a feather. It is not always true that a living dog is better than a
dead lion. Some people gain considerably in the estimation of their
friends by leaving this world, and Miss Charlotte Cray was one of them.
Her persecution had ceased for ever, and her amiable weaknesses were
alone held in remembrance. Mr Braggett felt a positive relief in the
knowledge that his dead friend and his wife would never now be brought
in contact with each other; but at the same time he blamed himself more
than was needful, perhaps, for not having seen nor communicated with
Miss Cray for so long before her death. He came down to breakfast with a
portentously grave face that morning, and imparted the sad intelligence
to Mrs Braggett with the air of an undertaker. Emily wondered, pitied,
and sympathised, but the dead lady was no more to her than any other
stranger; and she was surprised her husband looked so solemn over it all.
Mr Braggett, however, could not dismiss the subject easily from his mind.
It haunted him during the business hours of the morning, and as soon as
he could conveniently leave his office, he posted away to Hammersmith.
The little house in which Miss Cray used to live looked just the same,
both inside and outside: how strange it seemed that _she_ should have
flown away from it for ever! And here was her landlady, Mrs Thompson,
bobbing and curtseying to him in the same old black net cap with
artificial flowers in it, and the same stuff gown she had worn since he
first saw her, with her apron in her hand, it is true, ready to go to her
eyes as soon as a reasonable opportunity occurred, but otherwise the same
Mrs Thompson as before. And yet she would never wait upon _her_ again.
‘It was all so sudden, sir,’ she said, in answer to Mr Braggett’s
inquiries, ‘that there was no time to send for nobody.’
‘But Miss Cray had my address.’
‘Ah! perhaps so; but she was off her head, poor dear, and couldn’t
think of nothing. But she remembered you, sir, to the last; for the
very morning she died, she sprung up in bed and called out, ‘Sigismund!
Sigismund!’ as loud as ever she could, and she never spoke to anybody
afterwards, not one word.’
‘She left no message for me?’
‘None, sir. I asked her the day before she went if I was to say nothing
to you for her (knowing you was such friends), and all her answer was, “I
wrote to him. He’s got my letter.” So I thought, perhaps, you had heard,
sir.’
‘Not for some time past. It seems terribly sudden to me, not having heard
even of her illness. Where is she buried?’
‘Close by in the churchyard, sir. My little girl will go with you and
show you the place, if you’d like to see it.’
Mr Braggett accepted her offer and left.
When he was standing by a heap of clods they called a grave, and had
dismissed the child, he drew out Miss Cray’s last letter, which he
carried in his pocket, and read it over.
‘You tell me that I am not to call at your office again, except on
business’ (so it ran), ‘nor to send letters to your private address, lest
it should come to the knowledge of your wife, and create unpleasantness
between you; but I _shall_ call, and I _shall_ write, until I have seen
Mrs Braggett, and, if you don’t take care, I will introduce myself to her
and tell her the reason you have been afraid to do so.’
This letter had made Mr Braggett terribly angry at the time of reception.
He had puffed and fumed, and cursed Miss Charlotte by all his gods for
daring to threaten him. But he read it with different feelings now Miss
Charlotte was down there, six feet beneath the ground he stood on, and
he could feel only compassion for her frenzy, and resentment against
himself for having excited it. As he travelled home from Hammersmith to
Streatham, he was a very dejected publisher indeed.
He did not tell Mrs Braggett the reason of his melancholy, but it
affected him to that degree that he could not go to office on the
following day, but stayed at home instead, to be petted and waited upon
by his pretty wife, which treatment resulted in a complete cure. The next
morning, therefore, he started for London as briskly as ever, and arrived
at office before his usual time. A clerk, deputed to receive all messages
for his master, followed him behind the ground-glass doors, with a packet
of letters.
‘Mr Van Ower was here yesterday, sir. He will let you have the copy
before the end of the week, and Messrs Hanleys’ foreman called on
particular business, and will look in to-day at eleven. And Mr Ellis came
to ask if there was any answer to his letter yet; and Miss Cray called,
sir; and that’s all.’
‘_Who_ did you say?’ cried Braggett.
‘Miss Cray, sir. She waited for you above an hour, but I told her I
thought you couldn’t mean to come into town at all, so she went.’
‘Do you know what you’re talking about, Hewetson? You said _Miss Cray_!’
‘And I meant it, sir—Miss Charlotte Cray. Burns spoke to her as well as
I.’
‘Good heavens!’ exclaimed Mr Braggett, turning as white as a sheet. ‘Go
at once and send Burns to me.’ Burns came.
‘Burns, who was the lady that called to see me yesterday?’
