Fernley House Part 11

As she pa.s.sed along the garden-walk with bent head, musing soberly enough, something struck her lightly on the head,--a cherry, which fell at her feet. She looked up, and saw Grace sitting on a broad, low branch.

"Come up!" said the Goat.

Margaret smiled, and shook her head. "My dear Grace, I never climbed a tree in my life. I should not know where to begin."

"Time you learned!" said Grace, gravely. "There is no knowing when the race will return to arboreal habits. Come, Margaret, I want you!"

Margaret hesitated, and was lost. She looked about, half fearing, half hoping that somebody was in sight. No! no gardener came with his watering-can, no boy with his wheelbarrow. She turned back, to meet once more the compelling glance, and see the hand stretched out to help her.

How it was accomplished, Margaret never knew, but, after a breathless moment, she found herself seated on the branch, too, clinging fast to the rugged bark, and not daring to look below.

"All right!" said Grace, composedly. "See, now, what good cherries these are! I have permission from Madame to kill myself with them, and am doing my best. They are white oxhearts, the finest cherry that grows!"

"Oh, but I daren't let go my hold of the branch," said poor Margaret; "and my head is so dizzy. Dear Grace, how shall I ever get down again?

Won't you help me?"

"Not now! Now it is necessary that you should stay for a s.p.a.ce, and learn to accept this, as other situations. Begin gradually to look down and about you. Fix your eye on that apple-tree, the one with the hump-back; then let your eyes travel slowly, slowly, over the ground, till they come here, under our feet. There! you see it is easy. Is the dizziness gone?"

"It is certainly much better. I think perhaps, in a little while, I may get used to it, but I am quite sure I never shall like it. Why do you like to climb so, Grace? Why is it more comfortable to sit in a tree than on a pleasant, safe seat on the gra.s.s?"

Grace shrugged her shoulders. "Who can say?" she said. "I have always supposed that the soul of my grandam inhabited a bird. Shakespeare! And you know I am an owl myself in regular, if not in good, standing. What would you? It is my nature. And how do we find the Patient to-day? Did she tell you that she left her bed twice yesterday?"

"Yes. Grace, it frightens me, all this wild work. Are you sure what you are doing?"

"I am sure that there is nothing the matter with this lady. I think she can be brought back to health by foul means, but not by fair. I think that in this case the end justifies the means. _Voila!_"

Margaret looked at her earnestly; she met a gaze so full, so clear, so brave, that her own spirit rose to meet it.

Suddenly Grace held out her hand. "Come!" she said. "Trust me, Margaret!

I am not a hobgoblin, though I may pose as one now and then. Trust me; and--by and by--try to love me a little, for I loved you before ever I saw you."

Margaret took the slender hand and pressed it cordially. "I will trust you!" she said. "I have doubted, Grace, I confess; doubted and feared; but now I shall not fear any more. Only--oh, my dear, don't frighten her more than you have to. She really thinks you are--not right; and some of the things she told me were certainly rather terrifying. That trance, or whatever it was--well--what was it, Grace?"

Grace laughed, a laugh so merry and clear that the robins left off eating cherries to see what the sound might be. "What was it? My child, it was nothing. I fell down, I shut my eyes--again, _voila_! Her mind was prepared for the marvellous, and she found it. Nothing simpler than that."

"But you said something about--catalepsy! the very sound of that word always frightens me, because of a story I read once. I don't wonder it frightened Mrs. Peyton."

"I asked her if she had ever heard of it. A simple question! Apparently she had. Come, let us eat cherries, and strive to approximate the lettuce. Do you feel any green crinkles in your veins yet? And how is the Innocent to-day? I love that child."

"Dear Peggy! I left her trying to teach Tuck to keep a biscuit on his nose while she counted twenty. When I left, he could not get beyond ten, when it was devoured with yelps of joy. But I have no doubt Peggy will succeed in time; she has plenty of patience, and plenty of perseverance."

Grace nodded sagely. "Plenty of patience and plenty of perseverance!"

she repeated. "Great qualities, Margaret. I wonder if I have them. I am going to find out. Now--who is the tall person who is lame, and sits in a summer-house?"

Margaret laughed. "He doesn't sit in a summer-house all the time," she said. "That is Peggy's brother, Hugh Montfort. I want you to know him, Grace; he is so delightful; I know you will be friends. Come over to tea this evening, won't you? Mrs. Peyton promised me you should; you know we have been trying for you ever since Peggy came. Do come! Uncle John is planning something for us; he will not tell me what, but it is sure to be something delightful. Promise that you will come; and then you must really help me get down, my dear, for the girls will be wondering where I am."

"Your hands here--so! Let yourself swing clear--don't be afraid; hang still--now drop easily! There! was that so very dreadful? Good-by, cool, green, lovely one! I will come to-night; good-by!"

