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(The New York Public Library)
THE HEART OF A MYSTERY
THE HEART OF A MYSTERY
A Novel
BY
T. W. SPEIGHT
AUTHOR OF
"HOODWINKED," "BACK TO LIFE," "BURGO'S ROMANCE,"
ETC., ETC.
"Pluck out the Heart of my Mystery."--HAMLET
NEW YORK
R. F. FENNO & COMPANY
112 FIFTH AVENUE
Copyright, 1896
F. FENNO & COMPANY
_The Heart of a Mystery_
CONTENTS.
THE PROLOGUE.
Chapter
I. In December Weather.
II. The Pengarvons of Broome.
THE STORY.
I. Mr. Hazeldine Changes his Notes for Gold.
II. "Farewell, a Long Farewell."
III. Tea, Talk, and Music.
IV. A Laggard in Love.
V. Ephraim Judd Cuts his Hand.
VI. The Discovery.
VII. Who Did It?
VIII. Mr. Hazeldine's Letter.
IX. The Inquest.
X. An Anxious Week.
XI. The Verdict.
XII. Amo, Amas.
XIII. The Trial.
XIV. Exit Miss Letitia.
XV. After the Trial.
XVI. A Letter and its Reply.
XVII. The Progress of Events.
XVIII. A Revelation.
XIX. The Old Story.
XX. "What will he Think? What will he Say?"
XXI. Mildew and Decay.
XXII. Ephraim Judd's Strange Experience.
XXIII. Poor John!
XXIV. Enter Mr. Hodgson.
XXV. Ephraim Judd's Remorse.
XXVI. The Brothers.
XXVII. Wrong Versus Right.
XXVIII. Victory.
XXIX. Mixed Threads.
XXX. The Downward Path.--A Proposal.
XXXI. Clement's Quest.
XXXII. Correspondence.
XXXIII. The Quest Continued.
XXXIV. Another Link.
XXXV. The Widow Varrel.
XXXVI. A Journey of Discovery.
XXXVII. How and Why.
XXXVIII. The Cloud Dispersed, and a Bitter Disappointment.
XXXIX. An Interview and its Sequel.
XL. A Story of the Past, and a Departure.
XLI. "Good-Bye to One and All."
THE HEART OF A MYSTERY.
PROLOGUE.
CHAPTER I.
IN DECEMBER WEATHER.
On a certain bitter December evening, when the present century was
several years younger than it is now, Miss Pengarvon, of Broome, in
the shire of Derby, sat in the Green Parlor at the Hall, working by
candle-light at some piece of delicate embroidery. The fingers of the
old case-clock pointed to half-past ten--an exceptionally late hour in
that remote place. Miss Pengarvon was alone. Her sister, Miss Letitia,
had been suffering from neuralgic pains in the head, and had retired
an hour ago. Barney Dale, the major-domo and, in point of fact, the
only male member of the establishment, together with his wife, had
gone into the village to visit a sick relative, and there was no
knowing at what hour they might return. The solitary housemaid, having
nothing to sit up for, had been glad to exchange the chilly gloom of
the huge nagged kitchen for the comfort and warmth of bed. Earlier in
the evening snow had fallen to the depth of two or three inches, but
the sky was clear again by this time and the stars were glittering
frostily. Except for the ticking of the clock and the occasional
dropping of a cinder, silence the most profound reigned inside the
Hall and out. Now and then Miss Pengarvon's needle would come to a
stand for a moment while she snuffed the candles, after which the
monotonous stitching would go on as before. Be it observed that
candlesticks, tray, and snuffers were all of silver, although the
candles themselves were of a cheap and common kind.
Miss Pengarvon was desirous of completing the work on which she was
engaged before going to bed. Both she and Miss Letitia were remarkably
skillful with their needles, and, gentlewomen though they were, were
not above seeking payment for their work. But this was a secret known
to themselves and Barney Dale alone. Once a month Barney went over to
a certain town some score miles away, where he found a ready market
for the proceeds of the untiring industry of the two ladies at the
Hall, without anybody being the wiser as to whose handiwork it was.
The money thus earned formed a welcome addition to the very limited
income of Miss Pengarvon and her sister.
At this time Miss Pengarvon was close on her forty-fifth birthday. She
was very tall, and grim, and gaunt. The normal expression of her
features was harsh and forbidding. She had fine teeth, an aquiline
nose, and unsympathetic blue-grey eyes, with a cold, stony gleam in
them, deeply set under bushy brows--eyes which looked as though they
had never melted with tenderness or softened with tears. The mass of
her dark-brown hair, which began to show signs of the flight of time,
was coiled round the crown of her head and held in its place by a high
comb, while three small puffs or curls, which were generally kept in
paper till mid-day, decorated each side of her forehead. When not
engaged with her needle, she wore black lace mittens, and she always
changed her morning dress of black bombazine for one of black silk
before dinner. The dress she was wearing had been both dyed and
turned, but was still good for two or three years' longer wear.
