The Dower House Mystery

by Patricia Wentworth

  “It has stood empty for a good many years.”

  “But is there anything really wrong with it? If there is, I must say I think you ought to have told me.”

  “You see, I know how strong-minded you are,” said Amabel, laughing.

  “Well, I hate weak-kneed people,” said Agatha. “You know—the sort that are afraid of everything. But you haven’t told me anything. Is there really a ghost?”

  “I haven’t seen one,” said Amabel cheerfully.

  “My dear Amy, how horribly secretive you are. I shall ask Julian Forsham—I can see that I had better get accustomed to calling him Julian.”

  Amabel flushed, and was angry with herself. Mrs. Moreland was still laughing at her, when the door opened and Julian came in. She turned to him at once.

  “Mr. Forsham, we’ve been talking about this delightful old house of yours.”

  “It’s not mine, it’s my brother’s.”

  “It’s the same thing. I mean you’ll know all about it. Do tell me, is it very old?”

  “The original house was, but there isn’t much of it left. There was a fire in my great-grandfather’s time.”

  “And which are the old bits?”

  “This room—and the room I’m in—the two bedrooms opposite—the hall and kitchen—I think those are all part of the old house. I know the dining-room and drawing-room are new.”

  “Is that why there are no cellars?” said Amabel. “Mr. Bronson was saying that it was odd that an old house like this shouldn’t have proper cellars. They generally do, don’t they? And of course the ground floor would be drier if there were cellars under it.”

  “Oh, there are cellars all right,” said Julian. “They haven’t been used for years—not safe, or something. I remember that George and I got into a fearful row for going into them and playing treasure-hunts. I think they only use the two under the kitchen now.”

  “When you came in,” said Agatha, “I was asking Amy if the house was haunted.”

  “And why did you ask that?”

  She laughed her comfortable laugh.

  “Well, I might say that it looked as if it were, or felt as if it were; but I’ll be honest and admit that Mrs. King put the idea into my head.”

  “My dear Mrs. Moreland, if you start believing what Mrs. King says, you’ll have a busy time in front of you. She told me that it was so nice of people to issue forged notes, because it made more money for all the poor people who hadn’t got enough.”

  They all laughed.

  “No, but about the house—is it haunted? You see, I am dreadfully pertinacious; but these things do interest me. Is it?”

  “I don’t know,” said Julian. He had dropped his light tone.

  Agatha was sufficiently woman of the world to be aware that she had come up against a blank wall. She turned gracefully aside and changed the subject.

  That night Amabel certainly bolted the door that led from her bedroom into the corridor; but she was never afterwards quite sure about the door between her room and Agatha’s. She thought that she had bolted it, but the memory was a hazy one, and not to be depended on. She slept well, and when Jenny called her she went into Agatha’s room to say good-morning. The door was certainly not bolted then. She looked at it with a little, puzzled frown as she turned the handle.

  “I wish you weren’t going, Agatha. It’s been very nice having you.”

  “Get someone else—you’d really better. The occasion demands a chaperone. Oh, Amy, I do love to see you blush! None of the girls can do it nowadays, and there’s no doubt it’s quite becoming. Anyhow, I’d stay; but I’m dining with the Amberleys to-morrow, and doing a theatre with Hilda Langton to-night. She’s only up for a couple of days, or I’d put her off. I don’t know when Cyril will be back.” Her brow clouded, and she looked away. “Of course, he’s got simply heaps of friends, and there’s no earthly reason why he should give them up just because he’s married.”

  Amabel said nothing. There seemed to be nothing to say. She took Agatha’s cup, set it down, and prepared to go. She was half-way to the door, when Agatha said,

  “That maid of yours is an odd bird, Amy.”

  “Who? Ellen?” Amabel half turned, ready to smile at something quaint that Ellen had said or done.

  Mrs. Moreland shook her head, its golden waves as miraculous as ever.

  “No, not Ellen. That poor run-in-the-wash sort of creature who belongs to the house—I forget her name.”

  “Jenny. What has she been doing?”

  “Well, I thought it odd of her to come walking through here in the middle of the night.”

  “Jenny! In the middle of the night!”

