by Ellen Wood
“For a few days. I must be back in London on Monday morning.”
Colonel Selby’s attention was attracted to the speakers. “What, is it you, Lockett?” he exclaimed.
Mr. Lockett bent forward to look beyond Lavinia and Madame Carimon. “Why, colonel, are you here?” he cried. So it was evident that they knew one another.
But you can’t talk very much across people at a table d’hôte; and Lavinia and Mr. Lockett were, so to say, left together again. She put a question to him, dropping her voice to a whisper.
“Did you ever find that person you were looking for?”
“The person I was looking for?” repeated the lawyer, not remembering. “What person was that?”
“The one you spoke of on the pier that day — a Mr. Dangerfield.”
“Oh, ay; but I was not looking for him myself. No; I believe he is not dropped upon yet. He is keeping quiet, I expect.”
“Is he still being looked for?”
“Little doubt of that. My friend here, on my left, could tell you more about him than I can, if you want to know.”
“No, thank you,” said Lavinia hastily, in a sort of fear. And she then observed that next to Mr. Lockett another Englishman was sitting, who looked very much like a lawyer also.
After dinner Colonel Selby took his guests, the three ladies, into the little salon, which opened to Madame Podevin’s bureau; for it was she who, French fashion, kept the bureau and all its accounts, not her husband. Whilst the coffee which the colonel ordered was preparing, he took from his pocket-book two cheques, and gave one each to Lavinia and Mrs. Fennel. It was their quarterly income, due about a week hence.
“I thought I might as well give it you now, as I am here, and save the trouble of sending,” he remarked. “You can write me a receipt for it; here’s pen, ink and paper.”
Each wrote her receipt, and gave it him. Nancy held the cheque in her hand, looking at her sister in a vacillating manner. “I suppose I ought to give it you, Lavinia,” she said. “Must I do so?”
“What do you think about it yourself?” coldly rejoined Lavinia.
“He was so very angry with me the last time,” sighed Nancy, still withholding the cheque. “He said I ought to keep possession of my own, and he ordered me to do so in future.”
“That he may have the pleasure of spending it,” said Mary Carimon in a sharp tone, though she laughed at the same time. “Lavinia has to pay for the bread-and-cheese that you and he eat, Nancy; how can she do that unless she receives your money?”
“Yes, I know; it is very difficult,” said poor Nancy. “Take the cheque, Lavinia; I shall tell him that you and Mary Carimon both said I must give it up.”
“Oh, tell him I said so, and welcome,” spoke Madame Carimon. “I will tell him so myself, if you like.”
As Colonel Selby returned to the room — he had been seeing to his luggage — the coffee was brought in, and close upon it came Monsieur Carimon.
The boat for London was leaving early that night — eight o’clock; they all went down to it to see William Selby off. It was a calm night, warm for the time of year, the moon beautifully bright. After the boat’s departure, Lavinia and Ann went home, and found Captain Fennel there. He had just got in, he said, and wanted some supper.
Whilst he was taking it, his wife told him of Mr. Lockett’s having sat by them at the table d’hôte, and that he and Colonel Selby were acquainted with one another. Captain Fennel drew a grim face at the information, and asked whether the lawyer had also “cleared out” for London.
“I don’t think so; I did not see him go on board,” said Nancy. “Lavinia knows; she was talking with Mr. Lockett all dinner-time.”
Captain Fennel turned his impassive face to Lavinia, as if demanding an answer to his question.
“Mr. Lockett intends to remain here until Sunday, I fancy; he said he had to be in London on Monday morning. He has some friend with him here. I inquired whether they had found the Mr. Dangerfield he spoke of last autumn,” added Lavinia slowly and distinctly. “‘Not yet,’ he answered, ‘but he is still being looked for.’”
Whether Lavinia said this with a little spice of malice, or whether she really meant to warn him, she best knew. Captain Fennel finished his supper in silence.
“I presume the colonel did not hand you over your quarter’s money?” he next said to his wife in a mocking sort of way. “It is not due for a week yet; he is not one to pay beforehand.”
