LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2606, 14 August 1882, Page 4

LITERATURE.

A BUfLEtt'S STORY OP A MyBTsKIOUS BUSINESS.

HEATH Hall, in the county of Surrey, was, I may say, my first situation, a-.dmy mastjr was Sir Edward Beauclaik, Bart. It was a handsome place, though rather soli-ary, standing, as it did, in the moorland part of tho county, which was quiet enough then, thero being no camp at A dershott, ten miles from the little town of Farnhem, and something further from any gentleman's seat. But the house, though an old on 9, was cimf.rtable, and had rooms that might serve a lord. Sir Edward had pub it in complete repair, and spent no end of money on the gardens and pleasure grjunds wh'ch liy round it. It was a good place for a butler, too. Sir Edward kept very respectable ssrvauts, no late houra, and not too much oompany ; there waß j oat enough to keep the place lively, and make it worth one's while. Everything was allowed on the most liberal scale, for Sir Edward was yonng, and said to be rich ; and though he hud made a good many acquaintance«, my master wee a stranger In the county of Surrey. Hia family estate lay far away in Cornwall, where he had been born, but never lived since bis childhood, having lost his father and mother e&rly; and being their only son ho had spent many years, as young gentlemen do, first at Eton and then at Cambridge, got married as soon as he came of age, and after hfs wedding went trt the oontlnent, vhere he had been travelling 1 can't say how long. Bot about three months before I came into his service, Sir Edward came back to England, bought Heath Hall, repaired and improved it, as I have said, and brought Lady Beauclsrk and Master Philip, hia only sou and heir, home to his new mansion.

He is long gone, poor gentleman, but I remember him well. A till, handsome man he was, with a rather brown complexion, blaok hair, and a look that had Eonaething high and haughty in it, though he was affable and kind to all about him.

Master Philip was his very image, end an uncommon sharp boy, but only in his fourth year ; had ho been older mayba things would not have happened ea they did through his prattle. But It is Lady Beauelark that I remsmber beat. She was a born beauty ; her hair was like gold and her cheek was like marble, with the softest tinge of the May rosa on it; woman never had lovelier features, aud her smile would have made a man forget his troubles.

Mrs Pickering, her maid, who was downright plain, and had detigns on me—there was no end of her errands to the pantry—told me as a great secret that she had not boea born a lady, which I couldn't believe, for there was not a &i:n or look of the beggar-on-horseback nb:-ut her, and few getup people but will show some of it. Lidy Beauelark was as considerate aud as cha itable as the best-born g ntlewoman could be ; and for speech and manner I am sure she matched any lady in the county. For all thit Mrs Pickering's tale waa true. I heard the rights of it afterwards from Sir Edward's valet, who bad been with him years before he ws; married. Lady Beauelark had been a dressmaker's apprentice in London, whan Sir Edward first saw her by mero accident in one of his visits to town. Her beauty had taken him captive, the valet said ; and said at the same time what a good thing it wta that my lady had no relations to keep off. But for all h> r beauty, her grace, and her good fortune, the e was something about Lady Beauelark which I c uld not understand, and did not think it safe t) mention even to my friend the valet. She had*troubles of her own, strange and silent ones, which my lady was determined to keep to herself. When a shadow crossed her path, or a door opened suddenly, she would st%r(; and turn white with fear, though it was but for the moment And I saw her at times, when she thought ni eye was upon her, cast auch frightened looks out of the window, and up the long glades of the park, as if she expected to see a ghost among their tall trees. She stood in fear of Sir Edward ; I knew it by the way she used to inquire about bis goings out and comings in, and by the oare she took never to go out of the house while he was it; but she seemed as fond of him as he was of her, and I don't believe that it was for his wealth or his title that she married him. Whatever troubled her, he knew nothing about it; but there was a picture over the mantelpiece in tha dining-room which must have had something to do with It—it was that of a lady in en old-fashioned eveniog dress, young, and resembling Sir Edward ; but the style of faoe and figure which looked so well in the man took a gaunt squareness in the woman. I noticed that my master often looked at that picture lovingly and sadly, as if it were the image of a dear lost friend ; bat my mistress took particular pains to keep her eyei off it, and when they did fall on it by accident, the same look of terror passed over her face th*t I had seen when the door suddenly opened or she glanced upon the park; and once I heard the sharp little Master Philip say to her—

' What bad thing did grandmamma do, that you don't like to look at her ploture J" Sir Edward was not in the room, and Lady Bcauclark made the child no answer, but stroked down his hair, that was so much darker than her own, and bade him look out of the window at a herd of deer that came trooping down the park just In tima to take Master Phillip's attention. Butlers are never expected to see or hear anything that does not concern the aarvlce, and of coarse I didn't j bat 1 took the very first opportunity to ask the valet, in a careless quiet way, whose picture It was that hung over the mantelpiece. ■ Sir Edward's mother,' said he ; ' the old Lady Beauclark we call her new, though Bhe came to her death young enough, posr lady.' * Did she die early then ? ' said I.

