by Ellen Wood
I sat facing towards the end house, No. 7. And I must here say that during the last two or three weeks I had met the housemaids several times on the sands, and so had become quite at home with each of them. Both appeared to be thoroughly well-conducted, estimable young women; but, of the two, I liked Jane Cross best; she was always so lively and pleasant-mannered. One day she told me why No. 7 generally called her by her two names — which I had thought rather odd. It appeared that when she entered her place two years before, the other housemaid was named Jane, so they took to call her by her full name, Jane Cross. That housemaid had left in about a twelvemonth, and Matilda had entered in her place. The servants were regarded as equals in the house, not one above the other, as is the case in many places. These details will probably be thought unnecessary and uncalled for, but you will soon see why I mention them. This was Monday. On the morrow we should have been three weeks at Saltwater, and the Squire did not yet talk of leaving. He was enjoying the free-and-easy life, and was as fond as a child of picking up shells on the sands and looking at Punch and the dancing dolls.
Well, we sat this evening in the bay window as usual, I facing No. 7. Thus sitting, I saw Matilda cross the strip of garden with a jug in her hand, and come out at the gate to fetch the beer for supper.
“There goes Jane Cross,” cried the Squire, as she passed the window. “Is it not, Johnny?”
“No, sir, it’s Matilda.” But the mistake was a very natural one, for the girls were about the same height and size, and were usually dressed alike, the same mourning having been supplied to both of them.
Ten minutes or so had elapsed when Matilda came back: she liked a gossip with the landlady of the Swan. Her pint jug was brimful of beer, and she shut the iron gate of No. 7 after her. Putting my head as far out at the window as it would go, to watch her indoors, for no earthly reason but that I had nothing else to do, I saw her try the front door, and then knock at it. This knock she repeated three times over at intervals, each knock being louder than the last.
“Are you shut out, Matilda?” I called out.
“Yes, sir, it seems like it,” she called back again, without turning her head. “Jane Cross must have gone to sleep.”
Had she been a footman with a carriage full of ladies in court trains behind him, she could not have given a louder or longer knock than she gave now. There was no bell to the front door at No. 7. But the knock remained unanswered and the door unopened.
“Matilda at No. 7 is locked out,” I said, laughing, bringing in my head and speaking to the parlour generally. “She has been to fetch the beer for supper, and can’t get in again.”
“The beer for supper?” repeated Mrs. Blair. “They generally go out at the back gate to fetch that, Johnny.”
“Anyhow, she took the front way to-night. I saw her come out.”
Another tremendous knock. The Squire put his good old nose round the window-post; two boys and a lady, passing by, halted a minute to look on. It was getting exciting, and I ran out. She was still at the door, which stood in the middle of the house, between the sitting-rooms on each side.
“So you have got the key of the street, Matilda!”
“I can’t make it out,” she said; “what Jane Cross can be about, or why the door should be closed at all. I left it on the latch.”
“Somebody has slipped in to make love to her. Your friend, the milkman, perhaps.”
Evidently Matilda did not like the allusion to the milkman. Catching a glimpse of her face by the street lamp, I saw it had turned white. The milkman was supposed to be paying court at No. 7, but to which of the two maids gossip did not decide. Mrs. Blair’s Susan, who knew them well, said it was Matilda.
“Why don’t you try the back way?” I asked, after more waiting.
“Because I know the outer door is locked, sir. Jane Cross locked it just now, and that’s why I came out this front way. I can try it, however.”
She went round to the road that ran by the side of the house, and tried the door in the garden wall. It was fastened, as she had said. Seizing the bell-handle, she gave a loud peal — another, and another.
“I say, it seems odd, though,” I cried, beginning to find it so. “Do you think she can have gone out?”
“I’m sure I don’t know, sir. But — no; it’s not likely, Master Johnny. I left her laying the cloth for our supper.”
“Was she in the house alone?”
