as if she had not told all her tale, "there came a loud whistling and
shouting behind. Which was young Jim Batley, bringing some message from
them sisters of his to Harriet Roe. I bade him hush his noise, but he
only danced and mocked at me; so then I told him the cottage was empty,
except for David Garth. That hushed him. He came stealing up, and stood
by me, staring. You should have seen his face change, Mr. Tom."
"Was he frightened?"
"Frightened is hardly the word for it, sir. His teeth began to chatter,
as if he had a fit; and down he went at last like a stone, face first,
howling fearful. We couldn't hardly get him up again to come away, me
and Hill. And as to the ghost, Mr. Tom, it _was_ still there."
"Well, it is a queer tale," acknowledged Tom Coney.
"We made for the road, all three of us then, and I turned on here--and
I didn't half like coming by the barn where Maria Lease saw Daniel
Ferrar," candidly added Dinah. "T'other two went on their opposite way,
Jim never letting go of Hill's coat-tails."
There was no more Pope Joan that night. We carried the story indoors;
and I mentioned also what had been said to Miss Timmens. The Squire and
old Coney laughed.
With David Garth's ghost to be seen, it could not be supposed that I, or
Tod, or Tom Coney, should stay away from the sight. When we reached the
place, some twenty people had collected round the house. Jim Batley had
told the tale in North Crabb.
But curious watchers had seen nothing. Neither did we. For the bright
night had changed to darkness. A huge curtain of cloud had come up from
the south, covering the moon and the best part of the sky, as a pall
covers a coffin. If gazing could have brought a ghost to the window,
there would assuredly have been one. The casement was at the end of the
house; serving to light the narrow upstairs passage. A huge cherry-tree
hid the casement in summer; very slightly its bare branches obscured it
now.
A sound, as of some panting animal, came up beside me as I leaned on the
side palings. I turned; and saw the bailiff. Some terrible power of
fascination had brought him back again, against his will.
"So it is gone, Hill, you see."
"It's not gone, Mr. Johnny," was his answer. "For some of our sights,
it'll never go away again. You look well at the right-hand side, sir,
and see if you don't see some'at white there."
Peering steadily, I thought I did see something white--as of a face
above a white garment. But it might have been fancy.
"Us as saw _him_ couldn't mistake it for fancy," was Hill's rejoinder.
"There was three on us: me, and Dinah up at Coney's, and that there imp
of a Jim Batley."
"Some one saw it before you did, Hill. At least he says so. Luke
Macintosh. He was scared out of his senses."
The effect of these words on Hill was such, that I quite believed he was
scared out of _his_. He clasped his hands in wild emotion, and turned up
his eyes to give thanks.
"It's ret'ibution a working its ends, Mr. Ludlow. See it first, did he!
And I hope to my heart he'll see it afore his eyes evermore. If that
there Macintosh had not played a false and coward's game, no harm 'ud
ha' come to Davvy."
The crowd increased. The Squire and old Coney came up, and told the
whole assemblage that they were born idiots. Of course, with nothing
to be seen, it looked as though we all were that. In the midst of it,
making quietly for the back-door, as though he had come home through
Crabb Ravine from Timberdale, I espied Louis Roe. Saying nothing to any
one, I went round and told him.
"David Garth's ghost in the place!" he exclaimed. "Why, it will frighten
my wife to death. Of course there's nothing of the sort; but women are
so foolishly timid."
I said his wife was not there. Roe took a key from his pocket, unlocked
the back-door, and went in. He was talking to me, and I stepped over the
threshold to the kitchen, into which the door opened. He began feeling
on the shelf for matches, and could not find any.
"There's a box in the bedroom, I know," he said; and went stumbling
upstairs.
Down he came, after a minute or so, with the matches, struck one, and
lighted a candle. Opening the front door, he showed himself, explained
that he had just come home, and complained of the commotion.
"There's no such thing in this lower world as ghosts," said Roe.
"Whoever pretends to see them must be either drunk or mad. As to this
house--well, some of you had better walk in and re-assure yourselves.
You are welcome."
He was taken at his word. A few came in, and went looking about for
the ghost, upstairs and down. Writing about it now, it seems to have
been the most ridiculous thing in the world. Nothing was to be found.
The narrow passage above, where David had stood, was empty. "As if
supernatural visitants waited while you looked for them!" cried the
superstitious crowd outside.
