Set in Silver Part 40

Dimly I realized that Harrogate seemed a very pretty place, where it might be amusing to stay, and take baths and nice walks, and listen to music; and my bodily eyes saw well enough how lovely was the way through Niddersdale and Ilkley to Pately Bridge, where we had to get out and walk through enchanted woods to the foaming cauldron of the Strid. The water, swollen by rain, raced over its rocks below the crags of the tragic jump, like a white horse running away, mad with unreasoning terror. Nevertheless, my bodily eyes were only gla.s.s windows which my spirit had deserted. It left them blank still, at Bolton Abbey, which is poetically beautiful (though not as lovable as Fountains), on, up the great brown hill of Barden Moor, through Skipton, where, in the castle, legend says Fair Rosamond lived; until--Haworth. There--before we came to the steep, straight hill leading up to the bleak and huddled townlet bitten out of the moor, my spirit rushed to the windows. The voices of Charlotte Bronte and her sister Emily called it back, and it obeyed at a word, though all the beauty of wooded hills and fleeting streams had vanished, as if frightened by the cold, relentless winds of the high moorland.

Rain had begun to fall. The sky was leaden, the sharp hill muddy; everything seemed to combine in giving an effect of grimness, as the car forged steadily up, up toward the poor home the Brontes loved.

Isn't it a beautiful miracle, the banis.h.i.+ng of black darkness by the clear light of genius? It was that light which had lured us away from all the charms of nature to a region of ugliness, even of squalor. The Brontes had lived there. They had pined for Haworth when away. Emily had written about the "spot 'mid barren hills, where winter howls, and driving rain." They had thought there, worked there, the wondrous sisters; they had illuminated the mean place, and made it a lodestar for the world.

When we reached the top of the hill (which was almost like reaching a ceiling after climbing the side of a hideous brown-painted wall), I forgot my own troubles in thinking of the Brontes' tragedy of poverty, disappointment, and death.

We were in a poor street of a peculiarly depressing village, and could not even see the moor that had given the Bronte girls inspiration, though we knew it must stretch beyond. Even in bright suns.h.i.+ne there could be no beauty in Haworth; but under that leaden sky, in the thick mist of rain, the poor stone houses lining the way, the sordid, unattractive shops were positively repellent. All that was not so dark a gray as to look black was dull brown; and not a single window-pane had a gleam of intelligence for the unwelcome strangers. I could imagine no merriment in Haworth, nor any sound of laughter; yet the Brontes were happy when they were children--at least, they thought they were; but it would be too tragic if children didn't _think_ themselves happy.

There was the Black Bull Inn, where wretched Bramwell Bronte used to carouse. Poor, weak vain-glorious fellow! I never pitied him till I saw that gloomy stone box which meant "seeing life" to him. There was the museum where the Bronte relics are kept--but we delayed going in that we might see the old parsonage first, the shrine where the preserved relics had once made "home." Oh, mother, the sadness of it, tucked away among the crowding tombstones, all gray-brown together, among weeds and early falling leaves! Here already it was autumn; and though I could fancy a pale, frosty spring, and a white, ice-bound winter, my imagination could conjure up no richness of summer.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "_The foaming cauldron of the Strid_"]

The gravestones crowding the gray old house in the churchyard, pus.h.i.+ng it back toward the moor, were thick as an army on parade--a sad, starved army, where dying soldiers lean on each other for support; and the parsonage, shadowed by dripping trees, was plain and uncompromising as a sermon that warns you not to love the world or you will spend eternity in h.e.l.l. But behind--just beyond the wall--billowed the moor, monotonous yet majestic, the scene that called to Emily and Charlotte Bronte's hearts, always, when they were far away.

My heart contracted as I thought of them there; and when we'd walked back to the village street, and been admitted to the museum, I was on the point of crying--not for myself, but with the choked grief one might have on opening a box of old letters from a loved, dead friend. It is the most intimate, touching little jumble of pathetic souvenirs you ever saw in a museum; more like treasures guarded by near relations than a collection for public eyes to see; but that makes the poignant charm of it. I could have sobbed on a pink print frock with a cape, such as Jane Eyre might have worn at Thornfield, and on bits of unfinished needlework, simple lace collars, and water-colour sketches with which Charlotte tried to brighten the walls of her austere home. There was the poor dear's wedding shawl, and a little checked silk dress of which I'm sure she was innocently proud; a few fantastic drawings of Bramwell's; a letter or two from the sisters; and a picture of the Reverend Carus Wilson, who was supposed to be Mr. Brocklehurst; just the rather handsome, well-fed, self-satisfied man you would expect him to be.

