by Ellen Wood
“If anyone calls, I am out for the evening, Leah,” I said to her. “And tell Watts when he comes in that I have left the Law Times on the table for Mr. Lake. He must take it round to him.”
“Very well, sir.”
I was nearing the top of Essex Street when I met the postman.
“Anything for me?” I inquired, for I had expected an important letter all day.
“I think there is, sir,” he replied, looking over his letters under the gas-lamp. “‘Messrs. Brightman and Strange;’ there it is, sir.”
I opened it by the same light. It was the expected letter, and required an immediate answer. So I returned, and letting myself in with my latch-key, went into the front office to write it.
Leah had not heard me come in. She was upstairs, deep in one of the two favourite ballads which now appeared to comprise all her collection. During office hours Leah was quiet as a mute; but in the evening she would generally croon over one of these old songs in an undertone, if she thought that I was out and she had the house to herself. As she was thinking now, for she sang out in full key, but in a doleful, monotonous sort of chant. Her voice was still very sweet, but had lost much of the power of its earlier days. One of these two songs was a Scotch fragment, beginning “Woe’s me, for my heart is breaking;” the other was “Barbara Allen.” Fragmentary also, apparently; for as Leah sang it there appeared to be neither beginning nor ending to it.
“And as she wandered up and down,
She heard the bells a-ringing,
And as they rang they seemed to say,
‘Hard-hearted Barbara Allen.’
“She turned her body round and round,
She saw his corpse a-coming;
‘Oh, put him down by this blade’s side,
That I may gaze upon him!’
“The more she looked, the more she laughed,
The further she went from him;
Her friends they all cried out, ‘For shame,
Hard-hearted Barbara Allen!’”
Whether this is the correct version of the ballad or not, I do not know; it was Leah’s version. Many and many a time had I heard it; and I was hearing it again this evening, when there came a quiet ring at the door bell. My door was pushed to but not closed, and Leah came bustling down. Barbara Allen was going on still, but in a more subdued voice.
“Do Mr. Strange live here?” was asked, when the door was opened.
“Yes, he does,” responded Leah. “He is out.”
“Oh, I don’t want him, ma’am. I only wanted to know if he lived here. What sort of a man is he?”
“What sort of a man?” repeated Leah. “A very nice man.”
“Yes; but in looks, I mean.”
“Well, he is very good-looking. Blue eyes, and dark hair, and straight features. Why do you want to know?”
“Ay, that’s him. But I don’t know about the colour of his eyes; I thought they was dark. Blue in one light and brown in another, maybe. A tallish, thinnish man.”
“He’s pretty tall; not what can be called a maypole. A little taller than Mr. Brightman was.”
“Brightman and Strange, that’s it? T’other’s an old gent, I suppose?” was the next remark; while I sat, amused at the colloquy.
“He was not old. He is just dead. Have you any message?”
“No, I don’t want to leave a message; that’s not my business. He told me he lived here, and I came to make sure of it. A pleasant, sociable man, ain’t he; no pride about him, though he is well off and goes cruising about in his own yacht.”
“No pride at all with those he knows, whether it’s friends or servants,” returned Leah, forgetting her own pride, or at any rate her discretion, in singing my praises. “Never was anybody pleasanter than he. But as to a yacht — —”
“Needn’t say any more, ma’am; it’s the same man. Takes a short pipe and a social dram occasionally, and makes no bones over it.”
“What?” retorted Leah indignantly. “Mr. Strange doesn’t take drams or smoke short pipes. If he just lights a cigar at night, when business is over, it’s as much as he does. He’s a gentleman.”
“Ah,” returned the visitor, his tones expressing a patronizing sort of contempt for Leah’s belief in Mr. Strange: “gents that is gents indoors be not always gents out. Though I don’t see why a man need be reproached with not being a gent because he smokes a honest clay pipe, and takes a drop short; and Mr. Strange does both, I can tell ye.”
“Then I know he does not,” repeated Leah. “And if you knew Mr. Strange, you wouldn’t say it.”
