MISS DEB'S DISBELIEF.
Miss Deborah West did not believe in ghosts. Miss Deb, setting aside a
few personal weaknesses and vanities, was a strong-minded female, and no
more believed in ghosts than she did in Master Cheese's delicate
constitution, which required to be supplied with an unlimited quantity
of tarts and other dainties to keep up his strength between meals. The
commotion respecting Frederick Massingbird, that his ghost had arrived
from Australia, and "walked," reached the ears of Miss Deb. It reached
them in this way.
Miss Deb and her sister, compelled to economy by the scanty allowance
afforded by Dr. West, had no more helpmates in the household department
than were absolutely necessary, and the surgery boy, Bob, found himself
sometimes pressed into aiding in the domestic service. One evening Miss
Deb entered the surgery, and caught Master Cheese revelling in a hatful
of walnuts by gaslight. This was the evening of the storm, previously
mentioned.
"Where's Bob?" asked she. "I want a message taken to Mrs. Broom's about
those pickled mushrooms that she is doing for me."
"Bob's out," responded Master Cheese. "Have a walnut, Miss Deb?"
"I don't mind. Are they ripe?" answered Miss Deb.
Master Cheese, the greediest chap alive, picked out the smallest he
could find, politely cracked it with his teeth, and handed it to her.
"You'll not get Bob over to Broom's at this hour," cried he. "Jan can't
get him to Mother Hook's with her medicine after dark. Unless it's made
up so that he can take it by daylight, they have to send for it."
"What's that for?" asked Miss Deb.
Master Cheese cracked on at his walnuts. "You have not heard the tale
that's going about, I suppose, Miss Deb?" he presently said.
"I have not heard any tale," she answered.
"And I don't know that I must tell it you," continued Master Cheese,
filling his mouth with five or six quarters at once, unpeeled. "Jan
ordered me to hold my tongue indoors."
"It would be more respectful, Master Cheese, if you said Mr. Jan,"
rebuked Miss Deborah. "I have told you so often."
"Who cares?" returned Master Cheese. "Jan doesn't. The fact is, Miss
Deb, that there's a ghost about at night just now."
"Have they got up that folly again? Rachel Frost rests a great deal
quieter in her grave than some of you do in your beds."
"Ah, but it's not Rachel's this time," significantly responded Master
Cheese. "It's somebody else's."
"Whose is it, then?" asked Miss Deb, struck with his manner.
"I'll tell you if you won't tell Jan. It's--don't start, Miss Deb--it's
Fred Massingbird's."
Miss Deb did not start. She looked keenly at Master Cheese, believing he
might be playing a joke upon her. But there were no signs of joking in
his countenance. It looked, on the contrary, singularly serious, not to
say awe-struck, as he leaned forward to bring it nearer Miss Deborah's.
"It is a fact that Fred Massingbird's ghost is walking," he continued.
"Lots have seen it. I have seen it. You'd have heard of it, as everybody
else has, if you had not been Mrs. Verner's sister. It's an unpleasantly
queer thing for her, you know, Miss Deb."
"What utter absurdity!" cried Deborah.
"Wait till you see it, before you say it's absurdity," replied Master
Cheese. "If it's not Fred Massingbird's ghost, it is somebody's that's
the exact image of him."
Miss Deborah sat down on a stone jar, and got Master Cheese to tell her
the whole story. That he should put in a few exaggerations, and so
increase the marvel, was only natural. But Deborah West heard sufficient
to send her mind into a state of uneasy perplexity.
"You say Mr. Jan knows of this?" she asked.
"There's nobody about that doesn't know of it except you and the folks
at Verner's Pride," responded Master Cheese. "I say, don't you go and
tell Jan that you made me betray it to you, Miss Deb! You'll get me into
a row if you do."
But this was the very thing that Miss Deb resolved to do. Not to get
Master Cheese into a "row," but that she saw no other way of allaying
her uncertainty. Ghosts were utterly excluded from Deborah West's creed;
and why so many people should be suddenly testifying that Frederick
Massingbird's was to be seen, she could not understand. That there must
be something in it more than the common absurdity of such tales, the
state of Alice Hook appeared to testify.
