“Be useful where thou livest, that they may
Both want and wish thy pleasing presence still.
... All worldly joys go less
To the one joy of doing kindnesses.”
“What impression did the man make upon you in that brief meeting?”
asked Theodore. “Did he strike you as a _roué_?”
“No, that was the odd part of the business. He had the steady,
respectable air of a bread-winner, a professional, or perhaps a
commercial man. I could not tell which. There was nothing flashy
or dissipated in his appearance. He looked me steadily in the face
when he bowed to me at parting, and he had a frank, straightforward
expression, and a grave decision of manner that was not without
dignity. He was soberly dressed in a style that attracted no
attention. I had no doubt that he was a gentleman.”
“He was handsome, you say?”
“Yes, he was decidedly handsome—but I can remember only the general
character of his face, not features or details, for I saw him only
twice in my life.”
“Ah, you saw him again?”
“Once again—some years later, after her death.”
“She is dead, then?” cried Theodore; “that is the fact I am most
anxious to learn from a reliable source of information. There was a
rumour of her death years ago, but no one could give me any evidence
of the fact. I went to Boulogne last week to try and trace her to her
last resting-place; but I could discover neither tombstone nor record
of any kind.”
“And yet it was at Boulogne she died. I will tell you all I know
about her, if you like. It doesn’t amount to much.”
“Pray, tell me everything you can. I am deeply grateful to you for
having treated me with so much frankness.”
“It was on her account I received you. I am glad to talk to any one
who is interested in her pitiful fate. There were so few to care for
her. I think there is no lot more sad than that of a broken-down
gentleman’s daughter, born to an inheritance she is never to enjoy,
brought up to think of herself as a personage, with a right to the
world’s respect, and finding herself friendless and penniless in the
bloom of her womanhood, exposed to the world’s contumely.”
Theodore’s face flushed a little at this mention of his interest in
the unhappy lady, for he could but feel that the interest was of a
sinister kind; but he held his peace, and Miss Newton went on with
her story.
“It was ever so many years after that meeting in Richmond Park—I
think it must have been nearly ten years—when I ran against that very
man upon a windy March day in Folkestone. I had thought much and
often of my poor girl in all those years, wondering how the world had
used her, and whether the lover whom she trusted so implicitly had
been true to her. I shuddered at the thought of what her fate might
have been if he were false. I had never heard a word about her in all
that time. I had seen no report of a Divorce suit in the papers. I
knew absolutely nothing of her history from the hour I parted with
her by Thomson’s Seat till I ran against that man in Folkestone. I am
rather shy about speaking to strangers in a general way; but I was
so anxious to know her fate that I stopped this man, whose very name
was unknown to me, and asked him to tell me about my poor friend. He
looked bewildered, as well he might, at being pounced upon in that
manner. I explained that I was Evelyn Strangway’s old governess, and
that I was uneasy at having lost sight of her for so many years, and
was very anxious to see her again. He looked troubled at my question,
and he answered me gravely—‘I am sorry to say you will never do that.
Your friend is dead.’ I asked when she died, and where? He told me
within the last month, and at Boulogne. I asked if he was with her
at the last, and he said no; and then he lifted his hat and muttered
something about having very little time to get to the station. He was
going to London by the next train, it seemed, and he was evidently
anxious to shake me off; but I was determined he should answer at
least one more question. ‘Was her husband with her when she died?’
I asked. His face darkened at the question, which I suppose was a
foolish one. ‘Do you think it likely?’ he said, trying to move past
me; but I had laid my hand upon his sleeve in my eagerness. ‘Pray
tell me that her end was not unhappy—and that she was penitent for
her sins.’ He looked very angry at this. ‘If I stand here talking
to you another minute I shall lose my train, madam,’ he said, ‘and
I have important business in London this afternoon.’ A fly came
strolling by at this moment. He hailed it and jumped in, and he drove
off into what Thomas Carlyle would call the Immensities. I never saw
him again; I never knew his name, or calling, or place of abode, or
anything about him. I can no more localize him than I can Goethe’s
Mephistopheles. God knows how he treated my poor girl—whether he
was kind or cruel; whether he was faithful to a dishonourable tie,
or whether he held it as lightly as such ties have been held by the
majority of men from Abraham downwards.”
