With a burst of tears she held out her hands; it seemed so glad a relief to have a friend there.
"Arnold, I am so miserable—so frightened! Why did not papa come down this morning?"
"He was–" Mr. Ravensworth searched for an excuse and did not find one easily "Something kept him in town, and he requested me to come down in his stead, and see if I could be of any use to you."
"Have you heard much about it?" she asked, in a whisper.
"Sanders told me and your father what little he knew. But it appeared most extraordinary to both of us. Sit down, Lady Level," he continued, drawing a chair nearer to hers. "You look ill and fatigued."
"I am not ill; unless uncertainty and anxiety can be called illness. Have you dined?"
"Yes; but your housekeeper insists on hospitality, and will send me up some coffee."
"Did you ever see so complete a picture as she is? Just like those engravings we admire in the old frames."
"Will you describe to me this—the details of the business I came down to hear?"
"I am trying to delay it," she said, with a forced laugh—a laugh that caused Mr. Ravensworth involuntarily to knit his brow, for it spoke of insincerity. "I think I will not tell you anything about it until to-morrow morning."
"I must leave again to-night. The last up-train passes–"
"Oh, but you will stay all night," she interrupted nervously. "I cannot be left alone. Mrs. Edwards is preparing a room for you somewhere."
"Well, we will discuss that by-and-by. What is this unpleasant business about Lord Level?"
"I don't know what it is," she replied. "He has been attacked and stabbed. I only know that it nearly frightened me to death."
"By whom was it done?"
"I don't know," she repeated. "They say the doors and windows were all fastened, and that no one could have got in."
Now, strange as it may appear, and firmly impressed as Mr. Ravensworth was with the innocence of Lady Level, there was a tone in her voice, a look in her countenance, as she spoke the last few sentences, that he did not like. Her manner was evasive, and she did not meet his glance openly.
"Were you in his room when it happened?"
"Oh dear no! Since I came down here I have occupied a room next to his; his dressing-room, I believe, when he stays here at ordinary times; and I was in bed and asleep at the time."
"Asleep?"
"Fast asleep. Until something woke me: and when I entered Lord Level's room, I found—I found—what had happened."
"Had it just happened?"
"Just. I was terrified. After I had called the servants, I think I nearly fainted. Lord Level quite fainted."
"But did you not see anyone in the room who could have attacked him?"
She shook her head.
"Nor hear any noise?"
"I—thought I heard a noise; I am positive I thought so. And I heard Lord Level's voice."
"That you naturally would hear. A man whose life is being attempted would not be likely to remain silent. But you must try and give me a better explanation than this. You say something suddenly awoke you. What was it?"
"I cannot tell you," repeated Lady Level.
"Was it a noise?"
"N—o; not exactly. I cannot say precisely what it was."
Mr. Ravensworth deliberated before he spoke again. "My dear Lady Level, this will not do. If these questions are painful to you, if you prefer not to trust me, they shall cease, and I will return to town as wise as I came, without having been able to afford you any assistance or advice. I think you could tell me more, if you would do so."
Lady Level burst into tears and grew agitated. A disagreeable doubt—guilty or not guilty?—stole over Mr. Ravensworth. "Oh, heaven, that it should be so!" he cried to himself, recalling how good and gentle she had been through her innocent girlhood. "I came down, hoping to be to you a true friend," he resumed in a low tone. "If you will allow me to be so, if you will confide in me, Blanche, come what may, I will stand by you."
There was a long silence. Mr. Ravensworth did not choose to break it. He had said his say, and the rest remained with Lady Level.
"Lord Level has made me very angry indeed," she broke out, indignation arresting her tears. "He has made me—almost—hate him."
"But you are not telling me what occurred."
"I have told you," she answered. "I was suddenly aroused from sleep, and then I heard Lord Level's voice, calling 'Blanche! Blanche!' I went into his room, ran up to him, and he put out his arms and caught me to him. Then I saw blood upon his nightshirt, and he told me he had been stabbed. Oh, how I shuddered! I cannot think of it now without feeling sick and ill, without almost fainting," she added, a shiver running through her frame.
