“Nor I—it was always known he had an extreme partiality for the young person—he and Miss Gostock quarrelled desperately on the subject—but no one could have imagined an attachment of that sort would have led a man so far astray—Hascot more especially. If I had been asked to name the last person in the world likely to make a fool of himself for the sake of a pretty face I should have named the late tenant of Nut Bush Farm.”
“There never was a suspicion of foul play,” I suggested.
“Oh, dear, no! It was broad daylight when he was last seen on the Whittleby road. The same morning it is known he and the girl were talking earnestly together beside the little wood on your property, and two persons answering their description were traced to London, that is to say, a gentleman came forward to say he believed he had travelled up with them as far as New Cross on the afternoon in question.”
“He was an affectionate father I have heard,” I said.
“A most affectionate parent—a most devoted husband. Dear, dear! it is dreadfully sad to think how a bad woman may drag the best of men down to destruction. It is terrible to think of his wife and family being inmates of the Union.”
“Yes, and it is terrible to consider not a soul has tried to get them out of it,” I answered, a little tartly.
“H—m, perhaps so; but we all know we are contributing to their support,” he returned with an effort at jocularity, which, in my then frame of mind, seemed singularly mal-apropos.
“There is something in that,” I replied with an effort, and leaving the Bank next turned my attention to the Poorhouse at Crayshill.
At that time many persons thought what I did Quixotic. It is so much the way of the world to let the innocent suffer for the guilty, that I believe Mr. Hascot’s wife might have ended her days in Crayshill Union but for the action I took in the matter.
Another night I felt I could not rest till I had arranged for an humble lodging she and her family could occupy till I was able to form some plan for their permanent relief. I found her a quiet, ladylike woman, totally unable to give me the slightest clue as to where her husband might be found. “He was just at the stile on the Chalmont fields,” she said, “when Mr. Waite met him; no one saw him afterwards, unless it might be the Ockfields, but, of course, there is no information to be got from them. The guardians have tried every possible means to discover his whereabouts without success. My own impression is he and Sally Powner have gone to America, and that some day we may hear from him. He cannot harden his heart for ever and forget—” Here Mrs. Hascot’s sentence trailed off into passionate weeping.
“It is too monstrous!” I considered; “the man never did such a thing as desert his wife and children. Some one knows all about the matter,” and then in a moment I paused in the course of my meditations.
Was that person Miss Gostock?
It was an ugly idea, and yet it haunted me. When I remembered the woman’s masculine strength, when I recalled her furious impetuosity when I asked her a not very exasperating question, as I recalled the way she tossed off that brandy, when I considered her love of money, her eagerness to speak ill of her late tenant, her semi-references to some great trouble prior to which she was more like other women, or, perhaps, to speak more correctly, less unlike them—doubts came crowding upon my mind.
It was when entering her ground Mr. Hascot was last seen. He had a large sum of money in his possession. She was notoriously fond of rambling about Nut Bush Farm, and what my labouring men called “spying around,” which had been the cause of more than one pitched battle between herself and Mr. Hascot.
“The old master could not a-bear her,” said one young fellow.
I hated myself for the suspicion; and yet, do what I would, I could not shake it off. Not for a moment did I imagine Miss Gostock had killed her former tenant in cold blood; but it certainly occurred to me that the dell was deep, and the verge treacherous, that it would be easy to push a man over, either by accident or design, that the nut-bushes grew thick, that a body might lie amongst them till it rotted, ere even the boys who went nutting there, season after season, happened to find it.
Should I let the matter drop? No, I decided. With that mute appeal haunting my memory, I should know no rest or peace till I had solved the mystery of Mr. Hascot’s disappearance, and cleared his memory from the shameful stain circumstances had cast upon it.
What should I do next? I thought the matter over for a few days, and then decided to call on Mr. Waite, who never yet had called on me. As usual, he was not at home; but I saw his wife, whom I found just the sort of woman Lolly described—a fair, delicate creature, who seemed fading into the grave.
