OFF GUARD.
And so Sophy succeeded in the first step of her enterprise, and was
promoted to the honourable position of servant to Father Eustace, _vice_
old Peggy resigned; and, although she was a long way from the goal yet,
she felt very sanguine of success now, and looked upon the easy way in
which this first part of her scheme had been effected as a sure omen of
her future success. The priest lived in a comfortable little house at
the extreme end of the village nearest to Harmer Place, and which
belonged to the estate, having indeed been built by the grandfather of
Miss Harmer specially as a residence for the family confessor. It stood
back a little from the road, and had a small garden in front. There was
a coach-house and stable attached, over which was a room where the groom
slept.
Sophy commenced her new duties in earnest, and Father Eustace very soon
had reason to congratulate himself on his change of domestics, and on
the advent of this quiet, respectable-looking woman in the place of his
former garrulous and slatternly old servant; and he soon felt a great
increase of comfort in his domestic arrangements. This new servant was
scrupulously neat and tidy. What little cooking she had to do, was sure
to be well done; and above all, she was always at home, and, come in
when he would, she was there at her work, instead of gossiping about the
village, as he had frequently found it the case before: his only regret
was that the change had not taken place years earlier.
Sophy's duties were not heavy. Father Eustace breakfasted at home, and
then sat writing until lunch-time, after which he went up to the Hall;
from this he seldom returned until late in the evening, never taking his
dinner at home. The groom was on board wages, and did not have any of
his meals in the house; consequently, when breakfast was over, Sophy had
the rest of the day nearly to herself.
The thing, perhaps, for which of all others Father Eustace liked his new
domestic, was, that he could now leave his papers about with the
absolute certainty that on his return he would find them precisely as he
left them; and with no fear that they would be crumpled up, and put away
in a closet, or piled in a heap in a corner, either to make way for a
breakfast or lunch-tray, or in an accession of an occasional fit of
tidiness, such as sometimes seized his former servant. To his new
domestic his papers were sacred; leave them about in the wildest
apparent confusion, and he might rely upon it that she would never move
them; and to such a point did she carry this, that one or two mornings
after her arrival--when the priest had left some papers on the
table--she brought a small round table out of another room, on which she
placed the breakfast things; after this she always continued the same
practice, so that there was no longer any occasion for the papers to be
moved from the table at all. This being the case, Father Eustace ceased
to put them away, but left them all about, feeling quite secure that,
from their being entirely in Italian, it would be out of the question
that any one would attempt to read them.
Father Eustace had not changed in appearance in the slightest, in the
seven years he had been at Harmer Place. His thin face, with its shaven
cheeks and chin, was perhaps a shade thinner, but that was all; and yet
Father Eustace chafed inwardly at his long detention there, wasting six
precious years of his life in his daily ministrations on this obstinate
iron old woman. Sometimes he regretted that he had ever accepted the
post, but yet the reward at the end would be great. The Bishop of
Ravenna, his especial patron, at whose bidding he had come over, would
see that his merits were known in the proper quarter, and that a reward
proportionate to the service he had rendered was bestowed upon him. The
bishop was a man of great influence; he had been spoken of for a
cardinal's hat; and he had promised Father Eustace that he would put his
conduct in such a light, that it would be nearly sure to lead to his
elevation to some vacant see.
Father Eustace was a clever man, and an ambitious--for himself and his
Church, and would have scrupled at little for the good of either. Still
it was very wearying waiting so long for this iron old woman to die; the
more so as the principal object of his coming had not yet been attained.
However, he had been trained in a good school for patience, and although
when alone his eyes would sometimes flash angrily, and his thin hands
clench in his impatience, at ordinary times he was bland and gentle, and
seemed never weary of reading to her in that suave, mellow voice of his
for hours at a time.
As a resource for his leisure hours, he occupied himself in writing an
elaborate history of the martyrs of the early Church, and it was with
the sheets of this manuscript that his tables were generally littered.
From these Sophy gained no information, and it was some little time,
indeed, before she did so; but one day, rendered careless by the
tidiness and care of his servant, Father Eustace went out, leaving his
key in the lock of his desk. It was for this that Sophy had been waiting
and hoping. She lost not a moment in taking it out, and taking an
impression of it on a flat cake of wax, which she had carried ready in
her pocket from the day she had entered his service. The same afternoon
she sent the cake of wax, in a small tin box, to Mr. Billow, King Edward
Street, Lambeth, enclosed in a letter with a L5 note, requesting a key
to be made from the impression, and sent down at once to the direction,
"Mary Westwood, Post Office, Sturry, Kent."
