The Complete Wyvern Mystery (All 3 Volumes in One Edition). Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

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СКАЧАТЬ about three miles along that road."

      "That'll be out o' the way, ma'am -- three, and three back -- six miles -- I don't know about the hosses."

      "You must try, I'll pay you -- listen," and she lowered her voice. "There's one house -- an old house -- on the way, in the Vale of Carwell; it is called Carwell Grange -- do you know it?"

      "Yes'm; but there's no one livin' there."

      "No matter -- there is; there is an old woman whom I want to see; that's where I want to go, and you must manage it, I shan't delay you many minutes, and you're to tell no one, either on the way or when you get home, and I'll give you two pounds for yourself."

      "All right," he answered, looking hard in the pale face and large dark eyes that gazed on him eagerly from the window. "Thank'ye, Miss, all right, we'll wet their mouths at the Grange, or you wouldn't mind waiting till they get a mouthful of oats, I dessay?"

      "No, certainly; anything that is necessary, only I have a good way still to go before evening, and you won't delay more than you can help?"

      "Get along, then," said the man, briskly to his horses, and forthwith they were again in motion.

      The young lady pulled up the window, and leaned back for some minutes in her place.

      "And where are we going to, dear Miss Alice?" inquired Dulcibella, who dimly apprehended that they were about to deviate from the straight way home, and feared the old Squire, as other Wyvern folk did.

      "A very little way, nothing of any consequence; and Dulcibella, if you really love me as you say, one word about it, to living being at Wyvern or anywhere else, you'll never say -- you promise?"

      "You know me well, Miss Alice -- I don't talk to no one; but I'm sorry-like to hear there's anything like a secret. I dread secrets."

      "You need not fear this -- it is nothing, no secret, if people were not unreasonable, and it shan't be a secret long, perhaps, only be true to me."

      "True to you! Well, who should I be true to if not to you, darling, and never a word about it will pass old Dulcibella's lips, talk who will; and are we pretty near it?"

      "Very near, I think; it's only to see an old woman, and get some information from her, nothing, only I don't wish it to be talked about, and I know you won't."

      "Not a word, dear. I never talk to any one, not I, for all the world."

      In a few minutes more they crossed a little bridge spanning a brawling stream, and the chaise turned the corner of a by-road to the left, under the shadow of a group of tall and sombre elms, overtopped by the roofless tower of the old windmill. Utterly lonely was the road, but at first with only a solitariness that partook of the wildness and melancholy of the moor which they had been traversing. Soon, however, the uplands at either side drew nearer, grew steeper, and the scattered bushes gathered into groups, and rose into trees, thickening as the road proceeded. Steeper grew the banks, higher and gloomier. Precipitous rocks showed their fronts, overtopped by trees and copse. The hollow which they had entered by the old windmill had deepened into a valley and was now contracted to a dark glen, overgrown by forest, and relieved from utter silence only by the moan and tinkle of the brook that wound its way through stones and brambles, in its unseen depths. Along the side of this melancholy glen about half way down, ran the narrow road, near the point where they now were, it makes an ascent, and as they were slowly mounting this an open carriage--a shabby, hired, nondescript vehicle -- appeared in the deep shadow, at some distance, descending towards them. The road is so narrow that two carriages could not pass one another without risk. Here and there the inconvenience is provided against by a recess in the bank, and into one of these the distant carriage drew aside. A tall female figure, with feet extended on the opposite cushion, sat or rather reclined in the back seat. There was no one else in the carriage. She was wrapped in gray tweed, and the driver had now turned his face towards her, and was plainly receiving some orders.

      Miss Maybell, as the carriage entered this melancholy pass, had grown more and more anxious; and pale and silent, was looking forward through the window, as they advanced. At sight of this vehicle, drawn up before them, a sudden fear chilled the young lady with, perhaps, a remote prescience.

      Chapter III.

      The Grange

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      The excited nerves of children people the darkness of the nursery with phantoms. The moral and mental darkness of suspense provokes, after its sort, a similar phantasmagoria. Alice Maybell's heart grew still, and her cheeks paled as she looked with most unreasonable alarm upon the carriage, which had come to a standstill.

      There was, however, the sense of a great stake, of great helplessness, of great but undefined possible mischiefs, such as to the "look-out" of a rich galleon in the old piratical days, would have made a strange sail, on the high seas, always an anxious object on the horizon.

      And now Miss Alice Maybell was not reassured by observing the enemy's driver get down, and taking the horses by the head, back the carriage far enough across the road, to obstruct their passage, and this had clearly been done by the direction of the lady in the carriage.

      They had now reached the point of obstruction, the driver pulled up, Miss Maybell had lowered the chaise window and was peeping. She saw a tall woman, wrapped up and reclining, as I have said. Her face she could not see, for it was thickly veiled, but she held her hand, from which she had pulled her glove, to her ear, and it was not a young hand nor very refined, -- lean and masculine, on the contrary, and its veins and sinews rather strongly marked. The woman was listening, evidently, with attention, and her face, veiled as it was, was turned away so as to bring her ear towards the speakers in the expected colloquy.

      Miss Alice Maybell saw the driver exchange a look with hers that seemed to betoken old acquaintance.

      "I say, give us room to pass, will ye?" said Miss Maybell's man.

      "Where will you be going to?" inquired the other, and followed the question with a jerk of his thumb over his shoulder, toward the lady in the tweed wrappers, putting out his tongue and winking at the same time.

      "To Church Carwell," answered the man.

      "To Church Carwell, ma'am," repeated the driver over his shoulder to the reclining figure.

      "What to do there?" said she, in a sharp, under tone, and with a decided foreign accent.

      "What to do there?" repeated the man.

      "Change hosses, and go on."

      "On where?" repeated the lady to her driver.

      "On where?" repeated he.

      "Doughton," fibbed Miss Maybell's man, and the same repetition ensued.

      "Not going to the Grange?" prompted the lady, in the same under-tone and foreign accent, and the question was transmitted as before --

      "What Grange?" demanded the driver.

      "Carwell Grange."

      "No."

      Miss Alice Maybell was very much frightened as she heard this home-question put, and, СКАЧАТЬ