“I think I’ve seen his picture, haven’t I?—at Wyvern. It’s in the hall, at the far end from the door, near the window, with a long wig and lace cravat, and a great steel breastplate?” inquired Alice.
“Like enough, miss—ma’am, I mean—I don’t know, I’m sure—but he was a great man in his time, and would have his picture took, no doubt. His wife was a Carwell—an heiress—there’s not a Carwell in this country now, nor for many a day has been. ’Twas she brought Carwell Grange and the Vale o’ Carwell to the Fairfields—poor thing—pretty she was. Her picture was never took to Wyvern, and much good her land, and houses, and good looks done her. The Fairfields was wild folk. I don’t say there wasn’t good among ’em, but whoever else they was good to, they was seldom kind to their wives. Hard, bad husbands they was—that’s sure.”
Alice smiled, and stirred the fire quietly, but did not interrupt, and as the story went on, she sighed.
“They said she was very lonesome here. Well, it is a lonesome place, you know—awful lonesome, and always the same. For old folk like me it doesn’t matter, but young blood’s different, you know, and they likes to see the world a bit, and talk and hear what’s afoot, be it fun or change, or whatnot; and she was very lonesome, mopin’ about the old garden, plantin’ flowers, or pluckin’ roses—all to herself—or cryin’ in the window—while Harry Boots was away wi’ his excuses—now wi’ his sogerin’, and now wi’ the hounds, and truly wi’ worse matters, if all were out. So, not twice in a year was his face—handsome Harry Boots, they ca’d him—seen down here, and his pretty lady was sick and sore and forsaken, down in her own lonesome house, by the Vale of Carwell, where I’m telling you this.”
Alice smiled, and nodded in sign of attention, and the old woman went on.
“I often wonder they try to hide these things—’twould be better sometimes they were more outspoken, for sooner or later all will out, and then there’s wild work, and mayhap it’s past ever makin’ up between them. So stories travel a’most without legs to carry ’em, and there’s no gainsaying the word o’ God that said, ‘let there be light,’ for, sooner or later, light ’twill be, and all will be cleared up, and the wicked doin’s of Harry Boots, far away, and cunning, as all was done, come clear to light, so as she could no longer have hope or doubt in the matter. Poor thing—she loved him better than life—better than her soul, mayhap, and that’s all she got by’t—a bad villain that was.”
“He was untrue to her?” said Alice.
“Lawk! to be sure he was,” replied Mrs. Tarnley, with a cynical scorn.
“And so she had that to think of all alone, along with the rest—for she might have had a greater match than Sir Harry—a lord he was. I forget his name, but he’d a given his eyes a’most to a got her. But a’ wouldn’t do, for she loved Booted Harry Fairfield, and him she’d have, and wouldn’t hear o’ no other, and so she had enough to think on here, in Carwell Grange. The house she had brought the Fairfields—poor bird alone, as we used to say—but the rest of her time wasn’t very long—it wasn’t to be—she used to walk out sometimes, but she talked to no one, and she cared for nothin’ after that; and there’s the long sheet o’ water, in the thick o’ the trees, with the black yew-hedge round it.”
“I know,” said Alice, “a very high hedge, and trees behind it—it is the darkest place I ever saw—beyond the garden. Isn’t that the place?”
“Yes, that’s it; she used to walk round it—sometimes cryin’—sometimes not; and there she was found drowned, poor thing. Some said ’twas by mischance, for the bank was very steep and slippery—it had been rainy weather—where she was found, and more said she made away wi’ herself, and that’s what was thought among the Carwell folk, as my grandmother heared; for what’s a young creature to do wi’ nothing more to look to, and all alone, wi’ no one ever to talk to, and the heart quite broke?”
“You said, I think, that there was a picture here?” inquired Alice.
“I said ’twasn’t took to Wyvern, ma’am; there was a picture here they said ’twas hers—my grandmother said so, and she should know. ’Twas the only picture I remember in the Grange.”
“And where is it?” inquired Alice.
“Dropped to pieces long ago. ’Twas in the room they called the gun-room, in my day. The wall was damp; ’twas gone very poor and rotten in my time, and so black you could scarce make it out. Many a time when I was a bit of a girl, some thirteen or fourteen years old, I stood on the table, for a long time together a-looking at it. But it was dropping away that time in flakes, and the canvas as rotten as tinder, and every time it got a stir it lost something, till ye couldn’t make nothing of it. It’s all gone long ago, and the frame broke up I do suppose.”
“What a pity!” said Alice. “Oh, what a pity! Can you, do you think, remember anything of it?”
“She was standin’—you could see the point o’ the shoe—white satin it looked like, wi’ a buckle that might be diamonds; there was a nosegay,