The little woman’s face flushed and her eyes filled as she gave vent
to her feelings.
“And this is all you know of Evelyn Strangway?” said Theodore, when
she had finished.
“This is all I know of her. And now tell me why you are so anxious to
learn her history—you who can never have seen her face, except in
the picture at Cheriton. I dressed her for that picture and sat by
while it was painted.”
“I will tell you the motive of my curiosity,” answered Theodore.
“You have treated me so frankly that I feel I must not withhold my
confidence from you. I know that I can rely upon your discretion.”
“I can talk, as you have just heard,” said Miss Newton; “but I can be
silent as the grave, when I like.”
“You must have read something about the murder at Cheriton last July.”
“I read a great deal about it. I took a morbid interest in the case,
knowing the house so well in every cranny and corner. I could picture
the scene as vividly as if I had seen the murdered man lying there. A
most inexplicable murder, apparently motiveless.”
“Apparently motiveless. That fact has so preyed upon the widow’s mind
that she has imagined a motive. She has a strange fancy that one
of the Strangways must have been the author of the crime. She has
brooded over their images till her whole mind has become possessed
with the idea of one of that banished race, garnering his wrath for
long years, until at last the hour came for a bloody revenge, and
then striking a death-blow out of the dark—striking his fatal blow
and vanishing from the sight of men, as if a phantom arm had been
stretched out of the night to deal that blow. She has asked me to
help her in discovering the murderer, and I am pledged to do my
utmost towards that end. I am the more anxious to do so as I tremble
for the consequences if she should be allowed to brood long upon this
morbid fancy about the Strangways. I think, however, that with your
help I have now laid that ghost. I have traced the two brothers to
their graves; and I suppose we may accept the statement of the man
you met at Folkestone as sufficient evidence of Mrs. Darcy’s death;
especially as it seems to fit in with the account of the then Vicar
of Cheriton, who met her in Boulogne in the summer of ’64 looking
very ill and much aged.”
“It was in the spring of ’65 I met that man at Folkestone. I could
find the exact date in my diary if you wished to be very precise
about it, for it is one of my old-maidish ways to be very regular in
keeping my diary. Poor Evelyn! To think that any one should be mad
enough to suspect her of being capable of murder—or Fred or Reginald.
They had the Strangway temper, all three of them; and a fiery temper
it was when it was roused, a temper that led to family quarrels and
all sorts of unhappiness; but murder is a different kind of thing.”
“That is the question,” said Theodore, gravely. “Is there such a
wide gulf between the temper that makes family quarrels, sets father
against son, and brother against brother, and the temper that pulls
a trigger or uses a bowie-knife? I thought they were one and the
same thing in actual quality, and that the result was dependent upon
circumstances.”
“Oh, don’t talk like that, please. Murder is something exceptional—a
hideous solecism in nature—and in this case why murder? What had
Sir Godfrey Carmichael done that any member of the Strangway family
should want to kill him?”
“I tell you that the idea is a wild one, the morbid growth of my
cousin’s sorrow.”
“Of course it is. I am very sorry for her, poor soul. I don’t suppose
any woman could suffer more than she must have suffered. It is a
dreadful story. And she was very fond of her husband, I dare say.”
“She adored him. They had been lovers almost from her childhood.
There never were a more devoted bride and bridegroom. Their honeymoon
was not even beginning to wane. They were still lovers, still in a
state of sweet surprise at finding themselves husband and wife. Poor
girl, I saw her the day before the murder, a brilliant creature,
the very spirit of joy. I saw her the morning after, a spectre,
with awful eyes and marble face—more dreadful to look upon than her
murdered husband.”
