Chapter Three.
Millflowers
Our “banishment,” as I sometimes, in a rather discontented mood, called our stay abroad, came to an end rather sooner than we had expected, thanks to an unusually early and genial spring, which made even father think that it would be safe for mother to return to England. Moore, by this time, was in rollicking health and quite fit for school. And to me our home-going was considerably damped by the knowledge that it meant parting with my last playfellow.
After all, the winter had passed pleasantly enough; the Paynes had helped to enliven it. But mother looked rather askance at my friendship with them.
“Boys again!” she said half-laughingly. “Always boys, Regina! I wish there had been a Miss Payne.”
“She wouldn’t have been half as nice as Isabel Wynyard,” I replied. “And Rupert is really not like a boy; his whole interest is in books and things of that kind. But you should be pleased, mamma, that I have made one real girl friend at last.”
“So I am,” was the reply – “very pleased.”
“If only they lived nearer us,” I said with a sigh. “I shall be dreadfully dull at home when Moore goes.”
“Poor Regina!” said mother. “Well, we must find something to cheer you up.”
And though I did not then know it, I believe that it was this conversation that made her determine to arrange for my promised visit to Millflowers as soon as possible. She never thought of herself, though home without any child in it seemed scarcely home to her.
The first few weeks, however, of our return were very bright and happy. It was delightful to have Moore so thoroughly his old self, and two of the other boys were with us for Easter; and best of all, the brother whom I cannot describe as a “boy,” as he was already twenty-five – Jocelyn – our “eldest,” and I must almost say “dearest.”
He was deputed to take Moore to his new school, and very proud Moore was of him as an escort.
“How I wish I could go to Winchester with you both,” I said the evening before they were to leave. “I really do think, Jocelyn,” for it was to him I was talking, “it was a great mistake that I was not a boy after all, though I have been trying my best lately to make myself into a ‘young lady’! Has mamma told you so? For every one of us, from oldest to youngest, confided in Jocelyn. I put the question with some little anxiety, for my brother’s approval was very dear to me.”
He smiled as he replied —
“Of course mother has told me of the new leaves you’ve been turning over – ever so many of them, though all in the same direction, and I intended to compliment you on the great improvement in your style of hairdressing and the general smartness of your appearance! Don’t be discouraged, my dear child. ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day!’”
“And it will take a great many days, if ever, I suppose you mean,” I said rather ruefully, “to turn a tomboy into a oh! whatever she should be.”
“But by what I hear,” said Jocelyn, “you have got a first-rate model before you in the person of Miss Wynyard. I am very glad you are going to stay with them so soon.”
I opened my eyes at this.
“So soon?” I repeated. “I have not been told anything about it.”
“Well, don’t let out that I told you, then,” said Jocelyn. “I suspect mother must have been keeping it for a surprise to cheer you up after the boy and I leave to-morrow. I believe they are arranging for you to go very shortly. You will enjoy it, won’t you?”
“I hope so,” I replied. “As far as Isabel is concerned, I am sure I shall. But I have found out that I am very shy. I think I am rather afraid of Mr Wynyard. He has brought up his own daughters to be such pinks of perfection! I am sure that he won’t approve of frivolous conversation. I remember Isabel saying how he disliked gossip. And oh! by-the-bye,” I broke off, “that reminds me, Jocelyn! There is such a queer story, a regular mystery where the Wynyards live.”
“Do you mean that the house is haunted?” said Jocelyn, laughingly.
“Oh, no; it is not about their own house, but a house near, in the neighbourhood. ‘Grimsthorpe,’ I think, is its proper name. I wonder if I might tell you about it? It isn’t exactly a secret, but I have never mentioned it to mamma. Mr Wynyard might blame Isabel for gossipping if he found that mother had heard of it.”
“As I am not likely to see Mr Wynyard, I think you may safely tell me the story, whatever it is,” said Jocelyn.
I was delighted to do so.
“To begin with,” I said, “the very name of the place – I don’t mean its proper name, but the corruption of it, for the whole neighbourhood calls it the ‘Grim House’ – is enough to rouse one’s curiosity!” And then I went on to relate the strange circumstances I had been told of.
My brother listened attentively, and with evident interest.
“What a queer story!” he said. “It suggests all manner of hidden tragedies. What a life for those poor men, even if they have done anything to deserve it! I can’t help pitying them more than the sisters.”
“The younger one is dreadfully delicate,” I said, “so perhaps his life any way would have been a dull one. He is crippled somehow. I had the feeling that the elder brother, the eldest of them all, was the cause of their imprisoned life. But Isabel maintains that they are all suffering together for some one else. I do wonder if it will ever be explained!”
