VAL'S DISCOVERY.
Mr. Blake was in a predicament. Some men there are who would by no means
turn aghast at being obliged to hold a fair, fainting damsel in their
arms, but Mr. Blake was none of these. Should he lay her down on the
road while he went for help, or should he carry her to the Nettleby
Cottage? Yes, that was the idea; and Mr. Blake lifted the fair fainted
in his stalwart arms, and bore her off like a man. The cottage was very
near, and Mr. Blake was big and strong; but for all that he was in a
very red and panting state when he gave a thundering knock at the
cottage-door. One hundred and twenty pounds of female loveliness is no
joke to carry, even for a short distance; and he leaned Miss Blair up
against the door-post in such a way that she nearly toppled over on Miss
Ann Nettleby's head, when that young lady opened the door. Ann screamed
at the sight, but Mr. Blake pushed past her with very little ceremony.
"She's only fainted, Ann! Don't make a howling. Get some water, or
hartshorn, or something, and bring her to."
Miss Ann Nettleby was a young lady of considerable presence of mind, and
immediately began to apply restoratives. Whether it was that nature was
coming round of her own accord, or from the intrinsic merit of burnt
feathers held under her nose, and cold water doused in her face, Miss
Blair, with a long, shivering sigh, consented at last to come to, and
looked around her with a blank, bewildered stare.
"Well, Laura," said Val, stooping over her, "how do you find yourself,
now?"
At the sound of his voice, recollection seemed to flash vividly across
Laura's mind. She was lying on the couch in the front room; but she
started up with a scream, her eyes dilating, and, to Mr. Blake's dismay,
flung herself into his arms.
"Oh, Val!" she cried, clinging wildly to him, "the ghost! the ghost! I
saw the ghost of Nathalie Marsh."
Ann Nettleby's eyes grew as round as saucers.
"The ghost of Nathalie Marsh!" she repeated. "Lor! Miss Laura, you
haven't seen her ghost, have you?"
"Come, Laura, don't be frightened," said Val, soothingly, though sorely
perplexed himself. "There is no ghost here, at all events. Perhaps you
had better go back to Redmon, and stay with Mrs. Wyndham all night."
But Laura, gasping and hysterical, protested she would not venture out
that night again for all the world, and ended the declaration by falling
back on the lounge in a violent fit of hysterics. Val seized his hat and
made for the door.
"You look after her, Ann," he said, "and I'll run up to Redmon for Mrs.
Wyndham. She'll die before morning if she keeps on like this."
Mr. Blake's long limbs never measured off the ground so rapidly before,
as they did now the distance between the cottage and the villa. In the
whole course of his life, Val Blake had never received such a staggerer
as he had this night. He did not believe in ghosts; he was as devoid of
imagination as a pig; he had not eaten a heavy supper, nor drank one
single glass of wine, yet he had seen the ghost of Nathalie Marsh! They
had not been talking of the dead girl; they had not been thinking of
her; yet she had stood before them, wearing the face, and looking at
them out of the blue eyes they knew so well. It was all very fine to
talk of the freaks of the sense of vision, of optical illusions, and all
that sort of thing. It was no illusion, optical or otherwise. Nathalie
Marsh was dead and buried, and they had seen her ghost on Redmon Road.
The servant who answered Mr. Blake's ring looked rather surprised, but
showed him into the library, and went in search of his mistress. Olive
came in, wearing the dress in which they had left her, and Val told his
story with blunt straightforwardness. Olive's black eyes opened to their
widest extent.
"Seen a ghost! My dear Mr. Blake, do I understand you aright?"
Mr. Blake gave one of his nods.
"Yes. It was a ghost, and it frightened Laura into a fit; and she's in
one still, down there at Nettleby's. It was a ghost, I'll take my oath
of it; for it had Nathalie Marsh's face, and Nathalie Marsh is dead and
buried."
There was a slight noise at the door. Olive Wyndham's quick ear
recognized it, and she turned round. Mr. Blake followed her eyes, and
saw Paul Wyndham standing in the doorway. But what ailed him? His face
was always pale; but it looked ghastly at this moment, turning from its
natural hue to an awful ashen white.
"Hallo, Wyndham!" cried Val, "what's gone wrong with you? You look as if
you had seen a ghost yourself."
"There is nothing the matter with me," said Mr. Wyndham, coming quietly
forward. "What is that about ghosts, and where have you left Miss
Blair?"
"At Nettleby's, fit to die of fright. We saw a woman who has been dead
for more than a year, on the road; and Laura screamed out, and dropped
down like a stone!"
"My dear Blake!"
"I wanted her to come up here," pursued Val, "and stay all night, but
she went off into strong hysterics in the middle of what I was saying;
so I left her with Ann Nettleby, and came up here for Mrs. Wyndham."