“It is all too sad,” sighed Miss Newton. “I begin to think that
Cheriton is a fatal house, and that no one can be happy there.
However, you can tell this poor lady that the Strangways are
exonerated from any part in her misery.”
“I shall write to her to-night to that effect. And now, Miss Newton,
let me thank you once more for your friendly frankness, and wish you
a good night.”
“Don’t be in such a hurry, Mr. Dalbrook. I like your face, and I
should like to see you again some day, if you can find time to waste
an hour upon an old maid in such a God-forsaken place as Wedgewood
Street.”
“I shall think an hour so spent most delightfully employed,” answered
Theodore, who was quite subjugated by the charm of this little person
and her surroundings.
He did not remember having ever sat in a room he liked better than
this first-floor front in Wedgewood Street, with its terra-cotta
walls, prettily-bound books, curious oddments of old china, and
comfortable curtains of creamy workhouse-sheeting, with a bold
vermilion border worked by Sarah Newton’s indefatigable fingers.
“I should very much like to hear all about your life in this—strange
neighbourhood,” he said.
“There is not much to tell. When my little fortune—left by my uncle,
the drysalter—fell in to me I was a lonely old woman, without one
surviving relative for whom I cared twopence. I was pretty tired of
teaching French and German—God knows how many hundred times I must
have gone through Ollendorff in both languages—and I’ve done him a
good many times in Italian, _par dessus le marché_. Perhaps I might
have held on for a year or two longer, as I was very fond of those
nice girls and boys at Kettisford Vicarage, if it hadn’t been for
Ollendorff. _He_ decided me. Leila, the youngest girl, had only just
begun that accursed book. She was blundering over ‘the baker’s golden
candlestick’ the very morning I got the lawyer’s letter to tell me of
my uncle’s death, and the will, and the legacy. I snatched the book
out of her hand, and shut it with a bang. ‘Ain’t I to do any more
Ollendorff, Sally?’ she asked. ‘You may do as much as you like, my
love,’ I said, ‘but you’ll do no more with me. I’m a millionaire, or
at least I feel as rich and independent as if I were a Rothschild.’
Well, I lay awake all that night making plans for my life, and trying
to think out how I could get the most comfort out of my little
fortune, enjoy my declining years, have everything I wanted, and yet
be of some use to my fellow-creatures; and the end of it was that
I made up my mind to take a roomy lodging in a poor neighbourhood,
where I should not be tempted to spend a penny upon appearances,
furnish it after my own heart, and make myself happy in just my own
way, without caring a straw what anybody thought about me. I knew
that I was plain as well as elderly, that I could never be admired,
or cut a figure in the genteel world, so I determined to renounce the
gentilities altogether and to be looked up to in a little world of my
own.”
“And you have found your plan answer——”
“It has answered beyond my hopes. Ever since I was thirty years of
age and had finished with all young ideas and day-dreams, I had one
particular ideal of earthly bliss, and that was the position of a
country squire’s wife—an energetic, active, well-meaning woman, the
central figure in a rural village, having her model cottages and her
allotment gardens, her infirmary, her mission-house—the good genius
of her little community, a queen in miniature, and without political
entanglements, or menace of foreign war. Now it could never be my lot
to reign on a landed estate, to build cottages, or cut up fertile
meadows for cottagers’ gardens; but I thought by taking up my abode
in a poor neighbourhood, and visiting in a friendly, familiar way—no
tracts or preachings—among the most respectable of the inhabitants,
and slowly feeling my way among the difficult subjects, I might
gradually acquire an influence just as strong as that of the Lady
Bountiful in a country parish, and might come to be as useful in my
small way as the squire’s wife with her larger means. And I have
done it,” added Miss Newton, triumphantly. “There are rooms in this
street and in other streets that are to me my model cottages. There
are overworked, underfed women who look up to me as their Providence.