  “I don’t know what time it was—I didn’t look. I always have a night-light, you know; I can’t sleep in the dark. And when I woke up and saw your door open, of course I thought it was you, and that you wanted something.”

  If Amabel put her hand on the connecting door, it was partly to steady herself.

  “This door, Agatha?”

  “Yes, that door. It opened, and, to my surprise, I saw that Jenny creature.”

  “Agatha, you dreamt it.”

  “Not a bit of it. She came in a little way and drew back again; then she shut the door and I went to sleep. What was she doing in your room? Had you called her?”

  Amabel shook her head.

  “No,” she said. “No. Perhaps—perhaps she was walking in her sleep. What was she dressed in?”

  “I don’t know—her black afternoon dress, I think, but no apron.”

  Amabel made an effort, and forced a laugh.

  “It’s very odd of her. I’ll ask her about it. Did you bolt your door last night?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “And was it bolted this morning?”

  “Yes, I had to get out of bed to let Jenny in when she came with the tea.”

  “Then she didn’t go out that way,” said Amabel.

  “Little glimpses of the obvious!” said Mrs. Moreland, laughing.

  Amabel went into her own room and shut the door. She found Ellen waiting for her—an Ellen very anxious to be of service, to get out her things, to brush her hair, and above all else to talk.

  Amabel said “Yes, Ellen,” and “No, Ellen” at intervals; but all the while, in her own mind, she was wrestling with Agatha’s story.

  If Agatha had found her door bolted in the morning, Jenny could not have gone out that way. (“Little glimpses of the obvious, my dear Amy!”) But her own door had been bolted too. She, too, had had to get up and let Jenny in. She remembered as a strange thing that Jenny never had used the connecting door when she came with the tea, but always went round by the passage. If Jenny had really been in her room last night, how and when had she left it?

  She said aloud, “Yes, my old, grey tweed skirt, please,” and heard Ellen conclude something that she had been saying with a fluttered. “And I knew as ’ow you would be pleased.”

  “I’m so sorry. I was thinking about something else. What am I to be pleased about?”

  “There’s no call to be pleased.” There was subtle offence in Ellen’s tone.

  “Oh, Ellen, don’t be silly. I’ll be pleased as soon as I know what to be pleased about; but you’ll have to tell me what it is.”

  “It takes the ’eart out of anything,” said Ellen gloomily. “But, since you wish for to know, I’m not one to keep things back, nor yet to crawl and spy like some that I could name—and not a ’undred miles from ’ere neither—, which is a thing I can’t abide and don’t ’old with. Red ’air and crawlingness I ’ates with all ’atred.”

  “Ellen, really!” said Amabel. “I don’t seem to know what you’re talking about. Do you mind explaining?”

  “That there Jenny,” said Ellen. She stripped the bed with a vicious jerk and nearly upset a chair. “As Mrs. Moorshed says to me: ‘Mark my words,’ she says, ‘that there Jenny is one of the crawlingest’—and, being my own cousin, I should ’ope that she wouldn’t deceive me.” />
  “Ellen dear! You know you’re not explaining—not really. Is Mrs. Moorshed Jenny’s cousin?”

  Ellen tossed her head and sniffed.

  “She wouldn’t demean ’erself,” she said. “Come of real good people, she does, same as I do myself—and a cousin of my own as it turns out, which is what I was telling you, and what I thought as you’d be pleased to ’ear.”

  “Oh, but I am. I’m very pleased. Did you know she was a cousin?”

  “I know’d that a cousin of my father’s was married to a Moorshed, and I won’t deny as the name struck me when I went in about the lodging. So after supper last night I says to ’er, ‘What might your grandmother’s Christian name ’ave been?’ and when she looks funny, then I know’d where I were. ‘Was it Pistles?’ I arst—and sure enough Pistles it were.”

  “Pistles?” said Amabel faintly. “Ellen, what do you mean?”

  “Matthew Mark Luke John Acts and Pistles,” said Ellen very rapidly. “Acts and Pistles was a twin of girls—the others was boys,” she added.

  “Ellen dear!”

  “Pistles was ’er grandmother right enough, and own niece to my great-grandfather, which I thought as ’ow you’d be pleased.”

  “I think it’s very nice for you,” said Amabel.