Mr. Ravensworth's opinion veered round again. "She do it—nonsense!" Lady Level continued:
"'Don't scream; don't scream, Blanche,' he said. 'I am not much hurt, and I will take care of you,' and he held me to him as though I were in a vice. I thought he did not want me to alarm the house."
"Did he keep you there long?"
"It seemed long to me: I don't suppose it was more than a couple of minutes. His hold gradually relaxed, and then I saw that he had fainted. Oh, the terror of that moment! all the more intense that it had been suppressed. I feared he might bleed to death. I opened the door, and cried and screamed, and called for the servants; I rushed back to the room and rang the bell; and then I fell back in the easy-chair, and could do no more."
"Well, this is a better explanation than you gave me at first," said Mr. Ravensworth encouragingly: and she had spoken more readily, without appearance of disguise. "Then it was Lord Level's calling to you that first aroused you?"
"No; oh no; it was not that. It–" she stopped in confusion. "At least—perhaps it was. It—I can't say." She had relapsed into evasion again, and once more Mr. Ravensworth was plunged in doubt. He leaned towards her.
"I am going to ask you a question, Lady Level, and you must of course answer it or not as you please. I can only repeat that any confidence you repose in me shall never be betrayed. Did Lord Level inflict this injury on himself?"
"No, that was impossible," she freely answered; "it must have been done to him."
"The weapon, I hear, was found in your room."
"Yes."
"But how could it have come there?"
"As if I knew!"
"Why do you object to the police being called in?"
"It was Lord Level who objected. When he recovered from his faintness, and heard them speaking of the police, he called Mr. Drewitt to him—who is master of the house under Lord Level—and charged him that nothing of the kind should be done. I would rather they were here," she added after a pause. "I should feel safer. This morning I went to my husband and told him if he would not have in the police, the house searched, and the facts investigated, I should die with terror. He replied, jestingly, then if I chose to be so foolish, I must die: the hurt was his, not mine, and if he saw no occasion for having in the police, and did not choose to have them in, surely I need not want them. I was perfectly safe, and so was he, he continued, and he would see that I was kept so. He would not even have the doctor called in at first; but towards midday, when the fever returned and he became delirious, Mr. Drewitt sent for him."
"That seems more strange than all—refusing to have a doctor. He–"
The arrival of coffee interrupted them. Sanders brought it in in a silver coffeepot on a silver tray, with biscuits and other light refreshments; and Mrs. Edwards attended to pour it out. Mr. Ravensworth repeated to her what he had just said about the doctor.
"The fact is, sir, my lord does not like Dr. Macferraty," she rejoined. "None of us in this house do like him; we cannot endure him. He has not long been in practice, and we look upon him as an upstart. It is a great misfortune that Mr. Hill is away just now."
"The usual attendant, I presume, Mrs. Edwards?"
"Yes, sir; and a friend besides. He and the late lord seemed almost like brothers, so intimate were they. Mr. Hill's mother is going on for ninety; she is beginning to break, and he has gone over to see her. She lives in the Isle of Man. It is almost a month since he went away."
"The late lord? Let me see. He was the present lord's uncle, was he not?"
"Why, no, sir; he was his father," returned Mrs. Edwards, surprised at the mistake. "The late peer, Archibald Lord Level, had two sons, Mr. Francis the heir, and Mr. Archibald. Mr. Francis died of consumption, and lies buried in the family vault in Marshdale Church; and Mr. Archibald, the only son left, succeeded to his father."
"Yes, yes, I had forgotten," said Mr. Ravensworth. "An idea was floating in my mind that the present peer had not been always the heir-apparent."
CHAPTER XII.
MYSTERY
SILENCE had fallen upon the room. Coffee had been taken, and the tray carried away by Mrs. Edwards. It was yet only eight o'clock. Mr. Ravensworth sat in mental perplexity, believing he had not come to the bottom of this dreadful affair; no, nor half-way to it.
