When Sir Dace Fontaine died, now eighteen months ago, the two girls,
Coralie and Verena, were left alone. Verena shortly went back to the
West Indies to marry George Bazalgette, Coralie remained at Oxlip
Grange. Upon that, all the old ladies in the place, as Tod had
ungallantly put it, beginning with Bob's mother, set on to lecture
her: telling her she must not continue to live alone, she must take a
companion of mature age. Why must she not live alone, Coralie returned:
she had old Ozias to protect her from robbers, and her maid-servants
to see to her clothes and her comforts. Because it was not proper,
said the old ladies. Coralie laughed at that, and told them not to be
afraid; she could take care of herself. And apparently she did. She
had learnt to be independent in America; could not be brought to
understand English stiffness and English pride: and she would go off
to London and elsewhere for a week or two at a time, just as though
she had been sixty years of age.
"I have an idea she will not be Coralie Fontaine much longer," continued
Letsom.
"Who will she be, then?"
"Coralie Rymer."
"You can't mean that she is going to take up with Ben!"
"Well, I fancy so. Some of us thought they were making up to one another
before Sir Dace died--when Ben was attending him. Don't you recollect
how much old Fontaine liked Ben?--he'd have had him by his side always.
Ben's getting on like a house on fire; has unusual skill in surgery and
is wonderful at operations: he performed a very critical one upon old
Massock this summer, and the man is about again as sturdy and impudent
as ever."
"Does Ben live down here entirely?"
"He goes up to London between whiles--in pursuit of his studies and the
degrees he means to take. He is there now. Oh, he'll get on. You'll
see."
"Well, what else, Letsom?" cried Tod. "You have told us no news about
anybody yet."
"Because there's none to tell."
"How do those two old dames get on--the Dennets?"
"Oh, they are gone off to some baths in Germany for a twelvemonth, with
suppressed gout, and their house is let to a mysterious tenant."
"Mysterious in what way?"
"Well, nobody sees her, and she keeps the doors bolted and barred. The
Dennets left it all in Mrs. Cramp's hands, being intimate with her, for
they started in a hurry, and she put it into a new agent's hands at
Worcester, and he put an advertisement in the papers. Some lady answered
it, a stranger; she agreed to all conditions by letter, took possession
of the house, and has shut herself up as if something uncanny were
inside it. Mrs. Cramp does not like it at all; and queer rumours are
beginning to go about."
"What's her name?"
"Nobody knows."
The house spoken of was North Villa, where Jacob Chandler used to live.
When the Chandlers went down in the world it was taken on lease by the
Miss Dennets, two steady middle-aged sisters.
The first visit we paid the following morning was to Oxlip Grange, to
see Coralie. Meeting the Squire on the way he said he would go with us.
North Villa lies not far from us, soon after you turn into the Islip
Road, and the Grange is about a quarter-of-a-mile farther on. I took a
good stare at the villa in passing. Two of the upstairs windows were
open, but the mysterious tenant was not to be seen.
Old Ozias was in the Grange garden, helping the gardener; it was how he
professed to fill up his time; and the door was opened by a tall, smart
maid, with curled hair and pink bows in her cap. Where had I seen her?
Why, at the lodgings in the Marylebone Road in London! She was Maria,
who had been housemaid there during the enacting of that tragedy.
Coralie Fontaine sat in her pretty parlour, one opening from the large
drawing-room, flirting a paper hand-screen between her face and the
fire, which she would have, as Sir Dace used to, whether it might be
cold weather or hot. Small and pale, her black hair smooth and silky,
her dark eyes meeting ours honestly, her chin pointed, her pretty teeth
white, she was not a whit changed. Her morning dress was white, with
scarlet ribbons, and she was downright glad to see us. The Squire
inquired after Verena.
"She is quite well," replied Coralie. "At least, she would be but for
grumbling."
"What has she to grumble about, my dear?"
"Nothing," said Coralie.
"Then why does she do it? Dear me! Is her husband not kind to her?"
