(Belgravia.)
It has been said by the wise man of old that “there is no new thing
under the sun.” If this means that the adventure I am about to relate
was only a repetition of something that occurred to some other hapless
damsel in the pre-historic ages, I herewith accord her my sincerest
sympathies.
The intelligent reader must be kind enough to understand, as a
preliminary, that I am impulsive, and apt to embrace opinions with a
degree of enthusiasm and a total disregard of all adverse arguments,
however weighty, that is truly feminine. When, therefore, shortly
after leaving school, I, as my brother says, “took up” evolution, and
read various abstruse treatises upon the “development of species” and
the “descent of man,” it was in no half-hearted manner that I rode my
hobby, but so thoroughly that I became a thorn in the flesh to most of
my relations and friends, and my schoolboy brothers, denouncing the
theory laconically, but forcibly, as “awful bosh,” bestowed upon me the
contemptuous appellation of the “baboon,” and made unkind allusions to
my frequent visits to the Regent’s Park Gardens as being paid to “next
of kin.”
Certainly I did resort often, almost every day, to the monkey house
to study the attributes of its interesting occupants. Perhaps some
lingering, infatuated idea possessed me that it might be my brilliant
mission to discover the “missing link;” at any rate, my note-book of
that period contains many finely worded desires to “watch the agile
monkey in its native habitat,” and to “trace the simian likeness to the
human amid the primeval forests of another hemisphere.”
At length I was enabled to partially fulfill my dreams.
Having received a warm invitation from an old school friend to spend
some weeks with her at her home in the West of Ireland, I started,
with my maid as escort, for Ballynaghader. My friend, Marian Edwards,
had married three years before, an Irish gentleman of some property,
and I had never seen either her husband or herself since her marriage;
so that it was with delightful anticipations of renewing an old
friendship, and forming a new one, that I set out on my journey. My
brothers accompanied me to the station, and sped me on my way with a
unanimous wish that I might meet a gorilla or a chimpanze while taking
my walks abroad in what they persisted in calling the “wilds.”
My maid, Hannah, was an estimable woman, very much privileged by reason
of her long and faithful service; and as we neared our destination
after a long and fatiguing journey, the details of which would be as
tiresome as unnecessary, became overwhelmed with dismay, falling into
tears, alleging between her sobs that P. C. B. 192 had told her the day
before we started that Ireland was a country where nobody cared for the
police. This was, in my worthy Hannah’s eyes, the climax of barbarism;
and when she proceeded to state from “information received”--presumably
from the same reliable source--“that being murdered in one’s bed” was
considered in Ireland quite an ordinary and peaceful way of departing
this life, I felt that it behooved me to assert myself, and, finding
all soothing arguments of no avail, I administered a sharp scolding,
which had the desired effect, and induced my abigail to dry her eyes,
while she “hoped” with an incredulous snort and desponding shake of her
head, “that things would turn out better than she expected.”
The prospective pleasure of my visit was largely enhanced by the
discovery that Mr. Ardagh, whom I liked directly I saw him, was a
great lover and student of zoölogy, and had quite a menagerie of
tame and wild animals, to which he was constantly adding interesting
specimens. I promised myself great pleasure in inspecting the animals
and cultivating their acquaintance on the morrow, but was recalled
from my pleasurable anticipations to devote all my attention to an
account Marian was giving me of the mysterious loss of a very handsome
and much-valued bracelet which had occurred that very day. Some hours
before my arrival her maid had informed her that this bracelet, which
had been recently under repair and had been returned that morning
from the jeweler, was missing. It had been laid carelessly on the
dressing-table when it arrived, and had disappeared. Search had been
made in every likely and unlikely spot, servants had been questioned,
and, as usual, under such circumstances, had all indignantly, and
some tearfully, denied any knowledge of the missing trinket, which,
apart from its intrinsic value, was dear to Marian from associations
connected with it. I could suggest no steps for its recovery beyond the
ordinary English alternative of communicating with the police. This, I
found, had been already done, though evidently my friends had small
hope of any good results following upon the exertions of that estimable
force, of whom, according to Hannah, no one in Ireland stood in awe.