It is easier to raise a disturbance of this kind than to allay it, and
the ghost-seers stayed on. The heavy cloud in the heavens rolled away
by-and-by; and the moon came out, and shone on the casement again. But
neither David Garth nor anything else was then to be seen there.
* * * * *
The night's commotion passed away, but not the rumours. That David
Garth's spirit could not rest, but came back to trouble the earth,
especially that spot known as Willow Cottage, was accepted as a fact.
People would go stealing up there at night, three or four of them
arm-in-arm, and stand staring at the casement, and walk round the
cottage. Nothing more was to be seen--perhaps because there was no moon
to light up the window. Harriet Roe was at home again with her husband;
but she did not go abroad much: and her face seemed to wear a sort of
uneasy terror. "The fear of seeing _him_ is wearing her heart out; why
does Roe stop in the place?" said North Crabb: and though Harriet had
never been much of a favourite, she had plenty of sympathy now.
It soon came to be known in a gradual sort of way that a visitor was
staying at Willow Cottage. A young woman fashionably dressed, who was
called Mrs. James; and who was said to be the wife of James Roe, Louis
Roe's elder brother. Some people declared that a man was also there:
they had seen one. Harriet denied it. An acquaintance of her husband's,
a Mr. Duffy, had been over to see them from Birmingham, she said, but he
went back again. She was not believed.
What with the ghost, and what with the mystery attaching to its
inhabitants, Willow Cottage was a great card just then. If you ask me
to explain what mystery there could be, I cannot do so: all I know is,
an idea that there was something of the kind, apart from David, dawned
upon many minds in North Crabb. Miss Timmens spoke it openly. She did
not like Harriet's looks, and said that something or other was killing
her. And Susan Timmens considered it her duty to try and come to the
bottom of it.
At all sorts of hours, seasonable and unseasonable, Miss Timmens
presented herself at Willow Cottage. Rarely alone. Sometimes Mrs. Hill
would be with her; or it would be Maria Lease; or one of the Batley
girls; and once it was young Jim. Louis Roe grew to feel annoyed at
this; he told Harriet he would not have confounded people coming there,
prying; and he closed the door against them. So, the next time Miss
Timmens went, she found the door bolted in the most inhospitable manner.
Harriet threw open the parlour window to speak to her.
"Louis says he won't have any more visitors calling here just now; not
even you, Aunt Susan."
"What does he say that for?" snapped Miss Timmens.
"We came down here to be quiet: he has some accounts to go over, and
can't be disturbed at them. So perhaps you'll stay away, Aunt Susan.
I'll come to the school-house sometimes instead."
It was the dusk of the evenings but Miss Timmens could see the fearful
look of illness on Harriet's face. She was also trembling.
"Harriet, what's the matter with you?" she asked, in a kinder tone.
"Nothing."
"_Nothing!_ Why, you look as ill as you can look. You are trembling all
over."
"It's true I don't feel very well this evening, aunt, but I think it is
nothing. I often feel as if I had a touch of ague."
Miss Timmens bent her face nearer; it had a strange concern in it.
"Harriet, look here. There's some mystery about this place; won't you
tell me what it is? I--seem--to--be--afraid--for--_you_," she concluded,
in a slow and scarcely audible whisper.
For answer, Miss Timmens found the window slammed down in her face. An
impression arose--she hardly knew whence gathered, or whether it had any
foundation--that it was not Harriet who had slammed it, but some one
concealed behind the curtain.
"Well I'm sure!" cried she. "It might have taken my nose off."
"It was so cold, aunt!" Harriet called out apologetically through the
glass. "Good night."
Miss Timmens walked off in dudgeon. Revolving matters along the broad
field-path, she liked their appearance less and less. Harriet was
looking as ill as possible: and what meant that trembling? Was it caused
by sickness of body, or terror of mind? Mrs. Hill, when consulted,
summed it up comprehensively: "It is David about the place: _that's_
killing her."
Harriet Roe did not make her appearance at the school-house, and the
next day but one Miss Timmens went up again. The door was bolted. Miss
Timmens knocked, but received no answer. Not choosing to be treated in
that way she made so much noise, first at the door and then at the
window, that the former was at length unclosed by Mrs. James, in list
shoes and a dressing-gown, as if her toilette had been delayed that day.
The chain was kept up--a new chain that Miss Timmens had not seen
before--and she could not enter.
"I want to see Harriet, Mrs. James."
"Harriet's gone," replied Mrs. James.
"Gone! Gone where?"
"To London. She went off there yesterday morning."
