by Ellen Wood
She let go the pink skirt and burst open the doors. Imagination is apt to conjure up skeletons of the future; a whole army of skeletons rushed into hers, any one of them ten times more ugly than that real skeleton in the doctor’s study. A vision of his marrying Janet and taking possession of the house, and wanting all his money for himself instead of paying the family bills with it, was the worst.
Before a great and real dread, passion has to be silent. Mrs. Knox felt that she should very much like to buffet both of them with hands and tongue: but policy restrained her.
“Where are the children?” she began, as snappish as a fox; but that was only usual.
Janet had turned round on the music-stool; her meek hands dropping on her lap, her face turning all the colours of the rainbow. Dr. Knox just sat back in his chair and carelessly hummed to himself the tune Janet had been singing.
“Mina and Lotty are at Mrs. Hampshire’s, ma’am,” answered Janet. “She came to fetch them just after you left, and said I might send in for them at half-past nine. The little ones are in bed.”
“Oh,” said Mrs. Knox. “It’s rather early for you to be at home; is it not, Arnold?”
“Not particularly, I think. My time for coming home is always uncertain, you know.”
He rose, and went to his room as he spoke. Janet got out the basket of stockings; and Mrs. Knox sat buried in a brown study.
After this evening things grew bad for Miss Carey. Mrs. Knox watched. She noted her step-son’s manner to Janet, and saw that he liked her ever so much more than was expedient. What to do, or how to stop it, she did not know, and was at her wits’ end. To begin with, there was nothing to stop. Had she put together a whole week’s looks and words of Arnold’s, directed to Janet, she could not have squeezed one decent iota of complaint out of the whole. Neither dared she risk offending Arnold. What with the perpetual soirées out, and the general daily improvidence at home, Mrs. Knox was never in funds, and Arnold found oceans of household bills coming in to him. Tradesmen were beginning, as a rule now, to address their accounts to Dr. Knox. Arnold paid them; he was good-natured, and sensitively averse to complaining to his step-mother; but he thought it was hardly fair. What on earth she did with her income he could not imagine: rather than live in this chronic state of begging, she might have laid down the pony-carriage.
Not being able to attack the doctor, Mrs. Knox vented all her venom on Miss Carey. Janet was the dray horse of the family, and therefore could not be turned away: she was too useful to Mrs. Knox to be parted with. Real venom it was; and hard to be borne. Her work grew harder, and she was snubbed from morning till night. The children’s insolence to her was not reproved; Mina took to ordering her about. Weary and heart-sick grew she: her life was no better than Cinderella’s: the only ray of comfort in it being the rare snatches of intercourse with Dr. Knox. He was like a true friend to her, and ever kind. He might have been kinder had he known what sort of a life she really led. But Mrs. Knox was a diplomatist, and the young fry did not dare to worry people very much, or to call names before their big brother Arnold.
II.
“Has Dr. Knox come in, Mr. Dockett?”
Mr. Dockett, lounging over the counter to tease the dog, brought himself straight with a jerk, and faced his master, Mr. Tamlyn.
“Not yet, sir.”
“When he comes in, ask him if he’ll be so kind as step to me in the dining-room.”
Mr. Tamlyn shut the surgery-door, and the apprentice whistled to the dog, which had made its escape. Presently Dr. Knox came across the court-yard and received the message.
“Mr. Tamlyn wants you, sir, please. He is in the dining-room.”
“Have you nothing to do, Dockett? Just set on and clean those scales.”
The dining-room looked out on the garden and on the playing fountain. It was one of the prettiest rooms in Lefford; with white-and-gold papered walls, and mirrors, and a new carpet. Mr. Tamlyn liked to have things nice at home, and screwed the money out of the capital put by for Bertie. He sat at the table before some account-books.
“Sit down, Arnold,” he said, taking off his spectacles. “I have some news for you: I hope it won’t put you out too much.”