“We are always alone, sir; we don’t have visitors. Anyway, none have been with us this evening.”
I looked at the upper windows of the house. No light was to be seen in any of them, no sign of Jane Cross. The lower windows were hidden from view by the wall, which was high.
“I think she must have dropped asleep, Matilda, as you say. Suppose you come in through Mrs. Blair’s and get over the wall?”
I ran round to tell the news to our people. Matilda followed me slowly; I thought, reluctantly. Even in the dim twilight, as she stood at our gate in hesitation, I could see how white her face was.
“What are you afraid of?” I asked her, going out again to where she stood.
“I hardly know, Master Johnny. Jane Cross used to have fits. Perhaps she has been frightened into one now.”
“What should frighten her?”
The girl looked round in a scared manner before replying. Just then I found my jacket-sleeve wet. Her trembling hands had shaken a little of the ale upon it.
“If she — should have seen Mr. Edmund?” the girl brought out in a horrified whisper.
“Seen Mr. Edmund! Mr. Edmund who? — Mr. Edmund Peahern? Why, you don’t surely mean his ghost?”
Her face was growing whiter. I stared at her in surprise.
“We have always been afraid of seeing something, she and me, since last May; we haven’t liked the house at night-time. It has often been quite a scuffle which of us should fetch the beer, so as not to be the one left alone. Many a time I have stood right out at the back door while Jane Cross has gone for it.”
I began to think her an idiot. If Jane Cross was another, why, perhaps she had frightened herself into a fit. All the more reason that somebody should see after her.
“Come along, Matilda; don’t be foolish; we’ll both get over the wall.”
It was a calm, still summer evening, almost dark now. All the lot of us went out to the back garden, I whispering to them what the girl had said to me.
“Poor thing!” said Mrs. Todhetley, who had a sort of fellow-feeling for ghosts. “It has been very lonely for the young women; and if Jane Cross is subject to fits, she may be lying in one at this moment.”
The wall between the gardens was nothing like as high as the outer one. Susan brought out a chair, and Matilda could have got over easily. But when she reached the top, she stuck there.
“I can’t go on by myself; I dare not,” she said, turning her frightened face towards us. “If Mr. Edmund is there — —”
“Don’t be a goose, girl!” interrupted the Squire, in doubt whether to laugh or scold. “Here, I’ll go with you. Get on down. Hold the chair tight for me, Johnny.”
We hoisted him over without damage. I leaped after him, and Susan, grinning with delight, came after me. She supposed that Jane Cross had slipped out somewhere during Matilda’s absence.
The door faced the garden, and the Squire and Susan were the first to enter. There seemed to be no light anywhere, and the Squire went gingerly picking his way. I turned round to look for Matilda, who had hung back, and found her with her hand on the trellis-work of the porch, and the beer splashing over in her fear.
“I say, look here, Matilda; you must be a regular goose, as the Squire says, to put yourself into this fright before you know whether there’s any cause for it. Susan says she has only stepped out somewhere.”
She put up her hand and touched my arm, her lips the colour of chalk.
“Only last night that ever was, Mr. Johnny, as we were going up the staircase to bed, we heard a sound in the room as we pas
sed it. It was just like a groan. Ask Jane Cross, else, sir.”
“What room?”
“Mr. Edmund’s; where he did it. She has heard him to-night, or seen him, or something, and has fallen into a fit.”
The kitchen was on the right of the passage. Susan, knowing the ways of the house, soon lighted a candle. On a small round table was spread a white cloth, some bread and cheese, and two tumblers. A knife or two had seemingly been flung on it at random.
“Jane Cross! Jane Cross!” shouted the Squire, going forward towards the front hall, Susan following with the candle. It was a good-sized hall; I could see that, with a handsome well-staircase at this end of it.
“Halloa! What’s this? Johnny! Susan! — all of you come here! Here’s somebody lying here. It must be the poor girl. Goodness bless my heart! Johnny, help me to raise her!”