In three days the key arrived, and Sophy was now able to indulge her
intense desire to examine the contents of Father Eustace's desk. It was
a large one, and contained a great number of letters and documents; but
all that she had any interest in were two bundles of papers, of about
the same size, the one endorsed, "Letters of Monseigneur the Bishop of
Ravenna," the other, "Copies of my letters to the Bishop of Ravenna."
These she read through and through, taking one letter out at a time, and
reading it up in her own room; so that in case her master suddenly
returned, even should he go at once to his desk, he would find it
locked, and the bundles of papers apparently as he had left them.
The earlier letters were the most interesting: in these Father Eustace
related the events of the funeral, and of the ineffectual search for the
will. He said that Miss Harmer, on his arrival, had told him at once
that she was determined that her elder brother's will should be carried
out, that the property should all go to the Church, and that no will
would ever be forthcoming. He had of course applauded her resolution,
and promised her the blessing of the Church. But he said that she had
not, even in confession, told him where the will really was.
As time went on, he wrote to say that he could not elicit from her where
it was hidden, and that, devoted as she was to the Church, she was of so
obstinate a character, that he was afraid he never should find out from
her; but that he did not like to appear too pertinacious on the point,
about which indeed there was no especial hurry. He told the bishop that
he believed that this reticence of hers was caused by two reasons--the
one, that she wished to be able to say conscientiously that she had
never seen it; the other and stronger one, that she was ridiculously
superstitious; that she had an idea that her brother's spirit was
guarding it, and that his curse would fall upon her if she destroyed it.
He said that he had reasoned with her, and rebuked her for her
superstition; but that nothing he could say had the least effect upon
her. Angela Harmer, he said, he should have been able to have managed
without difficulty; but she was guided entirely by her elder sister, who
had even bound her by a solemn vow not to tell, even in confession,
anything about the will; and no assurance on the part of himself that
any vow which was to the detriment of the Church was binding, had any
effect upon her. In return, the bishop exhorted him to patience. From
his own knowledge of Cecilia Harmer's character, he was certain that she
would not be easily diverted from any purpose she had once taken up; but
when the time should come, he would use his own authority, and he had no
doubt that then she would give way.
The bishop, however, thought that the will might be found and destroyed
without the Miss Harmers' knowledge, for he believed he knew where it
was hidden. The Miss Harmers had frequently, in their conversations with
him, spoken of the way in which their family had in the old times of
persecution concealed fugitive priests, in a secret room constructed in
a chimney; access was had to this room from the hall, by unscrewing the
tongue of one of the iron dogs in the fireplace, and by pushing a spring
inside the mouth, and also pressing a spring in the chimney behind the
mantelpiece. The bishop said that he had taken a note of it at the time,
as he always did of everything which could by any possibility ever turn
out useful; and that he had no doubt the will would be found there.
Father Eustace wrote in reply to say that he had followed the
instructions, and had entered the secret chamber; but that there was no
will there.
After this there was nothing in any of the letters of much interest
until the last one or two. In these Father Eustace repeated that Miss
Harmer was breaking fast, and that it was becoming necessary to make
another effort to find the will.
The Bishop replied that when the time came he would himself write to
her; and would point out, "that the house must be sold at her death, and
that some day it might be pulled down and the will found, and thereby
all her good intentions for the benefit of the Church would be
frustrated; that he, therefore, exhorted--nay, more, commanded, if
necessary, that she would reveal the hiding-place to her confessor in
order that such a contingency as the will ever being found might be
rendered an impossibility."
All these letters Sophy read through and through. She was disappointed,
for she had hoped that she should have found this secret which she so
longed to find out, but it was not to be; and so she fell back upon
another plan, for she had thoroughly foreseen every possible difficulty
and discouragement, and had marked out various schemes for herself,
which were to be adopted according to circumstances. One of the letters
from the bishop happened to have the large seal with which he sealed his
letters unbroken. Of this she carefully took an impression, with a piece
of bread, kneaded up with a little oil, just as she had often taken seal
impressions when a girl. This she put by to dry, in order to be in
readiness when required. She then carefully wrote the two letters she
wished copied, took one of the bishop's earlier letters from the bundle,
and also a note in Father Eustace's own handwriting, and enclosed them
to Mr. Billow, with the following letter:--
* * * * *
"Dear Mr. Billow,
"The time has now come when I require the letters I spoke to you about
when in London. I enclose copies of the two letters I wish written, and
also letters the handwriting of which is to be imitated; the long one in
Italian must be done on foreign letter-paper, and the other on
note-paper, and let the addresses be written as in the copies, on the
back. I enclose L25 in notes, and will forward another L25 when I
receive the letter from you. Please register it, and enclose it to Mary
Westwood, Sturry, Kent."
