IN THE DUSK OF EVENING.
Never had the good people of Nullington had more food for gossip,
wonder, and surmise--never had they been so startled out of the
ordinary quietude of their lives, as during the Christmastide to which
events have now brought us. The marriage, under somewhat romantic
circumstances, of Philip Cleeve, and the coming home of himself and
his bride, would, in ordinary times, have served as the chief topic of
conversation for a month to come. But this comparatively tame episode
was completely overshadowed by the startling revelations in connection
with Captain Lennox.
Both Captain Lennox and his sister had vanished as completely as if
the earth had swallowed them up. They had been traced to London, but
there the trail was lost, and it had not hitherto been found again.
Lennox had never come back to complete the arrangements respecting
the letting of the cottage to Mr. Norris. Something must have aroused
his suspicions, and some one, probably one of his own servants, must
have sent him timely information respecting the execution of the
search-warrant. In any case, he was nowhere to be found after that
day. Mr. Meath was at fault; the general police were at fault; and
meanwhile the cottage remained in charge of the police local
constabulary.
Christmas at Heron Dyke could not well have been spent more quietly.
Conroy was away for a few days about this time. Mrs. Carlyon and Ella
went into the town occasionally to see Maria and Philip, and that was
about their only dissipation.
"It must have been Captain Lennox who took the jewel-case out of my
dressing-room that night at Bayswater," remarked Mrs. Carlyon one day.
"And to think I could not get rid of an uneasy suspicion that it might
have been poor Philip Cleeve who had taken it!"
Ella looked up in surprise.
"Philip Cleeve!" she exclaimed.
"Well, yes; I am ashamed to say so, Ella."
"But what could possibly have led you to such a suspicion as that,
Aunt Gertrude?"
"Captain Lennox led me. Otherwise I should no more have thought of
Philip in the matter than I should have thought of you."
Ella felt bewildered.
"Surely Captain Lennox did not dare to accuse Philip!"
"Oh dear, no. One day, a few weeks after the loss, when Captain Lennox
was in town and calling upon me, he inquired whether the jewels had
been found. In talking of the affair, he dropped a word--it was little
more than one--which somehow turned my thoughts to Philip. The Captain
caught it up again--as if he had let it drop inadvertently, and I did
not pursue it. Since then, when I have heard at times how fast Philip
was supposed to be spending money at cards, billiards, and such like,
that inadvertent word has returned to my mind doubtfully and most
disagreeably."
"Do you suppose Captain Lennox wished you to think he accused Philip?"
"No," replied Mrs. Carlyon. "I think he wanted to instil a slight
doubt of his possible guilt into my mind, so as to more completely
throw any possible suspicion off himself. That is how I fancy it must
have been."
"Aunt Gertrude," said Ella, musingly, "I wonder whether it was Captain
Lennox who stole Freddy Bootle's watch and chain that same night--and
then made out that his own purse was likewise stolen?"
"Little need to wonder! nothing was ever much more sure than that,"
said Mrs. Carlyon. "The man must have lived by these peculations. And
to think what a gentleman he was through it all!"
Conroy came back. And whatever minor elements of disquietude might
make themselves felt now and again, there was a certain sweet fulness
of content about Ella's life just now, that nothing could seriously
affect. She had won the sweetest guerdon a woman can win, and all
things else, whether pleasing or displeasing, seemed dwarfed in
comparison with that one supreme fact. The more she saw of Conroy, the
more she seemed to find in him to love and appreciate. Day by day the
choice she had made approved itself more fully to her heart. Even Mrs.
Carlyon, now that she was domesticated daily with Conroy, no longer
wondered at what she called Ella's infatuation.
It had been arranged that the marriage should take place early in
spring. Ella wished to delay the event until the doubt as to the date
of her uncle's death, and her own rightful inheritance of the
property, should be cleared up; but Mr. Conroy urged that that was no
good cause for delay.
"Suppose," she said to him one day, "that after we are married it
should be discovered that I am not the true heiress, and Heron Dyke
goes from me?"
"What then?" he answered. "We should still have enough for comfort.
You possess some income that is indisputably your own; and I dare say
I could match it, in one way or another."
