by Ellen Wood
As the boat drew up to the Temple Pier, the only person waiting to embark was a woman; a little body in a faded brown silk dress. Whether, seeing his additional freight was to be so trifling, the manager of the steamer did not take the usual care to bring it alongside, certain it is, that in some way the woman fell, in stepping on board; her knees on the boat, her feet hanging down to the water. Lionel, who was sitting near, sprang forward and pulled her out of danger.
“I declare I never ought to come aboard these nasty steamers!” she exclaimed, as he placed her in a seat. “I’m greatly obliged to you, sir; I might have gone in, else; there’s no saying. The last time I was aboard one I was in danger of being killed. I fell through the port-hole, sir.”
“Indeed!” responded Lionel, who could not be so discourteous as not to answer. “Perhaps your sight is not good?”
“Well, yes it is, sir, as good as most folks, at middle age. I get timid aboard ‘em, and it makes me confused and awkward, and I suppose I don’t mind where I put my feet. This was in Liverpool, sir, a week or two ago. It was a passenger-ship just in from Australia, and the bustle and confusion aboard was dreadful — they say it’s mostly so with them vessels that are coming home. I had gone down to meet my husband, sir; he has been away four years — and it’s a pity he ever went, for all the good he has done. But he’s back safe himself, so I must not grumble.”
“That’s something,” said Lionel.
“True, sir. It would have been a strange thing if I had lost my life just as he had come home. And I should, but for a gentleman on board. He seized hold of me by the middle, and somehow contrived to drag me up again. A strong man he must have been! I shall always remember him with gratitude, I’m sure; as I shall you, sir. His name, my husband told me afterwards, was Massingbird.”
All Lionel’s inertness was gone at the sound of the name. “Massingbird?” he repeated.
“Yes, sir. He had come home in the ship from the same port as my husband — Melbourne. Quite a gentleman, my husband said he was, with grand relations in England. He had not been out there over long — hardly as long as my husband, I fancy — and my husband don’t think he has made much, any more than himself has.”
Lionel had regained all his outward impassiveness. He stood by the talkative woman, his arms folded. “What sort of a looking man was this Mr. Massingbird?” he asked. “I knew a gentleman once of that name, who went to Australia.”
The woman glanced up at him, measuring his height. “I should say he was as tall as you, sir, or close upon it, but he was broader made, and had got a stoop in the shoulders. He was dark; had dark eyes and hair, and a pale face. Not the clear paleness of your face, sir, but one of them sallow faces that get darker and yellower with travelling; never red.”
Every word was as fresh testimony to the suspicion that it was Frederick Massingbird. “Had he a black mark upon his cheek?” inquired Lionel.
“Likely he might have had, sir, but I couldn’t see his cheeks. He wore a sort of fur cap with the ears tied down. My husband saw a good bit of him on the voyage, though he was only a middle-deck passenger, and the gentleman was a cabin. His friends have had a surprise before this,” she continued, after a pause. “He told my husband that they all supposed him dead; had thought he had been dead these two years past and more; and he had never sent home to contradict it.”
Then it was Frederick Massingbird! Lionel Verner quitted the woman’s side, and leaned over the rail of the steamer, apparently watching the water. He could not, by any dint of reasoning or supposition, make out the mystery. How Frederick Massingbird could be alive; or, being alive, why he had not come home before to claim Sibylla — why he had not claimed her before she left Australia — why he did not claim her now he was come. A man without a wife might go roving where he would and as long as he would, letting his friends think him dead if it pleased him; but a man with a wife could not in his sane senses be supposed to act so. It was a strange thing, his meeting with this woman — a singular coincidence; one that he would hardly have believed, if related to him, as happening to another.
It was striking five when he again knocked at Dr. Cannonby’s. He wished to see Captain Cannonby still; it would be the crowning confirmation. But he had no doubt whatever that that gentleman’s report would be: “I saw Frederick Massingbird die — as I believed — and I quitted him immediately. I conclude that I must have been in error in supposing he was dead.”
