MR. CHARLES PLACKETT IS PUZZLED.
"Mind, Ella, you have promised to come to me in London during the
autumn, and to stay for a fortnight at least," had been Mrs. Carlyon's
last words to her niece when she was leaving Heron Dyke: and, in
making the promise, Ella Winter had fully intended to fulfil it. But
the autumn was drawing to a close, Christmas would be here before
long, and the visit had not been paid. Circumstances had prevented it.
But in those circumstances there seemed to be a lull now; and Mrs.
Carlyon took advantage of it. She wrote a pressing letter to Ella. The
cold weather was setting in, she said, her cough was becoming
troublesome, and she had nearly made up her mind to go to Hyères; but
nothing would induce her to go anywhere, until she had seen her niece
again.
By return of post Mrs. Carlyon received an answer. Ella would pay the
visit at once. On the following day she and Maria Kettle, whom she
begged leave to bring with her, would quit the Hall for Bayswater.
Change, as Miss Winter knew, would be good for Maria. It might not be
amiss for herself. Truth to tell, Miss Winter had been more disturbed
by her friend's positive assertion of having seen Katherine Keen, than
she cared to acknowledge even to her own mind. Maria Kettle had a fund
of practical good sense, she was not at all romantically inclined; and
Ella could not pooh-pooh her account, strange though it might be, as
she probably would have done that of an uneducated or superstitious
person.
Maria's account did not stand alone: it was impossible for Miss Winter
not to recall how strongly it was corroborated. She herself had never
forgotten her visit to Katherine's room, when she found the face of
the looking-glass so mysteriously covered up. There had followed the
positive assertions of the two maids, Ann and Martha, that they had
seen Katherine--and both of them had known her well--looking down at
them over the balusters of the gallery. After that came Mrs. Carlyon's
fright; although in her case no face had been seen, but only the
presence of a mysterious something which had brushed past her in the
dusk and vanished. Neither could Betsy Tucker's revelation, that she
had heard footsteps in the corridor outside her bedroom on the night
of the storm, and had seen the handle of her door turned, and the
fright to the girl in consequence, be entirely ignored: for after it
came to Miss Winter's ears, she had made inquiries of her servants,
and could not learn that any one of them had been in the corridor that
night. They had all been too much terrified by the storm, they
declared, to quit their beds. Ella did not, would not, think much of
this incident. The old house was full of strange noises, especially in
stormy weather, and she herself, by giving way to her fancies, could
readily have got into the way of believing that she heard footfalls
and whispers and rustlings, for which she could not account, almost
every night of her life.
But the strange assertion made by Maria Kettle was a very different
matter; Ella could not help attaching more weight to it than to all
that had gone before: and the extraordinary belief of poor Susan Keen,
that her sister was alive and in the house, occurred unpleasantly to
her mind. Could it be? Could it by any possibility be true that
Katherine Keen was still alive, that she was hiding somewhere in the
old Hall, and came out into the dark corridors on occasion to frighten
people? Was it in very truth she herself, and not her spirit, that had
been seen at different times? Ella's heart ached as it had never ached
before. No, not even when the girl disappeared and could nowhere be
found; though from that day life had never been quite the same to her.
The dreadful uncertainty as to what had become of Katherine had added
tenfold to the pain of losing her, and now, after the lapse of so long
a time, it seemed as if the uncertainty would never be cleared up. But
what if she had been alive all this time; alive, and close by? What if
she had never quitted the roof of the Hall? Ella Winter's good sense
urged her to reject such a theory as utterly untenable, certain
difficulties presenting themselves palpably before her; but it urged
her equally to reject that other theory of supernatural visitations.
Between the two she knew not what to think. That Katherine had really
been seen the evidence seemed conclusive. But had she been seen in the
flesh, or in the spirit?
When a problem is put before you, which you find it impossible to
solve, however anxious to do so, it is sometimes wise to lay it by for
a while and turn the attention to other things, trusting to "the
unforeseen" to do for you what you cannot do for yourself. Thus did
Ella Winter in the present case. She was puzzled and distressed; and
was growing a little bit nervous besides. Appetite failed; the long
dark nights oppressed her, sleep gave place to wakeful restlessness,
and she began to be afraid of sleeping alone. Therefore it was with a
sigh of relief that she answered Mrs. Carlyon's invitation: and for
the first time in her life she was not sorry to lose sight of the
chimneys of Heron Dyke as the carriage whirled her and Maria Kettle
away to the station.