"By your newspaper work?"
"By that or other things. I have given up the newspapers for the
present: am not sure that I shall take to them again. Be at rest, my
dear, and trust to me. We shall be able to keep up a modest home, and
a cow, and a pony-carriage. What more can we want?"
"You are laughing at me, Edward."
"No, indeed. I only wish you not to be troubled about this property.
It may be yours, or it may not be."
"I fancy you think it is not mine?"
"I fancy that if everybody possessed their legal rights, it would turn
out to be at this moment Mr. Denison's. But we have yet no proof of
that, and it may be that I am mistaken."
"The shortest way would be to give it up to him at once."
"My dear, Mr. Denison would not take it; he is one of the last men in
the world to do so."
"Do you know Mr. Denison?"
"I have seen him. I know that he is a straightforward, honourable
man."
Ella sighed.. She wished the doubt could be solved.
Mr. Conroy wished the same, though perhaps in a less ardent way. It
did not _trouble_ him as it did her; he was more patient, more
reconciled to let time work out its own ends. He held a secret
conviction that Aaron was at the bottom of the plot, if there had been
a plot; but Conroy kept that impression to himself.
Harsh, crabbed and unsympathetic as was Aaron Stone, both by nature
and training, the shock of his grandson's sudden death, following so
soon after that of the Squire, had not failed to leave its traces
behind. In a few short months Aaron seemed to have grown a dozen years
older. His hair was thinner and whiter, he had become more feeble in
his gait, and he claimed the assistance of a stick in walking more
frequently than before. He maundered in an undertone to himself as he
walked about the Hall with his keys--his chief duty now was to shut up
the old house at night and to open it in the morning; he did little
else; and he would often speak out aloud as in answer to some question
when nobody had asked him one. He would have liked to follow his
mistress about much as a faithful old mastiff might have done, gazing
from the doors when she was in the grounds, moving restlessly about
her chair at dinner. To Conroy he had taken umbrage, and would mutter
to himself that a strange man had no business at Heron Dyke; the best
of 'em were but spies.
"What do he do up in that north wing so much?" soliloquised the old
man in the homely speech he was pleased to indulge in when off duty.
"I see him, evening after evening, a-creeping softly up and a-creeping
down again. What do he do it for? What's he looking after? Do the
young mistress know of it, I wonder? Who can answer for't that he
warn't in that theft o' the jewels? Yah! Spies!"
Of all the inmates of the Hall, the one least tolerant of his
crotchets and his failings was Mrs. Carlyon. On occasion she spoke of
them to Ella.
"It is partly your fault, child; you give in to him so."
"I don't think I do, aunt. In what way do I?"
"In many ways. Look at that senseless fancy he has taken up of having
no men-servants in the house but himself! And you fall in with it."
"We have enough maids for the work, Aunt Gertrude."
"I am aware of that--I suppose we have not much less than half-a-score
here, including your maid and mine. That is not the question. In your
position, mistress of this grand old place, it behoves you to keep
men-servants as other people do. But because Aaron sets his face
against it, you----"
"It is not that, aunt," interrupted Ella. "What I thought right to do
I should do, in spite of Aaron; believe that. It is the uncertainty in
which things are, that causes me to live quietly. Once I hear--if I
ever do--that I am the rightful owner of Heron Dyke, you will find me
make all changes that are suitable."
Mrs. Carlyon said no more then. She heartily wished her sojourn at
Heron Dyke was at an end, that she might return to her own more
comfortable home. For, in her opinion, the atmosphere of the Hall was
not comfortable. Of that dark north wing she had a wholesome dread, as
well as of the lost girl's spirit which was supposed to haunt it. To
her niece she did not speak of this: but she and Mrs. Toynbee--who was
very poorly at this time and kept much to her own chamber--talked
confidentially together, and agreed that matters altogether were more
doubtful than they ought to be.
"This is a queer thing, Miss Ella, that folks down at Nullington are
whispering to one another," exclaimed Aaron, overtaking his mistress
one afternoon in the new conservatory.
"What is it that they are whispering?" she turned to ask.