“There must be many mysteries,” said Jocelyn, “that are never cleared up, but certainly this is a very curious one. Don’t let Moore hear of it if there is any chance of his ever going to the place; he could never rest contented till he got inside the Grim House. He’d be scaling the walls, and goodness knows what all, and would certainly get himself into trouble.”
“I don’t think that he or any one could feel more curiosity about it than I do,” I said. “Isabel has got accustomed to it in all these years, but even she says she has fits of wondering and wondering about these queer people.”
“And possibly,” said Jocelyn thoughtfully, “possibly the root of it all is nothing very terrible. The poor things may have got morbid about it, whereas if they could make up their minds to consult some outsider it might all be put right. It is extraordinary how brooding over troubles magnifies and increases them.”
Jocelyn was wise beyond his years, and what he said impressed me.
“It seems a pity that no one – Mr Wynyard, for instance, or the clergyman of the place, if he is a sensible man – tries to help them,” I said. “I know I couldn’t live beside four miserable-looking people for twenty years without trying to gain their confidence.”
“It may have been tried,” remarked my brother. “But of course that sort of thing cannot be forced. It would require great tact and experience. Don’t go on thinking about it too much, Reggie, or it will get on your brain; and whatever you do, don’t attempt any investigation of the secret.”
I did not reply. To tell the truth, words had added a new incentive to my great wish to unravel the mystery. What a good work it would be to get these poor lives out into the sunshine again! I was very young and very self-confident in some ways, and I did not then know that the onlookers whom I had tacitly reproached with indifference had already done their best in the direction of offering help.
The next day my brothers left us, and but for the anticipation of the pleasure in store for me which Jocelyn had told me of, I should have felt very low-spirited indeed. The morning following turned my hope into certainty. Mother opened a letter at the breakfast-table whose contents she read with evident satisfaction. In it was enclosed a note in Isabel’s handwriting which mother passed on to me. It was quite short, just expressing her pleasure at the prospect of seeing me “so soon,” and a few words added as a postscript increased my own excitement and satisfaction in the prospect of my visit to Millflowers. These were the words: – “I am doubly glad you are coming now,” she wrote, “because something very strange, or rather unusual, has happened in connection with our local mystery, and I do so want to tell you about it. I am afraid I am a gossip at heart!”
I felt my face grow red with eagerness. Mother watching me, naturally attributed my excitement solely to pleasure at the invitation.
I thought you would be delighted, she said, full of sympathy as usual. “I have purposely not spoken of it to you before till it was quite settled. There was a little uncertainty about Isabel’s plans, as her sisters had talked of taking her away to pay some visits, but in the end this has been given up. So it is all right. You will start about this day week with Maple. It is rather a long journey, but Mr Wynyard has let me know all the trains. You will get there by daylight.”
“Oh, I shouldn’t mind how late I travelled with Maple,” I said, for my maid had been with us since my childhood; though indeed, to tell the truth, my love of adventure would have found a good deal of attraction in the idea of travelling quite alone.
And the next few days passed quickly and pleasantly, mother sharing to the full my own happy expectations.
It was a long journey, for the Wynyards’ home was as decidedly in the North as ours was in the South. But I enjoyed it, especially when we got into a part of the world that was quite new to me. For though I had travelled so much, there had been no great variety in our movements, which had always been southwards. My own country was but little known to me.
The evening was drawing in when we reached our last stopping-place, the nearest station to Millflowers, by name Scart Bridge. And here a pleasant surprise awaited me, for on the platform stood Isabel herself, all smiles and welcome – “prettier than ever,” I thought to myself as I kissed her.
“How nice of you to have come yourself,” I said, “for it is a long drive, isn’t it?”
“Not so very long, after all,” she replied. “I always enjoy meeting people so much – it is not like seeing them off. You have had a long journey, though,” she went on. “Aren’t you very tired?”
“Not a bit,” I replied. “It has all been so new to me. I have never been in this sort of country before.”
By this time we were seated in the waggonette, which Isabel informed me she had assured her father I should much prefer to a close carriage.
“It is really not cold now,” Isabel went on. “The evenings are getting quite long. And it is so nice, on coming to a new place, to know something of your surroundings at once, don’t you think? In a brougham one sees nothing.”
I looked about me with the greatest interest. It was the “North Country” unmistakably. Wild and hilly, bare to some extent, though here and there we caught sight of short stretches of forest land, for during a great part of the drive to Millflowers the view was very extensive. But the aspect of things in general was not cold or repellent, even to my southern eyes, for I saw the country to advantage in the clear sweet light of a mild spring evening.
“I think it is delicious,” I said enthusiastically. And as after a time we came to a great stretch of moorland, I grew even more enthusiastic. “Oh how charming!” I exclaimed. “It seems so beautifully free and open – the air is so exquisitely fresh and scented – yes, is it not scented, Isabel?”
