by Ellen Wood
“Plants and grapes spoiled! You must be out of your senses, Johnny, to say such a thing. What has spoiled them?”
“It looks like some — blight,” I answered, pitching upon the word. “Everything’s dead and blackened.”
Downstairs I rushed for fear he should ask more. And down came the pater after me, hardly anything on, so to say; not shaved, and his nankeen coat flying behind him.
I let him go on to get the burst over. When I reached them, they were talking about the key. It was customary for the head-gardener to lock the greenhouse at night. For the past month or so there had been, as may be said, two head-gardeners, and the key had been left on the ledge at the back of the greenhouse, that whichever of them came on first in the morning might get in.
The Squire stormed at this — with that scene before his eyes he was ready to storm at everything. Pretty gardeners, they were! leaving the key where any tramp, hiding about the premises for a night’s lodging, might get into the greenhouse and steal what he chose! As good leave the key in the door, as hang it up outside it! The world had nothing but fools in it, as he believed.
Jenkins answered with deprecation. The key was not likely to be found by anybody but those that knew where to look for it. It always had a flower-pot turned down upon it; and so he had found it that morning.
“If all the tramps within ten miles got into the greenhouse, sir, they’d not do this,” affirmed Tod.
“Hold your tongue,” said the Squire; “what do you know about tramps? I’ve known them to do the wickedest things conceivable. My beautiful plants! And look at the grapes! I’ve never had a finer crop of grapes than this was, Jenkins,” concluded the pater, in a culminating access of rage. “If I find this has arisen through any neglect of yours and Monk’s, I’ll — I’ll hang you both.”
The morning went on; breakfast was over, and the news of the strange calamity spread. Old Jones, the constable, had been sent for by the Squire. He stared, and exclaimed, and made his comments; but he was not any the nearer hitting upon the guilty man.
About ten, Roger Monk got home from Evesham. We heard the spring-cart go round to the stables, and presently he appeared in the gardens, looking at objects on either side of the path, as was his usual wont. Then he caught sight of us, standing in and about the greenhouse, and came on faster. Jenkins was telling the story of his discovery to Mr. Duffham. He had told it a good fifty times since early morning to as many different listeners.
They made way for Monk to come in, nobody saying a word. The pater stood inside, and Monk, touching his hat, was about to report to him of his journey, when the strange aspect of affairs seemed to strike him dumb. He looked round with a sort of startled gaze at the walls, at the glass and grapes above, at the destroyed plants, and then turned savagely on Jenkins, speaking hoarsely.
“What have you been up to here?”
“Me been up to! That’s good, that is! What had you, been up to afore you went off? You had the first chance. Come, Mr. Monk.”
The semi-accusation was spoken by Jenkins on the spur of the moment, in his anger at the other’s words. Monk was in a degree Jenkins’s protégé, and it had not previously occurred to him that he could be in any way to blame.
“What do you know of this wicked business, Monk?” asked the Squire.
“What should I know of it, sir? I have only just come in from Evesham. The things were all right last night.”
“How did you leave the greenhouse last night?”
“Exactly as I always leave it, sir. There was nothing the matter with it then. Drew — I saw him outside, didn’t I? Step here, Drew. You were with me when I locked up the greenhouse last night. Did you see anything wrong with it?”
“It were right enough then,” answered Drew.
Monk turned himself about, lifting his hands in dismay, as one blackened object after another came under view. “I never saw such a thing!” he cried piteously. “There has been something wrong at work here; or else — —”
Monk came to a sudden pause. “Or else what?” asked the Squire.
“Or else, moving the plants into the hall on Tuesday has killed them.”
“Moving the plants wouldn’t kill them. What are you thinking of, Monk?”
“Moving them would not kill them, sir, or hurt them either,” returned Monk, with a stress on the first word; “but it might have been the remote cause of it.”
“I don’t understand you!”
“I saw some result of the sort once, sir. It was at a gentleman’s place at Chiswick. All the choice plants were taken indoors to improvise a kind of conservatory for a night fête. They were carried back the next day, seemingly none the worse, and on the morrow were found withered.”
