; garnering up the fallen leaves like a cunning miser, wherever it could find a hiding-place for them, and then dying suddenly down, and seeming to hold its breath as if listening for the footsteps of the coming winter.

In the western sky hung a huge tumbled wrack of molten cloud like the ruins of some vast temple of the gods of eld. Chasmed buttresses, battlements overthrown ; on the horizon a press of giants, shoulder against shoulder, climbing slowly to the rescue; in mid-sky a praying woman ; farther afield a huge head, and a severed arm the fingers of which were clenched in menace : all these things I saw, and a score others, as the clouds changed from minute to minute in form and brightness, while the stars began to glow out like clusters of silver lilies in the eastern sky. We kept jolting on for so long a time through the twilight lanes, and the evening darkened so rapidly, that I began to grow frightened. It was like being lifted out of a dungeon, when the old fly drew up with a jerk, and a shout of " House there !" and when I looked out and saw that we were close to the lodge entrance of some park.

Presently a woman, with a child in her arms, came out of the lodge and proceeded to open the gate for us. Said the driver — " How's Tootlums to-night ?" The woman shouted something in reply, but I don't think the old fellow heard her. " Ay, ay," he called out, " Tootlums will be a famous young shaver one of these days," and with that he whipped up his horse, and away we went. The drive up the avenue, for such at the time I judged it to be, and such it proved to be, did not occupy many minutes. The fly came to a stand, and the driver got down and opened the door. " Now, young lady, here you are," he said, and I found myself in front of the main entrance to Dupley Walls. It was too dark by this time for me to discern more than the merest outline of the place. I saw that it was very large, and I noticed that not even one of its hundred windows showed the least glimmer of light.

It loomed vast, dark, and silent, as if deserted by every living thing. The old driver gave a hearty pull at the bell, and the muffled clamour reached me where I stood. I was quaking with fears and apprehen sions of that unknown future on whose threshold I was standing. Would Love or Hate open for me the doors of Dupley Walls ? I was strung to such a pitch that it seemed impossible for any lesser passion to be handmaiden to my needs. What I saw when the massive door was at last opened was an aged woman, dressed like a superior domestic, who, in sharp accents, de manded to know what we meant by disturbing a quiet family in that unseemly way. She was holding one hand over her eyes, and trying to make out our appearance through the gathering darkness. I stepped close up to her. " I am Miss Janet Holme, from Park Hill Seminary," I said, " and I wish to speak with Lady Pollexfen." 2 YOL. I.

Chapter II. The Mistress Of Dupley Walls

The words were hardly out of my lips when the woman shrank suddenly back, as though struck by an invisible hand, and gave utterance to an inarticulate cry of wonder and alarm. Then, •striding forward, she seized me by the wrist, and drew me into the lamp-lighted hall. " Child ! child ! why have you come here ?" she cried, scanning my face with eager eyes. " In all the wide world this is the last place you should have come to." " Miss Chinfeather is dead, and all the young ladies have been sent to their homes. I have no home, so they have sent me here." " What shall I do ? What wdl her ladyship say ?" cried the woman, in a frightened voice. " How shall I ever dare to tell her ?" " Who rang the bell, Dance, a few minutes ago ? And to whom are you talking ?" The voice sounded so suddenly out of the semi-darkness at the upper end of the large hall, which was lighted only by a small od lamp, that both the woman and I started.

Looking in the direction from which the sound had come, I could dimly make out, through the obscurity, the figures of two women who had entered without noise through the curtained doorway, close to which they were now standing. One of the two was very tall, and was dressed entirely in black. The second one, who was less tall, was also dressed in black, except that she seemed to have something white thrown over her head and shoulders ; but I was too far away to make out any details. " Hush ! don't you speak," whispered the woman warningly to me. " Leave me to break the news to her ladyship." With that she left me standing on the threshold, and hurried to wards the upper end of the hall. The tall personage in black, then, with the harsh voice — high pitched, and slightly cracked — 2—2 was Lady Pollexfen !

How fast my heart beat ! If only I could have slipped out unobserved I would never have braved my fortune within those wads again. She who had been called Dance went up to the two ladies, curtsied deeply, and began talking in a low earnest voice. Hardly, however, had she spoken a dozen words, when the lesser of the two ladies flung up her arms with a cry like that of some wounded creature, and would have fallen to the ground had not Dance caught her round the waist and so held her. " What folly is this ?" cried Lady Pollexfen, sternly, striking the pavement of the hall sharply with the iron ferule of her cane. " To your room, Sister Agnes ! For such poor weak fools as you solitude is the only safe companion. But, remember your oath ! Not a word ; not a word." With one lean hand uplifted, and me nacing forefinger, she emphasized those last warning words.

