by Ellen Wood
When Mary Barber and Mr. William had departed, she bolted the door again, and went back to her work in the kitchen. By and by, it occurred to her to wonder whether the silk umbrella was safe upstairs, or whether it had been lost from the stand: a few weeks before, one of their cotton umbrellas had been taken by a tramp. She ran up into her mistress’s room to look, and there was startled by seeing her mistress. She was sitting in an arm-chair by the bedside, her head leaning sideways on its back, and her left hand pressed on her heart. On the bed lay the silk umbrella, its cover partly taken off, and by its side a bit of bread and butter, half eaten. At the first moment the girl thought she was asleep; but when she saw her face she knew it was something worse. Running out of the house in terror, she met Hill, who was then returning from Worcester, and sent him for the nearest surgeon. He came, and pronounced her to be quite dead. “She must have been dead,” he said, “about an hour.”
“What time was that?” interrupted Mary Barber, speaking sharply in her emotion.
“It was half-past eleven.”
There could not be the slightest doubt as to the facts of the case. While the servant was sent by her mistress for the umbrella, and delayed through being unable to find it, Mrs. Pickering must have run up-stairs to her chamber, either remembering that it was there, or to look for it. She found it, and was taking off the case, putting down the bread-and butter she was eating, to do so (a piece of bread-and-butter which the maid had just before brought to her), and must have then found herself ill, sat down in the chair, and died immediately. Her own medical attendant had warned her that any great excitement might prove suddenly fatal.
“It was the oddest thing, and I thought it at the time, though it went out of my mind again, that she should have disappeared from sight so soon,” sobbed Betsey. “I don’t think I was away much above a minute after the umbrella, and when I came back and found her gone, and looked out at the door, I couldn’t see her anywhere. I looked in the garden, I looked down the path as far as my eyes would go. ‘Why, missis must be lost!’ says I, out loud. And she had left the front door wide open, too — and that ought to have told me she had not gone out of it. And I, like a fool, never to have remembered that she might have run upstairs, but just bolted the door and went about my work.”
Mary Barber made no comment; a strange awe was stealing over her. This had occurred at half-past ten. It was at precisely that time she saw her sister on the stile.
“Betsey,” she presently said, her voice subdued to a whisper, “if your mistress had really gone out, as you supposed, was there any possibility of her coming in later without your knowledge?”
“No, there was not; she couldn’t have done it,” was the answer to the question; and Mary Barber had felt perfectly certain that it had not been possible, though she asked it. The only way to Mrs. Pickering’s from the stile was the path she had taken herself, and she knew her sister had not gone on before her.
“I never unbolted either of the doors, back or front, after she (as I thought) went out, except when I undid the front for you,” resumed the girl. “I don’t dare to be in the house by myself with ’em open since that man frightened me last winter. No, no; missis neither went out nor come in; she just went upstairs to her room, and died. The doctor says he don’t suppose she had a moment’s warning.”
It must have been so. Mary Barber gazed upon her as she lay back, upon the holiday attire she wore, all the counterpart of what she had seen on the stile. The puce silk gown looking as good as new; the really beautiful shawl, with its deep rich fringe; the white bonnet, which she now saw was of plain corded silk. The doctor had closed the eyes, and put the left hand down straight; otherwise she was as she was found. On the patchwork quilt of the bed lay the silk umbrella, the cover half taken off, and the bit of bread-and-butter, half eaten, lay beside it. Mary Barber gazed at all; and an awful conviction came over her, that it was her sister’s spirit she had seen on the stile. Never from that hour did she quite lose the sensation of nameless dread it brought in its wake.
“Yow see, now, Mrs. Barber, you must have been mistaken in thinking my missis went to meet you,” said Betsey.
Mary Barber made no answer; she only looked out straight before her with a gaze that seemed to be very far away.
