TELEGRAPHING FOR A PHYSICIAN.
Some uncomfortable days passed on. Uncomfortable in one sense. Heaven
knows I was happy enough, for the society of Mr. Chandos had become all
too dear, and in it I was basking away the golden hours. Looking back
now I cannot sufficiently blame myself. Not for staying at Chandos; I
could not help that; but for allowing my heart to yield unresistingly
to the love. How could I suppose it would end? Alas! that was what I
never so much as thought of: the present was becoming too much of an
Elysium for me to look questioning beyond it; it was as a very haven of
sweet and happy rest.
With some of the other inmates, things seemed to be anything but easy.
Lady Chandos was still invisible; and, by what I could gather, growing
daily worse. Mr. Chandos, his lameness better, looked bowed down with a
weight of apprehensive care. Hill was in a state of fume and fret; and
the women-servants, meeting in odd corners, spoke whisperingly of the
figure that nightly haunted Chandos.
What astonished me more than anything was, that no medical man was
called in to Lady Chandos. Quite unintentionally, without being able to
help myself, I overheard a few words spoken between Hill and Mr.
Chandos. That Lady Chandos was dangerously ill, and medical aid an
absolute necessity, appeared indisputable; and yet it seemed they did
not dare to summon it. It was a riddle unfathomable. The surgeon from
Hetton, Mr. Dickenson, came still to Mr. Chandos every day. What would
have been easier than for him to go up to Lady Chandos? He never did,
however; he was not asked to do so. Day after day he would say, "How is
Lady Chandos?" and Mr. Chandos's reply would be, "Much the same."
The omission also struck on Mrs. Penn. One day, when she had come into
my chamber uninvited, she spoke of it abruptly, looking full in my
face, in her keen way.
"How is it they don't have a doctor to her?"
"What is the use of asking me, Mrs. Penn? I cannot tell why they
don't."
"Do you never hear Mr. Chandos say why?"
"Never. At the beginning of her illness, he said his mother knew how to
treat herself, and that she had a dislike to doctors."
"There's more in it than that, I think," returned Mrs. Penn, in a tone
of significance. "That surly Hill wont answer a single question. All I
get out of her is, 'My lady's no better.' Mrs. Chandos goes into the
west wing most days, but she is as close as Hill. The fact is—it is
very unfortunate, but Mrs. Chandos appears to have taken a dislike to
me."
"Taken a dislike to you!"
Mrs. Penn nodded. "And not a word upon any subject, save the merest
conversational trifles, will she speak. But I have my own opinion of
Lady Chandos's illness: if I am right, their reticence is accounted
for."
Again the tone was so significant that I could but note it, and looked
to her for an explanation. She dropped her voice as she gave it.
"I think that the malady which has attacked Lady Chandos is not bodily,
but mental; and that they, in consequence, keep her in seclusion. Poor
woman! She has had enough trouble to drive her mad."
"Oh, Mrs. Penn! Mad!"
"I mean what I say."
"But did you not have an interview with her when you came?"
"Yes, a short one. Harry Chandos was sitting with her, and went out,
after a few words to me, staying in the next room. It seemed to me that
she was impatient to have him back again: any way, she cut the meeting
very short. I am bound to say that she appeared collected then."
Mrs. Penn lifted her hand, glittering with rings, to her brow as she
spoke, and pushed slightly back her glowing hair. Her face looked
troubled—that kind of trouble that arises from perplexity.
"Allowing it to be as you fancy, Mrs. Penn, they would surely have a
doctor to her. Any medical man, if requested, would keep the secret."
"Ah! it's not altogether that, I expect," returned Mrs. Penn, with a
curious look. "You would keep it, and I would keep it, as inmates of
the family; and yet you see how jealously we are excluded. I suspect
the true motive is, that they dare not risk the revelations she might
make."
"What revelations?"
"You do not, perhaps, know it, Miss Hereford, but there is a sword
hanging over the Chandos family," she continued, dropping her voice to
a whisper. "An awful sword. It is suspended by a hair; and a chance
word of betrayal might cause it to fall. Of that chance word the
Chandoses live in dread. Lady Chandos, if she be really insane, might
inadvertently speak it."
"Over which of them?" I exclaimed, in dismay.
"I had rather not tell you which. It lies over them all, so to say. It
is that, beyond question, which keeps Sir Thomas in India: when the
blow comes, he can battle with it better there than at home. They lie
under enough disgrace as it is: they will lie under far greater then."
