Works of Ellen Wood

by Ellen Wood

  Mrs. Carradyne felt half afraid to answer, the Captain’s tone was becoming so threatening. “I — I think so,” she rather hesitatingly said. “Was he not, Katherine?”

  Katherine Monk, a dark, haughty young woman, twenty-one now, turned round with a flush on her handsome face. “Why do you ask, papa?”

  “I ask to be answered,” replied he, standing with his hands in the pockets of his velveteen shooting-coat, a purple tinge of incipient anger rising in his cheeks.

  “Then Mr. Dancox did spend Monday evening here.”

  “And I saw him walking with you in the meadow by the rill this morning,” continued the Captain. “Look here, Katherine, no sweethearting with Tom Dancox. He may do very well for a parson; I like him as such, as such only, you understand; but he can be no match for you.”

  “You are disturbing yourself unnecessarily, sir,” said Katherine, her own tone an angry one.

  “Well, I hope that is so; I should not like to think otherwise. Anyway, a word in season does no harm; and, take you notice that I have spoken it. You also, Emma.”

  As he left the room, Mrs. Carradyne spoke, dropping her voice: “Katherine, you know that I had already warned you. I told you it would not do to fall into any particular friendship with Mr. Dancox; that your father would never countenance it.”

  “And if I were to? — and if he did not?” scornfully returned Katherine. “What then, Aunt Emma?”

  “Be silent, child; you must not talk in that strain. Your papa is perfectly right in this matter. Tom Dancox is not suitable in any way — for you.”

  This took place in November. Katherine paid little heed to the advice; she was not one to put up with advice of any sort, and she and Mr. Dancox met occasionally under the rose. Early in December she went with Mr. Dancox into the Parsonage, while he searched for a book he was about to lend her. That was the plea; the truth, no doubt, being that the two wanted a bit of a chat in quiet. As ill-luck had it, when she was coming out again, the Parson in attendance on her as far as the gate, Captain Monk came by.

  A scene ensued. Captain Monk, in a terrible access of passion, vowed by all the laws of the Medes and Persians, which alter not, that never, in life or after death, should those two rebellious ones be man and wife, and he invoked unheard-of penalties on their heads should they dare to contemplate disobedience to his decree.

  Thenceforth there was no more open rebellion; upon the surface all looked smooth. Captain Monk understood the folly to be at an end: that the two had come to their senses; and he took Tom Dancox back into favour. Mrs. Carradyne assumed the same. But Katherine had her father’s unyielding will, and the Parson was bold and careless, and in love.

  The last day of the year came round, and the usual banquet would come with it. The weather this Christmas was not like that of last; the white snow lay on the ground, the cold biting frost hardened the glistening icicles on the trees.

  And the chimes? Ready these three months past, they had not yet been heard. They would be to-night. Whether Captain Monk wished the remembrance of Mr. West’s death to die away a bit first, or that he preferred to open the treat on the banqueting night, certain it was that he had kept them silent. When the church clock should toll the midnight knell of the old year, the chimes would ring out to welcome the new one, and gladden the ears of Church Leet.

  But not without a remonstrance. That morning, as the Captain sat in his study writing a letter, Mrs. Carradyne came to him.

  “Godfrey,” she said in a low and pleading tone, “you will not suffer the chimes to play to-night, will you? Pray do not.”

  “Not suffer the chimes to play?” cried the Captain. “But indeed I shall. Why, this is the special night they were put up for.”

  “I know it, Godfrey. But — you cannot think what a strangely strong feeling I have against it: an instinct, it seems to me. The chimes have brought nothing but discomfort and disaster yet; they may bring more in the future.”

  Captain Monk stared at her. “What d’ye mean, Emma?”

  “I would never let them be heard,” she said impressively. “I would have them taken down again. The story went about, you know, that poor George West in dying prophesied that whenever they should be heard woe would fall upon this house. I am not superstitious, Godfrey, but — —”

  Sheer passion had tied, so far, Godfrey Monk’s lips. “Not superstitious!” he raved out. “You are worse than that, Emma — a fool. How dare you bring your nonsense here? There’s the door.”