Of Miss Letitia it is enough to say that she was a copy, in somewhat
less pronounced colors, of her sister as far as one human being can be
a copy of any other; indeed, by comparative strangers, she was not
infrequently mistaken for Miss Pengarvon. She was two years younger
than her sister, whose stronger will dominated hers, and who had still
as complete an ascendency over her as when they had been children
together. It was noticeable that if any of the servants, or any poor
person, wanted a favor granted, or a kindness done them, they went by
preference to Miss Letitia rather than to Miss Barbara.
The Green Parlor, although it was traditionally supposed to be
haunted, was the favorite sitting-room of the Misses Pengarvon, as it
had been of their mother in her time. It was probably owing to the
force of early associations that they clung to it as they did, seeing
that there were many pleasanter rooms in the old house, some of them
looking over the terrace and the garden beyond, or having views across
miles of swelling moorland; whereas the two high, narrow windows of
the Green Parlor looked into nothing more attractive than a small
shaven lawn, shut in by a thick semicircular hedge of evergreens, and
without any embellishment beyond such as might be afforded by a
dilapidated and moss-grown sun-dial.
Both fingers and eyes were tired, but Miss Pengarvon went on doggedly
with her work. She finished her task as the clock was striking eleven.
With a sigh of relief she rose from her chair, and began to put away
her silks and needles and other materials. While thus engaged she
started suddenly; she felt nearly sure that she had heard a knocking
at the front door. She waited without stirring for a couple of
minutes. Yes, there it was again--the unmistakable sound of some one
knocking at the great door of the Hall. Who could be seeking
admittance at that late hour? The visitors at the Hall were so few
that Miss Pengarvon was utterly nonplussed, Barney Dale and his wife,
when they should return, would gain admittance through the back
premises, of which they had the key. There might be thieves or tramps
abroad, who knew that there was no one but women in the house.
But Miss Pengarvon was a woman of nerve, and not readily frightened.
She was still waiting and hesitating when the knocking sounded for the
third time, but less loudly than before. At the best it had been a
timorous and half-hearted sort of summons, with little or no
self-assertion about it.
Miss Pengarvon hesitated no longer. Taking up one of the two
candlesticks, for there was no light in any other part of the house,
she flung open the door of the Green Parlor and passed into the dark
corridor beyond, shading the candle with her hand as she went. From
the corridor she passed into the entrance-hall, strange, weird shadows
seeming to start into life from wall and ceiling, as though they had
been suddenly disturbed in their sleep, as she crossed it with her
feeble light. Before her was the great door, iron clamped, and
fastened with bolt and chain. Putting down her candle on a side table,
Miss Pengarvon went up to the door and laid her hand on one of the
bolts. Then she hesitated. She knew not who might be outside, and she
was but one lonely woman. Then with a gesture of impatience at her own
timidity, she undid the heavy bolts and locks one by one, but was
careful to leave the guard chain still up. Then she pulled open the
door as far as the chain would allow. A gust of frosty air, that cut
almost like a knife, leaped suddenly in, bringing with it a shower of
powdered snow and extinguishing the candle.
Miss Pengarvon, peering out into the snowy night, saw a female figure,
hooded and cloaked from head to foot, standing on the topmost of the
broad, shallow flight of steps which led up to the door. As she looked
a dire presentiment shook her from head to foot, as few things else in
the world could have shaken her, but her voice was clear and stern
when she spoke:
"Who are you, and what is your business here at this untimely hour?"
she demanded.
The figure outside came a step nearer.
"I am Isabel--your sister," was uttered in broken accents. "I have
been walking till I can walk no longer. I have not tasted food since
morning. I want shelter and rest for to-night--only for to-night."
The tone was one of pitiful supplication.
"Neither shelter nor rest is there under this roof for such as you,"
replied Miss Pengarvon, in her stoniest accents. "You have disgraced
the name you bear as it was never disgraced before. This is your home
no longer. Go!" and without another word the great door was shut with
a crash and the bolts and locks shot one by one.
As Miss Pengarvon put out her hand in the dark to find the
candlestick, one short, sharp, anguished cry--the cry of a broken
heart--smote her ears. She stood for some moments with a hand pressed
to her bosom, listening, but the silence was not broken again. Once
more the house seemed a house of the dead. Then Miss Pengarvon turned
and made her way through the black entrance-hall and the blacker
corridor beyond, till she reached the parlor. Going in, she shut the
door and tried to re-light the candle, but her hand trembled so that
for some time she could not. Her face looked strangely haggard, but
the hard, cold look in her eyes never varied. She drew a knitted shawl
round her shoulders and sat down by the smouldering embers. Surely
Barney and his wife could not be long now! She felt a strange
disinclination for going to bed till they should return, although
under ordinary circumstances she would have had no hesitation about
doing so. The wind was beginning to rise, and every now and again
there were eerie meanings in the wide chimney, while the windows shook
and rattled as though some one were trying them from without. There
was only one candle alight, and the room seemed full of shadows such
as she had never noticed before. The darkest corner was the corner
behind her chair. It made her uncomfortable to know this, so she
crossed to the opposite side of the hearth, and sat down in her
sister's chair. She wished that Letitia had not gone to bed.