Coralie laughed at the notion. "He is too kind, Mr. Todhetley. Kindness
to people is George Bazalgette's weakness, especially to Verena. Her
grievance lies in George's sister, Magnolia Bazalgette."
"What a splendacious name!" interrupted Tod. "Magnolia!"
"She was named after the estate, Magnolia Range, a very beautiful place
and one of the finest properties on the island," said Coralie. "Magnolia
lives with George, it was always her home, you see; and Verena does
not take kindly to her. She complains that Magnolia domineers over the
household and over herself. It is just one of Verena's silly fancies;
she always wants to be first and foremost; and I have written her one
or two sharp letters."
"Coralie," I said here, "is not the girl, who showed us in, Maria?--she
who used to live in those lodgings in London?"
Coralie nodded. "The last time I was staying in London, Maria came to
me, saying she had left her place and was in want of one. I engaged her
at once. I like the girl."
"She is an uncommonly smart girl in the way of curls and caps," remarked
Tod.
"I like smart people about me," laughed Coralie.
Who should come in then but Mrs. Cramp. _She_ was smart. A flounced gown
of shiny material, green in one light, red in another, and a purple
bonnet with white strings. She was Stephen Cramp's widow, formerly Mary
Ann Chandler; her speech was honest and homely, and her comely face wore
a look of perplexity.
"I don't much like the look of things down yonder," she began, nodding
her head in the direction of North Villa and as she sat down her
flounces went up, displaying her white cotton stockings and low, tied
shoes. "I have been calling there again, and I can't get in."
"Nobody can get in," said Coralie.
"They have put a chain on the door, and they answer people through it.
No chain was ever there before, as long as I have known the house. I
paid no attention to the things people were saying," continued Mrs.
Cramp; "but I did not much like something I heard last night. I'll see
the lady, I said to myself this morning, and down to the house I went,
walked up the garden, and----"
"But what is it that people have been saying, Mrs. Cramp?" struck in the
Squire. "These boys have heard something or other."
"What's said is, that there's something queer about the lady," replied
Mrs. Cramp. "I can't make it out myself, Squire. Some people say she's
pig-faced."
"_Pig-faced!_"
"Well, they do. Last night I heard she was black. And, putting two and
two together, as one can't help doing in such a case, I don't like that
report at all."
The Squire stared--and began thinking. He believed he knew what Mrs.
Cramp meant.
"Well, I went there, and rang," she resumed. "And they opened the door
a couple of inches and talked to me over the chain: some sour-faced
woman-servant of middle age. I told her I had come to see my tenant--her
mistress; she answered that her mistress could not be seen, and shut the
door in my face."
Mrs. Cramp untied her white satin bonnet-strings, tilted back her
bonnet, caught up the painted fan, fellow to the one Coralie was
handling, and fanned herself while she talked.
"As long as it was said the lady was pig-faced and hid herself from
people's eyes accordingly, I thought little of it, you understand,
Squire; but if she is black, that's a different matter. It sets one
fearing that some scandal may come of it. The Miss Dennets would drop
down in a fit on the spot if they heard _that_ person had got into their
house."
Coralie laughed.
"Ah, my dear, you careless young people make jokes of things that would
fret us old ones to fiddle-strings," reproved Mrs. Cramp. "The four
Indians may be with her, you know, and most likely are, concealed in
cupboards. You don't know what such desperate characters might do--break
into your house here some dark night and kill you in your bed. It is not
a pleasant thing, is it, Squire?"
"That it's not, if it be as you put it," assented he, growing hot.
"Look here, Mrs. Cramp," interposed Tod. "If the lady has never been
seen, how can it be known she is black, or pig-faced?"
