Wyllard's Weird (Mystery Classics Series). Mary Elizabeth Braddon
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from the spirit world. People coming from brand-new houses in Earl’s Court or Turnham Green protested that The Spaniards must be haunted; and shuddered every time the mice scampered behind the panelling, or the wind sighed amidst the branches of those leafy towers that girdled lawn and meadow.
Bothwell thought that Mr. Heathcote would leave him at the gate of The Spaniards.
“Good-night,” he said somewhat shortly.
“I’ll go on to Penmorval with you, and hear what impression the inquest made upon Wyllard,” said the other. “It’s not half-past seven yet—your cousin will be able to spare me a few minutes before dinner.”
Bothwell walked on without a word. Ten minutes brought them to the gates of Penmorval, by far the lordlier domain, with a history that was rich in aristocratic traditions. But that ancient race for which Penmorval had been built, for whose sons and daughters it had grown in grandeur and dignity as the centuries rolled along—of these there remained no more than the echo of a vanished renown. They were gone, verily like a tale that is told; and the parvenu financier, the man who had grown rich by his own intellect and his own industry—naturally a very inferior personage—reigned in their stead.
Penmorval seemed not quite so dead asleep as Heathcote Grange, alias The Spaniards. In the sweet stillness of the summer evening, Bothwell and his companion heard voices—women’s voices—familiar and pleasant to the ears of both.
Mrs. Wyllard was strolling in the avenue, with a young lady by her side, a girl in a white gown and a large leghorn hat; tall, slight, graceful of form, and fair of face—a girl who gave a little cry of pleased surprise at seeing Heathcote.
“I was just rushing home, Edward,” she said, “for fear I should keep you waiting for dinner.”
“Indeed, Hilda! Then I can only say that your idea of rushing is my idea of sauntering,” her brother answered, smiling at the girlish face, as he shook hands with Mrs. Wyllard.
“What did Mr. Wyllard think of the inquest?” he asked. “You have seen him, I suppose?”
“Only for a minute as he drove by to the house, while Hilda and I were walking in the avenue. Why, Bothwell, how fagged and ill you look!” exclaimed Dora to her cousin.
“Only bored,” answered Bothwell, which was not complimentary to the companion of his long walk.
“But you look positively exhausted, poor fellow,” pursued Dora pityingly. “Why didn’t you come back in the dog-cart? There was room for you.”
“I wanted to be alone.”
“And I wanted company,” said Heathcote, laughing, “so I inflicted my society upon an unwilling companion. Very bad manners, no doubt.”
“I’m afraid you got the worst of the bargain,” muttered Bothwell, with a sullen look, at which Hilda’s blue eyes opened wide with wonder.
“Do you know, Mr. Heathcote, an idle life does not agree with my cousin,” said Dora. “I never know what it is to be weary of Penmorval or the country round; but for the last three or four weeks Bothwell has behaved as if he hated the place, and could find neither rest nor amusement within twenty miles of us. He is perpetually running off to Plymouth or to London.”
“I wish women would take to reading their dictionaries, instead of cramming their heads with other women’s novels,” exclaimed Bothwell savagely, “for then perhaps they might have some idea of the meaning of words. When you say I run up to London perpetually, Dora, I suppose you mean that I have been there twice—on urgent business, by the way—within the last five weeks.”
“And to Plymouth at least a dozen times,” protested Dora. “All I can say is that you are my idea of perpetual motion.”
“I know you are hardly ever at home, Mr. Grahame,” said Hilda, supporting her friend.
They strolled towards the house as they talked, and half-way along the avenue they met the master of Penmorval, correctly attired in sober evening-dress, with a light overcoat worn loosely above his faultless black.
“How do you do, Heathcote? Do you know, Dora, that it is ten minutes to eight? You’ll stop and dine with us, of course,” added Wyllard cordially. “You refused last night; but now Hilda is here, and you have no excuse for going home.”
“I only came to afternoon tea,” said Hilda.
“And you and my wife have been gossiping from five o’clock until now. Deepest mystery of social life, what two women can find to talk about for three mortal hours in the depths of a rural seclusion like this!”
“A mystery to a man, who cannot imagine that women either think or read,” retorted Dora, taking her husband’s arm. “You men have a fixed idea that your wives and sisters have only two subjects of conversation, gowns and servants. Of course, you will stay and dine, Mr. Heathcote. I am not going to dress for dinner, so please don’t look at your frock-coat as if that were an insuperable obstacle. You and Hilda are going to stop, whether you like it or not.”
“You know we always like to be here,” said Hilda, in her low sweet voice.
She stole a shy little look at Bothwell, as if wondering what he thought of the matter; but Bothwell’s countenance was inscrutable.
Hilda was pained but not surprised by his manner. He had changed to her so strangely within the last few months—he who half a year ago had been so kind, so attentive. She was not angry—she was not vain enough to wonder that a man should begin by caring for her a little, and then leave off caring all at once, and relapse into absolute indifference. She supposed that such fickleness was a common attribute of the superior sex.
They all went to the house, and through a glass door into the large low drawing-room, where the butler immediately announced dinner. The two ladies had only time to take off their hats before they went into the dining-room. They were both in white, and there was a grace in Dora Wyllard’s simple gown, a cluster of roses half hidden by the folds of an Indian muslin fichu, a swan-like throat rising from a haze of delicate lace, which was more attractive than the costliest toilet ever imported from Paris to be the wonder of a court ball. Yes, she was of all women Edward Heathcote had ever known the most gracious, the most beautiful. Those seven years of happy married life had ripened her beauty, had given a shade of thoughtfulness to the matron’s dark eyes, the low wide brow, the perfect mouth, but had not robbed the noble countenance of a single charm. The face of the wife was nobler than the face of the girl. It was the face of a woman who lived for another rather than for her own happiness; the face of a woman superior to all feminine frivolity, and yet in all things most womanly.
Edward Heathcote sighed within himself as he took his place beside his hostess in the subdued light of the old panelled room, a warm light from lamps that hung low on the table, under rose-coloured shades, umbrella-shaped, spreading a luminous glow over silver and glass and flowers, and leaving the faces of the guests in rosy shadow. He sighed as he thought how sweet life would have been for him had this woman remained true to her first love. For she had loved him once. Eight years ago they two had clasped hands, touched lips, as affianced lovers. He could never forget what she had been to him, or what she might have been. He sat at her husband’s table in all loyalty of soul, in staunch friendship. He would have cut his heart out rather than debased himself or Dora by one guilty thought. Yet he could but remember these things had been.
The two ladies left almost immediately after dinner, and Bothwell sauntered out into the garden directly afterwards. Not to rejoin them, as he would have done a few months ago, but to smoke the cigar of solitude in a path beside a crumbling, old red wall, and a long, narrow border of hollyhocks, tall, gigantic, yellow, crimson, white, and pink. There were fruit-trees on the other side of the wall, which was supported with tremendous buttresses at intervals of twenty feet or so, and about wall and buttresses climbed clematis and passion-flower, jasmine, yellow and white, and the great crimson trumpets of the bignonia.
The banker and the lawyer sat silently for a few minutes, Julian Wyllard occupied in the choice of