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Wilfrid Cumbermede

G >> George MacDonald >> Wilfrid Cumbermede




As we stood, I discovered that I had been a little mistaken about the
position of the Hall. I saw that, although from some points in front it
seemed to stand on an isolated rock, the ground rose behind it, terrace
upon terrace, the uppermost of which terraces were crowned with rows of
trees. Over them, the moon was now gathering her strength.

'It is rather cold; I think we had better go in,' said Clara, after we
had remained there for some minutes without seeing any fresh arrivals.

'Very well,' I answered. 'What shall we do? Shall you go home?'

'No, certainly not. We must see a good deal more of the fun first.'

'How will you manage that? You will go to the ball-room, I suppose. You
can go where you please, of course.'

'Oh no! I'm not grand enough to be invited. Oh, dear no! At least I am
not old enough.'

'But you will be some day.'

'I don't know. Perhaps. We'll see. Meantime we must make the best of
it. What are _you_ going to do?'

'I shall go back to the library.'

'Then I'll go with you--till the music begins; and then I'll take you
where you can see a little of the dancing. It's great fun.'

'But how will you manage that?'

'You leave that to me.'

We descended at once to the armoury, where I had left my candle; and
thence we returned to the library.

'Would you like me to read to you?' I asked.

'I don't mind--if it's anything worth hearing.'

'Well, I'll read you a bit of the book I was reading when you came in.'

'What! that musty old book! No, thank you. It's enough to give one the
horrors--the very sight of it is enough. How can you like such frumpy
old things?'

'Oh! you mustn't mind the look of it,' I said. 'It's _very_ nice
inside!'

'I know where there is a nice one,' she returned. 'Give me the candle.'

I followed her to another of the rooms, where she searched for some
time. At length--'There it is!' she said, and put into my hand _The
Castle of Otranto_. The name promised well. She next led the way to a
lovely little bay window, forming almost a closet, which looked out
upon the park, whence, without seeing the moon, we could see her light
on the landscape, and the great deep shadows cast over the park from
the towers of the Hall. There we sat on the broad window-sill, and I
began to read. It was delightful. Does it indicate loss of power, that
the grown man cannot enjoy the book in which the boy delighted? Or is
it that the realities of the book, as perceived by his keener eyes,
refuse to blend with what imagination would supply if it might?

No sooner however did the first notes of the distant violins enter the
ear of my companion than she started to her feet.

'What's the matter?' I asked, looking up from the book.

'Don't you hear the music?' she said, half-indignantly.

'I hear it now,' I answered; 'but why--?'

'Come along,' she interrupted, eagerly. 'We shall just be in time to
see them go across from the drawing-room to the ball-room. Come, come.
Leave your candle.'

I put down my book with some reluctance. She led me into the armoury,
and from the armoury out on the gallery half-encompassing the great
hall, which was lighted up, and full of servants. Opening another door
in the gallery, she conducted me down a stair which led almost into the
hall, but, ascending again behind it, landed us in a little lobby, on
one side of which was the drawing-room, and on the other the ball-room,
on another level, reached by a few high, semi-circular steps.

'Quick! quick!' said Clara, and turning sharply round, she opened
another door, disclosing a square-built stone staircase. She pushed the
door carefully against the wall, ran up a few steps, I following in
some trepidation, turned abruptly, and sat down. I did as she did,
questioning nothing: I had committed myself to her superior knowledge.

The quick ear of my companion had caught the first sounds of the tuning
of the instruments, and here we were, before the invitation to dance, a
customed observance at Moldwarp Hall, had begun to play. In a few
minutes thereafter, the door of the drawing-room opened; when, pair
after pair, the company, to the number of over a hundred and fifty, I
should guess, walked past the foot of the stair on which we were
seated, and ascended the steps into the ball-room. The lobby was dimly
lighted, except from the two open doors, and there was little danger of
our being seen.

I interrupt my narrative to mention the odd fact that so fully was my
mind possessed with the antiquity of the place, which it had been the
pride of generation after generation to keep up, that now, when I
recall the scene, the guests always appear dressed not as they were
then, but in a far more antique style with which after knowledge
supplied my inner vision.

Last of all came Lady Brotherton, Sir Giles's wife, a pale,
delicate-looking woman, leaning on the arm of a tall, long-necked,
would-be-stately, yet insignificant-looking man. She gave a shiver as,
up the steps from the warm drawing-room, she came at once opposite our
open door.

