died, the house let well enough. But the place proved lonely, and there
was more than one attempt at robbery, and people grew tired of taking
it. And above all, the girls of the village began to refuse to go to
service there. Well, it had been standing empty for some months, when a
gentleman and his wife came to look after it. Browser and I—we didn’t own
this inn at that time, you will understand, sir, but kept a general shop
in the village, and were but poorly off altogether, although we had the
post-office at our place, and did the best business thereabouts. The key
of Rushmere used always to be left in our keeping, too, and our boy would
go up to show folks over the house. Well, one damp autumn day—I mind the
day as if ’twere yesterday, for Browser had been ailing sadly with the
rheumatics for weeks past, and not able to lift his hand to his head—this
gentleman and lady, who went by the name of Greenslade, came for the keys
of Rushmere. I remember thinking Mr Greenslade had a nasty, curious look
about his eyes, and that his wife seemed a poor, brow-beaten creature;
but that was no business of mine, and I sent Bill up with them to show
the house. They took it, and entered on possession at once; and then came
the difficulty about the servants. Not a soul would enter the place at
first. Then a girl or two tried it, and came away when their month was
up, saying the house was so lonesome, they couldn’t sleep at nights, and
the master was so queer-spoken and mannered, they were afraid of him.’
‘Don’t forget to say what he was used to do at nights,’ here put in the
landlord.
‘La, Browser, I’m a-coming to it. Everything in its time. Well, sir, at
last it came to this, that Mrs Greenslade hadn’t a creature to help her
in anythink, and down she came to ask if I would go to them for a few
days. I stared; for there was the shop to be tended, and the post-office
looked after, and I hadn’t been used to odd jobs like that. But my
husband said that he could do all that was wanted in the business; and we
were very hard drove just then, and the lady offered such liberal pay,
he over-persuaded me to go, if only on trial. So I put my pride in my
pocket, and went out charing. I hadn’t been at Rushmere many days, sir,
before I found something was very wrong there. Mr Greenslade hardly ever
spoke a word, but shut himself up in a room all day, or went mooning
about the fields and common, where he couldn’t meet a soul; and as for
the poor lady, la! my heart bled for her, she seemed so wretched and
broken-down and hopeless. I used often to say to her,—
‘“Now, ma’am, do let me cook you a bit of something nice, for you’ve
eaten nothing since yesterday, and you’ll bring yourself down to death’s
door at this rate.”
‘And she’d answer,—
‘“No, thank you, Mrs Browser: I couldn’t touch it. I feel sometimes as if
I’d never care to eat or drink again.”
‘And Mr Greenslade, he was just as bad. They didn’t eat enough to keep a
well-grown child between the two of them.’
‘What-aged people were they?’ I asked.
‘Well, sir, I can hardly say; they weren’t young nor yet old. Mr
Greenslade, he may have been about fifty, and his lady a year or two
younger; but I never took much count of that. But the gentleman looked
much the oldest of the two, by reason of a stoop in his shoulders and a
constant cough that seemed to tear his chest to pieces. I’ve known him
shut himself up in the parlour the whole night long, coughing away fit to
keep the whole house awake. And his breathing, sir—you could hear it half
a mile off.’
‘He was _assmatical_, poor man! that’s where it was,’ interposed Mr
Browser.
‘Well, I don’t know what his complaint was called, Browser; but he made
noise enough over it to wake the dead. But don’t you go interrupting
me no more after that fashion, or the gentleman and lady will never
understand the half of my story, and I’m just coming to the cream of it.’
‘I assure you we are deeply interested in what you are telling us,’ I
said, politely.
‘It’s very good of you to compliment me, sir, but I expect it will
make matters clearer to you by-and-by. You’re not the first tenants of
Rushmere I’ve had to tell this tale to, I can tell you, and you won’t be
the last, either. One night, when I couldn’t sleep for his nasty cough,
and lay awake, wishing to goodness he’d go to bed like a Christian, I
made sure I heard footsteps in the hall, a-creeping and a-creeping about
like, as though some one was feeling their way round the house. “It can’t
be the mistress,” I thought, “and maybe it’s robbers, as have little idea
the master’s shut up in the study.” So I opened the door quickly, but I
could see nothing.’
‘Exactly my own experience,’ I exclaimed.
