DRESSING UP FOR A GHOST.
And so the mystery was out. And the ghost proved to be no ghost at
all--to be no husband of Sibylla--come to disturb the peace of her and
of Lionel; but _John_ Massingbird in real flesh and blood.
There was so much explanation to ask and to be given, that Jan was
somewhat hindered on his way to Hook's.
"I can't stop," said he, in the midst of a long sentence of John's.
"Alice Hook may be dying. Will you remain here until I come back?"
"If you are not long," responded John Massingbird. "I intend this to be
the last night of my concealment, and I want to go about, terrifying the
natives. The fun it has been!"
"Fun, you call it?" remarked Jan. "If Hook's girl does die, it will lie
at your door."
"_She_ won't die," lightly answered John. "I'll send her a ten-pound
note to make amends. Make you haste, Jan, if I am to wait."
Jan sped off to Hook's. He found the girl very ill, but not so much so
as Cheese had intimated. Some unseemly quarrel had taken place in the
cottage, which had agitated her.
"There's no danger," mentally soliloquised Jan, "but it has thrown her
back a good two days."
He found John Massingbird--restless John!--restless as ever!--pacing
before the trees with hasty strides, and bursting into explosions of
laughter.
"Some woman was coming along from one of the cottages by Broom's and I
appeared to her, and sent her on, howling," he explained to Jan. "I
think it was Mother Sykes. The sport this ghost affair has been!"
He sat down on a bench, held his sides, and let his laughter have vent.
Laughter is contagious, and Jan laughed with him, but in a quieter way.
"Whatever put it into your head to personate Frederick?" inquired Jan.
"Was it done to frighten the people?"
"Not at first," answered John Massingbird.
"Because, if to frighten had been your motive, you need only have
appeared in your own person," continued Jan. "You were thought to be
dead, you know, as much as Fred was. Fred _is_ dead, I suppose?"
"Fred is dead, poor fellow, safe enough. I was supposed to be dead, but
I came to life again."
"Did you catch Fred's star when he died?" asked Jan, pointing to the
cheek.
"No," replied John Massingbird, with another burst of laughter, "I get
that up with Indian-ink."
Bit by bit, Jan came into possession of the details. At least, of as
much of them as John Massingbird deemed it expedient to furnish. It
appeared that his being attacked and robbed and left for dead, when
travelling down to Melbourne, was perfectly correct. Luke Roy quitted
him, believing he was dead. Luke would not have quitted him so hastily,
but that he wished to be on the track of the thieves, and he hastened to
Melbourne. After Luke's departure, John Massingbird came, as he phrased
it, to life again. He revived from the suspended animation, or swoon,
which, prolonged over some hours, had been mistaken for death. The
bullet was extracted from his side, and he progressed pretty rapidly
towards recovery.
Luke meanwhile had reached Melbourne; and had come in contact with a
family of the name of Eyre. Luke--if you have not forgotten--had said to
Mr. Eyre that he had obtained a clue to the men who robbed his master;
such, at least, was the information given by that gentleman to Sibylla
Massingbird, on her subsequent sojourn at his house. He, Mr. Eyre, had
said that Luke had promised to return the following day and inform him
how he sped in the search, but that Luke never did return; that he had
never seen him afterwards. All true. Luke found the clue, which he
thought he had gained, to be no clue at all; but he heard news that
pleased him better than fifty clues would have done--that his master,
Mr. Massingbird, was alive. One who had travelled down to Melbourne from
where John was lying, gave him the information. Without waiting to break
bread or draw water, without giving another thought to Mr. Eyre, Luke
started off there and then, to retrace his steps to John Massingbird.
John was nearly well then, and they returned at once to the diggings. In
his careless way, he said the loss must be given up for a bad job; they
should never find the fellows, and the best plan was to pick up more
gold to replace that gone. Luke informed him he had written home to
announce his death. John went into a fit of laughter, forbade Luke to
contradict it, and anticipated the fun he should have in surprising
them, when he went home on the accumulation of his fortune. Thus he
stopped at the diggings, remaining in complete ignorance of the changes
which had taken place; the voyage of Frederick and his wife to
Melbourne, the death of Mr. Verner, the subsequent death of Frederick;
and above all--for that would have told most on John--of the strange
will left by Mr. Verner, which had constituted him the inheritor of
Verner's Pride.
But fortune did not come in the rapid manner fondly expected by John.