Mrs. Carlyon had a surprise in store for her niece, as Ella discovered
on the second evening after her arrival in London. Knowing her aunt's
fondness for company, but being herself in no humour to enjoy it, Ella
had pleaded for no large parties during her stay; that they should
dine quietly _en famille_, and spend rational evenings. To this Mrs.
Carlyon had readily agreed, stipulating, however, that the rule should
be relaxed in favour of two or three people who might be called
friends of the family.
"In short, my dear," Mrs. Carlyon had said, when talking of it the day
of Ella's arrival, "I promise not to introduce you to a single
stranger except one."
"Except one!" repeated Ella.
"Yes, except one. A very nice old gentleman who is between sixty and
seventy years old. You won't surely object to _him!_"
Ella laughed. She thought she must not hold out against any gentleman
of that age, but rather welcome his acquaintance.
But Miss Winter was very considerably taken aback when, on
the following evening, her aunt led her up to a little, lean,
finical-looking old man, who wore the attire of a bygone age, a brown
wig, a long bottle-green coat, and curiously fine-frilled cambric
linen, and introduced him: "Mr. Gilbert Denison of Nunham Priors."
For a moment or two Ella could find no word to say. She had
unconsciously pictured Mr. Denison as a very truculent sort of
individual; as what her uncle would have been with all the more
disagreeable points of his character intensified; as a man who
employed spies, and who would shrink from nothing in his endeavours
to do his kinsman harm. Yet here before her she saw a very
harmless-looking old gentleman indeed, with a puckered-up, comical,
yet honest and kindly face, and dark, vivacious eyes that seemed
brimming over with amusement at her evident discomfiture.
Mr. Denison took her hand with an old-world air of gallantry, and
touched it with his lips.
"Enter the First Robber," he said, with one of his whimsical smiles.
"I hope my ferocious appearance does not frighten you, young lady. You
will get used to me better by-and-by, my dear. Why do you look so
surprised? I cannot tell you how pleased I am to meet you."
He made room for her on the sofa by his side.
"Say now, I am not the sort of looking person you expected to find."
Ella smiled charmingly. Somehow she had taken a great and sudden fancy
to him.
"I had always thought of you as being so different," she said.
"As an ogre, no doubt," he rejoined, with a comical nod. "I know. Poor
Gilbert! he had his curious fancies, and one of them was to abuse me:
I'm as sure of that as if I'd heard him. My dear, I cannot tell you
how pleased I am to meet you. Confess now, that you had expected to
see some dangerous kind of fellow in me: one that bites, eh?"
"No, indeed," returned Ella. "I am surprised because I had no
expectation of seeing you."
"And you find me a worse hobgoblin than you imagined?"
"I do not find you one at all," she said, taking the place beside him.
"Well, well; a certain personage is said not to be so black as he is
painted; let us hope that it will prove so in the present case. Ah!
what a pity it is that Frank's not here to-night!" he added, abruptly.
"Your son, Mr. Denison?" asked Ella, her serious dark-blue eyes bent
full upon him.
"Yes, my son; my will-o'-the-wisp, my ne'er-do-weel, the plague of my
life," answered Mr. Denison. In his short, sharp sentences, and abrupt
turns, Ella was put strongly in mind of her uncle.
"I should have been greatly pleased to meet him," she said. "Is he
away from home?"
"Away from home!" exploded the old gentleman. "He's nearly always away
from home. I never know to a thousand miles where to lay my finger on
him. He might be a gipsy for restlessness. He is always gadding about
from Dan to Beersheba. An incorrigible young fellow--a rolling stone
that will never rest anywhere. I wish to goodness he would get married
to some woman who knew how to tame him and make him settle down at
home!"
Ella felt amused; her face showed it. Mr. Denison shook his head and
frowned.
