The people of Somesham, whom Doctor Hardon regulated as to their
internal economy, were of opinion that there was not such another town
as theirs in the whole kingdom; and no doubt they were right. It was
situated at the foot of a range of chalky wolds, and in dry weather
always gave the visitors an idea that its inhabitants were a slovenly
race, and had not dusted their town lately. There was a long, white,
dusty road that led to it on one side, and a long, dusty road that led
to or from it on the other side; there was one long, dusty street, with
shops and private houses mixed up anyhow; there were a few dusty cross
streets which led nowhere; a market-place where pigs squealed and butter
was sold on Tuesdays; a town-hall, combined with a corn-exchange and an
assembly-room, forming an ugly dust-coloured building, which was like
the memoranda and papers in people's pocket-books when they are
advertised as lost--of no value to anyone but the owners; and the
sole use it would have been to them was to sell it for old
building-materials. There were public-houses, and, above all, a
commercial inn, kept by one Mrs Lower, a stout, elderly lady, who had
formerly occupied the post of nurse in Octavius Hardon's house until
such times as a nurse was no longer required, when she did needlework,
and helped in the domestic concerns till her mistress died, and then
acted as housekeeper up to the advent of Agnes Hardon, when one John
Lower, keeper of the County Arms in Somesham market-place, persuaded her
to say "Yes" to the question he had so many times asked her, and she
became landlady of the goodly inn; nurse again to the failing old man
her husband; and lastly, sole owner of the goods, chattels, and
tenements of the said John Lower, who went to his long sleep with a
blessing upon his lips for the good woman who had smoothed the last
hours of his life.
Mrs Lower made a very comfortable widow--one whose hostelry was much
frequented by commercial gentlemen, and those given to running down from
town once or twice a week for the purpose of having a turn with the Low
Wold hounds; stout, as a matter of course, for no woman could be
expected to make a good landlady who was angular or pointed in her
person. Mrs Lower was stout, but not uncomfortably so, and this
stoutness she kept in its proper proportion by a comfortable diet, and
by being a woman without one of those unpleasant parasites known as
cares. Doubtless she had plenty of the little troubles of life to
encounter--those little three-cornered affairs that bother everyone--
matters that to some people would be cares; but in her case, being a
mild, cheerful, and amiable woman, they made but little impression, the
consequence being that these acidities of life never ate into her
countenance, running down it in wrinkles, and puckers, and channels; and
at an age one never dare mention in her presence, or out of it either,
for fear of not being believed, she was plump of face, rosy, and
comfortable-looking, to an extent that made more than one well-to-do
farmer, and tradesman too, make her an offer that she would not accept.
Mrs Lower sat very comfortably enjoying her breakfast in the bar of the
County Arms, which bar was a pleasant-looking glass bower, with a view
one way of the sawdusty passage leading out into the market-place, and
in the other direction a prospect of divers pendent articles of
consumption--to wit, a turkey, joints of mutton and beef, poultry, and a
couple of long-tailed pheasants. There was a cozy air about Mrs
Lower's bar, for everything in it looked snug, from the big-stomached
bottles to the great tom-cat blinking on the hearth-rug. No fireplace
ever shone to such an extent as Mrs Lower's, for it was a very race
between black-lead and flame which should glow most, the result being a
warm combination, in which the fender, copper tea-kettle, and fire-irons
joined, and which every bottle, glass, and object with shine in its
composition laughed over and reflected. Everything in Mrs Lower's cozy
bar seemed in keeping, and as if belonging to it--beginning with the
principal object animate, Mrs Lower herself, and descending through the
blind, fat spaniel and the black, blinking tom-cat, to the stout
bullfinch in the cage hung in the window--a finch so fat that he very
seldom hopped, while there was a general aspect about him that his
feather jacket was too tight, for it never seemed smooth. There was a
tradition that this bullfinch used to pipe "God save the King;" but that
when William the Fourth died, he went into mourning for him, and had
never opened his beak to honour the successor. True or not, Mrs Lower
believed it; and at all events, if people doubted the bird's age, she
could declare the part of the story to be true which related to its
never opening its beak to pipe the anthem in its altered form.
Mrs Lower mostly had "a snack," as she termed it, for her breakfast;
such snack being generally something very savoury and appetising, and
frequently taking the form of mushrooms, devilled drumsticks, or
kidneys; while Hides, the butcher in the market-place, had been known to
tell fibs, his wife said, on Mrs Lower's account, and to deny that he
had any sweetbreads when even aristocratic customers had wanted them, so
that Mrs Lower might not be disappointed. But then Mrs Lower was no
mean customer; and Hides said, with a wink to his wife, her money was
always there when he wanted it, and that was more than some people's was
who held their heads very high. Mrs Hardon had been heard to say that
she believed Hides' calves never had any sweetbreads--a remark conveyed,
per the cook, to Hides himself, at a time when that gentleman evinced
very little pleasure in supplying the Hardon house, and always made a
point of sending in dry beef and mean tough mutton.