'What a draught there is here!' she said, adjusting her rose-coloured
scarf about her shoulders. 'It feels quite wintry. Will you oblige me,
Mr Mellon, by shutting that door? Sir Giles will not allow me to have
it built up. I am sure there are plenty of ways to the leads besides
that.'

'This door, my lady?' asked Mr Mellon.

I trembled lest he should see us.

'Yes. Just throw it to. There's a spring lock on it. I can't think--'

The slam and echoing bang of the closing door cut off the end of the
sentence. Even Clara was a little frightened, for her hand stole into
mine for a moment before she burst out laughing.

'Hush! hush!' I said. 'They will hear you.'

'I almost wish they would,' she said. 'What a goose I was to be
frightened, and not speak! Do you know where we are?'

'No,' I answered; 'how should I? Where are we?'

My fancy of knowing the place had vanished utterly by this time. All my
mental charts of it had got thoroughly confused, and I do not believe I
could have even found my way back to the library.

'Shut out on the leads,' she answered. 'Come along. We may as well go
to meet our fate.'

I confess to a little palpitation of the heart as she spoke, for I was
not yet old enough to feel that Clara's companionship made the doom a
light one. Up the stairs we went--here no twisting corkscrew, but a
broad flight enough, with square turnings. At the top was a door,
fastened only with a bolt inside--against no worse housebreakers than
the winds and rains. When we emerged, we found ourselves in the open
night.

'Here we are in the moon's drawing-room!' said Clara.

The scene was lovely. The sky was all now--the earth only a background
or pedestal for the heavens. The river, far below, shone here and there
in answer to the moon, while the meadows and fields lay as in the
oblivion of sleep, and the wooded hills were only dark formless masses.
But the sky was the dwelling-place of the moon, before whose radiance,
penetratingly still, the stars shrunk as if they would hide in the
flowing skirts of her garments. There was scarce a cloud to be seen,
and the whiteness of the moon made the blue thin. I could hardly
believe in what I saw. It was as if I had come awake without getting
out of the dream.

We were on the roof of the ball-room. We felt the rhythmic motion of
the dancing feet shake the building in time to the music. 'A low
melodious thunder' buried beneath--above, the eternal silence of the
white moon!

We passed to the roof of the drawing-room. From it, upon one side, we
could peep into the great gothic window of the hall, which rose high
above it. We could see the servants passing and repassing, with dishes
for the supper which was being laid in the dining-room under the
drawing-room, for the hall was never used for entertainment now, except
on such great occasions as a coming of age, or an election-feast, when
all classes met.

'We mustn't stop here,' said Clara. 'We shall get our deaths of cold.'

'What shall we do, then?' I asked.

'There are plenty of doors,' she answered--'only Mrs Wilson has a
foolish fancy for keeping them all bolted. We must try, though.'

Over roof after roof we went; now descending, now ascending a few
steps; now walking along narrow gutters, between battlement and sloping
roof; now crossing awkward junctions--trying doors many in tower and
turret--all in vain! Every one was bolted on the inside. We had grown
quite silent, for the case looked serious.

'This is the last door,' said Clara--'the last we can reach. There are
more in the towers, but they are higher up. What _shall_ we do? Unless
we go down a chimney, I don't know what's to be done.' Still her voice
did not falter, and my courage did not give way. She stood for a few
moments, silent. I stood regarding her, as one might listen for a
doubtful oracle.

'Yes. I've got it!' she said at length. 'Have you a good head,
Wilfrid?'

'I don't quite know what you mean,' I answered.

'Do you mind being on a narrow place, without much to hold by?'

'High up?' I asked with a shiver.

'Yes.'

For a moment I did not answer. It was a special weakness of my physical
nature, one which my imagination had increased tenfold--the absolute
horror I had of such a transit as she was evidently about to propose.
My worst dreams--from which I would wake with my heart going like a
fire-engine--were of adventures of the kind. But before a woman, how
could I draw back? I would rather lie broken at the bottom of the wall.
And if the fear should come to the worst, I could at least throw myself
down and end it so.

'Well?' I said, as if I had only been waiting for her exposition of the
case.

'Well!' she returned.--'Come along then.'

I did go along--like a man to the gallows; only I would not have turned
back to save my life. But I should have hailed the slightest change of
purpose in her, with such pleasure as Daniel must have felt when he
found the lions would rather not eat him. She retraced our steps a long
way--until we reached the middle of the line of building which divided
the two courts.

