Phantom Fortune Part 11

While Lesbia was losing herself in that dream-world, Lady Maulevrier unbent considerably to John Hammond, and talked to him with more appearance of interest in his actual self, and in his own affairs, than she had manifested hitherto although she had been uniformly courteous.

She asked him his plans for the future--had he chosen a profession?

He told her that he had not. He meant to devote himself to literature and politics.

'Is not that rather vague?' inquired her ladyship.

'Everything is vague at first.'

'But literature now--as an amus.e.m.e.nt, no doubt, it is delightful--but as a profession--does literature ever pay?'

'There have been such cases.'

'Yes, I suppose so. Walter Scott, Gibbon, Macaulay, Froude, those made money no doubt. But there is a suspicion of hopelessness in the idea of a young man starting in life intending to earn his bread by literature.

One remembers Chatterton. I should have thought that in your case the law or the church would have been better. In the latter Maulevrier might have been useful to you. He is patron of three or four livings.'

'You are too good even to think of such a thing,' said Hammond; 'but I have set my heart upon a political career. I must swim or sink in that sea.'

Lady Maulevrier looked at him with a compa.s.sionate smile Poor young man!

No doubt he thought himself a genius, and that doors which had remained shut to everybody else would turn on their hinges directly he knocked at them. She was sincerely sorry for him. Young, clever, enthusiastic, and doomed to bitterest disappointment.

'You have parents, perhaps, who are ambitious for you--a mother who thinks her son a heaven-born statesman!' said her ladyship, kindly.

'Alas, no! that incentive to ambition is wanting in my case. I have neither father nor mother living.'

'That is very sad. No doubt that fact has been a bond of sympathy between you and Maulevrier?'

'I believe it has.'

'Well, I hope Providence will smile upon your path.'

'Come what may, I shall never forget the happy weeks I have spent at Fellside,' said Hammond, 'or your ladyship's gracious hospitality.'

He took up the beautiful hand, white to transparency, showing the delicate tracing of blue veins, and pressed his lips upon it in chivalrous worship of age and womanly dignity.

Lady Maulevrier smiled upon him with her calm, grave smile. She would have liked to say, 'You shall be welcome again at Fellside,' but she felt that the man was dangerous. Not while Lesbia remained single could she court his company. If Maulevrier brought him she must tolerate his presence, but she would do nothing to invite that danger.

There was no music that evening. Maulevrier and Mary were playing billiards; Fraulein Muller was sitting in her corner working at a high-art counterpane. Lesbia came in from the verandah presently, and sat on a low stool by her grandmother's arm-chair, and talked to her in soft, cooing accents, inaudible to John Hammond, who sat a little way off turning the leaves of the _Contemporary Review_: and this went on till eleven o'clock, the regular hour for retiring, when Mary came in from the billiard-room, and told Mr. Hammond that Maulevrier was waiting for a smoke and a talk. Then candles were lighted, and the ladies all departed, leaving John Hammond and his friend with the house to themselves.

They played a fifty game, and smoked and talked till the stroke of midnight, by which time it seemed as if there were not another creature awake in the house. Maulevrier put out the lamps in the billiard-room, and then they went softly up the shadowy staircase, and parted in the gallery, the Earl going one way, and his friend the other.

The house was large and roomy, spread over a good deal of ground, Lady Maulevrier having insisted upon there being only two stories. The servants' rooms were all in a side wing, corresponding with those older buildings which had been given over to Steadman and his wife, and among the villagers of Grasmere enjoyed the reputation of being haunted. A wide panelled corridor extended from one end of the house to the other.

It was lighted from the roof, and served as a gallery for the display of a small and choice collection of modern art, which her ladyship had acquired during her long residence at Fellside. Here, too, in Sheraton cabinets, were those treasures of old English china which Lady Maulevrier had inherited from past generations.

Her ladyship's rooms were situated at the southern end of this corridor, her bed-chamber being at the extreme end of the house, with windows commanding two magnificent views, one across the lake and the village of Grasmere to the green slopes of Fairfield, the other along the valley towards Rydal Water. This and the adjoining boudoir were the prettiest rooms in the house, and no one wondered that her ladyship should spend so much of her life in the luxurious seclusion of her own apartments.

John Hammond went to his room, which was on the same side of the house as her ladyship's; but he was in no disposition for sleep. He opened the cas.e.m.e.nt, and stood looking out upon the moonlit lake and the quiet village, where one solitary light shone like a faint star in a cottage window, amidst that little cl.u.s.ter of houses by the old church, once known as Kirktown. Beyond the village rose gentle slopes, crowned with foliage, and above those wooded crests appeared the grand outline of the hills, surrounding and guarding Easedale's lovely valley, as the hills surrounded Jerusalem of old.