  “That’s as may be,” said Ellen with dignity. She folded Amabel’s nightdress, and said,

  “What’s wrong with this ’ouse is just plain Browns, neither more nor less. And if Mrs. Moorshed is my cousin, she’s got as much sense as others, I should ’ope.”

  Amabel felt a certain sense of fatigue.

  “Look here, Ellen, don’t quarrel with Jenny, there’s an angel. She’s rather a poor thing, but there’s no harm in her, I’m sure.”

  “Least sure of, soonest mended,” said Ellen.

  Chapter XVIII

  Mrs. Moreland departed by an afternoon train. After seeing her off Amabel walked home through the damp lanes. The ruin of the hedgerows was now almost complete. Brambles still flaunted a tattered rag or two of finery, striking a note of gold or scarlet, and there were berries of all sorts and hues from green to crimson. Everything was sodden with wet, and the smell of rotting leaves hung in the air.

  As she crossed the bridge she met Mr. Miller. Rather to her surprise, he stopped and entered into a desultory conversation. When it was evident that she did not wish to be kept, he turned and began to walk beside her in the direction of the Dower House.

  “It is fortunate that I met you, because I really had a message to give to Lady Susan from my sister, and I had quite forgotten it,” he explained; and then, “Is your sister making a long stay?”

  “I’ve just been seeing her off.”

  Mr. Miller turned pale, vague eyes upon her. “Dear me, I’m sorry for that. It must be rather lonely for you at the Dower House.”

  “I’m used to being alone,” said Amabel.

  “Yes? But all the same, it is not very good for one to be alone. In the day-time it is all very well—one has one’s occupations, one goes out, one sees one’s friends—but in the long, dark evenings, when one is quite alone and the house is still, one is apt, I think, to fancy things; one sits by the fire and hears footsteps that are not there—especially in an old house like the Dower House.”

  Amabel had an impulse towards resentment. It leapt in her, and then died before something of melancholy kindness in the man’s voice and manner. She laughed a little, and said,

  “You speak like someone who is accustomed to living in a town.”

  “Do I?” said Mr. Miller. “Well, perhaps. I have lived in towns most of my life. I couldn’t stand the country, in winter at any rate, if I didn’t go away so much. I came here on my sister’s account, you know.”

  Just before they parted at Amabel’s gate he asked the question which she had begun to expect.

  “And you are really comfortable at the Dower House?”

  “Oh, yes. Why shouldn’t I be?”

  “I don’t know. People don’t seem to stay there. It is said to be haunted.”

  “Yes, that’s what everyone says, but so far nobody has been able to tell me who is supposed to haunt it.”

  “No,” said Mr. Miller dreamily. “No, I’ve noticed that too.”

  Amabel turned into the drive, and was out of sight almost immediately.

  Mr. Miller walked as far as the corner, and then turned back. It is to be supposed that he had again forgotten his sister’s message to Lady Susan. Anyone who had overheard his conversation with Anne Miller the evening before would have been struck at the contrast between his manner then and his manner this afternoon. Ferdinand Miller talking to his sister had had a sharp, matter-of-fact way with him. Ferdinand Miller walking in the lane with Mrs. Grey had seemed a gently dreamy person, amiable and rather absent-minded.

  Amabel came upstairs and found Ellen in coat and hat preparing, as usual, to depart before dusk.

  “And I don’t like leaving you alone, ma’am,” she said, fidgeting in the doorway whilst Amabel took off her hat and changed her shoes.

  “Oh, Ellen, don’t gloom!” said Amabel with a little impatience.

  “Me going ’ome to my tea in a comfortable ’ouse where there wouldn’t be room for a ghost if such was to be the case—the Moorshed boys being three in a room as it is, and me in what you might call a bit taken off of the droring-room.”

  “I shouldn’t have thought there was room for a drawing-room.”

  “A droring-room was what Eliza Moorshed was brought up to,” said Ellen with dignity, “and a droring-room she would ’ave in whatever ’ouse she was in. She’ve got it lovely too—I will say that for her—with a plush suite, and the best Brussels, and her Aunt Arabella’s stuffed birds on the mantelpiece.”

  “Well, that’s very nice. I’m glad you’re so comfortable.”

  Ellen sniffed vigorously.