'There!' she said, pointing to the top of the square tower over the
entrance to the hall, from which we had watched the arrival of the
guests: it rose about nine feet only above where we now stood in the
gutter--'I _know_ I left the door open when we came down. I did it on
purpose. I hate Goody Wilson. Lucky, you see!--that is if you have a
head. And if you haven't, it's all the same: I have.'

So saying, she pointed to a sort of flying buttress which sprung
sideways, with a wide span, across the angle the tower made with the
hall, from an embrasure of the battlement of the hall to the outer
corner of the tower, itself more solidly buttressed. I think it must
have been made to resist the outward pressure of the roof of the hall;
but it was one of those puzzling points which often occur--and oftenest
in domestic architecture--where additions and consequent alterations
have been made from time to time. Such will occasion sometimes as much
conjecture towards their explanation as a disputed passage in Shakspere
or Aeschylus.

Could she mean me to cross that hair-like bridge? The mere thought was
a terror. But I would not blench. Fear I confess--cowardice if you
will:--poltroonery, not.

'I see,' I answered. 'I will try. If I fall, don't blame me. I will do
my best.'

'You don't think,' she returned, 'I'm going to let you go alone! I
should have to wait hours before you found a door to let me
down--unless indeed you went and told Goody Wilson, and I had rather
die where I am. No, no. Come along. I'll show you how.'

With a rush and a scramble, she was up over the round back of the
buttress before I had time to understand that she meant as usual to
take the lead. If she could but have sent me back a portion of her
skill, or lightness, or nerve, or whatever it was, just to set me off
with a rush like that! But I stood preparing at once and hesitating.
She turned and looked over the battlements of the tower.

'Never mind, Wilfrid,' she said; 'I'll fetch you presently.'

'No, no,' I cried. 'Wait for me. I'm coming.'

I got astride of the buttress, and painfully forced my way up. It was
like a dream of leap-frog, prolonged under painfully recurring
difficulties. I shut my eyes, and persuaded myself that all I had to do
was to go on leap-frogging. At length, after more trepidation and
brain-turning than I care to dwell upon, lest even now it should bring
back a too keen realization of itself, I reached the battlement,
seizing which with one shaking hand, and finding the other grasped by
Clara, I tumbled on the leads of the tower.

'Come along!' she said. 'You see, when the girls like, they can beat
the boys--even at their own games. We're all right now.'

'I did my best,' I returned, mightily relieved. '_I'm_ not an angel,
you know. I can't fly like you.'

She seemed to appreciate the compliment.

'Never mind. I've done it before. It was game of you to follow.'

Her praise elated me. And it was well.

'Come along,' she added.

She seemed to be always saying _Come along_.

I obeyed, full of gratitude and relief. She skipped to the tiny turret
which rose above our heads, and lifted the door-latch. But, instead of
disappearing within, she turned and looked at me in white dismay. The
door was bolted. Her look roused what there was of manhood in me. I
felt that, as it had now come to the last gasp, it was mine to comfort
her.

'We are no worse than we were,' I said. 'Never mind.'

'I don't know that,' she answered mysteriously.--'Can _you_ go back as
you came? _I_ can't.'

I looked over the edge of the battlement where I stood. There was the
buttress crossing the angle of moonlight, with its shadow lying far
down on the wall. I shuddered at the thought of renewing my unspeakable
dismay. But what must be must.

[Illustration: SHE BENT OVER THE BATTLEMENT, STOOPED HER FACE TOWARD
ME, AND KISSED ME.]

Besides, Clara had praised me for creeping where she could fly: now I
might show her that I could creep where she could not fly.

'I will try,' I returned, putting one leg through an embrasure, and
holding on by the adjoining battlement.

'Do take care, Wilfrid,' she cried, stretching out her hands, as if to
keep me from falling.

A sudden pulse of life rushed through me. All at once I became not only
bold, but ambitious.

'Give me a kiss,' I said, 'before I go.'

'Do you make so much of it?' she returned, stepping back a pace.--How
much a woman she was even then!

Her words roused something in me which to this day I have not been able
quite to understand. A sense of wrong had its share in the feeling; but
what else I can hardly venture to say. At all events, an inroad of
careless courage was the consequence. I stepped at once upon the
buttress, and stood for a moment looking at her--no doubt with
reproach. She sprang towards me.

'I beg your pardon,' she said.