But Lady Level was in still greater perplexity, her mind buried in miserable reverie. A conviction that she was being frightfully wronged in some way, and that she would not bear it, lay uppermost with her. Since meeting with the railway boy, Sam Doughty, the previous afternoon, and hearing the curious information he had disclosed, her temper had been gradually rising. It was temper that had caused her to declare herself to Lord Level while the servants (as related in a former chapter) were at supper in the kitchen, and Mrs. Edwards and the old steward were shut up in their sitting-room, waiting for their own supper to be served. The coast thus clear, in went Blanche to her lord's chamber. Not to open out the budget of her wrongs—he might not be sufficiently well for that—but to announce herself. To let him see that she was still in the house, that she had disregarded his injunction to quit it; and to assure him, in her rebellious spirit, that she meant to remain in it as long as she pleased. Not a word of suspected and unorthodox matters did Lady Level breathe, and the quarrel that arose between them was wholly on the score of her disobedience. Lord Level was passionately angry, thus to have been set at naught. He told her that as his wife she owed him obedience, and must give it to him. She retorted that she would not do so. The dispute went no further than that; but loud and angry words passed on both sides. And the next episode in the drama, some three or four hours later, was the mysterious attack upon Lord Level.
"Arnold," suddenly spoke her ladyship, looking up from her chair, "I mean to take a very decisive step."
"In what way?" he quietly asked, from his seat on the other side of the fireplace. "To send for the police?"
"No, no, no; not that. I shall separate from Lord Level."
"Oh," said Mr. Ravensworth, taken by surprise, and thinking she was jesting.
"As soon as he is well again, and able to discuss matters, I shall demand a separation. I shall insist upon it. If he will not accord it to me privately, I shall apply for it publicly."
"Blanche, you will do no such thing!" he exclaimed, rising in excitement. "You do not know what you are saying."
"And you do not know how much cause I have for saying it," she answered. "Lord Level has—has—insulted me."
"Hush," said Mr. Ravensworth. "I don't quite know what you mean by insult–"
"And I cannot tell you," she interrupted, her pretty black satin slipper beating its indignation on the hearthrug, her cheeks wearing a delicate rose-flush. "It is a thing I can speak of only to himself."
"But—I was going to say—Lord Level does not, I feel sure, intrude personal insult upon you. Anything that may take place outside your knowledge you had better neither notice nor inquire into."
Lady Level shook her head defiantly. "I mean to do it."
"I will not hear another word upon this point," said Mr. Ravensworth sternly. "You are as yet not much more than a child, young lady; when you are a little older and wiser, you will see how foolish such ideas are. For your own sake, Blanche, put them away from you."
"I wish my dear brother Tom were here!" she petulantly returned. "It was a shame his regiment should be sent out to India!"
Mr. Ravensworth drew in his stern lips. He had suspected that of the dreadful fate of Tom Heriot she must still be ignorant. The suspicion was now confirmed.
At that moment the steward, Mr. Drewitt, appeared; and Lady Level introduced him by name. Mr. Ravensworth saw a pale, venerable man of sixty years, still strong and upright, looking like a gentleman of the old, old school, in his plum-coloured suit and white silk stockings, his silver knee-buckles, his low shoes, and his voluminous cambric shirt-frill. He brought a message from his lord, who wished to see Mr. Ravensworth.
"Who told his lordship that Mr. Ravensworth was here?" exclaimed Lady Level quickly.
"Madam, it was I. My lord heard someone being shown in to your ladyship, and inquired who had come. I am sorry he has asked for you, sir," candidly added the steward, as they left the room together. "The fever has abated, but the least excitement will bring it on again."
Lady Level was sorry also. She did not care that Mr. Ravensworth's presence in the house should be known upstairs. The fact was that one day when she and her husband were on their homeward journey from Savoy, and Blanche was indulging in odds and ends of grievances against her lord, as in her ill-feeling towards him she was then taking to do, she had spoken a few words in sheer perverseness of spirit to make him jealous of Arnold Ravensworth. Lord Level said nothing, but he took the words to heart. He had not liked that gentleman before; he hated him now. Blanche blushed for herself as she recalled it.
Of course, it was not the visitor likely to give most pleasure to Lord Level. As the steward introduced Mr. Ravensworth and left them together, Lord Level regarded him with a cold, stern glance.
"So it is you!" he exclaimed. "May I ask what brings you down here? Did my lady send for you?"