"They appear to be just those quiet, unpretending, honourable people
who could not invoke disgrace. They—surely you cannot be alluding to
Miss Chandos's runaway marriage!" I broke off, as the thought occurred
to me.
"Tush! Runaway marriages are as good as others for what I see," avowed
Mrs. Penn, with careless creed. "I question if Miss Chandos even knows
of the blow that fell on them. I tell you, child, it was a fearful one.
It killed old Sir Thomas; it must be slowly killing Lady Chandos. Do
you not observe how they seclude themselves from the world?"
"They might have plenty of visitors if they chose."
"They _don't_ have them. Any one in the secret would wonder if they
did. Looking back, there's the disgrace that has fallen; looking
forward, there's the terrible blow that has yet to fall."
"What is the nature of the disgrace?—what is the blow?"
Mrs. Penn shook her head resolutely. "I am unable to tell you, for two
reasons. It is not my place to reveal private troubles of the family
sheltering me; and its details would not be meet for a young lady's
ears. Ill doings generally leave their consequences behind them—as they
have here. Harry Chandos——"
"There is no ill-doing attaching to _him_," I interrupted, a great deal
too eagerly.
A smile of derision parted the lips of Mrs. Penn. I saw that it must be
one of two things—Harry Chandos was not a good man, or else Mrs. Penn
disliked him.
"You don't know," she said. "And if you did, Harry Chandos can be
nothing to you."
Her light eyes were turned on me with a searching look, and my cheeks
went into a red heat. Mrs. Penn gathered her conclusions.
"Child," she impressively said, "if you are acquiring any liking for
Harry Chandos, _dis_-acquire it. Put the thought of him far from you.
That he may be a pleasant man in intercourse, I grant; but he must not
become too pleasant to you, or to any other woman. Never waste your
heart on a man who cannot marry."
"Cannot _he_ marry?"
"No. But I am saying more than I ought," she suddenly added. "We get
led on unconsciously in talking, and one word brings out another."
I could have boxed her ears in my vexation. Never, never had the idea
of marrying Mr. Chandos crossed my mind; no, not in the wildest dream
of dreams. I was a poor dependent governess; he was the presumptive
heir to Sir Thomas Chandos.
"To return to what I was saying of Lady Chandos," resumed Mrs. Penn.
"Rely upon it, I am right: that she has been suddenly afflicted with
insanity. There is no other way of accounting for the mystery attaching
to that west wing."
I sat down to think when she left me. To think. Could it possibly be
true, her theory?—were there sufficient apparent grounds for it? My
poor brain—bewildered with the strange events passing around on the
surface or beneath the surface, this new supposition one of the
strangest—was unable to decide.
Had somebody come in to say I'd had a fortune left me, I could not have
been more surprised than when Hill appeared with a gracious face. Lady
Chandos's carriage was going into Marden on an errand—would I like the
drive there and back? It might be a change for me.
"You dear good Hill!" I cried, in my delight. "I'll never call you
cross again."
"Then just please to put your things on at once, and leave off talking
nonsense, Miss Hereford," was Hill's reproval.
Again, as before, it was a lovely day, and altogether the greatest
treat they could have given me. I liked the drive, and I liked the
state it was taken in. A magnificent carriage and horses, powdered
servants, and one pretty girl seated inside. Which was ME!
It was a good opportunity to inquire after my lost handkerchief, and I
told James to stop at Mrs. Howard's. Accordingly the carriage drew up
there the first thing. But the answer was not satisfactory. Mrs. Howard
was gone. "On the Continent," they believed.
"When will she be back?" I asked, leaning from the carriage to speak.
The servant girl, rather a dirty one and slipshod, did not know. Not at
all, she thought. Mrs. Howard had left for good.
"But does Mrs. Howard not live here? Is not this her house?"
"No, ma'am. She lodged here for a little while; that was all."
I don't know why the information struck on my mind as curious, but it
did so. Why should she have been there one day, as it were, and be gone
the next? It might be all right, however, and I fanciful. Mrs. Penn had
said—Mrs. Howard herself had said—she was going to visit her daughter
in Brussels. Only I had thought she lived in that house at Marden.
That evening I found I had to dine alone. Mr. Chandos was rather
poorly, not able to eat any dinner, Hickens said. How solitary it was
to me, nobody knows.
Afterwards, when I was sitting at the window in the dusk, he came
downstairs. He had been in the west wing nearly all day. Opening his
desk, he took out a bundle of letters: which appeared to be what he had
come for.
"You must feel lonely, Miss Hereford?"
"A little, sir."
"That 'sir!'" he said, with a smile. "I am sorry not to be able to be
down here with you. When I get better, we will have our pleasant times
again."