There are children who come and hang to my skirts as I pass along the
streets. There are great hulking men who ask my advice and get me to
write their letters for them. What could a squire’s wife have more
than that? And yet I have only a hundred and fifty pounds a year to
spend upon my people.”
“You give them something more than money. You give them sympathy—the
magnetism of your strong and generous nature.”
“Ah, there is something in that. Magnetism is a good word. There
must be some reason why people attach themselves so ardently to Mr.
Gladstone, don’t you know,—some charm in him that holds them almost
in spite of themselves, and makes them think as he thinks, and veer
as he veers. Yes, they swing round with him like the boats going
round with the tide, and they can’t help it any more than the boats
can. And I think, to compare small things with great, there must be
some touch of that magnetic power in _me_,” concluded Miss Newton.
“I am sure of it,” said Theodore, “and I am sure, too, that you must
be like a spot of light in this dark little world of yours.”
“I live among my friends. That is the point,” explained Miss
Newton. “I don’t come from Belgravia, or from a fashionable terrace
in Kensington, and tell them they ought to keep their wretched
rooms cleaner, and open their windows and put flower-pots on their
window-sills. I live here, and they can come and see how I keep _my_
rooms, and judge for themselves. Their landlord is my landlord; and
a nice life I lead him about water, and whitewash, and drains. He is
thoroughly afraid of me, I am happy to say, and generally bolts round
a corner when he sees me in the street; but I am too quick for his
over-fed legs. I tackle him about all his shortcomings, and he finds
it easier to spend a few pounds upon his property now and then than
to have _me_ upon his heels at every turn; so now Crook’s tenements
have quite a reputation in Lambeth. If you were to see the old dragon
you would wonder at my pluck in attacking him, I can assure you.”
“Your whole life is wonderful to me, Miss Newton; and I only wish
there were hundreds of women in this big city living just as you
live. Tell me, please, what kind of people your neighbours are.”
“Oh, there are people of all kinds, some of course who are quite
impracticable, for whom I can do nothing; but there are many more
who are glad of my friendship, and who receive me with open arms.
The single women and widows are my chief friends, and some of those
I know as well as if we had been brought up and educated upon the
same social level. They are workwomen of all kinds, tailoresses,
shirt-makers, girls who work for military outfitters, extra hands
for Court dressmakers, shop-girls at the humbler class of shops,
shoe-binders, artificial-flower-makers. I wonder whether you would
like to see some of them.”
“I should like it very much indeed.”
“Then perhaps you will come to one of my tea-parties. I give two
tea-parties a week all through the winter, to just as many of my
women friends as this room will hold. It holds about twenty very
comfortably, so I make twenty-five the outside limit. We rather
enjoy a little bit of a crush—and I give my invitations so that they
all have such pleasure as I can give them, fairly, turn and turn
about. We do not begin our evening too early, for the working hours
are precious to my poor things. We take tea at eight o’clock, and
we seldom separate before half-past eleven—just as if we were at a
theatre. We have a little music, a little reading and recitation, and
sometimes a round game at cards. When we are in a wild humour we play
dumb-crambo, or even puss-in-the-corner; and we have always a great
deal of talk. We sit round this fireplace in a double semi-circle,
the younger ones sitting on the rug in front of us elders, and we
talk, and talk, and talk—about ourselves mostly, and you can’t think
what good it does us. Surely God gave man speech as the universal
safety-valve. It lets off half our troubles, and half our sense of
the world’s injustice.”
“Please let me come to your very next party,” said Theodore, smiling
at the little woman’s ardour.
“That will be to-morrow evening,” replied Miss Newton. “I shall have
to make an excuse for your appearance, as we very seldom invite a
man. You will have to read or recite something, as a reason for your
being asked, don’t you know.”
“I will not recoil even from that test. I have distinguished myself
occasionally at a Penny Reading. Am I to be tragic—or comic?”