‘Miss Cray, sir. She had a very thick veil on, and she looked so pale
that I asked her if she had been ill, and she said “Yes.” She sat in the
office for over an hour, hoping you’d come in, but as you didn’t, she
went away again.’
‘Did she lift her veil?’
‘Not whilst I spoke to her, sir.’
‘How do you know it was Miss Cray, then?’
The clerk stared. ‘Well, sir, we all know her pretty well by this time.’
‘Did you ask her name?’
‘No, sir; there was no need to do it.’
‘You’re mistaken, that’s all, both you and Hewetson. It couldn’t have
been Miss Cray! I know for certain that she is—is—is—not in London at
present. It must have been a stranger.’
‘It was not, indeed, sir, begging your pardon. I could tell Miss Cray
anywhere, by her figure and her voice, without seeing her face. But I
_did_ see her face, and remarked how awfully pale she was—just like
death, sir!’
‘There! there! that will do! It’s of no consequence, and you can go back
to your work.’
But any one who had seen Mr Braggett, when left alone in his office,
would not have said he thought the matter of no consequence. The
perspiration broke out upon his forehead, although it was December, and
he rocked himself backward and forward in his chair with agitation.
At last he rose hurriedly, upset his throne, and dashed through the outer
premises in the face of twenty people waiting to speak to him. As soon as
he could find his voice, he hailed a hansom, and drove to Hammersmith.
Good Mrs Thompson opening the door to him, thought he looked as if he had
just come out of a fever.
‘Lor’ bless me, sir! whatever’s the matter?’
‘Mrs Thompson, have you told me the truth about Miss Cray? Is she really
dead?’
‘_Really dead_, sir! Why, I closed her eyes, and put her in the coffin
with my own hands! If she ain’t dead, I don’t know who is! But if you
doubt my word, you’d better ask the doctor that gave the certificate for
her.’
‘What is the doctor’s name?’
‘Dodson; he lives opposite.’
‘You must forgive my strange questions, Mrs Thompson, but I have had a
terrible dream about my poor friend, and I think I should like to talk to
the doctor about her.’
‘Oh, very good, sir,’ cried the landlady, much offended. ‘I’m not
afraid of what the doctor will tell you. She had excellent nursing and
everything as she could desire, and there’s nothing on my conscience on
that score, so I’ll wish you good morning.’ And with that Mrs Thompson
slammed the door in Mr Braggett’s face.
He found Dr Dodson at home.
‘If I understand you rightly,’ said the practitioner, looking rather
steadfastly in the scared face of his visitor, ‘you wish, as a friend
of the late Miss Cray’s, to see a copy of the certificate of her death?
Very good, sir; here it is. She died, as you will perceive, on the
twenty-fifth of November, of peritonitis. She had, I can assure you,
every attention and care, but nothing could have saved her.’
‘You are quite sure, then, she is dead?’ demanded Mr Braggett, in a vague
manner.
The doctor looked at him as if he were not quite sure if he were sane.
‘If seeing a patient die, and her corpse coffined and buried, is being
sure she is dead, _I_ am in no doubt whatever about Miss Cray.’
‘It is very strange—most strange and unaccountable,’ murmured poor Mr
Braggett, in reply, as he shuffled out of the doctor’s passage, and took
his way back to the office.
Here, however, after an interval of rest and a strong brandy and soda, he
managed to pull himself together, and to come to the conclusion that the
doctor and Mrs Thompson _could_ not be mistaken, and that, consequently,
the clerks _must_. He did not mention the subject again to them, however;
and as the days went on, and nothing more was heard of the mysterious
stranger’s visit, Mr Braggett put it altogether out of his mind.
At the end of a fortnight, however, when he was thinking of something
totally different, young Hewetson remarked to him, carelessly,—
‘Miss Cray was here again yesterday, sir. She walked in just as your cab
had left the door.’
All the horror of his first suspicions returned with double force upon
the unhappy man’s mind.
‘Don’t talk nonsense!’ he gasped, angrily, as soon as he could speak.
‘Don’t attempt to play any of your tricks on me, young man, or it will be
the worse for you, I can tell you.’
‘Tricks, sir!’ stammered the clerk. ‘I don’t know what you are alluding
to. I am only telling you the truth. You have always desired me to be
most particular in letting you know the names of the people who call in
your absence, and I thought I was only doing my duty in making a point of
ascertaining them—’
‘Yes, yes! Hewetson, of course,’ replied Mr Braggett, passing his
handkerchief over his brow, ‘and you are quite right in following my
directions as closely as possible; only—in this case you are completely
mistaken, and it is the second time you have committed the error.’
‘Mistaken!’