Dr. Cannonby had returned, the servant said. He desired Lionel to walk in, and threw open the door of the room. Seven or eight people were sitting in it, waiting. The servant had evidently mistaken him for a patient, and placed him there to wait his turn with the rest. He took his card from his pocket, wrote on it a few words, and desired the servant to carry it to his master.
The man came back with an apology. “I beg your pardon, sir. Will you step this way?”
The physician was bowing a lady out as he entered the room — a room lined with books, and containing casts of heads. He came forward to shake hands, a cordial-mannered man. He knew Lionel by reputation, but had never seen him.
“My visit was not to you, but to your brother,” explained Lionel. “I was in hopes to have found him here.”
“Then he and you have been playing at cross-purposes to-day,” remarked the doctor, with a smile. “Lawrence started this morning for Verner’s Pride.”
“Indeed,” exclaimed Lionel. “Cross-purposes indeed!” he muttered to himself.
“He heard some news in Paris which concerned you, I believe, and hastened home to pay you a visit.”
“Which concerned me!” repeated Lionel.
“Or rather Mrs. Massingbird — Mrs. Verner, I should say.”
A sickly smile crossed Lionel’s lips. Mrs. Massingbird! Was it already known? “Why,” he asked, “did you call her Mrs. Massingbird?”
“I beg your pardon for my inadvertence, Mr. Verner,” was the reply of Dr. Cannonby. “Lawrence knew her as Mrs. Massingbird, and on his return from Australia he frequently spoke of her to me as Mrs. Massingbird, so that I got into the habit of thinking of her as such. It was not until he went to Paris that he heard she had exchanged the name for that of Verner.”
A thought crossed Lionel that this was the news which had taken Captain Cannonby down to him. He might know of the existence of Frederick Massingbird, and had gone to break the news to him, Lionel; to tell him that his wife was not his wife.
“You do not know precisely what his business was with me?” he inquired, quite wistfully.
“No, I don’t. I don’t know that it was much beyond the pleasure of seeing you and Mrs. Verner.”
Lionel rose. “If I—”
“But you will stay and dine with me, Mr. Verner?”
“Thank you, I am going back at once. I wished to be home this evening if possible, and there’s nothing to hinder it now.”
“A letter or two has come for Lawrence since the morning,” observed the doctor, as he shook hands. “Will you take charge of them for him?”
“With pleasure.”
Dr. Cannonby turned to a letter rack over the mantel-piece, selected three letters from it, and handed them to Lionel.
Back again all the weary way. His strong suspicions were no longer suspicions now, but confirmed certainties. The night grew dark; it was not darker than the cloud which had fallen upon his spirit.
Thought was busy in his brain. How could it be otherwise? Should he get home to find the news public property? Had Captain Cannonby made it known to Sybilla? Most fervently did he hope not. Better that he, Lionel, should be by her side to help her to bear it when the dreadful news came out. Next came another thought. Suppose Frederick Massingbird should have discovered himself? should have gone to Verner’s Pride to take possession? his home now; his wife. Lionel might get back to find that he had no longer a place there.
Lionel found his carriage waiting at the station. He had ordered it to be so. Wigham was with it. A very coward now, he scarce
ly dared ask questions.
“Has Captain Cannonby arrived at the house to-day, do you know, Wigham?”
“Who, sir?”
“A strange gentleman from London. Captain Cannonby.”
“I can’t rightly say, sir. I have been about in the stables all day. I saw a strange gentleman cross the yard just at dinner-time, one I’d never seen afore. May be it was him.”
A feeling came over Lionel that he could not see Captain Cannonby before them all. Better send for him to a private room, and get the communication over. What his after course would be was another matter. Yes; better in all ways.
“Drive round to the yard, Wigham,” he said, as the coachman was about to turn on to the terrace. And Wigham obeyed.
He stepped out. He went in at the back door, almost as if he were slinking into the house, stealthily traversed the passages, and gained the lighted hall. At the very moment that he put his feet on its tessellated floor, a sudden commotion was heard up the stairs. A door was flung open, and Sibylla, with cheeks inflamed and breath panting, flew down, her convulsive cries echoing through the house. She saw Lionel, and threw herself into his arms.