It did put Dr. Knox out very considerably, and it surprised him even more. For some time past now he had been cherishing a private expectation that Mr. Tamlyn would be taking him into partnership, giving him probably a small share only at first. Of all things it seemed the most likely to Dr. Knox: and, wanting in self-assertion though he was, it seemed to him that it would be a right thing to do. Mr. Tamlyn had no one to succeed him: and all the best part of his practice was formerly Mr. Knox’s. Had Arnold only been a little older when his father died, he should have succeeded to it himself: there would have been little chance of Mr. Tamlyn’s getting any of it. In justice, then, if Mr. Tamlyn now, or later, took a partner at all, it ought to be Arnold. But for looking forward to this, Dr. Knox had never stayed on all this time at the paltry salary paid him, and worked himself nearly to a skeleton. As old Tamlyn talked, he listened as one in a dream, and he learnt that his own day-dream was over.
Old Tamlyn was about to take a partner: some gentleman from London, a Mr. Shuttleworth. Mr. Shuttleworth was seeking a country practice, and would bring in three thousand pounds. Arnold’s services would only be required to the end of the year, as Mr. Shuttleworth would join on the first of January.
“There won’t be room for three of us, Arnold — and Dockett will be coming on,” said Mr. Tamlyn. “Besides, at your age, and with your talents, you ought to be doing something better for yourself. Don’t you see that you ought?”
“I have seen it for some time. But — the truth is,” added Arnold, “though I hardly like to own to it now, I have been cherishing a hope of this kind for myself. I thought, Mr. Tamlyn, you might some time offer it to me.”
“And so I would, Arnold, and there’s no one I should like to take as partner half so well as yourself, but you have not the necessary funds,” said the surgeon with eagerness. “I see what you are thinking, Arnold — that I might have taken you without premium: but I must think of my poor boy. Shuttleworth brings in three thousand: I would have taken you with two.”
“I could not bring in two hundred, let alone two thousand,” said Dr. Knox.
“There’s where it is. To tell you the truth, Arnold, I am getting tired of work; don’t seem so much up to it as I was. Whoever comes in will have to do more even than you have done, and of course will expect to take at least a half-share of the yearly profits. I should not put by much then: I could not alter my style of living, you know, or put down the carriages and horses, or anything of that sort: and I must save for poor Bertie. A sum of three thousand pounds means three thousand to me.”
“Are the arrangements fully made?” asked Dr. Knox.
“Yes. Mr. Shuttleworth came down to Lefford yesterday, and has been going into the books with me this morning. And, by the way, Arnold, I hope you will meet him here at dinner to-night. I should not a bit wonder, either, but he might tell you of some opening for yourself: he seems to know most of the chief medical men in London. He is selling a good practice of his own. It is his health that obliges him to come to the country.”
“I hope you will suit one another,” said Dr. Knox; for he knew that it was not every one who could get on with fidgety old Tamlyn.
“We are to give it a six months’ trial,” said Tamlyn. “He would not bind himself without that. At the end of the six months, if both parties are not satisfied, we cancel the agreement: he withdraws his money, and I am at liberty to take a fresh partner. For that half-year’s services he will receive his half-share of profits: which of course is only fair. You see I tell you all, Arnold.”
Dr. Knox dined with them, and found the new man a very pleasant fellow, but quite as old as Tamlyn. He could not help wondering how he would relish the parish work, and said so in a whisper to Mr. Tamlyn while Shuttleworth was talking to Bertie.
“Oh
, he thinks it will be exercise for him,” replied the surgeon. “And Dockett will be coming on, you know.”
It was a dark night, the beginning of November, wet and splashy. Mrs. Knox had a soirée at Rose Villa; and when the doctor reached home he met the company coming forth with cloaks and lanterns and clogs.
“Oh, it’s you, Arnold, is it!” cried Mrs. Knox. “Could you not have come home for my evening? Two of the whist-tables had to play dummy: we had some disappointments.”
“I stayed to dine with Mr. Tamlyn,” said Arnold.
Sitting together over the fire, he and she alone, Mrs. Knox asked him whether he would not give her a hundred pounds a-year for his board, instead of seventy-five. Which was uncommonly cool, considering what he paid for her besides in housekeeping bills. Upon which, Arnold told her he should not be with her beyond the close of the year: he was going to leave Lefford. For a minute, it struck her dumb.
“Good Heavens, Arnold, how am I to keep the house on without your help? I must say you have no consideration. Leave Lefford!”
“Mr. Tamlyn has given me notice,” replied Arnold. “He is taking a partner.”
