The Quiet Gentleman

'Provoking creature!' Marianne pouted. 'You are determined to be prosaic, but I shan't attend to you!'

They found the rest of the party already assembled in the Long Drawing-room, gathered about a noble fire. The Earl came forward to draw the young ladies into the circle, and Marianne, with a droll look, complained of Drusilla's insensibility. 'But she says that I must ask you, Mr. Frant, for the history of Stanyon, and you will tell it all to me—all about the secret dungeons, and the oubliette, and the ghost!'

Theo smiled, but replied ruefully that he could offer her neither ghost nor oubliette. 'And I hardly dare to tell you that the dungeons were converted many years ago into wine cellars!' he confessed. 'As for ghosts, I never heard of one here, did you, Gervase?'

'None beyond the shade that flits across the Fountain Court, weeping, and wringing its hands,' the Earl replied, with a composed countenance.

Marianne clasped her own hands together, and fixed her eyes on his face. 'Oh, no! Do you mean it? And is that the only ghost? Does it not enter the Castle?'

'I have never known it to do so,' he said truthfully. 'Of course, we have not put you in the Haunted Room— that would never do! The noise of clanking chains would make it impossible for you to sleep, and the groans, you know, are dreadful to hear. You will not be disturbed by anything of that nature, I hope. And if you should happen to hear the sound of a coach-and-four under your window at midnight pay no heed!'

'For shame, Gervase!' exclaimed Theo, laughing, as Marianne gave an involuntary shudder.'

'What is that you are saying, St. Erth?' called the Dowager, breaking off her conversation with Ulverston. 'You are talking a great deal of nonsense! If any such thing were to happen I would be excessively displeased, for Calne has orders to lock the gates every night.'

'Ah, ma'am, but what can locked gates avail against a phantom?'

'Phantom! Let me assure you that we have nothing of that sort at Stanyon! I should not countenance it; I do not approve of the supernatural.'

Her disapproval was without its effect, the gentlemen continuing to tease Marianne with accounts of spectres, and Martin achieving a decided success with a very horrid monkish apparition, which, when it raised its head, was seen to have only a skull under its cowl. 'It is known as the Black Monk of Stanyon,' he informed Marianne. 'It—it appears only to the head of the house, and then as a death-warning!'

She turned her eyes involuntarily towards Gervase. 'Oh, no!' she said imploringly, hardly knowing whether to be horrified or diverted. 'You are not serious!'

'Hush!' he said, in an earnest tone. 'Martin should not have disclosed to you the Secret of Stanyon: we never speak of it! It is a very dreadful sight.'

'Well, I don't know how you should know that,' remarked Miss Morville, a good deal amused. 'You cannot have seen it, after all!'

'My dear Miss Morville, what makes you think so?'

'You are not dead!' she pointed out.

'Not yet!' struck in Ulverston, in sepulchral accents. 'We cannot tell, however, when we may find him stiff in his bed, his fingers still clutching the bell-rope, and an expression on his face of the greatest terror!'

'No, no! Oh, you are roasting me! I do not believe it!' Marianne said faintly.

Her cheeks were quite blanched, and she could not resist the impulse to look over her shoulder. The Earl judged it to be time to have done, and to assure her that the Black Monk existed only in Martin's imagination. The Dowager set Lord Ulverston right on a little misapprehension, telling him that the bell-rope in the Earl's bedchamber hung beside the fireplace, and was out of reach of the bed. This was an inconvenience which she continued to deplore until dinner was announced; and as Miss Morville, rallied on her lack of sensibility, said that she could not be terrified by tales of skeletons, since these could only be produced by human contrivance, Marianne's alarms were soon sufficiently dispelled to enable her to eat her dinner with a good appetite, and not to suppose that if she glanced behind her at the footman about to present a syllabub to her she would discover him to be a fleshless monk.