“Oh, Lionel, what is this wicked story?” she sobbed. “It is not true! It cannot be true that I am not your wife, that—”
“Hush, my darling!” he whispered, placing his hand across her mouth. “We are not alone!”
They certainly were not! Out of the drawing-rooms, out of the dining-room, had poured the guests; out of the kitchen came peeping the servants. Deborah West stood on the stair like a statue, her hands clasped; and Mademoiselle Benoite frantically inquired what anybody had been doing to her mistress. All stared in amazement. She, in that terrible state of agitation; Lionel supporting her with his white and haughty face.
“It is nothing,” he said, waving them off. “Mrs. Verner is not well. Come with me, Sibylla.”
Waving them off still, he drew her into the study, closed the door, and bolted it. She clung to him like one in the extremity of terror, her throat heaving convulsively.
“Oh, Lionel! is it true that he is come back? That he did not die? What will become of me? Tell me that they have been deceiving me; that it is not true!”
He could not tell her so. He wound his arms tenderly round her and held her face to his breast, and laid his own down upon it. “Strive for calmness,” he murmured, his heart aching for her. “I will protect you so long as I shall have the power.”
CHAPTER LX.
MISS DEB’S DISBELIEF.
Miss Deborah West did not believe in ghosts. Miss Deb, setting aside a few personal weaknesses and vanities, was a strong-minded female, and no more believed in ghosts than she did in Master Cheese’s delicate constitution, which required to be supplied with an unlimited quantity of tarts and other dainties to keep up his strength between meals. The commotion respecting Frederick Massingbird, that his ghost had arrived from Australia, and “walked,” reached the ears of Miss Deb. It reached them in this way.
Miss Deb and her sister, compelled to economy by the scanty allowance afforded by Dr. West, had no more helpmates in the household department than were absolutely necessary, and the surgery boy, Bob, found himself sometimes pressed into aiding in the domestic service. One evening Miss Deb entered the surgery, and caught Master Cheese revelling in a hatful of walnuts by gaslight. This was the evening of the storm, previously mentioned.
“Where’s Bob?” asked she. “I want a message taken to Mrs. Broom’s about those pickled mushrooms that she is doing for me.”
“Bob’s out,” responded Master Cheese. “Have a walnut, Miss Deb?”
“I don’t mind. Are they ripe?” answered Miss Deb.
Master Cheese, the greediest chap alive, picked out the smallest he could find, politely cracked it with his teeth, and handed it to her.
“You’ll not get Bob over to Broom’s at this hour,” cried he. “Jan can’t get him to Mother Hook’s with her medicine after dark. Unless it’s made up so that he can take it by daylight, they have to send for it.”
“What’s that for?” asked Miss Deb.
Master Cheese cracked on at his walnuts. “You have not heard the tale that’s going about, I suppose, Miss Deb?” he presently said.
“I have not heard any tale,” she answered.
“And I don’t know that I must tell it you,” continued Master Cheese, filling his mouth with five or six quarters at once, unpeeled. “Jan ordered me to hold my tongue indoors.”
“It would be more respectful, Master Cheese, if you said Mr. Jan,” rebuked Miss Deborah. “I have told you so often.”
“Who cares?” returned Master Cheese. “Jan doesn’t. The fact is, Miss Deb, that there’s a ghost about at night just now.”
“Have they got up that folly again? Rachel Frost rests a great deal quieter in her grave than some of you do in your beds.”
“Ah, but it’s not Rachel’s this time,” significantly responded Master Cheese. “It’s somebody else’s.”
“Whose is it, then?” asked Miss Deb, struck with his manner.
“I’ll tell you if you won’t tell Jan. It’s — don’t start, Miss Deb — it’s Fred Massingbird’s.”
Miss Deb did not start. She looked keenly at Master Cheese, believing he might be playing a joke upon her. But there were no signs of joking in his countenance. It looked, on the contrary, singularly serious, not to say awe-struck, as he leaned forward to bring it nearer Miss Deborah’s.
