Works of Ellen Wood

by Ellen Wood

  Whether it was the brave example set, or whether it was the promise accompanying it, certain it was, that there was no lack of volunteers now. A good round dozen started, filling up the Plough and Harrow bar, as Mrs. Bascroft dealt out her treat with no niggard hand.

  “What’s a-doing now?” asked Bascroft, a stupid-looking man with red hair combed straight down his forehead, and coloured shirt-sleeves, surveying the inroad on his premises with surprise.

  “Never you mind,” sharply reproved his better half. “These ladies is my visitors, and if I choose to stand treat round, what’s that to you? You takes your share o’ liquor, Bascroft.”

  Bascroft was not held in very great estimation by the ladies generally, and they turned their backs upon him.

  “We are a-going out to see the ghost, if you must know, Bascroft,” said Susan Peckaby, who made one of the volunteers.

  Bascroft stared. “What a set of idiots you must be!” grunted he. “Mr. Jan says as Dan Duff see nothing but a white cow; he telled me so hisself. Be you a-thinking to meet that there other white animal on your road, Mrs. Peckaby?”

  “Perhaps I am,” tartly returned Mrs. Peckaby.

  “One ‘ud think so. You can’t want to go out to meet ghostesses; you be a-going out to your saints at New Jerusalem. I’d whack that there donkey for being so slow, when he did come, if I was you.”

  Hastening away from Bascroft and his aggravating tongue, the expedition, having drained their tumblers, filed out. Down by the pound — relieved now of its caged inmate — went they, on towards the Willow Pond. The tumblers had made them brave. The night was light, as the preceding one had been; the ground looked white, as if with frost, and the air was cold. The pond in view, they halted, and took a furtive glance, beginning to feel somewhat chill. So far as these half glances allowed them to judge, there appeared to be nothing near to it, nothing upon its brink.

  “It’s of no good marching right up to it,” said Mrs. Jones, the baker’s wife. “The ghost mightn’t come at all, if it saw all us there. Let’s get inside the trees.”

  Mrs. Jones meant inside the grove of trees. The proposition was most acceptable, and they took up their position, the pond in view, peeping out, and conversing in a whisper. By and by they heard the church clock strike eight.

  “I wish it’ud make haste,” exclaimed Susan Peckaby, with some impatience. “I don’t never like to be away from home long together, for fear of that there blessed white animal arriving.”

  “He’d wait, wouldn’t he?” sarcastically rejoined Polly Dawson. “He’d—”

  A prolonged hush — sh — sh! from the rest restored silence. Something was rustling the trees at a distance. They huddled closer together, and caught hold one of another.

  Nothing appeared. The alarm went off. And they waited, without result, until the clock struck nine. The artificial strength within them had cooled by that time, their ardour had cooled, and they were feeling chill and tired. Susan Peckaby was upon thorns, she said, and urged their departure.

  “You can go if you like,” was the answer. “Nobody wants to keep you.”

  Susan Peckaby measured the distance between the pond and the way she had to go, and came to the determination to risk it.

  “I’ll make a rush for it, I think,” said she. “I sha’n’t see nothing. For all I know, that quadruple may be right afore our door now. If he—”

  Susan Peckaby stopped, her voice subsiding into a shriek. She, and those with her, became simultaneously aware that some white figure was bearing down upon them. The shrieks grew awful.

  It proved to be Roy in his white fustian jacket. Roy had never had the privilege of hearing a dozen women shriek in concert before; at least, like this. His loud derisive laugh was excessively aggravating. What with that, what with the fright his appearance had really put them in, they all tore off, leaving some hard words for him; and never stopped to take breath until they burst into the shop of Mrs. Duff.

  It was rather an ignominious way of returning, and Mrs. Duff did not spare her comments. If she had went out to meet the ghost, sh’d ha’ stopped till the ghost came, she would! Mrs. Jones rejoined that them watched-for ghosts, as she had heered, never did come — which she had said so afore she went out!

  Master Dan, considerably recovered, was downstairs then. Rather pale and shaky, and accommodated with a chair and pillow, in front of the kitchen fire. The expedition pressed into the kitchen, and five hundred questions were lavished upon the boy.

  “What was it dressed in, Dan? Did you get a good sight of her face, Dan? Did it look just as Rachel used to look? Speak up, Dan.”