Miss Timmens felt, as she would have said, struck into herself. An idea
flashed over her that the words had not a syllable of truth in them.
"What did she go to London for?"
Mrs. James glanced over her two shoulders, seemingly in terror herself,
and sunk her voice to a whisper. "She had grown afraid of the place,
this dark winter weather. Miss Timmens--it's as true as you're
there--nothing would persuade her out of the fancy that she was always
seeing David Garth. He used to stand in a sheet at the end of the
upstairs passage and look at her. Leastways, _she_ said so."
This nearly did for Miss Timmens. It might be true; and she could not
confute it. "Do _you_ see him, Mrs. James?"
"Well, no; I never have. Goodness knows, I don't want to."
"But Harriet was not well enough to take a long journey," contended Miss
Timmens. "She never could have undertaken one in her state of health."
"I don't know what you mean by 'state,' Miss Timmens. She would shake
a bit at times; but we saw nothing else the matter with her. Perhaps
_you_ would shake if you had an apparition in the house. Any way, well
or ill, she went off to London. Louis took her as far as the station
and saw her away."
"Will you give me her address? I should like to write to her."
Mrs. James said she could not give the address, because she did not know
it. Nothing more was to be got out of her, and Miss Timmens reluctantly
departed.
"I should hope they've not murdered her--and are concealing her in the
house as Hill concealed David," was the comment she gave vent to in her
perplexity and wrath.
From that time, nothing could be heard of Harriet Roe. A week went on;
nearly two weeks; but she never was seen, and no tidings came of her. So
far as could be ascertained, she had not gone away by train: neither
station-master nor porter remembered to have seen her. Miss Timmens grew
as thin as a ghost herself: the subject worried her night and day. That
some ill had happened to Harriet; or been _done_ to her, she did not
doubt. Once or twice she managed to see Roe; once or twice she saw Mrs.
James: speaking to them at the door with the chain up. Roe said he heard
from his wife nearly every other day; but he would not show the letters,
or give the address: a conclusive proof to the mind of Miss Timmens that
neither had any existence. _What had they done with Harriet?_ Miss
Timmens could not have been in much worse mental trouble had she herself
made away with her.
One morning the postman delivered a letter at the school-house. It bore
the London post-mark, and purported to be from Harriet. A few lines
only--saying she was well and enjoying herself, and should come back
sometime--the writing shaky and blotted, and bearing but a slight
resemblance to hers. Miss Timmens dashed it on the table.
"The fools, to think they can deceive me this way! That's no more
Harriet's writing than it is mine."
But Miss Timmens's passion soon subsided into a grave, settled, awful
dread. For she saw that this had been written to delude her into the
belief that Harriet was in health and life--when she might be in neither
one nor the other. She brought the letter to Crabb Cot. She took it
round the parish. She went with it to the police-station; imparting her
views of it to all freely. It was a sham; a blind; a forgery: and
_where_ was she to look for poor lost Harriet Roe?
That same evening the ghost appeared again. Miss Timmens and others went
up to the cottage, intending to demand an interview with Roe; and they
found the house shut up, apparently deserted. Reconnoitring the windows
from all points, their dismayed eyes rested on something at the end
casement: a thin, shadowy form, robed in white. Every one of them saw
it; but, even as they looked, it seemed to vanish away. Yes, there was
no question that the house was haunted. Perhaps Harriet had died from
fright, as poor David died.
Things could not go on like this for ever. After another day or two
of discomfort, Mr. Todhetley, as a county magistrate, incited by the
feeling in the parish, issued a private mandate for Roe to appear before
him, that he might be questioned as to what had become of his wife. It
was not a warrant; but a sort of friendly invitation, that could offend
no one. Jiff the policeman was entrusted with the delivery of the
message, a verbal one, and I went with him.
As if she had scented our errand for herself, and wanted to make a third
in it, who should meet us in the broad path, but Miss Timmens. Willow
Cottage might or might not be haunted, but I am sure her legs were: they
couldn't be still.
"What are _you_ doing up here, Jiff?" she tartly asked.
Jiff told her. Squire Todhetley wanted Roe at Crabb Cot.
"It will be of no use, Jiff; the door's sure to be fast," groaned Miss
Timmens. "My opinion is that Roe has left the place for good."
Miss Timmens was mistaken. The shutters were open, and the house showed
signs of life. Upon knocking at the door--Miss Timmens took off her
patten to do it with, and you might have heard the echoes at North
Crabb--it was flung wide by Mrs. James.