‘Ah, sir, maybe; but they weren’t the same footsteps, poor dear. I wish
they had been, and she had the same power to tread now she had then. The
hall was empty; but at the same time I heard the master groaning and
cursing most awful in the parlour, and I went into my own room again,
that I mightn’t listen to his wicked oaths and words. I always hated and
distrusted that man from the beginning. The next day I mentioned I had
heard footsteps, before ’em both, and the rage Mr Greenslade put himself
into was terrible. He said no robbers had better break into his house, or
he’d shoot them dead as dogs. Afterwards his wife came to me and asked me
what sort of footsteps they seemed; and when I told her, she cried upon
my neck, and begged me if ever I heard a woman’s step to say nothing of
it to her husband.
‘“A woman’s step, ma’am,” I replied; “why, what woman would dare break
into a house?”
‘But she only cried the more, and held her tongue.
‘But that evening I heard their voices loud in the parlour, and there was
a regular dispute between them.
‘“If ever she should come, Henry,” Mrs Greenslade said, “promise me you
won’t speak to her unless you can say words of pity or of comfort.”
‘“Pity!” he yelled, “what pity has she had for me? If ever she or any
emissary of hers should dare to set foot upon these premises, I shall
treat them as house-breakers, and shoot them down like dogs!”
‘“Oh no! Henry, no!” screamed the poor woman; “think who she is. Think of
her youth, her temptation, and forgive her.”
‘“I’ll never forgive her—I’ll never own her!” the wretch answered loudly;
“but I’ll treat her, or any of the cursed crew she associates with, as I
would treat strangers who forced their way in to rob me by night. ’Twill
be an evil day for them when they attempt to set foot in my house.”
‘Well, sir, I must cut this long story short, or you and your good lady
will never get to bed to-night.
‘The conversation I had overheard made me feel very uncomfortable, and I
was certain some great misfortune or disgrace had happened to the parties
I was serving; but I didn’t let it rest upon my mind, till a few nights
after, when I was wakened up by the same sound of creeping footsteps
along the passage. As I sat up in bed and listened to them, I heard the
master leave the parlour and go upstairs. At the same moment something
crouched beside my door, and tried to turn the handle; but it was locked,
and wouldn’t open. I felt very uneasy. I knew my door stood in the
shadow, and that whoever crouched there must have been hidden from Mr
Greenslade as he walked across the hall. Presently I heard his footsteps
coming downstairs again, as though he had forgotten something. He used to
wear such thick boots, sir, you might hear his step all over the house.
His loaded gun always stood on the first landing; when he reached there
he stopped, I suppose it was his bad angel made him stop. Anyway, there
was a low cry of “Father, father!”—a rush, the report of the gun, a low
groan, and then all was still.
‘La! sir, I trembled so in my bed, you might have seen it shake under me.’
‘I’ve seen it shake under you many a time,’ said Browser.
‘Perhaps you would like to tell the lady and gentleman my exact weight,
though I don’t see what that’s got to do with the story,’ replied his
better half, majestically.
‘I don’t think I should ever have had the courage to leave my room, sir,
unless I had heard my poor mistress fly down the staircase, with a loud
scream. Then I got up, and joined her. Oh, it was an awful sight! There,
stretched on the floorcloth, lay the dead body of a young girl; and my
mistress had fainted dead away across her, and was covered with the blood
that was pouring from a great hole in her forehead. On the landing stood
my master, white as a sheet, and shaking like an aspen leaf.
‘“So, this is your doing!” I cried, angrily. “You’re a nice man to have
charge of a gun. Do you see what you’ve done? Killed a poor girl in
mistake for a robber, and nearly killed your wife into the bargain. Who
is this poor murdered young creature? Do you know her?”
‘“Know her!” he repeated, with a groan. “Woman, don’t torture me with
your questions. _She is my own daughter!_”
‘He rushed upstairs as he spoke, and I was in a nice quandary, left alone
with the two unconscious women. When my poor mistress woke up again, she
wanted me to fetch a doctor; but it would have been of no use. She was
past all human help.
‘We carried the corpse upstairs between us, and laid it gently on the
bed. I’ve often wondered since where the poor mother’s strength came
from, but it was lent her for the need. Then, sitting close to me for the
remainder of the night, she told me her story—how the poor girl had led
such an unhappy life with her harsh, ill-tempered father, that she had
been tempted into a foolish marriage by the first lover that offered her
affection and a peaceful home.