She had not much to tell me. It was her husband who saw Mr. Hascot at the Chalmont stile; it was he also who had seen Mr. Hascot and the girl Powner talking together on the morning of their disappearance. It so happened he had often chanced to notice them together before. “She was a very, very pretty girl,” Mrs. Waite added, “and I always thought a modest. She had a very sweet way of speaking—quite above her station—inherited, no doubt, for her father was a gentleman. Poor little Sally!”
The words were not much but the manner touched me sensibly. I felt drawn to Mrs. Waite from that moment, and told her more of what I had beheld and what I suspected than I had mentioned to anyone else.
As to my doubts concerning Miss Gostock, I was of course silent, but I said quite plainly I did not believe Mr. Hascot had gone off with any girl or woman either, that I thought he had come to an unfair end, and that I was of opinion the stories circulated, concerning a portion of Nut Bush Farm being haunted, had some foundation in fact.
“Do you believe in ghosts then?” she asked, with a curious smile.
“I believe in the evidence of my senses,” I answered, “and I declare to you, Mrs. Waite, that one night not long since, I saw as plainly as I see you, what I can only conclude to have been the semblance of Mr. Hascot.”
She did not make any reply, she only turned very pale, and blaming myself for having alarmed one in her feeble state of health, I hastened to apologise and take my leave.
As we shook hands, she retained mine for a moment, and said, “When you hear anything more, if you should that is, you will tell us will you not. Naturally we feel interested in the matter, he was such a near neighbour, and—we knew him.”
I assured her I would not fail to do so, and left the room.
Before I reached the front door I found I had forgotten one of my gloves, and immediately retraced my steps.
The drawing-room door was ajar, and somewhat unceremoniously, perhaps, I pushed it open and entered.
To my horror and surprise, Mrs. Waite, whom I had left apparently in her ordinary state of languid health, lay full length on the sofa, sobbing as if her heart would break. What I said so indiscreetly had brought on an attack of violent hysterics—a malady, with the signs and tokens of which I was not altogether unacquainted.
Silently I stole out of the room without my glove, and left the house, closing the front door noiselessly behind me.
A couple of days elapsed, and then I decided to pay a visit to Mrs. Ockfield. If she liked to throw any light on the matter, I felt satisfied she could. It was, to say the least of it, most improbable her grand-daughter, whether she had been murdered or gone away with Mr. Hascot, should disappear and not leave a clue by which her relatives could trace her.
The Ockfields were not liked, I found, and I flattered myself if they had any hand in Mr. Hascot’s sudden disappearance, I should soon hit on some weak spot in her story.
I found the old woman, who was sixty-seven, and who looked two hundred, standing over her washing tub.
“Can I tell you where my grand-daughter is,” she repeated, drawing her hands out of the suds and wiping them on her apron. “Surely, sir, and very glad I am to be able to tell everybody, gentle and simple, where to find our Sally. She is in a good service down in Cheshire. Mr. Hascot got her the place, but we knew nothing about it till yesterd
ay; she left us in a bit of a pet, and said she wouldn’t have written me only some things seemed to tell her she must. Ah! she’ll have a sore heart when she gets my letter and hears how it has been said that the master and she went off together. She thought a deal of the master, did Sally; he was always kind and stood between her and her grandfather.”
“Then do you mean to say,” I asked, “that she knows nothing of Mr. Hascot’s disappearance?”
“Nothing, sir, thank God for all His mercies; the whole of the time since the day she left here she has been in service with a friend of his. You can read her letter if you like.”
Though I confess old Mrs. Ockfield neither charmed nor inspired me with confidence, I answered that I should like to see the letter very much indeed.
When I took it in my hand I am bound to say I thought it had been written with a purpose, and intended less for a private than for the public eye, but as I read I fancied there was a ring of truth about the epistle, more especially as the writer made passing reference to a very bitter quarrel which had preceded her departure from the grand-paternal roof.