"About that Captain Lennox. If 'twas him that robbed the Hall, then he
must have been the villain who destroyed my poor boy. Ah, ma'am, but
it's a terrible world!"
"I fear some of us find it so, Aaron."
"To think of it! Captain Lennox! But I never liked him, ma'am. I never
liked that sharp, foxy face of his."
Ella mentally wondered whom the old man had liked.
"I mistrusted him, Miss Ella, from the first time I saw him. When a
man talks to you so soft and silky-like, as the Captain did, and at
the same time fixes you with such a pair of cruel, hungry-looking
eyes, it is best to have nothing to do with him. I set such a man down
as dangerous."
Miss Winter had herself always felt a secret distrust of Lennox,
without knowing the reason why. Perhaps, as Aaron had said, it was the
contrast between his smooth, dulcet tones, and the expression in his
cold, hard-set glances: any way, she had never taken cordially to
Captain Lennox.
"Your wife seems but poorly to-day, Aaron," resumed Miss Winter,
purposely quitting the other subject.
"She's a bigger ninny than ever," retorted Aaron, in an explosive
tone. "I beg pardon ma'am; but the old woman be enough to wear one's
patience out."
Dorothy Stone seemed to live in a chronic state of fear. What was it
that she was afraid of, her husband would angrily ask her--and the
most he could make of her trembling answers was, that she was afraid
of the "ghosts." Heron Dyke had become a fearsome place, she would
say: any night she might meet Katherine Keen in the passages; or,
maybe, the dead Squire. Aaron, quite beside himself with wrath at all
this, threatened to shake her: but the threat made no visible
impression. Miss Winter would reason with her now and again; but the
old woman's life had become a trouble to herself.
What little pleasure (a sadly negative one) she ever found in it, was
when she recalled all her grandson's perfections, and her past love
for him. To this she found sympathising listeners in the maids.
"Where was there another like him?" she would say, from the easy-chair
before the fire in her own sitting-room, a huge black bow on her
muslin cap. "So bold, and handsome, and high-spirited--he was fit to
match with any gentleman in the land."
"And so he was, ma'am," would make answer to her Phemie or Eliza.
"When was that vision of the hearse and headless horses ever known to
show its warning for the likes of you and me?" she would continue;
"but it appeared for _him!_"
For it was generally believed that not often was that dire portent
visible to mortal eye except when the scion of some great family was
about to be summoned hence; thus, as Dorothy looked upon it, the
vision must be regarded as a species of honour. It was for Macbeth
alone that the witches worked their spells and brewed their potions;
their business lay not with the rabble rout that called him captain.
But there came an hour when, pondering upon these matters, it occurred
to Edward Conroy, a shrewd reasoner, that more might be in this
nervous terror of Dorothy's than she allowed to meet the eye. _What_
was it that she was afraid of? He asked himself the question. Sitting
by the blazing fire in her own parlour, or in the kitchen bright with
sunlight, people around her within beck and call, it could not be that
she feared to see a ghost there--that poor Katherine Keen in the
spirit would walk in to confront her. Yet, that Dorothy would, and
did, sit there often in the day-time in unmistakable terror could not
be disputed.
"How much does Dorothy know about the circumstances of your uncle's
death?" Mr. Conroy took an opportunity of inquiring of Ella.
"Indeed, I cannot tell," replied Ella. "I have not liked to question
her. I dare say she knows no more than we know."
"Um--that's as it may be. She was _here_ during all the time."
"Oh yes, she was here."
"Rather a queer notion that of hers, which I hear she has taken up,"
continued Conroy after a long pause; "that she may meet the Squire's
ghost if she goes near his old rooms at night."
"Dorothy was always so silly in that way. You have some motive,
Edward, in saying this."
"Yes, I have been watching Dorothy--waylaying her when she steals out
to that little patch of herbs which she calls her own garden, and
turning in at other times to her sitting-room, ostensibly to hold with
her a bit of chat--and she gives me the impression of a woman who has
something on her mind; something that will not allow her to rest.
"She has her superstitious fancies."
"I don't mean her fancies. It is a more tangible fear--unless I am
mistaken."