“Be both if you can. We like to laugh; but we revel in something that
makes us cry desperately. If you could give us something creepy into
the bargain, freeze our blood with a ghost or two, it would be all
the more enjoyable.”
“I will satiate you with my talents; I shall feel like Pentheus
when he intruded upon his mother and her crew, and shall be humbly
grateful for not being torn to pieces. I dare say I shall be torn to
pieces morally, in the way of criticism. Good night, and a thousand
thanks.”
“Wait,” said Miss Newton. “I’m afraid it is much foggier than when
you came. I have smelt the fog coming on while we have been talking.
Wouldn’t you like a cab?”
“I should very much, but I doubt if I shall succeed in finding one.”
“_You_ wouldn’t, but I dare say I can get you one,” replied Miss
Newton, decisively.
She had an unobtrusive little chatelaine at her side, and from the
bunch of implements, scissors, penknife, thimble, she selected a
small whistle. Then she pulled back one of the cream-white curtains,
opened the window, and whistled loud and shrill into the fog. Two
minutes afterwards there came a small treble voice out of the
darkness.
“What is it, Miss Newton?”
“Who’s that?”
“Tommy Meadows.”
“All right, Tommy. Do you think you could find a hansom without
getting yourself run over?”
“Rather! Do you want it bringed to your door, miss?”
“If you please, Tommy.”
“I’m off,” cried the shrill voice, and in less than ten minutes a
two-wheeler rattled along the street, and drew up sharply at Tommy’s
treble command, with Tommy himself seated inside, enjoying the drive
and the uncertainty of the driver.
His spirits were still further exalted by the gift of sixpence from
Theodore as he stepped into the cab, to be taken back to the Temple
at a foot pace.
Even that sitting-room of his, which he had taken pains to make
comfortable and home-like, had a gloomy look after that bright room
in Lambeth, with its terra-cotta walls and cream-coloured curtains,
its gaily-bound books and vivid Vallauris vases perched in every
available corner. He was more interested in that quaint interior, and
in the woman who had created it, than he had been in any one except
that one woman who filled the chief place in all his thoughts. The
Vicar of Kettisford had not over-estimated Sarah Newton’s power of
fascination.
He was in Wedgewood Street at a few minutes before eight on the
following evening. The sky above Lambeth was no longer obscured;
there were wintry stars shining over that forest of chimney pots and
everlasting monotony of slated roofs; and even Lambeth looked lively
with its costers’ barrows and bustle of eventide marketing. Theodore
found the door open, as it had been yesterday, and he found an extra
lamp upon the first floor landing, and the door of Miss Newton’s room
ajar, while from within came the sound of many voices, moderated to a
subdued tone, but still lively.
His modest knock was answered by Miss Newton herself, who was
standing close to the door, ready to greet every fresh arrival.
“How do you do? We are nearly all here,” she said, cheerily.
“I hope you have not just been dining, for with us tea means a hearty
meal, and if you can’t eat anything we shall feel as if you were
Banquo’s ghost. How do you do, Mrs. Kirby?” to another arrival. “Baby
better, I hope? Yes, that’s right. How are you, Clara? and you, Rose?
You’ve had that wretched tooth out—I can see it in your face. Such a
relief, isn’t it? So glad to see you, Susan Dale, and you, Maria,
and you, Jenny. Why, we are all here, I do believe.”
“Yes, Miss Newton,” said a bright-looking girl by the fireplace, who
had been making toast indefatigably for twenty minutes, and whose
complexion had suffered accordingly. “There are two and twenty of us,
four and twenty, counting the gentleman and you. I think that’s as
many as you expected.”
“Yes, everybody’s here. So we may as well begin tea.”