She never remembered having felt so nervous before, not even when a
child, and she despised herself for the feeling. All this time she was
conscious that she was still listening intently. Would that timorous
summons at the door make itself heard again? Perhaps she half hoped
that it might. She kept telling herself again and again that it was
impossible for her to have acted otherwise than as she had acted, that
no other course was open to her--and yet she listened for the knocking
to come again. By-and-bye she opened the door a little way. This, as
she told herself, was only that she might be enabled to hear Barney
when he should arrive. How slowly the minutes passed! What strange
noises the wind made! Those windows must be seen to in the morning and
made to fit more tightly in their frames. It was evident that she
would not be troubled with the knocking again. "So much the better--so
much the better," she muttered under her breath--and yet she was
listening all the time. Thank Heaven! here was Barney Dale at last.
She could hear him unlocking one of the back doors of which he had
taken the key with him. But he did not re-lock the door, which was
strange; and now he was coming at a great pace in the direction of the
Green Parlor; his hobnailed shoes clumping noisily as he came along
the stone corridor. He had never before missed giving a preliminary
knock at the door, but this time he came in without ceremony. One
glance at his affrighted face was enough to tell Miss Pengarvon the
news he was bringing her. She rose from her seat as he entered the
room.
"Oh! mistress, there's poor Miss Isabel lying outside in the snow,
and----"
Miss Pengarvon's tall, thin form drew itself up to its fullest height.
"I know it," she said in her deep, harsh tones; "I know it. Let her
lie there, or let her go. There is no home for such as she."
"But, mistress, she's dying; or, mebbe, dead already--dead and cold. I
lifted up her head, and it fell back like a lump o' lead. You munna
leave her lying there to perish. For heaven's sake, mistress, let me
and Joanna see to her!"
"Let her go. This is no home for such as she," was all that Miss
Pengarvon said.
"But she canna even stand, and, long afore morning, she'll be froze to
death. Besides, which----" he bent forward, and whispered a few words
in Miss Pengarvon's ear.
A sort of stony horror came into her face as she listened. Then she
drew back a pace and clenched her hand, and for a moment Barney
thought that she was about to strike him. "It is a lie--an infamous
lie!" she whispered back through her thin, dry lips.
"It's gospel truth, mistress, and Joanna will tell you the same. You
munna leave her lying there, dead an' cold, poor dear--dead an' cold."
"So be it," said Miss Pengarvon, after a few moments, with an evident
effort. "Do you and Joanna bring her in--but not by the front door,
not over the threshold she has disgraced. Let her come in by the door
at which beggars and vagrants knock."
Barney waited for no further permission, but went at once, closing the
door behind him. Miss Pengarvon folded her shawl more closely around
her and sank into a chair. She sat and stared at the dying embers, her
thin lips moving, but no sound coming from them. All the same, her
ears were painfully on the alert. She started as though she half
expected to see a ghost, when the door slowly opened, and Miss Letitia
entered the room in her grey dressing-robe and frilled night-cap. The
latter was trembling violently, and her eyes were full of terror.
"What brings you here?" demanded the elder sister, sternly. "I thought
you were in bed hours ago."
"I left the lotion for my face downstairs, and I can get no rest
without it. But what are Barney and Joanna about at this time of
night? As I came downstairs I saw them bringing something in through
the open door." Then she whispered, "Do you know, Barbara, it looked
for all the world like a corpse!"
Miss Pengarvon shuddered in spite of herself. "Letitia," she said, "go
and bolt the door at the foot of the staircase that leads to Susan's
bedroom. She might come down unawares, as you have. When you have done
that, come back here, and I will tell you what it was that you saw
Barney and Joanna bringing into the house."
CHAPTER II.
THE PENGARVON'S OF BROOME.
The Pengarvons had been settled at Broome for three hundred years.
They were the younger branch of an ancient Cornish family, which
professed to be able to trace back its pedigree to the days when
legend and history were so inextricably mixed that it was impossible
at this distance of time to draw any nice distinction between the two.