“I always fancy it is,” she replied, “though it is too early in the year yet for the scent – the gorse! O Regina! you should see it when the gorse and heather are out!”
“Yes,” I agreed. “It must be lovely. But do tell me,” I went on, for my thoughts in those days were very erratic, “shall we pass the Grim House on our way? And O Isabel! do tell me what has happened there! You alluded to something in your letter.”
A slight, the very slightest touch on my foot, and a glance at my friend’s face checked me. I remembered that we were not alone, for Maple was in the waggonette with us, and I felt ashamed of my stupid indiscretion.
“You mean Grimsthorpe?” said Isabel quietly. “No, we do not pass that way. Not that there is much to see if we did; it is a very ugly house, though an old one. Indeed the houses about here are rarely picturesque, though I think ours is pretty inside, and so is the vicarage. There are no other at all large houses near us. Millflowers, you know, is a very tiny village. Did I ever tell you what some people believe to be the origin of the name?” she added with a smile. But I could see that my questions had made her a little uncomfortable and that she was anxious to change the conversation.
“No,” I replied, feeling rather small. “I have wondered about it once or twice. It is an odd name.”
“There is a legend,” Isabel said, “that long, long ago some French refugees settled in this out-of-the-way part of the world, and set to work to distil ‘scented waters’ from the sweet-smelling plants and flowers – there is any quantity of thyme about here – they found, and that to their production they gave the name of ‘Millefleurs’ – a name still used for a well-known scent, of course. At that time there were only two or three cottages where our village now is, and the story goes that these poor French people’s secret gave its name to the place, getting corrupted into ‘Millflowers.’”
“How curious! I wonder if it is true,” I said.
Isabel seemed dubious as to this.
“Papa says it sounds rather as if the story had been made up to suit the name,” she said.
“Then is your own house not very old?” I inquired.
“Not very – about eighty or a hundred years old,” she replied. “It was originally just a sort of shooting-box – for our family has owned land about here for longer than that – and then my great-uncle took it into his head to enlarge it and make it his home. Grimsthorpe House is older; it was originally a large farmhouse – indeed it is not, to look at, much better than that now, though the grounds are extensive.”
We had crossed the moor by this time, and the rest of the way was along a more sheltered road bordered with trees, and here and there a glimpse of cultivated fields, altogether a different kind of landscape, more like what I was accustomed to at my own home, and a few minutes more brought us to the entrance of the Manor-house as the Wynyards’ place was now called.
As we passed through the lodge-gates, Isabel leant towards me and whispered —
“The Grim House is half-a-mile farther on, on the edge of another part of the moor.”
Her father was standing at the front door to receive us. His welcome was most cordial and courtly, but I felt even more strongly than before that it would be very difficult for me to be at ease with him; and so I said, in other words, to Isabel when we were alone in the room she had taken me up to. A charming room it was, with windows on two sides, from one of which a peep of the moorland, with rising ground in the distance, was to be had, as Isabel pointed out to me.
“Yes,” I said, as I threw myself into a tempting arm-chair, “it is all delightful; only, Isabel, I do wish I didn’t feel so shy of your father!”
Isabel laughed.
“I can’t understand it,” she said. “I mean, I can’t understand your feeling shy of him. He is so exceedingly kind and gentle. At the same time – ” she hesitated.
“What?” I asked quickly.
“I could understand,” she replied, “feeling afraid of him if one had done anything wrong – more afraid than if he were severe. When I was a small child and got into scrapes, as all children do sometimes, his look of almost perplexed distress made me feel worse, far worse, than if he had scolded me in a commonplace way.”
“O Isabel!” I exclaimed, “you are making me feel far more frightened than before! I must be awfully careful while I’m here not to shock Mr Wynyard in any way. But I am so thoughtless and forgetful; and that reminds me how stupid it was of me to allude to the Grim House mystery before Maple.”
“Yes,” said Isabel, “I thought it best to give you a hint. I was sure you wouldn’t mind; for the best of servants gossip, and I should not have liked your maid to tell our servants that you and I had been talking about the Greys, though she is pretty sure to hear something about them while she is here. But, dear Regina, you really mustn’t take up the idea that papa is alarming! He is so pleased to have you here, and has said to me more than once that he hoped you would make me less of ‘an old woman,’ which he says I am in danger of becoming. I get anxious about the housekeeping and things like that, and sometimes papa says I am not enough out of doors.”
My spirits rose at this. I asked nothing better than to be out of doors from morning till night in this beautifully wild district.
“Your father won’t have to complain of your leading too quiet a life if he leaves you to me,” I said laughingly. “And the very first time we go out, Isabel, you will promise, won’t you, to show me the Grim House! And oh!” I went on, “you haven’t yet told me what has happened there just lately.”