‘Yes!—as mistaken as it is possible for a man to be! Miss Cray _could_
not have called at this office yesterday.’
‘But she did, sir.’
‘Am I labouring under some horrible nightmare?’ exclaimed the publisher,
‘or are we playing at cross purposes? Can you mean the Miss Cray I mean?’
‘I am speaking of Miss Charlotte Cray, sir, the author of “Sweet
Gwendoline,”—the lady who has undertaken so much of our compilation the
last two years, and who has a long nose, and wears her hair in curls. I
never knew there was another Miss Cray; but if there are two, that is
the one I mean.’
‘Still I _cannot_ believe it, Hewetson, for the Miss Cray who has been
associated with our firm died on the twenty-fifth of last month.’
‘_Died_, sir! Is Miss Cray dead? Oh, it can’t be! It’s some humbugging
trick that’s been played upon you, for I’d swear she was in this room
yesterday afternoon, as full of life as she’s ever been since I knew
her. She didn’t talk much, it’s true, for she seemed in a hurry to be
off again, but she had got on the same dress and bonnet she was in here
last, and she made herself as much at home in the office as she ever did.
Besides,’ continued Hewetson, as though suddenly remembering something,
‘she left a note for you, sir.’
‘A note! Why did you not say so before?’
‘It slipped my memory when you began to doubt my word in that way, sir.
But you’ll find it in the bronze vase. She told me to tell you she had
placed it there.’
Mr Braggett made a dash at the vase, and found the three-cornered
note as he had been told. Yes! it was Charlotte’s handwriting, or the
facsimile of it, there was no doubt of that; and his hands shook so he
could hardly open the paper. It contained these words:
‘You tell me that I am not to call at your office again, except on
business, nor to send letters to your private address, lest it should
come to the knowledge of your wife, and create unpleasantness between
you; but I _shall_ call, and I _shall_ write until I have seen Mrs
Braggett, and if you don’t take care I will introduce myself to her, and
tell her the reason you have been afraid to do so.’
Precisely the same words, in the same writing of the letter he still
carried in his breast-pocket, and which no mortal eyes but his and hers
had ever seen. As the unhappy man sat gazing at the opened note, his
whole body shook as if he were attacked by ague.
‘It is Miss Cray’s handwriting, isn’t it, sir?’
‘It looks like it, Hewetson, but it cannot be. I tell you it is an
impossibility! Miss Cray died last month, and I have seen not only her
grave, but the doctor and nurse who attended her in her last illness.
It is folly, then, to suppose either that she called here or wrote that
letter.’
‘Then _who could it have been_, sir?’ said Hewetson, attacked with a
sudden terror in his turn.
‘That is impossible for me to say; but should the lady call again, you
had better ask her boldly for her name and address.’
‘I’d rather you’d depute the office to anybody but me, sir,’ replied the
clerk, as he hastily backed out of the room.
Mr Braggett, dying with suspense and conjecture, went through his
business as best he could, and hurried home to Violet Villa.
There he found that his wife had been spending the day with a friend, and
only entered the house a few minutes before himself.
‘Siggy, dear!’ she commenced, as soon as he joined her in the
drawing-room after dinner; ‘I really think we should have the fastenings
and bolts of this house looked to. Such a funny thing happened whilst I
was out this afternoon. Ellen has just been telling me about it.’
‘What sort of a thing, dear?’
‘Well, I left home as early as twelve, you know, and told the servants I
shouldn’t be back until dinner-time; so they were all enjoying themselves
in the kitchen, I suppose, when cook told Ellen she heard a footstep in
the drawing-room. Ellen thought at first it must be cook’s fancy, because
she was sure the front door was fastened; but when they listened, they
all heard the noise together, so she ran upstairs, and what on earth do
you think she saw?’
‘How can I guess, my dear?’
‘Why, a lady, seated in this very room, as if she was waiting for
somebody. She was oldish, Ellen says, and had a very white face, with
long curls hanging down each side of it; and she wore a blue bonnet with
white feathers, and a long black cloak, and—’
‘Emily, Emily! Stop! You don’t know what you’re talking about. That girl
is a fool: you must send her away. That is, how could the lady have got
in if the door was closed? Good heavens! you’ll all drive me mad between
you with your folly!’ exclaimed Mr Braggett, as he threw himself back in
his chair, with an exclamation that sounded very like a groan.
Pretty Mrs Braggett was offended. What had she said or done that her
husband should doubt her word? She tossed her head in indignation, and
remained silent. If Mr Braggett wanted any further information, he would
have to apologise.
‘Forgive me, darling,’ he said, after a long pause. ‘I don’t think I’m
very well this evening, but your story seemed to upset me.’