  “It warn’t Rachel at all,” replied Dan.

  This unexpected assertion brought a pause of discomfiture. “He’s head ain’t right yet,” observed Mrs. Duff apologetically; “and that’s why I’ve not asked him nothing.”

  “Yes, it is right, mother,” said Dan. “I never see Rachel last night. I never said as I did.”

  Another pause — spent in contemplating Dan. “I knowed a case like this, once afore,” observed old Miss Till, who carried round the milk to Deerham. “A boy got a fright, and they couldn’t bring him to at all. Epsum salts did it at last. Three pints of ’em they give, I think it was, and that brought his mind round.”

  “It’s a good remedy,” acquiesced Mrs. Jones. “There’s nothing like plenty of Epsum salts for boys. I’d try ’em on him, Mother Duff.”

  “Dan, dear,” said Susan Peckaby insinuatingly — for she had come in along with the rest, ignoring for the moment what might be waiting at her door— “was it in the pound as you saw Rachel’s ghost?”

  “‘Twarn’t Rachel’s ghost as I did see,” persisted Dan.

  “Tell us who it was, then?” asked she, humouring him.

  The boy answered. But he answered below his breath; as if he scarcely dared to speak the name aloud. His mother partially caught it.

  “Whose?” she exclaimed, in a sharp voice, her tone changing. And Dan spoke a little louder.

  “It was Mr. Frederick Massingbird’s!”

  CHAPTER LII.

  MATTHEW FROST’S NIGHT ENCOUNTER.

  Old Matthew Frost sat in his room at the back of the kitchen. It was his bedroom and sitting-room combined. Since he had grown feeble, the bustle of the kitchen and of Robin’s family disturbed him, and he sat much in his chamber, they frequently taking his dinner in to him.

  A thoroughly comfortable arm-chair had Matthew. It had been the gift of Lionel Verner. At his elbow was a small round table, of very dark wood, rubbed to brightness. On that table Matthew’s large Bible might generally be found open, and Matthew’s spectacled eyes bending over it. But the Bible was closed to-day. He sat in deep thought. His hands clasped upon his stick, something after the manner of old Mr. Verner; and his eyes fixed through the open window at the September sun, as it played on the gooseberry and currant bushes in the cottage garden.

  The door opened, and Robin’s wife — her hands and arms white, for she was kneading dough — appeared, showing in Lionel; who had come on after his conversation with Mrs. Duff, as you read of in the last chapter; for it is necessary to go back a few hours. One cannot tell two portions of a history at one and the same time. The old man rose, and stood leaning on his stick.

  “Sit down, Matthew,” said Lionel, in a kindly tone. “Don’t let me disturb you.” He made him go into his seat again, and took a chair opposite to him.

  “The time’s gone, sir, for me to stand afore you. That time must go for us all.”

  “Ay, that it must, Matthew, if we live. I came in to speak to Robin. His wife says she does not know where he is.”

  “He’s here and there and everywhere,” was old Matthew’s answer. “One never knows how to take him, sir, or when to see him. My late master’s bounty to me, sir, is keeping us in comfort, but I often ask Robin what he’ll do when I am gone. It gives me many an hour’s care, sir. Robin, he don’t earn the half of a living now.”

  “Be easy
, Matthew,” was Lionel’s answer. “I am not sure that the annuity, or part of it, will not be continued to Robin. My uncle left it in my charge to do as I should see fit. I have never mentioned it, even to you; and I think it might be as well for you not to speak of it to Robin. It is to be hoped that he will get steady and hard-working again; were he to hear that there was a chance of his being kept without work, he might never become so.”

  “The Lord bless my old master!” aspirated Matthew, lifting his hands. “The Lord bless you, sir! There’s not many gentlemen would do for us what him and you have.”

  Lionel bent his head forward, and lowered his voice to a whisper. “Matthew, what is this that I hear, of Robin’s going about the grounds at night with a loaded gun?”

  Matthew flung up his hands. Not with the reverence of the past minute, but with a gesture of despair. “Heaven knows what he does it for, sir! I’d keep him in; but it’s beyond me.”

  “I know you would. You went yourself after him last night, Broom tells me.”