“If I knew Mr. Strange! Perhaps I know him as well as you do, ma’am. He don’t come courting our Betsy without my knowing of him.”
“What do you say he does?” demanded Leah, suppressing her wrath.
“Why, I say he comes after our Betsy; leastways, I’m a’most sure of it. And that’s why I wanted to know whether this was his house or not, for I’m not a-going to have her trifled with. She’s my only daughter, and as good as he is. And now that I’ve got my information I’ll say good-night, ma’am.”
Leah shut the door, and I opened mine. “Who was that, Leah?”
“My patience, Mr. Charles!” she exclaimed in astonishment. “I thought you were out, sir.”
“I came in again. Who was that man at the door?”
“Who’s to know, sir — and what does it matter?” cried Leah. “Some half-tipsy fellow who must have mistaken the house.”
“He did not speak as though he were tipsy at all.”
“You must have heard what he said, sir.”
“I heard.”
Leah turned away, but came back hesitatingly, a wistful expression in her eyes. I believe she looked upon me as a boy still, and cared for me as she did when I had been one. “It is not true, Mr. Charles?”
“Of course it is not true, Leah. I neither take drams short, nor go courting Miss Betsys.”
“Why, no, sir, of course not. I believe I must be getting old and foolish, Mr. Charles. I should just like to wring that man’s neck for his impudence!” she concluded, as she went upstairs again.
But what struck me was this: either that one of my clerks was playing pranks in my name — passing himself off as Mr. Strange, to appear great and consequential; and if so, I should uncommonly like to know which of them it was — or else that something was being enacted by those people who made the sorrow of Leah’s life; that daughter of hers and the husband — as we will call him. For the voice at the door had sounded honest and the application genuine.
Posting my letter, I made the best of my way to Clapham. But I had my journey for nothing, and saw only Perry. His mistress had been getting much better, he said, but a day or two ago she had a relapse and was again confined to her room, unable to see anyone. Mr. Close had ordered her to be kept perfectly quiet. Annabel remained at Hastings.
“And what about that fright, Perry, that you were all so scared with a fortnight ago?” I asked, as he strolled by my side back to the iron gates: for it was useless for me to go in if I could not see Mrs. Brightman. “Has the house got over it yet?”
“Sir, it is in the house still,” he gravely answered.
“Do you mean the scare?”
“I mean the ghost, sir. Poor master’s spirit.”
I turned to look at his face, plainly enough to be discerned in the dimness of the foggy night. It was no less grave than his words had been.
“The figure does not appear every night, sir; only occasionally,” he resumed; “and always in the same place — in the corner by the wardrobe in Mrs. Brightman’s bedroom. It stands there in its grave-clothes.”
What with the dark trees about us, the weird evening, and Perry’s shrinking tones, I slightly shivered, for all my unbelief.
“But, Perry, it is impossible, you know. There must be delusion somewhere. Mrs. Brightman’s nerves have been unstrung by her husband’s death.”
“Hatch has seen it twice, Mr. Strange,” he rejoined. “Nobody
can suspect Hatch of having nerves. The last time was on Sunday night. It stood in its shroud, gazing at them — her and the mistress — with a mournful face. Master’s very own face, sir, Hatch says, just as it used to be in life; only white and ghastly.”
It was a ghastly subject, and the words haunted me all the way back to town. Once or twice I could have declared that I saw Mr. Brightman’s face, pale and wan, gazing at me through the fog. Certainly Hatch had neither nerves nor fancies; no living woman within my circle of acquaintance possessed less. What did it all mean? Where could the mystery lie?
Stirring the fire into a blaze when I got into my room, I sat before it, and tried to think out the problem. But the more I tried, the more effectually it seemed to elude me.
With the whir-r-r that it always made, the clock on the mantelpiece began to strike ten. I started. At the same moment, the door opened slowly and noiselessly, and Leah glided in. Mysteriously, if I may so express it: my chamber candlestick carried in one hand, her shoes in the other. She was barefooted; and, unless I strangely mistook, her face was as ghastly as the one Perry had been speaking of that night.