I think, dear, that Haworth has done me good, and helped me to be brave.

Again and again I turned, when we'd left, to look back at the church tower, and try to gather some of the Bronte courage before we slipped away down many a dark hill toward Bradford, as night gathered us in.

I may need all the courage that I have borrowed and cashed in advance, because suspense is worse than the pain of any blow.

We leave here early to-morrow morning for Graylees Castle in Warwicks.h.i.+re--and the tour is at an end.

Your Audrie, who loves and longs for you.

XL

AUDRIE BRENDON TO HER MOTHER

_Graylees Castle_, _Night of September 12th_

Dearest and Wisest: I remember the first letter I wrote you (on July Fourth) about the Ellaline business began with expressions something like this: "Fireworks! Roman Candles!! Rockets!!!"

Well, my last letter about the Ellaline business begins with explosions, too. A whole gunpowder plot has exploded: d.i.c.k's plot.

We got here in the afternoon; an uneventful run, for Sir Lionel was always the same; cool but kind. I couldn't believe d.i.c.k had told him anything.

Graylees is a place to be proud of, and you would never know there had been a fire in the castle--but no injury was done to the oldest part.

Mrs. Norton says Graylees is called the "miniature Warwick," but it doesn't look a miniature anything: it seems enormous. There's a great hall, with suits of armour scattered about, and weapons of all periods arranged in intricate patterns on the stone wall; and a minstrels'

gallery, and quant.i.ties of grand old Tudor and Stuart furniture; there's a haunted picture-gallery where a murdered bride walks each Christmas Eve, beautifully dressed; there's a suite of rooms in which kings and queens have occasionally slept since the time when Henry Seventh reigned; there's a priest's "hidie hole," and secret dungeons under the big dining-hall where people used to revel while their prisoners writhed; and--but I haven't seen nearly all yet.

The room allotted to me looks down from its high tower on to a mossy moat choked with pink and white water lilies; on a stone terrace this side of a sunken garden, a peac.o.c.k plays sentinel, with his tail spread like a jewelled s.h.i.+eld; and against the sky dark, horizontal branches of Lebanon cedars stretch, like arms of black-clad priests p.r.o.nouncing a blessing. May the blessing rest upon this house forever!

I hardly saw the country through which we came, though it was George Eliot's country; and I half expected something to happen as soon as we arrived; Sir Lionel perhaps turning on me at last, and saying icily: "I know everything, but don't want a scandal. Go quietly, at once."

Nothing of the sort came to pa.s.s, however. We had tea in the great hall, brought by an old butler who had known Sir Lionel when he visited the uncle who left Graylees to him. Afterward, Mrs. Norton showed me "my room," where already a maid engaged for "Miss Lethbridge" had unpacked most of my things, the big luggage having arrived before us. My heart gave a jump when I saw the drawers, and big cedar-lined wardrobes full of finery; but settled down again when I remembered that almost everything belonged to Ellaline, and that my legitimate possessions could be packed again in about five minutes.

Before the change of friends.h.i.+p's weather at Chester, I think Sir Lionel would have wanted to take me round his domain, indoors and out, but no such suggestion was made. I was in my room, and there I stayed; but I felt too restless to settle down and write to you. I kept waiting for something, as you do for a clock to strike, when you know it is bound to strike soon.

By and by it was time to dress for dinner. I couldn't bear to wear one of the grand Ellaline dresses, so I put on the old black. I did look a frump in it, in such a place as Graylees Castle, where everything ought to be beautiful and rich, but I did my hair as nicely as I could, and from the top of my head to my shoulders I wasn't so bad.

I went downstairs at eight o'clock, and Mrs. Senter was already in the great hall, standing in front of the splendid stone fireplace, watching her rings sparkle in the light of the wood fire, and resting one pretty foot on a paw of the left-hand carved stone wolf that supports a ledge of the mantelpiece--just as if it belonged to her and she had tamed it.

She glanced up when I appeared, and smiled vaguely, but didn't speak.

She seemed thoughtful.