The end of the buttress was a foot or two below the level of the leads,
where Clara stood. She bent over the battlement, stooped her face
towards me, and kissed me on the mouth. My only answer was to turn and
walk down the buttress, erect; a walk which, as the arch of the
buttress became steeper, ended in a run and a leap on to the gutter of
the hall. There I turned, and saw her stand like a lady in a ballad
leaning after me in the moonlight. I lifted my cap and sped away, not
knowing whither, but fancying that out of her sight I could make up my
mind better. Nor was I mistaken. The moment I sat down, my brains began
to go about, and in another moment I saw what might be attempted.

In going from roof to roof, I had seen the little gallery along which I
had passed with Mrs Wilson on my way to the library. It crossed what
might be called an open shaft in the building. I thought I could
manage, roofed as it was, to get in by the open side. It was some time
before I could find it again; but when I did come upon it at last, I
saw that it might be done. By the help of a projecting gargoyle,
curiously carved in the days when the wall to which it clung had formed
part of the front of the building, I got my feet upon the wooden rail
of the gallery, caught hold of one of the small pillars which supported
the roof, and _slewed_ myself in. I was almost as glad as when I had
crossed the buttress, for below me was a paved bottom, between high
walls, without any door, like a dry well in the midst of the building.

My recollection of the way to the armoury, I found, however, almost
obliterated. I knew that I must pass through a bedroom at the end of
the gallery, and that was all I remembered. I opened the door, and
found myself face to face with a young girl with wide eyes. She stood
staring and astonished, but not frightened. She was younger than Clara,
and not so pretty. Her eyes looked dark, and also the hair she had been
brushing. Her face would have been quite pale, but for the rosy tinge
of surprise. She made no exclamation, only stared with her brush in her
hand, and questions in her eyes. I felt far enough from comfortable;
but with a great effort I spoke.

'I beg your pardon. I had to get off the roof, and this was the only
way. Please do not tell Mrs Wilson.'

'No,' she said at once, very quietly; 'but you must go away.'

'If I could only find the library!' I said. 'I am so afraid of going
into more rooms where I have no business.'

'I will show you the way,' she returned with a smile; and laying down
her brush, took up a candle, and led me from the room.

In a few moments I was safe. My conductor vanished at once. The glimmer
of my own candle in a further room guided me, and I was soon at the top
of the corkscrew staircase. I found the door very slightly fastened:
Clara must herself have unwittingly moved the bolt when she shut it. I
found her standing, all eagerness, waiting me. We hurried back to the
library, and there I told her how I had effected an entrance, and met
with a guide.

'It must have been little Polly Osborne,' she said. 'Her mother is
going to stay all night, I suppose. She's a good-natured little goose,
and won't tell.--Now come along. We'll have a peep from the
picture-gallery into the ball-room. That door is sure to be open.'

'If you don't mind, Clara, I would rather stay where I am. I oughtn't
to be wandering over the house when Mrs Wilson thinks I am here.'

'Oh, you little coward!' said Clara.

I thought I hardly deserved the word, and it did not make me more
inclined to accompany her.

'You can go alone,' I said. 'You did not expect to find me when you
came.'

'Of course I can. Of course not. It's quite as well too. You won't get
me into any more scrapes.'

'_Did_ I get you into the scrape, Clara?'

'Yes, you did,' she answered laughing, and walked away.

I felt a good deal hurt, but comforted myself by saying she could not
mean it, and sat down again to the _Seven Champions_.




CHAPTER XIV.


THE GHOST.

I saw no more of Clara, but sat and read until I grew cold and tired,
and wished very much that Mrs. Wilson would come. I thought she might
have forgot me in the hurry, and there I should have to stay all night.
After my recent escape, however, from a danger so much worse, I could
regard the prospect with some composure. A full hour more must have
passed; I was getting sleepy, and my candle had burned low, when at
length Mrs Wilson did make her appearance, and I accompanied her
gladly.

'I am sure you want your tea, poor boy!' she said.

'Tea! Mrs. Wilson,' I rejoined. 'It's bed I want. But when I think of
it, I _am_ rather hungry.'

'You shall have tea and bed both,' she answered kindly. 'I'm sorry
you've had such a dull evening, but I could _not_ help it.'

'Indeed, I've not been dull at all,' I answered--'till just the last
hour or so.'

I longed to tell her all I had been about, for I felt guilty; but I
would not betray Clara.

