by Ellen Wood
“It’s true I don’t feel very well this evening, aunt, but I think it is nothing. I often feel as if I had a touch of ague.”
Miss Timmens bent her face nearer; it had a strange concern in it. “Harriet, look here. There’s some mystery about this place; won’t you tell me what it is? I — seem — to — be — afraid — for — you,” she concluded, in a slow and scarcely audible whisper.
For answer, Miss Timmens found the window slammed down in her face. An impression arose — she hardly knew whence gathered, or whether it had any foundation — that it was not Harriet who had slammed it, but some one concealed behind the curtain.
“Well I’m sure!” cried she. “It might have taken my nose off.”
“It was so cold, aunt!” Harriet called out apologetically through the glass. “Good night.”
Miss Timmens walked off in dudgeon. Revolving matters along the broad field-path, she liked their appearance less and less. Harriet was looking as ill as possible: and what meant that trembling? Was it caused by sickness of body, or terror of mind? Mrs. Hill, when consulted, summed it up comprehensively: “It is David about the place: that’s killing her.”
Harriet Roe did not make her appearance at the school-house, and the next day but one Miss Timmens went up again. The door was bolted. Miss Timmens knocked, but received no answer. Not choosing to be treated in that way she made so much noise, first at the door and then at the window, that the former was at length unclosed by Mrs. James, in list shoes and a dressing-gown, as if her toilette had been delayed that day. The chain was kept up — a new chain that Miss Timmens had not seen before — and she could not enter.
“I want to see Harriet, Mrs. James.”
“Harriet’s gone,” replied Mrs. James.
“Gone! Gone where?”
“To London. She went off there yesterday morning.”
Miss Timmens felt, as she would have said, struck into herself. An idea flashed over her that the words had not a syllable of truth in them.
“What did she go to London for?”
Mrs. James glanced over her two shoulders, seemingly in terror herself, and sunk her voice to a whisper. “She had grown afraid of the place, this dark winter weather. Miss Timmens — it’s as true as you’re there — nothing would persuade her out of the fancy that she was always seeing David Garth. He used to stand in a sheet at the end of the upstairs passage and look at her. Leastways, she said so.”
This nearly did for Miss Timmens. It might be true; and she could not confute it. “Do you see him, Mrs. James?”
“Well, no; I never have. Goodness knows, I don’t want to.”
“But Harriet was not well enough to take a long journey,” contended Miss Timmens. “She never could have undertaken one in her state of health.”
“I don’t know what you mean by ‘state,’ Miss Timmens. She would shake a bit at times; but we saw nothing else the matter with her. Perhaps you would shake if you had an apparition in the house. Any way, well or ill, she went off to London. Louis took her as far as the station and saw her away.”
“Will you give me her address? I should like to write to her.”
Mrs. James said she could not give the address, because she did not know it. Nothing more was to be got out of her, and Miss Timmens reluctantly departed.
“I should hope they’ve not murdered her — and are concealing her in the house as Hill concealed David,” was the comment she gave vent to in her perplexity and wrath.
From that time, nothing could be heard of Harriet Roe. A week went on; nearly two weeks; but she never was seen, and no tidings came of her. So far as could be ascertained, she had not gone away by train: neither station-master nor porter remembered to have seen her. Miss Timmens grew as thin as a ghost herself: the subject worried her night and day. That some ill had happened to Harriet; or been done to her, she did not doubt. Once or twice she managed to see Roe; once or twice she saw Mrs. James: speaking to them at the door with the chain up. Roe said he heard from his wife nearly every other day; but he would not show the letters, or give the address: a conclusive proof to the mind of Miss Timmens that neither had any existence. What had they done with Harriet? Miss Timmens could not have been in much worse mental trouble had she herself made away with her.
One morning the postman delivered a letter at the school-house. It bore the London post-mark, and purported to be from Harriet. A few lines only — saying she was well and enjoying herself, and should come back sometime — the writing shaky and blotted, and bearing but a slight resemblance to hers. Miss Timmens dashed it on the table.