  The banquet hour approached. Nearly all the guests of last year were again present in the warm and holly-decorated dining-room, the one notable exception being the ill-fated Parson West. Parson Dancox came in his stead, and said grace from the post of honour at the Captain’s right hand. Captain Monk did not appear to feel any remorse or regret: he was jovial, free, and grandly hospitable; one might suppose he had promoted the dead clergyman to a canonry instead of to a place in the churchyard.

  “What became of the poor man’s widow, Squire?” whispered a gentleman from the neighbourhood of Evesham to Mr. Todhetley, who sat on the left hand of his host; Sir Thomas Rivers taking the foot of the table this year.

  “Mrs. West? Well, we heard she opened a girls’ school up in London,” breathed the Squire.

  “And what tale was that about his leaving a curse on the chimes? — I never heard the rights of it.”

  “Hush!” said the Squire cautiously. “Nobody talks of that here. Or believes it, either. Poor West was a man to leave a blessing behind him; never a curse.”

  Hubert, at home for the holidays, was again at table. He was fourteen now, tall of his age and slender, his blue eyes bright, his complexion delicately beautiful. The pleated cambric frill of his shirt, which hung over the collar of his Eton jacket after the fashion of the day, was carried low in front, displaying the small white throat; his golden hair curled naturally. A boy to admire and be proud of. The manners were more decorous this year than they ever had been, and Hubert was allowed to sit on. Possibly the shadow of George West’s unhappy death lay insensibly upon the party.

  It was about half-past nine o’clock when the butler came into the room, bringing a small note, twisted up, to his master from Mrs. Carradyne. Captain Monk opened it and held it towards one of the lighted branches to read the few words it contained.

  “A gentleman is asking to speak a word to Mr. Dancox. He says it is important.”

  Captain Monk tore the paper to bits. “Not to-night, tell your mistress, is my answer,” said he to Rimmer. “Hubert, you can go to your aunt now; it’s past your bed-time.”

  There could be no appeal, as the boy knew; but he went off unwillingly and in bitter resentment against Mrs. Carradyne. He supposed she had sent for him.

  “What a cross old thing you are, Aunt Emma!” he exclaimed as he entered the drawing-room on the other side the hall. “You won’t let Harry go in at all to the banquets, and you won’t let me stay at them! Papa meant — I think he meant — to let me remain there to hear the chimes. Why need you have interfered to send for me?”

  “I neither interfered with you, Hubert, nor sent for you. A gentleman, who did not give his name and preferred to wait outside, wants to see Mr. Dancox; that’s all,” said Mrs. Carradyne. “You gave my note to your master, Rimmer?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” replied the butler. “My master bade me say to you that his answer was not to-night.”

  Katherine Monk, her face betraying some agitation, rose from the piano. “Was the message not given to Mr. Dancox?” she asked of Rimmer.

  “Not while I was there, Miss Katherine. The master tore the note into bits, after reading it; and dropped them under the table.”

  Now it chanced that Mr. Dancox, glancing covertly at the note while the Captain held it to the light, had read what was written there. For a few minutes he said nothing. The Captain was busy sending round the wine.

  “Captain Monk — pardon me — I saw my name on that bit of paper; it caught my eye as you held i
t out,” he said in a low tone. “Am I called out? Is anyone in the parish dying?”

  Thus questioned, Captain Monk told the truth. No one was dying, and he was not called out to the parish. Some gentleman was asking to speak to him; only that.

  “Well, I’ll just see who it is, and what he wants,” said Mr. Dancox, rising. “Won’t be away two minutes, sir.”

  “Bring him back with you; tell him he’ll find good wine here and jolly cheer,” said the Captain. And Mr. Dancox went out, swinging his napkin in his hand.

  In crossing the hall he met Katherine, exchanged a hasty word with her, let fall the serviette on a chair as he caught up his hat and overcoat, and went out. Katherine ran upstairs.