"A few days ago I found her crying and trembling," said Miss Winter.
"She told me she had dozed off in her chair over her work, and had had
a dream which frightened her.
"Did she tell you what the dream was about?"
"No. Except that she thought she saw my uncle in it."
"Ah! It strikes me he is on her mind too much. I wish, Ella, you would
put a few questions to her about the Squire, and let me be present."
"Not questions to alarm her, I suppose?"
"My dear, if she knows of nothing wrong in connection with that time,
how could they alarm her?"
"True. I will ask her to-morrow morning. She shall come in to take my
orders instead of my going to her."
The next morning, Dorothy, full of her cares for dinner, for she was
still the housekeeper, and bustling enough in the early part of the
day, was summoned to Miss Winter's presence. Mr. Conroy had come to
the Hall betimes that day, and sat at the back of the room reading a
newspaper.
Ella quietly gave her orders; and Dorothy received them intelligently
as usual. In her own department as housekeeper, the woman was capable
yet.
"Is that all, Miss Ella?" she asked.
"All for the present. I think of having a few friends to dinner soon;
Mr. Philip Cleeve and his wife, and the Vicar; and Lady Cleeve, if she
is able to come. Just half-a-dozen or so, besides ourselves--but I
will talk to you of that to-morrow."
"Yes, ma'am," assented Dorothy, about to move away.
"Wait a moment," said her mistress. "I wish to ask you a question or
two, Dorothy, about that Mrs. Dexter: the woman who nursed my uncle,
as I hear, during his last illness. I wish to see Mrs. Dexter. Can you
tell me where to find her?"
Dorothy's hands began to tremble as though she had been suddenly
smitten with ague. She threw a look at her mistress so frightened and
imploring, that the latter almost regretted she had spoken, and then
she glanced beyond her at Mr. Conroy: but he seemed to see nothing but
his newspaper.
"Do you know where I could find Mrs. Dexter?" repeated Miss Winter.
"I don't know anything about Mrs. Dexter, ma'am," Dorothy whispered
forth in a twittering voice. "Nor do I ever wish to know."
"You did not like her, then, Dorothy?"
"I did not like her, ma'am."
Miss Winter rose. "Sit down, Dorothy," she said kindly; "you need not
be put out. There, sit in that chair. And now tell me why you did not
like Mrs. Dexter."
The trembling woman wiped her lips. "I can't tell why, ma'am. I
didn't, and that's all I know. When she first come here with Dr. Jago,
I was finely put out; hurt, if one may put it so. My nursing had been
good enough for my master up to then, and I thought it might have been
good enough still. I told the Doctor my mind."
"Dorothy," continued Miss Winter, after a pause of thought, "I have
never questioned you about my uncle's death. The subject was a painful
one, and I was more deeply grieved than I can express that I was not
allowed to be here at the time. Did you see him up to the day of his
death?"
"No," gasped Dorothy.
"When did you see him last? How long before he died?"
Again that same imploring look: but no answer.
"You must tell me, Dorothy."
"Not for weeks and weeks, ma'am," spoke the woman then, but with
evident reluctance.
"That was strange, was it not? considering that you were always so
great a favourite with Uncle Gilbert."
Dorothy lifted the corner of her clean white linen apron, and wiped
her face with trembling fingers. She seemed to gather a little
courage. "When he had that Mrs. Dexter, ma'am, he didn't want me, I
take it. She was the nurse, and she didn't let anybody go near the
master."
"She kept him shut up behind the green baize doors, and would not let
him be seen by anyone: that is what you mean?"
"That was just it, ma'am," assented Dorothy, more eagerly.
"But they let you see him after he was dead--you who had been his
faithful servant for so many years? Surely they let you look for the
last time on that dear face so soon to be hidden for ever?"
"Not even then did they let me see him," she cried. "No, ma'am, not
even then. It was cruel--cruel."
"Cruel indeed. I did not think Aaron could have been so unkind to you.
He had one of the keys of the green doors, and could have let you
through at any time."
Dorothy sighed, and let fall her apron. All this was beginning to
frighten her. Miss Winter advanced and stood in front of her.