“The fools, to think they can deceive me this way! That’s no more Harriet’s writing than it is mine.”
But Miss Timmens’s passion soon subsided into a grave, settled, awful dread. For she saw that this had been written to delude her into the belief that Harriet was in health and life — when she might be in neither one nor the other. She brought the letter to Crabb Cot. She took it round the parish. She went with it to the police-station; imparting her views of it to all freely. It was a sham; a blind; a forgery: and where was she to look for poor lost Harriet Roe?
That same evening the ghost appeared again. Miss Timmens and others went up to the cottage, intending to demand an interview with Roe; and they found the house shut up, apparently deserted. Reconnoitring the windows from all points, their dismayed eyes rested on something at the end casement: a thin, shadowy form, robed in white. Every one of them saw it; but, even as they looked, it seemed to vanish away. Yes, there was no question that the house was haunted. Perhaps Harriet had died from fright, as poor David died.
Things could not go on like this for ever. After another day or two of discomfort, Mr. Todhetley, as a county magistrate, incited by the feeling in the parish, issued a private mandate for Roe to appear before him, that he might be questioned as to what had become of his wife. It was not a warrant; but a sort of friendly invitation, that could offend no one. Jiff the policeman was entrusted with the delivery of the message, a verbal one, and I went with him.
As if she had scented our errand for herself, and wanted to make a third in it, who should meet us in the broad path, but Miss Timmens. Willow Cottage might or might not be haunted, but I am sure her legs were: they couldn’t be still.
“What are you doing up here, Jiff?” she tartly asked.
Jiff told her. Squire Todhetley wanted Roe at Crabb Cot.
“It will be of no use, Jiff; the door’s sure to be fast,” groaned Miss Timmens. “My opinion is that Roe has left the place for good.”
Miss Timmens was mistaken. The shutters were open, and the house showed signs of life. Upon knocking at the door — Miss Timmens took off her patten to do it with, and you might have heard the echoes at North Crabb — it was flung wide by Mrs. James.
Mr. Roe? No, Mr. Roe was not at home. Mrs. Roe was.
Mrs. Roe was! “What, Harriet?” cried excited Miss Timmens.
Yes, Harriet. If we liked to walk in and see her, we could do so.
By the kitchen fire, as being biggest and hottest, in a chair stuffed about with blankets, sat Harriet Roe. Worn, white, shadowy, she was evidently just getting over some desperate illness. I stared; the policeman softly whistled; you might have knocked Miss Timmens down with a feather.
“Good patience, child — why, where have you been hiding all this while?” cried she. “And what on earth has been the matter with you?”
“I have been upstairs in my room, Aunt Susan, keeping my bed. As to the illness, it turned out to be ague and low fever.”
“Upstairs where?”
“Here.”
Jiff went out again; there was nothing to stay for. I followed, leaving Miss Timmens and Harriet to have it out together.
She had really been ill in bed all the time, Mrs. James and Roe attending on her. It did not suit them to admit visitors; for James Roe, who had fallen into some difficulty in London, connected with forged bills, was lying concealed at Willow Cottage. That’s why peop
le were kept out. It would not have done by any means for Miss Timmens and her sharp eyes to go upstairs and catch a glimpse of him; so they concocted the tale that Harriet was away. James Roe was safely away now, and Louis with him. Louis had been mixed up in the bill trouble in a lesser degree: but quite enough so to induce him to absent himself from London for a time, and to stay quietly at North Crabb.
“Was it fear or ague that caused you to shake so that last evening I saw you here?” questioned Miss Timmens.
“Ague. I never got out of bed after that night. I could hardly write that letter, aunt, that Louis sent to London to be posted to you.”
“And — did you really see David Garth?”
“No, I never saw him,” said Harriet. “But, after all the reports and talk, I was timid at being in the house alone — James and his wife had not come then — and that’s why I asked you to let me stay at the school-house the night my husband was away.”
“But it was told me that you did see him.”
“I was always frightened for fear I should.”