  Matthew’s eyes fell. He hesitated much in his answer. “I — yes, sir — I — I couldn’t get him home. It’s a pity.”

  “You got as far as the brick-kilns, I hear. I was surprised. I don’t think you should be out at night, Matthew.”

  “No, sir, I am not a-going again.”

  The words this time were spoken readily enough. But, from some cause or other, the old man was evidently embarrassed. His eyes were not lifted, and his clear face had gone red. Lionel searched his imagination for a reason, and could only connect it with his son.

  “Matthew,” said he, “I am about to ask you a painful question. I hope you will answer it. Is Robin perfectly sane?”

  “Ay, sir, as sane as I am. Unsettled he is, ever dwelling on poor Rachel, ever thinking of revenge; but his senses be as much his as they ever were. I wish his mind could be set at rest.”

  “At rest in what way?”

  “As to who it was that did the harm to Rachel. He has had it in his head for a long while, sir, that it was Mr. John Massingbird; but he can’t be certain, and it’s the uncertainty that keeps his mind on the worrit.”

  “Do you know where he picked up the notion that it was Mr. John Massingbird?” inquired Lionel, remembering the conversation on the same point that Robin had once held with him, on that very garden bench, in the face of which he and Matthew were now sitting.

  Old Matthew shook his head. “I never could learn, sir. Robin’s a dutiful son to me, but he’d never tell me that. I know that Mr. John Massingbird has been like a pill in his throat this many a day. Oftentimes have I felt thankful that he was dead, or Robin would surely have gone out to where he was, and murdered him. Murder wouldn’t mend the ill, sir — as I have told him many a time.”

  “Indeed it would not,” replied Lionel. “The very fact of Mr. John Massingbird’s being dead, should have the effect of setting Robin’s mind at rest — if it was to him that his suspicions were directed. For my part, I think Robin is wrong in suspecting him.”

  “I think so too, sir. I don’t know how it is, but I can’t bring my mind to suspect him more than anybody else. I have thought over things in this light, and I have thought ’em over in that light; and I’d rather incline to believe that she got acquainted with some stranger, poor dear! than that it was anybody known to us. Robin is in doubt; he has had some cause given him to suspect Mr. John Massingbird, but he is not sure, and it’s that doubt, I say, that worrits him.”

  “At any rate, doubt or no doubt, there is no cause for him to go about at night with a gun. What does he do it for?”

  “I have asked him, sir, and he does not answer. He seems to me to be on the watch.”

  “On the watch for what?” rejoined Lionel.

  “I’m sure I don’t know,” said old Matthew. “If you’d say a word to him, sir, it might stop it. He got a foolish notion into his mind that poor Rachel’s spirit might come again, and he’d used to be about the pond pretty near every moonlight night. That fancy passed off, and he has gone to his bed at night as the rest of us have, up to the last week or so, when he has taken to go out again, and to carry a gun.”

  “It was a foolish notion,” remarked Lionel. “The dead do not come again, Matthew.”

  Matthew made no reply.

  “I must try and come across Robin,” said Lionel, rising. “I wish you would tell him to come up to me, Matthew.”

  “Sir, if you desire that he shall wait upon you at Verner’s Pride, he will be sure to do so,” said the old man, leaning on his stick as he stood. “He has not got to the length of disobeying an order of yours. I’ll tell him.”

  It happened that Lionel did “come across” Robin Frost. Not to any effect, however, for he could not get to speak to him. Lionel was striking across some fields towards Deerham Court, when he came in view of Roy and Robin Frost leaning over a gate, their heads together in close confab. It looked very much as though they were talking secrets. They looked up and saw him; but when he reached the place, both were gone. Roy was in sight, but the other had entirely disappeared. Lionel lifted his voice.

  “Roy, I want you.”

  Roy could not fain deafness, although there was every appearance that he would like to do it. He turned and approached, putting his hand to his hat in a half surly manner.

  “Where’s Robin Frost?”

  “Robin Frost, sir? He was here a minute or two agone. I met him accidental, and I stopped him to ask what he was about, that he hadn’t been at work this three days. He went on his way then, down the gap. Did you want him, sir?”