Mr. Roe? No, Mr. Roe was not at home. Mrs. Roe was.
Mrs. Roe was! "What, Harriet?" cried excited Miss Timmens.
Yes, Harriet. If we liked to walk in and see her, we could do so.
By the kitchen fire, as being biggest and hottest, in a chair stuffed
about with blankets, sat Harriet Roe. Worn, white, shadowy, she was
evidently just getting over some desperate illness. I stared; the
policeman softly whistled; you might have knocked Miss Timmens down
with a feather.
"Good patience, child--why, where have you been hiding all this while?"
cried she. "And what on earth has been the matter with you?"
"I have been upstairs in my room, Aunt Susan, keeping my bed. As to the
illness, it turned out to be ague and low fever."
"Upstairs where?"
"Here."
Jiff went out again; there was nothing to stay for. I followed, leaving
Miss Timmens and Harriet to have it out together.
She had really been ill in bed all the time, Mrs. James and Roe
attending on her. It did not suit them to admit visitors; for James Roe,
who had fallen into some difficulty in London, connected with forged
bills, was lying concealed at Willow Cottage. That's why people were
kept out. It would not have done by any means for Miss Timmens and her
sharp eyes to go upstairs and catch a glimpse of him; so they concocted
the tale that Harriet was away. James Roe was safely away now, and Louis
with him. Louis had been mixed up in the bill trouble in a lesser
degree: but quite enough so to induce him to absent himself from London
for a time, and to stay quietly at North Crabb.
"Was it fear or ague that caused you to shake so that last evening I saw
you here?" questioned Miss Timmens.
"Ague. I never got out of bed after that night. I could hardly write
that letter, aunt, that Louis sent to London to be posted to you."
"And--did you really see David Garth?"
"No, I never saw him," said Harriet. "But, after all the reports and
talk, I was timid at being in the house alone--James and his wife
had not come then--and that's why I asked you to let me stay at the
school-house the night my husband was away."
"But it was told me that you _did_ see him."
"I was always frightened for fear I should."
"It strikes me you have had other causes for fright as well, Harriet,"
cried shrewd Miss Timmens.
"Well, you see--this business of James Roe's has put me about. Every
knock that came to the door seemed to me to be somebody coming for
_him_. My husband says the ghost is all rubbish and fancy, Aunt Susan."
"Rubbish and fancy, does he?"
"He says that when he came in here with Johnny Ludlow, the night there
was that commotion, in going up for some matches, he fell over something
at the top of the stairs by the end casement, and flung it behind the
rafters. Next day he saw what it was. I had tied a white cloth over a
small dwarf mop to sweep the walls with, and must have left it near the
window. I remembered that I did leave it there. It no doubt looked in
the moonlight just like a white face. And that's what was taken for
David's ghost."
Miss Timmens paused, considering matters: she might believe just as much
of this as she liked.
"It appeared again at the same place, Harriet, two or three days ago."
"That was me, aunt. I saw you all looking up, and drew away again for
fear you should know me. Mrs. James was making my bed, and I had crawled
there."
There it ended. So far the mystery was over. The explanation was
confided to the public, who received it differently. Some accepted the
mop version; others clung to the ghost. And Hill never had a penny of
his rent. Louis Roe was away; and, as it turned out, did not come back
again.
Mrs. James wanted to leave also; and Maria Lease took her place as
nurse. Tenderly she did it, too; and Harriet got well. She was going off
to join her husband as soon as she could travel: it was said in France.
No one knew; unless it was Maria Lease. She and Harriet had become
confidential friends.
"Which is the worse fate--yours or mine?" cried Harriet to Maria, half
mockingly, half woefully, the day she was packing her trunk. "You have
your lonely life, and your never-ending repentance for what you call
your harsh sin: I have my sickness and my trouble--and I have enough of
that, Maria." But Maria Lease only shook her head in answer.
"Trouble and repentance are our best lot in this world, Harriet. They
come to fit us for heaven."
But North Crabb, though willingly admitting that Harriet Roe, in
marrying, had not entered on a bed of lilies, and might have been
happier had she kept single, would not, on the whole, be shaken from its
belief that the ghost still haunted the empty cottage. Small parties
made shivering pilgrimages up there on a moonlight night, to watch for
it, and sometimes declared that it appeared. Fancy goes a long way in
this world.
XXI.
SEEING LIFE.