"I've never treated the pig-faced report as anything but rubbish,"
answered Mrs. Cramp; "but I'll tell you, Mr. Joseph, how it has come out
that she's black. I heard from Susan Dennet yesterday morning, and she
asked whether any letters were lying at home for her or Mary. So I sent
my servant Peggy last evening to inquire--a stupid thing of a girl she
is, comes from over beyond Bromyard. Peggy went to the kitchen-door--and
they have a chain there as well as to the other--and was told that no
letters had come for the Miss Dennets. It was growing dark, and Peggy,
who had never been on the premises before, mistook the path, and turned
into one that took her to the latticed arbour. Many a time have I sat
there in poor Jacob's days, with the Malvern Hills in the distance."
"So have I, Mary Ann," added the Squire, calling her unconsciously by
her Christian name, his thoughts back in the time when they were boy and
girl together.
"Peggy found her mistake then, and was turning back, when there stood in
her path a black woman, who must have followed her down: black face,
black hands, all black. What's more, she was wrapped round in yellow;
a _shroud_, Peggy declares, but the girl was quite beyond herself with
fright, and could not be expected to know shrouds from cloaks in the
twilight. The woman stood stock still, never speaking, only staring;
and Peggy tore back in her terror, and fell into the arms of a
railway-porter, just then bringing a parcel from the station. 'Goodness
help us!' she shrieked out, 'there's a blackamore in the path yonder:'
and the girl came home more dead than alive. That is how I've learnt the
mysterious lady is black," summed up Mrs. Cramp; "and knowing what we do
know, I don't like it."
Neither did the Squire. And Mrs. Cramp departed in a flutter. We all
liked her, in spite of her white stockings and shoes.
* * * * *
Some few months before this, a party of strangers appeared one morning
at Worcester, and took handsome lodgings there. Four fashionable-looking
gentlemen, with dark skins and darker hair; natives, apparently, of some
remote quarter of the globe, say Asia or Africa, whose inhabitants are
of a fine copper colour; and one lady, understood to be their sister,
who was darker than they were--almost quite black. Two rather elderly
and very respectable English servants, man and wife, were in their
train. They lived well, these people, regardless of cost: had sumptuous
dishes on their table, choice fruits, hot-house flowers. They made no
acquaintance whatever in the town, rarely went abroad on foot, but took
an airing most days in a large old rumbling open barouche, supplied by
the livery stables. Worcester, not less alive to curiosity than is any
other city, grew to be all excitement over these people, watched their
movements with admiration, and called them "The Indians." The lady was
seen in the barouche but once, enveloped in a voluminous yellow mantle,
the hood of which was drawn over her face. It transpired that she was
not in good health, and one evening, when she had a fainting-fit, a
doctor was called in to her. His report to the town the next day
was that she was really a coloured woman, very much darker than her
brothers, with the manners and culture of a lady, but strikingly
reserved. After a sojourn of about two months, the party, servants and
all, quitted their lodgings, giving the landlady only an hour's notice,
to spend, as they gave out, a week at Malvern. They paid their bill in
full, asked permission to leave two or three of their heaviest trunks
with her, and departed.
But they did not go to Malvern. It was not discovered where they did go.
Nothing more was seen of them; nothing certain heard. The trunks they
had left proved to be empty; some accounts owing in the town came in
to be paid. All this looked curious. By-and-by a frightful rumour
arose--that these people had been mixed up in some dreadful crime: one
report said forgery, another murder. It was affirmed that Scotland
Yard had been looking for them for months, and that they had disguised
themselves as Indians (to quote the word Worcester used) to avert
detection. But some observant individuals maintained that they were
Indians (to use the word again), that no disguise or making-up could
have converted their faces to what they were. Nothing more had as yet
been heard of them, saving that a sum of money, enough to cover the
small amount of debts left behind, was transmitted to the landlady
anonymously. Excitement had not yet absolutely died away in the town.
It was popularly supposed that the Indians were lying concealed in
some safe hiding-place, perhaps not far distant.
And now, having disclosed this strange episode, the fame of which had
gone about the county, you will be able to understand Mrs. Cramp's
consternation. It appeared to be only too probable that the hiding-place
was North Villa: of the lady in the yellow mantle, at any rate, whether
her four brothers were with her or not.