In most such assemblies, where the intention was to benefit a humble
class of guests, the proceedings would have begun with a hymn; but
at Miss Newton’s parties there were neither hymns nor prayers—and
yet Miss Newton loved her hymn-book, and delighted in the pathos
and the sweetness of the music with which those familiar words are
interwoven; nor would she yield to anybody in her belief in the
efficacy of prayer; but she had made up her mind from the beginning
that her tea-parties were to be pure and simple recreation, and that
any good which should come out of them was to come incidentally. The
women and girls who came at her bidding were to feel they came to be
entertained, came as her guests, just as, had they been duchesses,
they might have gone to visit other duchesses in Park Lane or Carlton
Gardens. They were not asked in order that they should be taught, or
preached to, or wheedled into the praying of prayers or the singing
of hymns. They went as equals to visit a friend who relished their
society.
And did not everybody relish the tea! which might be described as
a Yorkshire tea of a humble order; not the Yorkshire tea which may
mean mayonnaise and perigord pie, chicken and champagne—but tea
as understood in the Potteries of Hull, or the humbler alleys and
streets of Leeds or Bradford. Three moderate-sized tables had been
put together to make one capacious board, spread with snowy damask,
upon which appeared two large plum loaves, two tall towers of bread
and butter, a glass bowl of marmalade, a bowl of jam, two dishes of
thinly-sliced German sausage set off with sprigs of parsley—German
sausage bought at the most respectable ham and beef shop in the
Borough, and as trustworthy as German sausage can be; and for
crowning glory of the feast a plentiful supply of shrimps, freshly
boiled, savouring of the unseen sea. The hot buttered toast was
frizzling on a brass footman in front of the fire, ready to be handed
round piping hot, as required. There were two tea-trays, one at each
end of the table, and there were two bright copper kettles, which had
never been defiled by the smoke of the fire, filled with admirable
tea.
Miss Newton took her place at the head of the table, with Theodore
on her right hand, and a pale and fragile looking young woman on her
left. These two assisted the hostess in the administration of the
tea-tray, handing cups and saucers, sugar-basin and cream-jug; and in
so doing they had frequent occasion to look at each other.
Having gone there prepared to be interested, Theodore soon began to
interest himself in this young woman, whom Miss Newton addressed
as Marian. She was by no means beautiful now, but Theodore fancied
that she had once been very handsome, and he occupied himself in
reconstructing the beauty of the past from the wreck of the present.
The lines of the face were classic in their regularity, but the
hollow cheeks and pallid complexion told of care and toil, and the
face was aged untimely by a hard and joyless life. The eyes were
darkest grey, large and pathetic-looking, the eyes of a woman who
had suffered much and thought much. The beauty of those eyes gave a
mournful charm to the pale pinched face, and the light auburn hair
was still luxuriant. Theodore noted the delicate hands and taper
fingers, which differed curiously from the other hands which were
busy around the hospitable board.
He could see that this young woman was a favourite with Sarah Newton,
and he told himself that she was of a race apart from the rest; but
he was agreeably surprised in finding that, except for the prevailing
Cockney accent, and a few slight lapses in grammar and pronunciation,
Miss Newton’s guests were quite as refined as those ladies of
Dorchester with whom it had been his privilege to associate; indeed,
he was not sure that he did not prefer the Cockney twang and the
faulty grammar to the second-hand smartness and slang of the young
ladies whose “Awfully jolly,” “Ain’t it,” and “Don’t you know,” had
so often irritated his ear on tennis lawn or at afternoon tea. Here
at least there was the unstudied speech of people who knew not the
caprices of fashion or the latest catch word that had descended from
Belgravia to Brompton, and from Brompton to the provinces.