But Mrs Lower could always have sweetbreads, and she was enjoying one
cooked to perfection, sipping too, from time to time, a fine rich cup of
tea, with an odour of a great-many-spoons-to-the-pot power, when
Charles, head--and foot--waiter, made his appearance at the bar-door,
with his head on one side, and a sharp cocksparrow-look about him, from
his beaky nose, prominent chest, and thin legs,--his tail-coat aiding
the simile.
"Heard the news, mem?" said Charles, raising the napkin he carried over
his arm, and nearly wiping his nose upon it by mistake.
"No, Charles," said Mrs Lower, peeping into the pot by raising the lid.
"The whole town, mem, 's in a--"
"Take that pot out, Charles, and put in one cupful,--not more, the
tea-kettle's low, and the water's all furry."
"Yes, mem; town's in a fermin, mem, and--"
"One cupful mind, Charles," said Mrs Lower, interrupting him.
"Fermin, mem," continued Charles, "and--"
"Bless the man, go and fill the pot!" exclaimed Mrs Lower. "No--no!
not fill it--one cup, Charles;" and the waiter disappeared.
"And now what's the matter?" said Mrs Lower blandly, as, somewhat
ruffled and reticent, Charles brought back the pot, having forgotten
that the most important matter to Mrs Lower at meal-time was the meal
itself.
"Matter, mem--why, everything's the matter--burglary and robbery, and
murder almost; and all sorts, mem," said Charles, again making a dash at
his napkin, but recollecting himself in time in favour of a red-silk
handkerchief.
"Nonsense!" said Mrs Lower, thoroughly enjoying a piece of the very
brownest sweetbread outside, rich in glorious osmazome; "nonsense,
Charles!" and so far from being startled, she cut two or three
dice-shaped pieces of bread, soaked them in the rich gravy, and went on
enjoying her breakfast.
"Fact, mem, I assure you," said Charles. "That's what Keenings sent for
our fly for, mem."
"What for? the burglars or the murderers, Charles?" said Mrs Lower
composedly.
"No, mem; neither, mem; but ordered it at eight, mem, to go to the
Grange, to fetch the doctor, mem."
"What, Mr Brande?" said Mrs Lower, taking a little more interest in
the matter.
"No, mem; old Hardon, mem," said Charles.
"But he never goes to the Grange, Charles; it's all a mistake."
"No, mem, not a bit," exclaimed Charles. "Jem's in the yard now, mem,
just come back from Hardon's, and he helped the doctor in and out, too;
and Mrs Hardon coming flying down in her dressing-gownd as soon as they
got him down home, and a-going on dreadful, and saying it was all a
judgment for not forgiving Miss Hagniss; and the doctor taking three men
to carry him, being heavy and cold, and almost dead; and Mr Brande's
with him, mem, they say now." Charles paused for breath.
"But what was it all? what does it mean?" cried Mrs Lower, stirring her
tea with her knife.
"Why, mem, that's what I'm a-telling you: it's a burglary, you know,"
said Charles excitedly. "The Grange attacked by robbers, and the doctor
tied in a chair with the clothes-line, and laid down on his back, as Mr
Keening and Doctor Brande found him, with a knife stuck in his throat."
"But not dead?" exclaimed Mrs Lower.
"O, no, mem, only stuck so as he couldn't speak."
"And where was Squire Octy?" cried Mrs Lower, quite forgetting the
remains of her sweetbread.
"Why, didn't I tell you, mem? Tied down in another chair, and Mrs
Berry, the housekeeper, tied down in her bed, with a blanket over her
head, and she got loose at six o'clock this morning, and came over and
alarmed the town. Says she'll never go back any more. Gang of ten
ruffians with black faces, and the police are on their tract."
"But about Squire Octy, Charles. How's he?"
"Not hurt a mossle, mem, so they says. Jem says that he heard as Mr
Keening cut the rope when he went in, and the old gentleman got up and
shook hisself, and then took a spoonful of loddlum, and he was all right
again directly, and stood laughing at his brother, the doctor, mem, who
was strange and bad."
"And no one knew anything about it?" said Mrs Lower.
"Not a word, mem," cried Charles, "and it's a mercy as we weren't all
murdered, I'm sure. And Jem says he saw old Squire Octy laugh when they
lifted the doctor into the fly, while he'd got no chain, nor studs, nor
rings, as you know he wears a lot of them things, mem."
Mrs Lower nodded.
"And I hear as all the plate's gone; and they've had the wine, and I
don't know what, mem; but what caps all, mem, was for the squire, old
Mr Octy, mem, to be quite laughing like, and Jem says he looks more
like an old ghost than anything, mem, with a black-velvet cap and a
dressin-gownd."
A ringing bell summoned Charles away, and, quite forgetful of the
remainder of her breakfast, Mrs Lower sat thinking of her old master in
his present character of the facsimile of a ghost in a black-velvet cap
and a dressing-gown, thinking of the changes in the family, wondering,
too, what had become of the doctor's daughter, Agnes; but above all, of
the shabby-looking elderly man whom she always spoke of as "Master Sep."
Volume One, Chapter XIV.