After awhile, Emily came, swis.h.i.+ng silkily. Mrs. Senter began to talk to her, praising the place; and then, just before the quarter past--dinner-time--Sir Lionel joined us, looking nice, but tired. Mrs.

Senter gave him a sweet smile, and he smiled back, absent-mindedly. He gave her his arm in to dinner, and she did clever things with her eyelashes, which made her seem to blush. She wore a white dress I'd not seen yet, a simple string of pearls round her neck, and quite a maidenly or bridal look. I couldn't wonder at Sir Lionel if he admired her! At the dinner-table (which was beautiful with flowers, lots of silver, and old crystal--a picture against the dark oak panelling) Mrs. Senter was on his right hand, I on his left, his sister playing hostess. This was as usual; but as it was the first time in his own house, somehow it made Mrs. Senter seem of more importance. He and she talked together a good deal, and she said some witty things, but spent herself mostly in drawing him out. He didn't speak to me, except to deign a question about my room, or ask whether I would have a certain thing to eat. I felt a dreadful lump, and worth about "thirty cents," as Dad used to say.

After dinner, when Emily took us to a charming drawing-room, all white, with an old spinet in one corner, Sir Lionel stopped away for a few minutes; but when he came Mrs. Senter grabbed him immediately. She wouldn't let him hear, when Emily inquired if I could sing, accompanying myself on the spinet, but began asking him eagerly about the library, which it seems is rather famous.

"You shall see it to-morrow, if you like," said he.

"Oh, mayn't I have a peep to-night?" she begged, prettily. "Do take me.

Just one peep."

So he took her, of course, and the peep prolonged itself indefinitely. I had a sinking presentiment that my dreadful flare-up with d.i.c.k had been in vain, and that after all she would inveigle him into proposing to her this very night. Since I refused to tell him that her damask cheek was being preyed upon by love of him, she would probably intimate as much herself, and bury her head between her hands, looking incredibly sad and lovable. Sir Lionel wouldn't be the man to fight such tactics as those!

I knew he didn't, wouldn't, and couldn't love her one little bit, but he would be sorry for her, and sacrifice himself rather than she should suffer for his sake, when he might make her happy.

Emily chatted to me pleasantly about the church, and the vicar at Graylees, and family tombs, and such cheerful things, to which I said "Yes" and "No" whenever she stopped; but a cold perspiration was coming out on my forehead. I was just as sure as that I was alive, that Mrs.

Senter didn't mean to leave the library until Sir Lionel had made her a present of himself, his books, and his castle. Probably my sub-conscious self or astral body was there, hearing every word they said. Anyhow, I _knew_. And I could do nothing. A thumb-screw or a rack would have been a pleasant relief.

Suddenly we heard the sound of a carriage driving quickly up to the house.

"Who can that be?" wondered Mrs. Norton. "It's after half-past nine."

"Very likely it's Mr. Burden," said I; the first moderately intelligent remark I'd made since we were left together.

She agreed with me that this was probable; but when fifteen, twenty, forty minutes pa.s.sed by the clock, and d.i.c.k did not appear, she changed her mind. It must have been someone to see Sir Lionel, she thought, on business that wouldn't wait. I was not convinced of this, and longed for her to ring and ask a footman who had come; but I couldn't very well suggest it.

The house did sound so silent, that my ears rang, as they do when one listens to a sh.e.l.l!

Ten; ten-fifteen; ten-thirty; a Louis Quatorze clock chimed. Hardly had it got the last two strokes out of its mouth, when Sir Lionel opened the door. He was pale, in that frightening way that tanned skins do turn pale, and he didn't seem to see his sister. He looked straight past her at me, and his eyes shone.

"I want very much to speak to you," he said. His voice shook ever so slightly, as if he were going into a battle where he knew he would be killed, and felt solemn about it, but otherwise was rather pleased than not.

Then I knew my time had come. I almost looked for the steps of the guillotine, but I was suddenly too blind to see them if they had been under my nose.

"Very well," I said, and got up from my chair.

"Oh," exclaimed Emily, "don't go. If you have anything to say to Ellaline, which you'd like to say to her alone, let me go. I am getting sleepy, and was just thinking about bed. Perhaps I might say good-night to you both?"

"Good-night, dear," answered Sir Lionel. I had never heard him call her that before.

"Say good-night to Mrs. Senter for me," went on Emily to us both.