There was a great deal of talk, as Miss Newton had told him there
would be; and as she encouraged all her guests to talk about
themselves, he gathered a good deal of interesting information
about the state of the different trades and the ways and manners
of various employers, most of whom seemed to be of a despotic and
grasping temper. The widows talked of their children’s ailments or
their progress at the Board School; the girls talked a little, and
with all modesty, of their sweethearts. Sarah Newton was interested
in every detail of those humble lives, and seemed to remember every
fact bearing upon the joys or the sorrows of her guests. It was a
wonder to Theodore, to see how the careworn faces lighted up round
the cheerful table in the lamplight. Yes, it was surely a good thing
to live among these daughters of toil, and to lighten their burdens
by this quick sympathy, this cheerful hospitality. Vast Pleasure
Halls and People’s Palaces may do much for the million; but here was
one little spinster with her small income making an atmosphere of
friendliness and comfort for the few, and able to get a great deal
nearer to them than Philanthropy on a gigantic scale can ever get to
the many.
Theodore noticed that while most other tongues babbled freely, the
girl called Marian sat silent, after her task of distributing the
tea was over, with hands folded in her lap, listening to the voices
round her, and with a soft slow smile lighting her face now and
then. In repose her countenance was deeply sad, and he found himself
speculating upon the history that had left those melancholy lines
upon a face that was still young.
“I am much interested in your next neighbour,” he said to Miss
Newton, presently, while Marian was helping another girl to clear
the table. “I feel sure there must be something very sad in her
experience of life, and that she has sunk from a higher level.”
“So do I,” answered Miss Newton, “but I know very little more about
her than you do, except that she is a most exquisite worker with
those taper fingers of hers, and that she has worked for the same
baby-linen house for the last three years, and has lived in the same
second-floor back in Hercules’ Buildings. I think she is as fond of
me as she can be, yet she has never told me where she was born, or
who her people were, or what her life has been like. Once she went so
far as to tell me that it had been a very commonplace life, and that
her troubles had been in nowise extraordinary—except the fact of her
having had a very severe attack of typhus fever, which left her a
wreck. Once, from some chance allusion, I learnt that it was in Italy
she caught the fever, and that it was badly treated by a foreign
doctor; but that one fact is all she ever let slip in her talk, so
carefully does she avoid every mention of the past. I need hardly
tell you that I have never questioned her. I have reason to know that
her life for the last three years has been spotless—an industrious,
temperate, Christian life—and that she is charitable and kind to
those who are poorer than herself. That is quite enough for me, and I
have encouraged her to make a friend of me in every way in my power.”
“She is happy in having found such a friend, an invaluable friend to
a woman who has sunk from happier surroundings.”
“Yes, I think I have been a comfort to her. She comes to me for
books, and we meet nearly every day at the Free Library, and compare
notes about our reading. My only regret is that I cannot induce her
to take enough air and exercise. She spends all the time that she can
spare from her needlework in reading. But I take her for a walk now
and then, and I think she enjoys that. A penn’orth of the tramcar
carries us to Battersea Park, and we can stroll about amongst grass
and trees, and in sight of the river. She is better off than most of
the girls in the way of getting a little rest after toil, for that
fine, delicate needlework of hers pays better than the common run of
work, and she is the quickest worker I know.”
The tables were cleared by this time, and space had been made for
that half-circle round the fire of which Miss Newton had spoken on
the previous night. The younger girls brought hassocks and cushions,
and seated themselves in the front rank, while their elders sat in
the outer row of chairs.
Theodore was now called upon to contribute his share to the
entertainment, and thereupon took a book from his pocket.
“You told me you and your friends were fond of creepy stories, Miss
Newton,” he said. “Is that really so?”
“Really and truly.”
“And you are none of you afflicted with weak nerves—you are not
afraid of being made uncomfortable by the memory of a ghastly story?”
“No. I think that with most of us the cares of life are too real and
too absorbing to leave any room in our minds for imaginary horrors.
Isn’t it so, now, friends?”
“Lor, yes, Miss Newton,” answered one of the girls briskly: “we’re
all of us too busy to worry about ghosts; but I love a ghost tale for
all that.”
A chorus of voices echoed this assertion.
“Then, ladies, I shall have the honour of reading the ‘Haunters and
the Haunted,’ by Bulwer Lytton.”