The nuggets seemed shy. He obtained enough to rub along with, and that
was all. The life did not ill suit him. To such a man as Lionel Verner,
of innate refinement, just and conscientious, the life would have been
intolerable, almost worse than death. John was not overburdened with any
one of those qualities, and he rather liked the life than not. One thing
was against him: he had no patience. Roving about from place to place,
he was satisfied nowhere long. It was not only that he perpetually
changed the spot, or bed, of work, but he changed from one settlement
to another. This was the reason probably that Captain Cannonby had never
met with him; it was more than probable that it was the cause of his
non-success. Luke Roy was not so fond of roving. He found a place likely
to answer his expectations, and he remained at it; so that the two
parted early, and did not again meet afterwards.
Suddenly John Massingbird heard that he had been left heir to Verner's
Pride. He had gone down to Melbourne; and some new arrival from
England--from the county in which Verner's Pride was situated--mentioned
this in his hearing. The stranger was telling the tale of the
unaccountable will of Mr. Verner, of the death of John and Frederick
Massingbird, and of the _consequent_ accession of Lionel Verner; telling
it as a curious bit of home gossip, unconscious that one of his
listeners was the first-named heir--the veritable John Massingbird.
Too much given to act upon impulse, allowing himself no time to
ascertain or to inquire whether the story might be correct or not, John
Massingbird took a berth in the first ship advertised for home. He
possessed very little more money than would pay for his passage; he gave
himself no concern how he was to get back to Australia, or how exist in
England, should the news prove incorrect, but started away off-hand.
Providing for the future had never been made a trouble by John
Massingbird.
He sailed, and he arrived safely. But, once in England, it was necessary
to proceed rather cautiously; and John, careless and reckless though he
was, could not ignore the expediency of so acting. There were certain
reasons why it would not be altogether prudent to show himself in the
neighbourhood of Verner's Pride, unless his pocket were weighty enough
to satisfy sundry claims which would inevitably flock in upon him. Were
he sure that he was the legitimate master of Verner's Pride, he would
have driven up in a coach-and-six, with flying flags and streamers to
the horses' heads, and so have announced his arrival in triumph. _Not_
being sure, he preferred to feel his way, and this could not be done by
arriving openly.
There was one place where he knew he could count upon being sheltered,
while the way was "felt;" and this was Giles Roy's. Roy would be true to
him; would conceal him if need were; and help him off again, did
Verner's Pride, for him, prove a myth. This thought John Massingbird
put in practice, arriving one dark night at Roy's, and startling Mrs.
Roy nearly to death. Whatever fanciful ghosts the woman may have seen
before, she never doubted that she saw a real ghost now.
His first question, naturally, was about the will. Roy told him it was
perfectly true that a will had been made in his favour; but the will had
been superseded by a codicil. And he related the circumstance of that
codicil's mysterious loss. Was it found? John eagerly asked. Ah! there
Roy could not answer him; he was at a nonplus; he was unable to say
whether the codicil had been found or not. A rumour had gone about
Deerham, some time subsequently to the loss, that it _had_ been found,
but Roy had never come to the rights of it. John Massingbird stared as
he heard him say this. Then, couldn't he tell whether he was the heir or
not? whether Lionel Verner held it by established right or by wrong? he
asked. And Roy shook his head--he could not.
Under these uncertainties, Mr. John Massingbird did not see his way
particularly clear. Either to stop, or to go. If he stopped, and showed
himself, he might be unpleasantly assured that the true heir of Verner's
Pride inhabited Verner's Pride; if he went back to Australia, the no
less mortifying fact might come out afterwards, that he was the heir to
Verner's Pride, and had run away from his own.
What was to be done? Roy suggested perhaps the best plan that could be
thought of--that Mr. Massingbird should remain in his cottage in
concealment, while he, Roy, endeavoured to ascertain the truth regarding
the codicil. And John Massingbird was fain to adopt it. He took up his
abode in the upper bedroom, which had been Luke's, and Mrs. Roy, locking
her front door, carried his meals up to him by day, Roy setting himself
to ferret out--as you may recollect--all he could learn about the
codicil. The "all" was not much. Ordinary gossipers knew no more than
Roy, whether the codicil had been found or not; and Roy tried to pump
Matiss, by whom he was baffled--he even tried to pump Mr. Verner. He
went up to Verner's Pride, ostensibly to ask whether he might paper
Luke's old room at his own cost. In point of fact, the paper was in a
dilapidated state, and he did wish to put it decent for John
Massingbird; but he could have done it without speaking to Mr. Verner.
