Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood

Here followed a pause, for, Judy disposed of, what should I say next? And the moment her mind turned from Judy, I saw a certain stillness—not a cloud, but the shadow of a cloud—come over Miss Oldcastle’s face, as if she, too, found herself uncomfortable, and did not know what to say next. I tried to get a glance at the book in her hand, for I should know something about her at once if I could only see what she was reading. She never came to church, and I wanted to arrive at some notion of the source of her spiritual life; for that she had such, a single glance at her face was enough to convince me. This, I mean, made me even anxious to see what the book was. But I could only discover that it was an old book in very shabby binding, not in the least like the books that young ladies generally have in their hands.

And now my readers will possibly be thinking it odd that I have never yet said a word about what either Judy or Miss Oldcastle was like. If there is one thing I feel more inadequate to than another, in taking upon me to relate—it is to describe a lady. But I will try the girl first.

Judy was rosy, gray-eyed, auburn-haired, sweet-mouthed. She had confidence in her chin, assertion in her nose, defiance in her eyebrows, honesty and friendliness over all her face. No one, evidently, could have a warmer friend; and to an enemy she would be dangerous no longer than a fit of passion might last. There was nothing acrid in her; and the reason, I presume, was, that she had never yet hurt her conscience. That is a very different thing from saying she had never done wrong, you know. She was not tall, even for her age, and just a little too plump for the immediate suggestion of grace. Yet every motion of the child would have been graceful, except for the fact that impulse was always predominant, giving a certain jerkiness, like the hopping of a bird, instead of the gliding of one motion into another, such as you might see in the same bird on the wing.

There is one of the ladies.

But the other—how shall I attempt to describe her?

The first thing I felt was, that she was a lady-woman. And to feel that is almost to fall in love at first sight. And out of this whole, the first thing you distinguished would be the grace over all. She was rather slender, rather tall, rather dark-haired, and quite blue-eyed. But I assure you it was not upon that occasion that I found out the colour of her eyes. I was so taken with her whole that I knew nothing about her parts. Yet she was blue-eyed, indicating northern extraction—some centuries back perhaps. That blue was the blue of the sea that had sunk through the eyes of some sea-rover’s wife and settled in those of her child, to be born when the voyage was over. It had been dyed so deep INGRAYNE, as Spenser would say, that it had never been worn from the souls of the race since, and so was every now and then shining like heaven out at some of its eyes. Her features were what is called regular. They were delicate and brave.—After the grace, the dignity was the next thing you came to discover. And the only thing you would not have liked, you would have discovered last. For when the shine of the courtesy with which she received me had faded away a certain look of negative haughtiness, of withdrawal, if not of repulsion, took its place, a look of consciousness of her own high breeding—a pride, not of life, but of circumstance of life, which disappointed me in the midst of so much that was very lovely. Her voice was sweet, and I could have fancied a tinge of sadness in it, to which impression her slowness of speech, without any drawl in it, contributed. But I am not doing well as an artist in describing her so fully before my reader has become in the least degree interested in her. I was seeing her, and no words can make him see her.

Fearing lest some such fancy as had possessed Judy should be moving in her mind, namely, that I was, if not exactly going to put her through her Catechism, yet going in some way or other to act the clergyman, I hastened to speak.

“This is a most romantic spot, Miss Oldcastle,” I said; “and as surprising as it is romantic. I could hardly believe my eyes when I looked out of the window and saw it first.”

“Your surprise was the more natural that the place itself is not properly natural, as you must have discovered.”

This was rather a remarkable speech for a young lady to make. I answered—

“I only know that such a chasm is the last thing I should have expected to find in this gently undulating country. That it is artificial I was no more prepared to hear than I was to see the place itself.”

“It looks pretty, but it has not a very poetic origin,” she returned. “It is nothing but the quarry out of which the old house at the top of it was built.”

“I must venture to differ from you entirely in the aspect such an origin assumes to me,” I said. “It seems to me a more poetic origin than any convulsion of nature whatever would have been; for, look you,” I said—being as a young man too much inclined to the didactic, “for, look you,” I said—and she did look at me—“from that buried mass of rock has arisen this living house with its histories of ages and generations; and”—

Here I saw a change pass upon her face: it grew almost pallid. But her large blue eyes were still fixed on mine.