For twenty miles round they were known as "The Proud Pengarvons;" but
whether this distinctive title had its origin in some mental
peculiarity of the family, or in their mode of carrying themselves
towards their fellows, or whether the family motto, "Pride I cherish,"
was responsible for it, it would not be worth while too curiously to
inquire. In any case, it was accepted as an indisputable fact that the
Pengarvons should be proud, and proud they were accordingly. The
present mansion of Broome, which was situate in the extreme north of
the county, where the Derbyshire and Yorkshire moors impinge upon each
other, dated no further back than the earlier half of the seventeenth
century. It was a long, low, two-storied house, built of common grey
stone indigenous to that part of the country--the same kind of stone
that the rough unmortared walls were built of, which divided one field
or stretch of moorland from another (for miles round Broome, hedges
were few and far between). It was a house which, as regards design and
ornamentation, was severely simple almost to the verge of ugliness,
but, in years gone by it had been found spacious enough for all the
needs of a large family, with accommodation for a score or more guests
into the bargain. Sir Jasper Pengarvon, the last baronet--with whom
the title became extinct for lack of heirs male--and the father of the
Miss Pengarvons, to whom we have already been introduced, had married
for his first wife Maria, niece of Lord Dronfield, who brought him a
fortune of ten thousand pounds.
Sir Jasper was not a man to appreciate the delights of the country, or
to settle down after marriage into the groove which had contented so
many generations of his forefathers. While still little more than a
youngster, he had developed a very pretty taste for the gaming-table,
which it was impossible to gratify at Broome. So one day, after he had
been nearly yawning himself to death for a week, and after a more
pronounced tiff than usual with my lady, whose penurious ways were a
terrible annoyance to him, he discovered that important business
called him to London, and there, a few days later, his yellow
posting-chariot deposited him.
After this, Broome saw little of its master except at infrequent
intervals. His visits rarely lasted longer than a fortnight at a time,
after which he would be off again, either to London, or to the country
house of one or another of his many friends. Meanwhile, Lady Pengarvon
vegetated from year end to year end in the gloomy old house, seeing
scarcely any company and rarely going from home, bringing up her
daughters, giving sparingly to the poor, and being exercised in her
mind for weeks before she ventured on the extravagance of ordering a
new gown. All this time no heir male came to gladden his parents'
hearts. Sir Jasper felt himself to be a deeply injured man, while his
wife pined in secret and shut herself up from the world more closely
than ever.
The Baronet had not been idle all this time. He had been doing his
best, with the aid of the gaming-table, to dissipate the broad acres
which had come down to him from a dozen generations of thrifty
ancestors. It was a pleasant life, but unfortunately it couldn't last
for ever. The end came when his eldest daughter was seventeen years
old. His own fortune, his wife's fortune, the proceeds of the sale of
every acre of land and every foot of timber that he had the power to
sell had slipped through his fingers as easily as water through a
sieve, till nothing was left save the old house of Broome, with a few
acres of sparsely-timbered land about it, together with two small
farms of the rental value of eighty pounds a year each, which it was
not in the Baronet's power to touch. Beyond that the ruin was
complete.
It was when affairs had come to this pass that Lady Pengarvon took it
into her head to die. Her husband admitted that, under the
circumstances, it was the most sensible thing she could have done. The
poor lady was well out of her troubles.
Hardly was the funeral over before the Baronet packed off his
daughters to some of their mother's relatives, and shut up the house,
after which nothing definite was known as to his movements for nearly
three years. At the end of that time information came to hand that Sir
Jasper Pengarvon was about to take to himself a second wife, in the
person of the daughter of a rich London drysalter, with a fortune of
twenty-five thousand pounds.
The new Lady Pengarvon proved to be an unrefined, good-natured woman,
who had probably been very pretty when she was a dozen years younger.
Between her and the young ladies, her step-daughters, there was a
great gulf, which they took care she should never overpass. She was
their father's wife, and as such they treated her with civility and a
certain amount of respect; but it was with a civility that chilled,
and with a respect which seemed ever to imply, "We cannot rid
ourselves of you, and consequently must tolerate you, bat don't look
to us for anything more."
At the end of half a dozen years the second Lady Pengarvon went the
way of her predecessor, fading slowly out of life under the cold,
watchful eyes of Miss Barbara and her sister, which seemed to say, "We
know you can't last long, and we shall not mourn you over-much when
you are gone." She left behind her one little daughter, Isabel by
name, who was at once packed off to a sister of her mother, near
London; then the two Misses Pengarvon breathed more freely, and felt
that Providence had not been unkind to them.
Meanwhile, Sir Jasper had resumed his old career in London as though
there had never been a break in it. The young ladies saw little more
of their father after the second Lady Pengarvon's death than they had
before. He went down to Broome occasionally for a few days at a time,
but that was all. He lived five years longer; then one morning he was
found dead in his Mayfair lodging with a bullet through his heart.
Once more he had come to the end of his resources. It was hopeless to
think of marrying a third fortune. There stared him in the face an old
age of obscure penury away from the haunts he loved so well, and the
prospect daunted him. He died as he had lived, an utter pagan.
A few years later, the aunt with whom Isabel had gone to live died,
and Miss Pengarvon found herself under the necessity of sending Barney
Dale for the child, there being no other home for her than Broome.