It was a great point with Roy to find favour in the sight of Mr.
Massingbird, his possible future master. Lionel partially saw through
the man; he believed that he had some covert motive in seeking the
interview with him, and that Roy was trying to pry into his affairs. But
Roy found himself baffled also by Mr. Verner, as he had been by Matiss,
in so far as that he could learn nothing certain of the existence or
non-existence of the codicil.
Two days of the condemned confinement were sufficient to tire out John
Massingbird. To a man of active, restless temperament, who had lived
almost day and night under the open skies, the being shut up in a small,
close room was well-nigh unbearable. He could not stamp on its floor
(there was no space to _walk_ on it), lest any intrusive neighbour
below, who might have popped in, unwanted, should say, "Who have ye got
up aloft?" He could not open the window and put his head out, to catch a
breath of fresh air, lest prying eyes might be cast upon him.
"I can't stand this," he said to Roy. "A week of it would kill me. I
shall go out at night."
Roy opposed the resolve so far as he dared--having an eye always to the
not displeasing his future master. He represented to John Massingbird
that he would inevitably be seen; and that he might just as well be seen
by day as by night. John would not listen to reason. That very night, as
soon as dark came on, he went out, and _was_ seen. Seen by Robin Frost.
Robin Frost, whatever superstitions or fond feelings he may have
cherished regarding the hoped-for reappearance of Rachel's spirit, was
no believer in ghosts in a general point of view. In fact, that it was
John Massingbird's ghost never once entered Robin's mind. He came at
once to the more sensible conclusion that some error had occurred with
regard to his reported death, and that it was John Massingbird himself.
His deadly enemy. The only one, of all the human beings upon earth, with
whom Robin was at issue. For he believed that it was John Massingbird
who had worked the ill to Rachel. Robin, in his blind vengeance, took to
lying in wait with a gun: and Roy became cognisant of this.
"You must not go out again, sir," he said to John Massingbird; "he may
shoot you dead."
Curious, perhaps, to say, John Massingbird had himself come to the same
conclusion--that he must not go out again. He had very narrowly escaped
meeting one who would as surely have known him, in the full moonlight,
as did Robin Frost; one whom it would have been nearly as inconvenient
to meet, as it was Robin. And yet, stop in perpetual confinement by day
and by night, he could not; he persisted that he should be dead--almost
better go back, unsatisfied, to Australia.
A bright idea occurred to John Massingbird. He would personate his
brother. Frederick, so far as he knew, had neither creditors nor enemies
round Deerham; and the likeness between them was so great, both in face
and form, that there would be little difficulty in it. When they were at
home together, John had been the stouter of the two: but his wanderings
had fined him down, and his figure now looked exactly as Frederick's did
formerly. He shaved off his whiskers--Frederick had never worn any; or,
for the matter of that, had had any to wear--and painted an imitation
star on his cheek with Indian-ink. His hair, too, had grown long on the
voyage, and had not yet been cut; just as Frederick used to wear his.
John had favoured a short crop of hair; Frederick a long one.
These little toilette mysteries accomplished, so exactly did he look
like his brother Frederick, that Roy started when he saw him; and Mrs.
Roy went into a prolonged scream that might have been heard at the
brick-fields. John attired himself in a long, loose dark coat which had
seen service at the diggings, and sallied out; the coat which had been
mistaken for a riding habit.
He enjoyed himself to his heart's content, receiving more fun than he
had bargained for. It had not occurred to him to personate Frederick's
_ghost_; he had only thought of personating Frederick himself; but to
his unbounded satisfaction, he found the former climax arrived at. He
met old Matthew Frost; he frightened Dan Duff into fits; he frightened
Master Cheese; he startled the parson; he solaced himself by taking up
his station under the yew-tree on the lawn at Verner's Pride, to
contemplate that desirable structure, which perhaps was his, and the
gaiety going on in it. He had distinctly seen Lionel Verner leave the
lighted rooms and approach him; upon which he retreated. Afterwards, it
was rather a favourite night-pastime of his, the standing under the
yew-tree at Verner's Pride. He was there again the night of the storm.