"There was nothing going on behind those green baize doors, was there,
Dorothy?" she asked in expressive tones, her eyes gazing straight into
the woman's; "nothing that they wanted to keep from you and from
everyone?"
Dorothy flung up her arms with a sudden gesture of dismay.
"Oh, mistress, ask me no more for heaven's sake!" she cried. "I know
nothing; I have nothing to tell."
"_Nothing?_" repeated Miss Winter.
"No, ma'am, nothing."
And the poor shaking woman looked so distressed as she crept to the
door, that Miss Winter let her escape.
"Ella," cried her lover quietly, rising from behind his newspaper, "it
is from that woman we must get the clue. She knows more than she dares
to tell. I am right; it is this trouble that is preying upon her
mind."
"Certainly her manner is suggestive," assented Ella. "But look at her
distress: how shall we get anything more from her?"
"That is just the point we have to consider," said Conroy.
"Of one thing I am persuaded--that she would never tell me what is not
true."
"Under ordinary circumstances, no; I believe that. But she may be
forced into it by Aaron and the rest of the conspirators."
"Oh, Edward! Conspirators! Poor old Aaron!"
"Well, my dear, time will show. If that old man has not a weighty
secret on his back, tell me that my name is not Conroy."
For a few days, after this, things went on at the Hall in their usual
state of quiet monotony: perhaps we might say _dis_-quiet, could the
minds of some of its inmates have been read. Old Dorothy went about
her duties in a dazed manner: but nothing more was said to her.
Gradually, finding herself let alone, the scare, which seemed to have
taken up its abode permanently on her face, began to leave it.
"The young mistress must see that I can tell nothing," she told
herself, "and she won't frighten me again by asking me to. Why should
innocent folks suffer for the guilty? If that Dexter woman and that
horrid Jago had but never come anigh this miserable house!"
Late one afternoon, when the sun had set and the dusk of the January
evening was drawing on, there was heard a soft knock at the outer
door, which opened from the kitchen corridor into the shrubbery at the
back of the Hall.
Dorothy was in her own room, adjoining the kitchen, the door between
them standing partly open. She had put down the grey stocking of her
husband, which she had been mending, and sat in the firelight, doing
nothing, save idly watching Phemie, who was preparing her tea in the
kitchen, and wondering whether Aaron would be very late. For Aaron and
the coachman had driven off to Nullington in the dog-cart, to despatch
some matter of business for Miss Winter.
"Wasn't that a knock at the shrubbery-door, Phemie?" asked Dorothy,
raising her voice.
"Well, I thought I heard something," replied Phemie, the only servant
at the moment in the kitchen. "I'll see directly, ma'am. It's only
Jem."
Before Phemie could finish buttering the muffin she had been toasting,
the gentle knock was heard at the door a second time. Phemie ran along
the short passage and opened it. Expecting to see only the gardener's
boy, she started back in some alarm at sight of the strange figure
confronting her. Standing between the two lights, one ruddy and
homelike that streamed out of the kitchen doorway, the other pallid
and ghastly that was dying slowly in the western sky, Phemie saw a
tall and fierce-looking woman, tawny-skinned, and with bright black
eyes. A scarlet kerchief was bound round the tangle of her black hair;
a faded scarlet shawl was draped round her figure and knotted behind.
Thick hoops of gold were in her ears; rings glittered on her yellow
fingers. A gipsy fortune-teller without any doubt, as Phemie, after
the first moment of surprise, at once felt assured. She had seen women
attired somewhat like her in the country lanes round about. In her
astonishment she did not speak. But the stranger did.
"Don't be afeard, honey. I am only an honest gipsy woman who has lost
her way. I want to get to Nullington: being uncertain o' the road, I
thought I'd make bold to turn aside here and ask it."
"The road's as straight as you can go," answered Phemie.
"Ah, but it's you that have a pair of wicked bright brown eyes, my
lass," whispered the gipsy; "it's you that will make some fine young
man's heart ache. Cross the poor gipsy's hand with a bit o' silver,
and she'll tell you your fortune true and fair."
Phemie would have liked her fortune told very well indeed: but she
glanced back in the direction of Mrs. Stone's parlour beyond the
kitchen.
