To be able to inflict a severe physical defeat upon an obtrusive
admirer may be a highly convenient accomplishment, but the necessity
for its exercise cannot but be a humiliating experience. Olivia
Denison felt the hot tears rise to her eyes as she walked up through
the farmyard to the Hall. If only one of her own stalwart brothers,
Edward or Ernest, were here to give this insolent cad the thrashing
he deserved! But Edward was in India with his regiment, and Ernest
was tied to a desk in a solicitor’s office in London. She must depend
upon her own arm and own head for her protection now; fortunately,
neither was of the weakest, as she herself felt with some satisfaction.
In fact, she scarcely knew yet what measure of strength, both mental
and physical, was hers; for she had led hitherto an easy, sheltered
life, idle in the sense that all her energy had been spent in amusing
herself, happy but for certain uncongenial elements at home.
Now there was to be a difference. Without being expected to know how
it came to pass, Olivia knew that papa had grown poorer, that he had
become frightfully irritable about bills of late, and that various
violent and spasmodic efforts at retrenchment, and papa’s reiterated
declarations that he must “do something,” had culminated in the sale
of the beautiful house at Streatham, and in the taking of Rishton Hall
Farm. There was something not quite painful in the feeling that she
would have to “do something” too, and in the knowledge that she might
now be able to turn her quickness of eye and hand to useful account in
the service of the father whom she adored. What would his sensitive
nature do among these Oldshaws, and these Williamses, and these Walls,
with the most unpleasant and disturbing rumors afloat about the very
clergyman in charge? This was the reflection which troubled Olivia’s
mind as she approached the Hall for the second time, and going up the
worn steps, let herself in without any need to knock at the door.
“Lucy!” she called, as she opened the door of the big room on the right.
There was no answer. The room was deserted, and the fire had burnt low.
Olivia shivered as she went in. The run down the hill had put her in a
glow; the entrance into this mouldy old chamber chilled her. She put
more wood on the fire, and sat down to await the return of Lucy, who,
she did not doubt, had found the loneliness of the place too much for
her nerves, and had gone out to look for her mistress. In a few minutes
Olivia began to long even for the patter of a mouse’s feet, for the
song of a cricket, for any sign of life in the desolate old house, if
it were only the sight of the loathly black beetle. The spirit of the
unknown Nellie Mitchell seemed to haunt her. That girl, who had lived
in the house, gone about her daily work in this room, whose mementoes
still remained undisturbed and undecayed in these deserted old walls,
who was she? What had become of her? “Ask Mr. Brander”: so the odious
Fred Williams has said with intensely malicious significance. Should
she dare to do this, and perhaps satisfy once for all those doubts
of her new friend which not only the conflicting opinions of the
villagers, but certain morose and repellent changes of expression on
his own face, had instilled into her? She could not decide. Between
her doubts, her loneliness, and her sense of the difficulties of her
desolate situation, the poor girl was growing so unhappy that when at
last she heard the sound of footsteps upon the ground outside, she
sprang up with a cry, and ran to the door, ready to force whoever it
might be to share her vigil.
On the doorstep she found Sarah Wall, whom conscience or a glimmering
notion that it might be as well to be “in wi’ t’ new fowk,” had brought
back to make inquiries.
“Hasna’ yer goods coom?” she asked, rather apologetically.
“No; they won’t come to-night now,” answered Miss Denison with a sigh.
“There’s summat--a cart or a waggon or summat--at t’ gate now.”
The hope was too much. Olivia gave a little cry. But when, a little
later, there absolutely did drive up through the farmyard, and draw up
at the door, a small open cart closely packed with bedroom furniture,
she could scarcely keep from bursting into tears. For the first few
minutes she was too overjoyed to perceive anything very singular in
this arrival. In the front of the cart, beside the driver, sat two
neat and buxom country girls, who sprang down to the ground with much
suppressed excitement and half-hysterical laughter, and without any
explanation of their presence, proceeded, with the help of the driver,
to unpack the cart, and to carry the contents indoors and upstairs.
Olivia stood back bewildered. One had a lantern and the other a broom;
neither would advance a step towards the old house or up the wide
staircase without the comfort and support of the other’s near presence.
But up they did go at last, stifling little screams at every other
step, and returning the jibes of the driver with prompt retorts. This
young man looked like a stable boy, or perhaps a groom in undress. As
he came downstairs again, after having taken up a folding bedstead,
Olivia asked him where he came from.
“From t’ Vicarage, miss,” he answered, with a stableman’s salute. “Mr.
Vernon sent us down and told us to put t’ thing’s in and coom back as
quick as we could. T’ lasses was to clean oot a room oop-stairs for ye.”