What with one calamity and the other — for the news of William Pickering’s apprehension soon travelled up — the house was like a fair the whole of the day. Richard Pickering, bridegroom though he was, was up there; Mr. Law was there, and, on examination, confirmed the other doctor’s opinion as to the momentarily sudden death; numberless friends and acquaintances came in and went out again. For once in her life, Mary Barber was oblivious of the home wash, and her promise to return early for it. She took her bonnet off, borrowed a cap of her poor sister’s, and remained.
William Pickering was taken before the magistrates in the Guildhall for examination, late in the afternoon. His brother attended it, and — very much to her own surprise — so did Mary Barber. The accusation and the facts had revolved themselves into something tangible out of their original confusion; the prisoner was able to understand the grounds they had against him; and the solicitor, whom he called to his assistance, drove up in a to Mrs. Pickering’s, and took possession of Mary Barber.
“What’s-the good of your whirling me off to the Guildhall?” she resentfully asked of him, three times over, as he drove back into Worcester. “I don’t know anything about it; I never was inside that office of the Pickerings’ in all my life.”
“You’ll see,” said the lawyer, with a smile.
One thing was satisfactory — that old Mr. Stone had come to life again. The blow, though a very hard one, had stunned, but not killed him; he was, in fact, not injured beyond a reasonable probability of recovery. He had no knowledge of his assailant: whoever it was, he had become behind him, as he sat bending over his desk, and struck him down unawares.
The Guildhall was crowded: a case exciting so much interest had rarely occurred in Worcester. Independent of the station in life of the prisoner, and of his good looks, his youth, and his popularity with most people, there were the attendant circumstances — the marriage of his brother in the morning, the death of Mrs Pickering. Of the last sad fact they did not tell him. “Let him get his examination over, poor fellow!” said they in kindness. And he stood before the court, upright, frank, unfettered by grief. “He must have done it in a moment of passion,” said his sorrowing friends and the public; for the facts seemed too clear against him for disbelief — the long-continued ill-feeling known to exist between him and the old clerk, who had persistently taken his brother Richard’s part; the quarrelling of the morning, as heard by Dance, and which the prisoner did not deny; and the absence of any one else in the office. Richard Pickering, his breast beating with a horrible conviction that none else could have been guilty, was not one publicly to denounce his brother. He affected to assume his innocence, and he stood by him to afford him all the countenance in his power.
The facts were testified to — those gathered on the first moment of discovery, and others since. Dance spoke of the jangling — as he still called it — between the clerk and his young master. Mr. Corney proved his visit, and that upon its termination he left Mr. Stone and William Pickering alone, and he could see that they were not friendly. This was about twenty minutes past ten. Mr. Corney added, in answer to a question, that he had heard nothing of William Pickering’s intention to depart home; on the contrary, he said he should be at the office all day. Subsequently —
Yes, but then he had not opened his mother’s note, interrupted the prisoner, who, up to this point, acknowledged all that was said to be correct. But, he continued, the instant he read the note, he started for home, knowing how little time there was to lose; and he told old Stone that he need not be cross on Richard’s account any longer, for after all he was going to be his best man. He knew no more.
Mr. Corney resumed: A little before eleven he went back to the office, to say h
e’d take the hops at the price offered, and was horrified to find old Mr. Stone on the ground, as he thought, dead. He raised an alarm; some people ran in from the streets, and he went himself in search of Dance, whom he found in the warehouse; somebody else ran for a constable, others for a surgeon. Of course the conclusion arrived at was, that Mr. William Pickering had done the deed.
The bench appeared to be arriving at the same.
“Not so fast, gentlemen,” said William Pickering’s lawyer; and he put forth another witness.
It was Mr. Kilpin, the hop-merchant, a gentleman well known in the town. He deposed that he had called in at the Messrs. Pickerings’ office that morning between halfpast ten and eleven. Mr. Stone was alone, writing at his desk. He stayed talking to him three or four minutes, and left at a quarter to eleven. He was enabled to state the time positively from the fact, that —
“Why, then, it could not have been William Pickering; he was at home at that very time,” burst forth Mary Barber.
The bench silenced her; but she saw now why she had been brought to the Guildhall.