Isabel at this time was a blue-eyed, yellow-haired little lady of
seven, the very presentment in features and expression of a certain
youthful Miss Pengarvon whose portrait by Sir Joshua graced the
gallery at Broome. In truth, the drysalter's little grand-daughter
had all the traditional beauty of the women of her father's race--a
beauty which had so unaccountably lapsed in the case of her elder
half-sisters, niece though their mother had been to an earl.
It was in the dusk of an autumn afternoon that Barney Dale and his
charge reached Broome. The Misses Pengarvon were awaiting the child in
the old oak parlor, which even on the brightest day in summer was
gloomy and full of strange shadows. The elder sister came forward a
step or two, and taking Isabel by the hand, gazed down in frowning
silence on the fair young face, which returned her look with
wondering, frightened eyes. A faint momentary color flushed her sallow
cheeks. Then she stooped and pressed her thin, cold lips to Isabel's
forehead.
"So you are come back to Broome, child. They had better have found you
another home," she said in her dry, hard voice, in which not the
slightest chord of sympathy ever seemed to vibrate. Miss Letitia, who
copied her sister in everything, went through a similar formula.
Isabel gazed from one stern, sad-faced woman to the other, and her
lips quivered. She turned and clung to Barney's arm.
"Oh, take me away! take me away! I want to go back!" she cried.
Miss Pengarvon turned away in high displeasure, and Barney led the
tearful child from the room.
That first night, and many nights afterwards, Isabel cried herself to
sleep in the huge four-poster, with its funereal draperies, in which
they put her to bed. All her life she had been used to being petted
and made much of, and had hardly known what it was to be alone. But
now she was left by herself in a great ghostly room from six o'clock
at night till seven next morning. She felt herself to be quite an
unconsidered trifle in that huge ocean of bed. She was morally sure
that those grim portraits on the walls--dark, frowning gentlemen in
perukes and embroidered clothes, and stately ladies in hoops and
high-heeled shoes--whispered to each other about her, Isabel
Pengarvon; and that after the candle was taken away they stepped down
out of their frames, and hastened to join the other ghosts in the long
gallery, where they danced and flirted and took snuff with each other,
till some watchful cock on a faraway farm sounded the warning note
which sent them back to their faded frames, there to attitudinize in
silent mockery till another midnight should come round.
But these first fears gradually wore themselves away, and in time
Isabel and the portraits became great friends. She would sit up in bed
on moonlight nights, and talk to them by the hour together. She
invented private histories for many of them--strings of adventures,
such as only a child's brain could have imagined. Like other people,
she had her favorites. Among such were "my Lady Bluesash" and "Miss
Prettyshoes," "Mr. Longcurls" and "Captain Finelace," all people of
quality, who were so good-natured as to have no secrets from Isabel.
With that marvellous adaptability which all children possess in a
greater or lesser degree, Isabel gradually learned to look upon Broome
as her home, and to have few cares or interests that were not bounded
by its four grey walls. She lighted up the solitary old house like a
ray of sunshine that warms and brightens at the same time. On Sundays
she went with her sisters to church, and was shut up with them in the
great oaken pew, with its closely-drawn curtains, where the preacher's
voice came to her as the voice of one that crieth in the wilderness,
he himself being altogether unseen, and from whence nothing was
visible to her wandering eyes save a portion of the groined roof and
two hideous gargoyles, whose staring eyes seemed to watch her every
movement.
When Isabel was fourteen years old she was sent to a school in
Nottingham to complete her education. Since her arrival at Broome her
only teacher had been Miss Letitia, who, in their long hours together
over their lessons, had, in her own cold, formal way, grown to like
the bright-eyed, high-spirited girl far better than at one time she
believed it possible she ever should do. Isabel was away for three
years; at seventeen she came home "finished."
She was quite a young lady by this time--tall, slender, and with all
the traditional beauty of her race. She was brimming over with
mischief and high spirits, and she looked forward with dread to the
dreary, uneventful life before her, with no company save that of her
two middle-aged sisters--for Miss Pengarvon was now forty years old,
Miss Letitia only two years younger--and to being buried alive, as it
were, in that grim old house among the Derbyshire hills. Her life at
school had served to show her a little of the world, from which she
now felt as if she were about to be shut out forever--just enough, in
fact, to make its attractions, known and unknown, all the more
alluring to her vivid imagination. She had seen the Nottingham shops,
gay with the manifold wares dear to a girl's heart; she had heard the
garrison band play delicious waltzes that thrilled her with emotions
unknown before, and more than one audacious young officer had turned
to look and look again, as she was pacing demurely to church with her
school-fellows. She had devoured all the love stories that had been
smuggled into the school, and she had heard other girls talking about
sweethearts and possible husbands, and she could not help wondering
whether anyone would ever fall in love with her. Isabel did what few
girls do--she cried bitter tears when the time came for her to bid
good-bye to school for ever.
