by Ellen Wood
There was one place where he knew he could count upon being sheltered, while the way was “felt;” and this was Giles Roy’s. Roy would be true to him; would conceal him if need were; and help him off again, did Verner’s Pride, for him, prove a myth. This thought John Massingbird put in practice, arriving one dark night at Roy’s, and startling Mrs. Roy nearly to death. Whatever fanciful ghosts the woman may have seen before, she never doubted that she saw a real ghost now.
His first question, naturally, was about the will. Roy told him it was perfectly true that a will had been made in his favour; but the will had been superseded by a codicil. And he related the circumstance of that codicil’s mysterious loss. Was it found? John eagerly asked. Ah! there Roy could not answer him; he was at a nonplus; he was unable to say whether the codicil had been found or not. A rumour had gone about Deerham, some time subsequently to the loss, that it had been found, but Roy had never come to the rights of it. John Massingbird stared as he heard him say this. Then, couldn’t he tell whether he was the heir or not? whether Lionel Verner held it by established right or by wrong? he asked. And Roy shook his head — he could not.
Under these uncertainties, Mr. John Massingbird did not see his way particularly clear. Either to stop, or to go. If he stopped, and showed himself, he might be unpleasantly assured that the true heir of Verner’s Pride inhabited Verner’s Pride; if he went back to Australia, the no less mortifying fact might come out afterwards, that he was the heir to Verner’s Pride, and had run away from his own.
What was to be done? Roy suggested perhaps the best plan that could be thought of — that Mr. Massingbird should remain in his cottage in concealment, while he, Roy, endeavoured to ascertain the truth regarding the codicil. And John Massingbird was fain to adopt it. He took up his abode in the upper bedroom, which had been Luke’s, and Mrs. Roy, locking her front door, carried his meals up to him by day, Roy setting himself to ferret out — as you may recollect — all he could learn about the codicil. The “all” was not much. Ordinary gossipers knew no more than Roy, whether the codicil had been found or not; and Roy tried to pump Matiss, by whom he was baffled — he even tried to pump Mr. Verner. He went up to Verner’s Pride, ostensibly to ask whether he might paper Luke’s old room at his own cost. In point of fact, the paper was in a dilapidated state, and he did wish to put it decent for John Massingbird; but he could have done it without speaking to Mr. Verner. It was a great point with Roy to find favour in the sight of Mr. Massingbird, his possible future master. Lionel partially saw through the man; he believed that he had some covert motive in seeking the interview with him, and that Roy was trying to pry into his affairs. But Roy found himself baffled also by Mr. Verner, as he had been by Matiss, in so far as that he could learn nothing certain of the existence or non-existence of the codicil.
Two days of the condemned confinement were sufficient to tire out John Massingbird. To a man of active, restless temperament, who had lived almost day and night under the open skies, the being shut up in a small, close room was well-nigh unbearable. He could not stamp on its floor (there was no space to walk on it), lest any intrusive neighbour below, who might have popped in, unwanted, should say, “Who have ye got up aloft?” He could not open the window and put his head out, to catch a breath of fresh air, lest prying eyes might be cast upon him.
“I can’t stand this,” he said to Roy. “A week of it would kill me. I shall go out at night.”
Roy opposed the resolve so far as he dared — having an eye always to the not displeasing his future master. He represented to John Massingbird that he would inevitably be seen; and that he might just as well be seen by day as by night. John would not listen to reason. That very night, as soon as dark came on, he went out, and was seen. Seen by Robin Frost.
Robin Frost, whatever superstitions or fond feelings he may have cherished regarding the hoped-for reappearance of Rachel’s spirit, was no believer in ghosts in a general point of view. In fact, that it was John Massingbird’s ghost never once entered Robin’s mind. He came at once to the more sensible conclusion that some error had occurred with regard to his reported death, and that it was John Massingbird himself.
His deadly enemy. The only one, of all the human beings upon earth, with whom Robin was at issue. For he believed that it was John Massingbird who had worked the ill to Rachel. Robin, in his blind vengeance, took to lying in wait with a gun: and Roy became cognisant of this.
