第27章 BARBARA OF THE HOUSE OF GREBE(10)

One night,or rather in the smallest hours of the morning,he missed the Countess from his side.Not being a man of nervous imaginings he fell asleep again before he had much considered the matter,and the next morning had forgotten the incident.But a few nights later the same circumstances occurred.This time he fully roused himself;but before he had moved to search for her,she entered the chamber in her dressing-gown,carrying a candle,which she extinguished as she approached,deeming him asleep.He could discover from her breathing that she was strangely moved;but not on this occasion either did he reveal that he had seen her.Presently,when she had lain down,affecting to wake,he asked her some trivial questions.

'Yes,EDMOND,'she replied absently.

Lord Uplandtowers became convinced that she was in the habit of leaving the chamber in this queer way more frequently than he had observed,and he determined to watch.The next midnight he feigned deep sleep,and shortly after perceived her stealthily rise and let herself out of the room in the dark.He slipped on some clothing and followed.At the farther end of the corridor,where the clash of flint and steel would be out of the hearing of one in the bed-chamber,she struck a light.He stepped aside into an empty room till she had lit a taper and had passed on to her boudoir.In a minute or two he followed.Arrived at the door of the boudoir,he beheld the door of the private recess open,and Barbara within it,standing with her arms clasped tightly round the neck of her Edmond,and her mouth on his.The shawl which she had thrown round her nightclothes had slipped from her shoulders,and her long white robe and pale face lent her the blanched appearance of a second statue embracing the first.Between her kisses,she apostrophized it in a low murmur of infantine tenderness:

'My only love--how could I be so cruel to you,my perfect one--so good and true--I am ever faithful to you,despite my seeming infidelity!I always think of you--dream of you--during the long hours of the day,and in the night-watches!O Edmond,I am always yours!'Such words as these,intermingled with sobs,and streaming tears,and dishevelled hair,testified to an intensity of feeling in his wife which Lord Uplandtowers had not dreamed of her possessing.

'Ha,ha!'says he to himself.'This is where we evaporate--this is where my hopes of a successor in the title dissolve--ha,ha!This must be seen to,verily!'

Lord Uplandtowers was a subtle man when once he set himself to strategy;though in the present instance he never thought of the simple stratagem of constant tenderness.Nor did he enter the room and surprise his wife as a blunderer would have done,but went back to his chamber as silently as he had left it.When the Countess returned thither,shaken by spent sobs and sighs,he appeared to be soundly sleeping as usual.The next day he began his countermoves by making inquiries as to the whereabouts of the tutor who had travelled with his wife's first husband;this gentleman,he found,was now master of a grammar-school at no great distance from Knollingwood.At the first convenient moment Lord Uplandtowers went thither and obtained an interview with the said gentleman.The schoolmaster was much gratified by a visit from such an influential neighbour,and was ready to communicate anything that his lordship desired to know.

After some general conversation on the school and its progress,the visitor observed that he believed the schoolmaster had once travelled a good deal with the unfortunate Mr.Willowes,and had been with him on the occasion of his accident.He,Lord Uplandtowers,was interested in knowing what had really happened at that time,and had often thought of inquiring.And then the Earl not only heard by word of mouth as much as he wished to know,but,their chat becoming more intimate,the schoolmaster drew upon paper a sketch of the disfigured head,explaining with bated breath various details in the representation.

'It was very strange and terrible!'said Lord Uplandtowers,taking the sketch in his hand.'Neither nose nor ears!'

A poor man in the town nearest to Knollingwood Hall,who combined the art of sign-painting with ingenious mechanical occupations,was sent for by Lord Uplandtowers to come to the Hall on a day in that week when the Countess had gone on a short visit to her parents.

His employer made the man understand that the business in which his assistance was demanded was to be considered private,and money insured the observance of this request.The lock of the cupboard was picked,and the ingenious mechanic and painter,assisted by the schoolmaster's sketch,which Lord Uplandtowers had put in his pocket,set to work upon the god-like countenance of the statue under my lord's direction.What the fire had maimed in the original the chisel maimed in the copy.It was a fiendish disfigurement,ruthlessly carried out,and was rendered still more shocking by being tinted to the hues of life,as life had been after the wreck.

Six hours after,when the workman was gone,Lord Uplandtowers looked upon the result,and smiled grimly,and said:

'A statue should represent a man as he appeared in life,and that's as he appeared.Ha!ha!But 'tis done to good purpose,and not idly.'

He locked the door of the closet with a skeleton key,and went his way to fetch the Countess home.