  Lionel Verner’s perceptive faculties were tolerably developed. That Roy was endeavouring to blind him, he had no doubt. They had not met “accidental,” and the topic of conversation had not been Robin’s work — of that he felt sure. Roy and Robin Frost might meet and talk together all day long. It was nothing to him. Why they should strive to deceive him was the only curious part about it. Both had striven to avoid meeting him; and Roy was talking to him now unwillingly. In a general way, Robin Frost was fond of meeting and receiving a word from Mr. Verner.

  “I shall see him another time,” carelessly remarked Lionel. “Not so fast, Roy” — for the man was turning away— “I have not done with you. Will you be good enough to inform me what you were doing in front of my house last night?”

  “I wasn’t doing anything, sir. I wasn’t there.”

  “Oh, yes, you were,” said Lionel. “Recollect yourself. You were posted under the large yew tree on the lawn, watching my drawing-room windows.”

  Roy looked up at this, the most intense surprise in his countenance. “I never was on your lawn last night, sir; I wasn’t near it. Leastways not nearer than the side field. I happened to be in that, and I got through a gap in the hedge, on to the high road.”

  “Roy, I believe that you were on the lawn last night, and watching the house,” persisted Lionel, looking fixedly at his countenance. For the life of him he could not tell whether the man’s surprise was genuine, his denial real. “What business had you there?”

  “I declare to goodness, if it was the last word I had to speak, that I was not on your lawn, sir — that I did not watch the house. I did not go near the house. I crossed the side field, cornerwise, and got out into the road; and that’s the nearest I was to the house last night.”

  Roy spoke unusually impressive for him, and Lionel began to believe that, so far, he was telling truth. He did not make any immediate reply, and Roy resumed.

  “What cause have you got to accuse me, sir? I shouldn’t be likely to watch your house — why should I?”

  “Some man was watching it,” replied Lionel. “As you were seen in the road shortly afterwards, close to the side field, I came to the conclusion that it was you.”

  “I can be upon my oath that it wasn’t, sir,” answered Roy.

  “Very well,” replied Lionel, “I accept your denial. But allow me to give you a recommendation, Roy — not to trouble yourself with my affairs
in any way. They do not concern you; they never will concern you; therefore, don’t meddle with them.”

  He walked away as he spoke. Roy stood and gazed after him, a strange expression on his countenance. Had Lucy Tempest seen it, she might have renewed her warning to Lionel. And yet she would have been puzzled to tell the meaning of the expression, for it did not look like a threatening one.

  Had Lionel Verner turned up Clay Lane, upon leaving Matthew Frost’s cottage, instead of down it, to take a path across the fields at the back, he would have encountered the Vicar of Deerham. That gentleman was paying parochial visits that day in Deerham, and in due course he came to Matthew Frost’s. He and Matthew had long been upon confidential terms; the clergyman respected Matthew, and Matthew revered his pastor.

  Mr. Bourne took the seat which Lionel had but recently vacated. He was so accustomed to the old man’s habitual countenance that he could detect every change in it; and he saw that something was troubling him.

  “I am troubled in more ways than one, sir,” was the old man’s answer. “Poor Robin, he’s giving me trouble again; and last night, sir, I had a sort of fright. A shock, it may be said. I can’t overget it.”

  “What was its nature?” asked Mr. Bourne.

  “I don’t much like to speak of it, sir; and, beside yourself, there’s not a living man that I’d open my lips to. It’s an unpleasant thing to have upon the mind. Mr. Verner, he was here but a few minutes a-gone, and I felt before him like a guilty man that has something to conceal. When I have told it to you, sir, you’ll be hard of belief.”

  “Is it connected with Robin?”

  “No, sir. But it was my going after Robin that led to it, as may be said. Robin, sir, has took these last few nights to go out with a gun. It has worrited me so, sir, fearing some mischief might ensue, that I couldn’t sleep; and last evening, I thought I’d hobble out and see if I couldn’t get him home. Chuff, he said as he had seen him go toward the brick-field, and I managed to get down; and, sure enough, I came upon Robin. He was lying down at the edge of the field, watching, as it seemed to me. I couldn’t get him home, sir. I tried hard, but ’twas of no use. He spoke respectful to me, as he always does: ‘Father, I have got my work to do, and I must do it. You go back home, and go to sleep in quiet.’ It was all I could get from him, sir, and at last I turned to go back—”