‘I don’t see why it should upset you,’ returned Mrs Braggett. ‘If
strangers are allowed to come prowling about the house in this way, we
shall be robbed some day, and then you’ll say I should have told you of
it.’
‘Wouldn’t she—this person—give her name?’
‘Oh! I’d rather say no more about it. You had better ask Ellen.’
‘No, Emily! I’d rather hear it from you.’
‘Well, don’t interrupt me again, then. When Ellen saw the woman seated
here, she asked her her name and business at once, but she gave no
answer, and only sat and stared at her. And so Ellen, feeling very
uncomfortable, had just turned round to call up cook, when the woman got
up, and dashed past her like a flash of lightning, and they saw nothing
more of her!’
‘Which way did she leave the house?’
‘Nobody knows any more than how she came in. The servants declare the
hall-door was neither opened nor shut—but, of course, it must have been.
She was a tall gaunt woman, Ellen says, about fifty, and she’s sure her
hair was dyed. She must have come to steal something, and that’s why
I say we ought to have the house made more secure. Why, Siggy! Siggy!
what’s the matter? Here, Ellen! Jane! come, quick, some of you! Your
master’s fainted!’
And, sure enough, the repeated shocks and horrors of the day had had
such an effect upon poor Mr Braggett, that for a moment he did lose all
consciousness of what surrounded him. He was thankful to take advantage
of the Christmas holidays, to run over to Paris with his wife, and try to
forget, in the many marvels of that city, the awful fear that fastened
upon him at the mention of anything connected with home. He might be
enjoying himself to the top of his bent; but directly the remembrance of
Charlotte Cray crossed his mind, all sense of enjoyment vanished, and he
trembled at the mere thought of returning to his business, as a child
does when sent to bed in the dark.
He tried to hide the state of his feelings from Mrs Braggett, but she was
too sharp for him. The simple, blushing Emily Primrose had developed,
under the influence of the matrimonial forcing-frame, into a good
watch-dog, and nothing escaped her notice.
Left to her own conjecture, she attributed his frequent moods of
dejection to the existence of some other woman, and became jealous
accordingly. If Siggy did not love her, why had he married her? She
felt certain there was some other horrid creature who had engaged his
affections and would not leave him alone, even now that he was her own
lawful property. And to find out who the ‘horrid creature’ was became Mrs
Emily’s constant idea. When she had found out, she meant to give her a
piece of her mind, never fear! Meanwhile Mr Braggett’s evident distaste
to returning to business only served to increase his wife’s suspicions.
A clear conscience, she argued, would know no fear. So they were not
a happy couple, as they set their faces once more towards England. Mr
Braggett’s dread of re-entering his office amounted almost to terror, and
Mrs Braggett, putting this and that together, resolved that she would
fathom the mystery, if it lay in feminine _finesse_ to do so. She did not
whisper a word of her intentions to dear Siggy, you may be sure of that!
She worked after the manner of her amiable sex, like a cat in the dark,
or a worm boring through the earth, and appearing on the surface when
least expected.
So poor Mr Braggett brought her home again, heavy at heart indeed, but
quite ignorant that any designs were being made against him. I think he
would have given a thousand pounds to be spared the duty of attending
office the day after his arrival. But it was necessary, and he went,
like a publisher and a Briton. But Mrs Emily had noted his trepidation
and his fears, and laid her plans accordingly. She had never been asked
to enter those mysterious precincts, the house of business. Mr Braggett
had not thought it necessary that her blooming loveliness should be
made acquainted with its dingy, dusty accessories, but she meant to see
them for herself to-day. So she waited till he had left Violet Villa
ten minutes, and then she dressed and followed him by the next train to
London.
Mr Sigismund Braggett meanwhile had gone on his way, as people go to a
dentist, determined to do what was right, but with an indefinite sort
of idea that he might never come out of it alive. He dreaded to hear
what might have happened in his absence, and he delayed his arrival
at the office for half-an-hour, by walking there instead of taking a
cab as usual, in order to put off the evil moment. As he entered the
place, however, he saw at a glance that his efforts were vain, and that
something had occurred. The customary formality and precision of the
office were upset, and the clerks, instead of bending over their ledgers,
or attending to the demands of business, were all huddled together at
one end whispering and gesticulating to each other. But as soon as the
publisher appeared, a dead silence fell upon the group, and they only
stared at him with an air of horrid mystery.
‘What is the matter now?’ he demanded, angrily, for like most men when in
a fright which they are ashamed to exhibit, Mr Sigismund Braggett tried
to cover his want of courage by bounce.
The young man called Hewetson advanced towards him, with a face the
colour of ashes, and pointed towards the ground-glass doors dumbly.