"I will go to her at once," Olive said, ringing the bell; "but, Mr.
Blake, I don't understand this at all. Seen a ghost! It is
incomprehensible!"
"Just so!" said Mr. Blake, with constitutional composure, "but it's
true, for all that. Nathalie Marsh is dead, and buried over there in the
cemetery; but, for all that, I saw her as plainly this night on Redmon
road as ever I saw her in my life!"
There was something in Mr. Blake's manner that carried conviction with
it, and Mr. Blake was not the man to tell a cock-and-bull story, or let
himself be easily deceived. Had Laura Blair, a fanciful and romantic
girl, alone told the story, every one would have laughed incredulously,
but Val Blake was another story. Matter-of-fact Val had no fancies,
natural or supernatural, and told his story with a resolute air of
conviction now that perplexed his hearers. Mr. Wyndham affected to
laugh; but, somehow, the laugh was mirthless, and his face and lips
remained strangely colorless.
"It was some one playing a practical joke, depend upon it," he said;
"perhaps that imp of mischief, Sam's brother. As to ghosts--why, Blake,
where have your wits gone to?"
"All right," said Val; "I don't ask you to believe it, you know; but if
it wasn't Nathalie Marsh's spirit, then it was Nathalie Marsh in the
flesh, and we have all been deceived, and the woman buried in Speckport
cemetery is not the woman I took her to be."
Paul Wyndham turned round suddenly, and walked to the window and looked
out. He turned round so suddenly that neither his wife nor his friend
saw the awful change that came over his face when these words were
said. A servant brought Mrs. Wyndham her hat and shawl, and he did not
turn round again until they were leaving the room. Olive's heart stood
still at sight of the white change in his face.
"You are ill, Mr. Wyndham," she said, looking at him sharply and
wistfully.
"You're as pale as a ghost," said Mr. Blake; "don't come with us--what's
the matter?"
Mr. Wyndham gave them his former answer, "Nothing," and watched them
walking down the moonlit avenue together, until they were out of sight.
Then he left the room, put on his hat and overcoat, locked his own door,
and dropped the key in his pocket, and followed them. Half an hour
later, while Olive and Val were persuading Laura to come with them to
Redmon, he was knocking at the door of Rosebush Cottage, and being
admitted by Midge, whose ruddy face wore a look of blanched
consternation at sight of him.
Mr. Val Blake walked home in the moonlight alone. As he passed the spot
where, under the tree, the ghostly-white figure with the hazy hair and
deathlike face had stood, he felt a cold thrill in spite of himself; but
the spot was vacant now--not a soul, in the flesh or out of it, was to
be seen on Redmon road. Mr. Blake, as I said, walked home in the
moonlight alone, and astounded the whole Blair family by the unearthly
tidings. For good Mrs. Blake's sake he omitted that part concerning
Laura's fainting-fits--merely saying she was frightened, and he had
thought it best to leave her at Redmon. Mrs. Blair turned pale, Master
Bill grinned, and Mr. Blair pooh-poohed the story incredulously.
"A ghost! What nonsense, Blake! I always thought you a sensible man
before; but if you draw the long bow like that, I shall have to change
my opinion."
"Very well," said Val, in nowise disturbed at having his veracity
doubted, "seeing's believing! You may think what you please, and so
shall I!"
Before it took its breakfast next morning, Speckport had heard the
story--the astounding story--that the ghost of Nathalie Marsh had
appeared to Mr. Blake and Miss Blair on Redmon road, and had frightened
the young lady nearly to death. Speckport relished the story
amazingly--it was nothing more than they had expected. How could that
poor suicide be supposed to rest easy in her grave! Mrs. Marsh, over her
eternal novels, heard it, and cried a little, and wondered how Mr. Blake
could say such cruel things on purpose to worry her. Captain Cavendish
heard it, and laughed incredulously in Mr. Blake's face.
"Why, Val," he cried, "are you going loony, or getting German, or taken
to eating cold pork before going to bed? Cold pork might account for it,
but nothing else could ever excuse you for telling such a
raw-head-and-bloody-bones story as that, and expecting sensible people
to believe it. As to Laura, any gatepost or white birch tree in the
moonlight would pass for a ghost with her."
Mr. Blake was entirely too much of a philosopher to waste his time in
controversy with these unbelievers. He knew well enough it was no
gatepost or white birch he had seen, but the subject was full of mystery
and perplexity, and he was glad to let it drop. It could not be Nathalie
Marsh; he had seen her dead and buried; and ghosts were opposed to
reason and common sense, and all the beliefs of his life. It was better
to let the subject drop then; so he only whistled when people laughed at
him, or cross-questioned him, and told them if they didn't believe him
the less they said about it the better.
