Tales of College Life/A Long-Vacation Vigil/Chapter 3
CHAPTER III.
DISCOVERIES AND BEWILDERMENTS.
I ought to have dreamed of her, and should probably have done so, had not the low murmur of the waves lulled me into too sound a sleep for a visit to Dream land; but I devoted my thoughts to her during the whole time I was shaving, and, as that included the risk of a razor-cut, I began to think that I was decidedly, and madly, in love.
After breakfast, I descended into the precincts of the Bar, in order to have a gossip with our landlady. Mrs. Rummell was always particularly obliging on this point; and I therefore experienced no difficulty in leading the conversation on to the subject of yesterday's arrival. The landlady's communicative tongue soon put me in possession of the intelligence I was so anxious to obtain.
"The gentleman's name is Spencer," Mrs. Rummell said, "the gentleman told me so himself, and said that all letters directed here in that name were to be brought to him; and he said that, Sir, just as though they was n't to be given to either of the two ladies. The oldest lady is his wife, because he called her 'my dear'" (Mrs. Rummell's logic was conclusive); "and the young lady is his daughter, because, when I offered to assist her in taking off her travelling-dress, the other lady said 'Thank you, but my daughter needs no assistance:' and I heard her call her, Amy." (Amy! what a sweet name!) "They have very grand manners, and are grand people, I 'm sure, Sir; but I think there 's something rather queer with them. It is n't often that gentle folk of their quality, especially where there are ladies, travel without their servants; but that 's nothing to do with me, if they want to save expense. And they don't let the waiter be in the room at meal-time, no more than is necessary to change plates, and put the things on the table; but that 's nothing to do with me, if they wish to be private. And, last night, when the chambermaid went to unfasten the ladies"
"Unfasten them!" I cried in surprise. "Why, you don't mean to say that they are chained up?"
"Oh, law no, Sir!" laughed Mrs. Rummell, in good-humoured horror.
"Then, do you mean that the two ladies are taken to pieces every night?"
"Ah! you are fond of your joke, I see, Sir; but, of course, you know what I mean well enough; that the chambermaid went to assist the ladies in unlacing their dresses, and so on."
"Oh! I see! and what happened?"
"Well, Sir!" answered Mrs. Rummell, "she was only allowed to unfasten Mrs. Spencer; and she did n't so much as set eyes upon the young lady. And it was just the same this morning, when she went to fasten the ladies; she only saw Mrs. Spencer; and, when she asked if she should go and help the young lady, Mrs. Spencer said, 'No! I will attend to her myself.' Putting this and that together, it almost looks as if the young lady had been doing something wrong, and they were keeping her under lock and key; for, when they came, Mrs. Spencer said to me, 'We shall require two bedrooms, and they must communicate with each other.' I happened to have such rooms as she required, with an inner door opening from the one room into the other, and an outer door to each room opening on the landing. So I showed the lady these, and she said they would do very well; and then she examined the lock of the outer door of the young lady's room, and she locked it, and told me that she would keep the key as long as they remained here. Of course, Sir, I could make no objection to this; but it almost looks as if the poor young lady was a sort of prisoner."
The landlady's tale roused my curiosity, and added (if possible) to the interest I already felt in the fair stranger. Poor Amy! since Amy, it seems, was her name; what could she have been doing to require such strict guardianship? It was a mystery; but it accounted, doubtless, for that sweet melancholy which gave such a charming character to her beauty.
The more I thought upon the subject the greater became its fascinations. My head was full of Amy, and busy in devising schemes for her deliverance; for that she was a prisoner, I had at once decided; and, moreover, that I was to be the chivalrous knight who should rescue her from imprisonment. I felt within myself that the age of chivalry was not dead, in spite of what Burke had said to the contrary.