Mr. Kilpin resumed, taking up the thread of his sentence as if no interruption had occurred —
“From the fact, that as I passed St. Nicholas’ Church, it chimed the three-quarters past ten. I was on my way to catch the Pershore coach, for I was going by it as far as Whittington, and it was at that moment turning the corner of Broad Street. I had to make a run for it, and to holloa out, and the coachman pulled up opposite the Old Bank. When I got back from Whittington this afternoon,” added the witness, “I accidentally met Mr. William Pickering’s lawyer, and learnt what had occurred.”
Next came the evidence of Mary Barber, that William Pickering was in his mother’s house at three-quarters past ten. Of course there could be no further doubt of his innocence after this. Meanwhile the prisoner had been writing a few lines with a pencil on a piece of paper, and it was passed over to his brother. Something in the demeanour of one of the witnesses as he gave his evidence had powerfully struck him.
“I have an idea, Richard, that the guilty man is Dance. Take care that he does not escape. If he has done this, he may also have been the pilferer of your petty cash. Try and get it all cleared up, for the sake of the mother’s peace.”
“For the sake of the mother’s peace!” echoed Richard, with an aching heart. “Poor William little dreams of the blow in store for him.”
He did not dream, Richard Pickering; he acted. Giving a hint to the officer to look after Dance, he pressed up to his brother, then being released from custody.
“William,” he whispered, “tell me the truth in this solemn moment — and it is more sadly solemn than you are as yet cognisant of — have you really not touched that missing money? As I lay awake last night thinking of it, I began to fancy I might have been making a mistake all through. If so—”
“If so, we shall be the good friends that we used to he,” heartily interrupted William, as he clasped his brother’s ready hand. “On my sacred word, I never touched it; I could not do so: and you must have been prejudiced to fancy it. I’ll lay any money Dance will turn out to have been the black sheep. Both looks and tones were false as he gave his evidence.”
And William Pickering was right. Dance was so effectually “looked after” that night, that some ugly facts came out, and he was quietly taken into custody. True enough, the black sheep had been nobody else. He had skilfully pilfered the petty sums of money; he had struck down Mr. Stone as he sat at his desk, to take a couple of sovereigns he saw lying in it. The old gentleman recovered, and gave evidence on the trial at the following March Assizes, and Richard and William Pickering from henceforth were more closely knit together.
But the singular circumstances attendant on the death of Mrs. Pickering — her apparition (for could it be anything less?) that appeared to Mary Barber — became public property. People talked of it with timid glances and hushed voices; and for a long while neither girl nor woman would pass through the two fields alone.
And that is the ending. And if I have been unduly minute in regard to the dress, or other points, I only reiterate the minuteness given at the time by Mary Barber. She fully believed, and she was good, and honest, and truthful, that the spirit of her sister came to lead her to the house (where otherwise she would not have gone), there to meet William Pickering, and be the means of establishing his innocence: and would so believe to her dying day.
JOHNNY LUDLOW
CONTENTS
JOHNNY LUDLOW.
I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
VI.
VII.
VIII.
IX.
X.
XI.
XII.
XIII.
XIV.
XV.
XVI.
XVII.
XVIII.
XIX.
XX.
XXI.
XXII.
XXIII.
XXIV.
XXV.
XXVI.
JOHNNY LUDLOW.
“We spake of many a vanished scene, Of what we once had thought and said, Of what had been, and might have been, And who was changed, and who was dead.” Longfellow.
I.
LOSING LENA.
We lived chiefly at Dyke Manor. A fine old place, so close upon the borders of Warwickshire and Worcestershire, that many people did not know which of the two counties it was really in. The house was in Warwickshire, but some of the land was in Worcestershire. The Squire had, however, another estate, Crabb Cot, all in Worcestershire, and very many miles nearer to Worcester.
Squire Todhetley was rich. But he lived in the plain, good old-fashioned way that his forefathers had lived; almost a homely way, it might be called, in contrast with the show and parade that have sprung up of late years. He was respected by every one, and though hotheaded and impetuous, he was simple-minded, open-handed, and had as good a heart as any one ever had in this world. An elderly gentleman now, was he, of middle height, with a portly form and a red face; and his hair, what was left of it, consisted of a few scanty, lightish locks, standing up straight on the top of his head.