"What will Rita say," Margaret questioned herself as she took her way homeward, "when I write her that I have been climbing cherry-trees, and getting down from them without a ladder?"

CHAPTER XI.

THE MYSTERIES OF FERNLEY

"Now, Uncle John!"

"Now, Margaret!"

"Don't be tormenting, sir! You know that you promised us a new Mystery of Fernley, if we would all be good. We have been good; virtue s.h.i.+nes from every one of us, doesn't it, Hugh?"

"My eyes are dazzled," replied her cousin. "Most of it seems to come from the feminine side of the house, though, I fear. All that the boys and I have done has been to abstain from actual crime."

"Oh, cherries!" said Phil.

"Up into the tree of cherry, Who should climb but little Jerry?"

"Pooh! pooh!" said Mr. Montfort. "What are cherries for except to eat, I should like to know? Yes, you have all been good children, and it is true that I promised--something. Sit down now, all of you, and I will tell you the story of the Lost Casket."

The young people cl.u.s.tered about him, sitting on the floor, on cus.h.i.+ons and footstools, on anything rather than the prosaic seat of an ordinary chair. Mr. Montfort looked around on their bright, eager faces. Margaret sat next him, his own Margaret, fair and sweet in her white dress, with the bright, joyous look that had grown so habitual to her of late. Next to her was Gerald Merryweather; it struck Mr. Montfort suddenly that Gerald Merryweather usually was beside Margaret. Beyond them again, Peggy and Jean, with Phil between them; Phil, who as yet preferred his sister Gertrude's society to that of any girl he had ever seen. At the other side of the ring, Grace Wolfe, sitting a little apart, with the curious air of solitariness that seemed to surround her even in company.

Hugh Montfort was not far off, though, and his deep brown eyes were gazing at her intently.

"Once upon a time," Mr. Montfort began, and was greeted with a chorus of disappointment. "Oh, Uncle John! You said it was true."

"Not a fairy story this time, sir, please; give us the real thing!"

"Will you be quiet, you impetuous creatures?" asked Uncle John. "It is true, so far as I know. And if you interrupt me again--"

"We will not!"

"Hear us swear!" cried the young people.

"Once upon a time, then, some hundred and fifty years ago, there lived here at Fernley Mr. Peter Montfort, the great-great-grandfather of some of you. He was a worthy gentleman, with a pretty taste for engravings; that Raphael Morghen print of the Transfiguration, Margaret, that you are so fond of, is from his collection. He travelled about Europe a good deal, buying engravings; that is the only thing I know about him, except the fact that he married twice; and on this marrying twice hangs our story. Listen now, and you shall hear. His first wife (she was a Miss Rhinefels) died, leaving him with an only daughter, Christina Montfort.

The only time the name Christina appears, I believe, in the family annals. At the time of her mother's death Christina was a woman grown; a handsome person, to judge from her miniature, and of strong feelings.

She kept house for her father, and expected to do so all her days, as an early disappointment had disinclined her for marriage. When, after a couple of years, her father, being then a man of seventy, brought home a wife of twenty-five, Christina was, not unnaturally, incensed. She refused to speak to the newcomer, shut herself up in her own apartments, and had a special servant to wait upon her. This uncomfortable state of things continued for some time, when she sickened of some acute distemper, and died in a short time. She possessed some fine jewels, which she had inherited from her mother, and she was heard to say repeatedly that her stepmother should never lay a finger on one of them.

It is supposed that she, or her servant acting under her orders, hid the casket containing these jewels somewhere in this house; at all events, they were never found after her death, and have never, it is said, been seen to this day."

"Oh, Uncle John! but has any one looked for them?"

"My dear Peggy, every one has looked for them. I cannot tell you how many Montfort ladies, in all these generations, have fretted their nerves and worn out their finger-nails, hunting for this Lost Casket. I specially requested your Aunt Faith, Margaret, not to mention it to you or your cousins when you were here together. I had seen so many vain searches, and heard of so many heart-burnings, in connection with it, that I thought it best to defer the information till--till later. This, however, seems a very favorable time. You are all too sensible, girls, to be unhappy if you do not find it. To tell the truth, I used to hunt for it when I was a boy. But you can have a grand game of hide and seek, with an object, imaginary or actual, at the end of it; and I wish you a merry game, young people, and I return to my conversation with the Sieur de Montaigne."

He was surrounded in an instant, kissed, caressed, and thanked till he declared his life was in danger, and threatened to take up the hearth-broom in self-defence; finally they trooped off, to hold a consultation in the hall.

"Shall we divide our forces and go in small parties?" inquired Hugh, looking at Grace.

"I say we go just as it happens," said Peggy. "I think that will be much more exciting."