"No," answered Mr. Ravensworth, advancing towards the bed. "Major Carlen called at my house this morning and requested me to come down. I could not reach Marshdale before to-night."
"Major Carlen? Oh! very good. Major Carlen dare not interfere between me and my wife; and he knows that."
"So far as I believe, Major Carlen has no intention or wish to interfere. Lady Level sent to him in her alarm, and he requested me to come down in his place."
"If Major Carlen has entered into an arrangement with you to come to my house and pry into matters that concern myself alone–"
"I beg your lordship's pardon," was the curt interruption. "I do not like or respect Major Carlen sufficiently well to enter into any 'arrangement' with him. I came down here, certainly in compliance with his desire, but in a spirit of kindness towards Lady Level, and to be of assistance to yourself if it were possible."
"How came you to bring Lady Level over from Germany?"
"She wished to come over."
"And I wished and desired her to stay there until I could join her. Do you call that interference?"
"It was nothing of the kind. On the morning of our departure from the inn, Lady Level told my wife and myself that she should take the opportunity to travel with us. She and her servants were even then dressed for the journey, and her travelling-carriage stood ready packed in the yard. If she did this against your wish, I am in no way responsible for it. It was not my place to dictate to her; to say she should go, or should remain. Be assured, my lord, I am the last man in the world unduly to interfere with other people; and my coming down now was entirely brought about by Major Carlen."
Lord Level was not insensible to reason. He remained silent for a time, the angry expression gradually leaving his face. Mr. Ravensworth spoke:
"I hope this injury to your lordship will not prove a grave one."
"It is a trifle," was the answer; "nothing but a trifle. It is my knee that keeps me prostrate here more than anything else; and I have intermittent fever with it."
"Can I be of service to you? If so, command me."
"Much obliged. No, I do not want anyone to be of service to me, if you allude to this stabbing business. Some drunken fellow got in, and–"
"The servants say the doors were all left fastened, and were so found."
"The servants say so to conceal their carelessness," cried Lord Level, as a contortion of pain crossed his face. "This knee gives me twinges at times like a red-hot iron."
"If anyone had broken in, especially any–"
"Mr. Ravensworth," imperatively interrupted Lord Level, "it is my pleasure that this affair should not be investigated. I say that some man got in—a poacher, probably, who must have been the worse for drink—and he attacked me, not knowing what he was doing. To have a commotion made over it would only excite me in my present feverish condition. Therefore I shall put up with the injury, and shall be well all the sooner for doing so. You will be so obliging," he added, some sarcasm in his tone, "as to do the same."
But now, Mr. Ravensworth did not show himself wise in that moment. He urged, in all good faith, a different course upon his lordship. The presumption angered and excited Lord Level. In no time, as it seemed, and without sufficient cause, the fever returned and mounted to the brain. His face grew crimson, his eye wild; his voice rose almost to a scream, and he flung his uninjured arm about the bed. Mr. Ravensworth, in self-reproach for what he had done, looked for the bell and rang it.
"Drewitt, are the doors fastened?" raved his lordship in delirium, as the steward hastened in. "Do you hear me, Drewitt? Have you looked to the doors? You must have left one of them open! Where are the keys? The keys, I say, Drewitt!—What brings that man here?"
"You had better go down, sir, out of his sight," whispered the steward, for it was at Mr. Ravensworth the invalid was excitedly pointing. "I knew what it would be if he began talking. And he was so much better!"
"His lordship excites himself for nothing," was the deprecating answer.
"Why, of course," said Mr. Drewitt. "It is the nature of fever-patients to do so."
Mrs. Edwards came in with appliances to cool the heated head, and Mr. Ravensworth returned to the sitting-room below. Blanche was not there. Close upon that, Dr. Macferraty called. After he had been with his patient and dressed the wounds, he came bustling into the sitting-room. This loud young man had a nose that turned straight up, giving an impudent look to the face, and wide-open, round green eyes. But no doubt he had his good points, and was a skilful surgeon.
"You are a friend of the family, I hear, sir," he began. "I hope you intend to order an investigation into this extraordinary affair?"
"I have no authority for doing so. And Lord Level does not wish it done."