Two year passed without change. Her life of repression and isolation
became at times a burden almost too heavy to be borne. Her nature was
affectionate, but impulsive; she was warm-hearted, but with something
wayward in her disposition, which, under happier circumstances, would
doubtless have found a vent in high spirits and innocent fun. The end
of the matter was that one morning Isabel was missing. She left behind
her a note addressed to Miss Pengarvon, in which she stated that she
was about to be married to some one who loved her very dearly, and
that she would write further particulars in a few days. For some time
past, a young gentleman, name unknown, had been stopping at the King's
Arms Hotel, Stavering, ostensibly for fishing and sketching purposes;
but as he and Isabel had been seen together more than once, pacing the
sheltered walks by the river, and as he disappeared at the same time,
there could be little doubt that they had gone away together. After
reading the letter, Miss Pengarvon threw it into the fire. Then she
caused all Isabel's clothes to be burnt--not that the poor girl had
had anything beyond a very meagre wardrobe--and locked the door of the
room which had been hers and took away the key.
"She has disgraced the name she bears. Let us never speak of her
again," she said in her bitterest tones to Miss Letitia. The latter
was crying quietly to herself. Miss Pengarvon regarded her with silent
scorn.
Three weeks later there came a second letter from Isabel, bearing the
London postmark, and, a month after that, a third which had been
stamped at Southampton. Both these letters Miss Pengarvon burned
without opening. After that no further letter came, and it seemed as
if Isabel were indeed lost to them for ever.
Three years went by, and then came that snowy December night which
brought Isabel back, a suppliant, to the door of Broome. It has
already been told how Miss Pengarvon refused her admittance, how
Barney Dale and his wife found her dying, or dead in the snow; and how
a reluctant consent was given to her inanimate body being brought
indoors by way of the back entrance. From that hour every trace of her
vanished. Morning broke, the housemaid came down stairs and went about
her duties, suspecting nothing. Neither inside the house nor out was
any sign or token to be seen of her, who living or dead, had been
carried in but a few hours before. Where was she? What had become of
her? Those were questions which four people alone out of all the world
could have answered, had they chosen to speak.
THE STORY.
CHAPTER I.
MR. HAZELDINE CHANGES HIS NOTES FOR GOLD.
Twenty years, with all their manifold changes, have come and gone
since Isabel Pengarvon was found one December night lying in the snow
in front of the great door at Broome; and the course of our narrative
now takes us to Ashdown, a thriving town in the Midlands, of some
twenty-five to thirty thousand inhabitants.
Everybody in Ashdown knew Avison's Bank, and could have directed a
stranger to it. It had been established for nearly three-quarters of a
century, and no bank stood higher in the estimation of the
manufacturers and tradespeople of the town or of the farmers round
about. Mr. Avison, senior, owing to his great age and infirmities, had
retired from any active direction of the business some years ago. Mr.
Avison, junior, who was himself a middle-aged man, had been abroad,
with the exception of a week or two now and then, for the last year or
more, in search of the health which his native country denied him.
Now, however, he was coming back--was, in fact, expected almost
immediately, and was once more going to try a winter at home.
Since the retirement of the elder partner, and during the absence of
the younger, the entire management of the business had devolved upon
Mr. Hazeldine, the chief cashier, and no one more capable of
sustaining the burthen could have been found. He had been with the
firm since boyhood, and in process of time had risen from one grade to
another till it was impossible for him to rise any higher, unless he
were made a partner; a contingency which had been discussed more than
once between the two Mr. Avisons. Although of obscure origin, Mr.
Hazeldine, early in life, had married a young lady of some standing in
Ashdown society, who brought with her a fortune of three thousand
pounds, and had thereby at once raised himself considerably in the
social scale. Two sons and one daughter had been born of the marriage,
all of whom were now grown up. Edward, the elder son, was in business
as a brewer at Beecham, which might almost be called a suburb of
Ashdown, although it was in another parish. He was a keen, hard-headed
business man, eager to push his way in the world, and ambitious after
a fashion which no one but himself was aware of.
The younger son, Clement, was in practice as a surgeon. After gaining
experience for three or four years as assistant to a popular London
doctor, his father had bought for him what remained of the practice of
old Doctor Diprose. Clement had thereupon removed his quarters to
Ashdown, and was at present fighting the uphill fight of a young
doctor in a small provincial town. Fanny, Mr. Hazeldine's daughter,
was unmarried, and lived at home with her parents.
It was customary at Avison's Bank for Mr. Hazeldine, or his chief
clerk, John Brancker (generally the latter) to go up to London by
train every Thursday and there change a thousand or twelve hundred
pounds' worth of notes for gold, in order to meet the requirements of
the bank's numerous small customers on market-day. On this particular
Thursday on which we make his acquaintance, Mr. Hazeldine himself was
on his way to London to change the usual amount of notes for gold. In
the netting of the carriage overhead was the black bag, now empty, in
which he would bring the money back. As he sits there in the train
with folded arms and shut eyes, to all appearance asleep, but in
reality as wideawake as ever he had been in his life, and with his
mind pondering a thousand questions, let us endeavor, with a few
touches, to bring him more definitely before the reader.