Altogether it was an uncomfortable state of things; and although we
discussed the subject in all its bearings, entering into the most
minute details of any burglaries we had previously heard of or read
about, we only succeeded in making ourselves distinctly uneasy, and had
to decide at last, as at first, that it was most mysterious.
Directly after dinner I begged that I might be allowed to retire for
the night, as my journey had thoroughly tired me. Marian took me to my
room, and, wishing me a good night’s rest, left me to the ministrations
of Hannah, whose equanimity was thoroughly restored, and who was in
a state of discursive contentment, very trying to the patience of
one whose eyes were closing fast under the soothing process of hair
brushing, and whose sole idea was “bed,” and that speedily. But at last
I got rid of my talkative attendant; and having as a last precaution
looked under my bed (my constant practice, though if for one moment I
had supposed there could be anything there, nothing would have induced
me to look), I retired to rest, and was soon wrapped in dreamless
slumber.
After, I suppose, some hours, I was awakened by a loud noise close to
my bed, as of some heavy body falling on the floor from a height; but
being only partially roused, I drowsily conjectured it was fancy on my
part, and turned over on my side, preparatory to again composing myself
to sleep. This movement brought my face opposite the window, the blind
of which I had desired Hannah to draw up the last thing at night, that
I might enjoy the sight of the sunrise, if by some untoward and unusual
event I should not sleep as late as usual. The room was flooded with
bright moonlight, and I had an uneasy feeling as I gazed at the white
expanse of toilet-cover on the dressing-table before the window that
there was something wrong about its appearance. Suddenly I remembered
that I had certainly placed my watch and chain on the corner of the
table after winding it up the night before. It was no longer there.
Trying to persuade myself that I was mistaken, I raised myself on my
elbow to look more carefully after my missing watch, when I distinctly
felt the bed-clothes, which my movement had a little displaced, tugged
toward the foot of the bed. Instinctively I clutched my retreating
coverings, and in spite of some unseen opposing agency, succeeded in
restoring them to their former position, only to feel them again slowly
drawn away. Three times this agitating phenomenon occurred. At last I
determined to abandon some portion of the bed-clothes, retaining only
the sheet, in which I wrapped myself tightly, and watched the blankets,
etc., pulled to the floor and slowly dragged under the bed. Motionless
with terror, I lay scarcely daring to breathe, while numerous and dire
possibilities occurred to my distracted imagination. Was my unseen
visitor a moonlighter? Was this a preliminary measure to the “murdering
in one’s bed,” so graphically quoted by Hannah from the P. C.--. 192,
the well informed? Certainly I was not in favor of home rule. Could the
Land League be about to make an example of so insignificant a unit as
myself.
After a space which seemed to me interminable, although it could have
been only of a few minutes’ duration, my nocturnal visitant, who had
been emitting sundry very terrifying snorts and suppressed demoniacal
cackles, put out a hairy hand, and grasped the edge of the bedstead
furthest from me, slowly drawing to its full height the body of a large
baboon, clad in a species of loose tunic. Round its neck was suspended
my chain; while the watch, still attached to the chain, was held in
its hand. I gazed horror-stricken upon this fearful sight, recalling
in a kind of agony all the stories I had heard and read of the extreme
ferocity of the baboon, remembering, too, that my door was locked, and
that I was entirely at the mercy of a brute almost as large as, and
infinitely more powerful than myself.