"Can Bob be spared to go over to Broom's in the morning?" she asked,
after a long pause of silence, given apparently to the contemplation of
Master Cheese's intense enjoyment of his walnuts; in reality, to deep
thought.
"Well, I don't know," answered the young gentleman, who never was ready
to accord the services of Bob indoors, lest it might involve any little
extra amount of exertion for himself. "There's a sight of medicine to be
taken out just now. Jan's got a great deal to do, and _I_ am nearly
worked off my legs."
"It looks like it," retorted Miss Deborah. "Your legs will never be much
the worse for the amount of work _you_ do. Where's Mr. Jan?"
"He went out to go to Hook's," replied Master Cheese, a desperately hard
walnut proving nearly too much for his teeth. "He'll take a round, I
dare say, before he comes in."
Deborah returned indoors. Though not much inclined to reticence in
general, she observed it now, saying nothing to Amilly. The storm came
on, and they sat and watched it. Supper time approached, and Master
Cheese was punctual. He found some pickled herrings on the table, of
which he was uncommonly fond, and ate them as long as Miss West would
supply his plate. The meal was over when Jan came in.
"Don't trouble to have anything brought back for me," said he. "I'll eat
a bit of bread and cheese." He was not like his assistant; his growing
days were over.
Master Cheese went straight up to bed. He liked to do so as soon as
supper was over, lest any summons came, and he should have to go out.
Easy Jan, no matter how tired he might be, would attend himself, sooner
than wake up Master Cheese--a ceremony more easy to attempt than to
accomplish. Fortifying himself with about a pound of sweet cake, which
he kept in his box, as dessert to the herrings, and to refresh his
dreams, Master Cheese put himself into bed.
Jan meanwhile finished his bread and cheese, and rose. "I wonder whether
I shall get a whole night of it tonight?" said he, stretching himself.
"I didn't have much bed last night."
"Have you to go out again, Mr. Jan?"
"No. I shall look to the books a bit, and then turn in. Good night, Miss
Deborah; good-night, Miss Amilly."
"Good-night," they answered.
Amilly drew to the fire. The chilly rain of the afternoon had caused
them to have one lighted. She put her feet on the fender, feeling the
warmth comfortable. Deborah sent the supper-tray away, and then left the
room. Stealing out of the side door quietly, she tripped across the
narrow path of wet gravel, and entered the surgery. Jan had got an
account-book open on the counter, and was leaning over it, a pen in his
hand.
"Don't be frightened, Mr. Jan; it's only me," said Deborah, who did not
at all times confine herself to the rules of severe grammar. "I'll shut
the door, if you please, for I want to say a word to yourself alone."
"Is it more physic that you want?" asked Jan. "Has the pain in the side
come again?"
"It is not about pains or physic," she answered, drawing nearer to the
counter. "Mr. Jan"--dropping her voice to a confidential whisper--"would
you be so good as to tell me the truth of this story that is going
about?"
Jan paused. "What story?" he rejoined.
"This ghost story. They are saying, I understand, that--that--they are
saying something about Frederick Massingbird."
"Did Cheese supply you with the information?" cried Jan, imperturbable
as ever.
"He did. But I must beg you not to scold him for it--as he thought you
might do. It was I who drew the story from him. He said you cautioned
him not to speak of it to me or Amilly. I quite appreciate your motives,
Mr. Jan, and feel that it was very considerate of you. But now that I
have heard it, I want to know particulars from somebody more reliable
than Master Cheese."
"I told Lionel I'd say nothing to any soul in the parish," said Jan,
open and single-minded as though he had been made of glass. "But he'd
not mind my making you an exception--as you have heard it. You are
Sibylla's sister."
"_You_ don't believe in its being a ghost?"
Jan grinned. "I!" cried he. "No, I don't."
"Then what do you suppose it is that's frightening people? And why
should they be frightened?"
Jan sat himself down on the counter, and whirled his legs over to the
other side, clearing the gallipots; so that he faced Miss Deborah. Not
to waste time, he took the mortar before him. And there he was at his
ease; his legs hanging, and his hands pounding.
"What should you think it is?" inquired he.