Still and white she was lying, underneath the opening of the staircase. Upon lifting her head, it fell back in a curious manner. We both backed a little. Susan held the candle nearer. As its light fell on the upturned face, the girl shrieked.
“She is in a fit,” cried Matilda.
“God help her!” whispered the Squire. “I fear this is something worse than a fit. We must have a doctor.”
Susan thrust the candlestick into my hand, and ran out at the back door, saying she’d fetch Mr. Lockett. Back she came in a moment: the garden gate was locked, and the key not in it.
“There’s the front door, girl,” stuttered the Squire, angry with her for returning, though it was no fault of hers. He was like one off his head, and his nose and cheeks had turned blue.
But there could be no more exit by the front door than by the back. It was locked, and the key gone. Who had done these things? what strange mystery was here? Locking the poor girl in the house to kill her!
Matilda, who had lighted another candle, found the key of the back gate lying on the kitchen dresser. Susan caught it up, and flew away. It was a most uncomfortable moment. There lay Jane Cross, pale and motionless, and it seemed that we were helpless to aid her.
“Ask that stupid thing to bring a pillow or a cushion, Johnny! Ghosts, indeed! The idiots that women are!”
“What else has done it? what else was there to hurt her?” remonstrated Matilda, bringing up the second candle. “She wouldn’t fall into a fit for nothing, sir.”
And now that more light was present, we began to see other features of the scene. Nearly close to Jane Cross lay a work-basket, overturned, a flat, open basket, a foot and a half square. Reels of cotton, scissors, tapes, small bundles of work tied up, and such-like things lay scattered around.
The Squire looked at these, and then at the opening above. “Can she have fallen down the well?” he asked, in a low tone. And Matilda, catching the words, gave a cry of dismay, and burst into tears.
“A pillow, girl! A pillow, or a cushion!”
She went into one of the sitting-rooms and brought out a sofa-cushion. The Squire, going down on his knees, for he was not good at stooping, told me to slip it under while he raised the head.
A sound of feet, a sudden flash of light from a bull’s-eye, and a policeman came upon the scene. The man was quietly passing on his beat when met by Susan. In her excitement she told him what had happened, and sent him in. We knew the man, whose beat lay at this end of Saltwater; a civil man, named Knapp. He knelt down where the Squire had just been kneeling, touching Jane Cross here and there.
“She’s dead, sir,” he said. “There can be no mistake about that.”
“She must have fallen down the well of the staircase, I fear,” observed the Squire.
“Well — yes; perhaps so,” assented the man in a doubtful tone. “But what of this?”
He flung the great light in front of poor Jane Cross’s dress. A small portion of the body, where the gown fastened in front, had been torn away, as well as one of the wristbands.
“It’s no fall,” said the man. “It’s foul play — as I think.”
“Goodness bless me!” gasped the Squire. “Some villains must have got in. This comes of that other one’s having left the front door on the latch.” But I am not sure that any of us, including himself, believed she could be really dead.
Susan returned with speed, and was followed by Mr. Lockett. He was a young man, thirty perhaps, pale and quiet, and much like what I remembered of his brother. Poor Jane Cross was certainly dead, he said — had been dead, he thought, an hour.
But this could scarcely have been, as we knew. It was not, at the very utmost, above twenty-five minutes since Matilda went out to fetch the beer, leaving her alive and well. Mr. Lockett looked again, but thought he was not mistaken. When a young doctor takes up a crotchet, he likes to hold to it.
A nameless sensation of awe fell upon us all. Dead! In that sudden manner! The Squire rubbed up his head like a helpless lunatic; Susan’s eyes were round with horror; Matilda had thrown her apron over her face to hide its grief and tears.
Leaving her for the present where she was, we turned to go upstairs. I stooped to pick up the overturned basket, but the policeman sharply told me to let all things remain as they were until he had time to look into them.
