by Ellen Wood
“Oh, I have heard of it,” cried Anne, clasping her hands in laughter. “She is burning tar outside the house; and she spoke to Mr. Hillary this morning through the window muffled up in a cloak and respirator. What a strange old thing she is!”
Val shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t think she means badly au fond; and she has no home, poor creature.”
“Is that why she remains at Hartledon?”
“I suppose so. Reigning at Hartledon must be something like a glimpse of Paradise to her. She won’t quit it in a hurry.”
“I wonder you like to have her there.”
“I know I shall never have courage to tell her to go,” was the candid and characteristic answer. “I was afraid of her as a boy, and I’m not sure but I’m afraid of her still.”
“I don’t like her — I don’t like either of them,” said Anne in a low tone.
“Don’t you like Maude?”
“No. I am sure she is not true. To my mind there is something very false about them both.”
“I think you are wrong, Anne; certainly as regards Maude.”
Miss Ashton did not press her opinion: they were his relatives. “But I should have pitied poor Edward had he lived and married her,” she said, following out her thoughts.
“I was mistaken when I thought Maude cared for Edward,” observed Lord Hartledon. “I’m sure I did think it. I used to tell Edward so; but a day or two after he died I found I was wrong. The dowager had been urging Maude to like him, and she could not, and it made her miserable.”
“Did Maude tell you this?” inquired Anne; her radiant eyes full of surprise.
“Not Maude: she never said a word to me upon the subject. It was the dowager.”
“Then, Val, she must have said it with an object in view. I am sure Maude did love him. I know she did.”
He shook his head. “You are wrong, Anne, depend upon it. She did not like him, and she and her mother were at variance upon the point. However, it is of no moment to discuss it now: and it might never have come to an issue had Edward lived, for he did not care for her; and I dare say never would have cared for her.”
Anne said no more. It was of no moment as he observed; but she retained her own opinion. They strolled to the end of the short walk in silence, and Anne said she must go in.
“Am I quite forgiven?” whispered Lord Hartledon, bending his head down to her.
“I never thought I had very much to forgive,” she rejoined, after a pause.
“My darling! I mean by your father.”
“Ah, I don’t know. You must talk to him. He knows we have been writing to each other. I think he means to trust you.”
“The best plan will be for you to come soon to Hartledon, Anne. I shall never go wrong when once you are my wife.”
“Do you go so very wrong now?” she asked.
“On my honour, no! You need not doubt me, Anne; now or ever. I have paid up what I owed, and will take very good care to keep out of trouble for the future. I incurred debts for others, more than for myself, and have bought experience dearly. My darling, surely you can trust me now?”
“I always did trust you,” she murmured.
He took a long, fervent kiss from her lips, and then led her to the open lawn and across to the house.
“Ought you to come in, Percival?”
“Certainly. One word, Anne; because I may be speaking to the Rector — I don’t mean to-night. You will make no objection to coming soon to Hartledon?”
“I can’t come, you know, as long as Lady Kirton is its mistress,” she said, half seriously, half jestingly.
He laughed at the notion. Lady Kirton must be going soon of her own accord; if not, he should have to pluck up courage and give her a hint, was his answer. At any rate, she’d surely take herself off before Christmas. The old dowager at Hartledon after he had Anne there! Not if he knew it, he added, as he went on with her into the presence of Dr. and Mrs. Ashton. The Rector started from his seat, at once telling him that he ought not to have come in. Which Val did not see at all, and decidedly refused to go out again.
Meanwhile the countess-dowager and Maude were wondering what had become of him. They supposed he was still sitting in the dining-room. The old dowager fidgeted about, her fingers ominously near the bell. She was burning to send to him, but hardly knew how he might take the message: it might be that he would object to leading strings, and her attempt to put them on would ruin all. But the time went on; grew late; and she was dying for her tea, which she had chosen should wait also. Maude sat before the fire in a large chair; her eyes, her hands, her whole air supremely listless.