“You must not go out again, sir,” he said to John Massingbird; “he may shoot you dead.”
Curious, perhaps, to say, John Massingbird had himself come to the same conclusion — that he must not go out again. He had very narrowly escaped meeting one who would as surely have known him, in the full moonlight, as did Robin Frost; one whom it would have been nearly as inconvenient to meet, as it was Robin. And yet, stop in perpetual confinement by day and by night, he could not; he persisted that he should be dead — almost better go back, unsatisfied, to Australia.
A bright idea occurred to John Massingbird. He would personate his brother. Frederick, so far as he knew, had neither creditors nor enemies round Deerham; and the likeness between them was so great, both in face and form, that there would be little difficulty in it. When they were at home together, John had been the stouter of the two: but his wanderings had fined him down, and his figure now looked exactly as Frederick’s did formerly. He shaved off his whiskers — Frederick had never worn any; or, for the matter of that, had had any to wear — and painted an imitation star on his cheek with Indian-ink. His hair, too, had grown long on the voyage, and had not yet been cut; just as Frederick used to wear his. John had favoured a short crop of hair; Frederick a long one.
These little toilette mysteries accomplished, so exactly did he look like his brother Frederick, that Roy started when he saw him; and Mrs. Roy went into a prolonged scream that might have been heard at the brick-fields. John attired himself in a long, loose dark coat which had seen service at the diggings, and sallied out; the coat which had been mistaken for a riding habit.
He enjoyed himself to his heart’s content, receiving more fun than he had bargained for. It had not occurred to him to personate Frederick’s ghost; he had only thought of personating Frederick himself; but to his unbounded satisfaction, he found the former climax arrived at. He met old Matthew Frost; he frightened Dan Duff into fits; he frightened Master Cheese; he startled the parson; he solaced himself by taking up his station under the yew-tree on the lawn at Verner’s Pride, to contemplate that desirable structure, which perhaps was his, and the gaiety going on in it. He had distinctly seen Lionel Verner leave the lighted rooms and approach him; upon which he retreated. Afterwards, it was rather a favourite night-pastime of his, the standing under the yew-tree at Verner’s Pride. He was there again the night of the storm.
All this, the terrifying people into the belief that he was Frederick’s veritable ghost, had been the choicest sport to John Massingbird. The trick might not have availed with Robin Frost, but they had found a different method of silencing him. Of an easy, good-tempered nature, the thought of any real damage from consequences had been completely passed over by John. If Dan Duff did go into fits, he’d recover from them; if Alice Hook was startled into something worse, she was not dead. It was all sport to free-and-easy John; and, but for circumstances, there’s no knowing how long he might have carried this game on. These circumstances touched upon a point that influences us all, more or less — pecuniary consideration. John was minus funds, and it was necessary that something should be done; he could not continue to live upon Roy.
It was Roy himself who at length hit upon the plan that brought forth the certainty about the codicil. Roy found rumours were gaining ground abroad that it was not Frederick Massingbird’s ghost, but Frederick himself; and he knew that the explanation must soon come. He determined to waylay Tynn and make an apparent confidant of him; by these means he should, in all probability, arrive at the desired information. Roy did so; and found that there was
no codicil. He carried his news to John Massingbird, advising that gentleman to go at once and put in his claim to Verner’s Pride. John, elated with the news, protested he’d have one more night’s fun first.
Such were the facts. John Massingbird told them to Jan, suppressing any little bit that he chose, here and there. The doubt about the codicil, for instance, and its moving motive in the affair, he did not mention.
“It has been the best fun I ever had in my life,” he remarked. “I never shall forget the parson’s amazed stare, the first time I passed him. Or old Tynn’s, either, last night. Jan, you should have heard Dan Duff howl!”
“I have,” said Jan. “I have had the pleasure of attending him. My only wonder is that he did not put himself into the pool, in his fright: as Rachel Frost did, time back.”
John Massingbird caught the words up hastily, “How, do you know that Rachel put herself in? She may have been put in.”
“For all I know, she may. Taking circumstances into consideration, however, I should say it was the other way.”