Sarah Wall was emitting a series of witchlike grunts in the background.
“Mr. Vernon!” cried Olivia; “Mr. Vernon Brander! Oh, how very kind of
him! How very kind!”
“He’ll be down hisself just now, miss, I think,” continued the lad; “he
said he’d coom wi’ t’ second lot.”
Here Mrs. Wall broke in with a preliminary croaking cough--
“Nea, nea! He wunna coom a-nigh this house. He coomed here too often in
t’ owd time. Nea, nea! He wunna coom inside noo.”
“Howd tha tunge, Sal,” said the lad, quickly. “Thoo’d get thaself int’
trouble wi’ t’ vicar if he heerd tha prattlin’ so o’ ’s brither.”
Whereupon the old woman fell to incoherent mumbling, and the lad having
discharged his load, saluted the young lady again, and drove away. With
a pleasant sense upon her that help, ready and efficient, was indeed
come at last, Olivia went indoors again, and, directed by the sounds
of active sweeping, and at least as active chattering, found her way
to the best bedroom in this part of the house, which the exertions of
the two maids were quickly rendering habitable. They had brought with
them even a large scuttleful of coals, and a supply of candles. In
half an hour the room was swept, a fire lighted, carpet laid down, and
two little beds and a suite of bedroom furniture disposed to the best
advantage.
“Mr. Vernon said we was only to fit up one bedroom, ma’am, as you’d be
sure to want your maid to sleep in the same room with you in this big
empty house, miss,” said the elder and more responsible of the servants.
“Yes, that is quite true,” answered Miss Denison promptly.
“And as soon as we had done this room we was to sweep out the big one
downstairs.”
“Oh,” said Miss Denison, “you need not do that. One room is plenty for
us to go on with, and I don’t wish you to have the trouble of doing any
more.”
“Oh, it’s no trouble, ma’am. And those were Mr. Vernon’s orders. And
when the master and missus is away, we have orders to do just as Mr.
Vernon says, exactly as if he was master. You see, master thinks such a
deal of Mr. Vernon.”
Here was another instance of the strange enthusiasm for Mr. Vernon
Brander which he seemed to excite equally with the most violent
antagonism.
“I wouldn’t ha’ come here by myself though; not if Mr. Vernon had
ordered me ever so; no, and not if master and Mrs. Brander hadn’t
ordered me too, that I wouldn’t!” broke in the younger maid with
decision.
Miss Denison caught sight of a severe frown and a bit of expressive
pantomime signifying that she was to hold her tongue, from her older
and more discreet companion.
“How is that?” asked the young lady. “Do you think this house is
haunted?”
“Of course not, ma’m,” broke in the elder. “Susan you ought to be
ashamed of yourself, telling such silly stuff. Of course, ma’am, when a
house lies empty some time there’s all sorts of tales gets about, and
I daresay if you hadn’t come and taken it, in another year there’d ha’
been a whole lot of ghost stories and such-like about it.”
Miss Denison saw that there was nothing to be learnt here, so she asked
no more questions, but waited eagerly for the arrival of Mr. Brander.
At last, from the position she had taken up on the steps outside the
front door, she heard the clergyman’s voice and the sound of wheels
and hoofs at the same time; a few seconds later the cart, again piled
with furniture, stopped at the door, and Mr. Brander, springing down
from his place beside the driver, held out a helping hand to the third
person in the cart, who proved to be no other than Lucy. Instead of
jumping out with her usual activity, however, the little maid hung back
in the most nervous manner, and finally had almost to be lifted out of
the vehicle, uttering words of protest in a hoarse whisper.
“Lucy! Why, what’s the matter with you?” asked her young mistress,
kindly, perceiving by the light of the lantern the clergyman carried
that the bright red color had left the girl’s round cheeks, and that
her eyes were distended with some absorbing horror.
“Nothing, Miss Olivia--nothing,” stammered she, faintly. “I--I went out
to look for you. I thought you might have lost your way--and--and----”
“As Eben and I were driving down the hill we met her, and, finding that
she was looking for you, Miss Denison, I made her get up and come on
with the luggage.”
He did not look at Lucy, neither did she look at him, and in the
course of the work of unloading and furnishing in which they now both
proceeded to take an active part, Olivia could not help noticing the
ashy paleness that came over the maid’s face, and the way in which she
shrank into herself if accident brought her in close contact with the
gentleman. The installation now went on merrily. To Olivia’s great
relief Mr. Brander, contrary to Sarah Wall’s prediction showed not
the least reluctance to enter the old house, but went backwards and
forwards between the cart and the big room until there was nothing left
to bring in.