But the strange story was not so soon to die out. Mr. Blake, about a
fortnight after, was suddenly and unexpectedly confirmed. The ghost of
Nathalie Marsh had been seen again--this time in Speckport Cemetery,
kneeling beside her own grave; and the person who saw it had fled away,
shrieking and falling in a fit at the sexton's door. It was the sexton's
nephew, a lad of fifteen or thereabouts, who, going at nightfall to
close the cemetery-gates, had seen some one kneeling on one of the
graves. This being nothing unusual, the boy had gone over, to desire the
person to leave, when, to his horror, it slowly turned round its
face--the face of one buried there a twelvemonth before. With an
unearthly yell, the boy turned tail and fled, and had been raving
delirious ever since. The alarmed sexton had gone out to prove the truth
of the incoherent story, but had found the cemetery deserted, and no
earthly or unearthly visitant near the grave of the doomed girl.
Here was a staggerer for Speckport! People began to look blankly at each
other, and took a sudden aversion to being out after nightfall. The
"Snorter" and the "Bellower" and the "Puffer" reluctantly recorded this
new marvel, confirming, as it did, the truth of Mr. Blake's story; but
opined some evil person was playing off a practical joke, and hinted to
the police to be on the look-out, and pin the ghost the first
opportunity. It was the talk of the whole town--the boy was dangerously
ill, and young ladies grew nervous and hysterical, and would not stay a
moment in the dark, for untold gold. Laura Blair was worst of all; she
was hysterical to the last degree, and shrieked if a door shut loudly,
and fell into hysterics if they left her alone an instant night or day.
Olive Wyndham's dark face paled with terror as she listened. Was the
dead and defrauded heiress rising from her grave because her earthly
wrongs would not let her rest there? Would she appear to her next?
Was it superstitious fear that had taken all the color--and he never at
best had much to spare--out of Paul Wyndham's face, and left him the
ghost of his former self. The servants at Redmon could have told you how
little he ate, and perhaps that accounted for his growing as thin as a
shadow. A dark look of settled gloom over-shadowed his pale face always
now. He spent more of his time than ever at his mother's cottage, and
when asked what was the matter--was he ill?--he answered no, but his
mother was. Why, then, did he not have medical advice, sympathizers
asked; and Mr. Wyndham replied that his mother declined--she was very
peculiar, and positively refused. What did he suppose was the matter
with her? and Mr. Wyndham had told them it was her nervous system--she
was hypochondriacal--in fact; and he made the admission very
reluctantly, and with a painful quivering about the mouth--she was not
quite herself--her mind had lost its balance. And the sympathizers going
their way, informed other sympathizers that all old Mrs. Wyndham's
oddities were accounted for--the woman was mad!
Speckport pitied poor Mr. Wyndham, saddled with an insane mother, very
much, when they saw his pale, worn face, and that gloomy look that never
left it. Olive pitied him, too; and would have given the world, had it
been hers to give, to comfort him in his great trouble; but she was
nothing to him, and her heart turned to gall and bitterness, as she
thought of it. No, she was nothing to him, she scarcely ever saw him at
all now, and he seemed unconscious of her presence when they were
together. But it was a relief to know the secret of Rosebush
Cottage--however dreadful that secret was, it were better than the first
diabolical thought suggested by Catty Clowrie. Once Olive Wyndham, in
the humility born of this new love, had descended from the heights of
high and mightydom on which she dwelt, and ate humble pie at her cold
lord's feet. She might have left the unsavory dish alone--her humility
was no more to him than her pride, and she had been repulsed. Not
rudely, or unkindly. Mr. Wyndham was a gentleman, every inch of him, and
would not be harsh to a woman; but still she was repulsed, and her proud
heart quivered to its inmost core with the degradation.
She had found him, one evening on entering the library, sitting alone
there, his forehead bowed on his hand, a look that was so like despair
on his face; but she forgot everything but that she loved him, and that
he was suffering a sorrow too great for words to tell. Had she not a
right to love him, to comfort him--was she not his wife? She would not
listen to her woman's nature, which revolted, and ordered her sternly
back. She only knew that she loved him; and she went over and touched
him lightly on the shoulder. It was the first time they had ever so
met--therefore the look of surprise which came into his eyes when he
looked up, was natural enough. He rose up, looking with that quiet air
of surprise on the downcast eyes and flushed face, and waited silently.
"Mr. Wyndham," she said, her voice trembling so, her words were scarcely
intelligible. "I--I am sorry to see you in such trouble? Can--can I do
anything to alleviate it?"
"Thank you!" he said, "No!"
"If," still tremulously, "if I could do anything for your mother--visit
her----"
She broke down entirely. In Mr. Wyndham's face there was nothing but
cold surprise.
"You are very good," he said, "but you can do nothing."