"Now, why couldn't Frank have married you, for instance?" he suddenly
asked, after a brief pause.
This amused her more. "Dear Mr. Denison, I fear it would be altogether
beyond my powers to tame so inveterate a roamer," she quietly said.
"Not at all--not at all. You are just the sort of woman to do it."
It seemed rather doubtful to Ella whether this ought to be taken as a
compliment.
"It would have been so satisfactory, you know, to have had all the
property in a nutshell--yours and mine," added the old gentleman. "Not
that Frank need covet money: I shall be able to leave him some. But
Heron Dyke ought to have been his--after me; he is nearer to it than
you are. My dear, you have too much good sense, as I can see, to take
offence at an old man's crotchets, and I am speaking to you as friend
speaks to friend."
"I hope you will always so speak to me," warmly interrupted Ella.
"So I wish Frank could have known you--and taken a fancy to you, my
dear. But I fear it is too late in the day to hope for anything so
desirable. Frank never was particularly wise, and I have a sort of
suspicion that what he would call his affections are engaged
elsewhere: have thought it for some little time."
"Then I'm sure there can be no chance for me," cried Ella, merrily.
"Well, well; anything's better than his bringing over a black woman
for a wife, and that's what I used to be afraid of at one time,"
continued Mr. Denison, nodding his head and his brown wig.
"I hope Frank will find his way back home in spring," he resumed,
after a pause. "If you are in town about that time, Mrs. Carlyon
and I must contrive to bring the pair of you together. There may be
a chance yet. I don't suppose the young dog has forgotten how to
make himself agreeable to the ladies, and he is considered not at all
ill-looking--very much like what I was when younger."
This tried Ella's gravity a little. "As I think I said before, I shall
be pleased to make your son's acquaintance," she said, demurely.
"But whether Frank comes home or not, my dear, I must have you down at
Nunham in spring. You will find many things there that you have never
seen before and will have little opportunity of seeing elsewhere. You
are intelligent as well as sensible, and I feel sure that you will be
interested."
Next to picking up a bargain in the auction-rooms, nothing delighted
Mr. Denison more than to secure an appreciative listener while he
descanted on the rarity and value of some of his favourite
curiosities; and this he found in Ella. Ella on her part was very glad
to have met him. He was a man to esteem and like, despite his
eccentricities: and she felt thankful to know that the breach in the
family, which had existed so many years, was healed at last. Her face
flushed as she recollected that if the fear, tormenting her latterly,
had grounds, Heron Dyke was not hers, but Mr. Denison's.
She did not see him again during her stay in London, for he went away
to Nunham Priors. Ella was by no means certain, had he remained, that
she should not have imparted to him all her doubts and fears. He and
she were alike honest, wishing always to act rightly.
Her own stay in London only extended to a week: she did not like to
spare more time from home at present. The week passed pleasantly and
quickly; and both she and Maria Kettle returned to the Hall in better
health and spirits than they were in when they quitted it.
Gossip in remote hamlets and small country towns, more especially if
the subject of it be some well-known personage, grows and spreads with
a rapidity unknown to the rankest tropical weed, and Nullington was no
exception to the rule. It had now become matter of common talk in the
town, that there was something mysterious and unexplained with regard
to Squire Denison's death. How or whence such an idea originated, or
what the mysterious something might be, people did not care to ask;
and if they did there was nobody to answer. Facts that are only half
known, or that are wildly guessed at, have always more fascination for
ordinary minds than uncompromising truths that stand boldly out in the
light of day, and which anyone can examine for themselves.
The Nullingtonians seized on the rumour with avidity, and one may be
sure that it suffered nothing from loss or diminution in its transit
from mouth to mouth. It was not long in reaching the ears of Nixon,
the agent whom Mr. Plackett had formerly employed to report to him
respecting the state of Mr. Denison's health, and the general
progress of matters at the Hall. Nixon had been away from Nullington
for a time, possibly prosecuting inquiries elsewhere, and these
rumours greeted him on his return. Putting aside any pecuniary benefit
he might gain, Nixon was naturally a man of prying and inquisitive
disposition; nothing pleased him better than worming out the secrets
of other people. He went about the town asking guarded questions of
this person and the other, trying to put the various fragments of
gossip together and trace them to their fountain-head. Altogether, he
contrived to make out something like a coherent whole: upon which he
favoured the London firm, Messrs. Plackett, Plackett and Rex, with a
long and confidential letter.