“We haven’t brought nearly enough furniture to fill this big room, you
know,” he explained, as he trundled in a roll of carpet. “The cart
would only hold just sufficient to make you a little oasis at the
fireplace end; but it’s better than the bare boards, and to-morrow
we’ll hope you’ll have your own thing’s about you.”
“Oh, Mr. Brander, I can’t thank you,” said Olivia, overwhelmed. “You
have built a palace for us in the desert; but what will the vicar say?
He will come back and find that you have ransacked his beautiful house
on behalf of two utter strangers! I shall never dare to look Mrs.
Brander in the face after taking part in such a sacrilege.”
“My brother would say nothing if I were to turn all the drawing-room
furniture out into the churchyard,” answered he, promptly. “You mustn’t
judge his temper by my black looks. He and I are as different as heaven
and--earth. All the ladies fall in love with him.”
“Then I shall not,” said Miss Denison, decidedly. “I like my loves all
to myself.”
Mr. Brander considered her attentively, with a quizzical look.
“I should think you would,” he said, smiling. “I am afraid you will
be badly off down here--if indeed you could be badly off for admirers
anywhere. The nearest approach to an eligible swain in these parts is
the gentleman who escorted you home.”
Olivia, who was nailing up a curtain while Mr. Brander kept steady the
erection of a box and a chair on which she stood, put down her hammer
to indulge in a hearty burst of laughter.
“Oh, I’m afraid it’s all over with the pretty little romance you have
been building up for me,” she said, looking down with her bright eyes
still twinkling with amusement. “I pushed him into a hedge.”
“At the first blush that does not look promising certainly,” said Mr.
Brander with perfect gravity, “considering the rank of the parties. For
if he had been the clod-hopper nature intended him for, and you the
dairymaid he would have liked you to be, such a demonstration as that
would have been the certain prelude to a wedding.”
“It wasn’t a very lady-like thing to do, I’m afraid,” said Olivia,
blushing a very becoming crimson. “But really he was not the sort
of person to be dealt with by means of modest little screams and
flutterings. And--well, the truth is, I really was so furiously angry
that I would have thrown him over the hedge if I’d been strong enough.”
“I wish you belonged to my parish,” said Mr. Brander, reflectively.
“It is a great pity such nerve and muscle should be thrown away. Now,
there’s an old villain who always nods through the first part of my
sermon, and snores as soon as I grow a little eloquent--and--and I
daren’t throw him into a hedge myself; my motives might be questioned.
But if I could only get a fair and amiable parishioner to do it for me,
no one could say a word.”
“You want to make me ashamed of myself,” said Olivia, giving a vicious
blow to the nail she was driving in. “But you shan’t succeed. My father
and my two brothers think that everything I do is right.”
“Ah! Then it’s high time somebody turned up to prove to you that
everything you do is wrong.”
“Thank you. My step-mother does that.”
“Then what do papa and the brothers say to her?”
“If the world’s turning around depended on dear old papa’s saying a
harsh word to anybody, the world would stand still. As for my brothers,
especially Ted, when he is at home breakfast is a skirmish with my
step-mother, luncheon is a brisk engagement, and dinner a hard-fought
battle. They are always ordering each other out of the room, and it’s
quite a rare thing for them both to sit out a meal at the same table.”
“The fault is not quite all on one side, I suppose.”
“Oh, no, of course not. When poor Ted is away life is not very
comfortable, but at least it is not volcanic.”
“Curious that the common or garden step-mother, wherever found, should
always present the same characteristics. She has children of her own, I
suppose?”
“Yes, two.”
“You don’t love them--I perceive by your tone.”
“Wait till you see them, and then say whether anybody could.”
“I think my professional ministrations are wanted here. Where is your
Christian charity?”
Olivia turned round to look down upon him with the most earnest gravity.
“I shall take the liberty of asking you the same question when Regie
gets caressed for his vivacity in cutting a slit in your umbrella, and
when you see Beatrice consoled with an orange for some impertinence for
which she ought to have her ears boxed.”
“And it’s all the fault of the step-mother?”
“Yes, all.”
“Poor lady; I am beginning to feel the deepest interest in her. No
doubt she was a perfectly amiable and harmless person before this
unhappy metamorphosis.”
“Yes; she was our governess--a most excellent woman and very strict
with us.”
“I must see what can be done for her. I have a sermon that will just
suit her, I think; one that hasn’t done duty for a long time.”
“It will be of no use. When she was our governess she never missed
church; now she’s our step-mother she never goes.”
The curtains were by this time hung; the two maids from the vicarage,
after helping Lucy to give the last touches to the arrangement of
the furniture, had run upstairs to see that all was in order in the
bedroom, and perhaps also to have a little gossip with this new friend.