He bowed and left the room. And Olive, humbled, repulsed, mortified to
death, hating, for the moment, herself and him and all the world, flung
herself upon a sofa, and wept such a scalding rush of tears, as only
those proud, sensitive hearts can ever shed. They might have been tears
of blood, so torn and wounded was the poor heart from whence they
sprang; and when they dried, and she rose up, they had left her like a
stone.
Between Nathalie Marsh's ghost and Mr. Wyndham's mad mother, Speckport
was kept so busy talking, it had scarcely time to canvas the movement,
when Captain George Cavendish announced his intention of selling out and
going home. Mr. Blake was the only one, with the exception of some
milk-and-water young ladies who were in love with the dashing Englisher,
whom the announcement bothered; and it was not for the captain's sake,
but for poor lost Cherrie's. Where was Cherrie? Val had vowed a vow to
find her out, but this turn of affairs knocked all his plans in the
head.
"If he does go," said Val to himself, "I'll send him off with a flea in
his ear! I must find Cherrie, or Charley Marsh will be an exile
forever!"
"But how?" Mr. Blake was at his wit's end thinking the matter over, and
trying to hit on some plan. He was still thinking about it, when he
sallied off to the post-office for his papers and letters, and
encountered Mr. Johnston, the captain's man, coming out with a handful
of letters. He was sorting them as he walked, and never noticed that he
dropped one as he passed Mr. Blake. Val picked it up to return it,
glancing carelessly at the superscription as he did so. His glance was
magical--a red flush crimsoned his sallow face, and he turned it over to
look at the postmark. Then he saw Mr. Johnston had missed it, and was
turning round--he dropped it again, and walked on, and the captain's
valet pounced upon it and walked off.
Blake strode straight to his boarding-house, informed Mr. Blair sudden
business required him to go up the country for a week or so, scrawled
off a note to his foreman, flung a few things into a valise, and started
for the cars. He was just in time to take a through ticket to S----,
before the evening train started, and was whirled off in the amber haze
of a brilliant September sunset.
It was past midnight when the train reached the terminus, but Mr. Blake
was not going to stop at S----. The steamer which started at eight next
morning for Charlottetown, Prince Edward's Island, lay at the wharf, and
Mr. Blake went on board immediately, and turned in. When the boat
started next morning, he was strolling about the deck, smoking a pipe
and watching the passengers come on board. There were not many, and he
knew none of them, which was just what he wanted. It was a long,
delightful day on the Gulf; and in the yellow glory of another sunset,
Mr. Blake landed in Charlottetown, and, valise in hand, sauntered up to
one of the principal hotels.
Mr. Blake took his tea, and then set off for a ramble through the town.
A quiet town, with grass-grown red-clay streets, and only a few
stragglers abroad. A beautiful town, with a few quiet shops, and a
drowsiness pervading the air, and a general stillness and torpor
pervading everywhere. Val retired early; but he arose early also, and
was out with his hands in his pocket and a cigar in his mouth, wandering
about again, staring at the Government House and the Colonial Buildings,
and the fly-specked books in the stationers' shops, and the deserted
drygoods'-stores, and going into the cathedral where morning-service
was going on, and contemplating the pretty nuns of Notre Dame reading
their missals with devoutly downcast eyes, in their pew. He was out
again the moment he had swallowed his breakfast and made a few inquiries
of the clerk, traversing the town-streets once more. These inquiries of
his were concerning a lady, a young lady, he told the polite clerk, a
friend of his whom he was most anxious to find out, but whose precise
residence he was ignorant of. He was pretty certain she was in
Charlottetown, but he could not exactly tell where. Perhaps the clerk
had seen her--a black-eyed young lady with black curls and red cheeks,
and not tall? No!--the clerk did not remember; he had seen a good many
black-eyed young ladies in his time, but he did not know that he had
seen this particular one. Mr. Blake pursued these inquiries in other
places, chiefly in dry goods' or milliners' stores, and in one of these
latter, the lady in attendance informed him that she knew such a person,
a young lady, a Miss Smith, she believed, who used to shop there, and
generally walked by every afternoon.
Mr. Blake never went home to dinner that day. It was a hot, sunshiny
day, and he lounged about the milliner's shop, attracting a good deal of
curiosity, and suspicion that he might have designs on the bonnets. But
Val did not care for their suspicions; he was looking out for some one
he felt sure would be along presently, if she were living and well. The
watch was a very long one, but he kept it patiently, and about three in
the afternoon he met with his reward. There, swinging along the street,
with the old jaunty step he remembered so well, was a black-eyed,
black-ringleted young lady, turban on head, parasol in hand. Mr. Blake
bounced up, walked forward, and accosted her with the simple
remark--sublime in its simplicity--"How are you, Cherrie?"