The very title of the story thrilled them, and the whole party, just
now so noisy with eager talk and frequent laughter, sat breathless,
looking at the reader with awe-stricken eyes as that wonderful story
slowly unwound itself.
Theodore read well, in that subdued and semi-dramatic style which is
best adapted to chamber-reading. He felt what he read, and the horror
of the imaginary scene was vividly before his eyes as he got deeper
into the story.
The reading lasted nearly two hours, but it was not one moment too
long for Theodore’s audience, and there was a sigh of regret when the
last words of the story had been spoken.
“Well,” exclaimed one young lady, “I do call that a first-class tale,
don’t you, Miss Newton?”
“You may go a long way without getting such a ghost tale as that,”
said another; “and don’t the gentleman read beautifully, and don’t he
make one feel as if it was all going on in this very room? And the
dog too! There, I never see such a thing! A poor dog to drop down
dead, like that.”
“I did hope that there dog would come to life again at the end,” said
one damsel.
By way of diversion after the story, Miss Newton opened her piano,
beckoned three of the girls over to her, and played the symphony
of “Blow, Gentle Gales,” which old-fashioned glee the three girls
sang with taste and discretion, the bass part being altered to suit
a female voice. Then came some songs, all of which Miss Newton
accompanied; and then at her request Theodore read again, this time
selecting Holmes’ “Wonderful One-Horse Shay,” which caused much
laughter; after which, the little clock on the chimney-piece having
struck eleven, he wished his hostess good night, selected his coat
and hat from among the heap of jackets and hats on a table on the
landing, and went downstairs.
He was still in Wedgewood Street when he heard light footsteps
coming quickly behind him. It seemed to him that they were trying to
overtake him, so he turned and met the owner of the feet.
“I beg your pardon, sir; forgive me for following you,” said a very
gentle voice, which he recognized as belonging to the girl called
Marian—“I wanted so much to speak to you—alone.”
“And I am glad of the opportunity of speaking to you,” he answered.
“I felt particularly interested in you this evening—there are some
faces, you know, which interest us in spite of ourselves almost, and
I felt that I should like to know more of you.”
This was so gravely said that there was no possibility of an
offensive construction being given to the words.
“You are very good, sir. It was your name that struck me,” she
answered, falteringly; “it is a Dorsetshire name, I think.”
“Yes, it is a Dorsetshire name, and I am a Dorchester man.”
“Dorchester,” she repeated slowly. “I wonder whether you know a place
called Cheriton?”
“I know it very well indeed. A kinsman of mine lives there. Lord
Cheriton is my cousin.”
“I thought as much, directly I heard your name. You must know all
about that dreadful murder, then—last summer?”
“Yes, I know about as much of it as any one knows, and that is very
little.”
“They have not found the murderer?” she asked, with a faint shudder.
“No, nor are they ever likely to find him, I believe. But tell me why
you are interested in Cheriton. Do you come from that part of the
country?”
“Yes.”
“Were you born in Cheriton village?”
“I was brought up not far from there,” she answered, hesitatingly.
He remembered what Miss Newton had told him of her own forbearance in
asking questions, and he pursued the inquiry no further.
“May I see you as far as your lodgings?” he said, kindly. “It will be
very little out of my way.”
“No, thank you, Mr. Dalbrook. I am too much accustomed to going
about alone ever to want any escort. Good night, and thank you for
having answered my questions.”
Her manner showed a disinclination to prolong the interview, and she
walked away with hurried steps which carried her swiftly into the
darkness.
“Poor lonely soul!” he said to himself. “Now, whose lost sheep
is she, I wonder? She is certainly of a rank above a cottager’s
daughter, and with those hands of hers it is clear she has never
been in domestic service. Not far from Cheriton! What may that mean?
Not far is a vague description of locality. I must ask Lady Cheriton
about her the next time I am at the Chase.”