“I say, Jan,” interrupted John Massingbird, with another explosion, “didn’t your Achates, Cheese, arrive at home in a mortal fright one night?”
Jan nodded.
“I shall never forget him, never. He was marching up, all bravely, till he saw my face. Didn’t he turn tail! There has been one person above all others, Jan, that I have wanted to meet, and have not — your brother Lionel.”
“He’d have pinned you,” said Jan.
“Not he. You would not have done it to-night, but that I let you do it. No chance of anybody catching me, unless I chose. I was on the look-out for all I met, for all to whom I chose to show myself: they met me unawares. Unprepared for the encounter, while they were recovering their astonishment, I was beyond reach. Last night I had been watching over the gate ever so long, when I darted out in front of Tynn, to astonish him. Jan” — lowering his voice— “has it put Sibylla in a fright?”
“I think it has put Lionel in a worse,” responded Jan.
“For fear of losing her?” laughed John Massingbird. “Wouldn’t it have been a charming prospect for some husbands, who are tired of their wives! Is Lionel tired of his?”
“Can’t say,” replied Jan. “There’s no appearance of it.”
“I should be, if Sibylla had been my wife for two years,” candidly avowed John Massingbird. “Sibylla and I never hit it off well as cousins. I’d not own her as wife, if she were dowered with all the gold mines in Australia. What Fred saw in her was always a puzzle to me. I knew what was going on between them, though nobody else did. But, Jan, I’ll tell you what astonished me more than everything else when I learned it — that Lionel should have married her subsequently. I never could have imagined Lionel Verner taking up with another man’s wife.”
“She was his widow,” cried literal Jan.
“All the same. ’Twas another man’s leavings. And there’s something about Lionel Verner, with his sensitive refinement, that does not seem to accord with the notion. Is she healthy?”
“Who? Sibylla? I don’t fancy she has much of a constitution.”
“No, that she has not! There are no children, I hear. Jan, though, you need not have pinched so hard when you pounced upon me,” he continued, rubbing his arm. “I was not going to run away.”
“How did I know that?” said Jan.
“It’s my last night of fun, and when I saw you I said to myself, ‘I’ll be caught.’ How are old Deb and Amilly?”
“Much as usual. Deb’s in a fever just now. She has heard that Fred Massingbird’s back, and thinks Sibylla ought to leave Lionel on the strength of it.”
John laughed again. “It must have put others in a fever, I know, besides poor old Deb. Jan, I can’t stop talking to you all night, I should get no more fun. I wish I could appear to all Deerham collectively, and send it into fits after Dan Duff! To-morrow, as soon as I genteelly can after breakfast, I go up to Verner’s Pride and show myself. One can’t go at six in the morning.”
He went off in the direction of Clay Lane as he spoke, and Jan turned to make the best of his way to Verner’s Pride.
CHAPTER LXVIII.
A THREAT TO JAN.
They had dined unusually late at Verner’s Pride that evening, and Lionel Verner was with his guests, making merry with the best heart he had. Now, he would rely upon the information given by Captain Cannonby; the next moment he was feeling that the combined testimony of so many eye-witnesses must be believed, and that it could be no other than Frederick Massingbird. Tynn had been with the man face to face only the previous night; Roy had distinctly asserted that he was back, in life, from Australia. Whatever his anxiety may have been, his wife seemed at rest. Full of smiles and gaiety, she sat opposite to him, glittering gems in her golden hair, shining forth from her costly robes.
“Not out from dinner!” cried Jan, in his astonishment, when he arrived, and Tynn denied him to Lionel. “Why, it’s my supper-time! I must see him, whether he’s at dinner or not. Go and say so, Tynn. Something important, tell him.”
The message brought Lionel out. Thankful, probably, to get out. The playing the host with a mind ill at ease, how it jars upon the troubled and fainting spirit! Jan, disdaining the invitation to the drawing-room, had hoisted himself on the top of an old carved ebony cabinet that stood in the hall, containing curiosities, and sat there with his legs dangling. He jumped off when Lionel appeared, wound his arm within his, and drew him out on the terrace.