She who had been addressed as Sister Agnes raised herself with a deep sigh from the shoulder of Dance, cast one long look in the direction of the spot where I was standing, and vanished slowly through the curtained arch. Then Dance took up the broken thread of her narration, and Lady Pollexfen, grim and motionless, listened without a word. Even after Dance had done speaking her ladyship stood for some time looking straight before her, but saying nothing in reply. I felt in tuitively that my fate was hanging on the decision of those few moments, but I neither stirred nor spoke. At length the silence was broken by Lady Pollexfen. " Take the chdd away," she said ; " attend to her wants, make her presentable, and bring her to me in the Green Saloon after din ner. It will be time enough to-morrow to consider what must be done with her."

Dance curtsied again. Her ladyship saded slowly across the hall, and passed out through another curtained doorway. Dance's first act was to pay and dismiss the driver who had been waiting outside all this time. Then, taking me by the hand, " Come along with me, dear," she said. " Why, I declare, you look quite white and frightened ! You have nothing to fear, child. We shall not eat you — at least, not just yet ; not till we have fed you up a bit." At the end of a long corridor was Mrs. Dance's own room, into which I was now ushered. Scarcely had I made a few changes in my toilette when tea for two persons was brought in, and Mrs. Dance and I sat down to table. The old lady was well on with her second cup before she made any remark other than was required by the necessities of the occasion.

I have called her an old woman, and such she looked in my youthful eyes, although her years were only about sixty. She wore a dark brown dress, and a black silk apron, and had on a cap with thick frdled borders, under which her grey hair was neatly snooded away. She looked ruddy and full of health. A shrewd sensible woman, evidently, yet with a motherly kindness about her that made me cling to her with a child's unerring instinct. " Yon look tired, poor thing," she said, as she leisurely stirred her tea; "and well you may, considering the long journey you have had to day. I don't suppose that her ladyship will keep you more than ten minutes in the Green Saloon, and after that you can go to bed as soon as you like. What a surprise for all of us your coming has been ! Dear, dear ! who would have expected such a thing this morning ?

But I knew by the twitching of my corns that some thing uncommon was going to happen. I was really frightened of telling her ladyship that you were here. There's no knowing how she might have taken it ; and there's no knowing what she wdl decide to do with you to-morrow." " But what has Lady Pollexfen to do with me in any way ?" I asked. " Before this morning I never even heard her name, and now it seems that she is to do what she likes with me." " That she will do what she likes with you, you may depend, dear," said Mrs. Dance. " As to how she happens to have the right so to do, that is another thing, and one about which it is not my place to talk nor yours to question me. That she possesses such a right you may make yourself certain. All that you have to do is to obey and to ask no questions."

I sat in distressed and bewildered sdence for a little while. Then I ventured to say : " Please not to think me rude, but I should like to know who Sister Agnes is." Mrs. Dance stirred uneasily in her chair and bent her eyes on the fire, but did not imme diately answer my question. " Sister Agnes is Lady Pollexfen's companion," she said at last. " She reads to her, and writes her letters, and talks to her, and all that, you know. Sister Agnes is a Roman Catholic, and came here from the convent of Saint Ursula. However, she is not a nun, but something like one of those Sisters of Mercy in the large towns who go about among poor people, and visit the hospitals and prisons. She is allowed to live here always, and Lady Pollexfen would hardly know how to get through the day without her." " Is she not a relative of Lady Pollexfen ?"

I asked. " No — not a relative," answered Dance. " You must try to love her a great deal, my dear Miss Janet, for if angels are ever allowed to visit this vde earth, Sister Agnes is one of them. But there goes her ladyship's bell. She is ready to receive you." I had washed away the stains of travel, and had put on my best frock, and Dance was pleased to say that I looked very nice, " though, perhaps, a trifle more old-fashioned than a girl of your age ought to look." Then she laid down a few rides for my guidance when in the presence of Lady Pollexfen, and led the way to the Green Saloon, I following with a timorous heart. Dance flung open the folding doors of the big room. " Miss Janet Holme to see your ladyship," she called out, and next moment the doors closed behind me, and I was left standing there alone.

" Come nearer — come nearer," said her ladyship's cracked voice, as with a long lean hand she beckoned me to approach. I advanced slowly up the room, stopped and curtsied. Lady PoUexfen pointed out a high footstool about three yards from her chair. I curtsied again, and sat down on it. During the interview that followed my quick eyes had ample opportunity for taking a mental inventory of Lady Pollexfen and her surroundings. She had exchanged the black dress in which I first saw her for one of green velvet, trimmed with ermine. This dress was made with short sleeves and low body, so as to leave exposed her ladyship's arms, long, lean, and skinny, and her scraggy neck. Her nose was hooked, and her chin pointed. Between the two shone a row of large white even teeth, which long afterwards I knew to be artificial.