The letter brought down Mr. Charles Plackett, Nixon meeting him by
appointment at the railway station. The two had some private
conversation together.
"What we cannot understand in your report is this one item," observed
Mr. Charles Plackett: "that Miss Winter herself suspects some fraud
has been at work, and is as anxious to have matters investigated as we
could be."
"I assure you, sir, I believe it to be so," affirmed Nixon. "My
information on this point came from a sure source."
"Well, I intend to go to see her," said Mr. Charles Plackett.
Nixon opened his eyes.
"To go to see her, sir! What, at Heron Dyke?"
"Yes. Why not? It is the only step I can take: and, whether it brings
forth fruit or not, I shall at any rate see how the land lies with
regard to herself. If she is, as you think, anxious for the
investigation, she is a good and honourable young lady; that's all I
can say."
Mr. Charles Plackett took a fly and drove over to Heron Dyke. He sent
in his card to Miss Winter, and was at once admitted. Ella was alone.
Maria Kettle had returned to the Vicarage, and Mrs. Toynbee was not
yet back from London. Ella knew that the Placketts were Mr. Denison's
solicitors, and she supposed this gentleman had come to bring her some
message from him. That idea, however, was at once dispelled.
"I am come here this morning, Miss Winter, upon rather a curious
errand," began Mr. Plackett in his cheerful, chirruping way. "But
before going any farther, it may be as well to say that I am come
without the knowledge of my esteemed client, Mr. Denison, of Nunham
Priors. In fact I am adopting a most unusual course with a lawyer; I
am venturing to intrude upon you entirely on my own account."
Miss Winter bowed. "I shall be pleased to hear anything that you may
have to communicate," she said frankly.
Mr. Plackett paused. "I am somewhat non-plussed in what way to begin,"
he confessed, with a smile.
"A difficulty, I should imagine, that does not often arise with
gentlemen of your profession," observed Ella, courteously.
The little lawyer laughed. "I believe you are not far wrong there,
Miss Winter. Perhaps my best plan will be to plunge at once _in medias
res_. I may say, then, that some disquieting rumours have reached our
ears--and when I say 'ours,' in this instance I mean my own--having
reference to certain events which took place in this house during your
absence abroad. The events I allude to are the illness and death of
the late Mr. Denison. What we have heard would almost lead us to
imagine that deception of some kind, if not fraud itself, was at work
in the case; and--and----"
He paused. Ella waited.
"Frankly speaking, Miss Winter, I have heard a report that these
rumours have reached yourself; and I am here to ask you--but pray
do not answer the question unless you feel fully at liberty to do
so--whether that is a fact?"
"Yes, it is," she freely answered. "I have heard the rumours."
"Ah! Just so. Thank you very much for your frankness. I presume,
however, that you attach very little importance to them?"
"On the contrary, I attach very considerable importance to them. I do
not say they are true--far from it; on the other hand, I do not know
but they may be. The doubt renders me very uneasy."
"Really now! I'm sure there are not many young ladies like you, for
truth and candour. But--pardon my presumption--may I ask whether you
have been able to trace the rumours to any foundation? Perhaps you
have not tried to do so?"
"I have tried," replied Ella. "I have used every effort to track them
back to their source, though it is not much, of course, that it lies
in my power to do."
"And the result,--if I may dare to ask it?"
"There is no result. None. I cannot discover whether they are worthy
of belief, or whether they are fabrications. That certain unnecessary
precautions were observed during my late uncle's illness--green baize
doors put up to shield him from the household; friends never admitted
to him; a mysterious kind of professional nurse had down from London
to attend him--is true. But those about him, Dr. Jago and old Aaron
Stone, explain all this away with perfect plausibility."
Charles Plackett mused. "No, of course not; there was not much you
could do," he remarked, apparently speaking to himself.