“It is very strange,” I said, as I returned the letter, “it is a most singular coincidence that your grand-daughter and Mr. Hascot should have left Whittleby on the same day, and yet that she should know nothing of his whereabouts, as judging from her letter seems to be the case.”
“Are you quite sure Mr. Hascot ever did leave Whittleby, sir?” asked the old woman with a vindictive look in her still bright old eyes. “There are those as think he never went very far from home, and that the whole truth will come out some day.”
“What do you mean?” I exclaimed, surprised.
“Least said soonest mended,” she answered, shortly; “only I hopes if ever we do know the rights of it, people as do hold their heads high enough, and have had plenty to say about our girl and us too for that matter, will find things not so pleasant as they find them at present. The master had a heap of money about him, and we know that often those as has, are those as wants more!”
“I cannot imagine what you are driving at,” I said, for I feared every moment she would mention Miss Gostock, and bring her name into the discussion. “If you think Mr. Hascot met with any foul play you ought to go to the police about the matter.”
“Maybe I will some time,” she answered, “but just now I have my washing to do.”
“This will buy you some tea to have afterwards,” I said, laying down half-a-crown, and feeling angry with myself for this momentary irritation. After all the woman had as much right to her suspicions as I to mine.
Thinking over Miss Powner’s letter I came to the conclusion it might be well to see the young lady for myself. If I went to the address she dated from I could ascertain at all events whether her statement regarding her employment was correct. Yes, I would take train and travel into Cheshire; I had commenced the investigation and I would follow it to the end.
I travelled so much faster than Mrs. Ockfield’s letter—which indeed that worthy woman had not then posted—that when I arrived at my journey’s end I found the fair Sarah in total ignorance of Mr. Hascot’s disappearance and the surmises to which her own absence had given rise.
Appearances might be against the girl’s truth and honesty, yet I felt she was dealing fairly with me.
“A better gentleman, sir,” she said, “than Mr. Hascot never drew breath. And so they set it about he had gone off with me—they little know—they little know! Why, sir, he thought of me and was careful for me as he might for a daughter. The first time I ever saw him grandfather was beating me, and he interfered to save me. He knew they treated me badly, and it was after a dreadful quarrel I had at home he advised me to go away. He gave me a letter to the lady I am now with, and a ten-pound note to pay my travelling and keep something in my pocket. ‘You’ll be better away from the farm, little girl,’ he said the morning I left; ‘people are beginning to talk, and we can’t shut their mouths if you come running to me every time your grandmother speaks sharply to you.’ ”
“But why did you not write sooner to your relatives?” I asked.
“Because I was angry with my grandmother, sir, and I thought I would give her a fright. I did not bring any clothes or anything and I hoped—it was a wicked thing I know, sir—but I hoped she would believe I had made away with myself. Just lately, however, I began to consider that if she and grandfather had not treated me well I was treating them worse, so I made up a parcel of some things my mistress gave me and sent it to them with a letter. I am glad it reached them safely.”
“What time was it when you saw Mr. Hascot last?” I enquired.
“About two o’clock, sir. I know that, because he was in a hurry. He had got some news about the bank at Whittleby not being quite safe, and he said he had too much money there to run any risk of loss. “Be a good girl,” were the last words he said, and he walked off sharp and quick by the field path to Whittleby. I stood near the bridge crying for a while. Oh, sir! do you think anything ill can have happened to him?”
For answer, I only said the whole thing seemed most mysterious.
“He’d never have left his wife and children, sir,” she went on; “never. He must have been made away with.”
“Had he any enemies, do you think?” I asked.
“No, sir; not to say enemies. He was called hard because he would have a day’s work for a day’s wage, but no one that ever I heard of had a grudge against him. Except Miss Gostock and Mr. Waite, he agreed well with all the people about. He did not like Miss Gostock, and Mr. Waite was always borrowing money from him. Now Mr. Hascot did not mind giving, but he could not bear lending.”