  Hubert lay down on one of the drawing-room sofas. In point of fact, that young gentleman could not walk straight. A little wine takes effect on youngsters, especially when they are not accustomed to it. Mrs. Carradyne told Hubert the best place for him was bed. Not a bit of it, the boy answered: he should go out on the terrace at twelve o’clock; the chimes would be fine, heard out there. He fell asleep almost as he spoke; presently he woke up, feeling headachy, cross and stupid, and of his own accord went up to bed.

  Meanwhile, the dining-room was getting jollier and louder as the time passed on towards midnight. Great wonder was expressed at the non-return of the parson; somebody must be undoubtedly grievously sick or dying. Mr. Speck, the quiet little Hurst Leet doctor, dissented from this. Nobody was dying in the parish, he affirmed, or sick enough to need a priest; as a proof of it, he had not been sent for.

  Ring, ring, ring! broke forth the chimes on the quiet midnight air, as the church clock finished striking twelve. It was a sweet sound; even those prejudiced against the chimes could hear that: the windows had been opened in readiness.

  The glasses were charged; the company stood on their legs, some of them not at all steady legs just then, bending their ears to listen. Captain Monk stood in his place, majestically waving his head and his left hand to keep time in harmony with The Bay of Biscay. His right hand held his goblet in readiness for the toast when the sounds should cease.

  Ring, ring, ring! chimed the last strokes of the bells, dying away to faintness on the still evening air. Suddenly, amidst the hushed silence, and whilst the sweet melody fell yet unbroken on the room, there arose a noise as of something falling outside on the terrace, mingled with a wild scream and the crash of breaking glass.

  One of the guests rushed to the window, and put his head out of it. So far as he could see, he said (perhaps his sight was somewhat obscured), it was a looking-glass lying further up on the terrace.

  Thrown out from one of the upper windows! scornfully pronounced the Captain, full of wrath that it should have happened at that critical moment to mar the dignity of his coming toast. And he gave the toast heartily; and the new year came in for them all with good wishes and good wine.

  Some little time yet ere the company finally rose. The mahogany frame of the broken looking-glass, standing on end, was conspicuous on the white ground in the clear frosty night, as they streamed out from the house. Mr. Speck, whose sight was rather remarkably good, peered at it curiously from the hall steps, and then walked quickly along the snowy terrace towards it.

  Sure enough, it was a looking-glass, broken in its fall from an open window above. But, lying by it in the deep snow, in his white night-shirt, was Hubert Monk.

  When the chimes began to play, Hubert was not asleep. Sitting up in bed, he disposed himself to listen. After a bit they began to grow fainter; Hubert impatiently dashed to the window and threw it up to its full height as he jumped on the dressing-table, when in some unfortunate way he overbalanced himself, and pitched out on the terrace beneath, carrying the looking-glass with him. The fall was not much, for his room was in one of the wings, the windows of which were low; but the boy had struck his head in falling, and there he had lain, insensible, on the terrace, one hand still clasping the looking-glass.

  All the rosy wine-tint fading away to a sickly paleness on the Captain’s face, he looked down on his well-beloved son. The boy was carried indoors to his room, reviving with the movement.

  “Young bones are elastic,” pronounced Mr. Speck, when he had examined him; “and none of these are broken. He will probably have a cold from the exposure; that’s about the worst.”

  He seemed to have it already: he was shivering from head to foot now, as he related the above particulars. All the family had assembled round him, except Katherine.

  “Where is Katherine?” suddenly inquired her father, noticing her absence.

  “I cannot think where she is,” said Mrs. Carradyne. “I have not seen her for an hour or two. Eliza says she is not in her room; I sent her to see. She is somewhere about, of course.”

  “Go and look for your sister, Eliza. Tell her to come here,” said Captain Monk. But though Eliza went at once, her quest was useless.

  Miss Katherine was not in the house: Miss Katherine had made a moonlight flitting from it that evening with the Reverend Thomas Dancox.

  II. — PLAYING AGAIN

  I

  It could not be said the Church Leet chimes brought good when they rang out that night at midnight, as the old year was giving place to the new. Mrs. Carradyne, in her superstition, thought they brought evil. Certainly evil set in at the same time, and Captain Monk, with all his scoffing obstinacy, could not fail to see it. That fine young lad, his son, fell through the window listening to them; and in the self-same hour the knowledge reached him that Katherine, his eldest and dearest child, had flown from his roof in defiant disobedience, to set up a home of her own.