“Don’t you want tea, Maude?” suddenly cried her mother, who had cast innumerable glances at her from time to time.
“I have wanted it for hours — as it seems to me.”
“It’s a horrid custom for young men, this sitting long after dinner. If he gets into it — But you must see to that, and stop it, if ever you reign at Hartledon. I dare say he’s smoking.”
“If ever I reign at Hartledon — which I am not likely to do — I’ll take care not to wait tea for any one, as you have made me wait for it this evening,” was Maude’s rejoinder, spoken with apathy.
“I’ll send a message to him,” decided Lady Kirton, ringing rather fiercely.
A servant appeared.
“Tell Lord Hartledon we are waiting tea for him.”
“His lordship’s not in, my lady.”
“Not in!”
“He went out directly after dinner, as soon as he had taken coffee.”
“Oh,” said the countess-dowager. And she began to make the tea with vehemence — for it did not please her to have it brought in made — and knocked down and broke one of the delicate china cups.
CHAPTER XIV.
ANOTHER PATIENT.
It was eleven o’clock when Lord Hartledon entered. Lady Kirton was fanning herself vehemently. Maude had gone upstairs for the night.
“Where have you been?” she asked, laying down her fan. “We waited tea for you until poor Maude got quite exhausted.”
“Did you? I am sorry for that. Never wait for me, pray, Lady Kirton. I took tea at the Rectory.”
“Took — tea — where?”
“At the Rectory.”
With a shriek the countess-dowager darted to the far end of the room, turning up her gown as she went, and muffling it over her head and face, so that only the little eyes, round now with horror, were seen. Lord Hartledon gazed in amazement.
“You have been at the Rectory, when I warned you not to go! You have been inside that house of infection, and come home — here — to me — to my darling Maude! May heaven forgive you, Hartledon!”
“Why, what have I done? What harm will it do?” exclaimed the astonished man. He would have approached her, but she warned him from her piteously with her hands. She was at the upper end of the room, and he near the door, so that she could not leave it without passing him. Hedges came in, and stood staring in the same wondering astonishment as his master.
“For mercy’s sake, take off every shred of your clothes!” she cried. “You may have brought home death in them. They shall be thrown into the burning tar. Do you want to kill us? What has Maude done to you that you behave in this way?”
“I do think you must be going mad!” cried Lord Hartledon, in bewilderment; “and I hope you’ll forgive me for saying so. I—”
“Go and change your clothes!” was all she could reiterate. “Every minute you stand in them is fraught with danger. If you choose to die yourself, it’s downright wicked to bring death to us. Oh, go, that I may get out of here.”
Lord Hartledon, to pacify her, left the room, and the countess-dowager rushed forth and bolted herself into her own apartments.
Was she mad, or making a display of affectation, or genuinely afraid? wondered Lord Hartledon aloud, as he went up to his chamber. Hedges gave it as his opinion that she was really afraid, because she had been as bad as this when she fi
rst heard of the illness, before his lordship arrived. Val retired to rest laughing: it was a good joke to him.
But it was no joke to the countess-dowager, as he found to his cost when the morning came. She got him out of his chamber betimes, and commenced a “fumigating” process. The clothes he had worn she insisted should be burnt; pleading so piteously that he yielded in his good nature.
But there was to be a battle on another score. She forbade him, in the most positive terms, to go again to the Rectory — to approach within half-a-mile of it. Lord Hartledon civilly told her he could not comply; he hinted that if her alarms were so great, she had better leave the place until all danger was over, and thereby nearly entailed on himself another war-dance.
News that came up that morning from the Rectory did not tend to assuage her fears. The poor dairymaid had died in the night, and another servant, one of the men, was sickening. Even Lord Hartledon looked grave: and the countess-dowager wormed a half promise from him, in the softened feelings of the moment, that he would not visit the infected house.
Before an hour was over he came to her to retract it. “I cannot be so unfeeling, so unneighbourly, as not to call,” he said. “Even were my relations not what they are with Miss Ashton, I could not do it. It’s of no use talking, ma’am; I am too restless to stay away.”