“Like these?”
“No, sir, not so bad as these. They didn’t die; they revived after a time. A great fuss was made over it; the gentleman thought it must be wilful damage, and offered twenty pounds reward for the discovery of the offenders. At last it was found they had been poisoned by the candles.”
“Poisoned by the candles!”
“A new sort of candle, very beautiful to look at, but with a great quantity of arsenic in it,” continued Monk. “A scientific man gave it as his opinion that the poison thrown out from the candles had been fatal to the plants. Perhaps something of the same kind has done the mischief here, sir. Plants are such delicate things!”
“And what has been fatal to the grapes? They were not taken into the house.”
The question came from the surgeon, Mr. Duffham. He had stood all the while against the end of the far steps, looking fixedly at Monk over the top of his cane. Monk put his eyes on the grapes above, and kept them there while he answered.
“True, sir; the grapes, as you say, didn’t go in. Perhaps the poison brought back by the plants may have acted on them.”
“Now, I tell you what, Monk, I think that’s all nonsense,” cried the Squire, testily.
“Well, sir, I don’t see any other way of accounting for this state of things.”
“The greenhouse was filled with some suffocating, smelling, blasting stuff that knocked me back’ards,” put in Jenkins. “Every crack and crevice was stopped where a breath of air could have got in. I wish it had been you to find it; you’d not have liked to be smothered alive, I know.”
“I wish it had been,” said Monk. “If there was any such thing here, and not your fancy, I’ll be bound I’d have traced it out.”
“Oh, would you! Did you do anything to them there pot-stands?” continued Jenkins, pointing to them.
“No.”
“Oh! Didn’t clean ’em out?”
“I wiped a few out on Wednesday morning before we brought back the plants. Somebody — Drew, I suppose — had stacked them in the wrong place. In putting them right, I began to wipe them. I didn’t do them all; I was called away.”
“’Twas me stacked ‘em,” said Jenkins. “Well — them stands are what had held the poison; I found a’most one-half of ’em filled with it.”
Monk cast a rapid glance around. “What was the poison?” he asked.
Jenkins grunted, but gave no other reply. The fact was, he had been so abused by the Squire for having put away the trace of the “stuff,” that it was a sore subject.
“Did you come on here, Monk, before you started for Evesham this morning?” questioned the Squire.
“I didn’t come near the gardens, sir. I had told Jenkins last night to be on early,” replied Monk, bending over a blackened row of plants while he spoke. “I went the back way to the stables through the lane, had harnessed the horse to the cart, and was away before five.”
We quitted the greenhouse. The pater went out with Mr. Duffham, Tod and I followed. I, looking quietly on, had been struck with the contrast of manner between old Duff and Monk — he peering at Monk with his searching gaze, never once taking it off him; and Monk meeting nobody’s eyes, but shifting his own anywhere rather than meet them.
“About this queer arse
nic tale Monk tells?” began the Squire. “Is there anything in it? Will it hold water?”
“Moonshine!” said old Duff, with emphasis.
The tone was curious, and we all looked at him. He had got his lips drawn in, and the top of his cane pressing them.
“Where did you take Monk from, Squire? Get a good character with him?”
“Jenkins brought him here. As to character, he had never been in any situation before. Why? Do you suspect him?”
“Um-m-m!” said the doctor, prolonging the sound as though in doubt. “If I do suspect him, he has caused me to. I never saw such a shifty manner in all my life. Why, he never once looked at any of us! His eyes are false, and his tones are false!”
“His tones? Do you mean his words?”
“I mean the tone his words are spoken in. To an apt ear, the sound of a man’s voice, or woman’s either, can be read off like a book; a man’s voice is honest or dishonest according to his nature; and you can’t make a mistake about it. Monk’s has a false ring in it, if ever I heard one. Now, master Johnny, what are you looking so eager about?”
“I think Monk’s voice false, too, Mr. Duffham; I have thought himself false all along. Tod knows I have.”
