Uncle Simeon did not improve on closer acquaintance; nor on closer
reflection did my chance of foregoing that acquaintance improve. Just
as he abandoned all pretence of being kind and affable, so I began to
abandon all hope of getting back to Tawborough for the present. How
could I escape him? gave place to: How could I harm him?
I soon came to see that he was in constant fear of something. Slight
sounds and movements would make him start. Sometimes when we were
talking he would slink away suddenly as though to reassure himself that
all was well in some other part of the house. Could I somehow expose
him, triumph over him?
In those days Torribridge Quay, though much decayed, was far livelier
than it is today; the river-side was dark with masts, and you could
still see the serried line of brown sails: trading ships that plied the
routes to the Indies and the two Americas. Number One was a substantial
square-looking house hard by the bridge. It was dark, darker even than
No. 8 Bear Lawn and very much bigger. The house had belonged to Uncle
Simeon's brother, and came to him when the brother died. On the ground
floor were three big living rooms--in only one of which we lived.
The first floor contained a gloomy sort of drawing-room of enormous
dimensions, known to me as the thrashing-room, and five bedrooms.
Three of these were large, one being occupied by Uncle Simeon and Aunt
Martha, and the other two permanently untenanted. Two smaller bedrooms
were used respectively by Albert and myself. Two narrow staircases led
to the garrets, the front one to "my" attic (I call it such because
I was locked therein not less than three times a week), a small bare
apartment with one window, so high in the wall that I could barely see
out of it even when standing on tip-toe; the back one to Uncle Simeon's
"study." Here he concocted potions if any of us were ill, and here for
long hours at a stretch he studied the Word of God. Sometimes he spent
whole days there, descending only for meals. This back staircase to
the second storey was from the first forbidden to me, forbidden in so
marked and threatening a manner as to arouse my curiosity. It was on my
second or third day that he found me loitering about near the foot of
it. He came upon me suddenly in his carpet-slipper way. I started. He
started too.
"_If_ one were to find you where one forbids you to go"--he looked
expressively up the narrow staircase--"_if_--well, one thinks it would
be better not."
His words had, of course, the opposite effect to that he intended. I
determined to risk a rush up this staircase. There were difficulties.
I was never alone in the house, and the creaky uncarpeted floor would
be sure to give me away. My strong impulse towards obedience, whether
the fruits of a nine-year-long régime of thorned stick, or of natural
instinct, or both, also counselled leaving well alone. Again, fear was
a deterrent, especially when I found that he was watching me; though
this stimulated curiosity as well as fear. For some days the battle,
Curiosity versus Fear, raged within me: a passion of curiosity as
to the mystery of the forbidden room, a lively sense of what Uncle
Simeon's mood and methods would be like if he caught me there.
One day I plucked up courage for an attempt. I took off my shoes and
tip-toed upstairs. The old stairs creaked villainously. To every creak
corresponded a twinge of fear in my heart; I waited each time to see if
anything had been heard. At last I reached the top in safety. The key
was in the lock inside the door, so I could see nothing. It was some
seconds before I realized the fact that the key was inside proved that
Uncle Simeon was probably there! For a moment I stood petrified with
fear. As he did not seem to have heard me, however, a swift descent was
my best policy.
It was some days before I recovered enough spirit to make a second
attempt: one afternoon, after tea, when Uncle Simeon was out. This time
there was no key in the door, but it was too dark to see much. All I
could make out was a big square box, painted dark green, straight ahead
of the key-hole--a safe, though I did not know it--and, by peering
up, a dark thing which looked like a big hole in the top of the wall.
This was disappointing; next day I seized an opportunity of going up
earlier. I could see the big green box quite clearly, and could confirm
my idea that the black thing was a large square hole in the wall. There
was nothing more to be seen, and I returned for a cautious descent. But
my feet refused to move.
There at the foot of the narrow staircase was the white leering face. I
was caught, without escape or excuse.
I stood still with fright, waiting for him to say something, to come up
to the little landing on which I stood, to touch me, maul me, strike
me. He slunk up the stairs. While he came along, smiling, smiling, I
stood numbed and helpless. We were the cowering hypnotized rabbit and
the sure triumphant serpent. But no, as he came nearer I saw that his
face bespoke anything but triumph. There was the same fear and anxiety
I had noticed on the first day, and in addition a queerer look I seemed
to remember in some more poignant though less definite way. That
half-hunted half-hunter look, sneer of triumph distorted by fear, what
was it? What string of my memory did it touch? As he reached the top I
saw he was sweating with fright, and his fear assuaged mine. I was by
now excited rather than frightened, and puzzled even more. He peered
into my face. It was an unpleasant moment, quite alone with him on that
tiny lonely landing at the top of the house. I feared I did not know
what. He clawed my shoulder.
"Trapped, young miss, trapped. One will bear with much, but with
disobedience never" (a sniff). "If this should happen again,--but ha!
ha! one has something, something very sure, that will prevent that.
Something that stings and cuts and curls, ha! ha! Something worse than
one's poor mere cane."
"What?" I said faintly.
"A whip," he whispered. As my fear grew, so his lessened. Then the
queer unremembered look came to his face again, and he changed his tone
completely. His grasp of my shoulder was transformed from a menace into
a coax.
"Well, well, we will say no more about it, we will say no more about.
_We_," he repeated meaningly. (With anybody else I should not have
noticed the word, which fell strangely from his lips. "_One_ will say
no more," was his natural phrase.) "If you hold your tongue and don't
tell your Aunt Martha I found you here--there'll be no flogging." It
was a tacit pact. He descended the staircase, and I followed him.