The Clement-Pells lived at Parrifer Hall, and were as grand as all the
rest of us put together. After that affair connected with Cathy Reed,
and the death of his son, Major Parrifer and his family could not bear
to stay in the place. They took a house near London, and Parrifer Hall
was advertised to be let. Mr. Clement-Pell came forward, and took it for
a term of years.
The Clement-Pells rolled in riches. His was one of those cases of
self-made men that have been so common of late years: where an
individual, from a humble position, rises by perceptible degrees, until
he towers above all, like a Jack sprung out of a box, and is the wonder
and envy of the world around. Mr. Clement-Pell was said to have begun
life in London as a lawyer. Later, circumstances brought him down to a
bustling town in our neighbourhood where he became the manager of a
small banking company; and from that time he did nothing but rise.
"There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood,
leads on to fortune," says Shakespeare: and this was the tide in Mr.
Clement-Pell's. The small banking company became a great one. Its spare
cash helped to make railways, to work mines, and to do all kinds of
profitable things. The shareholders flourished; Mr. Clement-Pell was
more regarded than a heathen deity. He established a branch at two or
three small places; and, amongst them, one at Church Dykely. After that,
he took Parrifer Hall. The simple people around could not vie with the
grandeur of the Pells, and did not try to do so. The Pells made much of
me and Joseph Todhetley--perhaps because there was a dearth of young
fellows near--and often asked us to the Hall. Mrs. Pell, a showy,
handsome woman, turned up her nose at all but the best families, and
would not associate with farmers, however much they might live like
gentlefolk. She was decisive in manner, haughty, and ruled the house
and everything in it, including her husband, with iron will. In a
slight degree she and her children put us in mind of the Parrifers:
for they held their heads in the clouds as the Parrifers had done, and
the ostentation they displayed was just the least bit vulgar. Mr.
Pell was a good-looking, gentlemanlike man, with a pleasant, hearty,
straightforward manner that took with every one. He was neither fine
nor stuck up: but his wife and daughters were; after the custom of a
good many who have shot up into greatness.
And now that's the introduction to the Clement-Pells. One year they took
a furnished house in London, and sent to invite me and Tod up in the
summer. It was not very long after we had paid that visit to the
Whitneys and Miss Deveen. The invitation was cordially pressed; but
Squire Todhetley did not much like our going.
"Look here, you boys," said he, as we were starting, for the point was
yielded, "I'd a great deal rather you were going to stay at home. Don't
you let the young Pells lead you into mischief."
Tod resented the doubt. "We are not boys, sir."
"Well, I suppose you'd like to call yourselves young men," returned the
Pater; "you in particular, Joe. But young men have gone up to London
before now, and come home with their fingers burnt."
Tod laughed.
"They have. It is this, Joe: Johnny, listen to me. A young fellow, just
launched on the world, turns out very much according to the companions
he is thrown amongst and the associations he meets with. I have a notion
that the young Pells are wild; fast, as it is called now; so take
care of yourselves. And don't forget that though their purses may be
unlimited, yours are not."
Three footmen came rushing out when the cab stopped at the house in
Kensington, and the Pells made much of us. Mr. Pell and the eldest son,
James, were at the chief bank in the country; they rarely spared the
time to come up; but the rest were in town. Mrs. Pell, the four girls,
the two sons, and a new German governess. The house was not as large as
Parrifer Hall, and Tod and I had a top room between us, with two beds in
it. Fabian Pell held a commission in the army. Augustus was reading for
the bar--he was never called at home anything but "Gusty."
We got there just before dinner, and dressed for it--finding dress
was expected. A worn-looking, fashionable man of thirty was in the
drawing-room when we went down, the Honourable Mr. Crayton: and Fabian
brought in two officers. Mrs. Pell wore blue, with a string of pearls on
her neck that were too big to be real: the two girls were in white silk
and white shoes. Altogether, considering it was not a state occasion,
but a friendly dinner, the dresses looked too fine, more suited to a
duke's table; and I wondered what Mrs. Todhetley would have said to
them.
"Will you take Constance in to dinner, Mr. Todhetley?"
Tod took her. She was the second girl: the eldest, Martha Jane, went in
with one of the officers. The younger girls, Leonora and Rose, dined in
the middle of the day with the governess. Gusty was not there, and
Fabian and I went in together.
"Where is he?" I asked of Fabian.
"Gusty? Oh, knocking about somewhere. His getting home to dinner's
always a chance. He has chambers in town."