I was standing up by the table. He held out his hand to shake mine.
Thin and shadowy he always looked, but his face wore a grey hue in the
dusk of the room.
"I fear you are very ill, sir. Suppose it should be the fever?"
"It is not the fever."
"But how can you tell it is not?"
"Do not be alarmed. It is nothing but—but what I have had before.
Good-night, and take care of yourself."
His tone was strangely sad, his spirits were evidently depressed, and a
foreboding of ill fell upon me. It was not lessened when I heard that a
bed was made up for him in the west wing, that Lady Chandos and Hill
might be within call in the night in case of need.
Therefore, when consternation broke over the house next morning, I was
half prepared for it. Mr. Chandos was alarmingly ill, and a telegraphic
express had gone up at dawn for a London physician.
It was so sudden, so unexpected, that none of the household seemed able
to comprehend it. As to Hill, she bustled about like one demented. A
large table was placed at the west wing door, and things likely to be
wanted in the sickroom were carried up and put there, ready to her
hand.
The physician, a Dr. Amos, arrived in the afternoon, the carriage
having been sent to await him at the Hetton terminus. A slight-made
man, dressed in black, with a Roman nose, and glasses resting on it.
Hickens marshalled him to the door of the west wing, where Hill
received him.
He stayed a long while; but they said he was taking refreshments as
well as seeing his patient. The servants all liked Mr. Chandos, and
they stood peeping in doorways, anxious for the doctor to come out.
Hill came down and caught them, a jug in hand.
"Hill, do wait a moment and tell me!" I cried, as they flew away. "Does
he find Mr. Chandos dangerously ill?"
"There's a change for the better," she answered. "Mr. Chandos will be
about again to-morrow or next day. For goodness sake don't keep me with
questions now, Miss Hereford!"
Not I. I did not care to keep her after that good news; and I ran away
as light as a bird.
The carriage drew up to the portico and Dr. Amos came down to it
attended by Hickens and Hill. After he passed the parlour-door, I
looked out of it, and saw Mr. Dexter come up. He had heard the news of
Mr. Chandos's illness, and had come to inquire after him. Seeing the
gentleman, who carried physician in his every look, about to step into
the carriage, Mr. Dexter had no difficulty in divining who he was.
Raising his hat, he accosted him.
"I hope, sir, you have not found Mr. Harry Chandos seriously ill?"
"Mr. Harry Chandos is very ill indeed!—very ill!" replied Dr. Amos, who
appeared to be a pleasant man. "I fear there are but faint hopes of
him."
"Good heavens!" cried the thunderstruck agent when he was able to
speak. "But faint hopes? How awfully sudden it must have come on!"
"Sudden? Not at all. It has been coming on for some time. He may have
grown rapidly worse, if you mean that. In saying but faint hopes, I
mean, of course, of his eventual recovery. He'll not be quite laid by
yet."
Dr. Amos entered the carriage with the last words, and it drove away,
leaving his hearers to digest them; leaving me, I know, with a mist
before my eyes and pulses that had ceased to beat. Hill's sharp tones
broke the silence, bearing harshly upon Mr. Dexter.
"What on earth need _you_ have interfered for? Can't a doctor come and
go from a place but he must be smothered with questions? If you have
got anything to ask, you can ask me."
"Why, Mrs. Hill, what do you mean?" remonstrated the agent. "I intended
no harm, and I have done no harm. But what a pitiable thing about Mr.
Chandos!"
"Doctors are not oracles always," snapped Hill. "My opinion's as good
as his, and I know Mr. Chandos _will_ get better: there's every chance
that he'll be about to-morrow. The bad symptoms seem to be going off as
sudden as they came on."
"Hill," I whispered, laying hold of her gown as she was flouncing past
me, "you say he may be about to-morrow; but will he get well
eventually?"
"That's another affair," answered Hill.
"Dr. Amos said it had been coming on a long while," I pursued,
detaining her still. "What complaint is it?"
"It's just a complaint that you had better not ask about, for your
curiosity can't be satisfied, Miss Hereford," was Hill's response, as
she broke away.
Broke away, leaving me. In my dreadful uncertainty, I went up to
Hickens, who was standing still, looking so sad, and asked him to tell
me what was the matter with Mr. Chandos.
"I don't know any more than you, Miss. Mr. Chandos has had a vast deal
of grief and trouble, and it may be telling upon him. He has looked ill
of late."
No comfort anywhere—no comfort. How I got through the day I don't know.
It seemed as if I had received my death-knell, instead of he his.