‘“I always hoped she would come back to us,” said Mrs Greenslade, “for
her husband had deserted her, leaving her destitute; and yet, although
she knew how to enter the house unobserved, I dreaded her doing so,
because of her father’s bitter enmity. Only last night, Mrs Browser, I
awoke from sleep, and fancied I heard a sobbing in my room. I whispered,
‘Who is there?’ and a voice replied, ‘Emily!’ But I thought it was a
dream. If I had known—if I had but known!”
‘She lay so quiet and uncomplaining on my knee, only moving now and then,
that she frightened me; and when the morning broke, I tried to shift her,
and said,—
‘“Hadn’t I better go and see after the master, ma’am?”
‘As I mentioned his name, I could see the shudder that ran through her
frame; but she motioned me away with her hand.
‘I went upstairs to a room Mr Greenslade called his dressing-room, and
where I guessed he’d gone; and you’ll never believe, sir, the awful sight
as met my eyes. I didn’t get over it for a month—did I, Browser?’
‘You haven’t got over it to this day, I’m sometimes thinking, missus.’
‘That means I’m off my head; but if it wasn’t for my head, I wonder where
the business would go to. No, sir—if you’ll believe me, when I entered
the room, there was the old man dead as mutton, hanging from a beam in
the ceiling. I gave one shriek, and down I fell.’
‘I don’t wonder at it,’ cried Janie.
‘Well, ma’am, when I came to again, all was confusion and misery. We had
the perlice in, and the crowner’s inquest, and there was such a fuss, you
never see. Some of Mrs Greenslade’s friends came and fetched her away;
but I heard she didn’t live many months afterwards. As for myself, I was
only too glad to get back to the shop and my old man, and the first words
I said to him was,—
‘“No more charing for me.”’
‘And now, sir, if I may make so bold, what do you think of the story?’
demanded the landlord. ‘Can you put this and that together now?’
‘It is marvellous!’ I replied. ‘Your wife has simply repeated the scene
which we have heard enacted a dozen times in Rushmere. The footsteps were
a nightly occurrence.’
‘I heard the voice!’ exclaimed Janie, ‘and it whispered “_Emily._”’
‘The handle of my servant’s door was turned. The report of the gun was as
distinct as possible.’
‘That is what everybody says as goes to Rushmere, sir. No one can abide
the place since that awful murder was committed there,’ said Mrs Browser.
‘And can you account for it in any way, sir?’ demanded her husband,
slyly. ‘Do you think, now that you’ve heard the story, that the noises
are mortal, or that it’s the spirits of the dead that causes them?’
‘I don’t know what to think, Browser. There is a theory that no uttered
sound is ever lost, but drifts as an eddying circle into space, until
in course of time it must be heard again. Thus our evil words, too
often accompanied by evil deeds, live for ever, to testify against us
in eternity. It may be that the Universal Father ordains that some of
His guilty children shall expurgate their crimes by re-acting them
until they become sensible of their enormity; but this can be but a
matter for speculation. This story leaves us, as such stories usually
do, as perplexed as we were before. We cannot tell—we probably never
_shall_ tell—what irrefragable laws of the universe these mysterious
circumstances fulfil; but we know that spirit and matter alike are in
higher hands than ours; and, whilst nature cannot help trembling when
brought in contact with the supernatural, we have no need to fear that it
will ever be permitted to work us harm.’
This little analysis was evidently too much for Mr and Mrs Browser, who,
with a look of complete mystification on their countenances, rose from
their seats, and wished us respectfully good-night; leaving Janie and me
to evolve what theories we chose from the true story of the Invisible
Tenants of Rushmere.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
AMY’S LOVER.