"A fig for Lord Level! He does not know what he's saying," cried Dr. Macferraty. "There never was so monstrous a thing heard of as that a nobleman should be stabbed in his own bed and the assassin be let off scot-free! We need not look far for the culprit!"
The last words, significantly spoken, jarred on Mr. Ravensworth's ears. "Have you a suspicion?" he asked.
"I can put two and two together, sir, and find they make four. The windows were fast; the doors were fast; there was no noise, no disturbance, no robbery: well, then, what deduction have we to fall back upon but that the villain, he or she, is an inmate of the house?"
Mr. Ravensworth's pulses beat a shade more quickly. "Do you suspect one of the servants?"
"Yes, I do."
"But the servants are faithful and respectable. They are not suspected indoors, I assure you."
"Perhaps not; they are out-of-doors, though. The whole neighbourhood is in commotion over it; and how Drewitt and the old lady can let these two London servants be at large is the talk of the place."
"Oh, it is the London servants you suspect, then, or one of them?"
"Look here," said Dr. Macferraty, dropping his voice and bending forward in his chair till his face almost touched Mr. Ravensworth's: "that the deed was done by an inmate of the house is certain. No one got in, or could have got in; it is nonsense to suggest it. The inmates consist of Lady Level and the servants only. If you take it from the servants, you must lay it upon her."
No answer.
"Well," went on the doctor, "it is impossible to suspect her. A delicate, refined girl, as she is, could not do so evil a thing. So we must needs look to the servants. Deborah would not do it; the stout old cook could not. She was in bed ill, besides, and slept through all the noise and confusion. The two other servants, Sanders and Timms, are strangers."
"I feel sure they no more did it than I," impulsively spoke Mr. Ravensworth.
"Then you would fall back upon Lady Level?"
"No. No," flashed Mr. Ravensworth. "The bare suggestion of the idea is an insult to her."
Dr. Macferraty drew himself back in his chair. "There's a mystery in the affair, look at it which way you will, sir," he cried raspingly. "My lord says he did not recognise the assassin; but, if he did not, why should he forbid investigation? Put it as you do, that the two servants are innocent—why, then, I fairly own I am puzzled. Another thing puzzles me: the knife was found in Lady Level's chamber, yet she protests that she slept through it all—was only awakened by his lordship calling to her when it was over."
"It may have been flung in."
"No; it was carried in; for blood had dripped from it all along the floor."
"Has the weapon been recognised?"
"Not that I am aware of. No one owns to knowing it. Anyway, it is an affair that ought to be, and that must be, inquired into officially," concluded the doctor from the corridor, as he said good-night and went bustling out.
Mr. Ravensworth, standing at the sitting-room door, saw him meet the steward, who must have overheard the words, and now advanced with cautious steps. Touching Mr. Ravensworth's arm, he drew him within the shadow cast by a remote corner.
"Sir," he whispered, "my lady told Mrs. Edwards that you were a firm friend of hers; a sure friend?"
"I trust I am, Mr. Drewitt."
"Then let it drop, sir; it is no common robber who has done this. Let it drop, for her sake and my lord's."
Mr. Ravensworth felt painfully perplexed. Those few words, spoken by the faithful old steward, were more fraught with suspicion against Lady Level than anything he had yet heard.
Returning to the sitting-room, pacing it to and fro in his perplexity for he knew not how long, he was looking at his watch to ascertain the time, when Lady Level came in. She had been in Lord Level's sitting-room upstairs, she said, the one opposite his bed-chamber. He was somewhat calmer now. Mr. Ravensworth thought that he must now be going.
"I have been of no assistance to you, Lady Level; I do not see that I can be of any," he observed. "But should anything arise in which you think I can help you, send for me."
"What do you expect to arise?" she hastily inquired.
"Nay, I expect nothing."
"Did Lord–" Lady Level suddenly stopped and turned her head. Just within the room stood two policemen. She rose with a startled movement, and shrank close to Mr. Ravensworth, crying out, as for protection. "Arnold! Arnold!"
"Do not agitate yourself," he whispered. "What is it that you want?" he demanded, moving towards the men.
"We have come about this attack on Lord Level, sir," replied one of them.
"Who sent for you?"