The Squire had married, but not very early in life. His wife died in a few years, leaving one child only; a son, named after his father, Joseph. Young Joe was just the pride of the Manor and of his father’s heart.
I, writing this, am Johnny Ludlow. And you will naturally want to hear what I did at Dyke Manor, and why I lived there.
About three-miles’ distance from the Manor was a place called the Court. Not a property of so much importance as the Manor, but a nice place, for all that. It belonged to my father, William Ludlow. He and Squire Todhetley were good friends. I was an only child, just as Tod was; and, like him, I had lost my mother. They had christened me John, but always called me Johnny. I can remember many incidents of my early life now, but I cannot recall my mother to my mind. She must have died — at least I fancy so — when I was two years old.
One morning, two years after that, when I was about four, the servants told me I had a new mamma. I can see her now as she looked when she came home: tall, thin, and upright, with a long face, pinched nose, a meek expression, and gentle voice. She was a Miss Marks, who used to play the organ at church, and had hardly any income at all. Hannah said she was sure she was thirty-five if she was a day — she was talking to Eliza while she dressed me — and they both agreed that she would probably turn out to be a tartar, and that the master might have chosen better. I understood quite well that they meant papa, and asked why he might have chosen better; upon which they shook me and said they had not been speaking of my papa at all, but of the old blacksmith round the corner. Hannah brushed my hair the wrong way, and Eliza went off to see to her bedrooms. Children are easily prejudiced: and they prejudiced me against my new mother. Looking at her with the eyes of maturer years, I know that though she might be poor in pocket, she was good and kindly,
and every inch a lady.
Papa died that same year. At the end of another year, Mrs. Ludlow, my step-mother, married Squire Todhetley, and we went to live at Dyke Manor; she, I, and my nurse Hannah. The Court was let for a term of years to the Sterlings.
Young Joe did not like the new arrangements. He was older than I, could take up prejudices more strongly, and he took a mighty strong one against the new Mrs. Todhetley. He had been regularly indulged by his father and spoilt by all the servants; so it was only to be expected that he would not like the invasion. Mrs. Todhetley introduced order into the profuse household, hitherto governed by the servants. They and young Joe equally resented it; they refused to see that things were really more comfortable than they used to be, and at half the cost.
Two babies came to the Manor; Hugh first, Lena next. Joe and I were sent to school. He was as big as a house, compared with me, tall and strong and dark, with an imperious way and will of his own. I was fair, gentle, timid, yielding to him in all things. His was the master-spirit, swaying mine at will. At school the boys at once, the very first day we entered, shortened his name from Todhetley to Tod. I caught up the habit, and from that time I never called him anything else.
And so the years went on. Tod and I at school being drilled into learning; Hugh and Lena growing into nice little children. During the holidays, hot war raged between Tod and his step-mother. At least silent war. Mrs. Todhetley was always kind to him, and she never quarrelled; but Tod opposed her in many things, and would be generally sarcastically cool to her in manner.
We did lead the children into mischief, and she complained of that. Tod did, that is, and of course I followed where he led. “But we can’t let Hugh grow up a milksop, you know, Johnny,” he would say to me; “and he would if left to his mother.” So Hugh’s clothes in Tod’s hands came to grief, and sometimes Hugh himself. Hannah, who was the children’s nurse now, stormed and scolded over it: she and Tod had ever been at daggers drawn with each other; and Mrs. Todhetley would implore Tod with tears in her eyes to be careful with the child. Tod appeared to turn a deaf ear to them, and marched off with Hugh before their very eyes. He really loved the children, and would have saved them from injury with his life. The Squire drove and rode his fine horses. Mrs. Todhetley had set up a low basket-chaise drawn by a mild she-donkey: it was safer for the children, she said. Tod went into fits whenever he met the turn-out.