Upon which Nancy began to tremble and looked imploringly at her sister, who was putting the plates together upon the tray. After Flore went home they had to wait upon themselves.
“Colonel Selby did hand us the money,” said Lavinia. “I hold both cheques for it.”
Well, there ensued a mild disturbance; what schoolboys might call a genteel row. Mr. Edwin Fennel insisted upon his wife’s cheque being given to him. Lavinia decisively refused. She went into a bit of a temper, and told him some home truths. He said he had a right to hold his wife’s money, and should appeal to the law on the morrow to enforce it. He might do that, Lavinia retorted; no French law would make her give it up. Nancy began to cry.
Probably he knew his threats were futile. Instead of appealing to the law on the morrow, he went off by an early train, carrying Nancy with him. Lavinia’s private opinion was that he thought it safer to take her, though it did increase the expense, than to leave her; she might get talking with Mr. Lockett. Ann’s eyes were red, as if she had spent the night in crying.
“Has he beaten you?” Lavinia inquired, snatching the opportunity of a private moment.
“Oh, Lavinia, don’t, don’t! I shall never dare to let you have the cheque again,” she wailed.
“Where is it that you are going?”
“He has not told me,” Nancy whispered back again. “To Calais, I think, or else up to Lille. We are to be away all the week.”
“Until Mr. Lockett and his friend are gone,” thought Lavinia. “Nancy, how can he find money for it?”
“He has some napoleons in his pocket — borrowed yesterday, I think, from old Griffin.”
Lavinia understood. Old Griffin, as Nancy styled him, had been careless of his money since his very slight attack of paralysis; he would freely lend to any one who asked him. She had not the slightest doubt that Captain Fennel had borrowed of him — and not for the first time.
It was on Wednesday morning that they went away, and for the rest of the week Lavinia was at peace. She changed the cheques at the bank as before, and paid the outstanding debts. But it left her so little to go on with, that she really knew not how she should get through the months until midsummer.
On Friday two of the Miss Bosanquets called. Hearing she was alone, they came to ask her to dine with them in the evening. Lavinia did so. But upon returning home at night, the old horror of going into the house came on again. Lavinia was in despair; she had hoped it had passed away for good.
On Saturday morning at market she met Madame Carimon, who invited her for the following day, Sunday. Lavinia hesitated. Glad enough indeed she was at the prospect of being taken out of her solitary home for a happy day at Mary Carimon’s; but she shrank from again risking the dreadful feeling which would be sure to attack her when going into the house at night.
“You must come, Lavinia,” cheerily urged Madame Carimon. “I have invited the English teacher at Madame Deauville’s school; she has no friends here, poor thing.”
“Well, I will come, Mary; thank you,” said Lavinia slowly.
“To be sure you will. Why do you hesitate at all?”
Lavinia could not say why in the midst of the jostling market-place; perhaps would not had they been alone. “For one thing, they may be coming home before to-morrow,” observed Lavinia, alluding to Mr. and Mrs. Fennel.
“Let them come. You are not obliged to stay at home with them,” laughed Mary.
From the Diary of Miss Preen.
Monday morning. — Well, it is over. The horror of last night is
over, and I have not died of it. That will be considered a strong expression, should any eye save my own see this diary: but I truly believe the horror would kill me if I were subjected many more times to it.
I went to Mary Carimon’s after our service was over in the morning, and we had a pleasant day there. The more I see of Monsieur Jules the more I esteem and respect him. He is so genuine, so good at heart, so simple in manner. Miss Perry is very agreeable; not so young as I had thought — thirty last birthday, she says. Her English is good and refined, and that is not always the case with the English teachers who come over to France — the French ladies who engage them cannot judge of our accent.
Miss Perry and I left together a little before ten. She wished me good-night in the Rue Tessin, Madame Deauville’s house lying one way, mine another. The horror began to come over me as I crossed the Place Ronde, which had never happened before. Stay; not the horror itself, but the dread of it. An impulse actually crossed me to ring at Madame Sauvage’s, and ask Mariette to accompany me up the entry, and stand at my open door whilst I went in to light the candle. But I could see no light in the house, not even in madame’s salon, and supposed she and Mariette might be gone to bed. They are early people on Sundays, and the two young men have their latch-keys.