Mr. Brander looked about eagerly in search of more work.
“There’s nothing more to do, I am afraid,” he said, rather wistfully.
Olivia smiled. “Afraid!” she echoed. “Why I should think you would be
very glad to shake off the dust and the damp of this old place, and to
get back to that beautiful, cosy room where I found you this evening.”
As she spoke, an uncomfortable remembrance of the mystery which hung
about the house and its rumored connection with him came into her mind.
Mr. Brander looked straight into her face, and said--
“Under some circumstances I might be. For I knew this place very well
before it was left to dust and damp. But now I am glad to think that it
is going to have life and youth and brightness in it again--very glad;
and I don’t want to hurry away at all.”
He spoke so gravely, and expressed his reluctance to go so naively,
that Olivia was silent, not quite knowing in what tone to answer him.
Then it suddenly struck him that he might have offended her, and
without looking into her face again he hastened to say--
“You must excuse my boorishness if I don’t express myself in the
orthodox way. I live like a hermit, and have done for the last”--he
paused, and then added slowly, as if counting up the time--“ten years.
I have forgotten how to make pretty phrases. What I meant was this: I
haven’t had half an hour’s pleasant talk with a lady, as I have with
you this evening, for all that time--ten years! And it will very likely
be ten years before I have another. And so I have enjoyed myself, and I
am sorry it’s over, though I daresay you are rather tired of the rustic
parson and his solecisms.”
An awkward constraint had fallen upon him; he had grown shy and
unhappy. Olivia felt sorry for him, and she answered in tones of sweet
feminine gentleness which seemed to pour balm upon some hidden wound.
“I believe part of what you say. For if you had been used to ladies’
society you must have known that talking to you has given me at least
as much pleasure as talking to me can have given you. And if you are
not going to have another talk with me for another ten years, as you
threaten, it will be your fault, and not mine.”
There was a pretty graciousness in her manner, the result of the homage
her beauty had always obtained for her. Mr. Brander gave her a shy
glance of adoring gratitude which momentarily lit up his dark face.
“Thank you,” he said in a low voice. “I shall remember your pretty
words and your kind looks, believe me; but when we next meet, it will
not be the same, and it will be no fault of yours.”
Olivia was on the point of breaking out into a passionate assurance
that no hearsay talk altered her opinion of her friends; but a certain
gloom which settled on his face and gave him almost a forbidding aspect
checked her, and she remembered, while a deep blush crept into her
handsome cheeks, that it is unconventionally premature to call the
acquaintance of half a day a friend. So she remained modestly silent
while he held out his hand and told her, recovering his usual manner,
that he should write a full description of her to his sister-in-law,
and that Miss Denison might expect to be chartered as a district
visitor before she had time or inclination to say “Jack Robinson.”
Mr. Brander then called the two maids and started them on their walk
home; brought in a luncheon basket which he had left in the hall,
and handed it to Lucy, telling her to open it when her mistress felt
inclined for supper; and, before Olivia could thank him for this fresh
proof of his kindness, he was already out of the house.
The door had scarcely closed upon him when Lucy, with an exclamation of
horror and disgust, flung down the luncheon basket, and, running to the
nearest window, threw it wide open.
“What are you doing, Lucy?” asked her mistress in astonishment,
crossing quickly to the girl to see whether she was ill.
“Airing the place, miss, after that bad, wicked man,” answered the
little maid, vehemently.
“You ungrateful girl, after all Mr. Brander has done for us. How can
you say such things?”
“I say what I know, miss, and what is known all over the place, miss,
to every one but you,” answered Lucy, her face crimson with excitement.
“He’s a murderer, miss; he murdered the poor girl who used to live in
those rooms upstairs.”
Olivia was standing at the window, with her hand on the latch to close
it. Just as Lucy hissed out those words in a voice shrill and broken
with horror, Mr. Brander passed. The light from the room fell full upon
his face. He had heard the girl’s words. A look, not of indignation,
but of shame, of agony, convulsed his pale features, but he did not
turn his head. Olivia shivered. She wanted to call out to him, to ask
him to deny this infamous slander; but her mouth was dry and the words
would not come. For he must have heard, she knew, and yet there was no
denial in his face.
With a trembling hand she closed the window.
“There, it’s quite upset you; I knew it would, Miss Olivia,” said Lucy,
rather triumphantly. “Aren’t you shocked?”
But the tears were gathering in Olivia’s eyes.
“I’m shocked, yes, of course,” said she, sadly. “And I’m
dreadfully--dreadfully sorry.”
Lucy was scandalized. This was not the way in which she had been taught
to look upon a criminal.