“I know that you are just a muff, Johnny, going in for prejudices against people unreasonably,” said Tod, putting me down as usual.
Old Duff pushed my straw hat up, and passed his fingers over the top of my forehead. “Johnny, my boy,” he said, “you have a strong and good indication here for reading the world. Trust to it.”
“I couldn’t trust Monk. I never have trusted him. That was one reason why I suspected him of stealing the things the magpie took.”
“Well, you were wrong there,” said Tod.
“Yes. But I’m nearly sure I was right in the thing before.”
“What thing?” demanded old Duff, sharply.
“Well, I thought it was Monk that frightened Phœbe.”
“Oh,” said Mr. Duffham. “Dressed himself up in a sheet, and whitened his face, and went up the lane when the women were watching for the shadows on St. Mark’s Eve! What else do you suspect, Johnny?”
“Nothing else, sir; except that I fancied Mother Picker knew of it. When Tod and I went to ask her whether Monk was out that night, she looked frightened to death, and broke a basin.”
“Did she say he was out?”
“She said he was not out; but I thought she said it more eagerly than truthfully.”
“Squire, when you are in doubt as to people’s morals, let this boy read them for you,” said old Duff, in his quaint way. The Squire, thinking of his plants, looked as perplexed as could be.
“It is such a thing, you know, Duffham, to have one’s whole hothouse destroyed in a night. It’s no better than arson.”
“And the incendiary who did it would have no scruple in attacking the barns next; therefore, he must be bowled out.”
The pater looked rueful. He could bluster and threaten, but he could not do much; he never knew how to set about it. In all emergencies he would send for Jones — the greatest old woman going.
“You don’t seriously think it could have been Monk, Duffham?”
“I think there’s strong suspicion that it was. Look here:” and the doctor began to tell off points with his cane and fingers. “Somebody goes into the greenhouse to set the stuff alight in the pot-stands — for that’s how it was done. Monk and Jenkins alone knew where the key was; Jenkins, a trusty man, years in the employ, comes on at six and finds the state of things. Where’s Monk? Gone off by previous order to Evesham at five. Why should it happen the very morning he was away? What was to prevent his stealing into the greenhouse after dark last night putting his deleterious stuff to work, leaving it to burn, and stealing in again at four this morning to put all traces away? He thought he cleaned out all the tale-telling earthen saucers, but he overlooks one, as is usually the case. When he comes back, finding the wreck and the commotion consequent upon it, he relates a glib tale of other plants destroyed by arsenic from candles, and he never looks honestly into a single face as he tells it!”
The Squire drew a deep breath. “And you say Monk did all this?”
“Nonsense, Squire. I say he might have done it. I say, moreover, that it looks very like it. Putting Monk aside, your scent would be wholly at fault.”
“What is to be done?”
“I’ll go and see Mother Picker; she can tell what time he went in last night, and what time he came out this morning,” cried Tod, who was just as hasty as the pater. But old Duff caught him as he was vaulting off.
“I had better see Mother Picker. Will you let me act in this matter, Squire, and see what can be made of it?”
“Do, Duffham. Take Jones to help you?”
“Jones be shot,” returned Duff in a passion. “If I wanted any one — which I don’t — I’d take Johnny. He is worth fifty Joneses. Say nothing — nothing at all. Do you understand?”
He went off down a side path, and crossed Jenkins, who was at work now. Monk stayed in the greenhouse.
“This is a sad calamity, Jenkins.”
“It’s the worst I ever met with, sir,” cried Jenkins, touching his hat. “And what have done it is the odd thing. Monk, he talks of the candles poisoning of ‘em; but I don’t know.”
“Well, there’s not a much surer poison than arsenic, Jenkins,” said the doctor, candidly. “I hope it will be cleared up. Monk, too, has taken so much pains with the plants. He is a clever young man in his vocation. Where did you hear of him?”
Jenkins’s answer was a long one. Curtailed, it stated that he had heard of Monk “promiskeous.” He had thought him a gentleman till he asked if he, Jenkins, could help him to a place as ornamental gardener. He had rather took to the young man, and recommended the Squire to employ him “temporay,” for he, Jenkins, was just then falling sick with rheumatism.