I will try to overcome it this time, I bravely said to myself, and not allow the fear to keep me halting outside the door as it has done before. So I took out my latch-key, put it straight into the door, opened it, went in, and closed it again. Before I had well reached the top of the passage and felt for the match-box on the slab, I was in a paroxysm of horror. Something, like an icy wind coming up the passage, seemed to flutter the candle as I lighted it. Can I have left the door open? I thought, and turned to look. There stood Edwin Fennel. He stood just inside the door, which appeared to be shut, and he was looking straight at me with a threatening, malignant expression on his pale face.
“Oh! have you come home to-night?” I exclaimed aloud. For I really thought it was so.
The candle continued to flicker quickly as if it meant to go out, causing me to glance at it. When I looked up again Mr. Fennel was gone. It was not himself who had been there; it was only an illusion.
Exactly as he had seemed to appear to me the night before he and Nancy returned from London in December, so he had appeared again, his back to the door, and the evil menace on his countenance. Did the appearance come to me as a warning? or was the thing nothing but a delusion of my own optic nerves?
I dragged my shaking limbs upstairs, on the verge of screaming at each step with the fear of what might be behind me, and undressed and went to bed. For nearly the whole night I could not sleep, and when I did get to sleep in the morning I was tormented by a distressing dream. All, all as it had been that other night from three to four months ago.
A confused dream, no method in it. Several people were about — Nancy for one; I saw her fair curls. We all seemed to be in grievous discomfort and distress; whilst I, in worse fear than this world can know, was ever striving to hide myself from Edwin Fennel, to escape some dreadful fate which he held in store for me. And I knew I should not escape it.
X.
Like many another active housewife, Madame Carimon was always busy on Monday mornings. On the one about to be referred to, she had finished her household duties by eleven o’clock, and then sat down in her little salle-à-manger, which she also made her workroom, to mend some of Monsieur Carimon’s cotton socks. By her side, on the small work-table, lay a silver brooch which Miss Perry had inadvertently left behind her the previous evening. Mary Carimon was considering at what hour she could most conveniently go out to leave it at Madame Deauville’s when she heard Pauline answer a ring at the door-bell, and Miss Preen came in.
“Oh, Lavinia, I am glad to see you. You are an early visitor. Are you not well?” continued Madame Carimon, noticing the pale, sad face. “Is anything the matter?”
“I am in great trouble, Mary; I cannot rest; and I have come to talk to you about it,” said Lavinia, taking the sable boa from her neck and untying her bonnet-strings. “If things were to continue as they are now, I should die of it.”
Drawing a chair near to Mary Carimon, Lavinia entered upon her narrative. She spoke first of general matters. The home discomfort, the trouble with Captain Fennel regarding Nancy’s money, and the difficulty she had to keep up the indispensable payments to the tradespeople, expressing her firm belief that in future he would inevitably seize upon Nancy’s portion when it came and confiscate it. Next, she went on to tell the story of the past night — Sunday: how the old terrible horror had come upon her of entering the house, of a fancied appearance of Edwin Fennel in the passage, and of the dream that followed. All this latter part was but a repetition of what she had told Madame Carimon three or four months ago. Hearing it for the second time, it impressed Mary Carimon’s imagination. But she did not speak at once.
“I never in my life saw anything plainer or that looked more life-like than Captain Fennel, as he stood and gazed at me from the end of the passage with the evil look on his countenance,” resumed Lavinia. “And I hardly know why I tell you about it again, Mary, except that I have no one else to speak to. You rather laughed at me the first time, if you remember; perhaps you will laugh again now.”
“No, no,” dissented Mary Carimon. “I did not put faith in it before, believing you were deceived by the uncertain light in the passage, and were, perhaps, thinking of him, and that the dream afterwards was merely the result of your fright; nothing else. But now that you have had a second experience of it, I don’t doubt that you do see this spectre, and that the dream follows as a sequence to it. And I think,” she added, slowly and emphatically, “that it has come to warn you of some threatened harm.”