James Hazeldine at this time was fifty-four years old. He was closely
shaven, except for two small side-whiskers, so that there was nothing
to hide his square, clear-cut jaw, his thin lips, and firm-set mouth.
In color his hair and whiskers, once nearly black, were now an
iron-grey. He had a prominent, well-cut nose, and cold, resolute,
steel-grey eyes. The predominant expression of his face was
determination; you felt that here was a man with a masterful spirit
who would not readily be moved from any course, whether for good or
evil, which he had once made up his mind to follow. Mingled with this
expression was the keen, shrewd look of the experienced man of
business--the look of one who in his time had chaffered and bargained
with many men. In his dress Mr. Hazeldine was somewhat old-fashioned
and precise; possibly it was part of his policy to be so. He wore a
black tail-coat and waistcoat, and pepper-and-salt continuations. He
wore a starched checked cravat, high-pointed collars and broad-toed
shoes with drab gaiters. With the addition of an overcoat in winter,
his dress was the same all the year round.
To-day, however, Mr. Hazeldine was not looking in his usual health.
There was a worn and anxious expression on his face like that of a man
who had been much worried of late. His eyes, too, looked sunken and
dull, but his mouth was as firm-set as ever. Only a few days ago his
daughter Fanny had said to her mother:
"Have you noticed how fast papa's hair has been turning grey of late?"
But Mrs. Hazeldine, whose eyesight was no longer as good as it had
once been, had noticed nothing.
Mr. Hazeldine roused himself from his reverie with a sigh when the
train stopped for the collection of tickets. At the terminus he
engaged a hansom and was driven direct to the Bank of England. There
he exchanged notes to the value of twelve hundred pounds for gold,
which sum he locked up in the bag he had brought with him.
On leaving the Bank, he made his way into Throgmorton Street, where he
plunged into a maze of narrow and tortuous courts and passages, nearly
all of which have been swept away within the last few years.
Threading his way like one who held the clue, he presently dived into
the semi-dark entry of one of the oldest houses; the numerous names
painted on the door-posts betokening that it was split up into sundry
suites of offices. Ascending slowly to the first floor, with feet
which seemed weighted with lead, Mr. Hazeldine turned the handle of a
certain door, and went in. He found himself in an outer office
occupied by two clerks.
"Is Mr. Barker within and disengaged?" he asked.
"What name, sir?" queried one of the clerks, thereby answering the
double question.
"Mr. James," was the reply.
The clerk was scarcely gone a moment. Holding open the door of the
inner office, he said:
"Mr. Barker will see you, sir."
Mr. James went in, and the door was shut behind him.
At a square table, with his back to the fire, sat Mr. Barker, a stout,
bald-headed, foxy-looking man, dressed in a blue frock coat and white
waistcoat, with a flower in his buttonhole, and a rather conspicuous
display of jewelry. He nodded familiarly to "Mr. James" as to an old
acquaintance.
"I rather thought you might call in the course of the day," he said.
"Come to settle up, eh?"
"Yes, come to settle up," was the answer, with a faint sigh. "Perhaps
you won't mind taking the greater part in gold; your doing so will
oblige me."
"I shall have no objection at all, Mr. James. It don't matter to
me--ha! ha!--in what form it comes, so long as I get hold of it. What
nice weather we have been having of late."
Mr. James opened his bag and drew therefrom twelve small canvas bags
containing one hundred sovereigns each. "Be good enough to count
these," he said.
Mr. Barker emptied one bag on the table and counted its contents into
little piles of twenty sovereigns each.
"I won't detain you, Mr. James, while I count the rest," he said. "I
have no doubt I shall find them quite correct."
"There are twelve there," said Mr. James, indicating the bags. Then he
drew a roll of notes from his breast-pocket. "These will make up the
seventeen."
Mr. Barker took the notes, wetted his forefinger, and counted them one
by one.
"Right you are, sir, and I'm very much obliged to you," was his
comment when he had done. Then he went to a safe in one corner, and
having deposited the notes and gold in it, he drew from a receptacle
containing several other documents of a similar kind, a long, narrow
strip of bluish paper, which he handed to his visitor. "All ready and
prepared, you see," he said, with a smile.
Mr. James just glanced at the document, then he crumpled it up, and
flinging it into the fire, watched it till nothing was left of it but
ashes.
Mr. Barker laughed.
"Have a glass of sherry. You are not looking over-bright to-day," he
said, heartily.
"Thanks; I never drink before dinner," was the answer. "I have been
worried a little in business matters lately, that is all," he added.
"But I am going to take a long holiday presently."