It was five o’clock—five o’clock on a dull November afternoon—as I,
Elizabeth Lacy, the wretched companion of Lady Cunningham, of Northampton
Lodge, in the town of Rockledge, stood gazing from the dining-room
windows at the grey curtain of fog which was slowly but surely rising
between my vision and all outward things, and thinking how like it was
in colour and feeling and appearance to my own sad life. I have said
that I was the ‘wretched’ companion of Lady Cunningham: is it very
ungrateful of me to have written down that word? I think not; for if a
wearisome seclusion and continual servitude have power to make a young
life miserable, mine had fairly earned its title to be called so. I had
withered in the cold and dispiriting atmosphere of Northampton Lodge
for four years past, and had only been prevented rupturing my chains by
the knowledge that I had no alternative but to rush from one state of
bondage to another. To attend upon old ladies like an upper servant—to
write their letters, carry their shawls, and wait upon them as they moved
from room to room—this was to be my lot through life; and if I ever
dreamed that a brighter one might intervene, the vision was too faint and
idealistic to gild the stern realities which were no dreams.
I daresay there are plenty of people in this world more miserable than
I: indeed, I knew it for a fact even at the time of which I speak; and
the few friends I possessed were never tired of telling me that I was
better off than many, and that I should strive to look on the bright
side of things, and to thank heaven who had provided me with a safe and
respectable home, when I might have been upon the parish. Did not Job
have friends to console him in his trouble? Do not we all find in the
day of our distress that, whatever else fails, good advice is always
forthcoming? Well! perhaps I _was_ ungrateful: at all events, I was young
and headstrong, and good advice irritated and worried, instead of making
me any better. I knew that I was warmly clothed, whilst beggars stood
shivering at the corner of the streets, and that beneath the care of Lady
Cunningham no harm could happen to me, whilst women younger than myself
broke God’s holy laws to put bread in their mouths. And yet, and yet,
so perverse is human nature, and so perverse was mine above all others,
that, engaged on my monotonous round of duty, I often envied the beggars
their liberty and their rags; and even sometimes wished that I had not
been reared so honestly, and had the courage to be less respectable and
more free. Perhaps one reason why my life chafed me so fearfully, was
because I had not been brought up to it. Five years before, I had been
the child of parents in good circumstances, and loved and made much of,
as only daughters generally are. My father, who held the comfortable
living of Fairmead in Dorsetshire, had always managed to keep up the
household of a gentleman, and my poor delicate mother and myself had
enjoyed every luxury consistent with our station in life. She had had
her flower-garden and her poultry and her pony-chair, and I my pets and
my piano and—my lover. Ah! as I stood at the wire-blinded windows of
Lady Cunningham’s dining-room that sad November afternoon, and recalled
these things, I knew by the pang which assailed me at the thought of
Bruce Armytage, which loss of them all had affected me most. My father
and mother, who from my youth up had so tenderly loved and guarded me,
were in their graves, and with them had vanished all the luxuries and
possessions of my early days. But though I stood there a penniless
orphan, with no joy in my present and very little hope in my future,
the tears had not rushed to my eyes until my memory had rested on Bruce
Armytage; and then they fell so thickly that they nearly blinded me; for
mingled with his memory came shame as well as regret, and to a woman
perhaps shame is the harder feeling of the two. His conduct had been so
very strange, so marvellously strange and unaccountable to me, that to
that day I had found no clue to it. When he first came down and took
lodgings in Fairmead—for the purpose of studying to pass his examination
for the law, he said—he had seemed so very, very fond of me that our
engagement followed on the avowal of his love as a matter of course.