“I have come to the bottom of it, Lionel,” said he, without further circumlocution. “I dropped upon the ghost just now and pinned him. It is not Fred Massingbird.”
Lionel paused, and then drew a deep breath; like one who has been relieved from some great care.
“Cannonby said it was not!” he exclaimed. “Cannonby is here, Jan, and he assures me Frederick Massingbird is dead and buried. Who is it, then? Have you found it out?”
“I pinned him, I say,” said Jan. “I was going down to Hook’s, and he crossed my path. He—”
“It is somebody who has been doing it for a trick?” interrupted Lionel.
“Well — yes — in one sense. It is not Fred Massingbird, Lionel; he is dead, safe enough; but it is somebody from a distance; one who will cause you little less trouble. Not any less, in fact, putting Sibylla out of the question.”
Lionel stopped in his walk — they were pacing the terrace — and looked at Jan with some surprise; a smile, in his new security, lightening his face.
“There is nobody in the world, Jan, dead or alive, who could bring trouble to me, save Frederick Massingbird. Anybody else may come, so long as he does not.”
“Ah! You are thinking only of Sibylla.”
“Of whom else should I think?”
“Yourself,” replied Jan.
Lionel laughed in his gladness. How thankful he was for his wife’s sake ONE alone knew. “I am nobody, Jan. Any trouble coming to me I can battle with.”
“Well, Lionel, the returned man is John Massingbird.”
“John — Mass — ingbird!”
Of all the birds in the air and the fishes in the sea — as the children say — he was the very last to whom Lionel Verner had cast a thought. That it was John who had returned, had not entered his imagination. He had never cast a doubt on the fact of his death. Bringing the name out slowly, he stared at Jan in very astonishment.
“Well,” said he presently, “John is not Frederick.”
“No,” assented Jan. “He can put in no claim to your wife. But he can to Verner’s Pride.”
The words caused Lionel’s heart to go on with a bound. A great evil for him; there was no doubt of it; but still slight, compared to the one he had dreaded for Sibylla.
“There is no mistake, I suppose, Jan?”
“There’s no mistake,” replied Jan. “I have been talking to him this half-hour. He is hiding at Roy’s.”
“Why should he be in hiding at all?” inquired Lionel.
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br /> “He had two or three motives he said;” and Jan proceeded to give Lionel a summary of what he had heard. “He was not very explicit to me,” concluded Jan. “Perhaps he will be more so to you. He says he is coming to Verner’s Pride to-morrow morning at the earliest genteel hour after breakfast.”
“And what does he say to the fright he has caused?” resumed Lionel.
“Does nothing but laugh over it. Says it’s the primest fun he ever had in his life. He has come back very poor, Lionel.”
“Poor? Then, were Verner’s Pride and its revenues not his, I could have understood why he should not like to show himself openly. Well! well! compared to what I feared, it is a mercy. Sibylla is free; and I — I must make the best of it. He will be a more generous master of Verner’s Pride — as I believe — than Frederick would ever have been.”
“Yes,” nodded Jan. “In spite of his faults. And John Massingbird used to have plenty.”
“I don’t know who amongst us is without them, Jan. Unless — upon my word, old fellow, I mean it! — unless it is you.”
Jan opened his great eyes with a wondering stare. It never occurred to humble-minded Jan that there was anything in him approaching to goodness. He supposed Lionel had spoken in joke.
“What’s that?” cried he.
Jan alluded to a sudden burst of laughter, to a sound of many voices, to fair forms that were flitting before the windows. The ladies had gone into the drawing-room. “What a relief it will be for Sibylla!” involuntarily uttered Lionel.
“She’ll make a face at losing Verner’s Pride,” was the less poetical remark of Jan.
“Will he turn us out at once, Jan?”
“He said nothing to me on that score, nor I to him,” was the answer of Jan. “Look here, Lionel. Old West’s a screw, between ourselves; but what I do earn is my own; so don’t get breaking your rest, thinking you’ll not have a pound or two to turn to. If John Massingbird does send you out, I can manage things for you, if you don’t mind living quietly.”