He looked at that delicious landscape with eyes that hardly saw its beauty. The image of a lovely face came between him and all the glory of earth and sky.

'I think she likes me,' he was saying to himself. 'There was a look in her eyes to-night that told me the time was come when----'

The thought died unfinished in his brain. Through the silent house, across the placid lake, there rang a wild, shrill cry that froze the blood in his veins, or seemed so to freeze it--a shriek of agony, and in a woman's voice. It rang out from an open window near his own. The sound seemed close to his ear.

CHAPTER X.

'O BITTERNESS OF THINGS TOO SWEET.'

Only for an instant did John Hammond stand motionless after hearing that unearthly shriek. In the next moment he rushed into the corridor, expecting to hear the sound repeated, to find himself face to face with some midnight robber, whose presence had caused that wild cry of alarm.

But in the corridor all was silent as the grave. No open door suggested the entrance of an intruder. The dimly-burning lamps showed only the long empty gallery. He stood still for a few moments listening for voices, footsteps, the rustle of garments: but there was nothing.

Nothing? Yes, a groan, a long-drawn moaning sound, as of infinite pain.

This time there was no doubt as to the direction from which the sound came. It came from Lady Maulevrier's room. The door was ajar, and he could see the faint light of the night-lamp within. That fearful cry had come from her ladyship's room. She was in peril or pain of some kind.

Convinced of this one fact, Mr. Hammond had not an instant's hesitation.

He pushed open the door without compunction, and entered the room, prepared to behold some terrible scene.

But all was quiet as death itself. No midnight burglar had violated the sanct.i.ty of Lady Maulevrier's apartment. The soft, steady light of the night-lamp shone on the face of the sleeper. Yes, all was quiet in the room, but not in that sleeper's soul. The broad white brow was painfully contracted, the lips drawn down and distorted, the delicate hand, half hidden by the deep Valenciennes ruffle, clutched the coverlet with convulsive force. Sigh after sigh burst from the agitated breast. John Hammond gazed upon the sleeper in an agony of apprehension, uncertain what to do. Was this dreaming only; or was it some kind of seizure which called for medical aid? At her ladyship's age the idea of paralysis was not too improbable for belief. If this was a dream, then indeed the visions of Lady Maulevrier's head upon her bed were more terrible than the dreams of common mortals.

In any case Mr. Hammond felt that it was his duty to send some attendant to Lady Maulevrier, some member of the household who was familiar with her ladyship's habits, her own maid if that person could be unearthed easily. He knew that the servants slept in a separate wing; but he thought it more than likely that her ladyship's personal attendant occupied a room near her mistress.

He went back to the corridor and looked round him in doubt, for a moment or two.

Close against her ladyship's door there was a swing door, covered with red cloth, which seemed to communicate with the old part of the house.

John Hammond pushed this door, and it yielded to his hand, revealing a lamp-lit pa.s.sage, narrow, old-fashioned, and low. He thought it likely that Lady Maulevrier's maid might occupy a room in this half-deserted wing. As he pushed open the door he saw an elderly man coming towards him, with a candle in his hand, and with the appearance of having huddled on his clothes hastily.

'You heard that scream?' said Hammond.

'Yes. It was her ladyship, I suppose. Nightmare. She is subject to nightmare.'

'It is very dreadful. Her whole countenance was convulsed just now, when I went into her room to see what was wrong. I was almost afraid of a fit of some kind. Ought not her maid to go to her?'

'She wants no a.s.sistance,' the man answered, coolly. 'It was only a dream. It is not the first time I have been awakened by a shriek like that. It is a kind of nightmare, no doubt; and it pa.s.ses off in a few minutes, and leaves her sleeping calmly.'

He went to her ladyship's door, pushed it open a little way, and looked in. 'Yes, she is sleeping as quietly as an infant,' he said, shutting the door softly as he spoke.

'I am very glad; but surely she ought to have her maid near her at night, if she is subject to those attacks.'

'It is no attack, I tell you. It is nothing but a dream,' answered Steadman impatiently.

'Yet you were frightened, just as I was, or you would not have got up and dressed,' said Hammond, looking at the man suspiciously.

He had heard of this old servant Steadman, who was supposed to enjoy more of her ladyship's confidence than any one else in the household; but he had never spoken to the man before that night.