"Don't know anything about that, sir. Our superior ordered us here, and is coming on himself. We must examine the fastenings of this window, sir, by the lady's leave."
They passed up the room, and Lady Level left it, followed by Mr. Ravensworth. Outside stood Deborah, aghast.
"They have been in the kitchen this ten minutes, my lady," she whispered, "asking questions of us all—Mr. Sanders and Mrs. Timms and me and cook, all separate. And now they are going round the house to search it, and see to the fastenings."
The men came out again and moved away, Deborah following slowly in their wake: she appeared to regard them with somewhat of the curiosity we give to a wild animal: but Mr. Ravensworth recalled her. Lady Level entered the room again and sat down by the fire. Mr. Ravensworth again observed that he must be going: he had barely time to walk to the station and catch the train.
"Arnold, if you go, and leave me with these men in the house, I will never forgive it!" she passionately uttered.
He looked at her in surprise. "I thought you wished for the presence of the police. You said you should regard them as a protection."
"Did you send for them?" she breathlessly exclaimed.
"Certainly not."
She sank into a reverie—a deep, unpleasant reverie that compressed her lips and contracted her brow. Suddenly she lifted her head.
"He is my husband, after all, Arnold."
"To be sure he is."
"And therefore—and therefore—there had better be no investigation."
"Why?" asked Mr. Ravensworth, scarcely above his breath.
"Because he does not wish it," she answered, bending her face downwards. "He forbade me to call in aid, or to suffer it to be called in; and, as I say, he is my husband. Will you stop those men in their search? will you send them away?"
"I do not think I have power to do so."
"You can forbid them in Lord Level's name. I give you full authority: as he would do, were he capable of acting. Arnold, I will have them out of the house. I will."
"What is it that you fear from them?"
"I fear—I cannot tell you what I fear. They might question me."
"And if they did?—you can only repeat to them what you told me."
"No, it must not be," she shivered. "I—I—dare not let it be."
Mr. Ravensworth paused. "Blanche," he said, in low tones, "have you told me all?"
"Perhaps not," she slowly answered.
"'Perhaps!'"
"There!" she exclaimed, springing up in wild excitement. "I hear those men upstairs, and you stand here idly talking! Order them away in Lord Level's name."
Desperately perplexed, Mr. Ravensworth flew to the stairs. The steward, pale and agitated, met him half-way up. "It must not be looked into by the police," he whispered. "Sir, it must not. Will you speak to them? you may have more weight with them than I. Say you are a friend of my lord's. I strongly suspect this is the work of that meddling Macferraty."
Arnold Ravensworth moved forward as one in a dream, an under-current of thought asking what all this mystery meant. The steward followed. They found the men in one of the first rooms: not engaged in the examination of its fastenings or its closets (and the whole house abounded in closets and cupboards), but with their heads together, talking in whispers.
In answer to Mr. Ravensworth's peremptory demand, made in Lord Level's name, that the search should cease and the house be freed of their presence, they civilly replied that they must not leave, but would willingly retire to the kitchen and there await their superior officer, who was on his road to the house: and they went down accordingly. Mr. Ravensworth returned to the sitting-room to acquaint Lady Level with the fact, but found she had disappeared. In a moment she came in, scared, her hands lifted in dismay, her breath coming in gasps.
"Give me air!" she cried, rushing to the window and motioning to have it opened. "I shall faint; I shall die."
"What ever is the matter?" questioned Mr. Ravensworth, as he succeeded in undoing the bolt of the window, and throwing up its middle compartment. At that moment a loud ring came to the outer gate. It increased her terror, and she broke into a flood of tears.
"My dear young lady, let me be your friend," he said in his grave concern. "Tell me the whole truth. I know you have not done so yet. Let it be what it will, I promise to—if possible—shield you from harm."
"Those men are saying in the kitchen that it was I who attacked Lord Level; I overheard them," she shuddered, the words coming from her brokenly in her agitation.
"Make a friend of me; you shall never have a truer," he continued, for really he knew not what else to urge, and he could not work in the dark. "Tell me all from beginning to end."
But she only shivered in silence.
"Blanche!—did—you—do—it?"
"No," she answered, with a low burst of heartrending sobs. "But I saw it done."