"How can I think, Mr. Jan? Until an hour or two ago, I had not heard of
the rumour. I suppose it is somebody who walks about at night to
frighten people. But it is curious that he should look like Frederick
Massingbird. Can you understand it?"
"I am afraid I can," replied Jan, pounding away.
"Will you tell me, please, what you think."
"Can't you guess at it, Miss Deb?"
Miss Deb looked at him, beginning to think his manner as mysterious as
Master Cheese's had been.
"I can't guess at it at all," she presently said. "Please to tell me."
"Then don't you go and drop down in a fit when you hear it," was the
rejoinder of Jan. "I suppose it is Fred himself."
The words took her utterly by surprise. Not at first did she understand
their meaning. She stared at Jan, her eyes and her mouth gradually
opening.
"Fred himself?" she mechanically uttered.
"I suppose so. Fred himself. Not his ghost."
"Do you mean that he has come to life again?" she rapidly rejoined.
"Well, you can call it so if you like," said Jan. "I expect that, in
point of fact, he has never been dead. The report of his death must have
been erroneous; one of those unaccountable mistakes that do sometimes
happen to astonish the world."
Deborah West took in the full sense of the words, and sunk down on the
big stone jar. She turned all over of a burning heat; she felt her hands
beginning to twitch with emotion.
"You mean that he is alive?--that he has never been dead?" she gasped.
Jan nodded.
"Oh, Mr. Jan! Then, what is--what is Sibylla?"
"Ah," said Jan, "that's just it. She's the wife of both of 'em--as you
may say."
For any petty surprise or evil, Miss Deborah would have gone off in a
succession of screams, of pseudo-faints. _This_ evil was all too real,
too terrible. She sat with her trembling hands clasped to pain, looking
hopelessly at Jan.
He told her all he knew; all that was said by others.
"Dan Duff's nothing," remarked he; "and Cheese is nothing; and others,
who confess to have seen it, are nothing: and old Frost's not much. But
I'd back Bourne's calmness and sound sense against the world, and I'd
back Broom's."
"And they have both seen it?"
"Both," replied Jan. "Both are sure that it is Frederick Massingbird."
"What will Mr. Verner do?" she asked, looking round with a shudder, and
not speaking above her breath.
"Oh, that's his affair," said Jan. "It's hard to guess what he may do;
he is one that won't be dictated to. If it were some people's case,
they'd say to Sibylla, 'Now you have got two husbands, choose which
you'll have, and keep to him.'"
"Good heavens, Mr. Jan!" exclaimed Miss Deb, shocked at the loose
sentiments the words appeared to indicate. "And suppose she should
choose the second? Have you thought of the sin? The second _can't_ be
her husband; it would be as bad as those Mormons."
"Looking at it in a practical point of view, I can't see much
difference, which of the two she chooses," returned Jan. "If Fred was
her husband once, Lionel's her husband now; practically I say you know,
Miss Deb."
Miss Deb thought the question was going rather into metaphysics, a
branch of science which she did not understand, and so was content to
leave the controversy.
"Any way, it is dreadful for her," she said, with another shiver. "Oh,
Mr. Jan, do you think it can really be true?"
"_I_ think that there's not a doubt of it," he answered, stopping in his
pounding. "But you need not think so, Miss Deb."
"How am I to help thinking so?" she simply asked.
"You needn't think either way until it is proved. As I suppose it must
be, shortly. Let it rest till then."
"No, Mr. Jan, I differ from you. It is a question that ought to be
sought out and probed; not left to rest. Does Sibylla know it?"
"Not she. Who'd tell her? Lionel won't, I know. It was for her sake that
he bound me to silence."
"She ought to be told, Mr. Jan. She ought to leave her husband--I mean,
Mr. Lionel--this very hour, and shut herself up until the doubt is
settled."
"Where should she shut herself?" inquired Jan, opening his eyes. "In a
convent? Law, Miss Deb! If somebody came and told me I had got two
wives, should you say I ought to make a start for the nearest monastery?
How would my patients get on?"