The first thing the man did, on reaching the landing above, was to open the room doors one by one, and throw his bull’s-eye light into them. They were all right, unoccupied, straight and tidy. On the landing of the upper floor lay one or two articles, which seemed to indicate that some kind of struggle had taken place there. A thimble here, a bodkin there, also the bit that had been torn out of the girl’s gown in front, and the wristband from the sleeve. The balustrades were very handsome, but very low; on this upper landing, dangerously low. These bedrooms were all in order; the one in which the two servants slept, alone showing signs of occupation.
Downstairs went Knapp again, carrying with him the torn-out pieces, to compare them with the gown. It was the print gown I had often seen Jane Cross wear, a black gown with white zigzag lines running down it. Matilda was wearing the fellow to it now. The pieces fitted in exactly.
“The struggle must have taken place upstairs: not here,” observed the doctor.
Matilda, questioned and cross-questioned by the policeman, gave as succinct an account of the evening as her distressed state allowed. We stood round the kitchen while she told it.
Neither she nor Jane Cross had gone out at all that day. Monday was rather a busy day with them, for they generally did a bit of washing. After tea, which they took between four and five o’clock, they went up to their bedroom, it being livelier there than in the kitchen, the window looking down the side road. Matilda sat down to write a letter to her brother, who lived at a distance; Jane Cross sat at the window doing a job of sewing. They sat there all the evening, writing, working, and sometimes talking. At dusk, Jane remarked that it was getting blind man’s holiday, and that she should go on downstairs and lay the supper. Upon that, Matilda finished her letter quickly, folded and directed it, and followed her down. Jane had not yet laid the cloth, but was then taking it out of the drawer. “You go and fetch the beer, Matilda,” she said: and Matilda was glad to do so. “You can’t go that way: I have locked the gate,” Jane called out, seeing Matilda turning towards the back; accordingly she went out at the front door, leaving it on the latch. Such was her account; and I have given it almost verbatim.
“On the latch,” repeated the policeman, taking up the words. “Does that mean that you left it open?”
“I drew it quite to, so that it looked as if it were shut; it was a heavy door, and would keep so,” was Matilda’s answer. “I did it, not to give Jane the trouble to open it to me. When I got back I found it shut and could not get in.”
The policeman mused. “You say it was Jane Cross who locked the back door in the wall?”
“Yes,” said Matilda. “She had locked it before I got downstairs. We liked to lock that door early, because it could be opened from the outside — while the front door could not be.”
“And she
had not put these things on the table when you went out for the beer?” — pointing to the dishes.
“No: she was only then putting the cloth. As I turned round from taking the beer-jug from its hook, the fling she gave the cloth caused the air to whiffle in my face like a wind. She had not begun to reach out the dishes.”
“How long were you away?”
“I don’t know exactly,” she answered, with a moan. “Rather longer than usual, because I took my letter to the post before going to the Swan.”
“It was about ten minutes,” I interposed. “I was at the window next door, and saw Matilda go out and come back.”
“Ten minutes!” repeated the policeman. “Quite long enough for some ruffian to come in and fling her over the stairs.”
“But who would do it?” asked Matilda, looking up at him with her poor pale face.
“Ah, that’s the question; that’s what we must find out,” said Knapp. “Was the kitchen just as it was when you left it?”
“Yes — except that she had put the bread and cheese on the table. And the glasses, and knives,” added the girl, looking round at the said table, which remained as we had found it, “but not the plates.”
“Well now, to go to something else: Did she bring her work-basket downstairs with her from the bedroom when she remarked to you that she would go and put the supper on?”
“No, she did not.”
“You are sure of that?”
“Yes. She left the basket on the chair in front of her where it had been standing. She just got up and shook the threads from off her gown, and went on down. When I left the room the basket was there; I saw it. And I think,” added the girl, with a great sob, “I think that while laying the supper she must have gone upstairs again to fetch the basket, and must have fallen against the banisters with fright, and overbalanced herself.”