The Dowager's benevolence had not led her to make any plans for the entertainment of her young guest, but when she discovered that the party numbered eight persons, she directed that a second card-table should be set up, so that those who did not play whist with her might enjoy a rubber of Casino. 'Mr. Clowne, and my nephew, Mr. Theo Frant, will make up our table,' she informed Lord Ulverston. 'You, I know, will prefer to play whist!'

The grace with which the Viscount accepted this decree was only equalled by the dexterity with which he convinced her ladyship that she would be better amused by a game of speculation. To her objection that she had never played the game, he responded that it would afford him delight to teach her. He seated himself on her right hand; and not even Martin, whose jealous disposition made him at all times suspicious, could decide whether it was by chance, or deep stratagem, that Marianne was placed on his other side. To her he largely devoted himself, cheating himself to enable her to win fish, and keep her in a ripple of laughter with his inconsequent chatter. Fortunately for the Dowager, Mr. Clowne, who sat on her left, considered that it behoved him to direct her bids; and since she was acquisitive by nature it was not long before she grasped the principles of the game, and was making some pretty shrewd bids on her own account.

Seldom had an evening at Stanyon passed more merrily. No one noticed the appearance of the tea-tray, and it was very nearly midnight before the party broke up.

On the following morning, an exercise in manoeuvres was won by the Earl, not, as his indignant friend told him, so much by superior strategy as by inner knowledge. The Viscount, suggesting that a riding-party should be formed, was countered by the Earl, who said that there was no horse in the stables accustomed to carrying a lady, and followed up this advantage by offering to let Miss Bolderwood drive his famous grays. Martin, only deterred from pressing the claims of his Troubadour as a safe lady's hack by the recollection that the only lady's saddle at Stanyon was on an antiquated design, quite unsuitable for Marianne's use, owned himself to be very much obliged to Miss Morville, who ventured to suggest that her own riding-horse could easily be brought to Stanyon from Gilbourne House for Miss Bolderwood's use.

It was of no avail. 'Your horse shall of course be fetched, ma'am,' said the Earl, 'but it is you who must ride him! I know Miss Bolderwood too well to indulge myself with the thought that she will set forth on any expedition while you remain at home!'

It was enough. Marianne declared that nothing would induce her to do so at the expense of her friend, and Miss Morville, who would have been happier to have attended to all the last-minute preparations for the evening's ball, was obliged to form one of the party bound for Whissenhurst, to enquire after the progress of the invalids there.

The expedition, after a vain attempt to persuade Theo into joining it, consisted of Marianne and the Earl, in the curricle, accompanied by Miss Morville, Lord Ulverston, and Martin, upon horseback. Martin's infatuation led him to stay as close to the curricle as the narrowness of the lanes permitted, but Lord Ulverston's manners were too well-bred to allow of his following this example. He devoted himself to Miss Morville, and, through the accident of his having once read one of her Mania's excellent novels when he was confined to bed with a bad chill and could find nothing else to his hand, contrived to maintain an animated conversation with her all the way to Whissenhurst.

Comfortable tidings having been received from old Nurse, every qualm was assuaged in Marianne's breast. She need not think herself a renegade; she could be happy in the knowledge that her parents were much amended, and wished her well.

'You show great aptitude as a whip, Miss Bolderwood,' the Viscount told her, upon their leaving Whissenhurst Grange. 'I have been observing you closely, and have derived no inconsiderable pleasure from the sight. But St. Erth is not the man to teach you those niceties which you should know! Ger, dear boy, take my horse, and relinquish your place beside Miss Bolderwood to me! I will show her how to feather-edge a corner.'

'Yes, pray do!' Marianne said eagerly. 'I collect that you are a member of the Four-Horse Club, and only think how I shall astonish Papa when I tell him that I have had a lesson from one of the first whips in the country!'

'My trick, I fancy, Ger!' murmured the Viscount, giving his bridle into St. Erth's hand.

'The treachery of one's friends affords food for much melancholy reflection,' retorted St. Erth. 'I warn you, I shall come about, and my revenge may well terrify you!'

'I would not have yielded so tamely!' muttered Martin, as the Viscount mounted