Hill's opinion, in one respect, proved to be a correct one, for the
next day Mr. Chandos appeared to the household. He came down about
twelve o'clock, looking pale and subdued—but so he often looked—and I
must say I could not detect much change in him. Starting from my seat
in the oak-parlour, as he entered it, went up to him in the impulse of
the moment. He took both my hands.
"Glad to see me again?"
"Yes, I am glad," I whispered, calming down my excitement, and
swallowing the intrusive tears that had risen. "Mr. Chandos, are you so
very ill?"
"Who has been telling you that I am?" he inquired, walking to an
arm-chair by help of my shoulder, for his ankle was weak yet, but not
releasing me when he had sat down in it.
"I heard Dr. Amos say so. He said——"
"What did he say? Why do you stop?"
I could not answer. I could not disclose the opinion I had heard.
"I suppose you were within hearing when the doctor said he had but
faint hopes of me?"
"Yes, I was. But, Mr. Chandos, who could have told you that Dr. Amos
said it?"
"I was told," he smiled. "All are not so cautious as you, my little
maid."
"But I hope it is not true. I hope you will get well."
"Would it give you any concern if I did not?"
My face flushed as I stood before him. Instead of answering, I bent it
like a culprit—like a simpleton.
"I may cheat the doctors yet," he said, cheerfully.
"Have you been ill long?"
"I have not been quite well. Anxiety of mind sometimes takes its
revenge upon the body."
He moved away to his desk as he spoke, which stood on a side-table. It
was quite evident he did not wish to pursue the topic. What could I do
but let it drop? Taking up my work, I carried it to the window, while
he stood rummaging the desk, evidently searching for something. Every
individual thing was at length turned out of it and put back again.
"Well, it's very strange!"
"What is it, sir?" That sir! as he would say. But I felt too shy, in my
new and all-conscious feeling for him, to discard it entirely.
He had missed his note-book. One he was in the habit of using for any
purpose; as a sort of diary, and also to enter business matters. That
he had locked it up in his desk when he last wrote in it, two days ago,
he felt absolutely certain.
"Have you left your keys about, sir?"
"I don't know. I generally put them in my pocket. But if I did leave
them about, nobody would use them. Our servants are honest."
The book, however, could not be found. Mr. Chandos looked for it, I
looked, the servants looked. He said, in a joking sort of manner, that
some sleight-of-hand must have been at work; and sat down to write a
letter. I saw its address: London, Henry Amos, M.D.
While making tea for Mr. Chandos in the evening, a discussion arose
about the date of Emily's last letter, and I ran to my room to get it.
Just within the door I encountered Lizzy Dene, darting out with a haste
that nearly knocked me down.
"What did you want in my room, Lizzy?"
She murmured some incoherent answer about taking the housemaid's place
that evening. A lame excuse. All work connected with the chambers had
to be done by daylight; it was a rule of the house. I had had doubts,
vague and indefinable, of Lizzy Dene for some days—that the girl was
not altogether what she seemed. She looked red and confused now.
Emily's letter was not to be found. And yet I knew that I had tied it
up with two or three others and left the packet in a certain
compartment of my smaller trunk. Both boxes looked as though they had
been searched over, for the things were not as I placed them. But I
missed nothing, except the letters. Lizzy was in the gallery now,
peering out at the window close by I called to her to come in, and bade
her shut the door.
"Boxes opened! Letters gone!" she retorted, in a passionate tone—though
I had only mentioned the fact. "I have never laid a finger on anything
belonging to you, Miss. It's come to a pretty pass if I am to be
suspected of that."
"Will you tell me what you were doing in my room, Lizzy?"
"No I wont!" Doggedly.
"I insist upon knowing: or I shall call Mrs. Hill."
"Well then, I _will_ tell; I can't be hung for it," she returned, with
sudden resolution. "I came into your room, Miss, to look for something
in the grounds that I thought might come there."
"The ghost?" I said, incautiously.
"So _you_ know of it, Miss!" was her answer. "Yes; it is walking again:
and I'm veering round to their way of thought. Mrs. Hill has locked up
the turret, so that lookout is barred to us."
She pulled open the door with a jerk, and departed. The draught of air
blew out my frail wax taper, and I went to the window: Lizzy had left
the curtains and shutters open. I had no fear; it never occurred to me
that there could be anything to see. But superstition is catching,
and—what did my eyes rest upon?
In the old spot, hovering about the entrance to the pine-walk, was a
man's shadowy figure; the one I had been told to believe was looked
upon as the ghost of Sir Thomas Chandos.