* * * * *
In three days the letters came down, and the handwritings were so
exactly imitated, that Sophy could not detect the slightest difference.
She folded them, sealed one with the broad seal, and then locked them up
in her box till wanted. She was now ready for the attempt, and only
waited for the time. It was longer coming than she had expected, and six
months went on after she had come down to Sturry before there was any
decided change. Then Miss Harmer began to sink rapidly, and took to her
bed. Sophy could see that her master was nervous and anxious, and he
wrote off at once to the Bishop of Ravenna. He came back now to dinner
at five, and soon after six again went up to Harmer Place, and remained
there till late in the evening.
Sophy now felt that the time was come. She sat down and wrote to me,
asking me to hire a man the next day at the livery-stable, to ride out
and deliver a note, which she enclosed in her letter to me; with strict
injunctions that he was to leave Canterbury at six exactly: that he was
to ride up to the door of Father Eustace's house, to ring the bell,
deliver the letter, and ride off instantly without waiting to be
questioned. She implored me not to fail in this, for that upon its being
done exactly as she had dictated the whole of her plan depended, and
that she believed ere long she should be able to tell me that she had
found the will.
I confess that when I had read her letter I was very much puzzled what
to do. I had no idea what her plans were, or what were the contents of
the letter. I had not the least hope that she would find the will; and
yet she wrote so urgently, that I was sure she believed herself that she
had; and as she was going through so much, surely I need not mind
risking a little. I had a long debate with myself, but at last came to
the conclusion that I could not but do as she asked me, and send the
little note, which was merely directed Father Eustace, in a hurried,
almost illegible writing--to its destination. However, I determined to
run as little risk of being discovered as being connected with it as
possible, and I accordingly went down to old Andrew's cottage. I have
not mentioned that he was still living in Dr. Hooper's service, and
resided as before close to the old house, nor have I told of the delight
with which he received me on my return.
"Andrew," I said to him, "I have got a piece of rather particular
business I want done, and I know you will manage it for me."
"That I will, Miss Agnes. What is it?"
"I have a note here which I want delivered at the priest's at Sturry.
You know the house, Andrew, the last one in the village."
"Aye, aye, Miss, I know it well enough."
"Well, Andrew, I want you either to go yourself, or get one of your sons
to go there on horseback this evening. Now be very particular. You are
to start from here at six exactly, you are to ride over there, ring at
the bell, give this note to the servant, and ride off as fast as you can
without waiting to be asked any questions. Do you quite understand? Of
course I do not wish any one to know who left the note, or anything
about it."
"I'll do it, Miss Agnes, sure enough--at least my son William will. I am
getting too old for riding. He is at home at present; I will take one of
master's horses and bring him out quietly, and William will do just as
you say; and if master should come into the stable--which he won't do at
that time of day--I will say Bill has taken him round to have a shoe put
on."
All that day Sophy was very anxious and nervous, not so much as to the
success of her plans as to whether her request would be fulfilled and
her letter sent as directed. Even Father Eustace looked up rather
surprised at dinner, for his usually quiet composed servant seemed
anxious and excited. Her movements were hurried and quick, and there was
a red patch of colour on her cheeks, and her eyes were bright and
restless.
"Come here, child," he said, presently. "Give me your hand."
Rather surprised, she did as he told her.
"Your hand is hot and feverish, Mary," he said, "and your pulse is high.
You are not at all well. I shall be back in an hour or two from the
hall, and then I will give you a powder, and you must go to bed. I am
afraid you are going to be ill."
At half-past six, Sophy, listening anxiously, heard the sound of horse's
hoofs approaching at a gallop. It stopped at the gate. There was a ring
at the bell. She went out, a letter was placed in her hands without a
word, and the man and horse galloped off. She took the letter in to her
master. He opened and read it.
"Mary," he said, quietly, "will you be good enough to see if Thomas is
out in the stable; and if so, tell him to put the horse into the gig at
once, and get ready to drive me to Sittingbourne."
Sophy did as he had ordered her, and then returned to the parlour.
"I am sorry I am obliged to go out this evening, Mary; but I am sent for
to Sittingbourne, to Mrs. Ford, where I dined a short time since. The
poor thing is taken suddenly ill, is dying in fact, and has sent to ask
me to go over at once to administer the sacraments, and that is a call
which I cannot refuse. Here is a powder; take that, and I should advise
you to go to bed at once. Do not lock the door, I will let myself in
when I come back."
In another ten minutes the gig was at the door, and Father Eustace went
out, and in another minute was gone. Sophy stood at the door and watched
them drive down into the village. Then she went in and shut the door. So
far her plans had succeeded--would they to the end?