“It strikes me you have had other causes for fright as well, Harriet,” cried shrewd Miss Timmens.
“Well, you see — this business of James Roe’s has put me about. Every knock that came to the door seemed to me to be somebody coming for him. My husband says the ghost is all rubbish and fancy, Aunt Susan.”
“Rubbish and fancy, does he?”
“He says that when he came in here with Johnny Ludlow, the night there was that commotion, in going up for some matches, he fell over something at the top of the stairs by the end casement, and flung it behind the rafters. Next day he saw what it was. I had tied a white cloth over a small dwarf mop to sweep the walls with, and must have left it near the window. I remembered that I did leave it there. It no doubt looked in the moonlight just like a white face. And that’s what was taken for David’s ghost.”
Miss Timmens paused, considering matters: she might believe just as much of this as she liked.
“It appeared again at the same place, Harriet, two or three days ago.”
“That was me, aunt. I saw you all looking up, and drew away again for fear you should know me. Mrs. James was making my bed, and I had crawled there.”
There it ended. So far the mystery was over. The explanation was confided to the public, who received it differently. Some accepted the mop version; others clung to the ghost. And Hill never had a penny of his rent. Louis Roe was away; and, as it turned out, did not come back again.
Mrs. James wanted to leave also; and Maria Lease took her place as nurse. Tenderly she did it, too; and Harriet got well. She was going off to join her husband as soon as she could travel: it was said in France. No one knew; unless it was Maria Lease. She and Harriet had become confidential friends.
“Which is the worse fate — yours or mine?” cried Harriet to Maria, half mockingly, half woefully, the day she was packing her trunk. “You have your lonely life, and your never-ending repentance for what you call your harsh sin: I have my sickness and my trouble — and I have enough of that, Maria.” But Maria Lease only shook her head in answer.
“Trouble and repentance are our best lot in this world, Harriet. They come to fit us for heaven.”
But North Crabb, though willingly admitting that Harriet Roe, in marrying, had not entered on a bed of lilies, and might have been happier had she kept single, would not, on the whole, be shaken from its belief that the ghost still haunted the empty cottage. Small parties made shivering pilgrimages up there on a moonlight night, to watch for it, and sometimes declared that it appeared. Fancy goes a long way in this world.
XXI.
SEEING LIFE.
The Clement-Pells lived at Parrifer Hall, and were as grand as all the rest of us put together. After that affair connected with Cathy Reed, and the death of his son, Major Parrifer and his family could not bear to stay in the place. They took a house near London, and Parrifer Hall was advertised to be let. Mr. Clement-Pell came forward, and took it for a term of years.
The Clement-Pells rolled in riches. His was one of those cases of self-made men that have been so common of late years: where an individual, from a humble position, rises by perceptible degrees, until he towers above all, like a Jack sprung out of a box, and is the wonder and envy of the world around. Mr. Clement-Pell was said to have begun life in London as a lawyer. Later, circumstances brought him down to a bustling town in our neighbourhood where he became the manager of a small banking company; and from that time he did nothing but rise. “There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune,” says Shakespeare: and this was the tide in Mr. Clement-Pell’s. The small banking company became a great one. Its spare cash helped to make railways, to work mines, and to do all kinds of profitable things. The shareholders flourished; Mr. Clement-Pell was more regarded than a heathen deity. He established a branch at two or three small places; and, amongst them, one at Church Dykely. After that, he took Parrifer Hall. The simple people around could not vie with the grandeur of the Pells, and did not try to do so. The Pells made much of me and Joseph Todhetley — perhaps because there was a dearth of young fellows near — and often asked us to the Hall. Mrs. Pell, a showy, handsome woman, turned up her nose at all but the best families, and would not associate with farmers, however much they might live like gentlefolk. She was decisive in manner, haughty, and ruled the house and everything in it, including her husband, with iron will. In a slight degree she and her children put us in mind of the Parrifers: for they held their heads in the clouds as the Parrifers had done, and the ostentation they displayed was just the least bit vulgar. Mr. Pell was a good-looking, gentlemanlike man, with a pleasant, hearty, straightforward manner that took with every one. He was neither fine nor stuck up: but his wife and daughters were; after the custom of a good many who have shot up into greatness.