I returned to Nut Bush Farm perfectly satisfied that Mr. Hascot had been as the girl expressed the matter—“made away with.” On the threshold of my house I was met with a catalogue of disasters. The female servants had gone in a body; the male professed a dislike to be in the stable-yard in the twilight. Rumour had decided that Nut Bush Farm was an unlucky place even to pass. The cattle were out of condition because the men would not go down the Beech Walk, or turn a single sheep into the Long Field. Reapers wanted higher wages. The labourers were looking out for other service.
“Poor fellow! this is a nice state of things for you to come home to,” said Lolly, compassionately. “Even the poachers won’t venture into the wood, and the boys don’t go nutting.”
“I will clear away the nut trees, and cut down the wood,” I declared, savagely.
“I don’t know who you are going to get to cut them,” answered Lolly, “unless you bring men down from London.”
As for Miss Gostock, she only laughed at my dilemma, and said, “You’re a pretty fellow to be frightened by a ghost. If he was seen at Chalmont I’d ghost him.”
While I was in a state of the most cruel perplexity, I bethought me of my promise to Mrs. Waite, and walked over one day to tell her the result of my enquiries.
I found her at home, and Mr. Waite, for a wonder, in the drawing-room. He was not a bad-looking fellow, and welcomed my visit with a heartiness which ill accorded with the dis-courtesy he had shown in never calling upon me.
Very succinctly I told what I had done, and where I had been. I mentioned the terms in which Sally Powner spoke of her benefactor. We discussed the whole matter fully—the pros and cons of any one knowing Mr. Hascot had such a sum of money on his person, and the possibility of his having been murdered. I mentioned what I had done about Mrs. Hascot, and begged Mr. Waite to afford me his help and co-operation in raising such a sum of money as might start the poor lady in some business.
“I’ll do all that lies in my power,” he said. heartily, shaking hands at the same time, for I had risen to go.
“And for my part,” I remarked, “it seems to me there are only two things more I can do to elucidate the mystery, and those are—root every nut-tree out of the dell and set the axe to work in the wood.”
There was a second’s silence. Then Mrs. Waite dropped to the floor as
if she had been shot.
As he stooped over her, he and I exchanged glances, and then I knew. Mr. Hascot had been murdered, and Mr. Waite was the murderer!
* * *
That night I was smoking and Lolly at needlework. The parlour windows were wide open, for it was warm, and not a breath of air seemed stirring.
There was a stillness on everything which betokened a coming thunderstorm; and we both were silent, for my mind was busy and Lolly’s heart anxious. She did not see, as she said, how I was to get on at all, and for my part I could not tell what I ought to do.
All at once something whizzed through the window furthest from where we sat, and fell noisily to the floor.
“What is that?” Lolly cried, springing to her feet. “Oh, Jack what is it?”
Surprised and shaken, myself, I closed the windows and drew down the blinds before I examined the cause of our alarm. It proved to be an oblong package weighted with a stone. Unfastening it cautiously, for I did not know whether it might not contain some explosive, I came at length to a pocket book—opening the pocket book I found it stuffed full of bank notes.
“What are they? Where can they have come from?” exclaimed Lolly.
“They are the notes Mr. Hascot drew from Whittleby bank the day he disappeared,” I answered with a sort of inspiration, but I took no notice of Lolly’s last question.
For good or for evil that was a secret which lay between myself and the Waites, and which I have never revealed till now.
If the vessel in which they sailed for New Zealand had not gone to the bottom I should have kept the secret still.
When they were out of the country and the autumn well advanced, I had the wood thoroughly examined, and there in a gully, covered with a mass of leaves and twigs and dead branches, we found Mr. Hascot’s body. His watch was in his waistcoat pocket—his ring on his finger; save for these possessions no one could have identified him.
His wife married again about a year afterwards and my brother took Nut Bush Farm off my hands. He says the place never was haunted—that I never saw Mr. Hascot except in my own imagination—that the whole thing originated in a poor state of health and a too credulous disposition!
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