15. CHAPTER XV.
THE KEY AGAIN.
Harley came down the next morning perfectly calm and composed.
He was the first to allude to the incident of the night
before.
“An old adventure,” he said, quietly. “I mean the encounter
with our strolling-player friends. You see that it is not necessary
to go as far as Bohemia or Hungary to meet with picturesque tramps
and social Arabs.”
“Not in the least,” returned St. Leger. “Your friend the actress
was a singular-looking person—thin, pale, rouged,—but handsome
once, I should say.”
“Yes.”
“You knew her, and thought her dead, it seems?”
“Yes.”
The tone of Harley's voice was perfectly calm as he uttered this
one word, and St. Leger looked attentively at him. The look was
lost labor. Harley's face was a blank, and he added, in an indifferent
tone:
“Every man has a romantic chapter in his life—something out of
the ordinary routine. This person is the heroine of the chapter in
mine. When I am more at leisure than at present, my dear St.
Leger, I shall perhaps inflict upon you an explanation of all this.
I am somewhat busy to-day. You say you propose to visit our
good friends at Blandfield. I am going with Saunders, my manager,
and Puccoon to examine the swamp, with a view to my draining
scheme. I am afraid the work will be more difficult than I supposed.
A competent person, whom I counted upon, in the neighborhood,
and sent for, is hopelessly ill. I shall write to-day, to procure,
if possible, an accomplished engineer, whom I knew in
Lincolnshire.”
St. Leger quietly acquiesced in the change of topic. He was too
well-bred to pursue the subject of the strollers and the woman, but
he thought all the more for his silence, and was still busy with the
problem as he rode toward Blandfield, after leaving Harley, who
proceeded with Saunders toward the Blackwater.
The young man spent a delightful day at Blandfield, listening to
Evelyn's songs, and what was equally dangerous, to her low and
musical voice. This young lady was by no means what we now call
a flirt, but she had a native propensity to make herself fascinating,
and use her large eyes as an artillerist uses his cannon—for the destruction
of the enemy, the said enemy being man. St. Leger,
therefore, found the hours slip away very delightfully, thought his
companion more and more charming, and it was something like a
shock, and not an agreeable one, when Miss Clementina sailed in
agitating her fan, and looking apparently for a book.
Evelyn then acted after the fashion of young ladies. She smiled
sweetly, rose, had forgotten something, and glided from the room,
Miss Clementina subsiding casually into a seat, and opening conversation.
This conversation changed from the weather to the news,
and from the news to Justin Harley, who must have been very
lonely in his great house, Miss Clementina supposed, before the
arrival of Mr. St. Leger.
“Necessarily, madam,” was the young man's response; “and I
have been giving him some good advice—to marry. Why has he
never married?”
“Are you quite sure that he has not been married?” said Miss
Clementina, with her sweetest smile.
“Married! Harley! It is not possible!”
“Well, I do not assert anything upon the subject, Mr. St. Leger;
but there was some rumor to that effect once, was there not? But
you cannot know.”
“Married!”
“Now do not give me as your authority for any such report,
I beg. I really know nothing about it. Poor fellow! I hope he
was not.”
“Then you regard marriage as an undesirable state of being, my
dear madam?”
“For women, at least, Mr. St. Leger. It is certainly the greatest
blunder they commit. Don't you think so?”
And having embarked in the discussion of her favorite subject,
Miss Clementina grew animated, waved her fan with persuasive
eloquence, and declaimed. She was still engaged in this pleasing
occupation, when Judge Bland came in and relieved the sufferer.
The conversation took another direction; the visit finally came to
an end, and St. Leger rode back to Huntsdon, pondering upon the
mysterious hints of Miss Clementina in reference to Harley.
“Married!” he said to himself. “Was Harley ever married?
I can scarcely believe it; and yet that incident with the handsome
actress is incomprehensible. Can she be Mrs. Harley? What an
idea! And yet—humph!”
St. Leger knit his brows and pondered.
“The worst of it is, I can't ask Justin. How is it possible to go
to a gentleman, at whose house you are visiting, and say, `My dear
friend, will you be good enough to inform me, for the gratification
of my curiosity, whether you did or did not contract a marriage at
one period of your life, with a fair lady, now become a strolling
player, for the amusement of ploughmen in barns and tobacco-houses?'
That would be a bètise, and decidedly low-bred; that is
impossible! At present I am in a maze, and don't know what to
think. Harley says he will tell me everything some day. Until
then—”
“What are you muttering there, my dear St. Leger?” said the
voice of Harley. That personage had ridden close to him, on the
soft, sandy road, unheard and unperceived.
“I am soliloquizing,” St. Leger returned, with a light laugh—“the
weakness of great men, I am told. You have been to your Pontine
marsh?”
“Yes, and explored it thoroughly from end to end. The land is
rich beyond words, and can be rendered arable.”
“Lucky fellow! As a younger son, and consequently penniless,
I look upon you with respectful envy. But your friend the poacher—the
man of the swamp?”
“I have ceased to believe in him.”
“You saw him, however, did you not, on that night-hunt?”
“I thought I saw something; but nothing is more deceptive than
a moving shadow. A large fish swimming on the surface, and
making a ripple, may have produced the illusion. It is certain, at
least, that no one lives in the marshes. I went through the whole
tract pretty thoroughly, with Puccoon and Saunders.”
“Well, the mind of the excellent Puccoon must be relieved. You
saw his pretty daughter?”
“Yes—a little beauty.”
“Is she not?”
They were at the house.
“What a castellated edifice!” said St. Leger, as they went in.
“A door as big as a cathedral; a lock as huge as a flagstone; and
look at that key! That was not made to be carried in one's waistcoat
pocket!”
The words key and waistcoat pocket seemed to suggest something to
Harley. He stopped, put his hand into the pocket of his waistcoat,
and took out the key which the landlord of the Raleigh tavern had
entrusted to him for delivery to Colonel Hartright.
“I had altogether lost sight of this,” he said, “and must not
forget in the morning to send it, as I promised, to Colonel Hartright.”
On the next day he enclosed the key in a note of a few lines, explaining
how it had come into his possession, and sent it to Colonel
Hartright. That gentleman returned his thanks in a communication
of similar length, which seemed to have been subjected to the
process of freezing.
Then Harley forgot all about the matter, to which he attached no
importance.
But the key was to unlock a curious dark closet in his life.