Mr. Duffham nodded approvingly. “Didn’t think it necessary to ask for references?”
“Monk said he could give me a cart-load a’most of them, sir, if I’d wanted to see ‘em.”
“Just so! Good-day, Jenkins, I can’t stay gossiping my morning away.”
He went straight to Mrs. Picker’s, and caught her taking her luncheon off the kitchen-table — bread-and-cheese, and perry.
“It’s a little cask o’ last year’s my son have made me a present of, sir; if you’d be pleased to drink a cup, Dr. Duff’m,” said she, hospitably.
She drew a half-pint cup full; bright, sparkling, full-bodied perry, never better made in Gloucestershire. Mr. Duffham smacked his lips, and wished some of the champagne at gentlemen’s tables was half as good. He talked, and she talked; and, it may be, he took her a little off her guard. Evidently, she was not cognizant of the mishap to the greenhouse.
A nice young man that lodger of hers? Well, yes, he was; steady and well-conducted. Talked quite like a gentleman, but wasn’t uppish ‘cause o’ that, and seemed satisfied with all she did for him. He was gone off to Evesham after seeds and other things. Squire Todhetley put great confidence in him.
“Ay,” said Mr. Duffham, “to be sure. One does put confidence in steady young men, you know, Goody. He was off by four o’clock, wasn’t he?”
Earlier nor that, Goody Picker thought. Monk were one o’ them who liked to take time by the forelock, and get his extra work forrard when he were put on to any.
“Nothing like putting the shoulder to the wheel. This is perry! The next time I call to see your son Peter, at Alcester, I shall ask him if he can’t get some for me. As to Monk — you might have had young fellows here who’d have idled their days away, and paid no rent, Goody. Monk was at his work late last night, too, I fancy?”
Goody fancied he had been; leastways he went out after supper, and were gone an hour or so. What with the fires, and what with the opening and shutting o’ the winders to keep the hot-houses at proper temperture, an head-gardener didn’t sit on a bed o’ idle roses, as Dr. Duff’m knew.
/> Mr. Duffham was beginning to make pretty sure of winning his game. His manner suddenly changed. Pushing the empty cup from him, he leaned forward, and laid hold of Mrs. Picker by the two wrists. Between the perry and the doctor’s sociability and Monk’s merits, her eyes had begun to sparkle.
“Don’t be alarmed, Mrs. Picker. I have come here to ask you a question, and you must answer me. But you have nothing to fear on your own score, provided you tell me the truth honestly. Young men will do foolish things, however industrious they may be. Why did Monk play that prank on Easter Monday?”
The sparkle in the eyes faded with fright. She would have got away, but could not, and so put on an air of wonder.
“On Easter Monday! What were it he did on Easter Monday?”
“When he put himself and his face into white, and went to the churchyard by moonlight to represent the dead, you know, Mrs. Picker.”
She gave a shrill scream, got one of her hands loose and flung it up to her face.
“Come, Goody, you had better answer me quietly than be taken to confess before Squire Todhetley. I dare say you were not to blame.”
Afore Squire Todhetley! O-o-o-o-o-h! Did they know it at the Manor?
“Well,” said Mr. Duffham, “you see I know it, and I have come straight from there. Now then, my good woman, I have not much time.”
Goody Picker’s will was good to hold out longer, but she surrendered à coup de main, as so many of us have to do when superior power is brought to bear. Monk overheered it, was the substance of her answer. On coming in from work that there same blessed evening — and look at him now! at his work on a Easter Monday till past dark! — he overheered the two servants, Molly and Hannah, talking of what they was going out to watch for — the shadows in the churchyard. He let ’em go, never showing hisself till they’d left the house. Then he got the sheets from his bed, and put the flour on his face, and went on there to frighten ‘em; all in fun. He never thought of hurting the women; he never knowed as the young girl, Phœbe, was to be there. Nobody could be more sorry for it nor he was; but he’d never meant to do harm more nor a babby unborn.