“It is a fact that Fred Massingbird’s ghost is walking,” he continued. “Lots have seen it. I have seen it. You’d have heard of it, as everybody else has, if you had not been Mrs. Verner’s sister. It’s an unpleasantly queer thing for her, you know, Miss Deb.”
“What utter absurdity!” cried Deborah.
“Wait till you see it, before you say it’s absurdity,” replied Master Cheese. “If it’s not Fred Massingbird’s ghost, it is somebody’s that’s the exact image of him.”
Miss Deborah sat down on a stone jar, and got Master Cheese to tell her the whole story. That he should put in a few exaggerations, and so increase the marvel, was only natural. But Deborah West heard sufficient to send her mind into a state of uneasy perplexity.
“You say Mr. Jan knows of this?” she asked.
“There’s nobody about that doesn’t know of it except you and the folks at Verner’s Pride,” responded Master Cheese. “I say, don’t you go and tell Jan that you made me betray it to you, Miss Deb! You’ll get me into a row if you do.”
But this was the very thing that Miss Deb resolved to do. Not to get Master Cheese into a “row,” but that she saw no other way of allaying her uncertainty. Ghosts were utterly excluded from Deborah West’s creed; and why so many people should be suddenly testifying that Frederick Massingbird’s was to be seen, she could not understand. That there must be something in it more than the common absurdity of such tales, the state of Alice Hook appeared to testify.
“Can Bob be spared to go over to Broom’s in the morning?” she asked, after a long pause of silence, given apparently to the contemplation of Master Cheese’s intense enjoyment of his walnuts; in reality, to deep thought.
“Well, I don’t know,” answered the young gentleman, who never was ready to accord the services of Bob indoors, lest it might involve any little extra amount of exertion for himself. “There’s a sight of medicine to be taken out just now. Jan’s got a great deal to do, and I am nearly worked off my legs.”
“It looks like it,” retorted Miss Deborah. “Your legs will never be much the worse for the amount of work you do. Where’s Mr. Jan?”
“He went out to go to Hook’s,” replied Master Cheese, a desperately hard walnut proving nearly too much for his teeth. “He’ll take a round, I dare say, before he comes in.”
Deborah returned indoors. Though not much inclined to reticence in general, she observed it now, saying nothing to Amilly. The storm came on, and they sat and watched it. Supper time approached, and Master Cheese was p
unctual. He found some pickled herrings on the table, of which he was uncommonly fond, and ate them as long as Miss West would supply his plate. The meal was over when Jan came in.
“Don’t trouble to have anything brought back for me,” said he. “I’ll eat a bit of bread and cheese.” He was not like his assistant; his growing days were over.
Master Cheese went straight up to bed. He liked to do so as soon as supper was over, lest any summons came, and he should have to go out. Easy Jan, no matter how tired he might be, would attend himself, sooner than wake up Master Cheese — a ceremony more easy to attempt than to accomplish. Fortifying himself with about a pound of sweet cake, which he kept in his box, as dessert to the herrings, and to refresh his dreams, Master Cheese put himself into bed.
Jan meanwhile finished his bread and cheese, and rose. “I wonder whether I shall get a whole night of it tonight?” said he, stretching himself. “I didn’t have much bed last night.”
“Have you to go out again, Mr. Jan?”
“No. I shall look to the books a bit, and then turn in. Good night, Miss Deborah; good-night, Miss Amilly.”
“Good-night,” they answered.
Amilly drew to the fire. The chilly rain of the afternoon had caused them to have one lighted. She put her feet on the fender, feeling the warmth comfortable. Deborah sent the supper-tray away, and then left the room. Stealing out of the side door quietly, she tripped across the narrow path of wet gravel, and entered the surgery. Jan had got an account-book open on the counter, and was leaning over it, a pen in his hand.
“Don’t be frightened, Mr. Jan; it’s only me,” said Deborah, who did not at all times confine herself to the rules of severe grammar. “I’ll shut the door, if you please, for I want to say a word to yourself alone.”
“Is it more physic that you want?” asked Jan. “Has the pain in the side come again?”