But then his family interfered; they thought, perhaps, that he ought to
marry some one higher than myself, though my father was a gentleman, and
no man can be more; at any rate, _his_ father wrote to say that Bruce
was far too young (his age was then just twenty) to fix upon his choice
for life, and that no regular engagement must be made between us until
he returned from the two years’ foreign tour he was about to make. My
father and mother said that old Mr Armytage was right, and that in two
years’ time both I and my lover would be better able to form an opinion
on so serious a matter. Bruce and I declared it was all nonsense, that
fifty years of separation could make no difference to us, and that what
we felt then, we should feel to our lives’ end. And they smiled, the old
people, whilst our young hearts were being tortured, and talked about
the evanescence of youthful feelings, whilst we drank our first draught
of this world’s bitterness. How seldom can old people sympathise with
the young! How soon they become accustomed to the cold neutral tints
of middle age, and forget even the appearance of the warm fires of
youth at which they lighted those passions which time has reduced to
ashes! It was so with my parents: they were not unkind, but they were
unsympathetic; they rather hoped, upon the whole, that I should forget
Bruce Armytage; and, in order to accomplish their end, they pretended
to believe it. But he went, with the most passionate protestations upon
his lips, that as soon as he returned to England, no earthly power
should keep us separate; and he never came back to me again! My father
and mother had died rather suddenly, and within a few months of each
other; our home had been broken up, and at the age of nineteen I had
been sent forth upon the world to earn my own living; and, at the age of
three-and-twenty, I was at the same trade, neither richer nor poorer than
at first, but with all my faith in the constancy and honour of mankind
broken and destroyed; for Bruce Armytage had never found me out, or, as
far as I knew, inquired after me. His family had permitted me to leave
Fairmead and enter on my solitary career without a word of remonstrance
or regret; since which time I had had no communication with them, though
at that period my pride would not have forbidden my sending an account
of my trouble to Bruce, believing that he cared for me. Correspondence
between us during his foreign tour had been strictly prohibited, and I
had no means of ascertaining his address. For a while I had expected he
would write or come to me; but that hope had long died out, and the only
feeling I had left for him was contempt—contempt for his fickleness and
vacillation, or the pusillanimity which could permit him to give up the
woman he had sworn to marry because his father ordered him to do so. No!
filial obedience carries very little weight with the heart that is pitted
against it; and as I thought of it and him, I bit my lip, dashed my hand
across my eyes, and hoped the day might yet come when I should be able to
show Bruce Armytage how greatly I despised him.
At this juncture the housemaid came bustling into the room with a little
note for me—a dear little cocked-hat note—which seemed to speak of
something pleasant, and at the writer of which I had no need to guess,
for I had but one friend in Rockledge who ever sent such notes to me.
‘Waiting for an answer,’ said the bearer curtly; and I tore it open and
devoured its contents.
‘DEAR LIZZIE,—I think you will be _very much_ surprised to hear
that your little friend Amy is engaged to be married! However,
it is quite true, although the business was only settled this
morning; and the young gentleman has promised to spend the
evening with us, and to bring a cousin whom he is anxious to
introduce. Will you come and take tea with us also? The doctor
has only just told me that Lady Cunningham dines out to-night,
or I should have sent before. Do come, Lizzie. Amy is crazy to
see you and tell you all her secrets, and you know that you are
always sure of a welcome from your affectionate friend,
‘MARY RODWELL.’
The perusal of this little epistle threw me into a perfect whirl of
excitement and delight, which would have appeared extraordinary to any
one who had not been acquainted with the maddening monotony of my daily
existence. These Rodwells, the family of the good old doctor who attended
Lady Cunningham, were my only friends in Rockledge, the only people with
whom I ever caught a glimpse of a happy domestic life, such as had been
once my own. To spend the evening at their large, old-fashioned house,
which rang from basement to attic with the sound of happy voices, was the
only dissipation by which my days were ever varied, and a relaxation all
the more precious because, on account of Lady Cunningham’s requirements,
it came so rarely to me. And on the afternoon in question, when I had
allowed myself to become absorbed by fanciful thought, the cordial
and unexpected invitation warmed my chilled spirits like a draught of
generous wine. All things seemed changed for me: I no longer saw the
grey fog nor remembered my mournful past, but in their stead pictured
to myself the brightly-lighted, crimson-curtained room at Dr Rodwell’s
house, and heard the ringing laughter and merry jests of his many boys
and girls. In a moment I had shaken off my despondency—my eyes sparkled,
my heart beat: I was in a flutter of anticipation at the pleasure in
store for me.
‘Is there any answer, miss?’ demanded the housemaid, who had been waiting
whilst I read my note.
‘Yes, yes; I will go, of course. Say I will be there in half-an-hour,’ I
replied, for my evening, in consequence of Lady Cunningham’s absence, was
at my own disposal. ‘And, Mary, please bring me up a jug of hot water; I
am going to take tea with Mrs Rodwell.’
‘Well, I’m very glad of it, miss; it’s a shame you shouldn’t have a
holiday oftener than you do,’ returned my sympathising hearer as she
departed with my answer.
I must say that, during my years of servitude, I had nothing to complain
of respecting the treatment I received from the hands of servants. I
have read of needy companions and governesses being cruelly insulted and
trampled on by their inferiors; I never was. From the first they saw I
was a gentlewoman, and to the last they treated me as such.