Putting the candlestick on a side-table, slipping her feet into her shoes, and softly closing the door, she turned to me. Her lips trembled, her hands worked nervously; she seemed unable to speak.
“Why, Leah!” I exclaimed, “what is the matter?”
“Sir,” she then said, in the deepest agitation; “I have seen to-night that which has almost frightened me to death. I don’t know how to tell you about it. Watts has dropped asleep in his chair in the kitchen, and I took the opportunity to steal up here. I wouldn’t let him hear it for the world. He is growing suspicious, fancying I’m a bit odd at times. He’d be true in this, I know, but it may be as well to keep it from him.”
“But what is it, Leah?”
“When I saw him, I thought I should have dropped down dead,” she went on, paying no attention to the question. “He stood there with just the same smile on his face that it used to wear. It was himself, sir; it was, indeed.”
May I be forgiven for the folly that flashed over me. Occupied as my mind was with the apparition haunting the house at Clapham, what could I think but that Leah must have seen the same?
“You mean Mr. Brightman,” I whispered.
“Good heavens!” she exclaimed, approaching nearer to me, whilst glancing over her shoulder as if in dread that the ghost were following her: “does he come again, Mr. Charles? Have you seen him? Is he in the house?”
“No, no; but I thought you meant that, Leah. Who is it that you have seen?”
“Mr. Tom, sir. Captain Heriot.”
CHAPTER X.
PROWLING ABOUT.
So the blow had fallen. What we were dreading had come to pass. Tom Heriot was back again.
I sat half-paralyzed with terror. Leah stood before me on the hearthrug, pouring out her unwelcome disclosure with eager words now that her first emotion had subsided. She went on with her tale more coherently, but in undertones.
“After you had gone out this evening, Mr. Charles, I was in the kitchen, when one of those small handfuls of gravel I dread to hear rattled against the window. ‘Nancy,’ I groaned, my heart failing me. I could not go to the door, lest Watts should come up and see me, for I expected him back every minute; and, sure enough, just then I heard his ring. I gave him the Law Times, as you bade me, sir, telling him he was to take it round to Mr. Lake at once. When he was gone I ran up to the door and looked about, and saw Nancy in the shadow of the opposite house, where she mostly stands when waiting for me. I could not speak to her then, but told her I would try and come out presently. Her eldest boy, strolling away with others at play, had been run over by a cab somewhere in Lambeth; he was thought to be dying; and Nancy had come begging and praying me with tears to go with her to see him.”
“And you went, I suppose, Leah. Go on.”
“You know her dreadful life, Mr. Charles, its sorrows and its misery; how could I find it in my heart to deny her? When Watts came back from Mr. Lake’s, I had my bonnet and shawl on. ‘What, going out?’ said he, in surprise, and rather crossly — for I had promised him a game at cribbage. ‘Well,’ I answered, ‘I’ve just remembered that I have to fetch those curtains home to-night that went to be dyed; and I must hasten or the shop may be shut up. I’ve put your supper ready in case they keep me waiting, but I dare say I shall not be long.’”
To attempt to hurry Leah through her stories when once she had entered upon them, was simply waste of words; so I listened with all the patience I had at command.
“The boy had been carried into a house down Lambeth way, and the doctor said he must not be moved; but the damage was not as bad, sir, as was at first thought, and I cheered Nancy up a bit by saying he would get all right and well. I think he will. Leaving her with the lad, I was coming back alone, when I missed my way. The streets are puzzling just there, and I am not familiar with them. I thought I’d ask at a book-stall, and went towards it. A sailor was standing outside, fingering the books and talking to somebody inside that I couldn’t see. Mr. Charles, I had got within a yard of him, when I saw who it was — and the fright turned me sick and faint.”
“You mean the sailor?”
“Yes, sir, the sailor. It was Captain Heriot, disguised. Oh, sir, what is to be done? The boy that I have often nursed upon my knee — what will become of him if he should be recognised?”