It was not in this way that I had so ardently desired to study the
fascinating ways of the _Simiæ_, and as I thought of my brothers’
laughing wishes at parting with me. I was struck with a sense of the
grim humor of the situation. But the humorous aspect did not appeal to
me for long, as I watched with fascinating eagerness the movements of
my terrible visitor. With uncouth, shambling steps the creature walked
to the window, and by the light of the moon examined my unfortunate
watch. Its glittering case evidently delighted the baboon, as it
stroked it repeatedly with one finger; but the ticking, of which it
could not discover the cause or the whereabouts, appeared to exasperate
it, and it tossed the watch contemptuously aside, though it remained
dangling from its chain down the animal’s back. Once I made a slight
sound; but my undesirable visitor resented it by so savage a spring
in my direction that I feigned profound slumber, and only ventured to
open my eyes after several minutes of strained expectation that I was
about to receive practical illustration of that which I had so often
carelessly spoken about--the extraordinary physical force in the fore
limbs of the _Quadrumana_. When I did dare to look again, I saw that
the baboon had seated itself before the toilet glass, and, by the aid
of my brushes and combs, was attempting to reduce its bushy locks
to some order. Finding this task a fruitless one, it proceeded to
ransack my jewel-case, which Hannah had carelessly left open, and one
by one examined various articles it contained. Rings and brooches and
bracelets the creature appeared to approve of, but a jewel comb for
the hair and a diamond star it evidently did not at all appreciate,
flinging them down and snarling at them savagely.
I dared not attract the creature’s attention to myself by making any
sound, and had to watch in silent agony this rifling and appropriation
of my most cherished possessions by an unappreciative baboon! At last
it turned away from the window, and came in a leisurely manner toward
the bed, eyeing me stealthily while it advanced; and having reached
the bedside, stooped down and proceeded to draw out from under the
bed the blankets of which it had despoiled me at a very early stage
of the operations. Upon these blankets it tried to find a comfortable
resting-place, but after turning and twisting uneasily for some
minutes, emitting short grunts of ill-temper and dissatisfaction,
it got up and, to my horror lay down on the bed across my feet! The
discomfort and pain were almost unbearable; but fortunately after a
short time the baboon rolled further down the bed, and lay at the very
foot with its face turned in my direction. Its regular breathing soon
showed if was asleep; but I remained in an agony of fear least some
movement of mine should awaken the brute.
How the remaining hours of the night wore away I knew not--to me they
seemed interminable. But when the sounds of the awakened household made
themselves heard my terror increased, for I feared that the baboon
would certainly be roused and attack me. Still it slept, and still I
lay and watched it, until Hannah’s knock at my door awakened me to the
consciousness that this could not go on forever.
In a very low voice I bade my maid call Mrs. Ardagh; and when Marian’s
voice was heard outside demanding anxiously what had happened, I
hurriedly explained the dreadful situation. To my surprise she
exclaimed in what sounded almost a tone of relief, “Why, that must
be Molly! Oh, how pleased Tom will be! Please lie quite still until
I fetch him.” My feelings, while I lay and awaited the end of this
most unpleasant adventure, may be better imagined than described,
but at last Mr. Ardagh’s voice was heard outside the door calling in
tones of authority, “Molly, Molly, come here!” The baboon sprang to
her feet, gave a startled glance round the room, and, rushing to the
fireplace, made its exit, as it had made its entrance, by the chimney.
When the extreme tension was relaxed my nerves gave way and I fainted.
Mrs. Ardagh and Hannah, having forced the lock off my door, applied
restoratives, and, after some time, I regained consciousness, and was
able to hear a detailed account of the capture of the baboon, which
Mr. Ardagh accomplished with much difficulty. Her escape had not been
discovered until late on the night of my arrival, and the idea of her
being in the house had never occurred to him, as all the doors and
windows were carefully fastened, and the chimney never suggested itself
to him as a mode of ingress, though it had evidently appeared to the
fancy of Molly.
Many of my possessions which had been appropriated by this kleptomaniac
baboon were restored to me; but my watch was hopelessly damaged
in Molly’s ascent of the chimney. In the pocket of her tunic
was discovered with my trinkets Marian’s bracelet, which had so
mysteriously disappeared, proving, beyond a doubt, that Molly had made
her escape much earlier than was at first supposed.
I stayed at Ballynaghader only long enough to recruit my strength
sufficiently to travel, and then started for home, accompanied by
Marian. For a long while my nerves did not recover from the shock
they had sustained. Every one was very considerate about it; even my
brothers did not chaff me as I had dreaded they would, and made very
few remarks anent my want of “philoprogenitiveness” when I begged to be
excused from accompanying them to the Zoo.