All this, the terrifying people into the belief that he was Frederick's
veritable ghost, had been the choicest sport to John Massingbird. The
trick might not have availed with Robin Frost, but they had found a
different method of silencing him. Of an easy, good-tempered nature, the
thought of any real damage from consequences had been completely passed
over by John. If Dan Duff did go into fits, he'd recover from them; if
Alice Hook was startled into something worse, she was not dead. It was
all sport to free-and-easy John; and, but for circumstances, there's no
knowing how long he might have carried this game on. These circumstances
touched upon a point that influences us all, more or less--pecuniary
consideration. John was minus funds, and it was necessary that something
should be done; he could not continue to live upon Roy.
It was Roy himself who at length hit upon the plan that brought forth
the certainty about the codicil. Roy found rumours were gaining ground
abroad that it was not Frederick Massingbird's ghost, but Frederick
himself; and he knew that the explanation must soon come. He determined
to waylay Tynn and make an apparent confidant of him; by these means he
should, in all probability, arrive at the desired information. Roy did
so; and found that there was no codicil. He carried his news to John
Massingbird, advising that gentleman to go at once and put in his claim
to Verner's Pride. John, elated with the news, protested he'd have one
more night's fun first.
Such were the facts. John Massingbird told them to Jan, suppressing any
little bit that he chose, here and there. The doubt about the codicil,
for instance, and its moving motive in the affair, he did not mention.
"It has been the best fun I ever had in my life," he remarked. "I never
shall forget the parson's amazed stare, the first time I passed him. Or
old Tynn's, either, last night. Jan, you should have heard Dan Duff
howl!"
"I have," said Jan. "I have had the pleasure of attending him. My only
wonder is that he did not put himself into the pool, in his fright: as
Rachel Frost did, time back."
John Massingbird caught the words up hastily, "How, do you know that
Rachel put herself in? She may have been put in."
"For all I know, she may. Taking circumstances into consideration,
however, I should say it was the other way."
"I say, Jan," interrupted John Massingbird, with another explosion,
"didn't your Achates, Cheese, arrive at home in a mortal fright one
night?"
Jan nodded.
"I shall never forget him, never. He was marching up, all bravely, till
he saw my face. Didn't he turn tail! There has been one person above all
others, Jan, that I have wanted to meet, and have not--your brother
Lionel."
"He'd have pinned you," said Jan.
"Not he. You would not have done it to-night, but that I _let_ you do
it. No chance of anybody catching me, unless I chose. _I_ was on the
look-out for all I met, for all to whom I chose to show myself: _they_
met me unawares. Unprepared for the encounter, while they were
recovering their astonishment, I was beyond reach. Last night I had been
watching over the gate ever so long, when I darted out in front of Tynn,
to astonish him. Jan"--lowering his voice--"has it put Sibylla in a
fright?"
"I think it has put Lionel in a worse," responded Jan.
"For fear of losing her?" laughed John Massingbird. "Wouldn't it have
been a charming prospect for some husbands, who are tired of their
wives! Is Lionel tired of his?"
"Can't say," replied Jan. "There's no appearance of it."
"I should be, if Sibylla had been my wife for two years," candidly
avowed John Massingbird. "Sibylla and I never hit it off well as
cousins. I'd not own her as wife, if she were dowered with all the gold
mines in Australia. What Fred saw in her was always a puzzle to me. _I_
knew what was going on between them, though nobody else did. But, Jan,
I'll tell you what astonished me more than everything else when I
learned it--that Lionel should have married her subsequently. I never
could have imagined Lionel Verner taking up with another man's wife."
"She was his widow," cried literal Jan.
"All the same. 'Twas another man's leavings. And there's something about
Lionel Verner, with his sensitive refinement, that does not seem to
accord with the notion. Is she healthy?"
"Who? Sibylla? I don't fancy she has much of a constitution."
"No, that she has not! There are no children, I hear. Jan, though, you
need not have pinched so hard when you pounced upon me," he continued,
rubbing his arm. "I was not going to run away."
"How did I know that?" said Jan.
"It's my last night of fun, and when I saw YOU I said to myself, 'I'll
be caught.' How are old Deb and Amilly?"
"Much as usual. Deb's in a fever just now. She has heard that Fred
Massingbird's back, and thinks Sibylla ought to leave Lionel on the
strength of it."
John laughed again. "It must have put others in a fever, I know, besides
poor old Deb. Jan, I can't stop talking to you all night, I should get
no more fun. I wish I could appear to all Deerham collectively, and send
it into fits after Dan Duff! To-morrow, as soon as I genteelly can after
breakfast, I go up to Verner's Pride and show myself. One can't go at
six in the morning."
He went off in the direction of Clay Lane as he spoke, and Jan turned to
make the best of his way to Verner's Pride.