The very thought almost turned me sick and faint also, as Leah expressed it. How could Tom be so foolhardy? An escaped convict, openly walking about the streets of London!
“Did he see you, Leah?”
“No, sir; I stole away quickly; and the next turning brought me into the right road again.”
“How did he look?”
“I saw no change in him, sir. He wore a round glazed hat, and rough blue clothes, with a large sailor collar, open at the throat. His face was not hidden at all. It used to be clean-shaved, you know, except the whiskers; but now the whiskers are gone, and he wears a beard. That’s all the difference I could see in him.”
Could this possibly be Tom? I scarcely thought so; scarcely thought that even he would be as reckless of consequences.
“Ah, Mr. Charles, do you suppose I could be mistaken in him?” cried Leah, in answer to my doubt. “Indeed, sir, it was Captain Heriot. He and the man inside — the master of the shop, I suppose — seemed talking as if they knew one another, so Mr. Tom may have been there before. Perhaps he is hiding in the neighbourhood.”
“Hiding!” I repeated, in pain.
“Well, sir — —”
“Leah! have you gone up to bed?”
The words came floating up the staircase in Watts’s deep voice. Leah hurried to the door.
“I came up to bring the master’s candle,” she called out, as she went down. “If you hadn’t gone to sleep, you might have heard him ring for it.”
All night I lay awake, tormented on the score of Tom Heriot. Now looking at the worst side of things, now trying to see them at their best, the hours dragged along, one after the other, until daybreak. In spite of Leah’s statement and her own certainty in the matter, my mind refused to believe that the sailor she had seen could be Tom. Tom was inconceivably daring; but not daring enough for this. He would have put on a more complete disguise. At least, I thought so.
But if indeed it was Tom — why, then there was no hope. He would inevitably be recaptured. And this meant I knew not what of heavier punishment for himself; and for the rest of us further exposure, reflected disgrace, and mental pain.
Resolving to go myself at night and reconnoitre, I turned to my day’s work. In the course of the morning a somewhat curious thing happened. The old saying says that “In looking for one thing you find another,” and it was exemplified in the present instance. I was searching Mr. Brightman’s small desk for a paper that I thought might be there, and, as I suppose, accidentally touched a spring, for the lower part of the desk suddenly loosened, a
nd I found it had a false bottom to it. Lifting the upper portion, I found several small deeds of importance, letters and other papers; and lying on the top of all was a small packet, inscribed “Lady Clavering,” in Mr. Brightman’s writing.
No doubt the letters she was uneasy about, and which I had hitherto failed to find. But now, what was I to do? Give them back to her? Well, no, I thought not. At any rate, not until I had glanced over them. Their being in this secret division proved the importance attaching to them.
Untying the narrow pink ribbon that held them together, there fell out a note of Sir Ralph Clavering’s, addressed to Mr. Brightman. It was dated just before his death, and ran as follows:
I send you the letters I told you I had discovered. Read them,
and keep them safely. Should trouble arise with her after my
death, confront her with them. Use your own discretion about
showing them or not to my nephew Edmund. But should she
acquiesce in the just will I have made, and when all things are
settled on a sure foundation, then destroy the letters, unseen
by any eye save your own; I do not wish to expose her
needlessly. — R. C.
Lady Clavering had not acquiesced in the will, and she was still going on with her threatened and most foolish action. I examined the letters. Some were written to her; not by her husband, though; some were written by her: and, take them for all in all, they were about as damaging a series as any it was ever my fate to see.
“The senseless things these women are!” thought I. “How on earth came she to preserve such letters as these?”
I sent a messenger for Sir Edmund Clavering. Mr. Brightman was to use his own discretion: I hardly thought any was left to me. It was more Sir Edmund’s place to see them than mine. He came at once.
“By George!” he exclaimed, when he had read two or three of them, his handsome face flushing, his brow knit in condemnation. “What a despicable woman! We have the cause in our own hands now.”
“Yes; she cannot attempt to carry it further.”