  Hubert was soon well of his bruises; but not of the cold induced by lying in the snow, clad only in his white night-shirt. In spite of all Mr. Speck’s efforts, rheumatic fever set in, and for some time Hubert hovered between life and death. He recovered; but would never again be the strong, hearty lad he had been — though indeed he had never been very physically strong. The doctor privately hoped that the heart would be found all right in future, but he would not have answered for it.

  The blow that told most on Captain Monk was that inflicted by Katherine. And surely never was disobedient marriage carried out with the impudent boldness of hers. Church Leet called it “cheek.” Church Leet (disbelieving the facts when they first oozed out) could talk of nothing else for weeks. For Katherine had been married in the church hard by, that same night.

  Special licenses were very uncommon things in those days; they cost too much; but the Reverend Thomas Dancox had procured one. With Katherine’s money: everybody guessed that. She had four hundred a-year of her own, inherited from her dead mother, and full control over it. So the special license was secured, and their crafty plans were laid. The stranger who had presented himself at the Hall that night (by arrangement), asking for Mr. Dancox, thus affording an excuse for his quitting the banquet-room, was a young clergyman of Worcester, come over especially to marry them. When tackled with his deed afterwards, he protested that he had not been told the marriage was to be clandestine. Tom Dancox went out to him from the banquet; Katherine, slipping on a bonnet and shawl, joined them outside; they hastened to the rectory and thence into the church. And while the unconscious master of Leet Hall was entertaining his guests with his good cheer and his stories and his hip, hip, hurrah, his Vicar and Katherine Monk were made one until death should them part. And death, as it proved, intended to do that speedily.

  At first Captain Monk, in his unbounded rage, was for saying that a marriage celebrated at ten o’clock at night by the light of a solitary tallow candle, borrowed from the vestry, could not hold good. Reassured upon this point, he strove to devise other means to part them. Foiled again, he laid the case before the Bishop of Worcester, and begged his lordship to unfrock Thomas Dancox. The Bishop did not do as much as that; though he sent for Tom Dancox and severely reprimanded him. But that, as Church Leet remarked, did not break bones. Tom had striven to make the best of his own cause to the Bis
hop, and the worst of Captain Monk’s obdurate will; moreover, stolen marriages were not thought much of in those days.

  An uncomfortable state of things was maintained all the year, Hall Leet and the Parsonage standing at daggers drawn. Never once did Captain Monk appear at church. If he by cross-luck met his daughter or her husband abroad, he struck into a good fit of swearing aloud; which perhaps relieved his mind. The chimes had never played again; they pertained to the church, and the church was in ill-favour with the Captain. As the end of the year approached, Church Leet wondered whether he would hold the annual banquet; but Captain Monk was not likely to forego that. Why should he? The invitations went out for it; and they contained an intimation that the chimes would again play.

  The banquet took place, a neighbouring parson saying grace at it in the place of Tom Dancox. While the enjoyment was progressing and Captain Monk was expressing his marvel for the tenth time as to what could have become of Speck, who had not made his appearance, a note was brought in by Rimmer — just as he had brought in one last year. This also was from Mrs. Carradyne.

  “Please come out to me for one moment, dear Godfrey. I must say a word to you.”

  Captain Monk’s first impulse on reading this was to send Rimmer back to say she might go and be hanged. But to call him from the table was so very extreme a measure, that on second thoughts he decided to go to her. Mrs. Carradyne was standing just outside the door, looking as white as a sheet.

  “Well, this is pretty bold of you, Madam Emma,” he began angrily. “Are you out of your senses?”

  “Hush, Godfrey! Katherine is dying.”

  “What?” cried the Captain, the words confusing him.

  “Katherine is dying,” repeated his sister, her teeth chattering with emotion.

  In spite of Katherine’s rebellion, Godfrey Monk loved her still as the apple of his eye; and it was only his obstinate temper which had kept him from reconciliation. His face took a hue of terror, and his voice a softer tone.