And now that’s the introduction to the Clement-Pells. One year they took a furnished house in London, and sent to invite me and Tod up in the summer. It was not very long after we had paid that visit to the Whitneys and Miss Deveen. The invitation was cordially pressed; but Squire Todhetley did not much like our going.
“Look here, you boys,” said he, as we were starting, for the point was yielded, “I’d a great deal rather you were going to stay at home. Don’t you let the young Pells lead you into mischief.”
Tod resented the doubt. “We are not boys, sir.”
“Well, I suppose you’d like to call yourselves young men,” returned the Pater; “you in particular, Joe. But young men have gone up to London before now, and come home with their fingers burnt.”
Tod laughed.
“They have. It is this, Joe: Johnny, listen to me. A young fellow, just launched on the world, turns out very much according to the companions he is thrown amongst and the associations he meets with. I have a notion that the young Pells are wild; fast, as it is called now; so take care of yourselves. And don’t forget that though their purses may be unlimited, yours are not.”
Three footmen came rushing out when the cab stopped at the house in Kensington, and the Pells made much of us. Mr. Pell and the eldest son, James, were at the chief bank in the country; they rarely spared the time to come up; but the rest were in town. Mrs. Pell, the four girls, the two sons, and a new German governess. The house was not as large as Parrifer Hall, and Tod and I had a top room between us, with two beds in it. Fabian Pell held a commission in the army. Augustus was reading for the bar — he was never called at home anything but “Gusty.”
We got there just before dinner, and dressed for it — finding dress was expected. A worn-looking, fashionable man of thirty was in the drawing-room when we went down, the Honourable Mr. Crayton: and Fabian brought in two officers. Mrs. Pell wore blue, with a string of pearls on her neck that were too big to be real: the two girls were in white silk and white shoes. Altogether, considering it was not a state occasion, but a friendly dinner, the dresses looked too fine, more suited to a duke’s table;
and I wondered what Mrs. Todhetley would have said to them.
“Will you take Constance in to dinner, Mr. Todhetley?”
Tod took her. She was the second girl: the eldest, Martha Jane, went in with one of the officers. The younger girls, Leonora and Rose, dined in the middle of the day with the governess. Gusty was not there, and Fabian and I went in together.
“Where is he?” I asked of Fabian.
“Gusty? Oh, knocking about somewhere. His getting home to dinner’s always a chance. He has chambers in town.”
Why the idea should have come over me, I know not, unless it was the tone Mrs. Pell spoke in, but it flashed across my mind that she was looking at Tod as a possible husband for her daughter Constance. He was not of an age to marry yet: but some women like to plot and plan these things beforehand. I hated her for it: I did not care that Tod should choose one of the Pells. Gusty made his appearance in the course of the evening; and we fellows went out with him.
The Squire was right: it was fast life at the Pells’, and no mistake. I don’t believe there was a thing that cost money but Fabian and Gusty Pell and Crayton went in for it. Crayton was with them always. He seemed to be the leader: the Pells followed him like sheep; Tod went with them. I sometimes: but they did not always ask me to go. Billiards and cards were the chief amusements; and there’d be theatres and singing-halls. The names of some of the places would have made the Squire’s hair stand on end. One, a sort of private affair, that the Pells and Crayton said it was a favour to gain admittance to, was called “Paradise.” Whether that was only the Pells’ or Crayton’s name for it, we did not hear. And a paradise it was when you were inside, if decorations and mirrors can make one. Men and women in evening dress sang songs in a kind of orchestra; to which you might listen sitting and smoking or lounging about and talking: if you preferred a rubber at whist or a hand at écarté in another room, there you had it. Never a thing was there, apparently, that the Squire could reasonably have grumbled at, except the risk of losing money at cards, and the sense of intoxicating pleasure. But I don’t think it was a good place to go to. The Pells called all this “Seeing Life.”