“But — I just ask you — how am I to pay my way?”
“It seems to me that your income is quite sufficient for that, mother. If not — perhaps — if I may suggest it — you might put down the pony-chaise.”
Mrs. Knox shrieked out that he was a cruel man. Arnold, who never cared to stand scenes, lighted his candle and went up to bed.
Shuttleworth had taken rather a fancy to Dr. Knox; perhaps he remembered, too, that he was turning him adrift. Anyway, he bestirred himself, and got him appointed to a medical post in London, where Arnold would receive two hundred a-year, and his board.
“I presume you know that I am about to run away, Miss Carey,” said Dr. Knox, hastening up to join her one Sunday evening when they were coming out of church at Lefford.
“As if every one did not know that!” cried Mina. “Where’s mamma, Arnold? and Lotty?”
“They are behind, talking to the Parkers.”
The Parkers were great friends of Mina’s, so she ran back. The doctor and Janet walked slowly on.
“You will be glad to leave, sir,” said Janet, in her humble fashion. “Things have not been very comfortable for you at home — and I hear you are taking a much better post.”
“I shall be sorry to leave for one thing — that is, because I fear things may be more uncomfortable for you,” he spoke out bravely. “What Rose Villa will be when all restraint is taken from the children, and with other undesirable things, I don’t like to imagine.”
“I shall do very well,” said Janet, meekly.
“I wonder you put up with it,” he exclaimed. “You might be ten thousand times better and happier elsewhere.”
“But I fear to change: I have no one to recommend me or to look out for me, you know.”
“There’s that lady I’ve heard you speak of — your aunt, Miss Cattledon.”
“I could not think of troubling her. My mother’s family do not care to take much notice of me. They thought my father was not my mother’s equal in point of family, and when she married him, they turned her off, as it were. No, sir, I have only myself to look to.”
“A great many of us are in the same case,” he said. “Myself, for instance. I have been indulging I don’t know what day-dreams for some time past: one of them that Mr. Tamlyn would give me a share in his practice: and — and there were others to follow in due course. Vain dreams all, and knocked on the head now.”
“You will be sure to get on,” said Janet.
“Do you think so?” he asked very softly, looking down into Janet’s nice eyes by the gaslight in the road.
“At least, I hope you will.”
“Well, I shall try for it.”
“Arnold! — come back, Arnold; I want you to give me your arm up the hill,” called out Mrs. Knox.
Dr. Knox had to enter on his new situation at quarter-day, the twenty-fifth of December; so he went up to London on Christmas-Eve. Which was no end of a blow to old Tamlyn, as it left all the work on his own shoulders for a week.
III.
From two to three months passed on. One windy March day, Mrs. Knox sat alone in the garden-room, worrying over her money matters. The table, drawn near the fire, was strewed with bills and tradesmen’s books; the sun shone on the closed glass-doors.
Mrs. Knox’s affairs had been getting into an extremely hopeless condition. It seemed, by the accumulation of present debts, that Arnold’s money must have paid for everything. Her own income, which came in quarterly, appeared to dwindle away, she knew not how or where. A piteous appeal had gone up a week ago to Arnold, saying she should be in prison unless he assisted her, for the creditors were threatening to take steps. Arnold’s answer, delivered this morning, was a fifty-pound note enclosed in a very plain letter. It had inconvenienced him to send the money, he said, and he begged her fully to understand that it was the last he should ever send.
So there sat Mrs. Knox before the table in an old dressing-gown, and her black hair more dishevelled than a mop. The bills, oceans of them, and the fifty-pound note lay in a heap together. Master Dicky had been cutting animals out of a picture-book, leaving the scraps on the cloth and the old carpet. Lotty had distributed there a few sets of dolls’ clothes. Gerty had been tearing up a newspaper for a kite-tail. The fifty pounds would pay about a third of the debts, and Mrs. Knox was trying to apportion a sum to each of them accordingly.
It bothered her finely, for she was no accountant. She could manage to add up without making very many mistakes; but when it came to subtraction, her brain went into a hopeless maze. Janet might have done it, but Mrs. Knox was furious with Janet and would not ask her. Ill-treated, over-worked, Janet had plucked up courage to give notice, and was looking out for a situation in Lefford. Just now, Janet was in the kitchen, ironing Dick’s frilled collars.