  “Me going ’ome to me comforts, and you staying ’ere all by your lone self—oh, my dear ma’am, I can’t a-bear it. I’d stay, but what’s the use of my staying? There’s things you can bear, and there’s things you can’t bear, and this ’ouse at night is just what I can’t a-bear, and no blame to me neither, for it’s not in yuman nature.”

  “But, Ellen, I don’t want you to stop, I don’t really. And I do wish you’d cheer up and not be so dreadfully depressing. You know”—she laughed teasingly—“this morning you said that there was nothing the matter with the house but the Browns. Well, I like the Browns, so there’s nothing to worry about, is there?”

  “There’s many a thing we says in the morning that we don’t ’old with at night,” said Ellen with the air of one making a Scriptural pronouncement. “Browns I may ’ave said in the morning, and Browns I may ’ave felt in the morning, seeing that that red-’aired Jenny must needs take it on ’erself to twite me with my sleeping out when I come to-day. ‘We’re all still ’ere,’ she says when I come in; ‘we’re all still living,’ she says—and ‘I ’ope you slept well at Mrs. Moorshed’s,’ she says—the red-haired upstartness of her!”

  “My poor Ellen, what did you say?”

  Ellen drew herself up.

  “I says, ‘Miss Brown, I was brought up a lady’—and I come upstairs.”

  Amabel did not dare to laugh. She bent and re-buttoned a shoe.

  “Well, Ellen, you ought to be going; it’s getting dark. And you needn’t worry about me, because I really do think we let ourselves be frightened by a stray cat. The house has been as quiet as possible the last three nights.”

  “And so it would be,” said Ellen. “So it would be so long as Mr. Julian Forsham was in it. Why I’d stay ’ere ’appy and sleep like a hinfant if ’e was going to be in the ’ouse tonight. It stands to reason there wouldn’t be nothing ’appening with Mr. Julian ’ere.”

  “What do you mean, Ellen? Why won’t anything happen with Mr. Forsham in the house?”

  Ellen tossed her head.

  “Why should it?” she inquired.

  “Well, I don
’t know—why shouldn’t it?”

  A superior smile crossed Ellen’s face.

  “Those that ’aunts this ’ouse won’t ’aunt it when there’s Forshams in it—it stands to reason they won’t. ‘Why,’ says Eliza Moorshed to me last night, ‘can anyone say as ever there was ’air, ’ide, or ’oof of a ghost whilst there was Forshams at the Dower House? It stands to reason,’ she says, ‘that ghosts don’t ’aunt unless they wants something. And plain as a pike-staff it is,’ she says, ‘that they wants the Forshams back, and the more the Forshams don’t come the spitefuller they gets,’—though by all that’s said it isn’t Mr. George Forsham that anyone wants to see back. It’s Mr. Julian as they love, ma’am.”

  She turned to go, and then asked with an innocent assumption of carelessness:

  “You didn’t meet Mr. Julian or anyone whilst you was out, did you, ma’am?”

  “I met Mr. Miller.”

  Amabel put a little distance into her tone. Ellen was obviously disappointed.

  “They do say as ’e’s a German,” she said with a relapse into gloom—“not much liked ’e isn’t.”

  “Poor Mr. Miller, why not?”

  “Very sharp in ’is ways,” said Ellen, “and always a-coming and a-going to foreign parts—and to my mind there’s always something double-faced about folks that their own country’s not good enough for. I says to Eliza Moorshed last night, ‘If we’d been meant to ’ave lived in foreign parts, we’d ha’ been born foreign.’”

  “Perhaps he was born foreign,” said Amabel, laughing. “Do run along, Ellen, or it will be quite dark—and then you’ll say I kept you.”

  Ellen glanced at the window, and a change came over her. It was a subdued and humble person who said,

  “If you would just come as far as the door with me, ma’am. It’s that ’all that I ’ates.”

  Amabel went to the front door with her.

  Chapter XIX

  The house felt very empty as Amabel went upstairs. She got her three oil lamps and lighted them, putting one in the lower hall, one in the passage, and one in her bedroom. The one in the passage stood on a small table between the two bedroom doors. All three lamps gave quite a good light. She noticed that the wicks were nice and level, with no uneven jags.