‘What do you mean? Can’t you speak? What’s come to the lot of you,
that you are neglecting my business in this fashion to make fools of
yourselves?’
‘If you please, sir, she’s in there.’
Mr Braggett started back as if he’d been shot. But still he tried to have
it out.
‘_She!_ Who’s _she_?’
‘Miss Cray, sir.’
‘Haven’t I told you already that’s a lie.’
‘Will you judge for yourself, Mr Braggett?’ said a grey-haired man,
stepping forward. ‘I was on the stairs myself just now when Miss Cray
passed me, and I have no doubt whatever but that you will find her in
your private room, however much the reports that have lately reached you
may seem against the probability of such a thing.’
Mr Braggett’s teeth chattered in his head as he advanced to the
ground-glass doors, through the panes of one of which there was a little
peephole to ascertain if the room were occupied or not. He stooped
and looked in. At the table, with her back towards him, was seated the
well-known figure of Charlotte Cray. He recognised at once the long black
mantle in which she was wont to drape her gaunt figure—the blue bonnet,
with its dejected-looking, uncurled feather—the lank curls which rested
on her shoulders—and the black-leather bag, with a steel clasp, which she
always carried in her hand. It was the embodiment of Charlotte Cray, he
had no doubt of that; but how could he reconcile the fact of her being
there with the damp clods he had seen piled upon her grave, with the
certificate of death, and the doctor’s and landlady’s assertion that they
had watched her last moments?
At last he prepared, with desperate energy, to turn the handle of the
door. At that moment the attention of the more frivolous of the clerks
was directed from his actions by the entrance of an uncommonly pretty
woman at the other end of the outer office. Such a lovely creature as
this seldom brightened the gloom of their dusty abiding-place. Lilies,
roses, and carnations vied with each other in her complexion, whilst
the sunniest of locks, and the brightest of blue eyes, lent her face a
girlish charm not easily described. What could this fashionably-attired
Venus want in their house of business?
‘Is Mr Braggett here? I am Mrs Braggett. Please show me in to him
immediately.’
They glanced at the ground-glass doors of the inner office. They had
already closed behind the manly form of their employer.
‘This way, madam,’ one said, deferentially, as he escorted her to the
presence of Mr Braggett.
Meanwhile, Sigismund had opened the portals of the Temple of Mystery, and
with trembling knees entered it. The figure in the chair did not stir at
his approach. He stood at the door irresolute. What should he do or say?
‘Charlotte,’ he whispered.
Still she did not move.
At that moment his wife entered.
‘Oh, Sigismund!’ cried Mrs Emily, reproachfully, ‘I knew you were
keeping something from me, and now I’ve caught you in the very act. Who
is this lady, and what is her name? I shall refuse to leave the room
until I know it.’
At the sound of her rival’s voice, the woman in the chair rose quickly to
her feet and confronted them. Yes! there was Charlotte Cray, precisely
similar to what she had appeared in life, only with an uncertainty and
vagueness about the lines of the familiar features that made them ghastly.
She stood there, looking Mrs Emily full in the face, but only for a
moment, for, even as she gazed, the lineaments grew less and less
distinct, with the shape of the figure that supported them, until, with a
crash, the apparition seemed to fall in and disappear, and the place that
had known her was filled with empty air.
‘Where is she gone?’ exclaimed Mrs Braggett, in a tone of utter amazement.
‘Where is _who_ gone?’ repeated Mr Braggett, hardly able to articulate
from fear.
‘The lady in the chair!’
‘There was no one there except in your own imagination. It was my
great-coat that you mistook for a figure,’ returned her husband hastily,
as he threw the article in question over the back of the arm-chair.
‘But how could that have been?’ said his pretty wife, rubbing her eyes.
‘How could I think a coat had eyes, and hair, and features? I am _sure_
I saw a woman seated there, and that she rose and stared at me. Siggy!
tell me it was true. It seems so incomprehensible that I should have been
mistaken.’
‘You must question your own sense. You see that the room is empty now,
except for ourselves, and you know that no one has left it. If you like
to search under the table, you can.’
‘Ah! now, Siggy, you are laughing at me, because you know that would be
folly. But there was certainly some one here—only, where can she have
disappeared to?’
‘Suppose we discuss the matter at a more convenient season,’ replied Mr
Braggett, as he drew his wife’s arm through his arm. ‘Hewetson! you will
be able to tell Mr Hume that he was mistaken. Say, also, that I shall not
be back in the office to-day. I am not so strong as I thought I was, and
feel quite unequal to business. Tell him to come out to Streatham this
evening with my letters, and I will talk with him there.’