'Well, here we are!' she said, opening the door of her own room. 'I
hope I shall have peace enough to see you make a good meal.'

I did make a good meal. When I had done, Mrs Wilson took a rushlight
and led the way. I took my sword and followed her. Into what quarter of
the house she conducted me I could not tell. There was a nice fire
burning in the room, and my night-apparel was airing before it. She set
the light on the floor, and left me with a kind good-night. I was soon
undressed and in bed, with my sword beside me on the coverlet of silk
patchwork.

But, from whatever cause, sleepy as I had been a little while before, I
lay wide awake now, staring about the room. Like many others in the
house, it was hung with tapestry, which was a good deal worn and
patched--notably in one place, where limbs of warriors and horses came
to an untimely end, on all sides of a certain oblong piece quite
different from the rest in colour and design. I know now that it was a
piece of _Gobelins,_ in the midst of ancient needlework. It looked the
brighter of the two, but its colours were about three, with a good deal
of white; whereas that which surrounded it had had many and brilliant
colours, which, faded and dull and sombre, yet kept their harmony. The
guard of the rushlight cast deeper and queerer shadows, as the fire
sank lower. Its holes gave eyes of light to some of the figures in the
tapestry, and as the light wavered, the eyes wandered about in a
ghostly manner, and the shadows changed and flickered and heaved
uncomfortably.

How long I had lain thus I do not know; but at last I found myself
watching the rectangular patch of newer tapestry. Could it be that it
moved? It _could_ be only the effect of the wavering shadows. And yet I
could not convince myself that it did not move. It _did_ move. It came
forward. One side of it did certainly come forward. A kind of universal
cramp seized me--a contraction of every fibre of my body. The patch
opened like a door--wider and wider; and from behind came a great
helmet peeping. I was all one terror, but my nerves held out so far
that I lay like a watching dog--watching for what horror would come
next. The door opened wider, a mailed hand and arm appeared, and at
length a figure, armed cap-à-pie, stepped slowly down, stood for a
moment peering about, and then began to walk through the room, as if
searching for something. It came nearer and nearer to the bed. I wonder
now, when I think of it, that the cold horror did not reach my heart. I
cannot have been so much a coward, surely, after all! But I suspect it
was only that general paralysis prevented the extreme of terror, just
as a man in the clutch of a wild beast is hardly aware of suffering. At
last the figure stooped over my bed, and stretched out a long arm. I
remember nothing more.

I woke in the grey of the morning. Could a faint have passed into a
sleep? or was it all a dream? I lay for some time before I could recall
what made me so miserable. At length my memory awoke, and I gazed
fearful about the room. The white ashes of the burnt-out fire were
lying in the grate; the stand of the rushlight was on the floor; the
wall with its tapestry was just as it had been; the cold grey light had
annihilated the fancied visions: I had been dreaming and was now awake.
But I could not lie longer in bed. I must go out. The morning air would
give me life; I felt worn and weak. Vision or dream, the room was
hateful to me. With a great effort I sat up, for I still feared to
move, lest I should catch a glimpse of the armed figure. Terrible as it
had been in the night, it would be more terrible now. I peered into
every corner. Each was vacant. Then first I remembered that I had been
reading the _Castile of Otranto_ and the _Seven Champions of
Christendom_ the night before. I jumped out of bed and dressed myself,
growing braver and braver as the light of the lovely Spring morning
swelled in the room. Having dipped my head in cold water, I was myself
again. I opened the lattice and looked out. The first breath of air was
a denial to the whole thing. I laughed at myself. Earth and sky were
alive with Spring. The wind was the breath of the coming Summer: there
were flakes of sunshine and shadow in it. Before me lay a green bank
with a few trees on its top. It was crowded with primroses growing
through the grass. The dew was lying all about, shining and sparkling
in the first rays of the level sun, which itself I could not see. The
tide of life rose in my heart and rushed through my limbs. I would take
my sword and go for a ramble through the park. I went to my bedside,
and stretched across to find it by the wall. It must have slipped down
at the back of the bed. No. Where could it be? In a word, I searched
everywhere, but my loved weapon had vanished. The visions of the night
returned, and for a moment I believed them all. The night once again
closed around me, darkened yet more with the despair of an irreparable
loss. I rushed from the room and through a long passage, with the blind
desire to get out. The stare of an unwashed maid, already busy with her
pail and brush, brought me to my senses.

'I beg your pardon,' I said; 'I want to get out.'

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