"Nothing like it when you're fagged out, or when the machinery gets a
bit out of gear," responded Mr. Barker. "Can't keep the bow always
bent, you know. Sha'n't see you again for some time, then? South of
France--Italian Lakes--eh?"
"Well, I hardly know yet where I am bound for," said Mr. James, with a
curious, pallid smile. Then he took up his hat and brushed it round
with his sleeve in a hesitating way very unusual with him. "Nothing
you see or hear ever surprises you, does it, Mr. Barker?" he asked.
"Well, no, Mr. James. I'm rather too old a bird to be surprised at
anything."
"Then you won't be surprised at anything you may read in the papers in
the course of the next few days."
Mr. Barker winked and laid a finger against one side of his nose. As
an action it was vulgar, but expressive.
Mr. James nodded and smiled the same curious smile.
"Good-morning, Mr. Barker," he said. "Good-morning. I'll leave this
empty bag till next time I call."
"Which I hope will be before very long, eh, Mr. James? Always happy to
accommodate you, you know."
"We shall see what we shall see. And so, once more, good-morning." He
went without another word, closing the green baize door behind him. A
minute later he found himself in the street.
Mr. James Hazeldine walked on till he was overtaken by an empty cab.
This he hailed, and was driven westward. Although he had told Mr.
Barker that he never drank before dinner, he now went into a tavern in
the Strand, and called for a tumbler of hot brandy and water and then
for another, both of which he drank in less than five minutes. In
truth, he looked very haggard and ill. During the next half hour he
wandered up and down the Strand in a purposeless sort of way, staring
into the shop windows, but having no thought or interest in anything
he saw there. More than once he took a letter out of the breast pocket
of his coat, read the address over to himself, and then put it back
again. At length, spying a pillar-box in a side street, he walked
slowly up to it and again took out the letter. It was directed as
under:
"Edward Hazeldine, Esq.,
"The Brewery,
"Beecham by Ashdown,
"Midlandshire."
He dropped the letter into the box.
"That settles everything," he muttered. "There can be no turning back
now. Edward will get it by the first post to-morrow."
Why was Mr. Hazeldine posting a letter to his son, whom he would
probably see in the course of the evening?
He turned back into the Strand, and entering a restaurant, called for
a basin of soup. He ate about half of it, finished up with a glass of
sherry, and then ordered a cab and was driven to the terminus.
Going into the cloak-room at the station, he there redeemed a black
bag, precisely similar in size and appearance to the empty bag he had
left in Mr. Barker's office. This bag, which apparently contained
something heavy, he took with him into the carriage and placed it in
the netting over his head.
There were other passengers in the compartment, but he spoke to no
one. He pulled up the collar of his coat and shut his eyes, and, to
all appearance, went fast asleep. The clocks were striking seven as he
walked out of Ashdown station, carrying his bag in one hand and his
umbrella in the other.
Mr. Hazeldine's house was not far from the station. He let himself in
by means of his latchkey, and walked straight into the drawing-room,
where he found his wife and daughter.
"You are late this evening, dear," said Mrs. Hazeldine, languidly, as
if his being so were a matter of no moment.
"Yes, I had some special business to transact, and could not get done
in time to catch the two o'clock train."
And yet he had spent nearly an hour mooning about the Strand!
He sat down in his easy-chair with an air of weariness.
"We did not wait dinner for you, not knowing how late you would be,"
resumed his wife. "Will you have a steak cooked, or what shall I order
for you?"
"I had some dinner in town; all I want is a cup of tea."
His daughter rang the bell, and presently a tea equipage was brought
in.
"You are not looking at all well, papa," said Fanny, as she handed him
a cup. "I hope you are not going back to that horrid Bank to-night."
"I am quite well, my dear," he said. "A little tired with my journey;
that's all. I must go to the Bank for a couple of hours." He drew her
face down to his own and kissed it.
"There now, you have disarranged my collar, you dear old bear," she
said, turning to survey herself in the glass over the chimney-piece.
"You scarcely ever spend an evening at home nowadays, James," said
Mrs. Hazeldine, in the complaining tone to which her husband was well
used. "You seem to care for nothing but the Bank. Instead of taking
things easy as you get older, you seem to have to work harder every
year that you live."
"I hope we shall see more of you at home when Mr. Avison gets back,"
remarked Fanny.
Mr. Hazeldine shivered, and then he sipped at his tea.
"Do you know what I am going to do?" he asked, presently. "I am going
to take a long, long holiday."
"Oh, papa! when--when?" cried Fanny the excitable.
"Almost immediately."
"You darling old crocodile! I'm languishing to visit Switzerland
again. But, of course, one can't go there at this time of year. The
Riviera, and then on to Rome, would be delightful. I am dying to see
Rome."
"Give me Paris, either in winter or summer," said Mrs. Hazeldine, with
the air of a person who knows her own mind. "I care nothing for a
parcel of mouldy ruins, but I do love nice shops; and there are no
shops in the world equal to those of Paris."