“And it seems to me,” I went on, “that such a chasm made by the uplifting of a house therefrom, is therefore in itself more poetic than if it were even the mouth of an extinct volcano. For, grand as the motions and deeds of Nature are, terrible as is the idea of the fiery heart of the earth breaking out in convulsions, yet here is something greater; for human will, human thought, human hands in human labour and effort, have all been employed to build this house, making not only the house beautiful, but the place whence it came beautiful too. It stands on the edge of what Shelley would call its ‘antenatal tomb’—now beautiful enough to be its mother—filled from generation to generation “—

Her face had grown still paler, and her lips moved as if she would speak; but no sound came from them. I had gone on, thinking it best to take no notice of her paleness; but now I could not help expressing concern.

“I am afraid you feel ill, Miss Oldcastle.”

“Not at all,” she answered, more quickly than she had yet spoken.

“This place must be damp,” I said. “I fear you have taken cold.”

She drew herself up a little haughtily, thinking, no doubt, that after her denial I was improperly pressing the point. So I drew back to the subject of our conversation.

“But I can hardly think,” I said, “that all this mass of stone could be required to build the house, large as it is. A house is not solid, you know.”

“No,” she answered. “The original building was more of a castle, with walls and battlements. I can show you the foundations of them still; and the picture, too, of what the place used to be. We are not what we were then. Many a cottage, too, has been built out of this old quarry. Not a stone has been taken from it for the last fifty years, though. Just let me show you one thing, Mr. Walton, and then I must leave you.”

“Do not let me detain you a moment. I will go at once,” I said; “though, if you would allow me, I should be more at ease if I might see you safe at the top of the stair first.”

She smiled.

“Indeed, I am not ill,” she answered; “but I have duties to attend to. Just let me show you this, and then you shall go with me back to mamma.”

She led the way to the edge of the pond and looked into it. I followed, and gazed down into its depths, till my sight was lost in them. I could see no bottom to the rocky shaft.

“There is a strong spring down there,” she said. “Is it not a dreadful place? Such a depth!”

“Yes,” I answered; “but it has not the horror of dirty water; it is as clear as crystal. How does the surplus escape?”

“On the opposite side of the hill you came up there is a well, with a strong stream from it into the river.”

“I almost wonder at your choosing such a place to read in. I should hardly like to be so near this pond,” said I, laughing.

“Judy has taken all that away. Nothing in nature, and everything out of it, is strange to Judy, poor child! But just look down a little way into the water on this side. Do you see anything?”

“Nothing,” I answered.

“Look again, against the wall of the pond,” she said.

“I see a kind of arch or opening in the side,” I answered.

“That is what I wanted you to see. Now, do you see a little barred window, there, in the face of the rock, through the trees?”

“I cannot say I do,” I replied.

“No. Except you know where it is—and even then—it is not so easy to find it. I find it by certain trees.”

“What is it?”

“It is the window of a little room in the rock, from which a stair leads down through the rock to a sloping passage. That is the end of it you see under the water.”

“Provided, no doubt,” I said, “in case of siege, to procure water.”

“Most likely; but not, therefore, confined to that purpose. There are more dreadful stories than I can bear to think of”–

Here she paused abruptly, and began anew “–As if that house had brought death and doom out of the earth with it. There was an old burial-ground here before the Hall was built.”

“Have you ever been down the stair you speak of?” I asked.

“Only part of the way,” she answered. “But Judy knows every step of it. If it were not that the door at the top is locked, she would have dived through that archway now, and been in her own room in half the time. The child does not know what fear means.”

We now moved away from the pond, towards the side of the quarry and the open-air stair-case, which I thought must be considerably more pleasant than the other. I confess I longed to see the gleam of that water at the bottom of the dark sloping passage, though.

Miss Oldcastle accompanied me to the room where I had left her mother, and took her leave with merely a bow of farewell. I saw the old lady glance sharply from her to me as if she were jealous of what we might have been talking about.

“Grannie, are you afraid Mr. Walton has been saying pretty things to Aunt Winnie? I assure you he is not of that sort. He doesn’t understand that kind of thing. But he would have jumped into the pond after me and got his death of cold if auntie would have let him. It WAS cold. I think I see you dripping now, Mr Walton.”

There she was in her dark corner, coiled up on a couch, and laughing heartily; but all as if she had done nothing extraordinary. And, indeed, estimated either by her own notions or practices, what she had done was not in the least extraordinary.

Disinclined to stay any longer, I shook hands with the grandmother, with a certain invincible sense of slime, and with the grandchild with a feeling of mischievous health, as if the girl might soon corrupt the clergyman into a partnership in pranks as well as in friendship. She fallowed me out of the room, and danced before me down the oak staircase, clearing the portion from the first landing at a bound. Then she turned and waited for me, who came very deliberately, feeling the unsure contact of sole and wax. As soon as I reached her, she said, in a half-whisper, reaching up towards me on tiptoe—

“Isn’t she a beauty?”