A little skirmish of words ensued. Lady Kirton accused him of wishing to sacrifice them to his own selfish gratification. Lord Hartledon felt uncomfortable at the accusation. One of the best-hearted men living, he did nothing in his vacillation. He would go in the evening, he said to himself, when they could not watch him from the house.
But she was clever at carrying out her own will, that countess-dowager; more than a match for the single-minded young man. She wrote an urgent letter to Dr. Ashton, setting forth her own and her daughter’s danger if her nephew, as she styled him, was received at the Rectory; and she despatched it privately.
It brought forth a letter from Dr. Ashton to Lord Hartledon; a kind but peremptory mandate, forbidding him to show himself at the Rectory until the illness was over. Dr. Ashton reminded his future son-in-law that it was not particularly on his own account he interposed this veto, but for the sake of the neighbourhood generally. If they were to prevent the fever from spreading, it was absolutely necessary that no chance visitors should be running into the Rectory and out of it again, to carry possible infection to the parish.
Lord Hartledon could only acquiesce. The note was written in terms so positive as rather to surprise him; but he never suspected the undercurrent that had been at work. In his straightforwardness he showed the letter to the dowager, who nodded her head approvingly, but told no tales.
And so his days went on in the society of the two women at Hartledon; and if he found himself oppressed with ennui at first, he subsided into a flirtation with Maude, and forgot care. Elster’s folly! He was not hearing from Anne, for it was thought better that even notes should not pass out of the Rectory.
Curiously to relate, the first person beyond the Rectory to take the illness was the man Pike. How he could have caught it was a marvel to Calne. And yet, if Lady Kirton’s theory were correct, that infection was conveyed by clothes, it might be accounted for, and Clerk Gum be deemed the culprit. One evening after the clerk had been for some little time at the Rectory with Dr. Ashton, he met Pike in going out; had brushed close to him in passing, as he well remembered. However it might have been, in a few days after that Pike was found to be suffering from the fever.
Whether he would have died, lying alone in that shed, Calne did not decide; and some thought he would, making no sign; some thought not, but would have called in assistance. Mr. Hillary, an observant man, as perhaps it was requisite he should be in time of public danger, halted one morning to speak to Clerk Gum, who was standing at his own gate.
“Have you seen anything lately of that neighbour of yours, Gum?”
“Which neighbour?” asked the clerk, in tones that seemed to resent the question.
Mr. Hillary pointed his umbrella in the direction of the shed. “Pike.”
“No, I’ve seen nothing of him, that I remember.”
“Neither have I. What’s more, I’ve seen no smoke coming out of the chimney these two days. It strikes me he’s ill. It may be the fever.”
“Gone away, possibly,” remarked the clerk, after a moment’s pause; “in the same unceremonious manner that he came.”
“I think somebody ought to see. He may be lying there helpless.”
“Little matter if he is,” growled the clerk, who seemed put out about something or other.
“It’s not like you to say so, Gum. You might step over the stile and see; you’re nearest to him. Nobody knows what the man is, or what he may have been; but humanity does not let even the worst die unaided.”
“What makes you think he has the fever?” asked the clerk.
“I only say he may have it; having seen neither him nor his smoke these two days. Never mind; if it annoys you to do this, I’ll look in myself some time to-day.”
“You wouldn’t get admitted; he keeps his door fastened,” returned Gum. “The only way to get at him is to shout out to him through that glazed aperture he calls his window.”
“Will you do it — or shall I?”
“I’ll do it,” said the clerk; “and tell you if your services are wanted.”
Mr. Hillary walked off at a quick pace. There was a good deal of illness in Calne at that season, though the fever had not spread.
Whether Clerk Gum kept his word, or whether he did not, certain it was that Mr. Hillary heard nothing from him that day. In the evening the clerk was sitting in his office in a thoughtful mood, busy over some accounts connected with an insurance company for which he was agent, when he heard a quick sharp knock at the front-door.