“Take fifty-three from fourteen, and how much does remain?” groaned Mrs. Knox over the shillings. At that moment there was a sound of carriage-wheels, and a tremendous ring at the door. Sally darted in.
“Oh, ma’am, it’s my Lady Jenkins! I knew her carriage at a distance. It have got red wheels!”
“Oh, my goodness!” cried Mrs. Knox, starting up. “Don’t open the door yet, Sally: let me get upstairs first. Her ladyship’s come to take me a drive, I suppose. Go and call Miss Carey — or stay, I’ll go to her.”
Mrs. Knox opened one of the glass-doors, and whisked round to the kitchen. She bade Janet leave the ironing and go to do her books and bills: hastily explaining that she wanted to know how far fifty pounds would go towards paying a fair proportion off each debt. Janet was to make it all out in figures.
“Be sure and take care of the note — I’ve left it somewhere,” called back Mrs. Knox as she escaped to the stairs in hurry and confusion; for my Lady Jenkins’s footman was working both bell and knocker alarmingly.
Janet only half comprehended. She went round to the garden-room, shut the glass-doors, and began upon the bills and books. But first of all, she looked out for the letters that were lying about, never supposing that the special charge had reference to anything else: at least, she said so afterwards: and put them inside Mrs. Knox’s desk. From first to last, then and later, Janet Carey maintained that she did not see any bank-note.
Mrs. Knox dressed herself with Sally’s help, and went out with my Lady Jenkins — the ex-Mayor of Lefford’s wife. The bills and the calculations made a long job, and Janet’s mind was buried in it, when a startling disturbance suddenly arose in the garden: Dicky had climbed into the mulberry-tree and fallen out of it. The girls came, dashing open the glass-doors, saying he was dead. Janet ran out, herself nearly frightened to death.
Very true. If Dicky was not dead, he looked like it. He lay white and cold under the tree, blood trickling down his face. James galloped off for Mr. Tamlyn. The two maids and Janet carried Dicky into the kitchen, and put him on
the ironing-board, with his head on an old cushion. That revived him; and when Mr. Shuttleworth arrived, for Tamlyn was out, Dicky was demanding bread-and-treacle. Shuttleworth put some diachylon plaster on his head, ordered him to bed, and told him not to get into trees again.
Their fears relieved, the maids had time to remember common affairs. Sally found all the sitting-room fires out, and hastened to light them. As soon as Janet could leave Dicky, who had persisted in going to bed in his boots, she went back to the accounts. Mrs. Knox came in before they were done. She blew up Janet for not being quicker, and when she had recovered the shock of Dicky’s accident, she blew her up for that.
“Where’s the note?” she snapped.
“What note, ma’am?” asked Janet.
“The bank-note. The bank-note for fifty pounds that I told you to take care of.”
“I have not seen any bank-note,” said Janet.
Well, that began the trouble. The bank-note was searched for, and there was neither sign nor symptom of it to be found. Mrs. Knox accused Janet Carey of stealing it, and called in a policeman. Mrs. Knox made her tale good to the man, representing Janet as a very black girl indeed; but the man said he could not take her into custody unless Mrs. Knox would charge her formally with the theft.
And that, Mrs. Knox hesitated to do. She told the policeman she would take until the morrow to consider of it. The whole of that evening, the whole of the night, the whole of the next morning till midday, Janet spent searching the garden-room. At midday the policeman appeared again, and Janet went into a sort of fit.
When Mr. Shuttleworth was sent for to her, he said it was caused by fright, and that she had received a shock to the nervous system. For some days she was delirious, on and off; and when she could escape Sally’s notice, who waited on her, they’d find her down in the garden-room, searching for the note, just as we afterwards saw her searching for it in her sleep at Miss Deveen’s. It chanced that the two rooms resembled each other remarkably: in their situation in the houses, in their shape and size and building arrangements, and in their opening by glass-doors to the garden. Janet subsided into a sort of wasting fever; and Mrs. Knox thought it time to send for Miss Cattledon. The criminal proceedings might wait, she told Janet: like the heartless woman that she was! Not but that the loss of the money had thrown her flat on her beam-ends.