I thought perhaps I might learn something by pumping Albert.
"What is there in your father's study?" I asked him casually on a walk.
"Oh, some old bottles and books; nothing much, father lets me go in
sometimes, but there's nothing special to see."
This was a genuinely casual reply. It puzzled me. If the room was so
mysterious, why did Uncle Simeon take Albert there, yet forbid me
entrance with such obvious fear? "He thinks I'm sharper," I flattered
myself. This was true, but it explained very little. My curiosity grew.
I rehearsed every detail: the green box, the hole in the wall, Uncle
Simeon's original veto, and his extreme fear the day he caught me.
And that look? Where had I seen it? I racked my brains without success.
Then one night in bed, with a mad suddenness it flashed into my mind
as these things do. It was the self-same look I had noticed at Bear
Lawn on Aunt Jael's seventieth birthday when we were talking about
his brother and how he died and I had said artlessly: "Perhaps it was
Poison?" The expression on his face that day was the same as when he
clutched me on the staircase.
The dead brother was part of the same mystery as the attic.
Wild ideas coursed through my head. The so-called study was one vast
poison-den. The dead brother's skeleton was lying there, the bones were
strewn about the floor. Or he had been pushed through the strange black
hole in the wall--where did that hole lead to? or his body had been
squashed into the green box.
I resolved to raise the poison topic in front of him, and to watch the
effect. I would mention it as though quite by accident, and look as
artless as I could. Necessity which sharpens all things, had equipped
me with a special cunning to achieve the chief aim of my existence: the
smallest possible number of beatings. But all my cunning never reduced
the least little bit in the world my extreme timidity. Thus while I
was quite equal to preparing beforehand a seemingly offhand question
for Uncle Simeon as to Poison, I quailed at the thought of actually
putting it. I simply dared not talk to him direct, nor should I be able
to look at him so closely if I did. I decided to introduce the topic
to Aunt Martha one day when he should also be present. Should I begin
talking about the dead brother, or more specifically about poisoning?
The latter was more difficult to introduce, but a more crucial test.
How could I begin a conversation about poison? I prepared a hundred
openings, none of which seemed natural. As usual the opportunity came
unexpectedly. Thanks to my scheming I was not quite unprepared.
One evening Uncle Simeon was sitting at the dining-room table reading
the Word, while Aunt Martha was discoursing to me on God's Plan of
Salvation, exhorting me to repentance while it was not yet too late.
"Ah, how great is the likelihood of hell for every one of us! For you,
my child, it is woefully great. You, who have been brought up in the
glory of the Light, who have communed from your earliest days with the
Saints--"
"The Saints, my dear?" sniffed Uncle Simeon, "one would hardly say
_the_ Saints. To be sure there are many true and earnest believers
like your dear mother and dear Miss Vickary amongst them; yet the Open
Brethren are for the most part but weak vessels. Only we of the Inner
Flock are truly entitled to be called _the_ Brethren, _the_ Saints. But
proceed, my dear."
"Well, my dear, though your uncle is of course right, none will deny
that you have had more light shed upon your path than many poor
little children. Think of the little black children out in Africa and
India, think even of the little ones in England who have Methodist or
Churchgoing or Romanish fathers and mothers. Unless you are saved, what
will you do if the Lord takes you suddenly? Are you ready to face Him?
Are you ready to die? There are many, you know, whom the Lord calls
away very, very suddenly. Today they are, tomorrow they are not. One
moment healthy and strong, the next white and stark. The Lord takes
them in an instant--"
"Like Uncle Simeon's brother," I broke in. "Didn't the Lord take him
very suddenly?"
I managed to keep my voice steady and to watch him while pretending I
was not. He tried to pretend he was not watching me. Whether I betrayed
my excitement I do not know. _He_ was certainly uneasy.
"Yes, my child, the Lord took him in a moment. It was never known
of what disease he went." She spoke in her usual lifeless way. She
suspected nothing.
"Perhaps his heart?" I said learnedly. It was a favourite ailment
of Miss Salvation Clinker's; 'er 'eart. "Or perhaps he had eaten
something that was not good for him, too much laver or some mussels or
periwinkles, maybe?" Here again my dietetic insight was based on Miss
Salvation's lore. I was killing time while I summoned up courage for
the crucial word--"or--or--took something that poisoned him?"
The word was out and it had gone home. He did not scold me as he
ordinarily would have done for talking so much. I saw him looking
sickly and frightened by the glare of the lamp by which he was
pretending to read. Then he got up hurriedly and left the room.
I began to rack my brains for some more ordinary remarks to cover
my retreat. Aunt Martha saved me the trouble. "Poison," she said,
"nonsense, most likely heart failure."
"Yes," I replied, "Miss Salvation Clinker says all sudden deaths come
from heart failure."
"All sudden deaths come because the Lord calls," she corrected. "The
Lord called him, that was all. If He calls _you_, be ready."
What I had so far discovered came to this: first, that talk of his
brother's death brought a queer look to Uncle Simeon's face; second,
that if you spoke of poison there was the same look; third, that it was
one and the same with the expression on his face the day he caught me
outside his study door. In my heart I had already charged him with the
worst of all crimes. I was determined by hook or crook to get into that
study; to solve that mystery, which had the shadow of death--and of
Uncle Simeon--upon it.
This was about the end of August 1859. Then for a few weeks a happier
interest came into my life. But here again the shadow of Uncle Simeon
interposed, and darkened the happy dream.