“I wonder if it’s Hillary?” he muttered, as he took the candle and rose to open it.
Instead of the surgeon, there entered a lady, with much energy. It was the bête noire of Clerk Gum’s life, Mrs. Jones.
“What’s the house shut up for at this early hour?” she began. “The door locked, the shutters up, and the blinds down, just as if everybody was dead or asleep. Where’s Nance?”
“She’s out,” said the clerk. “I suppose she shut up before she went, and I’ve been in my office all the afternoon. Do you want anything?”
“Do I want anything!” retorted Mrs. Jones. “I’ve come in to shelter from the rain. It’s been threatening all the evening, and it’s coming down now like cats and dogs.”
The clerk was leading the way to the little parlour; but she ignored the movement, and went on to the kitchen. He could only follow her. “It’s a pity you came out when it threatened rain,” said he.
“Business took me out,” replied Mrs. Jones. “I’ve been up to the mill. I heard young Rip was ill, and going to leave; so I went up to ask if they’d try our Jim. But young Rip isn’t going to leave, and isn’t ill, mother Floyd says, though it’s certain he’s not well. She can’t think what’s the matter with the boy; he’s always fancying he sees ghosts in the river. I’ve had my trapes for nothing.”
She had given her gown a good shake from the rain-drops in the middle of the kitchen, and was now seated before the fire. The clerk stood by the table, occasionally snuffing the candle, and wishing she’d take herself off again.
“Where’s Nancy gone?” asked she.
“I didn’t hear her say.”
“And she’ll be gone a month of Sundays, I suppose. I shan’t wait for her, if the rain gives over.”
“You’d be more comfortable in the small parlour,” said the clerk, who seemed rather fidgety; “there’s a nice bit of fire there.”
“I’m more comfortable here,” contradicted Mrs. Jones. “Where’s the good of a bit of fire for a gown as wet as mine?”
Jabez Gum made no response. There was the lady, a fixture; and he could only resign himself to the situation.
“How’s your frie
nd at the next house — Pike?” she began again sarcastically.
“He’s no friend of mine,” said the clerk.
“It looks like it, at all events; or you’d have given him into custody long ago. I wouldn’t let a man harbour himself so close to me. He’s taken to a new dodge now: going about with a pistol to shoot people.”
“Who says so?” asked the clerk.
“I say so. He frighted that boy Ripper pretty near to death. The boy tore home one night in a state of terror, and all they could get out of him was that he’d met Pike with a pistol. It’s weeks ago, and he hasn’t got over it yet.”
“Did Pike level it at him?”
“I tell you that’s all they could get out of the boy. He’s a nice jail-bird too, that young Rip, unless I’m mistaken. They might as well send him away, and make room for our Jim.”
“I think you are about the most fanciful, unjust, selfish woman in Calne!” exclaimed the clerk, unable to keep down his anger any longer. “You’d take young Ripper’s character away without scruple, just because his place might suit your Jim!”
“I’m what?” shrieked Mrs. Jones. “I’m unjust, am I—”
An interruption occurred, and Mrs. Jones subsided into silence. The back-door suddenly opened, not a couple of yards from that lady’s head, and in came Mrs. Gum in her ordinary indoor dress, two basins in her hand. The sight of her visitor appeared to occasion her surprise; she uttered a faint scream, and nearly dropped the basins.
“Lawk a mercy! Is it Lydia Jones?”
Mrs. Jones had been drawing a quiet deduction — the clerk had said his wife was out only to deceive her. She rose from her chair, and faced him.
“I thought you told me she was gone out?”
The clerk coughed. He looked at his wife, as if asking an explanation. The meeker of the two women hastily put her basins down, and stood looking from one to the other, apparently recovering breath.
“Didn’t you go out?” asked the clerk.
“I was going, Gum, but stepped out first to collect my basins, and then the rain came down. I had to shelter under the wood-shed, it was peppering so.”