"An individual, whom I will not name, warned me that Heron Dyke was
not legally mine," resumed Miss Winter. "I was startled, as you may
suppose; but I could elicit nothing further. Nothing but what I tell
you--that I held Heron Dyke by fraud."
"Dear me!"
"I did not know whether to believe it, or not; I do not know now. I
carried the tale to Mr. Daventry, and I spoke also to my uncle's old
friend, the Vicar of Nullington. Neither of them attached the smallest
credibility to the charge; they almost ridiculed it. Mr. Daventry says
that nothing whatever could deprive me of Heron Dyke, save my uncle's
not having lived to see his seventieth birthday. And several persons
saw him and conversed with him subsequently to that date."
"I did, for one," remarked Mr. Charles Plackett. "Well, I don't see
that there's much to be done. You say you will not give up the name of
the individual who----"
"No," she interrupted. "And if I did give it, the end would not be
answered. He--he--is no longer here; he could not be questioned."
"It is one of the most puzzling questions I ever had to do with,
madam. Heron Dyke is a fine property. You would not like to give it
up."
"I would give it up to-day if I were sure it were Mr. Denison's. I
wish I was sure--one way or the other. If it is not mine it must be
his, and he would have every right to it. Does he know of this doubt?"
"Not a word."
"I met him a short while ago, when I was in London. He came to my
aunt's, Mrs. Carlyon. I took a great fancy to him."
Mr. Charles Plackett smiled. "And he took a fancy to a certain young
lady--if I may say as much. He called at our office the next day,
before returning to Nunham Priors. What do you think he said, Miss
Winter?--that he did not so much regret the loss of Heron Dyke now,
when he saw what charming hands held it."
Ella rather shrank from the compliment. "I and my interests are as
nothing, Mr. Plackett, in comparison with arriving at the truth. If
fraud and deception have been at work, it is to the advantage of
everyone that they should be exposed and frustrated."
Mr. Plackett gazed on her glowing face admiringly. "If everyone
thought and acted like you, my dear young lady," he said, "I am afraid
that the occupation of us poor lawyers would soon become a thing of
the past."
"That would be a catastrophe indeed," responded Ella, with a laugh.
A little more conversation ensued. One word leading to another, Ella
confided to him what the servant Eliza had told her--that she had
penetrated beyond the green baize doors, on one lucky occasion when
they were left unguarded, and had found the Squire's rooms empty: Mr.
Denison was nowhere to be seen in them. Nay, more; the rooms and the
bed appeared to be unoccupied.
Mr. Plackett, though evidently much surprised, could still make
nothing of it. He sat fingering his grey hair--a habit of his when in
thought. Ella finished by inquiring what more she could do.
"I really fail to see at present that there is anything more you can
do," he answered. "And I am quite sure that not one person in a
thousand would do as much as you have already done."
"Are you sure it was my uncle you saw," she inquired, speaking on the
moment's impulse, "when you were here two days after his birthday?"
Mr. Charles Plackett paused, revolving the question. "I thought I was
sure," he said. "Although I had only seen Mr. Denison twice before,
and that some years previously, he certainly seemed to me to be the
same individual, naturally much wasted and changed by illness. One
thing I perfectly remembered: the beautiful cat's-eye ring he wore.
Yes, I think it could have been no other than Mr. Denison--and no
other temper than his. You heard, probably, of the passion he went
into?"
"And threw away his beef-tea, and broke the cup. Truly I cannot
imagine anyone doing that, save my uncle."
"I must say that I have not been so thoroughly puzzled by any case for
a long while," remarked the lawyer, as he rose to depart.
And puzzled Mr. Plackett was destined to remain; at least for some
time yet to come. If Miss Winter had looked to benefit by his advice,
she was disappointed. He had no advice of any consequence to offer. He
could only thank her again for her frankness, and say that he would
consult with his client, Mr. Denison, and, with her permission, write
to her in the course of a few days. Then, declining refreshments, he
left the Hall, much more disquieted in his mind than when he had
arrived at it.
But within an hour of the lawyer's departure, Miss Winter had
something else to think about than his promise to write to her. There
came a telegram from Edward Conroy. He had reached London, and hoped
to be at Heron Dyke on the morrow.