These things can be laughed at in the open day in the broad sunshine.
We are ready then to brave ghosts, to acknowledge them to be myths of
the fancy, as indisputably as we know the bogies of children to be
puppets dressed up to frighten them; but all alone in the darkness the
case is different. I was by myself on that vast floor; Lizzy Dene had
gone down, the wing-doors were shut, silence reigned. Once more terror
got the better of me, the pacing figure was all too shadowy, and
downstairs I flew, crossed the lighted hall, and burst into the
oak-parlour to Mr. Chandos.
"Have you been waiting to re-write the letter?" he asked, "oblivious
that your tea stood here, getting cold!"
I could make no answer just yet, but sank into my seat with a white
face.
"You look as though you had seen a ghost," he jestingly said.
And then I burst into tears, just for a moment; the effect no doubt of
nervous excitement. Mr. Chandos rose at once, his manner changing to
one of tender kindness.
"Has anything alarmed you?"
"I cannot find Madame de Mellissie's letter," was all I answered,
feeling vexed with myself.
"But that is not the cause of _this_. Something has frightened you.
Come, Miss Hereford; I must know what it is," he concluded, with that
quiet command of manner so few resist.
I did not: perhaps did not care to: and told him briefly what had
occurred. Not mentioning suspicions of Lizzy Dene or what she said; but
simply that the woman had opened the door too hastily, thereby putting
my candle out—and then on to what I had seen.
"It must have been one of the gardeners," he quietly observed. "Why
should that have alarmed you?"
That the gardeners never remained in the gardens after twilight,
obeying the strict orders of the house, I knew. "Not a gardener," I
answered, "but a ghost." And, taking courage, I told him all I had
heard—that a ghost was said to walk nightly in the grounds.
"Whose ghost?" he asked, with angry sharpness.
"Your late father's, sir; Sir Thomas Chandos."
He turned quickly to the mantelpiece, put his elbow on it, and stood
there with his back to me. But that his face had looked so troubled, I
might have thought he did it to indulge in a quiet laugh.
"Miss Hereford, you cannot seriously believe in such nonsense!"
"No, indeed; not in collected moments; but I was left alone in the
dark, and the surprise at seeing some one changed to fright."
"May I inquire from whom you heard this fine tale?"
"From Mrs. Penn first. But the women-servants talk of it. Lizzy Dene
confessed she had gone up now to watch for it?"
He turned round quickly. "_What_ do you say? Lizzy Dene went up to
watch for it?"
"I was not pleased at finding Lizzy in my room; she has no business to
call her there, and I insisted upon knowing what took her to it. At
first she would not say, but presently confessed: she had gone to watch
for the ghost."
If ever a man's countenance betrayed a sickly dread, Mr. Chandos's did
then. He went to the door, hesitated, and came back again, as if
scarcely knowing what to be about.
"And she saw it?—saw some one walking there? She, and you?"
"I don't think she did; I saw it after she had gone. Oh, Mr. Chandos; I
can see you are angry with me! I am very sorry; I——"
"Angry? no," he interrupted, in a gentle tone. "I only think how
foolish you must be to listen to anything of the sort. I wish I could
have shielded you from this alarm! I wish you had not come just now to
Chandos!"
He rang the bell; a loud peal; and desired that Hill should be sent to
him. I had never seen his face so stern as when he turned it upon her.
"Can you not contrive to keep the women-servants to their proper
occupations, Hill? I hear they are going about the house looking after
ghosts."
"Sir! Mr. Harry!"
"Miss Hereford went to her room just now, and found Lizzy Dene at its
window. The woman said she was watching for the ghost."
Hill's face presented a picture. She stood more like a petrifaction
than a living woman. Mr. Chandos recalled her to herself.
"Hill!" was all he said.
"I'll see about it, sir. I'll give that Lizzy Dene a word of a sort."
"I think you had better give her no 'word' at all, in the sense you
indicate," returned Mr. Chandos. "Keep the women to their duties below
at night, and say nothing. _Let the ghost die out, Hill_."
"Very well, sir."
"As I daresay it will do, quietly enough. Sit with them yourself, if
necessary. And—Hill—there's no necessity to mention anything of this to
Lady Chandos."
"But—Mr. Harry——"
"Yes, yes; I know what you would say," he interrupted; "leave that to
me."
He went limping out at the hall-door as he spoke. Hill disappeared in
the direction of the kitchens, muttering angrily. . "That beast of a
Lizzy! If she should get spreading this among the out-door men! I
always said that girl brought no good to Chandos."