Rather metaphysical again. Miss Deb drew Jan back to plain details--to
the histories of the various ghostly encounters. Jan talked and pounded;
she sat on her hard seat and listened, her brain more perplexed than it
could have been with any metaphysics known to science. Eleven o'clock
disturbed them, and Miss Deborah started as if she had been shot.
"How could I keep you until this time!" she exclaimed. "And you scarcely
in bed for some nights!"
"Never mind, Miss Deb," answered good-natured Jan. "It's all in the
day's work."
He opened the door for her, and then bolted himself in for the night.
For the night, that is, if Deerham would allow it to him. Hook's
daughter was slowly progressing towards recovery, and Jan would not need
to go to her.
Amilly was nodding over the fire, or, rather, where the fire had been,
for it had gone out. She inquired with wonder what her sister had been
doing, and where she had been. Deborah replied that she had been busy;
and they went upstairs to bed.
But not to sleep--for one of them. Deborah West lay awake through the
live-long night, tossing from side to side in her perplexity and
thought. Somewhat strict in her notions, she deemed it a matter of stern
necessity, of positive duty, that Sibylla should retire, at any rate for
a time, from the scenes of busy life. To enable her to do this, the news
must be broken to her. But how?
Ay, how? Deborah West rose in the morning with the difficulty unsolved.
She supposed she must do it herself. She believed it was as much a duty
laid upon her, the imparting these tidings to Sibylla, as the separating
herself from all social ties, the instant it was so imparted, would be
the duty of Sibylla herself. Deborah West went about her occupations
that morning, one imperative sentence ever in her thoughts: "It must be
done! it must be done!"
She carried it about with her, ever saying it, through the whole day.
She shrank, both for Sibylla's sake and her own, from the task she was
imposing upon herself; and, as we all do when we have an unpleasant
office to perform, she put it off to the last. Early in the morning she
had said, I will go to Verner's Pride after breakfast and tell her;
breakfast over, she said, I will have my dinner first and go then.
But the afternoon passed on, and she did not go. Every little trivial
domestic duty was made an excuse for delaying it. Miss Amilly, finding
her sister unusually bad company, went out to drink tea with some
friends. The time came for ordering in tea at home, and still Deborah
had not gone.
She made the tea and presided at the table. But she could eat
nothing--to the inward gratification of Master Cheese. There happened to
be shrimps--a dish which that gentleman preferred, if anything, to
pickled herrings; and by Miss Deborah's want of appetite he was able to
secure her share and his own, including the heads and tails. He would
uncommonly have liked to secure Jan's share also; but Miss Deborah
filled a plate and put them aside, against Jan came in. Jan's pressure
of work caused him of late to be irregular at his meals.
Scarcely was the tea over, and Master Cheese gone, when Mr. Bourne
called. Deborah, the one thought uppermost in her mind, closed the door,
and spoke out what she had heard. The terrible fear, her own distress,
Jan's belief that it was Fred himself, Jan's representation that Mr.
Bourne also believed it. Mr. Bourne, leaning forward until his pale face
and his iron-gray hair nearly touched hers, whispered in answer that he
did not think there was a doubt of it.
Then Deborah did nerve herself to the task. On the departure of the
vicar, she started for Verner's Pride and asked to see Sibylla. The
servants would have shown her to the drawing-room, but she preferred to
go up to Sibylla's chamber. The company were yet in the dining-room.
How long Sibylla kept her waiting there, she scarcely knew. Sibylla was
not in the habit of putting herself to inconvenience for her sisters.
The message was taken to her--that Miss West waited in her chamber--as
she entered the drawing-room. And there Sibylla let her wait. One or two
more messages to the same effect were subsequently delivered. They
produced no impression, and Deborah began to think she should not get to
see her that night.
But Sibylla came up at length, and Deborah entered upon her task.
Whether she accomplished it clumsily, or whether Sibylla's
ill-disciplined mind was wholly in fault, certain it is that there
ensued a loud and unpleasant scene. The scene to which you were a
witness. Scarcely giving herself time to take in more than the bare fact
hinted at by Deborah--that her first husband was believed to be
alive--not waiting to inquire a single particular, she burst out of the
room and went shrieking down the stairs, flying into the arms of Lionel,
who at that moment had entered.