“It sounds so little to tell,” said Isabel; “but if you could realise the utter isolation of these poor people, you would understand the sensation it has made. It is simply that they have had visitors for the first time in the memory of man!”
“What sort of visitors?” I asked eagerly.
“Two men – gentlemen – an old and a young one! They stayed at Grimsthorpe one night. They drove up in a fly from the station, and it fetched them again the next morning. You see I have kept my eyes and ears open as regards the mystery, for your benefit.”
“Did you see these men?” I asked.
“I am not quite sure, but I think I did see one of them,” was the reply. “I had been in the village, and coming home I met a stranger who asked me the way to the church. Our church is rather curious; nobody quite knows how it came to be there, it is so big a church for so tiny a place.”
“What was he like?” I inquired, thinking to myself that I should have been much more excited over the incident than Isabel appeared to be.
“It was almost dusk,” she answered. “But his voice was a very pleasant and cultivated one. He was young, and I think good-looking. I was half inclined to ask him if he was a stranger in the neighbourhood or something of that sort, for I saw he had come down a path which only leads to the Grim House, though it wasn’t till the next day that we heard of the wonderful event. It was Strott, of course, who told me of it!”
“I wonder who he was!” I said thoughtfully. “It certainly makes the whole still more interesting if they are beginning to have any communication with the outside world.”
“There is one thing,” said Isabel, “that I forgot to tell you. They really must be good people, for on one occasion they did break through their rule of never leaving their own grounds. It was when little Tony at the vicarage fell off a haystack and they feared for his life; he was insensible for many hours, and his mother was in despair. That same afternoon the fly drove up to the vicarage, and, to Mrs Franklin’s astonishment, the Misses Grey were announced! She could scarcely believe her ears, and she has often told me that the very excitement of their coming did her good.”
“How very queer it is that you forgot to tell me of it before!” I could not help interrupting.
“I just did forget,” said Isabel calmly. “You see we are so used to the Grim House strangeness that it doesn’t strike us in the same way as it strikes you.”
“And what were they like?” I asked, “and what had they come for?”
“To express their sympathy, and find out if they could be of any use,” said Isabel. “Mrs Franklin was greatly touched. Of course their faces were quite familiar, but she had never heard their voices before. She said they were very, very gentle and apologetic, and pathetically timid. There were tears in their eyes, and they murmured something about being so fond of children, and that their own younger brother had had an accident as a boy, which had injured him lastingly. There was nothing they could do to help, though Mrs Franklin said she wished she could have invented something. She thanked them, of course, heartily, and the next day they sent down for news of Tony, by that time out of danger, and Mrs Franklin began to hope it would lead to some intercourse with these poor sad ladies. But no; the Grim House closed up again, and from that day to this they have never been seen except at church.”
“Then it appears that the only way to decoy them out of their den would be for some of you to get very ill, or have an accident or trouble of some kind,” I said rather thoughtlessly.
Isabel gave a little shiver.
“Don’t talk of such things!” she exclaimed. “I am afraid I am naturally rather cowardly. I don’t know if you have found that out yet, Regina? You mustn’t despise me for it. Margaret consoles me by saying that she thinks it was the effect on my nerves of mamma’s sudden death. I was such a little girl at the time, and it was so terribly sad – seeing her apparently quite well one evening, and being told the next morning that I should never see her again.”
“Did you not see her?” I asked in a lowered voice. Sorrow of this kind had never come near our happy family circle, and the mere allusion to it filled me with awe.
Isabel shook her head.
“No,” she replied. “They thought it better not, but I am not sure that it was so. Margaret says she looked lovely. I could not understand it; she seemed to have disappeared, and yet I was frightened to ask any one about it. For nights and nights I lay awake wondering where she had gone, or rather how she had gone; for of course they assured me that she was in a happy world. But it was so dreadful to me that she had gone without saying good-bye. I think I scarcely believed what I was told.”
“Poor little Zella!” I said tenderly. “I think indeed it was enough to shake your nerves.”
There was no more time for talking, as at that moment the dressing-bell sounded. But the conversation had left its mark on me. All through the evening, which was a very bright and pleasant one, and during which my shyness in Mr Wynyard’s presence began to fade a little – all through that first evening the thought of the poor “Grey ladies,” as I had begun to call them to myself, never left me. The picture of them in their pathetic timidity touched me curiously. And how good they must be to have made such an effort as that of going to the vicarage because there was trouble there!
And when I went to bed my meditations took an even more definite shape.
“I wonder how those four poor things are spending this evening,” I thought. “So near us and yet so far off. I wonder if they have a piano or anything of that sort to pass the time. It would be a good work, surely it would be, to get to know them, and break down the dreadful barrier they have placed round themselves. It seems so probable that they are exaggerating their troubles, whatever these may be.”