' Oh, you haven't heard the story, being from Yorkshire, and it's not much spoken of now, but it made noise enough in the west country when it happened, I can tell you. Sir Edward wai quite a child at tbe time, in his seventh year .they say. I heard it all from Mrs Flood, the old housekeeper at Ashcliffe, that's Sir Edward's estate in Cornwall, a wild ont of-the-world place, olose upon the sea, but standing so high above it that the rooks on that side are as steep as a wall, and I don't know how many feet below—but it must be some hundreds—there lies a rough, stony beach, covered fa tho job deep at high water, and on it many a good ship has gone to pieces in the Cornwall storms. A he'iff Houso stands in a sheltered hollow. A fine old mansion it is, though left to old Mis Flood and a few servants as grey £s herself for near eighteen years. You see, Sir Ei ward's father died two years after his lady, and my master could never be got to live there at all; indeed, I don't think he likes to go to Ashcliff even on business, and I don't wonder at it. The old Lady Beauclark has a grand, proud look—'ike himself—in that picture of hers, and by a'l accounts, she wa? a fond and careful mother to him, and would scarcely let her only boy out of her light night or day. But Lady Beauolark had a maid a great deal better looking than her mistress - everybody allows who can remember them both. She was vain of her good looks, too, though she had not brought her much advantage. Mrs Gynne—that was her name—bad left a family on the other side of the county—ln whese house she had been brought up, being a charity girl—as I was told on account of a misfortune she had with a London gentleman who used to visit there. JNc.boJy about Ashcliff knew of that business but the gam9keepar's wife, who had come from the same parish, and who thought it her duty not to meddle with a matter of reputation ; but she said, long after, that, in her opinion, it was not vanity that had led Gynne astray, so much as the saying of a gipsy fortune teller, who once told her at one of the country fairs that either her son or her grandson—the gamekeeper's wife was not sure which—would bs heir to one of the best estates in the county. She was a very sensible woman, that gamekeeper's wife—l oat to call her Mrs Johnson—and Sir Edward has brought hsr son to be gamekeeper here, I mean the youDg man yon were speaking to yesterday when he came with the pheasant*. By the by, that's a lonely place where his cottage stands far np among the pines ; but he has brought home a wife, I understand, and folks don't mind lonely places when they get married. 'We'l, as I was saying, the gipsy's pro phecy htlped Gynne to forget herself in one situation, and it was commonly thought that the same thing made her take a mighty notion cf her master to another. Sir ji dward'a

father—he was called Sir Edward, too—w aa fino a looking man as his son, but very unlike him in other respeots, being given to all manner of field sports, and rather fonti of a jfike. He saw the pretty face of his lady'a maid, I suppose, but every one allowed he was not taken by it, and there wna nothing wrong between them; but the aira she took on and the snares she laid for him e>Jtert»ined the jovial baronet; and by way of amusing himself, and Bometimes his company, he used to talk stuff, aud make believe to be smitten when Lady Beaaclark was out , of tho way. These jokes of his made the silly maid Imagine—at least, so it was thought afterwards, for Gynne was uncommonly deep and olose—that nothing but her mispress stood between her and the style and station of my lady. How long she had been thinking of it nobody could tell, or what put it in her head at that moment—of oourse it's always said to be the Old One that does the like—but one morning, when Lady He&udark had gone up to the rocks to gather mosses and sea plants, about which she was curious, and taken wtth her a basket to c:trry them home, Gynne watched her opportunity, and as her mistress stooped over the steep to pluck come rare plants out of a crevice, she gave ber a tremendous push, and sent the poor lady crashing down on the stony j bescb. below. 7 hoy ssy she never uttered word or cry } but little Edward, now our master, had stolon out of the nursery, and followed his mother, unknown to either her or the maid, and came ia eight just as the push was given. His shrieks were 80 loud and wild that they heard them in Asholiff House, and rushed out to see what was the matter, but b»fore anyone re&chad the spot Gynne had fhd down tho rooks and over the moor beyond. They went round by the sea path and took np the lady, but she was dead, and. Mrs JT/ood told mo there were few of her bones not broken. The child was old enough to tellplalcly what he had seen, aud the maid was searched for by all the police in the county; no pains were sparei in advertising and offering rewards, but no trace of her was ever discovered ; and the g >neral belief is, that having seen that unexpected witness of her crime, the escaped the law by drowning herself In one of the moorland laies. At any rate, Gynne was never heard of more, and Sir Edward is believed to have r<?pei-ted bitterly of his unlucky jesting with her, After the death of lia lady he was never the same man, In either health or spirits, and they laid him by her side in the family vault within two years.' The valet's story was a stranga cne, but it dfd not satisfy my mind regarding my laiy's dislike or fear to look at the picture. Mothers and daughters-in-law have no good agreement at times, in the best families; but she could have known nothing about th* lady that wbb murdered twenty years bofore, being little above twenty herself. I kept silent on the subject, however, for, besides that tie butler shouldn't tike notice of anything that passes up-stair a, I wouldn't have made a remark against Lady Beauclark to the best man In England. My lady was good to everybody, as I have ssid ; but to me she was past the common, maybe because I came most in her way, mayba benause I was the youngest of the upper servants, rather too young for a butler, which is a weighty office, considering the plate and the wine oellar. Lady Beauslark would never Fee a fault In me, or let anybody else see one, if she could help it, Many a time, v>h j n Sir Edward was out of hearing, she warned me against little matters that might have offended his stately stomach, and she did it all In such a kindly way. that no sensible young man could have bad a foolish thought about it. So my mind was made up, that whatever I found out, and however it concerned him, Sir Edward should know nothing about it from me. But as the autumn wore on, t-lr Edward got business which took him from home longer and oftener than every one ea'.d he had been since his marriage. Lord Hampshire, one of his county acquaintances, prevailed on him to stand for the borough of Brickley, in which his lordship had a great command of votes, at the general election, whioh then kept the country in a ferment never to be seen or heard of in these days, for it was just before the passing of the first Reform Bill. [To be continued. )