“I seem to see that it has,” murmured Lavinia. “Why else should it come at all? I wish I could picture it to you half vividly enough: the reality of it and the horror. Mary, I am growing seriously afraid.”
“Were I you, I should get away from the house,” said Madame Carimon. “Leave them to themselves.”
“It is what I mean to do, Mary. I cannot remain in it, apart from this undefined fear — which of course may be only superstitious fancy,” hastily acknowledged Lavinia. “If things continue in the present state — and there is no prospect of their changing — —”
“I should leave at once — as soon as they arrive home,” rather sharply interrupted Mary Carimon, who seemed to like the aspect of what she had heard less and less.
“As soon as I can make arrangements. They come home to-night; I received a letter from Nancy this morning. They have been only at Pontipette all the time.”
“Only at Pontipette!”
“Nancy says so. It did as well as any other place. Captain Fennel’s motive was to hide away from the lawyers we met at the table d’hôte.”
“Have they left Sainteville, I wonder, those lawyers?”
“Yes,” said Lavinia. “On Friday I met Mr. Lockett when I was going to the Rue Lamartine, and he told me he was leaving for Calais with his friend on Saturday morning. It is rather remarkable,” she added, after a pause, “that the first time I saw that appearance in the passage and dreamed the dream, should have been the eve of Mr. Fennel’s return here, and that it is the same again now.”
“You must leave the house, Lavinia,” reiterated Madame Carimon.
“Let me see,” considered Lavinia. “April comes in this week. Next week will be Passion Week, preceding Easter. I will stay with them over Easter, and then leave.”
Monsieur Jules Carimon’s sock, in process of renovation, had been allowed to fall upon the mender’s lap. She slowly took it up again, speaking thoughtfully.
“I should leave at once; before Easter. But you will see how he behaves, Lavinia. If not well; if he gives you any cause of annoyance, come away there and then. We will take you in, mind, if you have not found a place to go to.”
Lavinia thanked her, and rearranged her bonnet preparatory t
o returning home. She went out with a heavy heart. Only one poor twelvemonth to have brought about all this change!
At the door of the Petite Maison Rouge, when she reached it, stood Flore, parleying with a slim youth, who held an open paper in his outstretched hand. Flore was refusing to touch the paper, which was both printed and written on, and looked official.
“I tell him that Monsieur le Capitaine is not at home; he can bring it when he is,” explained Flore to her mistress in English.
Lavinia turned to the young man. “Captain Fennel has been away from Sainteville for a few days; he probably will be here to-morrow,” she said. “Do you wish to leave this paper for him?”
“Yes,” said the messenger, evidently understanding English but speaking in French, as he contrived to slip the paper into Miss Preen’s unconscious hand. “You will have the politeness to give it to him, madame.”
And, with that, he went off down the entry, whistling.
“Do you know what the paper is, Flore?” asked Lavinia.
“I think so,” said Flore. “I’ve seen these papers before to-day. It’s just a sort of order from the law court on Captain Fennel, to pay up some debt that he owes; and, if he does not pay, the court will issue a procès against him. That’s what it is, madame.”
Lavinia carried the paper into the salon, and sat studying it. As far as she could make it out, Mr. Edwin Fennel was called upon to pay to some creditor the sum of one hundred and eighty-three francs, without delay.
“Over seven pounds! And if he does not pay, the law expenses, to enforce it, will increase the debt perhaps by one-half,” sighed Lavinia. “There may be, and no doubt are, other things at the back of this. Will he turn us out of house and home?”
Propping the paper against the wall over the mantelpiece, she left it there, that it might meet the captain’s eye on his return.
Not until quite late that evening did Madame Carimon get her husband to herself, for he brought in one of the young under-masters at the college to dine with them. But as soon as they were sitting cosily alone, he smoking his pipe before bed-time, she told him all she had heard from Lavinia Preen.