"I daren't do it," she whispered, and tried to shut the door.
By this time two or three of the other girls had come up, and were
gathering round. There ensued some laughing and giggling.
"I want to tell your fortunes," said the gipsy, touching one and
another in a persuasive, friendly manner. "I heard there was some
pretty young women at this place, and I came to it o' purpose. Take me
into your bright kitchen there."
"The old missis, she do be in the way," whispered the buxom
kitchen-maid, who was from Sussex.
"Sure and the missus wouldn't want to deprive you of hearing o' the
future--and the sort o' looks o' the man that's waiting for ye, my
lass," returned the gipsy, walking boldly of her own accord into the
kitchen. The giggling servants followed her, and one of them
dexterously drew to the door of Mrs. Stone's parlour. Phemie hurried
in with the tea-tray, which she arranged on the round table; and in
going out shut the door.
Bright sixpences were brought forth, hands were crossed with the
silver, and the credulous girls listened to "their fortunes."
Presently Dorothy Stone, sipping her tea and eating her muffin in
quietness, became aware of some unusual sounds, as of murmurings, in
the kitchen, interspersed with smothered bursts of laughter.
"What can it be?" thought Dorothy. "They be always up to some nonsense
when Aaron's away."
Opening the door, she looked out upon the scene; the wild, formidable
gipsy woman seated in her scarlet trappings; and half-a-dozen of the
girls standing round her. Dorothy, very much startled at the moment,
shrieked out, and the girls looked round.
"What be you all at there?" she called out in a tremor. "Who is that?
Sally, this kitchen is not your place; what do you do in it?"
The Sussex girl, who may have been addressed because she was the
tallest and biggest, turned her laughing face to her mistress and went
into the parlour. Dorothy, not feeling herself very competent to cope
with this, was sitting down again.
"Oh, missus, do ye not be angry now," said the girl in her
good-humoured way. "We be only having our fortins told; she'll be gone
directly. She do be and say as my man'll be a soldier, and I'll have
to ride on the baggige-waggin."
Dorothy took heart and courage--what would Miss Winter say if she knew
that she had allowed this? "I order you to be gone," she said, her
quavering voice marring the implied authority in no small degree. "Go
out of the house at once; how dared you to come into it?"
"Who is that?" cried the gipsy.
"Hush! It be Mrs. Stone, the housekeeper," whispered Phemie. "You had
better go."
The gipsy woman rose, showing her large white teeth, and strode to the
door of the inner room. "Let the poor gipsy tell your fortune, good
mistress," she said, with smiling lips and a curtsey.
For once Dorothy was roused to anger. "Go away, you bold woman!" she
cried shrilly. "Don't attempt to tell your lies to me. You have told
enough to those silly girls."
The gipsy's face darkened; she strode a pace or two into the room. "I
have been telling lies, have I? Well, then, let me tell the truth to
you:" and, bending her tall form, she whispered a few words rapidly in
the old woman's ear.
Dorothy's face turned ashy white as she heard them. She sank back in
her chair with a low cry.
"Is that the truth, or is it not?" asked the gipsy.
But Dorothy could not answer. She could only stare tremblingly and
helplessly at the fortune-teller.
The gipsy turned to the wondering maids. "Shut that door and leave us
together," she said in an imperious tone. "This good mistress here and
I have something to say to each other."
The door was closed immediately, and the two women were left alone.
The servants waited long enough to grow uncomfortable. What could that
strange gipsy woman be doing with the old missis?
"We had better go in and see that all's right," at length spoke
Phemie, who had perhaps a shade more thought than the rest, "She may
have frighted her into a fit."
At that moment the parlour door was opened, and the gipsy came out.
Shutting the door behind her, she strode through the kitchen without a
word to the frightened group standing there, let herself out of the
house, and departed by the shrubbery, as she had come.
The servants gazed into each other's faces in silence. Then, as with
one accord, they opened the parlour door, and peeped in.
Dorothy Stone had her head bent on the table beside the tea-tray, and
was sobbing tears, dreadful to hear, of fright, distress, and pain.